Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Greg Fitzsimmons

Episode Date: June 6, 2017

A glorious chat about Christianity, catholic guilt and comedy with the brilliant Greg Fitzsimmons. ...

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. I'm dirty little angel. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Squarespace.com. It's time for you to step into the modern age and create a website so beautiful it makes the eyeballs
Starting point is 00:00:26 of all those who gaze upon it turn into gold. If you go to squarespace.com and use offer code Duncan, you'll get $10 off your first order. Greetings, friends. It is I, D Trussell and thou. Art listening to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast. If this is your first time listening, I'd like you to take your hands, place them on your nipples
Starting point is 00:00:50 and close your eyes. There, I did it. I entered into your consciousness and have re-corrected the parts of yourself that were a little off. You have now been completely re-combobulated. Your ancestors will no longer experience the burning horror that they have been experiencing.
Starting point is 00:01:10 Many of them are burning in hell. But guess what? At the moment you did that movement, the mudra of light as it's called, your grandmother, who at that very moment was getting tap danced on by succubi wearing spiked heels with the venom of hell toads applied to the very base of them,
Starting point is 00:01:33 was carried out of hell by angels and is now being scrubbed down in one of the bathtubs of heaven. All because you decided to tune in to the DTFH. We've got an amazing podcast for you today with a brilliantly funny comedian, Greg Fitzsimmons. We talk a lot about Christianity and comedy. Two of my favorite topics on planet Earth.
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Starting point is 00:04:30 that you're surrounded by people who just like you will eventually be devoured by time and transformed into grave dust. You can sit in the sweet sacred sanctity of your home enjoying the glow of your Phillips Hue lights, lights that change color according to your whim. And you can order these lights by going to amazon.com but just go through the link first at dunkintrustle.com.
Starting point is 00:04:56 All you gotta do is slide through that link. It's a great way for you to support this podcast because they will give us a very small percentage of what you buy and it costs you nothing. You gotta try out these Phillips Hue lights, man. There is something glorious about being in control of your lights, you know? Right now, if you don't have Phillips Hue lights
Starting point is 00:05:17 and you just flip the lights on, you just get this boring ass, normal light color, no. No, make it feel like you're in a forest with glowing green or purple. Get those lights set for the next love making session with you and your sweet darling. Make love under a deep violet while Pink Floyd plays out of your Alexa.
Starting point is 00:05:41 Get into the future, sure. Maybe the CIA is gonna be monitoring through your lights but who cares? It soothes you. It relaxes you. It makes you forget what's happening. I'm also thinking about starting up a Patreon page. Hasn't happened yet.
Starting point is 00:05:59 I'm still thinking about it. Would like your feedback on that. What do you think? I'm thinking about releasing some extra content because what happens a lot of the times is as in today, I'll spend a long time working on these opening rants and then I'll think, that's too long. I can't use it and I'll delete it
Starting point is 00:06:18 but I'm thinking maybe Patreon can be a kind of repository for these opening rants and a lot of you sweet darlings out there have already set up a subscription through PayPal so maybe we could transfer that over to Patreon so that you can get something back for your very kind monthly donations. What do you guys think?
Starting point is 00:06:39 Is it weird? Is Patreon weird? I'm thinking about doing it. Let me know your thoughts on that. I would be interested in hearing what you think. All right guys, we have got a wonderful podcast for you today. Our guest today is a really funny comic.
Starting point is 00:07:00 He's one of those comics when you're me and you're performing and you know he's watching you, you get a little nervous because you wanna impress him. He's a comedy writer, he's currently working on Pete Holmes, great show on HBO, crashing, he's been on Letterman, all the late night shows and he's supremely funny and supremely smart and it was a real blast
Starting point is 00:07:26 to get to chat with him. So now everybody please welcome to the Dunkin' Trussell family hour podcast, Greg Fitzsimmons. Come on home! Welcome home to Dunkin' Trussell family longer than ever before. Welcome to Dunkin' Trussell family hour podcast. It's the Dunkin' Trussell family.
Starting point is 00:08:01 Greg, welcome to the podcast, how does it feel to be back home? Home is good, you know, home's good. I'm seeing it from different, from different lenses. My voice just went crazy because, you know, I was born in the Bronx and then I lived there till I was like six or seven. And then I was a Westchester kid, Tarrytown.
Starting point is 00:08:22 Yeah. Then I lived in Manhattan for about 10 years. And so those were all like totally different experiences. And now I'm living in Brooklyn and I've never, I had never spent any time in Brooklyn. And this is just a temporary residence. Well, it's three months. Three months.
Starting point is 00:08:39 Well, I'm writing on that TV show, Crashing. And it's- Did they put you, did they put you up? They just gave me a check. They said, here's 10 grand and put yourself up for four months. Which isn't reasonable. I mean, for New York, if you're in Iowa, you're probably going, wow, you're gonna pocket a lot of cash.
Starting point is 00:08:57 10 grand for how long? Four months. Yeah, that's pretty good. You can get by on that. Yeah, you can get a little, nicely, yeah, I get a place for sure. Yeah, so I got a place in Brooklyn because that's where the studios are for the TV show.
Starting point is 00:09:10 They're in Green Point. So I got a place in Williamsburg. And I gotta tell you, I love it. I love the diversity. I like that there's a lot of, there's still a lot of mon pot shops, but at the same time, if you want to get your Yerba mate,
Starting point is 00:09:24 or you want to get a, you know, a Cortado, you know, they know what the fuck you're talking about. That's right. Yeah. I think that, when I moved here, I was kind of shocked at how weirdly undiverse LA was. Or, you know, it's like, not like here.
Starting point is 00:09:43 Like, this is truly the cultures here. It's just this incredible nexus of so many different cultures clashing into each other. I don't know what that is, man. What do you think that is? I mean, why is LA, why does LA feel devoid of that? Why does it feel less culturally alive? I guess there's more barriers in LA.
Starting point is 00:10:03 You know, you've got, in New York, you can take the subway and work in any given neighborhood. Whereas in LA, you know, they, since they put the train in, it's a little bit easier. But for a lot of people that are minorities, they don't have cars.
Starting point is 00:10:21 And so the access for them to get to Santa Monica or the Palisades or something was kind of insurmountable. So I'd say it's probably mostly public transportation. And then I think also in New York has a longer history of immigration. Like where I was born in the Bronx is still actually very Irish. So it's a very Irish pocket called Throg's Neck.
Starting point is 00:10:43 And, you know, and then Italians came in and now Dominicans is very Dominican. But it's kind of, the immigrants kind of layer each other and they come in and they make their peace with each other or they don't. And it's, it becomes like a whole hodgepodge. Whereas in LA, you know, it's a kind of a new city. You really connect with being Irish, right?
Starting point is 00:11:05 Like that's a big part of who you are. Yeah. Your wife is Irish. So, and you're obviously your family's Irish, but can you talk about that a little bit? Like what does that mean to be, because I don't connect, I don't have that aspect of myself.
Starting point is 00:11:21 What are you? Well, I don't know. You're all over the place. Yeah. Well, I guess it's cause I'm a hundred percent like, I did that ancestor DNA test and I'm 94% Irish, which people say is like alarmingly high to be anything that much.
Starting point is 00:11:36 Wow. You know, like my, my gene pool is very thin and it's not a good gene pool. The Irish genes are very alcoholic. Right. Pasty skin, skin cancer, spider veins, just all the skin stuff is terrible, delivers terrible.
Starting point is 00:11:54 And Do you wear a lot of sunscreen? Always. Yeah, I put it on this morning. I put it on again this afternoon. Yeah. But to me, the upside is there's a tradition. It's an oral tradition.
Starting point is 00:12:05 We're storytellers and I don't, I never set out to only hang out with Irish people, but like I look at my friends list on my phone, my speed dials and my phone's inside or I'd read it, but it's like Dugan, Maloy, Donovan, Fitzgerald, O'Neill, Gibbons, Rogan's Irish, right? That's Irish.
Starting point is 00:12:31 Is he? Yeah, Rogan's an Irish. Now he's Irish and Italian. He's half and half. Oh, no shit. But it's like, and I'd never made it, it just happened because we connect to each other because we can bullshit.
Starting point is 00:12:44 And I think there's a self-deprecation. I think there's an ability to bust each other's balls. I think when you talk to Irish people, it's different than when you're talking to comedians. You're more comfortable talking to Irish friends than comedians. No comedians there. I can talk to any comedian.
Starting point is 00:12:58 That's the other group. I would say I can talk to Irish people and I can talk to comedians. What's the difference between talking to those two groups? Well, I guess with comedians, you know that I think it's the same thing. You can bust balls. Right.
Starting point is 00:13:15 Like I mean, I went into the comedy cellar. By the way, I was talking to you up to Estie at the comedy cellar just this afternoon. Dude, thank you. She never heard of you. I'm like, you never heard of Duncan Trussell? Oh wow. I said, he's great.
Starting point is 00:13:24 He would be great. You know, I have too many comedians already. When I go, yeah, but she's like, I'm sure if he's in New York, he'll come across my doorstep. I'm terrified of the, I'm not coming across the comedy cellar's doorstep. I'm terrified of the place.
Starting point is 00:13:37 Like the place has too much power. When I got in at the comedy store, it was by accident. I wasn't aware of the vortex that it was. So it was purely an accidental series of events that took me there. Unfortunately in my mind, the comedy cellar is like,
Starting point is 00:13:55 I have since I've been here, I haven't gone once. Really? I'm terrified of like the energy that was like thrumming out of that place is like for some reason. I don't know. I feel like if I go there, even if I got in front of her,
Starting point is 00:14:09 I feel like I've already built it up in my head so much. It's that I'm gonna bomb. It's a guaranteed bomb. I'm gonna like stammer and freak out and look around. You'll just lose all your experience. Con, just gone. Cause it's like, I've seen like, you know, Louis C.K.,
Starting point is 00:14:28 that his incredible show, he's always going on stage. Actually, you know what? I did go there once cause I did, oh God, I did someone's podcast from there. I was right next to there. Oh, upstairs? Yes.
Starting point is 00:14:39 It was during the day it was closed. It was open, the upstairs bars closed. But I went in there, I was like, can I use the bathroom? And I went down to the bathroom and then I went and stood on the stage and looked out at that beautiful room. And you can feel it, dude.
Starting point is 00:14:52 It's like, just like the comedy store. Those years of great comedy was just soaked into the fucking wall. Soaked into the wood, yeah. Right, right. But yeah, eventually. Low ceilings and wooden furniture. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:06 Yeah, it's got an amazing vibe. But you would fucking, you would do so well there because they've really got attention span. They'll let you spin a yarn, you know? Oh, that's great. You don't have to work joke to joke that hard. Yeah, that sounds beautiful.
Starting point is 00:15:20 I really appreciate that. Yeah, yeah. Well, whenever you're ready, I'll call on reminder. I appreciate that. So what clubs are you working in the city? I've been doing the stand and the New York Comedy Club.
Starting point is 00:15:30 But I'm taking a month off right now of stand-up comedy. Yeah, well, kind of a month. I'm doing a few spots here and there, but I just like, anyway, anyway, I'm enjoying it. It's like really cool. Got this backyard and I'm like gardening
Starting point is 00:15:44 and I'm just kind of like, I really like it. I think it's good to do that once in a while, man. I'm doing it. I'm gonna do it for a month this summer also. My family's coming out and I'm just not gonna do spots. It's fun. It's good to do, man.
Starting point is 00:15:55 It gives you a chance to reset. But anyway, man, we got a little distracted. So we're talking about sort of the difference between Irish friends and comedians. You're saying you can connect to both of them. But I wanna know, like, you, as a someone who like connects to their cultural identity
Starting point is 00:16:18 to such a deep level, as opposed to like people like me who are just kind of like floating on some unknown genetic ocean. It feels like it's a good, it's a blessing to have that, you know, to have roots that deep. What do you think it's like,
Starting point is 00:16:36 it's helping you more than hurting you or you seem to be kind of like, when you're talking about being Irish, it sounds like there's a little bit of dismay there, you know, alcoholism, bad skin, spiked. Yeah, I mean, I quit drinking 25 years ago and it was because my father was an alcoholic, aunts and uncles, grandparents.
Starting point is 00:16:58 There was a lot of baggage. And then growing up Irish Catholic, I really, I've suffered from the guilt and the shame about sex. I mean, I really am wracked with it. I still am. It's probably my dominating feature is guilt. About sex?
Starting point is 00:17:15 About everything, about everything. But even sex, like I still feel bad after I come. Wow. That's from the Catholic church, right? They teach you that the body is evil. All right, and you shouldn't come unless you're trying to make a baby. That's the same with the Hare Krishna
Starting point is 00:17:33 as they say the same thing. You should only have sex for progeny. Yeah. That is such a hardcore concept. It is, I know because, I mean, when I remember when I was having sex with my wife to have a baby, I remember those orgasms were really profound.
Starting point is 00:17:52 I bet. They really felt like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm finally allowed to do it. And I just remember like, it just went through me. It was like a spiritual orgasm. Yeah, yeah. I can imagine, you know, like when I'm having sex and I allow the thought to cross my mind,
Starting point is 00:18:10 maybe I'll have a, maybe we'll have a baby. And then I think about like that experience and like diving into that realm of life with another person. I mean, it's like you and this person are jumping off a cliff, man, and you're holding on to each other and you're like coming at the same time as you're plunging into this giant question mark,
Starting point is 00:18:33 which is to be parents forever, to create a life, to like from thin air, create something that's gonna grow and change and think and, you know, grow away from you eventually. How many kids do you have? Two. Two kids. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:52 How old? 16 and 13. Oh wow, cool. So one of them is growing away now. Like one of them is. Yeah, he's got a little girlfriend now. So he's out with her. And then he just got his driver's license.
Starting point is 00:19:04 I left just as he got his license. And now he's got my car. 16 year old boy driving around in a Prius. So he's a Chick Magnet. Oh yeah. They love the Prius to you. Yeah, Uber drivers love Priuses and girls love Prius. It's the two.
Starting point is 00:19:21 Teen girls, man. He's got mudflaps on it, tinted windows. I'm sure he has no problem with girls, man. I'm sure he's taught them well. He must be hilarious. Is he funny? Is he funny like you? He's got a podcast.
Starting point is 00:19:34 Him and his five best friends. Wow. Started a podcast. They go to high school in LA. What's it called? It's called the Santa Monica High School. They call Sam out for short, Samo Cast. Oh, that's awesome.
Starting point is 00:19:48 And so it's like a very diverse group of kids. You know, black kid, Latino kid, Jewish kid, white kid. Wow. And they're all like really interesting guys. You know, I'm like the mentor, so I sit there for the podcast every week. Oh, that is so cool. And I've gotten to know them so well
Starting point is 00:20:03 because you know, it all comes out in a podcast. They talked with, the first podcast, the topic was atheism versus agnosticism. Wow. And one kid grew up Muslim and was talking about that and it was really amazing. They're very forthcoming with each other. It's really beautiful.
Starting point is 00:20:24 I think it's like a new generation of kids that have been supported by their parents more in different ways that I think they're, you know, like for me, I didn't talk about much with my friends. Well, but do you think they're also maybe being impacted by listening to podcasts? That something? No, I don't think they listen to podcasts.
Starting point is 00:20:40 Oh, they just, they don't even know what it is. Well, my son knows that I, part of it pays the rent, you know? Right. But no, I think it was just something that everybody had clubs at school and they're close and they said, we want to start a club. But you're saying kids have more supportive parents now? Is that what you're saying?
Starting point is 00:21:00 I just mean in terms of their mindset, like they're more supportive of their ideas and of them, of accepting like my parents would shit on me. Like it was funny, but it was very Irish. It was like you do something and they go, oh yeah, all right, Picasso. Yeah, why don't we hang that on the fridge there Picasso? That's exactly what I got, dude.
Starting point is 00:21:21 You didn't get, there wasn't some kind of like all inclusive. Like that would be insane to think that like my dad would, not that he was like, you know, an asshole, but definitely you're not going to get false support for something. No, no. A grumble. Like I might get a like, all right, let it out.
Starting point is 00:21:43 Get a harumpth out of dad. A harumpth at the bed, for the most. You know? But yeah, so you're saying now the style of parenting is more like allowing a kid to believe that they have some kind of innate talent or something like that. Cause I remember when I told my mom,
Starting point is 00:22:00 I think I would like to act or something. She's like, you really shouldn't do that. You know, don't do that. That's not going to make any money for you. That's not going to do anything for you. Just worry. Yeah. You know, a fusive worry.
Starting point is 00:22:15 Right, that'll drive you. That'll give you, that'll give you motivation if you're coming from fear. And you know, when I did, I grew up like that. And I still do. I think my, you know, my biggest motivator, it used to be much more so out of fear. Now it's different.
Starting point is 00:22:31 But you know, we're raising kids that I think are more motivated by, and millennials are like this and they get shit for it, is they really want to find out what they're meant to do. And you know, to the point where you can mock them and go like, yeah, you know what you need to do? Get a fucking job. Cause a lot of them are still living at home.
Starting point is 00:22:47 And they're kind of like, just like this girl last night, I was, I took an Uber lift or a lift. And I didn't realize I had it set on lift share. So I, we're driving and all of a sudden the guy just stops on 2nd Avenue when this little Asian girl gets in and she's drunk and she's kind of obnoxious. She's kind of like, you know,
Starting point is 00:23:09 can you change some music? And he's like, and it was his station, you know? And he goes, well, what do you want to hear? And she goes, anything but this. And then she goes to me and then I go, oh, so I said, have you taken lift share a lot? And she's like, no, no, I'm sorry, I was taking via. I've taken via before, I called it via.
Starting point is 00:23:30 And she goes, no, it's via, like vehicle. And so I was just like, who the fuck is this, cunt? And so, and then she goes, I free, and I kept talking because I just, I'm not going to sit there and not talk. Right. And I go, she went to Santa Barbara College. And then she goes, what do you do?
Starting point is 00:23:51 And I go, well, I'm here writing on a TV show. Now she sits up straight. Turns out she's getting into production and she wants to work in comedy and TV. And now the whole power shifts. And suddenly she's acting meek and she's being, you know. Yeah, it was gross. So anyway, she's sucking my dick.
Starting point is 00:24:13 And nobody was like, it was really made me feel like you shouldn't just be like that because you think you can get something from me. Like that's the thing with millennials is like, they're not open to the world. They're, they're hand, they want to hand pick everything. Right. Yeah. And not just engage.
Starting point is 00:24:32 Yeah, sure. I mean, that, that mode of behavior that you're describing there, just, it just sounds like she's just a plague. It sounds like it's a festering horrible person, a bad manipulator, obvious manipulator. Just, just, yeah. Well, that's terrible.
Starting point is 00:24:50 I mean, and maybe that is a result of parents being a little too sweet with kids, you know? It's a bad, I mean, look at nature. Fucking animals are mean to their kids sometimes. You have to be, you know? So I don't, I don't know. When I think about the whole millennial situation, I'm kind of confused by it because I don't really like,
Starting point is 00:25:12 I don't, I don't know. I don't have kids. So I'm not, I mean, I can only guess a little bit, but I don't know exactly what's going on with them. I don't know. Sometimes I wonder, do I have millennial qualities in me, just from being on the internet all the time? If I absorbed it to some degree, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:25:29 But, you know, it's, I would imagine that millennials don't feel guilty when they come. I bet that's not a problem for a lot of millennials. That's a good point. They probably come and they, they probably, like a, like as a female, maybe this is good. If they don't get off and the guy did, and he's trying to wrap it up, they'd be like,
Starting point is 00:25:49 excuse me, you go down on this shit till I'm done too. That's right, yeah. You know, they demand it. Sure, they're open about sex. It's just a porn, you know? They all have this like, their idea of sex is not like your idea of sex. Your idea of sex is reminiscent of a pilgrim or something.
Starting point is 00:26:07 Like you were injected with the old school idea. There must be a part of you that still believes in hell if there's a part of you. Oh, yeah, well, yeah. I think of hell is like a, I think you get reincarnated into, like sometimes I think if I objectify women in some way, even like looking at them or like
Starting point is 00:26:28 if I go to a strip club or something, I always think like, I'm gonna, this will be revisited upon my daughter. Like that's, that's hell to me. Is that, you know, your actions will, they will play out in another dimension later. Oh yeah, well, that's the, I mean, there is the idea that
Starting point is 00:26:46 you gotta pay everything back. Like there's just no way around it. There's a kind of universal economy that has, there's just no way out. You're gonna- Do you believe that? Yeah, I do, I do. I mean, but I don't think it's quite as,
Starting point is 00:26:59 I think there's a way to look at it so that when there's a problem with the concept ultimately. Like it's a way to like, it can be a way where you look at someone who's like going through something rough and all of a sudden you will create a kind of voodoo superstition, like, oh, they must have done something pretty fucking bad if that's what they're going through.
Starting point is 00:27:19 And that sucks because a person who's like going like, oh, so the kid who has like muscular dystrophy, I guess, yeah, in some past life, they went to too many strip clubs or something, you know? No, it's not cool because a person who's already going through something horrible, now you have to hang upon them some metaphysical system of judgment that implies that in some past life
Starting point is 00:27:40 there were cunts. So in that way, it can be really bad. But from a personal level, when you start going through shit, as everyone does, you can think to yourself, okay, I'm paying off debt here. I'm getting to burn some karma here. And that's great.
Starting point is 00:27:56 That's good. I never thought of that. Really good. So when it's happening, you be like, all right, great, man. I'm gonna pay this back. And as I pay it back, I'm gonna pay it back gracefully. I'm gonna like pay it back in the same way.
Starting point is 00:28:06 I would want debts to me paid back, not with a lot of like, here you go, Greg. You're gonna take the $2,000 back that you loan me, all right. I mean, all right, here you go. I guess you need it. I'm gonna be like, thank you so much. Here you go. I appreciate you letting me borrow the money, man.
Starting point is 00:28:23 Really appreciate it. So that's a way to deal with suffering. It's to look at it from that perspective. Yeah, I think some of the parts of Catholicism that have stuck with me that aren't so bad, like I believe in service. You know, and that's been a big thing with my kids is giving them to, you know, do charity.
Starting point is 00:28:42 And I, you know, I just think that everybody deserves dignity, probably more so maybe. I think Catholics really, you know, they've always gone to foreign countries and helped the poor and, you know, Jesus washing the feet of the poor. You know, I think that was built into me, which is good. I mean, there's good and bad.
Starting point is 00:29:04 They're extreme good and extreme bad. You know, I always looked at Protestants like, all right, you kind of got a vague idea of what was good and there's no real sense of hell. And, you know, the, you know, the transfiguration of the Eucharist doesn't happen. It's not like, like with us, the bread becomes Jesus' body, literally.
Starting point is 00:29:25 And the wine is literally His blood. Where do you think that comes from? I don't know. I never thought of that. It's interesting, right? Yeah. Because that ritual, you know, it's based, you know, you think of this ritual and you think of the Last Supper
Starting point is 00:29:45 where Jesus says, this is my body, eat this in remembrance of me. This is my blood. Really, like he was just saying, like when you guys are having a great time, please remember me. It's like kind of the most heartbreaking, sweetest. Spilling out a little bit for the gang member that died.
Starting point is 00:30:02 Yeah, it's so sad. That'll bring tears to your eyes every time because it's the sweetest thing ever. And someone is about to die saying, just when you're having a good time, I want to be there. Oh, I'll start crying now thinking about it, breaks your fucking heart. But then that gets converted into this kind of like
Starting point is 00:30:19 hardcore ceremony that's actually based on some like many different religions, which is that we take the sacrifice, the flesh of a sacrificed God and we eat it. And then from eating it, there's this purification or kind of we are imbued with some of the qualities of the sacrificed God. And this is a very old ceremony.
Starting point is 00:30:44 There's some old pagan stuff. Yeah, it is. It's high magic. They say it goes all the way back to Egypt. Because when you look at the, for example, when we think of the Last Supper and we think of what they must have been wearing. And then you look at the Catholic Mass
Starting point is 00:31:00 and you see what they're wearing. It's like, wait, they're wearing vestments. They're wearing, the things that they're wearing are not mirroring the Last Supper at all. It's gold stuff and robes and incense. And it's very, very intense, man. But it's like, where did it come from? This isn't in the Gospels at all.
Starting point is 00:31:26 Nowhere, nowhere did Jesus- The golden chalice. That's what they drink out of up there. That's right. And Jesus never said that. Jesus never said, drink from the golden chalice when you think of me. And transmute the bread into my flesh
Starting point is 00:31:44 so that you're eating my skin when you think of me. He didn't say that. So it's interesting. It's magic. I mean, that's what the Catholic Mass is actually a magical ritual. Well, he does say, this is my body, which will be given up for you.
Starting point is 00:32:01 Eat this. Drink this wine. Does he say it literally? I mean, it sounds kinda like he would have to, the Last Supper, whatever the passages are in the various Gospels, it's gonna be about 20 pages longer if he went through the ritual
Starting point is 00:32:22 that you see during the Catholic Mass. So it's, no, I think- They've added a lot of embellishment. Yeah, they have added a lot to it. And this is what's interesting about religion, because it's like, it's beautiful, man. But what is it based on? If it's not based on the event
Starting point is 00:32:45 that Catholicism says that it's based on, which is the life of Jesus Christ and following the cycles of that being's life. And it is somewhat based on that. But if there are additions, embellishments, what are those additions? Who made the additions? And why do they get to make the additions?
Starting point is 00:33:07 And are these additions appropriate? Well, yeah, because a lot of the Bible, a lot of the traditions in the Bible come from Paul, who was originally Saul, who was the apostle that never met Jesus. He came many years later. And he supposedly saw him when he came down from heaven, which was, felt like a bye to me,
Starting point is 00:33:27 that Jesus returned to earth just to talk to this one guy, to give him all the, you know. So yeah, if you cut out Paul, you're getting back to probably some more basic teachings about the poor and less about the, you know. How to run the church. And Paul, that's why they call it Paulian theology,
Starting point is 00:33:50 that people say, well, you're not really, the thing you think is Christianity is actually Paulian theology. It's not Christian. That's a thing? Yeah, Paulian theology, which is the idea of like, all right, well, Jesus was,
Starting point is 00:34:01 we thought he was gonna come back in our lifetimes. He's not coming back. So let's figure out a way to encode or encapsulate inside of time his teachings so that every single day we can feel like we're in his presence. It's really quite beautiful. I mean, the idea is that if Paul saw Jesus
Starting point is 00:34:19 and if Paul became the person who wrote the epistles and became essentially the founder of the Christian church, then that means that the potential for every single individual to have that kind of contact with Christ is there. And also it's kind of the church in a way is saying, we don't care that you didn't meet Jesus in the flesh because you don't have to meet Jesus in the flesh
Starting point is 00:34:43 because Jesus isn't just in the flesh anymore. We're all cells in the body of a living God. That's what's trippy about Christianity. That's what's fucking trippy. That'll melt your brain. Christians think they're cells. The church is the body of Christ. They don't mean that metaphorically.
Starting point is 00:35:03 They mean literally. The church is a neural network, a lattice of the mind of God. Right, the Holy Spirit. I mean, the Holy Spirit doesn't get a lot of ink. People don't talk about the Holy Spirit. We all know Jesus really well. We got a lot of stuff about God.
Starting point is 00:35:21 And then the Holy Spirit is this thing I grew up with and it was always like the, he was sort of like the mist that was floating out of the bogs. And he was the guy, you know, that if you were a really good Christian, then you would experience this spirit, but he wasn't brick and mortar the way Jesus was. Right, yeah, the mist out of the bogs.
Starting point is 00:35:47 That's beautiful, man. That's amazing. Yeah, that is the fundamental relationship, right? It's with the Holy Spirit and the experience of that is what, that's the one thing you'd never want to take away from you. Like in life, the one thing you would never want taken away from you is that experience
Starting point is 00:36:07 because that's all you have really. And then everything else is just, who cares? It's shallow, dead matter, you know? So do you still go to church? My daughter, because they both went through eighth grade, they went to a Spanish dual immersion program. So half the kids were from Spanish speaking homes. So Catholicism was really big
Starting point is 00:36:29 and there was a lot of, you know, crosses. And there was a lot of going to kids, you know, first communions and confirmation parties and all these ceremonies. And so my daughter sometimes likes me to take her to church. So we'll go to St. Monica's and she just, she's always been fascinated with the mythology of it. And my father-in-law had a religious conversion in his 60s.
Starting point is 00:36:57 And so he's very into teaching her all this stuff. Like, so we went to Cathedral of St. John the Divine about two or three years ago and we were looking at, it was a, you know, a, what do you call it on the wall, like a mural on the wall of the ascension. And, you know, and he was explaining to her about the ascension and, you know,
Starting point is 00:37:19 about, you know, concepts that I wasn't even clear on. She was really curious about and she just got really quiet and her eyes kind of like narrowed and she really listened and she's always asking me questions about God. Just out of the blue, we'll just be sitting there quietly. And then she'll be like, she'll be like,
Starting point is 00:37:40 so if you die and you don't go to heaven and you don't go to hell, what is purgatory like a nice place or a bad place? And I'm like, it's like the waiting room with the doctor's office. Like it's kind of boring, but you know, you're going to get some help soon. So it's not bad.
Starting point is 00:38:05 She confuses me. Do you believe in purgatory? You still believe this. You believe it. It's okay. You believe in, right? I guess it's almost like we've, they talked about in catch 22.
Starting point is 00:38:23 Is that Joseph Heller? Yes. It's talking about like when the pilots were crashing, they would all, they all had crosses on and they all talked about God. And then ultimately when the plane was going down, they all called for their mother. They all cried out for their mother.
Starting point is 00:38:42 And so I don't know in my, in my final breath, will I be thinking about my mother or about God? Well, I mean, it feels like, is that Joseph Heller's nod to the Virgin Mary? Is that the idea? I mean, that's like Mother Mary. This is the, this is one thing I think people misunderstand about.
Starting point is 00:38:58 And I think it's very beautiful with Catholicism, which is that the idea of so the, what's it called the immaculate conception. So Mary is actually has received the spirit of God and, and her. And so Mary is the first contact, so to speak. And so the reason I've read that in Catholicism, Mary is held up is because Mary is though,
Starting point is 00:39:22 it has the, is essentially the first Christian. Mary has made the decision to allow this thing, this event to happen to her. She wasn't raped. You know, it wasn't forced upon her. It was, she took it in. She sort of inhaled it in her. And so that makes her the original,
Starting point is 00:39:41 like receiver of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And, and so that's why she's the most special cause it's the contact point. She's the node, so to speak, that the spirit of Christ flowed out of into this dimension. And so she's the fountain head. Yeah, she's a, what is it called,
Starting point is 00:39:59 specimen one in a virus? Yes. So specimen one? Specimen one. Yeah, exactly. But, but it's also for me, it was again, going back to the sexual shame, it was that, you know, all you women that have had kids,
Starting point is 00:40:14 you're dirty. Mary didn't have sex and she still had a kid. Right. She's better than you. She's not soiled. Ah, soiled. Yeah. This is the sad part about it.
Starting point is 00:40:27 You know, the, Christian, the place where it, I think where organized religion and any kind of fundamentalism that makes you feel bad about sex. It's like, God, I read the New Testament and I look in there to find, where's the shame here? Where's the anti-sex stuff? Do you find like God, you find like one of the sweetest
Starting point is 00:40:54 and most probably repeated stories in the New Testament is the adulterer who is about to be stoned to death. And Jesus stops it and says, you know, you have not sent through the first stone. Right. And it's very enigmatic because he kneels down, he draws something in the sand. It says that in every single gospel
Starting point is 00:41:17 and it's like, what the fuck did he draw? It doesn't say what he drew. Oh, is that right? It's really trippy. Like, what is that? Why did he draw on the sand? What does it mean? What does that mean?
Starting point is 00:41:25 Why, what is that? I mean, there's a reason they included that. Right. Why did he doodle? He doodled something or he drew something. Or what was that? I don't know, I love it though, it's mysterious. It's like the final whisper in Lost in Translation
Starting point is 00:41:36 into Bill Murray's ear. Yes, it is. What did she say? What is it? What did he say? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is the Old Testament, I always say that to people, like there's two religions. You know, there's Old Testament Christianity
Starting point is 00:41:48 and there's New Testament Christianity and they are, couldn't be more different. Right. You know, and that Old Testament stuff is really, I guess, the stuff that fucked with me. Yes. And then the New Testament is John Lennon. That's right.
Starting point is 00:41:59 And really, the New Testament is the evolution of, I mean, if there's different ways to look at it, you've heard of process theology, you ever heard of that? No. Process theology is the idea that kind of like God is like growing just like anything else. Like God is like unfolding into the universe
Starting point is 00:42:16 and we're in the very sort of crest of that unfoldment. And so when you look at the Old Testament, you're seeing like an evolving God. And then the New Testament is this like growth into a kind of like compassionate, surrendered, turn the other cheek. And like, it's, I mean, the most revolutionary religion. And if you follow it, you're,
Starting point is 00:42:41 I mean, you've got to, you're fucked kind of because you have to give up your connection to your body. You know, like that's gone. That's gone. Yeah. Give it up. You're going to die. And you're going to get shot.
Starting point is 00:42:53 You're going to get burnt. Dude, do you want to see something crazy? Look at this. Let me show you something. Somebody just gave me this, man. I was at the stand and somebody just gave me that. It's really weird. Like that some, this is a strange story, man.
Starting point is 00:43:10 So this is Greg's looking at this piece of rock that's been framed. But so I was at the stand and they came out and gave me this and they're like, you know, it's been sitting in our office for a month. Someone brought this here for you and I opened it and I looked at him like, what the fuck is this? Like a framed rock.
Starting point is 00:43:26 It looks really cool though. It's like a framed rock. And then I, so I went and did my set and I went and picked that up and I'm about to leave and this guy walks out of the showroom and he's like, I gave that to you. I gave that to you. I'm like, what?
Starting point is 00:43:38 He's like, I gave that to you. I came like a month ago to give that to you. And like, it's weird that you're holding it right now. And I'm like, wait, what you just happened to show up on the night that this thing was given to me? Really? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:43:53 It's a very weird story. Are you mean the people from the club gave it to you? Yeah. And he happened to be there on that night. Really? And he just randomly was in town and we crossed paths while I was holding this thing that he gave me. But anyway, what this is, he went to Israel
Starting point is 00:44:05 and this is a stone from the enclosure that they put Christians in before they fed them the lions. No kidding. Yeah. And he said that like this stone, all the prayers that must have like soaked up. And I think with Christianity, the thing that people don't fully grasp
Starting point is 00:44:28 is that many, many, many Christians have died smiling, have died forgiving the people in the act of tearing their fucking eyeballs out. Have like died, like loving the people, killing them. And like with an authentic peace inside of them, that I don't think people realize that because it's like, think of where your mind has to get to be in the moment of being murdered by a person
Starting point is 00:45:04 to be looking at them and being in love with them and like wanting them to be forgiven. Fuck. As opposed to a martyr nowadays, a terrorist martyr is somebody who is giving their flesh, but they're harming people. That's right. That's right.
Starting point is 00:45:22 Yeah, it's a corruption. Yeah. And that's what's so beautiful about Christianity is it really gives the middle finger to the importance of this particular incarnation relating to the transcendent truth of everything. And I think that's what's so beautiful about it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:38 When I had my confirmation, you get to choose a saint and that becomes your name, your confirmation name. And I didn't have a middle name. So it's actually, you just read it. What's my confirmation? What's my middle name? Shit, I can't remember. It was on, you asked your Alexis what my...
Starting point is 00:45:53 I was showing Greg. I was saying, this is how you know you made it. And you could ask Alexa who someone is. And if she knows, you're doing great. And she gave out my middle name, which was my confirmation name, which is Sebastian. And I chose him because he was a martyr. They tied him to a tree.
Starting point is 00:46:09 There's a really famous painting of him. He tied him to a tree and they shot him full arrows. And they just kept shooting arrows at him. And he wouldn't renounce his faith and he wouldn't curse the people that were shooting with arrows. And I chose him for that reason. And also because it was a giant white sheepdog
Starting point is 00:46:25 down the street named Sebastian. Yeah, that's hilarious. He said drool coming out of his mouth and I could practically ride him. Oh, that's so cool, man. Yeah. Can you fucking... I mean, this is the thing, whatever...
Starting point is 00:46:38 One thing that I get really annoyed by, less so, but I understand what we'll do is inevitably, you mentioned Jesus and inevitably, someone will smugly say there was never any Jesus. And you're like, just shut up, man. Like, really? You're that shallow. Number one, that you think you need to tell me that.
Starting point is 00:47:00 Like, I've never heard that before. I'm like, you just figured it out? I know. They're so proud, they figured it out. They cracked the code. There was no Jesus. Now we can all go forward in truth. Unencumbered.
Starting point is 00:47:15 That, I guess, that is the core of what's annoying about activist. Atheist is that they think they've discovered something amazing. I've had that same thought so many times. Yeah, yeah, it's really grating. But, and so they forget in their obsession with the symbol, the flowers growing off of the tree of the thing,
Starting point is 00:47:41 which is that to this very day, people are getting murdered for the Christian faith. And they're not renouncing their faith and people will try to, to this very day, they'll try to kill you. And I've heard of this happening in the Middle East. They'll try to kill you. Oh, and there might be subtle variations of this.
Starting point is 00:48:02 And people have placed their human existence in a secondary category to this faith of theirs. And that pisses the world off. Because the world wants to be, number one, yeah, yeah, that's what's fucking nuts, man. The world hates being ignored like that. Right. And it's the oldest story in the book.
Starting point is 00:48:29 And that's what's beautiful. And that's what I love about Christianity is just like whatever world, whatever entirety of all things that exist in the material universe, I've found something better than that. Well, that's why I've always liked the Jesuits because they're a very progressive wing
Starting point is 00:48:48 of the Catholics. And they always really were a cult of Jesus. They were always just, again, like it's John Lennon. They just saw him as this rock star. And did you read that book? It just came out a couple of years ago. It was actually written by a Muslim guy. But he talks about Jesus in historical context.
Starting point is 00:49:13 Like really, fuck, what am I forgetting? As like all corroborating stories of what Jerusalem was like at that time. Oh yeah, I know the book you're talking about. It's called... It's one word. It's really good. It's something.
Starting point is 00:49:29 People get pissed at that guy too. He's caught a lot of flack. But he wasn't making any judgments on Jesus. He was writing a book as if you were writing a book about... Reza Aslan. Is that his name? Yeah, Reza Aslan or Reza Aslan. Yeah, go ahead, sorry.
Starting point is 00:49:43 And he was writing it as a historical account, finding journals, finding writings that all corroborated this. And giving you a context of the Jerusalem at that time was like nothing. It was the desert. There was hardly anything grew. You were lucky to be a carpenter.
Starting point is 00:50:02 And it wasn't... So it's just very interesting because he showed him as like a guy who was just coming out against the corruption of the time. Yeah, they were occupied by Rome. And he was like coming out because he didn't want... They didn't want Romans there because the Romans were an invading force.
Starting point is 00:50:21 Right, but also the Jews that were running Jerusalem before the Romans were just as corrupt. Well, and I think during the time of Christ, the Pharisees as they're called were sort of paid off by Rome. They were like people who were like... They were allowing Rome to be more important than God. They were putting Rome in front of their religion.
Starting point is 00:50:41 That's one of my... By the way, I wanted to ask you, what is your favorite Bible verse? Oh, my favorite Bible verse. Verse or parable? Either. I always liked the prodigal son because I feel like you have to let your child go.
Starting point is 00:51:03 And I think as a parent, I've started to appreciate the prodigal son more and more because I'm experiencing now a 13-year-old girl saying, I don't need you, you know? And every parent tells me she's 13, she's gonna come back at 16. Just tough it out, don't give a shit for it. And I just texted her on the way over here.
Starting point is 00:51:24 How was the day? She had her school dance last night, eighth grade. How was the dance? Fine. That's all I got back. But I asked, we connected, and that's all I can ask for. And tomorrow I'll send her another text.
Starting point is 00:51:37 I call her every three or four days and I just accept that I know our foundation is so strong because we've always been so close. And she's very affectionate with me and she's very deep and that I know that that can't go away, but that for now I have to just love her and let her go. You're a great dad.
Starting point is 00:51:57 Trying. God, so many fucking shitty dads would be like, what the fuck? Yeah. Oh really, just that's it, fine? Right. I feed you. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:52:08 I put a roof over your head. Yep. You don't have time to use more than one word and a text. I pay your phone bill. Yeah. That's what it shit is. I'll take your phone away. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:52:16 And believe me, there's a part of me that wants to do that. There's a part of me that would treat anybody else that way. I have to put that guy aside. And that's the thing about parenting too today is that my parents didn't have parenting books. There was no Dr. Phil or Dr. Anybody on TV. It was just, you got beat, so you beat them. They drank, you drank, and it's just,
Starting point is 00:52:41 I can't judge my parents, but I think that I'm, I've always been very into self-help, and I think that for parenting, it's, there's a lot of amazing resources just in books about how to not make mistakes. Prodigal son, the kid goes away, he does, you know, he's like, just fucks it all up, right? And he takes a third of the, there was two sons,
Starting point is 00:53:04 and maybe three, and he takes his chunk of the farm. The dad has to like sell a bunch of cattle and shit. Gives him a bag of gold, and goes, all right, this is yours, go. And he goes, and he spends it on whores and booze, and he goes crazy. You know, he's having fun. And then he comes crawling back,
Starting point is 00:53:23 and he asks for a job working in the stables. Just anything, I can't survive. And the father says, nope, you're full partner, you're back in, we're all equal. Ha ha, it's so great. Yeah, that's great, man. That's beautiful, that's a good one. Yeah, that's a good one.
Starting point is 00:53:41 That's a good one, especially, because I think that's like one of the demonstrations of the qualities of God being so incredibly benevolent that any kind of human error that you think that you're doing is ultimately completely forgiven, without even like, almost like you can't even see it. Yeah, I mean, you look at these people that can forgive their child's murderer, you know,
Starting point is 00:54:05 they go to jail, and you do that, and you just think, that's grace. And it's ultimately a selfish grace, because you will be tortured by it if you don't. You know, holding on to that will kill you. Oh yeah, oh, it sure will. I mean, anytime you're running anybody, you're holding on to that shit.
Starting point is 00:54:24 It's just like, oh man, you gotta like, it's so radical to have, I mean, this sounds really weird, man. But sometimes it's worth someone doing something really bad to you, so that you can like, get a chance to exercise radical forgiveness, because it gives you a chance to let go of something. You should make a T-shirt.
Starting point is 00:54:50 Exercise radical forgiveness, sell that after your shows. It's so fucking hard though, man. I mean, it's like, you know, to really do it, you have to have given up yourself. You know, you can't really be a self anymore. You have to sort of let go of the self, right? Well, that's what it is, it's a defense of the self. You know, you're threatened by somebody,
Starting point is 00:55:08 if somebody slights you, you know, it's only a slight if you perceive it as a premeditated. If you see it as, they made a judgment of you that you were less than them and that their actions were, they're not responsible for their actions, because you don't mean anything. So if you define it as that, how are you possibly gonna forgive them for that?
Starting point is 00:55:30 But if you can, like you said, take yourself out of it, and see that, you know, there's a million reasons why anybody does anything, and it happened to affect you in a negative way, but if you hold on to your definition of why they did it, you're gonna just, it's gonna constantly reinforce a negative feeling that you have about yourself. Well, think about Sebastian, tied to a tree,
Starting point is 00:55:52 people shooting arrows into him, and or, you know, the ultimate being Christ on the cross, saying, Father, forgive them. They know not what they've done. Oh, dude, I mean, because it's like, the idea is, in that situation, if you wanna fully believe in this, there was, interestingly, there was the potential,
Starting point is 00:56:16 I mean, this is a being that could walk on water, raise the dead, multiply the fishes, transmute the water into wine. You could close out a Friday night late show during the check spot. I killed, he killed every time. No one, no one talked, people, it was hard for people to pay the bill
Starting point is 00:56:36 because they were so engrossed in his final joke. They didn't wanna miss a word. Nobody's cell phones ever went off when he was on stage. That was considered his ultimate miracle. Waiters and waitresses were silently moving through the aisles, refilling drinks. There was a story that there was a waitress that actually accidentally spilled a drink
Starting point is 00:57:00 and started weeping because she felt so bad for making it, the noise during his incredible closer. There was a feature act who lanced himself after doing a closing bit about a toilet because he realized it made it harder for Jesus, but it didn't matter, Jesus still killed. That's right, yeah, there's this story, I guess the feature act, you're talking about the guy
Starting point is 00:57:25 who hung himself, right, because he thought that he had killed too hard before Christ, yeah, didn't matter. He didn't realize that it didn't matter to Jesus, that he actually rose above it. He walked on stage and he goes, how about a hand for your feature act? He knows not what he's done.
Starting point is 00:57:46 But the implication is that in that situation, had there, if he'd wanted to, he could have rained fire down upon the world, there could have been anything he wanted, he could have done theoretically, and he chose not to do it out of love. And so this is that place where if you get into that place in this particular period of human history,
Starting point is 00:58:11 you are gonna have an amazing life because you're not gonna hate people, you're gonna sort of retire from the occupation of hating people. Well, look at Nelson Mandela, he came out of 14 years in the worst prison conditions you could, and he was given, he was elected
Starting point is 00:58:31 the president of the country, and he could have rounded up everybody who, I forget which political party was, was he the ANC or was he, whatever it was, his opponents could have been killed in the streets, and instead he made everybody equal. Yeah, yeah, that's it. So that's the, I mean, and that's the thing,
Starting point is 00:58:51 maybe I think people don't understand about Christianity is that's what their religion is. It's like, it doesn't make any sense, it's doing the wrong, the math that is being proposed is new math, and that's what's so cool about it, because the math as opposed to the Old Testament, the math is eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,
Starting point is 00:59:08 if they fuck with you, you fuck with them, if they hurt you, hurt them double, but that's what justice look like. This thing is like, what is this? It's like the implication is what are they called, what's the dream? If we can find it on planet Earth, everything changes forever,
Starting point is 00:59:23 which is based on the laws of physics, you can, energy, the laws of entropy make it that will never have a sustainable energy source that like doesn't diminish. What is that called? People always talk about it like, engines. Did you say entropy? What?
Starting point is 00:59:38 Did you say entropy? It's not, entropy is the force that fucks with like energy. Like if we, I can't, you know, I'm, God, I'm such, I'm sorry, man. Anytime I start talking about this, I feel so embarrassed because of the way my voice sounds, because I smoke a lot of weed. And they can't even see the devilish twinkle in your eye.
Starting point is 00:59:59 But the idea is if, like, if suddenly, okay, someone stumbles upon something, who knows, they just figured out, oh, if I take these two magnets, throw them into a, this orb and run energy through it, it'll make more energy than I put in. Conservation of energy? That's it.
Starting point is 01:00:15 So the idea is if when I put an energy in, I can get more energy leaving, then we have infinite energy and there's no more energy problem on planet Earth. The moment someone discovered something like that, every so many bad people on planet Earth would immediately be brought to their knees. All the coal companies, all the oil companies,
Starting point is 01:00:33 all the people making money off of fucking, like selling fuel and polluting planet Earth. The moment anyone discovered something like that, there would be instantaneous justice for anyone who'd been profiting off of like poisonous technologies. So it's like the dream. Well, that's what Christianity is in a weird way.
Starting point is 01:00:50 It's like this like new math. It's this idea of like, oh, no, no, no. This isn't all there is. This part of reality that we're experiencing right now, it's one little sliver of reality. Lots of people here are super caught up in it and they're like addicted to this level of reality, but there's something way better.
Starting point is 01:01:09 I think that's the kingdom of heaven, right? And the idea is like, anyway, the idea that should you be attacked, do not attack back. Should you be attacked, let them kill you is fucking insane, man. From an evolutionary perspective, what? That doesn't work.
Starting point is 01:01:31 How does that work? That doesn't work. Look at nature. That doesn't work to turn the other cheek. Are you out of your mind? They'll crush you. They'll wipe you all out. And they did, threw them to lions, shot arrows into them.
Starting point is 01:01:45 But the implication is really cool because the implication is we're not one thing. We're everything. So you kill me, you didn't kill me. And actually the power of a martyr is huge. And that's what they realized. That's what the Christians realized is that if people hear about a martyr
Starting point is 01:02:08 and that's the problem with radical Islam is that these people that are martyrs are invigorating their base and making, you look at Syria, you look at all the political unrest that involves radical Islam. It's mostly because of greenhouse effect. Their crops have been destabilized.
Starting point is 01:02:31 And so you've got this excess of people from the country into the cities. They've got no money. And they're easily drawn into these cultish revolutionary groups that promise them virgins and another life and all this stuff. And you know, man, I got to stop you there for two seconds only because I think my beard's getting a certain length. Taxi drivers here have been telling me a lot
Starting point is 01:02:53 about what's going on in the Middle East. Yeah, and so this guy's been an hour. The taxi driver's been an hour explaining to me what's happening in Syria versus what they're telling us is happening in Syria or what's happening in Yemen versus what they're telling us is happening. And the idea is that you have Sunni and what's the other one? Shiite.
Starting point is 01:03:13 Shiite. And Assad is Shiite, but the majority is Sunni. And the Shiites think it's OK to kill the Sunni. But the Sunni don't like the Shiites, so they don't think it's OK to kill them. The Sunnis are more like Mandela or whatever. They don't think it's OK to kill them. They don't like them, but they're not
Starting point is 01:03:31 going to kill them in the streets. The Shiites are like, we have to kill them in the streets. And so the problem is there's more Sunni than there are Shiites. And this is what's creating all the unrest, is everyone wants Assad gone because he doesn't represent a majority. He's the minority. But Iran is Shiite.
Starting point is 01:03:48 And so Iran wants Assad to be running Syria. And this is why they've apparently brought Russia in. Or so you explain the whole fucking thing to me, man. Yeah. And it was like so awful and so kind. And then he was explaining Yemen, these tribes. It's a tribal society, but the tribes. And then there's the Muslim Brotherhood.
Starting point is 01:04:11 But it's not just the Muslim Brotherhood. It's the Sunnis. But it's not just the Sunnis, the Shiites. And then he talks about how whenever there's war in Islam, there's a group of people that comes in and starts cutting people's heads off. He's like, they only show up when the war happens. They only come when there's war.
Starting point is 01:04:28 And he had a name for them, like some kind of Star Trek name, like the Kar-Goli or something. Really? There's something fucked up. And he's like, that's what ISIS is. ISIS is a group that comes during wars. They only appear during wars because they're 100% against any government that isn't them.
Starting point is 01:04:47 But they only show up during wars. When things are destabilized and they can, they're like the fucking carrion crows that fly down. And so this is like Saudi Arabia. Well, it's what happened in Iraq. I mean, the Sunnis and the Shiites were locked into battle with each other, which stabilized, believe it or not, the region.
Starting point is 01:05:06 And we came in and we fucked everybody. And they said, hey, why don't we gang up against the Americans? And that's where ISIS came from. Right. Yeah, well, this guy was saying, there is no ISIS. He's saying that ISIS is this group called the Globally. And he was talking about how like fucking, that guy Zakari or whatever, remember him?
Starting point is 01:05:26 Zakari? He's like, when they were talking about Zakari in the Middle East, people were like, who the fuck is that guy? He's like, it would be like if suddenly in the Middle East, someone in Saudi Arabia started talking about like Ron Timon in the United States. We've got to watch out for him. He's leading people.
Starting point is 01:05:43 He's deadly. And we'd be like, who the fuck is Ron Timon? We've never heard of him at all. And so his premise is this dude was put there by the CIA to destabilize that the CIA is like using these groups to try to like, or the United States is funding these fucking groups because they're, it's pawns. Basically, God, I don't want to end it on this, man,
Starting point is 01:06:07 but the idea is World War III is happening right now. We're at war with Iran and we're at war with Russia and we're using pawns in the Middle East to fight and making them fight each other, but we're the ones fucking Putin and the United States are fighting right now. We're fighting, but we're using these poor bastards in the Middle East as our Vici soldiers
Starting point is 01:06:32 to try to like, I don't know, to prevent the real World War from happening or something. I don't know. Sorry, man, I shouldn't have ever talked about this stuff. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well, it is, I mean, from the mouths of cab drivers, you can get the truth that you're not hearing in the mainstream media.
Starting point is 01:06:49 That's for sure. That's right. That is right, man. They are found. That's one of the things I really miss about New York. I mean, try to keep me from talking to my fucking cab driver. I mean, it's just, that's why I take Uber and Lyft sometimes, but from the airport to long ride, I'm in a yellow cab. It's the best.
Starting point is 01:07:08 Yeah. And they're fucking cool, man. Yeah. And the Muslims especially, it's Ramadan right now. This is another thing I've realized when I'm with them, I just say, hey, it's Ramadan, right? And they beam and smile like, yeah, it's Ramadan. It's great because they get really excited about it.
Starting point is 01:07:23 They're like, when can you eat? And they'll tell you the exact time. Like, I can eat at eight 34 because they have little calendars that they like mark. And I think it's just the most beautiful thing ever, man, that there's this entire, millions of people right now are spending the entire day hungry for their religion. And no one's talking about it.
Starting point is 01:07:43 You know, they don't talk. They don't want, the cab driver won't tell you. He's fucking hungry because he's not eating for God. He's gonna be quiet until you ask, like, if I go without eating for like more than four hours, I'm like, God, I'm starving. I'm hungry, especially I'm doing it for God. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:08:00 I'm not eating for God. Man, I love talking about Jesus with you. It's really cool. I think it's so important to like talk about Christianity. Christianity really gets like a short shrift, man. It's the Norman Rockwell of religions in this country. It's sort of like, I don't know, there's something about it that's,
Starting point is 01:08:25 if it's taken in its pop form, there's a pop form of Christianity that's really kind of nice and comforting. And like I said, good, and look, just, I should say this as a disclaimer, I'm not a practicing Catholic. Right. But I also can't extricate myself from the foundation
Starting point is 01:08:45 of that, including my belief in God, which is very strong. Right. I talk to God and I believe in God. And that's, I mean, you were talking about atheists having a problem with proselytizing atheists having a problem with Jesus. What about with God? What about, what about atheists having an issue
Starting point is 01:09:03 with their being some kind of a consistent narrative in the universe, just negating that entirely? And I'm not telling you what it is. I'm just saying it's there. That's a whole other podcast. That's another podcast, but I get why they do it because it's comforting, you know? Atheism's comforting because it's like
Starting point is 01:09:20 to deal with the other thing, because atheism is like bizarre, first of all, because it's founded on this idea of there being some respite from sentience, right? So, and that's heaven. So when you come into it, ask any atheist who doesn't believe in God, God gets, people will yell at me,
Starting point is 01:09:43 anytime you talk about it, people yell at you, but if you go up to someone and say, hey, have you ever experienced nothing? Have you ever experienced that? And they can't say yes, because if you experience nothing, then that nothing turns into a something. So the atheist thinks, when I die, nothing.
Starting point is 01:10:01 The thing I've never experienced cannot be measured, cannot be weighed, cannot be filmed. The thing that absolutely cannot exist, just even say a thing as a nothing is to make it a something. And yet, their entire faith is based on this idea that there is relief from human, from being a thing.
Starting point is 01:10:26 If only, that's paradise, man. They're talking about the ultimate paradise. As Dawkins says, death is the anesthesia that saves us from the pain of infinity. And even Dawkins in that statement, there's an understanding of the suffering that comes from being a thing that exists. And for Dawkins, nothingness is preferable
Starting point is 01:10:46 to the suffering that he feels every single day. And so his last hope is death. Now, and that is exactly the word that I say to every atheist, explain infinity to me. And then I'll come on board. Yeah, exactly. Where does it stop? How does it stop?
Starting point is 01:11:03 When does it stop? You stop? Oh, how do you know? When does time stop? When do color spectrum stop? Yeah, I love that. Well, shit, that is another podcast. Thank you so much, man.
Starting point is 01:11:12 It's so nice chatting with you. Where can people find you? Well, my podcast is called fitsdog.com. I'd love for you to, you're about to be on it, so you can catch a little more of this action. And then fitsdog.com, I have tour dates coming up in Baltimore and San Francisco, and I don't know, a bunch of places.
Starting point is 01:11:34 Check it out. And Greg Fitz show on Twitter. Cool, man. All the links will be at dunkatrustle.com. Thank you so much. Thanks, man. That was Greg Fitz Simmons, everybody. Make sure you go see him out there on the road.
Starting point is 01:11:47 Big thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode. Remember, go to Squarespace, use offer code Duncan. You'll get $10 off your first order. Thank you guys for listening. Stay tuned. This week, we will have another episode with Shane Moss, a deep psychedelic conversation is on the way.
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