Ep. 18 - Movie Maker Sean Dunne

>> This is synchronicity, this is synchronicity, this is synchronicity, this is synchronicity, this is synchronicity, this is synchronicity, this is synchronicity, this is synchronicity. >> Hello, and welcome to episode 18 of Synchronicity. My guest today is documentarian and filmmaker, Sean Dunn. You can check out Sean's work on very ape.tv, that's V-E-R-Y-A-P-E.TV. All these documentaries are free right now, so check them out. Sean, man, I got to hang out with him in person. I had met Sean once before when I was living in New York, he came over, hung out, but I was recently up there and sat down with him in person, and I love these in person podcasts, man, they are awesome.

I like the Skype ones too, but being in person with someone, it really is just a different dynamic that I think really kind of evokes a different quality to the conversation. So, yeah, I got to sit down with him, spoke to him about a variety of subjects, psychedelics, marijuana, veganism, Donald Trump, that'll make sense in a second, and a bunch of other really cool stuff that you're going to have to listen to the episode to hear. So, Donald Trump, why Donald Trump? So, Sean's latest film is called Trump Rally. He filmed it in Las Vegas out of Trump Rally. He's also all on iPhones, right? Watch this thing and tell me how this thing is.

It's not that he filmed this with other people on iPhones, incredible. He's a traditional, and before that, it's the first time he's ever done that, but credit to him and, you know, his skill that he was able to put something together, so very, very cool. But basically, Sean's documentaries, while over a diverse range of topics, they kind of tend to focus on the disenfranchised and kind of marginalized people and communities in society, but in a very humane way, a very non-judgmental way. And I think one of the skills and the testament to him as a filmmaker is he's able to hold a space where the people he's interviewing, they really feel safe and comforted.

And you can see that and how they respond to that. He's made films on camgirls. He's made a film about, you know, OxyContin and its impact on a small town in West Virginia. Devastating effects. He made a film called Florida Man about, you know, you've heard all these stories about a Florida man was doing X, Y, Z, eating someone's face. Like, he interviews a lot of Florida men. He has another film called American Juggalo, which is based on the insane Clown Posse fans at an event. And, you know, if you're like me, I don't really love insane Clown Posse. I maybe heard one of their songs or a few of their songs when I was growing up, but never really got into it.

But a juggalo is someone who paints their entire face and, you know, goes to these events and they really love insane Clown Posse. And objectively looking at them, most people are like, "Oh, these people are weird. You know, what are they doing?" And I, myself, was one of those people. And credit to Michael Donovan, by the way. Michael Donovan introduced Sean and I and also recommended that we sit down for this podcast. And Michael is a connector of people. Check out, I've mentioned this. I don't know. He listens to this. But go check out Michael's podcast. Walking home at his website, Studio Donovan.com.

I'm going to have a link in there for you, Michael, on this podcast page. But go check that out. He's great. Walking home is a great podcast. Love what he's doing there. But yeah, Sean and I just had a really great conversation. So I don't really have much else to say. The podcast is a little bit long on the longer side because we're in person. I will also preface it by saying we may or may not have ingested marijuana pixie sticks. That's a thing. God bless New York before this episode. But I don't think it affects the conversation in a negative way. So that's a disclaimer. I don't know why. I put that in there.

But I did. Yeah. Without further ado, here is Sean Donovan. They were having a discussion. I think because, you know, like Grant Hancock. Yeah. Like he famously, he, um, he stopped smoking weed. Yeah, after he was angry. And because he started taking an ayahuasca and was like, "Hey, it's making me this angry. This angry guy. Like you're yelling at your wife and like people around you. Like you got to stop." And I think, you know, she was saying to, she asked Dennis. Like he was like, "Well, I hope that doesn't happen to me." Like, you know, so I think... I really hope that doesn't happen to me.

I think, well, the thing is, is I think he started smoking again. I'm almost very sure of it. Yeah. I don't know, uh, I don't think weed makes me an angrier person. I'll tell you that. I don't think even if I took a lot of ayahuasca. Have you taken ayahuasca? No, I've smoked DMT. How many times have you smoked DMT? Three. Oh, when? When? Oh, man. This is... Well, I smoked it in 2015. When was that? In April of 2015 for the first time. And it was incredible. I was with some camgirls out in Seattle. Me and Cass, my sweetie. So less than a year ago? Yeah. Cool. Yeah. And I had just tried acid for the first time.

Only like a week before. So... You dove right after acid. Yeah, I mean, like DMT is just hard to get your hands on. I was down to do it for a while. And I asked a lot of people, but no one ever had it. And then we were just hanging out with our friends up in Seattle who were in our movie camgirls. And this girl had some. And she walked us through it. And it was awesome. I first didn't want to do it because, you know, I looked over at Cass and I was like, "What the fuck?" We said, "We're not just going to do psychedelics on a whim." You know, we've been smoking dabs all night. Right. We're all fired up.

But she's like, "What do you mean? This is setting." Like, "These are our friends." Right. You know, it's so chill. It was 4.30 in the morning. And it was like, "Fuck it, whatever." So they busted out the crack pipe. And Cass took three hits. And I saw how it went for her. How were those hits? They were good hits because we smoke weed every day. So she knows what she's doing. But, you know, there was some reluctance. Cass, I'm just telling this on your behalf. There was like, you know, a little bit of reluctance. She definitely was going somewhere else, but she didn't close her eyes. And I was like, I was just hearing Terence McKenna echo in my head.

Like, this is DMT. It's like rocket fuel. You've got to go for it. So I was like, "Cool." My girlfriend was the brave one of the whole group, by the way, that was like, "Yeah, let's do this. Let's do it now and I'll do it." So then I was like, "Fuck it. I'll do it." And so my sweet home, Itasha, she's my rebel angel. She just sat there and gave me a bunch of hits. And I took five hits, but on the third one, I remember blinking and seeing that there was some other universe. Right, right. Yeah, and I was like, "Whoa, okay. I can go there." Took two more hits, leaned back, closed my eyes. And I'd say for like three and a half minutes, there was a song playing.

And actually Michael Donovan told me, "Don't play music next time." Because if you don't have a reference for time, you can actually chill there a lot longer. Yeah, he mentioned that to me too. And I haven't done DMT. I haven't done any of those. It's incredible. So I was swept into an infinite fractal pattern. It was crazy. And I didn't know what it was. But I was just in this endless pattern of, and it was rainbow. Every color you can imagine on it, and it was just moving and endless and blossoming. And I was just in it. And then I just opened my eyes real quick. And I said, "I don't want to overdose on that place.

Can you please turn off the music?" And I just needed about a minute. And then we were just fucking, after everyone else smoked it, we were like smoking weed and chilling. Like ten minutes later, nothing happened. Right. And then the next day you wake up with this weird clarity. Like you saw something. Right. You were privy to something. And it was really cool. It was really cool. You didn't smoke DMT any time. So what a, what a, and I know a lot of people who have smoked DMT. I haven't done it. And I hear somewhat of a similar story. I also, and Cass, if you've heard about this, so you can tell me, or do you have this experience where you hear like a sound and like a popping sound.

It's like a high pitch thing. And then you like kind of pop out. And then you are in this kind of world you're describing to. I heard some, I think Michael might have described that to me. Yeah, I can see what you're saying. That's a very, that's a very psychedelic sound. Yeah, like a pressure or like something. I, I've never done it. So I have a reference point. So let me ask you this. Yeah. What was your sense of self like during that experience first? Well, it wasn't me. I mean, well, like it was, it was, you know, the me beyond me. Like my body didn't mean anything. But I knew it was back there.

Like I knew there was a place to come back to. But when I had my eyes closed, I was just part of it. Right. You know, I was back to it again. So that was incredibly vivid. And I remember a few months later, I was on Wikipedia in a rabbit hole looking into this Egyptian labyrinth that they think is buried under the desert. And I clicked on this thing called like a Celtic pattern. I was like, what the fuck's a Celtic pattern? I clicked on it and I was like, that was, that was my DMT trip. So interesting. It's a creepy thing when you, when you find that in your real world. And it's different for everyone apparently.

Even everyone that night, I think five of us all smoked it. Everyone had a different experience. Right. Subjective. Right. And I think that's what I hear from ayahuasca too. It's from, from what I am like, this is, again, this is from someone who's not done it. But I know a lot of people who have done it in various settings. It sounds like similar to that, and I'll ask you the next question. Hopefully it gets clarity on maybe what the difference is between DMT and ayahuasca in terms of what you perceive and what you can bring back. But the ayahuasca experience is like longer. It's like stretched out that and you have a little more time.

And like you're still you and you're still there. Yeah. But you're actually interacting like, you know, in the world with these other things that are from other worlds or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. That's what I've heard too. What do you remember? And I'm asking questions on this because, like, not because it's an interview because I'm like legitimately interested in all of this because this is exactly what we were talking before this before I did LSD for the first time. I read about it feraciously. I was 15. So I wasn't asking people like, hey, you know, like, I was doing ads for the first time.

That didn't have that available. But now I do. Do you remember, like, what could you bring back and translate from that other place into this place? Good question. That was the hardest one. Right. DMT has been the hardest one because you're only there for a little amount of time. Yeah. And it was hands down the most immersive psychedelic experience I've ever had. Like, I was somewhere else for a little bit. And it wasn't like McKenna said where there's like elves or anything. Like it was just like I was just in a huge pattern. And it's like, what the fuck did that mean? And it triggered more vivid dreams for me.

It's just a small puddle. I don't really remember my dreams. Yeah. It's one of my least favorite things about smoking weed. It's the only downfall. Clearly. Well, I don't know. There might be. It's the only one. It's my one. I really love dreams. I'm a Carl Jung fan. And his whole thing was getting into, you know, using dreams as symbolic kind of references for kind of patterns that play out through this universal mind that we all share. And it gives us, you can really get some insights into what's going on individually and even collectively. So, you know, and I used to write down. I will say this, even if you smoke weed, if you start writing down your dreams when you do remember and consciously go in before you're trying to dream, you will be able to dream more that like reinforces it.

You know, it's like the concept of like writing something down. Totally. And then you like are more likely to follow up or like think about it later because you've imprinted it into reality. Interesting. Yeah. But that's helped. But yeah, we definitely, it's a precious dream. So you're saying. Yeah. Well, I mean, and yeah, it was almost like DMT just unclogged a drain. It was less tangible. Like I could tell you probably to a tee what every single psychedelic experience I've had meant and it's my life and what I did to change my life as a result of it. But DMT was more of a like, isness. You're just with.

Yeah. You're glad that you know about it. I don't know. I'm so psyched that I peaked into that, whatever it was. And the next time I did it, it wasn't, it wasn't like that. Yeah. It was the next time, Mike. I tried to do it with the volcano vaporizer. Okay. And I just don't think I had enough to really kind of cross into that place because it was, it was me, Cass and our friend. And she, we just splitting it three ways. There just wasn't enough. So it was very tingly and it tastes like shit and, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You should get some, you know, I highly, highly recommend it.

And, and it's one of those ones, I think I read somewhere like, it produces the best psychedelic experiences for people in terms of positive. Like people come and say they had a good time or whatever, you know. So that's, you know, the ayahuasca thing is commonly described as like mother ayahuasca. And it's like a very maternal type of energy. I've heard it, you know, the, where, where it's harmonically were, you know, prepared. That's how I feel about mushrooms. Well, mushrooms to me are very interesting. Now let me tell you this. I don't know exactly where I read it from. And Dennis McKenna, Interns McKenna, I mean, some of the most mushroom, you know, their whole trip down to South America.

True hallucinations. Yeah, man. And Dennis in particular just took like a crap load of magic, like insane levels and they, who's fucked up for months? Oh, yeah. And it's just like a whole, whole kind of thing for them. And they had, you know, Terrence was trying to integrate into eaching and all of these other kind of mystical frameworks onto the psychedelic experience, which is difficult to do. I think anyone can attest to that. Mushrooms. I heard a theory. I don't know exactly where I heard of it. It might have been Dennis where they're another form of consciousness that you can actually like interact with.

So the last time I took mushrooms and I hadn't taken psychedelics. Last year I took some mushrooms, just like a 16th, not that much, but definitely a psychedelic dose. And I hadn't taken them in like 10, 15 years, any psychedelic. And it was great. So I was like querying, you know, because I remember I had read, I was like, okay, let me try to talk to these mushrooms and see what's up. And I definitely got responses back. And I, you know, you never know in those situations fully, unless you have just such a transcendental experience where it's like, oh, I know, you never know that could be your mind manifesting something.

I will say it seemed to be, and I've had this happen when I'm not even on hallucinogens, where it seemed to be some type of wisdom that rang true. I don't know if I experienced them as maternal. It's very nature-like. So maybe it is maternal in that aspect. Mushrooms to me are a little tricksters too. They can be tricksters for a lot of people, not in a bad way, not in a bad way, but they're playful. And I think one of the best things about mushrooms for me is I learned one time you can flip it anytime something starts to go wonky or weird or it's not, you know, feeling great. You can literally like change it like a light switch and make it not bad.

And when you can tap into that, and I think theoretically you can do that anytime in life, but mushrooms is a little more malleable. That is something that is had. I really like mushrooms. I got it. I like mushrooms. Yeah. Well, once yeah, because you're right. They're like a little more wily. Yeah. Wily. Wily. Where you're like, oh, yeah. The second you get confident about doing. Yeah. Exactly. What are you doing? Yeah. So now, like, and the only, the only reason I can take mushrooms and not be so scared, that's the one I can like, oh, I get all fired up and scared. Like the only reason I can do it now is because I'm like, I know I'm going to go in there and I'm going to completely surrender to this thing.

Right. I'm just going to get in the fetal position. Don't like it. I'm not going to. There's no music. That's what I do. It's just getting the fetal position laid down and just let it happen. And last time we did it, which this was a month ago out in Death Valley, we went out there and we were camping in the desert and we took them and it was exactly that. I just, I just fucking laid in the fetal position. And when I close my eyes, I could feel this feminine healing power, like it was almost like, like, tentacles, like, I could almost see it, like, tentacles going in and just doing work that I didn't really care to understand or decipher because if you do, you can really go down.

So. Dark. Fucking. This is fast. Let me tell you why it's really interesting. The time before, I actually, I was wrong. I misspoke. I had done mushrooms before that last time where I was speaking to them alone in my apartment in New York. Whoa. And this is kind of a funny story. So I take these mushrooms and again, only like probably two grams, two and a half grams tops. And I'm alone. It's the middle of, I think it's like a Friday or something. So like, it was a work day, but I cleared my schedule. No, not going to get any calls, not going to get any meetings. So I take the mushrooms, they go down 10 minutes after I get an email that says, your website is down.

It's got flag for malware, my business website, you know, shutting it down immediately. You know, won't be able to access it. So I'm like, oh, this is a problem. Like realizing I have like maybe 30 minutes before I start getting like the giggles are feeling weird or like, you know, they come off, they come off. Oh, God. Like when it's, oh, yeah, when technology doesn't mean anything. Yeah. And again, you know, this, this time I really hadn't taken psychedelics in like 10, 15 years. So there were no smartphones. There was nothing. There was maybe like snake was on a phone or something. That's, that's where we were at.

UTI 85. I don't even think I had, I just don't even remember cell phones back then taking psychedelics. But so my website goes down. Luckily, my stepdad is like a web guy and I was like, listen, here's the deal. I took mushrooms and my website, there's some problem I've never seen this in my entire life. And I do this for like a living. Like this is very weird. It's like, can you please just like move to another host or something? I got like 10, 15 minutes to do this. So he's like, yeah, no problem. Good luck. And I was like, okay, cool. So I did, I ended up, I hadn't done them in a long time. So I kind of forgot how to do them.

But I never took psychedelics like recreationally, like to be like, what's have some fun, like, you know, maybe I would get together with a group of friends and be like, let's do them and see what happens. But not like lightly. So I went in with a kind of a purpose to learn something creatively, something. And I, what ended up happening is I was listening to music. And sure enough, I ended up crawling in the fetal position, had to turn the music off at one point. I was like, no, this is too. I was getting into it at one point and then I was like, no, no, no, God, I just went under the covers. I had my little dog, hadn't had a dog before ever tripping.

I was like, yo, come next to me, chill if you want to, but this is going to be, I don't know what's happening. Went in. And all I remember, what you're talking about going deep with this stuff, I remember having all these little epiphanies and they would appear as like little bubbles, like little bubbles, almost from like a pipe. And I'd be like, oh, that's like the most, that was just the world. And then it was like, and then it was like, oh, and then it was like, oh, and then it's like, oh, there's like a song lyric bubble and like I'd go into it. And then like all of a sudden, I was like, oh, I should play this harmonium.

I have a harmonium. I got then. Cool. And holy, and I say, I ended up singing the Honda Muncha Lisa and doing the, the harmonium thing. And like it's, it's, I had not played and sang that at once. And it was like crazy. It was like, you know, as tingly as you can feel when you feel the best music. It was easy. I, my fingers are moving automatically. I was like, holy shit, this is the most amazing thing. Playing music. Wow. Holy shit. So here's the reason, I mean, I ended up coming out of that trip and I had some other stuff with the guitar and song lyrics and stuff. And I was like, you know what, like I'm very confident that if I just like creatively did this in a way that was conducive, like I could actually like really be good and quickly creating a framework for writing music and I was like, oh, shit, yeah, like I'm sure that's what a lot of people have been doing.

And I had it happen to me. I still have melodies from like, you know, college and even before high school without like, still fucking good shit. Wow. So to me, what I'm trying to figure out at this point in my life related psychedelics is a, it feels like there's another place where this creativity and kind of energy and source stuff comes from, I'm familiar with it on enough levels that I know it exists. I know it's pretty sure it's made up of what we would call love, unconditional love. It's not, you know, like someone like regular love as we can see between two people or two things, just like an unconditional presence of love.

So I get that and I know that people, and I've seen people in culture and creativity, be able to kind of tap into that with psychedelics, without psychedelics, however, however, however they do it in various outlets like music, film, comedy, whatever science, whatever it is anything. So I'm trying to figure out the relationship between psychedelics, this other place, what that place is and how to come up with a framework to intelligently do that in the way that would what I ultimately think is the purpose of life to really help other people. And yeah, and I don't even know how well I have it thought out that that's the purpose of life, I just know that when I help other people without doing it for anything, I feel the best.

And maybe that's an ego trip, who knows, could be, but it seems to be consistent. And that merge with gratitude, which is being appreciative of everything that you have. It's like this crazy like, yeah, cycle that's just a virtuous cycle, as I call it. And that to me is why I smoke weed, it's why I take psychedelics and it's why I have conversations about this. And I'm really interested in your DMT experiences and we'll get into all the other stuff too. Because it's something I haven't done. And I like to see where it fits in kind of in this. You're going to love it now, you know, like, you know, it's like anything, it's DMT is especially, it's like, I don't know, all I can really talk about is that weird place and I can just describe it a little bit, but what it means, fuck.

So it's like a faith thing, is it like, do you have like a level of faith extended? Oh, yeah. I think it reinforced all of this spirituality that came flooding into my life after the first time I did mushrooms, which was only two and a half years ago, so it reinforced all that in a way where you're like, I've seen it, I've seen it, there's other things going on. There's, it's not just this two and a half, two and a half year. How old were you when you took mushrooms for the first time? I'm 31. I'm 34 now. Okay. Yeah. And I'm going to say that be grudgingly. No, no. Yeah. You're okay. I'm such a survivor.

Yeah. Class of '99, you know. I'm a one. So. Yeah. But yeah, um, yeah, so it was, it was a newer thing. Getting into any of this stuff has been a newer thing in life. And the best thing, I mean, it led to, I don't know, some sort of, some sort of path. But well, that let's talk about what was, what do you remember, let's try it. What do you remember before kind of getting included? So you put mushrooms as like a pivotal transition. Yeah. In your consciousness. Yeah. I can remember it. Yeah. What was the difference between before that and then after that? Yeah. I mean, it's just a level of, of awareness.

It's, it, you know, that's all good call here. Um, yeah, I, you know, we were still on the same path. We were still, we were still doing the same thing and I think we were doing everything for the right reasons, but it, maybe it's faith. Maybe it's what you just said. Maybe that's what it gave me faith that, that there is something else. And just to, you know, feel the connectedness and feel the oneness and feel. Not think about it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And feel that flow through you and in, um, I don't know, it was, it was extremely palpable. It kicked my fucking ass. It was scary. And, um, thanks man.

I mean, yeah, just such a valued experience, fucking stopped eating animals after that. Cool. Um, I became way better. It's two and a half years ago. Yeah. What, what, when, what month? Do you remember what month? November. Yeah. So I, I became a vegan for two. I'm not a vegan anymore, but I'm, I haven't eaten meat in a couple of days now, but I was vegan for two and a half, two years, a little over two years. The reason I was interested in this veganism stuff is because I read a book and it was very scientific based, like it was like, who the fuck wrote that book? Dr. Ferman. This guy was just like made an abundance of sense.

Like, hey, nothing spiritually, no ethics involved, but like scientifically, like if you eat vegetables and fruit in this way and proteins and beans and, you know, in a healthy way, like you're going to be really healthy and it's going to make your life better and you're going to live a better, you know, quality of life towards the end of it. The, the purpose isn't not to die. Everyone's going to die, but it's to live in the last few years of your life. If you make it to an old age, you don't want to be like, ah, sucks. So I read the book and I was like, oh shit. Oh shit. It clicks. Holy shit. Was eating cheeseburgers two, three times, you know, a day just living like a crazy overgrown baby in terms of eating habits overnight became a hardcore vegan.

I was eating like, you know, barely cooked mushrooms for like the first month, two months, like I had no handle on it was like becoming like an annoying vegan, being like evangelical about it. Yeah. Did that slowly settled into like a pretty nice vegan stuff, a vegan habit, then realized I lived in New York City and there's vegan everything and there's vegan junk food and there's vegan, whatever type of food you want. You can eat like an asshole and be like an asshole and be a vegan. Totally. If you're doing that, then I think at one point, phased into cheese. So I went across that threshold, then went to meat and then I was back on me and I've been eating meat for not a year yet, but I'm getting to the point where like, oh, a nice piece of prosciutto.

What are we talking about? Why am I just like, oh, please, I started where I was like, I'll only eat like really high quality, you know, like, oh, some great New York, you know, I'm amazed. Yeah, something amazing, some beautiful, you know, we went out to like a fancy steak dinner, once in a few blue moons, no problem. And then it just evolved into when I moved back to DC area, just like, oh, I'll get this sub. I'll eat this sub sandwich. It's like, yeah, it's like a crapsub, but it's got meat in it and that's how I'm going to eat. Yeah, I hear you. I am now sufficiently not disgusted, but I'm over it.

Like I'm past the point. I'm like, yeah, I don't feel good. I don't really like doing it. I remember the reasons I did it in the first place. The reason I was interested when you said you did it is that was pretty much the same time where I came to that epiphany and I wonder if it was something to do with a larger kind of like, you heard about these gravitational waves. Totally. Right? Yeah, it applies. Yeah, right. That to me easily applies to energy in other forms. Totally. And I think also when I look at it from the quantum level, and I'm speaking totally out of my ass on this stuff, like I understand quantum physics from, you know, reading like Brian Green's book, Balrogate Universe, I don't fucking know.

But I do understand that when things are the observer principle, you know, someone's watching a quantum particle or it's a wave or a particle depending on their observance and what they're looking for. Yeah. So that, and also I understand the time also functions very differently in the quantum world. So if energy kind of works like these gravitational waves through physical matter, time, and space and it kind of gets distorted a little bit, I wonder if these are like energy waves coming from other places that pass through Earth at the same time. And everyone's like, yeah, everyone, maybe you were like, Hey, I got a, I took mushrooms and now suddenly I'm not eating animal products anymore.

Yeah. And maybe me who knew all this shit. My mom was, you know, she'd been a vegetarian and vegan like, yeah, I had my aunt as a vegan. Like it's not like I didn't know. But it was like willful ignorance, right? Still is. I wonder if these things pass through the world in that way. It's interesting. Yeah, because it, yeah, I thought it felt like it was very personal to me. It felt like I was writhing around on the bathroom floor throwing up and being like, Oh, you've got to be closer to your sister, she needs you. And if you think of yourself as any kind of environmentalist, you're fucking complete bullshit.

If you're doing what you do, which is eating like a fucking asshole and we're not evangelical about it because like, that's all I needed personally, it's just like, yeah, I get this. We're not evangelical about it because honestly, we don't know enough. I wish I could fucking slay people and be like, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Probably not. They would hate you. The thing is, is if you're really trying to get people to be vegan or look at that, I know this from being on both sides. The worst thing you can do usually in my experience is like basically tell people they should be vegan. Yeah, probably best.

I'll tell you this. This is a service too that if anyone's listening, this is something actionable you can do. Me and my wife signed up for something called the Purple Carrot and Mark Bittman, who's a food writer, writes for I think the New York Times, just a very famous guy, really on the top of the culinary world. He started this thing and it's basically vegan, it's like blue apron. People know about that. You get the meal sent to you. But it's vegan and you make the meals and they send you the prepackage. It's not even that expensive. What I'm loving about it is A, definitely eating vegan dinner or lunch.

It's usually dinner stuff three times a week. That's great. For whatever reason. Two. One how to cook this shit and you get these recipes that you get to keep. So we now have, we've been doing it for like three or four months. We have like 10 to 15 recipes that we could pull out, just go regular shopping for and make good stuff. That to me is a way better way of convincing someone to be vegan and then you slowly start being like, hey, by the way, we're enslaving a whole variety of species for our personal amusement and pleasure gratification. I didn't even realize any of that shit. I never have seen any of the videos that our people are like, I saw this one video and I never.

Yeah. I'm like, I just felt something and it was disturbing and I didn't want to be a part of that anymore. Not to troll people that eat meat or do whatever, but honestly, we've converted people like when we're on vacation with them and shit and we're like, well, we'll be making the food. We castle make the food for everyone and it's awesome. And then people are like, what's that fucking recipe? And that's all it started with us was like, we're one recipe like, that's vegan. Oh, fuck it. We can do this. Right. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I wonder if it like I look at myself just as an example.

I know better. I've done it. It clicked for me at once and then I still had you feel, Oh, you're kidding me? Like I have pictures from back then too. I was like 25 pounds later. More outside of that. I was happier. I felt better about things. I absolutely anticipate going back probably could be starting this weekend. I absolutely knew that I was going to go back, but I also think I approached it the wrong way. At first, it wasn't as clear for me the way you kind of fell into it. Like I did it and I was like, it was so different than how I had been acting, even though I hadn't known this because like it was for me too.

And so I started becoming absolutely about it. Like there's no other way to put it. I was eating tomato and mozzarella sandwiches for like the first two months. I didn't know what was going on. Right. Right. I was doing way worse. I was like eating like, like I told you like mushrooms like uncooked mushrooms, not bare it like just. And I like mushrooms and not there's nothing wrong with that, but like I just had the wrong approach to it. And I don't know that I ever fully was like integrating it in the right way. And let's be clear about this meat to me still tastes good, but all of the other stuff that goes into it is really, really fucking terrible.

And there's not, it's not an arguing point. You can still eat meat. There's, like here's another interesting thing. This is very, I found this very interesting. Sometimes when people have like weird spiritual kind of like up experiences, the way they ground them sometimes is by giving them meat because it grounds them more to this reality. They don't fly up. They're not, it's like so light and airy. So I don't think that meat part, there's karma goes into this too. Like that cow is a cow, that's slaughtered for a reason. Who knows? It could have been a corporate CEO who was ahead of one of those things.

We don't know that. We can't understand that. So, but I do think we as people have somewhat of a responsibility to protect these other species too, especially if you're a person who considers yourselves like an animal person and a lot of people are. A lot of people I never thought I was, you know, like honestly, what stemmed from all this is like, now I see like a cat or a dog and I'm like, what's up homie? I used to like be, cast, you know how I was like, it used to be the guy like, yeah, I'll get your fucking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What the fuck are you doing? Yeah, I know people.

It's licking me. You know, like. Like how do you not see that this is crazy. Yeah, now I'm like, oh man, I'm, I'm you, you're me, we're all doing the same thing. Like it's all, we're all the same thing. That's it. So I have the weird experiences now where like I have to make a decision whether I kill a bug or not sometimes, because like, you know, right. I unfortunately am sufficiently terrified of some bugs and or like, I had to do this and I didn't kill a lot of them, but there was a wasps nest underneath like our overhang at a house now. Like, I've been living in New York and in a wasps, but we'll go inside if there's a wasp.

It'll be gone later. It's a stray wasp in the city, Brooklyn is going to be going away. It's not living there. So I had to spray it with, you know, the, the stuff that shoots far, the spray, the kill, the poison, whatever it is, the poison, basically. So I was like, I'm sorry, wasps, I got to do this because like you're going to sting me or my wife or my dog and like, I know you don't mean to, but I got to do it. And I don't think I killed that many of them, but I will say this before I open the door to spray them, they knew something was coming. And as soon as I let loose, they can't fly in at me.

Like none of them got you. No, none of them got me. And also like, I don't like stinging bugs and they pick up on that shit real quick. And they're like, yo, I'm going to go hang around this guy. I think he is one with the universe, but doesn't like playing, singing bugs. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I think the fact that you realize that they're picking up on something and like it, it just kind of speaks to the whole, that's that creepy vibe. But that. Yeah. I was like, Oh, God, I want it the best I can because it's not impossible. I mean, because it, I mean, it's, it's not possible to clean up your act.

Totally. We're sitting on my leather couches that I bought when I first moved in here. Right. Right. I ditched them because you know, I think that would be a travesty, if I can do something almost worse. Like it's like, if you ate meat by accident, what, I think there's scenarios to be clear. I do think there are scenarios we're eating animals. Absolutely. Okay. This is my dear. Well, yeah. And like exactly, like someone gave me this taxidermy and I'm like, what am I going to do? Throw it away. That's a beautiful gift. It reminds me of Hilary Spirit. Right. No shit. I, and I think there's ways to honor eating meat that people are, one of the big problems I do think with the meat stuff, I'm some funny, we got on stuff.

We're removed from it. We're so removed from the process. If someone, I always said this, like truthfully, if I had to kill my own shit to eat it, I'd probably be getting any meat. You'd do it rarely. You might. Some people are like, yeah, I'd do it. I'd be like, man, I think if you had to kill a chicken every time you wanted chicken. I don't think you'd be eating a lot of chicken. I think you'd be approaching it. And I think, listen, like Native Americans, people who lived here before it and people from thousands of years ago, they understood the ritual aspect and the significant symbolism behind killing, eating, using, honoring.

There wasn't such thing as consumerism. Right. I mean, like the, what probably someone was like, hey, if I get enough of these deer skins, I can have a lot of deer skins and do stuff like, yeah, but really nothing more than that. Yeah. That is a huge problem with this country in general, right? Like I don't understand how that's going to be rectified. Let's talk, let's shift, not to be too abrupt, but we were talking about the politics, the political stuff. Yes. Before we get into that, because I'll be remiss if I didn't, you made a documentary, a film recently called Trump Rally, which I saw I had the benefit of seeing because you release it on Facebook, at least at a time, I was on Facebook.

Oh, I knew you'd be there. I knew you'd be up because my message, it was late at night. Oh, Sunday, I was like, if anyone's awake right now, he'd hang out a little longer if you have access to marijuana. Yeah. You're going to dig what I own. So I happened to be in that situation and I watched it and I, you're, if there will be links to all of your films on this podcast page, but yeah, if people don't know and are familiar with your work, I'd love to hear you describe it. But to me, it's just like very raw, just filming people. I heard someone or even you described it as kind of like people on the fringe.

I wouldn't necessarily describe it as that. I think these are just people and that's what's coming out organically from the space. I don't think, I can't imagine it's a conscious effort on your part to be like, hey, I'm going to, this is, but anyway, the Trump one is fucking amazing because I really am interested in Donald Trump people because I don't look, I really try to not look at people. Like here's an example of, of judging people really quickly, right? Anton Scalia just died, Supreme Court justice. And on Twitter, this is what happened immediately on my Twitter feed, half of the people, not half of the people, but a lot of the people are like, more on my feed, but a lot of the people are like, this is great day for humanity.

You know, now Obama can put in someone else, you know, this guy was such a asshole ranging from this guy was an asshole. This is a great thing to just being like, this is good overall for policy, so on and so forth. And then there would be the other, you know, there'd be other people would be like, you know, there's, this is a horrible day. This is such a horrible day for justice. It's going to change the landscape to polar opinions then merge. And then there's a few people are like, hey, like a guy died. Let's respect that number one before just going crazy reactionary. And let's also be able to recognize that there's very few people do this.

There's ways to recognize this on Twitter. But how politically, what did you notice doing the Trump thing? Because I don't want to judge the Trump people without understanding why they like Trump. Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. Right. What did you learn? Well, it was psychedelic in itself and all these films are starting to feel like that. And by the way, I did a bong hit for Justice Scalia yesterday. Cool. Like when he died, I was like, whatever this means for our country, I'm ripping one to this old motherfucker. Yeah. You know, whatever. I mean, there's a way to, I don't agree with any of his policies.

I don't agree with, I think that his views on, you know, women's rights and just a lot of, he falls on the side that I don't follow him. But I also recognize that he's a person who came to these beliefs. We don't know how maybe his parents believe this, maybe their personal experiences. So to just write him off as like an asshole and fuck this guy and this is a great day for everyone else. Yeah. That's not how exactly. Exactly. And that was the premise of Trump rally. Right. For me, when I'm going to go and make a film, because it's a pain in the ass. I love doing it, but it's a pain in the ass because you can't just do it by yourself.

You can involve a whole bunch of other people. You got to ask them for their time, you never have enough money or any money, you know, that type of shit. So we had this idea, let's go to a, let's make a film at a Donald Trump rally and I contacted his campaign and I told him I wanted to do it. And it was easy to get in touch with them and everything. And they were like, yeah, whatever. You actually contacted the guy I didn't know. Yeah. I just googled like who's Donald Trump's whatever campaign manager. Yeah. Yeah. And I found the name and then I found her cell phone number and I called her. She answered.

You know, they said it's awesome. Yeah. And it was great. And we talked for a minute and I told her what I wanted to do. And she was like, uh, yeah. Okay. Whatever. Yeah. We'll put you on the list and they put me on this list with everyone else. She gets the same email from Donald Trump and it's about five to seven days before his events he'll announce them. Right. To the media, to the public, to everyone. How the fuck am I going to put together production, you know, like, like what we do, like it takes at least a few a week, give Cass a couple days to put this fucking thing together with Trump rally.

There was no way to. Right. So we were going to be out in Vegas for the AVN awards, um, uh, you know, for cam girls, this other movie. Yeah. And, uh, the day that the Trump was throwing a rally there, we got the email that Trump was going to be in Vegas the day we got there. So we're like, fucking let's do it. And this, this is good. And of all places to Vegas, it was like, Oh, this is perfect. This will be even better than what we can imagine. And, um, we have to, now our hands are tied and we have to do this on our cell phones. And I've always wanted to do that. Right. And I think it would give us the type of access and intimacy for the audience and the experience for the audience that would be like, do that with your cell phones.

Yeah. What? Seven of us. Oh, okay. So basically what we did, basically what we did is Cass and I were like, we'll shoot it. Two of our friends, Brit and Alyssa, we're going to be there there and the credits looked them up. Um, so we're like, yo, come hang out at the Trump rally. Yeah. Yeah. My friend Matt in the credits again, he lives out there. We're like, come to the Trump rally. And then we put an ad on Craigslist and we got two people and give him 50 bucks. As long as you had an iPhone six S. Right. So we just, then, I don't know, we all got together and said, okay, like everyone shoot landscape mode and make sure you kind of cup your hand behind the mic and just see what's going on.

Oh, shit. And it turned out, you know, we mostly used Cass's footage, my footage and Brit's footage. But you know, everybody contributed and we were able to really spread out and create a sense of what it was like to be there because I mean, it's, I, I admit it. I don't know shit about filmmaking. I really don't. I spent most of my time in the audio world. Um, I use Adobe Premiere like a year ago to put something together for like a crowdfunding campaign. Yeah. It was such a stress out experience for me that I was like, fuck all this, but I like it. And I appreciate it. And your films just have such a great way of kind of evoking the humanness of the situation.

Yeah. So what was that like extending that kind of space to the people out of Trump? Well, it was, it was no different than the other ones. It put a knot in my stomach to think about going to do it. The same way that going to the juggalo thing did, you know, the same thing going down and making Oxyanna did, like it was like, oh, this is going to be a little uncomfortable. And a lot in the same way going into camgirls bedrooms was like this is very, this is strange. Same thing with the Trump people. I was like, this is, this is very outside of my political beliefs and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

So I'm going to pursue it and see it. Good move. See how it feels. That alone. But I mean, recognize. Yeah. Most people don't do that. Yeah. It was like, it makes me feel uncomfortable. And you know, I'm doing this thing in my practice is like, let's try to start taking it all in as perfection and where it's not, that's, that's work to be done. Right. So I can explore that in my films. How fun is that? So I'm there. And honestly, and I think asking to test this too, we walk in there and you're just hit with a tidal wave of empathy. I'm just like, oh, these are me. I know. Right. Shit. Right. These are this, this is us.

Right. I was calling him, I was calling him, uh, the slightly, the slightly confused and the chronically misled. That's what it is. Right. But it's us. Yeah. I mean, you're the same way. Oh, of course. And many different ways. I'm just going to pick these stick of weed. Yeah. Well, I'm realizing that's. Yeah. At this point, I was like, why do I keep forgetting certain parts of what I was saying? I'm usually so. What's going on? What is, I do think the chronic, chronically misled part is the part that's somewhat out of people's control. Yes. Of course, there's still people like that. Oh, there's something that I feel like is, I don't know why it's seemingly getting lost on.

Well, one thing I saw is this is I read a, oh, this is such a good article, um, David Byrne writes David Byrne from The Talking Heads. One of my favorites. Oh my God. He writes on his website, which is fucking amazing. And he wrote this thing about the echo chamber, which is basically what's happening is his people online now get filtered in by interest in groups so much. You're just totally isolated from people who don't share similar opinions and beliefs. And some people purposely do that and I'm guilty of that, my Facebook feed. Yeah. I mean, not, I don't, I try to do it. Not if they're like saying something I don't agree with, but if they're just like mean spirited and angry, I will, I will unfollow people cause I'm like, I don't need this like coming through my feed.

If this is like what they're going on and then I had to think about them and like what's going on in their life and they're angry and I can be able to help them because that's not my place. So I, the echo chamber was something that I thought was fascinating relative to people lacking empathy because the more isolated you get, the harder it can be to connect with people who don't seem kind of like you. And I wonder if the internet, the internet to me is neutral, like it's good or bad. Like there's no inherent quality to it that makes it like one thing or the other. It's what value we place on it kind of like money.

I think money is kind of like that, although it's like acid. Yeah, like acid. Exactly. Neutral thing that adapts to your personal psyche. Yeah. Exactly. Which is like life. I always, I once freaked someone out because we, uh, he had taken mushrooms for the first time. And I was telling him that I thought, uh, well, I had been talking about Charles, Charles Manson a little bit before, but don't, don't don't talk about Charles Manson when you're doing second. Yeah. Just don't bring them off. Try not to. Yeah. I wouldn't even do that. No, no. But, uh, you know, I was talking to him, uh, and I said, I said, let him know the theory and while he was on mushroom said, I thought, um, this is like the name curly baba thing that I think life is like that.

I don't think it's limited to just psychedelic experiences. I think those can kind of give you those, what Maslow called peak experiences that kind of make it hyper aware of it. Yeah. Um, but I do think that life is malleable in that same way too. Um, and I think when you recognize that you have a couple of options, what to do with it and probably more than a couple, but, uh, you know, and I'm always interested. I seem to have fallen on the side where it seems like, okay, if you believe that you can make life whatever you want in any permutation, then what, like then what do you want to do with it?

And I seem to always fall on the side of like, okay, well, I think it should be helping other people somehow, some permutation of that. I see it at work. I see it in what you do too. Yeah. That's what it feels like your films feel like. They just remind people and I saw, I think I was watching something right before I came over here. It's like in your about thing where it was talking about connecting with people. And what did you say? You said someone in, in Oxyanna, Oxyanna, Oxyanna was talking about how it felt like a therapy session to them and how they would tell their friends and they would come.

And that to me is some people do that for a living. They're psychologists or they're therapists, but some people just do that naturally. And that to me is where you fall. That's where I'd naturally fall into after this psychedelic experience. So that, how to cultivate that in as many ways as possible. Totally. What are some tips for me? Well, it's part of, I mean, my art is documentary, but documentary as a spiritual practice, everything as a spiritual practice, trying to, like I said, trying to take it all in as perfection. And you know, I want my, I want my shit to be good and I want it to entertain people.

So my practice needs to get me to a place where I can be more and more inspired by humanity and by what's going on right now as it is. And less about how am I going to get in there and contrive some situation or do something that would fit perfectly on this network or this film festival to reach this kind of audience, it's like, it's not about that. These, I don't know, I think they're exactly that. I used to be, have a lot, be a lot more verbose about all this stuff, but now I'm just like, when I think about artwork, I think, tell the truth, tell the truth. It's a reminder. These are reminders, you know.

If you want to watch American Juggalo and be one of the people that's like, we should nuke bomb that fucking gathering of the juggalo. Who says, Pete, I have to fucking watch it. Yes, that's what's the worst. I fail to realize that more often. These are mirrors. These films are mirrors. My life can be a mirror, everyone's can. It reflects back on people where the work needs to be done, you know. And I'm not going to name names, but we would show like an early cut of Oxyanna to people and they'd be, you know, I remember a couple of people in particular that would be like, oh, I just feel just nothing, no feeling of magic for them.

And I'm like, I fucked up if you don't feel compassionate for them. But then I realized, then I realized what my filmmaking was about. It's like, it's not about me as a filmmaker. It's not even really about the subjects. It's about them revealing something to each audience member. And in that sense, I need to pull it back. I need to make these an experience for people. I'm not going to hold their hand. These are not a vessel for information. I'm sorry. I'm not that organized of a person. We're not like researchers, you know, like there's like, everyone's like, well, where do you start your research?

There's no research for these projects. I wish there was a different name other than just documentary for it. Sure. Yeah. It's not the right word. You know, I totally recognize that. Just so, I don't know, just so you're not kind of like held to all those stupid standards and all the lame fucking going extinct institutions that surround it. You know, I don't know. We just try to go beyond all that, put our shit out there for free. Hopefully people will pick on up on this fucking weird rogue signal we're putting out there, which is just like, let's accept and understand each other. We're all in this motherfucker together.

There is beauty everywhere. There's poetry everywhere. You just got to like settle down and see it. We can provide those experiences and then hopefully that can reflect in someone's world and resonate with them and be like, shit, man, I always rode off of drug addicts. Like I never thought about them. And now like, I want to give my uncle another chance or I see that he needs love. Or like, fuck, you know, my cousin that fucking became a goddamn cam girl. Maybe she's maybe she's not an insufferable slut. Even calling someone a slut in the first place is kind of fucked up because who am I to get more realistic on people?

So I don't know. No, that makes an abundance of sense, like philosophically and art-wise and creative-wise and it's fucking awesome that you have the opportunity to do that. Yeah. One thing about it too is it seems like, creatively for you, you tapped into, and this is something I'm fascinated with right now because I'm doing it in other aspects of my life professionally and personally, but less effort seemed to yield more authentic experiences. That's mind-blowing to me because I don't, like here's how I've been thinking about money and time up until pretty recently and a friend, my friend Brandon, who's amazing, does conversion optimization for websites and a lot of these clients I have, spiritual clients, but he's just a hell of a talented guy.

If you need conversion optimization, go to Brandon Park because he's like a genius at the ship. You heard it here first. Yeah, you heard it here first, people. But he told me something that I thought was very wise, which is money is a replenishable source of energy to literally keep printing it. Like, it's going to keep coming. Don't worry. It makes people feel great. Time isn't, right? And so I was like, oh, that's like, and it is incredibly wise. So I implemented it quickly. I raised my rates. I valued my work. I started making it go to my point and you just started trying to figure out how much I was helping people, how I could, you know, all of these things, basically, easy stuff.

So then I had more time, right? Great. That's what it is. That's the, so I had more time, but it didn't actually translate and I recently did this maybe like a month ago. So I'll give it a little more time. No pun intended, but I actually had more time to do stuff, but I wasn't getting everything I thought that I was going to be getting done just because I had more time. So I started to realize there was another aspect of this, which is focus. And this is kind of verging into awareness or attention. And I noticed that some people, and I've done it myself, you can come up with an idea. Like I've done this for like clients before, like I will in two minute conversation say something to them that's easy to do, implement, and it literally just saved them like tens of thousands of dollars.

You can't quantify that at an hourly rate, on a project rate, on anything. So where does that come from? Like it's not a renewable commodity, like time takes this much time equals this much results. So the focus aspect of it is something that I, it seems like to me what you're doing is you're crystallizing focus in a moment and you're like, this is an idea, like a Trump rally, perfect example, right? You were somewhere, right place, right time, and there's a lot of aspects that go into that too. Obviously, but then you crystallized it, you did it on iPhones, which is nuts, didn't know that. Yeah.

I've never shot anything before. Yeah. I mean, that's just, that's just nuts, man. That's totally nuts. But it was the same thing. It's all the same thing. And I was nervous and it made me really nervous. And that was a good thing. And it's like before psychedelics when you do it, you get that little. Yeah. It was that. It was that. So what do you think that is, that tapping, what is, what is happening in that moment? Well, you know, physically we're in this world. I think all of us in this room, Cassie, you probably would think this. There's other dimensions to us as well. Yeah. We're not just meat bodies is, you know, lots of people, Alex Craig, Duncan Trussle will point out.

I don't think we're just meat bodies where there's other layers to us. What happens at those moments where it just feels synchronicity, this is the name of my podcast. Yeah. That's what I called. That's what Carl Jung called it. That's what it feels like to me. It lines up in this moment in time in space, you know, precognition can have it to do with it. All these other things. What, what do you think that is? Well, I think the only way to describe it because the variables have been so different on all the films and the results have been such the same, yeah, beyond, you know, my talented team, but I mean, it has changed besides myself and my editor.

I would just say it's the, um, it's what smile in the world smiles back. Right. Right. Right. You get what you give. And once I realized that, uh, I was like, I need to get negativity out of my life and I kind of shed people in my world that, um, that kind of exemplified that to me. And that was a good thing and the work gets better, but, but more, um, you know, tangibly right there in the moment is I'm not bringing any tension or baggage to any of these interactions with any of these people, you know? So then all of a sudden they're bringing their like chilled out self. Right. And they're kind of meeting me where I am.

I'm not holding the camera. I'm not holding sound equipment. I'm not throwing a release in their face. I'm not holding a list of questions. I'm just me. Did you do this before psychedelics or that? Like, you were making those, you just always did this work. That was always the strategy. I didn't even start making documentaries until I was 27. Sure. So I like already had professional experience, um, making commercials and, uh, and doing that type of shit, but, um, really once I realized like there's a way to connect with people and get something different than what a list of questions would, you know, get stuff that almost feels like you shouldn't have captured it.

Just feels like sink, well, synchronously, you know, to cap into that. Yeah. I, I just, you know, yeah. And I feel like DMT is also an example of that. You just kind of get popped out of what we normally experience as consensus reality. It's still something that exists. I mean, from what I hear, it feels like it interfaces with our world. It's not completely something else. There is a connection there somehow, um, well, it's, it's, you know, I, I was, we did acid this weekend and not whatever, I still haven't come down. That's, that's another story, but you've, you've stayed higher longer. So don't, don't do the left of me.

No, I'm not. It's totally, it's not, it's absolutely true. Um, you know, one of the things I came out of it thinking was like, you know, a person can be psychedelic. Absolutely. And it happens. You're a presence. Apps. I mean, this is what gurus are for a lot of, I think that's kind of one of the things that, so like I, I weirdly, I say weirdly. It's not at this point, but I have a guru, right? I, Neem Curly Baba is a guru of mine. And if you would have asked me four years ago, if I had a girl, I'd be like, huh, it's weird. I don't know what that is. That's, you know, I'm a regular person. I don't need to be thinking at anyone.

The thing I always, the way part of the reason I realized, uh, Neem Curly Baba was my guru is I had been reading before I ever did acid. There was a story, right? The famous Rambas story where he gives LSD to his guru, who was Neem Curly Baba, he did it two different times. The first time he did it. And then he, he, the first time he, he, Rambas convinced himself that he probably threw him over his shoulders. Yeah. Like he could have done a sleight of hand thing. Yeah. There's no way he didn't, cause, cause he didn't have a reaction. Right. He had no react. Well, yeah. He had no reaction whatsoever.

And so then there was another time when he came to when he's like, you don't think I took that. Do you have some more? So then he clearly watched, you know, Rambas watched him place them in his mouth to them up. Swallow them four times. The 300 mics each, Alsley acid, like some of the best acid you could ever get. So then Rambas is like, oh no, you know, now this time he definitely took them, he could actually freak out. So he like turns away or something and he turns it around. He went under the blanket. He goes under the blanket and he comes out and his face is all like fucked up and crazy and he's like, oh no, like I fucked up this guru.

Like I really, I really did it. So then he turns around and go get help and he turns back around and he's just like laughing and smiling and he's like, yeah, you know, this is, you know, this is something the yogis used to do is a medicine like we've known about this for, yeah, back in the day they used to use it. You're supposed to do it in, you know, in a comfortable place where it's like cool, like chamber yourself. Yeah, by yourself for like as a yogic practice. So I had always been obsessed with that story. It always sounded like, oh man, that's that points to something even before doing acid.

Yeah. So I would always tell that story the first few times I took any type of psychedelic with anyone. And I didn't know that's what I remember Richard Alpert when he gave this guy some acid and then at various other points and you were alluding to that I did stay higher, longer. And it wasn't, again, it was something that where I experienced it and part of the reason this shows name is synchronicity is everything for three months to me was one giant synchronicity. Exactly what we're talking about. Those, you know, you're in the right place at the right time. The right thing is happening. And part of it was a mind shift and a mind state shift, but part of it just felt like reality was adapting was malleable to what was around me.

And what you were talking about as being, you know, exuding whatever that was, like I saw it happen. So I'm interested in what that is, how people tap into it. And then in my experience with people, unless you like get to a point and that's just it and you're living there from everyone, they oscillate their oscillations, they go up and down on a curve. It's not like it's difficult to achieve like a peak state and just chill there and like, oh this is my last incarnation, I get what reality is, I got enlightened, I understand what karma is. What's fun is that? Right. And I do think the way Rhonda describes it is he says, you know, suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnations.

And I do believe that the reason we're on earth, this planet is to learn certain lessons. I absolutely think and I think it's a personal, I think it's a choice that we make on a soul level collectively, individually, I don't know, but to come here and experience things that are for the betterment of ourselves, collectively, whatever it is. And we got shit, I believe in that, you know, I won't go into this episode that is super far out. That's just like totally, you know, fifth dimensional beings made of light and sound, which I absolutely believe in at a point. So. But honestly, this, I honestly think all this is going on and it's, it might just be for me because they're personal, but I think Caskin attests to it, I mean, they're personal to you too, but like that, that these films kind of contain all those lessons for me in making them, but they're there on the screen too, you know, and that it's just, it's kind of, it's a lesson in letting go the whole thing, really.

It has been for me to make them, for me to even be able to, I'm just some dude, you know, my parents have no money. Right. It's not like a situation like what you would assume what you would have to do to be able to make films. Anyone can make them. Yeah, but they're different. It's not like I, I love, I will say I'm realizing it now, but to you are one of my favorite modern filmmakers, the other one of mine. Yeah. And truthfully, the other one is Vic Burger, my friend who's been on the podcast. I'm a huge fan. Oh man. He is. And you're both doing something and while it's completely different executions, he's zoning in on absurd real life, just like this should happen, like, oh my God, and augmenting it with the music and other things, but it's tapping into reality of what's happening in situations.

Yeah. That to me is different than making a film creatively or, you know what I mean? Like coming up with a plot line and a story and executing it. That's cool too, but it's like, um, I, I'm just so blown away by everything going on around me. I'm just so enamored by it. Yeah. I mean, and even like, even the shit that I'm inspired by, it's usually not like other documentaries. It's like weird home videos you come across on YouTube where you're like, damn this moment of discovery. Yeah. If my films can feel like that, like, oh damn, I, I wouldn't go to that place. I, you know, well, I can't believe they talked to that person and I'm like, wow, shit.

Wow. A person like that does have a fucking story like, like my movie Florida man. Yeah. We just went down. We went down to Florida. That movie is crazy too. I mean, it's just, I mean, because it's Florida man. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And we love Florida and I've spent a lot of time in my life there and I lived there for a while and there's this whole like weird legend being built around the place right now because there are a lot of weird chickos on there and, and these news stories come out. But like, I was like, there's a human side behind that. Right. That's still funny. It's actually even funnier.

I'm sure. Because, because we're in on it and they're in on it. It's not us laughing at them. It's actually funnier when, when you let them speak their mind and let them kind of have a platform. It's absurd that they even have a platform for some of these guys. Yeah. Yeah. This guy fucking literally emerging out of the water and into our documentary. We're filming like B-roll shots on the beach and this guy just walks up with his surfboard and he's like, yeah, come on, just film me and Mr. Sexy Coco Beach, he goes on to talk about all this fucking nonsense. Is that the guy under the pier? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, you know, I don't know, but when I, the simplest way to put it and I keep coming back to it is it's just a reminder. It's just a reminder. We're all here, man. We're all fucking here. Man, I, I definitely, I just, I, I, I'm trying to hone in with this podcast and I've seen other things, how to cultivate skills and paths to coming to whatever realization people need to come to, not to change their lives in that instant and have it be forever different, but to consistently build and form kind of positive habits or belief structures that are going to make their lives, like, because I've noticed it just like little things like meditation is something I talk about on this podcast.

Yeah. I notoriously am a terrible meditator. Like, I, I can meditate for like periods of like, okay, I'm going to meditate. And then as soon as some part of accountability or whatever it is falls off, I'm done, you know, and I forget to meditate for like 11 months or eight months and I'll do it or I'll do it once in the blue moon in between the, but not consistently. And I wonder, I get the sense that there are a fair number of people who hear all this stuff have tried maybe some of it, you know, what practical tips do you think you stumbled on in your life that people could do as a starting point?

Oh, as a starting point to getting, getting their, their path going, shoveling the path a little. Yeah. Well, you know, I, you know, we were talking about mushrooms a little bit that, that certainly, it reminded me that there was, uh, that I was something so much bigger. Yeah. That was cool. And I wanted to go back to that and I, uh, we learned transcendental meditation. Mm. Cool. You have a mantra? Yeah. Cool. And I, I mean, it would be, it'd be crazy if I missed even one, like a whole day. It's a real connection. Will you? Yeah. Clearly. That worked for me. You get hooked though. This is, this is positive, you get hooked and then it clicks and then you do it.

Well, when I'm like, I love it and that's going to work for me, it's another tool in my tool belt. I'm like, fuck. Yeah. Because, you know, I don't know, you know, we're, we're basically the same age, man. You see, so many people starting to get in their thirties and like, start to act as if like this whole thing's shutting down and we got to start calming it down. Yeah. Like, you know, like some sort of window of opportunities closing. Yeah. I don't know what it is, but I'm feeling like the opposite's happening to me and something's blossoming. And it's like, why shouldn't it? We know more than ever.

We do. We have more experience than ever. We're connected technologically. Yeah. You know? It's true. Technologically, we're more connected, like shit, man, fucking 10 years ago, we wouldn't even know each other. Right. You know what I mean? Without a doubt. Without a doubt. I wouldn't be able to make and do what I do. Everybody fucking gets behind my shit, right, tunes doesn't want it, fucking Netflix doesn't want it. Nobody wants my shit. We put it out there for free for the people and it's by the people. I can't charge for this shit, man. How could I charge for it? It's fucking the generosity of these subjects and the generosity of the audience to keep coming back and being and like showing love and being like, Hey, we want to see, we're interested in the way you're seeing the world right now.

That's so fucking flattering. And I'm like, I want to keep doing it because there's poetry everywhere. What do you think about like the crowdsourcing route for filmmaking or other things? Is that something that's viable to you? Yeah, I've done it twice and both times they were great. It's also inducing. I did it. I mean, I, you know, I ran a crowd about the last time we saw each other around shit must have been June of last year, 2015, two months before that I'd wrapped up something. Yeah, I remember that was a big one. Oh, God, man, that was a, I mean, I'm really happy was very successful. We ended up successfully raising all the money.

We got a nice donations after it ended from people who had missed it. So it was success. Success. But man, that thing drove me almost insane, like it literally was just a thing. I wonder if there's a way to harness kind of collective energy now because of technology to get, because like I see you, I see someone who's doing something that obviously is from like a deep part of your being. Oh, man. It is. It's obvious. It's scary. I didn't realize that's the first time I took acid. I was like, these are self portraits. Yes. I'm out there already. Holy fuck, man. That's a, that's a heavy thing. Well, because when everyone might not see that too, I mean, that's no, I know something that's a personal thing.

But I mean, I think, you know, from people who make art or doing things creatively in the world, it is. It's a reflection of what they're saying that goes for music. It goes for films, documentaries, whatever you want to call it. That's ultimately what it, what it is. That's why some people, you know, have trouble, I think, getting art out into the world because it's such a personal expression of themselves that even if they don't know that consciously, that can be a difficult thing. Yeah. I feel like make the most beautiful thing and never put it out. Yeah. So many people I know. Right. I'm like, you're way more talented than me.

I'm just like kind of a little out there. Nah, you got it. Put myself on the line. No, no, because you are doing something you're making, it, what seems like to me is you're just doing a great job of capturing the poetry and the beauty of life by just talking to people and creating a space where they can talk and kind of let that shine. And they happen to be pretty marginalized people. Yeah. So like it's particularly interesting for a lot of people. It's relevant. So like me, it's interesting because like shit, man, like what do you think my conception of some, a juggalo or someone from Florida in the headlines, you know, exactly like the stories they're telling in your movie, what do you think my conception of them was, you know, Michael Donovan introduced me to your films, he's like, yo, you got to watch these who really liked them.

And I think he was like, it's American juggle. It was the first one. Yeah. And I was like, Hey, juggles. And watching me. He's like, no, you should really watch it. I'm like, so it's like, Holy shit, man. That was really good. And then I think I watched cam girls. And again, there'll be links to all of these things. And my favorite part of your movies is you almost like you, most people will go in with preconceived notions. Yeah. It's like really hard not to. Yeah. And then you kind of hit hip up to it and you're like, Oh, man, I really, that's why when I saw the Trump thing late at night, I was like, Oh, this is perfect.

Well, that's why I like almost like the titles are almost like bait to like bring your bullshit, bring your bullshit. Yeah, I love it. Trump rally. It's I love it. I love it. Okay. So let's, I know we talked about this probably like half an hour ago in the podcast. But what did you notice in the people outside of being kind of chronically misled? Like what? They're angry. They're scared. They're like, Yeah, I mean, it's, it's exactly what you'd suspect. Yeah. You know, um, what was cool, uh, Cass got this great interview with this guy. We're standing next to in line who's basically talking about why he's racist.

And it's because he got in a car accident within a legal immigrant. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that type of stuff. Yeah. The, the legal couldn't pay for insurance. He wasn't insured. So we didn't get compensated. He had to come out of pocket. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bummer that that happens. I really, really need to go cheer on this guy. Yeah. So, I mean, it was cool. It was really cool to just hear everyone out and, um, you know, just get a taste of the whole thing. A lot of people in the comments are everything are like, this is a horror movie. I'm so scared this and that and I'm like, uh, yeah, it's, um, I didn't go away with that.

I didn't either. Like, I think, Hey, who, I mean, I think we're, we're, we're probably cut from the same cloth. And Michael, Michael picked up on it too. He's a man. Well, that's why like you really are making these mirror like film. Yeah. That is pretty fucking awesome. Yeah. Because. Well, it's why we had to shoot like cam girls like I brag about shooting this on, um, on an iPhone. Yeah. But we've had professional, very talented professional, cinematographer shoot these things. Cam girls were shot by this guy, Isaac Bauman. And we took like a decidedly restrained look, uh, look, we, we got the Alexa, we got these amazing lenses and this heavy ass tripod and like really just kind of tried to put you there with them, but elevate the way that they look and the way they come off, almost like where it could seem like it was like a fashion commercial if they weren't fingering themselves.

Yeah. Sure. You know, so, uh, it, it automatically like just, it just gets you like, ah, this is supposed to be a fucking cam girl. Yeah. Right? Aren't they supposed to be camhors or camps. Yeah. Whatever your, you know, whatever your thing is like, this is a sex worker. This is like, she's basically a prostitute. All this bullshit gets challenged in frame one because you're like, that's art. Look at that. Mine. She's, she's performing right now and it's art and it's beautiful and she deserves to get paid for it. Yeah. And then we go right into a story of a mom and a dad and they're a three year old kid.

And she used to have to work fucking 18 hours a day. Now she works like four. So how did you come up with the idea for cam girl specific? Well, we made a bummer of a movie before it. We made Oxyanna before it and like that was another one just kit. We stumbled across it on a road trip and I couldn't like turn a blind eye to this place and these people. Yeah. And it was such a bummer. And I was like left in such a, you know, this weird space where I was like, I gotta follow that up. But I don't want to be like the bummer dude who's like going around and doing those types of stories. Yeah. And like we needed a break from it.

And you're not like that in case anyone is wondering being around you and you guys aren't bummer. No, not at all. And I got nothing to prove. Because I hope that wouldn't come across too much in the movie. Yeah. Sure. But cam girls, we wanted to make a film about women. A lot of our films ended up being like about men and stuff. And so I was like, let's do one about women, but like bad asses like rebels that are like flying in the face of societal expectations. Right. And that's all the stuff that kind of drew drew me to it initially. But once I dug in, I was like, holy shit. This is just it's so it's such a rich subject matter.

Yeah. We're going to revisit it. We're going to make a we're going to make a series out of it's going to be short films from all over the world. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. All over the world. Yeah. Because this was just we can only we're so small. We barely have any resources. We're we're belligerently independent like we've refused money and like so now we might have some money to be able to take it to make it more of a global conversation about sex through the lens of like working in the cam industry. Very fucking cool. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. That's one of the projects we're working on for 2016.

Cool. I don't know. That's it. I'm not trying to promote. No, no, I understand. And I'm actually off the podcast. Let's talk about that. Yeah. Because I imagine I've noticed this too with creative professionals also who are trying to do things in the world for the benefit of not just themselves but other people. There is this kind of weird relationship at times with resources like money and being able to fund things. Yeah. If we look at like look at the budget for like whatever the latest Transformers movie. Think if you had I don't know 1% of that budget. I'd be able to make movies for this in my life.

Right. Seriously. So I I wonder I do believe that at this point in time I think these systems are emerging pretty pretty quickly the next five years 10 years at the latest there's going to be systems that emerge. They're already out there but we're going to learn enough about them and how to harness them to actually get energy in the form of money to flow to people who are actually trying to do stuff. Yeah. Betterment because like you know just think like and it is going in the opposite direction now and people are figuring out crafty or in craft your ways to come up with their wording and their emails to get you to do shit for free.

So let's wrap it up here. Is there anything we didn't cover that you wanted to get into specifically where can people find you I'll have links to all this stuff. They could go to my website all my stuffs up there for free. Very ape.tv v-e-r-y-a-p-e.tv and I'm on Twitter. They should go on there. I'm Sean very. I just filed for you today. I saw that you're on there. You don't do a good enough job promoting yourself that you're on Twitter because I know most people are on Twitter. I'm like I really am active on it and I just like I should I should I should start tweeting a little bit more tweeting is it's just digitized consciousness.

It's amazing. It's super fun. I kind of think in tweets too when I am doing it I'm like I'm I could do it. It's like a little haiku sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This was such a pleasure. Like I know you're a famous. I'm not. None of that. The old host you know doing this whole thing but no honestly fucking all kidding aside. Thanks for coming over here and getting me high as shit. That wasn't me. I didn't do that. No problem. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be remiss cast. You want to say goodbye on the podcast. He's been in the room the whole time. He's a love people. Yeah. Peace out. All right. Yeah.

Well look who it is. The people who listen past the music. Thank you. As always people who listen past the music you're my favorite people because it means you listen to the whole episode or you fell asleep and then at that that means I'm talking to you while you're sleeping. Not just fucking around. But thank you seriously for listening past the music as a reminder. I love hearing from you. And if there's any type of guest or someone you would think would be cool if they came on the show or any ideas on how to make the show better seriously send me an email at nLampert. That's what the pee. It's not a Lambert.

It's a pee. It's a perfect part. And lampert@mindpodnetwork.com. And we could just talk shoot the shit or you can tell me how I can be doing a better job. You can tell me I suck. Whatever. Cool with it. Not going to remind you to rate and reviews on iTunes Stitcher or somewhere else. Not going to remind you to do that. So just to be clear, not a reminder to rate and review on iTunes Stitcher or anywhere else. All right. Next week got a cool guest. I'm not going to tell you who it is. Got other cool guests after that and I'm going to tell you who they are either. So you're going to have to tune in.

Thank you. As always, we're listening. Bye.