Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 642: James Adomian

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

James Adomian, brilliant comedian, super funny improviser, and great voice actor, joins the DTFH! You can (and should) check out James' new special, Path of Most Resistance, on youtube! You can also learn more about James and see his upcoming tour dates on JamesAdomian.com. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg and Duncan Trussell. This episode is brought to you by: ExpressVPN - Visit expressVPN.com/duncan and get an extra 3 months FREE when you buy a 1 year package. True Classic - Visit TrueClassicTees.com/Duncan and SAVE up to 25% when you buy bundled packs! Soul - Visit GetSoul.com and use code DUNCAN at checkout for 30% off your first order!

Hello, pals. Today's guest is James Adomian. James Adomian is on my show, Crapopolis, a lot. I mean, his show too. Everyone's show who's on it. Whatever. He's a great voice-over actor, super funny improviser, and a brilliant comedian. And he has a special out now on YouTube. You can watch it right now. It called path of least resistance it's produced by 800 pound gorilla and the link is down there if you want to watch it so welcome James Adomian to the DTFH that just means it's pumping it up James welcome to the DTFH man I can't believe that you've never been on the show before. And if you have, it was a long time ago.

And I don't remember. If I have, it was a long time ago. Man, how long have we? We've known each other for a long time. But it's something like 20 years or almost that. 20 years or so. And as I was thinking about how I get to interview you, I realized like, I only know you know you from the comedy scene and I and also as like this brilliant voice actor

in an almost supernatural way. Like you're one of those that kind of like it's it seems like it's gone past talent into the occult or something. I appreciate that. I love getting to do that with you on crep opulence. Oh, it's it's the best man. And it's so fun in the beginning where I waiting and you're making everybody laugh and like transform just it's essentially like, it's some kind of shapeshifting. Like, I imagine that if we lived longer,

if humans, say, had a 500 year lifespan, and people like you got to continue to practice what you do, at some point you'd realize, like, whoa, I can actually make my face change. I can make my bone structure change. Like, you're probably some distant ancestor of some shape shifter, a Windigo or something, you know? I love this idea.

I love the idea of being a shapeshifter in showbiz and you're like 120 years old and you're like, you know, I'm starting to age out of some of the roles, but I think I'm going to lean more into live shows. Yeah. Yeah, well I mean I think at Dune there was some bizarre like you know futuristic humanoid creature that was what was it called the Tlux 2 face shifters and they could do that they could like change their face and whatever they wanted and I guess I mean obviously that's what that's what acting is but you know when, when you're able to do it the way you do it, as someone who would love to do that,

like in the way I'd love to be able to do a back flip. I'll never do a back flip. I have scoliosis on 50. It's done. Can you do a cartwheel? So now you're bullying me on my own podcast, huh? No, a cartwheel is a little easier. I could do a cartwheel, but you know,

with anything I do like that, there's a great risk. You know, I could just snap, like just something where the doctor doesn't even feel bad for you, like, well, you're 50, why? You're paralyzed now. Why did you do that? Why did you do a cartwheel? I broke my arm during the pandemic.

I fell off a bird scooter and the first, you know, after like three hours, I finally got to see the doctor and the ER. And the first thing he's used Armenian guy and he comes in and he goes, what were you doing riding a bird scooter at 1 a.m.? What do you think asshole? I was hammered.

Like everybody else. I actually was not. I was going to was hammered. Like everybody else. I actually was not. I was going to get hammered. I mean, those kinds of injuries are the most absurd. Like, you know, you're at war or something and you look down and your hand's blown off and it's like, yeah, I'm at war. But, you know, you're going to get some drinks

and then you look down and your arms flop down. You know what I mean? And that part of your brain is just trying to understand. The brain becomes the Armenian doctor. Like, why? I don't know if you were there. Were you there in the Bird Scooter Wars of 2020? They were rough, man.

They were rough. They wanted to take them away from us. They wanted to take them away. Pete Seeger would write songs where he was like, Bird Scooter! You can't take my wings! But yeah, I was, where did you grow up, James? Well, I grew up in LA from the age of nine, almost 10 years old, and we moved here from Atlanta when I was when I was a kid. Okay and you're and that's you were born in Georgia? Kind of. I was born in Omaha and then moved to Atlanta when I was like two or three months old.

Okay I got one of those. Well I got one of those. A lot of comedians have that kind of like gypsy experience of the... Yeah maybe it was like some kind of maybe the moving itself was some kind of like trauma where Yeah, maybe it was like some kind of, maybe the moving itself was some kind of like trauma where it had to become a comedian afterwards. But I get people from Omaha that are like, they try to claim me and they're like, oh, you're a Nebraska guy, huh?

Oh, you're a southerner, James. And I'm like, I don't know, I can't, I don't, I know that there's like Warren Buffett and like cows everywhere. Well, I mean, that move at nine to Los Angeles from Atlanta, that is a brutal move. That is, that's an insane, nine, you have put down roots. At nine, you know, I look at my kids, you know,

the oldest at five and like, really like they need like if you throw one thing off on their schedule, it will wobble them intensely. And so I can't even imagine at nine, you know, transplanting them, taking them away from their friends and all the everything they're used to and then plopping them down in LA. That's a, that's a dizzying move. Yeah, it was, um, lots of other people have gone through it. Oh yeah. And if in the old days you would just pick up and leave somewhere and then never be in touch with those people again, except in writing maybe.

Um, but yeah, it was, it was tough. It was tough on, on all of us. We had cousins that we were very close to and that we did not see as much for years after that. And still kind of regret that. But it's pretty exciting though. I think if I was living in Atlanta and my folks were like, we're going to California,

I would be pretty psyched too. I'd be excited. The beach, you know, it's not like you're moving to some shitty small town somewhere in the middle of nowhere. You're moving like to one of the greatest cities on earth. So there is that. Yeah, I do remember being that age because we knew we were going to move for like a year.

And so then everybody in school was like, oh, so you're gonna be like surfing in California. You're going to be a beach boy. And it's like, I do love the beach. I also grew up in, you know, I grew up going to the beaches or Santa Monica and everywhere else. I love that. But there was a big shock. The biggest shocks coming to LA, even at that age in 1989, were how everything is spread out and you don't see as many people, even compared to Atlanta. It's a bigger city, but you don't see anybody.

And it never rained and the water tasted weird to me coming from Georgia. Oh, sweet water in Georgia. That's sweet water. Sweet water in Georgia, yeah. Nothing like that Georgia tap. Roll right down a Chattahoochee. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So, okay, so why did your folks, why did they move?

That's a wild move. My dad's from LA, so for him, it was moving back. It was his Saturn return, I think it was his Saturn return. And so he moved back to where he was a child to to, to like, make it. Okay, not in showbiz like in in everything else. No, I he moved back to LA. I did that to my whole fucking family. I did a Saturn return to my whole fucking family. I did a Saturn return to my whole fucking family during the pandemic. Not even in fact, I never made the connection till

just now. I honestly, I'm not sure what a Saturn return is, but I kind of vaguely believe in astrological stuff. So like, and definitely during the pandemic, I'm like, we gotta get the fuck out of here. I can't have kids in LA right now. It's just, this is disastrous where they're trapped in this like compound that we are living in. So what do I do? I haul the whole family up to Asheville, North Carolina, where I grew up. And it was really unconscious.

It was just sort of like, well, I'm familiar with that place. We need a safe place to live for a while. Like, we need blackberries. We need blackberries and black bears. And yeah, so so we went up there and I don't know, a year and a half in, I just realized like, what the fuck did I what have we done? Like, why did I haul them? What the fuck? And so then we came to Austin, but so that is a... That's the compromise. That's the middle ground in between. So, okay, so now you're in LA and let's see, 10.

What is that? What grade is 10? I was in the middle of fourth grade. Fourth grade. When we moved from Georgia to California. Okay, oof, middle of fourth grade fourth grade when we moved from Georgia to California. Okay, ooh Middle of fourth grade. Oh, yeah so tough, you know because that's just when you're becoming that's just when you're old enough to go like ride your bike to the next town and like do stuff and

You have like a lot of friends and stuff and you know how the world works And then it's like you're you're very close to people too at that age and arguably, when you see kids out there that are like nine, 10 years old, they're very often smarter than most adults. Like you haven't unlearned a bunch of things. Yep, that's right, oh my God, it's shocking. It's shocking and also most people completely like for no reason at all

I think kids are fucking idiots just because they don't have the language capacity to articulate their experience. They're having a arguably a More I guess a pure experience of reality compared to like we have all these filters up Right like you all the things you learn to filter out to not see they're seeing the whole damn thing they're beyond good and evil to quote Nietzsche kids are beyond good and evil you know children are the ones that must be blamed and punished or the world belongs to the ms-vel I played him once in a live podcast at UCB and I got three must I got three mustaches and put them all on my face to play for a dick Nietzsche okay so I just I found this great podcast weird podcast but

He just did this whole hour on Nietzsche and you know I know anyone who's like went to college or anyone who went like through a Bitter phase knows Nietzsche. It's just anyone who's ever worn a pea coat that goes down below their knees here Here me too And you know it does appeal to like it's that goes down below their knees. Here, here. Me too. And you know, it does appeal to like, it's appealing on one level, especially if you're pissed off and you find Nietzsche and now it's like, fuck yeah, will the power baby, yeah, that's all it's all about.

But this is actually interesting because we all know Nietzsche had syphilis and that's what he, aside from his philosophy, that's the second thing people say which just sucks, right? You're like one of the great, no one's like Socrates, he had herpes, you know what I mean? It's like Nietzsche's syphilis. So Socrates, the second thing you know is that he was supposed to be ugly. Everyone says how ugly he was. What the fuck?

Who cares? It's crazy. You're not ugly. You have to be for that to fall. You're Socrates. To be remembered for 2,500 years that way. Wow, he's wise, but he is ugly, man. That is an ugly piece of shit.

Well, it's really interesting because Nietzsche, he was really, like there was this, I can't remember a name, but I suspect that a lot of what we think of is like his philosophy and a lot of the stuff that came out of his time period came from her. Like in the same way you had Crick and Watson, you were the DNA people. Well, his sister compiled a lot of his work and came from her. Like in the same way you had Crick and Watson, you were the DNA people. Well, his sister compiled a lot of his work

and edited some of it. Yeah, I'm, again, this is pure speculation, but he was in love with this psychiatrist. Oh, right, right. Right, and she was with, I think she was sort of friends, friends, I mean, I don't know if it was romantic or whatever, but with like Rilke, with,

I think, who's March of the Valkyries? Vagner. Vagner. I think all these guys, yeah, had been enamored of this intellectual woman who was an academic, including Nietzsche among them, and then she didn't want it. He got jilted. And then kind of got really bitter about it. Yeah, and you read some of the letters he wrote to her and like you realize like, whoa,

like he was so butter and brokenhearted. And that I think that informed a lot of his writings. But you gotta wonder. Because you know when you're dating anybody, their point of view gets into your world view. And you gotta wonder, how much did this woman, and it's so ironic we can't remember her name right now, because she's a lady and you can't remember her name. It's such bullshit. But like, how much-

I didn't know this would be on the pop quiz how I did I? It's the problem is like I can pick up big ideas, but names I'm this is why I love when someone's a doctor you have to remember their name You just go doctor and it feels right doc, but anyway yet I just wonder imagine if doctors didn't have that and you had to go hey, man Hey, pal. Hey Listen friend. I got a question for you. Hey man, you really gotta take out my kidney.

Come on man. Can I get a second vibe on this? So you played Nietzsche, for something like that, how much, aside from the mustaches, how much did you prepare for it? Did you read it, what did you do to get ready for that? Sure, crash course, pick up the if I have a book, I think I did at the time, you know, pick up like a edited Nietzsche reader, and, you know, go through it and read some of the major quotes,

like you read the first and last sentence of every chapter, and then be like, okay, I kind of got it just to remember the basics because Yeah, I don't think I'm not doing That kind of thing. I've done so many things like that that were one-time things, right? and I'm gonna do it for one night and I don't have a budget I'm not getting paid for it and it's if'm lucky, someone's filming it. So I'm like, I'm here to make one audience laugh. And it's not a Broadway play.

I am not here to delight critics. And so I'm just here to make a roomful of people laugh. So I'm like, I kind of think, and I've done this again and again with other things, like when I've done Orson Wells or Walt Whitman, I did also, where it's like, whatever I remember is probably what everyone else remembers And that's like all you need right yeah, yeah, you're not doing there will be blood like this isn't like you don't have to like Whatever Daniel Day-Lewis did like sit I think would be more impressive if Daniel Day-Lewis stayed out of character for three months

And just party for three months and just partied. I'm sure everyone on the set feels like that too. But just tried the costume out, you know? So he was wearing the Abraham Lincoln top hat but just going out to punk shows. I mean, you know, like, that commitment to the craft that borders on like madness. His, like I'm, it's always seemed appealing to me.

I mean, there must be like in my left, what is it, my left foot? Like he, didn't he have people carry him around? Did you hear this? This could be wrong, but I already- I did not hear this. So, okay, so you're like, you got a job. You're telling everyone in the new Daniel A. Lewis movie

I'm gonna be able to work with him, and it's like your job is to go to his trailer and carry his fucking ass into a wheelchair, wheel him to set, he's like fully in that character for the whole fucking time. I mean, I've heard that like being around method actors is real annoying. And then as far as union rules, it's like,

which department is it's their job to cart around the crazy actor? PA. It's the PA. It's got to be, right? It's not props. It's not set dressing. Yeah, that is a conversation I'm sure that they

have behind the scenes. Is he set dressing is he in Yeah, that kind of that kind of acting is So impressive though, I mean it's but this is okay. There's two main things. I want to talk to you about but to finish up The story of like how you got into this When you are in Atlanta Were you already sort of you know you know, a lot of comics, they sort of demonstrate these traits that if their parents were comedians or actors,

they would recognize like, oh, okay, there's an artist here, there's something happening. Were you beginning to demonstrate some of those traits as early as? Yeah. Okay. Like what? I want to thank ExpressVPN for supporting this episode of the DTFH. I love Express VPN it feels so good to click the button and know That I am protected not only that it allows you to teleport not literally, but if you Want whatever website you're on to think you're in, California I don't know let's just say like whatever state you live in Has some kind of weird rule that you might have to give your driver's license or something to certain things or

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slash Duncan. That's expressvpn.com slash Duncan, expressvpn.com slash Duncan. Yeah, I, not just by myself, but with my brother and with my cousins, we were all very funny. And in my mom's family, the women are funny. My mom's family is kind of a matriarchal family. And so my grandmother was the funny one and all of the daughters were really funny. And so we were always making each other laugh and life wasn't perfect. There's a lot of fighting.

There's a lot of fighting and screaming and crying and laughing, you know? Yeah. And, you know, and I, some of my earliest memories are making people laugh, imitating things off of the TV. Like even at the age of three, I clocked that the newscasters talked in a way that no one else does. Yeah. And I thought it was very funny. And I would walk around and the adults thought

it was extremely funny that I would do the news voice at the age of three. That's insane. That's insane. You know, like if, I mean, if my three year old started doing the news voice, at the age of three. That's insane. That's insane. I mean, if my three year old started doing the news voice, I would be so thrilled, and my wife, I think she would be somewhat unnerved knowing, oh fuck. He's gonna be an actor.

It's the direction he's going in. But yeah, so that's pretty wild, man. And then another, also early on, as soon as I could get on stage, I did it. And another early memory is we were at like a bluegrass festival somewhere in North Georgia or perhaps as far up as North Carolina and up at the mountains there.

And we were at some bluegrass festival and I'm a tiny little kid and I jumped up on stage with the bluegrass band and started dancing. And everyone loved it and I stayed on stage dancing with them. Wow. Wow, see there it is. These are the signs.

Like now, sorry if this is too personal. It's fine, fine. I knew what I was getting into. Okay. The Trestle fire. The Trestsell fire. The Trussell fire. I don't understand, someone as talented as you, why as a hobby you euthanize animals.

I'm just kidding. No, no, I've got to ask. Off stage, I feel very wobbly and neurotic. But when I get on stage, it's like, for a second, all that kind of like, all the bats fly out of the cave. And it's just this, it's this wonderful kind of peace. Do you have that experience in life? Yes, yes.

And sometimes I'm aware of it, and sometimes I'm not consciously on top of it, but it happens no matter what. There's two things that I have latched on to over the years. But mostly it's kind of, it starts out being bravado and like, I've got to do this and figure out how to do this. But then in hindsight, when I've looked back on everything I've done, there's two things that come to mind. And one is, um, Douglas Adams and one of I think it's in the first Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book. He describes some alien planet where there's like a showman who's a master of ceremonies

and there's this paragraph where he describes the, I'm going to paraphrase the whole thing, where it's like this hulking, sad, depressed, self-ashamed figure hunched, full of self doubt, fearfully crawled his way towards the stage, hurriedly going through his notes and terrified of what was to come. Then the music blared and the lights changed and the most charismatic figure stepped on stage. And I experienced that all the time, where, oh, this is a different thing.

It's so weird. It's not a split personality, but it seems like it could be right rubbing shoulders with that. And I've been doing this thing before I go on stage, especially if I am all up in my head. I just try to really notice that. And then I try to notice what happens when I get on stage. And the difference is so night and day that it's almost

like a mini death or something. And also the way time, I don't know, my experience of time performing is like it seems to, it stops existing for a second. Like it's like a time warp experience. Do you have that? Yeah, there's like stage time. When I'm counting out stage time and you could kind of fit, you kind of know when you've done 10, 15 101520 I have a pretty good clock for how long the show is going. Yeah, and it extends to other things where

I'm like, you know, how long we've been here about 30 minutes and it's kind of exactly 30 minutes. You're right. But um, there is occasionally a moment where I'll be on stage and have the thought cross my mind, oh wow, this is working, or oh, this is fun. And I know better than to even, I don't even allow the thought to rest at all. It's like, it has to flash through.

You really, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, right, right. Let, yes, flash through, that's right. You gotta let the bird fly through the forest. It can't land in one of the trees. It can't sit there on stage being like, wow, this is going really well, because then it's not going to. No, then it's over.

It's so paradoxical. At the same time, something might go wrong and I might have a little flash where I go, oh, okay, I gotta dial it back for these people or dial it up for these people or whatever. This guy over here in the corner is gonna be a problem. But again, it's just like a momentary thing. And this was the other thing I wanted to say about the difference between stage brain and offstage. You know, John Roy, my friend, the a Chicago guy, yeah, and he lives, he's a long time comic in LA

and occasionally New York and the road, and we've written a lot of things together. And John Roy said, he was realizing, I think he wrote this actually in some blog, that the moments right before you go on stage and the first minute that you're on stage, he says the brain of the performer is doing so many calculations where you are assessing what the room is like as far as sound and light, what the audience is like, what the ceiling is like, how much space there is, how you appear and sound on stage,

that you're doing all these calculations about everything and how hot the room is, what time the show is and everything, and are they having a good time or not before you get on stage? And that he says people don't realize that, that there's this immediate set of calculations that happen in the performer's mind. And then that laps over into the first part of the show

and then you're kind of like, okay, now we're in it. Yeah, it's like, I mean, I mean, my dad, I think, would drag me into the woods to go hunting when I was a kid, I never liked it. But, you know, if I watch shows where there's like a professional hunter, you know what I mean? And they have this bizarre thing where they're like hearing everything, like they're tuned in to like,

just like everything. Yeah, it's like that, you're listening, yeah, that's funny you mentioned the sound of the audience. Because people might not know this, but before a show, audiences's like that. You're listening. Yeah, that's funny you mentioned the sound of the audience. Because people might not know this, but before a show, audiences have different sounds. And that sound will give you some indication of how hot or cold they might be. That sound, you can tell a happy audience

from a sort of tired audience, even before you go on stage, just the way they sound. An audience that has phones, an audience that has their phones in those bags, different sounding audiences. That's so cool, he mentioned that. Yeah, and I think a lot of performers do that instinctually but don't even realize they're doing it.

You know, they don't understand. Yeah, and you know, I've come to, you know, you can tell even backstage before the show starts if you're listening to the audience, and if they have that little ribba-rabba, ribba-rabba, ribba-rabba, ribba-rabba, very low chatter, it's probably gonna be a great show. Yep, yes, yes!

Okay, so, this is the last part of the biographical conversation. I just realized, I didn't know your story. So now, at what point did you go from, I love getting on stage, to I'm gonna, this is gonna be my job, I'm going for it. That was kind of always the direction that I was tumbling and falling into.

Yeah. My dad thought that I should be a lawyer because he thought that's where, okay, if you're charismatic and outgoing and you're a performer, the real money is in, you should be like a trial attorney. And he wasn't wrong about that, but I, I mean, I was the one that would, as soon as I had the authority to walk to the video

store and rent videos that the family would watch that week, as soon as I was like deputized myself to do that with the family rental card or whatever, It was like, I was doing like an encyclopedic survey of like how many, I'm going to make sure I see as many of the Mel Brooks movies as I can find. And I've got to make, oh, what's this Abbott and Costello, I haven't seen this one. Oh, the tech savory cartoons. I haven't seen this particular release and I was upset. I was constantly always renting comedy movies basically. More than stand-up specials, comedy movies is what I learned everything from. Also stand-up lesser to a lesser degree but like the best of Carol Burnett. But you're like my friend Pemberton.

He's a hybrid. You know, he's like a stand up and an actor. But you're a stand up, but you do sketch and improv. That's a more common kind of hybrid, I guess, but it's still pretty rare. Because it's like a bunch of different things. Stand up, impressions, and then also the ability to do hilarious sketch shows, which doesn't just mean like you

Anyone who's put on a sketch show knows that is a nightmare The lead up to it the writing process a lot of arguments depending on how many people you're doing it with fighting over jokes the whole the amount of energy that goes into putting on a stage sketch show is This crazy. This was you you know this, this was, I mean, you know this as much as I do. When I started doing stand up more the second time, I had walked away from it and then I went back to it. I really appreciated how it was kind of like you're a solo operator and your colleagues in stand-up might, may if you're really close give you a note like, hey, I got an idea for a tag for one of your

jokes or something. But other than that, it's kind of unmediated between you and the audience. As long, I mean, you got to get booked. There's still some of that, but there was none of the drama, the backstage of, oh my God, she's angry at him. You know, it was different like cast members and stuff. There was none of that. We were all like solo operators. And you don't have to drag costumes around. That was a big thing, because I was coming off of doing George W. Bush all the time back in those days. And I wanted something easier, so I decided

to perform as myself more. Yeah. Because I was always finding myself at some goddamn music venue where there's like stickers and come on the mirror in the bathroom, and having to put on a George W Bush costume yeah it's a grind and dragging that shit through a crowded place where it's like no I'm on the show with a big stupid bag yeah I guess stand-ups are kind of like the nudists of the

entertainment world like we like we have to be we don't carry, we don't have the character generally. It's just ourselves. And that I think is why it scares actors or scares people because that seems too vulnerable or potentially like humiliating. Cause you know, you get rejected as a character. Yeah. You know, it's not you.

You're closer to yourself, although I think, not everybody, some people... A lot of performers who do stand up are... have a persona on stage. Oh, yeah. Sure. Or whether it's conscious or not, or like, you know, a heightened version of themselves that's like the act. Sure, absolutely, yeah. And you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. In some comics, the person they are on stage versus offstage is like night and day. Some comics, it's the exact same person, which is wild to me.

And it's interesting, but the joy. And also, you know, it's interesting but the the the joy And also, you know any you know, he's been friends with a traveling musician They're a fucking moving company, too They're having to get in there to do sound checks and to like haul their shit on stage. It's the music stuff I can't fathom I see it and sometimes my instinct if I go see if I have I'm very lucky that in addition to having a lot of comedians as friends, I have a lot of musicians as friends, because it's the next town over in Sanity Town.

It's like they're the neighbors to where comedy is, and so my instinct is always like, can I help you carry these like 300 drums you have to your giant van that's illegally parked? Yes. And that's like, that's their daily experience. That's why musicians have a more rugged quality to them. They've got their, you know,

they love what they do so much that they, and there's no choice unless you become, I don't know, like fish or something where you've got like three fucking giant trucks filled with pyrotechnics and people who do everything. But even then you still have to come in for that fucking sound check, man. In a comic, we can come in, you know,

10 minutes before we're supposed to go on stage. And that is so nice. I love it when you play a music venue and they expect, they're like, well, we have a sound, we have the sound check, we have the space for you from 5.30 to 6.30 p.m. And then you come in like, you come in at 6.30 and you're like, uh, yeah, this is good, I'll just, I'll have the, the, have the, the monitors down at a one. And they're so surprised. Yeah, that's all I want.

They get abused. So they're just like, what the fuck? You can feel when you go, you know, like if you ever gone to someone's house as a kid and their parents have been like beating them or something and you get this just general weird vibe in there. That's what people work at music venues feel like. When you get to someone's house, I remember this feeling where it's not maybe not your friend that you're coming to hang out with, but like his brother got in trouble just now before you showed up. That that's the feeling. There's been some crying.

That's the feeling because they're getting these fucking hammered like heroin juiced up. God knows what they're pissed. They've got like depending on the band They're bringing like weird groupies and they're like jizzing like you said as a tradition every musician people don't know this and I'm probably Shouldn't give away an industry secret, but the way actors will say break a leg If you're in a band you jerk off on a mirror together. That's just that and you put your band sticker over it and you put the band sticker over a lot of people don't know that that's not what a lot of them don't even have adhesive on

the back of the sticker. It's gross. I think it's gross. I'm not a musician though. So I don't know maybe that helps the show. Maybe that's part of the process. OK. Now, this is real dumb, my idea,

and feel free to reject it. I have created last night. I don't know if you knew this about me, but I am an incredible artist. And I do sketches, and they're beautiful. I've been compared to Picasso. And I turn down the offers for shows. And you pay for your meals sometimes by drawing on the place mat at Hardee's or Carl's Jr. or whatever.

Carl's Jr. I can't break through. It's hard at Carl's Jr. Jr. I can't break it. It's tough there! People don't know that man and honestly I think it's an issue of taste. I know this is going to make me seem bitter. But I feel like Carl's Jr. They have shitty taste in art. Because some of my friends get in there with their Transformer sketches and free meals all day long. But for me they're just like, no.

Transformer sketches. Optimus Prime was rewarding to draw, because he had two big pecs. His windows were like big pec muscles. Listen, I know you probably are into drawing Transformers. A lot of people are these days. I'm not going to do it. And I will not draw it.

And everyone who's leaving in the comments, please, because this is constantly on the comments, please draw a Transform transformer for us. I'm not gonna do it. That's not my style, but... This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by my actual friends at True Classic Tees. This is the coolest thing ever. One of my friends texted me and said, the genius behind True Classic Tees, liked the

last read I did and wanted to talk to me. And I got in the best phone conversation with him. Oh my god. I don't know. I got in the best phone conversation with him. Oh my god. I I Don't know. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I didn't really know Much about the company other than their shirts are the best t-shirts I've ever worn but as it turns out They're philanthropists. They're constantly donating money. It's an incredible story about how true classic tees came into existence But what's even better is the person running it is? It's an incredible story about how true classic tees came into existence.

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You should just deal with it. It's a shirt. Who cares? That's not who I am. There's a store in LA, it's the only store I know that sells these t-shirts that I like. So when I, before True Classic Tees, when I went to LA, I would go, it's so embarrassing, I would go there and just buy a pile of black t-shirts. It's so embarrassing.

And like, the ones I have, because I haven't been to LA for a while, are just like falling apart. Some of them are getting perma-stink. You know, where you've worn a shirt so long your pheromones are just kind of part of it now and like it's just always gonna stink. You could like, you could throw it in some kind of decontamination bath underneath DARPA and it would still stink. So to stumble upon True Classic Tees as a sponsor is incredibly lucky for me,

and even better, they're gonna send me a bunch of shirts, which I would have ordered anyway. I gotta replace these old stinkers. You gotta try these shirts. This is real passion. Maybe that's embarrassing, I don't know. But to find a great t-shirt in this world of darkness is, you know, it's like wandering in a desert, finding an oasis. Except it's not an oasis. That's what probably would

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Thank you, True Classic Tees. Here's what I did last night. I made a little mini comic strip and I was wondering, and it's very simple, you probably won't be able to read my writing, but I was wondering if you could do the voices in it for me. There's how many panels is it? 500 You'll see you'll see So here we go. I'm gonna plug this thing in Let me know if you could see it because this is a new thing. We don't not Hold on. Don't pull it up. You have to put my password in don't know. I guess they don't pull it up yet. I have to put my password in! They'll know, I guess they won't see it.

He's fucking in it. You've, you've, you're in the mainframe. You've hacked into the, I'm inside Riverside. Yeah, I'm in there baby. Okay, here we go. It will be uploading at the simultaneous, as a simultaneous side path through our recording, it will be uploading on the side. Correct. Okay, there's, do you see that James? It's, can you reverse it? Yeah. There's a way to reverse it.

Clown school. Does it look reverse to you? I read it correctly. Okay clown school issue one. Alright let me go back. So that's the cow I'll start with the cover page okay? Okay yeah let's hear it hold. I'll bring it back up. Clown school issue one. Oh Perfect perfect. Okay. Hold on now. This might look daunting, but it's not a lot of time Okay, here's the first panel. He has me on the podcast as a way to lure me into doing the voiceover for his animatic. Oh, when you see how marketable this is as it continues, you will feel used a little bit because I feel like this is going straight to Disney.

It's slightly pixelated, so I can't read the text. Can you make it bigger any? I can't, but wait. Damn it. Or can we send it? Can you send it? Can you see it now? Plume? Is it bigger any? I can't, but wait. Damn it. Or can we send it? Can you send it? Can you see it now? Can you see it now?

Plume? Is it plume? It says, this was Chad Plunk. OK. Here we go. This was Chad Plunk. You know what? Can you do a more feminine voice for it?

And I'm not using you here. I just thought it'd be funny. Let's do a feminine voice for this. So slightly feminine. this might be a lady I think yeah this looks like um what's her name from Chinatown you know I will it's just great not knowing the name it's I don't know the name of anybody anymore man I'm like I don't even want to get in my mind. This was Chris Plonk. Chat. This was Chris Plonk.

Perfect. Next frame. He was a high school hero. Maybe, is there a chat? Is there a chat? He was a high school hero. Okay, let me try it. He was a high school hero. Okay, let me try it. He was a high school hero.

He was a high school hero. The heartthrob, the heartthrob of Bixby. I still can't read it slightly. Here, I'll just whisper it to you. The heartthrob of Bixby. Mm-hmm. The hot throb of Bixby. And then like a teen girl going, He's hot. He's hot. It's hot. It's hot. At the lake he told me

his deepest secret. At the lake he told me his deepest secret. Now, jock voice, I want to beck voice. I want to be a clown I Want to be a clown and then a clown That's cool, I guess That's cool, I guess I didn't know that's cool. I guess I didn't know what to say. That's cool, I guess.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say. Okay, Jock voice. Can you read it? Uh, something, no I can't. That's cool. Bitcoin? That's cool, that's all you have to say, you bitch. That's cool, That's all you have to say you bitch

That's cool, that's all you have to say you bitch mm-hmm That's cool. That's all you have to say you bitch you stupid bitch That's cool, that's all you have to say, you bitch. You stupid bitch. Okay, then, jump to this one. Yeah, I think I can read that one. Okay. You whore. And then. You whore.

And then I was crushed. I was crushed. Why would you say that? Hold on, hold on. Well, that's wrong, Don't look at that one. No, not now. We're going to go here. We'll just skip over these.

I drove home crying. I drove home crying. I drove home crying. Two days later, they found his body two days later they found his body two days later they found his body someone strapped a clown nose to his face someone strapped a clown nose to his face. Then? Someone strapped a clown nose to his face.

The cops found a huge card by his body. The cops found a huge card by his body. The cops found a huge card by his body The cops found a huge card by his body says you've been invited to clown school You've been invited to clown school Thank you, I'm starting to feel guilty I swear to God it's so bad James there wasn't a moment of me thinking This this the reason I felt okay getting you to do the voices is because to me this seems as no one is buying clown school no but you could do here's the thing you need a different artist you need a different artist no you need someone to

take your sketches and then and recreate them into a living version hey Picasso we need someone to take cubism and turn it into a no my friend trot like this oh my god you make me feel like Nietzsche this rejection from an artist I respect I will you're gonna go silent for 14 years and I do have syphilis I refuse to speak I will eat only gruel okay lastly we're almost done here's a question I have real quick about that oh we're still going no wait we're almost done we're almost done that's that's the true story of your father. OK. That's the true story of your father. And then that's the true story of your father. And then like a teen voice, what the hell, mom?

What the hell, mom? You said I was adopted. What the hell, mom? You said I was adopted. What the hell, mom? You said I was adopted. And then now that I'm dying of cancer, I thought you should know the truth. I thought you should know the truth. Now that I'm dying of cancer, I thought you should know the truth. Now that I thought now that I'm dying of cancer, I thought you should know the truth. Now that I thought, now that I'm dying of cancer,

I thought you should know the truth. You have cancer? You lying bitch Hahahaha Hahahaha That's pretty much That's pretty much it Clown school Issue number one That was amazing

Thank you so much Thank you, you used the app Procreate The best I need to get it because I've been using the native app on this iPad No, and I created this kind of cartoon character that I like a lot. Can I see it? Oh, yeah Let me if you don't mind. I gotta get it from the other room problem This is the original character. I named him Floppo and this is the first one I drew. That's a mirror image of him, but I like him a lot. I like that he has no mouth and he's kind of sarcastic.

Wow, I like Floppo. I draw him in different scenarios, but I'm not good enough. I'm not as talented as an artist as I am performing, so it's hard for me to make him look like the same character in different poses and scenarios. Yeah, well, let me give you some advice. Every time I draw him, I need to take a class or advice. No, you're with me. You don't need to take a class Let me bring something up for you here that will help you James not There a Dan Harmon is is there a Dan Harmon like here's here's my 12-step Character writing take a work at the line work there James and I'm what?

You need like reference to help you I'm actually check out my master class guys on comics No, man master class is such a great Scam it's like how did they get all these a minus listers? I? Mean dude it like I think master class like I I will be honest like, I think Masterclass, like, I will be honest, like, when I, I didn't expect to get the job on Crapopolis, because I never have thought of myself as a voice actor. And so suddenly I'm going to be working with people like you, all the other great cast members, and I'm like, yeah, I'm like. The big leagues, Duncan.

Oh, please. Oh, give me a fucking break, James. Like, seriously, you are such a genius at this. And like, it's intimidating, dude. Like, you don't know what that was like. Like, in the beginning, like, you know, I don't know how to do it. I think you're doing it many times.

You seem like a natural. Well, I got to use my own voice, but still, you just, it was, it's like, like you know being some open mic or something who gets lucky enough till you know or unlucky enough to like actually have a real like show or something it's like that feeling so I did go on masterclass to learn tricks of voice acting dude because I was so free. Really? Yes. And I watched the master class by the actress who plays Lisa Simpson. She has one.

And I needed that, man, because like. You're Lee Smith, am I right? I can't. God, I don't remember names. But like. I forget if that's her name. I watched like, you know, Sarah Sherman put stuff up. I was like really looking at like the tricks

to try to like, and you don't even realize it because you've been doing it so long. But there's like some of the stuff you just do naturally because since you were three, you've been studying. I've been doing cartoon voiceovers for so long, almost naturally I do everything twice. Ah, that's hilarious! That's what you were doing with this?

Oh my God, you were doing the double take! The double take, yeah, like, that's so funny. Yeah, so like you, like I think- That would be a funny thing in a sketch if you had two cartoon actors just hanging out for lunch and they're like, ordering from the menu and they're like, I'll have the ham sandwich with, but salad instead of fries.

Um I'll have the ham sandwich but salad instead of fries. That's the funniest thing when you can do two takes of each and Which is is gotta be really like annoying for the casting director over like hours of listening to this echo But sometimes you'll just do it exactly the same way like almost indistinguishable Like you know what I mean early stats you probably don't have that problem I do all the tricks the because that when I listen to you and least that's, you probably don't have that problem. I do, all the tricks. Cause when I listen to you, and I pay attention to you when you're on Crapopolis,

and when I watch the way that you are finding these moments, these micro moments within a line, that from a slight emphasis, pulls this hilarious thing out of the line. It's so cool, man. It's like magic watching the way you guys do that stuff. But yeah, man, so we have to do double takes basically whenever we do auditions for voices.

And it's fucking hard. Yeah, we do the auditions. Not the auditions, but voice acting. It's great when you get the job. It's the coolest thing ever, but like learning how to do it. I should not have slammed masterclass. I regret it because now I'm realizing that it's the alternate path for people

who are getting into something that have just as much a right to be there. And it's an informal education. And dare I say, you could imagine if Nietzsche were here today. I would take his master class in a fucking second. His master class would be so amazing. Do Nietzsche doing a master class on power?

Ha ha ha! Power is an innate quality of the human condition. Ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha It's a lifetime movie. That's Kierkegaard by the way, the Knight of Infinite Resources. Hey-o! I was gonna say that. You did Kierkegaard there. I wouldn't know Kierkegaard, but here's the Lifetime movie.

You star it as a series actually. It's about a trial attorney who does impressions. Oh fuck. That's a great terrible idea. It's such a large idea. It just might work. It's so stupid. But you win every case. And in the pilot, and he also commits, I found out recently, I forget what it's called, because it's a word that sounds like another word slightly different, but there is a, it's called, because it's a word that sounds like another word slightly different, but there is a, it's actually, it can be a crime when you take an impression to a certain level.

It's like impersonation, it's adjacent to impersonation, but without, how do I say it this way? If you, not impersonating with fake credentials, which is its own crime, like, hey, I'm an FBI agent. But for example, if you call up someone on the phone, or show up in person and pretend to be someone who should have authority, I believe without showing credentials at that level, but they're still just even presenting yourself that there's this crime that can be committed. Wow. And I forget that it's like a very simple like Anglo-Saxon word, you know, but I forget

what it's called, but I recently discovered it where if you call up and pretend to be, if you're a journalist and you call up and pretend to be, you know, a supply chain guy asking about some shipment or something, that in certain jurisdictions it might be illegal to do that. Yeah, good. So the Jerky Boys, what they do is not always legal. No, I mean no.

Hello, ooh, hello. That's the voice, that was my favorite character too. Do you ever do- I'll bring all my glasses and all my shoes! You...man... My loves, I don't want to feel like I'm dying at the movie theater. And that is something that sadly has happened to me many a time. Because when I'm about to go to the movies, I think, you know, I'll have an editable. It'll be fun.

They don't serve booze at the movies. I like getting baked. I'll just get, you know, baked and watch a great movie. And then you get there and all you're thinking about is like, I wonder what state of decay my grandmother's corpse is in right now. I don't like that. That's not the kind of high I'm looking for in the world. Sometimes it's not the worst, but I want to be in some place I can cocoon or take a bath or scream, not a movie theater.

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Not too, not too hot, not too cold, but a little bit more than what you might want just if you were out running errands or organizing something or trying to learn how to juggle. It's amazing. We are so lucky. Again, I know I'm an old man and maybe that's good because I could just I could remind you youngs of the old days. Back in the old days you couldn't advertise THC, couldn't order it, but now it's legal in all of the states. You could just order it now. You could fly with it. It's so incredible. Take advantage of this incredible time in history and

because probably the reptilians will be like, hell no. What were we thinking? This holiday season, give the gift of soul. Head to GetSoul.com and use code DUNCAN for 30% off your order. That's 30% off your order using code DUNCAN. One last time, GetSoul.com and code DUNCAN for 30% off. order using code Duncan. One last time, getSoul.com and code Duncan for 30% off. Thank you, Soul. There are so many like things that you could do that would be like another Lifetime movie. And I'm only mentioning Lifetime or Hallmark Channel because like I finally when I go on the road managed to shift from Forensic Files to the Hallmark Channel which is also dark but in a completely different kind of dark. So that's your road diet of television is different on when you're out there?

Well, yes. I watch more TV out there or I'll have it running in the background and at some point I realize like why? I have this constant droning like death voice always in the background. This constant narration of the worst thing that could ever happen just droning in the background this this constant narration of The worst thing that could ever happen just droning in the background and an impression. Let me tell you this I don't practice impressions, but that one I would try and try you should I can't do it I can't do it. The trick is you don't need to be accurate about anything. You could just take your own voice and pitch it down I mean do it do Be do, be Duncan being, have it with a deeper voice.

And then you've basically got. Well, Lisa Williams was walking home from the park when she noticed a glittering object in a nearby bush. Well, I gotta say, when you do it, it sounds like the murderer himself got a job as the voiceover artist on the True Crime Show. I'm lucky because my wife will not tolerate, like I try to do impressions all the time

and she's very, it was in our vows, please don't say something's funny when it's not. And like, I almost wish I could go back in time and take it out of the fucking vows. But she will be like, that is horrible. That impression is impression is just terrible Duncan that doesn't sound like them at all and that's a hundred Percent of the time like I can't there was maybe one time where she's like, that's okay, but how would you do the forensic files? God, I'm sure um, it's the problem. I had the problem. I have with it is It's the prob. I had the problem I have with it is.

There's 100,000 years of that show. And I was on the road with Anthony at Tamanic and his sister-in-law who was producing our show in 2020 Trump versus Bernie. And they were constantly watching Forensic Files. And it goes back to like the late eighties, I guess. And like, there's like years and years and years, decades of episodes. And I think up until they were laughing, and I was kind of horrified. But also,

it's it's it was funny because of how wrong it is that up until like, very recent seasons, they would be shaming the victim subtly, or not even subtly, where they'd be like, she was known to hang out late at night at bars. Yeah, always. And investigators wondered if this was to blame for her ultimate demise, and you're like, that's so offensive. They found semen on her glittery, swirly dress.

Yes, and that's, it's so shockingly embarrassing that you're like, I don't know what the I don't know what the rules are. Apparently you can just you can you can tell campfire stories about anybody once they're gone. Her exposed cleavage had fish hooks in it. Yeah. You're right. I never got that. It also gets too grisly for me. I don't, it gets too grisly for me because I don't live in that world. I know people who do. No, don't live in that world. That's a bad world and man it's gotten worse because they like forensic files somehow like I guess it's gonna keep going as long as like the world is

hell but forensic files like it's for whatever reason as long as like the world is hell but forensic files like it's for whatever reason someone's like look let's show more of the dead body so now they'll just like you know you'll be watching and they used to like like you maybe you'd see a finger or something now it's just like let's just show them the whole fucking thing so you know you get battered with it, and it's but what's weird about I think that dude's voice is so strangely like Soothing if you if you didn't speak English, and you heard his voice it could easily be some kind of ASMR fall asleep Investigators arrived at the scene at 415 in the morning

On Saturday the 25th by that point the body was already badly decomposed yeah like and and just it's so fucked up that we have that that that is like that's there are headline news is basically the forensic files channel it's just forensic files it's like if it's what you if we did live in hell which sometimes I don't really think that but if I'm in a dark state I would like you know I often will think well I mean if I was making hell I wouldn't want people to know it was hell I'd want them to think they hadn't gone to hell yet and you know what I mean? But that would be the kind of thing that's

always on TV. You know what I thought of actually recently, I was making my brother laugh about this. That if you were going to truly if I was being a benevolent, like dictator in charge of something, and I was going to truly be able to punish like a great war criminal, I wouldn't you would not do this to someone who was just merely a murderer. I mean, someone who is like, with a state power, the power of a national state had killed like many, many people like George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. And you know, what, you convict them of the laws. You have a righteous showtile, whatever.

Here's my great punishment is put them in a Halloween like experience, like a haunted house, but forever, for the rest of their life to make them think that they're in hell and Really commit to it with actors and really try with great stagecraft to make it like they're in hell Every day that they're like, you know, there's like you have been here for 1300 years your sentences for infinity love it. I love it. That is brilliant See that those are the ideas that need to get made Netflix. What the fuck are you kidding me? That's the best show ever like here's the hellscape. Let's develop it a little bit here. It's so cool

So yeah, basically There's two ways to go with it one Which is it's all Gnosticism basically but one which is and I believe it could even be like the Scientology view But I'm not sure I got lucky enough to have the Scientology channel up in in a hotel I was staying out like somehow they had they the channel, so I got to watch the all day. Yeah, it is like channel 858 or something. Highly recommend, it's so fun to watch. But, you know, I'm not sure, but you know, the notion of Earth

as some kind of prison for wayward souls that don't know, or wayward gods is a better way to put it like we're all wayward gods if you fuck up enough as a god you get sent to earth as a human and you don't know you're a god and so you you basically have to experience mortality in the hopes that it will get you off your high fucking horse and get you to stop torturing humans which you've probably been doing and then but if you die, you haven't learned your lesson. You reincarnate. So the more times you've reincarnated,

that's your prison sentence. That shows that when you go to the parole board hearing, where you go in there and they're like, no, you're going back. So one version of your show is the people within some kind of cosmic prison that is hell. Oh, it is hell. But it's beyond the human level. Are you going to be reincarnated again?

And so. That's a good show. And you're the same deity every time that's facing the parole board and reviewing your actions on earth. Now here's the trick though Duncan. Are you going to be human each time or sometimes they're like, we are here to judge your actions for this recent 700 year life you had as a tree. This is the beginning of every episode.

Like okay, the beginning of every episode is this fucking scary-ass god in some form of, I don't know, sitting in a pentagram or whatever you use to freeze a god, and then they're showing, okay, let's look at what, let's do the life review. Well, it looks like this lifetime you spent 15 years kidnapping children and dropping their bodies into wax and turning them into wax sculptures. That was your very, you know, whatever the fuck a thing is, you're going back. And then yeah, each episode is this being whatever,

being a lizard or whatever, you know, and recreating the horror or something. I don't know, or it's a great video game. Maybe it's a video game. I've thought of that too, a reincarnation video game, but the problem is, you know, okay. And I'm basing this on the works of Alan Watts and so forth, where it's kind of what I believe, you know, that that there's, there's one consciousness that keeps

experiencing it by pretending it's different consciousness. Yes. And so that basically, there's like one god of the universe that's like, because it's bored, and also to explore and learn things, it eats itself, and kills itself, and lives off of itself, and falls in love with itself, and so forth. And to propel energy forward in a conscious way. And I thought it would be such an interesting video game, but you could never simulate it

because the scale at which, if there is like, if, you know, for example, if the earth is like a spaceship of reincarnation and this has been going on for billions of years, there's so many playable characters. That's right. And you might think, oh, how fucking boring. I got reincarnated as a rose bush. You've got to worry about water and minerals and too much sunlight

and people stepping on you all the time. Oh, and all the other. And that's the other thing is like just as a human, we could never understand the experience of the flower, the tree. We sort of look at it and we're like, well, it doesn't have a brain so, can't work like us. But we'll never truly know, so who fucking knows what those things are experiencing? You're constantly getting telegrams through the mycelium.

Yes. You're getting messages constantly that are like, water's low, water's low, they're building a highway. There's that loud bird again. Fucking woodpecker, woodpecker eating me. Woodpecker eating me. What the messages are. Yeah, man, I you know, this this idea that you're talking about, there's a name for it, which I think I mispronouncing but I've mispronounced it so many times

and no one's corrected me. I'm just gonna keep saying it the way I say it, which is a sinkchosynchabeta tatva, which means simultaneous oneness and difference. So the Alan Watts version is if you add unlimited power, eventually you would want to see what it was like to have limited power as a kind of like power as a kind of like Lila, a pastime, and so you end up as a person. But this version of it is actually, you are also simultaneously existing as the unlimited power, all one, you know, completion of infinity, but that and which that version of it is apparently always accessible, but you you're essentially it's like Well the way Ram Dass put it is we're all God in drag, but I think I would say we're all God Like our four into like a really powerful trip or something

You know a kind of dream state or something which would be reincar... you know, a kind of dream state or something, which would be re-incarnate. You know, when you dream, isn't that kind of another life? Don't we kind of reincarnate every night? We fall asleep, can't remember we're people. Or if we do experience ourselves in a dream, it's in a different version of our lives, and we don't really even question it. We just... I have like a complete different, I have no distinction between the living and the dead in my dreams. I have living and dead people talking to each other and I never seem to question it until

I wake up. That's right and that's kind of wild when you think about that. This is like, Terrence McKinnon would say how how you know people who are afraid of psychedelics or you know question them or whatever they forget that like at any given moment half the planet is Hallucinating like in these incredible hallucinations called dreams half what planet what we've we figure in this is this is part of my master class what we've we've figured in this is this is part of my master class is that I explain to people the perspective when you are experiencing the trip from the point of view of the mushroom that the human is like a very powerful drug that the mushroom is able to experience the mushroom is able to experience. And this is how it is. This is the truth. This is the epiphanous Niagara. This is the Niagara's of epiphanous beauty at the end of time. You

know, for a split second, the mushroom is able to experience the ambulatory power of the animal that has digested it. Oh, God, the best. He must have been so fun to hang out with. Like, just the best. I'm so bummed he's not around anymore. Man, look. You know what I love? I love to imagining Alan Watts,

if he was still around being like, and if you had an infinity of time and power, you would eventually dream that you were a warrior fighting dragons and so forth. And then you would imagine yourself to be in a more complex reality, you know, with daily responsibilities and bills and so forth. You might even put in a day-to-day hummer- life. Something boring, something terrifying, something depressing. And then, given a long enough timeline, you would start editing videos on YouTube, with Alan Watts voiceovers edited over some guy flying through mountains with electronic dance music playing underneath it ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I just need somebody to help me do the animations. Are you kidding, man? Oh my god, after we record, I'm going to point you in the direction of something that, oh, I'm good.

I will help you. Like, I'm going to show you this. Well, I think maybe we've, we've, there's a meeting of the minds here. We've seen the great, there's a great animation talent here. Yes! Oh man! And like, after the podcast, but we know, we have to talk.

This could be like Disney, this could be like Walt Disney and, oh, but iWorks. This is when Bill, no, did Bill Gates meet Steve? No, this is when, I don't know, it's when nerds- You know, the guy met the guy. This is what happens when nerds get together. Okay, wait, real quick, I mean, the whole, like, not the point, I'm just glad you came on the show.

I hope you'll come on again, man, it's so fun. I'm always in a work mode with you. I never like there's like four 15 minutes to talk Like well now I got to remember to see you when I'm in Austin, which is you know, maybe twice a year I'm there. So I got to try to remember to catch up with you I'll give you my number after we get off this thing or I think I have I don't know my phones out of juice But um, so this is the most exciting thing. You have a new comedy special out. And how long were you preparing for this special?

And I have not watched it yet. I have three kids and I'm just fucked. I can barely do anything right now. So I apologize for that and I can't wait to see it. No, that's fine. Of course not. I know it's tough. You know, it's probably not necessarily family hour

stand up, especially by the end of it. It gets dirtier as it goes on. Yes. Maybe the first 20 minutes is OK. I haven't. Don't take my word for it. But yeah, you know, of course, watch it whenever you want to know where'd you shoot it? We filmed it in LA at the Elysian theater. Almost exactly a year before it came out. And it luckily it held up and I there

wasn't anything too dated or none of the people I do impressions of died, which I was very worried about. So that was very grateful that that didn't happen. And it's really fun. I mostly practiced it right before recording. I went on the road with some very friendly shows where I could experiment. And I went on the road around the South

with Gilbert Lawand, I don't know if you know in Atlanta I did all the I did Atlanta and all the cities around the south and I did a shorter run in the Midwest Chicago upper Midwest Milwaukee and stuff and and I did I did a couple of other shows here and there on the road and a lot of shows in LA and I kind of had it figured out where I was like, okay, it worked. It's not just an LA set. It works in many places. And it's kind of a survey of the standup that I've been doing post pandemic.

And it's a lot of media observations, a lot of impressions, and there's a lot of like, very dumb things and very smart ideas that then are have a very dumb payoff. That's my favorite. I have I'm very kind of I'm happy with this combination where I have some things from the road that are more for Comedy Club audiences that don't know me. And then some things from the road that are more for comedy club, audiences that don't know me, and then some things that are like really for the comedy nerds.

And I married it all together in one special. Beautiful. That's great, man. I'm glad to hear that too, because if you go on the road too much, you can get imbalanced to that kind of comedy. And if you go in the clubs or if you like are like specific to like, like a certain type of audience that gets imbalanced that way and like finding a way to fuse those two together makes really good comedy, man.

That's the best when you see that balanced fusion of the two. It's so beautiful. It can. Or some viewers may go, oh oh gross, there's raspberries in my salad. That's North Carolina right there. James you're the best man. Where can people see your special? It's called path of most resistance. It's Where can people see your special? It's called Path of Most Resistance.

It's streaming on YouTube. It's up there for free. It's on 800-pound gorilla, so you can see it on their YouTube page. And also, I have it on my playlist on my YouTube page, which is James Adomian xoxo. And it's on all my other social media, which is usually at jadomian, and it's on my website.

And it's called Path of Most Resistance. You can watch it many places, and you can listen to it also like an album. Everybody subscribe to this brilliant wonderful man's YouTube channel. I can't wait to watch this special and I can't wait to see when you come to Austin. You're the best James. Thank you for your time. It's always fun. It's good to see you Duncan. Thank you. And I'll see you at a table read before long. Yes you will. See you man. Thank you so much James. Thank you so much, James. Thank you.

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with iGaming Ontario. How is James Adomian, everybody? Watch his special path of most resistance. All the links you need to connect with James are down there. Thank you. I love you. Okay, cool. I think we're done.