Ep. 93 - Comedy, Marijuana, Psychedelics and Aliens with Adrienne Airhart

I know that man that is under everything in all of us, and in the sky, and in all the things that we do, was created by something. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. Welcome to episode 93 synchronicity. My guest this week is comedian, cannabis pro, general awesome person, Adrian Earhart. So let's talk about Adrian. Let's talk about weed. Let's talk about aliens. And let's talk about comedy. Two of those things I am abundantly interested in. I'll let you figure out which two it is. No, I'll tell you. It's marijuana and it's comedy.

I love those two topics. I'm fascinated by comedians. Oh great, you've heard the promo for it on the show, the Dow Comedy. They really are kind of sages. They're hidden sages. The ability to kind of be introspective and cast an eye out at culture, and to be able to do that with levity, even if their own lives aren't particularly light, they may be depressed people. But the ability to do that is a particular type of alchemy that I think is incredibly important, which is why so many people love comedians and laughing. And recently Alexis and I have been going to sleep at night listening to stand up comedy, just because we like to do it and it's hilarious and it makes you feel good as you're going to sleep.

So there really is a connection between comedians and this mystical transcendent mystery of what's going on. I identify very much with the archetype of the trickster. And one of the key aspects of the trickster is that you can't really pin down. Once there's rules and regulations and institutions and dogma, you can't really pin down exactly what's going on with the trickster. They will subvert that. They'll find a way to disrupt that. And I think that's cool, to be honest. I think if you get too rigid about certain things, that's when this weird ego stuff tends to pray. And that can be something that's not really effective for us individually or collectively.

So I don't know how I got on that rant. But I think comedy is fucking awesome. He also was just listening on to last week's guest Duncan had Dean Delray on. And this is a guy who started his comedy career, you know, I think in his 40s, which is a testament to a lot of people think like, you know, if you're not a comedian in your 30s or 40s that you can't, you don't have the ability to do it, you should try to do it. I think that's really cool. I've often thrown around ideas just with friends of mine, you know, writing this, doing that, something comedy. I might get those a shot because why the fuck not?

And if you think, you know, you have something that can make people laugh and it makes people feel good, why wouldn't you want to share that with the world? So if you happen to be listening and you think you can do that, do it. Fuckin' do it. Get in touch with me. We'll do it. We'll write some funny shit. Now you actually have to have a good sense of humor. It's predicated on that, of course. But you'll hear Adrian talk about this in this episode. Also, a big topic we talk about is marijuana, cannabis. I haven't really latched on to the lexicon of what we're supposed to call it at this point. But cannabis, weed, that's my jam.

As you know, if you're a regular listener of the podcast and it's not just because I like to get high and want to feel fucked up or want to escape my life. And we talk specifically about using weed in a mindful way and also being aware of some of the pitfalls that can happen when you use a plant like marijuana. So there's a really in-depth discussion. Adrian is doing a wonderful job of kind of normalizing. I like to talk about my iPod network, somewhat normalizing spirituality in a way that is digestible for people. So it's not so weird and kind of foreign. Adrian is doing that in the marijuana field, the cannabis industry.

And that's fucking awesome. And we also get into a whole little rant about, or I guess I do, about women getting empowered, especially in the cannabis industry, which can be a male dominated world. And I think it's fucking awesome. And finally, I don't know, I'm previewing the whole fucking episode. I guess I'm looking at the title. I'm like, yeah, this is a pretty sweet conversation. We talk about aliens because I don't know what the fuck is going on with aliens. I have not had an alien encounter. I guess in dreams, maybe I have, but not in real life and 3D reality. I know people who have. I, Jennifer Soudini, right?

Previous guest told me a crazy story, which I 100% believe. There's no doubt in my mind that she experienced that. I haven't had the experience. I also, as you'll hear in this episode, just wonder what it does to kind of like the cosmology of, I kind of think this world is pretty illusory and dreamlike in a lot of ways. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't take it seriously and not participate mindfully and compassionately. It just means that I think it's more like a dream than we tend to think it is. Horrible sentence. Sorry about that. So we talk a little about aliens. We get a little bit into the weeds there.

It's pretty cool. All in all, go check out what Adrian's doing. She is a wonderful writer, a wonderful comedian, just a really cool person, someone. I, I, I will see if we can put this out in the ether. At some point in the future, I could see smoking a joint with her and her new husband Aristotle, who, if you want to dive a little bit deeper, I reference a podcast that is not on my iPod network, but my buddy, Joe Quinn, who I met at the Mindwave event in LA in March, runs a wonderful podcast called Choose Your Own Religion. Check out Adrian's interview there. Also, check out Sean Dunn and Cass interviewing her on the very A podcast.

You'll probably want to hear more of Adrian after you hear this episode. So we got a really fucking cool episode coming up. Great review. Donate patreon. You know what it is. If you want to, I really appreciate it. Also, if you want to check out every synchronicity, Spotify playlist that I've ever put together. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I put together music playlist because I want to share the love. You can go to synchpodcast.com/every playlist. They're all on that page. Okay. Yeah. Without further ado, here is Adrian Earhart. It's a thank you for doing this on a weekend, too. I totally appreciate the day job thing and weekends are also precious time.

So I really appreciate it. Don't worry. Good chat. Yeah. So, I mean, I figure we can just get started. I was jotting down. So I was actually listening to your appearance on Joe Quencho, Choose Your Own Religion. I met him at an event we did out in LA. I went to LA for the first time in March, and it was fucking awesome. Like, I was like, "Holy shit. I can't believe this." And one of the reasons it was so awesome is the weed situation there. The cannabis situation is fucking incredible. And I live in the Stone Ages in New York, and it's like, "Holy shit." But on this episode, I was just jotting down things.

I'm like, "Oh, we could talk about that. Oh, we could talk about that. Oh, we could talk about that." So there's plenty of places to start. But I thought a really cool one would be is if you could maybe talk, say a little bit about your hat as a cannabis pro, and what that means, and kind of your affinity for it. Because it is one of my favorite things in life for so many reasons. And not just because I like to get high. That happens to be one of them, but there's a lot of reasons. So maybe we could start there and just see where it takes us. Okay. Cool. So cannabis is a very nebular field. So people are just kind of plucking titles from the galaxy, if you will, to just to basically tell people, like, "I can speak about cannabis with knowledge.

I'm not just like, yo, smell this dank. I know about the structure, the molecular structure, the legislation, the growing process. I was a budtender in the shops. Why? I'm not sure. I think I just wanted to know what it was like, not literally ground up, but base level. So that has led to a lot of random gigs, some of which I'm still doing, some of which I'm not like I was writing for LA Weekly for a while, about products and cannabis and interviewing cannabis companies. And that's not something I want to do. So I don't do that anymore. I do, like, I don't like, I want to write about like my thoughts and experiences and make the decision on what I write about kind of thing.

Awesome. Totally. I'm a princess. So I can just do that. And the other stuff I do is, like, I do a lot of dispensary tours and, you know, product review videos and then just discussion with guests on camera about cannabis. And I get asked a lot of questions. Like my DMs are constantly flooded with people and my friends list and my friends base and just Twitter fans or whatever, just ask me questions about what kind of vape they should buy and what kind of weed they should smoke and hey, I have MS, what should I do? So I constantly have to stay, like, educated at a top level to answer these questions with authority.

And I don't really fit in with a lot of the cannabis pros out there. Just a lot of like, either dudes with dreads or like dirty Jews or like girls with tats that show their tits and stuff and I'm like, I'm not really any of those. So I just, cannabis professional, it lets you know that if you hire me to come do something and talk about cannabis, it's going to be an elevated speaking pattern like I'm doing now and it's going to be very knowledgeable. So that's basically what that means and do I get paid for my cannabis input? I do. Oh, yeah, that does make you a professional. So I mean, how did you find yourself getting into the cannabis world?

Because I know you're from Florida that it's still not totally legal there. I think it's somewhat accepted in certain ways, but I know you also spoke about getting arrested. I can relate to that in two different instances. So I know what that's like too, which it sticks in your head forever that that's even a thing that can do. And I was actually detained and, you know, all expunged. This is nowhere on my record, of course. This is all just a story. But truthfully, like how did you kind of, is it all based from personal experience that led you down the track being like, oh, this is what's going on here?

Because I heard you very poignant, like I truthfully when I hear of cannabis pro, I think of someone who turned like me, their affinity for weed, smoking, ingesting, learning, you know, all of these things, you know, into a profession, but it's based on my personal experience. I'm also a daily user, like I use it for very specific reasons every day, very different types. You know, I heard you say you're not and you're, you're very aware of some of the anxiety inducing effects, which I think is amazing. This puts you really in the wheelhouse as a professional because a lot of my friends who don't smoke and relatives, that's their biggest thing.

You know, the anxiety will come up and I have my own theories about what that is. I'm not particularly comforting my thoughts on that, you know what I mean? I'm like, well, I used to get them too. I kind of pushed through that shit and if they pop up, I tried to identify what's me and what's not. That's not what people really want to hear if they're going through it. So I think this puts you in a tremendously useful situation, you know, position rather for this. So how did you get into the cannabis professional world? This is based on personal stuff I assume, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, the rest since Florida definitely launched that I've been a user since I'm 17 with a brief hiatus during a revelation shift where I wasn't allowed to.

So that definitely instigated it as well. It was like trying to think about why I wasn't allowed and it was because of the negative stigma attached to it and all my friends know me as, you know, just because I do cannabis, people have been asking me about drugs for years, like, oh, what's Coke like? I've never done cocaine. Oh, good. I will never do. It's a shit drug. I mean, my friends do it. People are like, well, it's not a big deal. How often are you offered it? I'm like, I live in Los Angeles. I'm offered cocaine all the time, all the time and I'm just politely like, no thanks, no thanks. And people are always happy not to share because, you know, everyone wants more Coke.

Yeah. But it was the negative stigma attached to it that allowed my family and this ex lover of mine to get on board with mistreatment of me because I used it and granted I'll give them this. I was misusing it in so much as, you know, waking up in the morning and smoking and tricking responsibility. The first time I missed a ballet class in high school because I got high and fell asleep. That was like a very, very telling experience for me is always like, okay, maybe I'm not good at this. Maybe I can't handle this. But I know I needed something. As always, you find yourself and by being something on a daily basis, typically it's, there's an underlying cause there's a lonely problem.

So that was something else. I wanted to tackle like simultaneously to me using cannabis is a dichotomy of your health and your mental health as well. So that was really important for me during my like going through therapy and trying to get better. I was using it as an aid and then the more educated I got on terpenes and what these specific strands were doing to me. The more I realized that I can be a consistent user without letting it, you know, derail my life or make me tired. Like I was dabbing and going to the gym. Like that's not. Yeah. No. You know? No, I do know. I mean, this is. And like people that I mean, we're on FYI, I think we're on like a slight delay.

So if you hear me kind of cut you off when you're talking, recognize that I'm responding to something earlier and you can just continue. Okay. Well, what I was going to say though is it's amazing that you were able to educate yourself about the practical mental and physical benefits of cannabis. It's, it's a shit show for people in places where we don't even have access to this stuff legally, medically or recreationally, legally. It's a shit show. What we've learned over the years is someone who can kind of navigate the world and you know, I think one of the great things about cannabis in general is that it's a magnifier.

It magnifies almost anything that's going on. Different strains have different effects, but this will magnify whatever the fuck is going on, including internal states. So in that way, it can be a total positive guide for a lot of people. But if you're just, you know, you're, you're, you know, taking a huge fucking dab of some cush or some heavy indica and then trying to go do some shit, you're going to think weed sucks. You're, you're going to be like, Oh my God, this is the worst possible thing I could ever do. So it's interesting. Like we're in this such, like you said, it's nebular. It's nebulous.

It's this weird place where parts of the country are slowly adapting and kind of integrating cannabis consciousness and all of these things and there's a whole other element that's going on there. But then some of us are just stuck in these places where like not only do we not have the knowledge or really, I mean, we have the internet. So access to some of the knowledge, but we don't have the legal access to this stuff, whether it's CBD. I have people who've gotten arrested in my life who I know who for CBD, for selling like .2% THC CBD in a head shop, whole everything seized, everything taken away.

Like he was on my podcast, he's in the cannabis industry, just like a shit show. So it's crazy that like we're in this place where there's people who are not like, this is, let me, let me just collect my thoughts and say this about what you're doing here. The fact that you can eloquently talk about this cannabis in a variety of different ways without being like, Hey, I just like to get high and I just want to be fucked up and I want to shark responsibilities and I like eating Cheetos. The more of that that we have to kind of the collective discussion about this, I think the closer and the sooner we get to this place where like, Oh, this really is a tool.

We do have an endocannabinoid system. There is a function for this stuff. So I just, you know, I'm, I'm commending you and thanking you and just really appreciating that there are people like you out there doing this and also who aren't fitting into this stereotypical as a Jew with dreadlocks at one point in my life. And as a nerdy Jew, probably for the rest of my life, I totally fucking get it. I totally fucking get it. So it's cool that we have this kind of a broader spectrum of people entering the space, which to me is like, that's what it's all about. It's not like you guys weren't there, but now you have voices and they're being accepted and you can say, Hey, I'm a cannabis, bro.

This is what it means. And it's not just like, I want to get fucked up. I think that's fucking awesome. Well, thank you. There's a lot of us out there doing doing this like yourself. And it's, uh, it's challenging. And the most challenging part is to just keep as educated as possible so that when people ask questions, you know, the answer and we were able to give, you know, legal as well. By the way, Florida, uh, they're opening dispensaries there soon. My best friend has a mess and it moves in Florida and is very excited to be getting some help finally. That's awesome. I'm, I'm really happy about that.

Okay. Way to, way to come in six years. Too late. Florida. Yeah. Opioids. Yeah. Jesus. Okay. Um, also what helps is that I do psychedelics and I think that gives me some street cred in the psychedelic community as well as which of which cannabis is definitely part and also just, you know, I'm back to being that drug guru. I'm finally that drug guru that people think I am. And the thing is when you go through the anxiety trip that is too much mushrooms. Yeah. Then the cannabis doesn't seem as intense and I'm able to handle it. It's not like when I, when I smoke weed and get an anxiety attack, I'm like, Oh, this is the gift of my life.

You know, I'm just kind of like, Oh, God damn it. It's going to be a day. It's going to be one of those days. Stop thinking about your mom dying, you know, and you could push yourself through it. Yes. Um, but I think it's psychedelics as like, um, individual, uh, specific things that I plan for and prepare myself mentally for. And I don't usually think of cannabis in that way and I don't want it to be that way. So if it's that way, that means there's some underlying problems. I got to sort out first, I need to go take a mushroom hike. Maybe I need to do ayahuasca. Maybe it's deeper than that. Do that again.

So when I, when people have anxiety with cannabis, first things first, always, would you smell the do smell citrus in there? Then that's going to give you anxiety, maybe switch to a hybrid or an end to cut, you know, check for the pie. I mean, or the mercy as well, or fix, fix you shit that's inside of it. That's it. You know, I'll always suggest it like go hard. You want to do some shrooms and go on a hike with me, like maybe you don't talk so much about your shit out loud, you know, internalize it like we all do when we're on psychedelics. And that's a lot of my advice is that all you want to do this drug, try this harder one first.

And then you can do this one. Well, I'm, I'm super thrilled you brought up psychedelics. It's on my list, obviously things to discuss. And I like that you classify cannabis. I, I, I, I call weed weed because it's what I grew up with, but I don't want it to be pejorative because as someone who just started a garden in my backyard and I have to weed all the time, like it's a beautiful, lovely plant. I don't want to be pejorative. And I say that for myself as much as anything else. I haven't latched on to the vernacular of that kind of takes this into the more esteemed ground. I love the plant. It's clearly a psychedelic as someone who's made their own THC infused coconut oil for years.

It has to be the first test subject. I, I can say, you know, it happened a couple of weeks ago at the highest I've ever been in my entire life. I mean, I, I, and that's really saying something. And my experience was fractals going into kind of this hypnagogic in between state, between dreaming and real life, which is why I think cannabis ultimately is a dream suppressant. I think it kind of merges those liminal boundaries, which is why a lot of people who smoke regularly, if they stop for a little bit, the dreams come flooding back because there's more of the separation, just my hypothesis. But anyway, it's definitely a psychedelic and to classify it as such, maybe seems inappropriate or a little off at first because of the ways that some of us use it.

But it is like it totally is. I, I try to, you said something very, very important, which I also try to remind myself and many people who use any substance, psychoactive substance, even if it's coffee, you know, even if it's coffee, whatever it is, is if you're doing something daily, you should be reminding yourself and reengaging with the reason and purpose behind that why you're doing it. Because if you're not, you may just be using it as a tool that's pushing something else down. And when you push something else down, it'll pop up somewhere else or it'll pop up later, which you know, you nailed, you nailed it.

That was why I said some people don't like my advice with cannabis is because when you are having these anxiety issues pop up, there's one of two things that are going on in my mind. One is these are real issues that are being surfaced up that you should deal with an approach in a mindful way. A lot of people want to retreat or push them away and that doesn't work. The other thing is it just may be thoughts. It just may be these passing, non-true thoughts. Like I have the same thing, like this last experience where I said it as high as I've ever been, I remember thinking people who I know are some of my best friends, but getting a thought like, they don't like you.

Those people don't like you because you did this and that was weird. And like I've been in a psychedelic and, you know, cannabis infused state enough to know like that's not me, like that's not how I think, like that's not my thought. So there's different ways that this can happen, but being able to kind of intuitively or over time, cumulatively navigate those waters with cannabis, I think you can, it becomes such a wonderful tool for so many people in so many different ways. So I mean, I love that you classify it as this psychedelic. It's something that so many people don't do, but it totally is.

So yeah, I love that. So it is THC is not so much, and that's another thing you have to talk to people about. It's like, no, it's not going to mom, it's not going to get you high. So true. So I also, there's, there's another area of your life that I find particularly fascinating. And this is a good segue because, you know, we're talking about psychedelics. And I just had Duncan trust on who is, you know, one of my favorite people and it's such a, an amazing comedian and psychedelic psychonaut. And it seems to go hand in hand that the deeper you go with psychedelics or any type of inner exploration, there seems to be this levity and playfulness that comedians can naturally tap into.

It doesn't mean they're like happy, go lucky people, you know, sometimes they're some of the most anxiety-ridden depressed people, but there's this levity for very big mysterious kind of painful situations that seems to be kind of interwoven in a very interesting way. So I know you, you mentioned with the arrest, could you actually just recap how you and your husband, your first date, and it was outside a comedy club, you weren't a comedian yet, but I would love to hear your kind of bridge from that into going into comedy, because I think it's just like such a fucking cool thing to do. Well, it's an interesting thing, because I didn't really know what stand-up comedy was at all.

I had a hippie mother who didn't let me watch television. And the only access to SNL I had was her very bad impersonations and things. So I didn't know why I said this, but I would be making copies, you know, I can't know where it came from. But like, I know my mom used to say it, so, you know, and I used to do this thing called the funny show for my cousins who are in Norwegian, and it would just be, I was basically babysitting, but I would just be running bits on them for like flowers, and they'd just be dying. So I've been the family comedian for a long time, and the people have said that word to me before a comedian who had never registered, I never understood what the fuck they were talking about, because I'm also like side note, like a huge bitch.

So it's like, you know, you get one or the other. I'm better now that I've had like therapy guys and stuff, but like for the most part, you know, you're going to get a hilarious Adrian, or you're going to get like fucking walk away. She's going to make you cry. I can relate. Yeah. Right. The dichotomy inside all of us. I met Aristotle, the husband. I was going through a divorce and on route to grad school. I was like three weeks away from leaving Florida for Seattle for grad school, for at the University of Washington in Seattle for computational linguistics, and looking at my master's in that, because I'm a linguist and a computer scientist.

And I was just looking, I'm going to be, can I be vulgar? Is that fine? Be as vulgar as you would love to be. All right. I was just like looking for some dick wet. So I, I was at this comedy club because in Boca Raton, Florida, which is where we Jews all reside, and a buddy, a buddy of mine had fallen off the wagon and had asked for a ride home because he had been drinking a little, did I know that he really was trying to get me to a comedy club so that I would go off on stage and do comedy and also hang out with him, leave him, leave him, leave him with him, Florida. And so I showed up to get him and I'm watching these dudes, frankly, no women go up and talk into a microphone on stage for sometimes people would laugh and sometimes not.

And I was just like, I don't fucking understand what this bullshit is. And then Aristotle went up and he did some, he's very, he's an act out comic. He's very like energetic and charismatic, and he did some stupid bit about giraffes. And, and I remember thinking, I would like to fuck that kid and then I hit on him because he was a, I was like, anyone who has the hotspot to get up there and just be like that dumb ass in front of a bunch of people, I was like, I could fuck with that kid, you know? So I think actually one of the first things I said, besides like, you're funny, is Aristotle your real name?

Uh, I was, I said, do you smoke weed? And he was like, I do. I was like, do you, do you have any? And he's like, no, I just moved down here to book. I don't have any. And I was like, you poor thing. I just picked up, come to my car. So we spent the week together within 10 minutes of meeting each other. That's awesome. And he got my number and then asked me on a date to that very same comedy club two nights later. So we celebrate the first night we met as our anniversary because it was it for like the minute I met him and that was it, you know? And it was supposed to be casual. So you know, it took me to a dinner and then this comedy club to watch a friend of ours get roasted.

I had, I know her now. I didn't know her then. And watching these comedians actually do well because it was a crowd of people who knew the girl that was leaving and all the comments and everything and I was like, Oh, wow, maybe I could fuck with this. And then I started hanging out. I got arrested that night and it was behind that very same comedy club smoking weed in the car. I don't know why that's the thing that we do. If we had just gone for a walk, like we probably would have been fine, you know? Yeah. But you know, you want some privacy or whatever, smoking in the car and then the little knock knock knock on the window and I'm literally like, pipe in hand, roll the window down and I'm like, you know, and I just like, here you go.

I've been throwing a cup since Florida, probably like 11 times before that. It's just a thing that cops like to do, they like to scare the kids. And I kind of thought this was going to be another one of those times, but the cop was training a rookie, so he had to like follow the steps, go by the book. He asked me where my weed was. I told him he asked me if it was Aristotle's. I said, no, it's mine. I did throw him under the bus, which Aristotle mentioned in our wedding vows is one of the ways he knew I was a down-ass bitch. And yeah, I got taken out of the car and they and asked me, like, what are you doing with your life?

I was like, well, I'm on my way to grad school and they were like, you can't smoke weed in grad school. I was like, I first threw a ken and then they asked him and they were like, what are you trying to do? He's like, I'm trying to be a comedian. And they were like, well, don't get caught smoking weed dummy. I was like, that's not fair. I feel like if it was two dudes, they wouldn't have said that to me. You know, they're just like, this is a stigma about girls doing drugs or whatever. So they let me out all my own recognizance and let me drive home and go home. And where I went to his place and we'd be fucked on the first date because, you know, that's a nice bonding experience.

Yeah. That's a good bonding experience. Yeah. And that's what I wanted from him, like, leave it in three weeks, you know, to get this 22 year old dick. I'm five years older than him. So that was like a little treat for myself, you know? And then it turns out I had to go to court and take a class and fucking all this bullshit and I had to defer my acceptance to grad school. So I ended up staying. And as a result, I was like telling Aristotle, I was like, hey, I'm going to be staying here. You want to keep fucking. We totally don't have to. Like I have hella dudes, you know, and he was like, yeah, no, no, let's keep fucking exclusively, please.

And I was like, okay, cool. So then I would hang out with him at Mike's just to be there at night hanging out. And I had a late job. I think I was managing a kosher yogurt shop at the time while I was getting married. That's great. So I was like, I would come home, you know, come to a mic late at night, smell like candy and yogurt, every man's dream really. And I just started going up like people were just like, hey, you're killing it in conversation. Go on up and do this. So when I started, I was awful as most of us are. I was awful for probably a solid two years. And, you know, we found love and moved in together and moved out here together.

And I still am doing comedy for some reason. I don't know how that happened. When it got dark for a while, when you start to realize that you have a captive audience listening to everything you're saying and you can talk about shit that you couldn't talk about with people before, it's like you get this drug on power on the power of people listening to you. It was really dark for a really long time. And it's kind of funny, but mostly just like gasp or be shit. Like what? Can you give me an example? Like I had a very abusive stepfather and I didn't ever talk about it my whole life with anyone. Because if you try to bring it up with your friends or whatever, they either just can't fucking understand.

They don't want to talk about it with you or they try to one off you with like my dad pushed my mom one time and he was like, oh my God, did he strangle her with my blood? Like, you know, you can't. What are you doing right now? So that was something that was like repressed that I wasn't allowed to talk about really. And in my family, we tried to just blow past it. And that was the wrong move. That was the thing that made me smoke weed every day was pushing that down. So talking about that, first of all, comedians are the most fucked up people you'll ever meet in your life, but like introspective and wanting to discuss and there's a sense of solidarity in the community that is just overwhelming and realizing that I could just bring up casually in conversation, you know, shit, like, oh, I don't like his mustache.

It looks like my abusive stepdad and someone to be like, oh, I could see that. He totally has stepdad vibes and they just go with it and you're like, wow, we could make this shit funny, you know, and then it started to get funnier. And then I did ayahuasca and then I did mushrooms and then I did acid. I do acid. Probably weekly microdosa. That's a weakness. And it gets easier to talk about it doesn't upset me, which doesn't make it come out angry. And now I can joke about this shit. And like, I, my act has changed considerably in the last year. I mean, I'm still a little dark, but it is not that like, oh God, like people don't hug me after my set anymore.

You know, it's like a happy, happy experience. And if I hadn't been doing comedy slash therapy, that's what I call my comedy and drugs at the same time, I don't think I would have gotten it. Like there's comics who are still just so dark and disturbed on stage and they want you to feel the hurt with them and you don't ever get to that laughing point. And I think I'm finally getting there in my comedy for a long time. I mean, that's fucking, you touched on a lot of things and we'll definitely get to microdosing. I'm just wrapping up a three month, every fourth day microdosing LSD. And it's been one of the biggest and most profound changes in my entire life.

And I'm well versed with macro dosing and all that stuff. But I want to touch on this comedy stuff because this is fucking awesome. What you're basically describing is comedy is alchemy, right? You're finding a vehicle for transmuting these very intense shit that we didn't ask for just to be clear. Because people in the world, we don't ask for abusive step parents. We don't ask for repression and anger issues. We don't ask for, you know, all of the things that any of us are dealing with. They can be environmental. They could be karmic. There's so many different ways to look at it. Nevertheless, they're there.

We deal with them. We suffer. Having some type of vehicle that you obviously learned, you can go very dark with it when it starts coming up, but then can use it to kind of process and kind of turn something very kind of sticky under the covers, not to be seen, bring it out and make it people laugh about it, that's like, that's the best type of comedy. And I think most comedians are doing that a lot of the time. Some of them are more aware of it. Some are more aware of that this is actually like a functional service that we're providing for people. No, I don't want to use the word spiritual, but on on another level on something that's just not this like, hey, let's go laugh and have a good time.

There is some other process that's going there that I've had the benefit of noticing that from a lot of different worlds, whether it's comedy, music, you mentioned the rave scene, that was, that's what I grew up. I grew up with the rave scene in Washington DC and then in Boston and then in the city. You know, I'm seeing all of these different worlds slowly start to coalesce into this one kind of unified approach of what the fuck is going on here. And that to me, a big part of it is this whole comedy renaissance that we're in. It's almost cliche to say it at this point because we're just aware that it's happening, but people forget, I mean, we grew up, we're the exact same age.

So we grew up in a period where, you know, like SNL had like Chris Farley and all these people, you weren't allowed to watch, I don't think you were allowed to watch that stuff. But this was kind of, that was it. That was like, people loved SNL, there wasn't like this huge plethora of stuff happening. And now comedy, what all comedy it's moving into podcast is moving into other things. It is this therapy. It's processing through dynamic expression, stuff we think about with other people. I think it's also fascinating to think you mentioned how your ego can quickly jump in and be like, Oh shit, I got people paying attention to me now.

Now let's flex this muscle a little bit and see what we can do and see where we can take people and see what this is about. And that can obviously get into its own problem. And I think that feeds that cycle that you're talking about where a lot of those comedians who got into comedy, because of some fucked up shit, that can be like this huge cyclical thing that they keep enacting over and over again. But on the same token, like what you're describing, I'm seeing that more and more, like more and more people using comedy as their vehicle, in a bedded by whatever else they do, psychedelics, meditation, therapy, truthfully, like that, it's a wonderful vehicle for it.

So that's super fucking cool because like that's, and what you're describing too, like being able to hang, like that's, I don't care if they're comedians, musicians, artists, regular people, gas station attendants, if you can fucking hang, we can hang, like then we're good. Like that's, that's really what it's about. So that's fucking awesome. Super cool. Okay. So listen here, I want to pivot to one thing because you mentioned this on Joe's podcast and it caught my attention because I don't know where I stand on the issue so much. Let's talk about aliens. Let's talk about aliens. Yeah. I'm not going to let it go by.

Let's talk about aliens. So I will be full disclosure so you're not out on like a weirdo limb here. I believe in a lot of woo stuff. I probably have a ton in common with your hippie mom because like I just naturally gravitate to that stuff. I also love logic and practical, you know, things and like being grounded in this and I appreciate it at this point in my life, I believe in fifth dimensional beings made of light and sound called Hathors, or I think they're actually 12 dimensional beings. So I believe in all types of weird shit. So know that you're in a safe space when you speak about anything related to metaphysical or extraterrestrial stuff.

But I'd love to hear your thoughts on aliens mainly because I haven't had any direct experience with the out here and 3D world aliens, had some dreams, some very interesting experiences, but nothing I can be like, oh shit, like I know some of my friends and people I really know are. So I'd like to kind of hear your theories and ideas about what is going on with aliens. Okay. Well, I've always been a believer that the earth has been visited by extraterrestrial forces for so long. It's the same reason that I believe that there's some kind of mermaid like creature that exists because it pops up in lore in parts of the world where they didn't even know each other existed.

There are drawings on caves of men in spaceships in this part of the world and that part of the world. I mean, granted you could argue that we were pansia and everything was closer and whatever. But like carbon dating has shown that these places were separated by seas before the invention of big boats. Like I really, really strongly believe that other beings are the God of which we speak that came in and did stuff. I don't know if they necessarily caused the extinction of dinosaurs and the creation of humans or whatever. But like I know that the math that is under everything in all of us and in the sky and in all things that we do was created by something and comes from something.

And there's a reason that that binary it runs the world, you know. So I think that and there's too many weird word sightings, weird ships and weird happenings and weird craters and government testing. And yes, my grandfather worked for NASA and swore up and down that anything that NASA knew that was important to the civilization would have been public knowledge find out. I'm under the impression that that would cause chaos on us. We would kill each other. If we thought we were being attacked by an alien species, movies have depicted it. Complete anarchy, so I think that we know they're watching us.

I think they're more than anything they're watching us. Do I think people are getting plucked? Possibly. I mean, you read these reports and it sounds a lot like maybe daddy would come in and poke in them in their bedroom and they make the story to, you know, try to, you know, cover it. But like, when there's like hella witnesses involved, there's like, I think there's some stuff that's happened for sure. And if I were species that created, you know, stuff on this planet, I'd want to check in and get some blood tissue, you know, maybe fuck them a little. See what that's like, interest species breeding, you know, I believe there are humanoid, half humanoid, you know, beings out there in the world.

So it sounds crazy. But like all of this is just speculation. Like I'm open to everything, just not Jesus. That's, I need to be very clear about that. That's not a thing that I can tolerate in my circle. I have my best friend's Christian. We just don't talk about that because I'm just like, I think you're a smart person, but let's just, oh, compartmentalize that. Let's talk about Jesus. Holy shit. I'm Jewish. Just I grew up. Let's, oh my God. Let's we'll pivot right from aliens to Jesus, which probably isn't that far of a leap. So we'll, let's talk about the alien thing. I mean, I, I put myself as probably an agnostic with leaning towards extraterrestrial visitation and all of this.

I, I guess my overall viewpoint of this reality that we live in is that it's far more dreamlike and less substantial than we experience it as. So when we experience extraterrestrial abductions or any, just like some crazy shit, even if it's on a psychedelic state, I think we're actually interfacing with other layers of reality. So like, I've never done DMT, I know enough people have haven't heard enough experiences of what it's like. I think that's a real place. I think that you are traveling through layers of consciousness and existence and we don't really have the correct hardware, maybe to process it in the way as human beings, but maybe in another way we do.

So in that way, I always kind of wonder whether extraterrestrials are kind of these little like synchronistic schisms between dimensions, so to speak, where we're actually like poking, piercing through the veil. I don't know what that fuck that means for practical reality, which is why I kind of put it just in like my box where I'm like, I don't know what to do with that, probably a lot of the way that people feel about God. Just pivot to Jesus because I fucking love Jesus, like Jesus is my dude. This is my, and this is insane just to be clear, like I grew up with no Jesus, uh, reformed Jewish.

So like, you know, we're barely religious in any conventional sense. I was bar mitzvahd, but like, ah, who knows what was really going on there. The Abrahamic religions in general, um, I think have done tremendous damage to culture and humanity on the whole that said, I think they originally stem from some very mystical and transcendent places personally. And this is a very interesting thing that, you know, I spoke to a guy recently on this podcast about the psychedelic gospels, this idea that Amorita Muscaria, this mushroom is found in all of these religious Christian mystic things, you know, from the Vedas, we have so much all this stuff.

So we think that psychedelic stuff, uh, actually is the roots of modern Christianity. So here's what I think Jesus is. Was he a guy who went around and could perform miracles, what are referred to as cities, you know, if you were coming from a Vedic tradition, maybe I don't know, really not the most important thing to me. I think it's possible. I think just like an autobiography of a yogi, there are people can do magical things. If you get caught up in that, it's probably a sidetrack, but I believe it can happen. What I really think Jesus is is a consciousness. And I think you hear it referred to as Christ consciousness.

And this isn't that you read a book, the Bible and do everything that's written down there. I think people wrote that. But it is this idea of compassion, unconditional love and the truest sense of the word, not like a relational, like I love you because of this, but just like I am loving these things that are around me, everything that's around me, loving awareness, one might call it. Um, I think his root message just in the gospels of all this stuff makes a shitload of sense for how to live as a human. I think unfortunately it's weaved its way into culture in such a way that it's almost inaccessible for most people who are smart, right, who logically can look at this and be like, yeah, wait, uh, you're seeing there's no fucking dinosaurs because or the what's going on?

Like, you know, there's that doesn't add up. But I think the vibe of Jesus is a real thing. I say this specifically, not because I've intellectualized and conceptualized this direct experience. I used to take routinely in college, um, 10 to 14 grams of dried mushrooms and you will get fucking launched into some places. And I remember, yeah, I remember after one, um, dog, like I talk about was Jesus. It was just like, I didn't know shit about Jesus, but I just, it was a download and it made me realize that whether it's a person, whether it's an idea, I think when Jesus said he was going to come back, think he's back, don't think he's coming out of the earth blasting people with your good, your good fuck you come with me.

I think it's consciousness. And I think you can tap into that whether you call it Jesus or not at any point. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think it's a clear distinction between how a lot of evangelical or modern Christians might look at Jesus, but I do think, uh, it's, it's probably, I probably believe in Jesus slightly more than aliens only because I haven't had a direct experience, but I do think like, I know people who have who I know people aren't making this shit up. It's not just like some psychological deference game with that stuff. What's so, what's your, what's your deal with Jesus? He's, how's he fucked up the world?

Um, well, more people have died in the name of religion than anything else. Totally. Specifically Christianity, um, I think that it's about taking responsibility for you. That's another reason why a lot of people are scared to do psychedelics when they learn that like you have to dive into yourself and see the things that you've done wrong and take responsibility for that. And you can't push it off and say, Oh, Jesus forgives me, like that's your brain doesn't forgive you. You know, and fucking sucks and it's humbling as fuck. And Jesus is escapist. It's a way to stay ignorant ignorance is bliss, I 100% believe that.

And it's a way to be like, God works in mysterious way. I don't know why this happened, but it's, it was his doing or his whatever. Uh, and it's a way to oppress women and a whole mess of people and gays and it's part of this horrible, horrible conservative movement that defies progress and modern day science and love and compassion and the worst, some of the worst people I know are people who claim to be Christian. Right. And it's because they don't have the fear of retribution because they found Jesus in their heart and Jesus forgives all sins or whatever. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a cop out.

Yeah. What you just described is the classic spiritual bypass, right? It's, it's the thing you find to absolve you. I mean, I always, as a kid, thought Yom Kippur was like the funniest thing ever. I'm like, well, you're saying there's a day where I'm forgiven for all the bad shit I did the year before. Like, this is my day. Like all I have to do is not eat for a little bit. And I'm like, I still ate most of the time, so like, you know, fucking us. But yeah, I mean, this spirit, idea of a spiritual bypass where you can basically do whatever you want, but there's this magical guardian above you who is going to forgive you.

That's, that's a very dangerous way. And just to be totally clear, 100% agree, especially the, the big three Judaism, Christian Christianity and Islam, they are the worst part of the reason the world is so fucked up. Probably the biggest reason is the way they subjugated and oppressed women, because everything that was going on before those things and those parts of the world, they were the Egyptian Isis cults, there was these, and there's all of these women having a very maternal, a great book that was published posthumously that I'd recommend everyone check out is by Joseph Campbell called goddesses, insane, insane how women actually seeded the world both literally and figuratively with ideas and agriculture, all of this stuff.

It's, it's amazing. So I guess the issue is when it comes to Jesus stuff, and I meet a lot of people, typically the people I meet who are very anti Jesus are people who grew up like fundamentalist Christian. They're like, yo, they brainwash you, they make you think crazy shit for no reason. And that's a clear misappropriation of the spirit of what Christianity is supposed to be. I mean, there's some messages in there that are amazing. And if you follow those to the letter of what is being said, they're okay. They're also horrible shit that's picked on and used. So I guess like, how do we not throw the baby out with the bath water?

Because to me, when I hear Jesus, what comes, gums off in my head is compassion, love, selfless service, you know, helping other people, teaching people how to fish, these types of things. But I clearly know that when a lot of people hear the word Jesus, they hear people saying fuck gays, fuck, you know, black people, fuck God knows how many things there are in that, you know, spectrum. To me, that's not Christianity. It's like this mind state that hurt people used to kind of self propagate that thing. It's like a virus, kind of, you know what I mean? And I think it can latch on to religion. And it has.

And that's why I think what we're doing right now, like this is, this is what I consider my religion at this point. I believe in Buddhism, I believe in Hinduism, I believe in aspects of Christianity, all of these things. I like taking pieces of shamanism all that, but talking to people, getting together, talking about shit that means things to us and stuff we've discovered in our own lives and the communities we found, that's really what it is. That's the religion to me. So I guess there's a way to kind of encompass and allow those other things to be there, take what's useful, but maybe recognize we're moving into a paradigm where these symbols don't hold the same weight that they once did.

Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a tricky area for sure. It is, I'm grateful to my mother for raising me free, I was able to decide what I wanted to be and do and study and, you know, she let me, we lived in Portland for a minute when I was like 10, 11 and she let me let Jehovah's Witnesses into the house every Saturday. Yes. Every Saturday. Yeah. And finally I said, all right, come on in and let's talk. And I remember I had been transitioning textbooks because they let us know that the textbooks we had, if you look at the copyright date, they were outdated and they got new textbooks. And I remember looking at the copyright date and then they gave me the Bible and I was checking for the copyright date and they were like, it's, it's ancient work time.

Yeah. And then I was like, how is it relevant then like we fucking, we need to be updated with this stuff. So that was my first question that they could not answer because I was using literally using science. Yeah. It's a text book to negate their argument. And then I asked them about Moses, part of the Red Sea and the ocean falling on the horses. And I was like, what merciful God would kill those horses? That's another thing. I think it's like, if you're compassionate and loving, how are you not vegan? How are you not like so against this slaughter of innocent animals that we've created for our world?

And I don't know, I think we're, we're popping up with the community thing. What church used to do for us, other things are doing for us, profit, yoga, dance classes, you know, recreational sports, that kind of thing, hiking groups, camping, raves to me, raving is like, is like gospel only. You don't have to believe any one thing. And literally everyone is okay. Like I've seen people in wheelchairs on next to see, I've seen people with crutch it like every, every walk of earth, everyone's okay, as long as there's water in first aid. Yeah. Water. People don't really drink. I think drinking is poisonous and it's ruining society and it's tearing families apart, literally mine even.

Like, I hate it so much and you don't really find a lot of alcohol in the rave scene. So for me, that's become my church, my gospel. Do you like the music in the rave scene? Some of it. Some of it. Well, I mean, I know there's, there's a whole spectrum there. I, I, yeah, I ask is that's, that's my jam. That's where I've lived, you know, that's where I started going. I started going to raves when I was 16. I went right for a Dutch music magazine. The internet was just starting out. It was like 1998, you know, really not a lot of stuff out there, but I found a site that reviewed club nights. And so I got a press pass for events.

So I wasn't taking drugs, I clearly wasn't drinking. I didn't get the wristbands or the stamps that said I could. And I was just out till eight in the morning, you know, I'd get there at like 10 before stuff really starts. And I was just like, this is the most incredible thing I've ever experienced in my life. And I was hooked since then this communal sense that emerges, whether you're on drugs or not is palpable. And it is church. I mean, that's exactly, that's, you know, what people were doing before church was a thing. Like, that's why I think it resonates so much, that's, yeah, it's again, it's so interesting.

Have you been to Burning Man? No. I haven't either. But I'm seeing a very interesting thing where the music I love so much, the very specific type of house music is really been a prominent thing. All these robot heart mixes that come out of Burning Man every year and it's like music I really love. And it's just getting more and more mystical, more and more transcendental, more and more kind of ayahuasca yi and all of these things. And it's just like, this is fucking awesome. And to me, I look at it as validation that these things are, we can conceptually know that things are interconnected and that we're interconnected.

But to see it over time kind of work that way is I think a very beautiful thing. I'm so happy you brought up the raves and just that whole vibe of things that are going on because it's like, that's, it's a whole other thing. I'm a fan. Yeah. I go a lot. I go a lot, a lot. And there's often comedy shows followed by raves. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the best place to run my drug base because in a crowd, if you just drop in, like, if you want to do acid, and there's like a lot of buttholes that clench up. So it's like a great open minded crowd. Wow. I got a lot of raves because my husband is a DJ. So he's constantly playing at these things and yeah, it's so I hear this music all the time a lot, you know, a lot of how it's all translated dubstep.

So yeah, I would say it is definitely my jam. Lately, I've been fighting myself, listening to just like straight up thunderstorms to like kind of decompress and like reset my ear palette. So yeah, I, I like, I like that music and I think that, you know, I had, I listened to a lot of interesting talks at the max event. Yes. Just the nurse I see in for a second, like studies. And there are a lot of studies that go with coincide with therapy on drugs with the utilization of music and visuals. So I really strongly believe that not only are raves gospel therapy as well and you play a better person. I hate that there are still like sexual assaults and stuff going on and that's a big problem.

A lot of dudes love the rave scene, blah, blah, blah, but like, I don't know, y'all don't know what it's like to be a female. Well, it's, it's, I mean, I can tell you this, um, how much this is when I used to go to club nights when I was like 18, I was listening to like progressive house music and Sasha and Digweed back then. And like there were no girls, there were no, and when I say there were no girls, maybe there's like two girls in a club of like 500 people. That's just how it was. This has changed to the point now where EDM is a cultural thing. Clubs are totally diverse. I know what happens at these places.

It's a fucking shame because especially when you're on Molly or you're on MDMA, you're on something that's opening and really like a can be such a beautiful experience and not sexual, uh, can be sexual too, but to take advantage of that and kind of misappropriate that energy and a scene like that, it's one of the worst things you could do. I'm sure there are severe, karmic ramifications for pulling shit like that. But yeah, I mean, it's, uh, you know, we could, we could talk for a really long time. Like one of my favorite topics right now is kind of what I am calling in the most woo-woo of ways kind of this reharmonization of the divine feminine, which I know couldn't sound more woo.

But what that really means is from a practical standpoint is women being welcomed as equals as people. And what that really means for me as a not woman, um, and a white guy is I'm really fucking privileged. I am like at the top 1%, even if I'm middle class in this country, I'm like the elite of the elite for me not to talk about how women are subjugated and treated unfairly. For me, not to talk about the injustices that happen around drug laws and those things like, what the fuck am I doing then? I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the, the, the fruits of what the hard labor that everyone else has put in.

So I think we're seeing because of things like ayahuasca, because of the rise of psychedelics, because of this rise of mindfulness, this awareness that we're shining on stuff, even if it's uncomfortable, we are seeing this rebalancing. And I think, you know, when I say balance, I don't necessarily mean that they're equal. I think we're truthfully in a period of time where we need the feminine presence to be like, more, more than the men, more than the men, like I really do. I don't think it needs to be equal right now. I think that note in the court of the guys playing has been a little too loud.

And we really need some of these qualities that women intuitively can tap into, uh, to get shit done. So I think this is the common thread between everything we've been speaking about. Uh, so yeah, all right. So I end with three questions and then I have a little, little one, um, thank you, by the way, for doing this has been super fun, you're making my Saturday. Yeah. Super fun. Um, so, uh, first question, what's your favorite color? Red. What's your favorite number? Eight. What's your favorite animal? Dog. Okay. First of all, I just want to say fastest answers of all time. Love it. Everyone, I can't tell you how many people were like, well, I don't really have a fair and it's like love, love that you know what yours are.

Great choices. Last question. What's a practical tip that you could offer to people who are listening that's helped you in your life? Any area of life, um, constantly repeating the mantra to myself, uh, it's not about you. Yeah. I think I need to like have that like blasting and headphones all day long cause I will tell you a hundred percent of my problems in life are because I think it's about me a hundred percent. I can say that confidently. It's hard to implement. It's an easy thing to do when I make hay, but implementing it because like when you're going through it, you're on drugs or whatever and you're like, oh my God, they're talking but nope.

They're fucking thinking about their own dicks. So. So true. Adrian, thank you so much and I'll connect with you after we'll have links to everything you're doing and anything you want to promote, but thank you so much for doing this. Thanks, dude. This was fun. All right. Cool. We'll talk to you soon. Bye bye. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Thanks for listening to that episode with Adrian, how fucking cool is she? If you want to check out more of Adrian, check out the, how many times am I going to say the word checkout?

Listen to the episodes with Joe Quint, Choose Your Own Religion, and Sean Dunne and Cass Griner's very eight podcasts, which is on MindPod Network. Great episodes. You want to dig a little bit deeper with Adrian. She's like I said, super fucking cool. That's it. Thank you to everyone who has been reviewing, donating, donating, and patreoning, all of those things, getting some nice reviews in. They warm the cockles of my heart. That's it for this week, and I will see you next week.