Ep. 75 - Live from Los Angeles with Kelly MacLean and Michael Donovan

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This is synchronous.

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Welcome to episode 75 of Synchronicity. My guest, this is a very special episode. Just got back from Los Angeles. We had this mind wave Los Angeles event in downtown Los Angeles, 420 East Third Street. It was on March 18th, it was amazing. Exceeded my wildest of expectations. I say that sincerely. Truth be told, the first week we had like 14 tickets sold and Yoshino and I Yoshino has a podcast artist decoded, we know this, it's on MindPod Network, check it out. We weren't freaking out but we're like, oh man, what if no one shows up? Like that would be super embarrassing. But we didn't have to worry about that at all.

And in addition to plenty of people showing up, this was like some of the nicest people all grouped together that I've ever had the pleasure of being around. It was from the speakers, to the participants, to the guests, it was really just incredible. It was so awesome also to be able to put so many faces to names, both people on MindPod Network and guests who were coming by and people were stopping by throughout the day. Really just total validation that this was something that we want to continue to do. So what today's episode is is the live recording of Michael Donovan, Kelly McLean, and myself in our panel discussion.

It was really fun, I gotta say. So you'll hear in this episode, Michael Donovan relentlessly giving me shit throughout the episode in a playful manner. So that's going on, it's fun. Michael, I don't think I could have put Michael in any other panel discussion that was going on that day. But because he's a character, I love Michael. He's super cool and you'll hear in this episode, we have a really good time. Really in front of a live crowd, it's quite a different experience, obviously you're up on a stage, but you can really feel the attention. When I'm sitting right now, I'm recording this on a microphone, in front of a computer, in my house alone, it's different.

I try to bring the same energy and enthusiasm to everything I do, but when you're actually in a room with other people who are there to listen and hopefully to get something out of it, it's quite a different experience. And just like I said, the group of people who came were truly fantastic. Really, I'm still kind of buzzing from the whole experience and it really was just such a great, great joy for me to be able to go out there and just meet these people. So the good news is this, we're gonna be doing a lot more of these. I'm already in discussions to get some of these done in New York, Corey, Allen from the Astral Hustle.

We were talking about doing one in Austin, potentially. We're gonna be doing more of these live events. It was well received. We all had a great time doing it and it's just encouraging to see us kind of commune together, whenever we can in person. So I'm not gonna give away too much of this episode. We loosely touch on the concepts of spiritual elitism. Said that weird elitism. Spiritual elitism, spiritual materialism, trying to be authentic, what the meaning of life is. You know, the small stuff. So that's kind of what this episode is. I really, again, I just so much thanks to Yoshino, Justin Hopkins, Mark Manguera, who hosted the space in this no wave space.

If you're in Los Angeles, please tune in to what they're doing. They are creating one hell of a fucking community activation space there in downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles, Los Angelenos, your city is incredible, even though it's really spread out and no one jay walks. Your weed is cheap. Your weed is excellent. Your edibles are excellent. It's fun to take my grottos of mushrooms. Thank you, Michael Donovan and smoke some of your weed. Really, the weather, what the fuck is going on there. It's like 75 degrees and sunny all of the time. That's insane. I'm gonna stop rambling and get to this episode.

No, before I do, before I do, please check out. This is, we're gonna, you're gonna start hearing the coming weeks on this podcast. Little teasers at the beginning of every, before the episode actually gets started. I start checking out some other podcasts on my podcast network. I'm sure you already do. I'm sure you already do, but definitely check out the Dow of Comedy with Kelly McLean. She's on this episode. And definitely check out Michael Donovan's podcast, Walking Home. Michael Donovan is a key cog in all of this. He connected me to Yoshino. He connected me to Sean Dunn. He's connected me to a lot of people and is also just kind of like a positive, encouraging force.

And also just incredibly talented photographer, really. Just check out his stuff. Super cool, dude. Check out all the other podcasts on my pod network. Much thanks to Jarell Perry and StillMind for being a participant in this event too. And same goes for Dan Yelly, Bolele, who stopped by. So yeah, that's it. Now I'm officially gonna stop rambling. Now we're gonna get to the episode. I hope you guys enjoy this. As always, shoot me an email. If you wanna talk about something, know@sinkpodcast.com. If you wanna donate, if you wanna wait, rate, review the podcast, do that. Please, really helps. We really appreciate that.

But without further ado, here is live from the Mindwave event on March 18th, myself, Kelly McLean, and Michael Donovan. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Or we start this one. I kinda wanna talk a little bit about--

No talk a little bit.

What, no, I just, I was waiting for Michael to answer off me. I was just waiting for--

Before he talks for an hour, he'd like to talk.

Yeah, exactly. We're gonna interrupt Noah this time. (laughing)

I talk, I do talk over people.

Like this.

So, (laughing) so really what, what I've been kind of keying in on in the past couple of weeks, or even the month, is that I think about all of these spiritual practices that I've done in my life, whether it's meditation, or psychedelics, or whatever it is, mindful, whatever. And I'm starting to realize that the actual most, actually most transformative practice that I've done is have conversations with people about things that we think are important. So whether it's death, or community, or life, or the mystery of everything, what comes out of those dynamic conversations, and sometimes they're put on a podcast, really influence my life and kind of create something inside of myself or brings it out that actually evokes change.

So that's kind of the intention behind what we're doing here. These types of conversations are meant to kind of, potentially evoke something in you that is positive and can actually help you in your life, because everything they were saying in the first podcast is true, like we can intellectually analyze all this stuff forever, but if it's not practical, and it doesn't actually help our lives, it's pointless. It's like doing anything else in life that's like eating junk food, so.

We had to put pressure on this conversation (laughing) to help their lives.

But I, but truthfully, I really do think that that's the function, I've been thinking about it, like what's the function of a podcast, what's the function of these conversations?

To sell, what's that stuff called?

Eat dream bee.

Yeah, dream bars, that's.

Eat dream bee, dream bee bars. Buy a bunch, use the code word, Dow. (laughing) That's Kelly's not lying.

So with that, we will start the conversation. We had loosely talked about kind of basing this a little bit on comedy, creativity, and the connection to a spiritual practice, but since, I thought it'd be cool to start since Chogem Trungpa was referenced so much in the previous conversation, your parents were actually students of them, and you were brought up in that Chumbala lineage.

Yes, there's the back there.

Hi.

Hi.

So Chogem, he's been brought up like 10 times already, so I thought it'd be a cool place to kind of talk a little bit about him and how the concept of spiritual materialism kind of does permeate everything. In the spiritual world, so.

Yeah, well, it's cool because right before this conversation, my mom was just saying that this event kind of reminds her of the opening of Naropa, which Chogem Trungpa's vision, not to like give you a big head or anything, but--

Dude, are you kidding?

Don't do that. That's not gonna be good for me to tell. (laughing)

But that he had at the opening of Naropa, which is a university, a Buddhist university, he had beat poets and he had rom-doss and many different spiritual teachers from different traditions all come together, along with artists, and just kind of have conversations and spiritual debates that sometimes even got heated. I think at one point, Trungpa Pache put a gong over rom-doss's head and was hitting it repeatedly, and they were very entertaining kind of interfaith dialogues, and part of the function was for looking for wisdom in our own culture within art, within, you know, beat poetry and that sort of thing.

And I think what we're getting here too is there's a lot of different ways to approach a spiritual practice, and it doesn't have to be from a particular lineage that you see out there in the world, we're approaching it from a comedic sense with your podcast, we're doing it from a layman sense--

Somewhat pornographic sense.

Pornographicals were-- (laughing)

Was it really pornographic?

I don't think it is.

Oh, I actually think that's--

There's some nudie shots. Michael's a photographer. This is Michael Donovan, by the way. I think our intros got lost in the show.

I didn't do that, Shady intro, Noah. This is Noah, he's the captain of the cult. (laughing)

He runs, this is Noah Lambert. He runs the Mind Pod Network, and he has the podcast Synchronicity, and he does techie things that I don't understand.

And Kelly's the boss shit. She has an amazing podcast talking to comedians. I'm gonna use this one.

And Michael--

That sounds better, right?

Yeah.

And Michael is an amazing photographer.

Pornographer, apparently.

Yeah, a mindful pornographer. He does photography that occasionally has a nip slip or two.

Whip them titties out.

He's just a very, very successful photographer. He's done many magazine covers, et cetera.

And the reason that Michael is also here is he has a very unique approach to spirituality. He really kind of practices the art of finding the sacred in the mundane and kind of normalizing fringe parts of society and people who maybe wouldn't be looked at as doing a spiritual thing in the conventional sense, but clearly are very tuned in to what's going on.

But I think that's Chuck and Trump's thing. That was his whole, his message, I felt. 'Cause I go to Shambhala in New York and you have two Shambhala's out here, but that's the amazing thing about that is that it wasn't this oh, holy, be perfect, be, let's really learn, I almost feel like when people get into that super learning thing, it gets kind of bullshit-y. And at the end of the day, it's like, you got a job, it's cool and it sucks, your life is cool and it sucks, and then how do you find the balance between the up and the down just so that you can face the day, so.

Right, he wasn't afraid of the nitty gritty, which is something I was appreciating about. Your work is, you don't usually see, you know, 'cause you're on a mindfulness podcast network and you talk a lot about meditation and mindfulness and this sort of thing, but your work is actually very edgy and unapologetically raw and, you know.

Do you know what was really weird? It was when MinePod used to have Romdas and Sharon Saul, Greg and Jack Cornfield, and then there'd be a link to my stuff and it was-

I got yes, I bet for that several times.

It was the most awkward place to be around like heavy, hard spiritual teachers and then the other side, people thought I was in a cult, because it's like, well, what's this guy Romdas? What the fuck is that thing?

Right, did you get personal complaints from Sharon Saul's Berkeley?

No, no Sharon's cool.

Do any pubic hair pictures on the line?

Yes, Sharon wrote it in a couple of times. No complaints from anyone, any of the teachers, but I did, you actually, Michael was on MinePod network.

I got kicked off. (laughing)

I had to be the one who, I got told to kick Michael off on my head.

Spiritual Terminator.

And I think. (laughing)

He did it, he texted me.

I was gonna say.

Well, he was buying a car, like a dick. (laughing)

It's actually, that is actually true.

He was like, I was staying in Silver Lake. I was trying to move out of New York and I came out here, there's my phone. And I moved out here and then I get a text in the morning and I thought I was just gonna have a good day, just swim in the pool, and then I get a text from Dickhead, McKee over here and he's like, "Hey man, we're gonna kick you off the network, "but I'm picking up a car, "so I'll text you later, bro." (laughing) That was it, that was it.

Was it a term from the last podcast, Atomic douchebag?

Yeah, yeah, that was, that is 100% accurate.

If you whip out your iPhones right now and you can rate and review Noah's podcast and call him the Atomic douchebag, we all know that you were here.

No, and it's true, and it was weird. So he got kicked off because some people didn't feel, it wasn't me, and I made that, we did talk it out afterwards, didn't feel that it was appropriate, and there was one picture in particular, I remember.

Was it from a picture?

Yeah, it was from a picture, so it wasn't Naked Ladies or anything, but it was a guy smoking a cigarette, and this is very ironic if you actually think about Chokem Trunka, right, because he smoked cigarettes, he drank, but it was a guy smoking a cigarette, some artist friend of yours, and it was up there next to like a picture of Ram Das, and a picture of Jack Cornfield.

Did Ram Das also smoke?

I don't remember this.

Did he?

I don't know, but this is the whole thing that's kind of bullshitty about a lot of this stuff, is that there's this weird line that we have with our life, so we try to segment it, so you have work, and then you have home, and then you have your sex life, you have your dream world, you have weird shit, really weird shit, and then underground stuff that you don't talk to anybody about, you might have told three people in your entire life, and they're cool with it, but you don't want anybody else knowing about it, and then you compartmentalize all of these things, and it's bullshit that they're separated, but it's you, it's all this one whole thing, and that was one thing that I picked up from all these teachers, it's like just be you, and it's this full circle, it's all one thing.

Well, and particularly when spirituality or mindfulness gets kind of compartmentalized out of the rest of your life, that's when you know it's pretty, you're in trouble.

Yeah, no, I mean, this segmentation is a natural function, I think, of how we navigate the world, right? We have to have compartments for how we act in certain situations for when we're supposed to do certain things, do we have to have it?

No, I do think, like in terms of navigating the world, like when we're walking out on the street, we need to have a frame of mind that we're not gonna get hit by a car, so it is a useful function in some regards. However, if you take it to its extreme, you then start to segment off different aspects of yourself, and this goes back to the first conversation too, which is if you start identifying very much with a certain aspect of your personality, you're probably missing the boat then, because then you're cutting yourself off from a different things, and then that's when the defensiveness can sneak in, that's when someone challenges something that you attach to you, and it can really become a problem, and this relates to spirituality because this is a very easy thing to have happen when you're talking about spiritual concepts.

One of my favorite, you know, people who know me, I'm a big Carl Jung fan, and one of the reasons I love him is he would speak about that when he went to different cultures in countries, like Africa or India, he fully recognized that he was approaching these exotic cultures with a Westerner's mindset, and it was impossible for him to actually think like an Indian, or think like an African, and that gave him enough distance to appreciate what he was investigating and discovering, but also recognized there was a split there, there was some distance that was going on, so it almost prevented him from exoticizing something that seems like it's gonna help us, and mindfulness is certainly put out there as something that's going to help us, right?

That's, well, a lot of people get into it, it's gonna make you more calm, or you're gonna be able to accept difficult situations, and what I think a lot of us find out when we start meditating, or doing any type of internal work is, just the opposite starts to happen when you start doing it, you get all of the thoughts coming to the front, crazy shit you didn't wanna think up, you're grasping at something, you can't let it go for days or weeks, and that's a challenging situation that we have to deal with.

Well, that's also why I feel like a lot of Buddhists end up suicidal for a moment.

You know, who's seriously like--

What?

You know, as you go down the path, a lot of people get really depressed, they're hopeless, they're suicidal, like it's a real thing.

Like the dark night of the soul.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you start facing it, and you're like, oh, what the fuck is this, and then you don't know how to--

Sounds like you've been hanging out at the Shambhala Center.

I've been hanging out at Shambhala, and you see people, they go through, there's that process, this is a process that people go through.

Right, well it definitely does stir stuff up, and there's the focus on, you know, death and suffering and all of that. But I was curious what happened at the end of your guys' story before we totally launched it on.

Yeah.

So--

You guys have to work some shit out before we can finish the podcast.

No, no, we still haven't worked it out, we're not working now, I'm not gonna--

Truthfully, what happened is, my iPod network went through a transition, and the current podcasters who are on it now weren't there in the beginning, and many of the teachers who we just mentioned are actually on another network called Be Here Now Network, and when that transition or dissolution took place, I invited Michael back on immediately. Michael, in no small part, is why this event is actually happening, he introduced me to Yoshino, who called me three months ago and said, "Hey, do you wanna do a live event in LA?" I thought it was gonna be a relatively small thing, maybe I would fly out, maybe people in LA would come, but a lot of people flew in, Michael Phillip from Wisconsin, Corey from Texas, like what I'm getting at here is that what I realized after working in the spiritual sector in various ways is that what actually is spiritual is talking to people about this stuff in a real, authentic, raw way.

That's all we can do as individuals. It has nothing to do with someone telling us the way it is, and that's gonna be our person who we're gonna listen to forever, and whatever they say is the word, and that's all it's gonna be. We discover ourselves through other people. There are mirrors for us to understand that true inner nature that they were getting at in the first podcast when they're saying, "That's the thing you're looking for." That objective awareness is actually you. It's not something out there.

Right, and it's actually more gripping for myself, at least to listen to such conversations that are really honest and real, and coming from people that are dealing with same kinds of things, rather than just talking about meditation or about technique and spirituality, that sort of thing.

Do you feel, okay, so with your listeners, do you feel, one of the cool feedback things I'm getting is that people are saying, I don't get to have these conversations with people as much as I'd like to. It's nice to hear these, and it's people that, I don't know if there's any here that have that, but there's people that are back in random parts of the country where they just feel isolated, and they don't know who to talk to, and then it's this, like, I want it so that, 'cause I can't help this, you know, I can't, I'm like, I'm on New York, and let's hang out. But I feel that that's the tricky spot, are the people that are in those spaces where they're a freak.

And then that goes into what I was saying too, with those borders, is that weird shit that you talk about, so to have these kind of conversations.

Yeah, there's definitely something, a little voyeuristic with podcasting where people are getting to listen to a really honest conversation, where you might reveal that one-on-one that you probably wouldn't on stage or in a book or something.

Yeah, and then how do we reach out to, how do we get those people to actually be able to have these conversations? 'Cause in New York and in LA and places like that, you can go to a Shambhala Center. But what about those people that are stuck, that are trapped where they're a weirdo?

So this gets into what I think is important to talk about here. What are some antidotes to some of the problems or issues that we face internally and collectively? One of the one you're talking about is isolation and not having people to have these types of conversations. So whether it's a podcast or just with your friends. And to me, what I keep kind of coming.

Me? (laughing)

To me? (laughing)

Every app that station is gonna get called out. (laughing) (laughing) I signed up for this.

He's just keeping a running list right now.

I thought it was like the dumbest thing for him to do is to put the two of us on stage. 'Cause it's almost like a brother that, yeah.

Yeah, originally I suggested that Kelly and then Sean Dunn, who's not here, I thought the three of us could be on stage. But then Noah was like, "Well, I'm gonna be on stage with you guys." I'm like, "Well, I'm gonna fuck with you for a moment."

I'm gonna be able to take him down for an hour. Michael almost did this podcast naked, too.

Yeah, we both talked about being naked. (laughing)

We did! (laughing) Sorry, Amanda.

We still have time. There's still time.

Kelly interrupted you. (laughing)

It's lame and energetic. So, what I was saying is this.

Kelly, throw up.

What I really do think is, this is coming back to, is Tic Don Han said something about the future Buddha being the Sangha, which is essentially the community. And that's us getting together. So it's not gonna be a singular, awakened being who is pointing the way to how the future is supposed to be. It's gonna be all of us coming together, discussing important things, what's going on out in the world, what's going on internally, and trying to create a new paradigm or system. And I think this isn't just functional for our internal lives as individuals, but this actually is a needed thing that has to happen based on what's going on in this country, what's going on in this world.

So to me, that principle is kind of underpinning all of these conversations. And that's, I think it's important, and in an answer to your question about the isolation, I think just by providing this out there, broadcasting it out, either tunes people into different ideas that they've had that they resonate with, which then they can talk to anyone else, whether it's online, whether it's with their friends, whether it's with someone they meet in their local community, who also listens to something they listen to. To me, community seems to be at the core of how we get to some of these antidotes, essentially.

I do think online is gonna be a big part of that, and there are a lot of futuristic woo-woo people that believe that the butt of my tria is going to be the internet, some sort of connected, technologically connected group that is kind of of a single line.

Can you explain the matraya to people that don't know? You guys know about the matraya?

So this is the coolest fucking shit ever.

Theory that this is the Buddha to come. So this is the future Buddha, and that it will not be just one person, one Jesus-like figure that has all the wisdom, but rather it would actually be an entire community or song of people that it would be like a collective consciousness and that that group of people would actually be spouting the wisdom and creating, waking up the world, essentially.

And then what's your thoughts with that in AI?

I think that some, I know some people who think that it could be like a very brilliant being that has some sort of robot being connecting all of us. Is that what you're getting at?

I feel like you have a much weirder thought on this than I do and you should probably share.

Well, I think, yes, I do have a weird thought about it, but I guess the way I see it is that we're all feeding AI right now. So if AI exists in the future, then it exists today. And if it exists, it also exists. Every since we started typing keystrokes and every conversation that's been passed back all the way to when we discovered fire. So this is the matraya. It's like this big thing that we can't even see. We're not able to see this buffer.

So there is like a very big body of wisdom that is collected.

Yeah, it's like, you know, when you're a little--

But do you feel like it's like 2% wisdom and like 30% porn and like some other huge percentage of ads and like--

Like where's the virtual space that I could click into that's like so profound? I don't think we're there yet.

But maybe that's part of it too. There's this energy or push that we have to have the most profound thing. Like it's just gonna blow our fucking minds and our heart's gonna explode. We're all gonna be connected. It's like, maybe this is just it. This is it. This is it. There's nothing more special. It's just, this is it. This is it. That's it, you know?

I feel like you need to drop the mic now if you want to drop the mic.

But it's not, there's nothing special.

That was my triumph.

Yeah.

Betraya is you. But I don't think, I think that's what it is. It's just, it's already been pushing through and then now we have access points to connect with it but it's so big that just your experience is part of it. It's a neural network or an internet connection or it's a mice, one of my thinking of a micellium thread.

Yeah, sure.

Sure, sure.

Sounds like a big word.

So I lost my train of thought when you said micellium.

Why? I was gonna, not that I would ever microdose or do any psychedelics. I was thinking about doing it before I came up here but I didn't do it 'cause I was gonna.

We all were under the impression you had.

Yes.

'Cause he had offered to everyone and we're like, "No, no, no."

But I think I know what you're saying and it's like, so I think what you're saying is kind of like the wisdom is full blown and we don't need to have a theistic, like, "Oh, there's this great wave of wisdom "coming in the future," which I get. It's like a basic goodness sort of view.

Yeah, and then we don't have the enlightenment.

Yeah, and then we don't, and it's a hard one because you were talking about, "Oh, we need to talk about this," but then there's the power of listening. And I think that's why everybody listens to podcasts. That's a hard, I listen to podcasts and it's hard but it's easy to actually sit down and listen and go through and pay attention. Like, sometimes it's just in the background and then other times you're really in there.

That's true because a lot of what we get is in like little micro doses of three minute YouTube videos or quick hits and like to actually sit down and listen to a whole hour or hour and a half. You have to kind of turn on the listening part of your brain that we don't use as much in this Danny.

Yeah, and then there's a population and I'm gonna call you out, you know, I'm gonna call you out. (laughing)

I feel like you totally set yourself over.

It was subconscious, obviously.

But no, there is, you wanted this.

He wanted a public flogging.

This is what I'm asking. (laughing)

No, but there is a part where even, I don't want, I feel like it's gonna sound political but I don't want it to be political but there's a part where it's like women's voices are not being heard. And so, you know, one of the things that I'm focused on recently with my episode or my podcast is like just getting women's voices and there's, you know, the anonymous ones. It's like uninterrupted. Don't even hear my voice in these ones. It's just my favorite ones. (laughing)

But I think what you were saying there also is kind of speaking to what we were talking about in the beginning where we were talking about how you got kicked off of the network and how that was kind of bullshit to have a picture of somebody smoking a cigarette or any of your, you know, really, he's a really incredible artist, really incredible work that does have, you know, some nudity or some edgy content for that to get you kicked out of school, you know, of spirituality, community.

Out of the spiritual school.

Out of spiritual school, yeah.

Leave your clothes on. Shout out with your clothes.

Yeah, you got to expel.

Don't show anybody.

You got expelled for being naughty.

No, no, no, yeah, it's like for smoking.

Well, I think-

So, I think if Trump was smoked.

Well, so this is- (laughing)

What is wrong about saying-

That's what's wrong about smoking.

Right. - Right. So this is, I want, this is cool. What about this concept of-

This is cool. (laughing)

So cool. You made the coolest thing ever, man. (laughing)

What about this concept-

I want to talk about this concept though, because now I'm realizing that I can relate to, to kind of what it must've felt like for you when you got kicked off of a spiritual network.

It's funny.

So it's funny. It wasn't funny to you at first.

No, I was pissed.

You were definitely pissed, yeah.

No, no, and I get that.

He's pretty, he still pissed.

He still did, a little bit.

However this shit.

So, the feeling of getting excommunicated from a spiritual community, is something that I've witnessed other people go through, and in some part I've experienced myself, and it is one of the hardest things that you can go through, because then you have to start reflecting on all of your judgment, your intuition, what the purpose of what you were doing were, why you were doing it, who these people were, and how all these relationships begin to shift. Weirdly though, like a lot of things in life, I think like the really negative, shitty experiences, they ramp up our knowledge and growth.

So you're saying it was good for him that you kicked him off?

Yeah, obviously, I really do, I do think it was.

Really, I grew up.

Yeah.

Thanks for the lesson, Dad. (laughing)

That's why I did it. That's why I did it, you're welcome. No, but what I'm saying is, is that, that experience probably taught you quicker more about what spirituality is and isn't in that moment.

Oh, totally, yeah.

And it sounds like it taught you as well, Noah, and then it kind of helped shape the current vision of the network, which, you know, of course this event has a lot to do with art and, you know, is not just about talking about, you know, how to follow our breath.

Exactly, and I think, or whatever.

And that's, I think, what's important now for this time, because if we start making things inaccessible, then what are we doing? Then we're gonna make it as some elitist institution that you have to meditate just like this.

Spareful elitist.

Yeah, truthfully, and I think--

That's cool.

Yeah, and it's not. (laughing)

It's way cooler than anything that we've ever done.

Well, I mean, truthfully. Okay, so I wanna ask this question to both of you, because I think this relates to a lot of what we're talking about. What do you think the function or meaning of life is? This is something you ask on your podcast and I flip it around on you, but why? What is this, is there, is this pointless? Is there a reason we're here? Why are we here if there is? Like, let's, I'll start with you, Kelly, because I know I've asked you this, and I kinda know where you're going.

Yeah, and I have no memory of what I've heard before, so I'm sure I'll say something different, but it's funny because I ask this question and a number of other questions at the end of my podcast to comedians, and they usually respond with a joke, and then--

I was gonna say dick pics.

Wait for a minute.

And they give like, yeah, two weeks.

You just gotta say a joke. Your mom, that's the--

Then they think of like, you know, then they kind of give a more genuine answer, and I think that hearing them answer over and over again, I've learned that there's really no solid answer to that question. - Yeah, right, right.

But the theme that they all have in common, the ones that really resonate with me are ones that have to do more with just kind of living really fully and burning really brightly. And I think Pete Holmes said, just be the most Pete Holmes-y, Pete Holmes-y you can be, which I thought was a great answer. It's like that just be fully, you know, I'm a comedian, and be fully a comedian, and be fully a husband or wife, and good to who you are, and good in bed, and you know, a great artist, or whatever, and then it's over, and then we can just be done. (laughs)

No, that makes sense, I think that follows into, I'm just curious, how many are artists? Just by a show of hands, like a lot of artists, 'cause I feel like that's the artist thing, it's finding your voice, and your voice is just who you are, how you are, and it's a chase, you know, it's like until you find out, oh, you're just who you are, and that's it, that's all you do, you just experience whatever the fuck you're experiencing, and then call it your life, and then move on to the next one.

Right, and I think that's what the art, what artists really have to bring to, and why I was happy that this was an art event, as well as a spirituality event, 'cause art keeps spirituality in check, you know what I mean, like art holds up a mirror for society, and it also, it doesn't let it get away with as much, you know, so that just by inviting art, you naturally are having a little bit of a sense of humor there of like, oh yeah, we need checks and balances. I think that a society that was really, really, really fucked up is a society where art is not allowed, where humor is not allowed.

Notice somebody kicked out the national--

I was just gonna say, that's one of the first things, but then there's people like, so you are a screenwriter, yeah?

No, no, no.

You said you're a writer.

Yeah, well, I'm just writing columns and--

Okay, so in your process though, you're still, so you're paid by the system to continue to be, like, keep it moving, yeah?

Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah.

That's my percentage. (laughing)

Nothing, continue. Continue with your lines.

What does that even mean? So we get this like group email at the very beginning, as it starts up the network, and then like I said, something like that's Michael Donovan, like--

Now everyone here knows what I mean, when I say that's Michael Donovan.

Yeah.

I don't know what it means.

He doesn't know what it means, but everyone else knows.

Yeah, that's Michael Donovan. (laughing)

That's life. That's the Michael Donovan life. But that's Noah Lampard.

Well, what do you think? What do you think about the meaning of life? Seriously though, what is your conception of why--

I don't have a thought of it. I don't think it's overthinking it.

So I'm just the asshole who thinks I have to figure out.

No, no, no.

No, Kelly's asshole trying to ask that question.

What do I ask you? What is the meaning of life?

Yeah.

Oh.

Oh, Kelly, what is the meaning of life?

Art and being the most Michael Donovan. I don't know if there really is an answer to that. I think that that's overthinking. It's not experiencing it.

So I'm gonna--

What do you think Noah?

I'm gonna--

What do you think Noah? What is the meaning of life?

That's the question so I can answer it.

Yeah, it is.

So obviously it's ever shifting. I don't think there's one thing that we point to for all of us that that's our function. What I do think, and kind of a theory I subscribe to, you know, using samsara and cyclic existence is kind of like a template for looking at this. I think this is kind of like a training ground. I think we come here to essentially, Rama's has a really good quote for this, which is like our light, our suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. And it smooths out the edges. And all of these things that we could interpret as meaningless and hurtful and just shitty and life is suffering and nothing is good are actually there to help us learn lessons.

And that harkens back to what I was saying about when you go through difficult experience, whether it's getting kicked off a spiritual network, whether it's the end of a relationship, whether it's a death, you actually really start to grow and feel life. And this goes to what you're saying when you're talking about living life fully, difficult situations have a way of sucking you into the moment. Like, and you're really experiencing what's going on. So my general idea at this point, and this is subject to change, I do think we're here to kind of learn the principle tenets of wisdom and compassion, right?

And when I say wisdom, that's clarity. Being able to see clearly what is going on in any given situation to the best of our abilities, recognizing that we're in a dualistic universe, recognizing that even if we know that everything is unified at an energetic level, that there's good and bad in this world, that there's light and dark, that there's sour and sweet, that there's opposites to each other. But I do think we're here to learn. I think that we're here to connect with other people. I do believe in reincarnation. I do believe that paths cross through multiple lives, whether human or not. And I think part of it, at least for me, like the meaning of life for me, is to continue to unpeel those layers, to get to the more substantial, or just inevitably non-substantial emptiness, what they were talking about before in the podcast, revealing that to see what's going on.

And that's why you're on the podcast network and you're on the podcast network, is because I tend to pull people in at this point in my life who are interested in doing that too, whatever it looks like. So it looks like taking pictures of naked ladies, if it looks like comedy, if it looks like art, if it looks like music, it truthfully, and I do not mean to be pejorative, like he truthfully, Michael is one of the best photographers I've ever seen in my entire life. Like he truly...

No, I'm just a naked lady. (laughing)

I threw it out at the beginning. I was like, mine full of pornography, which I don't know, maybe wasn't a compliment.

No, but I don't take it as a compliment.

That is what I...

But you do play with the female form, and with the male form, I mean, there's nudity, there's a little bit of a makeup form thing sometimes, but it's not like that's 80% of your photos or something.

No, it's a super small portion of it, but that's it. - But just like little kids and that's all that we remember as a naked lady.

And naked ladies.

There's movies and buds.

Yeah, exactly. (laughing)

But no, that goes into kind of like a bigger piece though that I feel, because I feel like I'm an antagonist. Like that's kind of my role in things. But I do think how funny it is, how much shame has been put on you all, you know?

Blondes.

Blondes. (laughing) But you know what I mean, there's like so much shame. And then it's like, so we can talk about all the spiritual shit, right? We can talk about like, oh, we're just trying to get back to the zero and that, but then there is this ongoing, like all these assaults, whether it's skin tone, whether it's gender, whether it's class, whether it's like, depending on where you're at, you're definitely like up or down compared to one other group or another.

What's that born out of? Where does that come from, right? That's a question.

Well that's, okay, so that's why like the whole nudity thing is an interesting thing to me too, because we could, like one of the first pieces of fashion was not for keeping warm. It was for status. So you have, status is a signifier to say, I'm better than you or you're less than me. So it's such like an early shitty behavior. And then now you look at it and right now anybody can judge us on our wardrobe.

Done.

Yes. (laughing)

I was judging both of you for having matching Fitbits.

Yeah. (laughing)

You're trying to see how many calories you burn during this podcast?

I can check my heart rate right now and say that you're stressing me out. (laughing) No, but it's a huge deal. Like where, where is it born out of? I think it's born out of shitty behavior and insecurities and somebody wanted power and they wanted to like lord over other people and they, rather than saying it, it's almost like have you seen it? What's that movie? Not the visitors, what is it? The movie with the aliens that come to squid it. Arrival.

Oh my God, how good was that movie?

Well, like that was-- - That's a good movie.

We'll go out and rent Arrival now.

Thanks to our sponsors for Arrival and Amy Adams.

Rati, by Arrival. But you know they kind of send those signals out and it's the whole sentence and that's what this stuff is. And realistically, and I keep saying this over and over but we're really just beings of light or infinite beings of nothingness and then we're experiencing this and like when I talk to stylists and I tell them like every piece of clothing between us and the person is just pushing us further from the real person, you know? It's, we don't need this stuff. Like Wim Hof has proven that we don't need wardrobe for freezy, coldy temperatures and then when it gets hot here, like nobody wants to wear more clothes.

So it makes no sense, it's only for classism and it's only to like subject people to--

And for art, right?

And you could use it in art but how much of it's used in art?

Can I connect this to what I think is also what kind of is the root of? So like if we go back to the Abrahamic religions and Genesis and the Bible and we talk about when Eve eats the apple, what immediately happens is they get kicked out of the garden and God, you know, says, they say we're naked and they have to put clothes on, right? So this, the connection I'm drawing here is that these are patriarchal religions that have dominated Western culture for 2,500 or longer years at this point and to me, when you bring up how women are oppressed and how we--

And men too.

And men because of the same patriarchal energy, my personal belief, and I've spoken to about this and people have agreed in various forms or come to these conclusions themselves, is I think we are going through a very transformative period right now energetically and I don't wanna get too woo and too new wave but I do feel like there is a rebalancing of the masculine and feminine energies and there's a podcast here at the other night where it's really important when we say masculine and feminine, we're not just talking about guys and girls, we're talking about qualities potentially associated with them, we're not just talking about--

That each of us has masculine energy.

Exactly, exactly, exactly, there's a balancing in this and I really do feel that there is kind of this shift that is slowly happening, it is kind of getting ramped up and I think it really is kind of, we're in the crux of it. I do believe that if you're incarnated on this planet right now, this is a special time to be alive and maybe everyone has felt like that throughout the annals of history and they probably have but things are really fucking weird right now, like they're really weird and I think this rebalancing is an important aspect of what's going on and so when you're asking these questions and pointing out that all genders are oppressed because of this kind of way of thinking, then the next question is how do we facilitate these types of rebalancing, how do we make this kind of a more holistic-- - Get naked.

Start with you Noah.

No and I think honestly, even though you're saying that as a joke, I do think that--

You're gonna do it. - From a metaphor? No, yes, I'm doing it. From a metaphor or allegorical sense, that is kind of what you're doing. You are getting, you're stripping away the layers of identity and ego that trip us up that we sometimes think are human nature but it's really just like a habit that we've developed to do because of culture or whatever and I think us trying to drill down and figure out what really is us, like what really is making us like, what is our best intention? Why are we here? What would make us happy? Those are the questions that actually lead us to some, maybe not permanent solution or permanent point of enlightenment but allow us to communicate with each other in a way that is beneficial for everyone collectively as well as individually.

Uh oh. (both laughing)

Okay, so I think-- - Could you explain what he said?

As a woman, I think that there has been a throughout society from the moment of the apple and all of this, a repression of feminine energy and not just in women, definitely in men and I think it's actually a big problem in our culture that men are not-- - We can't cry.

They're not allowed to cry and they're not supposed to feel certain things and so when they do there is shame around it but I think it's probably not that a femininity is any weaker, if anything it's very very, there's a very primal power to womanhood or to feminine energy because it's creation, it creates life and it's like just the birth process, like ah, it's kind of intimidating, you did that and I think that that is scary and that is where the no and you're lower than and shame kind of comes from is actually fear of and awe of something that's really so powerful that it can create life, it feels like it could destroy life as well, like there's something threatening there.

Yeah, I think of a friend of mine, she talks like this and so we were out one day and she's like, Michael, you need to address your womanhood and I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? I don't get this at all but it really makes sense, it's like there's, you know, with women you're supposed to express your manhood and if you're intersects you're supposed to pick or it's been subjected, like you pick one or the other but then, you know, this new womanhood thing, or not new but you know what I mean?

You make a documentary called Exploring My Womanhood

Exploring these days.

I wanna see you, like where would you start?

I have no idea but you know, I just did a shoot the other day and the magazine wanted to be, it's all about the end of relationships and like the sorrow that happens and they wanted it to be the cinematic piece and I asked them, you know, what kind of casting do you wanna do? And they were like, we need actually like women's stories because it's a lot of men and women, a lot of guys but there wasn't just like women leaving relationships and they were like, could you have the three girls, it's a female editor and she's like, can you have three girls or two girls together? So we ended up doing three.

But one of the things that I had is like, I had one of the girls like take up her space, like really take up her space like a guy did and immediately something clicked on her and it's a kind of a funny thing. Like how many, you can even see like how many women are like kind of like closed rather than like, like I'm looking at you. Yeah, take up more space. It's a real thing. Like guys, like I'm looking at Ken right now, he's like sitting, like look at this. Each of the guys are sitting fucking wide and then women are like crossed over like as small as possible but it's like a, you are too. This is the part of show where Michael attacks the audience.

No, but it's like, it's a real thing. Like how many women like, it's like, like just take up space. But isn't that also just a fact? Like isn't that also just a feminine way? Like I enjoy sitting this, like I don't know. I think you've been doing this all the time. No, but the thing is when you start doing it. Yeah, that's the thing I look more elegant. So you're, that's the photograph of, it steals the soul. Like as a soul, you don't have elegance. Like you're just a fucking soul. So you should be able to take up as much space as you want. You should expand and continue to go wide but instead of these souls.

So basically to cut like long story short, I don't have elegance and I should sit like this. Yeah. Yeah, you're not empowering women. I don't know. But yes. But I understand what you mean, even on a body language level. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a major aspect that, you know, we all think about, oh, I wish I lived in interesting times. And as you said, there's, this is an interesting time that we live around. That's a Chinese curse. May you live in interesting times. Yeah, and here we are in one, but part of this unraveling a lot of this, this wackiness. And something as simple as crossing your legs.

That's not fucking crazy. But it is, it's, it's, it's bonkers. Like how much. I'm not going to stop though. You're, you're bumping up against though. It's just easier for me. See, but you're bumping in what you're describing is culture, right? Culture has an influence in how we act, whether we know it or not. Most of us, obviously that's a plane to understand, but the cultural parent, Terence McKenna, who says a lot of things, and some of them you take with a grain of salt, but he described culture as a cudgel that basically beats down the inner nature. And that's how it's typically used throughout.

So this layer of out there certainly influences how we act in the world, which then getting back to what I really think is like, this is where our power is, is if we start to work on ourselves as individuals, really like my issues, just being totally upfront, I have a horrible anger issue. I have a short temper, I will get frustrated, I'm impatient, and it fucks up my life in countless ways. You know, whether it's an argument with my wife or I'm sitting in traffic and I'm getting upset.

Or a podcast with my other podcast with Michael, right?

She's a shitty person, bro. Like no one else has anger issues.

I know. Well, my point is this is-- (grunting) (laughing) I'm gonna let's see, we plan that we're gonna fuck with him. Let's just see how far we can tell he gets angry. I wanna see you know how it just like--

Don't get worse here.

Fuck your noise! (laughing) Like I wanna see you cry, so angry you cry. What does the last time you cried Noah?

I cry, I can tell you the last time I cried. I was on a bus wearing sunglasses and I was watching Planet Earth 2. I had taken a substantial amount of edible marijuana and I had to hide crying from other people on the bus to New York. 'Cause I was just a single man out in the world crying at Planet Earth.

Yeah.

I cry a lot, I really do. I try not to cry in front of people, which is kind of what we're talking about.

Okay, I just--

I wanna give you some manpower, some real manpower.

No, I'm not gonna pass on that, my friend.

You cross your legs, no. (laughing) I'm now allowing myself to cry openly in public and I did it on the train like two months ago.

What made you cry?

Oh, this is corny and I don't wanna talk about it, but no, this is stupid and I really feel stupid saying it, but it was like the women's march was happening and then some friends are like, it sounds stupid, but I was like, I got to go march with them, so I was asking us, texting a friend, I was like, "Hey Sabrina, can I march with you?" But it just hit me, it was like what a crazy time that we live in that we actually are, there's like this weird march about genders and I saw this like elevation, like how that march represented this elevation of women to the point where it's like, hey, can I come with you versus like how many times as men we're like, come with us?

Listen to what we have to say, do what we're doing and I think as somebody that's been working on this stuff for so long, like one of the highlights is seeing my friend Ashley shot by a woman for the cover of Playboy without being nude. As much as I have nudity, now we've like, that was a huge deal to have a bunch of friends that were a part of this and people that worked, so it's like the magazine that's objectified the most has now taken it away and, you know, like, so it was this, oh yeah, so I fucking cried it on the train and I was pretty happy about it, but, and then now--

Well, I'm crying in transit.

Yeah, I'm just gonna say there's an emerging theme here.

What was the last time you cried?

So last time, I wanna say finding Dory, but it wasn't.

Holy shit.

Oh, God, I did, I was sick and I was a little bit of Cody and sir up there anyway. No, I think I saw Manch, it's not as exciting of a story, but I saw Manchester by the sea and it has a theme of death, of like his brother dies and right from the beginning I started crying and if you start crying at the beginning of that movie, it just gets so, so downhill from there. It's just like layer upon layer of pain and death and so I cried a lot watching that.

Craying's awesome.

Craying's awesome.

It is awesome, but you're right, I don't, I get the thing if I'm in public, I'll get the lump in my throat 'cause I'm choking back tears 'cause I don't want people to see him crying, but alone.

Any dudes wanna come up here and cry? (laughing)

I think Noah might cry if you can't.

I'm pretty damn close to this one, yeah.

What were you gonna say about your anger that he interrupted with his tears?

Right, yeah, don't interrupt me.

So, the anger, so using something, we all have our things in our lives that are triggers, that are things we know are our issues. What I used to do in the past, every time I would get angry, is it would be an event, it would happen, I would apologize if I affected someone else and I'd move on. No reflection back on what happened. And at a certain point, and it was from many conversations with other people, some very infrequent meditation, I started to realize like, this isn't solving anything. Like, I'm not less angry, I am only maybe slightly more aware that I'm angry. What do I need to do so I don't continue to act like this?

And I'll tell you in full disclosure, like, I'm not at the point where I don't get angry. I now recognize it a little bit more and sometimes maybe one out of like 50 times, I'll have a minute, like a few seconds of a pause where I can choose to respond a different way. I don't, I still don't. I still, I know, unfortunately I don't. I still recognize it and I still get angry. But I think for me, like this goes back to kind of the meaning of life. There is clearly some karmic influence throughout my soul, whatever you want to call it, existence, that this is my issue, this is like my big issue. And if you look around in the world, a lot of our issues aren't totally dissimilar.

And that makes sense because we're all here at the same time and that gives us an opportunity to kind of individually and collectively talk about these things and work on them. And I think like I said, meditation, psychedelics, whatever your path is, I-- Meditation, psychedelics, that's better. Yeah, that's it, that's it, that's it. Those are mine, but I do-- You don't even meditate. So-- Getting high on the bus. Psychedelics. We'd watching a rival in Planet Earth tune cry. No, I, whatever your methods are though, the ones that have worked for me without fail are these types of conversations. And that's why I think that this is like this communal aspect of talking about these things.

Like I've been having some really like what people would call like raw or deep conversations. And I'll tell you another weird thing that happens when you start doing this. I was in a lift the other day going to Silver Lake. And the lift driver just started telling me about his life. This is like a 15-minute ride. This is not a very long ride from where I was. And he starts saying that he's been married for 25 years. He has three kids. And he recently found in the end of January that his wife has been cheating on him. And he starts describing this excruciating process of finding out, getting more information, her slowly leaking things out about the cheating, and that he was in the position he felt now because he had children.

And they were grown. 16 was the youngest that he didn't think he could leave. And he didn't think he could handle anything that was going on in his life. And like I'm just sitting there and I'm like listening. I'm not judging. I'm just like, hey man, here's what I think you should do. Take it with a grain of salt because I've never been through this and I don't know what it's like. But you have to take care of yourself. You have to make sure that you're okay in this situation before you start worrying about anyone else. And this is the whole oxygen mask on yourself before you put it on other people.

The reason I bring this up is when you start having these conversations, whatever your mind is geared to, they start springing up everywhere. And it might not be immediately--

His is springing up on a public podcast now.

Wait, wait, yeah.

Everyone knows.

I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm not crying in your lip. (audience laughing)

The point is--

What's his name? Go back and pull out your phone.

I actually know his name. I'm not gonna say it.

Let's text this guy right now and see if he can pull over here. This guy's giving you a one star.

My-- (audience laughing)

No other day.

I do know what you mean. And for me, since I started having these conversations, these podcasts, it has opened me up in other kinds of conversation. And then when you do that, it does draw other people out. And it seems like an important way to process of just like, life's very short. So one thing I've learned, like, especially after the passing of my brother suddenly is like, life is short. Like you can't live it trying to look a certain way. Like just be honest in who you are 'cause it's very short and it's fucking exhausting to try to keep up any veneer of being, you know, cool or interesting.

It's also hard. I remember being a liar when I was like a kid. Like I would lie about homework and skipping school and to my parents and like they obviously knew I was lying. I thought I was clever.

Right.

And I remember just being--

That's a big liar.

Yeah. It's like a natural thing. You think you're so smart.

I never lie. (audience laughing)

Sure. But the thing is you think you're really smart, but it really is so much effort to keep up these lies and false identities that we wanna put over ourselves. It's just a hell of a lot easier to be brutally honest. Now when I say brutally honest and I don't just mean being saying whatever you want, Michael, I do, but I-- (audience laughing) What I mean is is that-- (audience laughing)

You wanna slap with us? (audience laughing)

We're gonna slap it to your pants.

What I mean by brutally honest though, what I mean by brutally honest is that you still have an awareness of how your words and what you do affects other people, but you're being brutally honest to yourself and you don't have any pretenses about who you are because the more you kinda open up to that and the more you A, learn about other people and who other people are, but you also start to learn about yourself and then you can start dealing with some of these big fucking issues. So for me anger or dealing with the death of a loved one, things that can be very sticky situations that are hard to get out of, but if you have a regular practice of just engaging with yourself and other people, honestly, it really becomes like a very powerful tool.

Yeah, I think even just like podcasting has really blown me away because when else do I put my phone away? I mean, I know you brought your phone but I put mine away and none of us have looked at our phones this entire time and we're like making eye contact and it's like an actual, we're really being together and I think that just doing that with your friends, I've even tried to have more of a practice of just having that kind of, I'm like, pretend you're at a podcast, pretend people are listening and they give a shit if you listen because it's nice to have the pressure of like really just being present with someone and it really is transformative.

Yeah, I think the art of listening too is such a heavy one and 'cause you know, when you first start your podcast it's like the first year it's gonna fuck with your whole life 'cause you have to listen to other people. But then this new thing that I'm doing with the anonymous, so for the ones that haven't heard, I'm doing these anonymous professionals where I just like interview people and I take my voice out and I just put music in so you only hear their experience for an hour and like the last one was an escort and it's just like some people think she's great, some people think she's terrible in terms of like her family, she has to deal with all this stuff but the art of just sitting down, shutting the fuck up and just listening and I think about how like I'm trying to apply it in my outside the podcast as much as I can, even though I'm fucking with you right now.

I know, I know, I know.

But it is like, it's a hard skill but as you learn more how to just really keep the question going and letting people speak and I hate to keep playing this whole like gender thing. I feel stupid but I think about how women, how like now I do this thing where I'm sitting at a party or like with a group of people and I'll just pay attention to the women and how you guys will continue to ask questions.

You didn't just pay attention to the women at parties to begin with.

No, I was like, just handing my drink like, go get me another one and I slapped him on the ass. I was like, that's right now, make it. Duh. No, but you know like really paying attention to the conversation flow, like I guess it's more paying attention to the conversation flow and seeing how many are just sitting in silent and when it is brought in it's a question to continue the conversation and it's hard, like even in this, I'm trying to be so blunt about it but like I haven't been looking at you, I've been looking at it.

You've been very subtle.

Yeah, I keep looking at you like, take it, take it, take the conversation and that's a huge shift on the listening part, especially as men, like we have to, you know, we do listen 'cause it's like there's that joke like, we have to just yep, yep, yep. Like that old stereotype, but it's not that. There's this other thing, it goes into the womanhood and the woman part and I feel fucking cheesy saying that, you know? - No, I know what you mean. I mean, it's definitely a thing in our culture that women are taught that, like we take it upon ourselves generally to further the conversation and to take care of people and make sure that everyone's sort of okay.

So that's when you come in with a question to try to include other people and put others first. It's kind of a motherly instinct as well. So I think, you know. - Yeah, now it's being that, it's like, so then it almost creates a void. Do it now, you do. - Right, well it's really cool that women are in comedy right now and actually a lot of the biggest names and the biggest movies are female centric comedies and I think that's been the case and it's gonna be the case even more given what's happening right now. So it does feel like that's gonna change culture because when I was like a kid in school, I would be the one like trying to tell jokes or always talking a lot and that was, I was kind of taught that that was, you know, riddle in deserving behavior or something.

I think teachers talk to my mother more than one time and she'd thankfully never put me on it but like that wasn't how little girls are supposed to act, you know what I mean? They're not supposed to make fart jokes or be like making fun of the teacher. There was, I think there's less tolerance for that with women than with men and I think as women dominate in the field of comedy and I would predict other fields that will be less the case.

Yeah, it's fun because there used to be a joke within the photography world that, and I know that I continued this thing. It was like, oh, women photographers suck. And then at what, 'cause really what was happening is there's a lot of women that were aping men. They were just doing the same thing and it wasn't, there's no true authentic voice but now I think the fun thing is seeing the authentic voice. You know, like I think Bridesmaid was one of the best movies that really flipped everything over.

Yeah, and they weren't trying to, sometimes women try to outman the men, like especially I have seen like in the medical fields and in stand up comedy. It's like they try to have more dick swagger than the stand up guy before them, but it's when they actually honor their like genuine female voice and use their female intuitive wisdom to get ahead rather than just like a masculine sort of elbowing way of relating. That's when it really works rather than what you're saying I think is like trying to assume the same vantage point as a man.

I think that's why Hillary was kind of hard for people.

I think there's some truth to that. She was trying to, she was walking the same kind of path that men have rather than just being like super, her femininity was not what was highlighted, maybe.

Yeah, and that's why like Tulsi Gabbard is like kind of like a light right now. That's why I think that Bernie Sanders was because he was more, he was more feminine than her or more.

Bernie Sanders was more feminine than Hillary?

Yeah, I think so.

I can see in some ways the things he was talking about and kind of the element.

Okay, we're getting five minutes.

Okay, we're getting five minutes.

We're getting political.

We're getting political.

Wrap it up.

Wrap it up. Got enough of that.

All right, well, I won't say what I was gonna say then. No, I do think to tie it together though, we're talking about podcasts and how they have an influence. Something that I learned, and Michael did tell me this when I started it, and he was part of the inspiration why I started my own podcast. Is it's really tuning consciousness? Like you were saying before, something that's at the forefront of all of our minds is how quickly technology is evolving and how truthfully none of us have any time to even process how this is happening. It just happens. One day it seems like we woke up and now we get all of our news on our phone and we get all of these messages and we get all of this information.

We put all this stuff out there and we get this feedback and we get these dopamine surges. So one thing that really becomes beneficial is when we can tune our focus for extended periods of times, when you can read a book, when you can listen to a podcast, when you can watch an extended movie or you can ponder art in a setting that allows you to actually engage with it in multiple levels, that we have to maintain, I think, if we wanna move forward wisely as a culture because it's hard otherwise and we're kind of at the mercy of other people co-opting our attention and this is not to get into politics and we only have five minutes.

You know, what I had a relatively big epiphany when all this Donald Trump tax stuff just happened with Rachel Maddow, which is that you have to really get your attention when it comes to things that upset you and rile you up and trigger you because then it just becomes a habit and a habitual habit.

It's actually like an addiction and I see it especially right now with politically what's going on. People actually get addicted to the negative news and then fuck this political situation and they actually drum that up in themselves like an addiction.

I thought I was above it 'cause I thought I was great and then Jeff Sessions came out and said, you know, weed is only slightly worse than heroin, boom. I was triggered. I was like this motherfucker. Like how--

Triggered.

Yeah, how could he say such a thing and once I calmed down and realized, oh my God, I wanna say I imagine you right there with your anger issues. Like he says, weed is just a little less than heroin than you probably just are rampaging through your house like punching holes through your wallet. (screaming)

This is my castle. I can smoke my weed.

Was that what it was like?

That's exactly what happened.

No, but--

Triggered.

Here's the, this is Christ, man. I brought this on myself. What I, the point with Jeff Sessions was is that after I calmed down, I was able to look at it as A, I don't think he's actually gonna come after weed because it's just such an unpopular thing. But what I think is actually being done purposely partially by this administration, it's just a good propaganda tool, is to identify a social thing that's happening. Like we, legalizing weed, recreational marijuana, whatever it is, know that it's gonna rile up a certain segment of the population, get them focused on that, kind of like a red herring, and then do some really actually fucked up.

Yeah, it's a false flag.

It's a false flag, yeah, sure. That's why you shouldn't be paying attention to shit.

Well, no, here's, here's, here's, here's to bring it back to some actual--

Let it happen, man.

Right. And I don't, I think there's a balance there. I think there's the balance of finding what you can tolerate in a week or a month in terms of external information. I don't think it's just detaching, right? I think there's a non-attachment aspect to it, but it's not just detaching. It's saying in the loop about what's going on, what's important, so you can figure out in the next four, eight, 10, 15, 20 years, what systems we wanna create, really create in the world, whether it's creative communities, whether it's a podcast network, whether it's something positive out in the world in terms of social activism, you do have to have some level of engagement with the world.

Like it's very tempting to be like, I'm gonna be an ascetic, I'm gonna go live in the Himalayas, and I'm gonna go detach from society. We live in this country for a reason. Like this is, we're kind of on like the tantric path a little bit. We have to go into the world to kind of figure out what's going on, and that's a very dangerous thing to do if you study some of these things because there's a lot of traps, there's a lot of pitfalls, but I think if we can kind of constantly align and check in with what our intention, our aspiration are, and try to remember what's important to us, we can pretty much approach anything.

Even if something is scary and fucked up as like someone like Donald Trump in this administration, like I am very optimistic about the future, which is a weird thing to say in this climate, but I am because I see events like this. I see how many people come.

Right, well when it's taken and turned into art, like that's really all you can do in a climate like this. And it is when the best art typically emerges. It's like I'm looking for the next Dylan or whatever to come out right now because the only sane response is not to obsess over every news story that pops up on your phone, but to understand what's going on and create art through whatever medium that is, whether that's spirituality or whatever.

When you create something positive and put it into the world.

Yeah, we're gonna wrap it up there. We're gonna leave it right there. Done.

You can't even say the name. (laughing)

Thank you.

He doesn't really suck. You guys can take a break, walk around. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

What a fun time I had with those guys. It was the highlight, probably, of my trip, getting to sit down with Michael and Kelly and do this. You can hear we were having a lot of fun. And the point of this stuff is really to make concepts or things that are going on in the world that we can't necessarily see, but we experience a little more normal, normalized, I guess those are the word to use, not make this anything quote-unquote spiritual, feel too heavy, you gotta have the lightness of this stuff. That's a very important thing you learn as you go on. I'm continuously learning it when things start to get serious and rigid and calcified.

That's when some of the other stuff sneaks in that we don't really wanna have to engage with as much. We still gotta engage with the negative stuff, but we wanna keep it as light, happy, and friendly as it can possibly be. So I think that talk was a great reflection of this. Again, tremendous thanks to everyone who helped put on this live event. We're definitely planning some for the East Coast. We're gonna do more of these without a doubt. It felt right, I guess is the best way to say it, and just being able to meet everyone on MindPod Network, from Michael Phillip, from Third Eye Drops, from Corey from The Astral Hustle.

It really has just been, it was such an awesome time. Los Angeles is cool, go there, it's very cool. So that's it, that's it for this week, and I will see you guys with a regular guest next week.