Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 454: Emil Amos

Episode Date: July 31, 2021

Emil Amos, genius-musician and continuing inspiration, re-joins the DTFH! You can follow Emil on twitter, and hear his music on the Holy Sons site. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: BLUECHEW - Use offer code: DUNCAN at checkout and get your first shipment FREE with just $5 shipping. BetterHelp - Visit betterhealth.com/duncan to find a great counselor and get 10% off of your first month of counseling! Amazon Music - Visit Amazon.com/Trussell and get your first 3 months of Amazon Music FREE!

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She wants to know how the wind cream don't flow. I look at her eyes and say, I don't know. She throws the can away, looks for the sea. By the time she looks out, I'm on the street. Gas fan, that's the truth. I'm a gas fan, on the loose. Yeah, gas fan, better lock up your whip cream. Yeah.

I'm just a gas fan. Hit me with that white so I can make it through the north. Yeah, yeah. You can't stop me. I'm high as shit. My voice is getting low from that plastic tip. Like a tire on fire, I just take a sip. I'm rolling for your neighborhood.

I'm hunting for the whip. Vampire of the gasses. Downstairs at midnight, taking cooking classes. Pop the red top, I'm winding up your glasses. Skip the opium, it's N02 for the masses. I'm just a gas fan. Hit me with that white so I can make it through the north. I know that you've been with cream dreaming.

For the latest night, I've been talking like a teammate. Gas fan, that's what I am. Gas fan, used to be a man now. I'm on the gas fan. Baby, I'm on the gas fan. I'm just a gas fan. Hit me with that white so I can make it through the north. Greetings to you, my loves, my bubs, my darlin' sweets.

My little spray kittens down there nestled up next year. Beautiful owners curled in their sweet scented cleavages. I hope you're all doing great out there. I'm doing really good. It makes you feel good to make music, to make songs. That's gas vamp. I'm excited about that because you can hear on there, Drew Lewis, who is very funny and a member of the DTFH family

and excites me to collaborate in that way. The song would not exist if not for Drew Lewis and the DTFH family gathering where we gather together every week. Yeah, it's kind of a plug. I don't care. We gather together every week. And I was telling them something that has happened in our house, which is that my wonderful wife, she got this really fancy coffee machine.

Basically, she's trying to duplicate Starbucks. And in the morning, she sprays whipped cream in her coffee. If you're a mom, you know that that means a lot. If you've been up with a kid all night, or kids got sick, they're better now. They got freaking RSV, which sucks. Anyway, the point is, I love whipped cream. And the reason I love whipped cream, as most of you probably know, is you can get a little bit of nitrous oxide out of whipped cream cans.

I know it's pathetic. And I have been at night kind of bored in the middle of getting frustrated with this game. I've been playing called Returnal. And I'll go in the kitchen to anxiety eat, which I'm trying to stop right now. I'm starting intermittent fasting. I gained some weight from doing this. Anyway, the point is, I would go in, open up the fridge, do that thing where you're like scanning, hoping some new thing appeared there that you know is not there, but you're looking again.

Then I'd look at the whipped cream, like, you know what, maybe for all time's sake, I'll do some, I'll do a nitrous oxide hit. The problem is, when you do that, it completely, it makes it so you can't get whipped cream out of the can anymore because you have inhaled all the gas. And so Erin was sort of wondering, like, what's going on with the whipped cream? Like, why isn't it working? Like, really disappointed because she's looking forward to that hit of whipped cream and her coffee at the boarding as she comes downstairs tired.

And I had, you know, it's terrible, pathetic and terrible, like, golem level, like, swampy kind of, what the fuck am I doing? I'm taking whippet hits from my wife's whipped cream cans. You know, really dark, like, and it doesn't have the sort of, like, junky glory. You know, not that there is any real glory in being a junkie, but, you know, at least there's some burrows-esque, like, thing if there was, like, hard drugs going on. You know, it's something, it's like, it's, it's something in that, that it's just, like, that's what I'm, I'm, like, playing PlayStation and taking fucking whippet hits from my wife's whipped cream cans that she likes to put in her coffee.

Anyway, I was telling the story and Drew Lewis coined the phrase, gas vamp. And this song was born. That's Drink Drank Drew on Twitter. You should follow him. Also on there, Johnny Pemberton doing his amazing rap stylings. Is that what you call it now? I don't know. I don't care anymore about that.

I mean, I do care. I would love to be the coolest person on planet Earth. I would love to be, like, cutting edge, like, on the edge. Like, right now, I know somewhere in some part of the world, probably, my guess would be Haiti. Probably there is the coolest person on Earth who is, like, such a profoundly brilliant, incredible artist that birds fly around their house to listen to them as they edit and produce their music. But that's not where I'm at now. I'm 47.

I've got scoliosis, expanding bald spots, slowly expanding right now. Thank God, a tiny little tattoo on my stomach from when I got radiation therapy and they had to mark where the beam would be. And no, I'm not looking for your sympathy. I'm just saying that's what starts happening when you get older, is you get these interesting little marks and scars and little things that most people might not even notice, but you look at and you're like, holy fuck, this is crazy being in a body.

You start getting all kinds of stuff. Hemorrhoids and you get, what do you call those, herniated discs? And you get good stuff, too. But most importantly, what you start getting is hopefully a kind of grudging love for where you're at right now. You sort of start losing the battle of hating yourself because it's just too exhausting to spend all that time hyperanalyzing every inch of your body.

And besides, it's like, give me a fucking break. What are you, what are you going to do? You're 47. I mean, you're not right now. And I have been, I've had younger people like basically like age, like age shame me, which is one of the more tragic things you can do as a young person, something that I am deeply guilty of. And you know, it's just part of being young as you age shame.

It's fun to age shame. It does require imagining that you aren't also being vacuumed into old age, but it's part of, you know, the things you have to be like, all right, old man, dad, I am a dad now. I love being a dad. It's the best. I tell you, I have always wanted to be able to do like cool magic when I was a kid and I bought this very expensive book of coin magic in New Orleans.

Couldn't understand it. Didn't have the discipline to like practice to do sleight of hand. But fuck, let me tell you, when you have got a two and a half year old, you can blow their mind because they don't understand anything about magic. You could just, they don't know when you tell them like, well, look over there. They look, you put whatever the thing is that was just in your hand under your leg and they look back and shriek with joy that the tennis balls disappeared. And I love that.

It's the best. I love it. I'm cool. I'm, I'm still somewhat, I guess what I'm saying is I'm still somewhat tormented. By wanting to be cool. Like I think that'll probably torment me to the end of my life. Well, maybe not. I mean, it does seem to be fading away, but I'm just not as tormented as I used to be.

And all the things that I really used to look down on happen to be like essential aspects of humanity continuing. I mean, if we want humans to continue to be a thing on the planet, you got to reproduce. That might be a controversial thing to say, but I don't, I don't know how else it's going to happen. But yeah, it's like it's just kind of got to give up being cool. If you're going to, you don't want to be a cool dad. You want to be a cool dad. Come on.

There's nothing more uncool than a cool dad. You're supposed to be this kind of globby embarrassment, you know, where you do slick your hair back and wear fucking sunglasses and ride around on like a cool fucking motorcycle or something. You're a dad now. You brought, you, you, you did breeding. You did breeding. You know, you're, you're now, you've consigned yourself to becoming a pixel. Whereas before, at least you get, you could kind of like have this like illusion that maybe you are going to be some kind of super glorious super Nova.

I mean, I know this isn't like a, this doesn't, it's not a palatable thing for some people. Have you all ever been around a super Nova person? You know, a person who's like really work at working on the super Nova thing. You know, uh, it's not fun. I'll tell you that. It's not fun being around that. It's weird. You always just kind of feel like God, give me, go super Nova, somebody somewhere else.

I get it. You're the cool. You're fucking cool. All right. I get it. You're cool. You know stuff. You know a lot of cool stuff and you're cool and you, and you, and you like dance better than I do and have a, uh, some kind of like insight into whatever it is that I don't.

And, and the different, and, and, and you are wielding that insight, like some, like a, like a tail feathers springing up from the body of one of those cool fucking birds that live in like the Galapagos and do those funny dances. Which is the thing I like to watch with my two and a half year old. I like to watch the birds dancing. I like to watch the bird documentaries and you, what these self serious birds, I can't remember where they are. Maybe they're in Guatemala or something. They're beautiful, but they're ridiculous. And they have these Dr. Seuss style tail feathers and wings and they do this really hilarious, like mating dance that is for them. It's like the most serious thing ever.

I'm sure that they're not thinking that another species is cackling on the couch with their offspring at how silly the birds look. Like to them, they're like, holy fuck, man, I'm getting a lot of likes and faves for this amazing dance that no doubt will bring me a perfect mate. But we're all guilty of it. You know, that's what happens when you get wrapped up in your damn identity and hyper concerned over your temporary human form locked into your body. And, you know, it's sad because you can't really, maybe there's hope and I will be the first in line at the age reversal clinic. And I will be the first to get my spine straight and my ass tightened, my dick extended, my bald spot filled in, my eyes rejuvenated, my body rejuvenated. I will take the dark syrupy liquid that I imagine they inject into you with a needle the size of a turkey baster. If it allows me to go backwards in time to a place where I didn't have weird radiation tattoos and bulging parts and aches and pains and strange cramps in my legs at night, I would do that.

But, you know, until then, what else is there to do except say the classic lines, Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit up here all kind of bloated and I'm working on it. I'm going to start. I'm doing fasting and keto and all that stuff, Father, but also into your hands, I commend my spirit. I'm not going to worry about being cool anymore. I mean, I don't think you can look cool getting crucified on the time space continuum, but you could try. What did I just say? I don't know. That was written for me by Langford Crawley.

He is the owner of the Crawley Literature Institute. If you need some kind of mildly intelligible rant, he will get that to you. You can look up at Crawley.edu. I think he's over there at AB Tech University. Is it a university? I think it's a community college. Boy, we have a good podcast for you today. Emil Amos is here.

My oldest, dearest friend, the musician, the podcaster, and the philosopher is here. And he tells one of the craziest music stories I've ever heard, ever, on this episode. So stay tuned. We're going to jump right into it. But first this, I want to thank Blue Chew for sponsoring this episode. Friends, if I had to swear on something, I would swear on a Blue Chew tablet, a giant Blue Chew tablet. I would place my hand on it.

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That's bluechew.com, promo code Duncan to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the podcast. And I want to hear your Blue Chew stories. Send them to lavenderhour at gmail.com and don't hold back any details. Thank you, Blue Chew. And we are back. Darlings, do you want commercial free episodes of the DTFH?

Do you want to join your family and hang out with us on a weekly basis? Yapping, talking, connecting, meditating at our weekly meditation group, journey into boredom, or just hanging out at our family gatherings, or enjoying the association of your family on our Discord server? Then all you got to do is go to patreon.com forward slash DTFH. All right. Well, we have got a tremendous conversation for you today. Emil Amos is one of my best friends and also a big inspiration to me.

He's the person who first introduced me to the idea that you could be an artist. He introduced me to Lo-Fi and Daniel Johnston. I just love him so much. He also happens to be a genius musician. You've probably seen him live. He has an incredible band called Holy Sons, another called Grails. He's the drummer and ohm. And the list goes on and on.

I'm going to have all the links you need to find Emil at dunkitrustle.com. But for now, sit back, put your feet in your lover's mouth, and welcome back to the DTFH. Emil Amos. Welcome. Welcome on you. That you are with us. Shake hands.

No need to be blue. Welcome to you. It's me. Welcome back. God bless you. Thank you for doing this today, man. You're back from Australia. That's true.

I have absolutely nothing to tell you about that. What even was it? I realized what a rotten friend I was because I knew you were going to Australia, but then I didn't know why. Oh, I got married. I got divorced. Jesus Christ. Had a couple kids.

Now, I was locked in a penthouse for like two weeks on quarantine, and then they just like let us out immediately, and we played a festival that's kind of run by this multimillionaire who had won all of his money gambling on horses while studying math in Tasmania. What? Yeah, he had devised. I'm not going to go like way into this. This is so fascinating.

It's just a footnote. Yeah, he's like kind of a Richard Branson type, and he basically figured out some sort of approach to horse racing that was statistically so successful that he's now, I think it's up there around $750 million or something, and he paid for us to come because he sort of conducts the underground culture in Tasmania. I hope I'm not misrepresenting underground culture in Tasmania, but basically he sort of wanted to put us in the show with Thirstamore

and this legendary New Zealand band called The Dead Sea and like a lot of other people, and we basically just flew over because we thought it might be the only money we might be getting through the whole pandemic, and so we'd agreed to do it, and then the government and guys with machine guns were like leading us down halls, and it was extremely complicated. I think I did like, you know, 12 COVID tests and like all sorts of regimented weird border shit,

but I'm back now and, you know, I'm trying to get my head back in the game and like rediscover some of my organic sort of hunger for the things that I'm supposed to be doing, the things that are for me, you know? Yes. And I feel... You mean like music or what do you mean? Yeah, like music and podcasting and everything I've done, whether it's, you know, putting a skateboard down on the pavement

or making a video or something, it's supposed to be for me, you know, and it has to be for me, but like if you turn your life, if you turn art into your job, you're headed into a strange vortex and in order to do your job well, you have to protect the zone that you go to that is a super personal place because if you don't maintain the kind of integrity of that world, then you're not going to be making the thing that's good that anybody wants, you know? And so if the car starts leading the donkey, I think... That's probably the quickest way I could understand like what happened to all your heroes

when you're growing up, right? You watched, I think of like Rush or something, like a band that starts out wanting to be Zeppelin and then you fast forward and then it's like their MTV attempts are pretty embarrassing, you know? Yeah. And like you, as a kid, you're like, what happened? Like why does genius dissipate, right? Yeah. Like every kid, every little kid, you start age 12 or whatever, you're studying the master, right?

And you're like, what? Why is he dying inside? Yeah. Right? And so we're finally of this age where we can sort of see the internal death beckoning. God, he will. Yeah, I mean, but you see like you have the kid in you that is truly the fan and that kid that is the fan is the guiding light.

And I mean, that's a thorny subject, right? Because you don't want the fans to guide the Star Wars franchise. And yet at the same time, maybe sometimes they know best, you know? And that part of you that is so stringently looking at the details of the continuity of the mythology. That part of you is probably a lot more wise than the cigar chomping executive that's just like throwing stars in the fray. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Yeah, man.

I'm interested to know how you distinguish being in that place versus not being in that place. Like what are the symptoms of being in that place? Well, I think you are super in touch with it, even if you didn't study the science of inspiration growing up. Because, see, recording is sort of the great leveler, I suppose. Because as you're growing up and you're like recording yourself, you know when you're lying. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Because you can hear it immediately on playback.

Right. And so you can't get away with anything like you can learn to trick people, but it won't stand the test of time. And so as somebody who is a fan of other people who went to that zone, when you hear yourself on playback, like most people, you hate yourself, right? You hate the way you come off. I think if I could watch videos of myself behaving around my house or talking to my family, I would probably be pretty disgusted and not for any great reason. Just the subtleties of viewing your own narcissism or whatever microscopically occurs in every little interaction that makes you so repulsed about yourself. But like that level of like growing up with recording, you've got a mirror in front of you all the time. So you are wrestling with this thing called yourself, this thing that you either don't understand yet or you don't even like.

And in order to break through in order to make something that has just a little bit of value, you have to experience a breakthrough and you can't force or manufacture a breakthrough. But the tape has to be rolling all the fucking time. You have to make so much stuff until something happens that you can stand back from objectively and say, I don't know how that happened. Fuck, I am lucky that, you know, I hit the vortex and like there's an integrity there. There is some sort of fundamental expression happening and there's nothing cocky in that place. There's a feeling of you being overcome by either emotion or inspiration in a way that you start to evaporate and the experience starts to be captured, right? Right. And in that place, that's where I know you've been when you get excited.

And that is in part really that fan kid part of you. When you see like, say, Michael Jordan, like in midair dunking. In theory, he is feeling this great exaltation of humanity in this moment. In theory, he's feeling what it looks like. But a lot of times, as Paul McCartney always sort of points out, that person is not feeling that at all. It's the little kid watching it. That's like, holy fuck. You know what I mean?

That's cool. So that person's job is to make that person feel that flame of existence in that sense. And so, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship, right? And you've got both of them inside you. So, you know, there's the technician that's trying to accomplish this incredibly complicated task. And then there's the person that appreciates the push to work so hard to become something that's almost not... It's almost not even human. It's almost beyond, you know?

And so, like, when Michael Jordan's doing that dunk, that one you see the silhouette of in the back of people's heads, it's not that he's necessarily fully feeling that thing. He's creating an image that we all celebrate. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Okay, so it's an occult idea. It shows up in, like, a lot of different mystical traditions. I just had a rabbi on who is saying there's a name in Judaism.

There's a name for the light that shines off of someone who is hanging out with, like, a realized being. So, it's the reflection of that being's light shining back onto the realized being. That's one idea. The other idea that's really trippy is, like, in Bhakt Yoga, Krishna can't... Because Krishna is, like, the thing that everything comes out of. Krishna is the one thing that can't really, like, love himself or in the way other people can. Like, because it's just... That's just what he is.

So Ratha, his lover, appears, and this produces the bhakti... What's, like, the math for bhakti to work? Is you have to have the thing, and then you have the thing that loves it. And the reflection of those two things produces this, like, ecstatic infinity mirror, which is the sum total of bhakti yoga. Yeah, so you're saying, like, that's what Michael Jordan is essentially. Like, he's...this is game...God knows what game for him. And who knows where he even is when he's doing this stuff.

He might not be there at all. You know, if he's really fully in the flow state, he's probably barely there. I get it. That's really cool, man. And that's a really strange thing to realize. That you might be looking... If you're looking for that feeling of exaltation, and to correct me if I'm misunderstanding, if you're looking for that feeling of exaltation when you're creating, you've misunderstood things.

Is that what you mean? Like, in the sense that really that feeling of exaltation was more connected to you absorbing other great things. Like, you might not ever get that feel... I get excited when stuff's coming together and feels, and it's good. I know what you mean, but it is a different feeling than when I'm, like, absorbing someone else's art. Mm-hmm. I want to thank BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. Friends, there's something interfering with your happiness that's preventing you from achieving your goals.

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who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. In fact, so many people have been using Better Help that they're recruiting additional therapists in all 50 states. Right now, my listeners get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com forward slash Duncan. Invest in your mental health. I get excited when stuff's coming together and feels in as good. I know what you mean, but it is a different feeling than when I'm like absorbing someone else's art. Yeah, I mean, so much of life as privileged human beings is just this kind of lazy couch surfing Sunday. The other day, I can't remember what made me angry, but it was like a moment.

I've had so many things like I think I've mentioned before, like a parking ticket just set me off. And not anger that time, like very deep depression because I felt so sorry for myself or something fucking stupid. But like one of my favorite songs I ever wrote came out of that. It's called Trampled Down and it's so funny. It's so funny. It's so comical to listen to the song like the exquisite state of total self shame sadness going on. And yet which albums that on it's at the end of fall of man. And it's just so funny when you listen to it sit there and think that this came from a parking ticket, you know, because the parking ticket. There's no reason to take that personally really, you know, it's like has nothing to do with you. Yeah. So anyway, the other day, something got me really mad and like, you know, when I get angry.

I did kind of sucks, but I think some people around me get a little bit scared or something because it just doesn't look like I'm I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what it looks like to look at me. But like, I think when I get angry, it can be not really fun to watch. And so the other day, I got I got angry about something probably completely insignificant and something completely in my mind itself invented. And I sat down and I just, you know, sampled some some bit of a baseline, like kind of put it in a certain order of notes and just basically like howled at the mic, you know, like for 45 minutes. And of course, you feel fucking great after that. Yeah.

But like, it was just nonsense like kind of anger coming out. And in that moment, I went to that zone. And I was so happy. And that's what I'm saying is like, it is a form of happiness because you could be sad. You could be angry going into the vortex. But what happens in there is there's this acknowledgement that you're feeling something so universal. Yeah, not that you sit there and think, Oh, how universal am I right now? You just you experience something that's so engaging and you feel that rush of confidence because it's so real.

And when you realize it's real, you kind of are realizing the billions of people that have existed before you that have also lived and given themselves and died on earth. And you are related to them. And they've all felt these things too. And in this moment, it is your job to fucking go hard, you know what I mean? And like, bring it home, you know, no matter what the emotion is. I mean, when I was a kid, watching Lou Barlow on stage, what really got me excited was not like the sound of the band necessarily. It was cool that it was like understandable like pop music and shit. But what really got me excited was the fact that he was basically humiliating himself.

Yeah, you know what I mean? And he was criticizing himself on a level that was really beyond radical. I mean, some of the put downs he put into the songs on himself, the evisceration of his own idiocy and the way he treated women or something like the way he would expose it was so radical that I was like, Whoa, dude, like if you can do that, can you imagine what I could make and call art like I could go anywhere. I could do anything. Yeah, because there was a level of just wild radical honesty happening there. I think before that terms like that were even really, you know, even spoken of. I mean, maybe Ken Wilber had talked about something like that in 1978, but like certainly nobody in hardcore punk was ever going to like really eviscerate themselves.

They were about eviscerating you. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely, man. And like that, yeah, being in the presence of someone doing that makes you feel like you're witnessing some kind of ritual or something. It's got a shamanistic quality to it in the sense that, well, I mean, look, if one person is somehow managing to push through the invitation to being a kind of numb dishonest fucking cocoon and they're doing that in front of a bunch of people. And then they're also on top of all that. It's like, it's beautiful. Like, you know, I think that's anytime I've seen that was stand up.

It's just like, it reminds me of something this guy, Bruce Dahmer was talking about a burning man at this like, like they have these talks there. And he was, he was talking about this ayahuasca ritual where the shaman is singing and everyone is seeing the same thing. And there's like a dome around them. And then the shaman with his drum is like banging it in the top of the dome is like somehow responding to that and opening up. And on the other side is like the astral realm or something like that. He's like navigating them out of the bubble of, you know, default reality and into this completely alternate dimension, basically. And, you know, obviously I'm not saying when you go to see Lou Barlow, he's going to like, you know, literally everyone in the audience sees a dome that gets shattered by a drum. But it's in the same line.

You know what I mean? It's similar, you know, in the sense that what it like everyone comes there with some shared reality that gets, you know, hopefully, you know, happily opened up. You know, and it's an invitation to not be such a fucking liar, you know, to yourself and the people around you. And also it's proving like, look, this is not me. I'm not getting rejected here. You know, so yeah, that's one of the things I love about your music. I think that's one of the, like, when you, when you, it's a crazy thing when people start hitting that. And God, you know, I've been like, I never really gotten to Kanye West, but Aaron's into him.

So I've been listening to him and it's weird because like, I hear that in that music too. You know, this like fucking nutty authenticity, you know what I mean? It just like, it's like with lo-fi music, like Daniel Johnson with Lou Barlow, the outsider art stuff is resonating with the underproduced quality of it produces this. But with Kanye West, you have this hyper produced stuff mixing with outsider art. Do you think I'm crazy? No, I don't think that, I don't think that the production is the bottom line. I don't think that the production makes or breaks like the, the integrity of the articulation or anything. But to bring it back to layman's terms for someone who may not, you know, have grown up with some of this stuff.

I would say that there's something so crazy about the redemptive oracle going on on stage. Yeah. If the boy, the little boy that I was watching, Lou Barlow was like 23 or something when I would see him. And his parents came to the show or something and he, he had such a bad performance that he actually like a four year old through his guitar and started crying in front of the audience, you know? Jesus. So my point is, that's pretty much the picture of worst case scenario. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It's like, like, if I, if I say that, you know, I want to be in a band and someday I want to play on stage. That's, that's what I don't want to happen. Right. So your parents come, you have the worst show ever, you cry in front of the audience, you throw your guitar. And when I was a kid, they made me picture for like one season and I hit, there was one game where I like threw the ball and I hit like three batters in a row. Like I just hit the kids accidentally and I cried and threw my glove and I never pitched again. Wow. But it's like, that's exactly the picture of what you don't want to happen.

Freeze that on stage and turn the camera over to me, the little boy who was probably 15 in the audience that was watching it. That was the best thing I'd ever seen. So how could those two things be the same thing? Oh, wow. You know, his worst day was my best day. Yeah. Somehow, whether it's Kanye West or wherever you find it, it's the redemptive quality of the fact that somehow his misery turned into gold for me because I saw a permission slip to like experience anything I want and give anything. I felt two other people in real time in a way that was so radical.

I will never see that on TV. I will never see a documentary where the stones at ultimate act like that. And that was like seeing somebody actually in the zone going through something so incredibly sad, angry or emotionally engaged. That was a major gift to me. You know what I mean? Yeah. Gift is the right word for it. It's when any time I've seen that and with Lou Barlow is I saw him have a great fucking show, man.

I was just like that. I was I walked in because I heard he was reforming and then I like sitting there waiting. I look over. He's just sitting in the he's sitting out in front of the stage and I just couldn't believe like I just couldn't believe it because like you had turned me on him. And then that that is essentially been all I've been listening to for years over and over and over again. The freed weed, which I think turned into the freed man or something like that. There's been a few iterations of that album. But anyway, like I was just like I couldn't believe it and and it wasn't like an act.

You know what I mean? It wasn't like the king coming to hang out with a peasant tree or some show like that. He really just didn't seem to distinguish himself as a performer and in some hierarchical way from everybody else. That was kind of mind blowing too. That that that that rubbed off on me. That's that was a beautiful thing. But do you like I want to go back to what you're saying about the tape recorder when you're a little kid. And how you hear it.

I never thought like whenever I've never thought of that dissonance the first time I heard myself on a tape recorder is being me hearing myself lying. You know, I always just but I remember that squeamish like squirmy feeling that I would get to the point where I wouldn't want to hear myself. And some people when you record, like I think it's it's not these days everyone's recording themselves. So it's kind of gone away. But when when having a tape recorder was kind of interesting, you know what I mean? When having a tape recorder was still like, whoa, this is like cool technology. Not everyone had even heard themselves record it. You know, like my like my mom, I would there are many times out here say I don't like to hear my own voice.

And I never thought, oh, that's dishonesty. That's because you're not comfortable with who you are. Or is it because when you hear yourself, you feel like you're putting on too much of a show or something. Is that what you meant? Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that does occur because everybody knows the reverse feeling of like actually being proud of something that you did. I don't know if that's the way I would put it, but proud of the reality of something shining through a moment that you were involved in or something. And it is sort of the opposite of that, right?

Because you're saying, you're saying, hold this up like it's timeless. Like this feeling is real. And in a sense, I understand this feeling or I like I've melded with it. So the opposite is true that we are proud of that or we or we strive for it. So yeah, I don't see why it would be so wrong to admit that what we don't like is when something worthless shines through something that is not real something we don't like. We're not proud of it because it's yeah, it's it might be a lie. I don't think that's so radical to admit, you know. No, no, I don't think it's it's right.

No, I just it's cool to think about that. So there's a it's kind of it's kind of in the same like vein. I had this guy Raymond Moody on a long time ago. He studies near death experiences. And one of the things people who die and come back report is they see their body and they barely recognize themselves. Like they're once because we've only seen ourselves in the mirror, but I think there's something else to it is like they're seeing their unanimated self. And it's like, I don't know who that that's me. That's not me.

So it also makes me think about like projection. You know what I mean? Like that the the the the what's the word for it? The distortion that happens when you're hearing whatever it is you're create like you make anything right and you listen to it. Are you right? You write something and then you read it and you're it's not just like you're reading what you wrote. You're also reading the projections you're putting on top of what you wrote. And you know what I mean? And so then you're like, God, this is fucking garbage.

You know, but but but how do you distinguish between authenticity? And because I think that's that, you know what I mean? So you read what you write or what you wrote. God, this is garbage. But then you're like, you know what? But that's who I am, right? Or how do you distinguish between that? And like you read what you wrote and you're like, this is garbage.

But you're like, is there I don't know that it's actually garbage. I think I'm just, you know, not the one to be like the I shouldn't be the only critic of this stuff. You know, how do you distinguish the two? I think that's why I enjoy editing so much. Because if you picture Bob Dylan with like a pad in front of him or or Bowie with his like cut up computer where he would like delete certain phrases until things were nonsensically perfect. Yeah, there's there's a high of knowing that something's garbage because you're like, oh, I found it. I found the piece of shit that is obscuring my meaning.

And a lot of times if you just delete that and then snug up the next bit, you would be shocked that your whole sentiment actually suddenly makes sense. Even if the two things on the left and right weren't said together and don't make sense together. Once you delete the garbage, they just make their own point. Do you know what I mean? That is fucking cool. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It's the way that is magic. Totally when you like you remove one sentence or one phrase or whatever and somehow the entire thing just works now.

Like it was like a circuit board in this one part of the way the energy was running through. It was disrupting the entirety of the fucking thing. That is the weirdest thing. Yep. And I mean, I think at that point you acknowledge like I wasn't even talking about the same thing in the left and the right of these two wave files, but like the frequency computes. Like it all flows right together because you came from an actual emotional field. You were in the field.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, God, I'm sorry. You're making me think of that insane. Now it makes sense. There's a Jesus verse and it's so when you hear it and take it literally like Jesus, that's fucked up. But it's like, what is it? If your eye offends the pluck it out, you know, it's like, is it?

Yeah, like, yeah, like it would be better to have to like have only one eye than to have like this piece of yourself that is corrupt. You know, I mean, it's obviously not meant to be taken literally, but it's a certainly it's great writing advice. Yeah, I think that when, you know, I grew up in the same town as Michael Jordan. So I met him and my mom met him. And I remember just his energy field being so, you know, it's of a different character because he's occupying the space that he knows no one else is occupying in the world, right? Yeah. So when he's walking down the street, he's he's he's like kind of on another cloud, basically. And he's like, there's something about that zone where you occupy it and then move on to the next phase of your life.

Like he's golfing now sipping some whiskey and some kid comes up and says, dude, you know, game seven, 1991, blah, blah, blah. And he's just like, I don't remember that. Like, what happened? And he's like, you don't remember you like did the one block, you ran down, you did the alley. And he's like, no, that's how I feel. I don't fucking remember anything anymore. You know, like, right, I did so many. I've had so many nights, so many, so many drunken nights on stage.

I have no idea what the fuck really happened because it's all a fucking blur. I mean, I know that in the moment when I was thinking on stage made sense to me as a caged animal. But like, I don't know what some kids saw, you know, I have no fucking idea. And I'm now disconnected from that field, that emotional field. So I don't claim it. It's not, you know. So I feel like when Michael Jordan sees that that picture of him dunking or the silhouette, he's like, when was that? What was that? Who is that?

He doesn't know, he doesn't recognize himself just like you're talking about when the out of body experience, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then, but then do you feel some impetus to act excited when someone is, you know, coming up to you to, you know, profess some, you know, I don't know, some ecstatic moment they had during a show that you can't, you don't even remember that year. I mean, that happened in Tasmania. There was like a group of kids that that were waiting outside our hotel. And I pulled up in the cab and they were pretty slick. They couldn't get into our hotel because there was a security guard and a locked glass sliding door.

And they just popped in grabbed our bases and walked in like they were our roadies. Whoa. Yeah. And then they just went straight to the bar and I was like drinking a drink later on and they came up and wanted to talk about drums and things that I don't generally think about. Like I don't really think about playing drums. It's not something I practice or anything. I'm usually thinking about something, you know, something philosophical or something else, you know. Yeah.

And so they wanted to talk to me about something like that. But in that moment, I'm sitting there with these human beings and something inside me knows that this is actually the performance. This me talking to them now. You know what I mean? It's not like it's not like they're talking about the show earlier, but that's gone. I mean, that's just so long ago. And like now I have a chance to influence maybe the way this person thinks because maybe I can hear in his voice that he's like so focused on this or that in that or this. And it's like, no, we're here right now.

And like, I'll get really animated. Like I'm not necessarily like you're saying like really excited about what someone's saying just to meet them halfway. But like, I'll just I'll just start talking shit. And I was like, you know, if I've had a couple drinks, I will talk shit. And I guess later they posted that they had like dropped our bases accidentally on the Instagram. They like when they were getting in. It's really funny. They were super frickin sweet.

I really liked these kids and they they had they had posted that I was surprisingly testy. Oh, Jesus. But but no, no, no, in a cool way, though. I had the way I read it was fuck. Yeah, like they encountered a punk. You know what I mean? Like they they went up to talk to someone and say, you know, I really liked this drumming performance on this date or whatever. And then what they got in return was like someone in real time that wanted to really be present with them and talk some shit.

And like, dude, if if people would have done that with me when I was like looking up to it to them, I would be so fucking stoked that they were like alive and like real and mutual and like present. And like, it's like, it's like when you treat a child like like that, you know, like they're completely 100% interesting and like and valuable. And like, I think that really like that empowers them. Do you know what I mean? Man, I listen, I think it's just shows how cool you are. Because like, I, I, you know, I just, I think just there is something so lame about essentially doing a Yelp. Yeah.

About I wouldn't, you know, because the thing like, OK, like, if I have like, if I'm with one, like, let's say you and I are hanging out one night. And then the next day you look and like, Duncan, why did you tweet that I was testy last night? I'm like, oh, you know, I'm a fan of you. I just thought I'd just let the whole world know that you were testy last night because I'm a fan. You know what I mean? So I think that I think your take on it's cool. But but the other thing I love is that you're not falling for something that I think a lot of people fall for. And it's like, it's so hard not to, which is like, there's, there's an implicit invitation to really put on a show.

You know what I mean? To like try to like put out something that you're not at all. And because you're like, I don't want to disappoint this person. Like this person has imbued me with some kind of amazing thing. And I want to, I would love to be that, you know, but I'm just not. So if I, but, but it, but it's, but I could try to be that to this person. You know, and then the moment you do that, you might as well just fucking move to like become a branch Davidian. You know what I mean?

Start talking about opening seals and shit. All I'm saying is it's cool that you like, we're like, man, I had this, I had someone come up to me a while ago, like at a grocery store. And like, I was ironically wearing a fucking Illuminati ring that I'd found at a thrift store. And the guy recognized me and he looks at the ring and he points to his shirt. It's got like a pentagram on and he's like, you know, I do magic too. And I'm like, no, you don't, this doesn't, I'm realizing I got to sit here and explain to this person that like this ring looks so dumb to me. And that I bought it because Aaron and I were going to some place to add a dress code and I wanted to make fun of it by having an Illuminati ring on and some pathetic attempt to fight the power. And like, and then, but you know what I mean?

Like, I had to like, I had to like, it was an awful wrestling match where I was essentially having to tell this person like, look, man, I'm just, I'm just, I'm not, I'm at the grocery store. I'm getting some coffee. I've got a kid. I'm not, I don't really, I'm not in the Illuminati. I don't have the secrets that you're hoping I have, but I want to be the person who has the secrets. You know, like that'd be fucking cool. Like I wish I had a magic bag I could reach in. And so it's kind of like, to me that like, if you, if you manage to maintain some, some honesty or authenticity with someone who would really love it if you were their fantasy of you.

And then they have the audacity to go bitch about that. You know what I mean? That's really lame. Yeah, I think we have a couple things going for us. But I mean, as I always mentioned, I think, I think that we, you know, failed as one word, but, but failed for so long or did what we did for so long that like, it's hard for me to believe anybody really cares anyway. I don't think you failed. I don't think I failed. Why do you think you failed?

Well, I'm saying it from the perspective of like the normal good capitalist out there, like that I was outside of the marketplace. You know what I mean? So what I mean is that I did what I did for me for so long that one day I may have told you the story. I was like in a cheese shop in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and I'm got my headphones on. I'm listening to a new like song. I'm trying to like review some of the mixing mistakes I've made and I'm looking at the cheese. It's like really expensive. And it's this place called Foster Sundry.

It's actually really good. Really good. And I like look to my right and there's a couple and they're like looking at me and they're kind of waiting for me to take my headphones off. Like, because I'm in this world, you know, I don't, I can't hear anything. I don't know if there's like an ambulance there or what's going on. And I kind of slowly take off my headphones and they go, we're big fans. And I said of cheese because for me, I was like buying cheese, you know, I'm like me too. I'm a huge cheese guy, you know, or whatever.

My point is it would it never occurs to me that someone likes me because I'm in my world. I've been in my world for so fucking long. I think that that really helps the way that I stay in that zone. Yes, right. Because I don't really acknowledge it. Good God. Yeah. I mean, down that path, that's such a satanic path to go down man.

I mean, that's like Jesus. I mean, it's, you know what, I will take someone who's just like all of a sudden starts producing garbage for whatever reason. Any day over someone who is like, you just realize that's all they've got left. Thank you Amazon Music for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. I know since you're listening to this show that you love podcasts. Well, you'll find a ton of binge worthy podcasts, including the DTFH on Amazon Music. Amazon Music has more than 10 million free podcast episodes to listen to. But Amazon Music isn't just for listening to podcasts.

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Amazon.com slash Duncan. Where news automatically cancel anytime, terms apply. Alexa, order 500 fireplace sets. Thank you, Amazon. You know, man, I had this experience once where I will not name names. This person was very famous at one point. They have since left this. They're not even alive anymore.

But this, I got, you know, this is like, I probably already talked about it. I don't want to say their name. It's not going to speak ill of the dead. You get to Hollywood, you get to LA and you will get sucked into the most bizarre like situation, bizarre situations. Because you don't know it. You don't know any better. You know, unless you were like raised in an entertainment family or maybe you went to like Julliard or some shit. You don't know.

You know, it's easy to miss like the basics of like, well, probably you're going to have to work for like 15 years to get good at this. Because it's an incredibly competitive industry. You're not just going to like suddenly have like some amazing job out of the blue. Probably. But anyway, like, so you end up taking like these weird opportunities show up where someone will be like, hey, man, blah, blah, blah is working on a pilot, this pilot script. And, you know, I was looking for some comedians to help them, right? And you're thinking to yourself like, well, I've done five open mics, maybe this is my big break. So then you end up, you know, I remember ending up, I'm sorry if I've already said this person's name and I'm not going to say it now that I ended up, you end up at this guys.

I remember ending up at this guys, like up in the Hollywood Hills and this beautiful house. And at the time, I didn't know what fucking like, like foreclosed means. You know, like, so someone mentioned their houses or something's happening with foreclosure. And I don't even know what they mean. I'm just happy to be up there. I'm like, all right, let's, this is it. I finally did it. You know, I'm working on a TV pilot.

And then like, I remember riding around the Hollywood Hills with this guy used to be so famous, man. And he's like smoking these fucking herbal cigarettes that smells so bad and I'm so carsick. And he's making me read some Bible scripture. It's weird as shit. We're going because he's got to go to a dentist appointment, right? And so he got up somehow and ended up going with him to the dentist appointment. Then he brings with him out of this car headshots, right? Goes into the dentist.

He's giving his headshots to people, but people don't remember who he is anymore. You know, they're like humoring him like, Oh, thanks. It's just the saddest shit I've ever seen, man. And it was an example of the opposite. You know, like that there was no more creative output happening. I mean, and if there was, it was like impot tragically, like nothing was there. But all that was left was like handing out headshots. You know, that was like, it was like a zombie or something, you know, like echoing the life where people used to be like, let me have your headshot.

To me that, I don't know of a more horrific way to finish out your life. You know, I'd much rather be at a cheese store with headphones on thinking they're talking about cheese. You know, I remember it in preschool. I bet you have a version of this, but I remember realizing the moment I realized that other kids might actually just be lying to you all the time. And like, I was so, I guess, kind of innocent that I, you know, I always want to believe somebody first and then dissect it later when there's a lot of situations in life. You should probably just not believe people first. You know what I mean? And so I remember sitting there in the playground preschool and just saying, did you get that new G.I. Joe helicopter?

You know, the one like the snow blaster and like watching kids be like, yeah, I've got it. And I'm making up. I'm just making up toy after toy. Just inventing toys. Yeah, I got that. Yeah, I got that. And I remember just being like, fuck, this is the world. Wow.

Like in a nutshell. Yeah. But the funny thing is I never really like truly digested and sort of applied that logic. I walked through life letting people lie to me constantly and believing them because I think I thought that, you know, maybe I don't really know. I know that one time I know that when as a child I was extremely generous and I would get toys from my parents and I'd give them away. I'd bring them to school and I'd give them away. And I know something happened later where I got spiteful and possessive because apparently I was swimming in some somebody's pool and I saw one of the toys. I'd given them a few years later, sunken in the bottom of the pool and I like swam down and like stole it back.

Like I was like, that's that's mine. Like I changed. Wow. I don't know like what bittered me, but like I think that you start to notice a pattern even in preschool that like the people who present the best, the people who present like victorious elements about themselves are always generally never the real thing. And it's the quiet kids that are working hard and like trying to like become good at something or whatever that will later, you know, lead culture or whatever. But there's a type of kid that can bamboozle you and totally deceive you through most of your life. And some of them even kind of mean well, but they're really loud about their accomplishments. Yes.

There's yeah, there's something about those kids that really throw off an underdog because you believe them. You listen to them and you really believe, you know, it's so fucking sad to me. You do. You buy fall for a hook line in secret. You just listen. You go along. You get excited for them. You don't even consider like you were basically you, you were hanging out with a died in the wool psychic fucking vampire who's just spinning webs of bullshit and you're stuck in it like some kind of sad, stinky fly lost in their web of fucking nonsense.

As they go on and on about this or that shit that they did. It's all but it. Okay. Hold on now here. I'm going to offer some defense of the fucking shit spiders. Okay. Now, when we think about lying, we're imagining that, you know, there's the obvious lie, which is like, you know, you tell somebody. Yeah.

Yeah. Yesterday, I bought a sports car and you didn't obvious stupid. So is your path crazy person lie. That's the best kind of lying right there. Just complete. Like if you just check in on them, it's completely provable and they just go for it anyway because they cannot stop themselves. Yes. That's that is an amazing lie.

It's definitely. I remember when I was at summer camp, realizing that this kid who is telling me what about his life. I started realizing he was telling me like the story of a movie that I'd seen recently and just saying that was him and being, and it was pretty fucking weird. But the, then there's the other kind of lie, which I don't know if this does it categorize as a lie to misremember. You know what I mean? So it's like you. Okay. I had just, I finally took Aaron to Hendersonville where I grew up and we have since we came here to Asheville, we haven't gone there.

And in my mind, I picture it is this a certain way when I was younger and like there's like the music store where I got the violin when I was in the third grade. You know what I mean? And we go there and I was like thinking like, all right, she's about to see this like really quaint, you know, beautiful quaint little, little town. But it's like, I remember it when it was younger, you know, but I don't, but now like cause of COVID and things are a little fucking weird out everywhere, man. So like, I'm just looking at this place and realizing like, oh my God, this is not the place that I remember is gone. And all this shit I've been telling her about this place. I don't even know how much of it's real. How much of it did I just like in the fog of memory and with the propensity to try to warp things to the romantic?

You know what I mean? How much did I distort this place in my own mind into something? It just isn't at all. Do you know what I mean? So there's that kind of lying to where someone's going on and on and on about their accomplishments. And it's not like they're intentionally deceptive. It's just their bio computer is warping reality to, you know what I'm saying? That's fascinating.

Yeah. Yeah. It's fucking creepy, man, because you don't, you don't like when you really start looking back at all the stories that you tell and all the things you think you remember. And then you realize like shit, man, I think I've been like basically doing some kind of like paint job on these things. You know what I mean? Have you ever played the troubadour? No, I never played the troubadour. Okay.

I went there. I only went there once. I can't remember where I saw. It was a good show, though. There's, he's a story of a great and famous liar. Okay. So the troubadour, you know, it's where John Lennon had his lost weekend. It's where the Eagles formed.

It's where basically folk rock was essentially invented. Hold on. I saw Lou Barlow there. I had a feeling you were going to say that. Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry. So when Dylan is basically just a folk musician and when the Beatles are basically considered children's music, there was this weird,

weird void in between them, right? Where there was just Dylan and then there was the Beatles and then there was everyone else, right? Right. So 1964, turning into 1965, there was a boy band that was fake and was being built by this guy, Jim Dixon, in LA. And he basically took kind of this super group of hipsters that weren't necessarily professionally able to play music. The drummer couldn't even play. He just was really hot. He actually had never played drums, really.

He was playing cardboard boxes to fake it. What? Yeah. And so this band goes in the studio and this guy, Jim Dixon, happens to know Bob Dylan and says, do you have any songs? Just give me some extra songs that you might have not put out. I want to see if I can put this band together. And Dylan hands them off, Mr. Tambourine Man. That had not come out yet.

So this guy, Jim Dixon, is wise. He comes into the studio. He says, okay, boys, we're going to try this song. None of them like it. One of them hates it and says, I will not play this song. This is garbage. And actually completely rejects it. Wow.

He forces them to figure out how to play it. He forces them to change the way that they play and think. And he brings in professional players, Hal Blaine, the Wrecking Crew, and he builds a production. And that production is 100% fake. And that production invented folk rock and everything I do. That fucking production was the birds. And that little boy that said Dylan sucked was David Crosby. Holy fucking shit.

That's crazy. So here's the moral to my tale is that they were playing the Troubadour and no one liked it. No one liked it. No one liked any of the three guys like McGuinn, Clark, or Crosby. Nobody thought what they were doing was interesting because it was too Beatles-y and not academic enough yet. So Jim Dixon realized we need some Bob Dylan songs. And he put the two things together. The producer built it.

So they go over to the Troubadour and they try to play it in front of everybody. They can't even really play very well. They are bad. And David Crosby doesn't have a guitar. He's just standing on stage and he's a small fat man. And he is... This is crazy, man. Yeah, yeah.

This is like 65, the very beginning of 65. And he puts on a black turtleneck and he tries to look like the Beatles. And he shakes around and swings a tambourine. And the entire audience pointed at him and laughed him off stage. He had to stop. What? Yeah. So this is...

That's fucking crazy. This is the moral to my tale. When David Crosby goes home and he's this little fat man with his black turtleneck on, he's like, I failed. I'm not real. No one likes any of this. He actually said they don't believe me. I don't have the thing.

He was the son of a cinematographer. He was nobody. And so when he goes home and he looks in the mirror at himself and he thinks about, what can I do to change the world? He doesn't pick up a guitar and write a good song, because he's not the real thing. What he does is he goes into practice the next day and he convinces Gene Clark that he can't play guitar.

He starts working on Gene Clark, destroying him internally. He starts destroying the confidence of the main guy in the band that is essentially their Bob Dylan. Why does he do it? Because he was pudgy in this tight turtleneck, so he realizes if he hides his belly with a guitar, that he'll look better on stage. And he works on Gene Clark for months saying, Doesn't he just work on fucking running?

Or write a good song or something. Or eating salad. Yeah. No, that's not what he does. He dismantles Gene Clark's confidence to the point that Gene Clark leaves the band by the end of the year. Oh my God. And Gene Clark is one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and arguably the inventor of Folk Rock,

arguably he is Bob Dylan's favorite songwriter at the time, and David Crosby destroys him until he leaves the band. If you watch any of their film performances on TV or anything, Gene Clark has a tambourine. That's because David Crosby gave it to him and said, I'm the guitarist now. You're the tambourine player. Wow.

And he stole my dad's friend's cape. He reinvented his whole vibe to suit the times, and he decided that Bob Dylan was great suddenly. He changed his entire persona. Wait, what do you mean he stole your what? My dad was best friends with Crosby for a while. No fucking shit. Yeah, so the reason why you can trust me on this is like,

I don't really like that guy. But like, I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying my dad was friends with him in any boastful way. I'm saying this guy is a liar, you know. Wow. But as a Gene Clark fan, as somebody who really cares about the form, like, that's the kind of temperament we are talking about. We are talking about a type of kid on the preschool fucking playground

that is more into destroying their friends to win instead of just making something great and improving the fucking world around them. God damn, man. Yeah, those people are out there and we forget it. It's so easy to forget it. It's so easy to forget it. You don't want to live in that world.

Well, I mean, that's the, that is the subsection of winter culture in itself, probably like the people that carve that space for themselves tend to win for like a very specific amount of time. Often like most of their lifetime and then we all die and then people kind of pull out of the rubble the real shit later. Right. Good Lord. That's so good.

It's like, you know, you run into some kids and they're just naturally like lying, malefic, monstrous beings. And then you have this idea of like, well, you know, they're going through a rough spot. You know, it's a nine year old or a six year old. It'll get better. Like, when you have a kid, one of the things you start realizing is there's a hilarious hierarchy when it comes to age. So like four year olds, I can't remember.

It's like somewhere around four four year olds are just not into two year olds. So they'll be so condescending to a two year old. You know, so if you're at the playground, like I've been at the playground for us in a four year old, like a group of four year olds will see him and go, look at the baby. You're like, you're fucking four. Okay. You don't know anything.

Like you were just this baby, but they're so condescending. But then you, but it's no different from the condescension you get from people like that. It's no different from the adult condescension. When someone's looking down their nose at this thing or that thing, it's just a little more camouflage because they could say they've got all these imaginary metals they've stuck to themselves. And so they feel like now they have a right to be like, you know, aggressive and poisonous with people.

Jesus, emo. That story is fucking crazy, man. Then the thing about being somebody's friend, like actual friends on the playground and preschool or now whatever is that you have nothing to hide from them really. And you get that sense of comfort. You can relax. You know, like when me and you are sitting in your house or something, there's never like an awkward moment.

You know what I mean? It's like we like we're so, um, I don't know. For some reason we don't, we don't feel the need to perform for each other. Right. And that's, that's where the suspicion lies. I can remember like 2006, you know, or or so sitting in my kitchen on the phone and listening to one of my friends list off all the things that we're going right for him like that month.

And I remember just sitting there and just listening. Yeah. And you know, what am I supposed to say? Yeah. Okay. Damn. Wow. Well, okay.

Oh, well, that's great. That's great. What can I give back to that person? And then inside of congratulating them, you start to feel kind of bad for them because you think, why the fuck are you doing this, man? Like who would call their friend, their actual friend and like advertise for their greatness to them? Like that.

It's like a moment. It's a red flag where you realize maybe we're not friends. Maybe like, or is this person like diagnosable? There's something wrong here, you know, and I remember a few years later when things finally started working out for me in the sense that I could make a record and it would come out. That's all just it would fucking come out, you know. Yeah.

And I remember he had stopped making music altogether. Just stop making music altogether. The internal thing wasn't even important to him. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. So that going back to the opening bit of our conversation and you asked me like, what is that place that you go to? How do you know it's real?

When do you know to trust yourself? It's like you define that for yourself and that kid abandoned that pursuit. He didn't even he wasn't even interested really. Right. And so anyway, there've been all these sort of along the way these milestones of my life where, you know, the universe or whatever sort of says, see, you know, you were you were right. Just do what you do.

Be yourself. You know, and it's not like it's not like I've experienced some great grand revenge day that in fifth grade I constantly dreamed about. I would have these daydreams. Did you have the daydream? I know I've asked you this before. It was the daydream where the whole school like red dawn got attacked and you you picked up the pretty girl and carried her out of the building.

No, but I like, you know, I would watch, you know, I would like mentally take notes watching like the end of Carrie. What do you mean? What does that mean? It's like that. Come on. One of the reasons Carrie is so fucking awesome is you've got this bullied girl who like, you know, burns, who like gets like ultra like telekinetic revenge.

There's some comedy summer camp movie. I can't remember which one that actually like emphasizes this. Like, you know, like, like, I don't, it's the, you know, if you're innocent, if you are talking in elementary school or junior high school or whatever, if you're getting the shit kicked out of you, you're getting bullied. You just drew like, you just see a movie like scanners where they, you can make someone's head explode with your mind and you're like, Oh, if only I could fucking do that, you know, if only I could make a pin like zing through the with my mind, you know, like in pale someone

or something like that, you know, like, this is why people like those kinds of movies, any kind of any kind of movie that involved. Yeah. So I think I had my own like mild revenge fantasies. I'm making myself sound a lot more murderous than I was, but it's not. I mean, I feel like anyone who's been bullied when they watch the like final scene in Carrie, they're not like weeping for the people who are like getting like payback, the people who dump pigs blood on her, you know.

I know I got this image of you at age 10, very like discipline, you know, jotting down notes, watching the film, never, never betray a witch, you know, like literally like taking it really literal. I'm like, if you want to dump the pigs blood, you'll need a ladder. Oh my God, evil. That's hilarious. Well, you know, I think that we have like, I think I want to ask you to clarify this for me.

It feels like what you're saying is what's going to carry you through is that the art form that you're engaging in, it's what it's what you do. It's like, it's this is what you do. You know, it's like you're making this, we make stuff, you make stuff and you're either and whatever that feeling is, it's probably different for everybody. Maybe some people experience some kind of incredible exhilarating ecstasy all the time. Maybe some people don't. But the difference between those people and like your friend who just quit is like, he

didn't need to do it, which is why I quit. Right? Like there was no need there. He started down the path because the idea was the art was going to be this bridge between him having success and him not having success. Right? It wasn't, that's all it was. It wasn't the path.

It was a bridge, a connect, a connector, and that's the stupidest bridge anyone could ever, like that's a dumb bridge to connect you to success if you're not really interested in it. Like he was, I, you know, like when, when, when I'm sure when you sit down and start working on stuff, some days you maybe be, you might not be like what you would call like hyper excited about it. Cause sometimes it is work, but you know, for, for me, there's always like this magical feeling, you know, where I look at my computer or look at my synths or look at the microphone

or you know how to be to just get this weird quivery feeling, you know, like, ah, here we go. And, and I love that feeling. I love that feeling so much that, um, you know what I mean? Like that's, that's something I'll never in my, my whole life. I'll always have to have that in my life. No matter what, is that what you're talking? That's what you're talking about, right?

It's like, that's it. Like that's versus you just don't like it. Whatever the fucking thing is you're doing, you check in with yourself and like, I fucking hate doing this, but I'm wanting some result from it. Is that what you mean? Yeah. I think, I think that, um, it's beyond possible, meaning that it's just, it probably is true that when I was watching Lou Barlow up there, viscerate himself, there was probably a kid

to the left of me and a kid to the right of me. One was being inspired because they were like, this culture is so awesome. Like I'm part of this culture and the kid on the right of me was like, this band is so successful and like, I want to do something like that too. Yeah. But I was between them going, I am learning something about the highest level of experience that of existence itself. You know, I'm learning about the highest tier of experience of like being fucking completely,

you know, going to that place that you dream as a kid, you will go to whether it's like the shredding, you know, moment where Eddie Van Halen like lights the speakers on fire or it's like, it's this ultimate place, the place that, you know, when you join the Hare Krishna as you're hoping to go to the ultimate place, you know, and the kid on the left of me was like, man, like this culture is so beautiful and interesting. And I met a cool girl at the show. And it's like, they're celebrating something else to me that was a couple rungs down of a subcategory of existence itself.

They were they were interested in something that was born of the highest tier, right. And then the other kid on the right is like, this product is great. I'd like to make a product someday. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I'm not saying that, you know, I chose a better way, but it was a pure way that will guarantee you a life of, you know, aloneness in a way. It's not going to guarantee you any success on the right.

It's not going to guarantee you being included in the culture. But it is a it's the path that once you do die, they probably do recognize that path more, you know, because they're like, oh, that's applicable. That is actually a universal thing. This person is in the zone. They're speaking to us from the zone, you know, I'm not saying that's a good thing. It's in a lot of ways. It's completely unapplicable what during your lifetime, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to answer your question from the beginning, which I think is a good question like, how do you know when you're not lying in a way? Yeah. But at the same time, I think that some of the toxic feelings that you experience are also important.

So I don't necessarily think that you should edit yourself too quickly, because then that's airing on the side of over presentation. So right, you know, that that part of myself in sixth grade, specifically sixth grade, falling asleep at night, dreaming of that kind of karate kid ending, that thing where you take out the villain and the whole school just starts cheering and you make a speech at the podium. Yeah. And all that shit.

I mean, that's a sick fantasy. That's the fantasy of somebody who wants a kind of attention or love that is probably not really realistic. And yet at the same time, that lust for celebrating, you know, the great part of yourself or whatever you imagine is probably a big part of what propels you and maybe gets you to the other side sometimes into really expressing something real, you know. Yeah, it's not it's not necessarily a sign that you're off because you're imagining like you're fantasizing that you're in like that cheesy metal ceremony at the end of Star Wars.

I mean, that was the time that you and I grew up, you know, like that was just that fucking top gun high five thing and all that, you know, the metal ceremony and like all that fucking shit. Like wait, was that the end of Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back? So I don't get a bunch of people like it's Empire Strikes Back with the metal ceremony. I don't even know if it was Return of the Jedi. I can't remember. But I remember what you're talking about.

It's the classical music as you're walking slowly up to be like they put a metal on Chewbacca. I mean, it's even more actually it's better realized in the King of Comedy, which I mentioned every time I'm talking to anyone because Robert De Niro has a fever dream that he's being congratulated in front of the whole world basically in the same kind of ceremony up on some steps in the same kind. It looks like a wedding. Yeah. And it's like his high school teacher and he's like on behalf of the teachers, the students,

everyone that's ever known you, we apologize for not understanding your brilliance. You know what I mean? It's like it's like one of the greatest scenes in a film of all time because you see the narcissism, the fiery boiling narcissism down inside of all of us because we actually we actually legitimately think that might happen someday that there will be an apology ceremony from the world to us. Oh my God. Oh my God.

You know what? That sounds so scary. Like when you die, you like come to and you're like, it's like God is apologizing to you like, oh, but you don't understand I am. You know, all your intuition about something like your life being like fucked up and you were trying to like be an optimist, you know, you're I fucked up with you. Like it was my first real mistake and I'm so sorry. Like you had a horrible life.

Like God is saying like the day I designed you was one of my finest moments and everyone around you, the entire earth, I fucked up royally and I don't know. I wasn't you. It was everyone else. The inner dream. That is so fucking funny. Like, oh, look, see, look, I make trillions of universes all the time. I in general, I create a universe that perfectly corresponds with the desires, needs and hopes

of the person I place in the universe. But I put you in someone else's universe. I'm so sorry. Your universe that you lived your whole life and was designed for like a complete dick. And wow. Yeah, I fucked up. Everyone. You're listening to God in your face is just mm-hmm.

I knew you would say this. I knew you would appear someday. It's like the ugliest possible side of yourself that never goes away. It's always there until the day you die. I mean, I feel like some people as they age, it actually comes out more, you know. Oh, well, I mean, yeah, that's like the angry dying person. I mean, like some people on their deathbed, they're fucking pissed, man. They're pissed.

They're like up to until they like breathe their last breath or their hat. They have like plotting. You know, what is it they want? What is it they want on their deathbed? Revenge. They want fucking revenge. Some people really want revenge. Like they, they're not going to feel better until like the people that they think have

hurt them are like bleeding out. And it's sad because, you know, it's like you're God, man. It's like, you know, I read this like, I think it was a post on Reddit and someone's really annoyed because their high school bully had like reached out to apologize to them. And they were like, fuck you. Like don't bring like, I don't want to deal with you. You know what I mean? Like I'm not, I'm not interested in having to deal with you anymore.

But it's like, I guess the reason it's a sad thing because think of, think of like the people who have hurt you, but in the distant past, right? Like how they fade out in your mind, you know, like, and probably there's so many people that have hurt us and we don't even remember them. Like we've just literally forgotten them and whether they like intentionally hurt us or whatever. And but all I'm saying is like some people, they can't let go of that. Then and they have like their entire life is spent in a state of never ending contemplation

of these people that have fucked them over. And it follows them all the way until they fucking die. You know, it's a really pathetic way to go, man. You know, I mean, like it's like what also what happens after the medal ceremony? You know, like what do you do after you get the apologies? Like it's that the next day after that, what are you going to do now? Everyone apologized to you at you. You got your revenge.

And then the next day, what do you do? Yeah, the kid that won the Olympics for skateboarding is just such an incredible kid, really humble, beautiful Japanese kid, probably honestly, somehow the person that won the gold medal the best in the world at this moment, like there was justice to it. It was such a beautiful thing. But then the last few days, like every day, he just posts a picture of the medal or the medal ceremony. And and you're like, God, it sucks because like he accomplished the highest thing in

a sense. And yet these posts are kind of getting old. Like how many posts do you get? Yeah, how many times are you going to post that fucking medal? We get it. You got to go metal. Now move on with your life. Yeah.

I mean, God comes down and actually rewards you in front of the entire human community. And then the next day, people are like, yo, dude, that's like the new cycle has moved on, bro. Because this is the satanic gift we're given by like those movies is they present this like insane utopia, which is that these beings existence literally stops at the peak experience of their lives. The movie ends. Yeah, man.

You got to do the next day and then the next day and the fucking next day. And pretty soon people are going to get sick of you bringing up your fucking God apology. You know, it's like, oh boy, here he goes about the time God apologized to him. It's such an incredible like brain chemistry trick that the credit roll does to you, especially with those 80s films when we were growing up. Like the way like that, that at the end of the back to the future, like it's a genius. The whole movie is genius, but like the end of it, the way they like pull you right into the second film because Dot comes back and he's like, he's like got a whole new DeLorean

and you're like, holy shit, you get all it like uplifts you at the end. And then the credit says, like, don't take money, you know, it's like, yeah, it's like the sense hit and Huey Lewis is rocking and the saxophones are jamming. And you're like, you're in this sort of illusory permanent state where you're like, that's life, like winning feels like this forever. It's this infinite frozen reality where the credits are rolling and you're walking out of the theater and you have this sort of sense that this reality sustains. You know what I mean?

You even when you walk down the street, you know, as a kid, you're like full of that feeling and you feel like you're in the movie, like no matter what kind of movie it is. If it was a serial killer, you kind of start looking behind your car a little bit, you know, or like in the bushes. It's like you get tricked into this sense that like, yo, this shit is real. Like I'm the karate kid, bro. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's it.

It's almost like there's a transference, an illusory transference that happens. You leave the theater with some very fleeting sense of victory. And then soon you realize like, oh, I'm not one of the fucking goonies. Like, that's none of that's real. You know, you think about like you win the Emmy or whatever, right? And you get your fucking statue. You know, also what I've heard about the Emmys, it's funny. I could be wrong about this is that there's only like one stat, a few statues that actually,

that for the main winner who gets the statue and other people who get the Emmy, they have to pay for their own Emmy. Like they pay for the statue. You know what I mean? They have to buy it. But like, but okay, so you get your fucking statue. You did your Emmy and you did the speech and you cried. You thanked your mom and your wife and your team.

And then, then you're like, you got your Emmy and then you go have some drinks. Everyone's like, you got the Emmy. But at some point you're going to go, like you're going to, your driver's going to pick you up and you're going to put the Emmy like in the seat or something. And then you don't, don't people famously just like throw it in a laundry hamper and never see it again. Exactly dude. You just like fucking toss it in a fucking garage. And then you, and then it just fit.

That's the thing, man. These bullshit peak experience, these like commercialized peak experiences, they're all lies. You know what I mean? It's not, it's like complete, these book, the chapters don't even fucking exist. The bookmarks don't exist. The endpoints don't exist. It just keeps, it just goes on and on and like, you have to display some form of exuberance, I guess, during those moments where you seem like a fucking, you seem like insane, you know?

Or hacky. Because the other side of it is people who get the awards that this doesn't mean anything. Like no shit, edgelord. Yeah, that I, you didn't mean to like influence me forever, but last time we had dinner, I think about it all the fucking time. You just all, you just said the simple thing about how in comedy, there's this saying that you're only as good as your last set. Yeah. Think about it every day.

I think about it every fucking day because, because the Emmy or whatever is kind of the enemy. It's kind of the thing I don't want, right? Because every time you walk past it on your mantle, you just think that was the highlight. That was it. That was the peak. And it like haunts you because you're like, I don't even relate to that thing, you know? Because my next set has to be my best set. Yep.

And so that thing sitting there is kind of actually like a problem. Like put that shit away, you know what I mean? Dishonet. This is what Joachim Trump has said about any great like epiphanous meditation experience. Dishonet. Dishonet. Forget it. Throw that shit in the fucking, throw it in your throat where you keep all your old frisbees and the golf clubs you bought that you don't use.

Just toss it back there and shut the fucking door and forget about it. Because it's just, that's all gone anyway. Don't, what's more, I'm sorry man, but like there's something legitimately creepy about trophy rooms. You know what I'm talking about? Like that shit's creepy. When you're going to look for to buy a house that year, man, there was like more than a few houses that had like a really prominent trophy display. You're like, what the fuck are you doing? You're building an altar to yourself?

They're like, your guests have to, what do you want? How do you react to someone's trophies? Like what's the healthy way to see someone? Were you supposed to like say, wow, you got a lot of trophies? I mean, it also reminds me unfortunately of like really disappointing sex. Because you know when entering that experience that like in theory this could be one of the greatest feelings that the universe has to offer. Yeah. And like you don't know why your brain is disassociating or not present enough.

But there's nothing you can do about it. There is nothing you can do. It can be someone that you're genuinely wildly attracted to. But there's no words that come to mind. Nothing that can explain the fact that you're just not in the zone at that moment. There's just nothing. Yeah. And all you know is that this great thing is being squandered and insulted.

And this great experience is not going to happen is escaping you, you know? Yeah. So I think that things like the Emmys or whatever, anything like that, you know, whether people talk about, you know, meeting their heroes or whatever. And just like the big moment, the big guitar solo, that is one of the saddest things is that when you realize that that in itself ended up not being so great, you know? And that hurts the most because you have that Hollywood theme in your head. You have that whole story, that mythology in your head. And being able to throw away those connotations and those heights and those great experiences, it makes perfect sense to me because you're just comparing things to that all the time. Yeah.

I mean, if you're having sex, you're comparing it to the last time you did or the better time or whatever. You know, it's like there's a demand in sex in a fascinating way to be present. You have to be or else you won't enjoy it. Dude, it's like you're crucifying yourself on your fucking trophies. It's so creepy. I mean, it seems like something that, it seems like something ISIS would do. They would like take someone's Emmys and like turn them in and like hang them or like make them eat them. Emo, this was wonderful.

Thank you so much, man. I love talking to you. I love catching up with you. Thank you. And I'll have all the links for people to find you at DrTrustle.com. Do you have anything you want to plug? No, I'm trying to finish up all my new solo work and my new podcast and shit. So I don't have anything ready for digestion yet.

All right, man. I love you. Thank you, Emo. Hare Krishna. Woo. That was Emo Amos, everybody. All the links you need to find Emo are going to be at DrTrustle.com. I want to once again thank the wonderful Drew Lewis for coining the term gas vamp and singing on that incredible track year to the beginning.

Did I mention I have a SoundCloud? Just search DrTrustle on SoundCloud and there's a lot of tracks from this podcast over there. Also, Johnny Pemberton, look for him on Twitch and he's just my nipples on SoundCloud. Thank you to all our sponsors. Won't you please use those offer codes? Don't forget to use those offer codes by friends. The best way to support the podcast is to support our noble sponsors, but it's okay if you don't do any of the many things podcasters and treat you to do. I'm just happy that you listen to the DTFH.

I love you so much. I'm headed to Austin, by the way. So if anybody in Austin is booking comedy shows, I need a place to go knock the barnacles off my old ass and try to get back on stage again. I love y'all. Hope you're doing great. I'll see you soon. You You

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