Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 288: Doug Lussenhop
Episode Date: May 26, 2018DJ. Douggpound (POUNDHOUSE, 2 WET CREW) returns to the DTFH!!!!!! WE TALK ASPS. ...
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Good day to you friends.
It is I, the feathered serpent within the obsidian pyramid.
The blinking eye of Osiris staring into your deepest heart.
The thing that runs beneath your child's bed at night.
I am the tap dancing sound of the demons of light.
I have come to spread peace.
Okay, here's a new song from the labia boys.
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Make sure you download and enjoy.
I just tweeted to the president.
This is what my tweet did say.
Don't you people see that the president's insane?
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Then I tweeted about the school shootings.
This is what the people read.
Thanks to the NRA, more children are dead.
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It feels so good to be right.
Tweeting with all of my mind.
I'm gonna change the world.
We're gonna tweet the world right.
Tweets of peace and love.
Don't matter if you're black or white.
As long as you agree with us.
Tweets of peace.
Tweeting throughout the land.
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Boys are broken no more.
We healed the boys.
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John Wayne Gacy dressed like a clown.
Buddy like to murder kids.
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All if we paint peace signs on our fists.
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Much thanks to the people of the Obsidian Pyramid
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You guys did a fantastic job.
Love that song.
We have got a glorious podcast for you today
with comedic genius Doug Lawson Hopp.
We're gonna jump right into that.
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Okay, let's do this.
Today's guest is the creator slash co-creator
slash star of some of my favorite shows in existence,
The Pound House and Two-Eyed Crew.
I'm going to have links to all these shows
in the comments section of this episode.
He's also a brilliant comedian.
Most importantly, he's one of my closest friends.
Now everybody, please welcome to the Duncan Trussell family,
our podcast cast.
The glowing light of laughter that is my sweet friend,
Doug Lussinhop, aka DJ Doug Bown.
I find interesting. He's a publicly traded person.
What do you mean? What does that mean?
He went public with his...
He has people buy shares of him,
and they get to vote on his life decisions.
Whoa.
Like his first one was like,
should I get a vasectomy?
And they all, all the shareholders narrowly voted for no.
Thank God.
Yeah.
That's such a... Do you have a vasectomy?
I got two.
The first one didn't hold.
I just got a double nodded.
Are we going?
Yeah, we're rolling.
But I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't, we don't have to.
But that's not, like, what, what do you think about that?
Vasectomies.
Do you have a vasectomy?
I can't remember.
No.
A lot of my friends are getting snipped these days.
Really?
Yeah.
No, I got to stay fertile.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I want to be like having kids, like,
like Picasso, like in the 60s.
Yes.
My whole life.
Yeah.
Why not?
Just start now.
And this is the time to start doing it for sure.
Like definitely not.
Having kids in your 20s is nuts.
Yeah.
Start, start in your 40s.
Start in your 40s.
That's the best.
Maybe in your 40s.
Definitely 50s.
40s is a little young.
It's a little young for me.
I'm saying 50s.
Like that's when you really start banging out those babies.
Maybe 60s.
60s is prime.
That's my prime time.
That's your goal right there?
Mm-hmm.
So that you've got, by the time your kid's graduating from high school,
you're like, I don't know, 78, 80?
Yeah.
Well, technology will catch up, but I'll look like I'm 30.
And your kid will look like a baby still,
because we'll be able to freeze them down, keep them babies.
Have you thought about this, man?
This is something that, like, I, you know,
that I don't think people are addressing,
which is like how bad it's going to be to be a 20-year-old
in the year 2050 when all these 80-year-olds look like they're 20?
Yeah, that's going to be tough.
Like, that's going to be real hard on these 20-year-olds.
Like, you know, because, like, how do you compete?
Yeah, I feel bad for them now.
Because, I mean, it's going to happen.
A fucking young Elon, like an Elon Musk,
beautiful Elon Musk, 25, but he's actually 363.
He's going to get all the tail.
There's going to be nothing for these young kids to work with.
Young boys.
That's why we need the robots.
Yeah, the robots will be here.
So it'll level everything out.
Right.
I think we'll be fine.
The sex robots are going to be there for, like, the fresh 20-year-olds.
But then maybe, like, do you think, like, it's pop, like, if you, if we,
okay, so if the human...
Wait, why won't the 80-year-olds just date other 80-year-olds
that look like they're also 20s?
I didn't, I never thought of that angle.
What about this?
What if it looks, what if in the future it's cool to look old?
Because no one's going to look old.
So it's going to be like, wow, that guy looks old.
That's cool.
Look at that old guy.
I want to look like that.
Yeah.
Maybe you try to look old.
Right.
Like really old, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, you got, you just start smoking.
You try to get, you try to be scared all the time.
Yeah, you stress out.
You go through a stress camp.
Like, now we have, like, fat camps and stuff like that.
And the future, everything's going to be so easy,
you're going to go to stress camp.
And it's going to, the stress camp is going to be 40 years long,
and it's just going to be a cubicle job that you don't get paid for.
They're just going to duplicate what's already happening,
but it's going to be like, you just don't, it's like...
Yeah, we think we want to get away from these stressful situations, cubicles.
But in the future, we're going to be craving it.
Craving that old.
Yeah, we go to cubicle camp.
Go to cubicle camp and get old.
So you're looking really old, man.
I mean, that's like a, that'll be a compliment.
Dude, you look fucking old, man.
You look tired and old.
How'd you do it?
Dude, did you gain a little years?
Did you gain, like, seven years?
Yeah.
At cubicle camp.
You look amazing.
What do you look?
You look like you're 70.
Look at that fresh wrinkle.
Fresh wrinkle.
Do you ever worry, like, do you ever think,
do you, do you have, like, age-related anxiety?
Oh my god, yeah.
Like, especially now.
I'm like your age, or maybe.
Forty, I'm 43.
I'm older than you.
So, but you don't look old.
I know, but it's still terrifying.
It's, it's still terrifying to get this age.
To get 45.
I think something happened to me either from psychedelics,
or from getting cancer, or from, like, I don't know what, man,
but, like, I don't care that I'm 43.
I used to be ashamed of it.
I used to be worried about it.
I used to feel really bad about it.
Like, in, like, and I used to feel bad about my bald spot.
But now I fucking love my bald spot.
I love blasting people with that thing, you know?
Like, you gotta deal with it.
Like, the hold.
How do you blast people with your bald spot?
Every time they see my back.
It's a reminder of, like, what happened.
Oh, you don't, like, turn around and, like, you know.
Spray them down.
Spray them with it.
You're like, shoot me.
But, like, something.
I mean, look, I'm exaggerating a little bit.
I also kind of don't care.
But, like, you know, every time around my birthday,
I'm just like, holy shit.
Can't believe I'm gonna be this old now.
But, like, that's been going on since I was, like,
I remember when I was, like, in my teens,
I'm like, I can't believe I'm gonna be 24 one day.
Like, that's ancient.
And then, like, when I turned 25, I'm like,
I'm a quarter century years old.
I thought I was so old then.
And then, like, I just, then I'm looking back at that now,
like, it doesn't, it's, like, fine.
Just keep, keep living.
I don't know.
Just keep living.
Dude, I had this conversation with this 32-year-old I met.
And he was so bummed.
Like, and he was deeply saddened that he was 32.
He's like, I'm old now.
Yeah, everyone that I know that's, like,
now in their early 30s, it tells me the same thing.
They're old.
I'm just like, cry me a river.
They're, I'm old now.
Yeah, cry, you're, and you're looking,
I'm looking and I'm thinking, like, you,
you're older than me.
Like, you're, you're older than me
because you, you feel old.
You think you're old.
Like, you're 32, but you're really, like, 60
the way you're acting right now.
It's such a mind-fuck age, you know?
Like, who, who, do you ever have that fantasy
that you're gonna, like, find your birth certificate
and realize that you're actually 10 years younger?
Wait, let me try that.
Plug my laptop in.
DJ Doug Powell, you know what?
I introduced you.
I didn't even introduce you.
No, that's, that's, okay, go ahead.
I have an answer to that birth certificate thing.
What's the answer?
I found my, um, like, did you have to sign up
for, like, the draft?
Oh, yeah.
Like, when you were, like, 18 or something?
Yeah, yeah.
I got that card and on that card,
it says I'm, like, three years younger.
It says my birth date is, like, three years later
than my birth certificate birthday.
So you're younger.
So maybe I am younger.
Dude, that's something Mitzi used to say to me.
It was really mysterious.
I never understood it, and I wish I'd asked her about it more,
but she would be like, I got 20 extra years, honey.
I'm 20 years younger.
And I was never like, what, what do you mean?
Like, how did that happen?
What's the, but I, like, I've always just thought of, like,
man, I mean, why not just think, like, oh, I'm 30.
Just think, like, I'm 30 now.
Instead of thinking you're in your 40s,
just like, oh, no, I'm 30 now.
Get hypnotized to think that.
Well, I mean, that's, that's, that's my, oh, that's what I do.
That's what I've done my whole life.
It's just, I mean, I kind of stopped being my age around 29.
But, you know, you look at 30 something.
You look at people in their 40s, in the 40s,
and they look like they're in the, they're fucking 90s,
in, in, in the 90s.
That's what's scary is when you meet someone that's like,
your age or younger than you, and they're like,
I don't know, they have like a whole family
and all this responsibility.
And they're like, super like older in a way than you are.
Kids are graduating.
Because you and I, we just screw around and have fun.
Kids are graduating from college.
Their kids, yeah, are like.
They have grandkids.
They're, yeah, some of them.
My friend has a grand kid.
Yeah. Yeah.
And, and, and like, you're like, man, I like play synth music.
I like record this podcast.
Like, like, I don't, I used to really, in a, in a really dumb way,
in a really obnoxious way, judge people like that,
as though their life was bad.
You know what I mean?
Like, I used to think-
Wait, what kind of people?
People who like had families and stuff.
It's really dark.
Like, I would look at them like, oh, you're, you know, it's like that.
It's the stupid thing that, like, people who think they're edgy will say.
People who think they're edgy will, like, scorn the family.
And they'll be like, oh, man, you got fucking trapped by the lies.
Fucking made reproductive lies.
Free as a bird, sword on the wings of freedom.
And it's like, and I always thought, like, and I thought like that.
I mean, that's me.
I'm just imitating myself.
But really, I don't think that there's any right way to live.
It's like, I think having a family and getting those kinds of, like, deep.
I feel the opposite way where I would feel like insecure about myself for not being
down the regular quote unquote normal path of, you know, like, like getting married,
having a family.
Like, I have a lot of cousins and sisters and stuff.
And every single one of them is married with kids.
Right.
One cousin, but he's, he's also married.
But like, I'm the only one in this, all my 10 or whatever kids my age,
with all the cousins and everything like that's not
like married with kids, living the classic standard lifestyle.
So I would feel insecure, like something's wrong with me.
I wouldn't like look down on people like that.
I would feel like you feel like that I wouldn't look.
I wouldn't say, look at that.
Those people live in their basic ass life.
Such a bad opinion, that opinion.
Both ways are wrong.
Right.
Feeling insecure about my own way of living.
Right.
Is wrong too.
Right.
Yeah.
It's just like, this is where you're at.
This is where you're at.
But there's a, there's just that.
How do you get away from comparing yourself?
Well, I mean, you know, actually, I'm glad you brought that up because this podcast is
sponsored by comparex, which is, it's like a new product.
You take it and you just stop comparing yourself to other people.
It's fucking incredible.
Like you feel great immediately.
I don't know, man.
I don't, I, it's like, thank you.
I don't know.
Like that is a comparison.
The comparison is definitely a real problem for some people.
Like some people are eaten alive by comparing themselves to other people,
particularly like success.
Like that's one way that people really crucify themselves out here is like,
I certainly have, man.
Like when like shit hadn't been going well for me.
And then like, dude, like one of my best friends, fucking Ari Shafir,
he books this show on comedy central cells of show.
This isn't happening.
And like, I love that guy.
But it felt like Satan put a cigarette into my heart when I heard about that
because we started comedy together at the same time.
And I was like, oh, what's wrong with me?
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Why do I not have a show on comedy central?
And I had to like eat that pain for a while.
Well, can you name one comedian that hasn't had that same thought?
No, even successful ones.
You know what I mean?
Like I've definitely had that thought because I've been out here hustling for
over 10 years trying to do the same thing.
And I'm a loser.
I have nothing to show for myself.
That is something do you how how what you just said, how much of that is hyperbole?
How much is that is what you really think?
Oh, well, that's a thought you try to beat down.
But right, but it comes that it comes up.
Yeah.
So it's like, this is to me, that's this is an interesting thing because every single
talented artist that I meet has that demon because like, dude, you know, you're,
you probably can't be successful without thinking those thoughts though,
because then it kind of gives you a little kick in the
pants to like be productive or something.
Yeah.
Well, I don't that's something definitely to think about because that's the concept of like
paint like paint like thinking shitty things about yourself is going to produce some great result.
And I disagree with that.
I do not think that that's the that that is a path to inspiration at all.
But for some people, it might be.
It's not a path for inspiration.
It's more of a path for like, I don't want to think that way.
And I don't know, it's just like a path for like changing your something,
just figuring something out.
Well, does that make sense?
Well, I mean, getting there's a lot to be said for getting back into a corner.
Like when you find yourself backed into the corner and you realize that you have to fight.
Now that's a good, I think that's a that can be a really good state to find yourself in
where this other thing like war mentality starts kicking in or something.
That happened to me after Natasha and I broke up because she'd been supporting me.
And then I ended up with like, she gave me money.
She gave me like 4,000 bucks.
I mean, like this is like some cash.
Yeah, 20s.
I think it was a check.
I mean, this is like deep.
For me, that was I would say that was like hitting bottom.
That was like deep pathetic, like deep pathetic.
When the money ran out or when you got the money, you're like, what am I doing?
When you're breaking up with your girl and you haven't been making any money.
And it's not just that, but you have you haven't been working hard.
You know what I mean?
Like I was fucking around.
I wasn't working hard.
I wasn't doing anything.
I was like, I would trick myself and think I was doing something,
but wasn't really doing anything.
And like, and it was bad.
I was stressful on the relationship and like, so that I ended up in a sublet.
You know, with like 4,000.
I'm sorry.
Maybe it was more than that.
I think it was right around that was the number.
When you lived up in Atwater.
That was when I was in Atwater.
And I'm, and I'm, and that was when I was truly backed into a corner
because it was like, I have $4,000.
I got lucky and found the sublet for like real cheap, like 600 a month or something like that.
So it's like, I've got, I knew the clock was ticking to a certain degree.
And I knew that if I didn't do something, then I was going to be in a lot of trouble.
Like, like real trouble.
Like going to live with your parents trouble, like that kind of shit.
And like, dude, I'm like in my late thirties here.
You know what I mean?
This is like fucked a fucks itch.
So like, I got like that pushed me into a corner.
And then that, that, that's where things started turning around.
But it was only because I was like jammed up.
You got to go to cubicle camp.
You got to go to cubicle camp.
You got to get, you know, you got to get jammed up.
You got to get put in the corner.
Dude, you know, um, Pound House is.
Did you introduce me yet?
No, I don't, I think it's too late to do the introduction,
but let's go ahead and start the podcast.
Doug, thank you so much for coming on the show.
You are, this is what I've realized about you.
You are, your art is what I show is my go to thing to show people
when they're over at my house.
I'm like, have you seen the Pound House?
And then I'll show them the Pound House and try to walk.
And it's like almost like a, uh, it's, it's weird.
It's a weird litmus test of a person because they,
the way they react to it, like tells me like a lot about them
and like how we, like how they think.
That's cool. I mean, I'm, I'm honored.
Thank you for, for, for showing people my, my videos.
I think it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen, man.
Like I think it, and it holds up.
I've been watching it over and over and over again.
And I just think like that is like one of the
great comedic pieces on the internet.
And I fucking love it, man.
Like, and I've got a billion questions for you about it.
How, like, how would you, if you had to give it like a synopsis
for people who haven't seen it, how'd you describe it?
Um, I guess the elevator pitch is sort of like,
um, Seinfeld meets David Lynch or something like that.
Wow.
Or like, I mean, we, we didn't go out with that,
with that concept when we started making it.
It was like me and Brent were like, let's make a video.
So we just started, um, picked a day and we shot something.
And then as we were making it, we kind of like used our own, um,
sensibilities and it just sort of formed itself.
You know what I mean?
But yeah, I mean, to, to circle back to what we were talking about earlier,
like that, I made the last season of that like three or four years ago or something.
And it's cool that like you show people that and stuff,
but that's like one of those things that eats away at me.
Like, I'm like, I can't be, I got to be having new stuff.
Doesn't that like that stress of like, of like,
it's transitioned to two at crew, which is brilliant.
So, so, so, and that, that it's like, that seems to be like a similar flavor to it.
You know, like, and that's a collaborative thing with you, Mikey Cam,
and who else do you do that with?
Jay Weingarten, but he moved to New York, but we're trying to get him back.
Jay Weingarten.
Yeah, but it's like, like, if you had to describe the type of comedy that you're
putting out there, like, what is that is, what, what do you call it?
Forgive me for that fucking question.
No, that's fine.
I mean, there's different, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's a different project.
I mean, basically, I like to do experiment.
I like to experiment, you know, like with that one, we came up with sort of some rules,
which are we do all the sound and post-production.
So when we film it, we don't have to worry about the mics and stuff.
That's right.
And we want the sound to be like really rich and like high res sort of.
Yes.
And we want to, and we, another rule was we shoot it on this crappy waterproof
camera, like a point and shoot Panasonic camera.
Yeah.
And another rule was we can only use, we have to shoot it with the battery life
that's on one battery of the camera.
So it's kind of like this thing where we're forcing limitations.
We break those rules a lot.
I mean, we did buy a second battery because after a while it was like,
so that rule is kind of out the door, but we shoot it on the crappy camera.
We do all the sound and post and we try to not overthink things.
And it's more of like, and we have a, we have a deadline, so we'll set up a show.
We used to do a monthly comedy show to a crew, which we still do every like three months now.
Yes.
But we would have like a deadline.
So we have to have it done by that deadline.
And we can't, because like sometimes you make a video like with Pound House, for example,
we shot the first like pilot of that.
And I didn't think it was that good.
And we sat on that footage for like maybe a year or something.
Wow.
And finally Brent's like, let's just edit that thing we shot with the craigslist.
Yeah.
With the guy buying the bean bag off craigslist.
And I was like, okay, yeah, we should just finish that because I don't know.
For some reason, I didn't think it was like anything that great.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like the memory of it was like, we weren't like laughing that hard.
It was like kind of like, you know, there's some weird stuff in there.
And then once we started editing it, then we're like, oh, this is where it comes to life.
Yeah.
Right.
So that one was, I don't know, what am I saying?
But I'm not good at talking or thinking in a straight pattern.
None of us are.
I mean, that's kind of part of it.
Like where our brains are all spinning and scattered and like zinging around.
Yeah.
So with two crew, you have a deadline and we have to finish it and we have to show it that night.
And we, you know, warts and all is our, our thing we always say.
Where did you like, if we disagree about something like, I don't like that line.
I said, I want to redo it or whatever.
You're just like, we got to show it.
That's it warts and all.
Yeah.
And that's that.
And I like doing things like that where you don't overthink it.
It's not too polished.
I like when things are kind of rough and crappy.
Me too.
Like lo-fi kind of like that's, I like that kind of stuff, you know.
Well, it hits like with the, with Poundhouse, it like, what it keeps doing is hitting like,
it's super funny.
But then in between that, it's like hitting like almost like a demonic place.
Like it's hitting this, it reminds me when I used to listen to Sebedo.
And like, I was like, this shit is satanic, man.
Like it's really, it sounds so like dark and demonic.
And like, I was interviewing Barlow once and he's like, oh yeah, man.
Well, I mean, that's, you know, it was, he's like, we were using all this equipment.
He's like, if we wanted to make that sound now, we couldn't because all that equipment's broken.
It's on, you'd have to fix all the equipment.
He can go on eBay and find those four tracks.
He was, yeah.
But I mean, it's like, I guess, I know what he's saying.
You'd have to solder, you know, it seems like once you go, you know, forward in technology
or like quality, it's hard to go back.
You know what I'm saying?
Right.
Like that's why a lot of like demos sound better than like the polished albums on certain bands
and stuff.
Yeah.
It's always like, it's more of like the first, you know, like usually like with comedy and stuff,
it's kind of like the first way you tell a joke when it just spins out of your mind.
It's like a lot of the time, like that's like the funniest way, right?
You know what I mean?
Yes.
And then when you like, when you like, like, that's what happens with my stuff a lot.
I'll tell the same kind of joke, like a few months after I first did it where it got this huge
laugh and it was like the way I first did it, I don't know something about the way I delivered
it.
And then when I, when I think about it for a few months and then say it later,
I'm not good at like remembering what, what it was about the way I said it or something
that like got the laugh the first time.
So it's all about, I'm, I'm, I like things in their like nascent form.
Yeah, man.
Well, because they, in that, in the moment, and it's like the moment of birth is
things springs up and it's this beautiful thing and it's usually related to the shit that's
like floating, swirling around you at the same, at the time, you know, and like trying to reproduce
that artistically thinking like, oh, I'm going to do it the exact same way I did it at that time.
You don't, you'd have to time travel and even then it wouldn't work.
It's like, it's, it's, it reminds me of Zen.
It's like this idea of like the, you know, they tell you this fucking koan that's usually just
like, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard any of the koans.
It's like what, you know, what's a koan?
So what happens is you go into a Zen temple and you do a like a, you meditate for like a
month straight and the way they meditate is hardcore, man.
It's like the most fucking hardcore shit.
You're like sitting on a cushion, staring at a wall.
You're like meditating.
I don't know how many hours a day, but all day long, essentially when you're not meditating,
you're doing walking meditation, you're just not moving and it's like breaking your mind.
And then somewhere in the midst of that, the master, the Roshi will call you in and he'll
ask you a question.
And the question is like an absurd question.
Famous when everyone's heard is what's the sound of one hand clapping, right?
And then they, and you'll, you'll try to be clever, you know, Romano's talks about this.
You'll try to like, first you'll try to do a clever response.
So you'll do what you think he wants to hear.
You'll do what, you know, you think you've discovered and like he's, he'll just be like,
like, I've heard Romano's talk about this where he'll say some clever thing and the
Zen master will go, so, so.
And then you go back and you sit for another week and just stare at a fucking wall.
And you have to come up with this answer for what's one hand clapping comes back and ask
it to you again.
But eventually what happens is your mind breaks.
You, you're so frustrated by this question that you're, what, what, what is the answer?
It just is the exact thing that comes out of your mouth.
And then the, the rose, she'll be like, yes, that's it.
But it's like to get there requires a complete disintegration of your identity.
If you say nothing, he's like,
Yeah, he'll, they, they, they torment you, man.
There's all these great stories of this and it's like an ancient practice.
It's like an ancient Buddhist practice.
But the idea is like, you know, getting into purely into the moment prior to all the other
shit you add on to the moment, like raw, unfiltered selfness comes breaking out of this
crack that has just opened up inside of you from sitting and not moving for a week after
week after week, this thing starts pouring out of you.
And that thing is like in the moment, unreproducible.
It's exactly what you're talking about.
It's just the frustrating thing is like, you can't make that happen.
Yes, you can't.
I mean, you can set up the circumstances to allow it.
And for you, that's limitation.
It sounds like it's limitation.
It's deadlines.
It's that, it's that what you were talking about before, when you were backed into a corner.
Right.
Like that's when my brain kind of like gets creative.
It's like, we got to have this tomorrow.
Then, you know, I start to think I really start focusing on the problem of the video or whatever.
Right.
The thing.
Yeah.
And then that's when, you know, when there's like no deadline and it's like this creative
thing is happening, it's hard for me to complete those kind of tasks.
I mean, I'm getting better at it.
I'm listening to like Tim Ferriss podcasts and like reading books about productivity
and things like that.
So, I mean, that's one of the things I'm working on.
But that's the thing Ferriss, I think until I'm good at that, I'll just set myself a deadline,
not not like a deadline, just arbitrarily on a calendar, but like an actual show where
there's going to be people expecting this thing that we're that we're we're we're watching.
And you you say on Instagram, hey, we have a new video coming out.
Then it's like, then it's real.
Then people are like, oh, well, then you have to deliver.
You have to do it.
You're right.
That is a problem.
You definitely, I mean, with this podcast, like after I after we chat, I've got to put
a podcast up this week.
Like I have to upload a podcast.
Like there's no way out of it.
Like I have to because I have to do it.
And in that state, it's stressful, but then you feel joy when you complete it, don't you?
Fucking hurt so bad.
In that waking, you know, waking up in the morning, knowing you have to do it and thinking
about me having to come over here and like, is Doug going to be good?
Or am I going to say I erased it again?
No, I never did that to you.
I never did that to you.
Did I did I accidentally erase one of her cast?
Well, I think that was like lavender hour that you know, I, but I believe you.
I only there was one podcast.
Maybe two where I told that lie.
I try not to lie anymore, but there was like one or two where it got erased, but I, but
I realized like, oh shit, man, if I upload this, you're going to not you, but like it's
just going to, it's not going to be great for them.
Like, I'm just kidding.
I'm just saying, I'm stressing out the same way of like, like, I know you have a lot of
listeners.
I'm like thinking this is kind of stressful.
I hope Duncan's listeners like me.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That, yeah, right.
Yeah.
That's like, they love you man.
I mean, cause like a lot of my, a lot of people listen are already familiar with two
white crew, with pound house, with your work on Tim and Eric, you're, you're beloved.
That's, but still that's all the mind, isn't it?
The mind is like constantly obsessed with like, I mean, Jesus Christ.
Like when I, when I go on a Rogan, that drive over there is just like, I'm just trying to
watch my breath and I'm just trying to get in the moment because like with Joe, it's
like what I've noticed with him is like, if I come in there with like an agenda, like
if I, if I come in there with a thing I want to, especially if like there's something I
want to plug, God forbid, or if there, you know what I mean?
And like, he would let me plug it.
But if my mind is thinking about that thing I need to plug, or if it's thinking about
his legions of fans, some of which are like really mean people.
Like they, they like hate me.
They hate me.
So like, so, but if I, if any of that shit gets in the way, what it, what it does is
it creates this like, I don't know, like a fucking millisecond disruption in my ability
to like just interface with him, you know, like just to be in the moment with him.
And he's been doing so many fucking podcasts and now he's like a hunter and he's like this
trained fighter that he's like hypersensitive to if your mind is not like in that moment
with him.
He sniffs it out.
Sniffs it out.
Right.
And like, yeah.
Well, you're, you're always great on that show.
I mean, but I'll tell you, man, the, the, I figured out how to, how to do it.
But you have to get in, but it doesn't sound, it's not as easy as it sounds for the listener.
It just sounds like you're just chilling, hanging out.
Well, I just have to, well, no, it is chilling because if I'm just thinking like, I'm just
going to be in the moment.
I'm not going to like think about the next thing I want to say that's clever or I think
it's clever or I'm not going to like, while he's talking, start really thinking about
something I'm going to blast out there that's going to be fucking cool that I think is going
to be cool because like, he's, you just see like, he sees it, you know, and then it's
like, and it's, I won't do that now anymore.
What?
And this is not, this is like the reason that I love the concept of like meditation, meditation
practice or mindfulness practice because it's like, and, and, and in the old days, I'd always
hear that term practice and I'd always think, I wouldn't even think about the word.
I was just like, Oh, meditation practice, but it's like, what are you practicing for?
Right?
What is it?
It's a practice.
And that means you, does that mean you're never going to be, you're never going to
nail it?
So don't worry about it.
Yeah, that's definitely for sure.
You're not going to, you're never going to nail it.
That's a great thing to throw away for sure with is you're never going to nail it.
But what it is, is it's like teaching you like how your mind gets you in and out of the moment.
And so that's the practice is like, just learning tricks to like, pull yourself back into now,
like pull yourself back into the now and, and you know, when you're there and, and you
know, when you're not there.
And what's really fun about it is when you haven't been there and then you come back
into it again, you're like, Oh shit, here it is, here it is.
Oh wow, man.
I love it here.
Like this place is like incredibly beautiful and like, but also the other part of doing
that is not being there, not being there.
You know, you'll run into people and they're like, man, I need to start meditating and it's
like, Oh, you're meditating right now with that attention that you've created is part
of it.
Do you meditate?
Yeah.
Well, I chant.
I chant is my meditation.
So when do you do that?
So I'll do when I'm walking around.
I'll do what I'm in my car.
I'll do it.
Sometimes I go up on the roof and do it.
It's safe if you're driving around chanting.
It's one of the number one cause of traffic fatalities in LA, but I'm not going to fucking
stop.
It ain't illegal.
It ain't illegal.
No one said I can't.
They can't breathalyze for it.
They can't breathalyze.
I've been pulled over a few times and the cops is like the cop has been like, are those
chanting beads?
And I'm like, no, bitch.
No.
No, these are just beads.
These are just New Orleans beads.
These are New Orleans beads.
But yeah, it's perfectly safe because you start learning how to like, basically what it
does is it creates this like thing in your mind.
Right.
So it's like the one, one of the easiest chances like Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram.
So you're doing that.
And then like, even while you're talking to someone that can be going on in your mind.
And it's not like you're not.
It's Ram Doss like a computer program because it's like Ram and then Doss.
Doss, I've thought of that.
Yeah.
Like it seems like that.
Yeah.
It's, it's weird how it ended up being like, it almost seems like a book on like.
That's something like I, I, I've tried meditation, but I can't do it.
Well, I mean, there's so many types of meditation.
It's like you, you keep whatever type.
I feel like when I ride my bike, I'm meditating.
There you go.
That's a good one too.
Yeah.
That's a good price.
It pulls you right in the moment, right in the moment.
Especially when you're in fucking traffic.
You're not like, you don't have the, you can't think about like being in a car is like the
worst thing you can do for to make your mind just as a human, as a human just driving.
You're a big biker.
Like you bike all the fucking time.
Not, not as much as I used to, but yeah, I love, I do like I'm trying to force myself
to bike more now.
Whenever I do it, I'm like, it seems like what's one of those things where you have,
once you force yourself to do it, you just feel so great afterwards.
Right.
It's one of those things.
And then I always come up with like funny ideas or jokes or something when I'm biking.
I'm always pulling over and like writing stuff down.
Yeah.
You're going in.
I'm not doing that in my car.
You got to get into Kotler, Steven Kotler.
Have you gotten into him yet?
He's, so he's like a flow state person and they like, he's really into like, he's got
to think all, I think it's the flow genome project, but his whole interest and it's the
interest of like a lot of different people, military people, you know, coaches, athletic
people is like, how do you induce the flow state?
Basically like how, what are the conditions that are going to bring you more into the
flow?
Cause in the flow, one of the things that happens is that when you have diarrhea, yeah, he's
amazing.
He just, he teaches how to get diarrhea.
I mean, this is like one of the most taboo things.
People think it's awful, but it's very purgative and it's like, and that's the state you want
to be in.
Cause that's when all my great ideas come to me is when I'm having explosive diarrhea.
I always keep a notebook next to the toilet.
No, it's just like when you're riding your bike, you're in a flow state and when you're,
you know, in your car ruminating, when you're walking around thinking about like, fuck man,
what's wrong with me or shit?
Why didn't I do this or all this stuff or you're surfing the net?
You're like on your phone.
Got phone addiction.
What's that called when you're in that state?
When you're in that state, the shit state caught was one word stuck.
You're stuck.
You're caught.
Yeah.
So you're caught is one word for it.
You're like a, I do find myself in that state these days a lot and I hate it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's great.
I mean, just like, you know what I noticed that gets me caught.
What?
He's like a lot of cool, like just today I had this thought I was looking around my
house and there's like, I have all these things that I got to clean up over here.
I got to put this away.
I have too much clutter.
Yeah.
And a lot of the clutter that's laying around is like gifts, like people give you a gift.
Yeah.
And I think sometimes a gift is actually like the opposite of a gift is like, here's this
thing that you don't want that you're going to have laying around that's probably going
to like take up some of your thoughts.
Yes.
That you're probably, you know, one day, five years from now, you're going to be like, I
guess I'm going to give this to the goodwill.
Yes.
But those five years, it's going to be laying on the shelf.
You're going to like, it's going to take away your attention for a little bit.
You're going to be like, where do I put this thing?
Right.
Here's a book.
Here's a gift as a book that you're going to be thinking about.
I should read that book.
It's a gift.
Yeah.
I don't want to.
It's not a book I want to read, but since it was a gift, I got to keep it.
Yeah.
You know, stuff like that I find all over my house.
Dude, it's so interesting.
I want to get rid of that stuff because it's not a gift.
It's a burden.
It's a burden.
It's like someone gave you like a little tiny weight, like an ankle.
Yes.
Someone's like, here's a...
But the intention is there.
It's like, you know, giving a gift is like a nice intention, but people should stop giving
gifts.
Well, this is...
Gifts are a burden and a waste.
It's very trippy to me.
You know what they should do is take something.
Here, I have a gift for you.
Where is it?
It's here.
I'm going to take it.
Yeah.
That's a gift.
That's when someone takes something.
Well, that's what you do.
I've heard in like...
I don't know.
I don't know which Asian country, but if you go to someone's house and express interest
in something, you're like, whoa, that's really cool.
They'll just give it to you.
It's like, oh, have it.
They'll just give it to you because they're like...
That's it.
Flow.
Because they're like...
You know, they're not hoarders.
They recognize that matters like a river that's like taking little breaks inside of people's
houses.
Like little...
You can look at whatever the stuff is in your house is just a puddle of matter that's like
temporarily congealing there before it gets...
It rivulets out into some other place, a good will, someone else's house or whatever.
And so keeping that flow going is part of the practice is like, oh, yeah, I fucking take
it, man.
Take it.
Even if it's something really nice, you know, it's just like, oh, okay, you can have that.
Just take it.
I remember you were doing that when you moved...
When you were moving to New York, I think.
Yeah.
Gave it all away.
Good stuff.
Gave it.
I went full like...
Oh, shit.
Is he going to commit suicide?
Like I went full like give it all away because...
That inspired me.
I gave some stuff away during that time.
I forgot.
I think you gave me something.
Are you in this kick-ass bed that you're going to give me?
Yeah.
Everything.
But it was actually like too big of a thing for me to transport.
I was...
Well, I mean, there was...
I didn't need it.
I had a bed, but I was like, that's crazy that you're giving away that bed.
There was some pragmatism behind it though, because it was like I was moving to New York.
There's no way to keep it.
Right.
I don't know what to do about it.
It wasn't selfless.
But I'd been reading this book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie
Kondo, and it's this hardcore book on...
Was it the Japanese book about seeing if something you love, keep it, but if it doesn't
bring you joy, get rid of it?
Get rid of it.
And it's hardcore.
And it's like...
And it's...
So her methodology, which we followed is...
So the way people clean a house is they'll go from room to room.
You go to your kitchen, then your living room, then your bedroom, and she's like, no, that's
not how you do it.
You put a rooma down.
You put your rooma, you run the rooma, you mop, but she's like, what you do is, first,
I think she says you start with your clothes.
So you go and you take all your clothes out of the drawers, out of the closets, wherever
you have clothes, and you make a big fucking pile of your clothes.
I need to do that.
Yeah.
And so that's the first thing you do.
You go and you look at every single article of clothing.
And if it is not your favorite thing, if it's not something that makes you happy, if it's
the thing you've been thinking like, oh, I'm going to wear that two months down the line,
some...
You know, just think it...
You just get rid of it.
You get rid of it.
You get rid of it.
You get rid of it.
Get rid of it.
Get rid of it.
And you will have like five garbage bags of clothes.
And then you will have almost no clothes.
Like you'll have like five shirts.
I have a sock problem.
I have two drawers full of socks.
Get rid of them.
And they're all like free, you know, purple and pink comedy socks that you get like shwag
for free.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
People give you like free socks a lot for some reason.
Yeah.
All my socks are like joke socks.
Joke...
Get rid of those fuckers.
You get rid of all of it.
And so you do it and you do your clothes.
I think from clothes you go to books.
From books you go to...
There's a...
Because I don't have a lot of books, but there's some that I just...
I had...
I liked so much that I don't want to get rid of.
You keep those?
No.
According to her?
What?
Still get rid of them?
No.
You get rid of the only books that you keep...
You keep like...
I can't remember what...
How she describes to decide what books to keep.
A lot of us are hanging on...
You scan them first, right?
Yeah.
You scan them.
Page by page.
And print them out.
You scan them.
Spiral bind them at Kinkos.
Yeah.
Spiral bind them.
And put them in the basement.
Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense.
Her thing is like...
A lot of us hold on to books because we think we're going to read them, but we're really
never going to read them.
So what she says to do with the books that you know that you've been trying to read for
while and you're not finishing is you say to the book, you think, well, thank you.
The thing you taught me is that I'm not going to finish reading you.
That's what I learned from you.
That's what you taught me.
And you get rid of that fucking book.
So what ends up happening is suddenly you're surrounded only by stuff that you love.
Only by stuff that you really, really like.
And like I used to think that I was messy is what I thought.
I would think I'm a messy person with a broken brain and that's why I'm always going to be
messy for the rest of my life.
But really the reason people are messy is because they have too much stuff and they don't know
where it goes.
Once you get rid of 40% of your shit or 60% of your shit, everything has a place because
you know what it is.
You've made an active decision to have it in your life.
And then suddenly your place becomes clean all the time.
It would be challenging to get it messy because you don't have stuff to get it messy with.
Like, what are you going to do?
You don't have things to scatter around.
And then that's a form of freedom.
And now you're lighter and like your house feels lighter.
And then it starts going into your mind.
And then you start thinking of like, fuck, what are the things in my mind that I need
to like get rid of?
It transfers to your mind?
Yeah, because the according to the book, I don't think she mentions that in the book,
but that is a natural result of like changing your external, your internal is going to change
changing your internal, your external.
So if someone brings you a gift, can you just say no, thank you.
You I know, I think, no, you accept.
I think it's it's I think it's you accept gifts and there's a circuitry there.
What if you take the gift and like you take it from their hands and you just like twist
90 degrees and drop it in a garbage can say that's rude, say that's my gift to you.
That's my gift to show you how everything's a permanent or usually you don't even open
it.
You just toss it.
She recommends if someone gives you a gift, give them a tattoo.
So if someone comes over and gives you a gift, tattoo their arm with the name of the gift
that they gave you.
So for the rest of life, they have to look down and remember that they gave you that
fucking gift.
Yeah, like, no, dude, I want to tell you why it's weird that you're mentioning the guy
like type.
You just write best buy gift certificate really big on their arm.
Yeah.
And you get to choose the font.
You get to choose the design, whatever, and they can't say no.
That's why so many people in like Asia have weird tattoos.
It's because like, that's the yakuza.
You know, all those fucking tattoos or gifts they've been given.
But dude, it was interesting that you brought you're bringing up the gift giving thing because
I was listening to some to Ram Dass lecture and he was saying that so if you're wanting
to purify yourself, really go hardcore purify yourself and become, I think it's called a
brahmachari, what you there's all these rules and one of them is some of them are obvious,
right?
Like sex, bye-bye, drinking, intoxicants, bye-bye, purify yourself by not having sex.
Yeah.
No, no, the idea is no sex.
I'm so pure right now.
Oh, we got to get you dirty, boy, because I'm part of the night.
No sex, no sex, no drugs.
No sex, no drugs, and no gambling, and, but this is the one thing he said I'd heard.
No dancing?
No dancing, but this is one of the, no, you can dance, but this is the one of the things
he said I'd never heard before is no giving or receiving gifts.
So you stop that.
Just funny you mentioned that because-
How do you not receive a gift?
I think you say-
You say, sorry, I meant I'm doing a cleanse right now.
Yeah, I'm doing a cleanse.
I can't accept gifts right now.
I really appreciate it.
Or you just like, do you do a white lie and say, thank you for the gift?
You turn your back on them and walk away and huff away.
I think you would just be really honest, but like, yeah, I'm doing this thing right now
where I'm not giving or receiving gifts.
Why don't you give, wait, act like you give me a gift.
Here you are, Doug.
Are you kidding me?
What?
Are you serious?
Dude, it's a fucking Blu-ray DVD player.
Whatever.
Are you kidding?
You're not going to take it?
I'm cleansed.
You're a dick is what you fucking are.
Fuck you, man.
I fucking saved up for that shit.
I lost her seat.
Take that.
Take the player.
Okay.
You pussy.
I was testing you.
No, man.
Let's test each other with gifts.
Like in the next month, we'll see how each other handles it.
I'm receiving gifts right now.
I'm in a gift receiving mode right now.
I don't mind.
Because I like, this is one of the cool things about Burning Man is like it's a gift economy,
so people are just giving you shit and you realize like how resistant we are to being
given.
I'm going this year with you.
I know.
And you realize how resistant you are to receiving gifts because someone will give
you something really, really nice.
Like what?
Like a fucking cool ass shirt or like a badass like laser printed LED glowing flashing thing
that they spend a lot of time on or like, who knows what, who knows what and something
will pop up in you and I'm like, I don't deserve this.
What do I got to prepare for?
For the burn.
Mm-hmm.
It's my first burn.
Do I need to bring gifts or like something, what's your entry level stuff I could like
barter with?
Well, it's not barter.
It's not barter.
It's not barter at all.
It's like you just think like, what's something people out in the desert would really like?
You know, like if you're like walking in the desert and you haven't eaten for a bit or
you're super hot and it just depends.
You know, people have different like financial levels of what they can give.
And so.
Cash?
You give them fucking gold.
Can I just give cash?
Give diamonds.
Give out diamonds.
That'd be funny.
Giving out cash would be really funny.
I don't know if anyone's done that before and it seems like it would like, it seems
so chaotic and confusing because you're giving them money and it seems like, but I don't
know, man.
That's certainly a funny thing to give people.
I see people go around with spray bottles and they'll just take your goggles off and
they'll spray them down for you and like clean your goggles off or they'll like spray you
with water when you're super hot or like in some, you know, some of the bigger camps,
they'll just like give out all day long.
Like there's a camp called me so horny, I think, and they just give out me so soup
all day long.
So you go there and you just get me so soup and they just give it.
There's no, there's not a second of like, give me, give me something now.
You just sit down there like, here's some soup.
What if I went to Petco and just bought all the snakes they had?
Give people snakes.
Just hand out snakes.
Yeah.
That's, that's something you want in the desert.
Very common gift out there.
I've been given a couple of asps, rattlesnakes.
That's one of the funny things about leaving Burning Man is you end up with a bag of asps.
Bag of asps.
A bag of asps and it's fun because you get, when you get back to the hotel room, when
you get back to the hotel room and it's no longer a gifting economy, then everybody
pours their asps out onto the floor and you trade asps.
I was looking on Craigslist after Burning Man.
I noticed a lot of asps for sale by owner.
Yeah.
That's the best time to buy asps.
Free stuff.
Yeah.
If you want to buy asps, then go to Reno right after Burning Man and you can stock up
on a year's supply of asps.
That's a good tip.
Dude, it's a great fucking tip, man, because right now, and the closer we get.
How many do you need for a year's supply of asps?
I mean, it just depends if you're at what kind of asp, man, you are.
I prefer like, you know.
I'm an asp, man.
I'm an asp, man, too.
So I have a garage full of asps.
So I prefer like 350 asps, not quite one for every day of the year, but definitely close
to that.
Because some weekends, you just don't feel like playing with your asps.
Yeah.
But if I'm stressed out to go back into that flow state thing, if I'm stressed out, I'll
go into my asp room and I'll sit down on the floor and I'll release three of my favorite
asps and it just calms me down.
Uh-huh.
Because you have to focus.
Yeah, yeah.
One bite from those things.
It's game over.
You're done.
You ever do the Python thing where you have them choke you out?
While you're jerking off?
Yeah.
I fucking dress in ladies' clothes.
I love that, man.
Yeah, it's so fucking hot.
Yeah, it's the best.
Yeah, you got to put mouse fur on your hair so it goes into the constricting mode around
your neck.
Yeah.
Because otherwise they know not to strangle you.
Mine is trained, which is so cool, which is the mode.
Oh, he constricts?
He's trained to constrict and he's also trained to like when Giz splatters onto his snakeskin.
He knows to release?
He releases.
Oh, so that's how you don't like, yeah, die, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's one of the big, that's a huge cause of death these days.
Who whispered your Python?
Gary Thicke.
Who's he?
Gary Thicke is like one of the top Python trainers in LA.
So he will, it's really cool the way he does it.
Like, you know, it's a little awkward if you're like, if you feel sexually repressed or like
weird about it, because you're going to have to like sit with Gary and like jerk off on
the Python in front of him.
And like, there's like a couple of months of that.
And so, but you, he's, it's like he's invisible.
You don't even see him there.
And then, then after that.
So once the Python learns that like to relax upon being smattered with jizz, then you,
then you go through the tightening process, but first you jerk off on the snake.
You know, if you do it the other way around, you're fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I can tell.
You got to give me Gary Thicke's number after the show.
No, no problem, man.
No.
Yeah.
He's, it's amazing.
It's like ThickeWhispers.com is his website.
If you want to go.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
I know.
I know.
Um, pythons.
I know, dude.
That's one of my favorite.
That's weird though.
Having the albinos though, cause you don't know where to wipe them down after the, after
you jizz on them.
Don't, you know, that's actually one of the common mistakes people make is they wipe
the jizz off the Python.
Don't do it.
Oh really?
It's great for their scales.
They fucking love it.
You didn't know that.
Leave the jizz on the Python.
Like don't that wiping jizz off.
I'm definitely calling Gary.
Dude, these are the things I didn't know either.
And I didn't want to say anything.
It seems so obvious, you know, now thinking about it, but when I was at your place, I
didn't want to say anything cause I don't want to be rude for those of you who've never
been to the Pound House.
One of the coolest fucking houses in LA and one of my favorite things about it is that
Doug Pound has an aquarium of like, I don't know, what is it like nine piranha now?
Oh, the piranha?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's nine now.
Yeah.
There's nine.
Down to nine.
Yeah.
And that's, but what happened to the one that, one or two, well, three died?
There was, we had 50, yeah, but they wouldn't, they didn't get along.
Yeah.
They didn't like when, I should have taken an improv class cause that could have been
funny.
Well, I mean right now it just seems a little fishy.
But one of the things that like, one of the things that bothers me is about your Python
room and I didn't want to say anything to you about it is I'm like, dude, you're not
coming on these snakes.
And then, how can you tell?
Well, because they don't have that sheen.
Oh, they're kind of dull?
Yeah.
They're kind of dull, man.
Yeah.
Like, you know, I went over to God, what's his fucking name?
George Clooney.
I got lucky.
Your friends took me over to Clooney's and he's got a massive Python room and those
fucking pythons, man, they gleam must be shiny.
They are so shiny and you're like, yeah, this is like, this is one of the, this is the elite
level.
You know, like I've heard that he pays people to jerk off.
Yeah.
Cause he can't provide that much.
No, he's probably got some nice loads, but you can't, no one can.
What kind of pythons?
I mean, thick boys.
Oh, these are fucking thick, dude.
Like they're fucking like, it's like looking at like a long gated bicep.
Like it's like a take Swartz and Eggers bicep in his prime and elongate it and cover it
and come and you've got a Clooney pythons is fucking amazing, dude.
It's amazing.
You know, but yeah, this is one of the things about, you know, animal husbandry and learning
how to be a good caretaker of the earth and you know, that's okay.
So I'll bring the snakes to Burning Man, but for real though, what else should I know?
Or should I just know nothing?
Is it better to just go blank?
No, like, no, like watching the movie before you see the trailer.
No way, man.
I mean, that's one of the things about Burning Man.
Like they have all these like, you know, yeah, I want to go there and be like, you know,
it's like, you go to a party and it's like, oh, this is a, it turns out it's a dress
up party.
You just want to go, it's a survival situation.
So like you, like it's called radical self-reliance.
Now that being said, there was somebody who like one year walked into Burning Man naked
to see what would happen and he was fine.
Like he had nowhere to camp, nothing at all and he just, he walked in naked and like got
sucked into the, you know, super organism that Burning Man is and ended up having a
great time.
He drove out in a Hummer.
I don't know how he got there.
He drove out, like goes in naked, comes out with a car with a bunch of stuff.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
He drove out with a Hummer filled with ass and his suit, like a nice Italian gutsy and
a crown and a crown and like fucking like amazing, like, what are those things called
that you put on?
Fully clothed, like with like furs and breast implants, claws.
He'd been converted into this like hermaphroditic, beautiful being with like glowing eyes is
amazing.
But he walked in naked.
But if everybody walked in,
So maybe the less I go in with the more I'll come out with.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
But if everybody goes in with less than the whole thing falls apart.
So like the idea is radical self reliance.
So it's like go in there with, with like just thinking like I'm going to be in the desert
for a week.
I'm going to, what do I,
Well, what gifts did he give if he's going to naked or was it just like an experiment?
I think it was an experiment.
Yeah.
I don't, I don't know what gifts he gave her.
Maybe he's like, Hey, anyone needs some piss.
You know, he could probably provide that.
Anybody cold, anybody need me to lay my sandy naked body on top of them to warm them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anybody need like pheromones or like a knife, but you know, maybe massages.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He could give him a massage.
Yeah.
He could provide skills or he can like help build yurts or something.
Yeah.
I mean, there's all, and that's the other thing about it is you can go in there and you can
volunteer that you volunteer.
So you can sign up for stuff.
Like you can go and work at like different parts of Burning Man, which they tell everyone
put in like,
I think I just want to go there and work.
I don't even want to enjoy myself for party.
Well, that's,
I just want to put in some,
That's high level burner realizations because what ends up happening is you start realizing
that like you're having way more fun helping.
Yeah.
I honestly, I'm serious about that.
Like thinking about going there and just like partying and, you know, feeling dehydrated
and like gross.
Like I'd rather be like doing stuff.
Right.
Well, I mean, that's like one of the,
Not just dancing my life away.
So is the thing was to do that one night and then the rest of the time I'm working.
Well, what's really cool about it is to abandon your plan.
So go there planless with an intention to help.
I've noticed is pretty cool and because it's like, if you, if you go there with a plan,
which, which some people do, I want to go to this thing and that thing and this thing
and that thing and that thing.
I think that's a cool way to do it.
What's cool about it is there's no right way to do it.
I think there's just a pretty pragmatic approach to it, which is bring enough stuff so that
you're not going to be dependent on anybody and bring more than that.
So you can give people stuff who need it and then figure out like some other thing that
you could do that's a value or service, you know, and there's all kinds of things to do
at the camp.
Like you could come in early and help them build a camp, which is what I did last year
and that's one of the most fun, hardcore psychedelic things.
Cause you've got to in the middle of the fucking blazing desert, build a big camp for people
and like put it all together and do whatever you're good at.
And, and you know, for me, that's like digging ditches.
Like I'm not good at like construction work.
I'm not good at that stuff.
So you just, and then you start doing this kind of like, not to be sound cheesy, but
it's like you start doing the sacred work because humans used to gather together and work together
not for money.
You know, that was a, it was a tribal thing.
You just get together with the tribe and you work together and like there's no drug tests.
There's no, oh, be here at this time.
Just, you just work together.
And then something in that hits like the same kind of part of you when you're sitting in
front of a fire.
Yeah.
It's a primal thing that it's a, it's something that it just feels satisfying or something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It feels satisfying.
Yeah.
And it's, and it's cause you're going from a me to an us.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, that sounds really appealing, but you know, now, now you got me thinking.
Yeah.
People are going to there.
If a lot of people are going there to help, maybe I'll bring some projects in that I could
have people help me.
Like I'll bring in my IKEA things and like, I need some help with this stuff and just
have free labor.
Dude, that's so right there.
And I could oversee laborers doing my work.
That's a great idea.
Like I can maybe buy the parts for like a tiny home, roll it in on a trailer and just have
free labor, put it together during Burning Man and I could just get stuff done during
Burning Man.
I was thinking like, why don't you build a paper mill out there?
Yeah.
Build a paper mill and like just have come people like, you know, you bring in the wood,
but have people bring the pieces of the paper mill and people come and as service construct
the paper mill.
Yeah.
And then work on an assembly line or do whatever you do in a paper mill and just fucking print
like big sheets.
Huge rolls of paper.
Like typewriter paper out there and then that's great.
And then leave with a paper.
Leave with a paper mill and a bunch of extra paper and then you've given people the gift
of service.
Yeah.
And what a great gift that is.
I think you've got an amazing plan.
Yeah.
I could be the first person to take advantage of labor for personal use.
Actually, and that deck, I could be just like that naked man that walked in.
It's an experiment.
Okay.
It's not a selfish thing.
It's an experiment that I'm doing.
Well, people will be talking about and it's going to change the game.
Dude, honestly, that's what's so cool about the place is like that something like that.
If you've figured out a way to really do it, I would be, I think it would be like embraced
in the most hilarious way that people would think it was so funny.
Like there's so many like cool things that they're like a church.
You ever seen the church that sometimes they, I don't know if they still have it out there,
but there's like a church that they build with a, they build it like the Amish.
They build it like a barn.
They bring out the fucking pieces.
They build a church.
There's a pews.
There's wrote pews.
There's a pulpit.
The pulpit has within it, telephone books and just instruction.
What happens afterwards?
Well, did they disassemble the church?
I think they eat that one.
They disassemble some of the stuff they burn.
They build it and they fucking burn it.
Well, that's, that's not wasteful.
That's wasteful.
I want something I could use and make money off of them for decades to come, such as a
pay for real business.
You've got, you've definitely got the right idea.
I mean, that's like one of the coolest things about Burning Man is it is a, you know, for
profit thing that like one of the things there, do you think I can get someone to help me
to take care of these corpses I got in my basement?
Yes, I can help you with that for sure.
At Burning Man.
That's a good place to get rid of them.
Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, you can actually like just bring the corpses out there and
give the corpses away as gifts.
Great idea.
Yeah.
Okay, I'm going to do that.
Yeah, that's it.
That's it.
Great idea.
You have a meat wagon that you drive around and like catapult corpses in the people's
camps.
Pretty corpses.
Corpses.
Corpses coming through.
Who's hungry for corpse?
This one's rotten.
Who wants a mushy corpse?
You could set them up outside your camp kind of like, you know, they would put at a port
during pirate times.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That's a great, that's a great fucking idea.
Tell people don't come near here.
It's a great, that's a great...
Or maybe come near here if you like corpses.
That could be the name of your camp.
Corpse camp.
Corpse camp.
And I'm the only living person in my camp and it's all corpses.
And the number keeps increasing.
If you enter it, you don't leave.
You don't leave.
That's your gift.
That's my gift.
Your body.
You're giving, you're giving your body to...
Yeah, that's one of the fucking things I love about that place, man, is it's just like,
there's no, like, you'll go to some camps and they're fucking like, you know, really
into like new age stuff and they're like really kind of, you know, for some people,
consider it to be really cheesy and it's just not your thing.
But then you go to some camps and it's nihilists, you know, there's like, there's like, you
go to some camps and it's just like gutter punks, like on half pipes, like, you know,
there's the nihilist camps.
Should I bring my skateboard?
Absolutely.
There's half pipes?
Yes.
Hell yeah.
Yeah.
There's half pipes.
And yeah, that's like, I think, I can't remember the name of that camp, but it's in the deep
playa.
My friend said it's a nihilist camp, but I'm not really sure what that means.
I've never really stopped there.
But there's a camp that's like, there's a camp that's just a suburban neighborhood with
tiny houses with yards, suburbia, I think it's called suburbia.
And it's just like a, you go there and they like, they'll try to like...
They make yards?
Do they roll like sod out?
No, they bring like fake grass.
But if you catch them at the right time, they'll try to like sell you at one of their homes.
They'll try to pitch like the rules of the neighborhood.
They're real serious about it.
But there's a great bar there too.
It sounds fun.
Dude, it's the best.
It's just like a never ending encounter with like people who've spent the whole year,
many of them, just preparing...
Are you preparing all year?
Me?
Mm-hmm.
Man, not as much as I should.
My camp is.
My camp is.
Can we make it our car?
It's too late.
It's too late.
We always dream about making the art car, but it's like going through the process of
getting...
Because you got to bring this fucking art car into, I think, Gerlach.
I can't remember which DMV, or there's a DMV there.
And they inspect the art car because they have to make sure it's safe.
Because it's like, some of these art cars are gigantic.
Oh, I see.
And people...
You can't just drive it across California.
They like put it on a trailer?
Well, you could drive it, theoretically, if it was drivable.
Some people put it on a trailer, but when you get there, you got to get it inspected.
Because some of these art cars, people can get...
You don't want them to collapse or some awful thing to happen.
And I think you have to apply and let them know what it is and go through.
It's a lot of money to build one of those things, and it takes a lot of time.
But it's great.
The art cars that are out there are so wonderful, and usually they'll just let you climb
on.
And then you're just riding around the desert in this booming, blasting, blazing LED-glittered
thing.
Do you think if I brought some tanning beds, people will be into it?
Absolutely, dude.
But they'll just be cots.
You just set them out.
Hahahaha.
Hahahaha.
Hahahaha.
Hahahaha.
Hahahaha.
Hahahaha.
Uncovered beds?
Dude, that's a great idea.
Yeah, tanning beds.
Go get your tan.
Free tanning bed.
That's a beautiful idea.
You definitely should do that.
That's a good one for our camp.
A tanning bed.
Yeah.
We'll just get a bed and put it in the sun.
Hahahaha.
Hahahaha.
Brilliant idea.
And the way it starts making your brain work, you know, is really funny, because suddenly
you...
How do I dress to fit in?
Well, I mean, it's not...
Because you see the typical Burning Man people in there wearing like furry vests and like
top hats from the turn of the century and, you know, monocles and stuff.
But I think that's kind of...
I think that's...
Or does anyone have their own thing going on?
Well, I think what happens is like...
I just want to fit in.
I just need to know if I should get a monocle and the top hat and the furry vest.
I think people see that and they think that's how you dress.
Or am I being insulting right now by joking about that?
No.
You know, some people get incredibly sanctimonious about Burning Man and that's a whole group
of people who get like really, really sanctimonious about it.
And there potentially could be some burners listening maybe or cringe a little bit at
some of this stuff because it's such a precious thing to them and like...
But I think that's a bunch of shit.
Like...
Well, I've never been to Burning Man and I've only heard good things about it.
Yeah.
I've never met anyone that's like went to Burning Man.
Even Natasha who seems like the polar opposite.
She was even like saying it's really cool.
So...
Yeah.
It's beautiful.
I've only heard good things and I'm psyched.
But I mean, some people go in there with like something in them that they need to deal
with.
Right?
And again, like no one says, here's what Burning Man is.
So the best way to say is like, here's what I think it may be or what it is to me.
And what it's doing is it's purifying you.
It's like burning parts of yourself out that maybe need to be burned out.
Like for me, one of the things that it taught me is how very little I need to be happy.
Like you know, and how community is way, way, way more important than anything else.
And then it kind of reminds you of like how nice it is to do hard work with people just
to help.
And it teaches you all these things mixed in with like some personal shit that might
come up.
You know, for me like one of my problems is like, you know, which is why, you know, one
surefire way to get depressed is to think you don't deserve the good things in your life.
And like that's a fucking thing I struggle with a bunch.
So like, you know, like it's helped me with that a little bit too, you know, and just
basic shit like that.
But that's my own personal.
That's my own personal thing.
It's different for everybody.
But if somebody comes in there and how do you, how does that trans translate?
How does Burning Man translate to helping you deal with such a thing as that issue of not
thinking you deserve your good things in life?
You know, you know what I'm saying?
So it reminds me.
So like what happens is like, if I'm feeling like if something, if really good shit's happening
for me and I start obstructing it, which is what I in the past I've done, because I don't
I now my obstructionism might be based on something that I think is rational, but at
the base of it, it's self sabotage kind of stuff.
Yes.
Yeah.
So if that I've done that before too, for sure, it's a real problem and it comes from
something you don't deserve.
You don't deserve.
And like what happened to me at this last Burning Man, which is really fucking trippy
is I was like sitting in the camp and I was looking around at all my friends.
I'm like, man, this is so beautiful.
And I asked one of my friends, I was like, do you think it's better to live a life where
you think you don't deserve stuff and you're grateful for it or that you do deserve stuff?
Oh, isn't it kind of pompous to think you do deserve the beauty around you?
And my friend, who is a psychiatrist was like, no, you need to think you deserve that.
You do deserve this.
You deserve love.
You deserve beauty in your life.
You deserve it.
Like this is something for you.
Right.
So that was just a cool moment.
I started crying.
It was like, and even though it sounds like I'm crying now, I'm now I'm sniffling.
I've got a fucking cold.
I wish I was.
But I started crying because I was like, fuck, man, this is why I get depressed.
This is like one of the root core problems of my life.
So then later that day, we're just wandering around and there's a telephone booth called
Talk to God, right?
And like I went in there, I'm picking up the phone.
We're fucking improvising like we're talking to God, just bullshitting.
Is there someone on the other line?
No.
No one's on the other line.
We're just yapping, passing it back and forth.
But then suddenly I'm holding the phone to my face and this lady's voice comes on.
It starts ringing.
And I said, I didn't think anybody's on the other line.
And she goes, I'm always here for you.
And then I'm like, well, I just want to say thank you.
This is so beautiful.
Thank you so much for this.
It's just the most beautiful thing ever.
And she goes, well, you deserve it.
You're being too hard on yourself.
You deserve all this.
Completely unrelated, completely not connected.
And yet that thing bubbled up again in that moment.
Started crying again.
I was like, thank you.
I just slammed the phone down on God because I was so upset.
So overwhelmed.
It felt so beautiful.
So that's the kind of magic that happens out there is that kind of shit can happen where
it's like teaching you.
But that's only me.
That's me.
It's like fucking imparting.
And that's cool, too.
If that's what you're into.
Now, do people have sex there?
Nope.
And that's one of the coolest things about Burning Man.
And one of the things I love the most about it is they have a very, very strict no sex
policy.
And they have sex detectors.
So like if someone starts having sex, they've got trained fucking desert crows.
So if someone starts having sex, desert crows will just swarm wherever that is and pull
the tent up and just start pecking the people.
And it's fucking, you'll see burners who have got like scars.
They tried to make love.
And they kept fucking, even though they were getting like poked by those desert birds.
So like, no, for real, though, do you see, is there like just people do like doing it
like out on the sand, um, sand in the cracks?
Well, they have contests.
What's that?
I think there's like a boner contest.
Like you can get the interaction the fastest.
No.
Oh yeah.
They have like boner contests.
So for real?
Yeah.
Like they have like pussy eating contests.
There's like an orgy dome.
I think there's like a fisting tent.
I'm pretty sure there's like a, there's like, if you want to like go out there and get kinky
man, you can definitely, definitely do that out there.
If that's your, what, what you're interested in, you could definitely do that.
And that's healing for a lot of people because a lot of people are really sexually hung up
and like feel like really bad about their bodies and feel really bad about sex in general.
And so there's like places there that you can go that maybe will help you like deal
with some of that shit.
If you want to have like dusty fucking hardcore, crazy desert sex, certainly that is a thing.
But some people are tortured out there.
Like they go out there and they're like, warning.
And like, I remember there are these guys in our camp and they're fucking horny.
This guy's like, dude, let's go.
We got to get laid, man.
Let's go get fucking laid.
We got to get laid.
We got to get laid.
And like.
Whatever you're in that mindset, you don't.
And you're missing out on the whole burn because your whole brain is like fixated on fucking.
You know what I mean?
And so then you end up like, which is where for me, it's like, not that anything's wrong
with wanting to fuck.
Did your friends get laid?
What?
Did they get laid?
In my camp?
Those guys that you were saying they were going out there.
I don't know.
I didn't see them afterwards.
I certainly hope they did.
They were, they were like handsome dudes.
I'm sure they did.
But like, like I, whenever I'm out there and the agenda starts popping up for me, whatever
the fucking thing is that I'm thinking I want to do or whatever, if I just get back into
the moment, then all these like crazy synchronicities start happening.
Like another crazy story, man.
This is one of the weirdest.
At the time I was having like severe back problems and I was having to use an inversion
table to fix my back.
Just not at the Burning Man necessarily.
No, before the burn.
And I knew I like, cause I was inverting every day and it was helping me a lot and I knew
I'm going to go to the burn, my back's going to fuck up and it's going to suck.
So like I'm laying in like, I woke up in the morning, my back's fucking killing me.
Some people in my camp are doing some kind of like weird D&D game that one of the camps
do where they sit.
It's like basically a scavenger hunt thing and they're like, Duncan, we got to go and
do this like, they want to do some kind of like improv play thing.
And then we get another token that go into the, and I'm like, that kind of shit doesn't
really, it's like, I want to do that, man.
It sounds really kind of embarrassing, but you know what, I'm going to fucking do it
because these are my friends and they want me to, I'm not going to resist.
Go with the flow.
Go to the camp.
This is directly after me waking up thinking, man, I need a fucking inversion table.
Go with the camp to this place.
And of course what's sitting right there, a fucking inversion table.
Like within like 30 minutes of me thinking, I need a fucking inversion table and it never
would have happened if I was resistant.
You know, so there's like, it's cool, like weird little magical things like that happen
out there.
It's pretty miraculous.
What's the most mystical thing that's ever happened to you?
Like in my whole life or at the moment.
Anything come to mind or paranormal?
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of mystic, because I hang out with these Ram Dass people.
So like a lot of like mystical shits happen to me, man, like, I mean, one, one of them
is, you know, I was like sitting at this Ram Dass retreat and like, I got lucky enough
to be sitting at a table with like Ram Dass and some other people.
And they give you these little necklaces that haven't even curly Baba on them.
Who's my guru and I get attached to that shit.
Like, I get attached to it.
Like I like it.
It feels magical.
It feels like they protect me.
It's really woo woo woo superstition.
Really.
Excuse me.
I'm going to be disgusting.
Thank you.
So anyway, I'm sitting at the table, cross from Ram Dass.
There's a woman at the retreat who sees the necklace that I have and like she's, she's
looking at, she's like, that's really pretty.
It's got name curly Baba on it.
I'm sitting in front of Ram Dass, you know, and she's pointing at the thing in front of
him saying, that's really pretty.
So like, I've got to like give her the necklace, you know, like there's a conty part of myself
that's like, I want to keep it and keep it, but I'm like, all right, I give it felt compelled
to do it because they're watching.
Well, I was showing off really.
I mean, it was like, but there was another piece of me that's like, just give it to her.
You can start getting tuned into that.
Just give it to her.
So I give her this necklace, Ram Dass notices it, notice me somebody Ram Dass notices.
He gets a big smile on his face and he like looks at me and he goes, that was good.
That was good.
And then I walk out of that encounter and I walk outside and someone from the retreat
walks up to me and I'm like, Hey Duncan, I brought something I want to give to you and
immediately gives me a necklace immediately just as like, here's a necklace and it was
like this.
The same one.
No, it was this Buddhist.
It was a Buddhist necklace.
Upgrade.
It was an upgrade.
But it happened so in such a cliche, right, hilarious way that it was so one of the chances
that you give one away and it just like one appears, but you couldn't write like if you
wrote that in a movie, it would be like an after school special.
It would like, and then you could pause and be like, and that's why you give away neck
left hand.
You know, everyone watching would be like, give me a break.
Yeah, it's like that.
Yeah.
It's that that's that's that my paranormal experiences are all based around this guru
named Crowley Baba.
And what's really funny about him and the way things come to you through grace, he's
a grace guru is that it's like, like dad joke level, awesomeness.
It's like these ridiculous miracles that are like so on the nose and so like beautiful,
but simultaneously like, give me a break.
You know, like, give me a break like, like I was at, you know, at the beach watching
the sunset with Aaron, you like, I'm seeing now and more and more talked really about
it on the podcast, but like, we're sitting there looking out of the ocean and the sun
setting and our song that we have together is like Margaritaville and we're sitting out
there, we're holding hands, very romantic.
And then just like right as we kiss, Margaritaville starts playing just as the sun setting and
you're like, give me a fucking break.
You know that song probably plays once a day.
Actually, yeah, that's what we found out is it's the only song that plays because it's
now the Bama they legally can only play Margaritaville.
Oh, it wasn't.
So this is not in Hawaii anymore.
This was a different.
No, this is in Alabama.
Oh, okay.
But like, how did you, how did you like find your guru?
Like Ram Dass is not your guru?
No, Ram Dass is a teacher.
And you know, it's really, how did you get into that whole thing?
Well, what happens with that stuff is really interesting, man, is like it happens.
It's a real slow burn for me.
For some people, it's super fast because they have really good karma.
But for me, it's been like a real slow burn.
So when I first encountered Neem Karolibaba, it was looking at Be Here Now and there's
a picture of him in it, but I didn't know that was Ram Dass' guru or anything.
Be Here Now, the Ram Dass book?
Yeah, it's like this picturesque hippie book.
Yeah, I've seen that, yeah.
There's this picture of Neem Karolibaba in it, and I looked at him and my mind just
thought, whoa, that looks like my uncle, that reminds me of my uncle.
And that's like, so that was like one of my first encounters with him and the way my
brain translated, that's my guru, that that's my family.
My brain was like, oh, that's your fan, he's in your family, that's your family.
And then what ends up happening is like, over time, this dawning realization starts happening
that starts with like hardcore skepticism, hardcore embarrassment.
I used to be in a fucking closet about this shit, man.
I would not say I had a guru, I would not say it was, I would not talk about it.
I thought it was not funny, thought it was embarrassing, thought it was antithetical
to being a comedian, I thought it was cheesy, I thought it was embarrassing.
But then the more connected you get with it, the more stuff you start experiencing and
the more peace starts filling up your life, that you start realizing like by not talking
about it, I'm actually being a phony piece of shit.
You know, like, so it's been a real slow, beautiful, like sun rising thing.
But like for someone like me who has like no idea what any of it is, I have a vague,
you know, notion that they do meditation retreats, Ramdastas.
But what does it mean to have a guru?
So what it means is it's like you encounter like a consciousness.
It's like you basically just become embraced by this like consciousness.
And again, my description of it is I don't, this is my own dawning realization.
Does he know you or do you, does it like, you know him?
He's dead.
But it's like you're you encounter like his, I mean, it's like outside of time, it transcends time.
So you end up meeting him and you have to deal with that.
Like it's like, you know, my mom died and like, I still encounter my mom.
She'll pop into the room.
Sometimes I'll feel her and it's real.
And you tell someone he's a skeptic and they're gonna like, dude, you're delusional.
You're trying to comfort yourself.
It's like delusion, sad.
And you all you can say to them is like, I understand you think that I understand you think that.
But if you feel that, then it is real in that in that way.
But it's fucking real.
It's not real like, oh, maybe or whatever.
It's like, no, this is a this is an aspect of human experience that has not been quantified yet.
But is it's a real encounter with a being.
And so it's the same with name Crowley Baba, which is that you'll start, he's got you, man.
I mean, there's different descriptions of him, like the new Ram Dass book coming out.
One of the teachers, Mirabai Bush, talks about like, you know, he's called Maharajee.
But another name of him, I can't remember the name.
And she thinks of him as a tiger because by the time a tiger pounces on you,
it's too late.
It's got you.
Like you can't it's got you by the time you fall in love for real fall in love.
It's too late, man.
You're in love.
Like go back, go backwards when you're in love.
Try to not be in love when you meet someone you truly fall in love with them.
Go back.
You can't.
It's like that too.
It's a lot like that too.
And then there's just a lot of like surrender to the weirdness of it.
And then the more you surrender to it, the more comfortable you get with it.
And then you just always have this thing to sink back into, which is really for me,
like it's been one of the ways that I've been able to not go completely nuts in the way that
I used to be is because it's like, it's great.
Does your guru have like writings and stuff that you can that you read and apply or anything?
Well, that's one of the really cool things about him is he didn't really like write much down.
But there's stories and like Ram Dass tells a bunch of those stories in a really cool way.
You know, there's stories of someone.
So your guru found you or you found,
I think that's a better way to put it is like you get lucky and you get drawn in and it's luck.
It's from, I don't even think luck's the right word for it.
You just sort of like, it just happens.
And then suddenly, but, you know, and this is one of the things that they teach is like,
you can't really be in a hurry.
Like everyone's in a hurry, you know, of course you're in a hurry because you're suffering
and you want your suffering to like, you want to figure out a way to like not be in pain or
to deal with the problem or to deal with the mind.
And like, so you can get in a real rush and that's where people get into trouble
because they like, well, you know, they're very nefarious people out there and you can,
you can end up getting stuck with someone who's like,
wants you to think they're your guru in the same way.
You can end up getting in a bad relationship with somebody who wants you to think they love you
when, when like, that's not real love.
It's very similar.
So, but the Rambas people, they say even that when that's happening,
every single thing that's happening to you right now is preparing you for the contact
that is inevitably going to happen with this being.
And whether that is a human, whether it's Christ consciousness, whether it's God,
whether it's your soulmate, it's every moment is perfect and moving you there already.
Like you're already being drawn in, you know, it's already happening.
It's just like anything else.
It's probably not going to happen at your pace that you would like it to happen.
You know, like when you're, when you don't have a girlfriend, you're lonely.
I know, I know.
And it doesn't happen at your pace.
It does.
I've noticed that when I've been like deeply lonely and like sad and you want to force a result
and you start acting like to make shit happen.
And that's where people get sucked into like
Pua shit, like pickup artist stuff.
And that's when people start getting sucked into lying and manipulating and like magic,
maybe using power magic to try to like.
Well, I just downloaded Tinder Express.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
And now I don't have to worry about waiting anymore.
What happens?
It's just instant.
In under an hour.
Yeah.
Someone comes to your house and talks to you.
And starts a relationship if you'd like.
And marries you in that moment.
In, in under, in an hour, usually an hour or less.
So you're, why don't you?
Tinder Prime.
You've gotten married.
You're married now.
A few times.
Yeah.
You get divorced too.
Like you can bring like a judge comes.
So you can, you have to give them half your shit.
And that's the real Marie Kondo technique.
That's the real technique.
Get married and get married and be forced to split half and half.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It started to derail with that dumb.
No, derail.
I don't care.
And I mean, it's just like, it's a, it's a, it's like, I just noticed that like,
what ends up happening for me with all these things is it's not never the thing I expected.
It always comes out of the blue, always comes out of left field.
I never could have planned it.
If I tried to plan it and never would have happened, I would have gotten in my own way.
And then you realize, well, what the fuck can you do then?
And I think that what you could do is just work on being in the moment and being comfortable
with who you are right now.
Like loving yourself right now as you are warts and all and being that and just sitting in that
and being that and always going back to that and war, and that's the practice.
Genital war to know any kind of war you have is a perfect war, baby.
And it's like, you just like, you just embrace that.
And that, that just like making a, a, a quiet decision that as much as possible,
I'm just going to be here now in this spot.
And when I'm not here, that's okay too, but I'm going to come back here if I can.
And then all the other shit takes care of itself.
I've noticed, you know, I mean, that's when the fucking good ass start coming.
When I started this meditation practice, do you know how many asps I had?
50.
Zero.
Wow.
In six months, do you know how many asps I had?
5,000.
5,000 asps.
Wow.
And you know how they came?
Why?
I don't know why, but you know how?
Um, maybe you put down some pellets or some, some snacks for them.
I didn't do anything.
One day I just opened my door and fucking asps, like a river of asps just slithered right into
my house.
I thought of a cool, um, app recently, um, because I was at, um, I was at the lake walking
around the lake, Echo Park Lake, and I saw this group of people in a circle and they're,
they all looked like they're having this intense conversation, but they also didn't
look like they kind of like all look like different styles of people.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
You ever see like a group of people like that?
Like, what's up with that?
Yeah.
And my, my, my notion was that maybe they were like having a Christian Bible study or
something.
Right.
But I thought that'd be cool if they were all strangers and there was an app where you
can, an app, my app idea is called circle of strangers.
That's a great idea.
If anyone out there wants to make it, just make it.
I just want to use this app.
What a great idea.
It's like I'm bored tonight.
Um, I would like to get into a circle of strangers and maybe everyone, when you're in
that circle, everyone has the same name.
Maybe everyone is called John, John, or, you know, maybe neutral, something neutral.
Pat Patty.
That's fucking cool.
Chris.
Everyone's Chris.
Yeah.
Circle of Chris.
And you go there and it's like, okay, meet at this park and we're going to be in our circle.
And then you just go and just talk to people, strangers for an hour and then you just leave.
What a great idea, but you got to leave.
And then if you want to meet someone in that circle, that's how you make the money.
99 cents will get you to connect with one of the strangers.
See, that's what I love.
You're always thinking about monetizing.
That's like what I, I just started the monetizing at the end there.
I just kind of freestyle that.
You know what circle of strangers is now Uber pool?
Yeah.
Just start doing it.
But that car ride ends.
Well, that's that.
That's the added.
That's probably the best part.
But what this dude, circle of strangers.
Have you ever been in an Uber pool where you're like, I mean, but circle of strangers,
everyone's into meeting other people.
Uber pools, people are into saving $3.
Circle of strangers is fucking brilliant.
But you know, you don't even have to like make the app.
You could just like look right now.
It's April 13th.
When are you around?
Are you around?
I'm going to be out town, but are you around on the 19th, the 18th?
I'm around.
You're around on the 20th?
Yeah.
You're going to be around on the 20th?
420.
You're going to be around on the 20th at 420?
Well, I don't want to do a pot thing.
Okay.
19th.
The 19th.
So why don't we say the 19th at sunset?
What's your favorite park?
Oh, wow.
I don't want to blow up my spot, but I can do...
Just name a spot.
Well, maybe Echo Park Lake.
Echo Park Lake.
Echo Park Lake.
Which part of Echo Park Lake?
Maybe by the swans.
By the swan boats.
By the swan boats.
Up on the berm.
On the berm at sunset.
There.
Be there.
Be there then.
19th.
April 19th.
You guys just heard it?
My book is called Be There Then.
Be there then.
Living in the past but being in the present.
Like living in the...
No, living in the future.
There you go.
Wait.
April what?
April 19th.
19th.
The Thursday?
The Thursday at sunset.
Circle of Strangers.
Echo Park Lake.
By the swans.
By the berm.
Gather there, friends.
With Doug Pound.
And talk for...
Well, you better come too.
I'm going to be out of town.
Yeah, but I'll do it the next month.
We can...
I'll do this.
You know what?
You probably shouldn't be there.
Because that's what it's all about.
Is not having any security.
Right.
Yeah, you don't...
But everyone else is going to come...
Who cares?
Just...
Pair it up.
You just throw it out there.
This is like a cacophonist event, if anything.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
That's what it is.
It's the 19th.
You guys heard it.
You got to start doing those again.
Well, yeah.
I mean, we've had a couple of great ideas.
Actually, the one we came up with.
Aaron and I is called the Sunset Mugathon.
And so what it is, is two people pair up.
We're going to walk down Sunset.
We're going to start at Mellies.
And we're going to walk down Sunset Boulevard.
And the way it works is, one person's in front.
Another person's in the back.
The person in the back mugs the person in the front.
Right?
Fit air guns.
You put the gun to their back.
You're like, give me your shit.
Give me your shit.
Now, now, now.
Then when you get their shit, you run.
Right?
You're like, stay right there.
And then you fucking run.
Right?
Yeah.
And so now you run a little bit.
And then they come behind you and mug you and get their shit back.
It's a really good exercise.
So it's going to be like a team of people mugging each other down Sunset.
It's a Sunset Boulevard Mugathon.
And we're going to end at the Thirsty Crow and get hammered at the end.
But I'll announce that date.
I just don't know when it is yet.
But those are going to happen.
But for now, we have it.
The 19th Sunset Go Gather with Doug Pound, Circle of Strangers.
I hope I did good on your podcast.
You did fucking great, man.
Thanks, man.
Oh, it's such a joy to hang out with you, man.
I love you.
I love your art.
And we got to do this more.
I love you, too, man.
You know, you're one of the only people I say I love you, too, that I mean it.
Thank you, Doug.
Ah, well, I'm glad you're back in LA and you're back in my life.
And it's just wonderful to have you back.
Thank you so much, man.
Please don't move to Alabama.
I ain't moving nowhere.
We're here for good.
You know, there's only a few more years left of human existence on this planet.
Doug Pound, where can people find you?
Uh, well, uh, any pretty much all the things on is Doug Pound, D-O-U-G-G-P-O-U-N-D.com,
Instagram, Doug Pound, that kind of stuff.
Pound House is on, you know, YouTube, if you want to, if you want your watch listeners to watch that.
I'll have all the links at dunkatrustle.com.
Thank you so much, Doug.
Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna.
That was DJ Doug Pound, everybody.
I will have all the links that you need to connect with DJ Doug Pound over at
dougatrustle.com along with his home address.
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