Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Eric Andre

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Neal Brennan interviews Eric Andre ('Bad Trip,' ''The Eric Andre Show,' 'Bombing with Eric Andre') about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 4:08 Anxiety 11:34 Pranks 15:46 Drugs and Anxiety 41:15 Ready to Receive Love ---------------------------------------------------------- https://nealbrennan.com for tickets to Neal's tour Brand New Neal Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ---------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors: GameTime App Code: BLOCKS for $20 off your first purchase Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing TD Insurance for Business, with customized coverage options for your business. Because at TD Insurance, we understand that your business is unique, so your business insurance should be too. Contact a licensed TD Insurance advisor to learn more. Is that enough blocks? Yeah, that's plenty of blocks. Okay, great. I got more if you need them.

No, no, no. You got real problems. Hey, everyone. It's me, Neil Brennan. it's this the blocks podcast my guest today i've known for an easy 15 maybe a easy 15 i was gonna say hard 20 but easy 15 i heard about his pilot for adult swim called the eric andre show and somebody said specifically you might not like it then i watched it and it was one of my favorite shows of all time of course that's the eric andre

show thank you and he's uh got like spinoffs like you were in the jackass movie the eric andre movie he's got a netflix special he helped for chris rock for a while had a bad set in new orleans i remember he called me about and he's here yeah you did eric andre thank you i'm fixing the tongue of my shoe eric andre and he he went to eric andre wardrobe before he got here if you're if you're not if you're listening to this he's wearing a tie-dye shirt with new york robbery written on it in the style of new york lottery may have gotten it on broadway between 9th and 10th in new york store uh so he handed this to me as i was walking perfect streets um and he's wearing shorts with serial killers uh police sketches on it and if i saw it in the store i would go those

are eric andre shorts and somebody gave it to him and he's he made a decision to wear rebox 15 years ago and you've never not he'll wear a rebok pump right now he's wearing the guy who works at the gym there's the reebok velcros like that that that bodybuilders wear yeah and with puffy socks yeah and you go the other way you're these are great you're wearing the nurse you're wearing like i don't know the the trainer at the gym with the puffy socks no no it's not the trainer it's the bodybuilders you know those dudes like they dress like tony little still remember yeah yeah they got velcro rebox yeah they still incredibly specific detail to to know and take in that's why you're a comedian that's why it's why i moved out of here eric andre hey now i know you're not known for having neuroses necessarily.

Personally, you are, but your brand is more chaos and sort of recklessness. Whenever I see someone doing that, I just think, what are they escaping? What is their problem? I don't like pathologizing everything. Yeah. I wish I felt the same way. I don't think that every comedian or artist or musician, every single creative choice comes from pain or some mental health issue. I'm not saying that it doesn't come from that sometimes with me but i think like

there's too much of like oh you're avoiding you're escaping it's like it's not nothing's 100 there's no absolutes in nature yes not everything is like that black or white yep you know i think that some of it is yeah the dark poet and sad clown and all that yeah or you're just like i know people that are just funny yeah like and they i mean mulaney was always the example turns out he had some stuff going on but he had a great joke where he's like so many people are depressed and not funny at all no funny so why are we making it like oh oh it's the depression that makes them funny. No, we're all everything. Right. Right.

So, yes, I think that I am anxious. I have ADD and I have obsessive compulsive thoughts. He's this guy. This guy's open and strong. We're going to take them one at a time. Okay. Here we go. Sure.

Anxiety. Sure. Do you blame your Jewish side for the anxiety? Of course. Got to. Got to. I mean, the black side ain't not anxious. My dad escaped Haiti with 20 bucks in his pocket.

He left the dictatorship. So he had a little bit of anxiety. Was that baby duck? Yeah. He lived through Papa Duck and he escaped during baby duck. Fantastic. Yeah. So he didn during Baby Doc. Fantastic. Yeah. So he didn't have a perfect middle.

For as awful as they were, pretty adorable nicknames. Very adorable nicknames. You got to say what you want about the Docs. Yeah. Okay, so you probably parsed as an adult. You said before we started rolling that you've tried every possible treatment. And you told me, can we talk about where you're going on Monday? Yeah, I'm going to, for the first time, to do ayahuasca in Peru.

What made you start doing, like, so you'd be anxious and be like, I don't like this. And I, when did you start realizing, like, oh, I don't think I'm like other people? Probably forever, but I think I started therapy around when I was 25, I think. Yeah. And I started meditating. I started meditation when I was 25, 26. And did you stick with it? Yeah, I do it twice a day, every day for the past.

TM? Yeah. Great. What's your mantra? I'm kidding. What made you start? You just didn't like your in-your-body experience? I was getting anxiety attacks and panic attacks.

I would have panic attacks about nothing. I would have anxiety attacks in meetings and auditions and stuff like that. And there is some stuff that's like natural performance anxiety. Sure. Stage fright, which is like normal. But it just didn't feel normal i just wanted like more agency over my mind did it like start helping immediately immediately meditation start helping immediately um immediately and i'm not perfect i don't claim

to be but it definitely it definitely like it's it's just part of my body now. It's part of my routine. Yeah. It's like a hunger. It's like, oh, it's lunchtime. You know, it's like time for the second meditation. Great. Do you feel your thoughts changing before you're like, all right, I gotta sit?

Meaning, does it like, does the morning sit start to wear off? And then. Yeah, usually in that like post-lunch lull, I'll do my second meditation. Where a European person would take a three-hour siesta i do my second 20 minute i don't know why you have to bring the europeans into it in a negative way and i don't think you mean that wasn't in a negative way i'm like they got it made i wish i had a three hour i wish we could do you're right you know you're not french hours on set and so um okay so that slowly got better, the anxiety. And did you stop having attacks in high-pressure situations?

I stopped having full, white-out, disassociative, full-blown panic attacks. What would you do when you had them? Before you started meditating? I would be completely out of body, and I would flop sweat. Were you looking at yourself, you were just like, it wasn't, you couldn't operate. I would sometimes operate. Sometimes I would sit on the very first standup set I did on television was live at Gotham and I was like completely out of body for the first joke.

I made the mistake of like inviting a bunch of high school friends to the taping and they sat them all front row, which is like total amateur hour. I remember looking at the tape and being like, well was totally fine i couldn't i couldn't tell at all really i couldn't tell at all yeah that is funny where you wait because i had some panic attacks on stage and and then i would listen back and it wasn't that bad but it's so it would even if you get through the first joke you're upset the whole time. Yeah. Because you're like, why did that happen?

Yeah. Because you don't know. You have no idea. Yeah. I started taking beta blockers on stage. Yeah. The beta blockers, I tried a little bit and they made me feel a little bit strange. But it's better than having a panic attack.

Yeah. It's better than having a panic attack. Yeah. And they don't make me feel strange yeah um they just make me crush have you seen my comedy um okay so you you had anxiety on stage and you would have them in life like do you i would have them in life i've been having pretty bad anxiety lately i think just from i was doing pretty good like everybody this sounds hack i was doing pretty damn good until i want to say pretty damn good but i was doing pretty good until quarantine quarantine

didn't know a lot of drinking quarantine and my dad got cancer in quarantine and he died in december but uh so that was that's been tough and you just from like an idle mind you were sitting there and you were like i yeah it was just the end of the world i mean like it was during the george floyd stuff and trump was turning the country into a military state i was stuck in my house for two years and just like couldn't do stand up and couldn't shoot and you know yeah i loved it did you really there were parts of it i absolutely there was parts of it that i that were kind of like an amazing reset on society yeah and you got to like read the book you've been meaning to read and like whatever take the cook more and there

were the art of the deal that was the that was the book i was trying to read art of the deal mind calm and i would cook my and I would cook my Trump steaks. Yeah, no, I'm with you. But you, you, you quickly realized that like, ah, this is not working for me. I mean, I'm still realizing it. I don't know. It was, uh, I wasn't making the healthiest choices. I probably wasn't exercising as much but like uh life is in

chapters and waves and cycles and stuff like that so have you figured yours out or you only see them in retrospect i think you're constantly figuring them out maybe i think you're constantly figuring them out it is like i told taylor taliesin it's like you just go like all right here's my new idea for how to do it yeah and you just go it's like a it's like we all have these like fucking hoopty cars and we're like i put tape under the chassis and i'm wrapping it around and then i'm gonna run it off uh peanut oil and you just go like i'm gonna meditate and then i'm gonna exercise more and then i'm but i'm not gonna shoot and i'm gonna live here yeah and you just go like i don't maybe and if it works for a year fucking great yeah great

yeah and i also have to when you when you're going through anxiety or depression you feel like you're all alone and you're the only one on earth experiencing it but my therapist says like amoebas have anxiety. Every living creature experiences anxiety in some shape or form. It's the amount and how often you're facing it that makes it, you know, potentially crossing over into anxiety disorder. every like i used to feel all alone for many years i i felt all alone in my anxiety but uh the world shares my pain not everybody not yeah more than they say 10 but it's like it's more than 10 it's gonna be 90 well when you start talking about other people like have you ever had a panic attack like fuck yeah have you anxiety yeah my anxiety's through the roof if you had depressive spells? Yeah.

Like, when you start talking to people about it, you're like, oh, I'm not alone. And also my therapist will be like, you do pranks where people are pulling knives out on you and chasing you with your dick and balls out in the middle of the street. Like, that's anxiety provoking. It's okay to feel.

You're a bitch if you feel anxiety. That's what my therapist said. You you're a bitch if you feel anxiety that's what my therapist said you're a fucking bitch and do you want this or not do you want to have do you want to get picked up for a fifth season or not the worst therapist um no he's well they they're right that's like you're you are set i mean that might be a thing not to pathologize it pathologize it but like you are controlling it so to speak you know when it's gonna come yeah probably yeah when you're doing when you're like writing a stunt do you expect is there like a psycho plan like all right if the psycho comes then i have to all the time like that's probably step one or near step one no it's always creative first it's always like what's cracking us up in the writer's room the most and i'm not thinking about the danger the most because it's not oh it's dangerous so therefore it's funny it's like

sometimes the most simple g-rated stuff is the funny stuff so so it's not about the danger of it but some pranks have a certain level of danger um and uh yeah i mean back in the day we didn't have security we didn't like we did everything real gorilla so like we had like different code words it would be like all right if i say red banana that means the cops are coming if i say one fish two fish red fish blue fish that means i'm like about to get beat up we had all these different code and we never used any of them my anxiety would like surge because somebody had me by and you take hours to memorize them like flash cards so you would build in anxiety and i mean i do you i weirdly feel like oddly comfortable with them but it took me a decade it's a very like malcolm gladwell well it is

immersion therapy you're like putting yourself in incredibly stressful situations yeah has it gotten you less generally stressed off camera no i have weird anxiety is a fiction and it doesn't it's a distraction and it doesn't it's not logic it's illogical so i'll have i'll be doing pranks where a guy's about to like take out a you know bash a bottle over my head in an open carry state in rural georgia and i'm just like thinking about like am i blocking a camera right now because i'm like yeah to murder me and i'm like i'm like i'm like all right the gopros are there the hides are there no no oh yeah yeah what's that oh i was just joking you know and i'll be totally comfortable in that situation but then i'll go home

at night and i'll hear a little creak when i'm like half asleep in bed i'll be like a burglars coming into my house there's monsters under my bed oh geez and then i'll be up for like three hours have you considered putting gopros everywhere and everywhere in your house and a violent murderous georgian yeah like and just like to get a good night's sleep like you that way you can focus. Maybe. Wear the bird up costume. That guy wore rollerblades, right? I never wore rollerblades while I was in that costume. But I have worn rollerblades when I have the Sprite.

It's like a sad sack single dad trying to get a Sprite sponsorship. I'm Sprite tough. And he has like rollerblades and he's trying to do extreme sports but he has like compound fractures stick and they would be part it would kind of be part of bird up or at next to it no it would be separate for bird up but like it's just like hyperactive editing and segments so yeah it feels uh that's why people thought i wouldn't like it um but i have a green outfit in both there you go i have a green outfit in both told you yeah um you don't understand your show um okay so you're here to confront me yeah and

i've i've had up to here and you're a pussy and you don't sound just like my therapy you don't get what you're doing um okay so you talked about drinking and i always whenever people have like what they think they might drink to excess it's almost always anxiety because i have no desire to drink what do you mean meaning anyone who's like hey you drink or like is like drink you talk about drinking too much during covet or in general every person i know who who has alcohol issues or they think they do they all have anxiety generalized so it is a bit of like self-medicating yeah even though like i think self-medicating is like overused but but i think in that case it is just like a sed, a therapist told me there's little difference between alcohol and Xanax and benzodiazepines, the way they work.

They pummel your GABA receptors so that you experience less anxiety at the moment. But there's a boomerang effect and your anxiety shoots back like a geyser tenfold. Do they know when? It's just like it will. Yeah, they know when because there's different, I think, half-lifes for each benzo and alcohol. So Xanax has a half-life and Ativan and Klonopin. But alcohol is basically a primitive Xanax. It's a primitive liquid Xanax, but it's very caustic because it's ethanol.

So ethanol, your liver converts ethanol into this toxin called acetaldehyde which is a carcinogenic toxin so um i never really drank that much until quarantine and my quarantine hobby was making cocktails and it's like i'm not drinking right now because i'm prepping for ayahuasca but um i never drank i've never drank it every day in my life i've never like drinking in the morning or anything like that but there was times in quarantine when it was like that. It was like, oh, shit. And it was fun. But it's not sustainable. And I just wish there was a drug that reduced your anxiety in a social setting that wasn't as bad for you as benzodiazepines and alcohol. There really isn't, except for nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is okay.

Right. But that doesn't really reduce your anxiety for me it does but what do you just have a balloon everybody else has a has a glass and you just have a giant fucking yeah you like hookah yeah yeah kind of kind of yeah great i didn't even know you could do that yeah oh you know what i did laugh my have a dentist that gives me laughing gas it's fucking great and it is pretty great i don't i don't feel much need to talk when i'm on it but i could yeah i start to feel like a little disconnected from my my uh experience when i'm on whip it so just yeah i think whippets and mushrooms are probably the only two things that reduce my anxiety that i don't feel are totally bad for me well have you microdosed mushrooms yeah

yeah and macro dust hello hello uh do you and how what happened with microdosing great okay great have you just you've done it consistently no why not i don't know you you should try it well i've done it the thing i've done it before work and i felt a little like groggy on the back half of the day that's what happens to me i felt like a little bit like uh it was great in the morning but in the back half of the day it was a little bit i was a little like like not feeling like going back to work i have the exact same experience where i'm like when i when i have to do spots i'm like i'm like i can't really remember my act yeah and it's just like there's a microdose acid but the last time i did acid it was it kicked my fucking ass it wasn't a microdose last time i did acid i was like i think

i'm done with acid like i don't need to do this anymore? Yeah, I think I've aged out of acid. It's fucking strong. It takes so long to finish. This isn't microdosing, though. I haven't really tried microdosing acid, but it just felt gross in my body in a way that mushrooms don't. Mushrooms, my stomach goes like,

like right when they're kicking in, and I'm like, ah, shit, and then I'm totally fine. There's just like a little stomach shimmy, and then i'm and then i'm fine lsd is is too it feels too acidic to me like the experience is i said lsd is like mushrooms on acid you know what i mean like it's but it's got like a techno yeah yeah it feels chemical in a way that yeah like i don't know what it was like in the 50s

before techno yeah like but it's fucking it's too intense it's intense it seems kind of useless to me like i can't take anything from it yeah i'm just like yeah it's it's it's the teeth grinder yeah it just doesn't end you're like all right i'm it's time to go to bed 7 a.m yeah time to go to bed no it's not yeah yeah um okay and do you feel like you are are you trending in the right direction because you said when we started you were you were like you've done everything oh i i think i've never really tried ssris i I tried Lexapro for like five seconds. And when it kicked in, it felt like bad acid or like weird, like ketamine. But my friend was like, SSRIs take a second. You got to like sit through those weird side effects.

This is a kind of like threshold period if you're really going to try them. And I have people that swear by them. They saved my life. I love them. I have people that was like, took me a while to find the right one. I have people that are like, I a while to find the right one i have people that are like i hate them i i felt more depressed so to each their own like i've never really experimented with any of them i don't know why i don't know why i would have an ego about it but i guess i do because i can't figure out any other reason why i've been not

after ayahuasca yeah but i got my ayahuasca trip coming up i'm gonna try that and then see if uh on the back side of that i even need to i will say just basic stuff that you always forget and and men are kind of dumb and i'm single i really need a girlfriend a single man is a dumb fucking caveman you really need somebody you need a partner in life to go you're doing the thing again you're being dumb and then you go oh yeah i'm doing the fucking thing again really like and this is all to say that when i drink too much and exercise too little i feel anxious and depressed when i drink less and exercise more i feel less anxious well you exercise today i exercise today outside apparently came in with bark in his hair yeah

and uh he said i would say bark i would say a flower okay sorry sorry let's not look get it i'm not that poor um and you bark is the poor man's flower yeah it's a poor man's flower um there's a class issue that you can't get near a garden uh with not in that outfit um okay so you are it you just go up and say you were saying chapters where you're on top of it you're doing your shit being healthy and then and then you're just like you just kind of get slack yeah well i think moving i moved to new york two days after my dad died and it was cold and dark and my community that was his last wish for you please move to new york by the power of baby duck um he would always say that by the power of baby

so i mean like that's why i don't like pathologists and everything like that's a reason to be depressed were you planning on moving i was trying to move back to new york forever yeah forever and i was like if i don't fucking do it now i'll never do it and i wanted to do eric andre's show in new york we do the street pranks in new york but i wanted the whole show to be based in new york and my original showrunner talked me out of it and i always resented that i got talked out of it we always shot it in la and probably it was for the best whatever no sour grapes but i kept wanting to move back to new york wanting to move back to new york i just felt more creatively fulfilled in new york closer to my family you know and uh i just liked that it wasn't a one industry town and it

had just all walks of life i just love new york i like la but i love new york and you grew up there no i grew up in florida brokerage on florida so uh it's in it's in uh it's near yonkers it's the yonkers of miami um there were circumstances that caused me to have a bit of a crazy winter you know i'm saying like not everything is just neurochemical makeup no i get it so you always wanted to then your father dies and do you go i'm that's it or is it like a month before you get you find a place and you're like slowly planning or was it like a spur of the moment no well it was not it was like I was trying to do it for like a decade. Yeah. And then I kept looking at apartments online and getting sucked back in, getting jobs out here and getting sucked back into L.A. It was like L.A. was like the Bermuda Triangle.

Like I couldn't escape. And I still have my house here. Yeah. I'm trying to be bi-coastal. Bi-coastal, bipolar, biracial, bisexual. That's all I want to be. But, yeah, I'm figuring it out new york's very expensive yeah it's incredibly expensive yeah there's like like an uber up the street is 40

bucks yeah just down the street yeah i was gonna say 32 dollars and you're like what half a mile i love flying you can fly to new york that'll cost you 80 and then uber from the airport to your place that's 110 yeah it's insane so i'm struggling with that but it is the funnest city in the world it's polluted it's polluted and the quality of the food isn't as robust as the quality of the food here because a lot of restaurants can afford the farmer's market here so those are my three strikes controversial controversial opinion about the food quality the produce but and i'm probably losing the fucking audience with this oh i'm just gonna cut it

you ain't losing shit it ain't in the podcast my friend food sourcing fucking you can live this out i apologize to your editor i am sorry that you had to drain your energy watching this you owe me for the hard drive space for that i know i really got out of it well when i talk to you i feel uh very comfortable great and i feel like i can um use parts of your brain that you don't normally and you're more yeah you you've been you're very therapized thank you so because you're so therapized i love talking therapy with sure and you know you always you always give great advice you're a sage thank you would have loved therapy talk we went into food prep and it was a

nightmare i um all right so what i want to you brought up you brought you mentioned doing the tv show i meant how did you like having a tv show i found it incredibly stressful yeah in a way that it didn't bring out the best in me and i wonder how you approached it and if you liked it or are happy with your your behavior i think every single project is stressful i don't there's no project i've ever done that's like this is stress free yeah exactly some more stressful than others unless you're totally checked out it's stressful yeah yeah but even being checked out then you're like why am i doing why am i why am i doing this and is it gonna suck because i'm checked out yeah it and if i feel like it is it's gonna yeah it's gonna if you don't care about it, if you're not stressed and anxious about it, I think like I always say pain in writing is pleasure in pre-production.

Pain in pre-production is pleasure in production. Pain in production is pleasure in the editing bay. The more stressed you're in and you're getting those fights in prep and shooting, the more you're like, I'm so glad I fought for that fucking scene for that little dumb hand prop yeah for that fucking one piece of wardrobe for that earring dangling off that one actor's ear i'm so glad i fought for every fucking square inch of that shit yeah because now i'm in the editing bay and i'm happy i hate the feeling of being in the editing bay and being like fuck i compromised i bit my tongue i was just fucking exhausted and i didn't have the energy to fight back and push back and now i'm watching and permanently forever it's going to be this shitty scene that i fucking

hate yep and all the people that talked you out of it gone gone or they don't even remember the fight yep that's what my producer he says he goes yeah we're in ot we're in overtime and everyone's stressed we got a rap we're in overtime and it goes two months from now no one is going to remember day seven of production when you went into ot no one's even going to give a fuck everybody's stressing out but no one to not even two months four weeks from now no one's going to remember that we were stressed this day about this thing and if they do remember they're going to laugh about it so and also you make everybody sign an nda so no one can say shit yeah you hear that these people have no rights best of luck getting the

word out you're i'll see you in court tell it to the judge your your your grievances with but people get very stressed on set because it's like they're sleep deprived so and it's stressful but there's the stress leads to and you for you create a good project you uh the tv show you for it how did you tv to the television yeah that's how you it's all stressed television um if you if your prep on eric andre is good enough it becomes you the tv show euphoria um he fought for eric andre to be played by zendaya i could go on with this metaphor probably too long yes not long enough did you how did you um how did you did it just take you a while to be able to hold you around standard ground if you will step why i am from florida the standard ground state and my

producing partner is george zimmerman so pretty great you're lucky to get him absolutely like it takes it's like um you you build your confidence slowly over time with this career. But you really, you get to a point where your back is against the wall in some meetings and you're like, I have to like scream and fucking be like, we are doing this. Yes. Or I'm just going to be miserable. yes uh or i'm just gonna be miserable i'd rather have like the pain and stress of this one afternoon meeting than the pain and stress of watching it in the movie theaters or whatever forever and just being like i why did i there's a very specific scene in bad trip that no one wanted to do and it's one of the best scenes in the movie it's where tiffany haddish is she's hiding

on a prison bus in the undercarriage of the bus excuse me this guy that we're pranking real guy real pedestrian was like cleaning graffiti on the side of the road can you let me get out and she pops out from under the prison bus oh man in a prison jumpsuit and she's like dude can you hide me can you hide me and the guy's like oh fuck oh shit uh go that way go that way and then the the the the prison bus driver comes off and he's did you see anybody no like won't stitch for her at first and then he's just like go that way go that way and that scene was one of the biggest laughs in the movie and i had to fight tooth and nail we tried it a different way where we found this old prison and we hid

tiffany in the ground poor tiffany we had to hide her in the ground and she like popped up in front of a bunch of people touring a prison it was like real hinky and then she came up and people just thought knew it was a bit and they all started laughing we had like a little piece of people shot initially shocked but the reaction was not good the people the marks weren't on the hook and people were everyone at the studio every my producing partner is like that seems good enough that seems good enough and i was like that scene isn't good enough yeah we've screened it a bunch of times it never gets a fucking laugh it's a huge lull it's a dud and

john favreau gave me the best piece of advice he said being filmmaking is like djing he goes every scene you got to keep the fucking party jumping even if you have three four great scenes in a row if you have one lull if you have one dud song you're djing the crowd fucking checks out and it's so much energy to get them back on track and i was just like i fought tooth and nail for that fucking scene to happen i i remember having like a freak out at a meeting and i don't like i'm non-confrontational i don't like like behaving that way at work and thank god it was like the one of the and then when we tested the the screening of after the reshoots that was part of the reshoots that got one of the biggest laughs of the fucking movie

did anyone acknowledge you oh i pat myself on the. I went back to the office and I patted myself on the back louder than anyone. I was like, you guys see all this back patting that I'm fucking doing right now? They're like, alright, alright. And we all had like wins and losses like that. I had scenes where I was like, I don't know if we need to shoot that. And my producing partners were like, no, we're fucking doing it. So we all had wins and

losses and it was like the pressure of that collaboration that made that movie a success. So I don't look back on that stress it it was like the pressure of that collaboration that made that movie a success so i don't look back on that stress like it was bad it's hell when you're going it's like ayahuasca you know you were going through bad fucking gnarly parts of the trip but you come out you rise up out of the ashes like a phoenix thing for next week just remember you will be better off yeah whatever you're experiencing in that moment you're just like no i this is how it works it's just it's difficult and then but i'll be better

for it yeah it's very hard it's very hard it's kind of weirdly harder than hard than you than your understanding of hard fire but you're better off because yeah there was times in the bufo that were like torturous but it was short it was fleeting but like it. Yeah. There was times in the Bufo that were like torturous, but it was short. It was fleeting. But like it was Bufo. It was almost every emotion. I'd, it would feel like I was in the center of the universe having 10,000

orgasms, but also having like extreme pain. But that pain turned into catharsis. And I came out of it bawling, crying. That's Bufo, Alvarez, DMT.

Toad venom. It toad, the toad, as Mike Tyson called it. Do you understand the code? Done it a hundred times, Mike Tyson. That's wild. I did it once, and it lasted a year and a half. And when you said amoebas have anxiety, the worst anxiety I've ever had in my life was as an amoeba on DMT.

Really? Where I was an amoeba, and. On DMT. Really? Where I was an amoeba and I didn't know anything. Wow. I didn't know direction, blinking, God. I didn't know any. I didn't know. I formed the first synapse. Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. DMT. You know how I feel about tickets and where to get them. You know what? You could probably read this along with me. You know how you worry about tickets and where to get them. You know what? You could probably read this along with me. You know how you worry about stuff? I worry about stuff. This whole podcast is about worrying about stuff.

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I'm never good at it. You know, the mantra in those moments is this too shall pass. You know, what I'm going over with my MDMA therapist is you can't think your way out of it. You got to feel your way out of it. You just said something that's wild, which is your MDMA therapist. Yeah. Tell me about what is that?

It's therapy where you do some sessions where you do mdma how often i've talked to him a million times that i've only done the um i did just mdma once and i did mdma with psilocybin uh the second time um and it's incredible do you sit he's you speak to him the whole master um no so i i do talk sessions with him all the time but why uh mdma sessions he comes over your house you lie on your couch with a blanket put on a sleep mask he puts on headphones he plays music you take it he talks to you beforehand he's like you want to set intentions or whatever and then and then you take it and you um he just kind of babysits you and you you can check in with him if you want to but you kind of

just sit there with your thoughts and you cry if you want to cry and you you go through i mean the last one i was bawling crying scream i was like there's times where i was like screaming like like just letting it all i was incredibly cath cathartic, incredible catharsis. That and the toad venom were like the two most cathartic. The toad venom, I like talked to my dad after he died. Like I told him it was okay to pass and I'll see you. I'll see you again. Did he respond?

It was like all feeling. It wasn't, I wasn't on earth. Yeah. I wasn't on earth using earthly things. I was speaking thoughts, but it was, I feeling it wasn't i wasn't on earth yeah i wasn't on earth using earthly things i was speaking thoughts but it was i wasn't speaking english so i just knew he was there and i was like i it's okay to to continue on to the next to the next existence and i'll i'll join you again one day and i love you and i miss you and i came out of that that was those are the first like thoughts that were kind of in english after i hit it it was like fucking total like center of the

universe shit and uh i came out of a ball and crying it was like incredibly cathartic and then the mdma psilocybin therapy is incredibly it's catharsis that you can't get without that stuff i used to yell at my therapist it's in my body i can't keep talking about this yeah i know the problems i got my dad and my mom yeah yeah this shit's just in me yeah and ayahuasca dmt and thanks to ayahuasca and dmt mdma now is also ayahuasca and dmt for me do you know what i mean it's the same it's an i was an atheist it's an instant god connection and and i say that with zero embarrassment because we're in la and you believe in god fuck yeah um like and they'll throw eggs at you and stuff it's really hard um it's like rude and people don't talk about it um but i've gotten so much beautiful shit from mdma

it's breathtaking i know i know because it used to not work for me i took it and wouldn't work now not only does it work i it's changing me for the better yeah it's an incredible it's an incredible and i'm not doing it with the therapist either like i'm just doing it doing it at the club yeah i'm doing it at home by myself at a strip club at a strip club at friends strip clubs home depot at the players club but the that i've never really heard anybody else talk about MDMA helping them in that way. I mean, I've heard about it on, but no one I know. It's unbelievable.

And there, you can look up why, like, you know, trauma stored in the amygdala and it allows access to the amygdala. But like, even when I said that to my MDMA therapist and he goes, have you ever seen an amygdala? And I go, no. And he goes, do you know what it looks like? I go, it's almond shaped gland. And he goes, you got, you're always thinking from here up he goes i need you in your body you can't think your way out you got to feel your way out and so you know this is piggybacking off what you said

about you know your therapist keeping you kind of like from the neck up yeah thinking the whole time it's like it is all in your organs all all that pain and trauma it's all and i don't even say i feel like all like epigenetics and stored trauma and all that stuff i it is true when it when it's left when it's left genetics i don't know what that is epigenetics is like you flew over my head with that your parent it's your dad's stress from haiti your mom's transgenerational drama? That kind of stuff? Yeah. My experience is like going through DMT and MDMA, I'm better off afterward, but I didn't feel it. Although

I do shake, so maybe that's part of it. I'm like, I do pretty significant shaking that's pretty wild, but it's not like, there it goes. Yeah. There's no... Although the other day, on MDMA, I was like doing this and i was forgiving people yeah and it was like it was outstanding yeah like outstanding like why are you doing this at a club

yeah don't you're throwing it away yeah like do it or some just do something else at a club like this shit can really help you yeah what were you screaming about on it nothing specific i wasn't like it wasn't it was it was beyond words you know i wasn't like and this is stress about the bully from sixth grade it wasn't it wasn't like that yeah it was it was ineffable you know it was uh i think just the stress of the past few years. Oh yeah. Culminating. It was,

it was like purging, but without the vomit. Yeah. But it felt the same, like, ah, like, like this,

like, uh, like going into labor. I guess I can't say what that is feels like, but it was like this, like, like from my perineum upwards, this,

it was purging without vomiting. That's what it felt like it was almost like it was like shitting and coming and vomiting it was like yeah like every yawning and crying yeah and burping yeah and yeah yeah yeah and your ears popping yeah exactly uh no dude i'm i'm with like mdma is like damn yeah like fucking damn yeah that's good um and okay so you you're you fought the the the big fights at work you've do how much better do you think you are than you were 10 years ago overall and i don't mean like before i started going to therapy i was a mess early 20s my anxiety but i didn't even know how tangled it was and like what mental health and physical health and you know you mentioned girlfriends

before have wanting a girlfriend girlfriends the cw show yeah yeah yeah a lot of a lot of not as tracy ellis ross yeah not as jokey as you think that show they would have long moments of like a minute and a half without a joke i like living single you were a living single guy from way back do you judge yourself for not being married with kids uh sometimes i'll give into that societal pressure and then sometimes i up both sometimes like i'm like ah fuck i wasted my 20s and 30s i should have settled down and then sometimes it's the total opposite i'm like thank god i didn't settle down in my 20s and 30s i was not ready i was completely not ready i wasn't ready to receive love and that's actually something i

said at the end of my i don't know if it's oversharing but the end of my mdma so as i said i was like i'm i'm i'm ready to receive love what does that mean to you receive love i know i know i know you're you're you had it rough with your dad yeah from your stand-up specialist a lot of i make a lot of that shit up your dad walks in the door still alive brother and i love my son my dad lives in my guest house one of my best friends he's one of my best friends to this day we have a podcast it's coming out it's we're dropping soon we're with we're with one dream that would be so psychotic and you know at this point i would nothing would surprise me in show business like yeah i mean that makes sense um do you so my dad said he loved me for the first time in his life like a millisecond before he uh started to completely mentally unravel and like the next

day was hospice and he was just a zombie it was the it was maybe one of the last sentences my dad uttered was i love you and he never said it did it mean did it i don't want to say did he mean it but did it seem he went i love you psych give me that oxycontin but you know what i mean like like you think it was are you asking it wasn't performative no no meaning you know when people go i love you like oh no no seem like he finally understood it no i'll tell you how it went down and it was a feeling he didn't die in the hospital we we went he he spent the last year of his life in in bed in the house he didn't want to die at the hospital he We went, he spent the last year of his life in bed in the house.

He didn't want to die at the hospital. He's like, I don't want to fucking die at the hospital. I want to die at the hospital. So he was in his like hospital bed in his room. And like, he was just always watching the news. My dad would just always like mainline MSNBC. He was always watching the news. Still, even now.

I just, I landed and he was really looked like the worst i've ever seen him in his life i was like this is the end he looked like skeletal like a beetle juice character like tim burton it is crazy it's crazy what illness just his bones and skin remember that mr show sketch where the they go to the burn victim uh-huh yeah yeah it's obviously incredibly funny but like there's something to that it was hilarious i was like dad you still got it brother can i film this can i make content no it was it looked like a jim henson creation yeah it was like i was like oh no this is the end this is the i was like and i was like and i looked at a picture of him a year ago when he collapsed and went to the hospital and he looked like a million bucks with tubes hanging out of

him compared to this yeah this was like it was just like a skeleton man it was like whenever you see like footage of like um a famine in yemen ethiopia and you're like fuck humanity's fucked it was like that so i knew it was the end so i get it i fly in. It was like that. So I knew it was the end. So I get in. I fly in. And I was like working all week. I would like work Monday through. It was miserable. I worked Monday through Friday.

Then I'd get on a plane, land in Florida on a Friday night and go right to him and like just hang out there all weekend. And then like Sunday night, Monday morning, fly back to work. And it was tough. So I'm sitting there and I just got the impetus. I'm like, I'm turning off the fucking TV. Like, we never talk. He's very, like, emotionally repressed and hard to communicate with.

I was like, I'm just turning off the TV. Like, let's talk. I don't know. It's awkward to just stare at my dad and talk. Yeah. And I turn off the TV, and he just, like, looked over at me, and he smiled. And he went. And he had no energy. energy i mean he's on death's door he just went i love you and i went what he goes i love you i never meant to upset you i love you and i burst into you. And I burst into tears.

Of course. I burst into tears. And he goes, can you call my nurse? And he was almost like childlike. You know, when people start dying, they like unwind back into babyhood. And he goes, call my nurse over. I was like, I go to his nurse. I was like, come over to the room.

And he went to his nurse. He goes, and he started bawling crying he goes why is my son crying i just told him i loved him and i was like i'm crying because i love you too you've never said it and he was like i love you and i was like i love you we started like screaming at each other and it was primal i have goosebumps talking about i'm like choked up talking about bawling crying we're both bawling crying his nurse almost starts crying and then he went and then like a beach we both calmed down and he looked over and he goes oh my two friends are here and it was just me him and his nurse and i go what and he goes my

two friend my two old friends from haiti i haven't seen them for for years they're here and i go dad there's no one else in the room with us it's just me and and your nurse and he goes he was like oh he gave me like a oh fuck face he's like fuck and then uh and then he was and then it was just like and then the next day hospice started it was kind of it was kind of like the last conversation i had with him and then because he was, and then it was just like, and then the next day hospice started. It was kind of, it was kind of like the last conversation I had with him. And then, cause he was so, he couldn't sleep. It got to the point where his nurse goes, he spends the entire night screaming cause he's in so much pain.

He would sleep for like maybe an hour and then just wake up and be like all through the night sounds like a monologue from the air gondra and i'm honest me right so we were just like since hospice started and then like you know we had little there'd be little tiny you know moments of lucidity but not really so There'd be little tiny moments of lucidity, but not really. So I don't know why I brought this up. Okay. I think I connected. You said you're ready to receive love.

Ah, yeah. So my MDMA, so I'm in session was a lot about that moment. And my therapist, not the MDMA therapist, but my therapist was like, I think that that last conversation with your father healed your heart in ways that you never expected and would you agree 110 percent it's funny what's the difference meaning we all assume our dad loved well i didn't assume my dad loved me but but that i think i'm rare in that regard what i'm wondering is what it so you did you just kind of think like ah it's kind of not a thing that the dudes like him fuck with like love and that was very aloof and absent

throughout my entire childhood you know i mean i felt ignored by my dad for um my entire childhood so uh and my parents got divorced kind of out of nowhere when i was 12 i didn't feel like my dad you know there's no extremes in nature so i i knew he loved me i just wish he was more present and uh i wish that he was more present more active and it's hard you probably it's hard to as much as you can intellectually go yeah he's a live whatever whatever i it's hard not to take his lack of presence personally a hundred percent and so when he finally is like hey it really it did it feel like this that was not personal when he said like i'm sorry i let you down it wasn't i like i really do love you yeah no yeah and also what helped was my dad was so he repressed his emotions so much but he was repressive till the fucking end when he looked like a skeleton i was like how you doing dad he's like i'm fine i'm great everything's fine

why do you ask why do you yeah i was like why do you ask it was like you're not fine yeah you should be like i feel like hell yeah i'm incredibly sick and I'm on death's door. But it was like, everything's fine. That was my dad his whole life. So I was like, damn, even in this extreme state, he's still that repressive. Yeah. And that avoidant. Yeah.

And then, you know, and then you see family members showing up that you haven't seen in years. So I was like, I always resented my dad for not supporting me going to like into the arts because I went to music college and then I got into comedy. And he was always like going to med school or law school. He's a psychiatrist. And my uncle came in who I hadn't seen in years, was a musician, been a musician his whole life. He's in one of the most famous bands in Haiti for like 55 years. And my uncle turned to me and he goes,

Oh, he would say that shit to you. He would say that shit to me all the time. Don't go into music. Don't go into music. Don't go into music. He's like, I don't know.

And like, he was like, I could tell it was like, he was still like a little bit like, fuck your dad for telling me that. Cause my uncle was the baby brother. He was the baby. Yeah.

He was the baby amongst seven children. The baby dogs. Baby dogs. Yes. So, uh, I was i was like oh it's not personal there's a bunch of stuff came out my friend was like whose dad died he goes the secrets are going to come out the family secrets and it's all the same it's all the same thing it's all like the thing you didn't like him for he did it to me yeah just and then you're like oh why did i take it personal my dad is a human who is flawed everybody's parents are a flawed human being yeah you're gonna and everybody is going to be a flawed human being to their kids it's you i think we misunderstand how they're going to be flawed

because you wouldn't think you would think like uh if telling your son like to get a good job it's like fairly typical immigrant etc etc but then it's like why do you do it to your brother why did it's just it becomes about the like a in some ways like a poverty of spirit in that regard yeah and not like personal to you it's just like because he's scared all the time and he's like putting it on other people yeah and so you felt so few catharsis in life but that's actually sounds like one the your dad said i love you yeah on his deathbed yeah and and and bald crying like a child about it and i don't i don't think i ever saw my dad cry until that moment. Yeah. Even when he got the, oh no, I've heard him cry over the phone.

He got the cancer diagnosis. I thought he won a radio contest. He was on the radio. He was the 14th caller. Power 96, Miami's party station. I heard him cry over the phone when he got his cancer diagnosis. I heard him kind of softly weep on the phone when he was telling me like i have he had no money at the end he was really bad with money and he was like i got this little life insurance policy and like like he was prepping

to die like i heard him like weeping but then like it was not only the first time i i he he told me he loved me it was the first time i saw him cry and it was like he was bawling crying it wasn't subtle so it was a really it was fucking intense it was one of the cry and it was like he was bawling crying it wasn't subtle so it was a really it was fucking intense it was one of the most intense it sounds like fucking wildly human yeah it was wildly like what and he's tiny he shriveled small shriveled like uh the the crypt keeper from from tails tails from the yeah that's what he looked like yep and the every part of his skeleton you could see in different body parts. It's it's haunting to see your your one of your family members.

But one of the weirdly most important moments in your life. One of the most important moments. Well, I feel OK. I'm trying to figure out how you get from that to be more willing to accept love. What how does that inform it? Because you know that you do you feel more lovable direct line i don't know you you brought them together you mentioned them together as uh you feel more willing to accept love i feel more worthy i think when your father

uh is that aloof in your life you feel unworthy. I think you feel like low self-esteem, low self-worth. So it like gave me a sense of self-worth that I didn't realize I was lacking. And maybe some of it you can't put to words. Some of it is ineffable. And maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. Or maybe I'm half right. Maybe that's part of it.

Maybe just part of it maybe just part of it is just like aging and maturing and and i don't know i don't know i guess when i think about you in relationships i see you as like a moving target that i in my relationships i'm just like i'm trying i'll fall in love or whatever where and then you and i are probably similar in terms of like we've both been dating and like some work some don't short long whatever um and then but maybe now that you feel like that's an space you can occupy comfortably that it won't be elusive you won't be elusive you won't be i don't think i attachment style is over but, but maybe you'll be more willing to take a risk because in the long run, the risk with your dad did work out.

Like it seemed like it wasn't. And then it turns out like, oh, you did love me. And it was like a buzzer beater. It was like a Kobe Bryant three point shot with zero seconds on absolutely kind of buzzer emotional buzzer beater okay so we talked about the things that made you better you've done every therapy and well not every day but you've done every they all help and they've all helped and they've helped tremendously it also is like a routine you really like when i go on vacation and i drink more and i exercise less and i'm not checking with therapy i pay the price when i'm back in the states and

i'm exercising more and i'm in therapy more often it's like therapy and exercise have now become non-negotiable yeah they're non-negotiable yeah they are the priority over any meeting over any vacation over anything i i work on my brother kevin does he he runs and rides bike and he calls it running the brennan out of them which is like you have like a like just i i have all the shit in me i can i have to burn it off there's no what i can't think my way out of it i have to just dump it yeah yeah yeah yeah and i'm glad that you know that about yourself and then you notice it and like will hopefully make it as make it concerted like baked in your day as meditation and all that stuff yeah it's non-negotiable yeah good it's just that's what is your dream for yourself to bring the volume of the general anxiety from here to here i think

there are healthy parts about anxiety when i'm nervous before a stand-up gig i love it great yeah when i'm not nervous and kind of blase i phone it in and i i bomb or do mediocre it's like a c minus to an f set when i'm like actually like last night i had a show and i was very nervous i was nervous last night before i went on on stage like like i was 10 years ago i was like wow i haven't been this nervous before a show in a while and the show was fucking great did you prep did you prepare i prepared i prepared that's that i like you said because there is a lot there is and it's another question i keep forgetting to ask which is like what's the upside of all these of all this downside you know what i mean anxiety is healthy and actually i think like my creativity comes from

my obsessive compulsive thought patterns and anxiety i don't think i but i think turning the volume down on them doesn't mean eliminating them eliminating them is like a xanax i can't walk around on like doing xanax every day for for life for living life. You have to give a fuck. I just want to take the volume down a little bit so it's in that sweet spot where I get to keep the productivity, keep the productive parts of the anxiety and eliminate the counterproductive and destructive parts of the anxiety. Totally agree. Because the destructive and counterproductive parts are like they're

just exhausting yeah it like wears me down in a way that i don't need to be worn out so i just want to turn down the volume a little bit and it will help me in all aspects of my life and that's your greatest goal for yourself outside of like career goals any career you're talking about career goals what is your ideal state like who do you think you can be and i don't mean what like for sure i mean like who do you how do you want to feel uh yeah like i just said just turning the volume down at everest just lately said that like i can go to bed at night but still high enough that you can get ideas and get driven yeah yeah great yeah you still have to give a fuck you can't tranquilize yourself you still have to give a fuck and the anxiety helps you give a fuck and like doing a

show it's like when i'm anxious before so it's i give a fuck yep i want the joke to work when i'm nervous about a joke it works better once i go yeah fuck yeah that joke's now a killer done it just expires i look at the fucking tartar sauce it's got mold on top of it i'm like wait it was perfect what what happened here and i was like oh i was worried about making it work before and that's the audience can feel that they have a hive mind they can feel like oh shit he's on the tight rope is he gonna make it ah he made it yes when you're like yeah check this out they're like fuck you yep so i would say somewhere between purpose and a heart attack is where I'm trying to land. Like, I don't I want I don't want to just be like, well, whatever.

But I don't want to be full of garbage and bad chemicals. Yeah. Eric Andre, great episode. Thank you. It's going to get a lot of little bit. No, it's mumbly. Mumblecore and heavy. No.

Well, should I have fucking hammed it up a little bit? Throw some cartoon sound effects over it? We're going to put a filter over you. We're going to throw the AI machine at it. I would blur my face, too. I'm not going to sign the rights. Oh, absolutely. All right, buddy.

Great to see you. Yes, good to see you, too. Thanks, man. My man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Outro Music