On this episode of the podcast, we are joined by a very special guest, Gary Clark Jr! We talk about Gary's early days in the music industry, his early days of being a radio DJ, and what it was like to be in a band with Gary and his brother, Ben. We also talk about some of our favorite songs from the 80's and early 90's, and some of the craziest things we've ever done to get into music. This is an intense episode, and we couldn't be more excited to have Gary and Ben on the show! We hope you enjoy this one, and don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and tell a friend about this episode and we'll get it on the next episode! Thank you so much for being here! Peace, Love, Blessings, Cheers, and Cheers! -The Cheers Crew. -Jon & Matt Music: Bad Beast - Bad Beast (feat. Gary & Ben) Bad Beast Midnight Rider -Bad Beast (Bad Beast) -Midnight Rider - Midnight Rider (Goodbye, My Girl) - Bad Girl (Bad Girl) Bad Girl (Bad Boy) (Good Girl) (Good Boy) Bad Boy) Good Vibes - Bad Boy (Good Vibrations) Good Vibrator - Bad Vibradoo (Bad Vibee Good vibes (Good vibes) -Good Vibees (Bad Bad Vibez) - Good Vibe (Good Reverb) Let's Get It Together (Good Grief) We're Good To Go (Good Feeling) & Good Viges (Bad Rebbie) . . . Bad Voodoo Can't Get It? I'm Good to Go? (Good Feelin' This Is Me Back? We'll See You Soon (Good to Go) I'll See Ya'll (Good To Go) & Good Gotta Do It (Good vibes ) . Thank You, My Love & I'll Be Good To See You, OKAY! (Good Bye, Bye, Good To You, Love Ya'll (Good Love, Good Love, Love You, Good Bless Me, Good Bye, Love ya'll, Bye Bye, I Love You)
00:06:01.000Midnight Rider is one of my all-time favorite songs.
00:06:04.000So when you guys went into that, like randomly, I'm like, oh my god.
00:06:07.000When I used to get up in the morning, whenever I used to have to do morning radio, I Morning radio is like, you've got to be funny at like 6.30 a.m.
00:06:15.000You know, and you've got to like shake the cobwebs off.
00:06:18.000You might have just went to bed like four hours ago.
00:08:38.000There's tents and homeless people by the thousands and gangs and weird graffiti and dudes are lifting and closing garage doors in the middle of the night and they're filled with people inside.
00:09:35.000It's like there's a concerted effort to try to turn into some, like the gentrified downtown.
00:09:40.000I mean, it's happening, but when you're in California, do you really want to live in downtown L.A.? Eddie Bravo loves downtown L.A. Does he love it?
00:09:47.000He doesn't live there, but he has his jujitsu headquarters there.
00:09:49.000Yeah, but you hang there, but you don't live there.
00:10:50.000You know, that was kind of chilling to me to think about the fact that they knew by name who these Charlie Manson heads were by watching this movie.
00:10:59.000Because, you know, way before my time.
00:11:02.000Well, it's a super, super popular story.
00:11:05.000And the other part about it is, like, those people that killed those folks, you know how the story turned out.
00:14:46.000Do you find a struggle between being a person who concentrates on one aspect of music or one who concentrates on a bunch of different kinds of instruments?
00:14:55.000Yeah, it's like I haven't picked up my banjo in a year.
00:17:28.000And it's so frustrating because I want to be on the front lines of information and know what's going on in my country and the world, but I get so fucking frustrated.
00:17:38.000And I'm really struggling with it, to be honest.
00:20:02.000She my family's in the restaurant business in Cleveland and they just opened a new store and the story goes like this she was They weren't up to code or something and they needed to like clean the shit out of this place so they could get their you know license or whatever so she was really stressed out and she she felt a pop and And she said it sounded like running water in her ears.
00:23:45.000Well, one part of it was from comedy stuff, because my friend John Tobin, who was also a stand-up comedian, I was friends with him first, and he started working at this pool hall.
00:26:40.000It's like part amateur psychic, part a game of craft and skill?
00:26:47.000Yeah, I also just like the hang of when my landlord has a card game downstairs and I just walk downstairs with a bottle of tequila and have so much fun and don't need to leave the house and make a couple hundred bucks and then go back upstairs in my apartment.
00:27:01.000You know what makes me think of hypnosis is those dudes that wear sunglasses at the table.
00:29:33.000I'll putt-putt, but I just won't golf.
00:29:35.000My comedian friends would get into golf, they'd go on the road together with fucking giant golf bags and shit, and travel across the country, and we'll do golf in a day, and then we'll do jokes at night, and they're always exhausted.
00:29:46.000You're walking around all day with clubs and shit.
00:29:57.000You're walking around this course for hours and hours and lining up shots and then moving to the next shot and you're concentrating all day.
00:35:33.000Do you ever think about, like, in the alien sense, you know, all the conspiracies surrounding the pyramids and things, like, do you ever wonder about, like, more of the extraterrestrial affiliations with the Egyptians?
00:35:46.000Not just the Egyptians, but with human beings.
00:37:15.000Well, like, back to where did music come from?
00:37:17.000You know, sometimes I wonder if, like, the people that came up with these things, and obviously you can go to school and learn a trade or, you know, become a master of your craft or engineering, but, like, sometimes I wonder if it's just,
00:37:33.000like, some weird other dimensional source that comes out of nowhere.
00:38:50.000There's a thing where you're in the group, particularly if you spend a lot of time on it and you're working at it and you're passionate about it and you're focused on it.
00:38:59.000It's almost like a muse, even if it's not real.
00:39:49.000I think it's equal, not equal parts, but it's, you know, when you put in the effort to, like, keep the muscle flexed, like the creative one where you're writing regularly or you're practicing regularly, and then you also kind of let it, you know, sort of come in.
00:40:04.000You know, I saw Dan Harmon speak once at one of Duncan Trussell's live podcasts, and he had this, he said, he called it the gingerbread man theory, and he said it was almost like He was a giant...
00:40:19.000I don't know why this was what he said, but he was a gingerbread man.
00:40:22.000And there was a big hole in the top of his head.
00:40:25.000And there was all this shit falling into this hole from somewhere.
00:40:29.000And every once in a while, about 10% of it would lightly dust the rim inside of the gingerbread jar.
00:42:35.000But it seems like there's a wrestling match in creative people's heads, particularly like performance artists like you guys or like comedians or singers or anybody, where there's a wrestling match between like creating stuff and And being disciplined,
00:42:51.000putting in a lot of work, or slacking off and feeling like, oh my god, I gotta get back to work again, and then being really excited to work hard and get going again.
00:43:01.000And some people fall too far into one way or the other.
00:43:05.000And there's like a weird balance in there.
00:43:41.000I've played music with folks, and I don't want to say this in a knock against conservatory students and things like that, but I found that people that are really, really smart in the...
00:44:37.000There are some brilliant, but like the vibe is where it's at.
00:44:40.000So what I'm trying to say is, yes, you can go to school and be the smartest and know the map frontwards and backwards, but if you can't feel it when you're playing live and playing with other people, then there's a huge missing element.
00:44:54.000I'm not, I don't want to, but I think that you almost have more of an obstacle when you are, you have that kind of intelligence with music because it's upstairs.
00:45:04.000Gary, do you agree with that or is this, are we fighting?
00:45:20.000I think of it like a radio like You know, back in the day when you would tune a radio, you try and dial in whatever station and you get that clear channel.
00:45:30.000Sometimes you'd have to move yourself.
00:45:32.000Sometimes you'd have to just get yourself in that place.
00:45:35.000And I think that as a musician, for me, what I'm trying to do is gather...
00:45:41.000Gather little things and not consume myself with it.
00:45:44.000So when I'm in that place to receive that inspiration or that thought or that melody, whatever that is, I'm not clouding myself with doubt or this isn't what this person's doing or whatever.
00:46:37.000Some people are so consumed with giving what they know and pushing everything out there that they're not taking the time to sit back and listen and just shut the fuck up for a minute and listen to this beautiful inspiration that comes out of nowhere.
00:46:54.000Just listen to yourself, your inner boss, that being.
00:46:59.000So when you show up to a place and you're jamming, of course you can It's gonna be somebody who just comes in and just gives you everything that they know.
00:47:22.000That's when you let yourself go and be that.
00:47:25.000Writing or jamming or playing, whatever, recording.
00:47:28.000Can I ask you, is this approach something that you've evolved?
00:47:32.000Or something you knew intuitively from the jump that this is how you need to tune out and look at things.
00:47:40.000The way you're describing your ability to shut the fuck up and look at the world and draw inspiration from the world, is that something that came to you in time or is it something that you always intuitively knew?
00:47:53.000I just, I think it goes back to like, sitting around smoking weed with my friends and just like, you know, not getting caught up with the bullshit.
00:48:03.000Not getting caught up with the bullshit.
00:48:05.000Not putting so much pressure on myself to be what it is that, you know, is happening.
00:51:19.000And then you said you couldn't make it.
00:51:21.000And John Spiker, he also plays bass in Tenacious D. And Tenacious D was having this, like, secret show happening for Kyle Gass's birthday in Burbank.
00:51:31.000And John was kind of, like, MDing the whole night and all this stuff.
00:51:37.000And so I was like, Gary can't make it.
00:53:15.000There's the vocals for sure, there's the singing, there's the bass, there's the drums, but goddamn a fucking electric guitar needs to be there!
00:53:24.000That's the one variable you can't remove!
00:53:51.000That's so funny that you say that is what motivates you because when I'm on tour and I don't want to work out, I think about you saying, conquer your inner bitch.
00:54:01.000And I'll be like, fucking God, I get to that gym downstairs.
00:54:25.000You know, in all transparency, though, per the workout portion of this conversation, I definitely, at this point in my life, work out harder than I ever did in my 20s.
00:54:41.000Well, you know, I... Last year, when I played with Hosier, the Irish dude, we had a big tour, and one of the girls in the band, Rachel Beauregard, this amazing woman, she's a yoga instructor and just kind of a natural athlete,
00:55:03.000And so every day we would do like just about every day, you know, yoga or like circuit training or she'd like have a group text in the gym.
00:55:10.000And it just like my my mental game alone was just just to have that release almost every day was it was great.
00:55:18.000And I used to be pretty lazy with it was working out.
00:55:21.000And so now I do I work out almost every day, if not every other day.
00:56:43.000There's actual benefits to your outlook.
00:56:49.000There's people that make rationalizations, and they base those rationalizations off the worst negative stereotypes of someone who works out all the time.
00:57:12.000There's so many people that, you know, I think we have requirements.
00:57:16.000I think our body has requirements in terms of like energy expenditure and also threat.
00:57:20.000There's worry and like about nature itself and when that doesn't exist anymore, I think the best thing that you could do is challenge yourself all the time with stuff.
00:57:30.000And one of the best ways to challenge yourself is do something that's difficult and do something physical, because physical things are always difficult.
00:57:36.000So if you do something difficult, meaning something that you have to concentrate on getting better at and think about, and then also do something physically difficult so that your body gets its demands and you can see things more clearly.
00:57:47.000Because there's the people that don't ever get a hold of their body also don't get a hold of their emotions.
00:58:04.000And, you know, a lot of times when you kind of are like, I'm going to hit the gym and you kind of go solo, there's a different trajectory, I think, you know.
00:58:38.000But I don't do well when someone like...
00:58:42.000Kind of like makes fun of me for not keeping up like I was in a spin class once and this this and I've never really spun before and I was it was hurting my back for some reason like I don't think I had my bike at the right height or whatever not to make an excuse for myself but I wasn't keeping up and the instructor kept calling me out in the class and being like I know you hate me there in the back in the red pants I was like yes I do bitch I fucking hate you and I'm never coming back here again.
01:05:25.000It's almost like a heretic, like, cultish area of shamanism that also involves psychedelics, and he had all these preconceived ideas about, like...
01:05:38.000What they were doing, but it was sorely frowned upon for him to go study with these people, but he needed to learn the language first.
01:05:55.000Well, the point is, he was posing as a student studying one thing, but he really wanted to get to this other thing that had primarily to do with psychedelics and was frowned upon in that religious community.
01:06:40.000And that the psychedelic mushrooms are the aliens.
01:06:42.000And that psychedelic mushrooms exist in other planets and they came over here on asteroids and slammed into the earth because the spores can survive in a vacuum.
01:06:51.000And so this weird life form that actually breathes air like us.
01:08:08.000And he explained it to me in semi-scientific terms.
01:08:11.000I say semi because I don't know what the fuck he really meant.
01:08:14.000But the way he explained the development of language and the reasons why psilocybin could actually have enhanced the development of language.
01:08:24.000I mean, the core of their mission when they went into the Amazon in the 70s With no cell phones, no sat phones, with, I mean, they could, like, there could have been two dozen things that could have killed them on their way to this village,
01:08:45.000And the dedication to their study, like, is blowing my mind.
01:08:51.000And it makes me feel like I haven't lived at all.
01:08:54.000Did you ever hear the La Trujera story where Dennis McKenna talks about eating so many mushrooms that he literally lost all knowledge of who he was and what life was for weeks?
01:10:10.000He's one of those dudes, you talk to him, you're like, how do you remember all this stuff?
01:10:14.000He would talk to me about the actual origins for speech and why it could have been connected to psilocybin and the impact that psilocybin has on the brain.
01:10:58.000I don't know why I just decided to choose that this was the time to not talk about mushrooms.
01:11:06.000But, like, when I was sad after tours, like, I don't know, Gary, if you get like this, but I'd have this, like, come down of, like, depression for a couple weeks after the road.
01:11:15.000And, like, there's that initial excitement to be home, but then your body isn't used to the non-momentum.
01:11:21.000Or you're, like, you know, like the train stopped, but you kind of keep going another, you know, 100 yards or 500 yards or whatever.
01:12:22.000You're trying to push it through, and thanks to people like MAPS, that organization run by Rick Doblin is doing all this crazy work to try to show the benefits of psychedelics, particularly with MDMA and soldiers who have PTSD. MDMA and soldiers?
01:12:40.000Yes, MDMA and people, victims of violence, victims of auto accidents, a really common one for PTSD. A lot of people get in auto accidents and have that.
01:12:49.000And they're doing this work with PTSD and MDMA and they're trying to show like this is a legitimate therapy that's probably like highly effective and we should look at it like that instead of looking at like some illegal drug that's only terrible.
01:13:28.000If they find a threat to that money, Then they move in politically and they try to stop that threat and they'll hold back certain drugs from being turned legal that are really beneficial that might cut into their profit margin.
01:13:41.000Well, I briefly told you about Saraset, the sleep therapy I did.
01:14:16.000A really good friend of mine, my friend Jake, I met with him in December and he said, I really think you should try this.
01:14:26.000This program, it's called Saraset, and what it is is he helped me obtain a mobile device for my house, but they have facilities all over the country.
01:14:37.000And what it is is these sensors are—you wear this headband, and it has sensors on your frontal and temporal lobes, and it comes with a tablet that is basically— Bouncing sound waves off of your skull.
01:14:52.000So you listen to these series of tones that are like...
01:16:01.000So something I learned through Saraset was that I talked to this woman in Indianapolis that was helping me with the program and she was like, have you had any significant head injuries?
01:16:43.000And I'm really grateful that I had a friend who was looking out for me to help me with it because, I mean, I was just kind of getting used to not sleeping, you know, like regularly.
01:16:52.000There's a woman who used to fight for the UFC. Her name is Kat Zingano.
01:16:57.000And she had a fight with Amanda Nunes, who's the UFC current Bantamweight champion.
01:17:03.000And this was before she was a champion, and Kat actually wound up winning the fight, but she got battered in the first round, like really bad.
01:17:10.000And her brain was fucked up for a long time after that.
01:17:13.000Like she had like significant imbalances in her hormone levels, and it was like legitimate brain damage.
01:17:19.000Like she had issues to the way her brain got rocked so hard in the first round.
01:17:23.000And she actually came back and stopped Amanda Nunes, which is crazy.
01:17:27.000Considering how much damage she had taken in that first round, but she went to this place in San Diego that treats soldiers.
01:17:32.000And I can't remember the name of the place.
01:17:33.000Do you remember the name of that place, Jamie?
01:17:35.000And they used something similar where there was magnets, like very, very powerful magnets.
01:17:42.000And through some way it stimulates the areas of the brain that's been damaged and it regenerates the tissue.
01:18:56.000The more I think about aliens, the more I think they're us in the future.
01:18:59.000That's one of the theories that has always been bounced around.
01:19:01.000Because if you look at what a human looks like versus what a gorilla looks like, if you keep going with that, it'll be some weird skinny thing that doesn't need any muscles and has a big giant head that controls space and time around it.
01:19:13.000That's probably what we're turning into, and we're gonna do it through electronics.
01:19:17.000We're gonna introduce something into our brain, whether it's that Elon Musk thing they're trying to do where they're drilling holes and putting wires in your brain.
01:23:37.000And he's there putting his hands on the speakers, making sure they don't fall over, because they were kind of perilously close to the edge, and Hendrix is just fucking going off.
01:23:47.000He was just going off right in front of him.
01:26:25.000I know he just made records for a handful of years.
01:26:27.000Before really getting out there and playing live?
01:26:31.000I think playing live and stuff, it was like, he was doing like the chilling circuit, playing with the Isley brothers and playing with people like Little Richard, being like the backup guitar.
01:31:37.000And for those young musicians out there who are You don't have to deal with the bucket and playing out there for tips and have these people from all over the place come in.
01:33:10.000Like, I feel like you have this ability to, like when you were talking about, you know, tuning into the radio, like you're a good listener.
01:33:17.000That's what that means, you know, as a musician.
01:33:19.000Well, I was a middle child, so it's never been about me.
01:33:31.000No, but I mean, like, that's a really positive way to look at rapid change, like a city like Austin that, you know, you could say it's being inundated with just, like, this huge volume of people coming in and it makes your life whatever, but instead you're like,
01:35:08.000Like to like our physicality and how we tailor our bodies and workouts.
01:35:12.000And then just what you said, like 1910 and people are weighing 110 pounds and like, you know, they're just eating, trying to get enough money to eat.
01:35:20.000And then like we have these lifestyles of like to a science, our exercise and our diets.
01:36:49.000Like, I don't have a record company, and I'm self-funded, and it's really hard.
01:36:53.000But it's also really gratifying at the same time, because, you know, right now, since I left Honey Honey, you know, like, Honey Honey's kind of on ice for, you know...
01:37:21.000But, you know, the battle is getting ahead, you know, and being a woman and being in my 30s and not like, you know, no one wants to hop on board until they know it's working.
01:37:37.000Even though I made this incredible record and it's so well received and then folks are like, yeah, well, you know, call us when it's when it's working.
01:38:29.000This is so cool to be here with you guys.
01:38:32.000I don't know if I could really convey that enough, that this is a huge help to what I'm trying to do right now.
01:38:40.000But yeah, also, this is the thing that keeps me up at night, of being like, oh my god, this is hard.
01:38:46.000But at the same time, you know, the music industry, I'll just speak to that right now, it's tough.
01:38:54.000Well, it seems to me, as an outsider who has no business in the music business, when I look at it, I feel like it's a big ship that had to cut parts of itself off.
01:39:10.000It's still a pretty big ship, but it's not what it used to be.
01:39:13.000The money doesn't come in anymore in the form of record sales.
01:39:16.000So it's entrenched its tentacles deeper into the industry and other things like merchandise and live shows and all these different things to stay alive.
01:39:24.000And maybe it helps, and maybe it doesn't.
01:41:00.000So when it says, like, budgets for tour, is that because you have to lay out money in advance to set up a set and to make sure that everybody gets to the place, they have the money to get to the event and set everything up, and then they would reap some of the rewards?
01:41:14.000So it's almost like an initial investment based on return from ticket sales.
01:42:09.000A lot of it is your attitude and what you think.
01:42:12.000Are you being taken advantage of or is this an investment or is this going to pay off because it goes so up and down depending on I would imagine it would be hard to be free and creative and having a good time with it if you feel like you're being taken advantage of.
01:42:27.000Well, there's that, and I think there's also the misconception that once you get a big record deal, and I've had a few, where you think all of a sudden you have to stop doing something, and they're going to do it for you.
01:42:39.000That is the biggest mistake you could ever make.
01:42:43.000And if anything, you have to work harder and prove to them that...
01:42:47.000You're kind of worthy of their time and money.
01:42:55.000Essentially, when you sign a deal with these folks, they have a lot of your creative integrity in some ways, depending on the deal and how it's shaped.
01:43:10.000If they want to own your record, depending on your deal, sometimes you have more leverage than others, and if that's the case, like, fuck yeah, good for you.
01:43:18.000But that's so weird that they own the whole thing.
01:43:38.000So I self-released my last record, Ruby Red, and I learned a lot because I hired my own PR and distribution companies and I really got into the nuts and bolts on how all this shit works.
01:43:50.000And I'm not sure if this has changed because sometimes this is, you know, going back and forth.
01:43:56.000But when you own your copyright, the digital return on things like Spotify and iTunes are 10 to 1. So when the record companies own your copyright and all of your streaming is like kicking, like just fucking taking off, they're making tons of money on your streaming.
01:44:13.000So they make it ten times more than you are?
01:45:21.000And it happens all the time, which shit is good.
01:45:23.000I mean, it's almost like you're bankrolling On it not being a good idea if you do it with somebody else.
01:45:32.000It's like what you're doing is like bankrolling on yourself.
01:45:34.000You're saying like, I believe in myself, let's just put this out.
01:45:38.000Whereas if you do it with a label, you have to, so many people have to be, and there's nothing wrong with it, I'm sure it's worked out great for both of you on numerous occasions, but someone just has to believe in you, you have to work with someone.
01:52:24.000So we had to fly the next, you know, like in Europe when you're traveling.
01:52:27.000My whole family got it off the oysters once.
01:52:30.000My wife and one of my kids got it off.
01:52:33.000Oysters, occasionally, food poisoning is rough because did you know that when you get food poisoning on a boat, they try to quarantine you?
01:54:10.000Whether it was adrenaline or what and I basically played in my pajamas like I didn't do anything to my face I didn't wear and I was wearing like I just went out there I was like like I was dead I was lying on the couch and they're like we got to go and I'm like okay and it was a really intense show and but also in like a kind of beautiful way like it was our last like scheduled show together and Ben and I were crying and stuff.
01:54:40.000We had this whole thing, but the crowd really held me up.
01:55:46.000It's a similar feeling to that feeling that you get when Kickstart My Heart comes on, and you're on the fucking elliptical machine, and you're like, whoa!
01:56:45.000On some nights, I still believe that a car with gas needle on empty can run about 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.
01:57:09.000First of all, how many people at their job, they have some bullshit-ass fucking job, but music gets them through, like warehouse workers, people that are doing shit, but they can hear music in the background.
01:57:19.000Music gets them through, they're like, oh shit, not this one!
01:57:21.000And they yell it out to their friends, and everybody's having a good time while they're working.
01:57:53.000You know, you have those moments in your life where you're going through a breakup, or you're going through whatever, or you're empowered, and you, you know, throw on some Run the Jewels.
01:58:44.000He's a powerful orator like like a fucking new-age preacher when he was doing it that Bernie said I texted him like dude, that's some serious shit He was spitting flames.
01:59:59.000I'm not saying, I'm not justifying what he does, but the reason why he can even do what he does is because everybody besides him when it comes to communicating is so goddamn boring.
02:00:09.000The way they get their message is so fucking boring.
02:01:56.000And he always had these brilliant punchlines and he inspired a whole gigantic slew of people that have imitated this Dave Attell cadence.
02:02:04.000Most of it is harmless and they're just fans and they wanted to be like him and they might not even realize they're doing it and they eventually would find their own voice.
02:02:12.000And that happens, I'm sure, with musicians.
02:02:14.000It happens probably with everybody and art and everything, right?
02:02:21.000Just doing something like that is, I can't, listen, you can't run the world if you're doing a character.
02:02:28.000If you're doing this, because if you're trying to make it as a comic, and you're pretending you're David Hale, fine.
02:02:33.000But if you want to run the fucking free world, and you're doing the Obama thing, and you're talking like this, and you're talking the exact cadence, exactly the way old Barack Obama used to talk, like, fuck you, man!
02:03:22.000Oh, I think they are doing that right now to try to get rid of Bernie Sanders.
02:03:25.000You're, you know, head of national security, you're president, you're vice president, you know, like in this way that I think they all have strengths.
02:03:32.000It's tough to feel like one of them has it all.
02:03:36.000And essentially that's the case with most people.
02:12:40.000And then you go to the like big dogs and it's very enlightening because you're kind of like buying property and then you're like making deals.
02:12:48.000And there's something about it that...
02:12:54.000It's an interesting way to approach your relationship with money if you've ever struggled with it or weren't sort of given a crash course on how to handle it or not handle it.
02:13:10.000The power that money can have over you is something to reconcile with, you know, in a way that you can live a healthier life and, you know, not...
02:13:22.000Obviously, in a consumerist society, like, you kind of have this constant, like, I need, I need, I need, I need all that stuff.
02:14:13.000And money's been like this, you know, you kind of have, I've had a roller coaster and it can like rule my sleep and rule my happiness and my anxiety.
02:14:25.000But When I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and then in conjunction with this board game I played with Russell, it really, it's so funny.
02:14:35.000It seems, you know what, it seems like part of the whole illusion of reality, and obviously you need money to survive, but the stock that we put into it is pretty incredible,
02:15:11.000To the next level in my music career like it's gonna take this much how you're gonna get it you know all that stuff But at the end of the day, I think when you sort of like release your white knuckles on on the thing It all works itself out.
02:15:24.000I know that sounds pretty You know broad, but I think a money is something that's entangled in the life Yeah, there's there's great aspects to what you can do with your money, but it's entangled into your life in a weird way there's like There's what you currently can do,
02:15:43.000Based on your circumstances, based on your life, your health, your responsibilities.
02:15:47.000There's what you can do, and there's what's humanly possible for you to do.
02:15:54.000And when you see people that are making a lot of money, and you see that money, that money starts to get you thinking that that's what you should do.
02:20:19.000I was in a VR dance like with this robot with John Spiker.
02:20:24.000John Spiker had a VR helmet and I was with him and his wife in Lake Arrowhead and we were drunk and having fun and then I was dancing with a robot and then I got dizzy.
02:20:42.000The thought of it is disconcerting because you're like, it's so, the sound, the visual, the actual depth of space, you know, you're like in a real setting and then you come out and you're like, this isn't as fun as that and that's fucking weird.
02:21:26.000When they were first going through it, you'd put his helmet on, it was attached to a PC via all these cables, and you couldn't move very far.
02:21:34.000You had a very small area you could move in.
02:21:36.000And everything was really, really, really pixelated.
02:21:55.000And the new one, I was at the bottom of the ocean, a whale swam by, and I looked right in the whale's eyeballs, I was like, holy fuck, dude.
02:22:01.000And he's like, bro, you should see the porn!
02:23:42.000They have one that's an alien zoo, and there's a thing.
02:23:46.000This alien comes towards you, and you put your hand on its head.
02:23:49.000They have a guy working there, and he's got a little foam rubber thing, and he puts it right where the head should be, and you touch it.
02:23:56.000But you really feel like you might be touching this alien's fucking head.
02:23:59.000I mean, I will say, I feel like there was like a little piece of my humanity that was lost when I was in a VR situation where I came back and I'm like, like I lost time or something.
02:24:32.000But if you go back to like the Model T and then look at like a modern, brand new BMW. Like the amount of technology involved in this shift is so radical and so crazy.
02:25:38.000I think until our actual like resources collapse and you can't go outside and you have to live in a bubble, nothing can replace a live music show or a live comedy show like when you're right there.
02:27:00.000Like you can get all the effects of the sensory stuff with the sound and the visual and maybe even have machinery that gives you physical like air or heat or cold or whatever would you know simulate that thing but I can't at the core of my being thinks I think that you could substitute the energy that you feel when you connect with a room full of people.
02:27:58.000Right now, you can't be at a show where you're on stage live and get that same exact experience if you were at home on a computer or with a VR goggle.
02:28:15.000They might be able to get to the point where it's better to do it through VR because I'm standing right next to you while you're singing on stage.
02:29:40.000And I think there's a lot of old school people with old school ideas that are trying to keep things running the same way they were when there's no internet and no accountability.
02:29:48.000I think there's a healthy level of evolving and integrating and also not going full throttle robot.
02:29:55.000There's all these things, but there's so many things happening at the same time that can affect your life forever that you can't pay attention to all of them.
02:30:02.000And that includes industrial waste and chemicals and fucking life and sucking all the tuna out of the ocean.
02:34:06.000And some of them are trappers, and some of them are hunters, and some of them go out and They pick pine nuts and they grind them in this old-fashioned wood machine.
02:34:48.000Werner Herzog is one of my favorite documentarians because he's so passionate about fascinating things.
02:34:54.000Whether it's this or Grizzly Man or the one about the...
02:34:58.000The cave paintings in France, there's this amazing documentary about these 40,000, I believe it's 40,000 year old cave paintings they found in this cave in France.
02:36:30.000And so since I've been home for a while since my last tour, which has been like crazy, I've really enjoyed immersing myself in my community and getting to know people where I get my coffee.
02:37:19.000And that's one of the things that any sort of thing can provide them and that's why it's dangerous to get lumped up in groups because some groups are toxic and you just get you really want camaraderie that's like that's what gangs are all about right like people grow up in like real bad circumstances and together through a group they find loyalty and unity and they get compelled to act in the interest of that group even if it's like really dangerous illegal shit.
02:37:57.000But we're failing to understand the mechanisms that are at work that are causing us to be a fundamentalist or a reactionary or really a radical person on one side or the other.
02:38:09.000It's like we really just want to be loved.
02:41:10.000What I wanted to say was, I know it's taking me ten minutes to get her.
02:41:15.000The LAFC My team has been constructed by some pretty great folks in LA like Will Ferrell's a big impetus behind the team and Mia Hamm and all these great folks that kind of tailored it to Los Angeles and my first game I've never felt that kind of pride in Los Angeles.
02:41:40.000I've always sort of felt like a transplant here, and I've been here for almost 20 years.
02:41:57.000But the sense of community here, And the enthusiasm and just the way that they have built the stadium in downtown Los Angeles, it was heavy.
02:47:42.000Jesus Christ, but didn't there was some communication back and forth?
02:47:45.000So we both worked with Dave Cobb on Honey Honey's last record was produced by Dave Cobb, and he does all of Sturgill's records for the most part, I think.
02:47:59.000But I told you, I got mad at him at that one point where he did like an 11-minute guitar solo and it was shredding and it was fucking sick.
02:52:42.000I will say, I feel like you're the only person, the only person, and I mean that, and I don't say that lately, that I can laugh when you're like, yeah, bitch!
02:53:12.000Honey Honey, Joey Diaz, Doug Stanhope, and I did a show at the Wiltern in Los Angeles on December 21st, 2012. That was the Terrence McKenna thing, the end of the Mayan calendar.
02:53:51.000It's a divination system, a Chinese divination system, and they would throw these hexagrams, I believe it's hexagrams, and they would indicate a certain pattern and they would try to recognize this pattern.
02:54:44.000And that you could come up with some sort of a system to this thing.
02:54:48.000And he called that system time wave zero.
02:54:50.000And what he thought that system was, he thought that was a system of recognizing novelty, like new ideas, creative things, whether it's the internet or internal combustion engine or the Tesla electric car,
02:55:05.000anything where it was, where you could map that out and you could say, okay, If you looked at this as a mathematical algorithm and you saw how this was going to play out, you could almost predict patterns in this wave.
02:55:18.000And where do you predict this happening and that happening?
02:56:56.000He's I don't see him enough, you know, so whenever we're gonna make an excuse to do this We're gonna we're gonna do another I should tell this right now.
02:57:03.000We're gonna do another end of the world podcast at the new presidential elections.
03:02:26.000So he would come in and smoke, and I would never want to tell him not to smoke, so I bought, because I'm just happy he's here, so I bought him, I bought an air machine that would, like, process the air while he was there.
03:03:51.000The last time I smoked DMT, I was in the bathtub and I was, you know, prepared to have a moment.
03:03:59.000And I got myself all situated and I like lit up and then I hear like, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
03:04:04.000And I'm like, I get up and I put a robe on and I go to the front door and my old landlord Carlos was like, Miss Susie, Miss Susie, the ceiling is leaking!
03:04:33.000No, but I got enough of a hit to be fucked up with my landlord knocking on my door when I was a little high on DMT. So anyway, I haven't smoked it since.
03:07:31.000But every now and then, when you're in a car, you know how you have that Bluetooth thing that happens when your car is synced up to Bluetooth?
03:08:53.000Willie D from the Ghetto Boys had this video that he put up of James Brown, like right after James Brown had gotten arrested for some craziness.
03:09:02.000But he was like on the air, apparently high as a kite.
03:14:36.000The new thing was this fucking insane supernatural sex appeal star with tassels on his pants, doing fake karate, throwing kicks, girls are going crazy, he's taking pills.
03:15:09.000And then you have to hold the weight of the world on your back of the icon that you are and the barriers that you've broken and then the effect you've had on people and how much they rely upon you.
03:15:28.000By the way, I should say, when I say fake karate, some of his karate was fake, but he was actually trained by Ed Parker, who was a noted Kempo karate master.
03:15:38.000And back in the day, like in Elvis' day in 1970. This reminds me of the Lenny Kravitz pants rip.
03:16:32.000He slugged dick so hard they sent him to South America.
03:16:37.000They say, you're going to have to go to Division 1. You're fucking things up over here in Division 2. We need to send you to South America.
03:17:30.000What is that video you were showing, Jamie?
03:17:32.000Because that's an amazing video because you can tell what kind of a person he is by following him around this house where he talks about what these things in his house mean to him.
03:17:41.000Little pieces of art, things that someone left him, things that have real significant meaning to him.
03:17:47.000He's talking about why and what they are.
03:21:52.000And I think the best way to sort of enhance that kind of thinking is to make decisions that are for the downtrodden.
03:21:59.000Make decisions that are for the working class and the people that are struggling and the people that are just trying to put food on the table and keep a home heated.
03:22:08.000Let's concentrate on that first, before anything, because those are the hardest hardships.
03:22:13.000And there's too many people that have this idea that everyone that's in that experience is there because they're lazy, or because they don't work hard, or because they...
03:23:37.000You gotta see those people and say, hey, I see you, and I'm gonna hug you, and let's all fucking move together.
03:23:44.000Yes, and then the problem is some of them are really legitimately broken.
03:23:49.000Some people have done a terrible job of raising their kids to the point where they've broken their kids, and those kids need to find some way back to the garden.
03:24:31.000I think people just need a higher level of guidance and of understanding of the consequences of not behaving that way and the benefits of behaving that way.
03:24:40.000The problem is we look at it like it's a negative.
03:24:42.000Like somehow or another it's a weakness.
03:24:45.000If you show any sort of sympathy or compassion or try to have some understanding for people who are downtrodden or poor, people who look at you like you're weak.
03:24:56.000No, you're looking at it the wrong way.
03:25:01.000You feel uncomfortable about it because it makes you feel weird.
03:25:04.000Because there's too many variables, and it'd be better if you just nailed it down to a one or a zero.
03:25:08.000Either they're lazy or they're good, hardworking people.
03:25:11.000If they're good, hardworking people, they figure it out.
03:25:34.000That doesn't mean that people are gonna come steal your money.
03:25:37.000That means we should all chip in a little bit.
03:25:40.000We have to figure out how to make sure that the government has our confidence, that we feel like we can throw them our money, and they're gonna do the right thing with it, and we're gonna help communities, we're gonna help people.
03:25:50.000And that's what everybody's wary about, for a good reason.
03:25:53.000It's because who the fuck knows who's taking your money?
03:25:55.000They don't give you an accounting sheet, they don't show you what they're spending it on.
03:26:04.000But at the same time, I think what you're saying is so powerful because, like, you can have your sort of government affiliations and, like, oh, these are the people that are quote-unquote taking care of us.
03:26:17.000And then you can also take care of yourself and each other and recognize your neighbors and recognize your community and kind of build from the ground up.
03:26:24.000Know who your local representatives are, you know, for fuck's sake.
03:26:29.000Like, your kids and their schools and, like, all All that stuff.
03:27:26.000Make that seem like everybody shouldn't go, hey, hey, hey, you really can affect things, and you really should pay attention to this, and we should all figure out a way to do it together where the whole motivation is to make life better for everybody.
03:27:56.000But you are contributing in a dynamic way to a system that helped you get really, really, really, really rich.
03:28:04.000See, the balancing act is not wanting to get to a place where you stifle people's You need to do well because they need to have some sort of motivation.
03:28:47.000And this is what I think When you get lost in words like socialism and libertarianism and all these different fucking labels that carry all this weight behind them.
03:28:58.000If we just say, like, what's your intentions?
03:29:00.000Is your intentions to make the community a better place for everybody and make people happy and make sure people have food and make sure people are loved and make sure people are in a war?
03:29:09.000That's what we should do as a community.
03:29:22.000And these fucking labels, whether it's liberal, Republican, you fucking cuck, you know, you goddamn hippie, all these different labels of people.
03:29:29.000It's so easy to dismiss people with these labels.
03:29:33.000Right, and it plays on that part of the human psyche that wants to be a part of a team and attack opposing ideas, and it becomes a fucking tribal thing.
03:29:43.000It's so hard to sort out what's right and what's wrong.
03:29:46.000You know, but I think we're in a weird space where there's no one at the wheel.
03:29:52.000I think this is the first time there's no...
03:29:54.000The government doesn't have a hold of the wheel.
03:30:13.000You know, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and you said this earlier, and we laughed about it, but, like, the thing is, you know, you said the word love and, like, music and art and, you know,
03:30:28.000things that are cohesive in communal environments and helping people come together, like, In terms of feeling like, what can I contribute?
03:31:21.000You know, like we can sit here and dissect politics and agendas and this guy and this guy and socialism, all this stuff, but we all need to feel that thing and it is love.
03:31:37.000And it comes in many forms and has, you know, different hats.
03:31:42.000And I think that right now, like, Like, I'm sure that you feel it at a show, right?
03:31:49.000When you play music for people, you know?
03:31:55.000I'm sure you feel it all the time, you know, with your podcast and with your shows and with the outreach that you have and, you know, forgive me, I don't want to assume, you know, and I feel it in all the varying degrees of the shows that I play and things and, like, at the end of the day,
03:32:11.000This stuff, like, where we're at is a scary place, but there's, like, this thing.
03:32:17.000There's this, like, kind of one thing, and it is the love thing, and that has, like, a bunch of different adjectives around it and verbs that are, like, recognizing each other and seeing each other and saying, hey, we're different, but we're the same, and we're okay.
03:33:21.000Where, like, where you diffuse a situation where energy gets heated and somebody's angry or, you know, I don't know if I should retell the story, but, like, you know, you...
03:34:32.000Like, you should relish every opportunity to apologize and say you're wrong as a showing of strength.
03:34:39.000Because if you think you're strong, you think you're strong and you know you're wrong and you don't tell the truth, well then you're a fool.
03:34:46.000You're missing out on an opportunity for you to be strong.
03:35:19.000The people that did it didn't understand.
03:35:21.000The rules that were written were written by people who really hadn't had a good grasp of the territory yet.
03:35:27.000They didn't really understand what they were saying.
03:35:28.000They should have taught people that in school.
03:35:30.000They should have taught people like that in junior high school, high school for sure.
03:35:34.000It's just said your your failures those feelings that you feel like they teach you about history and math and those things are great There's nothing wrong with that But they should have taught us about how your failures are a very valuable fuel Yeah, that feeling that you get when a girl dumps you or the feeling that you get when you crash your car or the feeling that you get when you fucking ruin something you say something wrong when something comes out of your mouth when you Anything you do wrong,
03:36:02.000you flunk out of a class, whatever the fuck it is, that negative feeling is a boost.
03:36:07.000It's supposed to take you into the next orbit.
03:36:10.000It's supposed to blast you into the next level of understanding what you were doing wrong and how to improve in your life and how to go forward with better habits.
03:36:18.000And if you don't experience that pain, that feeling, that embarrassment, then you don't really know how valuable it is to stay on your grind.
03:36:29.000And people say it all the time, and it resonates with people.
03:37:07.000If we barely had enough food to keep our babies alive, and our friends alive, and our parents alive, barely had enough food, and we saw someone slacking, holy shit, did you want to fucking kill them.
03:37:18.000If you saw someone that was sneaking food, that was taking too much food, or you saw someone that wasn't putting in their work, and you were just slightly shy of being comfortable, and you knew this fucking lazy motherfucker...
03:37:30.000If they just did their work, we would all be fine.
03:37:52.000Well, it's attaching ultimatums, or ultimates rather, like this is the ultimate truth, to any sort of circumstance in a general sense, like to pretend that you have a million fucking, let's pretend you have a city of X amount of people and you have a million people that are on some sort of assistance,
03:38:10.000whether it's food stamps or welfare or whatever, to pretend they're all one thing is crazy.
03:38:15.000To pretend it's all one story is crazy.
03:38:59.000But that motivation for doing that thing should be Above all, above the idea that you have to survive by doing some shitty job to make a living to pay for your bills and just rob you of your time and your resources.
03:39:14.000It should be like, hey, fuckface, recognize this.
03:39:17.000You don't have a lot of resources, okay?
03:39:18.000Let's just pretend you don't need a job.
03:39:43.000We just have to look at the way we distribute money as being, like, we think about it right now as being this is the way we've always done it, this is the way we're gonna do it.
03:40:06.000If you guys have to pay more money to make sure there's healthcare for a bunch of homeless people with mental illness that are shitting all over your streets, you should definitely spend that money.
03:40:15.000Because you're not going to fix it by a bunch of dudes with squeegees and fucking power hoses out there.
03:41:22.000Yeah, but I think the more, I mean, it's going to sound ridiculous, but I think the more conversations people have like this, we try to figure out what's going on.
03:41:43.000But I think what you were talking about with, you know, coming up levels and different upbringings and this and that, it's a factor, and so it's not that easy.
03:41:55.000Yeah, well, learn about people that are different from you, you know?
03:41:59.000I think that a lot of folks, ignorance is something to recover from, you know?
03:42:09.000If you're a religious type and you have an opinion about gay people, but you've never met a gay person in your life and what it's like to be gay and why it's like you think it's a choice or whatever you think, you can't really have an opinion until you actually sit across from somebody and look them in the eye and talk to them.
03:42:34.000You know, discord comes in in terms of we're all different, and we are, but we're not, you know, I don't know how we, I don't want to go there, but we're there.
03:42:43.000What we're different about is the things that are superficial.
03:43:20.000And when you love people and they love you and you love each other back, you all recognize that that thing, that human being thing is the same.
03:43:36.000And we don't, you know, the only time that people lash out is when someone lashed out against them and it all gets terrible and cock-eyed and twisted.