The Joe Rogan Experience - December 27, 2016


Joe Rogan Experience #891 - Zach Leary


Episode Stats

Length

2 hours and 8 minutes

Words per Minute

186.73341

Word Count

23,933

Sentence Count

2,118

Misogynist Sentences

30


Summary

Timothy Leary is the son of Timothy Leary, the founder of the infamous anti-drug movement known as "The Church of the Green People." Tim talks about growing up in the 60s and 70s in the shadow of his famous father, and what it was like growing up with him as a kid. Tim also talks about his relationship with Jack Harrow, and how he was influenced by his father's work in the early days of the psychedelic movement. Tim's father was a pioneer in the field of psychedelics, and is considered to be one of the most influential people in the history of psychedelicism. Tim and Tim talk about Tim's upbringing in the 1960s and early 70s, and Tim's relationship with his father, Tim Leary. Tim also shares some of Tim's favorite memories of his dad, and talks about how he grew up in a time when psychedelics were still pretty taboo in America. Tim's dad was a great innovator in the 80's and 90's, and a pioneer of the space travel and virtual reality, and his father was an early adopter of the first virtual reality headset, Jaron Lanier's "Lanier 3D". Tim shares some stories about his dad's early days in the space, and the impact he had on his life, and gives us some insight into what it means to be a Leary in the 70s and 80's. This episode is a must-listen for anyone who grew up with Timothy's father. (or has an interest in psychedelics or psychedelicism, or psychedelics in their life. Enjoy! - Tim's story is a good one. -Jon's Story: Tim's Dad Tim's Story - Tim s Story: Timothy's Dad's Story Tim's Journey to LSD and the LSD and VR Experience - The Green People's Guide to LSD - Tim s Dad's Journey - (Tim's Story) Tim's Mom's Story Tom's Dad: "The Green People s Guide To LSD and Psychedelics" Tim's Adventures in the Psychedelic Journey - Tim and his Dad's First LSD and LSD Experience - Tim talks About Timothy's Father's Day - Tim & Jack's Dad s First LSD Trip to the White House - Tim gives Tim's First Experience with Jack's Story by Tim's New York Times Magazine - Tim is a MUST-LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE and much, much, MUCH MORE!


Transcript

00:00:05.000 Alright, man.
00:00:06.000 We're live.
00:00:07.000 Awesome.
00:00:07.000 Thanks for having me, man.
00:00:08.000 Thanks for being here.
00:00:09.000 Yeah, this is cool.
00:00:09.000 This is cool.
00:00:10.000 Any friend of Duncan's, a friend of mine.
00:00:12.000 Likewise, likewise.
00:00:13.000 It's cool.
00:00:13.000 It's fun.
00:00:14.000 Dude, okay, so I have to ask the opening question.
00:00:17.000 What the fuck is it like being the son of Timothy Leary?
00:00:22.000 The opening question, right?
00:00:24.000 It has to be the opening question.
00:00:25.000 It has to be.
00:00:25.000 Okay, that's cool.
00:00:27.000 Yeah, man, you know, and...
00:00:30.000 You know, the answer to the question kind of, it's changed a lot over the course of time, obviously, you know, because when I was younger, when I was a kid, you know, really up until my mid-20s, even my late 20s, I would say, like, I didn't know how to answer that question.
00:00:44.000 How could I? It's just all I knew.
00:00:46.000 It's just life.
00:00:47.000 You know, it's just my dad.
00:00:48.000 It's just...
00:00:48.000 How I grew up.
00:00:49.000 You know, he would take me to Little League.
00:00:51.000 He'd make sure I did my homework or didn't do my homework in my case, but whatever it was, you know what I mean?
00:00:56.000 It just was life.
00:00:57.000 I didn't have any objectivity to it.
00:00:59.000 I didn't have any distance from it.
00:01:00.000 I couldn't be removed from it.
00:01:01.000 You know, I didn't know, like, that it was perhaps really strange.
00:01:06.000 Right.
00:01:07.000 And then, you know, he died in 96. You know, I was 22. And then kind of after that, then I sort of, you know, I got some distance from it.
00:01:17.000 Then I was like, oh, shit, you know.
00:01:20.000 Things are a little different at home.
00:01:22.000 You know, they were.
00:01:22.000 Well, your dad is probably like one of the most important, if not the most important people ever in terms of the psychedelic revolution.
00:01:30.000 He was.
00:01:31.000 I mean, yeah, my relationship with him and my relationship especially with his work was, yeah, I mean, of course the psychedelic part was a core pillar and I understood that's what made him famous.
00:01:43.000 But I considered him to be—he was a futurist, really.
00:01:48.000 During my formative years, the psychedelic thing was always there, but he was much more interested in technology and cyberculture and the progressive technology arts and things like that.
00:02:01.000 You know, in the 80s, he called the PC the LSD of the 80s.
00:02:06.000 So he was kind of really shifting.
00:02:08.000 And I kind of considered him somebody who just had, like, the innate ability to constantly reinvent himself.
00:02:14.000 And, of course, the psychedelics were, you know, were the core, I guess.
00:02:19.000 Probably is also probably a big part of how he could reinvent himself, right?
00:02:23.000 Yeah.
00:02:23.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:02:24.000 No, that's...
00:02:25.000 That's true.
00:02:26.000 I mean, well, and considering, I mean, you can relate with this, I think, too.
00:02:31.000 And, you know, he didn't do his first psychedelic until he was 40. Oh, wow.
00:02:34.000 You were, what, 30 or something?
00:02:36.000 Yeah.
00:02:36.000 Right.
00:02:36.000 Yeah.
00:02:37.000 So it's a similar, like, you're well into your adult life and you're well formed.
00:02:41.000 You have an identity.
00:02:42.000 That's Jack Harrow's story, too.
00:02:44.000 Oh, is it?
00:02:45.000 Yeah, Jack Harrow was a Goldwater Republican, like, deep into his, I think he was getting divorced.
00:02:52.000 Really?
00:02:52.000 And met a young gal, and she turned him on to the weed, and all of a sudden he was like, hey, what the fuck have I been missing?
00:02:59.000 Yeah, he's still, to this day, he's still the strongest weed I've ever had.
00:03:03.000 Jack Harrow's train?
00:03:04.000 Yeah.
00:03:04.000 Fuck, man.
00:03:05.000 He was a cool guy, man.
00:03:07.000 He was a cool guy.
00:03:07.000 He bummed me out when he left.
00:03:09.000 Yeah, and did good work.
00:03:10.000 So your dad probably would have had an amazing time with what's going on today in terms of virtual reality and the integration of cell phones into our life in an almost inescapable way.
00:03:23.000 Yeah.
00:03:23.000 I mean, it's funny, like the VR thing, Jamie and I were just talking about it before we rolled tape.
00:03:28.000 You know, we were doing VR like...
00:03:31.000 Yeah, you know, we were at the NASA Ames Research Center.
00:03:34.000 People were like Jaron Lanier and were like really, you know, Jaron Lanier was kind of the godfather of VR. And he was bringing kind of setups to our house in the early 90s.
00:03:43.000 And like really early, kind of almost 8-bit rudimentary VR. But it was there.
00:03:49.000 So what did that stuff look like?
00:03:51.000 It kind of looked like being inside of an Atari video game.
00:03:57.000 So real pixelated?
00:03:59.000 Pixelated, 8-bit, kind of clunky, block-like, but with full 3D dimensionality and stuff like that.
00:04:04.000 Did you ever see Duncan's Oculus, one of the first versions that he had, which was kind of like that, real pixelated?
00:04:12.000 Was it similar to that?
00:04:13.000 Very similar to that, yeah.
00:04:15.000 Yeah, Duncan and I, we went on this show together, this thing called Gunter's Universe, it's a VR chat show, and, you know, this was recent, and, you know, it's still, VR is still kind of in that, you know...
00:04:26.000 How does that work?
00:04:26.000 Like, does someone have a VR headset on in another location, and then you guys both enter the same room, so you're in the room together?
00:04:34.000 Yeah, well, Duncan and I actually, we're in the same room together.
00:04:36.000 Right, physically.
00:04:37.000 Physically, we happen to be, but yeah, and then all of these people with different headsets on, and then everybody has a different avatar.
00:04:42.000 And they're all in that room with you.
00:04:43.000 They're all in that room with us.
00:04:45.000 Wow.
00:04:46.000 Very cool, very cool.
00:04:47.000 But like in that one, I think the servers crashed.
00:04:50.000 Too many people.
00:04:51.000 Oh, how many people can it support?
00:04:54.000 We had maybe like a thousand, I think.
00:04:56.000 Oh, wow.
00:04:57.000 But yeah, like to get beyond that, you need some pretty, I mean, the avatars, you know, they're pretty involved.
00:05:01.000 They're pretty, you know, they made me into this Hare Krishna monk or some shit.
00:05:06.000 And Duncan was like this psychedelic clown.
00:05:08.000 It was pretty cool.
00:05:10.000 But yeah, you know, my dad loved VR. He'd love it.
00:05:15.000 It'd be really cool.
00:05:16.000 Yeah, I've always thought about him and McKenna.
00:05:19.000 McKenna obviously was a big futurist as well and completely fascinated by the possibilities and where technology was going.
00:05:27.000 I would have loved to see those guys today just take this all in and try to...
00:05:32.000 Yeah, amazing, right?
00:05:32.000 Like, Terrence was writing about the connection between psilocybin and virtual reality, right?
00:05:37.000 I mean, that's the subtext of not Food of the Gods, but of...
00:05:42.000 True hallucinations?
00:05:43.000 No.
00:05:43.000 No, it wasn't that one.
00:05:45.000 I'm forgetting which one's what it's called.
00:05:47.000 Mushrooms, virtual reality, and, you know, and he really saw the connection between...
00:05:52.000 And, you know, there's no accident that the Godfathers, the true visionaries of the Silicon Valley movement, were kind of remnants from the 60s.
00:06:02.000 Yeah.
00:06:02.000 You know, Steve Jobs.
00:06:04.000 Archaic Revival?
00:06:05.000 Is that it, Jamie?
00:06:06.000 Archaic Revival.
00:06:06.000 Yeah.
00:06:07.000 That's it?
00:06:07.000 Yeah, that's right.
00:06:11.000 Terrence also had this idea that you would be able to recreate the DMT world in virtual reality and you'd be able to experience what people see when they're on DMT without actually taking the drug.
00:06:24.000 He believed that there was going to come a time when technology was so good.
00:06:28.000 And the images that you could create would be so elaborate that you literally could create the DMT images.
00:06:35.000 I kind of believe it.
00:06:36.000 I'm kind of leaning there right now myself, you know.
00:06:39.000 I mean, we kind of, again, Duncan, you know, we kind of had this crackpot idea of taking VR into the floatation tank, into the float tank, with this kind of in mind, that by disassociating the body and kind of getting rid of it, because, you know, what's the big DMT thing is it's the disassociative.
00:06:56.000 You just leave Joe.
00:06:58.000 You leave Zach and you become whatever.
00:07:01.000 So by taking the VR mask and a headset into the tank, maybe combining the two worlds, it could...
00:07:06.000 I don't know.
00:07:07.000 I'm still bullish on that.
00:07:08.000 I think it could work.
00:07:09.000 I think Terrence is right.
00:07:10.000 It sounds like it could be possible.
00:07:12.000 I know Crash from the Float Lab.
00:07:15.000 Crash has this setup where he has developed this screen that has the lowest amount of light that could be emitted to the point where you don't see the edges of the screen.
00:07:25.000 Oh.
00:07:25.000 So you literally, while you're in the tank, it's floating above your head.
00:07:29.000 It's suspended above your head.
00:07:30.000 And you see the image as if it's just the video, just floating in the sky.
00:07:37.000 And he believes that by separating your body from sensory input, like so you're not feeling your feet on the ground, you're not feeling the weight of the world and your shoulders, all that jazz, you're floating.
00:07:48.000 He thinks you could take in data better.
00:07:50.000 And so his idea was to show documentaries and You know, and instructionals and things along those lines and that you would learn quicker that way.
00:07:57.000 Yeah, interesting, right?
00:07:58.000 Because so much of your brain and the function of the cerebral cortex is to integrate the body.
00:08:03.000 This movement, standing upright, you know, and being muscular and moving around.
00:08:08.000 And if you get rid of that, right, your brain kind of opens up and can take more in.
00:08:12.000 Well, the way I always describe it to people that haven't used the tank, I was like, imagine if you were having a conversation, but next to you, people were screaming.
00:08:18.000 If it was an important conversation, you'd want to get away from those people screaming.
00:08:21.000 Because even though you think of it as a distraction, it's just input.
00:08:24.000 It's just data that you have to consider.
00:08:26.000 Right.
00:08:26.000 You know, you also have to consider your butt on this chair, the room, the dimensions that you're calculating as you're moving your head around, social cues, language, all these different things are all being calculated and they require resources.
00:08:39.000 Right.
00:08:40.000 Well, when you are in that tank, there's none of that.
00:08:42.000 And so your brain feels supercharged.
00:08:44.000 It feels like you have all these resources have been opened up to you.
00:08:48.000 Yeah, and I agree.
00:08:49.000 And I think, you know, all of those resources that you're speaking of, those are sort of the things that contribute to this idea of what we call the ego.
00:08:58.000 You know, and the same thing with psychedelics.
00:08:59.000 You know, they formulate the ego and our body and being separate.
00:09:03.000 Oh, my God, Joe, you're strong.
00:09:04.000 I mean, you know, it's all these kind of different things that create this image of who we think we are.
00:09:10.000 Psychedelics, the tank, meditation, whatever method you want to pick, it gets rid of that.
00:09:14.000 Yeah.
00:09:15.000 And purely gets into, you know, Soland or something else.
00:09:18.000 Did you ever meet John Lilly?
00:09:20.000 Oh, yeah.
00:09:20.000 Spent a long time with John.
00:09:21.000 Oh, wow.
00:09:23.000 Yeah.
00:09:23.000 Did a lot of what?
00:09:26.000 A lot of good research with John.
00:09:29.000 Research, air quotes.
00:09:31.000 Back in the day.
00:09:32.000 Yeah, that guy, man.
00:09:33.000 He's the, for people who don't know, we're talking about the guy who invented the sensory deprivation tank, and he was a pioneer in interspecies communication with dolphins.
00:09:42.000 Yeah.
00:09:43.000 Fascinating, fascinating guy.
00:09:44.000 Fascinating guy.
00:09:45.000 You know, the last 20 years of his life, you know, the ketamine aspect was such a huge part of what he was doing.
00:09:52.000 Did he get too into it?
00:09:54.000 Ketamine seems to be an addictive substance.
00:09:57.000 Yeah.
00:09:58.000 Look, I mean, I love John.
00:10:00.000 I did.
00:10:00.000 I thought he was great.
00:10:01.000 He was a good friend of my dad's, and I certainly wouldn't say anything too negative about him.
00:10:06.000 But yeah, one toke over the line, man.
00:10:10.000 Sweet Jesus.
00:10:12.000 Todd McCormick has a very funny story about him.
00:10:14.000 Do you know who Todd McCormick is?
00:10:15.000 I don't.
00:10:15.000 Todd's one of the first guys to get arrested in California for medical marijuana, where he was arrested in the late 90s or early 2000s.
00:10:25.000 And he was one of the first people to find out that when you are...
00:10:30.000 Legally growing marijuana in California because of the law, the medical law.
00:10:35.000 The federal government can still prosecute you, and when they prosecute you, you are in court.
00:10:39.000 You are not allowed to even bring up the term medical marijuana because that's not a real term federally.
00:10:45.000 So he had railroaded and went to jail.
00:10:50.000 But anyway, point being, He was at John Lilly's.
00:10:54.000 He actually still owns John Lilly's tank.
00:10:56.000 And he was with John Lilly and John Lilly invited him to get in the tank.
00:11:02.000 And so Todd's about to go in the tank and he says, do you want to do ketamine?
00:11:06.000 And he's like, I'm stepping into the tank.
00:11:09.000 And he's like, of course.
00:11:12.000 No, it's John Lilly.
00:11:14.000 So he hits him with a blast of intramuscular ketamine in his thigh and then Todd starts freaking out.
00:11:20.000 He's in the tank and he's freaking out.
00:11:22.000 So John gets in another tank next to him, blasts himself with ketamine and goes and visits him.
00:11:29.000 What?
00:11:30.000 Yeah.
00:11:30.000 Whoa.
00:11:31.000 Yeah, they've found whatever same fucking dimension in the ketamine world.
00:11:35.000 And it worked?
00:11:36.000 Yes, it worked.
00:11:37.000 What does that mean?
00:11:38.000 I don't know, because I've never done ketamine.
00:11:40.000 Okay.
00:11:40.000 Have you?
00:11:41.000 Yeah, I've done it in the tank, too.
00:11:43.000 Okay, what happens in there?
00:11:44.000 Well, it's been a while since I've done it in the tank, and I'm not so sure I'd do it again.
00:11:49.000 I don't know.
00:11:50.000 Calling to do it again.
00:11:51.000 I'm glad I did it.
00:11:53.000 God, man.
00:11:55.000 Well, you read that description of what Terrence writes about ketamine, that it's, I'm not sure I'm going to get it exactly right, but ketamine is sort of like you're going inside of an office building, but it's stark and there's nothing in the office building.
00:12:11.000 Yeah, it's vacant.
00:12:12.000 It's vacant, yes.
00:12:14.000 Yeah.
00:12:15.000 Well, Terence believed that when you were experiencing a heavy-duty mushroom trip, you're not just experiencing your trip, but you're experiencing all the different people that have ever done mushrooms together tripping.
00:12:28.000 That's right.
00:12:28.000 Which is why a lot of people, when they take psilocybin particularly, they get a lot of Aztec and Mayan imagery.
00:12:35.000 That's the archaic rabbi.
00:12:36.000 That's what it is.
00:12:37.000 Yeah.
00:12:37.000 Yeah, I mean...
00:12:39.000 Are every single indigenous culture, you know, except for the Eskimos because they couldn't grow shit, but every single indigenous culture until very recently, secularists were a core part of their methodology, of their tribal rituals, you know.
00:12:54.000 Yeah, the Inuit's got You got fucked, huh?
00:12:56.000 There's nothing up there, dude.
00:12:58.000 You picked a bad spot.
00:12:59.000 You picked a bad spot, man.
00:13:00.000 Eating so much fish.
00:13:02.000 Ketamine in the tank, though, it's quite a journey.
00:13:08.000 The best way I could explain it is if you could see colors within blackness, if there were shades of black, if that makes any sense.
00:13:18.000 Like, because it's pitch black in the tank, and your head is pitch black, but somehow you're getting sacred geometry and sort of kind of visions and kind of downloads that are in the color black, if that makes any sense at all.
00:13:35.000 Yeah, thank God.
00:13:37.000 I mean, one of the great moments of my life, actually, was I took ketamine inside the tank, and...
00:13:45.000 This tank was right outside of my dad's sliding glass window, which went out into the lawn in his bedroom up here in the Hollywood Hills.
00:13:57.000 I went in and took a little ketamine.
00:14:00.000 Ram Dass was visiting that day, visiting my dad.
00:14:02.000 It was the last time they ever saw each other.
00:14:06.000 My dad died just like a month afterwards.
00:14:08.000 And I went inside the tank.
00:14:10.000 The two of them were visiting right outside of the tank hatch.
00:14:14.000 You know how the hatch comes out.
00:14:15.000 And they didn't know I was inside.
00:14:18.000 And I was lost in this K-hole.
00:14:20.000 Just completely fucked.
00:14:22.000 Just like, oh my god, what am I going to do?
00:14:23.000 And the only thing I knew how to do was like, you know...
00:14:26.000 Get the fuck out.
00:14:27.000 The K-hole, for people who don't know what we're talking about, is what people describe the ketamine experience when you're just really kind of stuck.
00:14:34.000 Yeah, and stuck in like, it's kind of like code red, like eject, hit the eject button, you know, so I popped open the hatch, got out, and...
00:14:42.000 You know, my dad and Ram Dass are sitting as close as you and I are right now.
00:14:46.000 And, you know, I'm self-referential enough to know, like, oh, wow, this is crazy, the two of them sitting here right now.
00:14:52.000 I mean, I wasn't stupid.
00:14:54.000 And you're naked and you're tripping on ketamine.
00:14:56.000 I'm naked, tripping on ketamine.
00:14:57.000 And everyone is just completely silent, staring at each other.
00:15:01.000 And Ram Dass just leans into me and goes, who are you now?
00:15:05.000 Whoa.
00:15:06.000 And it was kind of like a defining moment on my life journey.
00:15:10.000 Wow.
00:15:11.000 It changed my life, man.
00:15:12.000 Who are you now?
00:15:13.000 Yeah, and it's kind of my mantra for life now.
00:15:18.000 But that was over 20 years ago now.
00:15:20.000 Wow.
00:15:21.000 So did you feel like, was that the last time you did it in the tank?
00:15:27.000 Uh, no.
00:15:28.000 Oh, you're glutton for punishment.
00:15:29.000 Yeah, I did do it one other time after that, yeah.
00:15:32.000 So what is it particularly about the K-hole, like, when you go into what they call a K-hole?
00:15:37.000 Like, I've heard it described by people who are, like, recreational users.
00:15:41.000 I wouldn't call them psychonauts.
00:15:43.000 They're more like, you know, people go to raves and stuff.
00:15:46.000 It's dark, man.
00:15:47.000 It's dark.
00:15:47.000 I don't quite get it.
00:15:49.000 I don't get the ketamine in the public rave setting at all.
00:15:51.000 It doesn't make sense to me.
00:15:52.000 But John loved it.
00:15:55.000 Lily, right?
00:15:56.000 He did.
00:15:56.000 Loved it.
00:15:58.000 Ketamaniac.
00:15:58.000 But why was that his thing?
00:16:00.000 What was his raves about it?
00:16:03.000 I mean, he just...
00:16:04.000 Oh, God.
00:16:05.000 I mean, well, to understand that relationship is also to understand John a little bit in the sense that, you know...
00:16:11.000 I mean, he was the guy who said, you know, my body is my laboratory.
00:16:15.000 Right.
00:16:15.000 You know, I mean, he was...
00:16:16.000 You know, at one point he gave himself a boob implant.
00:16:19.000 You know, I mean, he was way out there.
00:16:21.000 What did he use for the boob implant?
00:16:24.000 Like the ones that, standard ones that women get?
00:16:26.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, like silicone or whatever.
00:16:28.000 Did he give himself one?
00:16:29.000 Only one?
00:16:29.000 No, he had two.
00:16:30.000 Oh, really?
00:16:31.000 So he was, you know, there was some darkness involved there.
00:16:36.000 Did he try to make them look like women's breasts?
00:16:38.000 Yeah.
00:16:39.000 Yeah?
00:16:39.000 Yeah.
00:16:40.000 If I recall, yeah.
00:16:41.000 See if we can find a picture of that.
00:16:42.000 Yeah, see if we can find...
00:16:43.000 Did he lose a bet?
00:16:46.000 Or is it just like...
00:16:47.000 No, I just...
00:16:48.000 Wanted to have breast implants.
00:16:49.000 I think it just was...
00:16:51.000 My body is my laboratory now.
00:16:52.000 It's sort of just the...
00:16:53.000 I mean, at that time, I mean, now what?
00:16:55.000 Being gender fluid is such a...
00:16:57.000 You know, we could talk about that.
00:16:59.000 Right, but I don't think that's really gender fluid.
00:17:01.000 One of the things about...
00:17:04.000 It's like, at the end of the day, everyone knows what the fuck that is.
00:17:09.000 There's this weird sort of suspension of disbelief where we're looking at these water bags that are surgically stuffed under your skin and we're just pretending these are sexual organs.
00:17:19.000 That are plump and ripe on the vine, but it's not.
00:17:23.000 It's one of the weirder things about being a tripper and deciding to do that.
00:17:27.000 It's like, wow, you're violating a lot of bizarre paradigms.
00:17:31.000 Yeah, but he was also kind of bending the paradigm and kind of bending the idea of you can be anything this time around.
00:17:39.000 If I want to be half-woman, I can be half-woman.
00:17:41.000 I can do that.
00:17:42.000 I'm a doctor, and we're living in this golden age of being able to Mm-hmm morph yourself into whatever the fuck you can imagine kind of thing Yeah, I wonder that was early too with a lot of those guys that trip so much it's like I think at least for practical purposes we would all like to think that you would like to have a Psychedelic experience and then come back down to earth and be able to you know make use of that in the real world like it can kind of benefit you in the real world and That's the idea,
00:18:10.000 right?
00:18:10.000 That's sort of the idea.
00:18:11.000 I think so.
00:18:12.000 I mean, why should we impart those standards on anybody?
00:18:14.000 I mean, you can do whatever you want.
00:18:16.000 But I think some guys, like Lily is probably a prime example that people use as a point of reference, went so far.
00:18:23.000 It's like, where's the baseline now?
00:18:26.000 Like, there's no baseline for him anymore.
00:18:27.000 He was just so out there.
00:18:29.000 He was.
00:18:30.000 He was, yeah.
00:18:31.000 Yeah.
00:18:33.000 Yeah.
00:18:33.000 I mean, I agree with you.
00:18:34.000 And also, I mean, not to use you as a great model, but you're a great poster child for psychedelics, as my dad was.
00:18:45.000 You were well into your adult life, and it changed your consciousness.
00:18:50.000 And you're able to apply it to your work, to what you do.
00:18:53.000 And it's become very fluid and very integrated.
00:18:56.000 You don't hide it.
00:18:57.000 You're public about it.
00:18:58.000 You found a way to...
00:19:00.000 Integrate it.
00:19:01.000 I mean, that's the idea of spiritual practice, isn't it?
00:19:03.000 It's about integration.
00:19:04.000 I think it's important to not hide it.
00:19:06.000 And I think there's much more fear of repercussions than actual repercussions.
00:19:12.000 You know, I think Terrence McKenna had a great saying.
00:19:15.000 He said, too many people are doing the man's work for the man.
00:19:20.000 They don't really care if you're out doing mushrooms.
00:19:24.000 What they're trying to do is they're trying to stop large-scale sales and distribution of Schedule I drugs.
00:19:32.000 They're not trying to stop some dude from doing mushrooms.
00:19:36.000 Right.
00:19:36.000 And look what we're seeing with microdosing right now in Silicon Valley.
00:19:39.000 I mean, more and more people are kind of coming out of the closet and, you know, supposedly what the names that are kind of attached to the rumor mill of who's doing microdosing in Silicon Valley.
00:19:49.000 It's huge.
00:19:50.000 Yeah.
00:19:50.000 I mean, it's really, it's really insane.
00:19:53.000 It's great.
00:19:53.000 It is.
00:19:54.000 Yeah.
00:19:54.000 And I think as marijuana is now legal in the state and it becomes legal in more and more states and hopefully one day it'll be released from the schedule one.
00:20:03.000 Which is just so crazy that the DEA decided to...
00:20:06.000 I mean, they got to the door this past summer.
00:20:09.000 They did.
00:20:10.000 And then they decided to pull away and just keep it at schedule one.
00:20:13.000 I know.
00:20:14.000 Which means there's no medical benefit, which is a lie.
00:20:16.000 Well, and that's especially fucked.
00:20:18.000 And I'm kind of down on Obama for that, as much as parts of Obama I really do admire.
00:20:23.000 But that, I think, was an epic failure.
00:20:26.000 And considering, you know, he just pardoned, what, 158 guys, most of them nonviolent drug offenders.
00:20:32.000 And the two are synonymous.
00:20:34.000 It's like, okay, you treated the symptom, man.
00:20:36.000 That's great.
00:20:37.000 I'm glad you released those guys from prison and good for you.
00:20:39.000 But treat the fucking disease, man.
00:20:42.000 And now, as we're stepping into this dark age, I mean, I'm calling it a dark age.
00:20:49.000 The Trump dark age?
00:20:50.000 The Trump dark age.
00:20:51.000 It's not good for these things.
00:20:54.000 Well, I don't know if it is or it isn't, but the problem is that when you know something, like if you and I know what's dangerous and what's not, like meth is dangerous.
00:21:05.000 Marijuana is not dangerous.
00:21:06.000 So when you look at all the facts and then you look at all the absolutely proven medical benefits and then you see that they're denying the existence of these, you go, okay, well, the people that are in control of locking people up and throw them in the jail, they're a bunch of liars because they're just ignoring the science.
00:21:21.000 They're ignoring the research and the research that's gone back to the 1970s.
00:21:25.000 That the Nixon administration paid for and then ignored.
00:21:28.000 That's right.
00:21:29.000 And now I think the bar was even raised, right?
00:21:32.000 CBD has gotten thrown into that.
00:21:35.000 Really recently, which is just a really sneaky thing because CBD, much like hemp, has zero psychoactive properties.
00:21:42.000 It's not doing anything to alter your consciousness in terms of getting you high.
00:21:46.000 That's right.
00:21:46.000 But it does amazing stuff for reducing inflammation for people that have arthritis.
00:21:51.000 It's like a lifesaver.
00:21:54.000 So, you know, the only thing I could kind of in this thread is kind of think about and talk about is, okay, well, what is, you know, what's the reason behind this?
00:22:03.000 I mean, if you kind of isolate big pharma and talk about that, and then, you know, I know the CBD industry, they're, you know, big pharma is the enemy, right?
00:22:13.000 Yeah.
00:22:14.000 But...
00:22:15.000 I also have to just kind of say that Big Pharma's main goal is to make money, to create products that make money.
00:22:21.000 It doesn't matter what the product is.
00:22:23.000 If they told you that plastic is going to alleviate cancer, they would make a plastic pill.
00:22:30.000 So who is the enemy within this that is making things like CBD and marijuana?
00:22:34.000 Is this just kind of left over from kind of baby boom paranoia, kind of narrow consciousness that we can't possibly allow these substances to fix us, to help us?
00:22:46.000 I mean, what is that?
00:22:47.000 Because there's tremendous profit potential.
00:22:49.000 So something is in alignment.
00:22:51.000 I want to know where that is.
00:22:52.000 The problem is that profit can't be controlled like Viagra.
00:22:55.000 It's hard to make Viagra.
00:22:58.000 If you and I wanted to go into the Viagra business, we would have to find out what the key ingredients are.
00:23:03.000 We'd have to set up a plant and manufacturing.
00:23:05.000 If we wanted to go into the CBD business, we'd just have to grow some weed.
00:23:08.000 It's not hard at all.
00:23:10.000 There's a big difference between extracting CBD or especially medical marijuana.
00:23:15.000 If you talk about just THC or cooking it down to a candy form or a pill form, it's not hard at all.
00:23:24.000 Right, but GlaxoSmithKline can put a billion dollars into making the best CBD pill and putting it on the store of every Rite Aid, the shelf of every Rite Aid, and kind of get the propaganda out there about what it can do.
00:23:37.000 Propaganda being a good thing, getting the marketing out there about all of its benefits.
00:23:41.000 So what is stopping that?
00:23:43.000 Well, they can't copyright it.
00:23:44.000 They can't control it.
00:23:45.000 It's not patentable.
00:23:46.000 It's nature.
00:23:47.000 It would be like trying to patent oranges.
00:23:50.000 You can't do it.
00:23:51.000 It's not going to work.
00:23:52.000 People are going to be able to grow oranges.
00:23:54.000 And when it comes to CBD oil, anyone in this room can grow some marijuana and extract the CBD from it.
00:24:02.000 It's not incredibly difficult.
00:24:04.000 It doesn't require massive resources like it would if you were going to make...
00:24:08.000 Certain types of Alzheimer's medication or Parkinson's medication that would be competing with the CBD oil.
00:24:15.000 Those are very difficult to get and if you can lock down the doctors and make sure that they only prescribe these pharmaceutical drugs that you guys can profit from and you're the only ones that can make it, then you've got that business locked.
00:24:26.000 There have been people that have done calculations about all of the different pharmaceutical drugs that would be useless or would be unnecessary, I should say, if marijuana was legal.
00:24:38.000 And it's pretty staggering.
00:24:40.000 It's a long list.
00:24:58.000 We're good to go.
00:25:12.000 That's true.
00:25:13.000 They don't, which is oftentimes why it's referred to as a war on consciousness.
00:25:17.000 Well, it is.
00:25:17.000 It's got to be.
00:25:18.000 I mean, that's absolutely what it is, because it's not about drugs, because there's so many drugs that are legal.
00:25:23.000 I mean, come on.
00:25:24.000 We cannot say there's a war on drugs when we can go buy a bottle of whiskey and a prescription for Oxycontin.
00:25:29.000 It's insane.
00:25:30.000 It's insane.
00:25:31.000 In every restaurant, you could buy booze.
00:25:32.000 Pretty much every restaurant.
00:25:34.000 And, I mean, look what the OxyContin epidemic has done to America.
00:25:37.000 I mean, it's decimated.
00:25:39.000 It's created a whole generation of addicts all of a sudden, you know, and it's a dangerous drug.
00:25:44.000 So it's a war on consciousness.
00:25:46.000 Yeah, and it's really a war for profit, for controlling the ability to profit off of people altering their consciousness.
00:25:54.000 Because people have been, like you said, other than people that live in frozen places where nothing grows, they've been trying to alter their consciousness forever.
00:26:02.000 Okay, but do you believe, you know, I don't know what your conspiracy level kind of meter is, but do you believe that, like, with all of this said, that there is still kind of a secret kind of conspiracy government sanctioned funnel that allows the illegal drug market to still flourish in some way in order to keep certain,
00:26:22.000 you know, Law enforcement and order.
00:26:26.000 Law enforcement and order.
00:26:27.000 You know, maybe skimming off the top, off of piles of cocaine that are coming from Bolivia, whatever the case may be.
00:26:33.000 I mean, I don't know what a case study is, but, you know, I mean, there's still so many coming in.
00:26:39.000 It's certainly something to be considered.
00:26:40.000 Are you aware of that CIA drug plane that crashed, the jet that had visited Guantanamo Bay a couple of times, and it crashed in Mexico with tons of cocaine on it?
00:26:51.000 You never seen that?
00:26:52.000 I did.
00:26:52.000 Jamie, see if you can pull that up.
00:26:54.000 CIA plane crashes in Mexico with tons of cocaine.
00:26:58.000 They overloaded their plane, and they had so much cocaine in it that they had to refuel.
00:27:05.000 And they tried to land in Mexico, and Mexico was like, fuck you.
00:27:08.000 Here it is.
00:27:09.000 CIA jet crashes with four tons of cocaine on board.
00:27:12.000 Oh my god.
00:27:13.000 I mean...
00:27:14.000 What year is this?
00:27:15.000 This is just last month, huh?
00:27:17.000 A couple months ago?
00:27:18.000 September.
00:27:19.000 September 16th.
00:27:20.000 Oh, I missed that one.
00:27:21.000 Well, this is a recent one, but it's happened a gang of times.
00:27:25.000 Yeah.
00:27:25.000 Okay, here it is.
00:27:26.000 Eight years ago.
00:27:27.000 It's saying eight years ago.
00:27:28.000 Okay.
00:27:29.000 Okay.
00:27:30.000 It crashed in the middle of the jungle in Mexico's Yucatan, carrying four tons of cocaine.
00:27:36.000 The event and the aftermath changed forever.
00:27:38.000 An official narrative of the war on drugs has for years been pushing the notion that there is no significant American involvement in the global drug trade and no American drug lords.
00:27:48.000 Right, okay.
00:27:49.000 Well, you know the Barry Seale story?
00:27:52.000 Only a little bit.
00:27:53.000 Barry Seals, who used to fly drugs into Mena, Arkansas, from South America.
00:27:58.000 You'd go down to South America, fly drugs, and there's photos with him with all the CIA guys, and he'd be partying with Noriega down in Panama.
00:28:08.000 And this guy was just bringing coke into the United States.
00:28:12.000 And then when he was scheduled to testify, they assassinated him in his car on the way to court.
00:28:18.000 Oh, jeez.
00:28:19.000 Jesus Christ.
00:28:19.000 He had George Bush's number in his phone in his pocket.
00:28:23.000 Oh my God.
00:28:23.000 Yeah, as he was executed.
00:28:26.000 So the whole thing is just like, well, story's over, folks.
00:28:30.000 Go back to sleep.
00:28:31.000 Good night, everybody.
00:28:31.000 You know I'm...
00:28:32.000 Johnny Carson.
00:28:34.000 The Rick Ross documentary?
00:28:36.000 Yeah.
00:28:37.000 I've had Rick on the podcast.
00:28:38.000 Oh, you have?
00:28:38.000 Yeah.
00:28:39.000 Twice.
00:28:39.000 What a story.
00:28:40.000 Amazing story.
00:28:42.000 Yeah.
00:28:42.000 I mean, that guy became a drug kingpin in L.A., selling drugs essentially to fund the war with the Contras and the Sandinistas.
00:28:50.000 Right.
00:28:50.000 And they're funneling the product.
00:28:51.000 Yeah.
00:28:52.000 Amazing.
00:28:52.000 He was, you know, making millions of dollars for the U.S. government selling Coke.
00:28:57.000 And, you know, Michael Rupert, who was a good friend of mine, too, who...
00:29:07.000 Oh, wow.
00:29:17.000 And he stands up in the middle of all this stuff and says and exposes this whole deal.
00:29:25.000 He's like, I have personally witnessed the CIA selling drugs in central Los Angeles, in south central Los Angeles.
00:29:33.000 You ever seen that?
00:29:34.000 I haven't seen that, no.
00:29:35.000 See if you can find that, Jamie, because it's a fucking crazy video to watch.
00:29:38.000 Michael Rupert.
00:29:40.000 Exposes CIA selling drugs in court.
00:29:43.000 So why'd he kill himself?
00:29:44.000 He was depressed.
00:29:46.000 He had some pretty significant depression.
00:29:48.000 Long time being on the police force and all the stuff that he had to deal with in trying to expose corruption.
00:29:58.000 Listen to this.
00:29:59.000 Go full screen and crank up the volume.
00:30:01.000 As a former Los Angeles police narcotics detective that the agency has dealt drugs throughout this country for a long time.
00:30:10.000 This is allegations of CIA involvement in drug trafficking.
00:30:14.000 This is on C-SPAN, and this is something completely unexpected.
00:30:17.000 So when he stood up in front of these people and said that to the CIA, pull that up again so I can see the top of it, CIA Director John Deutch.
00:30:26.000 Obviously, that is an answer for a lot of you.
00:30:28.000 Now, can you please?
00:30:29.000 I refer...
00:30:30.000 All right, now, can you please?
00:30:32.000 I refer to...
00:30:33.000 Wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:30:45.000 Wait a minute.
00:30:47.000 Wait a minute here.
00:30:50.000 Wait a minute.
00:30:51.000 If you don't like what's going on here, please lead now.
00:30:56.000 No, no, no.
00:30:57.000 Lead.
00:30:57.000 No, no, no.
00:30:58.000 Lead now because there are others who do want to hear what's going on in this room.
00:31:05.000 She's ineffective.
00:31:06.000 Is there another...
00:31:08.000 I don't know what's...
00:31:09.000 Here you go.
00:31:10.000 Go back to him again.
00:31:11.000 Here you go.
00:31:11.000 Specific agency operations known as Amadeus, Pegasus, and Watchtower.
00:31:16.000 I have Watchtower documents heavily redacted by the agency.
00:31:19.000 I was personally exposed to CIA operations and recruited by CIA personnel who attempted to recruit me in the late 70s.
00:31:27.000 To become involved in protecting agency drug operations in this country.
00:31:31.000 I have been trying to get this out for 18 years and I have the evidence.
00:31:34.000 My question for you is very specific, sir.
00:31:37.000 If in the course of the IG's investigations and Fred Hitz's work, you come across evidence of severely criminal activity and it's classified, will you use that classification to hide the criminal activity or will you tell the American people the truth?
00:31:54.000 Yeah.
00:31:54.000 It's pretty intense.
00:31:56.000 Yeah.
00:31:56.000 And he, you know, he went through a lot with this and with many other things and just decided at one point in time he's suffering too much and took his own life.
00:32:06.000 Oh, man.
00:32:07.000 That's, it's really intense.
00:32:09.000 And, you know, I try not to be a cynic.
00:32:12.000 I mean, I'm, you know, a pretty open-minded, you know, and hopeful guy.
00:32:16.000 But with what we're kind of moving in towards with the next administration, I just...
00:32:22.000 You know about what's going on in the Philippines with, you know, that drug, the crazy drug policy, and what, Trump called him, you know, when he was president-elect?
00:32:31.000 Yeah, they spoke to congratulate him for winning.
00:32:34.000 For killing people?
00:32:35.000 Congratulations?
00:32:36.000 Yeah, and I guess Trump said on the call, like, that he was, congratulations on this drug policy.
00:32:42.000 It seems to be working.
00:32:43.000 Oh my god.
00:32:44.000 They're just assassinating people.
00:32:46.000 They're just killing people.
00:32:48.000 He's talked pretty openly about it, how he's just assassinating drug dealers.
00:32:52.000 And addicts and users.
00:32:53.000 They're just killing drug addicts.
00:32:55.000 That is the...
00:32:56.000 That's something that happens when you have so many people in one area.
00:33:02.000 I mean, the Philippines is thousands of islands, for people who don't know, and they're just jammed up with people.
00:33:07.000 And I think when you have a lot of crime and you have a lot of people, you tend to value those people less.
00:33:14.000 And it just becomes, especially when you're a dictator.
00:33:19.000 I mean, essentially, that guy's a dictator.
00:33:21.000 Yes, yes.
00:33:22.000 I mean, whether he's elected or not.
00:33:23.000 He's a dictator.
00:33:24.000 What he's doing is barbaric.
00:33:25.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:33:26.000 Just fucking assassinating people.
00:33:27.000 You value people less just based on kind of economic, on class.
00:33:31.000 Yeah.
00:33:31.000 It's kind of a class struggle.
00:33:32.000 A class struggle and also just the sheer volume of them.
00:33:36.000 They're not as valuable.
00:33:38.000 Right.
00:33:38.000 It's like Norway, a smaller population of people.
00:33:42.000 I think you just value the people more.
00:33:44.000 I don't know why I use Norway as an example.
00:33:46.000 Yeah, but no, it's a good...
00:33:47.000 I mean, all the Scandinavian countries are good.
00:33:49.000 Did you see The House We Live In?
00:33:51.000 What is that?
00:33:51.000 It's a documentary, a war on drugs documentary.
00:33:53.000 No, I didn't see that.
00:33:54.000 Maybe I did.
00:33:55.000 Is that about five years ago?
00:33:56.000 Yeah, about four or five years ago.
00:33:58.000 I've seen so many of those things, I can't remember them all anymore.
00:34:00.000 There's so many of them now.
00:34:02.000 It's a really good one, and basically it comes up, the final hypothesis is that the war on drugs, it's a class war.
00:34:11.000 You know, originally we thought it was a race war, and it's still partially true, you know, and what's the guy who the first drug czar from the 40s and 50s, I'm forgetting his name, Adelson or whatever, but who,
00:34:27.000 you know, he turned marijuana hysteria into Yeah.
00:34:31.000 Into a Mexican hysteria that they were bringing, and this was in the 30s and 40s, and created reefer madness.
00:34:37.000 Then heroin was kind of pushed into the ghetto, ended up in Rick Ross.
00:34:41.000 Harry Anslinger?
00:34:41.000 Yes.
00:34:42.000 Thank you.
00:34:42.000 Yeah.
00:34:43.000 And then crack brought into the ghetto and stuff.
00:34:45.000 But meth sort of becomes the exception because meth is primarily a white trailer park sort of trashy kind of thing.
00:34:53.000 How racist of you.
00:34:54.000 I know how racist.
00:34:55.000 That was politically incorrect.
00:34:58.000 But it's true, though.
00:35:00.000 It's true.
00:35:00.000 And so we do have a class struggle.
00:35:04.000 Well, even then, that's a class issue as well.
00:35:06.000 I mean, it just happens to be Caucasians.
00:35:08.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:35:09.000 Poor people who really get into the math.
00:35:11.000 Poor people.
00:35:11.000 Disenfranchised.
00:35:13.000 Disenfranchised, unheard of, you know.
00:35:15.000 No, I think it's definitely, you could say that the war on drugs is a class war.
00:35:19.000 But it's also like, where can they extract the money?
00:35:21.000 Where can they get the money?
00:35:22.000 Well, the DEA has to, they have to keep people employed.
00:35:26.000 And the way to keep people employed is to justify their job.
00:35:28.000 The way to justify their job is to continue making arrests and show that you need to make arrests.
00:35:32.000 And so you have to have laws in place, which is why.
00:35:35.000 You know that prison guards will lobby to make sure that marijuana stays illegal and other drugs are strictly enforced, that the policies are strictly enforced, just so they can continue keeping their jobs.
00:35:47.000 Right.
00:35:47.000 Yeah, absolutely.
00:35:48.000 But when we still, like what Obama, during the Obama administration, he took the crack cocaine versus powder cocaine, you know, the discrepancies from, what, 20 to 1, and he got it down to...
00:35:59.000 Whatever it is, eight to one or something.
00:36:01.000 It's still ridiculous.
00:36:01.000 It's still insane.
00:36:02.000 It's still insane.
00:36:03.000 It's the same drug.
00:36:03.000 It's the same drug, but it's purely based on class and race.
00:36:11.000 Clearly now, as we've seen it and as the rhetoric that's been going on the last year during the election cycle, It's a much bigger problem than we thought it was.
00:36:22.000 I mean, I always knew, we always knew that this was a problem, race and class and stuff, but now, straight, you know, out on the table, all the chips on black and, you know, everybody's One of the things that I feel that's troubling about this election is that a lot of racists,
00:36:38.000 like my friend Alonzo Bowden had a great quote.
00:36:40.000 He said, not all Trump supporters are racists, but all racists are Trump supporters.
00:36:45.000 That's right.
00:36:46.000 That's like the Belmar quote about Republicans.
00:36:48.000 What did he say?
00:36:49.000 Not all Republicans are racists, but all racists are Republicans.
00:36:52.000 Oh, that's not true, though.
00:36:53.000 There's a lot of racist Democrats.
00:36:55.000 That's a bad quote.
00:36:57.000 That's a terrible quote.
00:37:00.000 I mean, maybe there was racists that voted for Hillary, sure.
00:37:03.000 Yeah, I know.
00:37:05.000 But it's true about me.
00:37:07.000 It's more fun than it is real.
00:37:10.000 You know, as a quote.
00:37:11.000 But it seems like they're out in the public now.
00:37:14.000 They're out in the open.
00:37:15.000 I mean, I've seen so many videos of people that are Trump supporters that are using the fact that Trump's in office now to, like...
00:37:23.000 To say a bunch of really disgusting racist shit.
00:37:27.000 To go crazy.
00:37:28.000 Yeah.
00:37:28.000 And they kind of got a hall pass, you know?
00:37:30.000 That's a good way of putting it.
00:37:32.000 Yeah, I mean, it's like, obviously, you know, I know people, as you do, who voted for Trump.
00:37:37.000 Sadly, I do.
00:37:38.000 But whatever, you know, and not all Trump supporters are uneducated, racist, sort of whatever.
00:37:45.000 Yeah, some people did it for economics.
00:37:47.000 Some people did it for the economics thing, but the fact that they gave those other people a hall pass to act like that and just wait, you know, troubling, really troubling.
00:37:58.000 Well, it's going to be interesting to see this Jeff Sessions guy, what he decides to do, because the attorney general-elect, that guy that's coming in, is that what you say about him?
00:38:07.000 Attorney general-elect, like a president-elect, call him that?
00:38:09.000 Yes.
00:38:10.000 So he's a staunch marijuana hater.
00:38:15.000 He's a fucking dyed-in-the-wool, marijuana-is-for-bad-people kind of guy.
00:38:20.000 Just gotta get that guy high.
00:38:22.000 That's all we have to do.
00:38:23.000 I mean, I know he's probably 80, but it's not too late.
00:38:26.000 Just get him.
00:38:27.000 Somebody get him.
00:38:28.000 Just give him a little hit.
00:38:29.000 Don't fuck him up.
00:38:30.000 Just give him a little.
00:38:31.000 Just a little.
00:38:34.000 I'm with you.
00:38:37.000 Come on, dude.
00:38:38.000 You'll be fine.
00:38:39.000 Relax.
00:38:40.000 Let's go sit in the grass.
00:38:41.000 Look up.
00:38:41.000 Look at the sky.
00:38:42.000 Does it look different?
00:38:43.000 Look at the clouds.
00:38:44.000 You ever look at him that way?
00:38:45.000 That's a thin layer of gas.
00:38:46.000 It separates us from infinity.
00:38:47.000 What's your favorite music, man?
00:38:49.000 Do you like Pink Floyd?
00:38:50.000 Do you like Pink Floyd?
00:38:51.000 What'd you grow up on?
00:38:52.000 Put these headphones on, dude.
00:38:53.000 You like the Beatles.
00:38:54.000 I'm sure you like the Beatles, right?
00:38:56.000 Everyone does.
00:38:56.000 He might not.
00:38:57.000 He might be one of those weird John Ashcroft guys that's really into gospel music.
00:39:01.000 Oh, yeah.
00:39:02.000 And you remember that John Ashcroft song?
00:39:03.000 Yes.
00:39:04.000 Let the Eagles soar.
00:39:06.000 Oh, my God.
00:39:06.000 Like she's never soared before.
00:39:08.000 I think he was one of the scariest guys that ever attained any sort of office or had any sort of power.
00:39:16.000 Dude, Ashcroft, you remember, what state was he from?
00:39:20.000 Missouri, maybe?
00:39:22.000 I think it was from Missouri.
00:39:23.000 I don't know.
00:39:23.000 He lost the election for the governorship to a dead man.
00:39:27.000 Did he?
00:39:28.000 Yes.
00:39:28.000 That's how much people didn't like him?
00:39:29.000 A dead guy beat him.
00:39:32.000 And then Bush up whites.
00:39:34.000 Do you remember when he put coverings over the naked statues?
00:39:38.000 Yes!
00:39:38.000 He covered up the boobs in the rotunda.
00:39:42.000 He was so disturbed by their nakedness.
00:39:44.000 Well, we survived that.
00:39:46.000 Barely.
00:39:47.000 I mean, we went to a war that's still going on because of that asshole and the other assholes that are in that administration.
00:39:52.000 I mean, that administration was a dark, dark moment of despair.
00:39:58.000 These alleged weapons of mass destruction that never existed.
00:40:03.000 You know, all of it.
00:40:04.000 And now Trump is talking to Karl Rove again.
00:40:07.000 Oh, not to Dick Cheney.
00:40:08.000 He's talking to Dick Cheney.
00:40:09.000 Yeah, Dick Cheney's fucking putting on his Darth Vader mask again.
00:40:12.000 Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
00:40:17.000 Yeah.
00:40:17.000 We should use this moment to say, rest in peace Carrie Fisher.
00:40:20.000 Yeah.
00:40:20.000 That was a hard one.
00:40:22.000 She checked out, right?
00:40:23.000 Fuck, man.
00:40:24.000 60?
00:40:24.000 She was only 60. I know.
00:40:26.000 Did she have a drug problem?
00:40:28.000 Did she have an alcohol problem?
00:40:29.000 Not current.
00:40:30.000 But she used to?
00:40:31.000 Yeah.
00:40:32.000 Was it a pill thing?
00:40:33.000 I had pills and coke.
00:40:34.000 But yeah, I think she was sober in AA, is the best I understand.
00:40:39.000 Yeah.
00:40:39.000 The problem is the damage those goddamn things that they do to your cardiovascular system.
00:40:44.000 Oh my god, yeah.
00:40:45.000 She's so devastating.
00:40:46.000 No, she lived hard.
00:40:47.000 She lived hard and I think suffered a lot of physical problems as a result.
00:40:51.000 So sad.
00:40:51.000 60. Oh my god.
00:40:53.000 And George Michael.
00:40:54.000 And then George Michael.
00:40:54.000 53. That was even sadder.
00:40:57.000 But you gotta think that he probably went out in a wave of dicks.
00:41:00.000 Just a tsunami of them.
00:41:02.000 He probably was just exhausted from orgies.
00:41:07.000 Somehow I just feel like he squeezed in a lot of life in 53 years.
00:41:11.000 I think he did too.
00:41:13.000 No pun intended.
00:41:16.000 Or pun intended.
00:41:17.000 Yeah, George.
00:41:19.000 Yeah, but with guys like that, I often wonder, you know, with being a songwriter or like a hit maker, is it Is it better to have had, you know, one hit or a few hits and then completely fade away?
00:41:35.000 Not that he faded away into obscurity.
00:41:36.000 Maybe he's not a good example.
00:41:38.000 Or to not have it at all.
00:41:39.000 Because I think George did kind of carry with him that, like, he was no longer current sort of thing.
00:41:45.000 Yeah, that's the weird thing where someone's not famous anymore, they're kind of a joke, whereas a regular person's not a joke.
00:41:53.000 Like, here's an example.
00:41:54.000 Do you remember when Gary Coleman was a security guard?
00:41:56.000 Yeah, of course.
00:41:57.000 He had to get a job, and it was a real problem because Gary Coleman was just trying to do his job and just trying to get paid so he can eat, you know?
00:42:04.000 He was just trying to feed himself like all the rest of us.
00:42:07.000 And people would come up to him and take pictures of him and mock him, and they would use him as a joke.
00:42:11.000 But you don't use a regular security guard as a joke.
00:42:14.000 Like, if you see a regular security guard, you're like, what's up, man?
00:42:17.000 How you doing?
00:42:17.000 Yeah, I'm going to go to this building right here.
00:42:19.000 I can see your ID. Cool.
00:42:20.000 Everything's fine.
00:42:21.000 You don't say, ah, you're a fucking security guard!
00:42:23.000 Look at you!
00:42:24.000 Right.
00:42:25.000 But because he used to be something greater, you know?
00:42:29.000 Yeah.
00:42:30.000 Yeah, there's poor Gary Coleman when he was a security guard.
00:42:33.000 Yeah, that's so troubling.
00:42:35.000 And it kind of really plays into the whole idea of fame and perversion in America and the things that we hold dear, the things that are valuable to us, kind of the disillusion of American values, which I think that's the rise of Trump to me.
00:42:49.000 It's a values thing.
00:42:50.000 I had a guy give me a hard time once about Fear Factor being canceled, and he was a fucking couchier at CVS. He was working at CVS. He's like, what happened to his show?
00:43:03.000 And I said, it was canceled.
00:43:04.000 He goes, no more show, huh?
00:43:07.000 Like, all attitude.
00:43:08.000 I'm like, dude, shows go away.
00:43:10.000 Yeah, they go on and they get canceled.
00:43:13.000 He was shitting on me, but he was being aggressive about it.
00:43:18.000 It was so weird.
00:43:19.000 I was like, what a bizarre detachment from reality.
00:43:22.000 You're working at fucking CVS, dude.
00:43:24.000 I'm not giving you a hard time about being a CVS guy, but if I was the guy from Fear Factor and then I was a CVS guy, how bad would you shit on me then?
00:43:33.000 Because I'm just coming in as a guy buying some cough drops.
00:43:36.000 That's right.
00:43:36.000 Like, what a weird thing that we have, this need to, when someone attains a very high status and then falls off of that, what we think, you know, we think they're down.
00:43:46.000 We want to attack.
00:43:47.000 It's like an animal thing.
00:43:49.000 But in your case, best thing that ever happened to you.
00:43:51.000 Yeah, I mean, I don't think he knew.
00:43:54.000 He probably didn't know that I had a stand-up career or that I was doing the UFC or anything.
00:43:57.000 He was just like, oh, you're fucking losing now, huh?
00:44:00.000 What is your show?
00:44:01.000 I was like, crazy accent, all aggressive.
00:44:03.000 I was like, all right, dude.
00:44:04.000 But it was so blatant, it was confusing.
00:44:08.000 I was like, am I being punked?
00:44:10.000 Yeah, and the idea of like, you know, winning.
00:44:14.000 Just that idea.
00:44:15.000 You gotta win, man.
00:44:17.000 Whatever that means.
00:44:18.000 That's the Trump thing.
00:44:19.000 That's the Trump thing that's really disturbing, is that winning thing.
00:44:24.000 Gotta win.
00:44:24.000 Gotta win.
00:44:25.000 And not this lack of perspective.
00:44:26.000 I mean, he's fucking 70, man.
00:44:28.000 There ain't a lot of time left, bro.
00:44:30.000 I mean, if you're super lucky, you got 20 summers left.
00:44:34.000 If you're super lucky, if everything goes great.
00:44:36.000 And he's not that healthy.
00:44:38.000 No, he's fat.
00:44:39.000 He's fat.
00:44:40.000 His chin just has like a very sloping slab of skin that's loosely attached to his neck that goes down to his collarbone.
00:44:50.000 I mean, he doesn't look like a healthy 70 year old.
00:44:52.000 I don't think so either.
00:44:54.000 Sylvester Stallone is older than him.
00:44:55.000 That's a good piece of- Yeah, there you go.
00:44:58.000 To put it in perspective.
00:44:59.000 Or Sean Connery.
00:44:59.000 Both of them, right?
00:45:01.000 Yeah.
00:45:01.000 They're both older than him.
00:45:02.000 Yeah, but that whole idea, it's just that destruction of sort of like the things that we have instilled as being an important, like you've got to have a winning temperament.
00:45:10.000 I'm going to make America win again.
00:45:12.000 Why is that the most important sort of attribute for someone to attain to?
00:45:16.000 What does that even mean, win?
00:45:18.000 And it's so attached to a financial thing.
00:45:21.000 What kind of value system is that?
00:45:23.000 There are other ways to, quote unquote, win.
00:45:26.000 It doesn't have to be tied to money.
00:45:27.000 Well, the problem is it becomes attractive.
00:45:29.000 You know, when you see someone who has a slick back hair and a private jet, and he takes a photo with his expensive Gucci shoes on and his private jet, and it's on his Instagram, and then he's, you know, that all stuff becomes very attractive, and then people aspire to that.
00:45:43.000 And then, you know, you get that Gordon Gekko, greed is good thing.
00:45:46.000 Yeah, you're right, greed is good, but also, like, that level of aspiration, first of all, it's pretty much not attainable.
00:45:52.000 I mean...
00:45:53.000 Well, that's attainable.
00:45:54.000 Yeah, but one, what, private jet rich?
00:45:57.000 I mean, that is...
00:45:57.000 Some people can do it.
00:45:58.000 They obviously have private jets.
00:45:59.000 That is the 1% of the 1% of the 1%.
00:46:01.000 Right.
00:46:01.000 I mean, that level.
00:46:02.000 Right.
00:46:02.000 Like, the people who are following those people on Instagram, who have, you know...
00:46:07.000 Intergram.
00:46:08.000 Intergram.
00:46:09.000 Okay, Grandpa.
00:46:10.000 Oh, you fucking kids in the Instagram.
00:46:13.000 On that series of tubes.
00:46:15.000 It's a series of tubes.
00:46:16.000 God damn it.
00:46:18.000 Right?
00:46:18.000 The Facebook.
00:46:20.000 But, I mean, if you're trying, you know, you want to climb a mountain, you want to climb Everest.
00:46:24.000 If you want to be the Gordon Gekko guy, you want a private jet and a slick back hair.
00:46:29.000 But it never ends.
00:46:30.000 It does never end.
00:46:31.000 It never ends.
00:46:32.000 Well, that's what's weird when you see the really, really, really rich guys who are still smashing and just every day trying to attain new...
00:46:40.000 And we always assume they achieve enlightenment.
00:46:42.000 It was like this idea that, like, well, he's got $50 billion.
00:46:46.000 Why doesn't he just retire?
00:46:47.000 They never fucking retire.
00:46:48.000 Do you read Steve Jobs' last words?
00:46:50.000 Have you ever read that?
00:46:50.000 No.
00:46:51.000 What do you say?
00:46:51.000 You might want to bring him up, Jamie.
00:46:52.000 It's really, really fucking cool.
00:46:54.000 It's like he's...
00:46:55.000 It's his last whatever...
00:46:57.000 Maybe not the last word he said to his wife or something, but it's kind of his last cohesive thought was like, look, many people in the world views me as completely successful and I've achieved so much in business, but my personal life and everything that he was lacking.
00:47:13.000 So he was just sort of coming clean about the imbalance of it all?
00:47:17.000 He was kind of coming clean about the levels of discontent and the path of the heart.
00:47:22.000 Yeah.
00:47:23.000 The path of the soul, the path of the spirit, because he was essentially, you know, a spiritual guy and, you know, was a meditator, was a practitioner of Zen and into, you know, Neem Karoli Baba and all sorts of things.
00:47:33.000 But he got just so wrapped up in this vicious sort of cycle of having to produce product, product, product.
00:47:42.000 And, you know, Apple essentially, in his words, you know, he made it into, it was a product company.
00:47:49.000 And that's how we defined it.
00:47:50.000 And not even an idea company.
00:47:52.000 It was a product company.
00:47:54.000 And then products are based on having to have the latest version of the product over and over and over again.
00:47:59.000 And he just got wrapped up and kind of lost his soul.
00:48:01.000 Isn't it interesting that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were the two competitors that we always thought of, and Bill Gates was thought to be the business guy who's the cold, hard...
00:48:11.000 And he was.
00:48:12.000 In a lot of ways, sure.
00:48:14.000 Back in the day, yeah.
00:48:14.000 But if you look at him, in his older years, he became very charitable, involved in a bunch of humanitarian efforts, and does a lot of amazing work, and is using his substantial wealth...
00:48:27.000 For a lot of good and doesn't work anymore.
00:48:29.000 He's done with all that.
00:48:30.000 He's all just doing humanitarian work and helping people, which is kind of beautiful.
00:48:34.000 And he became this different guy as he got older.
00:48:38.000 He became wiser and became much more involved in doing good and trying to help and trying to use that immense amount of money that he acquired by being a ruthless sort of business gangster.
00:48:50.000 But doing it for good, which is kind of really fascinating that he decided, hey, I'm going to step back here.
00:48:56.000 I'm going to set back and think about what I'm doing and what's really important to me in this last stage of life.
00:49:02.000 And that's karma yoga.
00:49:05.000 That's what karma yoga is.
00:49:06.000 You know about the path of the sadhu in India?
00:49:11.000 Traditionally, the path of the sadhu.
00:49:14.000 You know, kind of historically and traditionally, the sadhu grows up, is born in India, and is raised into education, then to become a householder.
00:49:24.000 Householder meaning getting married and has kids, works, has career, provides for the kids, and then in the last third of his life becomes a sadhu, drops all of it, walks away.
00:49:35.000 Kids are grown up, out of the house, kind of leaves of his wife, which is kind of a Bummer for her.
00:49:41.000 Bummer for her, but in kind of a concept.
00:49:43.000 Maybe she was annoying.
00:49:44.000 Maybe she wanted to keep buying purses and shit, and he's like, no, we have to meditate.
00:49:49.000 No, I'm shopping online.
00:49:52.000 But then he takes off, and he becomes a wandering mendicant in India, and that's the path of the sadhu.
00:49:56.000 It's kind of broken into different phases.
00:49:58.000 I don't know if that's the right way to do it either.
00:50:00.000 Oh, I don't know, but it's fascinating.
00:50:02.000 It's an interesting way of looking at it that, okay, you've achieved a lot, you've accumulated a lot, and now I can go be of service.
00:50:10.000 Well, being of service is always a great idea.
00:50:13.000 The sadhus are really into hash, right?
00:50:15.000 Isn't that the big thing?
00:50:16.000 How many chillums you can smoke?
00:50:18.000 It depends what lineage you belong to.
00:50:21.000 I've sat with some of them, and the Naga Babas and Atakumba Meila and Allahabad.
00:50:27.000 I've sat with them.
00:50:28.000 It's wild, man.
00:50:28.000 It is amazing how when people discuss religion, if they discuss Hinduism or the Sikhs or any of the various strains of religion, Of religions that are inexorably connected to psychedelics, those psychedelics are rarely discussed.
00:50:46.000 I mean, if you go and you read the Vimanas or read any of the ancient Hindu texts, there's so many references to Soma and so many references to what is obviously some sort of a psychoactive substance.
00:51:03.000 But when people talk about Hinduism, it hardly ever comes up.
00:51:08.000 When you talk about yogis and sadhus, it hardly ever comes up.
00:51:12.000 In the modern sort of take on it, because there's kind of a revival within Hinduism of kind of an orthodox version of it, which is intoxicant-free.
00:51:25.000 And that's kind of a modern revival within the Hindu tradition.
00:51:29.000 You know, so they've kind of pushed that aside.
00:51:31.000 But, yeah, I mean, you know what bong is?
00:51:34.000 It's like a powdery pot thing that you just kind of, you know, you swallow some of it.
00:51:40.000 Yeah, how does that, what is that stuff made with?
00:51:42.000 It's, um, you take like the leaves and you grind up the leaves into like a fine powder and then there's some kind of cooking process.
00:51:50.000 And then, but within just the leaves, like the shake, all the scraps is enough and you can extract the THC. In some kind of cooking process and you make it into a fine powder and just...
00:52:00.000 Throw it down.
00:52:02.000 Throw it down and it gets you pretty toasty.
00:52:05.000 Yeah.
00:52:06.000 Well, I know that they're also into the crystals and they take the crystals and mash them up and sort of make like kind of a hash out of the scrape from the THC crystals.
00:52:18.000 What is that called?
00:52:19.000 I know what you're talking about.
00:52:21.000 Yeah.
00:52:21.000 We both know.
00:52:22.000 Some sort of a mushy, sort of waxy type jazz.
00:52:26.000 They take that.
00:52:27.000 Yeah.
00:52:28.000 But, I mean, again, back to the original, you know, thread of our conversation.
00:52:32.000 It's like every tradition has some kind of A mind-altering sacrament.
00:52:37.000 Vedic texts.
00:52:38.000 Yeah, all these different...
00:52:39.000 I mean, look, they had to be...
00:52:42.000 They obviously were aware of these substances.
00:52:44.000 If they found these substances, there was no science back then.
00:52:48.000 There was no real understanding of what's going on in the world.
00:52:52.000 No real understanding of your body.
00:52:54.000 But there was this access to this stuff.
00:52:57.000 Hey, man.
00:52:58.000 See those things that are growing on that cow shit?
00:53:00.000 If you take that, you will meet God.
00:53:03.000 And then people did it and did meet God.
00:53:05.000 And they're like, holy shit, you're telling the truth.
00:53:08.000 Like, everybody wants...
00:53:09.000 Like, if you think about religions, if you think about the stories that people tell of the wise men and they experience the burning bush and God gives them the Ten Commandments and all these different things that happen, they're all sort of beautiful stories.
00:53:26.000 But your everyday life experience is so flat and fucking boring.
00:53:31.000 And then you do take these things.
00:53:34.000 You go, well, this is just going to be just like everything else.
00:53:36.000 Just flat and boring and bullshit.
00:53:38.000 And you take those mushrooms that you pluck off that cow shit and all of a sudden...
00:53:42.000 It's exposed to you in some grand way.
00:53:48.000 And then your whole life becomes about worshipping that.
00:53:52.000 I mean, that's...
00:53:54.000 McKenna always argued that all the ancient cattle-worshipping religions and cattle-worshipping civilizations and all these really old, old cultures, that that's what it was all about.
00:54:09.000 That these people had found out that cows grow mushrooms on their shit.
00:54:13.000 And that they weren't able to differentiate between...
00:54:16.000 They thought it was coming out of the cow's body.
00:54:19.000 The cow would shit it out and they didn't understand spores so they thought it was inside the cow and it would grow in the shed and that was your portal to God.
00:54:27.000 Wow.
00:54:27.000 But you rarely hear that disgust.
00:54:29.000 I mean, you always hear it disgust in terms of like an agricultural resource, that that's why they worship the cows.
00:54:34.000 And you know, that just makes me think, it goes back to that, you know, and I'm somewhat of a very spiritual person and have a practice and all that kind of stuff.
00:54:42.000 But like, that just brings up the question to me is like, did we invent God as a result of those experiences?
00:54:49.000 Kind of like, this is a good Chris Ryan thing, if he was here, you know, kind of like in the hunter-gatherer kind of tribal...
00:54:56.000 You know, when we were just starting to learn to depict our experiences and talk about our experiences and creating like an oral history and sort of like the first kind of existential dilemmas and which many say came from, you know, psychedelic awareness from back in those days.
00:55:12.000 So is that what led to the creation of God?
00:55:16.000 To me, it doesn't make a difference being a believer of God.
00:55:19.000 I don't really care if it's real or myth or not.
00:55:22.000 It works for me.
00:55:24.000 It almost doesn't matter, right?
00:55:26.000 It doesn't matter.
00:55:27.000 If it benefits you to believe in it, it benefits you.
00:55:30.000 People ask me that all the time.
00:55:32.000 Like, oh my God, you actually believe in flying monkeys and a blue guy playing a flute in the fields?
00:55:38.000 I've seen flying monkeys.
00:55:39.000 Those people don't know shit.
00:55:41.000 Those people talking shit.
00:55:43.000 I've seen jokers giving me the finger.
00:55:45.000 They're spinning in geometric patterns that were infinite.
00:55:48.000 I've seen a lot of shit that's way more ridiculous than a guy with a harp.
00:55:51.000 And not only have you seen it and have I seen it, but I can tell everybody listening how to see it.
00:55:57.000 Yeah, you can see it.
00:55:59.000 If you have the courage and the substances, you can see it.
00:56:01.000 Yes, you can.
00:56:02.000 And it works on everybody.
00:56:03.000 Except, I think DMT apparently doesn't work on everybody.
00:56:06.000 There's like one out of a thousand where it literally doesn't do shit.
00:56:10.000 Oh, really?
00:56:10.000 Jamie doesn't get high off of edibles.
00:56:13.000 This fucking freak over here.
00:56:14.000 You give Jamie a super powerful edible and barely does a goddamn thing to him.
00:56:19.000 Yeah, it took like 1,200 milligrams before a concert and drove home two hours later.
00:56:25.000 Jesus, man.
00:56:27.000 Jesus, because the edibles today and my...
00:56:29.000 He's a freak!
00:56:30.000 It's a goddamn hellion!
00:56:31.000 Working the controls over there.
00:56:33.000 I mean, for the first time in my life, I feel like kind of finally like an old hippie.
00:56:37.000 Like, oh my god, the edibles when I was a kid.
00:56:40.000 It's just not like that today, man.
00:56:42.000 No.
00:56:42.000 That shit's insane.
00:56:43.000 These fucking things.
00:56:44.000 This is Jombo Spray.
00:56:47.000 I took 10 hits of this before, maybe 12, I forget, before a Sam Harris podcast.
00:56:53.000 I was skiing downhill straight.
00:56:58.000 I wasn't crashing, but I was figuring out how to barely stay up the entire conversation.
00:57:04.000 I'm like, what in the fuck have I done?
00:57:06.000 I was so high.
00:57:07.000 It was probably as high as I've ever been in my life.
00:57:10.000 Was that the last Sam Harris podcast?
00:57:11.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:57:12.000 The long one, yeah.
00:57:12.000 But Sam is a perfect guy to be that baked with, because all you have to do is just wind him up and say something, and he's so eloquent that he can just continue to go on these amazing, as long as you can just keep up with what he's saying, so you have good questions.
00:57:25.000 He is.
00:57:26.000 But I, and that's all due respect to Sam, and I do think he is smarter than me in terms of IQ, but I do think he uses that intelligence to kind of shuck and jive you a little bit.
00:57:36.000 Shuck and jive how so?
00:57:37.000 Well, I'm not like...
00:57:39.000 I mean, he's so smart and so articulate and obviously brilliant.
00:57:43.000 And I have mad respect for him, but I just don't think he's right.
00:57:47.000 About what?
00:57:48.000 Well, let's take Islam, for example.
00:57:50.000 I mean, there's just so many things, but I mean...
00:57:53.000 Islam and the right to prepare for violence and self-defense.
00:58:01.000 I don't really agree with that philosophy.
00:58:05.000 I don't agree with it because I think it just invites the consciousness into your head to where you are going to have to use it.
00:58:14.000 That's interesting.
00:58:15.000 The idea that self-defense and preparing for something sets up the stage to make something happen.
00:58:23.000 Different than, say, getting in the octagon and the MMA stuff.
00:58:27.000 Well, that's a competition thing.
00:58:29.000 That's a competition, yeah.
00:58:30.000 But you think maybe a guy walks around with a gun and a knife and a bulletproof vest.
00:58:35.000 I think it invites the consciousness into the atmosphere and it creates the energetic cycle of having to use that.
00:58:42.000 And then Sam kind of throws out those statistics that, well...
00:58:45.000 It's about the same odds as having a car crash as you are going to experience some kind of act of violence in your life where you will need to learn how to, I don't know, do something, self-defend yourself.
00:58:58.000 And I just, I don't...
00:59:00.000 Maybe you can throw out that math to me, and I think it depends on certain socioeconomic conditions, but I just don't think that's true.
00:59:06.000 I just don't want that consciousness in my life, and I don't think we need to dissolve that consciousness.
00:59:14.000 Well, I certainly think you're free to not have those thoughts in your head and to choose to take the path of love and acceptance and just passivity and move through this life, but...
00:59:25.000 The reality of human beings is, like, I've been, unfortunately, watching some videos online.
00:59:31.000 I watched this video today of a guy kicking some lady down the stairs for no reason.
00:59:35.000 He was behind her, and then they're looking out for her.
00:59:37.000 They're trying to find him in the UK. They've got photos of him.
00:59:40.000 But he just, she was walking in front of him, don't go on the stairs, and he walked up behind her, and just a random person kicked her down this flight of stairs, and she's horribly injured.
00:59:51.000 And I've seen a bunch of those and things do happen.
00:59:55.000 You can run into the wrong people.
00:59:56.000 Yes, they do.
00:59:57.000 They do.
00:59:58.000 Have you, you know, Steven Pinker, Pebbles, Angels.
01:00:00.000 Sure.
01:00:01.000 Yeah.
01:00:01.000 Right.
01:00:01.000 You know, we are, and yes, those things happen and look around the world today and flip on the news and it's highly disturbing, but we are living in the most It was a peaceful time of our existence.
01:00:12.000 If you were a 30-year-old man in the year 1500, the highest cause of death was not disease or infection.
01:00:19.000 It was an act of violence.
01:00:21.000 You were going to be raping and pillaging, and you just had to defend your food supply for crying out loud.
01:00:27.000 And we have come to some kind of understanding, some kind of collective consciousness that has morphed itself together in the form of cooperation.
01:00:36.000 We have to share, and there's so many of us now, and it's getting more of us, the pen is getting smaller, we have to cooperate.
01:00:43.000 I agree with you, but what do you do with those guys that kick women down flights of stairs like that?
01:00:47.000 Um, you, I mean, I guess there is some sort of form of, um, you know, I guess punishment and we do have a, we live in a society where law and order is maybe a necessary evil.
01:01:02.000 And I, I, you know, and I've, Sure, there's some kind of, like, incarceration, but ultimately, you know, you gotta love them.
01:01:09.000 You gotta have compassion for them, and you gotta just teach them with compassion that their action was wrong.
01:01:15.000 Don't kick the lady down the stairs, man.
01:01:17.000 Here's why you shouldn't do that, and I love you, and it's gonna be okay.
01:01:20.000 People right now are up in arms and wanna kick your ass.
01:01:23.000 That's cool.
01:01:23.000 Bring it.
01:01:23.000 There's a bunch of people right now in Nebraska that are like, this fuckin' hippie!
01:01:27.000 Fuckin' Tim Leary's fuckin' hippie.
01:01:28.000 Fuckin' Leary's kid, this pussy!
01:01:30.000 Kick his ass!
01:01:32.000 Kick his ass, sea bass!
01:01:34.000 But, you know, on a different, you know...
01:01:38.000 It's a beautiful thought.
01:01:40.000 It is.
01:01:41.000 It's Gandhi.
01:01:42.000 There's some people that you can run into, though, unfortunately.
01:01:45.000 You're better off...
01:01:46.000 It's like that expression about having a gun.
01:01:48.000 You're better off having it and not needing it than needing it and not having it.
01:01:53.000 Yeah, I don't agree.
01:01:54.000 I get it.
01:01:55.000 I get it.
01:01:56.000 And I understand the argument.
01:01:57.000 I just don't agree.
01:01:58.000 Do you know about that guy who was...
01:01:59.000 Was it in...
01:02:02.000 I think it was in Minnesota.
01:02:03.000 He was running around stabbing people.
01:02:04.000 And then some guy who was a concealed carry permit holder pulled out his gun, shot the guy, and killed him.
01:02:10.000 And it was one of those things that people point to.
01:02:13.000 Like, hey, this guy was a competition shooter, concealed carry permit, and he saved people's lives because this guy was killing a bunch of people.
01:02:20.000 Yeah, but those case studies, compared to the case studies that go wrong, I don't know what they are.
01:02:25.000 I don't have the metrics, but I bet they're, what, 10 to 1, 20 to 1?
01:02:29.000 Yeah.
01:02:29.000 Sure, because it's way easier to get a gun, just to go and get a gun, than it is to become a competitive shooter.
01:02:36.000 Like, what that guy was, was the rarest of the rare.
01:02:39.000 Someone who's not just competent with a firearm, but an expert level.
01:02:42.000 Here he is.
01:02:43.000 Man who shot Crossroads Mall terrorists is USPSA competitor, three-gun shooter.
01:02:49.000 Yeah, so this guy is just a badass gun carrier.
01:02:52.000 And that's fine, but that is the rarest exception.
01:02:56.000 Right.
01:02:56.000 I'm positive of it.
01:02:57.000 Right, but it is real, right?
01:02:58.000 Sure.
01:02:59.000 It's real.
01:03:00.000 It can happen.
01:03:01.000 So he was right.
01:03:02.000 So his thought was one day if I am carrying a gun, I'll be able to save people's lives.
01:03:08.000 That's fine.
01:03:10.000 And protect myself.
01:03:11.000 Okay, I get that.
01:03:11.000 But the hundreds of others that go along that are just somehow there's so many loopholes in the system of crazy people who get guns and go to Sandy Hook.
01:03:22.000 Well, that's a terrible example.
01:03:24.000 It's not worth it.
01:03:25.000 And those are illegally acquired guns.
01:03:27.000 That's a gun that was acquired by a person who was mentally ill and his parents didn't protect the guns.
01:03:33.000 Yeah, that's a different story, but yeah, you're right.
01:03:35.000 I just think that the risk versus reward, it's just far too unbalanced.
01:03:41.000 Well, it's definitely...
01:03:43.000 The ability to just shoot someone and kill someone by pulling that little tiny muscle on your finger is kind of crazy.
01:03:48.000 I mean, the amount of power that you have in doing so...
01:03:52.000 It's a glitch in the matrix.
01:03:54.000 I mean, I hate using matrix analogies, but it is.
01:03:56.000 It's a glitch in the matrix, man.
01:03:58.000 And it just plays into kind of every fallacy of the human condition, you know?
01:04:03.000 And it's like, how did we let that happen?
01:04:06.000 How did we make it so easy to take someone else's life?
01:04:09.000 So if I make Zach Leary the President of the United States, does Zach Leary say no more military?
01:04:17.000 Does Zach Leary say police officers can't have guns, we all need love, everybody gets their guns taken away?
01:04:23.000 How do you deal with everything?
01:04:24.000 Yeah, I mean, and it's not something that you can just do.
01:04:28.000 Yeah, it's not something you can just do overnight.
01:04:30.000 I'm not naive enough or stoned enough or meditate enough to think that that is- Maybe we should get high.
01:04:37.000 I mean, rethink it.
01:04:39.000 Think about it in a different way.
01:04:40.000 And there are already 300 million guns in America.
01:04:44.000 I think there's more.
01:04:45.000 I think there are more guns in America than there are human beings.
01:04:48.000 And here's what's crazy.
01:04:50.000 It's not like we're like, well, we're good.
01:04:52.000 No, we're fucking making guns like crazy.
01:04:54.000 People are, as we're sitting here, they're chonk chonk chonk chonk chonk.
01:04:58.000 Machines are churning out guns.
01:05:00.000 But yes, exactly.
01:05:01.000 Who becomes president?
01:05:02.000 I know it's highly unpopular and people will get pissed at me, but we stop the sale of all unless you have very specific kind of UK style hunting exceptions.
01:05:13.000 Hmm.
01:05:14.000 Do you eat meat?
01:05:15.000 I do.
01:05:15.000 You do?
01:05:16.000 I do.
01:05:17.000 I didn't for a while, but I do again.
01:05:19.000 Why'd you start again?
01:05:21.000 Um, I got sick, um, not from not eating meat.
01:05:24.000 I just, um, I had this terrible flu and it was just really, really sick and just like, you know, not a cold.
01:05:29.000 I mean, it was like, uh, terrible flu.
01:05:32.000 And all I could think about was I wanted a turkey sandwich.
01:05:35.000 Whoa.
01:05:36.000 Fuck turkeys, huh?
01:05:37.000 And I was like, fuck it.
01:05:39.000 And I had a turkey sandwich and I felt better and I never went back.
01:05:42.000 Wow.
01:05:44.000 Eat everything?
01:05:45.000 Burgers?
01:05:45.000 Everything?
01:05:46.000 The whole deal?
01:05:46.000 Yeah, I kind of do.
01:05:47.000 Do you eat factory farmed food?
01:05:50.000 I really, really, really, really try not to.
01:05:54.000 But you do?
01:05:55.000 I do.
01:05:56.000 I mean, I can't say that I don't, but I don't, I mean, in the most dire emergency.
01:06:00.000 I give you super hungry?
01:06:02.000 If I'm super hungry, you know where I do?
01:06:04.000 You sound like you're dying, right?
01:06:04.000 You know where I do?
01:06:06.000 It's kind of a loose way in the airport.
01:06:10.000 Ah, the goddamn airport.
01:06:12.000 Yeah, I'm in the airport and I'm just like, whatever.
01:06:14.000 I always get to the airport way too early because I just like being in the airport early.
01:06:18.000 I like to be in that, it's like a neutral zone between there and here.
01:06:23.000 I love hanging out in the airport.
01:06:25.000 And I get there, I'm hungry, and I'm just, I give in.
01:06:28.000 I'm like, fuck, man.
01:06:29.000 I used to fuck up at the airport all the time with blueberry muffins and chocolate croissants.
01:06:33.000 That was my shit.
01:06:35.000 Yeah, I'm a sucker for the Egg McMuffin.
01:06:38.000 Those are good too.
01:06:39.000 Sadly.
01:06:39.000 Those are good.
01:06:40.000 They taste good.
01:06:41.000 It's not the worst thing in the world for you, quite honestly.
01:06:43.000 No, it's not.
01:06:44.000 Except for the ham.
01:06:45.000 It's definitely factory farm.
01:06:47.000 Yeah, it's not the worst thing in the world for you, but McDonald's is the devil.
01:06:50.000 But what am I going to do?
01:06:52.000 I do the best I can.
01:06:54.000 I really do.
01:06:56.000 Yeah, it's a weird world.
01:06:57.000 Well, a lot of vegans would disagree with that.
01:06:59.000 They would say, well, you're definitely not doing the best you can if you're out there eating egg muffins.
01:07:03.000 That's true.
01:07:03.000 That's not the best you can.
01:07:04.000 That's true.
01:07:04.000 Fair enough.
01:07:06.000 Oh, God, no.
01:07:07.000 Vegans and I argue a lot.
01:07:09.000 Do they?
01:07:10.000 Do you?
01:07:10.000 Yeah, I argue with vegans a lot.
01:07:12.000 What do you argue about?
01:07:13.000 On the social media.
01:07:15.000 Well, and it's weird because kind of philosophically, I'm on their side.
01:07:21.000 I'm with you.
01:07:22.000 Philosophically, but not in practice.
01:07:26.000 I'm not quite ready for that.
01:07:29.000 I am where I am.
01:07:30.000 But what I argue with them about is, and it's a constant social media argument, is that we are omnivores.
01:07:38.000 We are.
01:07:39.000 Yeah, we definitely are omnivores.
01:07:40.000 We eat what's around us.
01:07:41.000 We always have.
01:07:42.000 There's a way that you can eat cruelty-free meat, but there's not a way where you could have cruelty-free mass consumption.
01:07:49.000 The real problem is cities.
01:07:53.000 Unless you have a co-op where you guys are growing your own eggs.
01:07:55.000 What was the second part?
01:07:57.000 Sorry, I didn't understand.
01:07:59.000 You can eat cruelty-free, but you can't what?
01:08:01.000 In a mass consumption environment, like 7 million people living in Manhattan.
01:08:06.000 Good luck getting cruelty-free meat to all 7 million people inside that area.
01:08:12.000 You have to bring it.
01:08:14.000 What we've done...
01:08:16.000 Over the last 150 years is move completely away from agriculture in these cities and drive things in in trucks.
01:08:25.000 Have you ever seen some of the old models of the way when they were planting cities like in the early 1800s when they were designing New York and a couple other cities?
01:08:34.000 They had set up areas for agriculture, areas for livestock, and they had them in cities.
01:08:41.000 And so they didn't have this notion that we have now that everything would be driven in in trucks because they didn't have trucks.
01:08:48.000 So when they had cities in the 1700s and later, there was no way to get all that food to millions and millions of people.
01:08:57.000 So they literally had to grow stuff in cities, which is a way better way to do it.
01:09:01.000 Yeah, and Michael Pollan, if you've read any of his stuff, he's great.
01:09:07.000 He's also getting into psychedelics now, which is pretty cool.
01:09:10.000 Just recently?
01:09:11.000 Yeah.
01:09:12.000 Really?
01:09:12.000 He's doing some really interesting research.
01:09:14.000 Who's a wonderful person who popped him into the Matrix?
01:09:16.000 I don't know, but I'm in touch with him and going to do a podcast with him.
01:09:20.000 Oh, that's great.
01:09:20.000 I'll figure it out.
01:09:21.000 But, yeah, I mean, his whole kind of, you know, in The Omnivore's Dilemma and some of those other books, like the biggest problem with our food supply is that we have lost our connection to how food got there up until 100, maybe 120, at the turn of the century,
01:09:37.000 the 19th and the 20th century.
01:09:39.000 Everybody had a relationship with their food.
01:09:42.000 They knew you went to the produce person.
01:09:45.000 It didn't come on a shelf in a box.
01:09:47.000 You knew where it was sourced.
01:09:49.000 And if you ate meat, you saw the bloodiness and you just saw, even if you didn't kill it and slaughter it and butcher it, you knew.
01:09:58.000 You know, it wasn't this pre-packaged thing that just comes from magic, the bacon fairy, you know?
01:10:03.000 Right.
01:10:03.000 And that's our problem, right?
01:10:05.000 Food comes from a shelf.
01:10:06.000 Nobody understands.
01:10:07.000 I think there's a giant disconnect.
01:10:09.000 And it's so many people.
01:10:11.000 The problem is, like, it used to be that a few people were disconnected and most people were connected.
01:10:16.000 And now it's completely turned on its head.
01:10:19.000 And when you have 20 million people in Los Angeles, and what percentage of the 20 million people in Los Angeles acquire their own food from either growing plants or hunting their food?
01:10:29.000 Like no one.
01:10:30.000 Almost none.
01:10:30.000 Like 0.111, whatever.
01:10:32.000 It's kind of crazy when you consider that it's an essential part of being a person is consuming food.
01:10:40.000 There's also this beautiful feeling that you get, and vegans have this feeling as well, when you grow your own food.
01:10:48.000 And you grow food in a garden, and you pick your salad, and you cut up your cucumbers.
01:10:54.000 This all came from the ground right out there.
01:10:57.000 Really interesting article that was written by a vegan that was essentially saying there are no vegetarians and that the only way is like it is actually impossible to be a vegetarian.
01:11:09.000 Not meaning that it's impossible for you to live and eat vegetables, but those vegetables need dead animals in order to be alive and that animals are consumed by plants and that is what fertilizer is all about and whether or not it's...
01:11:24.000 I thought fertilizer was just the poop.
01:11:25.000 No, no, no.
01:11:27.000 A lot of it is actual decaying matter, in order to be healthy in particular.
01:11:33.000 What we're doing most of it, you know about Fritz Haber?
01:11:36.000 Do you know what the Haber method is?
01:11:37.000 I don't, no.
01:11:38.000 During World War I, there was this German scientist named Fritz Haber, and he came up with the Haber method of extracting nitrogen from the air.
01:11:46.000 Most people think of the air as being oxygen, right?
01:11:49.000 But air is 78%, I think, nitrogen.
01:11:52.000 Right.
01:11:53.000 And you can extract that nitrogen from the air and use it as fertilizer.
01:11:58.000 And so, because of Fritz Haber, they have been able to extract this nitrogen and use it to fertilize plants.
01:12:05.000 Because before, they'd use like emulsified fish and, you know, fish was like a big one, like dead fish and fish bones and things along those lines.
01:12:14.000 Because that is, when it decays and breaks down, that is the food for these plants.
01:12:20.000 Okay, so what would a vegan...
01:12:24.000 Why would the vegans oppose this in the sense that like...
01:12:28.000 I don't think they're opposing it.
01:12:29.000 They're not?
01:12:30.000 Okay.
01:12:30.000 No, I think it's just what he wrote it.
01:12:32.000 The guy who wrote it was a vegan.
01:12:34.000 But essentially he was saying that there's this massive cycle of life and even pointed to Michael Pollan's work because Pollan has written about the emerging science of sentient plant life.
01:12:47.000 And that he believes that what's going on with plants is very similar to what's going on with, like, maybe our understanding of a lot of different things.
01:12:58.000 It's like as our understanding expands, we have to sort of reclassify what we think those things are.
01:13:05.000 Like, for the longest time, they thought that fish couldn't feel pain.
01:13:09.000 And that was, oh, don't worry about it.
01:13:10.000 Fish can't feel pain.
01:13:11.000 And now they're saying, well...
01:13:13.000 We're pretty sure they can.
01:13:15.000 We have a different understanding of what pain is to them.
01:13:19.000 It might be a different sensation, but there's very clearly some alarms that are going off.
01:13:24.000 There's very clearly some sort of a reaction.
01:13:26.000 That same can be pointed out for plants.
01:13:29.000 Like plants, not only do they have a reaction, but plants, when you play the sound of caterpillars chewing leaves, certain plants, like the acacia tree, has the ability, when it hears Leaves being chewed.
01:13:43.000 It changes the taste of the leaves.
01:13:45.000 It extracts some sort of a chemical.
01:13:47.000 And that chemical does something to the taste of the plants that makes them so inedible that some animals have starved to death because upwind, There were animals that were chewing plants.
01:14:00.000 That sound came downwind through either smell or some sort of a communication thing that's going on with the mycelium and with the root structure.
01:14:10.000 And the plants downwind had changed their taste and the animals wouldn't eat them anymore and they were starving.
01:14:16.000 Wow, that's far out, man.
01:14:18.000 That just kind of makes me think like what's going to be the next sort of like We have to make peace with that everything needs everything else in order to make it.
01:14:40.000 Well, I think it's like a suffering and a respect thing, right?
01:14:45.000 Yes.
01:14:45.000 And then you also have to consider if plants are sentient life forms, how fucked up is it to have these gigantic, large-scale agricultural setups where you are completely unnaturally changing the landscape in order to grow corn or in order to grow...
01:15:02.000 Lettuce or strawberries like that is not normal like it's not normal to have 7,000 acres of corn right like in just corn all in a neat row that you could see from space and it's and it's destroying the soil too yeah it's completely destroying the soil but like with this idea of like having you said respect And pain,
01:15:23.000 kind of getting into that idea, like, do you think, and my opinion is results may vary and I'm not so sure, but if everybody had the data and saw the data about factory farming, for instance, that they would change and thus act accordingly and not eat that shit anymore?
01:15:42.000 Definitely not everybody.
01:15:43.000 Some people don't give a fuck.
01:15:44.000 I think some people just don't give a fuck.
01:15:46.000 And those Gordon Gekko type dudes, the slick back hair, they're like, fuck it, I'm here to win.
01:15:50.000 Give me that burger.
01:15:51.000 Well, I mean, I've thought about myself.
01:15:53.000 I mean, I've seen every one of those movies.
01:15:55.000 I've read every book, you know.
01:15:57.000 It didn't work.
01:15:58.000 I make my muffin from time to time, and I'm like, what is wrong with me?
01:16:02.000 Like, is there something?
01:16:03.000 Am I a sociopath?
01:16:04.000 What's this easy to do?
01:16:05.000 What is that?
01:16:06.000 Because it's easy to do.
01:16:07.000 If somebody said, oh, you're hungry?
01:16:08.000 Why don't you shoot that pig in the head and cut off a leg and throw it on the smoker?
01:16:13.000 Well, then you would have a real issue.
01:16:15.000 You'd be like, I don't want to do that.
01:16:16.000 Oh, okay.
01:16:16.000 Well, why don't you pull those beats out of the ground?
01:16:18.000 Well, if you put on these headphones, you can hear the beats scream for their parents.
01:16:22.000 Like, oh, fuck.
01:16:23.000 Oh, fuck.
01:16:24.000 I mean, I don't know.
01:16:26.000 I don't know.
01:16:27.000 I don't think anybody knows.
01:16:29.000 There's just something about plausible deniability that's kind of hardwired into us in all aspects of our life, not just food, but war and politics and money and greed and oil and everything that's what it takes to get oil to this damn country and everything that goes on to fill up our car.
01:16:43.000 You know what I mean?
01:16:45.000 Plausible deniability is definitely a way to look at it.
01:16:47.000 Yeah.
01:16:47.000 The extreme ability to detach ourselves from the consequences of our actions, you know, because it's convenient in the moment.
01:16:54.000 That's right.
01:16:55.000 Yeah.
01:16:55.000 And convenient in the moment to just buy that quarter pound or cheese, not think about it that it's a ground animal burger.
01:17:03.000 That's right.
01:17:04.000 Yeah.
01:17:04.000 And, you know, it's only going to cost me two bucks.
01:17:08.000 Yeah, and you get it like that, which is kind of crazy.
01:17:10.000 I mean, it really is amazing.
01:17:13.000 If it wasn't connected to such horrific crimes against nature, it's amazing.
01:17:18.000 It's amazing.
01:17:18.000 That you could just go.
01:17:19.000 I mean, what an incredible system they've developed.
01:17:22.000 And outside of food, just what, you know, the economic factors for how convenience equals pleasure equals, like, an economic value that is usually low, how that has all sort of worked together to kind of create this system that we're living in now.
01:17:38.000 Again, this plausible deniability kind of hardwired thing to ignore it.
01:17:43.000 Walmart's a great example.
01:17:45.000 I mean, you know, there's sort of this disenfranchised middle of the country, you know, and they did lose their jobs, and that area of the country is decimated.
01:17:53.000 But they all shop at Walmart.
01:17:55.000 And that's part of what the problem is.
01:17:59.000 But it's cheap.
01:18:00.000 It's convenient.
01:18:01.000 You're still going.
01:18:02.000 And it's like, well, what's it going to be?
01:18:05.000 Pick a horse.
01:18:06.000 It's hard.
01:18:06.000 What's interesting is that this is all really recent, right?
01:18:08.000 I mean, this is all from the Industrial Revolution on.
01:18:11.000 This is all this last couple of hundred years of civilization where we've sort of entered into this wage existence, you know, where people are...
01:18:24.000 Living this way and buying this horrible fucking factory produced food.
01:18:28.000 And even more recent, I mean, yes, it all can be traced back to post-industrial revolution stuff, but even just like the massive hyper-consumerism, that's only really taken off since the mid-90s.
01:18:41.000 Yeah.
01:18:42.000 Yeah.
01:18:43.000 There's a cool little movie out called The Minimalists.
01:18:46.000 I mean, after a while, I kind of, you know, I got it and I didn't finish the whole thing.
01:18:50.000 But the first hour is fascinating.
01:18:52.000 It's about these guys.
01:18:53.000 They wrote a book called The Minimalists and about, you know, they were all kind of corporate ladder kind of American successful guys and just consuming, consuming, buying shit, buying shit, buying shit.
01:19:02.000 And all of a sudden, they just kind of had the kind of big kind of cliched awakening, like, oh, my God, maybe I don't need all this shit.
01:19:07.000 But the data that they present from what's happened in the mid-90s on, sort of as a result of the internet boom with instant gratification, one-click shopping, and disassociation of just the accumulation of stuff.
01:19:21.000 And we live in bigger houses now than we've ever lived, square footage-wise.
01:19:28.000 They've never been so big before.
01:19:30.000 And yet, you know, they've put all these heat maps on.
01:19:34.000 They did the study where they put heat maps on these homes to see where people were living in the homes, hanging out.
01:19:39.000 And like the average family in like their huge kind of McMansion or something only uses like 40% of the house.
01:19:46.000 Yeah, that makes sense.
01:19:47.000 And also has a self-storage unit to go with it somewhere else.
01:19:50.000 You know, it's just this endless kind of relationship we have with it.
01:19:54.000 I watched Hoarders the other night.
01:19:56.000 Oh, my.
01:19:57.000 And there was some dude who bought two houses next to his house because he had so much shit that he had to move the shit to other houses.
01:20:06.000 It was fucking crazy.
01:20:07.000 Hoarders is gnarly.
01:20:09.000 But this is a weird hoarder because it was a guy who had some money.
01:20:12.000 Yeah, he bought two houses.
01:20:14.000 Yeah, it wasn't like a hoarder like some poor person that was going to yard sales and buying used clothes and then putting them in bags in their house and stacking them up to the ceiling with newspapers and stuff.
01:20:23.000 This was a guy who had all these collectibles, and he was a neurosurgeon, which is really, really interesting.
01:20:29.000 Interesting.
01:20:30.000 Yeah, and he lives in Vegas, and he wanted to be known for his collection.
01:20:34.000 He had crazy stuff.
01:20:36.000 Yeah, what's he into?
01:20:37.000 He had a lot of space memorabilia.
01:20:39.000 He had a scale model of one of the Challengers, or one of the space shuttles rather.
01:20:46.000 He had one of the test lunar modules that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong apparently had used in testing and in preparation for the Apollo missions.
01:21:00.000 He had a bunch of crazy shit all over his house.
01:21:03.000 Three houses fill this stuff, the courtyards and all around his pool was stacked up with shit.
01:21:09.000 Oh, man.
01:21:10.000 That's so insane.
01:21:11.000 It's just, you know, escapism.
01:21:14.000 This need to sort of like pacify our existence here.
01:21:18.000 I just, you know, as we kind of evolve and kind of grow into the future, it just seems like so few people can truly...
01:21:25.000 Be comfortable in their own skin and just be and be present and be comfortable and content, contentness.
01:21:31.000 We're constantly inventing new ways to escape, to disassociate, to get out of the moment.
01:21:37.000 What do you think that is?
01:21:38.000 What do you think is so compelling to us about the constant accumulation of material possessions?
01:21:45.000 This whole greed is good sort of mentality and moving up the corporate ladder without any sort of appreciation or acceptance in the fact that we're these finite life forms clinging to a spinning orb hurling through infinity.
01:21:58.000 All those inevitable and inescapable realities I mean, we look at them every day.
01:22:04.000 We look up.
01:22:05.000 I mean, that is undeniable that you are looking up as you leave your house and get to your car.
01:22:10.000 You have infinity above your head.
01:22:12.000 And you don't look at it.
01:22:14.000 I mean, what's going on with us?
01:22:17.000 I think...
01:22:20.000 We're born, this thing that we've kind of created, this construct that we call society, we're automatically born into a bad hand.
01:22:30.000 And I think it's completely bogus.
01:22:32.000 You're dealt a bad hand at birth.
01:22:34.000 It doesn't even matter if you're born into privilege.
01:22:37.000 I mean, sure, that's great if you're born into privilege versus the slums of Mumbai.
01:22:40.000 That's definitely better.
01:22:41.000 Yeah, that's definitely better.
01:22:42.000 I mean, of course, I'm not gonna...
01:22:43.000 If you're balling in Beverly Hills, that's way better than Liberia.
01:22:47.000 Yeah, I mean, or Syria.
01:22:49.000 You got a Bentley convertible?
01:22:50.000 Dude, you're doing way better than someone in Zaire with no feet.
01:22:54.000 No question.
01:22:55.000 But, like, you know, you're dealt this bad hand of, like, you know, being alive is hard.
01:23:01.000 Right.
01:23:02.000 You know, you're born, you're going to go into this building from ages, what, when do you go to school?
01:23:08.000 Ages four?
01:23:09.000 Is that about right?
01:23:09.000 Some people go to preschool at four, kindergarten is five, first grade six.
01:23:14.000 From four to 18, you're going to go into this big cement building to be taught these certain subjects in this certain order, and then you're going to leave that cement building and go into another one that's even more expensive.
01:23:24.000 And then you're going to leave that and you're going to get some kind of employment thing, which exists pretty much from nine to five for most people, unless you're fortunate or clever enough to kind of exist outside of that framework and create your own reality.
01:23:37.000 But most people are going to work some kind of structured life.
01:23:41.000 And I just, I think it's hard.
01:23:43.000 I think it's just hard to be alive.
01:23:47.000 It definitely is.
01:23:48.000 Well, it's not harder than it's ever been.
01:23:50.000 It's easier than it's ever been, right?
01:23:51.000 I mean, it's more safe than it's ever been.
01:23:55.000 Safer, more access to information than ever before.
01:23:59.000 Yes, but you know why I think it is, in some aspects, it's harder?
01:24:02.000 Because, well, yeah, I don't know if that's true, because back in the olden times, you did have to, you know, kind of compete against each other for survival.
01:24:10.000 But I think it could be argued that it's harder because this constant sort of, you know, onslaught of media and comparing ourselves to each other and to feel insecure if you don't look like that, if you don't look like this, if you don't have that, something's wrong with you if you can't afford to buy that.
01:24:28.000 You're not doing well.
01:24:30.000 You're fucking up, man, if you can't afford to buy that.
01:24:32.000 Or if you don't look like that, oh my God, I'm sorry.
01:24:35.000 Nobody's ever going to want to fuck you.
01:24:36.000 That's really sad.
01:24:37.000 No one's going to want to fuck you if you don't have the stuff.
01:24:39.000 That's awful.
01:24:40.000 You have to have all the stuff.
01:24:41.000 You've got to have all the stuff.
01:24:42.000 And it's a terrible thing to say, to teach our children, you know?
01:24:46.000 So I think it's hard to be alive.
01:24:48.000 It is in a sense.
01:24:49.000 It's very tricky.
01:24:50.000 And it's also, I think, we are being raised by babies.
01:24:54.000 I really do think that.
01:24:56.000 What do you mean?
01:24:57.000 Well, I have children and I kind of get it now in a sense that before I had children, I used to think of people as being sort of static.
01:25:05.000 Obviously, I was younger.
01:25:08.000 Especially when you're really young, when you're like 20 or something like that, you don't really...
01:25:12.000 Take into consideration that the people around you used to be your age.
01:25:15.000 You kind of know it in an abstract sort of a sense.
01:25:18.000 But once you actually have a baby, and then like five years later the baby's talking to you and you're having conversations, you're like, oh, you're fucking learning shit now.
01:25:26.000 And then ten years later the baby's in high school and you're like, oh, Jesus Christ, you're almost a man.
01:25:30.000 And then you realize that, oh, we're all babies who had babies.
01:25:35.000 And you raise those babies and then they become adults and have babies of their own.
01:25:39.000 But there are no grown-ups.
01:25:41.000 It's bullshit.
01:25:42.000 It doesn't exist.
01:25:43.000 Like when you're a kid and you're sad, you go, oh, one day I'm going to be a grown-up and all this is going to make sense.
01:25:49.000 But that day never comes.
01:25:51.000 You get older, but you're a baby still.
01:25:54.000 You're just an old baby.
01:25:56.000 You're an old baby with a car and fucking credit card debt.
01:25:59.000 And then you have a baby, and then that baby grows up.
01:26:02.000 Well, I'm smarter than my dad.
01:26:03.000 He's a fucking idiot.
01:26:05.000 And it's like, you know, my dad didn't know shit.
01:26:07.000 He didn't even have the internet.
01:26:09.000 It's so funny.
01:26:09.000 And, you know, I think that's, and I'm not the first to say it, but that's such a huge thing with Trump.
01:26:15.000 He acts like a seven-year-old.
01:26:17.000 Yeah.
01:26:17.000 It's like, what does a seven-year-old do?
01:26:19.000 Like, you get your mug, Rogan.
01:26:20.000 You know, you write your name all over fucking everything.
01:26:23.000 That's so true!
01:26:25.000 I know.
01:26:25.000 That's so true.
01:26:26.000 He puts his fucking name on everything.
01:26:28.000 He's probably got it on his socks and his underwear on the band.
01:26:31.000 It probably says Trump.
01:26:32.000 Oh my God, right.
01:26:33.000 Name my Trump underwear.
01:26:34.000 Have you ever stayed at a Trump hotel?
01:26:36.000 Yes.
01:26:36.000 Yeah, I did in New York, and you know the toilet paper, like the little sticker they put on?
01:26:42.000 It's in a Trump insignia, but on the damn toilet paper.
01:26:45.000 Right, but it is called the Trump Hotel.
01:26:46.000 I mean, if you go to the Renaissance, it says Renaissance on the underwear too.
01:26:50.000 But it's much more ironic, though, with the Trump thing.
01:26:52.000 It's weird because it's a guy's name who's alive and now happens to be president.
01:26:57.000 Well, and he says it's a symbol of quality around the world or whatever that you see that.
01:27:02.000 Trump card.
01:27:03.000 Trump card.
01:27:03.000 But I think it's bullshit.
01:27:04.000 I think he's just a seven-year-old who likes to write his name on all his shit.
01:27:07.000 Well, the evidence is in how he tweets to people, you know, and he gets mad and tweets about shit and responds to people and argues with people.
01:27:16.000 You tweet on him?
01:27:17.000 No, no.
01:27:19.000 I hardly tweeted anybody.
01:27:22.000 You don't get into that shit?
01:27:23.000 I definitely don't get into those kind of tweet battles on the internet, but I just think...
01:27:30.000 As I've gotten older and had some good experiences and bad experiences online Yeah, I've realized that you can like you were talking about like you go out and you seek Bad things if you have this in your mind that you're gonna go out and you're gonna be attacked So I'm gonna wear a gun I'm gonna have a knife and I'm gonna wear a bulletproof vest all these different things.
01:27:49.000 Yep You can also Seek negative interaction online you can go look for it when you find it you could react to it and that begets more of it and I think that you're far better off just Choosing the people that you interact with in actual real life and then when I look at things online I'm just observing I very rarely interact if I do it's a very friendly and I limit myself almost entirely to friendly interactions cool and anything that's negative I just You stay
01:28:19.000 away?
01:28:20.000 It's not worth it.
01:28:21.000 There's nothing to be gained.
01:28:22.000 If you get in an insult war with somebody and you make them feel bad, what do you get out of that?
01:28:27.000 Unless it's funny, what do you get out of that?
01:28:29.000 Unless it's tongue-in-cheek and everybody's having a good time?
01:28:32.000 Yeah.
01:28:32.000 And also, what you can do in 140 characters is absolutely ridiculous.
01:28:37.000 Ridiculous.
01:28:37.000 It's insane.
01:28:38.000 You can't get into a meaningful, thoughtful debate in 140 characters.
01:28:42.000 No, but people seek it out.
01:28:44.000 They seek these debates out, and they ask you, like, what they think are hard-hitting questions.
01:28:48.000 Like, go fuck yourself.
01:28:49.000 Get involved in this 140-character thing.
01:28:53.000 It's like, it's silly.
01:28:54.000 The reason I ask is, you know, Duncan's starting to kind of tweet at Trump a little bit.
01:28:59.000 Does he?
01:28:59.000 What does he say?
01:29:00.000 Just kind of wacky shit, like, tweets at him.
01:29:03.000 I'm going to be the minister of, you know, whatever.
01:29:08.000 We've got to find some of them.
01:29:09.000 They're kind of funny.
01:29:11.000 Because I think Trump Sometimes he does read his tweets.
01:29:14.000 Oh, he reads his tweets.
01:29:15.000 I think he's reading his tweets.
01:29:15.000 He reads his tweets.
01:29:17.000 Yeah.
01:29:17.000 He gets in there.
01:29:18.000 I guarantee you he gets in there.
01:29:19.000 You ever see the debate that he had back and forth with Jon Stewart?
01:29:22.000 Oh, yeah, of course.
01:29:24.000 I mean, that was fucking hilarious.
01:29:25.000 Jon Stewart has put it into his act now.
01:29:28.000 That's so funny.
01:29:30.000 He tweets him at 1.30 in the morning, little Jon Stewart is a pussy and would be hopeless in a debate with me.
01:29:35.000 Like, can you imagine that he actually did that?
01:29:38.000 This is the guy that's the president now.
01:29:39.000 So great.
01:29:40.000 But yeah, but I mean, it says so much about the personality of someone.
01:29:43.000 And I don't get in Twitter wars because I don't really tweet all that much, but I get in Facebook wars.
01:29:47.000 Do you?
01:29:48.000 You get in Facebook wars?
01:29:49.000 I do, and I'm just horribly impulsive about it.
01:29:51.000 Horribly impulsive to a fault.
01:29:53.000 Like what kind of stuff do you get involved?
01:29:54.000 You were saying you have issues with vegans.
01:29:57.000 Is that where you get into it?
01:29:58.000 Yeah, I mean, there's some vegan stuff.
01:30:00.000 I mean, a lot of politics stuff.
01:30:01.000 I mean, over the election cycle and I'm, you know, a little quick on the trigger to like, because, you know, with online and social media, it's just like you push a button and like, you know, calling people morons and stuff, although just far too quickly before taking a breath, stepping back and going, Maybe I shouldn't call you a moron.
01:30:17.000 That's probably not the best debate tactic.
01:30:20.000 Well, there's no benefit in it.
01:30:21.000 There's no benefit.
01:30:22.000 Even if you make them feel bad that they're a moron and you get your rocks off in some way.
01:30:26.000 And I've done it.
01:30:26.000 I absolutely have done it in the past.
01:30:28.000 But I try very hard not to engage in that kind of thinking anymore because I don't think...
01:30:33.000 All it does...
01:30:34.000 It's not going to help.
01:30:34.000 It also...
01:30:35.000 When you get into conflicts with people, negative conflicts create These centers of attention and those conflicts become these centers of attention and ultimately nothing happens in them.
01:30:47.000 They just sort of distract you like a little vortex of bullshit.
01:30:51.000 And I think and as I've gone older and started analyzing my own life and happiness and productivity and when I'm at my most creative, Is when I'm not engaging in any of that.
01:31:03.000 Like the least I am involved in the negativity and conflicts and debates and going back and forth and trying to make people feel bad and all that stupid shit that people get wrapped up in, you fucking idiot, you know, all that kind of stupid stuff.
01:31:16.000 The more, the least I do that, the more it frees up my resources and it frees up my mind.
01:31:22.000 And I don't have this like, I think anytime you get in conflict, Conflict with someone it creates like this negative center there's like like this this Vortex it's like weird area in your mind in your consciousness where that conflict exists It's on a shelf just stinking up the joint and I think the least amount of those that you have in your consciousness in your library of Memories the better off you are Yeah,
01:31:48.000 I tend to agree with that, and I tend to feel that, like, you know, especially, and it's for somebody of kind of my cloth, it's hyper hypocritical to, you know, attack somebody online, you know, over their political beliefs, for sure, you know, being a spiritual person.
01:32:04.000 But, you know, at the same time, like, especially now within the last year, this is a highly charged debate cycle, and I was, you know, convinced that, you know, how...
01:32:16.000 How could a cognitively adept human being justify voting for Donald Trump?
01:32:24.000 It just didn't make sense to me.
01:32:26.000 Well, how could one justify voting for Hillary, either?
01:32:30.000 Oh, I can make that.
01:32:31.000 Can you?
01:32:31.000 Absolutely.
01:32:32.000 Don't you think that there's a lot of issues involved with Hillary Clinton?
01:32:36.000 Hillary said in the WikiLeaks documents that she was against marijuana legalization in every sense of the word.
01:32:46.000 I'm not...
01:32:47.000 The Clinton Foundation.
01:32:49.000 I mean, there's a lot of things you could bring up.
01:32:51.000 I'm not a Clinton flag-waving kind of guy, but comparing the two.
01:33:00.000 To me, Hillary Clinton was just status quo.
01:33:06.000 Right, but isn't the status quo fucked up?
01:33:08.000 Yes, but the status quo is better than negative.
01:33:11.000 Right.
01:33:12.000 This is going to be negative progress.
01:33:13.000 This is negative.
01:33:15.000 How certain are you that it's going to be negative progress?
01:33:17.000 Absolutely certain.
01:33:18.000 I mean, the Supreme Court alone.
01:33:20.000 I mean, you know, Ginsburg made the fatal flaw of not retiring sooner.
01:33:25.000 So, I mean, she's, what, 180 years old?
01:33:28.000 How dare you?
01:33:29.000 There's already one vacancy there.
01:33:32.000 What if she's on her vitamins, man?
01:33:33.000 Just hang in there.
01:33:34.000 She's not going to make it.
01:33:35.000 And, you know, so Trump in one term could presumably have three appointees.
01:33:41.000 Right.
01:33:41.000 And that is negative progress.
01:33:43.000 But you know that he was a Democrat for almost all his life.
01:33:46.000 I know, but he's not now, man.
01:33:47.000 I mean, look, Steve Bannon and the CEO of Exxon, the CEO of Carl's Jr., Ben Carson being the HUD guy.
01:33:57.000 I mean, it's just absolute insanity.
01:34:01.000 Yeah, why didn't he make Ben Carson the attorney general, or rather the surgeon general?
01:34:07.000 I mean, why wouldn't he have him involved in something medical?
01:34:09.000 I mean, he's a very talented neurosurgeon.
01:34:11.000 Because he was the African-American guy who grew up on the projects, man, so he should run HUD. That was the argument.
01:34:18.000 Oh, okay.
01:34:19.000 Yeah, that was it.
01:34:20.000 Seems like he knows more about medicine, right?
01:34:23.000 That guy's a doctor.
01:34:25.000 He's a fucking medical expert.
01:34:28.000 And he's actually good at that.
01:34:29.000 Yeah, he's fucking amazing at it.
01:34:31.000 I mean, he's like one of the top neurosurgeons in the world.
01:34:34.000 Right.
01:34:34.000 So he grew up from the projects.
01:34:35.000 African-American guy grew up out of there.
01:34:37.000 So he must know about housing and urban development.
01:34:39.000 So it's just complete insanity to me.
01:34:42.000 And it is taking two, three steps backwards.
01:34:46.000 The only silver lining that you can weave from it.
01:34:49.000 And it is...
01:34:50.000 You know, it's a good thing to weave is that there is kind of a collective consolidation of solidarity, kind of like, hey, you know, we need to rise up, get our shit together, figure out how to articulate the opposite vision, and perhaps defeat this later on down the line.
01:35:07.000 And that's cool.
01:35:08.000 People are waking up and there's great conversations happening.
01:35:11.000 Well, I think there's an ebb and flow that always exists in cultures.
01:35:14.000 You know, there's a push left and a push right, and we try this for eight years, and then we go that way for eight years, and some of it's productive and some of it's very negative.
01:35:22.000 But even the negative, ultimately, it fosters resistance, and that resistance is oftentimes positive.
01:35:30.000 And even in resistance, there's a lot of understanding the consequences of negativity that maybe wasn't really Yes it was.
01:35:57.000 And then, of course, he's been one of the worst people in terms of freedom of press, in terms of whistleblowers.
01:36:03.000 He's been one of the worst administrations ever.
01:36:05.000 Guantanamo never closed.
01:36:06.000 Drones, yeah.
01:36:07.000 Drones?
01:36:08.000 The drone wars?
01:36:09.000 Yeah, all this stuff.
01:36:11.000 There's absolutely no doubt about it.
01:36:13.000 But, you know, with sort of, you know, the ebbs and flows of progress versus no progress, you know.
01:36:19.000 And in this instance, in this context, it's just how many people are going to get hurt as a result of it.
01:36:25.000 That's like...
01:36:27.000 That's what I don't like.
01:36:29.000 That's why it's not worth it.
01:36:30.000 The lack of perspective that I think we have collectively as a culture, what you were talking about, about these people living their lives solely intent on acquiring material possessions and status and all the nonsense that goes with it.
01:36:45.000 How much of that can be attributed to the relative lack of exposure to psychedelics collectively that we have?
01:36:53.000 If you looked at If you looked at the entire 300 million people, you know how they do that red map and you see how many people are Republicans and how many people are Democrats, and it looks like one of the Avatar people got hit by a train.
01:37:06.000 That's what it looks like, right?
01:37:08.000 They got splattered.
01:37:09.000 But when you look at that, if you had a similar map, In terms of like how many people have had what I would consider a breakthrough psychedelic experience.
01:37:19.000 I know some people that have done mushrooms and they did a little bit and they felt good and no big deal.
01:37:23.000 And I had done quite a few things before my first real DMT trip.
01:37:28.000 And the first real DMT trip was like, okay, everything else is bullshit.
01:37:34.000 Like, this is so awesome and so mind-blowing, and just knowing that that's a real place that anyone can get to, relatively easy.
01:37:44.000 Not only that, this is not a precious material.
01:37:47.000 This is a material that exists in thousands of different plants all over you, everywhere you go.
01:37:53.000 Drive down the street, you'll find a fucking hundred different kinds of plants that have DMT in it.
01:37:58.000 So, the DMT experience, to me, was a I would say, like, I'm really like two different people.
01:38:06.000 I'm the pre-DMT person and the post-DMT person.
01:38:09.000 I mean, I'm real similar.
01:38:10.000 I talk the same.
01:38:12.000 But the person, the experiences, they're so vastly different that I was exposed to a whole new, infinite Area of the spectrum that I didn't know existed before.
01:38:25.000 I existed in this very small area.
01:38:28.000 I thought there was birth and death and love and sex and beer and fucking movies and all the other things you enjoyed.
01:38:35.000 I didn't even know that was real.
01:38:37.000 How many people out there are like that?
01:38:39.000 I mean, is there a million of us?
01:38:41.000 I mean, is there even...
01:38:43.000 Is there even 2 million?
01:38:45.000 I mean, how many people out of the 300 and whatever million people in this country have had breakthrough psychedelic experiences?
01:38:51.000 How many people did they say did LSD in the 60s?
01:38:53.000 It's a good question.
01:38:54.000 It changed the culture.
01:38:55.000 Yeah, I don't know what the number is, but I mean...
01:38:58.000 Too bad your dad's not around.
01:38:59.000 You can probably tell us.
01:39:00.000 You can probably tell us, yeah.
01:39:01.000 He was probably responsible for 40 or 50% of it, right?
01:39:04.000 Right, but what was the number?
01:39:04.000 It was, yeah, and this is, to me, this is a fascinating case study for us to look at, is, you know, in the 60s, you know, millions and millions and millions of people did some kind of psychedelic, right?
01:39:16.000 And if they didn't do a psychedelic, at least they, you know, smoked grass and put on certain peppers, at the very least.
01:39:24.000 And, yeah, great things were born out of that.
01:39:26.000 I mean, an argument could be made that if the 60s didn't happen and flourish and become what it became, that you and I wouldn't be sitting here right now being able to talk about what we're talking about.
01:39:36.000 I think that's a very good argument.
01:39:38.000 I think, yeah.
01:39:38.000 Right.
01:39:39.000 But here we are, 2016, and Donald Trump is elected president.
01:39:43.000 So last time we had a global kind of consciousness shift that was massive and really shook us all up, I don't know, not enough happened.
01:39:53.000 So it's like, what's it going to take next time?
01:39:55.000 Okay, so let's just say, let's get 10% of the country to turn on.
01:40:01.000 And for me, I'm a little bit more elastic with it, and I think that can also be, you know, meditation.
01:40:07.000 Sure.
01:40:08.000 Or floatation tanks.
01:40:09.000 Kundalini.
01:40:10.000 Floatation tanks.
01:40:11.000 Yeah, I'm not so hungry.
01:40:12.000 Holotropic breathing.
01:40:13.000 Whatever.
01:40:14.000 The method isn't as important to me anymore.
01:40:16.000 But like, say, get 10 to 20 percent.
01:40:18.000 Of the people to do that, three, six million people, whatever it is, you know, then, you know, what is it going to change?
01:40:25.000 How are we going to integrate?
01:40:27.000 And we were talking about this a couple hours ago.
01:40:28.000 It's like the integration part.
01:40:30.000 And I think perhaps that's what we lost in the 60s.
01:40:33.000 We were so hung up on the veil getting pierced.
01:40:37.000 And my dad's, one of the best quotes is, in order to understand the 60s, you must understand the 50s.
01:40:42.000 Right.
01:40:43.000 What a change.
01:40:44.000 I mean, the 50s were just, you know, very lock and step and white picket fence, 2.5 children, car, you know, soon tie, hair short, like there's no variation.
01:40:54.000 And we burst that bubble.
01:40:56.000 But, you know, the integration level, it just wasn't, it wasn't meaty enough.
01:41:01.000 You know, we still, we elected Richard Nixon in 1968. I mean, granted, Robert Kennedy was shot, but still, you know, and here we are 50 years later, and look what we're doing.
01:41:12.000 So, you know, it is great to turn on, and I love people turning on, and I think it's fantastic, and it's a great thing to talk about, like you are, and it's, you know, you have a huge megaphone in getting people to do that, but what are they going to do different?
01:41:24.000 That's what I'm more concerned with.
01:41:26.000 They're going to consider their life in a different way.
01:41:28.000 And I think that in many people, maybe not in all of us, but in many people, that changes the direction of The path that you're on, it changes the way you communicate with people, changes your understanding of each other and your understanding of the connections that we have with each other.
01:41:47.000 Yes.
01:41:48.000 I think there's a giant chunk of people that are what you would call influencers.
01:41:56.000 In this country, whether it's politicians or CEOs of large corporations.
01:42:02.000 Podcasters.
01:42:03.000 Well, I mean, I was going to say people that haven't had this experience.
01:42:06.000 Okay, yeah.
01:42:06.000 These influencers that live in this very flat plane of existence of acquiring material possessions, getting your dick sucked, doing a line of coke, driving in your limo, all the different shit that a lot of people look forward to that ultimately might not really be important.
01:42:21.000 Yeah.
01:42:22.000 Or important, it might feel important in the moment, you know, in this ego gratification sort of a way, but without that ego obliterating experience to put it all into perspective, you might not understand that that state of mind is even achievable.
01:42:38.000 The undeniable ego-shattering experience of a severe mushroom trip or a DMT trip or anything along those lines is so beneficial in that it gives you that momentary break from the ego and from the momentum of the race that you might not really want to be in.
01:42:58.000 There's a lot of people that are doing things they fucking hate.
01:43:00.000 They hate all day long just in order to acquire shit that they don't really need.
01:43:04.000 Yeah, man.
01:43:05.000 And that's the point I was trying to make earlier is this hand that you're dealt is bunk because so many people are trapped in that thing of doing something they hate.
01:43:15.000 But do they have to be?
01:43:16.000 It sounds like they're imprisoned.
01:43:19.000 They think they have to be.
01:43:20.000 That's what I'm talking about.
01:43:21.000 They think they have to be, but no, they don't.
01:43:24.000 They can break free.
01:43:24.000 They can pierce the veil.
01:43:25.000 They can go on a DMT trip or get in a flotation tank and break free.
01:43:29.000 No, you have the choice.
01:43:31.000 You break free even just by quitting some fucking shitty job and doing something you love.
01:43:37.000 Okay, but why don't more people do that?
01:43:38.000 Because they're scared.
01:43:39.000 Is that what it is?
01:43:40.000 Is it fear?
01:43:41.000 100%.
01:43:41.000 Yeah, people are afraid of change.
01:43:43.000 They're afraid of the unknown.
01:43:44.000 They're afraid of uncertainty.
01:43:45.000 They're afraid of failure, for sure.
01:43:47.000 If you offer them some really convenient, stupid job that is absolutely going to stay there for them, or, hey man, take a chance to open a pottery studio.
01:43:56.000 Oh, I'm going to go broke.
01:43:58.000 People are terrified of failure.
01:43:59.000 Yeah, I mean, I think you're right, but I also think there's a level of that that's also kind of like graduate school in the sense that maybe a lot of people are just addicted to being pacified.
01:44:08.000 That, like, you know, I get my three hours of television at night, and I get my, you know, and just even considering that notion of what you're talking about is beyond the realm.
01:44:19.000 Just keep me plugged in.
01:44:20.000 I'm cool.
01:44:21.000 You know that expression, the comfort zone is beautiful but nothing grows there?
01:44:25.000 I didn't know that.
01:44:26.000 It's nice to be comfortable.
01:44:29.000 It's beautiful.
01:44:30.000 Relax.
01:44:30.000 But you don't get better at anything.
01:44:32.000 You don't get better at life.
01:44:33.000 You don't grow.
01:44:34.000 And we're scared of uncertainty.
01:44:37.000 We want to survive.
01:44:38.000 We don't want to starve to death.
01:44:39.000 We don't want to be a failure.
01:44:40.000 We don't want to be that guy that used to be on TV and now he's a security guard.
01:44:46.000 All those things, the fear of not being successful is so stifling.
01:44:51.000 It so is.
01:44:53.000 When you say that, it just immediately triggered my own life and all the failures I've had, all the fuck-ups falling flat on my face many, many, many times.
01:45:02.000 But the getting back up, it's like that's where the work is.
01:45:07.000 That's where the awakening is.
01:45:09.000 I mean, it wasn't like, hey, everything's just...
01:45:11.000 Going perfectly and, oh wow, this is all my life, this is rolling out on a red carpet and I turned on or something happened and I, you know, touched the face of enlightenment.
01:45:22.000 No, it's because I fell in the dirt and you take those risks and shit happens.
01:45:26.000 And you, the grist for the mill, as Ram Dass would say, you know, you have that grist for the mill that makes it so much juicier and falling flat on your face, it's essential.
01:45:36.000 It's essential.
01:45:36.000 And I think you can apply that same sort of thinking to our entire civilization.
01:45:43.000 And I think right now, we might have skinned our knees.
01:45:46.000 We might have fallen on our face.
01:45:48.000 We might have gone face down in the mud and like, oh, fuck.
01:45:51.000 And I think we've got to get up and realize that we fucked it up.
01:45:54.000 And we'll see how bad we fucked it up.
01:45:56.000 And who knows?
01:45:57.000 Because one of the things about having an outsider in this, what I think is an impossibly corrupt society, It's an unfixable foundation filled with bullshit, which is what I think our society's built on, whether it's special interest groups or corporate greed or lobbyists or all the chaos,
01:46:14.000 private prisons and fucking the war on drugs, all the chaos that I think any rational person that's not connected to it in any sort of a way where you're making profit off it would agree.
01:46:25.000 Like, this is an insane way for an enlightened society to behave and act.
01:46:29.000 It's broken.
01:46:30.000 Right.
01:46:31.000 Unfixable.
01:46:31.000 Just bullshit.
01:46:34.000 The awareness of that is more and more exposed today, online and in conversations, and people are more aware of that than any other time in human history.
01:46:48.000 But I feel like we're like a giant battleship.
01:46:51.000 It takes a lot to turn that fucker.
01:46:54.000 It takes a lot of Thinking and action, it takes a long time for that thing to actually spin around.
01:47:01.000 Yeah, that's right.
01:47:02.000 That's right.
01:47:02.000 And the first, you know, the first step in that is like the acknowledgement that, hey, we skinned our knees or maybe fell flat face down into the mud or something.
01:47:10.000 And it's the acknowledgement that that is the case.
01:47:12.000 That's the scenario we're in.
01:47:14.000 And which is why I'm always so frustrated in that, like, you know, the general narrative or the general rhetoric, especially in politics.
01:47:22.000 Is, you know, the wrong conversations always being had.
01:47:26.000 Nobody's talking about the right shit.
01:47:27.000 We're treating the symptom.
01:47:28.000 We never treat the disease.
01:47:30.000 We're just treating the flu, you know, blowing our nose constantly and never ever acknowledging the disease.
01:47:36.000 You know, Bernie Sanders touched on acknowledging the disease.
01:47:40.000 He was the first guy, but really in a long time to make it that far.
01:47:45.000 And acknowledge the disease.
01:47:47.000 We are at risk of becoming an oligarchy.
01:47:49.000 It's the top 1% that is ruling the country.
01:47:52.000 He might be the first guy ever, right?
01:47:53.000 I mean, if you really stop and think about it, who got that close to the Democratic nomination?
01:47:58.000 Yeah.
01:47:59.000 Other than McGovern.
01:48:00.000 Yeah, but I mean, I think in older times, you know, in the 19th century, there was kind of, you know, hints that, you know, this could happen and kind of people insinuating, hey, the Industrial Revolution and Carnegie's and the Melons and the Rockefeller's like,
01:48:15.000 watch out, this could get dangerous.
01:48:19.000 Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex and he was a Republican.
01:48:23.000 And that was a creepy speech, right?
01:48:25.000 A creepy speech, but fascinating at the same time.
01:48:28.000 But yeah, so Bernie took it He did talk about the disease, which was fantastic.
01:48:34.000 So it is out there that we have these fundamental problems.
01:48:38.000 Until you fix the fundamental problem, nothing else is going to get better, which is essentially taking the money out of the game.
01:48:46.000 That's why I do think it's fixable.
01:48:48.000 I disagree with you in that.
01:48:49.000 I do think the machine is fixable.
01:48:51.000 How is it fixable?
01:48:52.000 You've got to take the money out?
01:48:53.000 That's unfixable.
01:48:55.000 No, it's not.
01:48:56.000 The whole thing runs on money.
01:48:56.000 How are you going to take the money out?
01:48:57.000 Have you read Republic Lost, the Lawrence Lessig book?
01:49:01.000 No.
01:49:01.000 You've got to read it, man.
01:49:02.000 Fascinating.
01:49:02.000 What is his solution?
01:49:03.000 Or watch his 20-minute TED Talk.
01:49:05.000 You can get the whole book in that, too.
01:49:06.000 What's his solution?
01:49:08.000 Get rid of lobbyists.
01:49:10.000 Yeah, man, that's easier said than done.
01:49:11.000 I know, I know.
01:49:13.000 Well, someone like Trump is actually working to do that, whereas someone like Hillary is not.
01:49:16.000 Like, he's already put in a bunch of regulations to make sure that people cannot become lobbyists within a certain amount of time after leaving office.
01:49:23.000 After leaving office, but he also has, like, you know, the president-elect office is crawling.
01:49:28.000 At the same time, it's crawling with lobbyists.
01:49:30.000 Yeah, who knows?
01:49:31.000 You know.
01:49:31.000 I mean, I'm not a Trump supporter, but I'm not a...
01:49:33.000 I'm not...
01:49:36.000 I'm not convinced that having this complete outsider who's also a guy who's been feeding this machine with money and making these massive political contributions so he understands the system and how it works, I'm not completely I'm not completely denying the possibility that he might present some good...
01:49:54.000 I just think he's the wrong guy for the job.
01:49:56.000 I do believe in the outsider thing.
01:49:58.000 I love that.
01:49:59.000 That's great.
01:49:59.000 That's a great part of him.
01:50:01.000 Bernie would have been fascinating.
01:50:02.000 Yeah, Bernie would have been fascinating.
01:50:04.000 He would have cost me a shitload of money, but I would have been willing to take that chance.
01:50:07.000 I would have loved to see it.
01:50:08.000 I would have loved to see what the fuck would happen, because that guy doesn't give a shit.
01:50:12.000 And he's not...
01:50:13.000 You can't buy him, man.
01:50:14.000 You can't buy him.
01:50:15.000 And you've got to watch this Lawrence Lesser talk.
01:50:17.000 It's a few years old now, but it really just...
01:50:20.000 It kind of rips apart and puts everything out on the whiteboard and into a keynote presentation about even the most well-intentioned politicians who are great.
01:50:31.000 Mr. Smith goes to Washington kind of shit.
01:50:33.000 Just great people who go in there with the best of intentions.
01:50:36.000 You know, at some point, you know, then they end up spending 25% of their time inside of the phone bank, the Democrat, the DNC phone bank, begging people for money.
01:50:46.000 And you know they do that.
01:50:47.000 And it's across the street from the Capitol, so it's not too far.
01:50:50.000 And it just escalates, and it's a snowball just going more and more and more.
01:50:54.000 And then it just becomes even the best intention.
01:50:56.000 But if you take money out of politics, then you have only people with money who get into politics, because they have so much money, they don't need anybody else's money.
01:51:05.000 Hence, Donald Trump.
01:51:07.000 Yeah.
01:51:08.000 But, I mean, if you did it like, you know, first of all, if you did it like the UK does it and shorten the election season, you know, that's a great first step.
01:51:17.000 You know, you can't make it 18 months.
01:51:19.000 It's insane.
01:51:19.000 And the amount of money- Team sport.
01:51:22.000 It's going on forever.
01:51:23.000 We've got to root, root, rah, rah.
01:51:25.000 We've got debates.
01:51:26.000 It's great television.
01:51:27.000 Yeah, man.
01:51:28.000 It's great television.
01:51:29.000 People wear their red and their fucking blue and Make America Great Again hats are on sale.
01:51:33.000 But the amount of money that it takes to play that game.
01:51:35.000 I know, right?
01:51:36.000 What was he making per day from those hats?
01:51:39.000 Off Make America Great Again?
01:51:40.000 I bet millions.
01:51:41.000 No, he was making something like 80 grand a day or something from the hats.
01:51:44.000 Something stupid.
01:51:45.000 It's so bad.
01:51:46.000 There's those stupid looking hats, too.
01:51:49.000 It's not even a good design.
01:51:50.000 It's like somebody made it at the mall.
01:51:51.000 You know, those little hat shops.
01:51:53.000 What do you want it to say?
01:51:54.000 Bobby loves Jesse.
01:51:55.000 All right.
01:51:57.000 Make America Great Again!
01:51:59.000 Red hat, white letters, I'm the man.
01:52:01.000 I'm the fucking man.
01:52:03.000 I got the hat on.
01:52:04.000 The fucking man.
01:52:05.000 I don't even know what that means.
01:52:07.000 Yeah, he doesn't know what it means either.
01:52:08.000 Well, I don't know.
01:52:10.000 I mean, America's never been greater in terms of safer, more access to medicine, more access to information, more access to education.
01:52:17.000 That's right.
01:52:17.000 It's never been better.
01:52:18.000 In that way, but like, you know, our education rankings, you know, it's sort of...
01:52:25.000 In the world?
01:52:25.000 In the world where we're used to place, you know, your typical high school graduate in the year like 1960, you know, it's like went to college and ranked number one in global math, science, you know.
01:52:38.000 That's because the rest of the world was in the Stone Age.
01:52:41.000 And we were the only civilization, I think.
01:52:43.000 I think we had just started civilization back then and no one knew about it yet.
01:52:49.000 And they all caught on.
01:52:50.000 We got fat off Twinkies in the mall and fucking Walmart poisoned us.
01:52:55.000 And then there's some shit from fracking that definitely got into the water.
01:52:59.000 I don't know, man.
01:53:01.000 I think...
01:53:01.000 Turn everyone on.
01:53:03.000 I'm fine with that, too.
01:53:04.000 I'm a pessimist in some forms, but I'm an optimist in others.
01:53:08.000 And what I'm optimistic about is that People care, and that this world that we live in, that this is a...
01:53:16.000 When everybody was crying after Trump got elected, and part of me was like, well, this is so preposterous.
01:53:22.000 Why are these people crying?
01:53:23.000 But the other part of me was like, that is when things get done, is when you have this outpouring of emotion, and then people...
01:53:30.000 Remember when those people were marching down Wilshire, and it was just fucking A huge line of people, like hundreds of thousands of people that shut down Wilshire and these people were filming it with drones from overhead.
01:53:40.000 I was like, wow, that's a crazy response to this guy winning the presidency.
01:53:45.000 And people were like hoping the electors, you know, the electoral college people wouldn't elect him and they would act on their, oh, fuck you, it's not going to happen.
01:53:54.000 Like, you're playing a game.
01:53:55.000 He won the game.
01:53:56.000 You can't take it away from him after he won the game.
01:54:00.000 Like, he didn't cheat, he won the game.
01:54:02.000 So this is the game, and this is how the game works.
01:54:05.000 B-B-B-Russia!
01:54:06.000 Listen, this is the game.
01:54:08.000 This is how the game works.
01:54:09.000 Now you've got to figure out why is this game in place?
01:54:11.000 Why do you have this fucking goofy game?
01:54:13.000 Why do you have this representative government?
01:54:14.000 Why do we continue this?
01:54:16.000 And if we can slowly move that battleship towards a more rational place.
01:54:22.000 Yeah, you're right.
01:54:22.000 And it does come from a consciousness shift.
01:54:24.000 That's the first step.
01:54:25.000 Always comes from a consciousness shift.
01:54:27.000 I think pot.
01:54:28.000 I think legal pot is the fucking real gateway.
01:54:31.000 I really do.
01:54:33.000 I really do.
01:54:34.000 Because I think it calms people down.
01:54:35.000 It makes people nicer.
01:54:37.000 I think just that alone.
01:54:39.000 It's like the opposite of what alcohol does.
01:54:42.000 That's true.
01:54:42.000 It definitely does not increase aggression.
01:54:45.000 Or confidence.
01:54:47.000 It doesn't increase confidence at all.
01:54:49.000 It's the opposite for me.
01:54:50.000 It makes me more vulnerable.
01:54:53.000 You don't smoke it?
01:54:54.000 I like it.
01:54:55.000 Something changed in me.
01:54:57.000 I did when I was a teenager.
01:54:59.000 I loved it, man.
01:55:01.000 I'm a deadhead and that was my life.
01:55:03.000 But I take it now and it's just...
01:55:06.000 Paranoia?
01:55:07.000 Massive.
01:55:07.000 And also the confidence thing.
01:55:09.000 It does not bring out my best.
01:55:11.000 It makes me feel like if we smoked and we did this podcast...
01:55:15.000 You'd be freaking out?
01:55:16.000 Hang on.
01:55:17.000 What do I have to say to Rogan?
01:55:19.000 I sound like an idiot.
01:55:22.000 Duncan told me.
01:55:24.000 I would be like that.
01:55:26.000 It does not bring up my best.
01:55:28.000 So how long ago was this switch?
01:55:30.000 When did it happen to you?
01:55:31.000 Oh, quite a while.
01:55:32.000 I mean, I'm 43. More than 15 years ago.
01:55:36.000 So that's when you stopped smoking, 15 years ago?
01:55:39.000 No, I stopped yesterday.
01:55:42.000 I'm still freaking out because of yesterday's pot.
01:55:44.000 Yeah, about that, yeah.
01:55:47.000 So, do you do anything these days?
01:55:51.000 No.
01:55:51.000 Sort of psychedelics?
01:55:53.000 Not really, no.
01:55:54.000 I don't.
01:55:55.000 But, yeah, I keep a place in my heart for the psychedelic experience, should it arise again.
01:56:00.000 In between English muffins.
01:56:02.000 In between Eggman muffins.
01:56:04.000 You know, yeah, I mean, I'm open to that, and should the opportunity arise, I'm down for it.
01:56:10.000 I mean, with the psychedelic thing, I just...
01:56:13.000 Yeah, I mean, I am open to it.
01:56:14.000 I just kind of did kind of hit the Alan Watts wall in a way, like, you know, the Alan Watts thing about him.
01:56:21.000 You know, I got the phone call, and then I learned to hang up the phone.
01:56:26.000 What is the Alan Watts thing?
01:56:27.000 How does that work?
01:56:28.000 The quote goes something like, I got the phone call, and then I kind of learned to hang up the phone.
01:56:34.000 I didn't need to stay on the phone.
01:56:37.000 Relating to psychedelics.
01:56:37.000 Oh, I see.
01:56:38.000 I see.
01:56:38.000 So he got the message.
01:56:39.000 He got the message.
01:56:40.000 He didn't need to continually get the message over and over and over and over again.
01:56:43.000 McKenna, I think, was in that boat, too, before his death.
01:56:46.000 They were saying he talked a lot about it, but he really wasn't doing anything anymore.
01:56:50.000 Oh, really?
01:56:50.000 I didn't know that.
01:56:51.000 Smoked a lot of pot, though.
01:56:53.000 Did, smoked a little pot.
01:56:54.000 Because I always remember, Terrence, you know, the thing that us drug people have is repeatability.
01:56:59.000 Yeah.
01:57:00.000 Well, it's true, but I mean, after 5,000 fucking mushroom trips, I mean, Jesus Christ.
01:57:06.000 I mean, I've done acid, what, 200 times or something?
01:57:08.000 You could probably be, like, legally insane.
01:57:12.000 I think there's a certain amount of acid trips you do where they used to classify you as being legally insane.
01:57:19.000 Do you get some money from the government, bro?
01:57:22.000 How much?
01:57:23.000 Probably like 50 bucks.
01:57:25.000 I don't know.
01:57:26.000 But if you just ran around saying that I broke my brain and I'm disabled, I bet you could...
01:57:33.000 You juked the system.
01:57:34.000 I used to.
01:57:35.000 That's really funny.
01:57:36.000 You know, I had them.
01:57:36.000 It reminds me.
01:57:37.000 I used to have a pretty serious hard drug problem, too.
01:57:41.000 Hard drugs?
01:57:42.000 Yeah, which I've gotten, you know.
01:57:44.000 Which ones?
01:57:45.000 Heroin and crack.
01:57:46.000 Oh, damn, dude.
01:57:47.000 I've gotten through it.
01:57:48.000 The needle or the snorting?
01:57:50.000 Smoking.
01:57:50.000 Smoking the heroin?
01:57:51.000 No needles.
01:57:52.000 No needles.
01:57:52.000 Yeah, I stayed away from that, but, you know, made it through, and I'm good.
01:57:55.000 Damn, how'd you get on that?
01:57:57.000 How'd I get on it?
01:57:58.000 Yeah.
01:58:00.000 Pain.
01:58:02.000 Pain.
01:58:02.000 You had some injuries or something?
01:58:04.000 No.
01:58:04.000 Pain.
01:58:05.000 Emotional pain.
01:58:06.000 Emotional suffering.
01:58:07.000 Pain lost.
01:58:08.000 Aimless.
01:58:09.000 Wandering the world.
01:58:10.000 Aimless.
01:58:10.000 Not knowing what to do.
01:58:11.000 And that was...
01:58:12.000 The escape was the heroin?
01:58:13.000 Somebody introduced me to it about that period in time.
01:58:16.000 And it just was like, oh, wow.
01:58:19.000 You know, heroin has the great ability of...
01:58:22.000 And it's really seductive and really fucked up...
01:58:25.000 Of making you think that your life is okay when you're in the gutter.
01:58:30.000 Wow.
01:58:31.000 It has that sort of, that sheen that it just kind of, the bubble it puts over you.
01:58:36.000 You can be literally living in an alleyway, high on heroin, thinking you got it going on.
01:58:43.000 Wow.
01:58:43.000 Yeah, it's really weird and perverse like that.
01:58:46.000 And at that time in my life, my dad just died.
01:58:50.000 And when he died, what went with it was kind of my life.
01:58:55.000 I was 22, up until that point, my life was in that bubble.
01:59:00.000 He was larger than life.
01:59:01.000 He was famous.
01:59:03.000 Girls came with that.
01:59:05.000 Work came with that.
01:59:06.000 A scene came with that.
01:59:08.000 Friends came with that.
01:59:09.000 And when he died, that just...
01:59:11.000 I went poof.
01:59:12.000 Did girls want to bang you because you were Timothy Leary's son?
01:59:15.000 Of course, yeah.
01:59:16.000 Really?
01:59:16.000 Yeah, man.
01:59:17.000 Nice.
01:59:17.000 Yeah.
01:59:18.000 It worked out for a while.
01:59:19.000 Sweet.
01:59:19.000 Yeah.
01:59:20.000 Did you put on, like, a guru attitude?
01:59:22.000 Like, just, relax, I've got it all going on, ladies.
01:59:25.000 At that time, that stage in my life, no, it was a disaster.
01:59:30.000 It was a fucking disaster.
01:59:32.000 I try to do that now, though, on occasion.
01:59:33.000 Oh, but no, I had a good story, man.
01:59:35.000 This is really funny.
01:59:36.000 You were talking about soliciting the government for money for being an acid casualty, which is a good idea.
01:59:40.000 But I was really high on crack once and just kind of on a bender, just losing my mind on crack.
01:59:46.000 And I thought in the middle of the night it'd be a really good idea to join the CIA. And that they would want me, me specifically, being like Tim Leary's kid, they'd want me because I have access to shit that they want access to.
02:00:01.000 Right.
02:00:01.000 Like I can be an insider.
02:00:02.000 I was a mole and I was high on crack and I downloaded the...
02:00:05.000 I filled out the form.
02:00:07.000 Oh my God!
02:00:08.000 You got that deep?
02:00:09.000 I got that deep.
02:00:10.000 Hours on it.
02:00:11.000 It's really long, complicated, the whole kind of...
02:00:14.000 To join the CIA? Print it out, sent it in the mail.
02:00:17.000 You sent it in the mail?
02:00:18.000 Oh, you're in the CIA. You're there with Anderson Cooper.
02:00:21.000 You work for CNN. Well, yeah.
02:00:23.000 You're in there.
02:00:24.000 And never heard back, but it was...
02:00:25.000 Never heard back?
02:00:26.000 Yeah.
02:00:27.000 Never sent anything.
02:00:28.000 They started laughing.
02:00:28.000 They just laughed and threw it in the garbage, I'm sure.
02:00:31.000 But it was really funny and kind of a great, delusional, high-end drugs moment.
02:00:34.000 Wow.
02:00:35.000 So what did you think that you were going to do as a CIA operative?
02:00:40.000 I don't know, man.
02:00:40.000 What are we going to do?
02:00:40.000 Are we going to fix it from the inside?
02:00:42.000 With crack?
02:00:44.000 Yeah.
02:00:45.000 Something like that.
02:00:47.000 Wow.
02:00:47.000 Something crazy, you know, just that's what a crackhead does at the time.
02:00:51.000 How did you get off the crack in the heroin?
02:00:54.000 Yeah, just recovery.
02:00:56.000 Did you go, oh, you went 12-step?
02:00:59.000 Yeah, yeah.
02:00:59.000 Like AA or Narcotics Anonymous, those kind of stuff?
02:01:02.000 Yeah, that kind of stuff, yeah.
02:01:02.000 Worked for me.
02:01:04.000 Now, is that one of those things you have to continually visit?
02:01:07.000 Do you have to constantly have meetings and stuff?
02:01:10.000 Well, you know, I'm kind of a...
02:01:14.000 You know, I'm kind of, in a way, as a card-carrying member, as it were, I'm kind of not the best card-carrying member of it, and I break from tradition in a little bit, in that, like, I don't know, I'm not a zealot.
02:01:26.000 Sure, maybe.
02:01:28.000 Yeah, maybe you do, but for me, I just happen to like it.
02:01:32.000 I just enjoy it.
02:01:34.000 Whether or not I have to go and, oh my God, I'm going to die if I don't, and I'm going to end up back in the gutter if I don't.
02:01:39.000 I don't know.
02:01:40.000 I believe there's a little hysteria with that.
02:01:42.000 Right.
02:01:42.000 That's kind of like the party line, which sometimes bothers me.
02:01:47.000 It bothers a lot of people.
02:01:48.000 Yeah.
02:01:48.000 That's sort of disempowerment.
02:01:51.000 Disempowerment.
02:01:51.000 I don't believe that with any tradition or anything like, oh my God, if you leave us, the shit's going to hit the fan.
02:01:58.000 I mean, you stop and think about a lot of destructive things you did when you were younger that you don't do now.
02:02:02.000 Like, well, I don't need a 12-step program to tell me not to do stupid shit.
02:02:06.000 I just know it's stupid shit, and so I don't do it anymore.
02:02:10.000 But the idea that you could potentially fall into that is what they hold over your head, right?
02:02:14.000 Yeah, but it's not that simple.
02:02:16.000 Like, oh my God, I know heroin is going to kill me, so that's it.
02:02:18.000 I'm just going to stop doing it.
02:02:19.000 It's not that rational.
02:02:21.000 Sadly, I wish it was that rational.
02:02:22.000 So what's the difference?
02:02:23.000 What's the disconnect?
02:02:24.000 The disconnect is that in order to, you know, Bill Wilson was really a groundbreaking dude.
02:02:30.000 Well, he was also an acid head, which is really kind of crazy.
02:02:33.000 Bill Wilson being the guy who founded Alcoholics Anonymous.
02:02:36.000 He did acid, what, five times?
02:02:37.000 And he also thought that acid could be a viable treatment method for people that are alcoholics.
02:02:42.000 There's some great...
02:02:43.000 It's completely ignored today.
02:02:45.000 And his thoughts and ideas about that, completely ignored by people in recovery because they think that, no, no, no, no, you don't get clean by taking something else.
02:02:56.000 They hate it.
02:02:56.000 Yeah.
02:02:57.000 And before this sort of got popular, before the documentaries came out and all that about exposing Bill Wilson, I used to just blow AA members' minds with that.
02:03:07.000 I was like, did you not?
02:03:08.000 He did.
02:03:08.000 And he had correspondence with my dad when he was at Harvard.
02:03:11.000 I'm sure he did.
02:03:12.000 Yeah, they had some really interesting—these letters are fantastic.
02:03:16.000 And, yeah, he called it the great ego sublimator and thought it could be the solution for alcoholism.
02:03:23.000 And he did not change his sobriety to it.
02:03:28.000 You know, which is highly controversial.
02:03:30.000 Sobriety date?
02:03:31.000 His sobriety date, like when he said he got sober.
02:03:33.000 You know, he still, when he died, he said he had, whatever, 48 years sober.
02:03:38.000 But he was still doing acid.
02:03:39.000 Well, he had stopped doing acid.
02:03:40.000 But, you know, typically, you know, in the AA world, if you do acid, that's it.
02:03:44.000 You start over.
02:03:45.000 You start day one.
02:03:46.000 You start day one.
02:03:46.000 But he didn't.
02:03:47.000 He did not.
02:03:48.000 He looked at acid as being completely different than an intoxicant like alcohol.
02:03:52.000 It was a neuropsychotropic therapeutic agent, is how you refer to it.
02:03:57.000 Well, I think that is what it is.
02:03:59.000 And I think this blanket statement, you know, drugs, that word drugs, it's just like it applies to too many things that do too many different things.
02:04:07.000 That's right.
02:04:07.000 It's like food.
02:04:10.000 Food's bad for you.
02:04:11.000 What?
02:04:11.000 No, no.
02:04:12.000 Food's not bad for you.
02:04:13.000 Well, this food's bad for you.
02:04:14.000 Oh, yeah, okay, it is.
02:04:16.000 But this salad's good for you.
02:04:18.000 That's food, too.
02:04:19.000 And that's the problem with drugs.
02:04:21.000 The word drugs applies to things that are highly beneficial.
02:04:25.000 That's right.
02:04:26.000 It's just, you know, in AA land, I get why they need to tow that company line.
02:04:31.000 But doesn't it...
02:04:32.000 I do get it because...
02:04:33.000 Again, it's disempowering in a way, isn't it?
02:04:35.000 Because you're treating everybody as if you are the weakest possible example.
02:04:41.000 Look, man, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, but I'm just saying I get it because...
02:04:47.000 It does work.
02:04:47.000 Right.
02:04:48.000 That's all I can say about it.
02:04:49.000 I don't disagree.
02:04:50.000 I'm kind of wishy-washy about it, but it works.
02:04:53.000 To have a hard line.
02:04:54.000 I have seen people's lives who you just, you know, the doldrums, the, you know, the disenfranchised, I mean, left for dead get their lives saved and have really great, productive, amazing lives today.
02:05:07.000 And it's a really beautiful, cool thing to see.
02:05:10.000 Well, there's also, I think, we have to come to the realization that everyone's different biologically.
02:05:16.000 Yes, that's why.
02:05:17.000 That's the point.
02:05:17.000 Everybody's wired differently.
02:05:19.000 There is no one-size-fits-all thing.
02:05:20.000 And now what we're seeing with Ibogaine treatment that, you know, MAPS is doing, oh my God, so, so cool.
02:05:26.000 Yeah.
02:05:26.000 Really, really promising.
02:05:27.000 And so, you know, I just encourage everybody to find their own dharma, find their own path, and kind of make what works for you.
02:05:35.000 You know, there's no prescribed method for spiritual awakening or life-saving or life-changing.
02:05:40.000 You know, you just have to, you know, balance it correctly.
02:05:43.000 Listen to your heart.
02:05:43.000 What is your life like?
02:05:45.000 Like, what do you do with your time?
02:05:46.000 What do you do for money?
02:05:49.000 Well, I do a few things.
02:05:50.000 My life is kind of split into two things.
02:05:53.000 You know, I have my podcast.
02:05:55.000 Right.
02:05:55.000 What is that called again?
02:05:56.000 It's All Happening.
02:05:57.000 It's All Happening.
02:05:58.000 Yeah.
02:06:00.000 So I do that.
02:06:01.000 I'm actually starting another podcast.
02:06:04.000 I'm going to be hosting the Maps podcast.
02:06:07.000 Oh, really?
02:06:07.000 Yeah.
02:06:08.000 Oh, that's awesome.
02:06:08.000 So Maps is starting, and I'm going to help them get it off the ground and host it and start that.
02:06:14.000 So, you know, I kind of do that.
02:06:15.000 I can speak, you know, at festivals and kind of teach, you know, some spiritual stuff and kind of do that, write.
02:06:23.000 I've been working on a book.
02:06:24.000 But the other half of my life, kind of before I had my own little spiritual awakening, I was a technology consultant and a branding consultant and worked in digital marketing and had a lot of ad agencies and stuff and led kind of a 9 to 5 corporate life, which I've ditched,
02:06:40.000 but I still keep some clients.
02:06:42.000 That's kind of a day job sort of thing, which is kind of fun.
02:06:45.000 That's interesting.
02:06:45.000 So what does that entail?
02:06:48.000 Anything that is, you know, a brand or an entity or a film or a music client, anybody wants to come to me and sort of define their internet strategy, how they want to behave online.
02:07:01.000 You know, whether that's just something as mundane as having a new website to coming up with a complete communication message about how they want to market their...
02:07:10.000 They're a thing.
02:07:11.000 So I kind of do that too.
02:07:13.000 So I divide my time sort of 50-50 between my stuff and then other people's stuff.
02:07:18.000 And when does this MAPS podcast launch?
02:07:20.000 January.
02:07:21.000 Oh, that's cool.
02:07:21.000 So just by having that name attached to it, you'll be able to get some pretty amazing guests.
02:07:26.000 Yeah, man.
02:07:26.000 We'd love you to do it, of course.
02:07:28.000 I'll do it.
02:07:28.000 I'm in.
02:07:29.000 Let's do it.
02:07:29.000 Sign it up.
02:07:30.000 Yeah, Rick.
02:07:30.000 Let's do it.
02:07:31.000 Sign it up.
02:07:31.000 Fascinating.
02:07:32.000 Fascinating.
02:07:32.000 So yeah.
02:07:33.000 2017, folks.
02:07:34.000 Shit's going down.
02:07:36.000 So yeah, I keep busy, man.
02:07:38.000 Thank you, Billy.
02:07:39.000 Beautiful.
02:07:40.000 Yeah.
02:07:40.000 All right, man.
02:07:41.000 Well, let people know, what's your Twitter handle?
02:07:44.000 Is it just Zach Leary?
02:07:45.000 Zach Leary.
02:07:46.000 Go to my website, ZachLeary.com.
02:07:48.000 And the podcast is called It's All Happening.
02:07:51.000 Is it available on iTunes?
02:07:53.000 Everywhere, podcasts, stuff, yeah.
02:07:55.000 Well, thanks, man.
02:07:56.000 Thanks for coming in, man.
02:07:56.000 Thanks for having me, man.
02:07:57.000 Fun time.
02:07:57.000 Appreciate it.
02:07:58.000 Appreciate it very much.
02:08:00.000 Zach Leary, ladies and gentlemen.
02:08:02.000 Thank you, everybody.
02:08:03.000 We'll be back tomorrow with the great Greg Fitzsimmons, also known as Grapefruit Simmons.
02:08:09.000 See ya!