Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 607: Emil Amos

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Emil Amos, one of Duncan's best friends on earth and an amazing musician, re-joins the DTFH! You might know Emil as the drummer for OM, GRAILS, LILACS & CHAMPAGNE, and singer and guitarist of HOLY SONS. His music is available everywhere you like to listen! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self. BLUECHEW - Use offer code: DUNCAN at checkout and get your first shipment FREE with just $5 shipping. Rocket Money - Visit RocketMoney.com/Duncan to cancel your unwanted subscriptions and start saving!

Greetings, friends. It's me, Duncan, and this is the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast. And with us here today is one of my best friends on earth and one of my most requested guests. Emil Amos is an amazing musician. You must listen to his music. He has many different bands. Grails, Holy Sons, Lilacs and Champagne, and he is a badass drummer who plays with the band Om. All the links you need to find are going to be at dunkintrustle.com. Come see me do stand up. I'm going to be at the Blue Room Comedy Club in Springfield. That is the very end of March the 28th through the 30th. Then I'm gonna be in Fort Worth at Hyenas Comedy Club and Dallas Hyenas Wise Guys in Las Vegas April 26th through the 27th. I'm coming

back to Cobbs May 3rd May 4th. Then the Milwaukee Improv May 9th through May 11th and then I'm back home. Helium Comedy Club Portland, May 30th through the 31st, I'm sorry, through June 1st. Then the Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina, June 12th. This one's almost sold out, so if you're putting off getting tickets, grab them. August 15th, SideSplitters in Tampa, Florida,

and then November 1st, you can find me at the Wilbur. If you want commercial free episodes of the DTFH, go to patreon.com forward slash DTFH. And the final plug, I've created an audio book with Raghu Marcus called The Movie of Me to the Movie of We. And you can find that on Audible. Alright, let's get going everybody. Welcome back to the DTFH, Emo Amos. Welcome, welcome on you, that you are with us.

Shake and go-dee-do-dee-doo. Welcome to you. It's the Duncan Castle family. Throw a coin in the wishing well, you know just what I'll wish For another night with my lady, a delicious seafood dish Eating seafood with my gal Then it's time to sleep We will respect our wedding vows, our bodies will not touch. Our bodies will not touch. But I want you so much.

Nipples they're like flowers. Legs like a rose stem. Are you thinking about him? Thinking about him? Thinking about him? Thinking about him? Thinking about him? Thinking about him?

Thinking about him? Thinking about him? thinking about him, thinking about him, legs they are like flowers. You are my rose, how it grows, how my love grows. What do you think, man? Thank you. We can work on that later. It needs no work. It is my first track on my new album. Love Goes Like a Flower.

It's all love songs. Emol, you still skateboard. That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, you have to go outside once a day. We'll have to use your muscles, you know, at some point in the day. And so it's just a really quick, easy way that I can, you know, get back into my body

because otherwise my tendencies, I could live inside my mind and go spiraling down into a not super healthy place if I stayed inside, you know? Not super healthy place if I stayed inside, you know? Yeah. I mean, in my age, you know, you see people my age who just decided to give up on the body. And it's fucked, man, how quickly you can devolve and swell up like a fucking tick. You know what I mean? Like, like that. It's not it's not a it's not a typical 20s bloat.

The 20s bloat has a healthy look to it. You know what I mean? Like you see someone in their 20s carrying some extra pounds and it's got a kind of glowy sort of chair, how do you say it? Chairbic look to it. But then once you hit your late 30s, 40s, it's this misshapen bloat that is just fucked up looking, man.

Like my body was so fucked up when I, before I started eating right and exercising like, oh dude. It's like Christ had the temptations and you've just got to go to Planet Fitness. It's kind of the same. Dude, like imagine though, like if Christ had been like super fat,

like would we have Christianity? Would we have Christianity? Like they had to use an extra like, powerful wood, crucify. It took like seven Roman cards to get the crucifix up. You know, if Christ had been like morbidly obese, they wouldn't have been able to crucify him, would they? Because the, like he would have like been too heavy for the nails it would have just ripped through his hands and he would

have just sort of flopped down on the dust. It's a miracle. The hard-hitting intro. Are they to get to hear the song that you just wrote? Yeah, you're going to hear that song. They will hear that song. Yeah, that's the title track of my album. You want to hear another? This is the second song. Sure.

I don't, you know, I remember when I met you and I started taught you how to do songs. When I bathe with you, I get so clean. My heart, it gets much cleaner than my heart has ever been. Oh, I love the smell of you Whether it is soap or poo You caught me sniffing in your shoe And you didn't mind And that means you were mine

I hope this is what everybody came here for. It's funny, at night I'll take a hit of the ritualistic weedings and I'll listen to say for Silver Messenger service and that it actually sounds kind of like that. It's like these guys that have gone down to like the deepest part of some sort of acid weekend and they've come up and they wrote the new song on their next record. And a lot of times it actually sounds a lot like that. Like, dude, I cannot wait to listen Quicksilver Messenger Service. Yeah, it's got him, you know, Volente is kind of like he sings with this very deep spiritual authority. Yet what he is saying is just kind of like, let's let's go sleep

together. He's kind of like the height. Oh, it's fuck. It's fuck songs. Kind of. Yeah. It's like it? Kinda, yeah. It's like a... It's horny folk. I think you just overturned your genre revelation. It's just, I think that when we were kids, there was this idea, I don't know if you remember when we were still fucking around, or even when we went off to India, I think there was this idea that we We were kids. We knew we weren't totally responsible for the Direction of the world and there was adults out there that were that were taking care of things, right?

So yeah, we were sort of doing all prank calls and balls under the idea that like we were in the heyday of Under the idea that we were in the heyday of much less responsibility. We were running around causing problems for fun. And when you get to this age and you take a look around and you're like... Where are these people that are doing things? Where are the people that we thought had handled a lot of everything that were letting us fuck around? Because it kind of looks like all of basic, the grid of society is built in a kind of,

it's a childlike sphere, you know, that the context that you're coming up against daily is that of a sort of a child intelligence level, most media, most everything, whether it's conspiracy, whether it's, you know, whatever, it doesn't matter. It's all seems like it's written for children. And it seems like that for sure. But you know, it's even funnier is you don't see anybody complaining about that. Dude, this is this is what. So like when you're in your 20s, you get your first glimpse of what TV will look like. I don't know. How old are you, Emil?

47. You get your you get your glimpse of what all TV will look like in your 40s when you take acid and watch TV. So in your 20s, you're high on acid and you turn on the TV and you get this disconcerting, sick feeling. Because your conditioning is all completely obliterated and the whole thing looks ridiculous.

It looks like the Hunger Games, all the manipulative music and the weird costuming of people and the cadence and the way that they talk and the taking on the role of some like archetypical host figure that is non-unique. But somehow they've their take on the host figure gives them whatever it is that people like. You're on acid and you watch that and you're like, Jesus fucking Christ, what is this? In your 40s, that's every time you turn on the TV.

Every time you turn on the TV, you're like, what the fuck has happened to the world? Nothing, nothing, it's just like you've gotten older and whatever that is doesn't work on you in the same way that it works on the version of you in your 20s. Because it was like, you watch anybody who's on TV and you assign to them some kind of extra importance, like, well, they must be something great. I mean, they're on TV. And then you and then you realize like, oh, yeah, it's just, it's just a person imitating a form that was imitated by somebody else. And they're only imitating the form because that is what gives them a job. It's so weird. And yeah, so that leaning into the TV is some like sad refuge is gone. TV is gone as a refuge. I have to go into books now.

It's the only place you're going to find comfort is like reading books. Yeah, that is true. I think that, you know, when we talk about moving into kind of the practice or something or like people watch TV, there's this understandable line to which you want to be taken away from your problems. I think that's fair. I think that's totally great. There's a time for maybe like if I'm smoking pot and I use watch something like that, you know, I'm probably not gonna I'm not trying to get down to solving cancer, but it's probably not what I'm doing. You know, I probably want to feel good for the first time that day. And so I have to respect that

there's a certain quotient with people out there that are in that mode when they're listening to the things that I'm doing. And yet, that's really not my job spiritually to bring people to a place of like, you know, lazy boy. So that's not what I was born to do. So there's a dissonance there. I kind of, there's something, I feel like I've made a huge body of work, it's now stretching decades and decades. It's in every, all these different kinds of media forums and like most people aren't going to encounter much of any of it. They'll encounter one bit of it or something

and maybe they can treat it as like there's just entertainment and put it away on a shelf. Never have to you know like own it or anything like that but just like they come across it and it may be like it seems to ease people's minds maybe that there's somebody out there toiling minds maybe that there's somebody out there toiling in obscurity. But that's not my job. Do you see what I'm saying? It wasn't my job to just be like, to help people just forget about their problems. Well, no. And your music doesn't, like, it's challenging and it gets into you. And it's like some songs are like, you almost don't want to listen to them, not because

they're not beautiful, but because it's like it's hitting that place that like Sartre hit or it's hitting this place of like, dude, I don't want to fucking go there right now. This is bringing me hypnotically, melodically into confronting something that I really sometimes don't feel like confronting. But if I'm in the right mood, when I'm actively engaged in trying to not reject truth, then that's when your music is, it's like a companion to me. You know what I mean?

But I'm not there all the time. Sometimes I do want to just sit on the TV and numb out, not be in play video games and sort of ignore the reality of my own imminent fucking demise. No, no. Imminent in the sense of like, you know, like, come on, both of us, like, the lifespan thing is, you know, that's real. No, that's, that was like the biggest compliment, you know, I can get and also I totally, totally

agree with you. There's got to be different gears he can shift into within the day for sure, but the job of somebody who is engaging in spiritual politics, which I don't know that we even have a word for that in the West necessarily, you live on a frequency that you are created to be inside of. This is not something you practice necessarily. This is just something that I'm doing. I do this is what I do. And so, there's an inherent dissonance as you walk through the world, as you experience

the rituals that other people are involved in as an over specialist. There's an inherent dissonance, there's an inherent anger, there's an inherent sadness, there's an inherent disappointment. And you take all that if you want to remain somewhat healthy, you take all that and you route it down into your practice. Yeah. But, but you're also like weathering levels of toxicity all the time, you know, within yourself, you know, too, like you are sort of, you're trying to calm the toxins within yourself too, because of all these sort of feelings

that you're experiencing while trying to read route. So I think there's gotta be a balance there, a way to respect the craft, you know, and kind of, you know, try to, we're commiserating as a cult, you know, of these people that listen to Drake. We are a cult to, we're commiserating as a cult, you know, of these people that listen to Drake. We are a cult, also we're commiserating within this sphere together.

And that's what, and we know we're doing that. And we know that outside of that sphere, people have no use for this inflation. You know what I mean? Well, do you know why they wear saffron robes in Buddhism? Why they wear them? Because that's what they used to bury prisoners in. So like they would wrap them in these orange robes and throw them in a pit. it represents like pure, purely letting go of the samsaric world.

Like I'm a dead prisoner. I'm the lowest of the low. And it's this letting go. And that's a huge part in Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism, which is what I practice a study, is constantly giving everything. So when you meditate, before you meditate, you say, I offer the merit of this practice to all sentient beings. And then there's visualizations that you do where you're like offering universes, but then you're also offering the toxins too. So everything you, and interestingly enough,

just as a thought experiment, letting go of some of the negative stuff is more difficult than letting go of like the merit. Like it's easy to be like, ah, you could have it. I don't even know what this fucking is. But when you look at some of your like deep rooted neuroses or like, you know, the flavorings that give you this angle or that angle that you feel, you know,

distinguishes you in some way for better or for worse. Shit, man, that's hard to let go of. That's hard to say, that's gone too. Well, fuck. And you know, so yeah, this thing you're talking about is like, inevitably, when there's something called pop culture default reality, which invites you in and happily accepts you, as long as you harmonize with it, there has to be people on the outside of that reality tunnel, who can't even if they wanted to fucking harmonize with it. They couldn't the the attempted harmonizing with it

Isn't it is always gonna be off tune People are gonna recognize right away. There's some infiltrator that is wormed into the reality tunnel You know what I mean? And so you just sort of you have to get used to that, right? Like that's all you could do. That's, you just get used to it. For sure. I mean, the people that are riding the rides and they feel like they're in this fabulous wonderland

that I'm standing next to, and, you know, I'm not feeling that way, there's no, I have no impetus to stop their happiness. I have no interest in, like, telling them, you know, not have fun. It's just there definitely is like a level of acceptance that we have to to get to. But in that respect, there's so many different Buddha carvings and there's so many different Buddha statues. Is there, you know, there's fat laughing with Buddha, is there an

exhausted Buddha that's like, really tired of everybody? No, I haven't seen the fucking annoyed Buddha. Someone needs to make it. But the but there is, I'll tell you the embodiment of it is this painting, which is I'll tell you the embodiment of it is this painting, which is, maybe you can pull it up on your computer, Google Jesus in the desert painting. It's the fucking best. It's my favorite Jesus painting. It's Jesus right after winning the confrontation with Satan. Oh, okay. And I don't know the painter's name, which I should, but that painter somehow manages to work in

complete exhaustion, complete despair. But if you look very closely, you notice a strange almost smile happening as Jesus realizes that the world cannot capture him. So it's probably what you're talking about. There's that glimmer or an underlying like, holy shit, I'm free. And you know what I mean? But that gets, if you don't really study the painting, and it's Jesus sitting on a rock in this barren fucking place, you know, representing like the reality of the world. Like, you know, the world prior to the AR

goggles projecting onto the world, all of the stories that give a what's known as a false refuge. You can take refuge here, you can take a refute, you'll be fine there. You can't, there's nowhere in the desert to seek real refuge. Maybe you could get under a rock or something, but you know, the whole point of the thing is like, no, nowhere to hide. And that's the reality situation. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by my friends at Better Help. Done that thing where you realize you're telling everybody

you're busy, but you realize that you've been playing video games for six hours a day, or sort of wandering from one activity to the next and never really finishing anything at all. So actually, you're not busy. You're just in some kind of strange chaotic vortex where you're constantly getting lost in your thoughts and then trying to find your keys. Well, maybe that's a little too much information, but I've definitely been

there and therapy is perfect to help you become less busy doing shit you don't want to do anyway. Therapy can help you find out what matters to you so you can do more of it. Therapy was one of the best things I ever did and BetterHelp is incredible. If you're thinking about starting therapy, definitely give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist,

and you could switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Learn to make time for what makes you happy with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Duncan today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterH-E-L-P dot com slash Duncan. Thank you, BetterHelp. Maybe you could get under a rock or something, but you know, the whole point of the thing is like, no nowhere to hide.

And that's the that's the reality situation. Well, it's you know, it's a being that is like come to terms with that and is fucking beaten down from not eating, all these things, symbols of like, everything Satan is inviting Jesus to do is it's the classic temptations of the world. And every response is a rejection of that or an exposure of like, no, that's not gonna make anyone happy. No, that's going to make anyone happy. No, that's not going to make anyone happy. No, that's not the way. And it's exactly like Buddha and Mara. It's the exact same situation in a different way. But but you know, anyway, yeah, man, that's yeah, I think the notion that that that that aspect of like exhaustion and despair and a real true acknowledgement of

that facet of reality maybe isn't embodied in any statue, but it certainly is the first noble truth. There is suffering. Don't fucking pretend, you know, there is, there is suffering and affirmation of what you're talking about. For sure there is suffering. Well, I used to go to Fred Sullivan's office and we would, we had some debates about the nature of human life. And a lot of those professors that I used to argue with were kind of like, you know, when I was in my little religious phase, they found me visibly annoying. And I would too now, I guess, because they were so rooted in sort of like, as Fred Solomon

said, the mixed bag of life, you know, that life is just, you can't sustain a worldview in which this all computes into a kind of, you know, a rival point of peace. You know, you can't reach peace and stay there. And I was just saying, well, I'm in it. Not like that. I wasn't saying it like that. I was just saying like, but this is this situation was perfect. If you see it that way, then you'll start to understand what I mean. And he would just turn away and I could see him one thing. And that's exactly

how I would probably feel now. It's so strange to hear what you're saying and to know that you are correct and to have been emotionally in that place. And and to know that you are correct and to have been emotionally in that place and then to know that I may never go back there and I don't know why I don't know how to set that up but I can tell you I can report from the memory like a dream memory I can tell you that when I was in that place the number one characteristic well I said this one time I think, but the number one characteristic of me being supremely super fucking happy was that there was an order to everything I had previously not liked about the middle. You know, that there was a use, a specific duty that each person was filling out that I was coming up against in the day.

Each janitor, each bus driver, each person that was maybe even causing a rift or something or situation was doing it from the higher point up, you know, from the God's eye view, they were doing exactly what should be done. And in that state of mind, there was nothing that, nothing was needed from me. You know what I mean? And God, I would give everything to go back there. But for whatever reason, I'm just telling you, you know, from a friend to a friend, that's not what I'm supposed to do, I guess, because that's not where I'm at.

I mean, the OK, so I like, you know, this is the thing that like pops up. Neem Kurali Baba said it every Ram Dass, everything's perfect. When we understand that. And so you hear that and it would be easy to then take that and apply some sense of order in the way that you're talking about. You know, like this is a, however you want to put it, this pattern has meaning. So there's meaning out here. There's some kind of implicit meaning. So there's meaning out here. There's some kind of implicit meaning. And I think those hard

rocks in that picture, and the desert scene, and the barren quality actually point to a neutrality. So that perfection is neutrality. In other words, this external field of phenomena is neutral. field of phenomena is neutral. And the human, by nature of having this awareness field and mixed up in matter, projects onto that neutrality, good and bad, good and evil, right and wrong, me, them. And the little rug that would maybe, if me and young Immo got in a conversation, maybe the rug I would attempt to pull out there is that no, in fact, that is not the

case that everyone's in their right place and everything's serving some purpose. The rug I would pull out is it's like, no, actually, that you're looking at a transient configuration of interdependent matter that you're projecting a story on to give it some meaning. In this case, an idea of perfection equals good. You know, maybe perfection doesn't equal good, perfection doesn't equal bad. And maybe the word itself is a little too

confusing to use. So, well, you know, like, with God, Jesus, you'll love this book, man. It's called Progressive Meditation on Stages of Emptiness or something, progressive stages of meditation on emptiness. This is like a deep cut Buddhist holy fuck. Like your songs, like you're gonna read it and get real uncomfortable because it surgically begins to break up whatever it is, tricks you're using to try to grab onto something. So it's like prying your fingers off a cliff one,

and then the next, and then you'll be thinking of a counter argument to some point it's making, and literally the next paragraph is, you're probably thinking right now, identifies the argument you summed up in your mind and then pulls that, and so this is stages of, like it's considered finer and finer grades of sandpaper and each one you would sort of practice it for a while before moving to the next and the next and the next. But at some point,

going through this experience of this book, I'd started thinking, oh, it's talking about God. As it's sort of like going through the first stage, which is just sort of breaking down subjective awareness, the reality of subjective awareness, like this is happening inside of you, think of your dreams, what's the difference between this and your dreams? Why do you think this is real if you think your dreams aren't real? between this and your dreams? Why do you think this is real if you think your dreams aren't real? Somewhere in there, it begins to, like the first stage is sort of pointing towards

a kind of like, I don't know what word they use for it, but a primordial awareness field, I guess you could say. And so then you hear that and you're like, that's God. Oh, it's talking about God, the mind of God. I can connect to that. Next phase, right away it starts off with you might be trying to turn this awareness field into some kind of God or theism, but this is not the case. This is not what it is. It is also empty. That thing that you thought, that awareness field itself. So now that's pried your first finger off the ledge,

the next ledge is like, wait, you think your awareness is somehow differentiated or special? No, no, my friend, because for the awareness to exist, it needs an object of awareness, meaning it's interdependent. If there's just awareness, there's nothing. So the awareness and the object have to both come together. That's when you see the Buddha's fucking and stuff. That's what you're looking at there is the awareness field and the matter field intertwining, which is where the terms samsara and nirvana are intertwined, meaning the Buddha mind and the mind of confusion actually work together. You can't have one without

the other. So, nowhere to… the thing you were… and also the thing you're saying like, God, I'd love to go back there. Oh, I'm like, you didn't say this, but like, oh, something's wrong with me. This is not the way to be. That, actually, that right there, that's the only block you have. Like any time I sit to meditate, something is always wrong. My posture, the seat, something in my life, the way my mind is working, the whatever, a mood state that I'm going through. And what you do there is you go, yeah, yeah, that's happening too. You don't, you know what I mean? There's no rejection, but rather a full embrace or allowance of that to happen minus the story you're telling

about it. Minus the, this is because of that and this is that and this must be that and this is happiness. This is sadness. This is that and this is the, the, the, the, all those things and this is happiness, this is sadness, this is that, and this is the, the, the, the, all those things are pulling you completely out of being in that desert. And it is at first, this is I think why there's so many moments where you will quit meditating,

is because first it just sucks at first, it's boring, you fucking hate it. Then you start feeling again, you start beginning to feel, and then you have moments of euphoria and mystical experiences and all that. And then you collide with a present moment as it is. And man, that's a that place is like, there's a lot of things that might make you not want to be there. It's not necessarily the hippie-dippy, like, be here now place all the time.

It's just neutral. In that awareness, you become more it than you. There's still you. You don't get what you wear, but fuck, man, the whole sanctuary of the identity, when it starts becoming less of what you thought it was, that's a real, that's a lot, man, to let go of that, to really let go of it. Yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to talk to my young self, so I'll never know what I would have said and things.

But right before you started saying that, the way I did word it was that I'm supposed to be going through this right now. That's right. Right. I'm sorry. No, I agree with you, but it's just that I must be going through whatever I'm going through right now in order to get to the next horizon.

You know, there's something, I've been given this particular situation to unlock and get to the next sort of sand dune, which then I won't be able to see over and then I'll, you know, sum out that. And that's the artist's predicament is like, you're sort of always, you're always aware that the new horizon is coming because as somebody who's like constantly practicing, you know that we mean practicing a ritual, sort of, you know, what you might call it

magic or whatever. You like, you know that there's always going to be a new challenge. So you're always kind of like curious what it's going to be, because you know, you're not. You're never a master, right? You're a master only in that you are open to the next math problem. You know what I mean? You're a master in your openness to it, to the problem, right? So you're a master in that you won't run away from it, in that you're excited to deal with

difficult things. Florida do. Well, dude, this, I mean, I don't know why I'm going Christian on you here, but if you look at the crucifixion is what anyone who tries to make something goes through and look at what Jesus said, you can actually identify phases of the creative process. And I think the second to last thing he said, which is definitely anyone who's tried to write a book, write a joke, when your brain isn't making jokes, create anything when your brain is like, what? That was a phase, dude. I'm not fucking making shit for you now.

You've said it in your own way. Father, why have you forsaken me? You know, and then the next one is any and then when finally it clicks, and finally the fucking thing sticks together and all of a sudden there it is. And there's for me, a sort of horror to that too. In the sense that it's like you get sucked into something. And now it's got you.

You don't have it. It's got you. That is, father, into your hands I commend my spirit. And then I think that the last thing he fucking said, which is what anyone says when they're like, okay, I'm done, is it is finished. You know? But if you look at that, these are the faces of making shit. It's a crucifixion.

I am thirsty. Well, we ran out of fucking weed, man. So yeah, it sucks, dude. And I hate where they, if I'm understanding where you're at right now, it is the worst and my least favorite place and anytime I get there I always think, well, that was fun but I guess that's it. I'm juiceless. Yeah, it's true.

Like when you're taken by, you know, if a song is coming to you, you may not want to, I'm not trying to make this sound like it's miserable. I'm just saying you may not want to sit down and write it, but you had, but you better be that because that emotional current will leave you pretty soon. And once it's gone, there's various ideas that you'll never revisit because you don't know why. I mean, all these things are unconscious processes. And I think that's interesting when I look back

at being super, super, super, super happy, is that I was certainly not taking credit for any of it, but my body, I mean, that age I was at, my body and my mind, I got an MRI not too long ago. And to my shock, they were like, your brain is in beautiful condition. Wow. Congratulations. I was like, no, I wanted there to be something wrong, but um... Because you could be like, now I understand! Totally. Right.

But I mean, back in that era when we were in college, my body was just working so flawlessly. I've definitely had like weird issues now with depth perception, you know, my eyes or things, you know, like whatever. I'm not the same human being. But at that time I was able to exist in what was much more like a fully unconscious place. Like everything worked, it flowed, right? So I could take that stuff for granted and my mind could float in a nice place that was like extremely accepting of the elements around me, you know? Yes. And plus, you know, when you're, I'm just trying to be descriptive. I'm not saying this

is good or bad or anything, but like when you're a young person, especially an eight years old, and you're like running around and getting like perilously sunburned and you don't even identify that. It's hot outside. You know, it's that lack of identification. It's that place that your brain is that where you, you're not even narrating anything. Because to you, what is hot?

It doesn't mean anything yet. Yeah, it's what I mean. Look, it's what you are whether you it's it's still there. I It's that shit doesn't go anywhere. It can't it's still there. It's just it gets there's a lot of Like apps on the phone so to speak, you know you older you get you got a lot of fucking pop-ups and a lot of apps on the phone, so to speak. You know, the older you get, you got a lot of fucking pop-ups and a lot of like extra layers of stuff covering that up

to the point where even the experience of it can, some people might meet that with a feeling of guilt. Like I shouldn't be happy right now. Like, how could I be happy right now? This doesn't make any f**k. Like, when you hear it, when people lose a parent, a loved one, and they're supposed to be shattered, but they're feeling this like legitimate joy,

and then they feel guilty. Like, why am I feeling this legitimate joy and then they feel guilty like why am I feeling this? And probably the reason they're feeling it is because the event was so powerful it just blew off all that shit. They're back to like pure interface with reality which you know is joyful. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by the Phallus Lords at Blue Chew. I'm sure you've heard people say that when the world becomes imbalanced, balance will return. And science, sadly, has not only accelerated human civilization, sometimes it makes stuff that isn't that great.

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Discover your options at bluechew.com. Chew it and do it. And we've got a special deal for our beloved listeners. Try Bluechew free when you use our promo code DUNCAN at checkout. You just pay $5 shipping. That's Bluechew.com. Promo code DUNC Duncan to receive your first month free Is it blue chew calm for more details and important safety information and we thank blue chew for sponsoring the podcast Probably the reason they're feeling it is because the event was so powerful it just

blew off all that shit. pure interface with reality, which, you know, is joyful. I have a new, new happy place that I've found. And I get to go to that place we're talking about, which, because I agree with you that it's all still there. It's all still right inside of you. There's no imagery here, I hope, where I'm making myself sound like I've ever rated completely or something. You don't sound like that. No, no, no, no. But I have this new practice. There was years and years where, I mean, maybe it was my New York era where I wasn't really smoking pot. Well, a big part of Portland, actually, which is a 13-year period where I really wasn't smoking a ton of pot and I was drinking a lot because I was very high functioning. And partially what I forgot about was that I wasn't kind of going to that what you might refer to is like the Carl Young in the sandbox with this

Shoes off and it play playing. You know what I mean? I wasn't really going to that place as much anymore Because I had a lot of serious work to do in that phase of my life. I was releasing, you know Six records a year or some shit I was on fire and I really needed to do that stuff and it took a lot of sort of mathematical mind energy. And so I drifted away from smoking pot and that was fine. That's what I needed to do. But recently, because I'm in such a safe, like calm environment and there's really just, there's no crying, there's not really anything in my tiny little silly town. There's enough time and there's enough space for me to go to that place again.

And so I use this dual tape deck behind me that you can see and my guru from Boston has been writing me a lot and sending me this huge packages of tapes now he Doesn't want to talk on the phone. It's not that he doesn't want to talk on the phone But he says he can't afford he has no money. I mean he needs office I didn't even know what the guy eats, So he doesn't even have a cell phone. And when he did have it, he didn't have enough minutes to even do a phone call. And if you sent him a picture, he'd get very, very ill because it basically just like all his minutes at the. This is data would be taken out. Sucks. Well, it didn't suck for him because he had it systemized. That's the way he saw the world was just like, I guess you could say is some sort of aesthetic.

And so he sends me these huge box of tapes. And so we communicate only through cassette audio. We don't talk to each other. We just take these pictures of the world. And then we reflect back to each other. We just take these pictures of the world. Then, then we reflect back to each other. And then we kind of build this dialogue. So it's like before when I didn't have much I could do while I was high, because I was having me do all this like technical stuff.

They needed me to be on point. Now I get to put that away. I get to say, I'm in a different phase now. I get to enjoy my life and I get to kind of let go of some of the harder work. I mean, maybe even admitting to myself that like all the elbow grease that I put in has not really changed the world, you know? Maybe admitting to myself that like a lot of that hard work I put in, I tried my best, but like when I look at the world today, I just don't

think it's doing much. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on now. Hold on. Come on. Like, you're thinking short term. I mean, truly, you're thinking so short term. Like, you know, this is the, this is like the, the rail, someone building a railroad track being like, we still have 400 miles before this fucker gets to California. It's like, yeah, like you, you can't, Yeah, like you can't, I think if you have made the aspiration to help the world in some way, a sincere aspiration, I think you have that aspiration, the intent is there. Then you can't really like expect to see that while you're alive. That's not why anyone's doing this anyway. Because if you wanna see it,

like, and you know, when I was younger, any, you know, acid had this sense of like, you know, if enough people took acid, the world would change. And, you know, you would see some utopian emergence happen. I have friends, one of my dear friends is actually kind of like, we've had a similar conversation in the sense that like, he,

his vision for the future was sort of like everything turns into like some kind of techno utopia, Burning Man situation, some functional form of socialism mixed in was sort of like everything turns into like some kind of techno utopia burning man situation, some functional form of socialism mixed in with acceptance of psychedelics mixed in with like the opposite of war everywhere, festivals and no, right now that's not what's happening. And one could get the sense of like, what's the fucking point? But I think what you're missing is like all those moments, like I know I speak for myself, all those moments when I've been in the fucking pit.

And like your music, I'll just put it on. And it's not like I'm resurrected from the pit. But you know what I mean? But suddenly it's bearable. Here's a connecting point of logic. It's rational. You know what I mean? So you're sort of missing the micro moments

that people are no doubt having right now, listening to your music and feeling less of a complete outsider. At least there's something else out there, man. There's something out there like me. So then you don't know how that impacts the world because when people like go from being victim to being hero and that is definitely something music gives me that's something music can give you you're not a victim all of a sudden now you realize you're back in control you are you're you're no longer law you're not getting rolled by the wave then

that creates ripples and you don't know what those ripples have done. You will never know. You can't know what the fuck, when you're putting art, like you're putting out into the world, what that's doing. And then to see that coalesce in some form, in some like discernible, quantifiable way, I don't know, man. I don't know that that's like, I think there's so many artists and so many writers and so many

people Like your guru in Boston who like just People don't find out about them. Well, maybe ever and if they do it's way after that person's gone and Nick Drake, you know, like, that's just the... And also, we're not even here long, like, we're not here that long anyway, you know, I mean, like, yeah, I would fucking I don't know if this is what you're talking about. But sometimes like when I'm hanging out with like my comedian friends and you're talking about, but sometimes like when I'm hanging out with like

my comedian friends and they're talking about like selling out coliseums, I'm like, man, that would be fun. I wonder what that would be like. I want to know what that's like. But then, you know, when I am able to like shift that comparison thinking to like, fuck man, this is just cool. My job, my life, this is fucking cool as it is right now. I mean, I don't know if that's what you meant necessarily, but I am surprised that you feel like your work hasn't had a positive and profound impact on so many people. Well, I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not stopping building the train track. I was just describing like smoking pot and taking one night off to make these tapes to talk

back to my guru. And I do, I have been kind of like disappearing a little bit into that little dream zone more and more because in that place there is no really right and wrong. And I can just be, I can kind of be happy almost lobotomized in this, in that kind of world talking to him through these tapes and it's kind of like, it's maybe like where an artist like, you know, is leading to inhale or something before they exhale on their next work or something. So it's not like a tragic thing where I'm saying like, I quit. You know, as a kid I would say that stuff because I really thought it was never going to work

out and that was, you know, whatever such sort of hardcore failure wish, which I do look back now and realize that Nick Drake must have put into my mind because I'm talking about him a little bit because I just read the new book and I'm doing a two hour fucking cast with my friend from Wilco and we're basically just rolling out his true life story because no one's ever known it. And the reason why I think that's interesting partially is because when we were kids, we really knew nothing. All we knew, all you could say was this guy probably killed himself, we don't really know. And you'd listen to it and you'd just dream on it.

And it was such a powerful statement to just kind of leave sort of this dead end of his discography in the world, you know, which has been talked about kind of like way too much having had no great information. But all of a sudden, we have all this information that came straight from the family and it just got, like, you know, descended upon us. And so we're kind of doing these casts to sort of parse it out for people and explain what was really going on his life and one thing that's very very interesting to me is that in a temporal sense for whatever reason people's focus on the fact that he felt very unloved also that's the

frequency we're talking about right here today to some degree. You know, like his sister felt that maybe the fact that she knew he had this special thing and no one was seeing it drove him mad in itself to some degree. Yeah. Which is kind of a weird point or almost an impossibility to some degree, I think, because we're looking at a guy who literally wouldn't even play live. So he was like, really unwilling to step into the game, right? So if you're sitting around with your comedian friends and somebody's like, man, when I get

to that stadium, things are going to be sick. And you're, you look at it like, bro, you won't even perform live. You know what I mean? There, that doesn't compute, right? So what we know now is that he became very, very mentally ill very, very quickly, which we didn't know before really necessarily. We didn't really know in what respect,

but now the family's opening up about it. And so as I'm reading it, I find myself as an older personality, being much more interested in just sort of the day to day of like, I mean, it's perilously sad, but just hit his dissension into that. But it also was combined, unfortunately, with this side of himself that wasn't willing

to play the game and yet was kind of like he was kind of down to complain about the game and I myself have done a lot of that and have also, you know, I think I got a little bit of that from home but but at the same time I've done decades more work and you know public work you know to try to like do the thing that he didn't do and yet I find myself feeling exactly the same as him so meditating on him that kind of unloved feeling is is very important for me at this point in my life at Panini. It's really nice to revisit and I think I see your side of your explanation and everything crystal clear and I think you're dead on about everything you said, especially I love the neutrality of the desert, that you are 100% correct in my opinion.

And yet at the same time, there's people listening out there who are artists, who are in pain and trying to transmogrify it. And they're like Kafka up in a little attic room, and they're taking all this information and all this pain and they're trying to crunch it into some grand great statement that that might even for a second alleviate their situation, their feelings. And so I don't want to be like, I don't want to just like have a clown come by the window and like honk a horn and be like, chill out, bro. You know, because because they have that right to feel that way.

And that- Oh yeah. But that's also an organic roller coaster that is hopefully delivering great information to them. All these dissonance, all these bad things as we identify them within a trip or whatever are eventually, you know, the road curves and like the road curves and the mountains open up and things do clear up. And the fact that we are put through these things is part of what is good about this sort of, you know, the fact that the Buddha is exhausted to a point of near death when under the Bodhi tree is not to be forgotten.

Well, yeah, I mean, the I do I think the sort of like decision was, look, I'll just if I can't, if I can't gain realization, I'll just die. So there was it was certainly a sort of like, I'll just try with everything. sort of like, ah, I'll just try with everything. But you know, I don't like, I don't think, and I hope I don't seem like it, like I don't think the answer is necessarily like happiness as we understand it. You know what I mean? I think that that's like another sort of transient situation that if I'm happy, it's great. I fucking love it. It's great, I'm happy.

But that can't, but then the problem with that is that means that I have conditions that wherein I'm kind, you know what I mean? So like, if I'm happy, so if I to be generous and to have the intention to help. I can't really have that based on a mental state because I'm not happy all the time. So in other words, if my dedication to, if my devotion to some practice is contingent on mood states then the practice is unstable, naturally. It will have to be. So that means that the intent has to have within it a recognition

of the transient phenomena of mood states and also the very convincing hypnotic nature of thoughts. So the mind wants to tell a story and the story appears. The story is generally like, for a lot of people, horrible. The story involves a lot of like, you know, bad things for most people. And so then you buy into that story and then you become the story. Now you're the story, you're living inside of another fucking fantasy. It's a fantasy, no matter what it is.

I mean, you know, we just talked about under the last podcast, we were sort of talking about the ahimsa, no soul, that many people hear in Buddhism. We just talked about on the last podcast, we're sort of talking about the Ahimsa, no soul that many people here in Buddhism, like I knew it was satanic, but and you want there to be a soul, you know, I want there to be a soul. But this is something when we are in college, we used to go back and forth. And I loved it so much. The notion of freedom. And how when you really get into ahimsa, you realize that the only way for a being to have

true freedom is to have no soul. Because if you have a soul, some permanent data packet that is unchanging, then you're damned. You're damned. There is some core element to you that is always going to be the same forever. Oh God, you're frozen. You're fucked. So to me, the artist in the attic struggling suffering doesn't have to suffer, that's the main thing. You don't have to suffer.

There is an end to suffering. That is a reality. You can end your suffering, but because you have ended your suffering doesn't mean you're happy. happy. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by Rocket Money. Rocket Money has become part of my life. It's incredible.

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app's features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash dunkin. That's rocketmoney.com slash dunkin, rocketmoney.com slash dunkin. Thank you, Rocket Money. That's the main thing. You don't have to suffer. There is an end to suffering. That is a reality. You can end your suffering, but because you have ended your suffering

doesn't mean you're happy. You know what I mean? It doesn't mean you're gonna be walking around glowing all the time and fucking happy. Like, if happiness were a sign of enlightenment, then we would have everyone on this, there'd be so many fucking idiot, fucking Buddhas walking around.

Did you hear Taylor Swift Swift releasing a new album? You know what I mean? So I think that whenever I find myself in a real rotten space, I always refer to this Lojong saying, drive all blames into oneself. Meaning, and you hear that at first, it sounds like you're supposed to apologize to everybody for everything that's wrong in the world. It's not what it means. It's saying you're cooking up the reality tunnel you're in.

You are in this micro moment, dude. It's a micro moment. And you can only catch it when you're on a lot of psychedelics, enough LSD, and nice big fat dose of ketamine. This micro fucking moment. That micro moment, you instantly fill it up with everything. That's, you just inject it with all your fucking stories and all of the reasoning and the language the way you look at it i can read i read i can look at a thing and transform symbols

into letters and this is red and that is blue and that is green and this is that you do that in a fucking second that moment gets filled in again and again and again and again and some of the shit that it gets filled in with is directly related to suffering, directly related to bitterness, directly related to selfishness, directly related to recurring negative patterns in a person's life, directly related to every fucking thing that has brought you into a situation that you are recognizing as being untenable or undesirable. That, you know what I mean?

And that recognizing that the reason that you're free is because that space exists and because inside that space, there's nothing. And that's what you are. You're just a fucking void and you just keep filling it up again and again and again with the same stories You know that makes perfect sense. I Mean I think that

Yeah, avoid is the wrong word I would say I don't mean to be so nihilistic but you know what I'm saying It's a it's a space. No, I think you can watch yourself Fill in that space with that No, I think you can watch yourself fill in that space with that narrative. And I think you can enjoy filling that space with that narrative for dark reasons, smarter reasons. And I think, you know, because what you're saying kind of is like, you're sort of saying like, well, that's the card I've been dealt. You know, you're sort of singing a blues song.

You're saying like, I was just put in this position and mowed over. And so, you know, because because in that moment of total frustration, it feels good to alleviate yourself of some responsibility, saying like, you know, things just weren't fair, which is your reality in many ways. Um, how? Well, just that things aren't fair. I mean, but, but that's a temporal concept, you know, that, that's not really what the

free space is about necessarily. If we want to get back to that, I would say that conversely, you know, my happiest places are when I sense that place and I know that it's a fruitful open license for ideas. You know what I mean? That that space can be filled with anything. Absolutely. You just defined it. Yeah. So emptiness, it means exactly what you said. It's a fruitful space. It's the soil.

So the emptiness is more like soil. It's a pre-existent potential. And literally, it's like any empty space, literally in time space, you look at it, any time machine could be built there, a teleporter could be built there, the cure for cancer could be sitting right in that fucking empty space. So it's pure potential. And again, that is you.

Anytime I get into the human Earth realm shit, the imbalance, there's imbalance there because I don't recognize that that, yes, I am of Duncan and yes, I have my own problems and karma and issues I'm dealing with, but that's half the picture, right? The other half of the picture, half of the picture is that pure potential space. And the two things are meeting and coexisting and co-arising, and they have to have, one has to have the other.

So, you know what I mean? Anytime you get too caught up in the story, you've missed the other part of the story. And where they balance out, that's where the action is, like where the two things, because that picture of Jesus in the desert, he couldn't be smiling if he didn't understand it was, there's true potential for liberation in the world, true freedom, true redemption, that's the smile. And then the weighty shit is like, but also I'm about to get fucking executed for nothing. So you know what I mean? So like,

then my dad sent me here. My fucking dad is just like the kids who get sent off to those fucking boarding schools. So like, you know what I mean? So those two collide in the. I know whenever I'm writing, when I'm writing from the Earthrealms shit, it's always like real cynical. And suddenly it's like I'm imitating George Carlin or Phil Hicks and it's just like, this whole thing's a sham.

You know, and because like it's all the, er, but then if I can find the empty space in there, it's just an infinite rejection, infinite, like no, you cannot touch it. You can't market, buy it, build, you know what I mean? Brand it, it's absolute purity. It's the source of everything. Do you know what I mean?

So like, when I get imbalanced, that's where I would end up in the attic or that's when I would end up Nick Drake taking pills or Jesus, I just, I'm sorry, I'm talking too much. I'm over talking. I'm gonna stop, but last thing. Just started reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

And I love it so much. I love Hemingway and I completely forgot that he killed himself. So I'm just sitting there enjoying it like, God, what a fucking genius. And then I go and look him up and it's like, and he killed himself. Oh my God. No. What? You were making your could write like this

and you fucking shot yourself? Oh god. Every book becomes a suicide note when you kill yourself. Every song is a suicide note when you kill yourself. It ruins your body of work, it does! Like, you gotta just fucking let the universe kill you! Come on, man! Come on, let the universe kill you! Yeah, I was in the hallway of my junior high school, I think I must have been in seventh

grade, and this guy, Creighton, went on to be sort of half frat boy, half skinhead. He didn't get to figure his way out. But he was sitting there telling me that I should be on his team when we did the book project or what it. And I was like, why would you want me on your team? You pick on me. Almost like, because you're the most creative in the class.

And I mean, we're talking about seventh grade. I had a Michael J. Fox like haircut. I wore like, you know, little jean jacket and I liked the radio, you know, so I was kind of, I was very shocked. And that moment has, I guess, gonna be standing, you know, tall for the rest of my life. That moment, because someone verbalized to me

when I was a kid, like, oh, we can see how creative you are. You forgot sometimes. And I was just like really, really surprised that he knew I had any creativity because I didn't feel I was exhibiting anything in that particular class or whatever and and I think about that all the time that he told me that and and in that moment when I'm making these tapes or and you saw I definitely

reunite with that little kid that had I definitely reunite with that little kid that had billions of ideas. And I think about that little kid a lot, like, because they were an unusual child, probably, you know, pretty annoying and probably just kind of bizarre. Like, I think I was very kind of strange. And so I sort of see what you said earlier that that thing is still inside me and I can access it on time. And in those moments where you kind of perceive the empty space where you can put something, like nothing becomes something and creation becomes like this extremely wild complicated tool, you know, like the most

advanced tool that the idea, the nature of the idea, the power of just the idea. Not anything technical or practicing or making something or carving something, just the fucking idea. That's when I think about that little kid and I'm like, God, thank you for being me, you know, because that's when I feel the happiest. He's like, I have access to that thing. So I definitely will never divorce from that, that realm. I'll never divorce from that, from that kid. And I, you know, I'll never stop building the railroad track or whatever you're saying but I guess that was helpful for me to hear you talk about like, you know, riding from different places and sometimes maybe we lead to come down to the temporal and become the bitter Bill Hicks for a second.

But I don't want to be somebody that, you know, somebody puts on any period of my work and hits play and they see a dark energy that's a little solved. I don't want them to just only hear that. Sometimes I think aesthetically that's really pleasing, just the feeling, the colors of it. I personally really am drawn to those colors. You know, I love unresolved anger. It's like my favorite aesthetic, like industrial music or whatever when you're raging against

Reagan. I mean, that fucking sounds so great. Like I don't necessarily want to listen to a happy song, you know, written for a child. It's just not the aesthetic that makes people feel good. And that's brain chemistry, whatever. But yeah, I wouldn't want to push away that commiseration, that potential communion that I could have with someone else by being someone fully halted in some sort of bitter place, you know? So that is an interesting thing for me to think about.

Do I make things that can be accessed in a joy zone way? And I guess that's for other people to think about. But you yourself said, maybe there's a frequency that we make things on that's very pure because it came from the place we were truly designed to emit that frequency. And then you sit down in that place when you're in the right mood. I mean, it has to be like when you're vulnerable to that, you know, seminate. That's a particular communion there.

But it is interesting that you would kind of make me think about, like, am I writing from only one place sometimes? Every true artist knows that that's a failure. If every time you sit down to write, you are doing the same practice. I mean, look, one thing that you can't deny about the crucifixion of Jesus, One thing that you can't deny about the crucifixion of Jesus, very entertaining. I mean, how often do you get to watch like a messiah get fucking murdered? Like that is a once in a many incarnation chance.

A stromoporn. What's he going to say? Like, whoa, this is wild. That's the Son of God being murdered by people. Whoa. Like, I mean, that that you want to prove that time travel exists. Trust me, there's a lot of people hanging out in Christ crucifixion that have like weird clothes on and like don't quite fit in. But the so your music where I guess if I if it does

sound like I'm trying to like blow a clown horn here, the hypocrisy is that it's that your ability to like go there and then write songs about it and then execute the songs in a way that like where it's not just the lyrics but just the the dissonance is underlying underlining the message in this perfect woven together sonic parable I don't know, like, what would I want that? Like that to me is like, that's an, I wanna like smash my head into that sometimes. I need it. Like it, like, cause it, cause my, where my imbalance goes is the other way.

Suddenly I'm in fucking happy land. Like I'm comfortable with death. I'm certain of my own demise in a non-neurotic way. I'm practicing for that release, having like a nice practice where when I'm sitting, it is not uncommon to suddenly feel like I'm, for me, the way my brain inevitably translated is like, I'm back at summer camp. But really what I'm feeling is like the Tibetan Buddhism, they call it taking off the hat, where the story goes off for a second and you're back there. And that I used to think was like MDMA burning man, new relationship, I always thought it was our age, maybe if I could reverse age, I'd feel that. So once you start discovering like, oh shit,

it's easily accessible. You just have to like, you have to calm down and get quiet enough to hear it again. But so I am balanced the other way, which is why conversations like this, your music, it like, it's good because it balances me back out. It's like, are you sure? Have you thought about it? Really? Are you really sure? Like, what is this?

Is it real? And sometimes it's not. Maybe it's not and it is simultaneously, but like having the bubble popped is also a joy and also a really important part of growth as a human. There you go. Yeah, that's there you get back into the crucifixion of why it's important and why telling somebody a grisly tale can have a very beautiful, you know, reason to bring it into their, to open their eyes, right? Because if they're walking through just trusting like in the grand inquisitor, they're just trusting this, the parental system, you know?

And then you tell them the story of the crucifixion like, look, this is, this is a whole new level of awareness that I, I know you are open to, you know, that, that will let you see things as they really are. Well, there's temporal sentiments, there's time for cosmic sentiments, there's time to make instrumental music that doesn't preach to people. And I mean, I get to do a lot of that. And there's hopefully people like swimming in that somewhere, tripping in the woods,

getting all sorts of things that I may have not known I was maybe helping transmit or whatever. But it is a beautiful idea that you could sit down and also feel so happy while singing extremely rebellious sentiments. You know, that's a beautiful idea, that you can sit down and feel happy being a rebel. You know, that's what we want out of Martin Luther King. That's what we want out of the

Khanskas. We wanted them to be happy as they gave us this pure knowledge. You know what I mean? Dude, let me just read your own song to you. Can I read your own song to you? Dude, let me just read your own song to you. Can I read your own song to you? Okay. This, okay, so this is where you like appear in my car and just slap me in the face sometimes. I love it. This is from Decline of the West, Slave Morality. And it is what we're talking about here.

I won't stand idly by, don't want to comfort anyone. No one should feel all right around me. You couldn't lie, but your whole life is a lie. And I know the cliche, I know you was afraid. And then the last, everybody knows, everybody knows that you couldn't take your own medicine. Ouch. It's so good.

Don't you see it's like, it's like, it's so good. And it's such a, it is such a fucking important challenge, man. It's like, come on. Like, you know, is someone who, you know, love everyone and tell the truth. That's what Neem Kuralibaba said. Is somebody who is my own false refuge might lean into a kind of morality? Well, I try to be honest all the time. To hear like, okay, great. You're being honest all the time, fine. But are you really like living the life you're supposed to live?

Are you really truly authentically yourself? Because if you're not, who cares if you're telling the fucking truth? It's like if you're like not shoplifting accidentally, if you're coming back in because you realize you got a free fucking protein bar or what any of that stuff, if underneath it is some unaddressed fraudulence, then the whole situation is steeped in that fraudulence, you know? So to me that you kind of get to the root of things at a lot of your music.

And yeah, the idea that that challenging revolutionary way of looking at the world is going to be adopted in a traditional way by people. You know what I mean? Is, I don't see how the two can even work together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think reading that the existential human emotions in college or something by Sartre, like getting so fucking excited that there was someone being so, I mean, just shitting on the tradition of that time in the 30s and 40s and just being so, I mean just shitting on the tradition of that time in the 30s and 40s and just being

so extremely confident in delivering this rebellious message and reading that and being like, fuck dude, this is like a wave of emperation that's like impregnating like young 20 something minds and changing society, changing culture. You know, this information goes out there in its time. And like the idea that there might not be the Christian God or something or whatever he might have said in some of those books, you know, could just shatter a young person at that time. Just like to feel that information go out there in these little paper handbooks, you know. Like that was so radicalizing and yet, yeah, underneath all of that, there is some conditioning, you know, in my mind where I was thinking, well, like, I can change things. I can be part of things.

Things are going to change, but that's looking for a reward. That is looking. Absolutely. And expecting change. Look at the world. It's an insane wager to think it's going to come in that way, to expect it. Well, I keep bringing up this term, it's called false refuge. So, anything in your life that is, if your happiness is based on changing phenomena,

false refuge, that means whatever it is, your job, your relationship, your career, your health, your appearance, your president, God, so many people are taking false refuge in this state right now, which is fucking terrifying. Whatever it is, a good meal, if I get to the gym and then I meditate or whatever the fuck it is that you are like, whatever leg you're humping, you know, like dogs, most one of the more pathetic things they do is hump a leg, you know, it's like, it's so sad. They're like, man, maybe this is a pussy. Maybe I'm fucking right now. And it's like, it's a leg, dude, you're you're not

gonna like make puppies. And we cut your balls off years ago and like the the You know what? I mean, so like False refuge is leg-humping. It's like Anytime you see anybody Completely like frothing with joy over whatever the fuck it is their career their new girlfriend or boyfriend They're what whatever it is. it's just watching a dog hump a fucking leg. Because matter of time before the leg is like, get the fuck off of me, get the fuck off of

me, kicks the dog away. The world kicks you off of the false refuge, changes the leg. It just kicks, just get the fuck off, stop. Oh, you't do that? So you know what I mean? So because this is a world of false refuge, or where so many people are trying to find some peace in the hotel room or the spa or the fucking whatever the fuck, we live in a world of perpetual disappointment.

We live in, that's the thing, it's like the pop culture society or default reality people, they're the most miserable of them all. Because they're constantly getting disappointed. They're constantly getting smacked in the face by the world. Because it will not work out for you here if you're trying to like, find like a, you know, any of those love songs. Oh my god, they're

always so tragic. Where like in the love song, it's like, it last I found a reason for life. You my wife or whatever the fuck is like, dude, you're so fucked. She's fucked, you're fucked. Are you kidding me? This is what you were looking for? This is the answer for you? Like, no, it's not gonna work. So you know what I mean?

That, that false fucking refuge, this anything that a person does in the world that isn't designed to like grab the cage and rattle the cage to torture the monkey in the cage, but is more designed to sort of start pointing out, hey, I know you think that you are in a fucking incredible situation, but there's bars all over the fucking place that you think are like, are there for your entertainment, you know? And then you do it with the intent

of reducing suffering in the world. Then you become part of a secret society of so many people doing that every fucking day. And yeah, man, none of us in our right mind should expect anything from that engagement with the world because yeah, then that's its own false refuge. Because now you're trying to fucking like, now you're trying to like from your cage, free other people from their cage.

That's fucking embarrassing. I mean that is, I do that, man. That's not a critique of you, I do that. Anytime I get caught up in that Messianic shit, man, it's like, it's not as like, it's never gonna be as like effective. You can't really care. And also you can't care if they do get out of their cage. Well, that's never gonna be as like effective. You can't really care. And also you can't care if they do get out of their cage.

That's what you were saying earlier. You can't care. You can't have some sense that anyone's gonna like be like, you know what, maybe I don't have to be doing circles in some synthetic augmented reality capitalist maze of transactions, you know? Maybe nobody's gonna hear it or give a shit. Right, right. Like if you take what you just said as more of the angle than what I said earlier, like about how nothing I've done has changed the world is like almost more of like a freeing concept.

I've done is change the world is like almost more of like a freeing concept. It's the most fucking it's the most freeing. It's the most freeing. Absolutely. This is the beat poets. I always thought the beat poets were like the beat of the bongo or whatever they're they're into. But that means we're beat. We lost game over. We lost. Now we're free because we're beat. We lost. Game over. We lost. Now we're free. Because we're fucking lost. Everybody else is still trying to win. We lost. And then from that the freedom emerges. It can't, it can't be, I mean, here, let me just fucking go the opposite direction and be a complete psycho. I think there will be another Buddha. I think there will be another Maitreya is what they call it. I don't know what it's going to be. I think it's coming. I think anybody who wants to can feel it, that it's coming. Vishnu descends when there's

imbalance, you know. It's coming. And right now I just look at all of us who have the intent of being like, of helping in some way as like dropping little grains of sand into the thing that's finally going to like allow that manifestation to happen in a physical form and in a way that will change the world. I mean, Buddha goes into the forest, he hangs out with the ascetics. This informs the philosophy of Buddhism. They teach him to meditate,

they teach him to control his body, they teach him thousands of years of secret information that he then alchemizes into something that's accessible for people who aren't living in the forest in fucking loincloths. But all those thousands of years of people learning that he then alchemizes into something that's accessible for people who aren't living in the forest in fucking loincloths. But all those thousands of years of people learning about all the facets of consciousness, identity,

awareness, energy within the body, and the relationship between mind and phenomena, they all built the path to the Bodhi tree. You know, meaning they did their job. Even if it's just one little tiny, tiny little pebble, holy fuck, what an incredible thing to do for the world. You know, but the. The.

You know, let's think of I'm sorry, I'm over talking, man. No, I like, I like it. It's it makes me feel like I woke up with this pot hangover or whatever it was. And I, and I wasn't. I wasn't feeling super good. I had that lingering guilt, like, you know, maybe that was all the margaritas I had, but I had that guilt, like that weird guilt where you're like, what did I do?

What did I say? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I do know what you mean. I was worried about us recording because I was like, I'm not in a very good mood and I don't want to be, I don't want to bring you down. And then, but no, but now I feel, I feel more balanced. I feel more like you gave me some essential perspective.

And that was, I mean, that's such an uplifting idea that even if you get fucking drilled down and destroyed at the age of whatever, you know, 24 or something like maybe the Nick Drake's, but that you still your contribution goes into this rebel cabal's energy, you know what I mean? And that 100% and that it just only fuels as Richard Thomas said recently I guess he just put out a book he said something like those records that he made cannot be put away because they're just they're Absolutely perfect. You know, they're they just gain steam through the decades like no one can touch that and I only use these things as metaphors, but I just think they're very Immediate and they kind of bring you right up to speed with the sentiment.

It's just that in itself. I mean, I don't like the capitalist aspect, the fact that that guy couldn't enjoy any of the things that were good, even at the time. He never even read really like a positive review that I don't like that. But I love the way you route it into this bigger sort of river. That's that's sort of, you know, like the rebel forces or something. It's sort of like it's a pure thing pushing all the toxins and the cancers to the side as it as it opens us up towards an actual positive future. Fuck yes, dude. And that is real. And that is why when you take you the refuge of Alzen Buddhism, one of the refuges is the Sangha, the community.

And that's a real refuge. Like and you know, that has a lot of interpretations. Some people say it means the monastic community. Some people say it means the actualized beings on the planet. Some people say it means the actualized beings on the planet, some people say it means the actualized beings throughout the universe. I think of it more in terms of anybody who is really, number one, recognized they're gonna die, and number two, in that recognition, stop procrastinating helping in the world. And the moment that you do that, it is palatable.

Like these people, like if we are just discovering this, I'm just discovering this, there are people who figured this out. And then like, this is where I get woo woo, they talk to you, man. there it's not just like a one-way one-sided solitary situation anytime you sit to do your practice whatever it may be you are doing that practice with so many other people simultaneously you are you are all in a very compartmentalized situation building a fucking fucking thing, and you don't know

what the fuck your part is. You don't know. You've just been assigned to make some weird looking cog or a gear or like a, I don't know what, who knows what. You don't know what that is. That's the idea. Here's the next fucking work order. And then you're just like, I don't know what this is. And then you

make it and then you put it out there and it becomes part of a bigger machine. Whatever that may be. Yeah, man, this is the, you know, and that's the idea is like, recognize your you can't take refuge in this in this world, you can enjoy it. You can like play with the matter, the matter and you can reshape it and configure it and have fun with it. It's not an like play with the matter, the matter, and you can reshape it and configure it and have fun with it. It's not an invitation to put the world away. But you can't, it's not gonna like,

there's nothing there to comfort you really, you know, whereas in the song, when you recognize that you're not alone at any given moment, you're making art with other artists, you're tortured with other artists, you're laboring together. Then you add to that, and this is super important, it's not an egoic mission. You're not doing it to magnify and amplify your own, your fame or something, or your wealth. amplify your own, your fame or something or your wealth, then that's when you really plug in to the like people who know what's happening. And dude, that's like, that's where things get

really interesting because they're happy to talk to you. They're happy to help. Cause they were helped. You know what I mean? That's real. I believe it. I believe it. I, I can feel it. They, I mean, I have fucking dreams where these same monks come and give me Dharma talks. And like, like, it's so weird. I'll wake up after like a solid just dream of these monks being like, in a real systematic way explaining some fast of Buddhism I'm struggling with. I won't remember anything they fucking said, but I'll be like, God damn, that was amazing. You know, but it's completely intentionally accessible. It's like just, but you know,

it's like the say about the Freemasons, you wanna become a Mason, well, you gotta ask a Mason. Well, I've asked and I still can't get in. But you know what I mean? But this is the same thing. You really have to like ask, you know, whatever that is, however that looks. Usually that just looks like sitting down and make something. But you know, it can get a little more focused. Well, I think that's the most uplifting, just powerful, you know, positive spin on sort of how I woke up. Are you transmuted? I think that's,

that's a really sweet thing to give people that are driving the work right now and things. That's a, I think that is a great, I feel much more confident about just going back to work now. I like it when you crush me. I also like it when you like, I like it when you crush me. I also like it when you like you fucking shatter some bullshit I've been spinning. I love it. I mean, I don't I mean, like when you do it, I'm like, God damn it back to the fucking drawing board. You know, Imo plays the tambourine on this, by the way. Yeah. Let me comb your hair, my baby. Let me put your diaper on age is just a number and you're over a hundred but that don't make you not my lover and my mom and my mom love you mom

Well, I probably saved that for the campaign when that's the album but you can keep it in there if you want Dude I'm telling you man, I would fucking love. And I, you know, the thing is, is like, I will never see myself as a musician. And I do that to save myself embarrassment, but also to not insult my friends who are musicians, out of deep respect for my friends who are musicians, who like, if you could see Eru's face right right now he's had to put up with this since college but goddamn man I'd love to make songs with you now now that I've learned how to like how to how to like

put songs together and how to like make songs it would be so fun well I still haven't visited you since you moved to. So that's on the, we got to put that little cow in there. Dude, the kids love you. They would be so thrilled to see you. I remember after Forrest, I don't know, was Dune around when you were, you met Dune? Yeah, but he was just born. He's a baby. Yeah, Forrest, I remember was so sweet. I think we were in Georgia. And he's looking out from the vacation condo we rented at the beach. And he just sees someone walking on the beach

and he gets really excited. He goes, it's emo. It was so sweet. Because he wanted to see you. Yeah, man, they would be thrilled if you came and paid us a visit. We have a guest room. I've got, look at all this gear I've got.

Like we could just sit in here and make, we'll do what Ween did. We'll get inhalants. We'll just fucking make, we'll lock the doors so the kids can't get in. We'll make crazy shit. Yeah. Well, it's going to happen. When let's, let's, let's actually look at some tickets. Okay. Love it. All right, Emil, I love you, man. You're the best. actually look at some tickets. Okay, love it.

All right, Emil, I love you, man. You're the best. Thanks for doing the show. Love you, baby. That was Emil Amos, everybody. All the links you need to find him will be at duggitrustle.com. Thank you to our dear sponsors

and God bless you for listening. Listening. Changing a light bulb should be simple. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, that's not supposed to happen. Quickly submitting and tracking a claim on the Bel Air Direct app actually is simple. Bel Air Direct insurance simplified. Slave morality, slave morality, slave morality I won't stand idly by

Don't want to comfort anyone No one should feel alright Around me You couldn't lie But your whole life is a lie And I know the cliché, I know you was afraid If you get some lovin' in your heart And you're willing to show me Where it starts Just come and show me Where it starts

Ooh Ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, Changing a light bulb should be simple. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Uh-oh, that's not supposed to happen. Quickly submitting and tracking a claim on the Bel Air Direct app actually is simple. Bel Air Direct. Insurance Simplified.