Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Emil Amos in "Maxwell House Moment"
Episode Date: July 3, 2014...
Transcript
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Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now.
You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music.
Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now.
New album and tour date coming this summer.
That is a little tree planted on a little hill
and on that tree hangs the most influential character that ever came in this world.
I never feel that that tree is a meaning, this drama that took place on the stages of history.
Oh no, it is a telescope through which we look out into the long vistas of eternity.
You see the love of God breaking forth into time.
It is an eternal reminder to a power drunk generation that love is on the way.
It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy.
A generation depending on physical violence that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe.
Happy 4th of July, my sweet darling friends.
You just heard the great late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King giving a famous speech at the...
on November 17th at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
Can you imagine being in that audience and listening to somebody with that kind of charisma and power?
Saying those words like a booming thunderbolt just melting your brain?
Can you imagine that?
You totally see why they took that guy out.
Too much power.
He only got a little bit of time here before they took him out because he had too much power.
You get somebody like that talking about violence and war and fighting and the importance of violence,
the necessity of violent revolution.
And he's less dangerous than somebody who comes out and starts talking about how the most important thing in the world is to love other people.
I'm going to read this to you in my raspy lesbian voice.
And the odds are that if Martin Luther King knew that at some point in the future a stoner hippie with a raspy lesbian late stage smoker's voice
was going to read one of his speeches on a podcast.
He probably would have given the whole thing up and joined the Black Panthers.
So I apologize to Martin Luther King.
I apologize to everyone on earth, all beings that have lived before me, all beings that will come after.
Please forgive me for reading Martin Luther King's speech after you just heard it.
Because listen to the, it's obvious the difference is going to be, it's like hearing a tire try to say something, a deflating tire.
It's like listening to a deflating raft trying to say something important.
But I'm going to say it.
There's a little tree planted on a little hill and on that tree hangs the most influential character that ever came in this world.
But never feel that tree is a meaningless drama that took place on the stages of history.
Oh no, it is a telescope through which we look into the long vista of eternity and see the love of God breaking forth into time.
It is an eternal reminder to a power drunk generation that love is the only way.
It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy, a generation depending on physical violence,
that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe.
That is psychedelic.
That is like a high power.
That's kind of the stuff that you get when you smoke DMT.
You get that kind of message that's not, it's not even, DMT isn't even as charismatic as Martin Luther King Jr.
But it still gives you that kind of message.
You get that sense that the only thing that matters is love, but it's more than the only thing that matters is love.
It's somehow you're being, you're floating in this infinite ocean of love and you're fighting against love all the time.
You're the one pushing away love.
But there's another aspect to love that's really interesting.
A kind of weirdly violent aspect to the act of loving someone.
It's a secret violence inside of love.
When you hear about love, you always think it's the opposite of violence.
For example, you never, you don't very often hear the term loving violence.
I'm going to love you in the most violent way possible.
Violence is always something that is somehow antithetical or counter to love,
which is really an interesting thing that we've taken love and sort of separated from it all the innate components that exist in every single thing in the universe.
You're constantly surrounded by violence.
No matter where you are at this very moment, I can guarantee that somewhere near you,
there is a spider that just finished injecting a little bug with a nice dose of deadly venom.
Not enough to kill it, but enough to paralyze it long enough so that the spider can surround it in a nice thick cocoon of silk.
That poor little bug with whatever tiny bug brain it has knows somehow that something isn't right.
It was just flying around and now suddenly it can't move and something is wrapping it up.
It's about to get its guts sucked out of it.
Maybe not now, but in a few hours.
Birds are ripping worms out of soil.
Cats are clawing the eyeballs out of mother birds as the baby birds watch from the nest.
You're surrounded by violence at all times.
So the idea that somehow love is this thing that is separate from violence or outside of violence.
I don't know if that's true.
I think that's a naive understanding of the way that love works because if you consider the potency of what Martin Luther King is talking about here,
it's almost a form of violence in the sense that it is a sort of destructive force to have your ego annihilated by the potency of someone completely, absolutely loving you.
That's an incredible change that's going to happen to you anytime.
This is what they talk about when you're, you know, the baby looks at you for the first time that you've had.
That first glimpse of this being that you brought into the universe and the baby locks eyes with you.
And in that weird moment, you experience this outpouring of unconditional love for this sweet little baby.
And theoretically, the baby's feeling the same thing, though more than likely the baby's just thinking,
what the fuck has happened to me?
I was just nothingness and now I'm somethingness.
But who knows?
We'll never know what the babies think.
But that power, if somebody really loves you, the transformative power it has,
the kind of acidic force that it has in relation to your calcified ego structures that have been protecting you from receiving love,
it can overwhelm you and it can destroy what you thought you were.
If what you thought you were was the tiny pixel of self that the infinite expansive field of your consciousness had focused in on,
usually the thing that we're attentive to or focused in on is pain because it's the most obvious thing.
It's the easiest thing to focus in on.
It's like when your neighbor is playing shitty fucking drum and bass music in the evening.
If you were near your neighbor and the neighbor's playing drum and bass music and somehow Gandhi had appeared in the middle of your living room
after you got over the combination of fear that you've gone insane and were hallucinating Gandhi
and the overwhelming awe at the fact that for some reason Gandhi decided to teleport into your Silver Lake house and talk,
very soon your attention would begin to wander for whatever that sweet little brown man was saying about love
to the terrible vomit-like drum and bass coming from your meth-addled neighbor's garage.
Pain's the same way. You end up, that's the thing that you focus in on the most.
That's the thing that you're the most aware of, the pain, the pain, the pain.
And over time as we become more and more aware of the pain that we focused in on,
over time as we become more and more acutely aware of the way the pain doesn't seem to go away but change form,
then that pain actually becomes our personality.
We believe that we are the pain and so if you get in the presence of someone truly loving you in those moments
where you're being fully embraced by love, the pain goes away and if you've identified yourself with the pain,
then that is a form of annihilation.
And so when Martin Luther King is talking about loving everybody,
he's actually saying let's use this incredibly potent force that seems to be the expulsion of the power
of the infinite creative mind of the universe entering into our universe which has been symbolized
and embodied in the form of this weird skinny hippie in Golgotha getting his ass nailed to a tree.
Martin Luther King is saying love's a ray gun that melts the goddamn brains of the reptilian fucks who are running things.
So it's very strange that on the other side of this love that Martin Luther King is talking about
is a form of violence more powerful than the most violent violence that could ever happen.
We're talking about killing people while they're still alive.
This is what that weird hippie talked about that you atheists hate so much,
you must die to this world to come to know me.
Now this is the idea, this is why love is crazy.
Everybody thinks love is some kind of impotent stuffed animal sort of fluffy puffed up,
nerf ball level, Disney character kind of half hug at a party when you run into somebody you secretly hate.
That's not what it is at all.
That's why when you see Martin Luther King you hear this guy talking about love.
He doesn't look like Wavy Gravy or Jerry Garcia.
This guy looks like he's about to rip the eyeballs out of a racist and do a tap dance on top of them.
He's pissed.
He should be pissed.
Back in those days you had to use a separate fucking bathroom if you were black.
You couldn't go to the same schools as other people.
You were treated as a second class citizen all the fucking time.
It was a rough time to be alive.
He was fucking pissed and by the way Martin Luther King was a big man.
He really looks like if he wanted to he could crack some fucking skulls if he wanted to.
That guy could throw some skinny Alabama gapped toothed moonshine reeking rednecks into a fucking wood chipper
and then go eat a nice goddamn lunch and not think twice about it.
That's what he looks like.
That guy was fucking pissed.
But the stuff that was coming out of his mouth instead of sounding angry and the whiny upset
chafed from an inner tube down some river infantile hiss that comes out of my mouth sometimes
is this booming expansive all-encompassing super potency.
That is transformative.
So this is the crazy thing when our sweet Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was talking about love your enemies.
He wasn't saying because it's going to make your enemies feel good.
He wasn't saying because you want to pleasure your enemies or because you should submit to your enemies
or you should be less than your enemies.
He wasn't saying bow down to your enemies roll on your back and show your enemies your fat little underbelly
so that they can plunge their razor sharp fingers into the flesh of your stomach
and rip your intestinal track out and wear it around like a goddamn trophy.
He was saying that the only way to truly transform people is to love them.
The only way you're going to change your enemies is to love them.
That if you're hating someone angry at someone upset at someone that's going to do shit to transform the universe around you
because if you get to pick what kind of universe you want to live in what kind of universe would it be?
I know there's something romantic about the idea of having enemies.
I know there's something fun about it.
It seems like there's probably a million great fucking quotes about how wonderful it is to have enemies.
Voltaire probably said something.
Machiavelli probably said something.
All the great wits probably said some joyous thing about how wonderful it is to have people in your periphery
that you hate overtly or secretly.
But really it's not that fun to have these little chunks in your mind that are actually neurological representatives of the people in your life
because that's all you've got really.
You're only around people when you're around people.
Most of the time when you're around people you're not around people you're around whatever neurological corollary you've happened to ingest into your mind
as you're sitting there alone in your house contemplating what this shit had said to you or what this asshole said to you.
You're not even around them you're hallucinating basically.
You're sitting there with all these images of these people in your mind that have done you wrong but really you're just looking at you.
Little bits of yourself that you've segregated away from your consciousness and transformed into some kind of rubber stamp representation of these people
who you could never possibly even know.
Why? Because you don't even know yourself.
You only know one tiny little piece of yourself.
We only know one tiny little piece of ourselves.
As everybody says the conscious mind is like the very tip of an iceberg emerging from an ocean broiling with subconscious tides and weird multi-eyed creatures.
Strange images that you can't accept.
Awful feelings that you had when you're a child or terrible events that happened to you that you can't even remember anymore.
Not to mention underneath all of that in the same way that we now know that somewhere in the Pacific Ocean there is a giant skyscraper sized super shark
that eats whales like french fries.
Underneath all of you there is some howling screaming octopus like beast that is just constantly screaming about the inevitability of our own complete disillusion into infinity.
Nobody wants to die.
Those little bubbles come rising up out of the ocean of your subconscious every time you say some shitty weird thing to a clerk because he didn't get your goddamn order writer.
Every time you mouth off to somebody and then you pretend that the reason you're being an asshole to somebody is because they deserve it.
The truth of the matter is that your soul has indigestion and anytime you act in a way that is counter to having compassion or embracing somebody or loving somebody
it's exactly as though your soul just farted through the action of your cruelty.
But if you really want to be cruel to somebody like if you really want to get somebody if you really want to get somebody you really want to stick the fangs of the adder deep into the neck of whatever son of a bitch did you
wrong took your man took your woman took your house took your job unfairly subjected you to some kind of terrible experience whether it was they told you to go see a goddamn Marvel
comics movie which always suck yeah I said it or whether they did some awful thing like talking shit about you to somebody and it cost you a friend or a job or who knows what.
If you really want to get revenge on those people what's the best way to get revenge on them that's not going to put you in jail.
What's the best way to get revenge well clearly the best way to get revenge on somebody is to have a kind of unconditional positive regard towards them that isn't passive aggressive that isn't the whole thing
like oh my god I just feel sorry for him just seems like something's gone wrong and I just hope they're okay not any of that passive aggressive bullshit that doesn't work that's just this is better in fact than to be passive aggressive
I'm just worried about them it just seems like they're going in the wrong direction it's better to just overtly talk shit about them they suck their heart is a slug their brain is a steaming pile of smallpox diarrhea
it's better to just tell everybody what a complete flaming asshole the person is than to when you're with somebody tell them oh I just hope they're okay
no you don't you hate them and you want them to die you want some awful thing to happen to them
you want their neck to turn purple in their backyard as they fall forward into a pile of dog shit because they're having a high blood pressure level heart attack
you want to that cougar wandering around Griffith Park to pounce on them when they're walking their dog and for their dog to valiantly try to fight the cougar so they have to watch the thing bite the dog's head off before it turns its glowing eyeballs back in their direction and pounces on them using its back claws to rip their genitals off while sinking its giant fangs into their neck
you want their blood to run into the soil of Griffith Park as their body enters into pain induced doom seizures and as their mind in its last moment thinks back at the terrible thing they said to you and they feel regret
you want them to get dragged into the basement of a serial killer and have their nipples sliced off and replaced with plastic salt covered clown noses while a serial killer who calls himself the orange whore fists them to death
that's what you want you're not fooling anybody when you feign this kind of compassionate love for somebody you secretly want to eat cyanide
it doesn't work everyone can see it and it just makes you seem weak there's nothing worse than when you're around somebody who is acting concerned about a person they clearly fucking hate
it's the worst feids you're not fooling anyone the stink of your hate rises up out of your words like an old piece of Korean barbecues stuck in the mouth of a frat boy who's been drinking Miller lights and snorting baby laxative laced cocaine all night
if you really want to get horrified imagine this right now let's pretend and maybe you don't have any enemies maybe you sleep in a mattress filled with purring rescue kittens and every morning unicorns come to your window with strawberries in their mouths
and you polish their horns using the tears of compassion you feel for the world and the soft bandana that you used to wear when you were in the peace corps
and maybe every single thought you have is like the singing of a million angels and the song they're singing is a song of joy and gratitude just to exist in this beautiful dimension just to be able to float in the great nectar filled ocean of love that is all of our birthrights
but many of us aren't like that you boring turd many of us have hearts that are filled with swarming hate bees and every time we open our mouth they go flying out into the world and sting whatever is closest to us
if you're one of those people then I invite you to imagine that someone had given you some kind of magical device that would allow you to go through the minds of every single enemy that you have
maybe it's just one enemy maybe it's multiple enemies maybe you don't want to use the term enemy you just have people you have an uncomfortable turbulent connection with that is based on past events that didn't meet your expectations
or maybe you are there just some people that have like accidentally said stuff to you that bothered you maybe all of that's happening you can pick whatever one you want let's just say enemies for the sake of getting down to the bones of the situation
somebody gives you a device and you can go through the minds of all the people that have wronged you and see that the way that they feel about you
now what's going to be the most what's going to be the thing that hurts you the most is you scan through the minds of these people you're angry at
what's going to really piss you off is it going to be that your theories about what this person thought about you are absolutely correct
and that once or twice a day maybe three times a day they spend a good four minutes thinking about what a filthy little human shitbag you are
in traffic they grit their teeth squeeze the wheel shake their head sadly and just consider what a turd you are
and talk about you behind your back with people that you they're important to you
now imagine that if that was the case and you were you could go into the minds of your enemy and you saw that that's how they felt
then really nothing would change in the way that you felt about them outside of a kind of magnification of your anger towards them at the very most you would just get a little more angry
your poor little asshole would clinch a little tighter
your stomach would bubble a little bit more with anger fluids and your brain would secrete whatever terrible neurotoxins go along with feeling anger
and that tiny little fissure in your stomach would widen a little bit and a new hemorrhoid might poke out
maybe your sperm count would go down your feet would start smelling a little worse
but ultimately nothing's gonna happen more than that
now imagine if you could scan through this Rolodex of enemies and you went into an enemy's mind and instead of finding that they hated you or were angry at you
instead you encountered the horror of realizing that they actually authentically unconditionally love you
maybe it's not full on titanic level put your arms out in front of the ship and scream to the gods how glorious life is love
maybe it's just a kind of ambivalent affection that they have for you
a sort of passing fleeting hope that you are okay in this life
this person who you from time to time have two or three times a day while you're driving in your car
thought about how nice it would be to watch them run down a field while being swarmed by Africanized bees
if suddenly you realize that these people actually felt love for you
ambivalent affection just positive warm feelings
if they thought about you
generally they're probably not thinking about you but whenever they did a kind of warm bubbly jacuzzi-like feeling emerge in their mind because they want you to be happy
wow now that would fuck you up wouldn't it
wouldn't that be worse because you would be forced to deal with the fact that you were the one carrying around all this toxic snake-like venom in the snake bag of your heart
you would feel this sort of combination of probably, I don't know, a little bit of shame or guilt
because now you just kind of feel like Gollum or something living at the bottom of a cave
you would be like oh man you'd have to analyze your life
you'd realize that your assessment of the way people in the world actually think of you is completely wrong
and it might even force you to go backwards all the way to the part of yourself that you hate more than anything else
and then you would realize that actually all you're seeing in the world is a projection of the part of yourself that you haven't figured out how to love yet
and then somewhere in that process there is some possibility, some vague possibility, some small possibility
maybe a 4% chance that from realizing that your enemies actually love you and then falling backwards to realize that it isn't the anger of your enemies
or the hate of your enemies that is terrifying to you but more the awareness of the fact that there's a part of yourself that you can't love that's causing you all the problems
then somewhere suddenly that might make it so that you turn your eyes into yourself, figure out a way to love yourself
in the moment you love yourself you would experience a kind of radical transformation that would make it so all the enemies in your universe evaporated
and you were left in a kind of glorious, warm, happy, garden of Eden style dimension
where your biggest problem is that there's too many unicorns coming to your window with strawberries in their mouths
you in other words the you that you used to be, the world that you used to live in and everything you used to know would be annihilated by your enemy
and that's way more powerful than getting killed by him
so in the same way if you really want your enemies to experience this kind of radical transformation
something that for lack of a better word could be called a violent transformation
then the safest, most legal, psychedelic and awesome way to do that would be to figure out a way to unconditionally love them
but that's not gonna work because your enemies are cunts
they're smelly, stinky, angry poop heads
you're not gonna figure it out, there's no way
in fact if you even consider the idea
at the very best all you're gonna be able to do is paste on some kind of phony smile when you see him
and act like you love them when inside you're just feeling superior
no the only way to figure it out would be somehow to love yourself
turn that fucking transformative super power high beam that seems to be poking out of the crack in the universe
that's symbolized in Christianity by this skinny little hippie getting nailed to a fucking tree
on yourself
if you can
that black stinking poison hell seed that you carry around inside of you all the time
figure out a way to love it, it's way worse than your enemies PS
no matter who they are, even the worst of the worst of the worst out there
it's still
it's bad to exist on a planet where somewhere in some proximity to you there exists some person
who maliciously did something to you or accidentally did something to you in the past
it's bad to know that somewhere you might have enemies plotting your destruction
though I doubt that many of us actually are that important
but maybe you do, that's bad
but what's way worse is the fucking you've ingested a mental corollary that's supposed to represent this son of a bitch
and now they're living inside your heart
can you imagine if suddenly your landlord or wherever you live your parents or I don't know where you live
but if somebody told you that your very worst enemy was going to move into your house and there's nothing you could do about it
you'd leave
so now imagine how even more horrifying that is if some mental representation of your enemy has somehow climbed inside of you
that's way worse
what's the solution
because whatever mental corollary you have whatever the neurological representation
known in the yoga sutras of Patanjali is the vrittis
the thumbprint of the universe neurologically pressed into your mind
because you have to recognize that anytime you imagine a person you're not like making a telepathic connection with that person
but rather you're just summoning up the exact amount of neurotransmitters to create a sense of this person in your mind
unless you're a new age crystal buff in which case you think you have a kind of infinite array of microtubules
stretching out from you that kind of create a quantum connection with all living beings and not just on this planet
but in all time and space known as the net of Indra
Google it
regardless of whether or not you're some kind of psychic super octopus with quantum tubules connecting you to everyone you ever met
or whether you've just digested the universe and have a neurological living reflection of the universe that's inside of you at all times
the ultimate solution would be to figure out a way to forgive empathize and love those parts of yourself
which are currently being taken up by the shadow of those you think are your enemies
love that fucking thing
shine some light on it it's just you anyway
see if you can
watch the feeling the next time that enemy of yours mentally emerges in your mind and you get in one of those fake conversations
can you change can you love that guy change the conversation the next time you start chatting with a shithead
who stole your girlfriend or your money or your car or your house or your job or your happiness
have a chat with him sit down imagine it's kind of fun pretend you're in some kind of yurt and you're both sitting across from each other
and look him in the eye and say I fucking love you
I can't do it
see if you can let me know maybe it'll work here's my theory if you figure out a way to do it
if you figure out a way to embrace yourself and that doesn't mean suddenly it doesn't mean accepting the part of yourself
that likes to go walking down by the river and kick squirrels or baby ducks or whatever horrible thing that you do
it doesn't mean continuing that it just means look at it
see if you can love it and watch what happens to your life because every time you figure out in the most tiny tiny tiny little way
to forgive the part of yourself that you're most ashamed of or that you're even slightly ashamed of
or even if you're minorly embarrassed by it
there is a change that will happen in the external universe
700 times more powerful than the change that happens in the internal universe
this is what the mystics say like Martin Luther King
I think it's true
so on the 4th of July when for every firework that explodes in the sky above you
instead of imagining that those fireworks are miniaturized enemies being simultaneously blown to smithereens and incinerated by fire
imagine that those things exploding are the external representation of the energy of love being directed to the parts of the world
that you haven't figured out how to harmonize with yet
or even better just enjoy the fireworks and get drunk
forget all this rambling nonsense and have a good time
stop over intellectualizing everything you damn weirdo
just shove your face in some watermelon and go finger your darling
that's how you enjoy the 4th of July
how are you gonna enjoy the 4th of July if your heart is a trash can filled with rage puke
okay let's end this weird rant with a little bit of coherence
here is Martin Luther King talking about love and power
and one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power
have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites
so that love is identified with a resignation of power
and power with a denial of love
it was this misinterpretation that caused the philosopher Nietzsche
it was the philosopher of the will to power
to reject the Christian concept of love
it was the same misinterpretation
which induced Christian theologians to reject Nietzsche's philosophy of the will to power
in the name of the Christian idea of love
now we got to get this thing right
what is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive
and that love without power is sentimental and anemic
power at its best
power at its best is love
implementing the demands of justice
and justice at its best
is love correcting everything that stands against love
I'm going to be doing a little bit of a boring portal on my website
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and the next time you are considering going down to the local delicatessen
to pick up something or going down to buy some swifters at your local
CSV or CVS or any chain store
remember that you don't have to spend that time
entrepreneur's nightmare
but rather you could spend your time walking by a forest contemplating love
perhaps you could even find some field somewhere
springing forth with daisies
and lay in that field with your enemy who is now your friend
climb on top of him, straddle him
and with a full force of love and power
allow your throbbing member to enter him
as you make sweet Martin Luther King level love there on that beautiful day
instead of spending your time picking up
Kleenexes and cashews from some sticky stinky shore store
you could be humping your enemy who is now your truest friend and lover
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located at dunkatrustle.com
order whatever it is that you need
hopefully you'll be stoned so you'll forget about it
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you're not going to get that glory by going to some
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when I go shopping I don't want to look over
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go to dunkatrustle.com go through the Amazon portal
they'll give us a very small percentage of whatever it is that you buy
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aligned with the dunkintrustle family
and ward off the cruel dark gaze
of the many witches
who sculpt through our streets
fists clenched
hemorrhoids bursting
from their blackened puckered anuses
today's guest on the dunkintrustle family hour
podcast is a dear friend of mine
he is a recurring guest
comes back all the time and I haven't come back all the time
because we have some
generally really deep
conversations that add a lot
to my life and because I love him
and because
I don't know
why does there have to be a fucking because
why am I coming up with some stupid reason
right now anyway
to quote my dear friend
Emel from one of his songs
if I was to do something
especially some terrible act
I wouldn't want to think I was doing it for any reason
that in fact that reason
would dilute the act
make it almost laughable or petty
I'd rather think that
something was operating
through me
and I didn't really know what the means
to the end would be
something like that I'm sure I butchered it
I believe that's from his album
Decline of the West
now everybody please
open your heart chakras
and send love firecrackers
right into Emel
Amos's sweet
ass
but before you send those firecrackers
in Emel's direction
please enjoy this track from his
upcoming album
The Fact Facer
this is called All Too Free
links to all that are going to be in the comments section
of this episode
Altoo Free
Why is it so hard
to believe today
no one could believe
that they were lying to themselves
Wicked and attached
to my own way
Not seeing something clear
just like I should
Wanting someone dear
who's any good
I have forgot
just everything they taught
and all of a sudden
way to play
It was just a dream of mine
and no, it was just a dream
It was just a dream of mine
and no, it was just a dream
It was just a dream of mine
and no, it was just a dream
It was just a dream
All too free, oh, yeah
All too free, oh, yeah
All too free
and all too free
All too free
Welcome back to the Ducket Trussell Family,
our podcast.
Oh, sweet God and Lord of Music,
Lord of my heart and dear friend,
Emil Amos.
Oh boy, I've been thinking about...
Why was I doing this?
I think I was watching this documentary
on Chappelle last night
and it was showing the comedy store
in 99 or something
and I was thinking about
when I left there
and what was going on in your life
and how you must have been
feeling and looking at LA
like when I told you I was leaving
and you had to get a new roommate.
Do you remember all that?
Yeah, I remember getting the new roommate.
I certainly remember that.
Why? What happened?
Well, because she would lay on the couch
and like in a blanket
and watch X-Files all day.
She was chronically depressed
and I was, you know,
really mean back then.
So I had zero empathy
for her situation.
Like everything was completely about
me and, you know,
my levels of comfort
and part of what I wanted to be comfortable
was not to have to walk in front of a
depressed, moldering person,
no pun intended, watching X-Files
and cooking smelly food all day.
I should have loved her more.
I'm sorry, Simone.
I remember you, we kind of like
didn't talk that often
for a few years.
I mean, not that we ever talked
like in really condensed
blocks of time, but
I mean, a long time went by
and eventually
it took a while, but eventually I did
recognize that you
changed a lot it seemed like
and just the other day
I was kind of thinking, you know,
I think we've switched back
positions. I think I've become
the pessimist again
and you're the optimist like when we met
and that.
But would you
explain anything about what it was
you think that made you transform
when you're in those middle
2000 years in LA?
I don't know, man. Maybe a combination
of a bunch of different stuff.
I don't know. You know what?
Who knows? Maybe it's just some built-in
genetic thing in all of us to go through
these various changes. Maybe there's no
maybe you can't, you know, maybe by pointing
a finger at why you end up
reducing the why. You know what I mean?
Like, man, the
the
you don't know
sometimes. Sometimes you just change.
I don't know.
I'll come up with a bunch of different
reasons that I'd say, but like
probably
I don't know.
I don't know what happened, man. I have
no idea.
I guess that's a good answer.
I wish
there was like one thing that, you know,
if there was one thing that changed anybody
then everybody would be changed. Everybody
would be changed in the same way
because they'd contact that
thing and then they'd change.
And why is everyone so fucking addicted to change anyway,
you know? That's another big
thing. I'm gonna change.
This is it! I'm gonna make
a big change!
Well, you know, you could
probably say that the same
thing happened to me
back in
whatever, 98 or something,
but
I applied like, you know, these
these
ideas of talking to
God in a dream and all this stuff
to some massive meaningful shift.
But I remember also thinking
that I had been
so wildly
depressed for so
long
that mathematically
somehow like the serotonin
the pendulum had to swing
and the serotonin had to come
tumbling down and it did
for like a
straight long year
every day I was
like ecstatic. So it just
seemed like my brain was like,
well, it can't go any further
down so it had to crest back up
or something. I mean, I think there's
something glorious in that analysis,
you know, because like a depressed
person, the depressed people
who may be listening to this right now and
got the deep numb happening and
they can't get out of their beds like
one of those giant
exoplanets and they're a little tiny
meteor that sucked into
it. They can't get out of bed. They can
barely move. Somehow they've managed to
listen to this podcast. Who the fuck
knows just the effort of
downloading it for them was like, go, you
know, when you're depressed, man, you're like
it's like those people up on the top of
Everest who don't have enough oxygen
and just basic
basic stuff like zipping up your
jacket is like doing fucking
squats, you know,
and I think there's something glorious
to be depressed and actually
hear that, you know what, it's going
to change, might not seem
like it, might seem like this goes on
forever. Depression certainly will
trick you into thinking this will go on forever,
but it doesn't.
Suddenly you turn a corner
or a bunch of tiny little corners and
the next thing you know, you're back
to being human again.
All you need to do is hang in
there. Hang in there. You're on
Everest. We get it.
The oxygen feels like it's running low.
We get it, but both Emil and
I have been severely
deeply,
darkly depressed.
Suicidal thoughts
every day.
Still could be at any moment.
Just wait. Any moment
that pendulum can swing right back down.
You can go
falling down into that dark
dank hole.
Sure, why not? And that's the cool thing
because you realize like, well, here I am
back depressed again, but you know
what, it's going to get better.
It always does. It always does.
Do you want to play that song
and kind of get it out of the way and then keep moving?
I think that we should
keep moving and play the song
because
we play it now, it breaks it up.
Do you think the song's fitting right here
at this part of the podcast? Because I'm totally
into dropping it in.
Either way, it doesn't matter, but you can edit
this out, say, asking each other this stuff
right now. Why?
Well, in
respect to what we're saying,
I feel like ever since
we brought up the mythosisyphus
at that live
podcast, I feel like
it's become
the central
metaphor that every day
I tend to
use to describe
my state of mind.
I think I've definitely been dealing with
maybe a little
bit of depression, maybe mostly
stress. I think it was mostly stress
and then
also just an inevitable life phase
that's just
characteristic of
kind of,
we're kind of at this age where we're sort of
planning to be
older or something.
You can smack me down
and say, there's no such thing
as age or something.
Well, there is a level where
there's such a thing as age undeniable.
You'd be a goddamn fool to say there isn't when you look
at your fucking moobs
forming and your hair starts falling out. Come on,
man, you know there's something going down there
so much as you want to pretend you're Peter Pan.
On one level, you're
a melting
flesh candle getting devoured by the force
of time. No sense in pretending
that's not happening, but that's not
who you are, even though since the
mind likes to fixate on things like that.
If you don't watch out and if you aren't
careful, you will become convinced
that you are your age and that's where
things can get pretty dim.
Yeah, what if
getting older
and
let's say
let's say someone who has the
appearance of being more
harsh and like, negative.
Let's, what if
what if it's part of this natural
process to
shed just basic illusions
that you have and were built
into you as a child or you
imagined
so much about the world and
created a bit of a
one psychologically, you know, like
you have a bit of a bubble
that you're living in of self-concern
and as those walls
get disintegrated
and the world
starts to look a little bit more difficult
and things seem
more difficult as you
inevitably become more ambitious.
Why wouldn't
that seem like
a bit of a harsher reality? It's not
bad, like you can take all the negative
connotations away from it
but like, what if, what if
what you're not, what if instead of
you becoming
more bitter or whatever it looks like
what's happening is you're shedding
illusions that are holding you back.
Ooh, yeah, I love that.
I think that's a great way to frame it
and even though it is
a bit dire because it's like
implying that the thing that it's holding you back
from is this kind of harsh
permafrost
of age or something like that
I do love the idea that
the illusions are sort of
like
what's happening that the world has been
dreading you begin to realize is actually
this kind of
more intimate communication with truth
and it's quite beautiful
because it's
you know what you find out
is this incredible relief
like when you're a kid and you imagine being old
40, holy fuck
holy fuck, man
40?
40 like some old bit of gum
that God spit out in the
sidewalk of life, that's what you are
just old, all the commercials start
getting geared, certain commercials
start getting geared towards you when you're
40, definitely late 40s
man, you become a very specific demographic
for adult
diapers, boner pills
life insurance, so you see
all these things and you start dreading
this illusionary
boundary that you pass
that's called being 40 and then
suddenly you're 40 and you look inside
your heart and you do have
guilt and all the combined
regret of the life that you lived
ungracefully
but underneath all that you
start experiencing this odd warmth
that is
amazing, at least that's what I feel
the sense of like wow this is
not only is this
not
as bad as I expected it
in many ways it's way
way, way better
than what it was like to be young
this is a whole new kind of
youth, it's an unexpected
spring, like what the
fuck, there's a spring happening
here, now I can't explain that
to people, you know because
the conditioning is something
where we're all, you know
worship at the altar of youth
but man, the beauty of
being young, here's an example, you know because
you hear that grumpy old fucking crow
face shitbag who says
youth is wasted
on the young
do yoga
you know what I mean, like what
your body's tight, is that what you're talking about
because I think it's like this, youth
is given to the young
enjoy your youth
as you should, just have fun
be fucking
this to the pain of the world
whatever you want to do
do it and enjoy it
just the way you're gonna enjoy it
not like you're
not like you're
you have a bowl that's gonna
run out of cherries
it's a big bowl of cherries and
there's nothing at the bottom
and you get to keep eating them your whole life
I think that's
a very fun thing to find out
hehehe
when I
well, okay
part of what I'm asking you about that period
in LA, because I'm
personally, genuinely
interested in
sort of what happened to you over those
years, I don't even know
if you find it interesting, but I know
that what I was dealing with
like when we kind of, we didn't talk for a little
while, I think both
I think both of us were struggling
with something, so there wasn't a whole lot
to report, because
there was in the beginning
of our, sort of the beginning of
our careers, sort of
so we were struggling a lot
and maybe it was
I don't know if, were you depressed at all back then
do you remember 2001
shit like that? I was
just as I was in college
and to some degree as I am now
but thank god a little
less, I was
a fucking raging
vortex of pure
insecurity mixed in
with an incredibly
overblown
estimation of my talent
it was like the worst
combination of things
this sense of like
you know what I mean, like this feeling of
like
this hidden
I know
I know how great
I knew, just knew I was great
and judgmental, I was so judgmental too man
like
just like unfairly
and
cruelly judgmental because I was insecure
because really insecure people are the most
judgmental, so I was
like incredibly judgmental
of like comedians
and
just anything that I felt was better
than me, probably I was trying to diminish
or reduce to fit into the
idea that I was somehow
the ultimate
of ultimates and then that was all
derivative, being derived from
insecurity, so that was a rough phase
for me and I probably didn't even realize
how much of a rough phase it was
for me but
sentimental
too, like really caught up in the
sentimental notion of doing stand up comedy
and being a performer
and then like
you know like before I even
I don't understand stand up comedy
now but back
then I probably thought I did
more than I do now
and I can remember like
hoping
this is when I probably had six minutes of
just shoddy
shock material
but I can remember like
I can remember like an embarrassing
sitting on an airplane
this is so embarrassing
and like somehow some idiot
you're not an idiot, an idiot to start talking to me
but someone starts talking to me and I think
I managed to like navigate
the conversation to me being a comedian
like the worst
because I'm so proud of myself
but not in the right way
you know like just like
it was all a jumble
it was all a jumbled mixed up ego
mess you know and I
I think a lot of performers have to go through that
but
at the other end you get this glorious relief
when you're able to
accept the fact
that you don't know everything
you're not the best at anything
you're not even that great at much
and that's okay
oh god it's so wonderful man
when you finally
drop that suitcase and just
just experience like okay
well this is where I'm at
not the best
not the worst
so you're saying
there was never any like big
turning point never any big revelation
it was just pure
experience that
helped you kind of gain some objectivity
and grow out of that stuff
yeah I guess
I mean you know
you do stand up
and in the beginning
you do anything man
and like
hopefully
the process brings you into a place
of authentic humility
not like
in bullshit humility
where you say stupid things
like when people tweet
things that you it feels kind of like
maybe they don't really mean it
you know like or like you know that
weird like when you're getting an award
and you say this kind of like
sappy speech but it feels like
you don't even understand why you're
what you're doing or why you're there
or something you know like
but it's like you and sometimes
I get this glimmer
that isn't related to the career
at all
though I do I mean
I think I
can't believe that I get to
do this as a job
it's something behind all that we're like
man thank you
universe God creator force
whatever's out there
I can't believe I get to have this body
it's
fucking so psychedelic and awesome
thank God
for this or universe or whatever
and then I don't know why you
those moments are really good moments
that to me
is the opposite of depression
are you aware of like
an alternate version
alternate universe version of you
that never
found any success that still
sort of works in a gas station
somewhere
never got never worked at a gas station
not that that's bad but
the the uh yeah you know
this is the thing man
okay go and watch Richard
Alpert prior to becoming Ramdas
talking about mushrooms right
mm-hmm
he's still this like sweetie
you know what I mean like the guy is clearly the
sparkly sweet guy
he's just using different words to describe
something you know and I'm not
saying but I think that like
no matter where you end up I mean that's
the big illusion of this like fucking career
crap and especially the entertainment
the idea of being an entertainer
or that that stuff is like
it's pounded into people's heads to
the point where it creates this sick hierarchy
of experience where somehow
that is uh
you know like God how many like
people go galloping to
it to Los Angeles every fucking
day like just
galloping here
like it's some water hole in the middle of a
prehistoric desert
these where you could drink
deep of these waters of fame
and somehow at the other end of
that you experience a moment of
true peace
you know what I mean it's like I think the
alternate version of me if I didn't
do stand-up comedy would have been
somebody who maybe started doing
something
it's probably psychology
or I don't know what I mean
I have alternate versions
of me where I see myself sentimentally
in some kind of like
beautiful house with
a wonderful wife
and children and kind of like
I don't know but even that I don't know
no I don't have an alternate that's a great
question though I don't even understand
I don't understand this
I hope I don't sound too
easy but I don't understand this much
either I don't understand
you know what I mean maybe that's the
difference between now and then is I just know
that I don't understand
much
I definitely get messages
in my brain like
like I can tell
I can tell that I was entering
the phase when a lot of my friends
were having kids and stuff because I would
get sort of messages in my brain
that I wanted to take care of
my girlfriend
or something like I get
messages or I get images in my brain
that
more for me instead of having like a house
and a wife or family
and stuff I'll just get
these images of like a place
where I will go
where the stress will be
over and I'll basically be like
retired and like living in that
Maxwell house commercial way
where I'll be sipping the coffee
looking out the window into the fields of wheat
Valhalla
this is the dream of the fountain of youth
yeah it's such a
shitty image because it's like
you're like
I think life is full of those
and this is what I meant about aging before
I think life is full of these
sneaky
subtle
seductive carrots that sort of dangle
in your mind
the grass is greener
and try to pull you towards
these static images
of you being at peace in the world
and
it's almost like the process
of aging is more about trying
to demystify those
those seductive voices
and try to you know put them away
and realize that they don't
exist I mean I definitely grew up
let's change what you said
from the process of aging
from the process of personal evolution
aging being just a kind of
meter by which you measure
the amount of time that you've
gone around the sun and I
guess the number of times your DNA
replicates itself
you know what I mean
aging being separate
that's what I mean
but I only say aging because
maybe because
the connotation of my particular
version of this
something to do with me like
finally
wanting to enter a sort of
old phase
in a state of grace or something
something where I can walk outside
look like shit
and have people accept
oh yeah there's that old guy
instead of you know wanting to be young
or something that's just part of my
like you know do you
ever get that kind of
lusty feeling where you want to just
be released from the
pressure of
sort of the rat race or something
you know what I mean?
You know the relief that has come to me man
I got to do this
I don't I got to do
this is like one of the high points of my life man
I got to do
a series of podcasts with
Jack Cornfield because he's releasing his own
podcast and I got to sit down and talk to him
and he talked to
Natasha Legerro and Pete Holmes
and this podcast is going to come out
I don't know when but man it was amazing to watch
this guy and to be in front of him you know
and
so he sort of
helped
articulate something that was growing inside
of me that totally relates to what
you're talking about which is that
there is this
illusion
of this point
where we
come to some kind of
final conclusion
and there's this weird peaceful thing you're talking
about self acceptance
being that person who goes outside
freed from the pressures of life
after this is done or that is done or this
this is this happens or that happens
never happens he's really good
at articulating that in a way that doesn't sound
dismal because
we've tricked ourselves into the
crazy
idea that there is safety in this dimension
that there is a point of rest
that there is a moment of rehabilitative
rest
where after the struggles
and woes of our life
we find some
tranquil shady
place
whether it's a mental place or an actual
physical location
where the waters
of forgiveness wash upon us
and we are born anew
and that place does not
fucking exist
so it's kind of like
music or when you're recording
right now there's a little bit of hiss happening
in this recording I don't know why something
maybe is wrong with my sound board probably more
of the fact that I don't know how to use this shit at all
but the human
mind when it starts hearing the hiss
people listening if you get fixated
on the hiss what are you going to do
you're going to miss the point of the conversation
you're going to miss the podcast and get
caught up in the hiss fucking hiss
it's always there
so that's the same way it is I think
there's an underlying
inevitable or rather endless
hiss
in the existence of
on this planet
and that hiss
is suffering pressure
complication turbulence
disruption disappointment
all the things that
create what the buddhas call
the body of fear
or pain the pain body
if you focus on that mother fucker
well
then you begin to believe that there's a point
where the pain goes away doesn't go away
never ends
and now what you could do
is instead of pretending that the pain is going to end
you just begin to embrace it
accept it surrender to it
and recognize that it's a natural part of
existence and woo once you start
doing that man what do you know
what do you fucking know
it does make
it's almost like you're walking
down this path
in this tranquil
you know forest or something
and as a metaphor
in life and
at some point some
some horrific thing
is revealed to you behind the trees
but
it was always there
and then you have to keep walking
you know
and learn how to like
phase it out
beautifully said
and here's another great thing about it
that little that thing that you see behind the trees
the thing wearing the fucking
cloak
with the long
hands and fingers that have
sharp bloody claws at the end
that's looking at you like
a subway sandwich
it's not just that you see the thing behind the trees
it's that you realize at some point that thing
is definitely going to eat me
no way around it
I could sing to it
talk to it pretend it's not there I could try to fight it
it's still going to eat me
it's that
it's not just that you realize there's a thing behind the trees
you realize this thing will eat you
you are going to die
impermanent you are impermanent
you know and that thing isn't
going away and all the
other things aren't going away
that you think are going to go away
just doesn't get better
and a lot of people hear that and they get so
got they're like you know you're
being negative because these Disney movies
make it seem like once you beat the bad guy
you marry the princess
have some babies and then the credits roll
they don't show
what happens after you beat the bad guy
marry the princess and the princess gets cancer
and the babies fall
into the ocean and drown
and one of the babies you leave in the back
seat of your car and maybe one of the babies
shoots up a school
my version of
of depression
more recently is kind of like
I feel like in this
early 2000's you know we're both
kind of running at this
wall and we looked up the
wall and it was just
impossibly infinite
mountain
that we had to scale to get to
where we assumed
we had to go
so we kept sliding down the wall
and then one day
years and years into this
running up
trying to get up the wall we like
sunk like one
little hook
into one spot that
could take it and then
very very slowly
worked up enough strength
to pull ourselves up to the next
thing
and over years and years
very slowly pulled
herself up and
at some point
it dawned on me that
this wall
is just kind of like that
Twilight Zone episode where they
finally scale the wall
and they fall out the top
and
I don't know if you remember the episode
but
life is a joke
they fall out of the top of
this prison
and they hit the snowy street
and
they were like action figures
and a trash can their whole life
yes totally man
that was probably my favorite episode
I think about it probably at least once a week
but
now we are scaling these walls
our whole life
with
ambition
and accomplishment
as our sort of
guide map
it's ruling our days
today I'm going to record a podcast
today I'm going to mix a record
tomorrow I'm going to take promotional photos
on Wednesday I'm going to do an interview
everything has been
totally
focused on all this stuff
there's just this deep
sigh in this moment
and then I'm just going to fall
out the top of this thing
yeah you sure are
especially if you're results oriented
that's the problem
everybody's got this notion of the universe
like we're outputting
shit in a factory man
the whole thing
it's like
we are doing this for this
here's why I'm doing stand up comedy
so that I obviously
the reason I do stand up comedy
is because someone's going to see me
in the audience and put me on a fucking tv
show
you know
and then suddenly that's what you're doing
right and so then when the tv show isn't happening
then if you let your mind take control
the mind will tell you see
you shouldn't have done stand up comedy
and you're god damn right you shouldn't have done stand up comedy
if you wanted to get on a tv show
you shouldn't do it either because it's like
a form of weird repetitive
sickness that you can't stop
doing or because you love it or because
whatever but
this dream of the paycheck
down the line man god
I've had the good fortune of meeting some of the most
successful fucking comedians
based on the normal
perception of what success is
and they're exactly
the same way they were before they got success
except with the addition of money
and like is that
what we're looking for is the
watermark for a person's
activity being somehow
justified
money from a corporation
that sells cars and banks
and or gets people
in debt to the banks that can't be the reason
you want to do something
to finally get knighted by some kind of
I mean aside from the fact that tv
is am radio these days and the whole thing
is getting flushed down the toilet by technology
and it doesn't matter
anymore as much as it did
aside from the fact that that whole
old archaic system is collapsing
it's like god damn it man we gotta do
things for stuff from if I'm
doing something it better be
for not for money
because shit have you ever felt
more if you really want to
feel disgusting do something just
for money
like feel that
go do that as an experiment
you guys go find something to do
just for money
just find something out there
and do it just for the dough
find something out there I don't know whatever it is
but if you have a job that you're doing
just for money you know how that feels
you're objectifying yourself
you're objectifying the people around you
you're objectifying your boss
you're letting yourself be objectified
that's no fun
see I'm talking about this god damn liberation
where you begin to realize that you don't have to
do things I quoted your song
at the very beginning of this man
one of my favorite one of your my favorite
lyrics is
in any song
is if I was ever
gonna do anything especially some horrible
deed
it wouldn't be for any reason
how does that go
yeah no you got it
you got it it wouldn't be for any
reason especially
that the
the reason would dilute the act
make it almost laughable or petty
see
all these fucking assholes out there
doing stuff for reasons
it's embarrassing
when you see one of these puffed up peacocks
fanning out there whatever their talent
wings are to hypnotize a crowd
and they're not doing it for any reason
they're not doing it for anything more than for the reason
of wanting dough
it's embarrassing
it's an embarrassment because they feel so
important
the dogs
my girlfriend was pointing out that when you give the
dogs a little stuffed animal
they get puffed up
and they kind of prance around with the bone or the
stuffed animal
they really feel important
and one of them
the stuffed animal they'll put the stuffed animal
down for a second and sit on the couch
and then the other one will jump up
and try to get the stuffed animal
and the fight that ensues
is like world war three
they're fighting over this plushie
like it was the goddamn
arc of the covenant
or nuclear weapons or some kind of
unseat this fountain of youth
and that's what humans are like when they get
puffed up over the fact
that they have some temporary transient success
that's defined by the amount of monkey paper
getting paid to them by a corporation
whose number one job is to hypnotize
idiots so that their guard
goes down and they get in debt to a bank
when they buy a Range Rover they don't need
wow man okay well
anyway what just happened you guys after that
weird Range Rover rant
kind of obvious shaking my fist
nothingness
I listened to
Emil's song from his new album coming out
and wow the song you guys already
heard at the beginning I just listened to it for the first
time it's really good Emil
hmm
it's coming out
something like September
24th ish
on thrilljockey
which is a Chicago label
a new label that I've never worked with
that was
pretty legendary for
kicking off
of many things the
tortoise career
one of the great 90s bands that's
still around
anyhow very eclectic
label great people
man that song though
wow man that is
really that was that's an intense
song the
piano in it is so
amazing man wow
you must be so that must feel so fucking good
to have something
like that go out into the world
uh
I mean it's kind of a funny
a funny subject really
because that was recorded in
fuck
that song was recorded in like 2008
and I wasn't because my career
has been so strange and all over
the place I wasn't able to ever find
a place to put that song
so not only was it written
in 1996
and recorded in around
2008 it's now 2014
so
there's a lot of feelings that go on
in between all those years
and some of them aren't very good
you know and and so
somehow I don't know that that song
kind of like simmered in a
pot somewhere and then
it landed into this
record because I think the record is really
it's really dark so
it needed one
or two moments of
that sounded a bit more optimistic
to balance it out so the song
became really important to come back you know
yeah yeah sure
that's interesting when you're making an album
you feel like you got to throw in some happy spice
in there so it's not too dark
it's not yeah
totally it's not like it's
that like forced of a balance
but I think
because any piece of art
like life is just
a
series of tension and release
you just you know you want to
pull people in and you want to
then you want to kind of like
push them away a little bit
there's something to
that rhythm that keeps someone
engaged and I don't
think it's like necessarily a
manipulative thing but it's more about
just maintaining tension
you know like a good David Lynch
movie or something like the way
that sound and
envision kind of like
keep you on edge a little bit
you just don't want the tension to dissipate
and too much darkness just gets
it's like you're hitting someone over the head
you know there you go man
you know who else could have just given that explanation
for creation? God
that sounds like
you know like if you like
end up getting in the presence of the creative force
the universe like hey why the fuck did you
make it so goddamn dark down there
sometimes you could just
do that exact answer that you
right well that would be like the absence
of the sun right it wouldn't make any sense
nothing would grow nothing would
well you never
be able to see anything either so
well it's kind of like you got a
you know like that you almost
like here's a it's like you don't want to
realize that a lot of times you're
pretending that the pain doesn't feel
good like you know
you know what I mean like
you don't want to realize that like
in some weird ways even
the most painful thing
you still
realized it
that's New York
holy shit somebody
ate too much pizza
New York pizza
and his best
joke was invented we got a pizza
overdose on 5th and Lemoine
in the meatpacking district
better get down there boys
and the crowd
just erupts anytime you
do that anyway
you know what I mean man it's like
it's so funny how
you have to like
you know
when you find yourself writhing on the floor
moaning over some
awful realization or event
if you just
if you give yourself a little bit of space
in there you find that there's
something so juicy
and
strangely exhilarating about those
moments that you almost
have to play a game of make believe with yourself
so that you can fully
be in pain and not
faced with that odd
thing where you realize that everything
seems to have a little bit of sugar in it
I feel like
some people
lives almost
like metaphorically they're sitting
at a desk
and they just have a happy button
and they're just trying to slam
the happy button over and over
again
maybe not realizing that
that life
has no
subtletied dynamics
and like you can't like
sink into the basic arc
of like how
true satisfaction comes
if you're just
kind of trying to
run up at
a target
of like a reward over
and over and over again you know what I mean
yeah
yeah it's true man
poor dogs
if the dog just thinks that the only thing
that matters is getting that treat
it's so interesting
when you just start
finding these
secret hidden
like what do they call it in video games
when people they leave these funny little
easter eggs
you find these weird little easter eggs hidden
throughout even the most dark moments
it's almost like
if there was a creative force which
it's arguable who knows
but it would almost seem like
he's too or she or it
or all of us to combine forming it
it's almost
it couldn't bear
to really just
let us
be completely alone
there's always a secret
hidden in there
I don't know though I love Zizek
he'd probably fucking throw a goddamn
bowl of
pasta at me if you heard that shit
you know Zizek
yeah I don't I haven't
spent a lot of time
with it but
yeah I do
he talks about how in psychotherapy
any of his friends or psychotherapists say
life is not that they don't
get enough enjoyment
but they can't enjoy what they get
oh god
well that seems
that seems painfully obvious
yeah but it's something that people
really like over look
he's using it in reference to like
Coca-Cola and showing like all these
awesome coke commercials
in this show the perverts guide to ideology where
and he says you know
as though the necessity
to enjoy has been inflicted on us
has been
shoved at us that happy button
that you're talking about it's as though if you're not
constantly slamming that fucking happy button
something's wrong with you
and he's showing all these coke commercials
where these jubilant idiots
are like cavorting around a DJ
in this kind of
Mayan ritual
sacrificial
ritual with a fervent
manic
amplification of cultists
surrounding a baby about to get
gutted by a fucking pie
priest that kind of like
cultist look in their eyes and this is somehow
all associated with the
story of Coca-Cola which is of course
the story of all of us which is that
finally at this point in human history
we've gotten to a place where we're just
basically standing under
a fountain of ecstasy
and we're all supposed to be drinking the
liquids of God's jizz
like
sex addicts at a fucking
glory hole
you know what I mean
so that means that even though
the corporations are constantly sprang
us with their ecstasy
come
just like anybody
I'm sure if you've ever
been
giving oral sex to your girlfriend
it's wonderful
when you're really into it you know
and like you're a stone and you're like
God this is so, God your heart's pounding
and like you could just, you want to just
drink every little drop
but it's like eventually
you gotta go to the bathroom
or take a break you know
you can't be constantly getting hot
wet
calm on your face
Jesus what have I done to this
podcast
well the point stands
it's true
thank you
maybe
you need some like audience laughter
tracks or something
or the lack of
just a kind of confused
uncomfortable moment I believe would be
the more the response from whatever I just said
but you know what I mean man it's like
this
and it is obvious to say this
but we do forget that these
in between moments are in fact
the majority of what things are
and that if you begin
to get
fixated on the
moments that are in between the in between
then you end up falling into this
infinite
endless fractal
where you're always one decimal
away from experiencing happiness
and you'll never ever
get to that decimal
you'll just always fall in
waiting and waiting for the moment
and the best you could do is pretend to be happy
and put on a big fat smile
on your face when inside
you're still dealing with this problem
that emptiness
the tension the darkness
the ache
are you there god damn it Emo
I thought that was actually
pretty good ending
laughter
that ache though
is always going to be there you know
it's like the moment you start accepting
the ache that's when you can enjoy the
slot machines
no the zizzic thing is
it's it's I wasn't
saying like oh it's painfully obvious
I was saying it's it's painfully obvious
in the way that it's it's brilliant
to you know like I
I digger said like
if you could just
if you could just ask the right question
ask the question the
right way the answer would
would present itself
wow
weird that's so weird
I love how he's
yeah he's pointing the finger back at yourself
for
just not I mean he's definitely
that's a SART
you know you're sort of like
your freedom is your freedom to try to
interpret
your situation in any
way you want to do it and
I don't know why someone
who is so intelligent would get caught
in called a sex of
over analysis and
and depression when
when really
like we have these
these amazing advantages
and incredible
lies but like there's there's so
many times when I
I'm feeling like
my intelligence goes towards
trying to over focus
on all the ways in which
everything is
like just not quite
going right and if only
if only I didn't
hurt my hand the day before
I have to go play a
show or if only you know what I mean
there's always like something that
that that the the mind
is seducing you to over
focus on that keeps you from
that that Maxwell House
moment of ecstasy or something you
know yeah that Maxwell House
moment man that Maxwell
House moment ooh
how awful that moment be
if you actually did get the moment you
just feel like ah you'd miss the
tension you'd miss the fucking
that those moments anyway doesn't
that doesn't that happen to you it happens
to me all the time like you spend all this
effort going trying to go
on a vacation or something
and you get to the
scenic outlook
and you have an ice cream cone
and you just start thinking about
how many calories
you're ingesting and
and how you almost I can almost
get sad thinking about
how much I've always wanted to be
sitting there at that
outlook having a good
time but I just don't feel
the way that I thought I would feel
exactly in my mind so I'm
kind of just sitting here like
you know there's just like this weird
ghost of
I don't know
of like a shadow version
of yourself following you around always
offering you a way to
look at the situation in a shitty
respect you know what I mean yes
and as long as you understand that that
shadow is always going to be there and let
them yap and do the whole thing and then
you're sort of like oh there you are hi
there you are again hi
oh that what do you got what do you got
this time and then right
that's where a sense of humor definitely
comes in to let you just like
why are you taking yourself so
fucking seriously dude oh
yeah listen and it's and when you
start doing that where it's like oh here he is
again almost like you know like
I remember once I was hanging out
with some friends who I suddenly realized
that anything
that came into their field of
vision or experience
they would find something awful
to say about it and then they would like
kind of like go back and forth about how horrible
the thing was so in my mind
I started playing this game like a roulette
game where I started throwing out
things to me that were meaningless
objects whatever it was
things that were known but kind of meaningless because
I knew that whatever I threw out they'd start
talking shit about it
and I started doing that for fun because
we were hanging out for the day I just spit something
out and be like let's see what they say about it
and inevitably man no matter what it was
it was always
bad like you always find this like curdled
underside of the thing
whether it would be you know
the fools whatever
it was always somehow it was like bad
everything was bad
so in the same way it's like
when you start doing this little hunting trip with your mind
and you
instead of like thinking that's you but just
realizing it's a facet of you and then no
matter what the experience is I mean
the next time you're having sex or enjoying
a good meal or
whatever the thing is when that thing starts
popping up just don't believe
it just be like whoa that's a good one
oh that was good
like I was just walking my dog the other day
and this this old man with
a camera gave my dog a dog
biscuit very sweet
and as he's giving
it to me that part of my mind is like it's probably
poison dude
you're like oh hi
wow that's good
yeah well let's hope not
if it is I'm a fool
but let's just see what happens here
never works
never never never does that that part
of your mind successfully predict what
awful thing is gonna happen
you know or for example like I was
talking to a friend on a recent podcast
and we were talking about love
and we were talking about how great it is
and he goes yeah in the beginning
and
he's awesome man
he is so cool and sweet and by the
end you know we sort of like both like
balanced each other's
point of view out but you know
again like he's
giving voice to the
awareness of this you know
yeah but
you know
it's gonna be
we're heading down it's gonna be
bad and yeah sure of course
it's gonna be bad you're right about that
it is gonna be bad
there will be bad things that emerge
and they'll be bad things that go away
and they're gonna be good things that go away
and they're gonna be good things that
don't go away maybe but
the
to get to that Maxwell house moment
is actually
kind of scary to people because we don't want
to be animals
you know and there's something feel that feels
visceral and hedonistic about purely enjoying
the moment
you know it's scary to really just
enjoy any single moment
and to realize that you can
and the heat and the
the cold and the
the boredom and the excitement
you can really enjoy all of it
yeah maybe like that group
of your friends that
has to find a way to
be superior
to every subject by
pointing out it's weaknesses
or something maybe
maybe like that's some sort of
inborn element
of consciousness that like
just experiencing things
doesn't seem
like enough like we like our ego
requests of us to
interpret things and just in the
instant interpretation of things
we start we get away from
the experience and then get lost in
like some
weird attempt to
form superiority over the moment
in the attempt to interpret
I love it I love what you're saying
and I love that the impulse behind it is
trying to achieve superiority
in control and you're right
that is what it is like you know man
when I used to go to the raves
I was standing in line to go into
this rave and the music's coming out and
man at the time I fucking love that shit
I had some ecstasy
I probably had just taken ecstasy
or was about to take ecstasy
this is when take getting ecstasy
for me was like a big moment
like I think I was
probably a dishwasher and ecstasy
cost 30 bucks and if you're
a dishwasher man that's like half your
day for this drug
and even obtaining it was exciting
and the whole thing was romantic and exciting
and I was standing outside this fucking
rave and
I'm kind of like bouncing with
excitement I'm so excited man
there's no sense of
embarrassment about this situation at all
just this kind of like
this is gonna be an awesome night
and I'm bouncing around
and this fucking girl who's like friends
was dating one of my friends
turns and looks at me
and like goes
you're excited huh
like
you know what I mean like I was being too
too excited or like too
openly excited and that's not how you
since you're at a night club
event type thing you got to kind of play it cool
man don't be
really don't be a fucking bouncy ball
of like excitement it makes
you look like a tool
you know and I think that's superiority
that's the thing we don't want to be that you don't want to be the giddy
bouncy thing it's like this is awesome
so you just
you end up ultimately
fighting against love
right I just came
straight from a
art opening on Rockaway Beach
with like it's like all
Patty Smith's art and James
Franco was gonna speak or something
and and there would be like
you kind of pass through
the swarms of just young people
who sort of just were like
happy to be near the beach
and out of the city
but there but in in the swarms
would be people positioned
just making that face
that's supposed to communicate that
they've done this a lot
and they've
they've seen a lot of art
you know and
they're pretty important
they probably
drive a nice car
and I just focus on those
faces and I'm always just kind of
mesmerized by
what might be going on behind
that face and the machinery
of their brain to make them think
that that's tricking anyone
into thinking
so I guess being an asshole
somehow just generally does
make people kind of like respect you
because they step back you know
if you're driving crazy you're like
whoa get the fuck out of the way
oh I've been enthralled by assholes like that
for sure dude
mesmerizing and they also make you like
you sort of like if you're not
what they're doing is a basic
dominance trick which is like
if you're a weak person and you get around somebody
being hostile then you'll submit to them
because they're not going to be
aware of conflicts so
it's just like a basic rudimentary
shitty alpha trick
and it will work for weak people
and you will get sucked into that
if you're not careful and I've watched
myself being sucked into it
trying to placate a fucking turd
and like just like oh man
saying something to cheer him up
submissive baby
but it's like
all that they've done either
subconsciously or even
maybe they're sociopaths
and they consciously recognize that if they act aloof
the weakest people in the crowd
will begin to attend to their needs
but either way it's like
just a trick
because they like to have a little bit of power
or a lot of power
those people will always have an orbit
around them
of the weakest of souls
and it's so funny because
when you get around people like that
and you're not submitting to them
then the weaklings around them
will start getting weird
like prairie dogs
when there's like something
really start perking their ears up
and like doing sideways glances
that whoever has managed the vampire
that's managed to suck them into their goddamn orbit
of expertise
waiting for his inevitable either
dismissal of you
usually though they'll dismiss you behind
your back
they won't do it in front of you
but when they get around their orbit of
you know
they'll try to talk shit about you
anyway it's a terrible thing don't get sucked into it
better to be a giddy fool
enjoying your fucking Justin Bieber concert
than some puffed up
pseudo expert
because what could anyone really know
I feel like maybe
with the internet
and kind of the push
towards total variety
and
this global thought
thing like
there's less ghettos to be
stuck in
like thought ghettos where everybody's like
you know if you're into a certain
scene you have to go see
the scene guru
and he's the one that keeps the knowledge
and you know whatever it seems like
there's an attitude where people are a little bit
less
stuck in there
in their genres these days
everybody's kind of trying to get out
and learn more about
you know various exotic things
but in the old days you really did
kind of stick within your
zone I mean I'm sure in prison
and I'm sure in
neighborhoods and I'm sure there's still
scenes and stuff but at least I think
we're moving forward into a sort of
global communication
to some degree
it's wonderful it's a beautiful thing man
it really is like a
beautiful thing I love
the corrosive effect
the internet has on the ability
of certain people to become scene
gurus I love that I love the way
that it's like eliminating the
necessity of those kinds of people
or those kinds of dynamics because man
those people could be so goddamn
inhibiting man they can really
if you're not carefully get around
one of those people too long
you'll really lose some time
you know they'll shut you down
quick because that's what they do
I mean goddamn
God forgive all of us though
I mean nobody's better than anybody else
but man if you end up around a bunch of people
who constantly hate everything
you're in trouble man because they hate you
Christ almighty
I can't wait to listen to your whole album man
I'm so excited that track
was so beautiful
I'll send it to you as soon as I can
I know you have to go catch a plane
I gotta catch a plane but we're gonna
you tell me everything
about how people listening to this
can find the album
and can find you
well they're announcing it this week
so you can go to
thrilljockey.com
and they're
they're basically gonna be announcing
the record this week and
putting out a few other songs
and
my Facebook page for Holy Sons
is pretty much where I'll be posting
all the videos
and new stuff that we're working on
I just came from my first
band practice last night
with the new New York band
and so like we're finally planning new shows
for the first time in a few years
and so there's gonna be a lot of stuff to
that I'm gonna be announcing
there
well I'll talk to you on the podcast
again soon and also in real life
cause we're friends so
we don't record every conversation
I don't know why I had to say that
all links to this album
pre-sales of the album
etc are gonna be on the comment section
of this podcast
connect to Emel
get his old albums if you haven't yet
they're amazing thanks for coming on the show Emel
yay
thanks for listening everybody
that was Emel Amos
and be sure to go through our Amazon
portal and give us a nice rating
on iTunes if you feel like it
have an excellent 4th of July
and please be careful with those fireworks