Duncan Trussell Family Hour - DUSTIN MARSHALL
Episode Date: June 29, 2015The CEO of Feral Audio, Dustin Marshall, joins the DTFH and we talk about the many strange forms of the guru, borderline personality disorder, and having the guts to tackle your mental problems. ...
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello, y'all. It's me, Duncan Tressel, and you are listening to the Duncan Tressel Family
Hour Podcast. Hare Krishna, God bless you. May the true angels of God be smiling in your
heart as you journey into the ever-present moment. Whatever the fuck that means. Oh,
holy Christ. Freshly single. I am freshly single. Like a fresh loaf of lonely bread.
Pulled out of the oven of impermanence and placed on the table of boredom. I am so
incredibly bad at relationships. It like dating or being in a relationship. I just
can't. I don't know, man. I don't know. Maybe it's, maybe I just, I don't know. Maybe I
just can't do it. Maybe I'm just one of those incapable, neurotic, troll-like beings who's
destined to pad through their empty home in slippers and underwear, eating cat food,
and listening to old Joni Mitchell albums while they contemplate the fog of confusion that
surrounds all truth. I don't know. Never been good at them. They always end to the point
where anytime I get into a relationship with someone or start dating someone, part of me
thinks we're going to hate each other one day. It's that bad. I know you're not supposed
to think those things and you're supposed to have a positive outlook on it, but it seems
like the whole process is fundamentally flawed. I mean, I don't know. Maybe at my expectations
are too grand for these things. I think that might be what it is. I have these insane expectations
when it comes to a relationship and you shouldn't have any expectations about anything. It should
just be like, oh, this person's funding out with and I'm enjoying my life hanging out
with this person, but then what happens when it's not as fun to hang out? What happens when
you start feeling like the initial passionate romance is gone and then you feel like you're
having to force things or make things happen? That's when you're supposed to get into a
responsible relationship, but I don't want that. I think that's the problem. Who wants
to experience that the doldrums, the flat seas where you're just sort of floating out
there on a life raft with this person started off as this insane, wonderful, romantic yacht
cruise through the sweet ocean of passion and love with mermaids climbing up on the banks
of secret islands singing about the glories of transcendent love. The stars overhead dancing
as you and your sweet new lover made passionate love on the deck of your magical ship pirated
by a captain by a romantic skeleton pirate. Sounds scary, but he's awesome. He like brings
scotch down to your sumptuous room in the ship where you play some mysterious piano instrument
made of crystal keys and seeing songs of love to your darling and listen to the waves pound
against the side of the ship and think about how you have found a bastion of harmony and safety
and comfort in this turbulent universe of disaster and chaos while all those around you
flail miserably through the awful world lost their hearts closed down somehow this moment of
perfect beauty has opened up for you and all the things that used to seem so boring and dull
all the crappy songs that used to strike you as being mediocre lies spit out by overpaid cocaine
addicts who seem to have generated their obvious lyrics on a rudimentary computer from the 1970s
seems like the poetry being sung by angels in heaven and that's what it's like to be in love
and then something happens something inevitably happens perhaps it's a realization maybe you
realize that there's no fucking way that you're going to be able to maintain a relationship
when there is a massive age difference between you and the person maybe you see that you just
recognize that you realize like oh this isn't fixable neither one of you is bad it's just
how can you make up for time this whole thing where older guys date younger girls is a kind of like
thing you know what is that is that a good idea i don't see how that's a good idea i thought it
might be a good idea maybe that's the problem but then you can't really judge someone based on
their age on either side of the spectrum right you just have to let things be as they are and
if you love someone you love somebody so you forget about the whole age thing or whatever
but then cracks start appearing in the windshield of the science fiction utopia that it's not a
windshield this is what it's like it's like mars think of mars mars the barren dead planet just
one big fucking desert nothing used to be water there used to be possibly super advanced hyper
intelligent green-skinned shaman-like beings that lived in verdant forests and tamed scorpion
creatures that they rode around at festivals that happened every couple of martian days maybe maybe
they smoked incredibly powerful martian vapor that allowed them to see through time and space
um who knows but now it's just a dead rotting planet it's like somebody built on mars some sort
of utopian paradise a bubble a glass bubble terraformed the bubble returned some tiny little
piece of mars to the former beauty of what mars was brought a little piece of mars back to life
now you look out that window surrounding the science fiction geranium that you're somehow
living in and all you see is death red dust rocks rising up but inside this little geranium
it's beautiful beautiful the oxygen is so pure and clean and the martian pet scorpion creatures
are so cute and everyone's singing and it's glorious but then a micro meteorite smashes
into the side of that fucking martian geranium in the form of a realization you know a realization
pops into your head like oh my god there's no fucking way that i'm going to be able to to uh
to maintain this uh this this relationship because our priorities are completely different maybe that's
what you realize and then now you've gone into this now you're in the mode of like oh fuck i'm
gonna have to like pretend that this is working out and then it isn't and then you know then the
fights start happening and that's another micro meteor and the next thing you know the whole
fucking thing is falling apart cracking in the the sacred sweet oxygen blasting out until finally
you realize this is not a place where two people can live together anymore and that's when the
relationship ends you're back to square one again contemplating the impermanence of everything
having probably lost a really close friend because you how do you end a relationship gracefully like
how does that happen you know i mean i guess it can be done you know kind of like the way the
Mayans maybe used to sacrifice children it was probably like a sweet thing i know that sounds
weird but maybe they figure out a way to make it kind of beautiful and poignant and you know the
kid gets fattened up on candied apples and honey and and Mayan booze for a year until the kid's
super fat and covered in perfume and then doesn't even thinks there's a steak at the top of the
pyramid and before he can blink there's a Mayan dagger cutting his heart out and holding it up
to the eclipse or something maybe that maybe the Mayans knew how to do it but how do you end
a relationship how does a relationship end in a non tumultuous brutal fiery sizzler level
crap steak you know what i mean
so there you are you know alone in the ruins of this former Martian utopia looking at the
shattered bits of glass that used to protect you from the horrible climate of mars breathing in
an oxygen tank seeing all the smashed cute martian pet scorpions that somehow made it
into this terrible analogy festering on the soil of mars the thing that was once this beautiful
lovely environment is gone and now you're just sitting there on mars alone staring up at that
weird black sky and you realize this is reality this is the truth the truth is this a wasteland
a blasted wasteland i've got to get used to this this is what i've got to get used to
and gradually over time this is in my fantasy you begin to learn how to live outside of that stupid
bullshit geranium that you always construct where you pretend that you're on some kind of
romantic ship floating through an ocean of peace when in fact you're murking through the darkness
that is the darkness that every human being must confront in their lives if they want to actualize
themselves and that's where you want to stay right there in that world not distracting yourself
again with some other bullshit relationship not getting lost in the hypnotic spell of this thing
or that thing but just realizing that if you really want to terraform mars if you want to terraform
the mars of your life which is the rubble of all the past relationships and everything that went
away if you want to if you can't build something made of glass on an alien fucking planet you've
got to figure out how to be alone that's what i'm trying to say in some weird hippie hemp speak
you got to figure out how to be alone that's it alone really alone laying back in that cold or
super boilingly hot martian dirt and letting your body get fried and melted and re amalgamated into
the soil of the emptiness which you are somewhere on the other side of that i think you can really
find some some amazing romance you know but i'm trying to find romance or love or trying to like
make these secret intimate special connections with just one person is probably a waste of time
anyway not a waste of time but it's a kind of selfish act do you ever consider that do you
ever consider that your obsession with your relationship your obsession with this one person
is in its own right a selfish act that that is in its own way a mistake one of the one of the
great mistakes that we all make that we all fall prey to you know like when you're a kid and you
got your security blanket or your pacifier that kind of thing it's like maybe the answer is to just
be alone not in like a depressed way not alone like you're you're the elephant man
sort of hobbling through the world with a cane and a bag over your head maybe alone in the sense
of like i am no longer going to seek um relief in any one thing i'm not going to try to soothe
the pain inside of me using nectar that i have extracted from a false impression of another person
anyway you just decided that this it's like what you don't want to fucking date a walking placebo
where you think this is the goddamn answer and all these songs they sing on the radio
know trick you into believing that this is one of the main goals like that's the bullseye
they trick you into thinking the fucking bullseye is located in between someone's legs
or in their heart or whatever whatever there's far less vulgar ways to say that
like that awful song that came out what was that terrible song that came out a while ago
was so bad oh my god i'm trying to try to try to remember this fucking song it's about some loon
who like comes to somebody's door and and tells him that she's happy
he's like i'm gonna find someone like you i can't remember the name of the song it's really weird
though like a loon the whole song is about this loon who hobbles up to somebody's door
after they've gotten married and is like listen i'm i'm really happy that you're married
and just you know i i think i might be able to find someone who's who's like you out there it's
like a song it's like a stalker anthem there's songs like that get shotgunned out of the fucking radio
to the point where so many people are just wandering around desperately trying to find
some person to the matching piece of the puzzle
god how weak is that like you're incomplete you know like the idea is you're this incomplete thing
and you're trying to find this other thing to complete you like like you're a you're a you're
a lego and there's some other lego that will perfectly fit into your lego and man once that
great conjunction happens oh lordy here come the angels but that doesn't happen
you find conjunctions desk people are definitely made to fit into each other's holes there's no
question about that all of life depends on the fact that we fit into each other's holes quite well
but before you put it in somebody else's hole you need to find your own hole
w h o le you need to be a hole a hole
not a hole because if you're a hole h o le and then you end up becoming obsessed with someone
else's h o le then all you are is one big h o le hole a pit that's it a suction one big black hole
sucking each other down into some kind of miserable state it's very sad god damn it
the suck the thing that sucks
the thing that sucks about this this black hole problem the thing that sucks about when a relationship
implodes on itself is that when you find inevitably walk away there's the potential for walking away
a little darker you know like that a little less trusting a little more confused i don't know maybe
that's good maybe that's good it's just i wish that there was a like a magical relationship
counselor unicorn that would appear out of a rainbow when things started getting weird and
would just sit down with you and your and your and your lover oh don't you understand here's
what he really means to say this is what she really means that's all see underneath it it's
all just love that'd be great but that doesn't happen that doesn't happen and you know i've been
lucky i think i've been lucky because i don't have babies and and that you know quite often that
happens is is you you find a person merge together the merger creates a baby the baby is a kind of
manacle that locks you two together even though these you realize like oh no this is just a terrible
mistake that can happen too that's why the divorce rates are so high you know i don't
you know you guys know i'm friends with christopher ryan he wrote this incredible book sex at dawn
christopher ryan's the reason the sounds better on this podcast because he gave me an incredible
soundboard this book sex at dawn is all about how monogamy doesn't tend doesn't work quite often
i'm a monogamous person i've never been in an open relationship and though i often contemplate
how i maybe i would give it a shot yeah it never ends up happening because i'm i get jealous so
stupid but you know i was talking to a friend and they were like well monogamous relationships
never work or non monogamous relationships never work non monogamous relationship sweet open
relationships never heard of them working it's like i've never heard of a relationship working
they don't none of them fucking when do they ever work and define work what does work even mean
like in the same way that whenever you start talking about some kind of i don't know idea of
how you should love yourself and practice mindfulness and meditate and spend your time
in disciplined contemplation so that you could become a better person and help someone near
and close to you inevitably somebody will say yeah but what about the starving african children
your meditation won't help them there's always a starving fucking kid who comes into any
any kind of subjective solution to the suffering inside of you you're always supposed to be worrying
over this starving kid or fukushima or some thing out there in the same way there's in in our minds
is the myth this bigfoot legend of this elderly couple that's been married for 30 years and
has never had a single fight in their entire lives and they bake each other bread and they they go out
and sit in the yard and sip tea and stare at the garden that they've cultivated together for years
and their grandchildren come and they they give the grandchildren little mints and the grandchildren
dance around them and sing beautiful hymns about how wonderful life is and how happy they are that
these two elderly people copulated back in the 40s and popped out two more people who copulated
and blasted out these little kids who are this kind of wave of happiness rolling through time
of which this elderly paradise couple is a part it's fucking Sasquatch man where is this elderly
couple i want to interview them for the goddamn podcast and then after the podcast i'm going to
strangle them they don't exist
they don't exist i think it's a myth
it's no fucking goddamn titanic you don't end up in an in the afterlife
you don't end up in the goddamn afterlife in some magic boat a child again that doesn't happen
or being misdirected here i'm not saying that you can't be happy with a person or you can't
find someone who like is right for you or someone that you can connect with but you can't fucking
connect with somebody if you haven't transformed yourself from a whole to a whole
and i don't know many people who've done that and most of the people who have done that don't seem
to really care about being in a relationship it's a paradox
it's like eating you know this you know how like they say that you should eat before you
go to the grocery store so you're not hungry at the grocery store
so like if you eat before you go to the grocery store it makes grocery shopping like much less
exciting because you're not really hungry and then all this shit that you end up buying when
you're hungry and stoned at the grocery store doesn't make its way into the cart
you'll just end up with some kale and grapes or something a couple of oranges as opposed to like
five bags of cashews some 16 kombucha's
overload a banana's two rotisserie chicken some kind of weird
sushi to go plate soups just end up with some kale and like saltless saltines
that's what it's like i mean if you go into a relationship with this kind of like famine
mentality you know or i don't know this kind of just sucking hole inside of you then yeah it's
great at first because in the same way it's great when a heroin addict finally manages to get a
hypodermic needle filled with some new juice blasted into their oozing sore on their fucking
arm it's great it's the hunger you know the hunger amplifies this the the sense of
the hunger is what
paradoxically creates the pleasure of eating but this is a cycle that only ends up in more hunger
so i don't know i'm single now that's it that's it for me i'm cashing in my bitcoins
um speaking of bitcoins i would listen to this amazing i first of all somebody from the interwebs
sent me a real a smart email about how i should start accepting bitcoins for the shop at the
dunkatrustle.com and then i've been investigating this stuff listen to bitcoin a bitcoin
story on npr and uh does anybody out there really understand bitcoins who listens to this
and if so uh what what do you guys what do you think about creating a dunk and trustle family
hour bitcoin mining collective because there's this thing you can do mining for bitcoins where
you basically use the uh uh you when you're not using your computer i don't know what it's
doing it's like processing some kind of weird algorithm that over time finds bitcoins which
then get deposited in some account and then if you do it by yourself um you'll it's like you'll
find one bitcoin every three years or something like that but if collectives do it then apparently
it's i don't know it seems fun but i don't want i don't want to spend any time bothering with it
but if somebody out there knows how to do it i think it'd be an interesting little experiment for the
the listeners of the dunk and trustle family our podcast to become a part of
just to see what happens if it's easy and it doesn't require somebody to spend uh inordinate
amounts of time uh working on this stuff so and you know how ever all really great things in the
world are easy i'm sure it's incredibly difficult but i've been thinking about that and um that's
me single and mining for bitcoins doing great okay we've got a great podcast with the creator of
the podcast network which i am part of feral audio my friend dustin marshall and uh he's gonna break
down podcasting he's gonna break down uh what uh what the various podcast networks um it's gonna
be a mildly controversial podcast um not really controversial i love dustin and i love feral audio
and uh there's so many great shows on there um if you if you if you only listen to this podcast
you should give a listen to um like call chelsea paredi listen to her show man she is so funny
she is such a funny funny person and her show is so hilarious and uh and weird
so listen to that listen to steve agie show listen to harm in town there's a lot of great
podcasts on this network and um you should check them out man
so listen i didn't mean to seem negative in the beginning ran i'm just trying you know i'm processing
this stuff myself and uh thinking about it and and i've always told you i've generally been
completely on open about whatever i'm dealing with uh personally and uh so that's just what
i'm thinking about right now and uh i don't mean to seem negative about it if you're in a relationship
cherish every precious moment of it because it's great they're great when it's working it's incredible
it's incredible enjoy it suckle at that sweet nipple sticking out of the time space continuum
enjoy it absorb it hear the angels sing i don't mean to sound so negative and if you're
in if you're in a relationship that isn't that great don't just end it work work on talking to each
other because underneath it guaranteed you guys just love each other and you're just trying to
like it's a language barrier a lot of the times but if that's not what it is then definitely get
out of it because if you feel like it's if you feel like if you feel like that lego isn't plugging
into the your hole in the right way you gotta you gotta go there's no point in that there's no
point in that you know if the screwdriver isn't the right size for the screw you'll
fuck up the top of the screw and then other screwdrivers won't be able to screw the screw in or out
as as sigman froid once said so brilliantly so there we go let's do some quick business
then we're gonna do this podcast i love you guys i hope you're all doing well getting ready for a
wonderful thanksgiving thank you for those of you who've been posting uh the dunk and trussell
forum i just went through there and there's a lot of great posts on there right now i haven't been
visiting the forum lately for some reason but there's a lot of really cool posts happening there
if you've never taken a uh if you've never taken a trip into the forum i think you should
check it out because it seems it's really good right now so go there join the dunk and trussell
dot com forum and if you want to support the dunk and trussell family hour there's a lot of ways
that you can do it uh the easiest way and is to go to through our amazon portal which is
located at dunk and trussell dot com it'll be in the comment section of this podcast uh just go
through the um go through the portal anything you buy we get a percentage of that it doesn't cost
you anything so you know thanksgivings coming up and you probably want to get turkeys decorations
and i bet they even sell turkeys at amazon dot com you can even order a turkey christmas is coming
up go through the portal won't you uh it's an it's a all you have to do the next time you're
about to buy something on amazon is go to dunk and trussell dot com first go through that portal
book market if you use amazon a lot and every time you buy stuff you help support this podcast
which i am most grateful for there is also a shop we just got new logo t-shirts in
so we ran out of our most popular t-shirt which is the dunk and trussell family hour logo
that is now available in the shop um so go pick one of those up if you tried to buy one
and it wasn't available for you to buy we are also uh sponsored by a wonderful web design company
called square space square space dot com is uh an online service that allows you to create
beautiful aesthetically pleasing websites that has all the bells and whistles that you need
to create any type of website that you want if you want a website for your podcast they have the
ability to stream audio and to set that up they if you want to sell stuff if you want to sell your
taxidermied mice collections they have a shopping cart that um they handle the entire payment system
they do everything that you need to create a great website now let me apologize in the last
square space commercial i said that hiring a web designer is a dangerous thing and that
you know 90% of deaths in america are caused by disgruntled web designers coming to your house
using leather straps to strap you down to a chair and uh burning your nipples with um super heated
metallic coat hangers using sounding rods that they shove into your urethra and then finally
pushing you down into a sandbox filled with centipedes and brown recluses until your entire
body is devoured by insects which uh they then bag and uh um transform into a dust which they
snort at night when they're building other people's websites now as true as this may be
they're i'm sure that they're they're they're definitely uses for web designers out there
so for those of you who are web designers forgive me i squarespace.com is actually something
that you can use before hiring a web designer that's the whole point squarespace.com is a
way for you to enter into the world of websites and to create an online business um
at a very low cost yeah if you want to use a web designer go ahead if you've got that kind of money
do it but not everybody has web designer level money and that's why squarespace.com is awesome
because for a very very low price we're talking starting at nine dollars uh a month you get a
website that or you get the ability to create a website and you also get instantaneous customer
service they have a chat where you can talk to people if you're having problems and then you
can also email them and they get back to you right away i actually uh did an experiment to see if this
was true and emailed them not only did they get back to me within an hour or two but they also
did a follow-up email afterwards even though i rudely didn't respond to their initial email
so they've got great customer service um if you put my name in dunkin 11 you'll get 10 off and if
you sign up for a year they will give you a free domain name so there you go squarespace.com if
you've been thinking about starting an awesome blog web business whatever you can use them
we're currently using squarespace.com to create the website for the pod rift project that we're
working on and for those of you working on the project i'm sorry that i have been uh haven't
been around as much i i've been getting ready i did drunk history and i got obsessed with studying
the subject matter which i can't talk about and so that's where i've been and we recorded it on
monday and uh i ended up i just was like uh way too hungover yesterday to do anything and so today
is the first time that i've been functional so anyway squarespace.com put my name in dunkin 11
you want proof that squarespace.com is a great company go to squarespace.com and look they built
the website with the website that's crazy to think about that's like when we start when 3d printers
start printing themselves that happened with squarespace.com thank you for sponsoring us
squarespace harikrishna we're also brought to you by sure design t-shirts.com sure design t-shirts
create some of the softest t-shirts known to man my god these shirts are so soft jesus christ you
just want to you just wish that somebody would encircle the planet in one big sure design t-shirts
so that we'd all just lay on top of these soft beautifully designed shirts while all organic
and vegetative life slowly died from suffocation or lack of exposure to the sun it might be an
awful apocalypse for them but for us it'd be a great way to go out completely surrounded by
one giant sure design t-shirt oh if only that would happen ben and why don't you get to work on that
they also they have amazing shirts with beautiful designs and if you go to sure design t-shirts
dot com and put my name in dunkin you'll get 10 off these shirts finally we're sponsored by audible
if you go to audible trial dot com four slash family hour and sign up for a trial membership
you'll get one free audiobook and they give us $15 for everybody who signs up for that so
you can cancel your membership and still keep the free audiobook and there's a lot of amazing
great books there including uh steven king's new prequel to the shining dr sleep so if you
want to listen to an awesome frightening old school steven king audiobook for free you can go
to audible trial dot com four slash family hour sign up get the book and if you want to be a jerk
and cancel it you could cancel you still get to keep the book but you won't want to cancel
because there's something awesome about getting credits every month and knowing that you're going
to get 30 hours of entertainment um for a really low price so there you go there are my commercials
and for you assholes who get mad about these commercials you can skip ahead this isn't tv
man i'm not fox news i'm not cnn on serious radio where you go to cnn and it's you're lucky if you
hear anyone talk about the news where it's just blender commercials and commercials for rascals
this is like the just a little tiny piece of the whole fucking thing somebody tweeted to me like
make your commercials under five minutes fuck you man jump ahead isn't that one of the joys
of the digital age you can just jump ahead you don't have to listen to the commercials if you
don't want to i'm not what are you that sensitive it's just that it's weird when the combination
of like liking a thing but then like being pissed at the monetization of the thing it combines like
what are you especially when you're not helpless i mean maybe if i started like if i figured out
some way to do the thing that they do on youtube or before you watch the youtube video you've got
to get injected with a no kia commercial for two minutes you know maybe if there's a way where like
i you could only listen to the podcast after having consumed a commercial and you had no choice
then i could kind of understand some complaints because that's annoying you know no one likes
commercials nobody likes it just feels weird you feel like the the guy from the clockwork orange
he's got his eyes pried open and it's like before you want to watch the video of the guy
being electrocuted at the top of the tower you've got no kia has to sell you a phone
which is pretty weird when you consider that it's like and on the internet you know that seems kind
of normal in the sense that you have to it's like you're almost paying for it with your time like
two minutes of watching a no kia commercial buys you three minutes of a man being eaten by an anaconda
but if that happened in real life like someone came up to me was like listen man i've got this video
that i want to show you it's a guy getting it's a guy with an anaconda climbing into his asshole
do you want to see it you're like fuck yeah i want to see that and he's like okay great let me just
tell you a little bit about no kia that would be weird but on the internet's okay and i guess what's
weird is you're being held hostage in the situation of podcast commercials there's no you're not being
held hostage you can skip ahead and also if you find yourself getting angry about commercials at the
beginning of a podcast it's time to sit down and really think about your life like is that really
activating rage inside of you is that really upsetting you that's where you're at that's creating
reactivity consider it just think about it sit down and think about that that's where you're at
it's a sign that you need to start drinking kava kava perhaps
i get mad at stupid shit too guys so don't feel bad i get mad too
oh well that's just part of human life isn't it we have to be the entire pendulum sweeping from
mediocrity and rage to blissfulness and joy somewhere in that terrible path through the
polarities of the self that is where we'll find happiness good luck if you find it send me an email
today's guest on the dunca trestle family our podcast is the creator of feral audio the greatest
podcast collective in existence today he's also a dear friend of mine and a beautiful sweet person
who i'm very glad is alive on this planet his name is dustin martian i'm gonna have links to
feral audio to his twitter and everything that you need marshal rather i call him dustin martian
that's his nickname i'm gonna have all the links that you need at duncatrussell.com go check out
feral audio say hi to my sweet friend dustin on twitter be nice to each other and and and if you're
in a sweet relationship and everything's great right now do me a favor give your darling a deep
tongue kiss for me and tell them you love them for rills even though you just might temporarily
be experiencing this beautiful utopian moment know that that moment will last forever in the great
seal that is all things
and that seal is a circus seal dancing and jumping around for some demonic circus
circus circus circus man god damn it i'm single
well dustin martian everybody welcome to the duncatrussell family our dustin martian
welcome
it's the duncatrussell family
dustin martian technically marshal yeah welcome thanks for having me fuck yeah man
we're made it finally we did it i shouldn't have put it off so long come here but you know
hold on cute little puppy in here yeah i got my dog here feral audio is uh is is everyone who
listens to my podcast knows the duncatrussell family ours part of feral audio and you are the
founder president and uh everything of feral audio out except you don't have your own podcast
no which is weird yeah i never really wanted to be on mic but i'm on kind of brody stevens on the
reg now i've been on actually a couple but i don't have my own now uh but yeah the the podcast
collective that was started in your volvo yeah that's right almost over a year and a half ago
oh wow yeah except like the whole antithesis is heavily involved with you and your show and when
i came here and met you but it yeah that's a strange thing because you used to listen to the
lavender hour before you came to los angeles yeah i used to stock groceries like frozen food
and i was always a big comedy fan and like a diy bedroom producer then i started going to college
for like electronics because i wanted to like learn how to fix shit when it broke right and uh i just
became obsessed with podcasts and then i found the lavender hour and it just uh it was my my
favorite and then i came out here and you are always looking for like sound help on the show
yes i came out here and i saw natasha and i was like i used to looking for help and she's like
yes please and then my second sunday here you and i met you on your doorstep that is wild it is
trippin and and but before that like cuz it was very cosmic to me because what was the headphones
um i had you you were kind of my conduit into like spiritual like uh meditation and i started
practice that in college and i kind of attribute my success in college and like getting out of
there alive to like mastering breathing and right anxiety and all that shit but you were the first
person when i started listening to it you'd like reference crowley or something and i was like oh
shit who is this guy but you got me to alan watz and rom das and so like for six months
i got heavily involved in meditation and you were like my my introduction and all that that
is crazy and then and then um you you came you started helping us to the lavender hour
and uh natasha and i separated one our separate ways yeah that was brutal that's like my parents
getting divorced or something yeah yeah you're like my mom and dad out here my first my first six
months in la you just mentored me to care of me and then yeah and then uh it's so strange i remember
you were working for ear wolf yeah i came here to work for ear wolf as an audio engineer you were
working at ear wolf ear wolf ear wolf ear wolf how do you fucking mispronounce wolf it's the
ear wolf you were working at ear wolf and uh you were deeply involved in pod podcasting and then
i remember that conversation we're sitting in my volvo i think i was a little drunk maybe yeah we
were at the big foot lodge and we were like kind of in the back of a bar seat because uh the stuff
that your wolf wasn't working out it was just like really dramatic and and it wasn't working out and
then i wanted to keep doing and i was like well how do i keep doing this and then you just kind of
took me under your wing and like really mentored me and uh we were like okay so originally it was
gonna fair a lot it was gonna be like uh like a seminar or something i think you were like the
idea was you were gonna um introduce me to comics and i was gonna like teach people how to do podcast
for like a small nominal fee yeah and then i was gonna kind of be there on call if they needed help
and then we were like well what if we did it as a like a network and i was like well i i'm from
madison where there's like these art i used to volunteer in art collective and i used to work at
like a community radio station so i had this idea of doing it like an art collective where everybody
just pulls their things together and we just i i asked a bunch of people and they all said yes
and then it happened in a month we launched that it happened from your car in a month we had five
shows on the website it was crazy how quickly it expanded and because it was because what was
happening you know i don't know what podcasts are doing these days but there was a time when
so like um you know podcast networks started springing up and
there was let's see there's the podcast networks i can think of right now are
feral audio death squad uh earwolf nerdist spot adam corolla adam corolla smott smodcast smodcast
so there's like all these networks that are uh that started springing up and then
basically all of these networks had various deals that they were working with the people
who were doing the podcast and not naming any names but some of those some of them had
fucked up deals where like they would get podcasters you would go in and they would tell you
before you started they're like look you're never gonna make any money from this podcast and
you're gonna like get people to come to your shows this is the classic like you'll get publicity
thing right but but uh that is crazy that's crazy because then like the uh the podcasters would
advertise and the network would get everything yeah it wasn't just what it's not just one like
everybody basically what all these in like uh my my history with earwolf was kind of amazing
because i started going i'm from madison wisconsin i started going to chicago to this
comedy festival just for just for laughs and that's my first year is where i met dino um we're at
star burns industries right now which is owned by dan harmon and dino cementopolis which is now
they're letting us use the studio to record you're you're jumping ahead too far um but uh i met dino
and like uh bob odin Kirk and david cross my first year there who and i would later work with and
my next year i met like ocherman and this guy jeff allrick and they started they were starting
this thing and it wasn't called anything yet so i had like i was volunteering and helping so i've
watched all this all the networks like boom and it was really interesting it happened in like two
years man so this thing happened like so fast but they were trying they're everything they
popped up like tv networks like they were making people sign stuff that were like uh okay um we own
uh all of this and we are doing all the bulk of the work and so um yeah it was like you
they're just straight up in the pitch meeting like you're not going to make any money from this
and then i would go to like the lavender hour we'd have these big meetings or whatever and we're
constantly talking like well how do we monetize podcasts like how is it how does it work and then
go to the lavender hour and you're like let's fucking just put a dollar episode up and you guys
paid your rent and i was like holy shit that's how you do it well it's still i mean that's yes
that's one that's definitely one way to do it and but for that to work you've got to be putting
out a bunch of other you have to i think for every one episode that you charge for you need to have
just a ton of free episodes so for a lot of different reasons uh the one reason that i just
did my first bonus episode for the dunker trestle family hour and uh i'm glad i did it but then
a part of me feels like man it's cool but then you're cutting your audience so much and you know
i don't know there's two different schools of thought when it comes to monetizing a
podcast one is subscription model you the like you get four episodes or something
and then if you want to go back in the archives you've got to pay this really nominal
price per year to go into the back archives and then there's the pay per episode one that
a lot of people do and i think that's the most logical one because i just like the idea of
the podcast being available to everybody and also i'm sure i haven't checked but i guarantee
somebody already uploaded the bonus episode i did this youtube or yeah pyro bay or something
which is fine because i think people listen to the podcast know that you know if they really
looked i bet they could find a pirated version of anything they're just doing they're just it's
a way to support the podcast if you feel like they want to they want to do it so it works yeah
that's the idea but uh to get back to uh feral audio where it came from um you know these networks
start springing up and and some of them are offering a kind of uh and they're being honest
about the deal you know so it's not like they're being unethical because they're clearly presenting
to the person who's coming in look you you're not gonna have to buy equipment you're not gonna
have to buy microphones you're not gonna have to edit this shit all you have to do is come in here
and talk and that's it and then you're gonna get some you're gonna get a lot of publicity for this
and uh and we're gonna make money from it and the money's gonna go to pay for all our overhead
and that's a classic network model except for the fact that no one's getting paid at all like
networks generally pay people but that model was was the publicity dollars month publicity currency
yeah the bitcoin of fucking crooks yeah no i came out here like some people were the network
was giving like 95 percent of everything and it was just it was nuts and it was outside of podcasting
too because when i came here and i started working as a comedy fan like a lot of comics and i like
don't get like mostly mostly don't get paid for doing sets out here yeah comics work for free
and they work their asses off and so i was thinking like the the how long it takes to be a a good
comedian you put like 15 20 years and then yeah my idea was like i put an emphasis on the creative
part of it as like the bulk of the work and then so we did this radical thing where i was like well
instead of slowing things down with contracts and like all and negotiating stuff we'll do
like a handshake deal you'll give 80 percent of everything and then we'll get like a little kick
back 15 percent goes to me my volunteers five percent goes to my webmaster who's your webmaster
who you set me up with a great steed steed grief uh chroma dial chroma dial he's amazing and then
we just started doing this and the idea was like to have every one of our shows as big as
your show because you were you were like really inspirational because you were just pounding
out these great great content really honest like not forced and you were you were experimenting
and you were you were able to make this like successful donation model and do all this stuff
and like just by like putting yourself out there and experimenting like you figured something out
so the goal is to like start with the Duncan Trussell family hour and then start new shows and
have all the shows as big as our biggest show yeah and then you the the good part about a network
is that it's a home base and what i like to think about Ferrell is that it has we have good taste
like across the board yeah so the the good part about having a network is that you know you can
share audiences and uh so if 50 000 people are listening to Harman Town and then Dan Harman goes
on Duncan's podcast and then 50 000 of his people move over and start listening to that too like
it maybe it's the same people but to advertisers and download numbers it it doubles essentially
and by the way all of you guys right now are feeling upset about the fact that we're talking
about the business yeah sorry well no don't be sorry because this is i i think there's like
you know on the internet there's these weird archetypes of people that emerge and one of
my least favorite forms of this is the asshole who complains over the fact that people are getting
paid to make entertainment they they hate it they have this idea like somebody you know when i
released this bonus episode some cunt on my website uh on the forum wrote something like you get paid
to mess around with stand-up comedy now why are you charging for this and it's a really weird
thing to say to somebody i think because it's like well you don't really know how much i get paid to
do stand-up comedy and even if you did uh it doesn't seem like it's your place to tell anybody
that they shouldn't uh they shouldn't get paid for entertainment as though entertaining or i
hate that word because entertaining it makes me think of like somebody in a tuxedo dancing in
front of like a cartoon spiral or something it just is a i don't i don't know what what exactly
this is but i don't i don't think there's anything wrong uh with people creating content uh getting
paid for the content i think that's a good thing and in fact i think you would rather people
on the fringes uh get paid than the than the people at the core of the fucking thing which is
like the uh like mbc or cbs or abc that is sort of like you know some of this content they create
it's great but a lot of the times it's gross and it's always riddled with these creepy fucking
commercials that are being spit out by various corporations that make you feel like you're living
during the apocalypse it seems i like the idea of the these fringe things which right now we're
calling podcasts right being successful in a traditional way which means that the people putting
them on uh are getting paid as though it were their job i think that's great and uh so i don't
think there's anything wrong with it and it's really annoying when these fucking uh web hippies
on your by the way this guy's posting this shit on my forum like on a forum where i give somebody
a percentage of everything i make to maintain and also that costs a monthly fee to put up
he's using the fucking thing to complain about the thing that's why we don't have a message board
on feral like a message board culture is i love your message board but it even every message board
gets all these problems with like they become really clicky reminds me like high school or
something but yeah there's people who absolutely i the the support for feral's been amazing we're
still relatively small but like yeah some people hate me hate the idea of it don't like i what is
it they hate about it the they think that just because you live in like la or they they don't
understand and i i'm i've worked every shitty job you can imagine like a janitor a medical clinic
mcdonnell size 23 like i'm from working class wisconsin janitor in a medical i was cleaning up
like bloody pus vomit and diarrhea and shit with a toothbrush with a toothbrush yeah yeah like out
of toilets it was nuts i've done every i was like a bookkeeper at a gas station like and then so i
came out here from that background and my first thing was like holy shit like people in la work
really hard yes it's just that work here is completely different because there's all this
downtime because one second like early like i've made more money this year than i've ever made
congrats thanks but i just spent three months almost like moving into my car destitute just
destitute like almost wanting to blow my brains out like what the hell am i going to do work a
whole like destitute for those of you i mean guys i'm sorry if this is a kind of meandering
interview but just so you know uh so like i uh when i work on my podcast when i when i put out a
podcast depending on uh you know what what i decided to do in the beginning of the thing
just putting out one episode of this podcast can has it the most taken me you know two or
three days just to put out one and and it's not always like that sometimes i just decide to do
commercials in the beginning and then go into the interview if i really if i feel like that's
enough or if i just want to get episodes out but sometimes if i really want to get into it
it's like two days sometimes you generally it's like six hours eight hours something like that
but if it varies wildly uh dustin is when when ferrell was just starting off was doing that kind
of editing for five different podcasts and not just the editing but the scheduling this fucking
scheduling having to wrangle comedians to get them to come to some place and do anything is not an
easy task they're masters of cancelling yeah masters of canceling i i have a phd in cancelling
if you ever need help cancelling something email me and i can definitely help you come up with a
good way out uh that's what comedians do yeah but you so you are um uh editing hours and hours of
content scheduling the content running a website and then getting everything uploaded and then
during all this insane work by yourself you were um uh simultaneously trying to figure out a way to
monetize the thing right and of all that the money that you would have made you would have only gotten
20 percent reduced by whatever you're paying st and the rest go into the artist so a very very
ambitious utopian idea uh started ferrell audio and what's interesting uh is that you
you kept going in this kind of weird robert deniro cape fear pull-ups in the closet weird
tattoos yeah desperately stalking uh this the success of ferrell audio so i've always been
massively impressed by your dedication to the thing and uh um i just don't think a lot of
people understand that no it's it's it's still to this day ferrell audio has always been 12 to
20 hours a day i haven't taken a day off since i started it is 12 to 20 hours a day of recording
editing management all that shit um and i love it it's it's like i i live for it the i
i fall asleep with my laptop i wake up with it the first thing i do it's the last i've like
it's it's a it's a lot of work and um i mean i push myself to the limit like i i think we have
over 26 shows now so jesus yeah man and i master every single one of those as if they're a comedy
of mine i don't cut corners with anybody show like every show i i it's never like well i got to go
to better i got to go to a show no no i give every single minute of audio i touch i it's really
important to me that it's quality and it's the best that it can be so and it's and and and so
from all that hard work yeah uh i it's cool to watch your it's cool to watch your trajectory
because you came it's trippy yeah it doesn't even feel real to like me and atasha when we
are recording on shitty microphones at her house and then over the course of the the the
transformation that happened to both of our lives because of podcasting yeah um over the course of
that i ended up you know giving you my the vault the very volvo yeah that we plan ferro audio in
i was able to give to you because i was able to get a new car and then in the or lease a car and
then in the in the course of this uh growth of ferro audio you went from um you went from like
pretty if i no offense but i you i don't think anyone i don't think you would be offended by
this but you went from a pretty wretched situation dark wretched situation to like starting to work
with dan harman and then uh harman uh got involved with ferro because he's a an incredible guy
who uh i think like all of us senses that this podcasting thing is much more than just podcast
yeah he really gets him believes he gets it yeah and you get it and i get it and and so that so uh
and a lot of people get that this is more than just people who don't understand you know like a
lot of comedians and not a lot but a common hack a new hack thing a new hack joke comedians make is
everybody's god yeah i love i love podcast jokes because i'm i'm like one of three assholes in the
world that takes it seriously and then i have to laugh like how seriously i take podcasting yeah
but i like i think it is serious it is serious well with the the networks really like like you
can see earwolf are having a very successful tv campaign another production company their
intention from the beginning was to make tv shows yeah podcast podcasting was a jumping point
for Nerdist and them they want to make tons of media which is awesome like ferro wants to
do that stuff but i and i i sound like a broken record with this it's on the website but like in
my lifetime i'm i i was never a great artist i was never a great musician and and like i really
liked subversive movements of of art and music and in my lifetime the podcasting boom and this
stuff immediately like it was uncensored it was so much more dangerous than what like rock bands
were doing right i was hearing these crazy ideas and getting exposed to shit in my i was like 2526
when i started listening to them and i was getting exposed to like really out a adult awesome
conversation relevant stuff because it was turned out so timely like the most relevant
conversation and it enhanced my growth and i was like well this is the most like subversive thing in
my lifetime right obsessed with it i want to know how it is how it works and then the idea of like
the engineer like a podcast engineer didn't exist until this guy that i replaced at earwolf this
guy dug they called him engineer dug at earwolf he was kind of this like awesome hip hop guy and
then he would he would do these things on like comedy death ray radio and he would do these awesome
like rap beats and sound effects and he would his contribution to it like you knew who he was and
you knew everything he touched and so when i came out here you like and personal life stuff in tandem
like with the acceleration of my life like i had never been on a plane before and my first time on
a plane was to los angeles from wisconsin wow a carry-on bag i broke up in like a with my
girlfriend of five years put all my stuff in storage i came out here with a carry-on bag
and slept on like dirty clothes in a after slum for like two weeks and then just bought an air
mattress like worked my way up um worked your way up to an air mattress yeah yeah and we started
ferrell in the shitty apartment and like and so i just came out here and i haven't stopped moving
like but and this is where i think it's gonna get more interesting like i'm kind of a simpleton
like i don't of course like i think and i i think about this stuff constantly and it's all i can
think about and it can it's consumed my life like uh but i also feel like at times like i'm in the
passenger seat of what's happening yeah like i've been swept up and and i think for some reason i
was very lucky because um like the month we started this was like the darkest month ever i had no
money my college loans had kicked in i i started ferrell thinking it would only last for a month
and then this awesome group uh this artist group called puny did animation for yo gaba gaba like
gave us a space in their office paid me a salary and let me do ferrell audio out of their thing
while i worked for them and when that expired and i went on tour with harman um we we toured the
country with a podcast this is an amazing experience and all these ferrell like people who
this is gonna sound however it's gonna sound but it was literally like i had lost touch with what
it's like to be in the midwest listening to this shit because i was in the room for so long but
like people were coming up to me who were just like there because of ferrell and like that was
the point was like oh holy shit like it's i'm having an impact you realize you're having an impact
and that's like that that's a reminder that this is more than just recording a bunch of
narcissists and yeah and in and editing what they say forgive me i'm joking about that but
but you realize like oh this is actually touching people is having an effect on people and then
that's gotta be that i mean that's that is a a massive acceleration from scrubbing diarrhea out
of toilets in a medical clinic it's so rewarding and then uh i i think like it was it's so it was
so exciting like i just uh i feel like i try to like live a life of service i try to like
wake up and go i love nothing more than to help people and i the thing i like to work like work
makes me happy and i like to just uh be working on something that i like that i believe in and
that's when i'm my happiest so when i got to la and i was an audio engineer like there's always
audio engineers right now are like struggling for work and they're like can't find music because
the music industry is basically collapsing yes i got all this freelance work and was working a
web series and shit because comedians all the audio engineers that they have are just music
guys who don't give a shit about comedy right if you do audio and comedy get out here you will get
work immediately sure and so everybody was like yeah can you help me with this and i was like yes
yes whatever you need and i just like to i like facilitating more i want to make and it's part
of itself ish but it never felt like any of this belonged to me it felt like it was a big thing that
i'm all of it i felt like i was a part of all the networks like it's it's it's funny to me that
there's all these networks bringing up because i think that there's going to be some device or
something and like in like less than five years we're all going to get sucked up into some kind of
like ufo with like it's going to be desquad and ferrell and earl finertis and mary and we're all
like hey remember when we were like kind of competing this is funny yeah the competing
thing is is one of the weird byproducts i don't i don't think people would really uh it's a
surprising thing that it happens sometimes and it gets very dramatic and very vicious sometimes
and and and it is a frustrating element but i guess that's just you know what that is that
here before you get into that stuff yeah the one thing you said that i really like is you feel
like you're in the in the in the passenger seat yeah and i think a lot of us doing this stuff
feel like i don't really i don't really feel is that i'm doing this as much as i'm getting to
experience it as a bystander that happens to be involved in it that's a really clumsy way of
saying no no no thank god that's exactly what it is i just i just wake up and i just do it
because i do it i don't i'm not i i literally i mean i at this point i like money because it
allows me to have experiences and do things and then allows me to like do more of this stuff
yeah but my goal is not to be rich or anything i just like doing the work because it feels good
but it's sometimes i wake up and i'm just like uh everything i accomplish that day it's like uh
i don't even know where it comes from well you feel like there's a this is why i really love uh
taley ardee chardon and uh however you say his fucking name and terrence mackenna and rupert
shell drake and a lot of the great philosophers and mystics of our time
present a version of the time space continuum where we are being drawn into this ever perfecting
harmonious future and that um what ends up happening is you get pulled into this thing
is that uh you see this complexification and harmonization of matter which is what technology
represents and uh these are pre-existing forms in the time space continuum like structures
that already exist and you're just a part of this structure or if you get sort of drawn into the
eddy of a certain emergent form then you don't really you it's no longer you doing the thing as
much as you've been pulled into this expression of time and that one of the great expressions
of time that's happening right now or the time space continuum is podcasting but podcasting
sounds so small compared to what it really is and what it really is is uh the ability to
purely and honestly express yourself with no censorship at a using uh technology that was
not in existence 10 years ago and if it was it was in such a rudimentary form that uh it was
nowhere near as precise and great as it is and it was also very expensive compared to the how much
it costs now so the point is what's so exciting about podcasting is you are bypassing or undermining
all these monolithic ancient gates and and keeps and castles and walls that formerly separated
lunatics from being able to communicate their ideas to the entire planet and now that's happening
uh all everywhere that's exciting to be a part of that man that's bigger than podcasting we're
talking about a revolutionary information dispersal uh machine it's like a like what you said you're
affected by these ideas in the midwest hearing like people yammer and talk about real things
and then that profoundly altered your life and compelled you and and so that i that i that idea
is simultaneously beautiful and also incredibly sad the reason it's beautiful is because it's
it's wonderful to know that uh media can cause positive changes in people by being honest and
not being phony it's sad when you consider the networks whose content is not an honest reflection
of anything more than their desire to get rich and to manipulate people into watching something so
that they'll see advertisements and when you consider like fuck what would what would it be like if
the main distribution mechanisms that information is transmitted to the people which is right now
tv uh what if that was actually was honest what if it was really putting out big ideas or challenging
people or doing more than just showing pregnant teens lulling around their shitty apartments
what would it be like if it was more than just showing people with ocd who can't stop wiping
their assholes or eating bleach what would it be like if if the main if the main networks started
putting out truth what would that do to the world what would happen to the world in three days
what would what would the world be like three days after fox news decided to stop being a
mouthpiece for whatever globalist capitalist consumerist shitbags were controlling that
and came out and just said look we're we don't need to be at war anymore and we can just take away
four percent of the wealth of the most wealthy people on earth and transform the planet in
radical ways and if we stop going to war in afghanistan and if we stopped going to all these
ridiculous wars if we stop supporting the military industrial complex then we can send every
american every person in america could go to college for free think about that that's i think
that i on reddit came up that it's like a month a month you stop the war machine for a month
and you send everyone in america to college for free it's so attainable and there's and a lot of
like universities have their courses uh availability right now there's this great like open source
website where there's a bunch of stuff like that right now i podcasting to me it's like it is it's
the it's the it's a broadcasting revolution so it's like the voice of the internet right yes and
like you want to talk like your episodes of joe rogan's podcast were like when they were those were
coming out a couple years ago like 2010 or whatever yeah those were as influential to me as like radio
heads albums like wow on the drive home for my grandfather's funeral i we me and my girlfriend
listen to like six hours of you and rogan talking about shit and it expanded her mind and she was
like a hardcore she's a fan of your podcast ever since but like i like expands consciousness and
so the so it's it really is like it's the voice of the civilians and people and they can make the
joke like everybody has a podcast yeah yeah i want every household like everybody should be broadcasting
themselves you have this pirate radio station ability exactly and that's why i hate that elitist
but go ahead that was the intention of radio and television like so there's this tryout that happens
there's there's science and then there's art or creativity and then there's industry so the idea
of radio was that it was going to be free voice of the people that it wasn't owned by the government
and so what happens is all these ma and pa like companies were building these little radio towers
in their community so you would have these little communities building their like as they got the tools
back in the day like electronics like when you look like that whole you know the idea of like
steampunk like that whole steampunk thing is is based on this early version of electronics
where um when you got a phone or like a radio it was basically on a piece of wood
and all the parts were exposed because basically if you owned an like piece of electronic equipment
is because you knew how to build and maintain them wow so it wasn't till the fifties when they
started industrializing uh um basically science and this DIY art form of like electronics that
they started putting phones and shit and like cheap phone casings you know the idea like the
plastic phone to hide the fact that they were using cheaper parts wow so industry comes in and
industry is a very huge important part of art and science because absolutely science is the ballast
art is the thing that makes it rise like okay so science lays the groundwork for the whole thing
it like it lays the laws of physics science is like god right and so the art the creativity of
the people involved in that science like like early science fiction has informed so much of
basic like science fact like predicted quantum physics and stuff so what art does is it builds
up in this kind of fractal way all these ideas and what industry does is it blasts it to the
general populace and that's what business and industry does really well yeah but the problem
with uh industry is that it doesn't give a fuck about art or science or people it cares about
money and so what happens is with these tv networks like nbc there's this and i and i wouldn't
dare try to quote it now when nbc first launched the the founder of nbc went on the air and he
gave this amazing speech like about television was supposed to be basically what the internet is now
like an open source information like field it was going to just like expand the consciousness
of everybody that used to get when everyone's home it's a tool for your kids to learn and for
like to get information out there immediately and what happens is uh there's nothing wrong
with advertising like advertising works sure it's just that
like the the industry happens where all these business people latch on like parasites and
there's all these middlemen and people and they're only interested in money and so they inflate and
they they crush everything they go on and that's like capitalism but the inner and they will happen
to podcasting but right now you think it'll happen to podcast oh yeah it's art they're already trying
to a million things to try to stop podcasting right like what they're they're trying to oh
there's the patent role thing they're they're i heard that's getting knocked out hell yeah and
that's because the e electronic frontier foundation i heard they found past versions of the thing that
the guy was patented they already found versions of the patent pre-existing versions of the technology
that the patent owner was claiming to have that's awesome that's true that's awesome that they're
gonna squash that but for years they've been trying to put like tolls on the internet basically
yes basically charging you to go to websites but the internet as we know it is we know it's garbage
it's being monitored it's it's too corporate so there's all the there's already this dark internet
did you hear about that sure i know about the dark yeah so dark net all these internets are gonna
spring up and uh i think as far as like when the shit goes down the way i see it if shit ever
really went down like dystopian stuff like podcasting is going to be readily it's going to be like
a huge source of news for people right that it's going to be the quickest way to get information
it already is a quick way to get information and it is a way to go ahead no i'm so sorry to finish
my thought don't be sorry the reason comedians are such a great catalyst and the reason that it
works so well with comedy first of all super entertaining and so and i'm having a hard time
right now uh it's like i treat everything like art like it what's art what's entertainment what are
we doing but comedians are above cops politicians your city council the president comedians get this
license they're the bash the last bastion of free speech they get free reign right to have thought
experiments and to just say shit that's crude they get they they're the last people on earth
that get keys to the city verbally right and so it works well as comedians because it's under
the skies of it's sure you know so that we're allowed to be honest we're scandal free like you
know everyone knows we're all freaks you know jim norton freely talks about he likes to uh
give blowjobs to uh transgendered people is how you say it not transgender like uh so so yeah man
like uh uh yeah so but but i think that's just for now everyone needs to realize
that they're allowed to say whatever they want they're allowed to be as honest as they want and
this illusion of the entertainer this illusion of the singer the actor being somehow this
always happy sophisticate who is like everything's always great that's the only way there can be
scandals you know like somebody comes out of the car and you see her pussy or whatever and it's like
what you those are buffing because because that why because all that is just rich just the the
runoff uh all of that is the sweat dripping off of the demonic head of the monolithic
evil juggernaut that is popular media it's sweat scandal it drips a scandal because for
scandal to even to exist there has to be repression you have fucking Miley Cyrus is in
Amsterdam and smokes a joint on stage and it is being projectile vomited out of every mass media
source everywhere and everyone's gonna have their own dumb little take either an eye roll or i guess
it's okay now or whatever but it's just all crap because it's like that's what's affecting us yeah
the fact that some fucking uh singer inhaled plant matter that's it's the meat that's the
media is bad man it's not good it teaches people to hate themselves to be small to kill themselves
to to take to consume to not only consume to sexualize and romanticize like products and and
in things that like kill them it's really and it's been like a thing like all this awesome
art in the 80s uh and zines and bands were stuff like like uh even early maryland manson stuff
about like kill your television like god is on the tv stuff but like it's really been used as a
tool of evil and the intention of the television was the opposite yeah the intention of television
was in and it can still be if it's utilize it has to they have to adapt to the internet the internet
is like it's sprawling honesty it's unstoppable and um like with podcasting right now like yes
people will do everything they can at some point when it when it gets when it starts making money
like there's this cap on podcasting right now like i've talked to maren about this but there's
like the cap of the podcast audience is like 1.7 million or 2 million people there's really like
2 million people in america or something that know what a podcast is okay i mean i don't know
about that statistic but it's a fluid number yeah that's an insane but it's not it's still very
underground you like usually like i think there's going to be some sort of device or something's
going to happen that's like whatever when podcasting becomes gen pop when my mom i don't have to explain
to my aunts and uncles what a podcast is anymore you know when it basically goes zack alpinakis
when podcasts are in the hangover or whatever uh and you go to lots you go to lots you go to the
like las vegas airport and this podcast t-shirts and shit yes um that's like going to be a whole
that's when the sharks and all the all the big scary industry stuff's going to move in it's going
to get really wonky and it's going to be scary and you're and so um i hope to my goal with feral is
to like first of all like intelligently and properly monetize it and for we held out for a
long time and i got really lucky with you know dan harman's financed me and and puny financed me
and i got really lucky in that respect it would not have worked i don't think it's luck man i mean
you know people get around you and they sense that you're kind of like one of the great uh
patron saints of podcasting in the sense that you're so into it and what's rare about you is
that you don't have your own show you have to understand how crazy that is for so many other
of us attention hungry yappers to have you know like uh mitzsche started the comedy store and
the comedy store is controversial and as much as like uh certain comics like to revile it
you can't deny the fact that uh when it was during the comedy boom the comedy store was the
nucleus of that and coming out of the comedy store were so many super famous uh or pre-famous
comedians you see old pictures of mitzsche sure standing next to young jim carrey you know before
he was even on on tv or before he even had a pilot and um uh uh she was his legal guardian in the
united states you know yeah and also she had a house where she let comedians live there but she
didn't want to she wasn't a stand-up yeah she just wanted to like she just wanted to create a place
where stand-up could happen because she loved what it was and loves what it is she's still around
i'm sorry i'm talking about her like she's not but the uh so that's what i'm saying it's like
when people like you emerge on under the scene it's always very exciting and people recognize
like okay great here's somebody who's actually gonna do the work because i'm sure it's not gonna
do the work and dan har i mean i'll do i like putting out my own podcast but the idea of managing
a network and going and editing other people's pot all that i couldn't do it it's not the type
of creature i am it's just too much for me to imagine but you're somebody who it's just coming
out of and i think that's a really beautiful thing man and that's why people are that's why
people are eager to help you is because they recognize that this strange being that is currently
called podcasting and all the can the all the the sum total of the thing is not just something you
listen to while you're jogging it's just like what you said it's a voice for the people it's a voice
and fuck yeah everyone do a everyone do a podcast god damn it why wouldn't you do it you just record
yourself talking and upload it on the internet and why do you do it you don't do it because
you want to be famous or because you want shit tons of money or because you want like whatever
the thing is you do it because it feels good to connect it feels good to connect it feels good
to connect with other people and it feels good to throw your voice into the void and see what comes
back uh what what what comes screaming back out of that darkness and what you find generally what
comes screaming back out of the darkness is love pure love exactly a hundred percent that it's just
like overwhelming i i and i i'm so i've i'm i'm very uh like a i could i'm a i'm a depressive
negative person sure you are but in my life jesus your twitter is like opening up a fucking coffin
doomsday scenario why do you tweet these dark tweets all the time it's funny to me like i like
dark shit is my comfort zone and i come if you met my family i'm i know i'm like the teeny bopper
of my my family is dark like i just i know my family is dark i'm like the i'm like i might as well be
christina aguilera of my family but uh so i'm like comforted by that like but but i what am i in my
actual life i'm actually very like pretty outgoing and positive person yes like my actions are very
true and honest but i i think that i mean i don't think and this is going to be weird because
i think zen buddhism really helped me with this like as far as me not having my own podcast like
i'm on a lot of podcasts on feral now because the hosts have invited me because we have a very
personal relationship i did like a dating podcast on erin mcgathie show i'm on brodie stevens show
now so if i if i have a podcast it's brodie's but you should do a podcast go ahead thank you but
like i my i don't want to impose myself in this situation i i'm sort of in this awesome i get to
like experience and absorb all of this stuff but i i'd like um for for whatever reason it is i just
understand comedians and i work really well with them and it's not and it's because i'm not i'm not
trying to get anything from them i'm not trying to like be a comedian i'm not trying to be a stand
up so when i step to a comedian i understand their work and i was like well here i can i can i'm good
at this thing i can help you with this thing um for some reason it's just like i'm very fluid in
that right i lack in a lot of areas that like basic human areas that a lot of people don't have
like day-to-day happiness relationship stuff uh structure like i thrive in chaos i'm a very chaotic
person and and me being that type of chaotic person has hurt feral like i i feel like feral
could be way bigger than it is right now um i've you know there's this great you know i think it
may be alan watz you said it but he's you know he's talking about like self-deprecation is as
egotistical as like yeah it is self-inflation yeah it's it's still self-absorption yeah it's it's
as egotistical it's like self-absorbing you think so highly of yourself that you're better than
people you think so lowly of yourself that you're beneath everybody it's the same thing the whole
point is that what's come what what no matter what you're still stuck on yourself yeah and and the
trick is if you can to just help other people and then forget about yourself this is the this is
the place this is the thing that makes me forget about myself and i was like an anxiety to be
written depressed you know i never went out and then i i found out i'm this idiot savant
networker i think just because i'm just honest with people um and i mumble when i talk i'm not a
very direct person you seem pretty direct in this podcast thanks people listening aren't going to
agree with you okay well i think that you know anybody could do what i do but i love everything
that you're saying right now you should write it down on a pad and then mark it off and say well
that's not me anymore because then whenever anyone starts saying i'm this or i'm that it's a really
funny thing to get into you know like here's what i'm like it's like really that's what you're like
well who's the one talking about what you're like what's that thing like that's what i want to know
because the moment you do the thing where you're like here's what i'm like now you've split your
self into these two things there's the you doing the commentary on the you that you think you're
like but the you that you think you're like clearly can't ever exist because it's being spoken about
as a symbol by the thing that you really are and the thing that you really are talk about that
that's the big exercise like all right aside from all the ways that you're like that you think you're
like what is the way that the thing talking about what you're like is like get into that thing and
then you end up falling into infinity into that weird white oblivion i mean that's what you've given
me and that's like i think you're i think like dan harmon fosters a lot of artists and creatives
and he's done it with like channel 101 and stuff i think dunkin's legacy is he's giving a lot of
people empowering people with like the spiritual practice so like i don't think anybody's worked
with you as closely as i have now but you've given me even before i met you and now working
close like you've literally taken me to your place you've taught me meditations you've you've
you've taken me through like thought experiments in like the darkest lows that have like i had to call
you the next day and you to talk me down because i was like i i try to wrap my mind around it but
like uh yeah there i couldn't even comment on that i'm i'm too uh i have apparently no
i'm here i'm commenting on myself again but i don't have perception of how i really am because
i'm still uh super neurotic and in depression well the point you don't have to stop it's just
like you know it's a mindfulness exercise where you begin to notice like okay i guess i've defined
myself as this way or that way and then you realize oh the very the act of defining defining
myself as this way or that way is actually a prison because i don't have to be this way or that way
and that's why like you know with uh when i am when i get the most blocked creatively when i get
podcast block it's always when i think i need to be funny it's always when i think i'm a comedian
so i should be funny and then when the moment i start thinking like that then instead of being
the way that i i might feel like being which who knows the way that is maybe i feel like being
sanctimonious as uh feral audio has described me on their website or maybe i feel like being
what where not feral i mean ear wolf they have some episodes sanctimonious so i guess i am
sanctimonious but if i feel like being fucking sanctimonious i'm going to be sanctimonious or
if i feel like being uh you know drippy and new agey and talking about how great love is then i
want to be able to be like that and if i happen to be lucky enough to be funny then i want to
be like that too but i know that i start getting into trouble the moment i start saying well here's
what i am here's what i am i'm a comedian well i'm a podcaster well i'm a i'm a um uh whatever the
fucking thing is man i'm spiritual or i'm not spiritual or whatever whenever you start doing
that you're always like well i don't think i really am like that because all i'm really describing
is the way i used to be yeah because all that i am right now is this very single moment it's a
meat puppet show like even i know i am aware of me running around like well i'm a podcast producer
i'm this this but underneath it all i have had the spiritual practice so like also like when i was
younger like really messed up childhood but we got into psychedelics like uh lots of psychedelics
when i was younger and i don't partake often anymore but like i like to think of myself as
like a psychedelic thinker so i have this ground my because of like uh a bit of a spiritual practice
and some psychedelic use and i feel like underneath it all is like a melted there is no ego and i use
it like it pops up and it controls me right now and then but i do have that rock where it's like i
can dissolve into that thing where oh it's it's it's nothing it's a it's a show i'm yeah i've been in
i've been in like fights with girls where i'm just super dramatic or all of my fights with with
friends or anything is all all ego driven stuff and i can be inside my own head and be like why
am i acting like this why am i putting on this show like i could drop it right now walk away but
is it pride or what and like i'm in my own head while i'm putting a while i'm like maybe decimating
somebody with words or being so over the top and i'm in my own head going like i don't believe in
this it's like you're it's like when you're in that situation you're like somebody some inventor
who's spent a long time building this giant metal robot and he's riding around in its head
and the thing is rampaging through the village kicking over all the houses and he's screaming
out of like a little portal in its head this isn't me i don't want it to do this this is not what
i'm like i don't want to hurt anybody but this that's the ego you've constructed this ego and
then you ride around in it and and you and it just fucks everything up it's very similar to
constructing a government and being a citizen and watching the thing constantly at war you're
like i'm not like this at all i don't want to afghanistan total we are totally cool i have
nothing against any of you i don't understand islam i don't understand anything about what you're
doing and i certainly don't want to be blowing you up and that goes for anybody out there
who's getting blown up by my country at this very moment i don't i i don't want to blow you up
and it's it's just it seems to be the tendency of nature is weirdly that once you build it up to
this certain powerful level or to this certain thing it it'll it just it seems to want to
attach it ship fox my sweet little dog when i take him on walks we'll pass the nicest little
chihuahua and he'll lunge at it like he just passed hitler it's he can't control himself it just
seems to be built into the world to hiset things so anyway i don't know what that rambles all about
but uh the point is that we have to separate ourselves as much as possible from being the doer
because when you start thinking of yourself as the doer then you instantly limit yourself and
when you really know what it is you're making then you really limit yourself too uh and and then you
get stuck that's why you know sometimes that's why sometimes i to get back to podcasts when you
hear a comedian who's come up with this very clever idea for their podcast like i'm only gonna
i'm only gonna interview comics with brown eyes we're gonna call it brown eyed chat i don't know
why i like the gimmicks of i like i like a good gimmick gimmicks either so much it's like a band
like there's so many podcasts out there you do need a good gimmick i don't know i feel like you get
trapped in the gimmick i would get bored it's fucking well no you abandon it's all comes back to
the same thing which is just a honest sprawling conversation between two people that's either
funny or interesting yes the gimmick is just like the gimmick is just what gets you in the foot in
the door it's the vacuum salesman or it's like the it's it's it's the it's the fucking title card
or the it's the gimmick is uh the reason you watch a tv show you know like and then within the tv
show you might like get something out of it like uh i think the thing that i'm really proud of a
feral and maybe this is because of my like you know uh emotionality or something but for some reason
i'm really proud of and and it's all happened on its own volition like outside of my control or
anything but the the podcasting you were doing like uh with you with your cancer and your mom and
like brody stevens during uh his thing and like harman's cried on stage and and erin megathie's
like bringing on her exes and and all this like really emotional stuff we've done like brody stevens
tentatively titled us the emo comedy and i laughed at that because i think that if the feral audio
brand when i really try to think about it is that we have a lot of emotional intelligence and for
whatever reason it's kind of like a safe haven for not just really funny and interesting shit but
really emotional human like because that's what life is man and it's like you know the the the idea
that i you know whenever somebody starts doing their fucking shtick i just want to put a gun
in my mouth like when you get around some a comic who like hops into this weird fucking puffy costume
which represents their shtick and they start doing the thing it's like get the go fucking spin
your cane on some other stage wacko nobody wants to fucking see that shit it's like what are you
doing morning radio snap out of it if i'm go ahead and by the way i don't i got i got really bored
with my podcast pitch for a while because i like got it down to a science and it all made sense but
i was saying it to people and i was like this doesn't feel like a conversation i'm just and
like i now i just whenever i'm talking about podcasts with people i'm just try to be way
more direct but for a while i had a whole sales pitch and i'm like this sounds really sales mini
and like i'm shticking it's an old school shticking sucks and the idea of comedians doing a shtick is
like a very old school thing like i was on stage once at the laugh factory and i you know this is
just after having gotten radiation and getting one of my balls snipped off you took me to the
fucking surgery actually i like to talk about that too but um uh i remember getting off stage
and the comic running the show comes up to me and is like why would you talk about that on stage
why would you talk about cancer on stage and it was really weird and i'm looking at him and like
you know i think at the time i was actually getting fucking radiation so i was already i
was a little nauseated and i didn't know how to respond but ever since then i've been thinking
about that moment and i've been i not ever since not every day i wake up i have the words to get
pigs of it though but i i think like okay well i guess that's the old school reacting to the way
things are going which is that uh they think the idea is people come to a comedy club because they
want to be taken out of their sorrows and laugh and have a break from the horrors of the world
it's like that is fucking retarded like that's why people want to consume art that's why people
want comedy is because they want to be numbed out or taken i think the reason people like comedy
or the reason people like honesty or people like emotionality or people like what seems to be the
emerging style of many many podcasts is that it makes you realize that you're not the only one in
the world crazy suffering hurting freaked out lonely lost weird but in fact everyone's experiencing
this thing in our own different ways and that the great conspiracy is that the weird
power of mass media has taught people that you're the ugly one not us you're the crazy one not us
you're the one with problems not us look at us successful celebrities and great people and great
newscasters we're all perfect symmetrical beautiful level beings who always stay the exact same way
if you look at fucking bill o'reilly now compared to the way bill o'reilly was three years ago
you get the same fucking bill o'reilly his personality hasn't shifted at all he didn't
learn anything no new thing no moment where suddenly bill o'reilly is like you guys you
know what i don't i don't feel quite so angry anymore i don't feel quite the way i used to feel
yeah an anger will exhaust like you get exhausted being angry like i like i was i have anger problems
but i was really angry when i was younger like that's just that's just exhausting to keep that up
it's got a yes assuming yeah or yeah or it's like the the if just fucking once bill o'reilly
would say on his show you guys i had a really bad fucking week man i feel kind of lonely yeah
just once if just once he'd say man i feel a little i feel fucking lost i'm lonely or like i
miss my mom just something like that would spread through the world uh such healing because all
these hard cases who want to imitate bill o'reilly and pretend the way you're supposed to live is
as though you're we're a walking human leather cod piece if if if if you know with this fucking tough
exterior surrounding your true self they would realize like oh oh o'reilly gets lonely okay well
i'm not i guess i'm not that crazy for the fact that i actually feel lonely and miss my mom or
whatever the thing is yeah 100 i i like comedy maybe it takes a very dark person to do this but
i like comedy it is the darkest thing in the planet but if i if there's like an ongoing thing like i
like to like uh i like to make fun of my own darkness and my own in my own depression and it's
right like because my i come from like a very serious like my my family is like very huge
history of mental illness and so my way to cope with that is to and then to to have my own is to
make fun of it so i like comedy because it's dark as fuck like it's it's and it's the only thing
that alleviates the pressure from that like that's what it's that's what it like you laugh at dark
shit because like it's such a scary crippling folds you inside like i feel it on my chest like
sometimes like how heavy everything is like i really feel it in my chest and like i i laugh uh
maybe that's like i i feel like i have boundless energy because i get to laugh so much all day
but like when i it's just that expression is just like the only thing that relieves that
tension for me so i and maybe it's like feeling like a giant hole and maybe this whole thing is
just like i need to be around so much comedy to to feel okay but i i love that not comedy that
isn't dark that plays it safe like a joke can be good without being dark don't get me wrong but
club comics or whatever like comedy that's that's playing it safe is is i mean it's so recognizable
and easily just like so dismissive yeah um and so the stuff that i'm attracted to is like really
dark stuff like you are the most positive influential person ever like the day of your
testicular cancer um surgery whereas like you know i've been around people in my family
who are really anxious or whatever you've put so much you are the darkest person i know you've
said things that are so dark that i you've said you said more positive things but you've you're
dark person i know you explore your in your in like you don't beat yourself up about it you
explore it or whatever and and you um work really hard to be happy like when you go to your house
there's flowers it's clean you put the work in the practice you go okay okay i have things to do
you know you exercise like you've put the work in to be happy and it takes like most human beings
baseline um is is is negative and it's actually like most people are programmed to be negative
because um we're hunter-gatherers and you have to look over your shoulder like you have to be like
okay well a lion could pop out of there so we're programmed to be anxious and have negativity
so to be happy is a lot of hard work and so the day of your testicular cancer surgery
when you told me that you had cancer like i won't lie you're one of my best friends
and it was devastating right thank you and and and uh i didn't know what it meant and it was really
sudden you're like i got it in five days i got to go i'm like well whatever you need you know
so i picked you up at four in the morning and this is probably the most formal conversation
we've ever had yeah we just fuck around a lot and honestly the day of your testicular cancer
surgery was one of the greatest days of my life wow and i'll tell you why what would have been like
i was i was dreading it and i had anxiety and i was picking you up and i was like happy to help
you the second i picked you up at four in the morning uh you were so funny and alert and like
bright and you're like hey man it was just like any other time we were hanging out and because you
put the work in and it was just like we were we never we didn't release it but we were recording
stuff and like podcasting stuff on the way and then we had this weird moment where we got to this
place like 430 and we're trying to find parking we couldn't get into this building yeah and we didn't
know that it opened at five i remember that and so we go to this elevator and this elevator doesn't
work yeah and so in the middle of this whole like you know literally like right before we got out
of the car like we were shooting this shit and you're like yeah but seriously like here's my
brother's number and my mom's number and in case something happens and i was just like when i just
i remember breathing out like really hard all right and uh where like anybody else in my entire
life would be a wreck quiet we were just it was one of the funniest car rides ever and then in the
middle of all this really heavy real life shit we got lost in this parking garage yeah we couldn't
get into the building in this pedestrian mundane uh thing where we were like asking the parking
tenant like how do we get in there is like oh yeah but like it was like the most like real life
interrupted this drama yeah right and it was we were laughing about it like isn't that funny like
even if you die like it's just like that's just what it is exactly it just keeps going on never
as bad and then so what's there to worry about well you know uh yeah exactly the worry is always a
million times worse than the thing and i think i was probably in a good mood that day because i was
getting a cancerous fucking ball cut out of my scrotum which is like a relief you don't want that
in there but thanks man uh yeah i you know it's it's uh shit i am dark and i have ups and downs
and that's why i have to be very careful because if i don't if i'm not careful like really careful
like if i don't get shit done in the day and if i don't keep a schedule and if i let myself go
like i go really far away and i can turn into such a monster so i i have to like
like i don't when i was younger i would meditate because i i thought it helped me get girls
and i would uh use it as a tail feather like you know and i think i i still probably use it in
an egotistical way i talk about it or i'm still sometimes proud of myself or something but
that's a very small part of it compared to what it used to be now the reason that i do it is like
somebody rubbing cream into like venereal blisters you know what i mean like it's like if i don't do
it then i my ego flares up and my life gets so disjointed and weird and i become so shut down
and so shitty that like i have to do it in the way people have to take their
aids medication or something you know what i mean like i i so that's when you say it's not i don't
look at his work as much as it is like just just um recognizing that if i don't do that stuff then i
end up feeling so angry all the time and so weird and sad and freaked out that it's not a i don't
know it's it's a it's not like work as much i don't know i don't know what i'm saying so the so yeah
i don't and it doesn't offend me that you say that i'm very dark because i am very dark and uh and i
can get really dark you know that's probably one of the reasons we're such great friends man is
because like we both have inside of us the suicidal part definitely and and and i that part when it
emerges is like whenever that comes up that's when i know it's like oh okay you got to start
fucking working out or even though you don't feel like you you got to start going to the gym again
you have to clean you just need to clean your house now and put down every put down the video
game and clean your fucking house because the demon is growing inside of you and if you do if you
let it grow too much you'll start destroying relationships and then you'll stop you'll you'll
stop doing anything more than just hurting yourself and people so it's a very dangerous thing to not
to not grab control of yourself you know though to me i think the greatest example of this is
i think i talked about this on another podcast sorry you guys the greatest example of this is uh
there's a video on the internet of a guy working late at night at his office have you seen this the
woman comes by the vacuum cleaner guy was working late at night he's working working
working it's like a camera's on it's real it seems very real to me cameras on this guy maybe it's not
but it sure as fuck seems like a death video and when it was on reddit and none of the comments
were like this is fake they're all like yeah he probably died this guy's seeing her fucking working
and this maid comes by the vacuum cleaner and he i guess the sound of the vacuum cleaner triggered
him and he jumps down on his hands and knees and he has scissors and he cuts the vacuum cleaner cord
and he gets electrocuted oh god yeah 100 yeah so there you see all the different times that guy
let himself go out of control because you know that's not the first time he lost his temper
all the other times that he lost his temper were warnings to him like you got to get you got to
take control of this shit man because if you don't you know your life's gonna get really fucked up
but he didn't listen to the warnings he just let himself go and well how did it what did it ended
up late at night with him killing himself because his the demon took control so much yeah you know
what i mean that's why it's fucking important as hell and i'm not saying you does and like you
are you're you're you are someone who is very very hard on yourself unnecessarily and you said a
few things in the beginning of the podcast that i meant to mention which is you were talking about
like i'm not a good you're saying something you're diminishing yourself as an artist diminishing
yourself as a musician and i hate hearing you do that because i've heard your music and it's great
and you are you're you're as much of an artist as any of us are and for some reason you don't accept
that because maybe you're still getting off on the idea of being of some weird hierarchy or something
no i i i like reveling and all that like i think i my my my depression is very real like i am
manic depressive so like i have so in mania states like it's better than any drug i've ever had like
you don't need sleep you don't need to eat in but it doesn't last for long but i spend most of my
time down and like uh for a while it was like well my mom's bipolar borderline personality
disorder is this something that i've learned am i imitating it it wasn't until my mid 20s like no
this is something that i may not have a severe case of but i do have i have a chemical like sure
but i also like the one thing that i am proud of like what sucks is that i'm not the type of guy
that walks in your room that lights up a room and so a lot of the times with my friendships like people
kind of need breaks for me and so i'm not the type of person like you're gonna invite like oh let's
have a really awesome party that's called dustin but i'm really proud that because i think i'm fluent
in this stuff that like when you're really depressed when when you're really depressed
or any one of my friends are like on the really i'm gonna pause you they can call me and we can
talk that's damn right and you're a great person to talk to you're a wonderful person but i just
want to put on pause what you just said yeah now if somebody came up to me and said hey man you know
dustin he uh he's not the type of person who lights up a room and i gotta tell you if i was gonna
have a really fun party i wouldn't invite him if somebody said that to me about you then i that
would put me in a fucking position right if you're like fuck you yeah it's great what are you talking
about yeah do you know what i'm saying yeah yeah so it's like but yet somehow you're allowed to talk
about yourself that way and so and yours and i think if you really watch this this interesting
like self refer dark reference that you give for yourself then you might find within that
perhaps the roots of your depression are that there's somebody in your body who constantly
diminishes another part of your body as our great lord jesus christ said a house divided
i don't think he talked like this but a house divided among itself can not stand and you know
it was if you got to be very careful yeah with especially with like uh broadcasting to you know
affirm what you're doing is affirmation so when when you so the affirmation that you just did is
i am not someone who lights up a room i am what does he said i'm not someone who lights up a room
and my friends have to take breaks from me and these are all negative affirmations like if i went
up to a four-year-old or a six-year-old say i went up to six-year-old hey kid i'm going to teach
you i want you to say this every day i want you to look in the mirror and say i am not someone
who lights up a room and i want you to say i am someone who my friends have to take breaks from
and and and and then talk to me in seven years after you've done this every day because i want to
ask how you feel right right he's probably going to be like i don't feel great so that's why you
got to be very careful it's a very easy thing it's a very easy thing to start referring to
yourself in shitty ways i have friends who see you like i'm you know constantly talking about how
ugly they are how fat they are people who like all of them all of us have this strange mantra you
know it's very dark mantra which is like i am this and the thing that it is is bad so you know man
the the the i i there's a cheesy quote that inevitably floats up on twitter all the time
which is that uh forgiveness is the realization that you can't change the past and so in that same
way it's like you when you say i am this thing you really what you're saying is i was this thing
i was this thing because what you are right now is this moment so by saying i am this thing
what you're really doing is taking what you were and bringing it into the present which
then pushes it into the future so the moment you stop doing that is the moment suddenly you are no
longer a thing you just are and then from that place that's where you can become something maybe
that isn't depressed that's all i'm saying is you know just run the laws of the of mysticism and the
occult and and and well my biggest successes are spring from me unintentionally being in the moment
and being the best person i can be and not and having no self-awareness but because my my root
home is like literally it goes way deeper than that it's literally i look in the mirror almost every
day of my life and say i hate myself like it's not healthy and that's probably a habit and routine
like well just i have i have a lot of like i think my a lot of my perceived confidence
like a lot of people like how the fuck can you walk up to dan harman and odin kirk and stuff and
not and it's like i like i'm not afraid of people because like i used to be so nervous to talk to
people but after a while it's like i really like it comes from a dark place but it could be spent
as a positive but it's it's a it's that whole thing where it's like it doesn't it doesn't matter
i don't think that highly of myself like i i don't care what they think of me
like if they're gonna hate me they're gonna hate me but right yeah now you're doing the thing where
look i'm not by the way i feel like i'm being preachy hey man no you should because this is
what you do like we this is like you talk me off the ledge a thousand times but i think this is
important because i it's it's uh you're doing magic you're announcing to the world all these
things about yourself that yeah or just thought patterns you're giving voice to like thoughts
that aren't really referencing what you really are and that's what so many people do so like
okay if you're like imagine this just create this one little fun little rule for yourself which is
whenever i say something just go into mindfulness so the next time you find yourself saying how you
are and the thing that you're saying is bad just be mindful of it and just say oh there i am
saying bad things about myself right so just start that and then you can even add to that if you
wanted to uh when i say you decide here's an idea saying bad things about myself is as bad as shitting
my pants so in other words like when you say you know it's as bad it's like you don't want to shit
your pants yeah it's no fun when you shit your pants it leaves a mess you've got to wash your pants
it's probably going to embarrass you in front of people and ultimately it's going to make you
not smell that great uh in the same way when you say bad things about yourself what you're doing is
you're polluting uh you're creating a form of pollution you're sort of like sullying yourself
in a way that is completely unnecessary so the next time you find yourself wanting to say
bad things about yourself you could think oh i've got to take a shit you know what i mean in the
same way and it's like maybe instead of doing this in in to the world i'll i'll just be mindful and
wait and then i won't i won't do it i'll just i'll watch the thought that desire to do that emerge
and i won't say anything bad about myself just try that as fun as a fun exercise and see what
starts happening to your mood state yeah you know i mean dude did you see that fucking video i'm sorry
i'm talking way too much no no please and we have to wrap this up yeah but uh uh i just want to i'll
put this video at duckatrosil.com forgive me for raining so much dustin no thank you i'm gonna have
you back on again yeah i hope i hope that like serves a purpose for somebody because like i think
a lot of people like kyle canane had this great quote he was saying during the show that i saw
like he the reason he's so hard on himself because he has to be his own quality control yeah and i
kind of related to that where like i think i'm constantly like well uh i i have done i've certainly
done more good in my life than bad so like i should just be in the moment and like all that
stuff should have a shelf life it's way expired well i gotta be hard on myself because i gotta do
my own quality control i do understand that idea but it does seem to be a kind of industrial revolution
ethic where you're running this factory where yourself is the child that's you know work that's
doing just trying as hard as it can to do what it can do and then your super ego is the boss who's
like you it's all ego yeah you shitty you shitty child you'll never you'll never make clocks at the
rate that we need at stuffy bergen francis you know there's no i don't know man i think that a lot
of the it's fun to experiment with just loving yourself and then seeing what starts that's where
most of my successes come from is like loving myself and being in like loving the people around
me and like letting people help me and and then well i love doing good shit i love you dustin
and i'm very glad that you're in my life and i'm sorry you know saying speaking about saying bad
things i'm sorry i'm a shitty friend sometimes man i get busy and distracted uh but you're great
friend man you've done more for me than anybody man well you're a wonderful human and uh friends
listening go to ferroaudio.com this is more than a podcast network it's a social experiment and it's
something that you can watch in its still embryonic phases as it grows into whatever strange wonderful
mystical being that it's going to grow into and um you too man you're gonna grow into a
even more of a mystical being thanks for being on my podcast thanks for having me duncan harry christina
that's dustin martian and what you're listening to now is jonathan richman singing his song true
love is not nice and that's from his album i'm so confused get it on itunes or amazon see you later
well it hurts from the bottom and it hurts down to your soul that's because true love is not nice
and it brings up hurt from when you were five years old that's because true love is not nice
oh pain pain pain ain't that just love's name love can bring up fear for a way down low
oh it now be emphasized true love is just not civilized true love is not nice no
well you've been hurt before but now you're hurt and double that's because true love is not nice
and if it's real love then boys there's gonna be trouble that's because true love is not nice
and if you're insecure love will learn for sure and once that happens something's got to go
all the imposter allows you a rest the real one demands its test and that's because of
true love is not nice no no
well you've been hurt before and now you're hurting so true love is not nice
and if it's real love then that hurt won't go true love's not nice
oh pain pain pain rain rain rain that's why you fell love's arrow and said oh
well you knew from your first blood that love was here to hurt and that's because true love's
not nice no no