Duncan Trussell Family Hour - DAN HARMON AND EMIL AMOS-LIVE FROM THE IMPROV

Episode Date: May 28, 2014

The DTFH recorded in front of a live audience at the Hollywood Improv!!! ...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 One in four car batteries is weak, and needs to be replaced! Let our professional parts people test your battery for free at O'Reilly Auto Parts. My name is Lucille Limone, and one year ago I hired a web designer to build a website to display my hand knitted American history themed neckties and business gloves. The web designer stopped returning my phone calls, and when I threatened to take him to Small Clang's court to get my 6000 deposit, he put an alligator in my window while I was sleeping. The alligator chewed both of my arms off in one of my feet.
Starting point is 00:00:43 Now I'm forced to knit with my mouth, and remaining foot in my work has suffered greatly. Now I cannot enjoy an alligator show, or the smell of Doritos, without thinking of the morbidly obese con man alligator wrangler, who not only destroyed my business, but ruined my life. Hello my name is Duncan Trussell, host of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast, and inventor of the Hikers' Comb. Unfortunately the story you just heard is not an isolated incident. One of the number one causes of dismemberment in the United States is from getting mauled
Starting point is 00:01:17 by a deadly animal placed in your window by an unscrupulous web designer. From bears to honey badgers, the neighborhoods of America are filled with the screams of innocent victims who awaken to find their bodies being ripped apart by the sharp vicious teeth of deadly animals. This could happen to you, but it definitely won't if you use Squarespace to build your website. There is no need to get ripped apart by a wild animal just because you want an amazing world class website to start your business or blog.
Starting point is 00:01:52 You can go to squarespace.com and for plans starting at $8 a month, you can build a world class website. You can even start a trial membership with no credit card to see if the website works for you. Works for me, I have built a website called podriff.com dedicated to the project that we're doing to try to allow people to podcast in virtual reality space and this technology of course is eventually going to lead to the invention of a time machine which will suck us all through a hole in the time space continuum where we'll all exist as one blob of plasmatic
Starting point is 00:02:24 consciousness in some futuristic paradise. That's all thanks to Squarespace. Check them out. If you go to Squarespace and enter in offercode Duncan, you'll get 10% off your first purchase. You should really try them. I'm not saying web designers are bad and I know not all web designers have some wild animals in their backyard that they're going to release into your house if you dare to ask them to finish the job, but most of them will.
Starting point is 00:02:49 There's some good ones out there. I use one. His name's Steve. He's fantastic, but if you want to stick your sweet little toe into the rivers of capitalism and find out if your business idea might actually work, why spend thousands of dollars in the beginning? At least start with Squarespace, see if your website's going to work. They've got an online store that you can use.
Starting point is 00:03:10 They've got a way to process credit cards and they've even got an awesome logo designer, which is pretty cool. It's a good business. Give them a try. Why not? They're supporting this podcast and they're really sweeties over there and most importantly, they're keeping so many entrepreneurs from waking up to stare down at the coils of their intestines falling off the side of their bed and blood pouring out of their torsos
Starting point is 00:03:35 in a thick red crimson river. That's Squarespace.com. They're building time machines and keeping you from getting ripped apart by deadly creatures. Go to Squarespace.com, enter offer code Duncan and you get 10% off your first purchase. God bless you, Squarespace. Thank you for supporting this podcast and thank you for keeping the people of America for being painfully dismembered in their sleep. Squarespace.
Starting point is 00:04:02 Squarespace. DuckatrustleFamily, our podcast is also brought to you by Amazon.com. The next time you're going to buy something through Amazon, won't you please just go to duckatrustle.com and click on the colorful Amazon portal that's located on the comment section of this very podcast. When you go through that portal, not only will you feel your quarks and nano quarks being massaged by the hands of primordial demons, you'll also give a small percentage of your purchase to your favorite podcast, the Duncan Trussell Family Hour, and it won't
Starting point is 00:04:37 cost you anything extra. There's no need to go outside anymore. I don't have to tell you that the world is a cyclone of the bare teeth of lunatics all polishing their bullets and just waiting to blast you into oblivion. You don't need to go outside. If you're going to go outside, make it because you're on a bicycle or going camping or figuring out how to build solar panels or bowing down at the feet of some forest guru who's teaching you how to astrally project and walk through walls.
Starting point is 00:05:05 There's no need to spend their precious time here on this beautiful green living planet wandering through the hell mazes that are the chain stores of America. Do you really want to bleed? Do you want to breathe the combination of the stinky carcinogenic plastic and the hamburger farts being blown out of the poor desperate souls trying to find diapers and applesauce? You don't want to deal with that. Go to Amazon.com. They have everything you could possibly need.
Starting point is 00:05:37 But first, go through our portal, won't you? Going through portals is always good. Everyone wants to go into a portal and we've got a great one. Go through the portal, support this podcast. Also, I've got some dates coming up. If you go to DuncanTrustle.com, you can see that I'm going in next week, which is the ninth and the 10th. I will be in Utah with the great Joey Diaz.
Starting point is 00:06:05 If you're out in that area, please come. And of course, we have a shop and you can check out some of our shirts. We've got an amazing new t-shirt coming in from Ron Regi. And we're going to replace the logo t-shirts that took forever to replace because of various catastrophes related to global warming. But soon the shop will be stocked up again. Go check it now. Maybe you'll find a shirt that you like.
Starting point is 00:06:30 Okay, let's get this podcast going. Let me just say before this starts that a few nights ago, I did a live podcast at the Hollywood improv and then we had an after party and it was definitely, I think it was one of the top three best nights of my life. The other two best nights of my life were involved being abducted by an alien and flown to a paradise planet on a small little meteor in Alpha Centauri. But this was definitely the third greatest night. It was amazing not only to find out that a live podcast can really work, but it was the
Starting point is 00:07:13 coolest part of it was meeting all of you guys who came to the show. You guys are the coolest people ever. It was so fun getting to meet you in person and then getting to hang out with you at the R-Bar where we had a wonderful after party with DJ's Emel Amos and Nina Tarr and Demon Babies. So I just want to say thank you to all of you guys who came to see the show and thank you to everyone who gave me so many cool gifts, including a laser edged water bottle that has gratitude written on it.
Starting point is 00:07:50 So the idea is that apparently there was that experiment done. I don't, there's a parent, I can't remember the guy's name, but apparently if you put like a smiley face in front of water, it makes it happy. Do I necessarily believe that? Absolutely not. But it's still a beautiful water bottle. So thank you for that. Thank you so much for the awesome comic book and thank you, thank you for the party rats.
Starting point is 00:08:15 Somebody gave me the most amazing gift that has really transformed my life. These are tiny little light rats that you can strap on your finger. They're great for parting, but they're also fantastic for night blogging, which is something that I really love to do. So it was amazing to see all you guys and we're going to start doing that once a month, I think. Keep your ears peeled, opened, keep your ears opened and peeled because we're going to be doing more of these and I sure as hell hope you guys will keep coming out.
Starting point is 00:08:48 So here we go. Here's a live podcast. I'm sorry if I seem, if it seems a little different than a normal interview, but it's a different dynamic when you're in front of an entire group of people and I was nervous in the beginning. And then when I realized that the room was just filled with a kind of awesome love vibe, I definitely, I think I loosened up and Harman and Emil who are the guests are geniuses. So it was really, there was really nothing that you could do wrong because those guys
Starting point is 00:09:21 were always there to pick up the ball if I dropped it, which I hopefully I didn't do too many times. So here we go. The guests on this today's podcast are Emil Amos. You can follow him on Twitter. That's Emil underscore Amos. There'll be a link to that on the comment section of this website. And he's also got an album out on bandcamp called Lost Decade Two.
Starting point is 00:09:44 You can listen to a song that we recorded together called Alter in the Woods. All those links are going to be on my website. Today's other guest is Dan Harman. He is the creator of community. He is also the creator of the adult swim show Rick and Morty. And he's also the host of an amazing podcast called Harman Town. So you should definitely listen to that. It's also on Farrell audio, the podcast network that this podcast is on.
Starting point is 00:10:16 Okay, everybody, now please open your third eyes, send out your love tendrils, not just to these two awesome human beings, but also to the entire group of 200 meat bodies that gathered together to see the first Los Angeles live Duncan Tressel family hour podcast. Hare Krishna. Please welcome Duncan Tressel of the Duncan Tressel family hour. Wow. Hi. Hello.
Starting point is 00:10:56 Thank you. Thank you so much. This is amazing. Wow, this is really crazy. I'm so excited that, you know, I was just talking to Dan Harman and he was saying, isn't it great to find out that all those years of working on material or for nothing because that is so cool. Such a great thing.
Starting point is 00:11:31 It's so exciting what's happening with podcasts. It's amazing to think that they've drawn an entire crowd of people to the improv. So cool. You know, the way I see it, if you get a group of 200 people together in a room, then the first thing you always have to do after saying hello is to get them to intone the sacred om. So I was thinking we could all just do that for a little while, just make the oming sound and relax and sort of shift the energy in this club a little bit because it is a comedy
Starting point is 00:12:10 club. And probably right now at this very moment, there's some angry old comic just radiating poison energy into this room as he snarls that doing a podcast does not count as comedy. So let's do it. One, two, three. Oh. Sounds so cool. I'd rather do that for the whole show.
Starting point is 00:12:48 We broke a glass! Yes! If we direct our energy, we can kill Putin tonight! Now, I think you'd want to. That guy's pretty awesome, actually. So okay, so I guess I have to start the podcast by, because it's weird right now that we're bifurcated because not all, there's a lot, you guys are here, but then there's also like a big audience out there on the internet.
Starting point is 00:13:21 So as I've been thinking about how to do this, I've sort of been rolling around in my mind like, how do I bring you two together? And I was thinking what would be so awesome after I introduced the podcast is that we could all sing the theme song? Okay, cool. What's that? She said Duncan, Jonestown. Not tonight.
Starting point is 00:13:50 Maybe in a few months after we really get to know each other, we'll drink poison, but I really just want... Oh, you're saying a lot of people don't... You guys might not know that the... You're welcome, right? I told... I forgot why you said that for a second. I thought you were accusing me of doing some kind of Jim Jones thing.
Starting point is 00:14:09 But yeah, what she's saying is the theme song is the Jonestown Family Choir singing that for those of you guys who didn't know. I figured those little kids shouldn't... They shouldn't drink cyanide for nothing, like now there's songs on a podcast. That's kind of cool. Okay, so I'm just going to introduce the podcast for the internet. I don't know what's... This is going to sound really weird.
Starting point is 00:14:37 This is the second live show I've ever done. So forgive me if it's a little bumpy or weird. I'm just going to have to figure out how to do the podcast live, because usually the way I do the podcast is I'm sitting in my house having had many glasses of coffee, glasses of coffee. I drink my coffee out of a wine glass. That's part of the process. And then I maybe eat a little marijuana and then sit in front of the computer and sort
Starting point is 00:15:11 of record the intro over and over and over and over again for hours. My neighbors must think it's just like a schizophrenic lonely guy sitting there talking to himself in his underwear drinking coffee out of a wine glass. So forgive me if whatever I end up saying in the beginning doesn't... It just is real crumbly and strange, because normally I'd be going back and editing it. So anyway, here we go. So weird. Hello everybody.
Starting point is 00:15:54 It's me, Dugga Trussell, and you are listening to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast. And we are recording in front of a live audience at the Hollywood Improv. Say hello. There are 200 meat bodies jammed into this room right now. And it's an incredible feeling. A lot of great energy is in here right now, all of you listening out there on the internet. And before I started recording this part of it, I told everybody that we are going to say hello to you by singing the theme song.
Starting point is 00:16:41 So do you guys know it? Do you guys know it? Okay, so maybe we'll do it. We'll sing two verses of it, and then we'll get going with a podcast. On the count of three, let's get going. One, two, three. Welcome, welcome all of you, that you are with us. Take hands, go meet you, be rude.
Starting point is 00:17:07 Welcome to you. Great work. Great. But we're going to do it one more time. But this time, do it like you knew that your parents were going to make you drink cyanide in a few months. So we're really making a good performance. Okay, on the count of three, one, two, three.
Starting point is 00:17:34 Welcome, welcome all of you, that you are with us. Shake hands, no need to be blue. Welcome to you. Awesome. That was perfect. Well, I'm not going to talk about, I don't know how caught up you guys are on the podcast, but over the last few weeks, I've gotten a severe bicycle addiction, and I can't stop. It's the strangest thing.
Starting point is 00:18:12 I'm really hooked on riding a bicycle, and today I had my first case of bicycle rage, because you know the Lycra guys, if you see them go by when you're walking, they just seem to be seething anger. Once you're wearing Lycra, and you're on a bike, you become a kind of cruise missile that has to deal with people driving cars. You have to deal with people driving cars, and the more you ride a bike, the more people driving cars seem like the end result of a collapsing shit system. The more you're riding on your bike, because when you're riding on your bike, you are given this incredible gift, which is that the space between point A and point B becomes more important than any of the points. You're doing it for just to be in the space of riding your bike outside,
Starting point is 00:19:14 and the more you ride your bike, the more you realize how car culture has basically robbed everyone of so many things, like the smell of cooking food, like when you're driving your car by people's houses, you don't smell that. When you're riding your bike, you can smell people cooking, you can listen to what's going on inside their house. Sometimes you hear them fucking, and then you put your bike down and you creep up to their windows. Cars have robbed us of that. They've robbed us of the ability to be voyeurs. They've robbed us of the joy of fervently masturbating next to someone's house, wearing your bicycle helmet and crying. But the other thing that cars rob you of is hills.
Starting point is 00:20:19 They rob you of hills, and hills are something a few weeks ago, like three weeks ago. I don't know if you guys can see it, but there is a little bit of color in my hands. And for the last many, many years, my hands have been golem white, just the white of someone who just stays inside and just is completely stuck inside their house. But now this addiction is like, I'm actually getting a tan, and when I first started riding my bike, I began to dread the hills. That was something I got really worried about, and I would think like, oh, there's no way that I'm going to be able to get to these certain parts of town, because there's a steep, terrible hill in between me and that place,
Starting point is 00:21:02 and there's no way I'm going to get my bike up it, and my ego's too big to get off my bike and push it up the hill. It's four-year-old pushing a trike. But then, now that I've gotten addicted, I've started going up these hills, and the weird thing that's happening is now I find myself longing for the hills more than going down the hill. I don't know if there's cyclists in the audience, if that's something that you experience, or if it means I might have a brain tumor or something. Fix gear. No brakes.
Starting point is 00:21:36 No! Breaks! That's a terrible idea. I don't understand that. We can talk about that, but why do people not want brakes on their bike? It's a fixed gear, so you rely on locking up your legs and skinning your back tire. Why? Because it's just more dairy. That's what it is.
Starting point is 00:22:00 What he's saying is really what starts happening is because you realize the rush of riding the bike is not just being outside and being in nature, but it's also there's an incredible rush when cars are getting really close to you. There's something really exciting about the danger, so what you're talking about is like, you love the idea of having to squeeze your legs together and push back on the tire just for the sheer horror of knowing that if you fuck up, you're going to slide in front of one of those concrete trucks, and that's it. No! I want brakes, man! I squeeze my brakes when I'm going downhill.
Starting point is 00:22:44 I'm constantly terrified. Maybe that's why I don't like hills, because I'm a pussy and I don't want to go too fast, but I like what you begin to realize is that cars are robbing us of hills. They're robbing you of the thing that a hill teaches you, which is that if you keep trying to go up any hill, eventually your body is going to warp and conform so that you can then get up a hill. And it's clearly an obvious metaphor, which Donovan embodied in that incredible song, which I can't remember the name of. It's a Zen koan, which goes, first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. And you guys have heard that? So if you guys have obviously listened to the podcast a bunch, you know that I tend to rave about how awesome technology is,
Starting point is 00:23:40 and the credible idea that at this very moment where probably every selfie you take or every video you make will be assimilated by some futuristic supercomputer and allow people to wear virtual reality goggles and go backwards in time to have conversations with digitized versions of themselves who've been abused with artificial intelligence based on their social fingerprint. You guys know what I'm, no? Okay, cool. One of the cool things about doing this by yourself is like that everything's an awkward silence. So you don't know. So there's something exciting about the idea, to me, of the technology presented pre-bike.
Starting point is 00:24:27 Pre-bike, the idea of being able to go open up digital wormholes and travel into virtual realities seemed like an incredible thing. But now that I've just been outside every day, all I want to do is like go up a hill and listen to birds and get to places where morbidly obese people can't come because those places are always more beautiful. They always are. The hill creates a barrier. The hill is the ultimate blockade for the parasitic shitheads of society who think about a hill in the same way vampires think about garlic. Like, no, it hurts you. So I had my first, anyway, I had my first case of bike rage today as I was going downhill and going super fast and some guy pushing one of those little ice cream truck things
Starting point is 00:25:37 like tried to get in front of my bike and I pulled the brakes on and I almost wrecked into him and then I'm like, fuck you dumb shit, fuck. And I realized like you are, the whole hill thing is bullshit for you. You can't assimilate the idea that life is a journey. If you're screaming, some poor guy wants to sell ice cream, you asshole. But that's the thing that a bike ends up teaching you is that the tendency in the society that we're in is that they want to take the hills away from us and they act like that's giving you a gift. They want to take away that moment in between where you are and where you want to be, that incredible uphill struggle. They want to remove that from you or give you the illusion that hills could be taken away from anything. There's no way to get rid of hills.
Starting point is 00:26:33 It's like getting wetness out of water. Hills are a natural part of existence and the struggle in between where you are and where you want to be is way better than any reward you get from finally arriving at the destination. And that, thank you. But that used to be the paycheck, you know? Like now there's a paycheck where if you do a certain number of things for a certain amount of weeks, you get a paycheck at the end of it. But it used to be there was no paycheck. Like everything was just the belly of a mother dog and humans were sort of wandering through that primordial, dangerous beauty just suckling on nipple after nipple after nipple, which was fishing or having sex or even getting attacked by a tiger.
Starting point is 00:27:25 And I think that if there is a great conspiracy, the great conspiracy is that Barack Obama is an American. He is not an American. That's the only thing I wanted to say to you guys. He's a Kenyan and those hills have taught me that. When I'm riding up the hills, a bird lands. There's always the same bird. He's got seven eyes and he has an American flag and he says, tell them Obama is a fraud. I mentioned the whole thing about that weird getting to love the effort between point A and point B because my two guests today are the most hardworking, prolific people that I know in my life.
Starting point is 00:28:19 They're not only are they two geniuses, but they have a work ethic unlike anything that I've ever seen. And it kind of acts like a little bit of sand in my bathing suit when I consider how absolutely hard they work to produce the stuff that they produce. So I'm hoping that we can talk a little bit in this podcast with them about the creative process and the question of when does leisure more important than production? And some of the ideas that I often have is I'm laying in my bed playing Hearthstone when I should be putting a podcast out. So we're just going to get the show going. Emil is going to come up. For those of you who haven't listened to the podcast, Emil Amos is a musician who plays drums for the band Olm. He also has his own band called The Holy Sons and he's going to come on stage and play some music for us.
Starting point is 00:29:20 So give him a round of applause, everybody. Emil Amos! You just got to warm your way through, friend. Emil, everybody, let him in! Emil, everybody, let him in! Applause The pain that is withheld for me I realize and I can't see
Starting point is 00:31:04 That suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can't take or leave them If I please Music All the game of life is hard to play I'm going to lose it anyway But the losing card I'll someday lay
Starting point is 00:32:03 So this is all I have to say But suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can't take or leave them If I please Music Music Music
Starting point is 00:33:21 The sort of time will pierce our skin It doesn't hurt till it begins And as it works its way on in The pain grows stronger, watch it grin Music The pain grows stronger, watch it grin Now suicide is painless It brings on many changes
Starting point is 00:34:23 And I can't take or leave them If I please Music Applause Music Don't bring me back This painless life Don't bring me back
Starting point is 00:35:18 This painless life These things I don't want to see And I know it's Gonna win again Gonna win again You know I played the game I played it through I don't care how it ends
Starting point is 00:36:12 I know it wins Don't bring me back to see My enemies defeating me I know how it feels I know how it feels I know how it feels I know how it feels I know how it feels
Starting point is 00:36:58 I know how it feels Music Music I just don't want to see My enemies defeating me I know how it feels I know how it feels I know how it feels
Starting point is 00:37:58 I know how it feels I know how it feels Applause I think we might just play one more so we can kind of keep moving. We'll do that too. I've been chipping away at a stone Living in the dark of a mine Then you just walked right in
Starting point is 00:39:11 Turn on the light and a smile again Music Felt like I'd never been received And so I'd never be received And if I'd never gotten alone I wouldn't recognize it Music It's hard to reconcile my aloneness
Starting point is 00:40:15 Embrace redemption when it's not hard won You see things let out for you Being a king was easy for you Music Felt like I'd never been received And so I'd never be received And if I'd never gotten alone I wouldn't recognize it
Starting point is 00:41:00 And if I'd never be received Then I'd never be received Applause Okay I really have too many problems You may have heard this song because it was recorded when we in Duncan were tripping I was not sure, that was a Richie Havens reference From Woodstock that never came out, but you have to know
Starting point is 00:41:57 Music Music And when the storm is clear I'll be standing right here Music I'll survive the sadness of this world So let the sun rise Music
Starting point is 00:43:10 I am a young man I live a long time I hope my heart Is not set on mud I gotta move slow And let my eyes close Music Trust in this world
Starting point is 00:44:03 With my life For him Music Music Music Applause Applause Evil Amos everybody let him hear it
Starting point is 00:45:03 Evil Amos Alright cool, well Dan Harmon is now he's going to read a passage from his book You'll be perfect when you're dead everybody give it up for Dan Harmon let him hear it Applause It's hard to get up here Dan Harmon everybody Dan Harmon Thank you
Starting point is 00:45:47 Thanks for having me and thank you Evil Amos for making my fiance pregnant with your voice It's just less work for me My fiance published this book for me as a birthday gift I don't think anyone was looking to publish any of my work But for my 40th birthday she published this book And it was a very thoughtful and it turns out profitable birthday gift And I just want to just claim and say like a lot of this stuff is cold this is from April 12th 2008
Starting point is 00:46:31 This is like from my space blog entry At the time I had an ex-girlfriend who very justifiably was feeling passive aggressively harangued by some of my veiled references to our relationship She just in general didn't like the idea that I was a sort of transparent life blogger that was including her in my maelstrom And this is me aiming a javelin at her eye But in the most cowardly way possible Because I'm a great person and I was an even better person in 2008 So if there's any references to like the Hulk being nominated for an Emmy you understand this is a Some people will be like I played the mash theme when was this recorded
Starting point is 00:47:26 Okay I talk about you in this blog entry April 12th 2008 Later on in this blog entry I talk about you But first some chit chat In my previous entry I said if you live in Los Angeles the weather was beautiful today what am I an immigrant practicing conversation What's the unspoken remainder of that insight If you don't live in Los Angeles I have a hat If you live in Quebec there is a library I apologize for that it was out of line
Starting point is 00:47:52 The weather was beautiful yesterday regardless of where you live I try to keep the contents of my MySpace blog concise, polite, accessible, soup and faggot It's 2008 it was a different time It's not often I step out of bounds but when I do I account for it I apologize I am sorry that I said if you live in Los Angeles the weather was beautiful today You don't need that kind of bullshit This blog isn't written by your fat daughter I don't get that kind of latitude
Starting point is 00:48:22 I slip up pow you pull the plug you stop reading Alternate suggestions for the sound of someone pulling the plug Pluk, clup, plug, bloop, unpluk New paragraph still not talking about you yet Maybe I'll talk about you later Maybe the last sentence will be you're a bad person Dropped like a fizzucking bizzom after 11 pages of improvised onomatopoeia and stream of consciousness What the French call licentious nizzle, slim
Starting point is 00:48:50 Alright enough let's talk about you Psych! You know what? Maybe I will never talk about you again Maybe I will not talk about you for six months but then talk about you for 20 pages Would you like a schedule of when I'll be talking about you? Well wouldn't that be convenient Given the amount of text I write that you have to scan and the time you'd save not having to scan it
Starting point is 00:49:14 You could take up tennis Fuck! Get some shopping done Work on that thing you do that only you do that I may or may not be referring to right now Well it just doesn't work that way You fuck! Welcome to hostagens Don't look it up I'll tell you it's the state of being held hostage Wait, hold it, stop
Starting point is 00:49:36 Do not use that word today I made it up I almost made you look stupid in front of your friends today Speaking of friends Am I going to talk about you? And no! New paragraph Nothing to do with you! Hello! I'm not talking about you yet but I am talking to you Just you
Starting point is 00:49:56 You know who you are You know I'm only pretending this is generic You know I'm looking directly at you and you alone And there is something I need to say to you That I would only want to say if I was talking to you I shouldn't have this kind of control over your life You should be floating through space and have Newtonian interactions Based on your gravity, your mass, your momentum
Starting point is 00:50:18 I shouldn't be affecting you I think you should stop reading I promise that if you stop reading right now I will stop writing Okay, we both broke that deal Another paragraph What's this one going to be about? Is it going to be more bullshit about how sad lonely or scared I am?
Starting point is 00:50:37 You don't have time for this shit If I'm going to say nothing of any importance to you The least I could do is keep it short If I'm going to talk about you, can't I just get to it? You don't have all day You have a conversation scheduled immediately after this To talk about me talking about you I feel bad about this enormous mountain of self-expression
Starting point is 00:50:54 I can't imagine how angry you must be When you pull up to it in your empty pickup truck And see how many meaningless chunks of me You'll have to toss over your shoulder Before you find anything that reflects enough of your special face Well here, let me give you a break Here's a shiny gem about you I think you're stupid, selfish, and untalented
Starting point is 00:51:15 Here, let me help you load that into your truck You vacuous piece of shit We'll strap it with some bungee Actually, why don't I ride with you So I can help you get this onto your identity pile It can be pretty heavy to realize that I perceive you As a wimpy, empty, self-important bore Is this your pile here?
Starting point is 00:51:34 Oh wow, impressive Man, you sure have a lot of stuff from other people on here No, no, that's not a judgment Although I suppose if it was, it would go right on this pile Okay, let's get this big mother off your truck Man, I really let you have it with this one, you parasite This is bigger than anything you've already got Now, I'm required to say this to everyone, just as a formality
Starting point is 00:51:59 You do realize, of course, that this giant jewel you got from Mount Harmon While inspired by you and reflective of you Is not you, and that its value is a piece of expression Is not value that can be directly attributed to you But is, in fact, the direct result of Dan Harmon's tendency To make things interesting Okay, good, I know it's obvious, but I'm required to tell people that You know, as long as I'm here, mind if I take a look at who you really are?
Starting point is 00:52:22 I wouldn't mind getting underneath a lot of this stuff, let's sort of... Can we do a little experiment here? Can we put everything back the way we found it as soon as I'm done But I just want to try something Could we please remove everything from your identity That is the result of someone else saying something about you? Whoa, whoa, easy, I'm not doing anything permanent We're going to put it all back
Starting point is 00:52:41 You're going to be who you were before I came here I just want to show you something Let's just make a separate pile for all these rumors people have spread about you And compliments and insults people have dealt you And these horoscopes and... Oh, personality quizzes don't count as self-expression People are always surprised to find that out Applause, booze, your mother said a bunch of bullshit that cuts both ways
Starting point is 00:53:02 But none of it matters, your accountant says you're attentive Your roommate says you're a slob Someone said you were a genius Here's some photographs, those are of you, but they aren't you Here's a clipping from a publication, not you And of course this giant sparkling jewel I created when I called you human garbage Not you Next, let's set aside all the things you like
Starting point is 00:53:21 Yes, the things we like are there because of who we are But we're trying to get to the who we are part We are not BBC America, sunsets, baby elephants and converse Okay, if we did this right, what we should have left is the stuff you've generated Including anything you've expressed about yourself that hasn't been propaganda, sabotage or lies And we call that your actual identity Well, now don't be ashamed just because it's not a giant pile of stuff doesn't mean you're not a person It's exactly fears like that that lead people overpiling with other people's stuff
Starting point is 00:53:53 You have plenty here, once your pile is cleaner, it makes it easier to make it bigger What do we got here? You're a chocoholic? I'm sorry, that shouldn't be in here, that's just saying you like chocolate You can't put a holic after something, you consume and call that an identity Aw, what's this little doodad? Did you make this? See, there we go, you make stuff, everybody makes something Let me check it out, I won't break it, I'm very familiar with these This is called an attention sucker, it's designed to draw attention toward an identity pile
Starting point is 00:54:22 These are cool, can I show you something? I have to actually open this, it's okay, take it easy I make these things all the time, I know them inside and out A lot of people hate these things because they draw attention to identity piles that have nothing in them But more attention suckers, but inside every single one of these lame-ass, embarrassing, derivative pieces of shit that we make is something incredible Look here, see that? It's right at the center, that's a little baby expression See how pretty? This expression contains something called need And even though no two expressions of need are the same, the need they express is universal and eternal So much so that you can't normally see it, unless it's expressed inside one of these little gems
Starting point is 00:55:01 Isn't that pretty? Look at that need, look how insanely incomplete and alone you are It's infinite, you were born in need, you will die in it Some people think that not only does need connect all people and all life, but that life is itself An expression of need on the part of a physical universe, and that the physical universe is an expression of need on the part of the nothingness it's trying to fill And some people actually believe that that's what God is, the original infinite, unknowable, unfillable need A single thought that says something that is not, must now be And these people that believe these things, they say that you can atone with that God by expressing your own need By simply figuring out what it is you want, being honest with yourself about it, and then expressing it in some way
Starting point is 00:55:50 In a conversation, a poem, a joke, a movie, a stained glass window, etc And everything you touch grows, and everything you imagine becomes, and you get laid, and you make money, and your life is easy And you never have to defend yourself, because everyone that means you harm bursts into flame because you're doing God's work and he doesn't want you fucked with Now, let's put this unintentional expression of need you made back inside this dumb thing surrounding it that wasted the world's time And let's put that back in your pile, and let's put all your bullshit back there, all your rehearsal, ambition, misdirection, self-pity, melodrama, entitlement, restraint, privacy, and brazen, bold-faced lies There, you're all back to your shitty self again, with me saying you're shitty, right on top, like a star on a Christmas tree You are quite welcome Thank you
Starting point is 00:56:50 2008 Thank you Dan Harmon everybody, let him in! Dan Harmon! Wow Alright, let's get this show going Everybody, please open up your heart chakras and shoot Love Tentacles out into the ether and welcome to the Duncan Trussell family hour My two best friends, the coolest people I know in the world, everybody give it up for Dan Harmon and Emil Amos
Starting point is 00:57:25 Let him in! Thank you everybody I could have just stayed up here Yeah, I realized that, it's still clunky, I gotta figure out the, I should get a stage manager or something, huh? Thank you, thank you very much Can we order beers and shit? Yeah What kind of beer do you want?
Starting point is 00:58:11 The Stella couple, two of them, three You guys, that was amazing, thank you so much, that was really awesome man, thank you So, both of you, the reason I thought it was kind of, it wasn't even intentional, but then I realized you both in your own way are kind of tortured by this stuff that's coming out of you And, what is that? Do you think that's a necessary component of the process or is that something that people just think they're supposed to feel? You know, like, why is it that the thing seems to be in some way impacting you in a way that isn't ultimately pleasurable? Well, I have always thought that, like, creatives are these gingerbread men, they're made out of just this empty, what you call, meat body And then there's a hole, if you're a creative there's a hole going through the center of you that's meant to just have some shit that is not you at all come through it and get lightly flavored by the inside rim of your gingerbread hole Right, that's from the Bible
Starting point is 00:59:28 But there is a, yes, there's a third component to it, I think the reason it hurts is because there's this thing called the ego, which is this uninvited, unnecessary Kronenberg muscle mass that kind of contorts the gingerbread man And it also is like, blocks the whole, like, Daffy Duck is the quintessential depiction of the ego, like he wants the pearl, mind, mind, mind, mind, mind, like Daffy Duck wants more credit than Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck wants pearls, that was something he was going on Yeah, remember the Genie Cave episode? Yeah, Pismo Beach Your ego is like the thing, like, oh, I wrote that, I did that Right And then that's the thing that has to get obliterated in order for you to write anything, because it won't, that's the thing that keeps the cursor blinking and nothing being typey typed
Starting point is 01:00:22 Right, that's awesome But the weird problem that you're talking about is that if you completely remove the ego, then you don't really get to enjoy the fact that you made something Bingo, yeah So that's the big paradox So the part of you that's capable of feeling anything and taking credit for anything and enjoying anything, that's the part of you that has to be gone, dead, gone, whenever you do anything of merit That's from, there's like this essay Alistair Crowley wrote, for those of you guys who don't know that, he's this quote, awesome He's like, you know, he's one of the great magicians of our time, but he had an essay called The Holy Grail, and he said the terrible thing about the Grail Cup is that the moment you drink from it, you stop being you anymore So you can't enjoy whatever that incredible delight would be in having eternal youth or being perpetually everything
Starting point is 01:01:23 So are you saying that the suffering that comes from making this stuff is just you clinging to the greedy enjoyment of what's coming out of you? Yeah Cool What do you think? I think that's totally correct But it was interesting you were talking about enjoying hills earlier, right? Yeah It seems like the basic goal of this kind of collective societal impulse is to follow this path of least resistance down this hill or something and money and success and affirmation and things are kind of tumbling down it
Starting point is 01:02:07 and everybody goes with that current, it's almost impossible to rebel against it So the artist or whatever is supposed to stop in the middle of the current or whatever and look up, back up the mountain and realize that there's this impossible task of like stopping this current or changing it and even though it's totally impossible, mythosisyphus Mythosisyphus, for those of you guys who don't know, that's pushing, I love that this crowd, someone cheers the mythosisyphus I bet that's the first time at the improv, first of all anyone to mention the mythosisyphus, they're like, oh yeah, unless syphusisyphus is like some urban deaf comedy jams comic Syphus, tell us it like it is Carlos Mencia has like a 10 minutes on syphus, it's hilarious, they heard that on his album But so my point is that the syphus myth, I think on the surface is this really negative story, like in the Pink Floyd song where he's saying, help me carry this load or whatever
Starting point is 01:03:20 There's all these references, it's always like this defeated fatalistic thing, but in terms of workaholicness and shit like that, you're just sort of living with this task And I think in a kind of, I think that's what Sartre's solution was, and I think that's what Martin Luther King, like why we really celebrate him It's because he sacrifices himself to this impossible task, this sacrificial task And then so he looks up the current, looks up the mountain, which seems completely impossible And then just finds a way to try to enjoy that subversion and going back against everything So you're saying it's like pushing the boulder up the hill is a subversion of the general flow of everything In this metaphor Entropic collapse of things
Starting point is 01:04:11 Yeah, in this metaphor You're doing this desperate attempt to fix what is ultimately a planet just sort of rotting in the middle of a hole Definitely, I mean it's all around, it's right in front of you, you don't have, this isn't like an obscure metaphor or anything But so there's this task in front of you, and that's a painful task You're going back through the current is already creating a type of violence across all the people coming down across it So people get mad, you're saying people get mad when you're creative, people just tend to get angry at you probably I'm sure people are mad at you, I listen to that fucking voicemail from Chevy Chase Yeah, well he was just sleepy
Starting point is 01:04:53 You know I went to He doesn't like to work that late I can understand I was fletched, why am I up past eight It's because of you you fat alcoholic piece of shit, I get it Man he was I saw, by the way you know I came to visit my brother in LA when he had the Chevy Chase show and I saw the Chevy Chase show I was there and saw it
Starting point is 01:05:18 Holy shit it was bad, it was so bad It was the most sad thing to watch that show Expecting like, I don't know what I expected, like the kind of like witty handsome guy from Caddyshack or something But he just seemed confused, he seemed like he didn't know what was happening and he came on stage and just seemed genuinely like M.K. ultra level Hypnotized by some malevolent Illuminati force that was like Somebody was puppeteering him with a bad connection or something Like the controller wasn't quite working It was so depressing and sad
Starting point is 01:05:58 But I like what you're saying Well he says, I'm sure he's a sweet guy, everyone at the center is full of love and I don't know We gotta love everybody, right? That's the idea, no As I've said a thousand times, I mean he was absolutely dedicated to making people laugh Which is, you know, some people aren't And that's like, I would come out into the Paramount lot and he would be stopped by a tour of people that were just touring the Paramount lot And that is all respect to Paramount, that is a shitty tour You're just pointing at buildings and going, King Kong was in there, I'll take your word for it
Starting point is 01:06:41 Here's my $800, it's a bad tour Right This is the library steps of community, what? What is that? Right Where's Dr. Phil, for God's sake But Chevy Chase would like, the people that ran across him while he was walking from one side to the other He would stop and he would gather around him and he would Suck their life energy until they withered
Starting point is 01:07:08 Until they withered in a weird fig like thing All folks lead the room, you know, like even if you're a clinical narcissist, like if you really just put the pedal to that metal If you love yourself that much and that obsessed with yourself And without any exception, without any shame or anything, I think that would lead to total redemption, making other people happy Which he did for decades, he's a fucking legend Yeah, I think there's something redemptive about fanaticism, but it is weird if anybody's solely devoted to one thing There is something in that that's always creepy Did you see that picture of the Islamic terrorist who got his legs blown off?
Starting point is 01:07:46 It's amazing, it's a video It's good, I watch it every morning when I wake up Before I take a shower, it comes on Thinking about getting every frame in it tattooed all over my body But you should just go to J-Date You need to spend some time with Just go out to dinner with some nice young ladies The video is
Starting point is 01:08:22 The video is of this guy, he's just gotten his, he just gotten blown up And he, he's drinking a Pepsi No, almost, almost He's like, somebody brings him a bottled water and he's like in shock You can see his guts are just hanging out And he's kind of propped up and the look on his face of happiness is so real And it's like, it's like the middle of a really nice picnic With someone you just fell in love with
Starting point is 01:08:56 It's just this glow, he's like drinking this water and then he just sort of dies And that to me was like, that sums up fundamentalism right there That's Chevy Chase Yeah, exactly, yeah, then I, then I, right away I thought, my god, this must be how Chevy Chase writes his jokes He watches people blown in half and then, I'm sorry, why am I, he was really funny in Caddyshack I didn't mean to attack him Great guy, I'm sure he's awesome, I don't know He's your enemy, so fuck him, Dan
Starting point is 01:09:31 Anyway, the point is, there is a type of friction that happens when you end up diligently pursuing something creatively And I remember with you, Emil, when we were in college together And you were the first person I met who spent all this time working on art I remember all I felt was like this kind of sick jealousy And it was real, like I really got annoyed with you because I was jealous And I didn't like the fact that somebody had overcome their entropy enough to constantly be creating something It was really fucking annoying Yeah, I felt that pretty heavily
Starting point is 01:10:14 Hey, I wrote a new song, Duncan, you wanna hear it? Yes It wasn't it That one's good too Would you like another wine glass of coffee? That was a, that was a fucking, this base level callback That didn't really, alright, thanks Yeah, that dynamic, that's part of what I'm talking about
Starting point is 01:10:42 You're like, you're cutting back up this river or whatever There was a guy, you remember this, there was a kid that would chase me around the campus yelling things Because I told him I was happy Oh yeah That really insulted him, like so deeply that he would chase me around and try to pull me down Well no, that's because that was another thing that happened to Emil when I met him He was so depressed, such a depressed person You were, he would lay in bed all day, he was like really down in the dumps
Starting point is 01:11:16 And I remember like we were in a, we took a class on sociology with this hardcore leftist lesbian feminist professor Do you remember her? She was a hardcore man and she was talking about, I don't remember It was a very, it probably was really important but I don't remember what it was But I remember it was just very dramatic and I looked over and you were sort of slouched over in your chair And you got this like weird laugh in the middle of her talking about this terrible like thing happening in the world That was just this like, it was like the laugh of a 120 year old man who like Heard somebody say there's hope and he's like ah There's no hope
Starting point is 01:12:04 He was like a ghost and I remember like being so sucked into liberal arts college that I'm just like what a fucking dick He's never gonna learn But be lucky if he learns even one of the liberal arts But you started reading, all of a sudden you started reading like really hardcore existential philosophy Like Heidegger and you were reading Nietzsche and then somewhere in the midst of you spending all your time reading that stuff It was like something snapped inside of you and then you became really happy Yeah, I mean I don't like to say it because it sounds intense but it's all because of you, really actually Could I get a basket of zucchini?
Starting point is 01:13:02 I'm starving How long is this show? Well, I mean Alright, I'm jealous, I'm jealous Fucking musicians, they get all the trim, it doesn't matter Well, okay, so I'm not gonna tell the whole story of my life I think when, tell me if this happened to you, but you started, I was a pretty brainy kid and I was straight edge And then I started taking drugs
Starting point is 01:13:50 Well I was a kid and I started taking drugs, that happened But I mean I was about 16 and I think one day some dude was playing Aerosmith and got me to smoke pot That's how it always happens We just like, yeah And then like, you know, it was like a weeks later it was just straight to acid The first dude I ever took acid with is actually in the back of the audience right now Anyway Give it up for Dr. Phil everybody, you came to the show tonight
Starting point is 01:14:24 I think my point is, is like, I kind of like did that sort of junky basketball diaries slide Where you just like, you start out trying to learn and then you just kind of like become a fucking useless stoner, you know, or whatever So I destroyed my brain, my brain chemistry with whatever I could get every day And then by the time I actually got to college I had been, like my skull was broken open by a drifter who took a guitar and broke me over the head So I had 17 staples in my head and all these drugs in this little box That's not a metaphor No That's what I thought it was
Starting point is 01:15:05 At first, at first My skull had been broken open Once you number the stitches, you know that's literal, okay But up until then I thought it was just like a John Mayer song My skull was broken open by a drifter called Friendship Yes, of course, thank you My point is though that like, then I met you And so I had sort of like taken, let drugs take me to this place and drop me off at sort of the end of the earth, you know
Starting point is 01:15:45 And then you sort of reminded me that I liked to learn and I liked to think and I liked to read and I liked, you know, whatever shit like that And so that it turned my life around and then you just partially only got jealous because I got so excited by that And it like fueled me to redesign myself, you know, and then we went through all those experiences together Yeah, that's a terrible moment when you realize somebody is taking advice that you can, that you're not doing for yourself And it's like, it's like making yourself happy Yeah, that was, yeah, that was really cool. Yeah, that was an amazing thing to see though because you were, what's that? Oh, I thought she said Charles Barkley It's heartbreaking
Starting point is 01:16:40 We'll get to Barkley, I've got a lot of opinions on him, I've got to lead into it I just realized Charles Barkley sounds like heartbreaking That's true Yeah, well, you know, he broke a lot of hearts of many of us and I'm so sorry, is he alive? I'm so glad he's alive He's like the minor key dude now Is he really? Pretty sure
Starting point is 01:17:08 Well, that's going to be the podcast you got, no So, so the, the, but there is a weird thing that happens where suddenly you guys are, you become separated or something Like it makes you an outsider because you end up getting magnetized into this thing that you're doing This like your ego is still there for both of you and you both have got to have at least some idea of what's coming out of you And how beautiful and inspiring and powerful it is So that sucks you into it even more and then the next thing you know you become what people call a workaholic Which is somebody you both, I know you are and I know you are, forgive me, you are You work, you work so much and so hard all the time
Starting point is 01:17:59 No, no, no, I don't work hard, but, but, but What do you mean? But workaholic, I accept as a definition because it's an unhealthy dependence on work in terms of your identity So that brings me to, this is the thing that's been happening to me I've been pedaling around on my bike and then I went up to Big Sur And I was sitting on this rock in Big Sur looking out over the Pacific and thinking to myself This is way better than anything I've ever done Like this just sitting here with my dog feels so great
Starting point is 01:18:34 And, and riding around on the bike just that feels better than any phone call I've gotten about some kind of like success Or the whole thing feels so good And then that's gotten into my brain and I just can't stop thinking about like buying an Airstream And getting, and selling all my stuff and then just like traveling around the country doing a podcast maybe Something like that He's so cool But, but the question I have for you guys is don't you ever feel, don't you ever think that like even in the, like in the midst of all this production and creation That, that ultimately it's all the, like what the book of Ecclesiastes says, Dust in the Wind
Starting point is 01:19:18 All of this is for nothing, nothing you do matters Try to drink as much as you want, that won't help, don't drink, that won't help Be with a bunch of girls, that won't help, don't be with any, nothing's- It helps a little It does help, I think that guy who wrote that was an asshole but He didn't have a bike, whoever wrote Ecclesiastes should have pedaled around on a bike But don't you, so my question is like so many people get so caught up in production Isn't there, what about just giving up everything and vanishing off into the nothingness, don't you guys ever think about that?
Starting point is 01:19:55 Well I'm 41 and I like, like I, I'm getting married in November and I want to have a kid so now that Right The, the second half of that video game starts, like if I was, if I was, when I was 30, yeah I always had that, like feeling, you know, which is why I didn't, I wouldn't write on the staffs of other people's TV shows I just kept writing stuff and kind of made my own path But now, but then there's a second half to life, in my opinion I'm sure this is just drinking the Kool-Aid of, of, of mediocrity or something, who knows, but, but I also, I don't know, I, I, I want to do it, I don't, I don't want to be the, the Gary Busey character in the back of everyone's wedding
Starting point is 01:20:45 Like, with the Hawaiian shirt Oh shit Like, going like That's me There goes another one, how are you I'll tell you, I thought you gotta follow the spiritual path That's what's important, that and the Cranapple juice Uh, I, I, I want to, I, I want to, I want to merge with my woman and make a little, make a little Asperger kid and uh
Starting point is 01:21:12 Pray to God he's not good at football and, and uh, you know, play, play, play Lego video games with him You can make it so he's not good at football Just make his shoes too tight for the first six years, he'll have feet problems It's called I have a feeling, my karma dictates that my kid's gonna be Keanu Reeves, like he's gonna be Johnny Utah Yeah, that's the scary thing about having kids is like, they're, you know, there's gonna be that inevitable moment when they see their first George W. Bush speech And like, your kid could be like, he seems really smart then That could happen
Starting point is 01:21:52 But that's called the, um, that's called the, uh, uh, in Hinduism there's these ashrams is what they're called And so there's what's called the Grihastha ashram, that's called the householder life So the idea is like owning a house, having a child and sort of like the idea is like You're supposed to like, like in the hardcore version of it, which is ridiculous and comes from the Hare Krishna's because it's such a fundamentalist idea But the idea is the only reason you have a child is to teach the child about how to transcend the cycle of birth and death and merge with God That's the only reason you even make life, but that's ridiculous Well, you guys agree, maybe so But I think that's a lot of pressure for the kid
Starting point is 01:22:34 Or you're like, we only fucked once for you Fine God, we're, yeah, that seems really intense But so the idea is it's like there's no, what I like about calling that an ashram is that, uh, there's a, that it's no different from what's called the Brahmachari ashram Which is giving up everything, abandoning your possessions, giving up, like just cutting every single tie that keeps you locked into the current paradigm And drifting out into the world, and that's a different ashram, which is like the begging monk, which seems more like what you are, Emil Nice Burn Bitch
Starting point is 01:23:16 I think, uh, most likely most people follow different trajectories spiritually, and there's no reason why like somebody should, you know, have the same arc as another person So, but the second part of life thing is incredibly true to me I think that, that, that leisure area, whatever you're talking about, was kind of something that as a kind of Faustian trading artist dude, like I had to do in the beginning And I, and I was like, had to go out and be like totally lost and get fucked up and waste my time and destroy my body and all that shit and stuff And then now, second half of life, it's my job to sit down and report everything that I learned, which is like just pure hard work, you know, pure hard work And so, like Mozart, when he's in the bed like, you know, reeling off the shit before he dies or something, it's like, it's not fun or anything necessarily But, uh, but it does make me happy in a very deep way that other things can't make me happy So, when I'm talking about Martin Luther King or Sartre, this solution to the Sisyphus thing, I'm being pretty serious that like, you just have to find a way to enjoy this hard work
Starting point is 01:24:36 And then that's sort of like the answer to the equation or something You may have your point of leisure or like that, that kind of taking in period instead of reporting, you know, and giving back or whatever You might have that a different point in your life Don't you think the reporting though is there's something in it that's like blasphemous, like the idea of like reporting in, like whenever that sneaks into your mind like, ah shit, I gotta take a picture of this It's ruining the moment That reporting in thing, you know, when Rogan was talking about his DMT experience, he was talking about how while he was in the midst of seeing these golden Buddhas and this incredible like vision of some transcendent force There was the realization that what he was thinking about was his desire to tell people about it And that creates this wall between you and the experience, you know, don't you think that selfie impulse is kind of like a satanic impulse that it's a
Starting point is 01:25:37 Well, you're, I mean, I think that I think it's more like, I mean, if it's if it's happening while life is happening to you, yeah If you're in the middle of having a life experience and you put the brakes on it in order to Instagram it, you're, you're, it's a technical violation But there are 25 year olds in the audience who for them the joy is in the Instagramming so that you can't circumscribe that too But in the strictest sense, like this guy, Sam Christensen, teaches this workshop in Burbank for actors, anybody, it's like a self image realization thing Just short of being a cult but enough to be just a really good acting class He said at one point like I was in my 20s when when I heard this from him and it kind of changed my life he said God is the moment God is right now he's here right now and the devil is five seconds ago and five seconds from now The devil is is a thing that is trying to keep you out of God's reach by making you think about what just happened and what's about to happen
Starting point is 01:26:57 Because God wants you here right now That's awesome That's so cool That just gave me this great image of Jesus returning floating over whatever city and it's just hands holding their cell phones trying to take pictures God is shot at Jesus It's also a great way to get out of you know your girlfriend goes I'm doing a show at UCB next Wednesday I'm like yeah what are you the devil I don't know if I'll make it
Starting point is 01:27:29 Anybody who invites you to their improv show has been possessed by the devil 95% of the time Any appointment any schedule yeah it's all the devil Yeah so that's the trick isn't it it's like whenever I sit down like I can look through my notebook and I'm always attempting to write a book And whenever I look at the pages where I've decided like this is where I'm writing the book it is embarrassingly bad It's just like so puffed up like some kind of I don't know who I think I am but it's like suddenly my word choices are all too big and it's awful And basically unreadable but then when I read the parts where I've just got like I'm super high sitting in the cafe unhappy about an ex-girlfriend or something That's where the good writing is so it's like figuring out a way to remove the purpose from the act of creation it seems like an impossibility how do you do that I think if you're doing it for a paycheck if you're doing it to get something done then you're going to have to accept that there's a certain amount of falseness that's going to be into it
Starting point is 01:28:37 Like you can't do 10 songs for an album and get it out by November and not have a couple of them be or just a certain percentage of the whole effort be Well this is the Sisyphian effort of pushing because for the sake of pushing So that's how it kind of dovetails what we were talking about earlier Like you could release an album or a book or write a TV pilot every 30 years and have every single page and every paragraph and every song and every melody be totally in the moment But then you're not really helping anybody by being that much of a purist The interplay between ego and that thing that comes through it and obliterates it I said earlier that the ego had no purpose but of course the ego keeps the gingerbread man moving it puts him over to the typewriter The ego's the vagina the baby pops out of
Starting point is 01:29:46 The ego looks at your fucking income tax reports the ego looks at tries to get laid the ego does everything that makes you want to get something done by a certain date And so you're a business partner with Daffy Duck in every creative endeavor Then there's the Bugs Bunny who's just like, who gives a fuck, Duck? Bugs Bunny's a Buddhist you know he was transgender he was like he transcended everything he didn't give a shit man His fucking whole he would be living in a hole in a place where they were trying to make a city and he'd be like this city needs to change Like I'm gonna fuck these people over he fucked with an opera conductor for just a half hour just for the fuck of it Like he just like he's so zen that he's Charles Manson If only my dream is to get him on the podcast
Starting point is 01:30:54 I don't know if we're applauding you're awesome but I'm not Charles Manson But you look at Woody Allen's stuff like in the 70's when he was like who's this fucking guy he made himself without permission Nobody wanted to nobody invited him up under the silver screen Nobody said hey you should be in a romantic comedy He's like just like Paul Rudd I mean he looked like a fucking writer and he was just like I don't know He's obviously his Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are at war with each other That's what you see on screen like he's it's had something to do with being able to be so Bugs Bunny
Starting point is 01:31:31 That you can actually start to make fun of the Daffy Duck use it in your shit I love this so much I've never heard this It's like the ultimate articulation of Buddhism and mindfulness because they usually use big words Crazy weird Eastern words describe this but Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck You might have just created the new Buddhism this might be it Based on you know every improv troupe there's probably 70% of the audience has been in an improv troupe There's always that one person that hangs up the flyers and books the gigs and they ain't always the funniest guy on stage They're the guy that hangs up the flyers they're the guy that gets you the gig
Starting point is 01:32:21 And they're also in the improv troupe and they come into the scene and they're like Wow I'm nervous and you're like oh Dale but like Dale the improv troupe wouldn't exist without that guy Here's my we have to go because we have the lights so I only have a few more minutes But I'm sorry you guys we only had 90 minutes we've already done 90 how much time do I have you guys I can't see six six minutes five minutes all right well here's my question for you guys Yes I will sing a song with an email That would be awesome what song That was a joke
Starting point is 01:33:02 It was a joke that backfired because they're into it Here's my question to you it's an unfair question I haven't given you time to think about it at all But for the people listening for this week can you tell them something that they should do That's going to throw their lives out of whatever weird orbit they're in And move them in the direction of something awesome Worst question ever I'm just trying to burn time I got five minutes I mean if you're if you're if you're if I'll speak to the writers in the audience If you're a writer like you you have been avoiding sucking for 20 years
Starting point is 01:33:44 This Memorial Day weekend an addition to remembering Pearl Harbor and stuff Sit down at some point and prove that you suck I saw young writers like yeah write something really shitty Make an agreement that you're gonna set fire to it no one will ever read it But like you will you'll be cleansed by proving to yourself that you are the shitty writer that you think you are And so the sitting there in this stasis going like I'm not a shitty writer. Yes, I am. No, I'm not. Yes, I am No, I'm not just just be a shitty writer and yeah do it cool be a shitty writer Well, you have you have to purge all that shit anyway, right you got to get past it There's a good Lucy K interview on Charlie Richie other day where he was saying basically that
Starting point is 01:34:32 That all the people that like don't become good writers are people that just let fear kind of drive them back Whereas if you get into those really like unsure places you kind of pedal it to the metal there You're gonna like experiment discover way more shit, which is like basic LSD frame of mind or whatever So I used to have this used to have a girlfriend and she she once I was like trying to sequence a record or something And I was like which does this song fucking suck or whatever and she was like it was a really brilliant way to say yes But she She very gently said something like well I think you have said the same thing in other ways that were a lot more constructive and and they came across really well
Starting point is 01:35:23 You know so I was kind of left to realize like maybe this isn't the best articulation That's partially with your point earlier is like as time goes on your experience Goes on you you start to merge all these things reporting You know in the taking in kind of all come together you realize there's an art to living Is an art to talking there's an art to articulation there's an art to reporting you have to be You want to be good at that you know and that's that's really difficult to do so there's nothing wrong with reporting as it's about reporting it well You know and articulating something and if you can really honor that art then you're gonna make everything worth You know other people listening to so I would say you know that like take my girlfriend's you know advice in that sense
Starting point is 01:36:13 And just like realize that the craft is really more about perfecting your ability ability to articulate what you actually mean to another person Love it you guys give these guys a round of applause Dan Harmon Before we wrap up we're having a big after party the R bar and there's still plenty of tickets So you guys come because we're all gonna be hanging out there after after this so come I tweeted the address you want to come everybody give yourselves a round of applause Thank you so much for coming We're going to be more of these you guys are awesome. Thank you so much. Good night everybody. You gotta go. Thank you Thanks for listening everybody this episode is brought to you by squarespace.com
Starting point is 01:37:13 If you like the podcast why not give us a nice rating on iTunes And also give yourself a nice rating on iTunes because you're a sweet darling and you deserve 50 stars Hare Krishna

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