In this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, I sit down with the creator of Shroomfest, Ari Shafir, to talk about psychedelics, and how to deal with them in general. We talk about the pros and cons of psychedelics and what to look out for when attending a psychedelic festival. Plus, we talk about whether or not you should be taking them, and if you should try them at all. If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your content. I'll be picking one lucky winner at random who leave a review to win a FREE place on the next ShroomFest webinars! Thanks to Pale Fire and Mossy Creek for sponsoring this episode! Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. The Joe Rogans Experience is a production of Native Creative Podcasts. All rights reserved. Used w/ permission from Native Creative Commons and Native Creative Productions. Used wih permission. We do not own the rights to any music used in this episode. This episode was produced, produced, written, and produced by Native Creative, and edited by our patrons. , produced, and licensed to produce, produced and licensed under license. It was edited by , and , and produced by . is a tribute to the late great Jeff Perla podcast. and his music is produced by his band, . . . and produced and produced with permission in collaboration with by the band, and , with . , and the , is , a co-edited by & production (featuring , . , , , & ) . ( ) and ) - and . ( ) is a registered record company. (c) is a proud member of the podcast, (and , ( ) ( ), ( ( ). ( , ) ( ) ( ), and ( . ) and ( ) . ( ) & ( ] ) ,( ) & ( ) , ( & . ) ( ) is Podcast ( ) - AND show ( ) ! ( ) podcast ( )
00:02:31.000If you take a lot of the drugs that people take, like even antidepressants, you're not supposed to ever take mushrooms when you're taking those.
00:03:18.000Sometimes they tell you not to take antibiotics and you have to say why.
00:03:22.000And they go, because if the antibiotics won't work anymore, then I won't drink.
00:03:25.000But if it's just that it's going to make drinking awesome, then I'm going to drink.
00:03:29.000Well, I've heard people that are talking about taking MAOIs, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and taking those with anything dimethyltryptamine-based, whether it's ayahuasca or DMT or anything along those lines,
00:03:46.000and it becomes really potent to the point where it's dangerously potent.
00:04:10.000Because that's the whole basis of ayahuasca is a natural MAOI inhibitor, which is called harmine, mixed in with the leaves that have the DMT. That's why you can take it in through drinking it.
00:04:23.000Sometimes those things that flood your brains with...
00:04:26.000It's almost like the inhibitor is shut off.
00:13:28.000They should do a Fight Club type King Kong where he just fucking starts dominating, gets right off the statue of whatever he's on, the Empire State Building, and just goes and fucking smashes him shit.
00:15:58.000When I moved to New York, I finally realized any sort of racism, any fear-based racism, like I'm afraid of black people, just became, oh, I'm just afraid of the youth.
00:16:07.000Anyone young, they're just rowdy and pushier.
00:22:59.000I don't think he was on it when I was on stage.
00:23:00.000I think it's one of those things where, you know, you want to, like, fight the demons on into the night, you need some sort of chemical protection.
00:23:10.000Take the codeine and rally against smog.
00:23:54.000I don't know how many people are working together on that thing, but the CGI that they were able to concoct, what they're able to do- Did it look really good?
00:24:42.000I think they have a real hard time, like, making, like, accurate-looking ripples and stuff like that.
00:24:47.000Because it's all done with programs and they have to use all these like various technologies to figure out how to fucking shade things correctly and use the proper textures and it's like it's really complex.
00:30:10.000I think it's probably really expensive to film underwater shit, and they're like, look, if we could stick to the jungles, we could save about $75 million from the budget.
00:33:24.000Maybe what we would do to fix the alien population is get them together, like when they're really young, and feed them only vegetables.1.00
00:35:17.000That's the best way to get an abortion, is stick your vagina in that.1.00
00:35:20.000Jamie and I were looking at another warehouse space, and one of the spaces, like podcast studio space, one of the spaces had one of those things in it.
00:36:39.000Imagine if no one knew, but then, like, you get, like, the standard, like, male slot vacuum thing, and you put a flashlight to it, and you're like, oh my god, look at this.
00:36:59.000Oh, but then the worst part about that is after you come, it would just shut up that fucking slot, and someone else would just shoot it into somebody's office.0.82
00:37:05.000No, we're going to test it, just catch a fucking facial.
00:37:07.000No, it goes right into the ocean, and it feeds fish.0.90
00:39:48.000It's just too difficult to support that sort of model when someone can do something like Netflix where they can have the entire season up in advance.
00:42:09.000Yeah, I wanted it to be, I wanted it to be, I wanted just to see your special, take it in, not as someone like, I can't believe I'm at the store the very first time back in seven years, and I'm seeing Ari's special.
00:42:19.000Being filmed, I wanted to get that out of the way, so I got that out of the way first.
00:43:13.000Like, if you had an idea, you could say, we could be all talking, and you would say something, and people would go, yeah, you know, and that's all you need.
00:43:19.000That's all you need, and then you have to be able to draw from that.
00:44:48.000You know, one of the things that's really excited me about being back at the Comedy Store and also deciding that I'm going to stay in L.A. for a while.
00:45:01.000This area that we have now, the amount of cool places to work, the amount of cool comics, the amount of funny guys that are in this area that we're at right now, this is really rare.
00:46:15.000Like, the idea of arguing about that...
00:46:17.000There's two good environments for stand-up, and I think one of the advantages that you have, coming from the LA model, which is less clubs, less sets, to the New York model, which is more clubs, more sets, more travel, you're hopping back and forth from club to club, is that you're coming from two different perspectives.
00:46:42.000Yeah, I feel like your jokes, your laughs per joke, the tightness of your joke has become cleaner since you went to New York.
00:46:50.000Yeah, in New York there's a lot of like, come on, come on, get to it, get to it.
00:46:53.000Yeah, I think that's a good thing to have.
00:46:56.000But then also center it with something else where it's not all about an ironic level of just, here's my writing joke.
00:47:02.000They have a lot of that where it's not so much truthful, it's more like, here's a good joke about a thing.
00:47:06.000Well, what I was going to say is I think that the combination of what you brought from your experience in LA and on the road and then going to New York, that's a good mixture.
00:47:16.000And I think that ultimately that's all you could want as a comic.
00:47:20.000I think one of the things that's really important for all of us that seems to be important when I watch other people do it, when I'm outside of it, is life experiences equal funny, equals perspective, equals funny.
00:47:30.000The more experiences you have in your life, the more material you're going to have.
00:47:34.000You know, and I mean, experience is like, go do something.
00:49:41.000Well, it is pretty cool if you're in a spot, if someone figures out a way to get really good comics to fly out all the way to Singapore and perform in front of you.
00:50:16.000There's so many shows and there's also like the ability to promote oneself through the internet has gotten to this point where you get to know people.
00:50:26.000We've talked many times about Robin Harris who was a really funny black comic back in the 90s.
00:50:32.000He died before anybody got to know who he was.
00:50:34.000But he didn't really have the distribution.
00:51:37.000I mean, there's a lot of people that essentially should be giant stars that for whatever reason don't get considered in the same breath as like Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin or dead people, right?
00:52:01.000But, I mean, if you, like, if you looked at, like, people who people, like, worship as being, like, all-time greats, for whatever reason, that guy, like, slips through the cracks.
00:59:04.000And I'm telling you, if you think your wife has been happy when you've called before, after fucking three days on the road of not being able to call, you've never heard you tell a girl, oh, I was wrong.
00:59:44.000I thought that, from what I understood when I got tested, was that you can only test herpes while the outbreaks happen and they actually spoon a little out of the outbreak.
00:59:53.000Like you can't really, it's really hard to test for herpes.
00:59:56.000So a lot of times you can get tested during like not an outbreak and be like, oh yeah.
01:00:00.000And you want to test positive for herpes?
01:10:52.000If you want to win, you can't play like that.
01:10:54.000A pool table is supposed to be a green landscape of opportunity, of collisions, of maneuvering, of English and spin and reaction to chalk and balls colliding and slide and follow and draw.
01:12:51.000The thing about pool and the thing about chess and the thing about there's a lot of these games that are so engrossing.
01:12:57.000You get so sucked into them that it takes over all your other ideas.
01:13:04.000There's a lot of bachelors that just wind up being some bachelor in some shitty apartment and you just give up on having a girlfriend and you just gamble all the time.
01:13:14.000And you get sucked into that lifestyle.
01:13:16.000And you see that a lot of times with, like, pool.
01:13:25.000There's a groupie in every, if you can think of anything.
01:13:29.000If you can think of, like, miniature golf, there's probably miniature golf.
01:13:32.000Once Tommy DeLutz showed me who the bowling groupies was, right after I was saying the UFC groupies, that's when I realized everybody's got a groupie.
01:13:38.000There are definitely pool hall groupies.
01:13:40.000What's interesting, they will go for the best players.
01:13:44.000They always want to date the best players.
01:13:47.000There's like dudes who aren't that good looking, but they're really good players and they'll get like pretty good looking pool groupies because the pool player girl like really wants to be associated with like a world class player.
01:14:48.000It's half the reason to build power to become the president so girls would want to fuck you.1.00
01:14:52.000You're not like saying, I won't give you this promotion without you fucking.1.00
01:14:57.000It's just saying, they just come in wanting to fuck because I'm President Bill Clinton.
01:15:01.000And I'm supposed to suddenly go, no, that's wrong for me to accept.
01:15:05.000And you're also supposed to deny a Fucking million generations of conquerors in their whoremongering ways, and you've usurped them to become the fucking king of the world.0.79
01:15:17.000I mean, the president of the United States is the king of the world, right?
01:17:50.000Yeah, I mean, you hosted the employees and the showcases, but before that part is the potluck part, where it's the fucking 20 pure open micers, which could be guys like me when I started, or could be fucking guys like Boon Shakalaka.
01:20:19.000You're talking about one guy letting you say yes or no.
01:20:22.000Isn't there something when you see certain guys where you go, okay, I think if you don't really pay attention to this guy, you might see it one way.
01:20:29.000But if you follow him long enough, you realize there's like all these layers underneath there.
01:21:17.000You're not happy to be in front of us like it's your birthday?
01:21:19.000There was some old jazz singer who got, like, one of those trombones, one of the greats, like, Dizzy Gillespie types, and he was like, the one thing I was told was, I know I was living out of my car, but they're like, find yourself a good suit.
01:21:28.000When you're on stage, you gotta present.
01:21:31.000Well, most important, when you don't have money, that's why those nouveau riche nirvana type motherfuckers had millions of dollars and they're wearing tattered up Converse All-Stars.1.00
01:22:30.000Damn, I did like 20th percentile instead of...
01:22:33.000Yeah, you could, I mean, up till, you know, the time you record a special, like when you're trying to develop new material, there's always the possibility that it could go wrong.
01:25:04.000That's what Sanchez said, because she made him follow dice every night.
01:25:06.000He said he tried to be extra dirty, and that didn't work, and then he tried to be extra clean, that didn't work, and then he was like, well, let me just do what I do, I guess.
01:28:47.000And he grew that style out of that battlefield of the comedy store.
01:28:52.000Where he's like, I'm gonna be my thing.
01:28:54.000I'm gonna tell stories of childhood and fun times and beautiful things.
01:28:58.000And I'm gonna go after some guy who's talking about going down on a girl during her period, like Tripoli, and just fucking, you know, battling against some heckler.
01:29:06.000And then he's going to be like, well, now we're going to reset and have a great time.
01:30:11.000You guys saw a guy get that, gonna become a paid record, like a hole in the shell, then get better, then be like, okay, he can stand his own, then start getting better, and totally one of the best comics in the country.
01:34:54.000Oh, maybe they didn't say any of that.
01:34:56.000She might have said I was about to lose my house and my children would have died and everyone would have starved to death and I had to take shit oil.0.99
01:43:36.000There's anywhere between 60 and four people in the room.
01:43:39.000So the show starts out, there's 300 plus people, the place is mobbed, everybody goes up, Chris D'Elia kills, ba-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da, and then it gets to the end, and then Brody Stevens goes up.
01:44:09.000Yeah, he's like, where'd you go to school?
01:44:10.000He'll tell you where he went to school.
01:44:11.000If it's anywhere in Southern California, anywhere, he will tell you a Major League Baseball player who went there, and then he goes, I know him!
01:45:04.000He's constantly used to just completely ad-libbing in front of, like, this group of people that's waiting for a television show to be filmed.
01:45:11.000So there's, like, they'll film a segment.
01:45:13.000They'll, all right, audience has to clap now.
01:45:15.000And in between that, when they're setting things up.
01:45:33.000Like, his ability to ad-lib is like no one's.
01:45:37.000Like, his ability to, like, move into the crowd and just start bringing everybody together and pulling, like, little things that he said to this person, to that person.
01:45:45.000Like, he's so used to being free when he's doing those warm-up things.
01:45:49.000Like, constantly on, just free-flowing back and forth.
01:48:27.000The only thing is, like, when they open the doors, I was really expecting, like, this really cool door thing that would, like, go back and then up or something.
01:48:35.000But it was just, like, this little door.
01:48:40.000They're the best designers in terms of, like, the right compromise between, like, ridiculous speed and power and handling and also, like, efficiency.
01:50:21.000You sound like the guys, when you're saying that though, you sound like the guys who were defending pit bulls in like the 80s.
01:50:27.000It's not, but it's not, I know like high horsepower cars, like it's a really high horsepower car, but it's not so high horsepower that it would be dangerous.
01:50:48.000And it doesn't have the same sort of, like, traction-based technology that they have in 2015. We have these weird, like, traction control, like, computers built in.
01:52:26.000For every time you send me the voicemail, send me another time to voicemail and avoid sending Joey Diaz to voicemail because he will burn your soul.0.57
01:52:33.000You've got to be like, Joey, I can't talk right now.
01:52:53.000And when I get text messages that have picture messages, if it's any, like, look at this bet I made on a fight or something, I have to forward that to my email.
01:53:01.000And look at it on computer because I just can't see it.
01:53:04.000And then you have to do it forwarding on your computer from your phone to your computer.
01:53:09.000You have to do that all by pressing like...
01:54:31.000I understand the map better, because you have to look and see what connects to what.
01:54:35.000So when you miss your train, if you stop and tie your shoes and miss the one train, and you can't get a signal underground, instead of being fucked, like, which train can I take?
01:58:47.000I mean, the reason I have a Facebook fan page at all is because some woman wrote me that once, wrote me on there once, and pretty much laid it out there.
02:02:16.000And you are, like, you know, walking in a park, and you hear all these explosions, people screaming, you go to your phone, and you're text-based, I don't know.
02:04:18.000Please do not watch it on my flip phone.
02:04:22.000The reaction people give me to me saying, I'm just doing this for a while, is really similar to the reaction smokers give when you say I'm quitting smoking, when pill poppers give when you say I'm done with pills or alcohol.
02:04:55.000Right, but when I say, no, I don't do that, then they go...
02:04:58.000No, but I'm saying, what I'm saying is if a guy just quit on you, stopped drinking coffee, and you meet every day, like, you're not going to have coffee?
02:05:44.000Write a rule where you can't look at your phone all day.
02:05:47.000I had one where I was like, I won't even, I won't check it until I go, just let me go to a coffee shop, which is like a block away from me in New York.
02:05:53.000Let me just go outside and then I can check it all from there.
02:05:56.000And I was like, well, let me check once before I go out.
02:05:58.000Give yourself three points in the day where you're allowed to text message.
02:07:07.000My agents, I tell them, like, if you need me to follow up with something right away, you're going to have to just call me or text me and say, hey, I sent you an email.
02:10:15.000And then there's sometimes you write a whole bit because you're meeting someone and you're not in your phone checking your fucking Instagram.0.81
02:10:21.000And you have a bit about that meeting.
02:11:09.000You're trying to optimize the way you think, and you're trying to optimize where you focus your attention on.
02:11:14.000And you felt like you were spending too much time just staring at a little device, and it was taking away from the way you think, taking away from the way you interact with people.
02:11:26.000Yeah, well, just saying that, you saying that, and, you know, taking it into consideration, it made me reconsider it.
02:11:32.000There's this etiquette that's evolving with it now, where people are on it during dinner a lot, you know?
02:11:36.000And then it's like, well, we don't know if you're supposed to or not, because it's such a fast-changing thing that we haven't built a fucking, a way of, a manner system around it.
02:11:46.000It's becoming more and more like, put your phone away, it's dinner time.
02:11:49.000right you know right right but it's like we have to develop we don't know it's just getting it's busier and busier and all the time and yeah it takes you away from who who you're around isn't that what hipsters say isn't that what the whole thing that a hipster is what it's like against the you know that's not hipster yeah it is what's the term of hipster right that's exactly the term of it against the norm what are you thinking about goths also and about like all those groups are against like the norm Yeah,
02:12:14.000I mean, hipsters are just one of those groups that's sort of...0.99
02:12:18.000Hipsters are just uber fashionable.0.85
02:12:19.000Well, they're just fighting against what they think is like a staid and boring standard.
02:12:26.000But yeah, fighting against the currently accepted dress codes and all that shit.
02:12:33.000There's something to like, you know how when you're on stage and you can't think of a joke and you're just like doing it anyway but you need an ending and the panic in your mind will force you to create an ending right then?
02:12:42.000If you don't have your phone to go to when you're in an uncomfortable social situation, you'll feel that uncomfort level for a while and then your body will like, I don't like feeling this way.
02:12:51.000So instead of going to my phone, that was a way out.
02:12:53.000Now it's like, oh hey, you're a Raiders fan too?
02:14:12.000He told me about this Oculus Rift where this guy goes into this room and it's all in like 4K HD and he said you really feel like you're in this room and you walk up to a piano and you interact with this guy that's at the piano and he's like it is a mind fuck.
02:14:27.000He said it's so stunning and so realistic that it just makes you realize oh my god this is like If technology, inevitably, we all agree, is going to continue to get better.
02:14:39.000I mean, we've all experienced nothing but that in our life.
02:14:41.000There's been some bottlenecks along the way, but people always figure out some new power source or some new battery supply.
02:14:49.000People, unlike any of us in this room, right?
02:14:50.000They figure out how to get through that shit.
02:14:52.000We assume that they're going to keep doing that.
02:14:54.000And if they keep doing that, if they're at that now, in 2015, this insanely fucking rich, high-definition, Oculus Rift where you're looking around, it almost feels like you're in the room.
02:15:05.000Apparently, the way they filmed it, they put cameras all over the guy.
02:15:08.000So, like, everywhere you look, like, they have, like, an image for that.
02:15:30.000You're just running around in these things.
02:15:31.000You put the headgear on, and you run around on this multi-directional treadmill.
02:15:37.000The treadmill goes left and right and back and forth, and as you're moving around on it, eventually you get a groove with what you're seeing in your headset and what you're feeling when you're running around, and you're running through this artificial world.
02:15:51.000This is gonna get really intense, man.
02:16:34.000What they're going to do eventually, they're going to be able to 3D map your body, and you're going to be able to just show up, like kick in the door of an orgy, and chicks are just going to hop onto your dick, and you're going to feel it.1.00
02:16:48.000You're going to feel them touching your body, feel them touching, you're going to go into this thing with electrodes placed in various spots in your head.
02:16:55.000I mean, if you make it perfectly real, perfectly real, where your body can't tell a difference, then...
02:17:00.000I mean, you're not really going to have a reason to leave.
02:17:01.000The only reason to leave and see the outside world is because, like, well, you can't replace reality.
02:17:05.000But if you can replace reality, then it's like, really, there's no difference.
02:17:16.000You want just to appreciate the reality difference between what this artificial world is that you have in your little computer setup and what the real world is outside.
02:17:25.000I wonder if you get happiness getting sun in the artificial world.
02:17:53.000I mean, if we really do come up with some sort of technology that replicates that, I mean, what incentive do people have to engage in regular life?
02:18:02.000So let's just assume they're going to stop, because I don't see a reason why they would.
02:18:15.000As soon as this podcast ends, you both, all three of you, and I would have too, are going to bury yourself in your phone for the next 30 minutes.
02:20:15.000They probably have a Kensington lock or a case that has a Kensington lock, which is just a case that you can just connect it to, like, a wire.
02:20:24.000Kind of what they use as displays at Apple stores where you can't steal it.
02:21:25.000She put, like, white face on, like, put on, like, pale makeup, and, like, played the dictator, or a dictator, or someone who works for the dictator, right?
02:23:00.000Okay, Ari, if you start a factory, you're producing Ari Shafir t-shirts, and you're in that office all day long, and you choose to answer the phone because you want to take care of this business correct, and you hire two guys, and one of them turns out to be racist, and every day he says a bunch of stupid racist shit, and he poisons the environment.
02:23:20.000No, if they say something at home and I find out they say something later outside of office hours at home, then no, that's not a problem for my office.
02:24:23.000Yeah, we're having a bit of an issue here.
02:24:28.000Well, in this time, I guess I should tell you guys that starting a week from Thursday, my storyteller show, This Is Not Happening, is on every night after At Midnight.
02:27:18.000They're not going to just laugh anyway.
02:27:19.000Well, it just forces you into that position where you really got to try hard to find the right words.
02:27:24.000And, like, that's one of the things that I was talking about earlier about this time that we're in right now.
02:27:28.000One of the cool things about it is that there's so many other really funny guys around that we're all feeding off each other, and you get inspired by each other.
02:27:36.000So, like, everything is sort of ramped up, and even in your mind, like, all your connections to comedy, your ideas are sort of ramped up because there's all these really good guys around you all the time.
02:28:04.000If you fall barely short, you're still 39. Well, I think also one of the things that we sort of exhibited after I left the Comedy Store and when we started doing a lot of shit on the internet and started doing this podcast is that we're all sort of like banding together.
02:28:39.000And it's getting to this really interesting pitch.
02:28:43.000And if you look at great communities of musicians, great communities of comics, like the old Boston days that everybody always talks about, I think this day right now is the heyday.
02:31:18.000Well, there's also enough people that spend that seven bucks a month every month on Netflix, and it's just as easy to get it through Netflix.
02:35:05.000I'm trying to arrange with Comedy Central, too, so we're trying to get this, like, algorithm or just based on, like, because they're, like, starting a new system, and they're pretty cool.
02:35:12.000They're like, all right, you've done this online before?
02:39:22.000Yeah, and then the following week, January 22nd, Thursday, and every Thursday after that, This Is Not Happening premieres, the first one's with me, Bobby Lee, Keegan-Michael Key.
02:39:30.000Chrysler's on the second one, and the intro to the second one is amazing.
02:39:33.000Jim Tomczyk, that guy who did the intros, did eight different intros for eight episodes.