The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1968 - Jason Everman

00:00:11.000 Well, thanks for coming, man.

00:00:13.000 I appreciate it.

00:00:14.000 Yeah, thanks for asking.

00:00:16.000 You've had a wild life, dude. 0.99

00:00:18.000 How the fuck does one go from playing in Nirvana and Soundgarden to being a soldier? 0.99

00:00:26.000 It's a longer story. 0.99

00:00:28.000 I want to hear it.

00:00:30.000 How long an answer you want.

00:00:31.000 We got plenty of time.

00:00:33.000 Okay.

00:00:41.000 I guess being a professional rock musician was something I kind of fell into.

00:00:46.000 It wasn't something that I had a dream of.

00:00:51.000 I love playing in bands, I love playing music, but it was at this punk rock level where you were never going to make a living at it.

00:00:59.000 It was just something fun to do.

00:01:02.000 And then I started playing with Nirvana.

00:01:06.000 And even at that level, you know, still not making money from it, but, you know, touring...

00:01:11.000 Was it the early days of Nirvana?

00:01:13.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:01:13.000 So Nirvana wasn't worldwide at that point?

00:01:16.000 No, no.

00:01:18.000 Even on the Seattle level, like one of the smaller bands, you know, like there's bands like Mudhoney and Soundgarden that were...

00:01:29.000 Better known than Nirvana was at the time.

00:01:31.000 And you played for Soundgarden too, which is also hilarious.

00:01:36.000 Yeah.

00:01:37.000 And when did you...

00:01:39.000 So in the beginning, did you have friction with the band?

00:01:43.000 Why did you wind up leaving?

00:01:45.000 So with Nirvana, it was just...

00:01:50.000 I guess initially, when I came on board, Kurt wanted a second guitar player for the live show, basically.

00:02:00.000 Have a heavier sound live, take some of the guitar playing responsibility off him so he could concentrate on vocals, that kind of thing.

00:02:07.000 And initially, like, I thought I was going to be able to contribute to the band creatively.

00:02:12.000 And then it got to the point where I realized that wasn't going to happen.

00:02:15.000 And the same thing happened with Chad, the drummer, I think.

00:02:18.000 And it was, like, everyone in the band, including myself, was, like, very poor communicators.

00:02:27.000 Like, a lot of passive aggression.

00:02:29.000 And, you know, I mean, we were kids, you know?

00:02:32.000 How old were we at the time?

00:02:33.000 20, I think.

00:02:36.000 And...

00:02:37.000 Yeah, I just I wasn't equipped for it and became more and more unhappy with the situation and then ended up leaving.

00:02:45.000 So was it that like when you tried to put creative input in it would get shut down or they weren't interested or Kurt wasn't interested?

00:02:54.000 Yeah, so like on the rare time Where we actually rehearsed as a band, which was not a lot, Kurt would kind of half-heartedly, like, hey, who has ideas?

00:03:08.000 And, like, I'd throw a couple ideas out.

00:03:10.000 And then Chad, like a very accomplished musician in his own right, would throw some ideas out.

00:03:16.000 And then it'd just kind of be glossed over and, like, okay, here's the new song I wrote, you know, and start learning that.

00:03:24.000 So it was very...

00:03:28.000 Ego century.

00:03:29.000 Cursory.

00:03:30.000 He kind of threw it out there, but then it wasn't going to go anywhere.

00:03:35.000 So you went for Nirvana first and then to Soundgarden?

00:03:40.000 Yeah, I left.

00:03:42.000 We did a US tour, the first full US tour that Nirvana did.

00:03:48.000 88 or 89. I can't remember what year it was, but I think it was still the 80s.

00:03:55.000 I left at the end of that tour.

00:03:57.000 I'm done.

00:03:58.000 Nice little foray into rock and roll, but I'm going to do something else.

00:04:05.000 When I got home, I was planning on going trekking in the Himalayas.

00:04:13.000 Really?

00:04:13.000 Yeah.

00:04:13.000 That was the next thing.

00:04:15.000 It's like, okay, this was a nice diversion, but I'm going to kind of fulfill this dream I've had since I was a kid of trekking in the Himalayas.

00:04:22.000 So I went to Metzger's Maps in Seattle and was buying maps of the Himalaya of Nepal and Tibet and all this stuff.

00:04:29.000 Yeah.

00:04:30.000 Getting gear sorted and that's what I was going to do.

00:04:33.000 And then at some point that summer or fall, I can't remember what time of year it was, end of summer, Kim from Soundgarden called me and was like, hey, Hero, their bass player then,

00:04:50.000 quit.

00:04:50.000 Do you want to audition for the band?

00:04:52.000 Yeah.

00:04:53.000 I was like you know at that point like Soundgarden was my favorite Seattle band like hands down and it was like okay you know fully not believing I'd ever get chosen and then you did yeah and how did that end I got fired What happened?

00:05:13.000 It's complicated, but I think at the end of the day, I wasn't getting along with Chris Atwell, the singer.

00:05:22.000 And, you know, obviously, you know, who's going to go?

00:05:26.000 Right, of course.

00:05:27.000 Yeah, it was me.

00:05:28.000 Yeah.

00:05:29.000 So how does that translate into becoming a soldier?

00:05:35.000 I mean, there's more...

00:05:38.000 There's more to the story than that, because there was still, like, I basically, like, getting fired from Soundgarden, like, put me in a pretty bad tailspin.

00:05:53.000 I mean, it was a rough patch in my life, for sure.

00:05:57.000 And so, in order to kind of...

00:06:04.000 Cut this tailspin off.

00:06:06.000 Like, I had to do something radical.

00:06:07.000 And what I did was ended up moving to New York.

00:06:11.000 And so, I mean, there's more to the story than that.

00:06:18.000 But moved to New York, like, basically, you know, I grew up in rural Western Washington, like...

00:06:24.000 So it was kind of polar opposite to what my experience was.

00:06:28.000 Like, got a job in a warehouse, got an apartment, and kind of started my New York life and did that for a couple of years.

00:06:37.000 What was your plan when you moved to New York?

00:06:39.000 Did you just want to try it?

00:06:41.000 Experience life in the city?

00:06:43.000 I think the main plan was, like, get out of this funk that I was in, you know?

00:06:50.000 How old were you at the time?

00:06:52.000 21, 22 maybe?

00:06:53.000 So just a young guy trying to figure out life?

00:06:56.000 Yeah.

00:06:56.000 Like the Soundgarden thing?

00:07:00.000 Getting fired from Soundgarden, it broke my heart.

00:07:02.000 It was a bad spot for me.

00:07:06.000 Because I loved that band.

00:07:10.000 I never thought they would get as big as they did.

00:07:14.000 Honestly, it kind of surprised me when they did.

00:07:16.000 Because, yeah, they're a great band, but I always thought they were a little too quirky to be...

00:07:20.000 It's huge, despite the Chris factor, this genetically engineered rock star.

00:07:28.000 But I always thought they were a little too weird to have mainstream success, which was fine with me.

00:07:33.000 I thought they'd be like a big indie band, like Sonic Youth or Butthole Surfers, like that level.

00:07:41.000 But it was more like I just love that band and I love playing with them.

00:07:45.000 And having that taken away, yeah, it really fucked me up for a bit.

00:07:52.000 So you just went to New York City to try to experience a different life? 0.93

00:07:58.000 Just running for my demons, you know?

00:08:01.000 Like that old rubric.

00:08:03.000 But your demons tend to follow you.

00:08:07.000 Always.

00:08:07.000 What were your demons?

00:08:10.000 You want to go down that rabbit hole?

00:08:12.000 Sure.

00:08:12.000 There's a few.

00:08:17.000 Growing up, you know, and everyone has a story, right?

00:08:21.000 Like, my childhood was bad.

00:08:23.000 My childhood wasn't bad, necessarily, but there was a lot of unhappiness, for sure.

00:08:33.000 It stemmed from my mother and my stepdaughter not being happy.

00:08:38.000 I don't feel bad talking about it now because they're both gone now.

00:08:44.000 But they probably shouldn't have gotten married.

00:08:48.000 And that's one thing.

00:08:51.000 As an adult, looking back, you can kind of...

00:08:56.000 You see your parents as human beings and not, like, these magical creatures that, like, feed you and take care of you.

00:09:03.000 Right.

00:09:03.000 And, you know, they got their dreams and their, you know, crushed dreams.

00:09:09.000 Like, they're humans.

00:09:11.000 So I have a lot of compassion for them now as an adult.

00:09:14.000 It's like, oh, I get it now.

00:09:15.000 You know, it's like they weren't bad people.

00:09:18.000 They were just people.

00:09:19.000 And it's just being a child in that environment.

00:09:23.000 Yeah, because you have nothing to compare it to.

00:09:26.000 It's just reality.

00:09:27.000 It's like, oh, I guess this is what being a kid is. 1.00

00:09:30.000 It kind of sucks. 1.00

00:09:32.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:09:33.000 It can.

00:09:35.000 Yeah.

00:09:35.000 But through that suck, a lot of times that's where you sort of get your drive, unfortunately.

00:09:40.000 Oh, I'm a firm believer that growth is the result of trauma.

00:09:44.000 Like, you need that thesis, antithesis, synthesis, you know?

00:09:51.000 Like, Stephen Jay Gould called it...

00:09:54.000 Pertaining to evolution, punctuated equilibrium, where, like, evolution tends to stay stable if there's no pressures.

00:10:05.000 But as soon as there's this introduction of new pressures, usually the result of some cataclysmic event.

00:10:11.000 It's not a gradual thing.

00:10:12.000 It's usually sudden and extreme.

00:10:15.000 And that's where these new evolutionary pressures are introduced.

00:10:18.000 And it's like...

00:10:20.000 On this level of species, you adapt and survive or you die off.

00:10:25.000 So I kind of like putting that template on the individual.

00:10:30.000 Like you kind of cruise through life and then something fucked up happens and then, you know, hopefully you step up and grow from it, you know, learn from it, all that stuff.

00:10:39.000 So you go to New York City, you were there for a few years.

00:10:43.000 What were you doing while you were there?

00:10:44.000 So initially I worked in a warehouse and it was fine.

00:10:49.000 I was paying my rent, living in Alphabet City, having this urban life that I never thought I would have had otherwise.

00:10:59.000 Did you know anybody there?

00:11:00.000 Yeah, I had friends there from touring and stuff.

00:11:02.000 And so that was kind of my foothold for moving there.

00:11:07.000 Didn't play music.

00:11:09.000 I brought some equipment over.

00:11:11.000 Initially, I went over with a backpack, and that was it.

00:11:17.000 And I had a friend of mine's band who were on tour pick me up at JFK and drive me into the city.

00:11:24.000 I still remember this.

00:11:26.000 The day before, I was doing different kind of work to save money for the move.

00:11:31.000 So the day before I flew to New York, I was like, Bucking bales of hay in a hayfield, like farm stuff, right?

00:11:40.000 And my buddy Spike, who I'm still good friends with, played in this band called Mind Over Four.

00:11:47.000 They picked me up at JFK, and I remember sitting in the van and looking at my Converse, and I still had straw stuck in the Converse from baling hay the day before.

00:11:58.000 It was like, okay, here we go.

00:12:00.000 That's an adventure.

00:12:01.000 Yeah.

00:12:01.000 Wow.

00:12:02.000 So you're there for a few years, living that life, and how do you transition into that?

00:12:08.000 So, I went back to Seattle at some point during the first year in New York to ship more of my personal belongings over.

00:12:17.000 And actually, I went to Sub Pop because they had UPS shipping there.

00:12:22.000 And I'm, like, boxing up my stuff in the Sub Pop offices and, like, getting ready to ship it to New York, like, including, like, a Marshall cabinet, like, some music gear, but...

00:12:32.000 I had this vague notion of, yeah, maybe I'll play there, but honestly, I probably didn't touch a bass or a guitar for the first year after getting fired from Soundgarden.

00:12:43.000 It still kind of had a bad taste in my mouth.

00:12:48.000 But what changed that was summer of Ninety-one, maybe?

00:12:56.000 I was friends with this band called Skunk.

00:12:59.000 They're this indie rock band on Twin Tone Records.

00:13:04.000 There are three Matt's.

00:13:05.000 Matt Sweeney, Matt Quigley, and Matt Coleman.

00:13:08.000 So Matt Quigley, the bass player, quit right before a European tour that they had booked, supporting Babes in Toyland, another amazing band.

00:13:19.000 And so I get a call from Matt Sweeney, and he's like, hey dude, Quigley quit, we got this tour coming up, do you want to fill in on bass for this tour?

00:13:30.000 So I'm like, I could work in this warehouse in New York, like in the sweltering New York summer heat, or I could go to Europe for eight weeks or whatever and tour.

00:13:41.000 So I'm like, yeah, okay, I'll do it.

00:13:43.000 So I learned the songs and did that tour.

00:13:49.000 To this day, it was the funnest tour I'd ever done, and I think that was because I really had nothing emotionally invested in the band.

00:13:59.000 Like, I like the music, I like the dudes, but it was just...

00:14:05.000 All I had to do was go out and play to the best of my ability, and yeah, it was just fun.

00:14:11.000 There was no burden, no heaviness to it, you know?

00:14:15.000 Like being a part of Soundgarden's immense band.

00:14:20.000 Yeah, that I was emotionally invested in.

00:14:24.000 And so how do you go from that to...

00:14:27.000 There's more to the story.

00:14:30.000 Keep going.

00:14:30.000 Okay.

00:14:31.000 So I did the European tour with Skunk. 1.00

00:14:35.000 And honestly, it was, I think, to this day, the best bass performances I ever did.

00:14:42.000 You know, I got some board recordings from that tour that once in a while I'll listen to it and go, yeah, you know, it's not bad.

00:14:50.000 Do you think it's because you were free, because you didn't have pressure and burden?

00:14:54.000 I think that was a component for sure, but also the songs were a bit more complicated, and stylistically it wasn't necessarily my jam.

00:15:04.000 I was into heavier stuff, and this was kind of more like Soul Asylum, like indie rock, which is great.

00:15:10.000 And the bass parts were really complicated, so I kind of had to push myself to learn them.

00:15:15.000 And again, like, you know, grew from it as a musician.

00:15:23.000 So I did the tour, came back.

00:15:25.000 I started playing with this kind of industrial band on Earache Records called Old Lady Drivers, which is another kind of interesting foray into a genre.

00:15:37.000 I was a fan of the grindcore bands for sure, but even this was kind of beyond that because it's a lot of...

00:15:49.000 We're good to go.

00:16:04.000 Google him if you get a chance.

00:16:06.000 Brilliant.

00:16:09.000 He does a lot of stuff.

00:16:11.000 He's really prolific.

00:16:14.000 Definitely a genius.

00:16:15.000 Zorn was on board.

00:16:17.000 He produced the record.

00:16:19.000 John actually lived in my neighborhood.

00:16:21.000 I'd go to his apartment.

00:16:23.000 He lived two blocks away in Alphabet City.

00:16:25.000 He had this insane record collection.

00:16:27.000 The whole flat was like...

00:16:30.000 Shelves of vinyl and it was all organized very meticulously Plastic sleeves for for each Jacket it was and he was he was like a student of American music or music in general and he got his knowledge and it's just cool like oh So here's this guy At least on an underground level,

00:16:58.000 very well-known, very well-respected, huge in Japan, of course.

00:17:02.000 Mm-hmm.

00:17:04.000 And he's just like this nice, kind of normal dude, like, giving me a tour of his record collection, you know? 0.88

00:17:10.000 And we're both living in this shitty neighborhood in Manhattan. 0.63

00:17:13.000 This is cool. 0.94

00:17:15.000 So that was a good experience.

00:17:16.000 Like, played shows with them.

00:17:18.000 Like, played CB's again.

00:17:21.000 CBGB's, which, you know, the legendary punk club in New York.

00:17:25.000 Which even having played there before, but it's just kind of like...

00:17:31.000 I would still get excited about it.

00:17:33.000 It's like, dude, I'm playing CBGB's.

00:17:35.000 It's like this mythical place when I was a teenager, you know?

00:17:37.000 And it's like, oh, here I am.

00:17:41.000 So I did that, but that was kind of like just a side thing for sure.

00:17:48.000 And then I got contacted...

00:17:51.000 So going back, between the Skunk Tour and the Old Lady Drivers experience, I kind of got into playing music again.

00:17:59.000 Like, it became fun again, which is why I did it in the first place.

00:18:04.000 Like, it brought me joy.

00:18:06.000 But, you know, there was a couple times where it got to the point where the joy was, like, fully extracted from the process, and it just, it wasn't fulfilling anymore, you know?

00:18:18.000 So anyway, I'm back in New York, working in the warehouse, doing my thing, and I get contacted by...

00:18:25.000 Have you ever heard of Uniform Choice?

00:18:27.000 No.

00:18:27.000 Like a hardcore band from L.A., from the 80s.

00:18:32.000 I get contacted by Pat Dubar, who was, in the 80s, a singer for Uniform Choice, and that was a band I was familiar with from the punk days and everything.

00:18:41.000 So he was in this band called Mind Funk, which, first off, like, horrible name.

00:18:47.000 Like, get it.

00:18:50.000 We can go into that later.

00:18:54.000 Pat contacts me and he's like, hey, and they were signed to Epic Records, had one record out already.

00:19:00.000 And he's like, hey, we're going to replace one of our guitar players and our drummers.

00:19:06.000 Are you interested in trying out?

00:19:10.000 And honestly, I hadn't heard their record.

00:19:12.000 And I gave the first one a listen and honestly wasn't that excited about it.

00:19:17.000 But it was...

00:19:22.000 At this point in my life, I kind of knew if I'm going to give the music thing another go, this is going to be it.

00:19:30.000 It's like, do this, and it'll either catch fire or it won't, and if it doesn't, I'll go on to the next chapter, whatever that is.

00:19:42.000 I don't even think I auditioned for the band.

00:19:46.000 I think they just, okay, you're in.

00:19:49.000 So now we're looking for a drummer So I went and poached my friend Sean back home in Washington.

00:19:59.000 He played in a band that I was a big fan of.

00:20:01.000 And I was a big fan of Sean.

00:20:03.000 And convinced him to come out to New York and join this band that he'd never heard of.

00:20:10.000 And it took a lot of convincing to get him to do it, but he did it.

00:20:14.000 And so this kind of MindFunk 2.0 with Sean and I... One plus side was like, okay, major label, get put on salary, like don't need a day job anymore,

00:20:30.000 right?

00:20:31.000 So once again, I'm a professional rock musician, which not that I care about the title, but it was nice not to have the day job.

00:20:39.000 So we get a house in Monmouth County, New Jersey, in order to write the next record.

00:20:46.000 So band house, five of us living in this house.

00:20:52.000 And it was just routine.

00:20:54.000 We'd get together every day, rehearse, write songs.

00:20:58.000 I was given more or less full creative reign for my ideas and stuff, which was fulfilling on that level.

00:21:09.000 The band was managed by John Zuzula.

00:21:12.000 Do you know Johnny Z? No.

00:21:15.000 So he was like the dude who discovered Metallica.

00:21:17.000 That's kind of his claim to fame.

00:21:19.000 And he had a label called Megaforce Records, which is a great 80s movie, by the way, if you've never seen it.

00:21:25.000 No.

00:21:26.000 It's so good.

00:21:27.000 It's about the band?

00:21:28.000 No.

00:21:29.000 It's this horrible yet brilliant action movie from like 1982, I think.

00:21:33.000 But that's a digression.

00:21:34.000 Yeah.

00:21:36.000 So John and Marsha had this management company, Crazed Management.

00:21:41.000 They own Megaforce Records, and that's the label that put out Kill Em All and the first pressing of Ride the Lightning.

00:21:47.000 And they did Merciful Fate Melissa.

00:21:50.000 They did some really good records, like the first Anthrax records as well, I think.

00:21:55.000 So John managed some...

00:21:59.000 Pretty big bands.

00:22:00.000 Like, he managed Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies, Ministry, I think.

00:22:07.000 Like, he was this kind of known quantity in the music world, or at least in the heavy metal world, hard rock world, whatever you want to call it.

00:22:16.000 So we had Johnny Z signed to Epic, had the house in Jersey, write in the record. 0.92

00:22:26.000 Like with the name Mindfunk, which again is like a dumb name.

00:22:30.000 It kind of turned me off initially.

00:22:32.000 So I suggested like making it one word, like contracting it to make it a little less odious.

00:22:38.000 So I did that, kind of changed the logo.

00:22:43.000 So it's kind of slipping in some aesthetic values that I thought...

00:22:49.000 We're better, at least, than what was going on at the time.

00:22:52.000 Why'd you hate Mind Funk so much? 0.99

00:22:54.000 It's just a dumb name. 0.99

00:22:55.000 It's like the whole funk thing. 0.99

00:22:57.000 It's like, oh, Chili Peppers, like what?

00:22:59.000 No, it wasn't like that at all. 0.99

00:23:03.000 But, you know, there's a lot of dumb band names out there. 0.99

00:23:06.000 And if the band catches fire, it doesn't matter if it's a dumb name. 0.99

00:23:10.000 It just gets accepted. 0.98

00:23:11.000 So it's not that big a deal.

00:23:14.000 Yeah.

00:23:17.000 So, recording, blah, blah, blah.

00:23:20.000 Johnny Z. We get to...

00:23:22.000 So we get Terry Date, the producer, on board to produce the second record.

00:23:28.000 And I knew him.

00:23:29.000 He's from Seattle, so I knew him from Soundgarden and from other local bands that he produced.

00:23:34.000 Like a known quantity in that world.

00:23:37.000 We book out Bearsville Studio up in Woodstock, New York.

00:23:43.000 The studio's literally on this old Dutch farm.

00:23:49.000 It's like idyllic.

00:23:51.000 So we get Bearsville booked out for three months, got Terry Dade on board.

00:23:58.000 It's like September of 90...

00:24:02.000 Must be September 92. We pack up the U-Haul, all the gear, drive up to Beresville to start the next record.

00:24:14.000 So Sean and I are in the barn setting up equipment on this farm to start the pre-production work.

00:24:21.000 Like, I don't know, it's probably a Saturday.

00:24:24.000 No, it was a Friday.

00:24:25.000 It was definitely a Friday.

00:24:27.000 So we're setting up the equipment to start pre-production work when Terry gets in.

00:24:32.000 And I think Pat came down to the barn as we're setting up.

00:24:37.000 And it's this late September.

00:24:41.000 The heat has kind of left New York State, so it's pleasant outside.

00:24:45.000 It's beautiful, sunny.

00:24:48.000 Farm.

00:24:49.000 This old barn we're setting up equipment in.

00:24:54.000 Pat says, hey, we've got to get everyone together.

00:24:58.000 We've got some bad news.

00:25:00.000 So Epic, the label, had dropped the band that day.

00:25:07.000 Like, catastrophic, right?

00:25:11.000 Or could have been catastrophic.

00:25:12.000 And just the fact that it was a Friday afternoon, I'm sure it was a post-it note on some dude at Epic's computer monitor.

00:25:21.000 Drop MindFunk. 1.00

00:25:23.000 It's like, oh shit, I gotta do that. 1.00

00:25:26.000 So, it's like, fuck, you know? 0.99

00:25:28.000 It's like a $300,000 recording budget, Terry Data's producer, like, the band's literally homeless, like, we're gonna live at the studio, but it's like, okay, what now? 0.99

00:25:40.000 So the dude who managed Berardsville, and I can't remember his name, he's this British guy, super sweet, and he's like, he saw we were in a tight spot, and he's like, You know, he's out like a huge lump of money, right?

00:25:56.000 Because that studio was booked out for three months.

00:25:59.000 That's like a huge, you know, quarter million dollars probably.

00:26:04.000 He's like, you guys can stay here and...

00:26:08.000 Sort out what you've got to sort out, kind of thing.

00:26:12.000 I remember Pat and I were living in one of the cottages on the property.

00:26:16.000 It's this very quaint little farmhouse.

00:26:20.000 At least, I won't speak for everyone, but I was in a daze.

00:26:23.000 I was like... 1.00

00:26:27.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:26:28.000 I was already lining up, getting my warehouse job back, all this stuff. 1.00

00:26:33.000 And so I remember just staying in this house, sleeping on this antique leather sofa, and I had my cat with me.

00:26:40.000 So it's me and my cat, watching bad daytime TV. I think I lived on Cheerios and soda.

00:26:48.000 Just nasty, right?

00:26:49.000 Just because I was too lazy to go to a restaurant or buy food to cook.

00:26:53.000 It's easy.

00:26:55.000 A bowl of cereal and some soda.

00:26:57.000 It just sounds so gross now.

00:26:59.000 Even then, that's not how I normally ate.

00:27:02.000 During that period, that's what I was eating.

00:27:04.000 I was watching bad daytime television.

00:27:08.000 I remember there was this wall hanging in the living room.

00:27:13.000 It was this macrame koala bear.

00:27:17.000 You know?

00:27:18.000 Kind of tacky.

00:27:20.000 And I kind of started obsessing on this macrame koala bear to the point where it's like, if I ever have a daughter, I'm going to name her Koala Macrame. 0.99

00:27:31.000 You know, again, speaking of dumb names.

00:27:34.000 But luckily that passed and I came up with a replacement for a daughter's name that was much better. 0.99

00:27:42.000 But...

00:27:44.000 So during that week, Johnny Z, our manager, who personally I didn't really like him that much, you know, there was something kind of dodgy about him,

00:28:00.000 like in that music business way, that also put a bad taste in my mouth on a lot of levels, just being in that industry.

00:28:11.000 But Johnny, you know, as much as I didn't like him, he came through.

00:28:14.000 And maybe he was motivated by economic reasons rather than, you know, he's being a stand-up guy or whatever.

00:28:21.000 But he signed the band to Megaforce, to his label.

00:28:28.000 Put up the money for the recording, to record the record.

00:28:32.000 Put us all back on salary so it didn't miss a beat.

00:28:34.000 Like, no one had to get a day job.

00:28:37.000 And then Terry, Terry Date, much to his credit, like, he had every right to bail, right?

00:28:44.000 It was like, okay, what's the next gig?

00:28:47.000 Okay, I'm there.

00:28:48.000 He got us studio time at Bad Animals Studio in Seattle, which is Hart's old recording studio.

00:28:54.000 It's gone now.

00:28:57.000 Like all this happened in like a week, 10 days.

00:29:00.000 Like everything was back on track, just like new label, new studio in Seattle.

00:29:06.000 And so loaded up the gear, flew to Seattle and like probably 10 days later we're doing pre-production demos at Bad Animals and recorded the record and It was done I think by December the mix was done.

00:29:24.000 I actually went back to New York and worked in the warehouse for a month to make some extra money.

00:29:30.000 And then the band, well not the whole band, but Sean, Pat and I decided to move to San Francisco just for like a change of venue.

00:29:40.000 So I think New Year's Day or the day after, I loaded up U-Haul with all our stuff and drove cross-country by myself, which was like a super fun road trip.

00:29:50.000 And then we got an apartment in the Mission District in San Francisco, and that's where 1993 was a very transitional year, and that's where things got to the point where it's like,

00:30:05.000 okay, I've got to do something different for me personally.

00:30:10.000 And what happens next?

00:30:13.000 We're living in San Francisco.

00:30:16.000 Even while we're living in the house in New Jersey, during the recording process in Seattle and in San Francisco, Like, taking a lot of drugs.

00:30:29.000 Like, a lot of hallucinogens, mostly.

00:30:31.000 But, you know, had my flirtation with heroin.

00:30:34.000 Like, first started just smoking it, you know, on tinfoil.

00:30:38.000 And then went into IV use.

00:30:41.000 And, like, I honestly enjoyed it, but it never got its hooks in me.

00:30:45.000 And I got to the point where I was like, eh, yeah, I should probably not continue down this path.

00:30:51.000 And walked away from it.

00:30:53.000 It's a big step to go to intravenous.

00:30:56.000 Yeah.

00:30:57.000 Well, like, I'm a completist, I guess.

00:31:00.000 It's like, I don't want to do it halfway.

00:31:03.000 See what the fuss is all about.

00:31:04.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:31:05.000 Yeah.

00:31:06.000 What is the fuss all about?

00:31:08.000 So the feeling, what's your experience with opiates?

00:31:12.000 Only, like, while I've been under, like, having surgery.

00:31:17.000 Yeah, so it's the same.

00:31:18.000 Yeah.

00:31:18.000 Just that kind of weightless feeling.

00:31:20.000 It's very nice.

00:31:21.000 I guess the analogy I can make is just that kind of post-orgasmic bliss where you're weightless and everything feels wonderful.

00:31:31.000 It's like that.

00:31:33.000 But induced artificially, I guess.

00:31:36.000 Yeah.

00:31:41.000 Living in San Francisco.

00:31:42.000 So we toured a lot that year.

00:31:44.000 Probably half the year was touring like Europe and the States.

00:31:48.000 And then when we're back in San Francisco, it was like, you know, still on salary.

00:31:53.000 You didn't have to work.

00:31:54.000 So just hang out and like, you know, drop acid or drink mushroom tea or whatever.

00:32:00.000 And as fun as that is, it was like, like long term, I don't know.

00:32:07.000 You know, if this is going to be right.

00:32:09.000 You know, the record never caught fire.

00:32:11.000 I think it's a solid record.

00:32:13.000 Like, when I hear tracks off of it now, you know, I'm kind of like, no, it's not bad.

00:32:20.000 No, it's okay.

00:32:23.000 There's a couple of the songs on that record were basically nascent Soundgarden songs, you know?

00:32:29.000 There were, like, riffs or song ideas I had that, while playing with Soundgarden, like, Chris would hear me playing it, noodling around, and he'd be like, oh, remember that.

00:32:41.000 So I had a couple ideas that in a different life would have been on the next Soundgarden record, conceivably.

00:32:48.000 So there's a couple of those songs on there.

00:32:51.000 Not a bad record.

00:32:53.000 We played a bunch of the big festivals in Europe.

00:32:58.000 We did pretty much everything but make a bunch of money.

00:33:03.000 Which is, again, most bands.

00:33:06.000 Most bands don't catch fire.

00:33:10.000 So what happened?

00:33:12.000 So during this period, 1993, I started, I guess, crafting the next chapter, right, for me.

00:33:24.000 And I'd always been really intrigued by the military.

00:33:28.000 My grandfather, both my grandfathers were World War II vets.

00:33:34.000 So my maternal grandfather was a tank commander in World War II. And he was kind of my...

00:33:43.000 Introduction to, like, military stuff.

00:33:46.000 You know, and I'm a little kid, so I'm intrigued by it.

00:33:49.000 Like, you know, oh, tank commander, that's cool.

00:33:51.000 Like, he, on D-Day, he was an E4 corporal, like, gunner on a Sherman tank.

00:33:58.000 On VE Day, his unit had made it all the way to Vienna, and he was a company commander.

00:34:04.000 And it was just survival, like, attrition.

00:34:08.000 I'm sure he was a fine soldier, but it was just attrition that he went from corporal to captain in a year or whatever.

00:34:19.000 My grandmother's second husband...

00:34:23.000 Was a corpsman in the Navy.

00:34:25.000 So his story is super funny.

00:34:27.000 Like, he grew up in this small town on the Columbia River in Washington State.

00:34:32.000 So his, I think there was like 20 dudes in his graduating class in high school.

00:34:37.000 And so they graduated June 1942. Right after graduation, 201, every male in his class went to the recruiter and enlisted.

00:34:48.000 He went in the Navy.

00:34:50.000 His Navy MOS was a pharmacist-made or something like that.

00:34:56.000 He's like, oh, I'll be on the ship working in the dispensary or whatever.

00:35:01.000 Wrong.

00:35:02.000 He graduates.

00:35:03.000 They give him a helmet.

00:35:05.000 And attach them to a Marine platoon, infantry platoon, and, like, you're the medic.

00:35:10.000 And so he did, like, seven amphibious assaults in the Pacific.

00:35:14.000 Like, crazy stuff, right?

00:35:16.000 Wow.

00:35:17.000 Yeah.

00:35:18.000 Like, it was super hard.

00:35:19.000 And he had amazing stories, you know?

00:35:22.000 And then my father's father was in the Coast Guard and he did a lot of coastal patrolling, Oregon Coast, Washington Coast, Columbia River during the war, just looking for Japanese subs or whatever.

00:35:37.000 And so you, because you had this sort of wanderlust that made you want to go trek in the Himalayas, and you had this family that had this background in the military, you were thinking that this would be something that would be adventurous or intriguing to you?

00:35:54.000 Yeah, like I've always...

00:35:57.000 I've always had a taste for high adventure as a child.

00:36:03.000 Probably even before I was in school.

00:36:04.000 So Saturday morning cartoons.

00:36:07.000 How old are you?

00:36:08.000 55. Yeah, we're the same age.

00:36:09.000 So I imagine I probably grew up with similar cultural influences.

00:36:14.000 So I remember in the mornings watching TV shows, cartoons, Johnny Quest was the big one, right?

00:36:21.000 Speed Racer, Marine Boy.

00:36:25.000 Speed Racer and Marine Boy were anime, but they were great.

00:36:29.000 Marine Boy was basically Speed Racer, but underwater.

00:36:33.000 Super cool, fantastical stuff.

00:36:36.000 Great to feed the imagination.

00:36:38.000 The writing for Johnny Quest was so good.

00:36:41.000 The show, in retrospect, was kind of progressive.

00:36:46.000 Johnny had two dads, and they had this A multiracial composite family.

00:36:56.000 But the writing was so solid.

00:36:58.000 Super creative.

00:37:01.000 I think it was only 26 episodes, but each episode is distinct and well-written and just cool.

00:37:09.000 I would watch this as a kid and be like, I'm not sure what that is, but I want to do that.

00:37:15.000 You know?

00:37:16.000 So that was kind of the initial impetus for, like...

00:37:19.000 And then growing up in the woods in western Washington, like, I was expected, you know, I was kicked outside after breakfast and not expected to be seen again until dinnertime.

00:37:30.000 And what I did between then was, like, on me.

00:37:32.000 And so I'd go out and do stupid stuff, like climb high-tension power lines, you know, to the top. 0.93

00:37:38.000 Like, five, six years old. 1.00

00:37:40.000 Like, so stupid, right? 1.00

00:37:42.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:37:43.000 But it was like, oh, this is cool, you know?

00:37:46.000 And my mother, she definitely facilitated this stuff, like, much to her credit.

00:37:55.000 Like, we'd go camping in the Olympic rainforest on the peninsula, and there's like a couple rivers there, but one of the main ones is the Ho River.

00:38:04.000 And I had this, as a child, I had like this $20, you know, Kmart inflatable raft with the oars.

00:38:12.000 And my mom would drive me upriver like 10 miles or 15 miles or whatever in our Volkswagen bus and like drop me off, me and my $20 Kmart boat in a life vest.

00:38:27.000 And she'd be like, alright, see you at the campground.

00:38:30.000 And so I would be doing this like...

00:38:33.000 You know, whitewater rafting by myself in my cheesy little boat for several, several miles and, you know, didn't drown, obviously.

00:38:42.000 But it kind of instilled, again, or reinforced this sense of adventure, you know.

00:38:47.000 And I'm sure my mom would go to jail for that today, you know. 0.99

00:38:52.000 Probably not jail, but definitely be discouraged.

00:38:59.000 So that's background for the high adventure thing, the military thing.

00:39:06.000 So 1993, I'm like, okay...

00:39:12.000 I need to do something.

00:39:14.000 I need that punctuated equilibrium, right?

00:39:16.000 I need a dramatic event in order to promulgate the next period of growth or evolution or whatever.

00:39:24.000 So you really actively thought that way?

00:39:26.000 Yeah.

00:39:27.000 That you were trying to achieve growth?

00:39:29.000 Yeah, I didn't want to stagnate.

00:39:31.000 I didn't want to fall behind, you know.

00:39:40.000 I guess as soon as I figured out what life authorship was or the concept, even though I may not have known the term, yeah, I kind of endeavored to actively author my own life.

00:39:55.000 You know, pursuing the ends of making a life that kept me engaged, kept me interested, and was meaningful to me, you know?

00:40:05.000 So the military seemed like more and more like a viable option for that next page, that next step.

00:40:15.000 So at the time, like 1993, there wasn't a lot of books out about special operations.

00:40:21.000 And pretty much the only ones that were out there were like Vietnam dudes. 0.98

00:40:25.000 So I devoured every, you know, Vietnam War special operations book, whether it was like Lerps, Rangers, SEALs, SF, whatever.

00:40:35.000 Had Dick Marchinko written his books yet?

00:40:38.000 That I don't know.

00:40:41.000 I don't think so, because I think I would have remembered reading them.

00:40:45.000 I read one of them when I was in Gulag in ranger school, and it seemed kind of Like, over the top to me.

00:40:57.000 But that's a digression.

00:40:59.000 I think there was one book out about, like, the SOF experience during the first Gulf War.

00:41:04.000 And it kind of went over different units and different operations.

00:41:07.000 And I think that's the only kind of contemporary one that I was even out.

00:41:12.000 But it was like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do this.

00:41:14.000 So while we're in San Francisco, you know, between like dropping acid and taking mushrooms, I was going to the recruiter.

00:41:24.000 And like I went to the Navy recruiter first because I actually knew someone who was a SEAL, a former SEAL. And so that seemed intriguing to me.

00:41:33.000 So I go to the Navy recruiter.

00:41:35.000 I'm like, hey, I want to be a SEAL. And they're like, well, here, take the ASVAB. So the ASVAB is like this IQ test that the military gives you.

00:41:46.000 And so I took it and I scored pretty high on it.

00:41:52.000 And so they're trying to push me into, like, more technical MOSs, you know?

00:41:57.000 And I'm like, but no, that's not what I wanted.

00:41:59.000 What does MOS stand for?

00:42:00.000 Oh, sorry.

00:42:01.000 If I get too jargony, please stop me.

00:42:04.000 Military Occupational Specialty.

00:42:06.000 Your job.

00:42:08.000 And the Navy doesn't even call it MOS. I think they call it RATE or something like that.

00:42:14.000 And...

00:42:16.000 So I'm like, no, I don't want to do that.

00:42:17.000 So basically it came down to they couldn't even promise me a shot at trying out for BUDS, you know, taking the PT test basically.

00:42:29.000 And so I didn't know really anything about the military, but I knew enough or I suspected enough that like, okay, I'm not going to sign anything unless I'm like guaranteed a shot.

00:42:42.000 And so that's when I started talking to the Armory recruiter, and they could guarantee me.

00:42:48.000 So basically they gave me a Ranger contract.

00:42:52.000 So Ranger Regiment's interesting in that it's pretty much the only special operations unit in the U.S. military that has privates, like has brand new soldiers.

00:43:03.000 Pretty much every other unit, it's all NCOs.

00:43:07.000 So that's kind of your entry-level soft unit in the U.S. military is Ranger Regiment.

00:43:14.000 And so what happens?

00:43:18.000 So I finished my MindFunk touring obligations, which went pretty much almost up until Christmas, like into mid-December, say, in August.

00:43:34.000 Like, left the band and I think two months later I was in basic training.

00:43:41.000 What were you thinking while you were in basic training?

00:43:44.000 I mean, basic training is like...

00:43:48.000 It was like every movie cliche you've seen, like, happens.

00:43:54.000 It's like, oh, and this is, you know, this part.

00:43:59.000 It was...

00:44:04.000 It was a necessary step, right, for the progression.

00:44:08.000 It wasn't really challenging.

00:44:10.000 The most challenging part about it was, like, not being able to do what I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it.

00:44:16.000 That was, like, the biggest challenge for me.

00:44:19.000 Your entire life, every minute of your day is controlled.

00:44:23.000 So that was kind of like, yeah, I don't know if I dig this, you know?

00:44:27.000 Right.

00:44:29.000 But, you know, sucked it up, went through it.

00:44:34.000 After what they call AIT, like advanced individual training, which for me was infantry, you go through the infantry MOS training, go to airborne school, and then go to selection for regiment.

00:44:49.000 So what was the physical aspect of it like?

00:44:53.000 Because it seemed like you're just partying and living life like a rock star before that.

00:44:58.000 You're just doing heroin and all this stuff.

00:45:00.000 And then all of a sudden, you're involved in something that's very physically grueling.

00:45:06.000 But I did prep.

00:45:08.000 I got a YMCA membership and I was swimming at the Y. I was running.

00:45:16.000 Even though I was kind of going into it somewhat blind, I knew that I can't just show up and not have any kind of fitness level.

00:45:25.000 So I did do some prep work and I think it served me well.

00:45:29.000 Was that the first time you had done physical stuff like that in your life?

00:45:33.000 No.

00:45:34.000 I played soccer when I was a kid.

00:45:39.000 Soccer was the one sport that didn't have that jock culture.

00:45:45.000 You know, so that's kind of what I gravitated towards.

00:45:49.000 So, you know, I did a lot of physical outside stuff like my whole life.

00:45:53.000 You know, I worked in Alaska on a fishing boat like there was nothing.

00:45:59.000 It wasn't foreign, you know, like physical exertion.

00:46:03.000 And so what happens then?

00:46:08.000 Go to selection.

00:46:10.000 At the time it was called RIP, like the Ranger Indoctrination Program.

00:46:15.000 Now they call it RASP, like the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program, something like that.

00:46:21.000 And I think it's a week longer now.

00:46:24.000 But like...

00:46:26.000 Like, rip is when things got physically challenging, for sure.

00:46:30.000 It was basically, you just get abused for three weeks, basically.

00:46:33.000 You know, they try to make you quit.

00:46:35.000 And so, like, the runs, like, we do these, like, non-standard runs and rip, that was, it pushed me to my limits.

00:46:43.000 Like, I was always kind of at the back of the pack.

00:46:49.000 Like, I was still with the main body, so I was keeping up.

00:46:52.000 I was meeting the standard.

00:46:53.000 But, like, right behind me were, like, all the dudes who were, like, getting put on the truck.

00:46:58.000 Like, you're done, you know?

00:47:00.000 So I was like, you look at that and, like, dig a little deeper and, like, keep going, you know?

00:47:07.000 But, yeah, I got selected and went to 2nd Ranger Battalion.

00:47:15.000 And did you immediately get deployed?

00:47:17.000 Like, what year are we talking about here?

00:47:19.000 This was 93?

00:47:21.000 No, 94. Okay, so this is post-Desert Storm.

00:47:24.000 Yeah.

00:47:25.000 What was the environment like?

00:47:27.000 So it was like it was Clinton era military, peacetime military.

00:47:33.000 So like everything was geared towards training, right?

00:47:38.000 Like there was a few dudes in my company who were like Panama vets.

00:47:43.000 And so that was like 1989, I think.

00:47:47.000 Just Cause.

00:47:49.000 So there's some of those dudes hanging out.

00:47:51.000 And I could tell they were just waiting for the next, like, real-world op.

00:47:55.000 That's all they were doing.

00:47:56.000 They were biding time.

00:47:58.000 And, like, now I get it.

00:48:00.000 And I think even then I kind of got it.

00:48:02.000 But, um...

00:48:04.000 What do you mean by get it?

00:48:06.000 Like, you know, that's...

00:48:08.000 You want to do it for real.

00:48:10.000 You still want to train all the time.

00:48:12.000 Right.

00:48:13.000 So...

00:48:16.000 Yeah, it was just a lot of training.

00:48:18.000 There was deployments, but it was just all training deployments.

00:48:23.000 Yeah.

00:48:25.000 You know, I went to Ranger school, like got my Ranger tab.

00:48:30.000 And what happens after that?

00:48:34.000 I finished my enlistment.

00:48:35.000 It was like a four-year enlistment, I think.

00:48:38.000 And then I got out because it was like, In a way, I kind of thought I achieved what I aimed to achieve by going in the military, and there definitely wasn't a war on the horizon, at least one that anyone could see. 0.97

00:48:57.000 So I had a break in service for a couple years, and I kind of fucked off. 0.80

00:49:06.000 Ended up going... 0.63

00:49:09.000 To community college, which is like another kind of funny story.

00:49:15.000 If you're interested.

00:49:16.000 Sure.

00:49:17.000 So, I came back to Washington basically when my mother died.

00:49:25.000 And...

00:49:27.000 So I was kind of like dealing with her and her stuff.

00:49:31.000 And it was like...

00:49:33.000 There's a local community college where I grew up.

00:49:37.000 And like, maybe I'll give this college thing a try, you know?

00:49:41.000 And so I registered for some classes.

00:49:44.000 But the funny thing about that story is...

00:49:50.000 When I was like 18, I guess?

00:49:53.000 17?

00:49:54.000 Like right before I graduated high school.

00:49:57.000 All my friends from high school who were going to go to college.

00:50:02.000 Because like in my mind, I was never going to go.

00:50:04.000 I was like...

00:50:05.000 Why am I going to go to college? 1.00

00:50:07.000 Like, fuck this. 1.00

00:50:08.000 You know, angry young man, dissatisfied on pretty much every level. 1.00

00:50:13.000 But I was like, yeah, I'm not going to college.

00:50:16.000 College has nothing for me.

00:50:18.000 But I wanted to hang out with my friends, like the dudes I skateboarded with and played music with and stuff.

00:50:23.000 And so they were all going to take their SATs at the local community college.

00:50:28.000 Like on a Saturday morning or whatever it was.

00:50:31.000 And so I went with them just so I could hang out with them.

00:50:36.000 And I took the SATs, but I took my SATs on acid.

00:50:41.000 How'd that go?

00:50:42.000 I had no idea.

00:50:43.000 I didn't care.

00:50:44.000 I never picked up, you know, the scores.

00:50:47.000 It was probably just like making designs on the paper or something.

00:50:53.000 At that point, academia, higher education, that just wasn't going to happen for me. 0.99

00:51:00.000 So yeah, it's kind of this fuck you punk rock thing. 0.99

00:51:03.000 I'm going to take my SATs on acid. 0.99

00:51:06.000 So fast forward 10 years, I'm in that same room at Olympic College in a class.

00:51:13.000 Taking an astronomy class.

00:51:15.000 And the building is still there.

00:51:17.000 It's called the Rotunda.

00:51:18.000 And it's this round, as you can imagine, building on campus.

00:51:23.000 And, yeah, so who's laughing now?

00:51:28.000 So what was your idea, like, doing that?

00:51:32.000 Taking astronomy classes, going to college...

00:51:35.000 Again, personal growth.

00:51:37.000 Maybe I should focus on this aspect now, like academia.

00:51:41.000 So I did that first semester, first two semesters at Olympic College, and found that I liked it.

00:51:50.000 I liked going to class, and I liked taking notes, and I liked learning.

00:51:54.000 And I'm like, oh, I get it now, this whole college thing.

00:52:00.000 So I finished my associates.

00:52:04.000 At Olympic College and then went back in the Army.

00:52:09.000 And so I was in the Special Forces qualification course like when 9-11 happened.

00:52:16.000 And what caused you to go back in the Army?

00:52:19.000 It was a gut feeling.

00:52:20.000 It was like, I don't think I'm done with this.

00:52:24.000 So I went to selection, got selected, and selection, at least at the time, was good for life, basically.

00:52:32.000 So how many years were you out?

00:52:34.000 Like two.

00:52:34.000 Two years out?

00:52:35.000 Yeah, not long at all.

00:52:38.000 I blink now and two years goes by.

00:52:41.000 But a lot had happened personally in those two years.

00:52:44.000 So I'm back in the Army, doing the Special Forces qualification course, which for my MOS, like the 18 Bravo Special Forces Weapons Sergeant, was like about a year and a half.

00:52:58.000 So it was the first day of language school, which was six months long, was 9-11.

00:53:07.000 Wow.

00:53:08.000 Yeah.

00:53:10.000 What was it like being in the military when 9-11 went down?

00:53:15.000 It was, like, I think everyone there, so we're, there's a group of us in this building at Fort Bragg called the SOAV, the Special Operations Academic Facility, and we're, you know, standing around the beginning of the day,

00:53:31.000 like, drinking coffee, getting ready to go to class.

00:53:33.000 First day of class.

00:53:34.000 And there's television monitors on with CNN or whatever.

00:53:38.000 And we're watching the planes go into the tower.

00:53:41.000 And, like, I think 201, everyone knew that everything's changing right now.

00:53:46.000 It's like, this is, like, 100% for real.

00:53:50.000 And, like, everyone was like, yeah.

00:53:52.000 That's how you felt?

00:53:53.000 Oh, yeah.

00:53:54.000 Yeah.

00:53:54.000 All the training.

00:53:56.000 Yeah.

00:53:56.000 Like, finally we're going to do something.

00:53:59.000 So what happens then?

00:54:01.000 I'm in language school for another six months.

00:54:04.000 What are you learning?

00:54:05.000 Thai.

00:54:07.000 Why Thai? 0.51

00:54:09.000 It's just like my unit's area of responsibility was Asia, so I had to do an Asian language.

00:54:16.000 And I like Thai food.

00:54:20.000 So...

00:54:23.000 Graduate the Q course, like do a couple of JSETs in Asia.

00:54:27.000 So JSETs, joint combined exchange training.

00:54:33.000 So you basically go, your team goes and trains with a foreign special operations unit and you teach them stuff or you, you know.

00:54:42.000 And it's more just to, like, establish rapport and maybe get some access or whatever.

00:54:47.000 So do a couple JSETs in Asia and then get ready to go to Iraq to prep for the invasion, like in 2002. And, like, spend a lot of time in Kuwait just, like, training and preparing.

00:55:02.000 What was it like when you went there?

00:55:05.000 To Iraq?

00:55:06.000 Yeah.

00:55:07.000 So, that was my first combat experience.

00:55:16.000 It was unique in that my team and a couple other teams are basically attached to 4th ID to provide route reconnaissance and screening and stuff for this main conventional military invasion.

00:55:37.000 And so watching Big Army work, you know, do what they do best was pretty amazing.

00:55:43.000 Like tank engagements, like I never thought I'd witness that.

00:55:49.000 It was just almost like a, and it's probably a trite cliche, but like a movie, you know?

00:55:59.000 Watching this massive mechanized force just like crush everything in its path.

00:56:05.000 So, yeah.

00:56:08.000 When you were over there, was any doubt that you had done the right thing by enlisting?

00:56:13.000 Oh, no doubt.

00:56:15.000 No doubt at all?

00:56:15.000 Yeah.

00:56:16.000 You were geared up, ready to go?

00:56:18.000 Yeah.

00:56:19.000 So what happened when you were over there?

00:56:23.000 Got in some gunfights, hit some targets, and then redeployed back to the States.

00:56:32.000 You say that so casually.

00:56:33.000 Got in gunfights and hit some targets.

00:56:36.000 It had to be a pretty extreme experience.

00:56:38.000 Yeah, but honestly, I think my Afghan experiences were more intense than Iraq, for sure.

00:56:44.000 Yeah?

00:56:45.000 Yeah.

00:56:45.000 It was a different animal.

00:56:48.000 And when did that happen?

00:56:49.000 So it did some rotations in Afghanistan following the Iraq invasion.

00:56:56.000 And it was kind of the more traditional like SF mission, like working with indigenous troops and leading them on raids and things like that.

00:57:07.000 That's gotta be a wild change of life to go from being a musician to go from being a deployed special operator in Afghanistan.

00:57:19.000 Like, the shift in consciousness is so extreme.

00:57:25.000 Maybe.

00:57:26.000 Maybe?

00:57:27.000 But I think I'm pretty good at just rolling with stuff, you know?

00:57:32.000 It's like, oh, this is happening now, okay?

00:57:35.000 But that's a big happening.

00:57:37.000 It's a huge happening.

00:57:39.000 To be in combat.

00:57:43.000 I mean, definitely.

00:57:44.000 I think the war and combat was the most profound experience of my life, for sure.

00:57:49.000 And I don't mean to maybe treat it lightly, because I don't take it lightly.

00:57:55.000 Yeah, it's by far the most profound experience of my life.

00:57:59.000 So many guys who come back from that, not only do they say it's the most profound experience of their life, but many of them say it was the best experience of their life.

00:58:10.000 I understand that, for sure.

00:58:15.000 Like, I guess I could encapsulate it like this.

00:58:20.000 Like, you got your dudes, you know, your team, your little indigenous troopers, and you're going to go crush some target. 1.00

00:58:29.000 And...

00:58:32.000 I never had a doubt that maybe I would get injured or killed, but I never had a doubt that the mission would fail.

00:58:41.000 Just because the odds were just in our favor.

00:58:43.000 You've got night vision, you've got a cast stack, you've got this huge support apparatus.

00:58:50.000 There's no way we're not going to win this fight.

00:58:53.000 But going on target, closing with destroying the enemy, and then getting you and all your dudes back to base alive, best feeling in the world.

00:59:05.000 Really?

00:59:05.000 Yeah.

00:59:06.000 So many guys say that.

00:59:08.000 Best feeling in the world.

00:59:10.000 Wow.

00:59:11.000 What can you describe it?

00:59:16.000 Or give an attempt?

00:59:19.000 I think, and I got my kind of evolutionary ideas about why that is.

00:59:27.000 I think that we're on a very essential level, like doing what human beings, or one of the things we're meant to do.

00:59:39.000 Or maybe one of the things we've always done.

00:59:42.000 Well, we're an adversarial species, but every species in nature is adversarial.

00:59:48.000 And it's not an evaluative statement.

00:59:52.000 It's just kind of an observation.

00:59:55.000 So I think on this...

00:59:58.000 Just the way our brains are, like, evolutionarily.

01:00:01.000 Like, okay, we're the monkeys with the big brains, right?

01:00:05.000 And we've created this very technologically advanced, if not challenging, environment now that we live in.

01:00:13.000 But the way our firmware up here, we're still hominids on the savannah, you know? 0.97

01:00:20.000 Like, 100%.

01:00:21.000 And so I think...

01:00:25.000 Through war, through combat, we kind of tap into that primal, okay, this is what we're supposed to do, you know?

01:00:34.000 Was that surprising to have that part of your mind sort of ignited in a sense where you realize that this is like something that's deeply embedded in your DNA? Yeah, I mean, I know I'm making that claim, but it's not based on,

01:00:52.000 like, scientific research I've done.

01:00:54.000 It's just kind of intuition.

01:00:56.000 Well, many, many make that claim.

01:00:58.000 It's not an uncommon thought.

01:01:00.000 Yeah.

01:01:00.000 So it rings true to me.

01:01:02.000 Have you read that Sebastian Younger book, Tribe?

01:01:07.000 Yeah.

01:01:08.000 Great book.

01:01:09.000 Yeah.

01:01:09.000 And his thesis, that's the first kind of PTSD thesis I read that kind of rang true with me.

01:01:16.000 Because before that, the popular conception was these young men and women go off to war and see horrible things and come back fucked up.

01:01:26.000 But his thesis, where they lose that... 0.96

01:01:29.000 Lose that tribe, right?

01:01:31.000 That task and purpose, unity of effort.

01:01:35.000 Literally, we're tribal creatures.

01:01:38.000 That's how we operate.

01:01:41.000 I did a paper when I was doing my undergrad.

01:01:45.000 I think I was trying to investigate genetic impetus for human conflict or whatever.

01:01:54.000 During my research, one of the things I found that was super interesting to me was the way psychologically we're equipped to deal with about 100 to 120 individuals.

01:02:07.000 That would be our extended tribe, our social group.

01:02:10.000 Dunbar's number.

01:02:12.000 Is that what it is?

01:02:13.000 Yeah.

01:02:13.000 Okay.

01:02:37.000 It gets to people you are aware of, but it's fairly small, which is one of the weird things about knowing a lot of people.

01:02:45.000 That number gets really weird, and then your memory of people, it's almost like your brain deletes them because there's no room.

01:02:55.000 But then, how well do you know them as well?

01:02:58.000 How intimate is that relationship?

01:03:01.000 An interesting correlation I made researching this paper was that that number is the same number in army task organization as an infantry company is 120. And that's kind of like your main operational unit in the infantry,

01:03:22.000 at least.

01:03:23.000 Like SOF, you're dealing with smaller teams, smaller numbers.

01:03:25.000 But I thought, wow, 120. That's it.

01:03:29.000 And is that by design, or is that just the way it worked out?

01:03:32.000 It probably goes back to our tribal roots, most likely, that we evolved being accustomed to that group of people, that number of people, or a similar number.

01:03:43.000 Just survival.

01:03:45.000 Our mission statement is biological organisms, even the big brain monkeys that we are, survive and replicate the gene.

01:03:57.000 Everything else is kind of window dressing.

01:04:00.000 You can window dress it however you want to make it seem more important than that.

01:04:09.000 I'm a huge fan of the window dressing.

01:04:12.000 That's definitely the salt in the soup, for sure.

01:04:15.000 But if you boil it down to what is the quiddity of being a human being, or any biological organism, survive and replicate the gene.

01:04:27.000 And so the whole capacity for combat, for human warfare, is like, even as an individual, if you're killed in combat, if you go back to, like, this group of hominids on the savannah, 1.00

01:04:44.000 you're probably related to everyone in your group.

01:04:47.000 So it's like, okay, maybe I won't pass my genes on, but my cousin over here will.

01:04:52.000 So I'm going to support that effort.

01:04:54.000 So I think that kind of organized.

01:05:00.000 Conflict, one group against another, it's in support of that. 1.00

01:05:03.000 Like, I think anthropologists have a term for it, pseudokinship, where, say, in a combat situation.

01:05:11.000 So you got, like, the classic scenario of, like, a dude jumping on a hand grenade to save his buddies, you know?

01:05:20.000 And that's, like...

01:05:22.000 That's hardwired.

01:05:22.000 That's not a conscious decision, you know?

01:05:26.000 Because I think if you had time to actually think about it, maybe you wouldn't do it, you know?

01:05:31.000 But it's that pseudo-kinship, like...

01:05:37.000 And to me, that's always what's been, I think, the most interesting paradox about war and combat.

01:05:45.000 It's this event, this human event, that simultaneously brings about acts of pure, selfless love and brutality without quarter in the same instant.

01:06:01.000 So that's always intrigued me.

01:06:04.000 Well, it's always fascinating for me to talk to people that are intelligent, like yourself, that have experienced that.

01:06:10.000 Because that thread that you're expressing, it seems to ring true with almost all of them.

01:06:19.000 That there's something about it that, although brutal and Maybe in some ways unexpected, it also rings true with like a purpose and that your life is intimately connected to these people and in some way that becomes more satisfying than any other way to live.

01:06:45.000 Yeah, and to hear a person like yourself, who's obviously very smart, express that, it's really interesting to someone like myself who hasn't experienced that, but kind of understands what you're saying.

01:06:59.000 I'm sure you do.

01:07:02.000 I'm sure it rings true with you, right?

01:07:03.000 Yeah.

01:07:04.000 Like just intuitively.

01:07:05.000 Yeah.

01:07:07.000 And you're aware of this while you're experiencing it because you're obviously an analytical person.

01:07:12.000 So you're aware of this while you're experiencing it.

01:07:17.000 So I can think of instances where I've had these flashes of awareness like Okay, I remember one target we halved in, like a helicopter assault force.

01:07:34.000 So I was on the second 47. No, I think I was on the second lift.

01:07:41.000 Like, it was a pretty big element going in.

01:07:44.000 And I remember landing in this poppy field, like, stepping off the ramp, and, like, I could hear gunfire.

01:07:51.000 Like, it was already on, right, on target.

01:07:55.000 And so I got my little Afghan commando troopers.

01:08:00.000 So, like, okay, man, let's go.

01:08:02.000 And, like, I remember running up this hill, and I was aware in that moment, like, okay, this is odd.

01:08:08.000 This is...

01:08:11.000 The cliche of running to the gunfire, and believe me, I don't consider myself a heroic person at all.

01:08:18.000 It wasn't even a conscious decision.

01:08:20.000 I was doing it.

01:08:22.000 And it was like I was trying to get there as quickly as I could.

01:08:24.000 And it did occur to me like, yeah, this is kind of weird.

01:08:29.000 But it is your training, and it also is your purpose.

01:08:32.000 Yeah.

01:08:33.000 And I don't know which supervenes on what, but yeah, for sure.

01:08:38.000 How bizarre was it, the whole poppy fields thing?

01:08:41.000 Because I remember one of the most interesting aspects of the war was that we were protecting poppy fields.

01:08:49.000 And there was this weird video, I don't know if you've ever seen it, of Geraldo Rivera Who was on Fox News, spinning this in some sort of a way, but realizing how ridiculous it sounded while he was interviewing a general who was on the field,

01:09:06.000 or I don't remember if it was a general soldier who was on the field who was explaining why they were doing this.

01:09:14.000 Mm-hmm.

01:09:30.000 Somewhere, someone was profiting off of this to the tune of billions of dollars.

01:09:35.000 And you're not exactly sure how or how it was being done or what involvement the United States military had in it.

01:09:42.000 But in this particular instance, you're living in the era of social media and the Internet.

01:09:48.000 Not necessarily social media, but at least the internet, where people are very aware of things like that that are at the very least inconsistent with the narrative that we have here in America, that drugs are bad, bad people sell drugs,

01:10:04.000 bad people make drugs, we have to stop the drugs from getting into the country.

01:10:07.000 Now here you are, you know, we're watching Geraldo Rivera, a Fox reporter, putting this like really clunky spin Why we have to do this and I can only imagine it's because it had already been exposed that the United States was doing that and they had to say well We have to come up with some sort of an excuse for why we're guarding heroin production So I guess my understanding of if the U.S.

01:10:37.000 mill was doing that is probably like a secondary consideration.

01:10:41.000 Because at least down south, that's a huge part of the economy.

01:10:44.000 It's like opium production.

01:10:46.000 Yeah.

01:10:47.000 And I would guess it would be...

01:10:51.000 Eradicating the poppy fields would be a worse choice.

01:10:55.000 Economically destabilizing these people who are already super poor.

01:11:01.000 But it's also for sure aiding in the profit of selling heroin.

01:11:07.000 The Taliban would make money from opium production, even though it's against Islam or whatever.

01:11:13.000 I don't know how to crack that nut.

01:11:17.000 Was that talked about over there?

01:11:19.000 I know DEA was over there doing their thing.

01:11:24.000 What were they doing?

01:11:25.000 Selling it?

01:11:25.000 I don't know.

01:11:28.000 That's what's so strange is that it seems like, you know, especially when you have this disconnection from the mainstream media and from, you know, channels of information getting to other people.

01:11:44.000 That this is a part of what's happening over there.

01:11:47.000 I believe at one point in time it was 90 plus percent of the world's heroin was coming from Afghanistan.

01:11:55.000 Yeah.

01:11:56.000 I mean, I don't have an answer.

01:11:59.000 Bizarre though, right?

01:12:00.000 Yeah.

01:12:01.000 Did you think how bizarre it was or was it just that was inconsequential?

01:12:05.000 Yeah, it wasn't like another poppy field.

01:12:07.000 It was just part of the landscape.

01:12:09.000 But yeah, I probably didn't put much thought into it.

01:12:12.000 How did they cultivate the – I mean they were doing all this in the middle of combat, in the middle of war.

01:12:17.000 Like how were they handling all that?

01:12:19.000 I mean like in my experience, like if we did hit a target that was like in a remote place like that, like they weren't seeing coalition forces.

01:12:34.000 Often, if at all, you know, it's kind of like they probably thought they're on a safe haven.

01:12:39.000 So, I mean, I think when you get closer to the built up areas and at least at the time, I mean, like the whole Afghan government was so corrupt anyway.

01:12:51.000 So I think probably the main people making money were, you know, Afghan generals, you know, which I think at one time the Afghan army had like 3000 general officers or something.

01:13:03.000 Like, this inverted pyramid of leadership.

01:13:06.000 Like, oh, I'm a general.

01:13:07.000 And they all have mansions, and it's all corruption money.

01:13:11.000 Where was that?

01:13:13.000 Being a part, like, that's the side that you were on.

01:13:16.000 I mean, you're over there sort of helping.

01:13:21.000 Yeah, like...

01:13:25.000 I think you just gotta focus on the tribe, right?

01:13:30.000 It's like you and your dudes and you have this task and you're going to accomplish it to the best of your ability and bring everyone back alive.

01:13:39.000 And then the political side of it, I mean, yeah, it'd be easy to get kind of demoralized.

01:13:45.000 Yeah, that's what I'm at.

01:13:46.000 If you focus on that.

01:13:48.000 Yeah.

01:13:48.000 Was it bizarre for you, someone who has done heroin, to think like, oh, this is where it comes from?

01:13:53.000 Um...

01:13:56.000 I mean, I think I was conscious of that, but it wasn't that crazy. 0.85

01:14:04.000 So even though you knew that there was rampant corruption and that there was a lot of things that were kind of fucked, it was still your tribe, your task? 0.96

01:14:12.000 Yep. 0.93

01:14:14.000 Did you spend any time pondering whether or not that made sense, or did you just do what you were supposed to do?

01:14:23.000 Yeah, I think I reflected on it and then would just, you know, do it, you know?

01:14:28.000 Did anybody talk about it over there?

01:14:30.000 Yeah, I think...

01:14:31.000 Yeah, and I would talk about it too.

01:14:34.000 Like, you know, as the war progressed, you would see these mansions being built around Kabul and stuff, you know?

01:14:40.000 These ridiculous, like, concrete mansions.

01:14:43.000 And, like, our tax dollars are paying for that mansion, you know? 0.97

01:14:47.000 Or it's corruption money or it's opium money or whatever.

01:14:50.000 Yeah.

01:14:51.000 And it's just part of the culture there, you know?

01:14:56.000 Like, how do you fix that?

01:14:58.000 It's like...

01:14:59.000 Like, I remember talking to one of our interpreters over there, and like, so I'm not married, don't have a family, and...

01:15:11.000 So, obviously, everything over there is very family-oriented or, you know, family-tribe.

01:15:18.000 You know, everything's geared towards, like, blood relations and things like that.

01:15:22.000 And, like, the stronger and larger your family is, the stronger your tribe is, like, that whole thing.

01:15:28.000 It's like a different paradigm than we have in, you know, the West.

01:15:35.000 And so we're talking.

01:15:37.000 We're just bullshitting.

01:15:38.000 And he's asking me about my family.

01:15:39.000 And I'm like, oh, I don't have a family.

01:15:42.000 Just me.

01:15:44.000 But, you know, my neighbor has the keys to my house.

01:15:47.000 And, you know, they can go in and take care of stuff if I need something taken care of and all this.

01:15:52.000 And, like, the first thing he asks is, like, and they do not steal all your things?

01:15:57.000 What?

01:15:59.000 Because that's what he was thinking. 1.00

01:16:01.000 Like, oh, if I had your keys, I'd be stealing your shit. 1.00

01:16:05.000 And that's the mentality. 0.99

01:16:07.000 It's different.

01:16:09.000 The houses down there, each family unit house is a miniature fortress.

01:16:15.000 And it's because it's this culture that they habitually prey upon each other.

01:16:22.000 So the houses need to be these mini fortresses.

01:16:25.000 Where here in the West, I don't have a fence around my property.

01:16:30.000 My neighbors have my keys.

01:16:32.000 It's fine.

01:16:34.000 How bizarre was that, though, to go over there and experience this completely different way of life with other human beings living on another part of the world, a completely different set of values, different goals and expectations, different religion.

01:16:51.000 It was fascinating.

01:16:53.000 Just because that part of the world, like Central Asia, is such a fascinating part of the world, all the way back to antiquity.

01:17:02.000 All the history that's transpired in that area.

01:17:07.000 Any chance I got to see something somewhat historical, there's still remains of Greek ruins from 300 BC. Really?

01:17:17.000 Yeah.

01:17:18.000 In Afghanistan?

01:17:19.000 Yeah.

01:17:19.000 Really?

01:17:20.000 Oh, yeah.

01:17:20.000 There was a whole, I never got to this town, but up on the Oxus River, there's been several attempts over the decades to do an archaeological excavation of the entire city.

01:17:34.000 But it's like, it's a no-shit Greek city in Central Asia. 0.97

01:17:39.000 Wow. 0.97

01:17:40.000 So when Alexander of Macedon, when Mastodon, Mastodon, when Alexander of Macedon Alexander the Great.

01:17:48.000 Yeah, was his campaign in Asia.

01:17:51.000 So he pushed all the way to the Indus River.

01:17:54.000 But what he would do along the way is establish Alexandrias.

01:17:58.000 So you know Alexandria in Egypt, but there's multiple Alexandrias.

01:18:02.000 Like the etymology of Kandahar, the town in Afghanistan, is, you know, if you go back, it was Iskandahar.

01:18:12.000 And Iskandahar literally means Alexandria.

01:18:15.000 That was one of the Alexandrias.

01:18:17.000 Wow.

01:18:17.000 That he established in Central Asia and all over Persia and Asia Minor.

01:18:26.000 That was his thing.

01:18:27.000 And it was a way to kind of...

01:18:30.000 Maintain a foothold in that part of the world, like build a city, establish like a Greek education system to educate the locals in the Greek model.

01:18:42.000 So he was kind of projecting, you know, he was in it for the long game.

01:18:48.000 Like this is part of Greece, it's going to be Greek.

01:18:51.000 And the Greco-Bactrian Empire, if you want to call it that, probably lasted like a hundred years and then it just fell apart.

01:19:00.000 Is there documentation of the Greek cities, the ruins in Afghanistan?

01:19:06.000 Yeah.

01:19:07.000 Jamie, can you pull some of that up so you can find any of that?

01:19:09.000 That's fascinating.

01:19:10.000 I had no idea.

01:19:11.000 So the old Alexandria...

01:19:14.000 So there it is.

01:19:14.000 Wow.

01:19:17.000 That's incredible.

01:19:18.000 Yeah.

01:19:19.000 And so that's just abandoned now?

01:19:21.000 Yeah.

01:19:22.000 That's amazing.

01:19:24.000 And is this from 300 BC? Yeah, around that.

01:19:30.000 That's amazing.

01:19:32.000 I had no idea.

01:19:34.000 So, at one point in time, that had been some sort of a thriving community.

01:19:41.000 Yeah, the city on the Oxus, Iconum.

01:19:46.000 See where it says Iconum, Wikipedia?

01:19:48.000 That was the city on the Oxus.

01:19:50.000 Wow.

01:19:51.000 Yeah.

01:19:53.000 Wow.

01:19:54.000 So they had an amphitheater.

01:19:55.000 Yeah, it was a full-on Greek city.

01:19:57.000 That's incredible.

01:19:59.000 Yeah.

01:20:00.000 That is wild.

01:20:03.000 And so how did they maintain it and how did it collapse?

01:20:10.000 I mean, I don't know.

01:20:12.000 Look at that.

01:20:14.000 That's intense, man.

01:20:16.000 But that's up north in Kunduz.

01:20:18.000 What is that statue, Jamie, where it says the history?

01:20:21.000 Yeah.

01:20:21.000 It's a Buddha statue.

01:20:22.000 It's a Buddha statue.

01:20:24.000 The Buddha's a Bamiyan. 0.97

01:20:25.000 Like the Taliban blew those up.

01:20:27.000 Oh, right. 1.00

01:20:29.000 Fuck. 1.00

01:20:30.000 What a bummer. 1.00

01:20:32.000 How old were those?

01:20:38.000 That I'm not sure.

01:20:41.000 But a lot of historians think that the Vedas and Buddhism kind of started more in the Afghanistan area.

01:20:50.000 Really?

01:20:51.000 Yeah.

01:20:52.000 No kidding.

01:20:53.000 The Vedas?

01:20:54.000 Yeah.

01:20:55.000 Wow, look at all these Buddhas.

01:20:59.000 Yeah, there's tons of...

01:21:01.000 There's some really cool...

01:21:04.000 So there was this really interesting period of history of Greco-Buddhism in Central Asia.

01:21:10.000 There was one of the Greco-Bactrian kings, Menander, actually converted to Buddhism.

01:21:17.000 And there was this brief moment of...

01:21:22.000 Brief period of Greco-Buddhism in Central Asia. 0.81

01:21:25.000 And so the Buddhas that were carved, so they're carving statues of the Buddha and stuff, but it's in this total Greco-Roman style.

01:21:34.000 So they're beautiful pieces of art.

01:21:37.000 And it's literally a Greek Buddha.

01:21:41.000 You know, you look at it stylistically and it's like, that's Greek, but it's a Buddha.

01:21:46.000 And it's cool, cool, you know, flash in the pan of history.

01:21:51.000 See if you can find any images of that.

01:21:53.000 Are those all gone?

01:21:54.000 The Taliban blow them all off?

01:21:56.000 No.

01:21:56.000 I mean these...

01:21:57.000 So there's actually some at the Met in New York that I've seen.

01:22:05.000 I've seen some at the National Museum in Kabul.

01:22:10.000 Look at that.

01:22:13.000 Yeah.

01:22:14.000 That's so strange, because it's so obviously, like, influenced by Greek art.

01:22:20.000 Yeah, the folds and the robe and all that, yeah.

01:22:22.000 Yeah, wow.

01:22:26.000 Wow.

01:22:28.000 It's really, really cool, really interesting.

01:22:32.000 Human civilization is so bizarre.

01:22:35.000 The rise and fall of these empires and these civilizations and for you to go and visit it in the middle of combat must have been particularly bizarre.

01:22:47.000 Yeah, I would try to do my share of, for lack of a better term, tourism.

01:22:58.000 I went to the old Citadel outside of Kandahar, where right now, when you're on the ground, it doesn't look like anything.

01:23:07.000 But if you go to Google Earth, you can see the old outline of the city walls, and you can see the Citadel in the middle.

01:23:14.000 And it's like, it's still there, the remains of it.

01:23:21.000 Like, up in Nuristan, which is a super interesting part of Afghanistan, it's like the northeast part of the country, and it's a region that wasn't even converted to Islam until the end of the 19th century.

01:23:38.000 Like, it's, you can make the analogy of, they're like the Basque in Spain, right?

01:23:43.000 It was like this mountainous region that kind of was able to retain, like, its cultural and linguistic identity because of the terrain.

01:23:50.000 Like, it was more defendable.

01:23:52.000 So Nuristan was like that as well.

01:23:54.000 And so they were finally forcibly converted to Islam into the 19th century.

01:24:00.000 And before that, they were called Kafiristan, which is like Land of the Infidel. 0.97

01:24:05.000 And then once they underwent the conversion process, they became Neurostand, which is land of the enlightened.

01:24:11.000 Oh, wow.

01:24:12.000 Yeah.

01:24:12.000 But it's such an interesting place.

01:24:16.000 I liked it a lot because it reminded me of home where I grew up because you have like alpine forest.

01:24:21.000 It looks like Yosemite.

01:24:23.000 Like, if they could ever have peace there, they could have, like, a trekking industry, you know, ecotourism, whatever, like, White River rafting down the Kunar River.

01:24:35.000 Like, it's gorgeous.

01:24:37.000 And there was places where, in Afghanistan, where I was like, I could be home on the Olympic Peninsula right now.

01:24:44.000 Wow.

01:24:45.000 Like, mountains, alpine forest.

01:24:47.000 Yeah, there's the old citadel.

01:24:50.000 That's incredible.

01:24:51.000 Yeah.

01:24:53.000 I had no idea this stuff was there.

01:24:55.000 The history of Afghanistan is so fascinating and so spectacular and so like the futility of trying to conquer that place and control that place. 0.99

01:25:08.000 It's going to be what it's going to be.

01:25:15.000 You're not going to change it.

01:25:17.000 You're not going to westernize it.

01:25:19.000 It's not going to happen.

01:25:21.000 Did you, like, it's so crazy that we were there for so long.

01:25:26.000 It's a 20-year war.

01:25:28.000 Would you have ever imagined that while you were there?

01:25:30.000 No. 0.96

01:25:30.000 Like, if you would have told me September 10th, 2001, like, oh yeah, we're getting ready to be in a 20-year war in the Middle East and Central Asia, I would have been like, no fucking way. 0.96

01:25:42.000 That's just not going to happen. 0.84

01:25:44.000 You know, and then boom.

01:25:47.000 What was it like to you when we pulled out of it finally?

01:25:51.000 On the one hand, it was like a relief.

01:25:54.000 It's like, you know, enough already.

01:25:57.000 It's like, we're obviously not fixing that place.

01:26:00.000 You know, it's doubtful we could fix it.

01:26:05.000 I think it would have been clever to hold on to Bagram and maintain a strike force there to put out fires, so to speak.

01:26:15.000 But other than that, let it be what it's going to be.

01:26:19.000 Protect U.S. interests as needed, but we're not going to change that place.

01:26:26.000 It's so crazy that we didn't learn from the Russian invasion. 0.94

01:26:31.000 We didn't learn from the Russians' battle in the Mujahideen, which we supported.

01:26:37.000 It's so strange that everyone makes the same mistakes.

01:26:41.000 Or the British, or the Greeks, you know? 0.89

01:26:44.000 It's like the Greek foothold there lasted, you know, what, 100 years?

01:26:50.000 So historically, that's nothing.

01:26:53.000 Right.

01:26:55.000 There's no place like it on Earth in that regard.

01:26:59.000 It's like because of the terrain, because of the people and the religion and just the way it's controlled, areas are controlled by warlords.

01:27:09.000 Yeah, it's all tribal. 0.91

01:27:10.000 It's all...

01:27:11.000 And that's the way they...

01:27:14.000 Politically, that's the way they govern themselves.

01:27:18.000 And it's not even an evaluative statement.

01:27:21.000 It's like, yeah, it's not Western style, but okay.

01:27:28.000 What are you going to do?

01:27:30.000 They got to, at some point, as long as they're not impinging upon...

01:27:36.000 I guess I have a very libertarian perspective. 1.00

01:27:39.000 If they don't fuck with us, we shouldn't fuck with them. 0.99

01:27:45.000 There's a futility in trying to be the policeman of the world. 1.00

01:27:52.000 It's exhausting.

01:27:54.000 And ultimately you're going to fail.

01:27:58.000 You're going to drain all your resources trying to manage something literally on the other side of the planet.

01:28:04.000 To what end?

01:28:06.000 Right.

01:28:07.000 And then there's these entities that are profiting off of that futile attempt, which they would like to continue that money flowing in.

01:28:16.000 So they continue this thing that everybody knows you're eventually going to have to stop.

01:28:22.000 Yeah, definitely.

01:28:23.000 It turned into an industry for sure.

01:28:26.000 Were you aware of that while you were there, that there was no way out of this?

01:28:33.000 I mean, I guess I always suspected that it would never be It wasn't going to be like, hey, check this out.

01:28:45.000 Democracy.

01:28:46.000 It's cool.

01:28:48.000 I pretty much knew that wasn't going to fly.

01:28:52.000 I think the best I could hope for was just stability.

01:28:57.000 And that didn't happen?

01:28:58.000 No. 0.97

01:28:58.000 You know, there was some really bizarre moments after we pulled out of Afghanistan where they were interviewing the Taliban and talking to them about women being in control or women, you know, being in government and whether or not they were going to accept sort of this Western idea of diversity and inclusion and they were just fucking laughing. 0.97

01:29:21.000 Yeah. 0.97

01:29:22.000 It's absurd to them.

01:29:25.000 Just like the other side of the coin is absurd to us.

01:29:28.000 So how do you bridge that gap?

01:29:31.000 Especially when you're dealing with the history of the place.

01:29:37.000 Hundreds of years, hundreds and hundreds of years of living that way.

01:29:40.000 The idea that we're going to go in there with tanks and fix it.

01:29:46.000 We're going to force you to be democratic.

01:29:48.000 Yeah.

01:29:48.000 It's like, okay, that's not going to happen either.

01:29:50.000 And also the rampant corruption that exists in the people that are in power.

01:29:56.000 You know, when you're talking about all these mansions and the selling of the heroin, it's like, what are you going to do?

01:30:01.000 How are you going to get those people to straighten out?

01:30:04.000 You're not.

01:30:05.000 Yeah.

01:30:06.000 It's ingrained.

01:30:08.000 It's cultural.

01:30:09.000 It's maybe even more than cultural, you know?

01:30:12.000 Was there a time when you were over there, like towards the end of your time there, where you were recognizing the futility of this?

01:30:22.000 Yeah, I think big pictures, yeah.

01:30:24.000 But again, you're there to do a job, so you can't dwell on the negative, you know?

01:30:32.000 And it's like, you need to believe in the mission, you know?

01:30:38.000 And I believed in the mission as far as like, Myself and my teammates, like, we're gonna do what we have to do and do it to the best of our ability and everyone come home alive, you know?

01:30:51.000 Yeah.

01:30:52.000 Complete your task, support your tribe.

01:30:55.000 Yeah.

01:30:56.000 How long were you over there for?

01:31:00.000 I did, like, four rotations.

01:31:02.000 So I left the Army the second time, like, 2007, when I basically went back to school.

01:31:12.000 What was it like to make that transition from being over there in one of the most bizarre wars we've ever been a part of and then going back to school, going back to civilized society, going back to Western culture?

01:31:30.000 Again, I think just my disposition, I tend to just go with things.

01:31:37.000 You have a very unusual disposition.

01:31:39.000 Really?

01:31:39.000 I don't know.

01:31:41.000 I think four out of five ex-girlfriends polled would suggest I'm good at compartmentalizing things.

01:31:49.000 Four out of five?

01:31:50.000 What about the fifth?

01:31:51.000 No, I'm guessing.

01:31:55.000 No, it's just I made the transition.

01:31:58.000 I thought well.

01:31:59.000 It's like, okay, cool.

01:32:01.000 I'm in school.

01:32:02.000 Now working on this chapter, you know?

01:32:05.000 Why do you think some people struggle so much and you were able to sort of at least fairly smoothly make that transition?

01:32:14.000 I don't have the answer to that.

01:32:16.000 I don't know.

01:32:17.000 Did you have friends that struggled?

01:32:20.000 I mean, most of my friends from the military are soft guys.

01:32:25.000 Yeah.

01:32:26.000 And I think, in general, they're adaptable.

01:32:31.000 I think that's kind of a special operations soldier criteria.

01:32:36.000 You need to be flexible and adaptable and quick on your feet like that.

01:32:42.000 And more resilient.

01:32:43.000 They're more resilient human beings.

01:32:45.000 I would think so, yeah.

01:32:46.000 Yeah, I would think so, too.

01:32:47.000 At least my experience with them.

01:32:52.000 I've had conversations with Special Forces guys where they explain to me the reason why less of them experience the kind of PTSD that some of the other guys had.

01:33:05.000 And they said because we were proactive.

01:33:07.000 We weren't reactive.

01:33:09.000 We were going and doing things.

01:33:11.000 It wasn't like we're sitting around waiting to be attacked.

01:33:14.000 And some of the guys that are sitting around waiting to be attacked, the anxiety of that was kind of overwhelming.

01:33:20.000 I can see that, yeah.

01:33:22.000 If you're just sitting on a fob, like, waiting for that rocket attack.

01:33:26.000 Yeah.

01:33:27.000 And so, you come back in 2007, and you decided you're done?

01:33:34.000 That's it?

01:33:35.000 Yeah, so I was at another crossroads and it was like, I can re-enlist or I can go to university.

01:33:45.000 So I applied.

01:33:47.000 A friend of mine in New York was like, you're pretty smart.

01:33:52.000 You should apply to Columbia.

01:33:54.000 And I was like, I would never get accepted there.

01:33:58.000 You know, that's not going to happen.

01:34:00.000 And so almost as a joke, I applied to Columbia and I applied to Seattle University as well.

01:34:07.000 Only two schools I applied to and ended up getting accepted to both.

01:34:13.000 And so with the Columbia thing, it was like, okay, am I going to step up to the challenge or, you know...

01:34:26.000 Go, I mean, not necessarily the easier route, but maybe the more comfortable route, which would have been Seattle U. And I went for Columbia.

01:34:36.000 It's like, okay.

01:34:38.000 Challenge accepted, you know?

01:34:41.000 And what did you study in Columbia?

01:34:43.000 Philosophy.

01:34:45.000 A lot of money in philosophy.

01:34:47.000 I don't know if you knew that.

01:34:49.000 I heard it's right up there with gender studies. 1.00

01:34:51.000 Yeah.

01:34:52.000 Would you like some coffee?

01:34:54.000 Yeah, please.

01:35:01.000 Cheers.

01:35:04.000 So how much time did you do there?

01:35:07.000 So they accepted a lot of my Olympic College credits, shockingly.

01:35:13.000 And they accepted my military language school for my language requirement.

01:35:19.000 So I basically had to do three years there to finish my undergrad.

01:35:24.000 And then you went to graduate school as well?

01:35:27.000 I had a break, but yeah, ended up going to graduate school in 2016, maybe?

01:35:38.000 And what do you do now?

01:35:40.000 So, now I mostly do yacht delivery.

01:35:47.000 Yacht delivery?

01:35:48.000 Yeah, sailboats.

01:35:49.000 Oh, wow.

01:35:50.000 Yeah.

01:35:51.000 And was that, like, how did that come about?

01:35:55.000 So there's a story there.

01:35:57.000 Okay.

01:35:58.000 Okay, let me organize this real quick in my head.

01:36:04.000 2014, okay, so I finished my undergrad.

01:36:09.000 I was now holder of an Ivy League degree, like, much to my chagrin.

01:36:15.000 And I went through a personal crisis that was pretty bad.

01:36:22.000 It was almost up there with like the Soundgarden personal crisis.

01:36:27.000 And so I kind of did a similar thing where it's like, okay, I need to take some time off, you know, to do some work on myself, you know.

01:36:39.000 And so how that translated, I'd always been really interested in Argentina as a country and as a place.

01:36:50.000 So I got a flat in Buenos Aires and went and lived there for a couple months and kind of did this deep period of introspection.

01:37:00.000 But during this time, before I left, a good friend of mine suggested this book called Dove, written by a man named Robin Lee Graham.

01:37:12.000 And so he's like, hey, I just read this book.

01:37:15.000 You should read it.

01:37:16.000 I think you'd really dig it.

01:37:18.000 And I didn't even know what it was about.

01:37:20.000 So I found a used copy and took it with me down there and read it.

01:37:25.000 And so it's the story.

01:37:27.000 I don't know if you've even heard of this story or Robin Graham.

01:37:30.000 But he did, I think he started in 1967. He did a solo circumnavigation in a sailboat.

01:37:39.000 That took him about five years to do, but he, at the time, he was the youngest person to ever do that.

01:37:44.000 He started when he was like 15. And it was like, it got a lot of press.

01:37:50.000 Like, National Geographic covered it.

01:37:51.000 I think he's been on the cover of National Geographic like three times.

01:37:55.000 Hmm.

01:37:56.000 And...

01:37:58.000 So it's an interesting account, his solo circumnavigation.

01:38:01.000 Took him five years.

01:38:03.000 Along the way, he met this woman, Patty, this young, pretty, hippie chick somewhere in the South Pacific.

01:38:12.000 And they fell in love and got married.

01:38:14.000 And she would kind of meet him in different spots as he finished the circumnavigation.

01:38:18.000 And then the book ends.

01:38:21.000 He returns to Los Angeles, circumnavigation complete.

01:38:27.000 And I'm, like, super cynical, like, going, okay, what happened now, you know?

01:38:32.000 And I'm like, I bet that marriage didn't last, you know?

01:38:34.000 Because after something, I guess I equated it to, like, a war zone romance or something, you know, where you're kind of in this super heightened environment.

01:38:44.000 So if you bring it back to just normal life, like, does it survive?

01:38:49.000 Like, what made it interesting or exciting or whatever, you know?

01:38:54.000 Do you kind of get back to reality and it's like, Eh, you know, you're not that interesting or whatever.

01:39:01.000 Right.

01:39:02.000 So, yeah, I'm super cynical.

01:39:04.000 Like, pfft, that marriage isn't at last, whatever.

01:39:07.000 But then I started doing some internet research on Robin Graham, and it turns out he wrote, like, a second book called The Sailor Returns from the Sea or something like that.

01:39:18.000 So what had happened...

01:39:22.000 And he did go through kind of a dark period after the circumnavigation that I won't get into, but he told me about it personally.

01:39:34.000 So he and Patty, in like the early 1970s, so they get back from like five years, you know, sailing the world basically.

01:39:44.000 It's pre-internet, pre the communication that we have now.

01:39:48.000 So obviously 1965 to 1970 was a pretty turbulent period in like American history.

01:39:55.000 And so Robin essentially missed all that.

01:39:58.000 And he gets back to the States. 0.52

01:40:00.000 And was it Stanford?

01:40:03.000 I think Stanford offered him like a full ride scholarship.

01:40:07.000 So he went for a semester and basically couldn't deal with all these lefty professors.

01:40:13.000 And like, I'm out of here.

01:40:15.000 And so he and Patty loaded up, like bought like a mail truck I think, loaded up all their stuff and went to Montana and homesteaded in Montana.

01:40:25.000 Like super old school, like 19th century homestead.

01:40:28.000 Wow.

01:40:30.000 And so I'm doing this research, and it's like, oh, Kalispell, Montana.

01:40:35.000 My buddy Mike from Ranger Battalion lives in Kalispell, Montana.

01:40:38.000 So I'm in my flat in Buenos Aires, and I email Mike.

01:40:43.000 I'm like, hey dude, you know a guy in Kalispell named Robin Graham?

01:40:47.000 Like 30 minutes later, I get an email.

01:40:49.000 He's like, yeah, I saw him in Costco yesterday. 0.99

01:40:52.000 It's like, no fucking way. 0.66

01:40:55.000 And so, hey, can you do like an email introduction for me? 0.97

01:40:59.000 And he's like, yeah.

01:41:00.000 And so, you know, fast forward to today, I'm very happy and proud to call Robin and Patty friends, you know?

01:41:10.000 Like amazing human beings, like so cool.

01:41:14.000 And so the sailing thing, to bring it back, Reading Dove and getting to know Robin and stuff, I started getting interested in sailing.

01:41:28.000 And, like, I, you know, I live in western Washington on Puget Sound.

01:41:32.000 Like, it's a very nautical culture.

01:41:34.000 And I've worked on boats in Alaska and actually come from kind of a nautical family on my father's side.

01:41:40.000 Like, they all worked on tugboats on the Columbia River.

01:41:45.000 Like, my grandfather, my dad, my uncles.

01:41:48.000 My dad was a commercial fisherman in Alaska, like ran his own boat for decades.

01:41:53.000 And so it seemed like kind of a natural thing, like I've always been attracted to boats in the water.

01:41:57.000 So I started looking, you know, did the practical thing, started looking for a sailboat.

01:42:02.000 And I found one for sale that was about 10 miles from my house, but I knew nothing about sailboats.

01:42:09.000 So I'm like pinging people I know who do know stuff about sailboats.

01:42:14.000 I'm like, hey, is this boat any good?

01:42:16.000 You know, look at the pictures, look at the year and the design and everything.

01:42:21.000 So it was a 1986 Jeanneau Sunrise 34 sloop.

01:42:26.000 And like all these people like, yeah, it's a good boat.

01:42:28.000 It's a good boat.

01:42:29.000 Like, yeah, the price is right.

01:42:31.000 So I'm watching it and the price kept dropping.

01:42:35.000 And kept dropping.

01:42:36.000 And then it got low enough where it's like, it was kind of in my realm.

01:42:41.000 So I contacted the broker and like actually went down and looked at the boat, like did a walkthrough.

01:42:49.000 And I was like, so is the seller taking offers on this?

01:42:55.000 And he's just like, yeah, make one.

01:42:57.000 And so I went, I had some deployment money saved up.

01:43:01.000 And I had, I could pile up about 17 grand at the time.

01:43:07.000 So I offered 17,000.

01:43:09.000 And like half hour later, it's like you got a boat.

01:43:12.000 Wow.

01:43:12.000 So that was the beginning of my personal, you know, sailing adventures.

01:43:21.000 Did you live on it?

01:43:22.000 Nope.

01:43:23.000 My folks did that for a while.

01:43:25.000 When they retired, my mom and my stepdad decided to live on a sailboat.

01:43:30.000 They flew around the Keys and they went down to the Bahamas.

01:43:33.000 They just decided to just live on a boat for a while until my mom got bored with it. 1.00

01:43:37.000 My mom was like, let's go to the fucking place. 1.00

01:43:39.000 This is ridiculous. 1.00

01:43:41.000 But I think it was a very educational and... 0.80

01:43:48.000 An enlightening experience to just live in nature on the ocean for a while.

01:43:54.000 You know, that's a wanderlust appeal to a lot of people to just get on a boat and live on a boat and wake up and have coffee on the ocean.

01:44:05.000 Just exist out there.

01:44:08.000 Yeah, I bought the boat with the intent, at least the vague intent, of doing a circumnavigation of my own.

01:44:17.000 Really?

01:44:17.000 Yeah, because it seems like such a...

01:44:20.000 What appeals to me about sailing is, I mean, outside of electronic navigational aids...

01:44:28.000 It's the same as it's always been.

01:44:31.000 It's like you and the boat and the sea and the wind and, you know, you got to make it work.

01:44:40.000 And there's something like really like...

01:44:46.000 When you actually get out on the water and you've got the sails up and you're on a good tack and the boat's doing its thing, it's an awesome feeling.

01:44:55.000 I'm not going to quite say it's primal because obviously hominids on the savannah didn't have sailboats, but it's close to that. 0.99

01:45:03.000 It's obviously very appealing.

01:45:05.000 I mean, people love to do it.

01:45:06.000 And the sailboat thing, that's the highest level of expression of nautical experience for a lot of people.

01:45:16.000 Yeah, I think being a true sailor is like sailing.

01:45:21.000 Yeah.

01:45:22.000 And even at the Navy Academy at Annapolis, The ensigns, they put them on sailboats to teach them to be sailors, you know?

01:45:33.000 Like on that very fundamental level.

01:45:36.000 And it's like anything else.

01:45:39.000 It's like being a soldier or a musician or... 0.73

01:45:43.000 I think you have to master the fundamentals, because if you suck at the fundamentals, you're going to suck at everything else.

01:45:52.000 I've always focused on fundamentals, mainly because I'm not naturally good at anything, really.

01:46:01.000 I've always had to try.

01:46:05.000 In the support of, in the service of trying to be good at something, I've always focused on the fundamentals and trying to master them and hopefully just have a good foundation.

01:46:15.000 I mean, that's one thing that was, like, unique about growing up as, like, a soldier in Ranger Battalion.

01:46:22.000 Because Ranger Battalion is, like, super, like, regiment's a unique animal.

01:46:27.000 Like, even within the military, even within the SOF community, it's its own thing, culturally.

01:46:35.000 And they always stress the fundamentals.

01:46:39.000 And, you know, it's like being a private in Ranger Regiment is, it's not easy.

01:46:48.000 But the fact that it's hard, I would think makes you a better soldier.

01:46:56.000 Because there's no, there's like NCOs in Ranger Regiment don't, They don't tolerate anything less than 100%.

01:47:08.000 If you bring anything less than 100%, you're going to find out really quick.

01:47:15.000 Usually in a way that's not pleasant.

01:47:20.000 I think having that foundation as a Ranger private, I mean, I'm not going to say I'm any kind of amazing soldier, but I think it made me the best soldier that I could be, for sure.

01:47:34.000 And I'll always look back at regiment as being a very key event in my life, like my time there.

01:47:42.000 Well, I think that any particularly difficult endeavor strengthens your resolve in basically everything you do in life.

01:47:50.000 And when you're forced to do something that's very, very hard to do, it just changes who you are at a foundational level.

01:48:01.000 Yeah, I think it's that punctuated equilibrium that I referenced earlier.

01:48:05.000 It's like you need that traumatic event to be a catalyst for growth.

01:48:10.000 Yeah.

01:48:11.000 You know?

01:48:12.000 These big events in life that change the progression of the rest of your life.

01:48:19.000 And then you look back and go, wow, what would have happened if not for that moment or if not for that experience?

01:48:24.000 Mm-hmm.

01:48:26.000 So, did you decide not to circumnavigate the globe?

01:48:30.000 I mean, that's like a huge endeavor.

01:48:33.000 It would take, I think, at a minimum a year.

01:48:37.000 And like, I don't know when the last time you had a free year.

01:48:40.000 I don't have any time.

01:48:42.000 Like, even the first year of COVID, it was like...

01:48:44.000 And it was the most free time I probably had in my adult life.

01:48:47.000 And it was still, like, not a lot, you know?

01:48:51.000 So it's something...

01:48:53.000 Yeah, I would still love to do it.

01:48:54.000 I think being able to go...

01:48:57.000 Like, there's islands in the South Atlantic or even in the Pacific that...

01:49:04.000 They don't have an airport.

01:49:06.000 The only way you're going to get there is by boat.

01:49:09.000 I think that would be really cool to see.

01:49:13.000 You can't say unexplored, but kind of the last remote places on the planet.

01:49:18.000 I would also imagine you would meet some very fascinating people that are also doing that.

01:49:24.000 Yeah, I think so too.

01:49:27.000 So like the sailing, like kind of the 50 meter target right now with sailing is, have you ever heard of Race to Alaska?

01:49:35.000 No.

01:49:35.000 So it's this adventure race, kind of a quirky adventure race that's based back home where I live.

01:49:44.000 And it's a boat race from Port Townsend, Washington to Ketchikan, Alaska.

01:49:51.000 And there's really only one cardinal rule, and there's a lot of other rules, but they pretty much deal with safety at sea and things like that.

01:50:00.000 But kind of the one cardinal rule of the race is no motor.

01:50:06.000 The vessel has to be either wind-powered, human-powered, but no internal combustion or electric engines.

01:50:15.000 So...

01:50:15.000 How long is that journey?

01:50:18.000 I think generally you could do it in a week.

01:50:22.000 It's about 750 miles.

01:50:24.000 So they changed the rules last year where...

01:50:27.000 So before, you could only go up the Inside Passage, like the east side of Vancouver Island.

01:50:33.000 And it's very constrained waterways and, like, current's always an issue.

01:50:39.000 Because...

01:50:41.000 There's pretty big tides up there, like a 12-foot tide in that part of the country is normal.

01:50:48.000 And so you get these big tides and constrained waterways and they turn into rivers.

01:50:53.000 So if you don't hit the current right, hit the tide right, you're going to have to anchor up somewhere and just wait for the tide to change.

01:51:02.000 So there's those challenges.

01:51:03.000 But anyway, they changed the rules last year where you could go up the Pacific side.

01:51:07.000 Like, just go up the straights along the Fuqua, hang a right, and just go up the Pacific.

01:51:12.000 So that's what I intend to do.

01:51:14.000 Because you'll have good wind pretty much the whole time.

01:51:17.000 It'd be a little sloppier, but you're not...

01:51:20.000 You're not going to deal with the tides and currents.

01:51:22.000 You're not going to deal with the ship traffic and the inside passage.

01:51:25.000 You're not going to deal with floating logs that you can hit at night.

01:51:29.000 There's all these things that make it less appealing to me, for sure.

01:51:33.000 What do you do at night in those circumstances?

01:51:36.000 It's pitch black outside.

01:51:38.000 You have no motor.

01:51:39.000 So I got a crew of three.

01:51:44.000 So the team is called Super Nautiloid.

01:51:48.000 It's a reference to my favorite Black Sabbath record.

01:51:52.000 And it did a logo and everything.

01:51:54.000 So right now I'm in the process of refitting the boat.

01:52:00.000 So it's a pretty big project.

01:52:01.000 So right now everything's going okay, like trying to raise money, like set up a GoFundMe page through the Super Nautiloid site in order to fill the gaps, you know, financially, because it is a pretty big project.

01:52:17.000 I've been doing most of the work myself so far.

01:52:20.000 But yeah, the team of four, it's me, two other veterans, one friend from Ranger Battalion, one friend from SF, and then I got a buddy from the Seattle Rock Days, Barrett Martin, who was the drummer for the Screaming Trees,

01:52:36.000 and he's played in a few other bands, and he's actually a Grammy award-winning producer.

01:52:42.000 Like, super interesting guy.

01:52:43.000 Actually, you dig him.

01:52:44.000 You should have him on the show.

01:52:46.000 He's also an ethnomusicologist.

01:52:49.000 So he's gone down to Peru and recorded the Shipibo Shaman Icaros, the Ayahuasca songs.

01:53:00.000 And he's doing a record now called Deep Amazon, where the concept is he has all these Icaros that he recorded down in Peru.

01:53:11.000 And then he's bringing in various musicians to accompany these Icaros on guitar or whatever instrument.

01:53:20.000 So I play on it.

01:53:23.000 Kim and Matt from Soundgarden play on it.

01:53:26.000 Peter Buck from REM plays on it.

01:53:28.000 So it's kind of this interesting cast of characters supporting the Shipibo Icarus.

01:53:34.000 So the record comes out October, I guess, and any profits that are made are going to go back to the tribe.

01:53:42.000 So it's kind of cool.

01:53:43.000 That is cool.

01:53:44.000 Yeah.

01:53:45.000 So, how much time have you been spending sailing that you're interested in doing this?

01:53:49.000 Have you dedicated a lot of your time to that?

01:53:51.000 Yeah.

01:53:51.000 Like, as much free time as I can.

01:53:53.000 I love getting out on the boat.

01:53:56.000 Getting the sails up and just going.

01:54:02.000 Like, even just like sleeping on the boat.

01:54:04.000 Like, when my boat was moored at this one merino close to my house.

01:54:09.000 Is that your boat?

01:54:09.000 That's my boat getting hauled out.

01:54:11.000 Wow.

01:54:14.000 It's a real sailboat.

01:54:15.000 So the boat name is funny.

01:54:17.000 So remember when I was talking about Koala Macrame?

01:54:22.000 Mm-hmm.

01:54:23.000 So it needs bottom paint bad.

01:54:26.000 That's on the to-do list.

01:54:27.000 But I'd modified the name if I ever had a daughter to Gita Alexandra.

01:54:37.000 So it's a name that at once is beautiful and strong.

01:54:41.000 So that was the concept.

01:54:42.000 But, like, you know, I'm probably never going to have a daughter.

01:54:45.000 Do you have kids?

01:54:46.000 No.

01:54:47.000 No kids?

01:54:47.000 No wife, no ex-wives, no kids.

01:54:50.000 Wow.

01:54:51.000 Yeah.

01:54:52.000 How'd you skate through life without...

01:54:54.000 I don't know.

01:54:56.000 I mean...

01:54:59.000 I guess it wasn't planned.

01:55:01.000 I mean, maybe on a subconscious level, just due to my childhood, I probably avoided it subconsciously.

01:55:09.000 Yeah, a lot of people do.

01:55:11.000 Yeah.

01:55:12.000 A lot of people with traumatic childhoods or unpleasant childhoods, they say, I don't want to bring that on anybody else.

01:55:18.000 Yeah.

01:55:19.000 Because you associate what childhood is and what being a parent is with what you experienced.

01:55:25.000 You don't think there's another way to do it.

01:55:28.000 Mhm.

01:55:29.000 Yeah.

01:55:30.000 But I've had friends who'd be like, oh, you'd be an awesome dad.

01:55:33.000 And I'm like...

01:55:34.000 I bet you would.

01:55:35.000 I don't know, man.

01:55:36.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:55:37.000 And then, like, going down that road, and then it turns out, like, oh, I do suck? 0.98

01:55:42.000 Like, horrible, you know? 0.98

01:55:45.000 You talked about your flexibility.

01:55:46.000 You'd adjust.

01:55:47.000 You'd get better at it.

01:55:48.000 It's a strange experience.

01:55:51.000 It's very psychedelic.

01:55:52.000 Do you have kids?

01:55:53.000 Yeah.

01:55:53.000 Okay.

01:55:54.000 I have three daughters.

01:55:55.000 Having children is...

01:55:57.000 It...

01:55:59.000 Seeing a little person and engaging with them and having them grow with you and learning about life, in a lot of ways it gives you a chance to do it the right way.

01:56:11.000 You think about what's happened to you and you learn from that.

01:56:16.000 You learn from your mistakes in raising them and you learn how to communicate with little people who are just growing and learning.

01:56:23.000 It's very educational.

01:56:25.000 It's very fascinating.

01:56:27.000 It changes you fundamentally as a human being.

01:56:31.000 It changes everything about you.

01:56:33.000 I could imagine, like, because, again, going back to just the evolutionary thing, you're kind of fulfilling your mission.

01:56:39.000 Yes.

01:56:39.000 As an organism.

01:56:42.000 In that way, like, it really does speak to your DNA. There's something about it.

01:56:47.000 But it's also, it's like, Dave Chappelle said this to me once, it's a great quote.

01:56:52.000 He said, Becoming a father didn't just change the amount of love that I have.

01:56:59.000 It changed my capacity for love.

01:57:01.000 And I think that's very accurate.

01:57:05.000 But, you know, some people, their demons don't line up with that endeavor.

01:57:13.000 You know, they're whatever it is in their life.

01:57:16.000 It doesn't line up with it.

01:57:17.000 And they don't make those adjustments because you're going to have to adjust.

01:57:20.000 You're going to have to change your priorities.

01:57:21.000 You change who you are.

01:57:24.000 You change how you think about people.

01:57:26.000 What's fascinating with me is I always felt about people that there were these static things.

01:57:34.000 Like, you know, I met Mike.

01:57:35.000 He's 70. That's Mike.

01:57:37.000 He's always been 70. And then you have children and raise children and see them grow from the time they're a little baby to a person who's having a conversation with you that you go to dinner with, you go to the movies with.

01:57:53.000 And you know all their life experiences and the good ones and the bad ones and it's just...

01:57:58.000 I look at people now like babies.

01:58:01.000 I look at everybody like they're a baby.

01:58:03.000 It's very weird.

01:58:04.000 I go, I wonder what you were like as a baby because you obviously got to this point from being...

01:58:09.000 I see in my mind or at least I envision this journey now to get to who you are now.

01:58:15.000 I give people a lot more slack because of it.

01:58:18.000 A lot more.

01:58:19.000 I'm so much more charitable. 1.00

01:58:24.000 I have friends with horrible parents Battle to deal with these motherfuckers that raised you. 1.00

01:58:49.000 It's like a constant thing in their life that they never quite get past. 1.00

01:58:55.000 And I was very fortunate that my mom, when she married my stepdad, they're very close.

01:59:01.000 And they've been close most of my life.

01:59:04.000 So I've experienced bad and then I've also experienced like what it's like when a relationship works and when people are kind to each other and get along together and it's like so you realize like there's adjustments that everyone can make in this life to make the path smoother to make it more just you know more harmonious but It

01:59:35.000 really changed how I think about humans.

01:59:37.000 Not just like my humans, but all humans.

01:59:41.000 Like everyone that I meet.

01:59:42.000 I really think of them as babies.

01:59:45.000 It's very strange.

01:59:47.000 But I think it's kind of, I sort of decided to think that way.

01:59:51.000 Because I was recognizing, like, the way kids, like, sort of adopt your thoughts on things. 1.00

01:59:59.000 And my kids talk a lot of shit. 1.00

02:00:01.000 They're very funny. 1.00

02:00:03.000 Because in my house, we talk a lot of shit. 0.99

02:00:05.000 We're always making fun of things, making fun of each other, and there's a lot of laughs. 1.00

02:00:10.000 Because, you know, that's what I do.

02:00:11.000 I'm a comedian. 0.99

02:00:12.000 And to see my kids talk shit and say funny things, it's like, oh my god, I know where you got that from. 0.99

02:00:19.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:00:20.000 It's very obvious, but it's also they're very kind, too, which is very—that makes me very proud.

02:00:26.000 And it's very nice to be able to raise children in an environment where when they get older, you see them expressing the values that you appreciate and you think are important.

02:00:41.000 Yeah, I could see, and I thought about it before.

02:00:44.000 It's not too late.

02:00:45.000 Yeah, I guess that's the...

02:00:47.000 Probably still got some swimmers in there. 1.00

02:00:48.000 ...the advantage of having the XY chromosome.

02:00:51.000 Yeah, it is a big advantage, you know, for women, you know, I know women that forgot to have kids. 1.00

02:00:57.000 I mean, I say it that way.

02:00:58.000 They didn't forget to have kids.

02:01:00.000 But, you know, in our modern Western world, when people prepare for their life, they prepare for what society has established as the path that is the most celebrated, Something not just that you would be proud of,

02:01:26.000 but that someone would respect.

02:01:28.000 You know, like this is Debbie.

02:01:30.000 She's a lawyer, you know, and she's a partner at her firm.

02:01:34.000 Like, oh, Debbie's happy.

02:01:35.000 And then you meet Debbie and you're like, oh, Debbie's miserable.

02:01:38.000 You know, she's very successful, but it's not harmonious.

02:01:43.000 She's not happy.

02:01:45.000 And that's It's so hard when you're in the middle of it and you're thinking so much about how other people view you.

02:01:54.000 And for a lot of people, for whatever reason, they grew up in a way that they didn't get the respect that they deserved or they were taught that the only way to get respect or the only way to be appreciated or not feel like a failure Is to be financially successful.

02:02:11.000 But some of the biggest failures that I know are financially successful.

02:02:14.000 Some of the biggest messes of a life that I know are people that on paper are winners.

02:02:21.000 And they're not.

02:02:22.000 They're just a disaster. 0.99

02:02:24.000 And they're filled with nonsense. 0.94

02:02:26.000 And they don't value human experiences and love and camaraderie and creativity and education and just...

02:02:38.000 Just extracting the most fun and the most satisfying life out of this experience.

02:02:46.000 Instead, they're concentrating on money.

02:02:49.000 They want to talk to you about numbers and expansion and, you know, are you investing?

02:02:55.000 And I have a business I'd like you to be a part of.

02:02:57.000 And there's this and then that.

02:02:59.000 And I was like, ugh. 0.54

02:03:00.000 And you don't realize that it's gonna fucking end man, and you don't realize that I think sometimes until someone close to you does die and then you go, oh This is so temporary and I'm not enjoying this process at all and One of the things that I'm getting out of talking to you is that you have sought out these These difficult but educational experiences. 0.87

02:03:25.000 And that's what makes someone fascinating. 0.94

02:03:28.000 That's what makes someone cool to talk to.

02:03:30.000 You know, the path of the most boring people to talk to are the people that are just thinking about making money. 0.99

02:03:37.000 They're so fucking boring. 0.98

02:03:39.000 It's so brutal talking to them. 1.00

02:03:41.000 They have this very narrow thing that they're obsessed with.

02:03:46.000 And that thing gives them social status.

02:03:49.000 When someone sees them, it's like, oh, there's Bill the Millionaire.

02:03:53.000 He owns his company. 1.00

02:03:56.000 Bill's right about to have a fucking heart attack. 1.00

02:03:58.000 He's got very little time left and doesn't even realize it. 1.00

02:04:01.000 And he's taking Adderall all day to try to keep up. 0.99

02:04:04.000 You know, doing cocaine and cheating on his wife and fucking flying on jets everywhere and it looks on paper like he's the man. 1.00

02:04:10.000 But meanwhile he's a disaster. 1.00

02:04:12.000 And there's a lot of people like that.

02:04:14.000 Yeah, I agree with you.

02:04:17.000 I think...

02:04:19.000 I was fortunate enough to start figuring out that stuff at a relatively young age where I made the shift.

02:04:29.000 And I think it's a very human thing to want external validation.

02:04:35.000 Yes, for sure.

02:04:37.000 We're social creatures.

02:04:39.000 We're these tribal creatures.

02:04:40.000 We want the other people in the tribe to... 1.00

02:04:45.000 Go, yeah.

02:04:47.000 But I think the internal validation, at least for me, were, like, basically, and I don't mean this, like, in a malignant way, but, like, when you kind of stop caring what other people think about you and focus more on what you think about yourself,

02:05:08.000 like, for me, that was, like, a huge shift.

02:05:10.000 Like, a huge, like...

02:05:12.000 Like, giving up, like, doing things that, like, I thought that other people would think was cool, you know?

02:05:21.000 Right.

02:05:21.000 That's what a lot of people do, right?

02:05:22.000 Yeah.

02:05:22.000 That's what a lot of us do.

02:05:23.000 And I certainly have been guilty of that in my life.

02:05:26.000 Oh, we all have.

02:05:27.000 Like, I have, too.

02:05:28.000 Like, it's human.

02:05:30.000 And it's not that big a dig, and maybe there's a balance, but then it's like...

02:05:34.000 As soon as I figured out that internal validation meant everything to me and the external, it was fluff.

02:05:43.000 It was this vapid thing that at the end of the day wasn't satisfying at all.

02:05:49.000 There's some satisfaction in the respect of people that you respect.

02:05:52.000 Yeah, for sure.

02:05:53.000 When you see this person's an exceptional person and they enjoy being with you, you're like, oh, maybe I'm okay.

02:05:59.000 I mean, there's actually a couple things I'd like to go back to, like, what you were talking about.

02:06:04.000 And one was, like, in reference to parents, like, I don't—maybe I'll view them as babies now.

02:06:14.000 But, like, as soon as I—you know, it was probably my late 20s where I started, like, viewing them as human beings and, like, imperfect creatures like we all are.

02:06:24.000 And, like, all of a sudden I had all this empathy for them.

02:06:31.000 There's a quote.

02:06:32.000 I think it's attributed to Plato, but I don't think it's him.

02:06:36.000 I think it's more of a 19th century thing.

02:06:39.000 It goes something like, be kind for everyone who's fighting their own battle.

02:06:44.000 I apply that to people.

02:06:48.000 I apply it to myself.

02:06:50.000 I'm definitely fighting my battles still. 0.75

02:06:52.000 I'm figuring some shit out, but it's not over. 0.61

02:06:55.000 I'm sure it never will be. 0.92

02:06:56.000 It never will be.

02:06:57.000 I don't imagine it ever is.

02:06:59.000 But the process is interesting, and obviously breakthroughs are interesting.

02:07:07.000 What was the other point?

02:07:11.000 Just the empathy for others, working on yourself.

02:07:16.000 There's an Evel Knievel quote, and I'm going to have to paraphrase because I can't remember it exactly, but he's like, You know, when I was young, I cared about what other people thought, but now that I'm old, I just care about what I think.

02:07:28.000 And it's kind of the same thing.

02:07:31.000 And yeah, obviously I care what other people, at least the people I care about, I want them to think that I'm a decent person, right?

02:07:38.000 Sure.

02:07:39.000 You know, that's normal.

02:07:40.000 Yeah.

02:07:41.000 And again, going back to another thing you were talking about, it's like the most important thing in my life these days is You know, our personal relationships.

02:07:52.000 Yeah.

02:07:53.000 It's like I'm at the point now where I'm, you know, and I'm sure you do the same thing.

02:07:58.000 You curate your tribe, right?

02:08:00.000 Yes.

02:08:01.000 And like these relationships are like so rewarding.

02:08:04.000 And so honestly, that's where I extract the most joy in my life from is these personal relationships.

02:08:10.000 Yeah, that's what I'm most protective of, too.

02:08:13.000 Most protective of those people, but also protective of not allowing anyone else in the tribe that I don't think...

02:08:20.000 You have to curate the tribe.

02:08:22.000 Yeah, you have to be very careful about that because I know so many people that have been involved in friendships and relationships with people that...

02:08:30.000 Are just disastrous and it's like a drowning person.

02:08:33.000 You try to help them and you drown too. 0.98

02:08:36.000 Some people just will fucking drag you in and other people, they'll elevate you. 0.98

02:08:42.000 And, you know, it's obviously... 0.79

02:08:47.000 They're not perfect experiences.

02:08:49.000 We're all human.

02:08:50.000 But through even mistakes and then the reconciling of those mistakes and the communication through that, it's an educational experience for everybody involved.

02:09:01.000 And everyone's sort of on the same sort of path in the sense where you're trying to be a better version of who you are.

02:09:10.000 You're trying to be a better person.

02:09:11.000 And, you know, that might be being a better parent or being a better friend or being a better artist or whatever it is you're trying to do.

02:09:20.000 But it really benefits you to be around other people that are also trying to do that thing, too.

02:09:27.000 Because, you know, one of the beautiful things for me about having this podcast is being able to communicate with so many interesting people and being able to have these conversations like we're having right now where I get to, you know, I just met you today, you know, but get a sense of your journey and your life.

02:09:44.000 And I think about it through your eyes and through your perspective.

02:09:48.000 And it educates me.

02:09:49.000 And I think it educates a lot of the people that are listening.

02:09:52.000 And it'll resonate with them.

02:09:54.000 Like, oh, I kind of see where this guy's coming from.

02:09:56.000 And it just expands our landscape of understanding.

02:10:02.000 Yeah, I mean, that's ultimately, like the word harmonious, I've used it too many times probably, but that's really what it is.

02:10:10.000 It's not going to be great all the time, but you want it to be as harmonious as possible, and you want to enjoy as much of it as possible.

02:10:18.000 Absolutely.

02:10:19.000 Yeah. 0.55

02:10:20.000 And sometimes, like, with you and what you did, it's like embracing things that are really fucking difficult.

02:10:26.000 And through that, you get an understanding of yourself that's really not available to someone who doesn't go through struggle.

02:10:35.000 That's the intent, for sure.

02:10:38.000 Again, it's that punctuated equilibrium.

02:10:42.000 If there's not a traumatic stressor, say, you're not going to grow.

02:10:49.000 You're just going to flatline.

02:10:52.000 Maybe there's no negativity there, but there's also no positivity.

02:10:56.000 Right. 0.98

02:10:56.000 You're just dull. 0.98

02:10:58.000 I think that's the problem with a lot of people today and why they're medicated.

02:11:03.000 They're not experiencing life in a way that seems to resonate with them in a positive manner.

02:11:09.000 It doesn't seem right. 0.97

02:11:12.000 It seems shitty and depressing. 0.86

02:11:14.000 I had this conversation with a buddy of mine the other day where he was talking about stages of his life Where he was very depressed. 1.00

02:11:20.000 And we came to this conclusion, but during that time, your life sucked.

02:11:25.000 And now your life is pretty cool. 0.97

02:11:28.000 And of course you're happier.

02:11:29.000 And that seems so simplistic to some people.

02:11:33.000 But a lot of the, I mean, there's, without a doubt, there's clinical depression.

02:11:36.000 There's people that have something wrong.

02:11:38.000 There's an imbalance.

02:11:40.000 Whether it's a physical imbalance or a life imbalance or a trauma that they can't get over.

02:11:46.000 But my friends that I know that have had those dark moments in their life, when their life turned around, now they're in a great relationship.

02:11:54.000 Now they have good friends.

02:11:56.000 Now they live in a good community. 0.99

02:11:58.000 Those people are fucking happier. 0.98

02:12:00.000 They're doing a thing that they want to do with their life. 0.99

02:12:03.000 Those people are happier.

02:12:04.000 And that's a thing that we have this...

02:12:10.000 This sort of binary view of what happiness is.

02:12:15.000 And for some people, it's like, oh, I need to get on an SSRI. I need to get on this or that, or I need to do something.

02:12:24.000 I need to, you know, some sort of chemical intervention to straighten out my head.

02:12:31.000 That's not always the case.

02:12:33.000 Like sometimes it's just you got to get through that and come out on the other side and figure out what is the process of becoming a more fulfilled person?

02:12:42.000 What's the process of living a harmonious life?

02:12:46.000 Like how do I do that?

02:12:47.000 Like what is the thing?

02:12:48.000 And I think we get A lot of the answers to that from talking to people and from listening to people talk about it and then from trying things and learning and growing and That's something we're not that's not the sound of pop up like a public narrative.

02:13:04.000 It's not something that's being discussed It's not something that's drilled in the kids heads like you you're gonna go through some shit, but you got a trust in this process and you got to have a You have to have guidelines in your mind of what you want to do. 0.52

02:13:19.000 You have to have ethics and morals. 0.92

02:13:21.000 You have to have compassion for other people.

02:13:23.000 Because if you think it's all about you, you're never going to be happy.

02:13:26.000 You're never, ever going to be happy.

02:13:28.000 The narcissists and the people that are deeply connected to their own wants and needs, We're good to go.

02:13:58.000 Yeah, I've always been intrigued by the ancient Greek notion of human flourishing.

02:14:06.000 The Greeks called it eudaimonia.

02:14:14.000 Being, you know, endeavoring to be the best that you can be, whatever that is, and it's not talking about vocation or external stuff, but you as a person, like figuring out, I mean, everything we've been talking about, like figuring out what brings you joy, applying yourself,

02:14:32.000 and it's hard, you know?

02:14:33.000 It's like, if it were easy, and I've had this discussion with other friends who are, you know, about human flourishing and stuff, and like, And this is going to sound a little bit negative, but I think there's a lot of people who can't be bothered, you know, who are fully capable of flourishing if they applied themselves.

02:14:52.000 Right.

02:14:53.000 And for whatever reason, it's easier to do this.

02:14:56.000 I think they also don't have the tools.

02:14:59.000 You've got to think about your life at a young age.

02:15:03.000 You sort of sought out those journeys when you can.

02:15:06.000 And some people, they don't develop those tools.

02:15:10.000 They fall into a system.

02:15:12.000 That's very unserving for them, whether it's a system of getting an education, then you have student debt, student loan debt, and then so you have to get a job, and then you get a job that pays well because you have to pay off that debt, and then you buy a house, so now you have a mortgage and you have a family,

02:15:27.000 so now you have responsibilities and you have all these things.

02:15:30.000 But most of your day is spent doing something you absolutely don't want to do, but is also not rewarding. 0.97

02:15:38.000 There's a lot of things you don't want to do, but when you do them, you're like, God damn, I'm glad. 0.59

02:15:41.000 I thought I did that.

02:15:42.000 Very few people who are doing a 9 to 5 or longer job that they don't want to do have that feeling.

02:15:50.000 There's just a lot of, you know, it's like that Thoreau quote, most men live lives of quiet desperation. 0.97

02:15:56.000 And that is so fucking true. 0.92

02:15:59.000 And unless you find something... 0.97

02:16:02.000 That is satisfying and something that elevates you.

02:16:08.000 Something that with these experiences you gain insight as to why you think and what you think and what is good about these experiences with other human beings.

02:16:20.000 And if you don't, you just become this Fever-minded capitalist where you just are constantly chasing numbers because it's rewarded by society.

02:16:33.000 That external validation that you get from driving a Mercedes.

02:16:37.000 That thing that you get from having a nice house where people drive by and go, look at that guy's house.

02:16:41.000 Someone you don't even know.

02:16:44.000 That's important to you, what that person thinks.

02:16:46.000 Sure.

02:16:46.000 That's what a lot of people like.

02:16:47.000 They like to wear jewelry and look flashy so when they show up, everybody goes, wow.

02:16:53.000 Look at him.

02:16:53.000 Look at her.

02:16:54.000 Look at them.

02:16:55.000 Wow, they got the thing.

02:16:57.000 They got those sneakers that I can't buy. 1.00

02:16:59.000 They got that fucking watch that I can't wear. 1.00

02:17:02.000 Look at those glasses. 1.00

02:17:03.000 Those are expensive.

02:17:05.000 We live in this bizarre society where that is rewarded or at least highlighted so often in so many people's lives.

02:17:14.000 Like, that's what you're seeing.

02:17:15.000 It's like how they sell things in billboards and on commercials.

02:17:19.000 And, you know, we don't realize that this is not going to bring you the joy that you're looking for.

02:17:26.000 Or you get that short-term fix, but it evaporates instantly and it's like, You're constantly chasing the dragon.

02:17:33.000 Yeah.

02:17:34.000 Well, that's the thing. 0.98

02:17:34.000 I was reading about this Russian oligarch that they confiscated his yacht, and he's got this one yacht that's fucking insane. 0.98

02:17:43.000 They confiscated another. 0.98

02:17:44.000 He's got this second yacht that's just as preposterous, maybe even more so.

02:17:49.000 It operates on massive batteries so it can literally drive as silent as a Tesla. 0.99

02:17:55.000 It's fucking hundreds of feet long. 0.90

02:17:58.000 That world that you get into of constantly keeping up with the Joneses and all the other people, it's like it never ends. 0.99

02:18:07.000 It never ends.

02:18:08.000 You get to the highest levels of it all and it never ends.

02:18:11.000 It's a series of false summits.

02:18:13.000 It's like, I've arrived.

02:18:14.000 Oh, wait a minute.

02:18:15.000 No, I haven't.

02:18:16.000 That's a great way to put it.

02:18:17.000 A series of false summits.

02:18:20.000 It's all illusions.

02:18:22.000 It's all mirage.

02:18:24.000 And then one day, he's dead.

02:18:27.000 That's it. 1.00

02:18:28.000 And then all the people around him, that guy was a fucking asshole. 1.00

02:18:33.000 And that's a fucking disaster to die a multi-billionaire who was a fucking asshole who everybody hated. 1.00

02:18:39.000 It's so strange. 1.00

02:18:41.000 So much wasted potential.

02:18:42.000 Yeah, but there's so many people that are just chasing it.

02:18:45.000 I saw this image of Rupert Murdoch with his wife and he was on the beach and he...

02:18:51.000 He literally looks like an alien.

02:18:55.000 He's just like these bones and tissue and fat and he's with this woman and they were supposed to get married and it didn't work out.

02:19:04.000 But one of the things he was saying, he's in his 90s.

02:19:08.000 I don't know which wife he's on, right?

02:19:10.000 But he was saying that I'm looking forward to spending the second half of my life with her.

02:19:19.000 Like, hey, bro, what do you know that I don't know?

02:19:23.000 You got about a month left, you know?

02:19:26.000 I mean, if everything goes great, you might have eight years.

02:19:29.000 If everything goes great, but no one thinks about that while you're in the middle of it.

02:19:34.000 All you're thinking about is... 0.98

02:19:37.000 You know keeping that fucking game going that thing that's gotten you all that those accolades a thing that's gotten you all those that respect and it's just numbers dopamine hits like It's like checking your social media forever to the end of time checking the likes on your fucking Instagram post to the end of time. 0.98

02:19:57.000 It's like it's empty and That's the path that so many people are on. 0.98

02:20:01.000 You know, I just don't understand it I'll never understand it, but I get it You know, I get how you get sucked into that path.

02:20:10.000 Yeah, I totally understand the mechanism.

02:20:12.000 The mechanism, yeah.

02:20:14.000 And it's just like it's like it hijacks the human reward systems of you being like the leader of the tribe.

02:20:20.000 But the leader of the tribe used to be the wise old warrior who had made the mistakes and proven his character and his metal and combat and life and And had wisdom to impart on the others and could lead the tribe in a way that it could help these people and protect them.

02:20:39.000 That just doesn't exist anymore.

02:20:41.000 It's been hijacked by this system of monetary gain. 0.98

02:20:46.000 It's fucking weird. 0.99

02:20:48.000 And obviously it's very easy for me to say. 0.98

02:20:51.000 As someone who gets external validation and someone who makes money, it's easy for me to say.

02:20:56.000 Because I've sort of removed myself from the hunger of that in a way.

02:21:00.000 So I can go, oh, okay, I see what this is.

02:21:04.000 Even though I've never been very motivated by money, I've certainly pursued it, but it's also not been anything that meant the most to me.

02:21:15.000 Money's freedom.

02:21:16.000 Yeah.

02:21:16.000 That's the way I look at it.

02:21:17.000 Yes.

02:21:18.000 It's like it opens options.

02:21:21.000 Yes.

02:21:22.000 But like money for the sake of money, like forget it.

02:21:25.000 It can allow you to pursue things that make you happy.

02:21:27.000 Yeah.

02:21:28.000 But you have to know what it is and it's not being taught.

02:21:33.000 Think about the things that are being taught.

02:21:35.000 Perhaps they teach it a little bit in philosophy, but most of the time, if you're trying to get an education, you try to get an education to get a job.

02:21:44.000 I mean, that's the way it's geared towards now.

02:21:48.000 It's not like the ancient Greeks where education was like, here's how you live a good and virtuous life.

02:21:55.000 Yeah, but the people that I've talked to that are the most boring are the ones that are just pursuing money.

02:22:00.000 The people that I've talked to that are the most fascinating are the ones that are trying to figure it out.

02:22:04.000 And they've accumulated a lot of lessons and a lot of information and they can talk about things and And I can get something out of that conversation.

02:22:12.000 Like I can go, oh, I see how this guy thinks.

02:22:14.000 Oh, I see how he got there.

02:22:16.000 Life's so profoundly weird, but it's just so cool.

02:22:19.000 It's very cool.

02:22:21.000 Or it sucks, depending on where you are and what you're stuck in.

02:22:26.000 And some of it is beyond your control. 0.97

02:22:28.000 Some of it is determinism.

02:22:29.000 Some of it is your environment. 0.90

02:22:31.000 Some of it is a shitty roll of the dice and you're working in a cobalt mine in the Congo. 0.80

02:22:36.000 There's a lot of that to it, but...

02:22:39.000 And some people, they transcend that.

02:22:41.000 They figure their way out of that.

02:22:43.000 And it's the hardest journey.

02:22:46.000 Yeah, it's like the money thing.

02:22:49.000 There's been a couple occasions where I've had people reach out to me, I don't know, 20 years ago.

02:22:58.000 A friend of mine from the music days was like, hey...

02:23:02.000 There's this Nirvana record that came out.

02:23:05.000 It's like a collection of B-sides and bits and pieces that I guess the label put out to make some money.

02:23:12.000 And they're like, hey, you play on a couple of songs.

02:23:14.000 You're probably owed some money.

02:23:16.000 And I'm like...

02:23:17.000 I started thinking about it, and I'm like...

02:23:20.000 Ugh.

02:23:21.000 Like, hire an attorney?

02:23:23.000 Like, what?

02:23:24.000 Sue the label?

02:23:25.000 Sue the band?

02:23:26.000 And like...

02:23:28.000 No.

02:23:29.000 Right.

02:23:29.000 For money that I'm sure is not life-changing.

02:23:32.000 Even if it was, the process just made me so tired that it was like...

02:23:38.000 And then more recently something similar happened with Soundgarden.

02:23:41.000 Like someone close to the band said, hey, there's these Soundgarden box sets that are out and you play on a couple of the songs.

02:23:47.000 Like, you're probably owed some money.

02:23:49.000 And the same thing.

02:23:50.000 It's like...

02:23:52.000 No.

02:23:54.000 I'm not even going to start down that path.

02:23:56.000 Yeah, because even if it did make you money, it would probably rob you of some happiness.

02:24:00.000 Oh, just let it go. 0.99

02:24:03.000 It's like, you know, it's like, I mean, I guess it kind of sucks that like whoever, like the bean counters at the label are like, fuck that guy, you know, but okay. 0.99

02:24:15.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:24:16.000 You know, that's fine.

02:24:18.000 I'll be all right.

02:24:19.000 You got something from that no matter what.

02:24:22.000 You can't put it in a bank account, but what you got from that is invaluable.

02:24:29.000 It's like you were there.

02:24:32.000 It changed you as a person.

02:24:34.000 Yeah, it's like that experience...

02:24:36.000 I mean, at this point, it's not a huge component of who I am, but it was definitely necessary steps on this journey.

02:24:46.000 Yeah.

02:24:49.000 I'm so glad things turned out the way they did.

02:24:52.000 I never look back and go, ah, I wish.

02:24:56.000 I was this rich rock guy.

02:24:58.000 And on so many levels, I'm glad that I didn't. 0.97

02:25:01.000 A lot of those guys are miserable. 0.99

02:25:03.000 Oh, yeah. 0.99

02:25:04.000 I know a few.

02:25:05.000 I know a few, too.

02:25:06.000 That's the saddest thing in the world.

02:25:08.000 It's when you meet a miserable success.

02:25:11.000 Even rock stars.

02:25:12.000 Even someone who's an artist, right?

02:25:14.000 And for so many of them, they're only happy when they're on top.

02:25:19.000 And it's not even necessarily happy.

02:25:22.000 It's like euphoria. 0.99

02:25:24.000 There's like a thing about it like, oh my god, I'm the fucking man. 0.99

02:25:28.000 You know, look at me. 0.99

02:25:29.000 I got the long hair and the fucking guitar and everybody loves me. 0.99

02:25:35.000 It's almost a trap. 1.00

02:25:36.000 It's almost like a gilded cage that you're a part of.

02:25:41.000 You're like, look at me.

02:25:46.000 It would be cool to have that financial security and then do something totally different.

02:25:54.000 It's also a trap of fame.

02:25:59.000 It's hard to know people.

02:26:01.000 It's hard to get to know people because everybody's approaching you in a very alien way.

02:26:07.000 That was when I was young and obviously not on that huge level, but that was kind of When I got fired from Soundgarden, that was kind of part of the crisis where I was like...

02:26:20.000 It was easy to put on the identity of, like, being the bass player for Soundgarden.

02:26:26.000 Right.

02:26:27.000 You know?

02:26:27.000 And, like, I was, like, the de facto cool guy.

02:26:30.000 Sure.

02:26:31.000 If you have a conversation with someone at dinner, what do you do?

02:26:34.000 I'm the bass player for Soundgarden.

02:26:35.000 Or, you know, like, women would show interest.

02:26:37.000 Oh, yeah.

02:26:38.000 Especially being, like, a painfully shy young man.

02:26:41.000 That was awesome.

02:26:42.000 You know, but then it was like...

02:26:45.000 When I did have that taken away, and it did knock me for a loop for a bit, but it also helped me recognize, like, oh, I should just focus on Jason the dude, you know, not Jason the bass player for Soundgarden.

02:27:03.000 And that was kind of the slap in the face that kind of brought me around.

02:27:08.000 Mmm.

02:27:09.000 But you had to go through that.

02:27:10.000 Yeah.

02:27:11.000 Yeah. 0.79

02:27:12.000 But that's the thing about going through something that sucks.

02:27:15.000 Like when you get on the other end of it and you achieve equilibrium, you go, okay, it was actually probably good for me.

02:27:25.000 I wholeheartedly believe I came out the other end better on every level.

02:27:31.000 I'm happier now at 55 than I've ever been in my entire life.

02:27:34.000 And each year gets better.

02:27:37.000 That's success.

02:27:38.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:27:39.000 That's the way I look at it.

02:27:41.000 Why did you want to do this?

02:27:43.000 Do what?

02:27:43.000 This podcast.

02:27:44.000 I'm going to be honest.

02:27:46.000 To give my R2AK size some oxygen.

02:27:51.000 Your...

02:27:51.000 The Race to Alaska.

02:27:52.000 Oh, okay.

02:27:53.000 But also, you know, I'm a fan.

02:27:56.000 I think the first podcast I listened to you was the one you did with James from Metallica.

02:28:01.000 Oh, that was great.

02:28:02.000 The Beekeeping?

02:28:04.000 Yeah.

02:28:05.000 So cool.

02:28:06.000 Yeah, he's very cool.

02:28:07.000 He's an interesting guy.

02:28:08.000 Yeah, I knew him a little bit back in the day, but yeah...

02:28:12.000 The beekeeping stuff was fascinating.

02:28:14.000 Yeah.

02:28:15.000 I got connected to him through my friend Jim Brewer.

02:28:18.000 Jim Brewer, who's a long time...

02:28:20.000 He's been my friend for like 30 years.

02:28:21.000 The comedian.

02:28:21.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:28:22.000 He opens for Metallica.

02:28:23.000 Okay.

02:28:24.000 Which is hilarious because he's a giant Metallica fan and he doesn't need to do that.

02:28:30.000 And I think they just offered it to him because they're friends with him.

02:28:33.000 And, like, he decided that would be a fun thing to do.

02:28:35.000 And since he's such a Metallica fan, he speaks to those people.

02:28:40.000 It's not like just a regular comedian opening for a band they're not interested in and the crowd doesn't engage.

02:28:47.000 He talks about Metallica and he has material.

02:28:51.000 And Jim is one of the most prolific and interesting guys that I know in terms of, like, his stand-up.

02:28:58.000 Like, he can just... 0.97

02:28:59.000 Jim can, like something can happen in the news today and Jim can go on stage and do like 10 minutes on it and just rant and rave and he's such a fucking cartoonish character. 0.98

02:29:11.000 He's so funny. 0.99

02:29:12.000 So watching him open for Metallica is a fucking hoot. 0.93

02:29:16.000 It's so hilarious because he's in his element and he's also a brilliant comedian and just such a character. 0.96

02:29:22.000 And so he reached out to me.

02:29:25.000 He's like, hey man, you should have...

02:29:26.000 James Hatfield on. 0.98

02:29:27.000 He's fucking awesome. 0.99

02:29:28.000 Fucking be a great podcast. 0.99

02:29:30.000 I was like, let's do it. 0.98

02:29:31.000 Let's do it.

02:29:32.000 So having him on was pretty cool.

02:29:35.000 Yeah.

02:29:35.000 So that was my gateway to your show.

02:29:38.000 And that put the hooks in me.

02:29:40.000 It's like, okay, this is good.

02:29:41.000 Well, thanks, man.

02:29:42.000 Appreciate it.

02:29:43.000 I'm glad we did this, too.

02:29:44.000 Yeah, me too.

02:29:44.000 So let's tell everybody about your site so maybe we can get that goal.

02:29:47.000 I mean, we already talked about it.

02:29:50.000 How do I get to it?

02:29:50.000 What's the website?

02:29:52.000 So the website is supernautiloid.com.

02:29:57.000 Supernautiloid?

02:29:58.000 Yeah, one word.

02:30:00.000 So it's a play on Black Sabbath's Supernaut.

02:30:02.000 Right.

02:30:03.000 But the nautiloid is like the prehistoric marine creature.

02:30:08.000 What is it?

02:30:09.000 It's like a squid with a shell.

02:30:11.000 Oh, okay.

02:30:13.000 Super Nautiloid Race to Alaska 2023. Yep.

02:30:17.000 Nice.

02:30:17.000 Okay, so supernautiloid.com.

02:30:19.000 And the link to the GoFundMe is up there as well?

02:30:21.000 Yeah, down the page.

02:30:22.000 Are you going to document this at all on either social media or on YouTube or anything like that?

02:30:29.000 So, Barrett has a buddy who's a documentary filmmaker who...

02:30:36.000 He's going to do some stuff on it.

02:30:38.000 So, like, maybe if, like, enough people kick in, like, five or ten bucks, we actually pay Tad to do a documentary because he's a professional.

02:30:50.000 He's not an amateur.

02:30:51.000 So, it's going to cost some money to have it done right.

02:30:55.000 But Tad's interested in doing it.

02:30:57.000 I think he just...

02:30:59.000 It needs to be remunerated properly in order to complete the project.

02:31:04.000 But yeah, that's been talked about and it may happen.

02:31:09.000 Well, maybe we can make it happen.

02:31:11.000 So the other thing that I would say to you is I think you should write a book.

02:31:15.000 So I can tell a story about my brush with the literary world if you want.

02:31:23.000 Okay, sure.

02:31:24.000 So I actually was at this juncture, another juncture, basically before I went to grad school.

02:31:35.000 And I was like, maybe I should write a book, you know?

02:31:40.000 Maybe it's time or whatever.

02:31:42.000 And actually, I got an agent and...

02:31:48.000 I wrote a book proposal, actually wrote the proposal when I was in Buenos Aires.

02:31:54.000 And I remember I was sitting in this cafe in Buenos Aires, so it's like wintertime down there.

02:31:59.000 And it's pouring down rain, and there's like water leaking from the roof, and there's pots and pans around the cafe, like catching the rainwater.

02:32:06.000 And on my laptop, and I remember finishing the proposal, and it's like, cool, when I get back to the States, I'll meet with the agent, and, you know, and, like, there were so many parallels.

02:32:19.000 I'm sure you've been in that world, too, with the literary world, like the business side of it.

02:32:25.000 Mm-hmm.

02:32:26.000 And with that in the music world.

02:32:28.000 So he, this agent's promising me the world, you know, like the classic like music biz thing, like, you know, you boys are going to be bigger than Led Zepp, you know, kind of thing.

02:32:37.000 Yeah.

02:32:38.000 And I'm taking it with a grain of salt.

02:32:40.000 I'm like, okay, you know, I'm being pretty moderate about the whole thing.

02:32:43.000 So I finished the proposal and I thought it was decent, you know?

02:32:49.000 Gave it to him and then got another meeting with him and some other dude.

02:32:55.000 And they're like, you know, kind of making these radical...

02:33:01.000 Suggestions as far as changing the thrust of the narrative and things like that.

02:33:05.000 I'd be open to tweaking it, but if it's my book, it's going to be my vision, like any creative project.

02:33:14.000 And, uh, and then they started suggesting, like, a co-writer, which is this code for a ghostwriter.

02:33:21.000 Right.

02:33:21.000 And it's like, you know, I'm not Hemingway, but I think I can put some sentences together, um, according to other people who told me that, who know these things.

02:33:31.000 And, uh, So basically, I got accepted to grad school, and I got a Tillman scholarship that paid for grad school.

02:33:40.000 And it's like, okay, I'm going to grad school, and put the book on the back burner.

02:33:44.000 But it'll probably happen someday.

02:33:47.000 I would suggest that you just write it.

02:33:49.000 Yeah.

02:33:50.000 And then try to sell it.

02:33:52.000 I've had other people suggest that as well.

02:33:54.000 Yeah, I think that's the only way to do it.

02:33:55.000 I tried to do it the other way a long time ago, and I had a disastrous...

02:33:59.000 I wound up giving the money back.

02:34:01.000 I just had a couple conversations with them.

02:34:03.000 I don't want to do it like this.

02:34:05.000 Like, nope, done.

02:34:07.000 It just wasn't what I wanted to do.

02:34:11.000 What I wanted to do was just write.

02:34:13.000 What I was thinking about stuff.

02:34:15.000 They had this very specific idea.

02:34:17.000 They had a package that they wanted it to fit into.

02:34:21.000 Totally similar to my experience.

02:34:23.000 Yeah, I mean, that's what they do.

02:34:25.000 It's like the scorpion and the frog, right?

02:34:28.000 It's in my nature.

02:34:29.000 Yeah, it's just what they do.

02:34:32.000 Well, listen, brother, I really appreciate it, man.

02:34:35.000 I really enjoyed our conversation.

02:34:36.000 Me as well.

02:34:37.000 Thank you very much.

02:34:37.000 Yeah, thank you.

02:34:38.000 And good luck, and don't fall in the water.

02:34:40.000 Have a good time doing that.

02:34:42.000 We'll be very safe.

02:34:43.000 I was reading the safety regulations, and it's like...

02:34:46.000 This isn't very hippy-dippy.

02:34:48.000 I'm sure.

02:34:49.000 Do you have any social media or anything like that you can tell people about?

02:34:52.000 Just that.

02:34:53.000 I created the site myself.

02:34:55.000 It's my first foray into that world at all.

02:34:59.000 Looks professional.

02:35:02.000 It's like one page.

02:35:03.000 That's all you need, though.

02:35:05.000 That's all you need.

02:35:06.000 I did design the Super Nautiloid logo, which I'm kind of proud of.

02:35:09.000 I don't know if you're familiar with Black Sabbath Volume 4. Sure.

02:35:13.000 My favorite Sabbath record.

02:35:15.000 One of my favorite records.

02:35:16.000 So it's an homage to that, obviously.

02:35:18.000 So I kind of mixed in Sabbath and Maritime.

02:35:23.000 Cool.

02:35:24.000 Alright.

02:35:25.000 Well, again, I really enjoyed this.

02:35:27.000 Thanks for doing this.

02:35:28.000 Appreciate it.

02:35:28.000 You're welcome.

02:35:29.000 I enjoyed it very much.

02:35:30.000 Cool.

02:35:31.000 Thanks, everybody.

02:35:32.000 Bye.

The Joe Rogan Experience - April 11, 2023

Joe Rogan Experience #1968 - Jason Everman

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