Everything Is A Meme with James McCrae

(upbeat music)

Welcome to Synchronicity, my guest this week is James McCray. James has been on the show before. We talked about it right before the pandemic. I was in LA, he was in LA. Things were different then. I thought I was gonna be living in LA. People didn't know what really a pandemic was. It was simpler times in many ways. Wow, what a fucking trip. What weird journey we've been on the past two years. I wonder if when we look back, whenever this is over, whatever that means. But when looking back in history and being like, "Whoa, that was fucking pretty bizarre." Or will it just keep getting weirder and weirder?

So to the point where we don't even look back at things and go, "That was weird." We go, "Oh, that was actually not so weird." I don't know. We're gonna find out. James has a new book coming out. It's a book of memes and poetry. It's called How to Laugh and Ironic Amusement during your existential crisis. So if you're a fan of short book titles, you're gonna hate this fucking thing. 'Cause that's a long, it's a long title is what I'm saying. It's available for pre-order now. You can find all the links in the show, stuff and Blar, you know where to get it all. Follow James on Instagram. He's words are vibrations and he has some other accounts that you can follow and find as well.

It's a good combo. What can I say? It was nice catching up with James. I hadn't spoken to him in a few years at length and it's always interesting to... I mean, we literally met right before everything went totally nuts. So that's fun stringing those threads together. Is that the term I'm looking for? Sure, let's go with that. That's it? Oh no, of course not. Big shout out, big thank you to my guys at Ned. Hello, Ned.com. Use the code SYNC, S-Y-N-C at checkout. You get 15% off whatever you order. What's Ned? You may be asking, why would I do that? What are you talking about? What's going on? Well, Ned is CBD full spectrum hemp oil.

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It's just not happening. Good luck out there. You're going to be okay, remember that. All right, without further ado, let's get to the episode. Here is James McCray. (upbeat music) I like to say kick it off as though I do anything. I'd say, "Hey James, welcome to the show." Noah, thank you for having me. It's been a while, the last time you were on, we were both in LA. You moved to, was it Topanga? Topanga. Yeah, I had been living in New York City and just at the end of 2019, a few months prior to the world turning upside down, we moved out to Topanga and we must have got together just shortly before all the shit hit the fan.

A month maybe? I want to say it was January, maybe even early February of 2020. I had been in LA for like a month. I was like, "Oh, I'm moving to LA." Duh. It's like, ridiculous. I was fully planning on doing it. I was having a great time in Laurel Canyon. You came over. We were talking about stuff shooting this shit. Little did we know in a month, thereabouts, we met and saw each other right before, literally, everything went insane. I met a lot of people that year, but it was like six months, eight months before, like you're saying, it might have been weeks before shit started getting locked down.

So obviously we've lived many lives since then. Time got stretched out even funkier. What have you been up to? I know we're going to talk about your new book that's coming out, but what happened afterwards? Yeah. Yeah, this is the catch up a year and a half later. Yeah. What hasn't happened, man? It's been like, I feel like I have multiple versions of myself have been born and died since then. I've learned to question the foundation of reality as we know it. Nice. Including all of our institutions and our very metaphysical existence and getting ready for the aliens to come and all that good stuff.

But yeah. Like what does that, I mean, I think a lot of people are going through this process, right? 'Cause society was shut down. People for the most part, I mean, when I say society was shut down is I think people's relationship to society was shut down. Depending on who you speak to, they were doing normal things for the most part. Like I was traveling, I was doing all the shit one would do whereas a lot of people weren't, but everything kind of came to a halt. So like your book, I just, I like the name. It's going to make fun of you for it being short in length. How to laugh an ironic amusement during your existential crisis.

I mean, this is an amazing kind of poetry meme book, but like I assume born out of personal experience where it's kind of like what the fuck is going on in my life, I thought you moved out to Topanga, were you planning on staying there for like what happened? Like you get there and then L.A. immediately goes into like crisis mode. Everyone I knew in L.A. was like, fuck, this is nuts. Like what happened after we parted ways there?

Yeah, pretty much. We had planned to stay in L.A. And you know, luckily for us, Topanga is off the beaten path. It's up in the Santa Monica Mountains surrounded by nature. So even in the height of quarantine, we had a hiking trail in our backyard. So like we had access to nature and it was just a blessing to be able to walk outside. They tried to, there are some isolated hiking trails up in Topanga and they even like went out of their way to like block them off with gates. So like no one could go for a stroll in the trails.

How dare they try to stroll.

The real like neighborhood people would just kind of sneak around the gate and go for a hike anyway. But yeah, it was pretty crazy. Yeah, I thought we'd live in L.A. I thought we'd live in California and yeah, we got experience a few months of L.A. before lockdown and then after lockdown, it became very interesting when it started to open up a little bit. But like this was also in like the height of the, like the Black Lives Matter like a protest.

Yeah, I forgot all of these shit out.

So I know it was layered upon layered of--

That was like June, right?

Yeah, I think, yeah, George Floyd happened. I think in May and then June, July became like really heavy in terms of like protests. So like I remember like being on Abbott Kinney in Venice and everything's boarded up. All the shops are boarded up. You can maybe go up to a restaurant window and order like a slice of pizza to go. So we were like, we ordered like beer and pizza. We were sitting on the sidewalk eating pizza and drinking beer while everything was boarded up and there was, but there was also national guard all along the street. So like there was like basically like military--

Yeah, yeah, dystopian-- - Tanks.

And people with machine guns and we're sitting 15 feet away drinking beer on the sidewalk. That was like, for me that was the height of the kind of like post-apocalyptic like vibe of the summer of 2020.

Yeah, and that'll inevitably lead to you questioning what reality is. So like you're starting to see like, I mean, I love that there's literally assault rifles and the national guard and you can still get a piece of pizza at the Abbott Kinney. Was the ice cream open? Could you get the ice cream, salt and straw? Was that there?

God, I hope so. We don't have ice cream. We don't have anything.

I mean, what are we doing in life? Fuck man. So you're there, you're noticing things are getting weirder and weirder objectively. And, but you've moved, right? At least once since then, when did you, like what pushed you, I guess, 'cause I knew a lot of people in LA at the time and some wrote it out and they still live there. That's just their home. But a lot of people are like, "All right, I'm gonna go somewhere else either temporarily "or permanently just to kind of get out of what seems like." Like a lot of people had problems with the way California was handling it. I just remember that in general.

So like what walked me through this, I find this endlessly interesting just because I know where we were when we last, but like it's bringing up all the memories. Like we're so relaxed, Laurel Canyon, what is like, look at this magical place. We're going into this. And then it was like, boom, hammer. Other way, which wasn't my direct experience of it. It was actually pretty amazing. I've been loving the pandemic, but like definitely not what anyone expected.

Yeah, you know, also I loved it too. You know, I think that there's a lot of silver linings that come from it. I mean, obviously there's a lot of suffering that has come about because of it. And that's, you know, terrible. And people have lost their businesses and people have gotten sick and people have died. And you know, it's been a tragic thing, but at the same time, I think what it's done is it's made us all go inward a little bit more. And going inward, you know, whether that's through like, you know, deep meditation, or whether that's through like a psychedelic journey, or whether that's through being locked in your home from a pandemic, like going inward that deeply is a mixed bag, you know, because there's a lot of things inside of us that we don't wanna see.

And I think that I've noticed that like people who have lived a life where they've, you know, had their own existential crisis, or they've kind of had their own like dark night of the soul and that they've emerged from, or they've got experience working with psychedelics where they've explored the inner cabins of their subconscious. Those people, I feel it was easier for them to navigate the terrain because they've kind of like already explored their own internal like universe. And, but a lot of people in the world have not done that. They haven't been exposed to psychedelics. They haven't gone on like deep spiritual journeys.

And those are the people I feel like we're facing themselves for the first time. And that's a scary thing. So like we kind of had like a collective existential crisis.

Totally.

And some didn't have the tools and still don't have the tools to work through it and to see the light at the other end or just to be comfortable just like going within and finding that stillness and appreciating it, just wanting things to get back to normal. And I still don't quite think we're going to get back to normal like in the same way.

I mean, what is that even? That's the thing like, what was normal? Like everyone was pretending to believe in a consensus reality because it was presented as such. And granted, it was easier to buy into that in the past. Like it was packaged, it was kind of centralized. You really didn't have a lot of deviation points. Maybe some subcultures that got into that kind of opened your mind a little bit. Maybe you found drugs, maybe you found like a deeply spiritual path of meditation or whatever it is. But you really like, you were getting fed kind of the same things, which has its pros but mainly had a lot of cons.

I think it's interesting what you say about like people who have gone kind of like this self-actualization or ego death or like really having to go into their being and look at everything, the good, the bad, the ugly, all that stuff. I think I used to think that that was kind of like an immunization from any like suffering or like, oh, like I know what to do now. Like I'll just do shadow work, I'll go inside, I'll work on my problems, no big deal. But in reality, what I think that work or whatever that process ends up providing us is more kind of like the ability to calibrate at the end of it because you still go through, at least in my experience, all of this stuff over and over, like you may learn a grand lesson and truly transcend it.

Rest assured if you're living and breathing, there's likely to be some other thing going on. It seems like a functional reason why we're here. But the ability to have gone through this process one time, numerous times does seem to have this ability to like, allow you to remember that it's like, it's good. This is functional, it's not a bad thing. Things will work out correctly. Even if while you're going through anything that could happen is terrible, objectively, subjectively, it feels bad. That stabilization and calibration thing seems to me to be the kind of like benefit of going through this stuff over and over and over again.

Otherwise, it's very like Nietzsche and just kind of like a hellish loop that we go through in terms of suffering. It just doesn't intuitively feel like that to me. It's not like what I internally feel at my core. That's a much more peaceful, serene kind of like, loving thing than being like, you know, oh, I'm in hell. This is abject hell. You can feel like that sometimes, but it doesn't feel like the core of what this is. So yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that people who go through that have that.

Yeah, yeah. And even to make like a comparison to, like I've done ayahuasca at a handful of times, it's been a little while, but you know, when that, when going through an experience like that, you kind of, it's not always smooth sailing. Like there's going to be, there's going to be like, it starts off as this kind of like, oh, what is this feeling? This is interesting. I feel it in my body. Okay, something's happening. Like then like, wait a minute. What is this? I don't feel so good. Actually, my stomach starts to hurt. Actually, what are these thoughts I'm having? And then before you know what, you might be like in a hell realm, like battling off like the projection of your childhood, like enemy or something like that, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's not pretty. It's not fun. Like I've had times where I've had to like come to terms with the existence of evil in the world and the weight of evil in the world and what that means and how we're being sucked into this matrix of manipulation and things like that. And it's not fun. But then you keep going and it like you, something happens along the way. It could be actually through purging. That's often the transition where like this tension builds and builds and builds and it's uncomfortable. And then you might purge. You might not, but you might like reach some kind of a conclusion. I actually had an experience once on Iowaska where David, I was like in the throes of this like epic war and David Bowie appeared to like show me the way out of it.

You know? (laughing)

Exactly, exactly. So like there's something will happen that will kind of turn the tides and then, and then it will unfold into a beautiful experience. And you'll start to, your consciousness will expand out of the pain and out of the suffering. And you'll start to see things from the big picture and you'll see the beauty in everything. And then it becomes this kind of unspeakably beautiful experience and you know, even there are some people who are like, I have a friend who, you know, did Iowaska when she was young and she was an alcoholic and she had a terrible experience. And it was very traumatic and it was very, she entered what she calls the hell realm for the entire time.

And it was not fun. But when she got the message that was, if I don't stop drinking, I'm going to die. And she left that ceremony the next day and has not had a single drink since. And that was like 10 years ago.

It's nice.

So like it's, to relate that back to what we're going through now, I think that we are going through that, the shadow parts of the subconscious where we're kind of experiencing the projections of our own darkest attributes as a society.

Yeah. - And when we come out of that, we'll be able to see things from such a greater perspective. And even if it's not pleasant, like the really bad Iowaska experiences that lead us to maybe stop drinking or stop doing heroin or whatever that is, we learn to recalibrate our lives afterwards. So I think there's been a lot of like self-abusive behavior in our society for God knows how many centuries, you know? And it's probably gotten better in some ways and worse in some ways, but we've had a lot of reckless kind of like abusive habits as a society. And hopefully going through this collective experience is going to show us where we've, what those habits are, what we need to change, what's not working, what's broken in our economy, what's broken in our healthcare system, what's broken in how we relate to each other so we can emerge from this existential crisis with some clarity so we can re-prioritize.

And my hope is we can start a new type of society based on what we've learned from what we now see just hasn't been working.

What, I obviously have my thoughts, what do you think that looks like going forward knowing that we're usually not the best at accuracies, accuracy specifically, but generally, what do you think a culture or society looks like that integrates its trauma and uses that in some way for the betterment of just kind of the collective frequency or vibe? Like what does this look like? I'm sure what you're working on creatively has a lot to do with this, but like what does that look like?

Mm-hmm, yeah, I mean, there are just, I mean, there are some just like fundamental things like, I think that, I mean, I know you're a big cryptocurrency guy, so right, I mean, me too. So I think things like that, I think things where, you know, what I don't think it is is, you know, some people are maybe like anti-technology, like I think that it, I think that one perspective people are taking now is that, 'cause, you know, one of the fears people have right now is that we're moving into, people call it maybe like a digital dictatorship, or like, I don't wanna be tracked, I don't want--

This privacy versus security kind of--

Right, and I think that no matter what, like we're gonna keep progressing forward with, I'm a technology optimist, so I don't think that the answer is like, we're gonna have complete autonomy of our data, let's say, and, you know, we're not gonna have our DNA modified, and like, things like this, I think that some, like, I think that the digital stuff can be used for our benefit, not necessarily for our, like--

It's neutral, right, I mean--

It's a statement, yeah.

Isn't it, like, every medium that has ever been, it's a neutral thing, the atom splitting of the atom can be amazing power that helps people or drop bombs on people. It's always kind of the medium that consciousness can then imbue with whatever its kind of fiber energy is. So, I totally agree, I mean, so tech, I mean, for sure, what do you think about like these billionaires, though, shooting themselves in the space and penises? What's up with this?

Not a huge fan of that, I mean, I'm all for, I mean, first of all, we need to, we need to like, maybe like, take care, make sure the earth is taken care of first, like, I don't like the idea of sabotaging the earth and letting it burn and letting it be destroyed and then like just escaping into space in our little pods. Like, I think that's probably not the way to go. I actually think that the technology, well, I like Terrence McKenna's thinking on this, is the technology actually can help save the earth itself because if we build a like technological layer over society, will be less dependent on the industrial, you know, system that has helped to, you know, pollute and destroy the planet.

So by like living in these digital realms, like we're actually being more sustainable, like the two, like even now like we're communicating virtually, we didn't have to travel to see each other and fly on a plane and kind of like use that, you know, gas or whatever. So I think there's like a layer, like building a digital layer over the earth. I love this vision that Terrence McKenna had actually where he had this, I think he was like deep in some psychedelic journey and he saw the future in like a thousand years. And what it was was the earth was pristine. People were living in the jungle, naked, beautiful.

There was no evidence of, you know, industry or, you know, anything that was kind of harming the earth in any way. And people look like basically like beautiful savages running around in nature. But when they close their eyes, they had an overlay, like a virtual overlay that connected them to this entire virtual world. Like basically like the internet.

Like to the best of both worlds, right?

Yes, they could do all their business. They could do all of their, you know, they could communicate with anyone, anywhere. They could do anything in, you could possibly imagine it in the virtual world just by activating something that was like basically behind their eyelids. So it really is like the ultimate, that's an exaggeration, obviously. But I love the idea of having a completely natural world and also having a virtual world and overlaying those two in a really sustainable way.

I think that makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, naturally, this is where things tend to get politicized and complicated. I was revisiting, I mean, I'm sure you're seeing some of it. The NFT stuff again for people who haven't been following it just weren't like there when it peaked into like SNL and stuff. It's going nuts right now. Like every NFT that I got months ago, it's just insane. And a big argument against NFTs was that they're bad for the environment, especially the ERC-21s. And like, to be clear, five to 10 minutes of research will completely debunk that. It's not like even something that's really up for debate.

It's just ridiculous, especially when you compare it to the energy usage of just like maintaining a global financial industrial complex. Like it's really not, it's not that big of a deal. But there is just exchange of the virtual world still requiring aspects of energy to fuel it and that line and that balance, I think, is something that people, it's really just like the tension between people and ideas. I don't think it's actually this real finite limited thing. I don't, obviously, I mean, I think fossil fuels are finite. We know that, they're not gonna find a whole bunch more. They could, but it's unlikely that's gonna be the sustainable future, right?

Everyone kind of knows that. But I don't know, I have the luxury of seeing like kids because I have enough of them now. And you know, they're smart as shit. They are fusing, they're living in multiple worlds that didn't exist when you and I were kids. There were fledgling aspects of this with like personal computers when I was like 10 and stuff. But that was like the introduction of kind of another virtual layer and then the internet and like the late 90s. But now it's like fully integrated. There's subcultures. So it is happening before our eyes. I think, I mean, this is kind of like a lazy way of looking at it for millennials and younger are an older, but you know, it seems like they got this shit.

It seems like they understand how to navigate kind of this evolving, emerging digital, virtual and real world. Like streaming seems to be a huge leap in this direction. Like a lot of people look at streaming and they're like, "Oh, like these narcissistic kids are just doing, they're putting out everything that they're doing. Why would people do this?" And then if you ever watch like a stream that's entertaining you're like, "Oh, I get it's just hanging out." Like these people have figured out how to eliminate the barrier between them putting on a show or doing something and just like being present and sharing that with people, people like that.

They don't want to be pitched and like presented. Some people do, there's entertainment. But like just being yourself and hanging out with people is kind of a leap towards, I think what you're talking about, which is just being able to not have to use the same type of resources in the world to achieve every single thing that we want to do. It's kind of like the halfway point between Terrence's thing and what we have going on in the past.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it's, I think it's gonna be interesting to see what happens with entertainment because I don't watch a lot of TV shows by fiancee and I are watching like one show right now. And it's like a new show.

What are you watching?

It's called Dave. It's like a scripted comedy about like a aspiring rapper.

Yeah, a little dickie.

Yeah, it's a little dickie. She actually nailed it. It's like the, she said it's the millennial rapper version of Larry David. It's like Kirby or enthusiasm with like this millennial rapper.

And he's super talented, like incredibly talented. Yeah, he's ever seen his freestyle.

And funny too, yeah. So it's called Dave, but it's filmed. It's like takes place now in 2021 or whatever, but there's no, like all the TV shows and all the movies that are coming out, they're still kind of pretending that like COVID never happened. So they're just like, let's just not mention it and then it'll go away and we can keep on like producing shows like we always have. And it's just like, it's people like popping into each other's homes and like going places together and going to all these different locations with all these people. And it's like, it's a good like suspension of disbelief just to like enjoy the show.

But at the same time, it's like, this is not the 90s. Like this isn't Seinfeld or people are just like popping over into people's homes and saying like, hey, I'm here now. Let's have this skit. So I think that like it's starting to, that stuff is going to start to look pretty outdated. Like pretty soon. I think that the entertainment world is going to have to grapple with how to proceed. Like, are people going to want to watch movies that like don't represent the world that they live in? And also like the production of that, like setting up a huge like, we're moving away from like these big like in-person productions, I think as a society and like, are we still going to produce movies and TV shows the same way?

Especially when to your point, the streaming stuff is what the kids want anyway. Like scripted stuff seems a little bit, maybe like what, maybe what like our generation thought of like seeing like a live play. We might be like, yeah, the play is a little bit boring. I'd rather see like a fun movie. Maybe our kids are going to be like, well, the scripted stuff just seems a little bit boring. I'd rather just see what Jake Paul is up to on YouTube. Yeah, and I mean, it's also like how we look at the news now. Like no one, our age or younger really like watches the news. You don't go home. You're like, let me see the local news and the national news.

Like no one is doing that. But people do it 'cause they grew up doing it. So there's, I mean, it's going on for a reason. I definitely, there's a divide in terms of what people view as kind of like acceptable layers of authenticity. I do see the arc bending in the direction that I feel is more cool and entertaining. I'm endlessly like, I was a big, I know it's China spyware and it's probably very nefarious, but I was big on TikTok from the early days when people were just people dancing and stuff. TikTok is where everyone's favorite social media thing pretty much comes from, whatever thing, it originates on TikTok.

And I think primarily because it literally is just your phone and you. You can put all this fancy shit around you. You can sync stuff, you can do whatever you want, but like that is a very, I think, empowering and kind of, I mean, it can go the wrong way. It can be like everyone's looking for their 15 minutes of fame with this stuff. But I do think just at the end of the day, it's a neutral platform where people get a chance to express themselves in a more authentic way. Like I see this with the shit that you do on Instagram, right? You have a couple of pages here and they're fucking great. They're literally just extensions of how you get to communicate through different lenses.

And that's like a critically important thing that I think more people benefit from than get hurt by, right? Does that make sense? It seems like a step in the positive direction. I know it gets knocked a lot, but I tend to enjoy it quite a bit.

Do you post on TikTok or do you just watch it?

I post very infrequently, there'll be like a few things, but I'm a massive consumer of it. I don't even view it as a waste of time. I view it as like learning about an emerging aspect of culture that inevitably, it's like someone who looked at emails, like digital money, what's stupid? It's like, all right, now it's fucking for it. Even if we don't like it, we're forced to email people. Same thing with Instagram, I remember in the beginning, they're like, oh, like what's this, it's so stupid. Like no one's gonna use it and now it's ubiquitous. Like there's a lot of parallels, I think. I was a big vine guy, and to me, this is like extended vine.

And I immediately got why vine was cool and funny. And yeah, man, I love this shit.

I'm just leaning into it now. Like I'm starting to, 'cause it took me a while to figure out how to use platforms like that in my way, 'cause I'm not gonna just dance on the camera. Like I don't have the face or the body or the--

You can get surprised, man. I can't pull that off, do it.

I kinda like it.

You don't go viral, that's all it is.

But like, so it took me a while to be like, well, wait a minute, you can do, all it is is like a minute of streaming video. You can fill that minute with anything you want. So like I'm starting to play around with doing like a one minute book review on TikTok.

Yeah, man.

And like you can't get far on a book in one minute, I've learned, but the point is like you're just trying to bring something to someone's attention. And if they wanna go further, they can, but at least you're like spreading awareness of something that's meaningful. And you're not gonna give them the whole meal, but you can give them a sample that's gonna like be a breadcrumb for them to find like the full meal that you're talking about.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think it's going back to like your question about what a better world post COVID looks like. I think this is part of that, and it's has to do with decentralization. I think that's kind of a key part of what a better future will look like. And that has to do with, we mentioned cryptocurrency, like the math of Bitcoin is in itself like what kind of keeps it safe and secure and valuable. There's no way to manipulate the value or to, it's for the most part, it's democratized, decentralized money. And I think that decentralized is, or social media is decentralized, democratized entertainment. Like I'm not getting on any TV shows anytime soon.

Like that's a really hard like system to break into. You need to like know the right people. You need to like make some compromises. And very few people are like anointed to be-

So who's a TV star right now?

That's what I mean, like even right now, the idea of a TV star, it's not like you're getting a sitcom or a drama hour on a major network, or even like HBO. Like HBO even is now just in a sea of streaming platforms. Like I'm watching things that I didn't even know famous actors were in. Like Tom Hanks is in like 20 fucking Apple plus things I didn't even know about until I got a free subscription 'cause I got an iPad. So like it doesn't really even mean the same thing, which to me is like a very liberating thing. If someone aspires to be able to express themselves to a lot of people, that's a very encouraging kind of development in media.

I think of someone like my, I think a lot of people's case study for this is someone like Tim Dillon who just literally blew the fuck up during the pandemic. Who's blown up before in no small part because of Joe Rogan, but in large part because of who he is as a person and how he's able to communicate 'cause in a lot of the absurdities in like a hilarious way, that's the shift that we're kind of seeing right now. He talks about it explicitly a lot. And I think you can't fake that, right? That's like also what I found with like something like TikTok. The reason I don't do a lot is I remember when I first started podcasting, like I remember, the first like 50 podcasts I did, I felt like I was like doing something.

Like I have to be a podcaster. I have to do speak a certain way and ask certain questions. Once that completely dropped off, which is like four to five years, to be honest, then it started like I started feeling normal. I started feeling like I'm expressing myself. And that's when a lot of like more attention came. I think these technologies are evolving to the point where it's completely stripped down. You're expected in some ways to just be able to like put your face up and talk earnestly and authentically. And that's a skill. I really do believe like people make fun of the kids and the zoomers from it.

But they're just like kind of always being themselves, like good or bad or ridiculous. And that to me is like, it's kind of good. That's not a bad development in terms of how people are acting and being in society.

Yeah, I think Tim Dillon's a great example. You can't see him in a previous decade he would have ended up having like a sitcom or whatever.

Totally.

And that would just feel like it would just constrict his style. I'd rather just give him a microphone and let him go. And he's just got it all inside of him and he's gonna bring it out and people are gonna love it 'cause it's real, it's authentic. It's in the moment.

It's fucking funny.

There's no like producer telling him what he can and can't say. He's just going and people love it. And so like that's what social media does. Like and to your point too, it takes a little bit of time to feel comfortable. You know, I put like anyone who I think we're all in a position where we're like at least kind of either trying overtly or trying like a little bit to grow an audience online of some sort. You know, whether we're authors or podcasters or whatever, you know, we want a community online right now. And honestly, just put yourself out there and it's gonna be awkward at first. Like it took me a long time to get comfortable doing videos.

And now I just have fun with it, you know. And my first ones were probably not so great but like this is the same with everything. Get the bad stuff out of the way. Like the quicker you start putting out your--

That's super true.

Not so great content. Like get it out of the way because after a few like bad videos, you're gonna feel more comfortable and you're gonna just be more natural. And you're also gonna learn more about yourself because you're gonna break down the barrier that's keeping like your inner self from being expressed into the outer world which has benefits beyond social media, it has benefits across your life 'cause you learn how to communicate effectively. So I love it. It allows anyone like to find an audience based on who they are. And you can go on to social media and talk about the news. You can go on social media and talk about spirituality.

You can talk, you can be funny. You can talk about like you could be obsessed with seashells and like get nerd out about seashells on TikTok. And I guarantee you, you'll find some weird sub-community of seashell enthusiasts who are gonna end up following you. It's just like--

You don't know about the seashell lady on TikTok. This is even a joke. This guy puts a big head filter on his mom and she goes and collects these seashells and she's got this like Jersey accent. She's super famous on TikTok. That's familiar. It's 'cause I pulled out the most random example.

There's no random thing on TikTok. There's everything is there. It's just like the pulsing subconscious like ooze that we get all of our culture from. I love it.

And I'll tell you how even how my new book ended up kind of coming about and getting published and how I've become like this meme maker online because I wasn't making like when we met last, I wasn't, I was posting my writing on social media. Maybe an occasional like I would do illustrations that would have like funny captions and stuff, but I wasn't like making memes per se. And what happened was I was pitching, I was working on like a couple books with my agent and one of them was like a novel. And we were talking about it and kind of showing some publishers here and there. And it was just, I was known as more like a self-help writer.

So like breaking into like the world of fiction, there was a lot of friction to do that because like what I wasn't what I was known for. And there's all these like rules around publishing is like, this person does this, this person does that. It's hard to like, they were basically saying like, you can't write self-help and fiction. And I'm like, well--

How dare you try to do things.

But what happened was, so basically that project got put on hold and I'm like, shit, like I've been working on this novel for a while now, like I was hoping to get it published. And I still will eventually, but every morning I had been waking up to work on my novel. And I didn't like that kind of had reached a dead end. And I'm like, well, what do I do with this creative? I like to have my creative time in the morning. And this happened right after we moved to Austin. You asked before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we left LA and that was just like to catch up to that story. We were planning to stay in California. It was like this weekend where there was this, the whole sky along the west coast was red from the forest fires and there was smoke in the air. And the whole west coast was like this apocalyptic red. And we're like, it was time to renew our lease. And we're like, maybe we should move to Austin. And neither one of us had ever been to Austin, by the way. I just said it randomly as a joke. And like this is how like intuition works sometimes and my fiance, I'm down for anything. So I just said it, but my fiance is more selective and she doesn't do things on a whim as much as me.

But when she was like, actually Austin sounds pretty good. I'm like, really? Let's do it. And we moved to Austin. And something about coming here, like I swear to God, like I got this, I swear I got like a transmission from like Terrence McKenna because I remember I was laying on my couch stoned like my first week here. And I was listening to this Spotify album where someone took Terrence McKenna like lectures and talks and they basically remixed them to like electronic music and they created songs out of Terrence McKenna's words. And there was the first song on the album is called "Meme Magic."

And it's just Terrence McKenna talking about memes because he had been on, he had been talking about memes since like the 80s.

Yeah.

And like he was so far ahead of his time but he would talk about how people needed to create memes. And by memes he just meant like ideas that were worth spreading. That were also easily spreadable and all, you know, people could get behind and collectively kind of create into existence.

Exactly because his theory is basically language is the, is language is the building blocks of reality and there's all these negative memes that go around in our minds. Like saying, you need to do this, you need to do that. These are all just kind of memes that we all buy into. So his theory was that we need to create better memes that will circulate in society to kind of give us a better, like a better foundation from which to live. So anyway, I'm laying on my couch listening to Terrence McKenna talk about memes. I'm stoned out of my mind and I swear I got some kind of a transmission or download and I started making memes like right there and I literally have not stopped since then.

So for me it became like, okay, I saw a closed door in the publishing world. So I went into making memes and like there's no blueprint for like making memes and then like getting them published. Like that's not really kind of like what memes have been the role of memes so far, but it started to grow my audience. And then I started thinking, well, what if we, what if I could publish memes? Like there's no rule to say you can't. And then all of these, the craziness of the world over the past year led me to start writing this just kind of crazy psychedelic post-apocalyptic poetry. And I started to compile the poetry with the memes to create this like weird book that's I think is a reflection of our times and it kind of looks like the internet where like there's there's a lot of variety.

There's lots of like illustrations and poems and memes. Yeah, and it's all mixed together. And then that's what ended up getting published. So like that's the funny thing about not going the traditional way anymore, but like using the internet to develop your voice and then finding your own way to kind of put that work out into the world. And I am getting it, it is being published, but like it's with a cooler like publisher that does more fun things. So it's kind of like with Tim Dillon, like how can you sidestep the establishment to create things that are gonna go direct to your audience and are not filtered by a publisher or a producer or this or that, it's just your own vision, your own voice, like speaking directly to the audience.

I think that's what people want right now. Yeah, and I mean, it goes back to the thing about decentralization where you don't have to go through decentralized entities to get your shit out there. If you think it's, I mean, ultimately, I think the stuff that takes off is either very well crafted and funded and researched or an actual authentic expression of who the person creating this stuff is. And those are the two types of things that we would probably say are successful or popular or have like wide stream attention, mainstream attention. So yeah, man, I think that's just how things are gonna have to be in the future.

And that to me, it leads points to an increase in quality which is based on people having to stand out in that type of environment. Like that's like kind of cream of the crop type stuff. Like things catch on because people like them at this point. It's not, you're really gonna have a hard time pulling outside of the overt ads on Instagram that get me to buy like cookies and shit. It's hard to like make someone care about content if it's just not hitting the things that make them like, you know, whatever care, laugh, be interested, scared, whatever people are looking for. And I think it just opens up like a lot of positive things.

I mean, the devil's advocate argument is that well, now anyone can do anything. So you're gonna get inundated with just like a ton of not well thought out, not well intentioned kind of pieces. And it's like, yeah, of course, but, you know, I think you can trust your own intuition and instincts about what you like and be able to find that. It's not like you have to go, I don't know, sometimes I'm scrolling through fucking all of these streaming services. And I'm like, I don't know, watch this. This isn't good. I don't wanna watch that.

Well, that's for the algorithm. It comes in like the almighty algorithm that decides what is worthy of being shared from behind the veil of these social media platforms.

How do you break out of that, right? That seems to be the next kind of major challenge. I guess through like oral passing down things orally or like person to person. But like the algorithm runs pretty much all of our digital lives at now, just because it's being run by centralized, you know, social media companies or search engines or whatever. So it's embedded. And even to like go into incognito every single time, like you're still being tracked and information and habits are being relayed. So I don't mind it that much. I actually kind of, I think they do a good job of finding what people will tolerate and accept in terms of like content.

But yeah, I mean, it's gonna be, I guess, increasingly more and more difficult to break out of that, which I guess underscores the point of don't become reliant on any of this stuff. Like this isn't your only path towards like figuring out what's cool and what you like in life. They go down, use it as a tool to like go down whatever rabbit holes you want, but don't just be like consistently guided by it.

The algorithm is a weird thing. And like these things are so powerful. Like it's kind of like the, just the beginning of full artificial intelligence kind of like becoming a big factor in our lives.

Yeah.

And my dog sparking.

That happens. (laughs)

But no, and I think that it's maybe, it's maybe the, the prevalence of the algorithm has really made me think about how the world works. And how reality works. Because basically the algorithm is like, it basically works with us.

What's your dog's name? What's your dog's name?

This is Pepper.

Pepper.

He's like, listen, you're talking about the algorithm. You gotta get this shit fucked up. Don't give me the secrets of the algorithm.

Little dogs, and they think that they are guard dogs.

Yeah, of course, everything.

So as soon as they hear noise outside, they have to go crazy. But it made me think, 'cause the algorithms are supposed to work for us. They're supposed to show us more of what we want, right? And have you made the analogies? I know you're big on, you know, I guess manifestation and just like the power of our thoughts to impact our reality.

Yeah, promotion and thoughts, yeah.

If we do live, like people are saying like, in a simulation of some sort, like whatever that means, like some kind of a programmed world based on some laws that are essentially coded into the reality that we experience, that seems like a plausible scenario for what all of this is.

Sure.

At least as a metaphor.

Yeah.

So I love the idea of what if algorithms are just kind of like little baby universes that we're learning to create? Like they're little simulations that mirror the big simulation that we're living in. And the same way algorithms on social media will show us more of what we react to and engage with. Like they know that so that this person's my friend, they're gonna show me more of their content. They know that I like puppy videos. They're gonna show me more puppy videos. And even if I react negatively, let's say like there's a certain political topic that I don't like and I comment, like you're wrong about this, you're wrong about this.

The algorithm doesn't care that I'm mad about that thing. And the algorithm cares that I'm engaging with it.

Exactly.

And then I'm reacting to it. So like what if the simulation of reality is a giant algorithm just like that where it shows us more of what we respond to? Like whatever we think about, it shows us more of. Even if we think I don't like that, I don't like that. Well, guess what? It's actually thinking, you're thinking of this, you're thinking of this, and it's gonna keep showing you more of it. So we actually program our experience of reality the same way we program and curate our social media feed by what we give our attention to.

That's exactly how it works. That's literally how it works. That's why people are usually like, don't do negation things for manifestation or like you don't say something and say, I don't want that 'cause you're actually just reemphasizing and crystallizing. It's like, you don't say, I don't wanna be poor. You know, it's like, I wish I had money 'cause then it's like you're really just crystallizing the state of not having it. And that's what your attention is being focused on. It's exactly what an algorithm does. And it's exactly why like, it's important to break out of that and kind of zoom out at various times just to be like, do I really like this?

Do I really wanna do this? Is this something that's actually interesting to me? And if it is, by all means, like dive into the algorithms. They've served me well plenty of times in life. Sometimes they can not, but yeah, it's exactly how all this stuff works. There's no, if there seems to be one law of how our seemingly shared reality works, it's that whatever you consciously or unconsciously place your awareness on, you will experience more of. That just seems, and it makes sense. Like just think about how your life progresses, let's say in a positive way. At some point, you made various decisions or commitments or intentions to pursue something you likely loved and/or enjoyed, probably both.

And that led you to a series of experiences and situations and relationships that got you to a more comfortable feeling of being like, oh, this feels good. That's you directing your algorithm consciously and allowing that to happen. Now, I know everyone is familiar with this. If you get caught in like TikTok does this shit, they did a research thing, wasn't a huge study. So I don't wanna just completely say this is how it works. But they fed it like only, they only liked and were spending time watching sad and depressing TikToks. Like they have a vein of that. Everything is categorized there. And sure enough, if they spend enough time, if you spend enough time, that's 90%, 70%, whatever it was, they're gonna show you sad and depressing stuff.

You can imagine over time, if that's all you're seeing, like that's gonna have some psychological, even from like a Pavlonian sense, it's gonna have some impact on how you're perceiving yourself in the world. So the ability to kind of in any situation somewhat reliably be able to zoom out of that and kind of refocus your intention towards what you feel like you wanna be doing here seems to be a pretty good life hack so far for me. And just knowing that that's a possibility, and this goes back to what you were saying, like during the pandemic, and just in general with people having to do soul searching, like, you know, you gotta really be prepared for, if you thought consensus reality worked a certain way that A+B always equals C or two equals two, always equals four, like buckle up, buckaroo, 'cause that shit's not how it works.

Like there's, the laws are bent all the time, there's nothing seemingly that's immutable. You know, even time is super bending weird, even though we experience it somewhat linearly. I think people even are ready to question that as a natural belief. Time over the past two years does not feel like time, the previous two years, you know.

Do you see, do you feel then, 'cause I know, 'cause we've been talking about how the world is changing, like from like a technology standpoint, from an entertainment standpoint, are you seeing and noticing like things like that now too, like the shifting, like people talk about shifting of dimensions and this is kind of like just a read territory, but are you noticing things like that, like with time shifting and with like synchronicities and things like that?

I think one of the reasons that Jess and I hit it off so early on when we met, thanks to Rameen, is that that had been something that had been like pretty present in our lives for at that point, almost like two decades. And for me, and I think maybe two decades for her, and to watch the rest of out there reality kind of catch up to that as like a natural part of your experience in the world is a real trip. Because it is, I don't have the best memory, but I do remember what it was like talking about this shit 15, 20 years ago to people. You're insane, you're like a lunatic, basically any of these concepts, even if you're like very eloquent, I wasn't granted, but even if you were like, it was not, these were not conventionally accepted, maybe outside of some like, you know, like Buddhist, weird metaphysical kind of like lens that you could look at this stuff through.

Just the commonplace timeline jumping, to mention shifting, aliens, ghosts, like it percolated up past like the iceberg level of consciousness for the mainstream or most people collectively. But again, like, I wonder what it's like to go into like a nursing home in like a very conservative part of the country and talk to people about aliens. Like, did they actually have opinion? Are they even ready to acknowledge that you went your whole life, no aliens. Now the government's like, hey, listen, we're not gonna say there's aliens, but it sure as hell looks like there may be aliens. Like, you do really wanna face that as like a reality towards the end.

I mean, hopefully you have the open-minded spirit to be able to do that, but I mean, I could understand how that would be challenging. The same way we've alluded to it twice that this money shit and crypto stuff, wow, this just cuts people right to their core because it is inconceivable to many people that digital anything, money, Bitcoin, all coin, chip coins can actually make people real dollars in money. That's like, that's a concept that like really cuts against what most people believe.

Which is funny because the real money is based on even not only like, is it also based on just an idea, it's based on even less of a, it's based on a worse idea. It's just, it's not better in any way. It's just a, it's just what people are used to. Like, and the more entrenched you are with the way things have been, the harder it is to accept all these changes. That's why some people right now are so angry. Like they're holding on to the way things used to be and they're just reef. It's like the people that are like just so close to waking up, 'cause they have, they're smart, they have a lot of information, they pride themselves on being intelligent, but they're so defiant in their beliefs that they're just holding on to the way things used to be.

And those are the people that are like the most angry and the most just like, in defense of the establishment and the old way of doing things. And it's just, it's funny to see.

I think it's ultimately kind of like a fear of death, which is a fear of change, which is a fear potentially of the unknown.

Death of the ego too.

Yeah, big time, which just to be clear feels, as far as I can tell, all the nasty parts of death would probably revolve around the ego collapsing. It's the rest of it, depending on your death and physically what you have to perceive and go through, that seems to be kind of the worst and most terrifying thing for most people. Myself included, like no one, I mean, I'm sure there are people who have truly and I'm sure I've met several of them who just don't have a fear of like actually moving to another dimension or something. I mean, I have not transcended that fear. And you ever want that tested, put yourself in a life and death situation.

You don't have to freak out to know that you want to live. So yeah, I think fear of any type of dramatic change, especially how reality works is pretty tough to let go if that's been your dominant way of perceiving things. And yeah, everyone's having to ride that ship right now.

And just tying that back to psychedelics again, it's like that is the ego death that it's the hardest part. And I think most, quote, bad trips are when you're holding onto that ego identity and you refuse to let it go. And that's when things spiral into chaos and confusion because your ego is holding on for dear life. So I like to think of the world right now as in a big psychedelic trip. For sure. Some people are afraid to let go. Some people are just like, woo, like I've been wanting to let go. I've been wanting this to kind of collapse so we can do something new and do something better. And but like holding on to your identity as a person, holding on to identity as a citizen of a nation, holding on to your identity to a political party.

It's a big one. Like some people just like are so entrenched into their own political party that they can't see the big picture of how it's all, you know, part of the same, part of the same system.

What a boring thing to identify with a political party. It's just like of all the things to be able to, you could identify as a giraffe. You could identify as literally anything right now. You're gonna pick a political party.

It is a party at least.

Yes, it's just 'cause people there doesn't make it a party.

It's not a very pawn party.

Like a gathering, yeah.

Yeah, fucking-- - A political gulag.

Yeah, fucking, I know it's weird. I mean, it is a challenge though when I hear you saying it too. Like it is a challenge to be able to both, be able to kind of like let shit disintegrate and reconstruct in a new configuration. Wall maintaining some sense of cohesiveness and identity. You do have to carry, I mean, like it'd be weird if every day I woke up and was like fully a completely different person. I mean, in some ways we all are, but like there is a consistency there that we all perceive even if it's a tenuous one at times. Like that's somewhat how things work here. We're stitching together what seems to be like an infinite moment in time into this linear progression.

It's a function of being here. So I think that's kind of a fun thing we try to learn and get familiar with. And you posted something the other day on one of the accounts where it was like, you know, you're born, you forget that you're an unlimited being. You know, you then try to remember it but then your human avatar expires before you remember it and it's just this first circle. And I do think that's a pretty elegant way of describing what happens when we are kind of alive. And if you can catch that moment where you get like, "Oh, this is what's going on." And just maintain it. You don't have to hold it forever through every waking moment.

You don't have to. But if you can just kind of remember it at its core, it becomes beneficial as like a skill or an ability to kind of navigate what can otherwise be a pretty confusing and chaotic place admittedly. So yeah, I like that one. That was a good one.

Yeah, what I try to do is thank you. Like I just completely ripped off the idea of the Buddhist wheel of Samsara.

Yeah.

But like what I did was I put the idea of the wheel of Samsara into like this jokey meme template that that template is usually used to say like, "I meet someone, I fall for them, they leave. I meet someone, I fall for them, they leave," or whatever, like cycle. But I just applied the Buddhist wheel of Samsara over this like silly meme. And then it like.

That's, I made a lot of this stuff. I learned this from listening to a lot of these big biographies of like American figures like George Washington. Like when you hear George Washington, whenever someone says George Washington, you don't think of a person. You think probably like a statue in your mind of some guy who was George Washington, never told a lie, blah, blah, blah, blah. Really what's going on with all of these characters and people, they're real people. They have archetypal story, a story's ups and downs in entire lives, being able to kind of penetrate something like a character like that or religion or, you know, contemplative science like Buddhism, it's really beneficial if you can kind of strip it down to its core in a funny way because a lot of that stuff, that's where it comes from.

Like all of these complexities, especially Buddhism, but like they were these flashes of insights of like complete recognition of like, oh, that is pretty much what's going on. It is pretty much that simple of this little loop that people do. And obviously, you know, what the Buddha and a lot of other people teach is that if you can just self-penetrate this process, you have a degree of flexibility in terms of how you experience it, which opens up a wider spectrum of possibility of like what are the implications of that. And I don't know what that is for everyone. That could be a completely different thing for someone else.

But it does appear that we do have some power control. I don't know if those are the right words, ability to consciously create experiences here, which is a liberating thing, can also be terrifying, but it should be pretty liberating.

Yeah, I agree. And that's kind of why my book is called How to Laugh and I Run from Usement during your existential crisis. Yeah, I always wanted to write a book with a really long time. So I just made it as long as possible. I think it's just funny to have a book which is like a sentence. But like, no, like laughing during your existential crisis because yeah, this is the wheel of samsara. Like we are very much here. This reality is real. Noah is a real person, James is a real person in this dimension, in this time, in this realm. But this is all just, it's like we're on a road trip and we stop at a gas station for gas.

Like that gas station is real, we're really here, but then we move on and that becomes a figment of our imagination in the past, right? So we are, I believe you call it spirits, you could call it consciousness, whatever it is. We are in, we are part of something larger and it does cycle through, I believe in reincarnation, whether that's a spirit reincarnating or just like consciousness reawakening to itself in a new form, like the mechanics of it, I don't think anyone really knows. But this is a temporary rest stop on this eternal road trip. So it is serious and we need to like, like you said, kind of use linear time to build a bridge to make things better and kind of work within the parameters 'cause things have to transition in a linear way.

So we need to take our time here seriously and honor our human avatars in this form. But at the same time, let's not get so caught up in being who we are and what we identify with and the political party that we choose to root for, just like our favorite sports team.

I just love, I was like, if I got, I used to, if I got mad at people based on my being a dolphins fan, like my life would be so bad. Like it's just like-- - Can you imagine if you took it that seriously?

I used to, it's sports bars, man, I get so pissed at people. Wow.

Well, as a dolphins fan, that's not an easy position to be-- - It's literally the worst situation. You're just all, imagine losing all of the time, always being wrong, always having the worst of the teams.

Oh, no, I mean, I don't know if you follow basketball at all, but I'm a Minnesota Timberwolves fan. So I know very well what you're going through, my friend.

It's rough, man.

Yeah, so the point is, yeah, it's like being a sports fan, you know, yeah, at the game you're invested, you want them to win, but at the same time, like you can laugh if they're having a bad season and like laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Took me time, took me time. We did, I think people, sports is often overlooked as a valid kind of path towards recognizing maybe your level of interest and care and import you're putting on things. Like I used to really be affected if the Dolphins lost, which as you pointed out, not good for my mental health, most of the football season, 'cause that was a lot of losing, but at a certain point, it's like, I realize like I still love this team, I'm sticking through it. If I have to watch 60 fucking seasons of them not winning until they win, I'm gonna do that. But I don't need this to dictate my life.

It's kind of a silly thing. And I think silly doesn't mean it's not important. There are people who probably really care about that and that is a very big part of their lives, but you have, everyone has to make their own decisions about what that is in their life. What is silly enough to laugh at and not get caught up in and kind of like be a slave to any thought or idea or way of feeling without questioning whether it's worth it for you. That's like the basically question we have to ask all the time. Is this worth it?

Yeah, and also like, I think of, you could think of, we're talking about like evolving forms of entertainment and like how sick, like plays to sitcoms to now YouTube streaming. Well, what if like, what if life on earth is like this highly, highly, highly sophisticated form of AI entertainment? Meaning our souls inhabited a body. Like in the cosmic sense of like going to a movie and we're like, I'm gonna go watch the movie of the James McCray like experience. And we inhabit these bodies to see all the ups and downs. And it's like, oh, have you tried out the 2020 simulation yet? It's like, no, I'm a little afraid of that one.

That one's a little bit like, it's like going to a scary movie. It's like, ah, I don't really like scary movies, but some people love scary movies. And the drama of watching a movie is what makes it worth going to. No one goes to a movie where nothing happens unless it's some like weird avant-garde film and even that is like entertaining in its own weird way or like an Andy Warhol film where it's just like someone looking at a camera. But for the most part, we want action in a movie. We want drama, we want conflict, we want growth. So what if we're just here to like experience reality through the lens of these human avatars and feel the ups and downs?

And you don't feel comfortable watching movie when bad things are happening, but you also know it's a movie and you just like let it ride out. And then by the end, it's like, oh, what a crazy movie. That was fun to watch, you know? So maybe our lives are somewhat like that.

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good bet, man. Well, this is awesome. When is the book out officially? You were lucky enough, kind enough to give me a copy of it. So I've read it, but when is it out out?

Yeah, I don't have an exact date. It's in production. So basically you can pre-order it now. It's available, go to my Instagram, go to words are vibrations on Instagram. It's in the link in my bio. And it should be out at like probably like the end of August, early September, but as soon as the production's finished, it's gonna be released. So you can pre-order it now.

It's really good. Cool, man.

Thanks for all.

And you started a new podcast. I heard and Jessa on.

I did, I've, yeah.

It was great. You're really good at it.

I've experimented with podcasting for a while now and I've relaunched and rebranded a couple times. And I finally, I realized that I want to have a little bit of a joke, like a sense of humor and everything I do. So I finally found like the podcast angle that had some humor, which is, it's called homesick alien club. And just the concept is like we're all homesick aliens like, you know, yearning for our home planet, but really the home planet is just the planet of love and inspiration inside of ourselves. So homesick alien club, the first episode is out now. You've definitely checked that out too.

Cool, man. Awesome. Thanks for coming on, dude.

Thank you, Noah. It's been great. (upbeat music) ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ You are the age in love ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ Where you come upon ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ You are the age in shame ♪ ♪ I tell the world ♪ ♪ You'll see the change now ♪ ♪ I tell the world what's wrong with your love ♪ ♪ At night ♪ ♪ I tell the world ♪ ♪ You'll see the change now ♪ ♪ I tell the world what's wrong with your love ♪ ♪ At night ♪ ♪ I tell the world ♪ ♪ That you'll see the change now ♪ ♪ I tell the world what's wrong with your love ♪ ♪ At night ♪ ♪ I tell the world ♪

Hope you enjoyed that episode. Go check out James on Instagram, words are vibrations, his new book. What's the longest name of it? How to laugh in ironic amusement during your existential crisis? Jesus Christ, James. What a handful of a name. Go check that out. There's pre-order links. You can get it. It's memes and poetry. James is a cool guy. That's it for this episode. You can go. Here's a thing. Oh, I'm paying attention to the crypto or whatever. I always feel like I'm sales pitching this stuff. Here's the deal. Yeez, perkin' back up. Things are lookin' a little spicy. Things are lookin' good.

I've maintained that Bitcoin's gonna hit 100 grand by the end of the year. Could be wrong. I'm just the guy with the bot gas talkin' about crypto. It's not that crazy. But maybe go find a community of people who are on this ride and tryin' to find out more about what's goin' on. See if there really are real-life winners. Have people done well? What's goin' on? Not a bad time to do it. A lot of people would happen last time with the Patreon, 'cause the biggest sell is that the crypto sync, usually for a lot of people, the server, is they waited until it was like Bitcoin was like 50, 60 grand, and then they're like, all right, now I wanna get involved.

Okay, that's cool. But when you get in at the very top, just recognize that sometimes it's gonna maybe go down. So try to get in a little before that. Be a step ahead. That's what I like to say in the crypto world. Just be one step ahead. That's plenty, but many, many steps ahead also is good. Anyway, check that out. There's the Patreon, you know what it is. That's it. We'll see you soon with another guest this month, 'cause that's what we're doin'. All right, bye-bye. ♪ Get on board the 2027 Big Easy Cruise ♪ ♪ Featuring Kepler, Samantha Fish, Robert Randolph ♪ ♪ The record company, Kenny Neil, Dwayne Betts ♪ ♪ John Cleary, Blind Boys of Alabama ♪ ♪ Dwayne Devson, many more ♪ ♪ Sailing from Fort Lauderdale, January 16th to the 23rd, 2027 ♪ ♪ To the beautiful ports of Haveloon case San Juan and St. Martin ♪ ♪ Don't miss this music fest at sea ♪ ♪ Book your cabin now at BigEasyCruise.com ♪