Everything Gets to Stay with Ramin Nazer

(upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Welcome to episode something, something of synchronicity. My guest this week is Ramin Nazer, and let me say this great episode. This is one of those episodes where if I didn't have to leave to go do something, at the end of this one, I feel that this could have gone on for hours. And I got the sense that Ramin would have been okay with that too, which is awesome. I have a couple of cool things to announce right now regarding MindPod Network. We added two new podcasts and podcasters to the network. One of those is Ramin, Electric Brain School, or Rainbow, I call it Electric. Rainbow Brain School Podcast Hour.

Ramin's podcast is now part of MindPod Network. Not to be outdone, Jason Lou's Ultra Culture Podcast is also on MindPod Network. We're adding new people, trying to figure out exactly kind of how to revamp MindPod Network. We're adding people, getting a better sense of the type of stuff we're putting out, but I'm really, really excited and proud to have those guys on board. So yeah, go check them out, mindpodnetwork.com. All right, let's talk about Ramin. Ramin first came to my attention when he was on Sean and Cass' very eight podcasts, also on MindPod Network. And it was one of the most enjoyable episodes I've heard.

Just seemed, Ramin struck me as someone who not only is gifted, comedically, artistically, creatively, but really just seemed like a cool dude, right? Funny, fun, seemed like smoked weed. I liked it all. So yeah, I heard him then was like, oh, I reached out to Sean and Cass. I told him, oh, he's great. I gotta get this guy on sometime. And then of course, like I do, I forgot about it. Then I saw that Shane Moss, that Ramin had been doing some artwork for his new film and for some other things, like his tour poster. I was like, oh, this guy gets around. That's pretty cool. Listen to a podcast he had done with Shane, and it was great.

So I was like, all right, that's two times. I'm gonna forget about it again, 'cause I'm an idiot, I'll wait for the third time. Then I saw that Ramin had dunked it on his podcast, dunking Trussell, and it's like, all right, third times, the charm. Well, let me reach out to Ramin, set something up. Started listening to his podcast. I was like, oh shit, this guy should be on my iPod network. He's a great dude. Let's get this going. And so that's what we did. If you're not familiar with Ramin, he is, like I mentioned before, a wonderful visual artist. I don't spend a tremendous amount of time on Instagram.

Most of my activities are taking videos of my son Eli, and posting them to Instagram stories, and then watching other people's, it was got the time for Instagram, apparently everyone. But Ramin, whenever I see his stuff, it's a nice little kind of reminder that the world isn't what it seems, that there's another way of thinking, that our consciousness can be diverted to different places at different times, some positive, some negative, but to have these little reminders pop up, it's just a wonderful thing. And I love it, I love it. And we talk about it a little bit. And as someone who has posted quite a bit of quotes and platitudes and aphorisms from popular thinkers and teachers over the years, I think something we touch on in this episode is important, which is you can post those things that they still resonate with you, but trying to come up with new ways of saying these things that are more applicable for our culture, but still carry the same weight and resonance is also really important.

And that's what Ramin is doing. He's also a hilarious comedian. I checked out his stand-up set from, I think it was Conan, I don't know what it was from, but it was hilarious. He's just a cool, funny, nice guy. And those are the people we like to have on MindPod Network and like to have conversations with on this podcast, yada, yada, yada. Go check out Ramin, not only on Twitter and Instagram, but go check out his website, raminnaser.com. He's got lots of really cool stuff. And the reason I'm bringing this up is you wanna support people like this, people who have somehow found a way to make a living, even if it's not like the best living in the entire world, but who can turn their creativity into money units that support their lives and let them keep doing what they wanna be doing, I think that's really fucking cool.

So go check out his thing, his site, he's got prints, he's got pins, he's got shirts, he's really fucking cool. So I think I've done enough shilling for Ramin. We also, at the end of this episode, if you wanna listen to it, we talk a little bit about cryptocurrency. So sorry about people who don't like cryptocurrency, but that's what it is and that's what we do. Anything else I have to get to before we start the episode, patrons, music, you know, I've been releasing these little intros and outros that I've been doing. Music is a comin', music is a comin', boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

That's not the music that we'll be coming, but, you know, there'll be other stuff. Thank you for all the people who contribute on Patreon. Oh, one thing, we did a live cryptocurrency question and answer session on July 12th. It went really well. I didn't record it, I should have recorded it or record the next one, but I'm gonna do one of those every month, so rather than, you know, saying join my cryptocurrency server or do this, do that, I'm just gonna say listen, if you want any information, if you have questions about cryptocurrency, but don't wanna really make a huge time commitment, sign up for the crypto sync list, syncpodcast.com/crypto and I'll email you the next time we're doing one of those probably mid-August around that time.

Listen, here's the deal with cryptocurrency and I'm not gonna bring it up all the time. You can ignore me now, you can think I'm stupid, you can think I'm a speculating madman, whatever you want. There will come a point in time, in the not too distant future, where you go, oh shit, I wish I would have bought a little bit of Bitcoin, I wish I would have had a little bit of this, I wish I would have paid a little bit more attention, this is your opportunity. Just, you don't have to do anything, but maybe learn a little bit in a not so difficult way, that's what the point is. Okay, I think now, officially, officially, officially, officially, officially, we're done.

Please, go check out Rainbow Brain Skull, Romine's podcast. It's wonderful, wonderful guy, I'm sure you will see by the end of this episode, why I think Romine is so wonderful and why I've added him to my Impod network, so yeah, that's it. I love you, keep doing your thing. And without further ado, there is Romine, thanks. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

All right, is this better?

Yeah, it's a little fuzzy, but at least it's not--

Delayed, yeah, we can do it.

Yeah, not delayed.

That's the most important.

I sound as crisp, like I really wanted to use my actual recording microphone so that it's studio quality, but you know, beats the delay, I guess.

It's definitely better than the delay, and I can go in and postman and bump up those low frequencies if that's what you're searching for.

Yeah, and I guess no one really cares about audio quality with podcasts, like I'm just thinking of these McKenna lectures I listened to, they're close to indecipherable, but I'll listen to three hours of it, 'cause I'll take that over a crisp Katy Perry song.

It's so true, I know exactly. I mean, like I actually, it's funny because sometimes I'll be like, you know what, no one really cares, but I've had then, like I've had audio trouble on a couple episodes, probably more than a couple, and I've had people hit me up there like, listen, I can make it better, I can make it better. I'm like, I don't know where to go. Like I really, on one level, I definitely wanted to sound as good as possible, but then on the other, what's totally true, like I've listened to things, like old Alan Watts talks, there's like babies, he's in like a church and something, and like someone's crying, it's like, I will strain through everything just to hear that.

So I guess it's true that people don't care.

Yeah, people only notice when it's very, very, very bad. Like they don't notice when it's good.

It's so true.

Kinda one of those under-appreciated things.

It's so true, that's true. Well dude, thanks for doing this.

Oh, totally, yeah, it's a pleasure.

I'm really excited.

Have we started yet? 'Cause you know, some people roll like that. I even roll like that sometimes. You just, you lay it on them like, oh yeah, and we've been recording for five minutes.

So my stuff records right as soon as something picks up for Skype or FaceTime, so technically we're recording, but I don't-

Okay, good.

Yeah, I don't necessarily spring it on people like, got you motherfucking, you said fuck that shit. Now I'm putting it out there. So yeah, no, we've been recording, but we can start it theoretically wherever.

Okay, cool, yeah, I'm open book. You can put on whatever, wherever. Actually, I'm gonna try to plug in my headphones right now, so I can hear you a little better.

Okay.

And then we'll just do a regular phone call style. It's like we're old friends, talking on the phone like you did in the '90s about stuff that happens in 2018, all right, and.

Better?

Yeah, can you hear me now?

I can hear you, can you hear me?

Yeah, actually you're way better. Oh, but you know what sucks? Now I can't hear myself, so I'm gonna stop it.

Okay.

It's whatever you prefer.

Man, yeah, I'll get used to it. I'm just such a fancy boy. I love having headphones in and I love hearing the other person's voice like directly into my ears and hearing my own so that, you know, if I'm saying a word too close or too far away, I can adjust, but.

Right.

But this goes back to the sound thing. Who cares? People want the content.

They don't sit, it's so true, but I do the exact same thing. Dude, I sometimes wear headphones when I realized I can't even hear my voice in them just out of habit because when I'm recording, like that's how I do stuff. And I'm like, there's literally no function from you wearing this, it's just like a security blanket. There's no practical reason for me wearing these headphones right now, but I get it. Well, man, there's so many places we could start. I actually got tuned into, I guess I first saw your work, like some of your art on Shane's podcast and some of the stuff you've done for him. But then I heard you on Sean and Cass' very eight podcasts.

Oh, dope.

Yeah, Sean and Cass are like two of my best, they're like my favorite people. Like they're on my podcast network, but they're just like some of my best friends and just wonderful people. And I specifically hit them up and I was like, yo, that was like one of the best episodes I've heard in a while. That was like, that was perfect. Yeah, so cool. And then I guess it was been a few months since then you've popped up maybe like 20 different places online and through mutual acquaintances and everything. So I'm super stoked to speak to you, man.

Yeah, synchronicity style, huh?

So that's how I find guests for the show.

Yeah, they're great. Very eight is my favorite. I mean, I hate using the word favorite. There's so many favorites, but it might be my favorite late night podcast, just the way that it's just so laid back and like soft, not like soft in a boring way, but it's like they're kind of speaking softly. There's music at the beginning. They're so open with each other. And I don't know, I think that's such a great friendship and relationship. And yeah, I did it when it was the, when it was the Thruple, when Mara was there too. And now it's, now it's they've de-thrupled and it's the original to spaceman and woman.

I love that truffle. Yeah, I saw them, I guess, not too long after that happened. They were going through and trying to figure out how open publicly. And I was like, listen, it's like any relationship. You guys will know, you know, what's the tactical thing to do there and everything. But yeah, what I love about that show is it really does capture what it's like being with them. Just like there's really not like a whole lot of difference of just hanging out with them and the podcast, which I think in this era of like so many contrived things where everyone's trying to look perfect and produce everything perfectly, even us, right?

We're trying to get our audio perfect. It's really refreshing. And like, don't be, you know, fooled. Cass and Sean really care about the quality of what they're putting out too, but they don't have to try. It's like effortless for them to just be themselves, which I think is really refreshing, that's why.

Yeah, and I don't think you were criticizing the, or even commenting on the production value.

Yeah, right.

The production value is good. You've got that briefcase with the headset and microphones, everything.

The hot terrace.

They're filmmakers. They like are actual filmmakers, not just like, you know, oh, well, I'm making a movie with my buddies. They're like, been in festivals and whatever all the, I don't know that much about the film world and like how movies make it too. I'm starting to learn a little bit more like, you know, that festival circuit and then they buy it and get distribution and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, well, Shane's got his thing. I'm sure you're learning a little bit about it. I also don't know much. I learned everything from them. And usually it's their disillusionment with the entire process. They're like, we're not doing it like that. We're doing it like this. We're giving everything away. I'm like, well, maybe like, also do this just in case you want to know who's listening or watching yourself. And they're like, oh, okay.

But yeah, it's weird when you get into a little self-sabotage with that. It's like, you're afraid of people not buying it. So it's like, screw it. I'm going to give it away for the, maybe that's not their intention. But I know it's mine. I come in, I fight with like, trying to be a good businessman and being not, you know, gross.

Yeah. I mean, it's, I wonder if it's as fine of a line as we probably think it is for ourselves. But, you know, on this thing, Tookin', like I think it's easy to see sometimes when people are just like overly promoting themselves. Even if it's something like cool, like I think it can cross that line easily. So I don't want to say it's just like, yeah, everyone give themselves a break. Just put whatever it is. Don't worry about it. I think there's an element of truth to that. But also like your stuff. Let me just say how your web presence is awesome. Your social media accounts are awesome. They all feed what you're doing and who you are.

But it doesn't come across as like a funnel. You know what I mean? It doesn't come across as you're being marketed into. It's like, hey, this is who I am. This is what I do. Check it out. If you like it, here's ways you can engage with me. And I think that, that maybe is a fine line, but it's also just another kind of way of being yourself. And once you kind of get in touch and find out who that is a little bit, I mean, I wonder if you could speak to that. Because I've noticed that with your stuff. I show, whenever I show your stuff to other people, and they're like, yeah, this is awesome.

Oh, thank you.

Well, I think it started, I mean, this started organically. Like with the drawings specifically, I think that I was starting to realize that you know, all of social media is me, me, me, me, me. Look at me, do my thing and buy my thing. And then I've always written down like little reminders to myself in my room. Cause I just, I have bad habits and I veered off the path. I need to constantly recorrect my path. Cause default mode is just really bad. And then I was just thinking like, well, maybe I, cause I wanted to draw it cause then there's a visual element cause text often just becomes part of the wall.

Like the laugh love for all one, whatever deep, all of the ancient Chinese Proverbs and Plato and Socrates, it's all true and we know it's true. And like we don't need any more motivational or whatever you want to call it philosophical stuff. It's been figured out. It's like all about presenting it in a, in a way that hasn't been said before. So it's salient and it's some, some thing in your head. I think, I think I've said the same thing. Like I don't know, hundreds of times before, but basically, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, just posting it online and feeling weird. Like, oh, this isn't, this isn't funny.

This is kind of a vulnerable cheesy thing. Should I post this? And then I'm thinking of those, you know, Seth Godin talks and like, yeah. And, or Brene Brown, like yeah, if you're feeling vulnerable and you're afraid to put it out, then definitely put it out. 'Cause if you don't feel that feeling, it's not going to be that good probably. And maybe it will suck, but you need that as the compass. So I was putting those out. And then after those kind of became a little more popular, people liked it and stuff. Some people were asking me like, oh, do you sell prints? And I was like, I don't, but I will now.

And then I started selling prints. And then sometimes people ask if I sell shirts. And then so I added shirts. And I never set out to be like, I'm going to build a store that sells prints on shirts. I don't care about making that. I just wanted to give the stuff to the people that wanted it. And also try to actually pay my bills with it. So it's been growing ever since. Or with like the little enamel pins, I learned 'cause someone, a friend of a friend, owns that, what's it called? Yesterday's it's a pin company. And she was saying that they make like 20 grand a month on it or something. And I was like, no way, really people like pins now.

And I was like, I can design little pins. What kind of pins would I design? I'm like, well, first do my logo and just get a smaller order of those. And just kind of little by little adding to this store. But I also, I don't think there's anything that I have behind a wall. I put out all my books. You can read them for free. But if you want the physical version of the thing, then I sell it and I don't make a ton of money off of them. Just like enough to justify the sale and the packaging and all that. And yeah, if you wanted to print it out yourself, you could even do that. I'm not very litigious or people.

Sometimes people share the stuff and they crop my name out of it. I've since gotten over that. At first, I was like, hey, at least don't crop my name out of it. But no, it's whatever, it's 2018. Donald Trump's the president. He's like, oh my god, whatever you want. I don't care.

You just go right to that with the cropping of the name, the copyright infringement bucket. Donald Trump is president. It doesn't really matter.

Yeah, and not even to get into all that. It's just kind of like a nice little, it's just a word, I say, just to point out that we're really far into the future. Like thinking about the people who have died and the technology that we've gotten used to. Like we've watched the future become the past. We've gotten past numb to shootings. We've gotten, and I'm an optimist. I think this is all, we're all in this big egg and it's leading to some big dimension shift type of thing. You know, the transcendental object at the end of time. Everything is unfolding just as it should. You do your best by helping those near you because of all you're doing is calling your congressman and then neglecting your family and friends.

Right. - That's so good. And everyone that I've known that just friends and family that have died in the past five years, 0% of those had anything to do with politics. Like it's all been, whether it was an accident or a brain tumor or suicide. It was all like completely separate from that. So I try to keep that in mind. When you're being shown a lot of fear-based stuff, it's like, yeah, that's there. But watch out for these unknown unknowns that are probably more dangerous.

Well, and it also, I love how you put that. And it also kind of emphasizes the point that like, there is a lot of bad shit going out in the world. But if you don't take care of the basic level stuff for yourself and those around you, how much good can you do out there for those causes, right? How quickly can you pour it from an empty cup?

Yeah, exactly. How quickly are you gonna burn out because you don't have your shit together? I mean, I've experienced that. Everyone has experienced that. Who's been kind of open to the suffering of the world. But once they go out there to kind of blazing guns, they're like, oh shit. I also have some problems.

Yeah.

It's a weird, so I'm releasing a podcast in the next couple of days with Roshi Joan Halifax, who's-

Oh dope.

Oh, she's the coolest. I've known her for several years. She just walks the wall the way I would put it. That woman is literally going around and doing everything she says should be done, which is cool. So I was asking her, I was like, listen, what do we do? 'Cause of this immigration stuff, I just had a kid two years ago. So I see the immigration stuff and I'm like, yeah. This is a bump beyond the pale. I can rule off health insurance. You wanna fuck people? You're gonna kill millions of people? All right, what are we gonna really do? It's a logistic nightmare. But I think basically we shouldn't be keeping people in cages and taking their kids away when they're seeming asylum.

So I was asking her, I was like, listen, what, what do we do? Like, what are we supposed to do? And her answer wasn't that different from what you just said, which is you gotta be mindful of your internal states, because if you start there, then you'll be able to do, just like you did when you described your store, to tie it together. You didn't start with the idea that I'm gonna build a store and sell all this stuff. It naturally evolved through an organic process of your audience and your fans telling you what they would like. That's also the same approach you have to have when you're approaching any big-ass problem in the world too.

Like you can't just go like, I'm gonna solve this child immigration thing today. Like I'm gonna do it. So I'm gonna do it by tweeting this shit out. And now everyone will get it, which everyone is doing by the way. And I understand I do it too. I had to delete tons of emo tweets the past few weeks. But it really does underscore the importance of just like, start where you are. It's okay to see this stuff. But if it's getting to the point where you're just getting slammed with it, that's not helping anyone.

Yeah, for sure. So you said you deleted a lot of emo tweets.

I did, let's talk about that. So would you explode and you went back and you know, that's not my best stuff, I better go edit.

So yeah, and I usually don't delete it ton of tweets 'cause I think it's funny. I think to me Twitter, yeah, I've been on for a really long time. It's just digitized consciousness. It's this amazing thing where we've just removed the part of ourselves where we have to physically say the words. So it's a shorter distance to getting these crazy thoughts out. So that can be amazing. If you're hilarious, you can get really funny, you know, a sort of a things out. But if you're having an emo day or you're going through a breakup or you have drunk tweets for back in my earlier days, this shit can be super embarrassing.

So you know, I would tweet this stuff out. And I was like, you know what, who is this? What is, this isn't making anyone else feel better. This makes me look like a dumbass. So I'm gonna go back and unceremoniously delete all of these. There was so many last weeks, so many.

Oh yeah, we've all been there. And I don't really do a lot of text posting because, I don't know, I feel like my hot take isn't really adding much to the conversation that everyone's already made already. And yeah, everyone's got a unique thing to offer. It might not be the thing that you offer is the unique thing to offer, but everyone has it in them. So I think that everyone should, you know, try to tap into that rather than just saying the first thing that they feel and putting it out there. And 'cause we get lost in it. Like it's, you know that whole rom-doss little thing he would say, like, where do you start?

I'm on the good guy mailing list too. What is it? Do we save the whales? Do we start this thing? What, and it seems to be we're just focused on what's most recent and when we forget about the thing that was a week ago to focus on the most recent thing. Not that, you know, it's the immigration thing isn't a problem, but man, people going back and listening to this episode. Maybe someone discovers this podcast in, you know, February 2019. And they're like, oh shit, yeah, the immigration thing.

Right.

That was before this, which was then washed over by this. And this, I don't even know what the next thing's coming are, but you remember that the new Dave Chappelle special that talks about the challenger and the kids in the '80s? Like when they got to go home after the challenger blew up and now we get like a equivalent of the challenger every 15 minutes. Maybe even more now.

It's so true. They put OJ on in my, I think it was elementary school or was it middle school? They wheeled in a TV to watch the verdict. Like that was, they literally did that. That was the thing that was done back then. 'Cause they're even back then, like just, you know, right around the internet. Like there were big media events for people and now we're just getting slammed with this stuff. I know, I know, it's just, it's weird that we, it's also purposely co-op, you know, this is done. This isn't an unintentional thing. You know, this isn't something that just kind of has amassed itself through the system that we've built.

Like there are people making decisions to kind of beat us over the head with a lot of stuff and we become either willing or unwilling participants. And it's just, it's a weird thing, which is why bringing it back to kind of what you do, I find it's so refreshing 'cause you kind of cut through a lot of that stuff. You know, whenever I see your stuff online and I'm going through my day, I'm like, oh yeah. It's a little, it's a little peek into the other more kind of often whimsical sides of serious stuff though. It's not like you're not just like doing like retreats into nonsense. You know, you deal with things like death and you know, like technology obsession and all of these things, but you do it in a really fucking cool way.

Where did that kind of evolve from in terms of like you coming up with that?

I think I've always been a space cadet. I'm not like, I'm not one of these people that's like, you know what? I'm not gonna watch the news anymore. I never watched the news. I can't stand that shit. And I was terrible in social studies. I was good at math and physics and stuff like that, but just the social sciences, I had trouble remembering like, what does the Congress do again? What's that guy's name? What is that type of thing? So it's not like I'm intentionally veering away from what's going on. It's my natural state to wanna do more whimsical, you know, far out there stuff. Even, you know, whether it's the cartoons I watch or the music, it seems to all be of that family.

And we get tired of, what's that?

What cartoons do you like?

Oh, just let's see. Just the word, let's take like Rick and Morty or the Simpsons or South Park or just old like animation stuff, Spike and Mike's animation festival or Mike Judge.

Great.

I'm blanking on him, but.

You just named like a lot of really good ones.

So I went out exactly all the way.

But they're like, those are the giant ones though.

They're trying to think of like specific animator, like, you know, Don Hertz felt or little things like that.

They'll be lost on me anyway. Someone was in there be like, oh yeah, Don Hertz felt, of course. (laughing)

It's, I try to, 'cause I drew a comic strip at my college newspaper and then I did that so much that I got tired of that format of like the three panel format and then I decided like, well, things are squares now. Like everything we upload is a square. When you upload something that is not a square to social media, it looked weird or it gets cropped out or something. So you know what, I'm gonna just do a thing in a square from now on and like most people, I think we have way more ideas than we know what to do with. So I try to keep those somewhere and write them all down and try to act on the most recent one that makes me feel something before I think it's stupid.

Like get it out there before, 'cause I am gonna think it's stupid. If it's written down on a little post-it note in a year, it means it sounds so cheesy and has no like juice to it. But if I do it in the moment, it has juice to it. Notice that sometimes like when I tap into that thing, like I'll put it up and it'll hit people in that same way.

Isn't that why it's hitting people, yeah.

Dude, that's what I like about the arts is where you communicate a feeling that you're feeling and you notice that other people, maybe lots of other people, or even if it's just 12 other people have that feeling too and then you don't feel alone and you feel you're part of the one, which is the point of all this new age woo woo everything this is to articulate how we are not separate and we're all part of the one. And I've got a, or go ahead, which sounds like you have to be the one.

I only had to say something, 'cause you said so many fucking awesome things there, but it's interesting, I think you just summed it up, like you nailed it, like really quickly, cosmologically, philosophically, that we're all just reminding us ourselves that we're one, we're one. And that is somewhat of a nebulous term, but what I was about to say something is because it's so funny to me that that very some, it's just clear when you grasp that concept can be so quickly, so quickly grasped by whatever you want to call it, the ego, the mind, whatever, and turned into this weird, us first them paradigm, like very fucking quickly, like, oh yeah, we recognize all is one, do you?

Like that shit happens so fucking fast. And I mean, I don't even say that like I'm immune from it. It's just, it always like blows my mind when I hear someone say it so eloquently and clearly. And I think this is harking backs to something else. You said like, we're just kind of trying to remind ourselves of this, right? Like this is what we're doing. I love that like when you're doing something, you jot it down and realize that you have to get the juice of the moment. It's rare that I'll go back to something that's very, very old and be able to recapture. Like I'm talking about a song or something and recapture that exact like spirit I had it in.

Once in a while it'll happen, but it does seem like if you can catch something in the moment, get it out in the world. If we have the benefit of doing in this day and age and then it resonates with people, there's something about that proximity that is just so fucking cool.

Yeah, with music especially, it makes me think of how prints would keep certain takes and even if it had a mistake in it because it had the feel and there's no way you can recreate that specific sound at that moment because the earth is in a different place than it was before, the sun is in a different place than it was before. The whole configuration of our little ball like flying through infinitiness is never gonna be in that spot again. So like every single moment we use a permanent footprint when it takes place. So if you act in that moment, then you've captured that moment and you can never capture it exactly exactly the same again.

No, it's so true. When did you start taking drugs?

Like, let's see, 7 a.m. No, but more serious answer to that. I actually didn't smoke cannabis or eat cannabis 'til I was in my 20s and 'cause I was always, like I said, space cadet, I didn't listen to teachers or even my friends, like my friends and it'd be like you know how guys rip on each other and stuff and girls rip on each other too. It's a different style of ripping and we're all the same too. I'm not doing the gender different things.

Yeah, no one thinks yet.

What is it that, it's interesting the, it's like someone was showing, who was, I think it was like a Jordan Peterson thing, which Jordan Peterson's got some, I know he's like a polarizing figure and stuff, but like at first you hear the voice and he's like, "Well trans people don't matter." (laughing) And you're like, "Who's this guy?" It's stupid, why does he keep talking about Marxist? Like it's capitalism not good. And you kind of read more. It's like, oh actually he's very smart and he gets wild to get to a point and then once he gets to that point, it's like yes, that's very, that's really cool.

I love when he talks about myth and you know the Joseph Cameron up and the time myth together. But the point I brought him up, I think 'cause he was showing this bell curve of men and women are pretty much the same, but the ends of the spectrum, like you're gonna get the most disagreeable men, like the most disagreeable people in the world are men and the most agreeable people, like the outliers are gonna be women. That's just how the overlapping curve works. But yeah guys would, or I'd get into a lot of, I wouldn't pay attention and then friends would rip on me for just being spaced out all the time.

So I specifically didn't wanna smoke (laughing) even in college and stuff just because people would think I'm a stoner. And then if I never had even tried it, I took a lot of pride in saying like, "No, I've never even tried it." Like I'm just, I'm naturally spaced out and then if I was smoking then they'd be like, "Oh, 'cause it would discredit me." And I was afraid of being discredited from my stupid ideas. And then eventually curiosity kind of kicks in and then you're like, "You know what? Why am I living my life to maintain a perception of what other people think of me?" That's a stupid thing.

We all know that, you know, Richard Feynman says, "What do you care what other people think?" You know, everyone knows that you should stay true to yourself, all the lessons from '80s and '90s cartoons that we all know. So yeah, that was, did that answer a question?

It did answer a question. And you also, again, we brought up the most polarizing figure in my life. I've had to delete several tweets about Jordan Peterson, but yeah, so you started--

Oh, wait, what it did, so yeah, let's talk about that, what did he do?

Okay, all right, so here's my Jordan Peterson spiel and I don't think I've gotten this effectively out, even though I've brought him up proudly for like cumulative like three or four hours on his podcast, so, here's my stance on Jordan Peterson. A couple of years ago, a little over, I went out and did an event from my iPod and I work in LA called Mindwave with some artist friends, it was fucking great. And I had someone there who I met a new friend who basically was like, "Yo, you should check out this dude, "Jordan Peterson." And this is before there was any of this bruhaha with anything in the trans stuff or anything.

So I was like, all right, I'll check him out. And I watched a few of his videos and I found like you that yet seems a little laborious to get to a point, but he was an intelligent person. He had some interesting ideas about archetypal myths and some of the hero's journey things and how this stuff kind of fits together in our modern culture. Truthfully, I didn't find him interesting enough to pursue it after that, I was like, all right, cool enough to forgot about it. Then like, I don't know, a year and a half ago, something like that, he started popping up because of all the trans stuff. And I was like, what?

Like, what is he doing? What is he saying? And I was reading his arguments and watching some videos and I'm like, oh, that's fucked up. And that's all I thought of it. Then all of a sudden, I start seeing all this alt-right shit and a bunch of my friends who I really respect and really call this type of shit out who I don't think are doing it in kind of like a mean or polarizing way, we're like, yo, like he's retweeting and he's doing, pushing all these alt-right things. And I'm like, what? Like, that's weird, I don't remember him being like that. And sure enough, when I started watching it and just reading more about him and personal anecdotes and things he was saying, I was like, oh, shit.

This dude, to me, it's a very simple case of someone's shadow side. So in Jungian psychology, archetypes are these kind of primordial essences or energies that have manifested through time immemorial. Not only in historical sense and personal sense, but like a collective sense. And people argue whether these are actually like the collective unconscious is a real thing or kind of an allegory. I fall on the side that it's a real thing. I've had archetypes constantly before. It induced a manic state, not unlike Shane. We spoke about it on this podcast. When it happens, it's fucking crazy. Basically, you feel like you're in control of your life.

But this other kind of psychic emanation is essentially ruin your life. So we've all heard of various archetypes, like the wounded healer, the magician, the sham. These are archetypes that we have in our kind of collective history that we identify with. And Joseph Campbell's hero's journey, that's the classic archetype that we all kind of identify with, the monomer, that this is this thing. We go outside of our comfort zone. We go to the edge of the forest. We leave our regular reality. This is a perfect analogy for a psychedelic experience. Then we go into the underworld. We maybe meet ego death.

The person who we were before gets obliterated. Then comes the resurrection. We reintegrate back into society. That's the hero. So the reason Jordan Peterson freaks me out at this point is because I hear people say things like, yeah, I don't really like the stuff he says about black people or women or trans people, which are blatantly sexist, misogynistic and racist. Like even if he couches them in some weird, multivariate study, a lot of those things are still just cherry-picked studies that the alt-right is gonna hold up as a justification for white nationals. Outside of that, I don't really care too much about the cultural and political stances that he takes 'cause I think they're doofasy.

What freaks me out about him is he uses those very hooks of Jungian psychology and Cambodian myths and mythology to kind of lure people in to this other kind of crazy world of ideas and concepts, which is very fucking real. But to me, just comes off as like a rote parlor trick because if you actually read Jung, which no one does 'cause he's a shitty fucking writer.

It's dense.

Dude, it's the densest shit ever. If you wanna understand Jung, if anyone is really interested in it, she's dense too, but she's less dense. His primary translator, Marie-Louis von Franz, who you will never hear Jordan Peterson mention. And this was like his main dude. Jung's main lady was Marie-Louis von Franz. She's a much better writer. She'll break down this shit in a way that's actually understandable. So when someone says, oh, I've read Jung, I know archetypes, I know these things. And then they come out and it's just kind of this justification for like a very, let's be clear, like if you dig down on his stuff, it's just kind of misogynistic.

There's no real proof that a paternalistic lobster like society is gonna be more effective than humans. He's just arbitrarily picked something.

You're talking about Peterson?

Peterson cracks, yes.

Oh, yeah. Well, I think that, 'cause I don't know what things you're pointing to when you're like the racism or misogyny things. And I haven't seen all of us stuff that, from what I understand, I think he just pushes.

You know, personal responsibility, getting out of your bed and making your bed. And, you know, not letting life bring you down because your life is tragic. Every life is tragic. That's what people don't understand. When you start to understand something, you take two continents and then, you know, I was thinking that where all someone that is smarter than you or appears smarter than you really does is, all they're doing is just being able to dig a larger hole. So like you're going down this journey and it's like, oh, he thought of 100 points deep and I was thinking of 70 points deep. But yeah, of course, he doesn't know how to structure a society perfectly.

But I mean, I know he's got, he probably has a, it's a weird thing with, so let's not even take Jordan Peterson, but it's funny that there's people, whether in, you know, alt-right or conservative, whatever thing, like, I'm sure there's so many of them that could out argue me of what would make a better society. But like, and I know in my gut maybe that they're wrong, but in my mind, I'm like, no, I don't know that part of history. Like they might bring up a certain historical example. Like, if you look at it historically time and time again, this fails, and then this thing is good. And then someone points out, yeah, but that one oppressed this part of people.

And then they say, well, oppressing people is part of the cosmos. There's that's how starvation and galaxy formation is. There's always got to be that underclass, which, oh man, it's quite a problem.

But to me, what really cuts through that very quickly is the unification of the heart and the heart mind. And I think that's where Jordan Peterson and people who really, really identify with some of his intellectual ideas miss out. He's cut himself off from the feeling compassionate, feel the suffering of the world, not only on an individual sense and not only saying, hey, here's the suffering, here's how we alleviate it, but feel it because that's going to tune you into something called compassion, empathy, which is going to give you that extra superpower that cuts through that stuff. We can intellectually just like go over this stuff, like you said, 101 points, 500 points.

That is endless philosophers have done that endlessly through time immemorial. But if we actually want to really cut and change lives for ourselves, starting with ourselves, you have to bring in that heart aspect, that feeling aspect, which to me, is notably absent in a lot of that stuff, regardless of whether it's neo liberals or alt right. And I don't keep up to date on that. I just kind of refer to alt right as, bordering on white nationalism and racism, that type of stuff. And Jordan Peterson's stuff is clever because he couches it in these weird kind of studies, but like my friend Jason Lew, who I got tuned in from Duncan, who I know is just on the podcast, which we're going to talk about.

Yeah, he came out yesterday.

Yeah, he's the one banging the hand, he's tuned me into a lot of this stuff. And he's like, "Listen, this dude has been mysteriously "retweeting Koch Brother campaigns "for like the past two years. "This isn't like his innocent as a lot of people think it is, "like someone is paying the bills for this kind of phenomenon "that we're seeing. "And it's kind of like, you know, we're having a conversation "about Jordan Peterson now. "It'll be interesting to see in like two, three years "what his kind of myth that he builds for himself is. "I don't think he's a purposely nefarious person, "just to be clear.

"I think that his shadow side has constellated "outside of his control. "It's running his life. "The fame is feeding it. "The projections are feeding it. "And I think he genuinely feels that he's helping people. "But I also see because of how polarizing he can be. "It's creating this whole, this whole other weird thing. "But I try not to be too hard on him."

Yeah, and he is helping people, but he's also probably upsetting, or not probably. He is okay because you can't help it. But, yeah, it's interesting.

Well, there he goes. He's yet again gone into another podcast. And then, dude, let's talk about Sphegano podcast.

Wait, who's gone into another podcast?

Jordan Peterson. This dude has infiltrated like every single one of my past 10 podcasts. He's got the-- - Oh, really? What's the most recent one?

Roshi, Roshi Joan Halifax. I brought him up because she knew Joseph Campbell gave her away at her wedding to Stanislav Brahm. So I wanted to ask her. I was like, you knew Joseph Kim. She calls him Joe. She's like, oh, yeah, Joe. (both laughing) People don't think of him like that. She's like, yeah, Joe. So I was like, what do you think of someone like Jordan Peterson who's going around using Joseph Campbell's name to support these kind of crazy theories in some instances? And she's like, who? And I'm like, of course. (both laughing) Thank you for being you. Like, you're not thinking about Jordan Peterson.

I'm like, the foothills and the mountains of Nepal, helping with nomads. But I mean, I'm pretty, I just, I like to, I like to, if you've got a good teaching, I want it. That sort of thing. Like, I like seeing the good, 'cause he has provided a lot of good points. I don't know what his whole thing is. I don't spend enough time to figure out what his whole thing is. But even like, when people got upset at Adam Crowler or something, I'm like, oh yeah, maybe you don't disagree with his politics, but you cannot deny that he's not funny or he's double negative with that. Yeah, but like, sometimes he'll, you know, he'll go off on rants and be like, no, there's no prison to school to prison pipeline.

You just gotta focus on family and that's it. That's fucking it. Throw. And then like, you're like, no, that's wrong. You have to help people. But like, when he's doing those long rants and it all ties back in, that's, oh, it's such a, such a cool talent. Or I was just thinking like how Jimmy Hendrix once said, I wouldn't change a thing, maybe just a little more color in the streets. That's all. And like, that's in the, you know, tumultuous 60s. So one could take that out of context, not knowing who Jimmy Hendrix is. Why? Not knowing that he's black or has that deep connection to source or any of that stuff.

And just say this male, this straight male said, I wouldn't change anything about what's going on. And you'd be like, no, that guy is evil. That's bad. So we're just taking in whatever sound vibration and things that people put out. And then it doesn't resonate with what we think as a good empathetic person because tough love is good. And then it becomes debatable. Like, well, is the style of tough love good? I don't know. But if it's coming from a love place, then it's good to me. That's good. Good teachings. Yeah, I think that that's the hallmark of a good teaching, right? If it's coming from a place of love, you know, I'm in a weird place, I guess you could say, psycho spiritually from my deep involvement with a lot of these teachers and organizations that, you know, have kind of sprouted up around them over the past, however many decades.

It's weird because you see at the end of the day, people are just people. Like I haven't met the person yet, Romdas is about as close as someone I found who's just beaming love all the time. But I'll tell you the Romdas story when I was at the retreat one year. Oh, that's so cool. You got to go. Yeah, I went twice. I used to work with, I did all their digital for like five years. We set up the whole thing. But so I got to go there a couple of times and I was there and it was in between. I was probably outspoken weed somewhere and I just wandered into the dining hall and it was him and his helper, Dasuma.

And he was given her like a crazy hard time 'cause he did. She's like, do you want some beans? No, I don't want the beans. I'm like, I'm like, I'm so happy I get to see this. Like 'cause I know that there are people out there and like you go to those retreats. They're like, this is a guru. This is my God. And it's like, this is a dude who really knows a lot and has had some crazy experiences and has found a way to kind of communicate some really profound truths authentically for the majority of his life. But he's a person too. And I think that's something that you have to remember on both sides.

So when you're loving someone or like me when I'm kind of like, you know, joning on Jordan Peterson, you know, he's a person too. And I think that's important to remember. I'm a big Kanye West man and I support him even when he says stupid shit too. So like I have to be as tolerant of that. And I think I'm glad you brought that up. Isn't that funny how forgiving we are of musicians? Because Jordan Peterson is not a musician or a dancer. Like take Chris Brown. We're very forgiving of Chris Brown because he's a beacon dance. And we just, or Michael Jackson, like, and then Michael Jackson's this whole other thing.

Like, you know, child abuse things. Like of course he would turn out to that. But like even if there was video like HD incontrovertible video proof of all the child abuse things the music would still stand. We'd still be like, yeah, but I love Michael Jackson.

Trailer is really good.

Yeah.

You've heard of El Pus? - No.

Oh, I don't even need to go on this tangent too long. But it's this awesome group, no longer functioning, but from Atlanta, Georgia. And it's like half hip hop, but they have an actual drummer and actual guitar player and actual bass player. And they would sell shirts that said Michael Jackson didn't touch those kids.

I love that, I love that. I would actually buy one of those shirts. It's got in a long, on an underground electronic house music board in the early 2000s. I got in a long heated, my only one of all time message board exchange where I was trying to defend Michael Jackson. And they're like, you're an idiot. I was like, no, you didn't do it. You can't be that sweet and do as like they said, this is what his penis looked like. I'm like, I don't care.

Oh man. But yeah, no, it is, we are a very forgiving of people who create great art. I always ask people, like if Hitler was an incredible musician, would you listen to those beats? Like, would you do it? He probably would. That's how fucked up it is. And that's why art and creativity is such a fucking interesting thing because it's not the person. Is it like at the end of the day? Like we can build a mythology around them, but it's something that kind of cuts deeper than that, which I think is really fucking cool.

Yeah, it washes over at whatever worldly stuff they did that we disapprove of because they brought back that sort of thing for us. Like you're forgiven because of the source thing.

Let's talk about that, man. 'Cause you described it in a pretty, I don't know when I kind of got onto this concept years ago, but much like a psychedelic trip, when you're pulling some creative idea, whether it's with the aid of any psychedelic or not, you're basically journeying to this other place, looking at something or interacting with it in a way, and then trying to like quickly transcribe it into this reality. And when you do it correctly, it's like you just, you may not even think it's that good, but when you notice other people's reaction and then you think about it or you feel like, oh shit, I just brought something back.

When did you, 'cause you're saying source and bring it back, what's that process like for you? If you can internally analyze it.

I experienced it in the download from the universe way, where it oftentimes just all at once, like the thing it says and the image itself are all at once. And sometimes there's a little tweaking involved, but for the most part, it's just kind of there. And a lot of times when I'm alone or at nighttime, I'm very much a night bird. I think like four a.m. is where the magic happens. Sometimes two a.m., but it's just a completely different way of being and thinking when the world is shut off and I'm awake and I don't feel like going to bed and I feel like no one's actually in this world and I could just drive around the streets with no traffic, just there's something about that that helps me tap into it.

And thoughts are a weird thing. Like how do we explain what the thought is? Like you don't really think in terms of words, sometimes you do, you sometimes think in terms of images. I guess we don't really think in terms of smells or touches that much, maybe we're all in the future, maybe chefs do, maybe chefs think about it.

They bring back memories though. Smells really bring back memories.

Oh yeah, but like when you're, let's take music, for example, like when there's a sound playing in your head, like you've got to hold onto that, but you're not really thinking of like smells, like 'cause I guess you can't create with smells yet or you can, but it takes a lot of like liquids and machinery and you can't just, you can't highlight the smell and delete it and try it again. Like we get so much visual and sound control nowadays, whereas, you know, smell and touch, those are some frontiers that are just almost untouched at this point. That's gonna be really cool.

I think we're just getting started to quote, who said, you know, Gary V, the businessman.

I do know Gary.

Internet, yeah, he's everywhere. So Gary V says, and this is about the internet, he's, at first he said, "We're at the national anthem of a '19 and in game, "this hasn't even started yet." And then he's updated it to be like, I said it was the national anthem of a '19 and in game, it's actually, we haven't even left the house yet to go to the tailgate party to then go see the net. Like this internet thing is so, so new and we're still in temper tantrum mode. We're still like yelling at each other and we're confused and we don't know what it is. It's very much like we're going through this teenage angst and then once we get through that, it's gonna be really cool.

Once we see the adult mature version of the internet and it's not going anywhere. I thought it was a fad, they thought Facebook was a fad. Time compounds, it doesn't pass, it takes the thing that it makes and keeps it so it invents hydrogen, cool. And then like, helium comes along, it's not like no more hydrogen. Hydrogen gets to stay too, everything gets to stay, there's the aquatic life gets to stay. Even if we kill all of it, we'll revive it with some kind of AI Westworld thing, I guess. In terms of what it represents, like nature, the cosmos, the universe, source, all of it, it likes to, it keeps stuff, it wants to keep things.

That's why it makes stuff.

It also kills things too, in a very interesting thing.

Sure, but in the time dimension, in the time dimension, in the time dimension, but once it's made it, like, going back to that, the Earth never revisits the spot that it was before, it's almost like it's writing to a hard disk like 'cause the Earth is never in the same position it ever was.

It seems, yeah.

Yeah, it literally took place.

That place has been taken.

It's time for a defrag, I think.

On the Earth's hard drive, just for a little bit. I think that, dude, that's so interesting too, and it makes me think about the internet and kind of digital technology of being like another sense organ in a lot of different ways. That's how it feels to me because it's like, I mean, I can't tell you how many conversations I end up having where it's like, yeah, technology, social media, it's like, you don't have time to adapt this stuff, it just keeps coming. And then we're like, yup. And then like the next day happens, like, holy shit, this is what's going on. It really does feel like this extended layer of consciousness that we're still just like very early, like watching this new body part grow out of us.

And we're like, let's that, I don't know. We'll see what it is, it's just, it's fucking nuts, man.

Yeah, we're still in the womb for sure.

Yes.

And you know, the birth process has a lot of bloodshed and it's painful, but we are becoming whatever the next, the same way that all the single celled things banded together to make multi-cellular us. Like we're all banding together to make the next, whatever, 5D or 4D entity that, and it probably already is, and we're just going to wake up to it. Like I like to think about it like that image of, you know, the old lady and then the young lady and they're the same picture, but at first you maybe just see the old lady and then the young lady, but the young lady was always there.

Right.

I think that's what Gaia is or like the earth consciousness thing. I think it's always been here, but we're going to wake up to realize that, oh shit, we're all one like, organism in this planet.

Yeah, I love this.

That's your organism, and it's already been like that.

I love the word with ourselves. Like, and we're, the planet is at war with itself and we are at war with ourselves internally. Like every single day we can't eat right, we don't exercise enough. I forgot to write that person back. I blah, blah, blah, blah. What do you think that's about?

The internal war?

Yeah, the function, if there is something like that.

I think that there's the two forces at play in the whole whole system and one force is the force that wants to expand out into infinity, like forever. And then there's the force that wants to set up boundaries and you need boundaries because otherwise there would just be the one thing and boundaries or what creates the nice dynamic that we have. And it's the one thing that God does not have. God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. It knows everything is everywhere and can do anything. So what's the one thing it doesn't have? It doesn't have limitation. So then all this other stuff we see is limitation.

Like you and I are one, but we're limited. Like we have different tastes and different, like, get down to it. We're probably similar in a lot of ways, but we have differences and that's what makes it fun 'cause then when you come together with someone else, it creates that tension release.

Well, it's so interesting to me here and you say this because when you're talking about boundaries and that kind of like push and pull of the duality, that those boundaries, all the constricting thing or the bound, it opens up the channel for gratitude too.

Yeah.

As you wouldn't be able to be grateful for anything if it was all the same. 'Cause it would just be like, all right, we're always grateful, it loses its meaning. But when you can actually reflect upon itself, you're like, oh my God, I'm so happy and lucky to be in this position to have these things and experience this thing even if it's a short period of time. Like that's like one of the coolest things about life to me. Like without a doubt, it's one of the favorite feelings and it's like also like a superpower. If you can cultivate the scale of being grateful for any circumstance, like if you're one of those Buddhist monks in Tibet, when they got locked up by the Chinese, they're like, I love you.

Like if you can go to those people, you fucking done it. You win, you win, you get to whatever the fuck you want.

It's so obvious yet we shy away from it 'cause it's cheesy, like I'm not gonna be grateful, you're only left to be grateful if you were just diagnosed with cancer or were in a car accident, but if you just got everything going on, you're grateful. They think you're, you know, bro, new age spiritual or something.

So funny, I have reminders on my phone set up to remind me of gratitude, which everyone's like, oh my God, that's such a great idea. And I'm like, yeah, it is a good idea, except when you keep getting the reminders and then start getting annoyed by them after like a few years like, ah, fuck, that's good. That's an interesting thought.

Yeah, there's no shortcut, man. I think that you can, like, you're like, I figured it out, just put gratitude every hour and I wouldn't, nope, your mind's gonna find a way to not do that. And I feel like we're gonna end up there if, even if we get full sensory VR things that we can go into and experience any food or sexual experience or music experience or any type of thing that we want. I think we're still gonna end up where we were unless you've kind of cultivated how to ride the waves and deal with, we edit in music, isn't that funny? We understand that in music, it may not in a way that you can articulate, but when song goes to a minor place where there's a rest and like, there's a dynamic in a song and our lives are a song, there's got the low points, it's got the, like, part where it stops and it's not just all a crescendo and build up, build up, build up, build up, build up, build up, build up.

Right.

It's gotta have that little dynamic of dissonance and harm and rest.

Have you read "The Mysticism of Sound and Music" by Hazrat Kaniak Khan?

No, wait, it's by someone.com?

No, he's a soupy mistake. His name is Hazrat Bienaiat Khan. I'll send you the link. I've sent this one.

Yeah, send me the link.

I love those. I've read, I like the music lesson by Victor Wooten a lot.

I saw him many times in Boston, please, ma'am.

Yeah, that book, it's so good. I think everyone that plays music or wants to, you should read it because there's some things in there where I was like, that would have been helpful if someone told me that when I was five.

Yeah, so I went to a music school and some of the things that you will learn, not in the way of learning your instrument, either traditionally or not, can be taught by people who actually know what the fuck they're doing.

Yeah, and philosophically, like he's got lines, like, have you heard this one where he says, never lose the groove to find the note.

Mm, that's such a smart one. In life too, so much time going backwards and then you lose the groove if you're trying to find the note. And, you know, even crap, what was the other one? Yeah, like so in any, in Western music, there's 12 notes and in any key signature, seven out of those 12 are going to be the correct note right in that key signature, and five are going to be the, quote, incorrect, right? So even, so like, yeah, let's look at a C major. If you take all the white keys on a piano, that's all the right notes. The black keys are the incorrect note. So if you hit an incorrect note, you're never more than a half step away from being in the right key.

So like, we think like, oh, fuck, I screwed up, but no, you're never more than just a half step away from being back in tune. And it's, it's a mental game. Like we, we, we get out of tune every now and then. Oh, you're going to love it. Dude, you're going to love it. You are going to love this book. I promise you that you will love this. It's, it's the most thing. So I got like 15 minutes for I had to go get my kid. I want to talk about, do tell me about rainbow, rainbow Brainsville podcast. Oh, it's a podcast. I started this year. I tried to start it, I think like a year or two ago and I just, you know, procrastination and just trying to make things right and perfect and it just got buried.

And then I've, I've wanted to do one for a while. I did one with, I did a podcast with my friend Maggie May and another one with friend Chris Cubis or comics that at the time we're in Austin. And those lasted for a little bit. And I really wanted to just do one myself, just regular Mark Marin style. Yeah. And one, one guest. And I didn't really think about what the theme would be until I started making the graphic after a few episodes of what I could write about it. And I noticed that the topics that kept recurring were creativity, motivation and death. So I like to talk about that. I like to talk to creative folk who like to do lots of things.

Not their, maybe they're a comedian, but they're also working on their music. They're shy about putting out an album because they're associated with being a funny person or maybe a musician is afraid of comedians thinking that they're not funny enough. So they don't want to show that side of them. So they're like, no, comics won't think I'm legit. So we tried it. We, we end up just putting these walls around what we are and then resent ourself and our work for being able to branch out enough. But it's like, it's becoming the age of the polymath. And you can see it in big examples like Donald Glover.

We accept him as an actor and musician. And we, and on the micro, I think like Michael Garfield does a lot of stuff and is, is accepted as that. Not at the Donald Glover level, but you know what I mean.

Yeah, in his own way.

You're one of those, you're one of those people to a polymath, you're doing a lot of different things. And I'm trying to encourage that. And if there is enough of those, like when people say like, that's not a thing, what they mean is that there's not more than one instance of that.

Right.

And when there's lots of instances of something, then let's break down that word in stance. When it is in a stance, when it's in there, then we accept it. So I like to shed light on these many instances of people that do a lot of things and see what, what trouble they get themselves into mentally and how they get out of it. And also just, just regular talk style podcast. It doesn't really stick to any format that much.

Yeah, I love how you put that. And I've always taken the easy way out when people ask me what my podcast is about. I'm just like, yeah, it's me talking to cool people. I like it. But really like the fact that you key it in, and it's cool that you came back by doing the image, but you key it into those three things. I mean, that's fucking awesome. Also, I love that you're kind of shedding a light that you could see it in the past if you were around other creative people, but it's not like if you were a musician, that's all you do. It's not like if you're funny or you don't stand up or you're a comedian, that's all you do.

Rarely these days, and especially if you look at the younger people, you can do a lot of different things and you can be good at them and that whole, I hate that phrase, a jack of all trades, master of none. That limits so many people, and it can be a thing. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but if that's gonna be the thing that limits you from pursuing multiple things you're passionate about, that's fucked up. Don't do that.

Yeah, there's a lot, it's a specialization. Specialization is like to make good factory workers. You can have a more efficient assembly line. Like it's not efficient if your guy screwing on the bottle cap on someone to write poetry on the side of the bottle, you can't have that. You need the poetry guy locked away and you need the bottle screwing guy and that makes for a more efficient machine, but it's, the thing is exploding now. The, we're like 10 years from now, the same way that the cell phone came out of nowhere and smartphones are now where everything is done now. In fact, if you have a website that's only desktop, it's old, like think about that.

Websites used to be like, oh, why would we have a website? And now we've come full circle where it's like, why would we have a website? We've got a Facebook and Instagram page. So even the website has gone from being too futuristic to even have to being out of date, all within like under a decade, it's wild. You know, the, the, the is speeding up and that's a scary thought to some people, but it's happening whether you like it or not. So find a way to be, be like, you know, have fun with it. We're only here. We only get to live this one life as the you that is you as who said that Jen Sinceiro from the how to be a bad asset making money book.

She said, cause she like, that's a good business book that also ties in the spiritual things too, but I don't know if you're familiar with her.

No, I'm not, but I love that.

But yeah, she wrote like, you only get this one life as you that is you, because that addresses that like, yeah, yeah, we reincarnate forever and we're all one and like you're, that you never dies, but this you that is you, you only get this, this time points.

And make the most of it, right?

Yeah. I love it. Do you ever get to New York?

Are you, I haven't in a while. I like my money, hence the money book, like my finances have sucked this last year and I'm figuring it out. But I mean, I'm not like living in Liberia or anything. I live in Silver Lake in Los Angeles, so it's not a good, and I have like some assets and stuff, but my liquid cash has been disrupted a bit, like some comic book stores that I would sell stuff in went out of business. I had some clients that didn't pay me. I know I'm activating all these negative vibrations now.

No, you're not dude, honestly, I went through the worst financial crisis of my life. Like I just got out of it six months ago. It was like, I just had a kid, I just bought a house. Like I get it, even if it's not dire, like money is this fucked up thing. I get just whatever spare change you have, I don't do anything, just buy a teeny little bit of Bitcoin every so often, trust me on that one. I know a lot of people are touting it as some magical, fixed, amazing thing, but I've had cryptocurrency since 2013. This shit is changing the world already.

Yeah, I would have held on to some of mine. I have like just like maybe a couple hundred bucks in my coinage, but just keep getting some. Just keep getting some, just keep getting some. Truthfully, just like 10, $15 at a time, if that's it, you'll look in five years and be like, you know what, I'm glad I did that, truthfully.

Yeah, what about Ethereum, how do you feel about that?

I have a whole server where I talk about all these things, Ethereum, here's Ethereum. It's a shit coin. It's actually not scalable, it's not that great. It's gonna make people a lot of money. It's gonna be around for a really long time. It's not really as good as people think it is, but that's not a reason not to own it. I don't own any right now, but when things start going up again, I love to trade in and out of Ethereum 'cause it's a great way to acquire more Bitcoin.

Are you saying that it's a shit coin in terms of structurally?

Yeah.

You're getting like, 'cause from like, let's say, oh yes, that might be tough to go into though, right?

No, I won't.

Or do you have two sentences on it?

I have, we have nine minutes and I'm confident we can get to the three questions. I'm gonna ask you better quick and for me to cover why I think Ethereum is so select.

Oh, well let's, okay, let's save Ethereum for last then. It's not gonna be interesting.

Let me ask you this too. I know everyone hates it. I've turned this podcast like few episodes into cryptocurrency stuff. People fucking hate it. They hate it.

Oh man, have you had Michael Garfield on? You probably have, right?

We talk all the time. We're bantering in our Facebook group. We have a Cryptocier private Facebook.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah, dude, I'll invite you soon.

I loved his breakdown of like how the banks used to be Athena, like literally it was a temple of Athena and it's also the god of war and like, you know, military industrial complex and the banks, like how that is currently the god of Athena and how decentralization is making it so that it's actually gonna function way that like reality function which is fractal and all of the information of the whole cosmos is within the smallest point like Indra's rule and that and I love that it's like fulfilling that prophecy of Bitcoin is going to be everyone has that information and I thought it was beautiful.

He breaks it down and one of those podcasts, it's like third eye drops or bustle fuels or something.

I have to bustle fuels, future bustles. I have to get him on again to talk about this shit. I'm always flaming him 'cause he likes Ayoda and Yas and I think they're also shit coins. I'm a cantakerist. I just shit post people all day. Let me ask you this one, we'll see if we have time for why Ethereum is an actual shit coin. Okay, what is your favorite color?

Purple.

What is your favorite number?

Seven.

What is your favorite animal?

Cat.

Cool.

What's a practical tip that's helped you in your life that you could share with people listening?

Mindset is everything and you do have control over it even though it's difficult. You are the entity experiencing the movie that is your life right now. You and I are a waveform that you the listener are listening to now. You can listen to it at 1.5 speed. You can listen to it at two X speed. You can rewind. We are not real. You are real and you have control and you can make yourself and the world a better place and it's all the same thing. So if you make the world a better place it's going to wanna help you as well.

Oh man, I love it. Dude, I didn't even find out like enough about you which I usually like to do. You'll have to come back on.

You look up a little more and like this horrible-- (laughing)

Oh my God, George Peterson isn't that bad. This guy's a total of shit. (laughing)

And this isn't even how I really talk to look up my video.

We need to exterminate all the trans people now because they're just coming to our jobs and taking all our money. That's not okay.

Oh my God, dude. I really, I feel like I met a new friend. If you do get to New York, even if we have to do a funding campaign, I say that facetiously. But seriously, if you ever get to New York, I'll make sure to get into the city and we can hang because--

Oh, I'd love to.

Yeah.

I need to go, I need to go to Cosum.

Yeah, man, that's like--

You're telling me I need to go to Cosum.

That's 40 minutes away from me. Yeah, dude.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, yeah, dude. It's gonna be awesome. All right, here's my two minute why Ethereum is a shit point. Okay?

Go for it.

Here's the thing. Vitalik Buterin has said the same things. He's the founder of Ethereum. He won't even get to him that there's a person who's in charge of Ethereum who's-- that's a big, big, you know, chink in the armor there. Okay, so for a cryptocurrency project, you can have three things. You can have scalability, immutability, and what the fuck is the other one? Holy shit, I'm blanking. Scalability, immutability, and of course decentralization, the most important one. So Ethereum is decentralized and it's immutable. What it can't do is scale. Scaling is the easiest problem to solve over all of those.

If you're not decentralized and you're centralized, it's dumb. If it's not immutable and you can write to it, it's dumb. So theoretically, you can scale up and solve that problem later. The problem is, is Ethereum's network, as it is now, is not that good. And they don't have a clear plan for how to scale if all of these decentralized applications are actually gonna run on the platform. And what you're also seeing is Ethereum tokens being used as part of ICOs and other quick dash kind of money grabs to fund projects, which they don't either flip into Bitcoin or Fiat, which is just not a healthy ecosystem.

And then on top of that, you have a lot of people using ERC 20 tokens, which are Ethereum replications of an eventual blockchain, which is happening every day. Like one of my favorite points is V chain, and they just launched their blockchain. So there's a lot of problems with this, not to mention that Vitalik Buren is a figurehead. Who's the head of Bitcoin? That's why Bitcoin works. That's why Bitcoin's been around for nine years, even though banks and governments fucking hate it, because- - And no one knows the dude, right? Or it might be-

Satoshi, yeah, it could be, it could be an, some people think it's an alien. It could be a person, it could be a woman, it could be a group of people, but there are certain principles that underpin cryptocurrencies, one of which, which is a legal distinction, but Ethereum was a security. It was raised and owned by people who then created the thing. That means it was something at some point. Bitcoin was never that. Came out of thin air, was mined by these things, no one ever owned it outright. So all this is to say that by Ethereum, it will go up in value when Bitcoin does most things that our total garbage will, but if there's just a basic level primer, buy $10 of Bitcoin every week, every month, you'll be happy as time goes on.

I like that. I'm actually gonna take that to heart.

One question, is it, would it be possible to, for Ethereum, just 'cause they have the scalability problem, couldn't they just literally jack Bitcoin's infrastructure model and just say, no, we're just Ethereum, the same way that Instagram stole--

Right, right, no. Because of the way their smart contracts work in the actual platform, they've already deviated, they've taken, Ethereum is essentially, it's not an actual fork, but they took parts of Bitcoin and basically like, all right, we're gonna build a new thing based off of this. So the technical specifications of why that can't have, and I obviously don't have time for it on this, but no, it's not really possible. There are also the current Ethereum that we know as Ethereum is actually a fork. The real Ethereum, which is not actually the real Ethereum in quotes, is Ethereum Classic, ETC.

And there are differences between that and Ethereum as well. Listen, the general point is this, people listening here and me call it a shit point. It's totally fine to buy it, it's gonna make people a shit load of money, just as a fundamentally sound cryptocurrency, I don't believe it's one, that's all. But it's really cool. Yeah, I talk about, this is like, I switch from being a digital marketer to cryptocurrency about a year and a half ago, and I have them look back, it's the coolest--

What would you do as a digital marketer, like Facebook ads?

No, I would basically build out the wrong doses, Jack Hornfield, Sharon Salzburg. I built out their entire ecosystems. So like, I built out all their social media, their mailing lists, you know, made sort of the money, ungated content, came up with strategies--

What's that like, like, building those guys? 'Cause that's like--

It's a whole other--

What we have--

Like how do you, 'cause when you're writing that number, where they're like, how much is it gonna cost to do blank? Like when you're coming up with that number, which we all make up, it's so arbitrary.

You suck up--

Like your website costs $5,000, because I pulled that out of my ass.

I did a promo for like a year, and then the rest, we would have to talk about off air. It's a very interesting experience, getting paid to do stuff and valuations with these things. One cool thing about the internet is, you can always say, this is what's actually happening. Here are the numbers, here's what's going on. So usually what I would do with that, when I'm working with anyone, whether it's cryptocurrency or digital marketing, if I'm charging more than I'm making the person, I won't take the money. Like don't, that's stupid. Like I don't want to hamstring people. So as long as--

You're better at disrupting them.

Yeah, exactly. Dude, I got to run to pick up my kid, but it was so nice meeting and speaking with you.

Yeah, you too, man. This has been great.

Yeah, man. I will speak to you soon. We'll get you on MPN in the next couple of weeks, and just really, yeah, pleasure.

Right on. Well, have fun with that kid. (laughing) Do some part on it. (laughing) Make sure, make sure he stands, I gotta just like half of this episode is Jordan Peterson Center. And if you hear this, Jordan Peterson, we're just messing around. And you probably hear, you probably hear criticism of solve the time.

It's so true.

All right, man. Peace.

Peace out. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Thanks for listening to that episode. Reminder, go check out Rainbow Brand School podcast hour. It's on MindPod Network from meannaser.com. Great dude, looking forward to doing a lot more with him. You, I don't know if you caught it. My microphone, my good microphone wasn't on during this interview, so I think it's ironic in the beginning we're talking about audio quality. It bothered me, if it bothered you, sorry, you probably didn't care. Good stuff coming in the next few weeks. I got some cool people for you to listen to. I don't know why I did that. Thank you for listening, and I will see you next week.

Hey there, it's Wayfair here. Where delivery and setup are as easy as a few taps on your phone. You're relaxing in an old hammock, scrolling Wayfair's app when you spot it, a brand new patio set. Next thing you know, Wayfair delivers it right to your patio and sets it up. Oh, you need a new grill too? All right, Wayfair's got you covered. With Wayfair's room of choice delivery and fast expert setup on qualifying orders, life gets a little easier. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app. ♪ Wayfair, every style, every home ♪

Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade football.

You mean soccer?

Right, soccer. Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade soccer. Know the game better than the market? You can earn cash trading on tournament and game outcomes, golds, assists, saves, corners and much, much more.

Download the Polymarket app and use code free50 to unlock $50 free for your first trade. Trading not available in all jurisdictions. Check local regulations before trading. Restrictions and eligibility apply.