Mystic Overtones with Ryan Singer

(upbeat music) ♪ I am, I am, I am ♪ ♪ For you, for you, for you, for you, for you ♪ ♪ I am, I am, I am, I am, I am ♪ (upbeat music)

Welcome to Synchronicity. I hope you're having a good time, you are. You're having a good time, right? You're listening into this. We have a wonderful guest this week, Ryan Singer from the me and paranormal you podcast. I was a guest on that not too long ago. Ryan also quickly became, I mean, it's weird like, I don't know if this is happening to you guys, but it's certainly happening to me more, more than before. This is something that has happened to me quite a bit in life, but it's really ramping up. Like you meet someone and then you're like, oh, we're friends, like we're already friends. Like, I don't know how we are, but we've been friends.

And Ryan is one of those people. So go check out his podcast, if you don't know what it is, he has, he's a comedian, so he has this kind of light take on all of the paranormal stuff, which is like, you'll hear in this episode how he arrived at that place because he started out pretty intense as a kid and, you know, learn some lessons about being intense when related to metaphysical and paranormal stuff. And now has this amazing ability to talk about like really weird paranormal metaphysical shit, but in a way that's funny and cool. And if you know anything about me, I like funny and cool. So you're gonna, you'll, if you haven't, if you don't know who Ryan is, you're welcome.

This is an amazing introduction to him as a person and go check out his podcast. If you do know who he is, this is a long conversation where maybe you find out some things you didn't know about him. But what I can tell you is just genuinely a fantastic person. So stay tuned for that. It's gonna be a fun conversation. It's coming up, well, like, so many good guests coming up. All right, let's get to a few things. First things first, I'm gonna be in LA starting January 7th. So that is happening. I'm just telling you, I don't know why, just so you're kept up to date. And when I say I'm literally talking to you.

So that's going on, I'm gonna be there. I will be opening up some in-person readings while I'm there at the house that I'm staying at. It's this magical place up in Laurel Canyon. So stay tuned for those, I'll announce them. That'll be in 2020. So that's gonna be in January. That's how we're kicking off in Los Angeles. It's gonna be good time. Stay tuned for some live events that are coming together, both in Brooklyn and Los Angeles related to synchronicity and friends with the podcasts and all that stuff. Christ Consciousness, oh, easy for me to say. Christ Consciousness readings. There's only, I think, five, maybe six slots left.

If my math is correct, they are filling up really fast. It's kinda blown my mind. How quickly these things have filled up? It's fucking nuts, you guys are crazy, but you're so awesome. So if you want to get one of those in next week, the week of Christmas, which is gonna be motherfucking crazy, do that, synchpodcast.com/readings. I'll have a link to that. So do that. I'm trying to, in case you can't tell, I'm trying to run through shit pretty quickly 'cause it's a long episode. Those are really cool though. I'm saying those are cool as though. I've done one, but they're gonna be fucking amazing.

Also a reminder, the books are open for 2020. If you want a reading, I'm only doing them six days out of every month. They're specific days. They're on full moons, new moons, and other astrologically significant dates. So you can book those in advance. There's no alternative pricing anymore. It's not like priority or not. It's just one price, that's what you pay. Also, let me make this clear. In case you haven't noticed, I keep raising my prices for readings. Now there is the Patreon. I'll be talking more about that. So if you want a lower price tier and a collective reading, not a one to one, you have that option.

I also do a lot of free shit. So don't give me any guff about fucking charging a lot, but I'm saying my rates will continue to go up. I am saying that. So in case you're on the fence, you're like, oh, you know what, maybe I'll just do this later. Sure, that's fine. It's all good, but don't be surprised if in like three to six months, it's like, oh my God, no as an asshole, it's shit's too expensive. As I get more familiar with the readings and what's actually happening and the kind of transmutation and transformative aspects of them, both for me and for most importantly, the querent. I kind of have to charge more, just energetically.

That sounds fucking so weird and capitalistic and lame, I guess, on some levels, but it's just the fact like, I can't be like, I'm right now I have it so at 16 to 20 readings a month. I'm not gonna be able to keep that up. I know that my music shit is moving and I'm just saying, don't miss the boat because you're fucking waiting for something. Okay, that's it, that was a pretty fucking hard. It's aggressive Noah, very aggressive. Last thing, my friends at Ned, guys, Ned, CBD. Let me tell you what I do. I keep pointing my car, I keep the 500, is it 500 milligram one in my car? And if I'm out or I was doing something, I'm just gonna take some CBD when I get in my vehicle because this is a nice thing to do.

Again, I am magically, imaginally bless every single Ned product that arrives to you. So you can say, Noah, how do you do that? That's bullshit, you're just trying to sell us fucking CBD. There's so much of this stuff. Sure, okay, you can think that. Give it a shot, right? I would like also for anyone who has and I can see that you are purchasing the Ned stuff. Please confirm that when you get it, it is magically blessed just so I can show people that I'm not making this shit up. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, Ned is full spectrum hemp oil. They have, I like the chapstick. You know I like their chapstick, let me be honest here about this.

Most chapsticks, when you use them, they basically sucker you into always having to use chapstick, the CBD stuff doesn't. You put it on your lips and then you're done. You don't have to keep doing it unless you want to. I appreciate that 'cause I feel like there's some scam going on with chapstick and I was like, what the fuck? Why is there always, why you gotta keep using this? You make my lips more chapped in a way, chapstick. Weird tangent, Noah. But Ned, here's what you do. You go to helloned.com, use the code sync. That's why my mic just fell down. Use the code sync. At checkout and you get 15% off and the magically blessed stuff, whatever you want.

That's cool. I hope that Ned guys do weed at some point. I'm sure it's not in their business model, but I like weed. I like hemp, I like it all. It's all good stuff. That's what's going on in my neck of the woods. What, what does that even mean? I'm having a good time. Things are good. I know things are also crazy. Let's be clear. Shit's fucking nuts right now. This is, I know the last episode was the Karmic Squeed or the Karmic Purge, but yeah, that's what's going on. Now, if you can accept what's going on, you can actually ride this wave and even though it's kind of chaotic, it's just like a little bit, it's not so bad.

Shit's okay, but I just, I am here. I know stuff is going on. Just, that's why I'm here is why I'm talking about this shit. I don't wanna pretend everything is hunky-dory. I mean, everything is hunky-dory, let's be clear. But energetically, things can feel a bit rocky right now. Just brace yourself, have perseverance. Let me pull a little card for us here. No, I got him right in front of me. Let's see what comes up. This sun, oh my God. Listen, guys, the sun is coming up. That means you can expect joy, celebration, innocence, just a wonderful, generative light. It's one of the three luminaries in the tarot, right?

We have the sun, the moon, and the star. So just, that's a really positive thing for us to get pulled here on this episode. Also, I forgot to do the collective imagination thing last episode, and I mentioned it in the episode. We're gonna do that right now. Okay, here's what's gonna happen. Someone you haven't heard from in a long time, but you like. You just haven't heard for them. And a long time is gonna get in touch with you sometime over the next week. Whenever you listen to this, it could be 10 years from now you're hearing this, but it's gonna happen. How does that work? Time is an illusion.

So just imagine, you don't imagine the person. Remember, don't imagine the person. I've had some very validating experiences over the past few days about not imagining the person, and having a fucking awesome thing happen. So just imagine someone is going to get in touch with you, who you like, who you haven't heard from in a long time. That's our collective imagining act. Imaginal act this week, that's it. I think I've rambled on enough for this intro. Is there anything else? Rate and review, blab, oblibity blab, mailing list, blab, blab, blibity blab, go subscribe to Ryan's podcast, me and paranormal you.

Go check him out, his album is on his site. He's fucking funny and cool, right? So there's nothing wrong with that. And you're gonna love this episode. Tune into my friends, tune into your friends, tune into everyone because they're all your friend. What a fun way to introduce this episode. Without further ado, here is Ryan Singer. [MUSIC PLAYING] Check, check, check. Check, check, check. Yeah, we're good. Cool. I've never done it like this before, because I always have my Zoom. And I go to people. It's very rare that I am recording with someone at a place where it's not on the Zoom. This is actually maybe the first time this has ever happened.

OK. Cool. And we can see the visual representation of our voices. Straight into Able to-- What's going on, Ryan? Straight into the box. Into the box. That's why I've worked in the box most of my life, for real. For so many ways. What's going on, Ryan Singer? Good, I'm good. We are in the beautiful hills here. I mean, this is-- this is deluxe. It's deluxe, that's the way-- This is deluxe. Curvy and high. In one of you, this is nice. It's really nice. It's been raining a lot, which has been interesting. I had a dream before I came-- when I saw you last time, I had a dream that when I was going to come to LA, it was going to rain the whole time, and it didn't.

It was beautiful. It was like 91 degrees. It was amazing. And then this trip, it's been raining the whole time. Yeah, it was raining hardcore yesterday, especially. I mean, it was pretty cool. I mean, unless you're stuck in it. I mean, I had to-- I've been serving on jury, dude. Yeah, I want to talk about it. And we have to park in this garage at the Disney concert music hall, parking garage. You get to park for free if you're a juror. Nice. I'm going to try to keep my juror badge. So I can just park for free downtown for the rest of my life. Don't try to keep it. Well, you have to like, they process you out.

So I think I have to do a-- Oh, I dropped my thing in the toilet. I need a new one. And then just keep it. I mean, that's what I'm working with right now. So I'm thinking, but I don't go to downtown a ton. But if I had free parking, I probably would a lot more. Yeah, that's the main-- I've learned in a very short period of time the reason I don't go downtown is I don't want to pay for parking. Yeah. It's like really expensive. So I mean, if I-- But then at the same time, how often am I going to just want to go downtown at 9 in the morning? Or in those hours when typical jury is taking place. So but it's interesting.

I mean, we got let out early today, which was nice, which you imagined. I did. And so thanks for making that happen. I brought in a ton of cookies today for everybody in the juror room. Oh, really? Because somebody brought in potato balls yesterday. I don't know if you've ever had potato balls. No, but it sounds like-- from this Cuban bakery called Portos, which is unbelievable. It's so good. Like everything they do there is really delicious. Potato balls are deep-fried mashed potato balls. Oh, shit. With something in the middle of them. Well, sometimes it's seasoned meat. I'm off meat. So luckily, the guy brought in a bunch of pepper.

Oh. Like peppers in the middle. And it is just so-- I mean, you could eat nothing out. Like if I-- you know the desert island, you get one food. Potato balls. Potato balls. I'm doing potato balls. And suspend your disbelief about where they come from or how they're made. You just-- every day you wake up and there's an unlimited supply of warm, fresh potato balls. That's my thing. Because you eat about 12 of them, which is a lot, by the way. How big are they? They're a little bigger than a golf ball. Oh, shit, those are big. But they're-- yeah, so-- but they're savory. They're filling. And then if you're on a desert island all by yourself, you eat 10 to 12 potato balls.

Now you need to sleep for like three hours. So you fall asleep, wake up, eat 10 to 12 more potato balls. How many are you averaging in a day is the question. Are you like, is the sleep from the potato balls making you not have to sleep at night? Because it's a little regular. No, no, no. So you still have to sleep at night. You still sleep at night. Oh, OK. And I mean, you sleep whenever you want. I mean, there's no-- I'm just saying-- There's no 9 to 5 on an island. Because didn't DaVinci do this? He had like a sleep-- so maybe potato balls. He just slept whenever he was tired and woke up whenever he was ready to wake up.

Potato balls sounds like it's giving you that try. I was fascinated with the DaVinci sleep cycle for years. Did you do it? Where I wanted to do it. And I feel like I've kind of built a life where I have a better chance of being able to pull it off. Because I mean, I can nap. Now that I'm off coffee, I can nap. And I fell asleep the other night. We were going to get together. I just unexpectedly dozed off right when I got home. I've done that a lot since I've been. And I did the same thing last night. And so then I don't sleep as much as I should because of the nap. And so then I need to nap now the next day after I wake up.

Because I didn't sleep as much as I would. But anyway, yeah, like the eight hours. And then wake up-- you're awake for five. And then sleep for two. And then you're up for 10. And then I mean, I'm into that. I'm into that lifestyle. I mean, to me, it just makes sense, like in the same way that you would eat, if you're actually tuned in to when you're actually hungry, as opposed to doing it for another reason, sleep should work the same way. And it wouldn't have to be that all of the time, it's this regular pattern. Sometimes, especially, I always notice it after the fact. But when there's a full moon, I'll fuck in.

I won't be able to sleep. And then I'll be like, is it a full moon? And I'll look at it and be like, yep, it's a full moon. And last night, this happened to me. I went to sleep-- I was like 9.30.10. I was like, I'm tired. I guess I'm going to go to sleep now. And I just did it, woke up today super early, went to the gym. I was like, this is amazing. I'm glad I did that. Yeah. Yeah, I need to pay more attention with journaling about my behavior on full moon. I know the new moon. Oh, yeah. I already know the effect the new moon has on me. I'm like-- You're a cancer, though, right? Yeah. You're like me, yeah, I can't say.

I tell people that it makes me girl crazy on my man period. It's like the new moon makes me extremely sexual. And for those three or four days-- Oh, just the new moon for you? That's nice, that's nice, dude. That must be nice, just the new moon. Well, no, I mean, it's amped up. Yeah, OK, I get you, I get you. To where I'm like, it's like crazy. No, like, it's almost like what the fuck? Yeah, it's like, come on now. I'm not 14 years old anymore. God, I know. But the new moon does that for me. But the full moon, I'm not exactly sure the effects that the full moon has on me. I need to do a better job of paying attention.

I mean, because people will say things. Like, well, it should do this to you, blah, blah, blah. But you never really know until you take note of it yourself and try to thoughtfully understand the effects it really is happening on you or happening to you. Well, you're a cancer, too, so we're ruled by the moon. Our sun sign is ruled by the moon. And I noticed the moon card when I walked in. That wasn't even on purpose. Honestly, I don't know why the fuck that's upright. I don't have a conscious memory of flipping that for any particular reason last night. I actually put cards away. So I've had a few weird things happen today already.

Like, when I went to the gym to my locker where I remembered the locker being, it wasn't there. But I remember the number. So I went and found-- it was on the other side. And I don't-- this shit doesn't happen to me. Like, I usually am very good at remembering exactly where I put my stuff. You like had a flip filter on your day. Yeah. And I was like, and I look like the idiot. I'm like all sweaty in my workout stuff. I'm like going all over the place. And like, what is this dude doing? Like, a bench is like, I'm pretty sure it was $2.99. I'm pretty sure it was $2.99. So I eventually figured it out.

But like, yeah, man, it's been a weird day where like physical things just like, I can't account for that card being up like that. But yeah, the moon rules cancers, right? So it's definitely worth tuning into. I love the moon. I mean, the moon is, I mean, nothing short of worshiping the moon. Same. And where cancers have to be. Like when I do like, meditations where I want to like, call on protections or call on like the superpowers, you know, to like, do some real shit, you know, I always call on the moon. And one time, my buddy Kat and I, we made a homemade Ouija board over my place. This was a few years ago.

And we used like a shot glass as the planche it. And we couldn't get anything coming through. We don't think until something weird happened. We felt like we were communicating with the moon. And that was the first time I'd ever had an experience like that where I'm like, in what I believe to be direct communication with, as direct as you can get through that device with the actual moon as an entity. And it, yeah. And we experienced lost time because we went back and, you know, once I, because we recorded it. And then I put the, you know, memory card into the, into the, into the magic box. And then I realized that the file was nearly an hour or 50 minutes.

And it felt like we were there for like 15 minutes, maybe doing it. And we both were just had our, we were, we just couldn't believe it. We're like, there's no way we were in there for 50 minutes doing this. But indeed we were. And so ever since then I've really taken, you know, my appreciation for the moon being more than just this rock that scientists still cannot definitively explain how it arrived. I mean, there's different theories. I get into arguments with some people want to argue me out with, well, the rock, it's been proven that the moon is like, well, no, there's competing theories about where the moon came from.

And all scientists agree that the moon shouldn't be there.

Oh, it makes no sense.

It makes no sense.

It makes no sense for so many reasons. But as a celestial body, as a kind of a metaphysical representation, it makes all of the sense. The moon, I mean, at least in the tarot, it's feminine, it's feelings, it's intuition. We see the dog in the wolf. There's two aspects of our primal nature. We see the, what are the crayfish or lobster, Scorpio rising from the waters, the intuitive waters onto the ground. It's also what I consider kind of the basis of the intuitive heart, the feminine principles, which are very important right now. So it would make sense on a new moon. You'd be charged with sexual energy 'cause that is a feminine energy.

And the two, the two pillars.

The two pillars.

Now the pillars are freaking me out in reality at this point because I've had a couple of readings where the pillars have been mentioned and I very much identify with the high priest, this card. And the high priest, this card, there are two pillars. The light and the dark one. And there's some shit going on right now. Like there's definitely some like, I was talking about it with Jessa, but like it seems like a lot of these like scriptural and metaphorical and allegorical things are physically coming true now. Like it's blowing my mind. Like these things that seemed like, oh yeah, the story of Christmas or like the dawning of the age of course, it's like they're physically seeping into this world.

So we're seeing these crossover effects of like dreams coming into reality, imagining something, letting it unfold. It's becoming very apparent to a lot of people and I find it to be exciting, but I also recognize some people are like, what the fuck is going on? Like what the fuck? I think you probably have a very interesting place in this because you've been into paranormal stuff for a long time. You're comfortable dealing with the woo, but you're also, you seem to be at least for me, practically one grounded enough to approach it in a way where you're just not getting completely carried away with it and just going off the deep end where you're just like talking about shit that no one can understand.

Well, that depends on who you are.

There is a spectrum, right? There is a spectrum.

I mean, because we got our woo friends and we got our no friends. You know, I've learned some difficult lessons over the years when it comes to sharing my experiences with my no friends.

Yep.

And I just now started calling them that on the line.

That's a really good name.

Yeah, it's like, you know, my normal friends, some of them can't handle my paranormal problems. And, you know, you get the skeptical eyes, you know, it's a very telling, it's a very distinct kind of face that people will make to you when you start sharing.

It's so clear, yeah.

You notice there's like a slight wrinkle of the nose and the eyes close a little bit.

That comes anytime though, right? You know, I've found that look. I've seen it come from metaphysical people who, if you're talking about something grounded or practical, that same thing. There's an energy behind it that I don't know specifically related to being woo, but it's like a judgmental, like, that ain't right type of thing.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think it's an inherent defense mechanism about, okay, you're coming here to tear down my tower.

Yes.

And it's, I mean, we all unfortunately deal with it.

For sure.

And I know I'm most triggered in that area when it comes to political and ideological beliefs, which I think most people can relate to.

Yeah.

And like the, I tell, the way I usually say it is I have got a, you know, we all have a bonfire inside of our body. And some people just love throwing logs, right? They just like wanna get you fired up.

Yeah. - And you can feel yourself, you can feel the heat increase, like quite literally inside of you. And it's a definite shift of your energy. And I try my best with like breathing techniques and things like that, but sometimes, sometimes motherfucker just wants to burn.

You gotta test the bench.

And I wish, I mean, 'cause I love fire. I do, I mean, I could stare at a campfire for 12 straight hours.

Yeah.

And if I could pick a time in history to go back, I'm like, let's go back to when it was like fire and food, fire food and fuck it.

That's your idea, that's cool, man.

Like if we, like, I wish I was there at the time of fire food and fuck, where everybody decided, you know what? We've got everything we need right now. But wouldn't it be great if we put a lot of things in the way of getting all the things that we need and want. You know, how about we give ourselves, how about we build a society that has jobs and things where you have to earn money to then get the fire and the food and the fuck.

Right.

And it's, I get it to a certain degree because there's, 'cause we're pretentious, lazy, and we're indulgent little bastards, right? Like, you know, carpet is just inside grass.

Yeah, it's weirder than inside grass.

Yeah, and so it's like, what do you, like, if you were, if I was living back then, I would much rather sleep on the grass than I would.

Well, still an option. You can still do this, man.

Yeah, then on the dirt, right?

You all right, look guys, you're just saying. You're not total, like, let me get on the dirt and the rocks.

And I'd much rather sleep underneath cover than out in the open, if it was rain.

Where's the line for you though? Like, where are you jumping from like primitive society to like modern conveniences? 'Cause I keep doing that, I'm like, yeah, grass is good, but so is a bed. Also like a really nice mattress is good too. So I definitely have been going on that.

Well, no, I can, yeah, no, trust me, I appreciate my mattress. And I appreciate, you know, the heat and the air conditioning and the luxuries I'm afforded, but the, but if I was unawares (laughs) of those things existing, you know, I think I would have been pretty good back then. Like, I mean, it's, I mean, it's tough to save. I mean, it's, I mean, it's a thought experiment 'cause you really have to like transport yourself into a different time with no knowledge of the time you came from.

Yeah, yeah, you have to totally be a blank slate there.

You know, and just out there worship in the fucking moon at night. You know what I mean? Like in, you know, appreciating the earth, worshiping the earth, being dirty as hell, but you wouldn't even really know you stunk because everybody did.

Right. - And it would just be the, you just have a stink. You know, I would be the guy, I wouldn't have been the guy who was gutting, was, you know, cutting the heart out of the elk or whatever he had, whatever the group hunted. I'd be the guy who was traveled with a traveling party, the hunting party, and I observed everything. And then I came back and then there, you know, and then people were preparing it and cooking it and they were all eating it. And then after that, I'm the guy telling the story, right? Because there were storytellers back then as well who would just travel with them, come back and then tell the story.

They were the entertainers, right? So I wouldn't been getting my hands bloody or dirty, but I would have been there like watching everything and then-- - You also wouldn't have judged it either. - Yeah, exactly.

You'd just be an honest observer and then storyteller. Oh man, that's awesome. So that's what you're doing now too. 'Cause we are, right time doesn't really exist the same way so it's like this weird collapse and we've moved forward enough in time that like fire food and fucking can be your life. There's no, there's no, like it's even easier to do that than you had to do it. Now you can incorporate all of those things and they sound, all of those things sound really good. It's like the triple F club. You gotta start that man. That shit is like-- - I mean, I don't know what else you really need.

I mean, other than sleep.

Yeah, and we've just already said, you know, how much sleep do you really?

I mean, yeah, whenever we need it.

Yeah, I mean, so, but like when they made that decision to transition from the triple F club into like what we now know to be, you know, modern society, everything. - Yeah.

I wish I could've just been there and be like, hey, can we-- - Chill out.

Can we chill out or just, can we chill out for a couple generations? Like, we got a good thing going here. Let's not, let's not, you know, let's not fuck it up.

It did get, as things got more complex, it seems like we did or have been in the midst of losing or have lost, I think we're getting it back, but that connection to what worked back then, which, if we look from like our modern society, it's like, yeah, but they had disease and it was blah, blah, blah, and it's like, oh, they didn't dentistry and it's like, okay, okay, it's fine, fine. Sure, noted, and those things are awesome and we appreciate them now, but their world was also, like, these are the people who gave us the beginnings of astrology and divination and understanding the relationship between this world that we experience here in Waking Life and the dream world and when they took some substance, like, that's important.

That's like pretty fucking important. I feel like right now, we're just getting infused with this stuff for people who are open to it and receptive to it. I mean, you've been into weird stuff for a while, right? I mean, a couple of decades, at least.

Well, I mean, I've always been into weird stuff. Yeah, I always love weird stuff. I liked, I loved rocks when I was a kid. I mean, I had had rocks before, had rocks were sold as pet rocks, which was the greatest business scam ever in the history of time was pet rocks.

Deserve all of the money. They deserve all of the money.

If someone's giving you money, take it.

Yeah, I mean, you deserve it.

So, you know, loved being outside. You know, I was scared, I was frightened as a child at the drop of a hat. I had nightmares of the devil chasing me for years. Like, it was to the point where my family, my parents wouldn't even let me see a scary image in like a TV guide or something, 'cause they knew it would give me nightmares.

I don't, that's why I didn't watch scary movies and so don't watch them.

And like, I wasn't, my babysitter was instructed not to let me watch the music video thriller. Like, I would like--

That's, well, it's kinda scary.

Yeah, it's very scary, especially as a kid. And so, I was terrified, very easily frightened. I thought the devil was out to get me because he knew that I was one of the next great leaders of God's army, right?

Oh! - I had it like a, even as a child, like I had a large head.

No, that sounds, that's, what that means to me is you were just in tune with what your actual purpose is. It's just you probably, over the years, attached ego and cultural judgments to that. You are, to be clear. So is everyone-- - Yeah.

Cool, dude. All right, continue. - Yeah, so, that is interesting that I, yeah. I thought that, you know, I was, you know, ironically speaking, I was hell-bent on being a priest. And I had the mass memorized by the time I was, I mean, I was raised Catholic Catholic school for 12 years, so it kinda all funneled into that ideology, right? And my grandma was very into prophecy and things like that, and especially modern day prophecies with people receiving visions like the children in Medigoria. She made a trip over to Medigoria.

All church, Christian-based.

Yeah, all Catholic-based for the most part. Virgin Mary, centric. - Gotcha.

Awesome. - And the, I mean, there's tales of people going over to Medigoria with a wooden rosary and coming back and his turned gold.

Yeah, for sure. - Things like that. And so I was into all that. Like, end times, Jesus is coming back, this kind of thing. Like, she would tell me stories about, oh, there was a, there was a diary found in an excavation, archaeological excavation of an old nun's diary from like the 13th century, and in it, it said, it prophesies these things about the end times, and, you know, and these are the correlations to what's happening right now.

Right, right. - So this is playing out. And then, so I was like, on board.

Yeah, yeah. - I'd go to school, 'cause she lived on a farm with my grandpa, and during the summertime, we'd get dropped off out there, not for the entire summer, but, you know, for long periods of time, for my parents to be like, go to the farm.

Like how long? - Like weeks at a time.

Oh, weeks, okay, yeah, that's one time you're there. You're in a different place. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we're in a different place, so, you know, very pastoral, and it was, so, you know, we'd wake, we'd have to wake up, and, you know, I'd have to collect the eggs out of the chicken coop for breakfast, you know, we'd do farm stuff.

Cool. - We'd have to work on the farm. - Did you like it?

Yeah, I mean, I did. I mean, I didn't love waking up. - To a point, yeah.

Even as a kid, I wanted to just kind of sleep, sleep, sleep, and sleep in, stay up late, but then, you know, she would, like, read the Bible to us before bed, and, like, it was, we'd go to church constantly, 'cause she was one of these people who went to church every day. I mean, she was a living saint, you know, people can say what they want about the Catholic church, and it's deserved, but, you know, there are people who-- - Really?

Describe to, like, the idea of it, and what it really means. - It's beautiful.

And it's beautiful. - Yeah.

And I was very lucky in that way. All four of my grandparents were pretty much living saints, but, yeah, so, and I would just get my head filled with all this stuff, right, and all these prophecies, and, you know, she was very encouraging of me, and so I'd go to school once summer break was over, maybe, like, here's what's gonna happen on me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Virgin Mary's gonna appear over in New York City, and it's a sign of a coming great punishment. You know, I was, like, eight, nine years old. I wanted to be friends with you.

And everybody was like, "What the fuck?" You know, I called myself. I didn't really have a lot of friends. I can really only think of maybe a couple friends I had, and it's 'cause our parents were buddies, and I called myself the peacemaker. I gave myself that nickname. I was the peacemaker. I'd run around school, and if people were fighting on recess, the peacemaker would show up and try to break it up, and I'd look like a weirdo, too. Like, my mom wouldn't let me cut my afro as a kid. And I, 'cause she just wanted, 'cause she's like loved my hair, and I hated it. And the reason I hated it is because I couldn't go anywhere without, like, older women, like women, old women, like, just coming up and, like, touching my hair,

Oh, that's so interesting. - Right in my hair, like, wanting to, like, give me attention for my hair. And so I wore a winter hat all year round.

Oh, you were one of those kids.

Oh, you're right. - You had the reason why they're wearing the thing all the time.

Covering up the mop. And I loved those winter boots, winter snow boots, those puffing ones. - Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

So I just wore those all the time. So there's this kid running around in winter snow boots and a, and a, and a ski cap, just, like, breaking up fights, calling himself the peacemaker.

And prophesizing. - And prophesizing. Talking about the great punishment and how an earthquake's gonna happen if enough people don't repent and ask for forgiveness and, you know, start loving each other. And then during every Mass on Friday morning, we'd go to Mass every Friday morning in school. I'd be performing the Mass. I'd get in trouble 'cause the sisters would be, like, you're mocking the ceremony. I'm like, I don't think you understand.

You're-- - You're talking.

Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

It's so incredible.

Like, you, you need to back up because--

You're making-- - I'm at the top of the food chain over here and the devil and his army are gonna show up any fucking day.

And I'm on this shit. - And I'm on it. (laughs) And I'm gonna be at the front lines. And guess who I might just leave behind? You know, so-- - Don't fuck with me.

Yeah, so don't fuck with me. And I would literally get detention for it 'cause they didn't understand.

Shit, that's so amazing.

And part of it was also that even as a child, I understood the necessity of charisma when it came to being a performer.

Right.

And I think my mom told me, she goes, you'll never get bored if you're doing, if you're watching someone, if you're looking at them in the eye.

Ah!

She's like, so if you look at someone in the eye when they're speaking or when they're performing or whatever, you're much less likely to get bored.

No, granted, the content could be extremely boring.

Yeah.

And so sometimes you might not be able to really avoid it.

That's why I can't listen. If I could look at Manly P. Hall. (laughs)

Yes.

If I could just get you to look at Manly P. Hall.

I could just look at Manly P. Hall.

I'd convert you. And so I understood that from the audience and the performance-- - The dynamic that's going on there.

Yeah.

And there was also a thing she taught me as a kid was that someone can't lie to you if they're looking you in the eye. And so I used that to my advantage to lie to her a lot.

Because people can do that.

Because I would look her in the eye and tell her I wasn't smoking cigarettes when I was 11 years old or 12 years old.

Do you think she believed it?

She-- - Looking back?

Sometimes I got away with it because of that. 'Cause she'd say, "You're lying to me." I'm like, "Look at me in the eye."

Look at me.

I was not out drinking with my friends tonight.

I used to do that shit all the time when I was a kid.

And she'd be like, "Okay." And you know, and also as a mother, she doesn't want to think that she's raised a sociopath. Just yeah, it is a better way of thinking about your role as a painter.

I don't want to sit here and act like I've taught my child how to be the most effective liar in the history of time.

It's like Dexter.

Yeah, right.

So I had like, I was locked into that whole life, right? As a kid. - Wow.

And then it turns out I just traded in the pulpit for a podcast in the stage, the microphone.

For sure.

You know, and it's like, it's no longer scripture. It's, you know, jokes. But I have a shamanic Reiki healer that I love and I saw her recently and she told me about my life contract. Like the contract I signed before I entered this body.

You said what you signed up for.

What I signed up for. And then in conjunction with having a couple different therapists, one of them who is using me to like develop his tantric embodiment therapy and he uses tarot, numerology, astrology, all these things in conjunction with his like just basic therapy as well.

That's great.

There's a lot with tantrum.

And it's really interesting. And he's like gone through like my birth chart with me and some other things and it just kind of really blows my mind.

It's so weird, right?

About like the framework. 'Cause I've always been a person who, at least in comedy and when it comes to art and writing and things, I'm like art is first and foremost here. What do I truly want to make? What do I truly want to create? That is the most important thing. I'm not gonna be a prisoner to my own success and be trapped by having to create and replicate garbage stuff, right?

Yeah.

'Cause we all know people who are prisoners for their own success.

Gilded cage.

Yes.

Yep.

And now they feel like they to keep the machine going.

Yeah.

And in the roof over their head, they have to keep doing the shit that they hate. And I was like, you know what? I'll take the longer road. I'll take the longer road and see where that leads me. And if nothing else, it'll be an exciting journey. And so I've always loved that. But I've never really thought about why was I that guy? Why was I the guy that was so hell bent on sticking to that? And to this day, I've been doing a stay in the country for 17 years, you know, I'm not nearly as well known as, you know--

Piers.

I thought I may would be at this point when I was young.

And that doesn't matter to me.

But you still have faith. It's very evident that that is, you are still doing the things which shows that faith is there and faith is tested. But I'm just saying, man, I know for a lot of people the things that they were imagining for themselves back then when they started doing these things, they're starting to happen right now.

Yeah.

And things are conspiring to make those things happen. And the only thing that matters is if people believe that that's actually what's happening. That seems to be the only qualifier. Some people don't even totally believe it and they just get boons anyway, but yeah, man. I mean, you're still doing it. You're still--

No, I'm right where I'm supposed to be 'cause that's where I am.

Yeah, yeah.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Of course not.

And the, I mean, my life has been ridiculous. And like, if you told 12-year-old Ryan that 43-year-old Ryan would have all these experiences, I mean, ranging from the wildest and weirdest and craziest in all different, in many different areas, the paranormal, sexual, all kinds of things, I would just be like, what am I?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who is that guy?

Yeah, what the fuck? Who is that guy?

And I would be like, sign me up, dude.

Yeah, man.

Sign me up. And I am fascinated, you kind of touched on it. One of the things I'm most fascinated by is, and I think, the more I think about it lately, especially like talking about imagining your future and you know these, I feel like there's pockets and periods where there's, you know, okay, I need, there's something very important I need to learn and it's going to, it's like when you play Civ.

I love that you, I love this year.

It's like when you're playing Civilization, Sid Meier's. It's like, you know what, I want to have, you know, an encampment or barracks in every one of my cities because the Romans are right there.

Yeah, yeah.

They're all, they always sneak attack. So I have to get all this built right now. And then, you know, a little bit later, as you're working toward all that, you realize, oh man, I need to, I need to build some settlers. I need more cities.

Yeah, it expands.

So you're, okay, I'm going to pause the end game because I really need something right now and I'm aware of it and there's just no running from it.

Yeah.

And I feel like that's the way it is in life.

Yes.

Because I'm, I was super fascinated with and have been for years, how does one act when faced with...

Okay, let's just confirm adversity. That's a good place for it to...

Yeah, right.

It's good, we're good.

So I think it was in conjunction with reading this book called "The Lucifer Effect" by Dr. Philip Zimbardo. He was the one who did the Stanford prison experiment.

Oh, cool, cool, cool, cool.

And he talks a lot about systems and the effect a system will have on the people living inside of the system or participating in the system. And whether people realize it or not, there are all kinds of layers of systems we're inside of. Like we're currently inside the system of the United States, which is inside, you know, and then we're also in California system and we're also in Los Angeles' system right now. I'm in the comedy system of Los Angeles, which is much different than the comedy system of the Midwest or of New York City. These have, these systems have effects on us. And I've always hated when someone I really loved faced adversity and then ended up being...

We got like a piece of shit.

Yeah.

What, they behaved like a piece of shit when adversity came, I should say. Not that they are a piece of shit, but where, 'cause anybody can be a good winner, right? You know, like it's easy to be like, everything's great, like this beautiful, this is what I'm supposed to be, because this is where I am. It's easy to be that way when everything is looking like cherries, right? But yeah, for the people who, in the best example I can give is if people follow professional football at all a few years ago, the Carolina Panthers were the best team in football.

Yeah.

And they almost went undefeated, it seemed, they were gonna go undefeated. And Cam Newton was having the time of his life and everybody loved Cam Newton and some people were like, well, he celebrates too much. He's like, "Hey man, we're just, we're enjoying this." And I was on board with him. I was like, yeah, like don't tell someone they can't enjoy what they've worked their entire life to come to be, and it's coming to be, and they're enjoying it, good.

Yeah.

And then they lose the Super Bowl. And he walks out of his press conference, and I think under 30 seconds, post Super Bowl, as the quarterback of the losing team. And the sort of all losers, which was a complete opposite of what he was, all season long.

When things were good.

When things were good.

And so you can really tell what a person is made of and what they believe in when they're faced with adversity. And especially even so, even more than that, and I've always loved to take things too far. (laughing) I don't have boundaries, I don't have limitations.

Who didn't have fuck boundaries, yeah.

So I'm like, how would I behave? What type of person would I be if I was under a prolonged period of adversity and struggle? Who would I be?

Yeah.

And cut to 17 years later in standup comedy, and I think I know who I am.

Now I do.

Yeah, and so I've learned that now, I believe. I mean, I still have work to do and things to work on, but I understand that, 'cause it's very easy in standup comedy or any other profession to become embittered, and that all comes from a sense of entitlement. Like, well, I should have that. Why does that piece of shit have that?

All right, I used to do this, and it's judgy, and it binds you to that energy, it sucks.

Yeah, it's negative energy, and it just, you know, and now the people you end up hating and talking shit about all the time, you have to see constantly.

Can you imagine?

And then be around, because the universe is like, well, you're talking about this person a lot, you must want them in your life. And so here you go, there's more of that person.

Oh shit, I'm never.

And so it's like, that's why I try my best not to talk, and my reiki healer told me, she's like, you can't. She's like, it's in your, you cannot talk badly about anybody. She's like, that's part of your deal.

Oh, well, you can, but it'll fucking come back.

Yeah, exactly, and she said, I guess what I was getting to before we went on this tangent was, she told me my life contract was to build a bridge between the physical and the spiritual world.

Oh, that's why we're friends, okay.

Right, and that's what I've basically been doing with my standup comedy. Especially the last five, six years, it's gone, it's been slowly but surely going woo, right? And going weird, I was always weird. I was always told I was so weird, and like people would always say, you're crazy. Things like that in my standup. And I always knew that the standup I was doing wasn't built for the box of entertainment, right?

Right.

That I wanted to do, and they're like, well, you need to do this so you can get on, you can have a TV set, right? You need to do this so you can be marketable and build your brand and all these other kinds of things. And I'm always like, I'm going to do the standup comedy I wanna do, and sooner or later, the world will discover it. And by that time they do, guess who's gonna be having done it for a long time?

And put in the work.

And put in the work, and it's not gonna be, I'm not gonna be a paper dragon. You know what I mean?

Right.

So if that's a paper dragon or paper tiger?

I think, yeah. I mean, I was born in the year at the dragon, so I'm like--

Everything's dragons.

Everything's dragons.

Everything's just gotta slay those dragons.

It's a house of dragons, no, that's a house of cards. But so I realized this, I realized this soul contract, building a bridge between the physical and the spiritual. And also, I'm not supposed to pick a side.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't pick.

It's what I've been told. Like, my contract was I don't pick sides, I just build a bridge from the physical to the spiritual. And, you know, the podcast I've been doing for almost six years, that's what really, really supercharged and changed my life. Because my comedy changed because I was, I went from someone who was really interested in paranormal stuff and loved that kind of stuff, to now a person who was researching it.

Right, you gave yourself that feeling of--

Doing like legitimate research. I'm, you know, reading books constantly or researching 'cause on the internet. And then that, inevitably, will lead. And people who are listening to this probably already know this. But when you love something and then you dedicate yourself to learning about that thing, that will, inevitably, regardless of what it is, lead you to doing that thing.

Yeah, it's impossible for me to.

So now that led to me doing paranormal investigations. So now I go out and I investigate. So it's like, you know, when I used to be like an armchair quarterback of the paranormal and like just love sitting there and watching it and consuming it. And then I started researching it now. I'm doing actively doing it.

Yeah, player.

And that, as a result of that being active and taking action, it bled into my stand-up comedy. 'Cause stand-up comedy for me is still the number one thing I love. I believe, you know, if my identity changes at some point in the future that I ascribe to myself, that's fine. I don't care. It was a couple years, it was about two years ago where I told the universe, I was like, listen, you lay out the stones and I'll step on them and I don't care where they go. Even if they lead me away from stand-up comedy, even though I attach so much of my identity, knowingly.

Good job.

Attach so much of my identity to it. That's how you get that.

And I was like, I'll go wherever you take me. And so here we are now, but.

That's you talking yourself.

My stand-up comedy totally changed because of all the things I was just consuming and reading about and interested in.

Yeah.

So my act used to be very like story-based, personal life kind of stuff.

Sure.

And then also just random jokes. And now it's, you know, my last album, which came out just over a year ago, which is free by the way on my website if people want it. It's called Free Love. It's, you know, the track listings are like bigfoot, crystals, magic, talk to your water, singularity.

Amazing.

Yeah, so it's all outside, quote unquote, outside the box of what like mainstream is, but mainstream's waking up to this stuff.

That's what I'm saying.

And five years from now that album's gonna be like, oh, these are topics every comedian's doing, right?

Yeah, but by then you'll be way ahead of the game and the good things.

I'll be on to something else.

I'll be on to something else.

Yeah, man, like all this shit adds up so well. I wanna point out that when you're talking to the universe, it's always you talking to you. That's the most important thing. So like a lot of people can get that, like I use the Neville Goddard test. Mine's a little harsher than his, but, you know, he would go to people, he'd say, if I say God, and what do you think of? And he says, if you think of anything outside of you, you failed the test. And so what I've realized is if I say God, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, the universe, other people, if I think of anyone outside of me really from an energetic standpoint, I'm wrong.

So when I start thinking of the universe, I think of it as myself. So that's really the process there. It's not that there isn't a divine being, but it starts within us. We project it from out within. Make it real.

'Cause we're part of it.

'Cause we are it. We are literally it. We can't even be close to it because closeness implies distance. It's not even, you can't even be close. You can't even close, you literally are it. You're an individuated fragment of the consciousness. And that's why we have these individual identities, which is awesome, by the way. But quite literally, we are it. So when people go into those holy states, whatever modality they use, speaking to the universe, what's trippy is where you realize is you did a very advanced level thing. You accepted the outcome. You said, I really want this. I really love this.

I really wanna be doing this. But if I'm not meant to do it, I'm okay with that. All that really is energetically is you chilling out about the outcome, but still planning the seed of what you really want. So you give it to yourself. It is literally delivered unto you. Like you prepared that mansion for yourself. And then you enter in it, right? My house has many mansions. So that's pretty fucking awesome, man.

That reminds me of, what's the phrase if you stand too close to the forest? You don't see the trees, is that it? Or is it if you don't--

No, I always fucking stand too.

I can't see the, you can't see the forest for the trees.

Oh yeah, so if you're standing too close to the trees, you can't see the forest.

It's basically like if you're paying attention just to the individual trees, you can't see the bird's eye view that you're in a forest. And I guess I'll just--

Which is, I think what we're talking about here is like what you can't see the forest for the trees. But what you need to really realize is we are the trees.

Yeah, we are the forest.

We're the whole thing. It's the whole, I love using the, I mean, I love it for many reasons, but the Rossafarian and Rossafarians, and I didn't know this, I've been to Jamaica like three or four times and they, you know, they're I and I, I and I. You hear it in the reggae songs, I and I. I don't know what the fuck, I really didn't know anything about Rossafarianism except the dreadlocks and the weed smoking. And then when I started getting more and more into Christian mysticism, I found out that Rossafarians believe it's just biblical scripture, interpretation. And they quite literally believe the I and I is I, Ryan.

I know it's the little I and I, the big I, the whole fucking thing. And it's an embodied God consciousness in people, which is like, that's the waking up process. It's like totally a seeing it, recognizing it, being like, holy shit, am I that? Then you're like, oh shit, I think I'm that. Then kind of dealing with the ramifications of being all of that. And then from there starting to like live your life as a person, that seems to be what's happening for people, although we don't consciously pick up on it because it's like, that would be a really crazy place to think of all of it is like, whoa, just be a person.

But it does also seem like at this point in linear time, a lot of these strong desires and authentic, you know, you put yourself through adversity. I put myself through adversity. We all have those people, whereas maybe it felt like, is this ever gonna pay off because it's just a cissafissian, like we're just pushing this rock up and it's always gonna come back down. Shit has turned a corner. So clearly for the people who have put in the work and like went through this shit, like you're talking about sharing too much. This happened to me 17 something years ago, where I got so many downloads at once, which is now an accepted term, especially in Los Angeles, but I was just getting so many cosmic downloads as like a 19, 20 year old.

I couldn't shut the fuck up about it. I was just like blabbing. I was like unconditional love. Numbers, you don't understand, chakras. Numbers, I fucking love numbers. Numbers are the best, yeah. Everything is letters and numbers. Well, it is and they're primordial archetypes, but going through experiences where you know something to be true, but you either lack the ability to communicate it or understand what it is, is a very big lesson that most people quite frankly aren't prepared for because the alternative of like recognizing that and working through it and figuring out when to be discerning and who to share with is you kind of have to go a little crazy to get to that point because you have to test the boundary of like what the fuck is real, but yeah man.

And I've definitely gone crazy before.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I gave up all that like the God stuff, like the uppercase G, capitalized G God stuff. I'm all about lowercase G right now, but I moved to California, I dropped out of college, moved out here when I was 21 or 22. I can't remember exactly. And I think it was 22. And I lived out here for about three, three months maybe. I made it before I like had a mental breakdown.

You're just like, what the fuck?

I was just driving around the city in my two door Saturn.

A Saturn, holy shit. (laughs)

Maybe it was longer than three months, but and I was just screaming and crying.

Yeah. - Just driving around the city, screaming and crying. And I realized, I gotta get the fuck out of here, right? And my whole life, I was like, I'm going to California, baby. I'm going to Los Angeles. That was like, that was what I saw for myself. And so I was like, I have to be there. And so then I'm out here, I'm like being miserable, and I'm like, what's real? You know what I mean?

Yeah, I do.

I moved back to Ohio. I packed up all my shit, and then two days later I was gone. Which was a pattern I would partake in for years. Where I would just make a fucking choice, and it was just, it was my choice. I'm doing it, everything, burn everything down. And I would just move across the country, back and forth. - Yeah, back and forth.

And a ping pong ball from Ohio to California, up until about eight and a half years ago and I moved out here the last time. And it was, when I moved back to Ohio in my early 20s, I fell back into religion in a major way. Like that prophecy shit from when I was a kid. But this time it became, it wasn't something that I was interested in and like wanted to be a part of necessarily. It was something that consumed me in a way that you see people get consumed by conspiracy theories nowadays.

Yeah, it's like obsessed, I totally get it.

So I became a prisoner to the belief system as opposed to being set free by me. You know, God should be like a puppy, should make your life better.

Oh yeah.

You shouldn't make you a prisoner to it.

Even if it pees on your shit and chews up your shoe sometimes, it's all good, it's a puppy.

You needed to clean your carpet, bro.

Yeah, yeah, it's all good, those shoes sucked anyway.

Yeah, exactly. And then one day, I mean, sometimes I wouldn't even leave the house 'cause I was so convinced that Jesus was coming back and the end times were upon us, that I'm like, I'm gonna go to the grocery store to get food, I'm gonna see a married woman in the produce section, and I'm gonna wanna have sex with her. I'll be a physically attracted to her and then imagine myself like, oh, I having sex with her. So I'll be sinning in the Catholic way of sinning, which is just as bad in your mind as a good reaction. And Jesus would pop up in the grocery store and be like, I'm back right in the middle of my sin and I'd go to hell on the technicality.

Like I was overthinking it all that much. I became pretty paralyzed by it. But the interesting thing that was occurring at the same time was I was waiting tables at a comedy club. Even though I was just like, God, fearing, I wasn't gonna do stand up, but I'm waiting tables at a comedy club. What does that tell you? That's the only job I could find, I told myself.

Yeah. - It's the only job I could find.

Only job you could find.

Yeah, it's yeah, right?

Only job you could find.

So even when I was the furthest away from it all, I still found myself in there.

Of course.

In that world. And then I broke free, I don't know, a couple years later. And then that's when I got back and decided, you know what, I'm gonna do stand up comedy again. And that's when I really saw, I was about 25 years old. 24, 25 when like I finally like really broke free from all that shit. And, but you're talking about like not understanding, not having discernment and things like that, and like having to learn, getting downloads, and you're not ready.

Yeah. - You don't know how to communicate the language. My stand up comedy at the beginning, 'cause that's really when I started, was when I was like 25.

Yeah.

And I was out of control, I mean, I was on stage, I'm an artist, I don't care what the rules are.

Should we get diva already for you?

Yeah.

I'm an artist, I perform what I believe to be comedy on the stage of a comedy club. You either work me or you don't, but I'll be here at your open mic nights, I'll be putting on my own shows of bars, people want this art, right? I cannot be controlled.

Yeah, don't even try, yeah.

And for almost five years, I didn't get any work.

Yo, I wanna, dude, what, weird?

I was out of, I mean, I wasn't out of control, I mean, I'm exaggerating for effect a little bit, but I was no comedy club manager or owner or booker, could trust me as far as they could throw me, like on stage at a show. They didn't know what I was going to do or say, half the time I'm up there skull fucking the devil, other times I'm doing other things. So then I realize, okay, do I wanna be a standup comic? Then learn how to write a fucking joke, right?

Yeah, probably helpful.

And challenge yourself to write something that's clean, right, and so then I embarked upon this challenge and then boom, within a year, not even. I was working everywhere.

It seems like whatever you set your mind to happens pretty strong for you.

Yeah, right, and so--

Both directions.

And the interesting thing is about my, at least for me, my comedy nowadays, very strongly resembles the comedy when I first started when I was quote unquote out of control.

But you can--

But now I have a toolbox. I learned how to be a standup comedian, right? I learned how to connect with people or I learned the art and the craft. 'Cause I mean, art's one thing, craft is another, you know what I mean? Like doing the work, I did the work as opposed to just being like, I wake up and I just go on stage, man. You know, and so then I developed the craft and which built with inside of me, or inside of me, like a respect for it.

Right.

Because there's real power in standup comedy. And if you don't respect it and it's history and just all the magic that is involved in it all, you'll never, I don't think anyone will ever truly be as great as they could be.

That's just life, right?

Yeah.

I mean, that's pretty awesome. I mean, what strikes me about all of your stories through your life is, man, you are really running your show. Like, I don't even know if you catch on to it as much.

It's interesting you say that 'cause it's making me think about that, I wasn't really thought about that.

Oh yeah, like you are really in every direction, but you're doing the smart thing which I used to think was the dumb thing or not the dumb thing, but for me, I was like, why is life like this? Like, why do I have to go through, why do I have to be concerned like with ethical things and moral things and like right and wrong? And I thought it was like, man, shit, this kind of sucks. It's restrictive in a lot of ways, but it's morphing and has morphed into this like, oh, I put in all that work and kept myself honest in that way because now when it's very easy to see that our imaginations or conceptions of self-create reality, we've kind of put ourself through the fucking ringer already and this is what I've been telling people who haven't found like financial success to the degrees that they imagine and some people imagine some pretty fucking big things and it seems completely incongruent with where their life is.

I remind people that a lot of people have really put in the work, really put in the dedication, you are smart enough to work through all of your life issues before the flood of money and success comes because then you can actually enjoy it. Like we all know the people, whether it's in comedy or any other field who hit success, hit money, and it just amplified all their fucking problems. So if they were kind of a miserable son of a bitch, that just made it worse for them. No one really, when they imagine themselves like having those things wants to imagine themselves being miserable like having success and our outward appearances of success and money.

So I think there's a wave of people right now who are quite literally waking up to the realization that they are successful. They will be successful. All of those crazy kind of things they imagined are not only possible but are quite likely if they can believe it. And if you put yourself through this shit, like good for you, you did it at the right time. So, yeah.

Yeah, I would have spun off the globe.

Yeah. - Yeah.

You know, if I would have gotten, you know, very sudden success.

Oh, yeah.

Which happens randomly to people.

Seemingly.

Seemingly.

I really don't know who I'd be right now. And, but I can assure you of this. If I owned a house up in the Hollywood Hills and had like three cars and had all kinds of money, when I was 26 years old.

Yeah, right after you decided to accommodate. And from the perspective of your art, is your art that launched you to imagine.

I'd be the guy who like shows up to work on a project like whenever he wants.

You know who you'd be, dude? You'd be Cam Newton. You'd be fucking kidding.

You'd be riding high as long as everything was fucking great and people were sucking your dick and loving your shit.

The first time somebody like gave me a negative review on something or critiqued me, I would blow up.

Yeah, yeah.

I would blow up 'cause I'd blow up on the outside 'cause on the inside I was crumbling.

Yeah. I'm telling you, man, people see it as a curse until they realize it's a blessing because, you know, you do see, and not to say that anyone who's achieved success and money before now, like there are so many great examples of people who just have done wonderful things with their lives and we see that and wanna emulate it sometimes before we understand what it takes to like have that show up in your life. And it does take the conviction and faith and kind of like stability. And the bridge building thing you said to me, I mean, I've been saying this, you know, from my iPod network and a lot of this stuff I've done, this is bridge building.

It is quite literally in every possible way building bridges intergenerationally, culturally, metaphysically, spiritual, to physical, like that, there's a clear subset of people who understand the way the world kind of used to work, where it was like, this is how everything works. And now it's like, hey, this is kind of how, this is a new world, it's like you imagine some shit and it comes in, there needs to be the people who have a perspective on both of those things and can actually communicate in a way that doesn't sound like too woo or too fucking stuck in some shit. And I just have a, it's just that I call it a gut feeling that people who can effectively do that, whether it's calm, any form of creativity, anything, will actually be living very fun and awesome lives.

And like, how--

Yeah, I mean, in fact, they already are.

Yeah, they are, that's the fucking crazy thing. But even to a degree where it's like, well, I didn't even know that things could be like, this is a good example. I don't live here, but I do. I've lived here for a few days. I live here for a few more days. This is fucking nuts. Like, this is nuts to me and it's like, did I pay a little bit of money to do this for two weeks? But yeah, I've also come out with like a ton of fucking art and creativity shit that like someone was like, hey, do you want a studio for this much money for two weeks so you can get like all of your dream stuff done? I'd be like, yeah, fuck yeah, like I don't care.

It's all good. People are just, they're walking into like these kind of miraculous situations and--

The doors are open and all you have to do is take a step and it's scary, it can be scary. I mean, when I first started coming out, I say coming out of the attic with my paranormal experiences.

I love that.

It was, I don't know, over 10 years ago, probably to some friends and there were just a few friends who knew about like one of my big experiences but and then more and more, you have to be, I don't know, I knew I had to be ready to face ridicule.

Yes.

And it's only when you realize that you're strong enough 'cause you've done whatever you have to do to get to that point where you can handle it. And it doesn't affect you. And that's not to say that it doesn't affect me from time to time, but there's--

You know how to deal with it.

Yeah, and I mean, 'cause I know years ago when I first moved to LA and I would be on stage talking about some of the experiences that happened to me sometimes at shows and people would be like, what the? (laughing)

It wouldn't be like, you know, it's not that fairytale story of like, and then I opened up and told a story about how I dated a shape shifter and the audience was mesmerized and loved me and now I have a one person shows on Broadway. You know what I mean, it was--

I wouldn't see that joke. Just be clear that there was the timeline where that happened.

Maybe I should make it a musical.

Dude, I will go.

I need someone to do the music for me.

I can do music, I honestly, that sounds really good. (laughing) But like, you know, the reality of it was that people who I would meet or people who I'd become maybe a little bit close with would tell me things like, well, you know, everyone thinks you're fucking crazy. And I'd be like, what do you talk, 'cause you know, I don't feel crazy, I tell you I'm crazy.

Isn't it a weird sensation when people keep saying it to you and then you finally eventually find people who also have had that said to them, you're like, oh, you're not crazy either, but people tell you that?

Great.

And you know, and if anybody is wondering what this is, all you have to do is go on a message board, post your opinion about something and people will tell you you're crazy. I mean, that's the amplified version of it nowadays in the last handful of years. But, so I'm walking around Los Angeles like six, seven years ago, been here maybe a year on the road half the time, so I'm not even here that much.

Yeah.

And then, you know, with this impression of like, oh, who thinks I'm crazy, do you want to, like, so no matter where I go, I'm like, do they think I'm crazy?

Yeah.

Can I say anything? And I will have conversations to this day with people where I'll bring up something and somebody who I don't know all that well will be like, oh, I knew this was coming, right, like, 'cause I'm the one saying it, right? And, you know, and you have to, or I have learned that no matter how open I have been about it, or how, you know, well known I could ever become for talking about these things, the tide of skepticism is washing upon the shore, rhythmically, always, never ending. And once I realize that, that it's, oh, it's the tide coming in and going and it's just, it's repetitive, it's never going to stop, it will change forms and sometimes it'll be higher and sometimes it'll be lower.

And every once in a while, it'll wash something up without even realizing it, that I'm like, look at that fucking piece of beautiful thing, that this person didn't even realize they're washing up on my shore.

Right, yeah.

What a gift that was.

Yeah.

But it's unrelenting and I can, you know, I do my best to avoid, you know, the general feedback areas of the internet, but when you post stuff, sometimes it's, it's difficult to avoid that.

Yeah, the criticism that comes, well, I was just thinking about like, as you gain more attention and access to people's minds, just if they're tuning into you, you're gonna get the whole spectrum of people, right? You're gonna get the people who completely get what you're doing and love it and think it's the coolest thing that you're like authentically being you and they're with it and you're gonna get the people who see it and they're like, fuck this, like fuck this fuck.

Who's this fucking idiot?

Who's a fucking talking about? Shapeshifters?

It's fucking crazy.

Yeah.

Why is this person on this thing or why are they here? Or yeah, like this doesn't make, oh man, I can't handle this shit or stuff like that.

Yeah, exactly. And I see it because of just the MindPod network YouTube, which isn't my face or name or anything. Like there's Manly P. Hall videos and Neville Goddard videos and then a few of my things. And all my things actually are, no one really is taking offense to you, but some of the Manly P. Hall stuff, depending on what he's talking about, like religious stuff, people will lose their fucking minds. They'll be like, you're going to hell. This is devil worship. Anything from that to like complex reptilian agendas. And I'm like, okay, I see.

Dude, there's a perfect example of just how far people will go with this stuff. And back in the day, people used to believe anything that was printed in the paper.

Oh yeah.

You know, like 70 years ago.

Like it was important too.

It was real. And never mind that Henry Ford was running his out of Deerfield, Michigan or whatever, printing all this anti-Semitic propaganda. And but people were like, it's in the paper, has to be real. The Jews are trying to take over the world.

Yeah.

Like what the fuck is going on?

Yeah.

So it became real to a lot of people. It was about two years ago now. The brilliant comedian friend of mine, Brent Weinbach, calls me, I'm in the green room of a comedy club called Crackers in Indianapolis, working the weekend. My buddy Lisa Curry is passing through town. So we're hanging out in the green room before the show starts. And I'm talking, I'm having a conversation with her about how I think I might volunteer, I would volunteer to give, to be the first man to birth a baby through his ass. Right? It's like we're having a ridiculous conversation like that. And my phone rings and it's Brent Weinbach.

I answer and he goes, I've got this crazy video idea I want you to be a part of. I think you'd be perfect for it. I was like, what is it? It's called the world's first man birth video. And I was like, are you fucking kidding?

Yeah, let's go on.

I was just talking about giving birth out of my asshole as the first man ever. And he goes, oh my God, it's so weird because this video I wanna make is you giving birth to a baby through your dick. So we make this video for the Comedy Central Show problematic, which was hosted by Moshe Cashier. A great concept for a show, it should have had more. But it was too smart for Comedy Central.

Too many things were like that that were on Comedy Central in the past few years. Like too many shows that were like clearly brilliant, but were just a little ahead of like the time where there's workaholics, man. I wanna see dudes like smoking bongs and--

Detroiters is when it comes to mind. Like I cannot believe they canceled that show. It was like quite amazingly good.

Yeah, it's unfortunate, but I mean like, you know, if you consider their target demo audience, I guess of like just teenagers or whatever. Anyway, so we make this video. It goes up on the dark web as part of the show's episode on the dark web. And then like the show walked you through how to access the dark web to watch their video. And it looks pretty real. Okay, a synthetic penis, a huge synthetic penis. I got to walk around.

How big?

It was probably, I mean like limp and sick. It was probably, you know, eight inches, just hanging there, but like probably two in. I don't know, sir, Comedy Central.

Big old dick, basically.

But it was like a giant cucumber. It was a huge dick. It was a big dick. And so, and a baby comes through the dick. It's a prosthetic dick, obviously. And a baby comes through and the baby looks fucking real. It has an umbilical cord and it's goo and they're blooded and mishmapped, you know. And there's all these doctors and we're supposedly in this like secret, like weird medical room somewhere underground. And then people start uploading it to Facebook and YouTube. And it gets like, it's, before it would get pulled down on Facebook, it'll get a million views and then it'll get pulled down. It'll go up on YouTube, it'll pull down after two million views.

It goes up, it goes, it's the most viral video I've probably ever been in. And then Tosh.0, which features clips from the internet, doesn't realize that it's a problem at Comedy Central Show's property.

Oh.

They, in the writer's room, are like this, we gotta do this video. And friends of mine who work on that show are like, that's a comedian, that's Ryan. You know, like this is, so they figured out really quick, like they make a phone call, probably, you know, the producers of the other show say, feel free to use the video if you want.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So then it goes on Tosh.0, where millions of people see it. So now it's all over the internet.

When was this?

This was a couple years ago.

Okay, that makes sense, 2017.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

And so now I'm getting messages on Facebook. I'm getting text messages from people I haven't heard from in 15 years about, it'll just, the message will just be like, oh my fucking God, seriously, question mark. And I'll be like, thanks all the video, right? The only time I've ever gotten messages like that, I was in "Like a Rolling Stone" music video for Bob Dylan, the official music video that came out on the 50th of the year anniversary of the song.

Wow.

Like four years ago. And up to that point, the most people who I knew from just my life saw that, but this was that times 10. And you go into the comments, right? On the video. And surprisingly high number, like shockingly high number of people are like, science has gone too far. God will punish us for what we've done. Like thinking that whoever that guy was me in the video.

You have a child.

Look, childly gave birth to a large baby, like a seven pound baby through my penis.

I just wanna live as a people though. I just for like a day embodied their consciousness just to see what the world is like. I don't wanna be careful that I actually don't wanna do this, but like, holy shit. Where does the switch turn off though? Where does it turn off? Not that listen, hey, who knows what's gonna happen in the future? Maybe people will start having babies out of their dicks, but to believe right now.

How do you not know that is fake?

So when it comes to fake news and all that kind of shit that people get wrapped up in and like, you know, all that kind of stuff. Of course they buy into it because I mean they're people are, it's that newspaper syndrome, right? It's on the internet. I saw it with my own eyes.

Therefore.

It must be real. I saw it, right? Like our brains haven't caught up with the magic yet.

It's getting crazier though, 'cause all this, the AI, you know, face stuff that I see all the time now. Like, you know, the comedian who'll be doing the impressions and he'll morph into the comedians as he's doing the impressions. Like it's getting really sophisticated. That's not gonna help people who think there are baby dick babies.

You know what I'm just now thinking of? Is that AI and how they're gonna be able to clip together any sentence to make it look like you said any sentence and you did any action on video 'cause they'll be able to just create anything now.

Yeah.

And so, well, first of all, you won't be able to use video evidence in the authentication process of audio and video as proving anything will be gone.

Yeah.

Right? You won't be able to use it as evidence for anything or proof of anything.

Right.

But I do think what it will push us to is people wanting more interaction and real life.

Yes.

And because do you wanna live in a world where, and that's not to say that some people don't, because virtual reality is a thing and people love it and video games are a great example of people wanting to just move essentially into a different world.

Yeah.

'Cause they don't, for whatever reason, they don't like this one. And I think it will make people realize that if I wanna have any kind of real experience or understand that I'm actually having a, quote unquote, real interaction with anyone, I have to be with that person now.

Yeah.

And I think that will lead us in physical space. So I think it will lead to more community.

Oh.

Potentially.

That's happening anyway.

That's happening anyway. I mean, I've just, I was remarking to someone the other day that like a few years ago, three or four years ago, when I had moved from Manhattan to the house I grew up in in Maryland before we had our first kid, we moved back there so we could like collect our lives, have a kid there and then be like, we can't have a kid in Manhattan, that's crazy. When we moved up to where we eventually lived in the Hudson Valley, it was about the time before we moved up there where I just started talking about people having like intentional communities, but not in like a weird OSHA kind of way, like where it's like everyone's fucking all the time and it's just like some free for all.

But like regular people who had houses on property, a lot of acres doing farming, but not in like a crazy way, just like normal and within I think six months of moving up to where I live, my friend, Zeb, who's been on the podcast, hit me up 'cause he listened to it and was like, "Hey, I have this place." And it's exactly, it was like to the T kind of exactly what you would think the permutation would be, like cool people doing cool stuff who are normal and it's not weird. And I think that is happening no matter what, but I can see how some of these technology things push us to crave the actual real world communication, which is great.

I'm not a letite, like I love technology. See all this shit here. But I do think that like if one of the byproducts of all this kind of invasive weird kind of like, you can't tell what's real online stuff makes us be with a person where there's no like visual filter, that's fucking cool.

That's cool and to me it's the ebb and flow because I remember when Myspace first really popped, Friendster tried it and Myspace kind of made it happen and Facebook exploded it. It was a new frontier and it was exciting and it was wonderful because now you didn't always have to go all these different places to communicate with all these different people.

Yeah.

And it was amazing and it was beautiful, it was exciting and it was wonderful and I utilized it constantly and the way people do now. And we had this new ability to connect with all these people. And we loved it and now we just sat at home connecting but that has turned into everyone sitting at home connecting but now with this new addition of like not being able to tell what's real and whether it's a person or not is now going to be driving people back into physical space connected.

Well I think that's great because that's my favorite thing I'm realizing is the ability to be in physical space with people and I also love the ability to communicate through like a podcast and videos. It's the combination of those two things that seems to be like the sweet spot right now and it's just like, I think people who are really like having a good time are the ones who feel comfortable authentically expressing themselves 'cause they don't have to like put up this like magical filter for Instagram like, all right, let me pose it my thing. Let me get ready all the time. It's like you're gonna be a little degree of that but it's like basically you're just being you.

That's what you know from doing a podcast. That's why one of the coolest things about podcasts for me for people who do them is you are just talking to people as your main thing 'cause there's a lot of ways to do this but you learn pretty quickly that this is just you. It's like an authentic carbon copy of where you are over time you can arc the trajectory and that really begins to reveal like what's important to you 'cause you have this map. It's pretty nuts and I mean, it's also awesome that you chose to have that be the outlet for your paranormal and kind of more woo stuff because I'm sure you've experienced this.

If you repress that, if you overly express it when you're a kid and can't say what's going on you're gonna freak people out but on the converse if you suppress it because it doesn't fit in with what you think is real or what other people think is real more importantly that's just not lead to good results. It always pops out at the worst times.

It'll always show back up.

Yeah.

And yeah, it's interesting 'cause like I never, I didn't see ghosts as a kid. I didn't have any of that kind of experience that really like spurred me on and like different people have different ideas of what paranormal means. I was at AlienCon in 2016 and I had a booth set up there. I was like the official podcast, right? So I just kind of bounced around trying to interview people that were there and let people walk up and tell me their stories at my booth.

Yeah.

And this one guy stopped and he goes, "Me and paranormal, you, huh?" And I go, "Yeah." And he goes, "So what do you, what's the show about?" And I was like, "Oh, for me, paranormal "is anything outside the normal?" So, you know, ghosts, aliens, witchcraft, the esoteric, the mystical, the supernatural.

Yeah.

The unknown, cryptids, all that stuff. He goes, "But paranormal's alien stuff." (laughing) And I go, "It's like..." I go, "Yeah, well, aliens are part of the paranormal." He goes, "Paranormal is our aliens." And I was like, "Well, yes, that's what you think." If you want to view paranormal as only being aliens stuff, that's fine.

So you interview people who have been abducted by aliens. (laughing)

Did he get abducted by aliens? You should ask him.

I don't know, I didn't ask him.

Maybe that's what he was trying to tell you.

He must be a little more aggressive than curious. You know what I mean?

I did, though.

So, and I was like, there was like a bunch of, I don't, we didn't get that far with him. (laughing) But it made me, like, it was a reminder to me that people have their preconceived ideas of what something means. And when you go up against that, it's problematic sometimes for people. They don't want to accept or, they don't want to adjust their viewpoint. They want to make you fit into the box that they've already built. And so, if I talk about paranormal stuff on stage, you know, that happens in my act regularly, where people, they came to the comedy club because a comedy club represents a certain thing.

Yeah.

And now there's a guy up there talking about crystals and magic.

You're talking to people who's a deep unconscious stuff.

And they're like, I didn't come here for this shit. I didn't come here to think at all.

Right.

And I'm not, I don't perform staying up comedy with the intention of, I'm here to make you think tonight, everybody.

Right.

So, get comfortable.

Right, right.

Let's start thinking, you know?

Yeah, 'cause that's how genuinely awful.

Right.

You know, I'm there to make people laugh with stuff I think about. - Right.

But the things that I think about that I have turned into what I would consider to be jokes, or cuteness ways of presenting them.

I think that's the best way of describing a joke of what I would consider. (laughing)

Because let me tell you, there is a group of people out there who do not think that they are jokes. (laughing) To the point where people have even interviewed other audience members in the bathroom about how, what do you think about this guy? How are you experiencing, what do you think, you know?

Sure, a friend of mine who was there filming my sets one night at a club was telling me he went to the bathroom and there was a guy in there like performing exit interviews in the bathroom.

What do you think about the comedian?

Well, I didn't think that I don't like him telling us that God is in real. And I wasn't saying that God is in real. I was saying it was a joke about how it's, the crux of the joke is, it's a joke about how I believe in Bigfoot because I believe people when they tell me their experiences.

Yeah.

And I say that there's more video evidence of Bigfoot than there is of God.

Right.

Well, that's gonna wrap some people the wrong way.

Yeah, so the joke is like show me one video of God and I don't believe, but you better hope it's not blurry. Right? And so this guy took it to me that I'm up there shitting on God.

How dare you.

Needless to, you know, regardless of the fact that I go on to talk about how, right after that bit, how I believe in God.

Yeah, that doesn't matter.

Now he's just locked on to that.

He's locked on to show me one video of God.

God dare you.

Somebody, I've gotten great, I've gotten great heckles during that bit. One time I got a heckle, like when I was like show me one video of God and I'll believe and someone goes, just go outside. And I was like, you don't understand how much I agree with that heckle.

Yeah, and it's also like.

I believe that heckle.

Right.

Like I know that, like I truly, in my heart, I get where you're coming from and I just wish you understood we were on the same side.

And that it's a joke and not proof of me not believing in a magical, amazing place.

Yeah, picture of a tree.

Yeah, man, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like, so.

You could probably record enough of the heckles and put together a whole album just based on the ridiculous ways people react to some of this shit because it's, you're really, I mean, it's like if I went to like a group, like a dinner party and I just like whipped out tarot cards and like forced readings on people sometimes and they didn't want it. That's probably how those people feel but it's not that 'cause it's jokes. And it's like, I mean, I also have the benefit of knowing you and having listened to you so I know where you're coming from on this but it's just, it is funny that people's conceptions of some of these ideas prevent them from seeing funny shit.

It's like, wow.

I came here to listen to the comedian tell me how my wife's a bit.

Yeah, yeah.

And I need a beer and my kids are assholes.

Ah, yeah.

And, you know, she never come.

Yeah, which is like, yeah.

She's always late.

It's the same.

You know, I'm lazy. That's what I want to hear about. You know, I don't want to hear about, you're telling me that we're robots?

That's a fun bit to do sometimes. Like, I mean, I don't, you know, my idea of singularity and of the idea of art, that we may be robots has evolved but like, I've been reading this interesting, well, I finished this other book called Life Without Death. It's all about the survival issue when it comes to paranormal and parapsychology 'cause parapsychology all is about survival.

Is that Eben Alexander?

No, it's Niels Jacobson.

Niels Jacobson.

It was written like 40 some years ago.

Oh, wow.

And that book led me, at the very end of that book, he references another book and I'm like, wait, fuck, I have that book. I've never read it. It's on my bookshelf. Someone gave it to me like four years ago.

Wow.

I haven't gotten around to reading it. Now I guess I know what book I'm reading next. I took a break 'cause I needed like, I needed a book that wasn't like a textbook of like.

I know.

Stuff, I needed an easy read. So I read adventures in the screen trade by William Goldman, who was a famous, well respected screenwriter. He wrote Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid.

Oh, cool, cool, cool.

He wrote The Princess Bride, which is based on his story, The Princess Bride, for his book The Princess Bride.

Amazing.

He wrote a bunch of stuff. So he's got all these great stories about like Old Hollywood. It looked like in the '70s, '60s, and '80s. And so now I'm on this other book, which is called Cosmic Consciousness.

I meant to that.

Which was written by this doctor, Richard Buck, and it was written in 1961. Dick, this guy. - Buck.

Yeah, Dick Buck, I didn't even think about that. Dick Buck, MD. Dick Buck, MD.

Yeah, it's going to him. He's like, "I got his dick with Richard, I have this dick."

Dr. Dick Buck here. So he lays out, in 1961, three levels of consciousness. And it's really fucking cool.

Yeah, I did.

And it's about the evolution of consciousness. I've always mused, not having any evidence or knowing otherwise, that our consciousness in the way we understand it now at such a heightened state as we would call it, in comparison to like all the other things that aren't as heightened as we are, I guess.

We are though, I've accepted it just like, this is too weird, it's like, all right, I just accept it.

Well, I would say we're different.

We're definitely different.

I would say we're different. I don't fall into the school of better. I definitely fall into different.

No, I'm not into hierarchical thinking. Maybe that's 'cause I read the War of Art and that kind of broke me of that.

I think I've found, don't hold the thought, but I do think I've found that I'm kind of like a Hamiltonian spiritual person. It's like an strangely aristocratic view of things. It's like, well, yeah, but there actually does need to be people who really know what the fuck going on, kind of making some of the decisions, which cuts against this kind of like egalitarian plurality of like everyone's the same, but.

Well, that's a difficult conversation because if you've, have you read Guns, Germs and Steel?

No.

Which is a mammoth of a book.

Yeah.

Anyway, it explains the evolution of civilizations.

Yeah.

And very scientifically explains why certain cultures or certain groups of people rose to power over other groups.

For sure.

And it has nothing to do with color of skin or anything like that. It's all about resources and climate and things like that, right? In disease, Guns, Germs and Steel.

Makes sense.

In that book, he talks, you know, he does a really good job of explaining all this kind of stuff from a historical context from like, you know, from fucking Pangea on.

Right, right.

And, but then in that book, he also talks about when it comes to government and governing. And I think there is a, there is a point of critical mass when there are a group of people living together. There is a critical mass that gets reached at some point where the idea of democracy anyway or some kind of self-governing government becomes crippled by the size of the people involved.

Totally, and to, nothing would get done. Nothing, everything would be at a standstill because it's, there's just too many people with input.

So much complexity in town.

There's too much complexity, yeah. So at some point, a system of government is necessary if you want really anything to get done.

In this world, for sure.

In this world. And so I've accepted that as well. Now, that doesn't mean that people don't obviously disagree to the bitter end about which system is better to use.

Right.

And that will probably continue on for a while.

Yeah.

But nonetheless, when it comes to the idea of consciousness in the hierarchical view of consciousness, hierarchy typically indicates whether it means to or not better than, or higher than, or more advanced than, right?

Higher than, so okay, I think it's important when we make the distinction here that we're talking about duality right now. So we're talking about in this world of good and bad, right and wrong, higher and lower, there's that level. And this is just to be clear, like how we pretty much viewed 99% of our reality, our dreams, everything. It's just kind of that. There's duality. You, me, we're not gonna deny that. However, there is this weird thing where you go to this non-dual standpoint, and that's like what I think most people will refer to as unconditioned awareness, God, source, universe, whatever.

And from that perspective, I think is where the hierarchy starts to kick in. That's the only hierarchy. I think for the people in duality, who can maintain--

So the hierarchy of non-duality--

Correct.

Duality below that, yes, and that's what--

Yeah.

That's what Dick Buck gets into.

Ah, Dick Buck. Dick Buck gets into how there's simple consciousness, which is just a creature being able to understand that you poked it, and it'll have a physical reaction to be poked in some way. It doesn't associate like, don't poke me, or--

This is like it.

Bad, that's a bad poke.

Or, you know, it's just like, it understands it's being-- It's body has some kind of simple consciousness.

Yes, yes, yes.

It will move when pushed. Now then there is self-consciousness, which I believe it's self-consciousness, which is the second phase, which human beings have.

Aware of self. - Yeah, and other creatures also have. And it's like, there's a split between the vertebrates and the invertebrates, and the vertebrates, and from the reptilian brain, we have been able to--

That make Dala.

To the neocortex.

Yeah, and so like, the cortex is really what makes everything happen with like, the heightened state of self-consciousness, even though it's not cosmic consciousness.

It's like, think of an alligator versus a human being.

Well, yes, yeah. I mean, because of our mammal structure, our brain was able to like, grow and expand in ways that maybe other brains weren't. But lizards and reptilians are reptiles are much smarter than human beings give them credit for.

Oh. - They say. But-- - Totally.

Having said all that, above that, in a hierarchical kind of way, is cosmic consciousness. And these are the people who reach a state of what you would say, like what you said, non-duality. These are the ones who understand that they are God, right? And the people who aren't there yet, and these people exist in reach cosmic consciousness, not for the sole purpose, but seemingly for the sole purpose, to help other people from self-consciousness reach cosmic consciousness.

Like a Bodhisattva. - Exactly, yeah. And that's why people who still have self-conscious state at revere and admire those who reach cosmic consciousness so much, because they also aspire to get there, and they understand, even though they can't fully comprehend in that way, what they're experiencing, they can intellectually kind of understand, and they want that. So there is a hierarchy of that. And so Dick Buck was talking about this in 1961, from a scientific viewpoint, as opposed to, you know, religions who have been talking about this for thousands of years. - Infinite, yeah. And to me, that's very interesting, 'cause when you, then I also read this article that was in The Atlantic about the evolution of consciousness, and how a doctor in 2016, he's been working on it for five years.

So since 2013, or since 2011, he'd been working on cracking how our consciousness evolved, and like what, you know, separates us from, you know, I mean, 'cause as much as I love elephants, you know, I think it's been, I think those elephants painting themselves, have you seen those videos?

Yeah. - I think those have been debunked as far as like-- - They torture them, and they can do it. - These torture, yeah.

And which is very sad, 'cause you watch these videos.

And they're amazing, they make you cry, you're like, "Oh!" And then you're like, "Oh!"

You know you have to be high.

No, you don't have, well, I wouldn't know. So I don't know the distinction between these two things, but yeah.

Now, we're, what we're talking about, I know this is a little bit, this is pretty thick, the conversation we're having, with the layers, but what I am saying is, when it comes to me arguing against the hierarchical view of let's just stay with this self-consciousness, right?

Sure, sure, sure.

We as human beings, and it goes back to what we were talking about at the very beginning, we're very indulgent, we're very self-indulgent. You know, we're pretty fucking high on ourselves, right?

Yes. - Now, we have a form of self-consciousness that I think is different than the other animals who have an advanced self-consciousness as well.

Yeah.

Now, and they say language is a big part of this, like consciousness is the objective, language is the subjective part.

Sure, yes.

Is what I think Buck is saying.

Yeah.

Masculine feminine, objective, subjective.

So, we over here as humans have said for the longest time, like, well, you know, lizards aren't making an opera, you know what I mean?

Right, right.

Show me the dolphin.

Show me the advanced construct of language that they've been using, I mean, we have essentially used language to build computers, all this kind of stuff.

Oh, this amazing stuff.

It's all built on language. And of some kind.

Syntax, of some sort.

So, we have used our advanced consciousness that we're so proud of to create the world that we now live in. Now, our consciousness, in my opinion, is not even close to being better than the self-consciousness of other animals, because of the self-consciousness of other animals who are self-aware. Have they used that to literally destroy the environment they were living in?

Sometimes. So, sometimes, like a beaver would inadvertently fuck up the environment by building an environment. - A beaver would destroy the Amazon rainforest. - By accident, no, not like that.

If not to its own devices.

Not like that. However, no, I, of course, hear your point, I'm just being a cheeky. But basically, here's what I think is important about human beings and their seeming tendency towards destruction of not only their environment, but their surroundings, but themselves, is there's a little trick I learned, and it's working pretty well. And it's not that it doesn't have its own perils and pitfalls, potentially, but it's figuring out how to become selfishly selfless. And it's like a little trick where you can use your desires and what you want, but make a deal with yourself that they won't really happen the way you want unless you can tie them into being a selfless person.

So, when I look at things like human beings being destructive destroying the environment, whereas I used to think like, oh my gosh, there's some innate quality in human beings that makes them destructive or apt or prone to shitty things. Now I look at it as like, oh, this is the perfect vehicle for waking people up, because there's gonna be enough people who don't have that inherent belief, who look at it and go, oh, this is a problem to be solved. This is not some fucked up, horrible spinning out of control, but it's just something that we need to now figure this out. Now, generationally, it certainly seems that the older generations had less insight into the impacts of what systems were running them, going back to your whole system thing.

I mean, the corporation system has been running a muck, 'cause people will be like, look at Monsanto, can you imagine working from Monsanto? Yeah, the individual employee at Monsanto may not be in the same position to make the ethical justification that because they clean the toilet there, they're a bad person. So, these systems really do superimpose themselves on us. However, if those same kind of problems are viewed as the necessary kind of juice or fuel to helping solve them, they cease to become this bad kind of like, oh, human beings have this fucked up part. And you tie that in with the selfishness thing, because a lot of people will have something pop up in their life, whether it's a desire, a wish, something they want, or even a fear that they'll judge or condemn because it seems incongruent with what's going on around them for them, or just maybe even an ethical or moral thing.

So, they completely just shut it off, which never works as you know, like for anyone, anything. Anytime you suppress something, it just always comes back. But rather than pushing it away, if you find a way to have it serve the greater good, like if you, you know, we won't use anything related to us, so I'm careful to do that. But let's say we wanted to be a very successful chef. If I could find a way, like what's his name, Jose, the guy in DC, who basically used his culinary prowess and like he's a super famous chef. And when Trump was saying that immigrants couldn't come in and the Mexico stuff, he just started giving out food.

He started saying like anyone who comes in, they can come here, we'll feed them infinitely. He used his platform to serve his highest good, but also got to achieve all of the material and wonderful things that like are probably just funny shit for him too. So, that seems to be the name of the game for people who recognize these problems. Like I think it's a very dangerous game to play where we stick our head in the sand and don't pay attention to the suffering in the world and the tendencies of humans to do fucked up things 'cause then we're bound to repeat those mistakes, but if we can just be discerning about them, make sure we're not doing them, tie in what we want in the life into something alleviating those problems or being part of a solution.

It's like a turbo boost in a game that gets you to where you wanna go because you then stop judging and guilting yourself over maybe something that seems like you shouldn't want. Like I'm towing around in a Mercedes that they gave me and like past me would've felt bad. I would've been like, this is ridiculous. Like why am I doing this? Now I'm like, this is so much fucking fun. It's like, I know it's not any worse in any other fucking car they were gonna give me. I like it now, I know how to use it. So it's, and it's also helping me do the things I'm doing here. You tie it in to your life and the life you wanna be living.

That seems to be, if you can be selfishly selfless, you've basically hacked every fucking thing.

I mean, I like the way that sounds. And also like the system of the world that we live in now is no person when provided with all the things that they need to be happy and to survive is going to be a bad person.

No, stable idea.

I don't think that. I mean, there's mental illnesses and all these kinds of things which are sidebars to this.

For sure, for sure. But I think, I don't think human beings are innately evil, bad creatures. I do think there's duality, like we talked about.

Right.

And what's interesting is, like when it comes to other creatures and the use of their self-consciousness to live their lives the way they do, it's almost like they've already reached a stage that human beings want to get back to almost but at a higher level, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? 'Cause the alligator is pretty happy just being an alligator. You know what I mean? In the now, in the moment, an alligator isn't sitting there to the best of mine all.

Yeah, you don't know. And they're like super neurotic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Super neurotic, yeah.

And when I was just a little alligator, I fell off that log in front of Sally and now, yeah, now she's swimming around with Charles. You know, I'll never get over it.

Hey Ralph, get over it. I can't get over it.

You know what I mean? So who knows, maybe that is happening but I do think that when, 'cause I think it's clear, I would like to believe it's clear to me. So I do. That there are people who have reached this, what Buck would call cosmic consciousness.

Right, right, right.

Or, you know, super consciousness, something we're calling.

Yeah, something.

It's also, I think the same as when people talk about moving into 60.

Yeah, I talk about 60 a lot.

Yeah, I think it's the same. I think it is a higher level of existence, hierarchically, or hierarchically.

Yeah, I mean, it's impossible to say it.

Yeah, it's impossible to say.

When I have cosmic consciousness, it'll just roll by--

Yeah, right up here.

It'll just roll right off my mind because I think we'll just communicate that way. But although I'd hate to lose the tongue.

You don't, you don't. Can I say something about dimensions?

Truthfully, only based on my direct experience. You can move up and down the ladder of ascension pretty fucking quickly. You just gotta get familiar with each level so you don't get freaked out. Because what it feels like if you're moving up too quickly and people do this with drugs sometimes, or psychedelics, you'll get launched into this other dimension of consciousness and you'll be like, what the fuck is going on? What, that's all you can hang on to.

6D, you don't, we don't lose any appendages. We don't lose anything. It's a state of mind, truthfully, where you just know how to kind of vibrationally match whoever you're with or whatever you're learning. You see this with like kids on YouTube. You know, they'll just be like incredible at fucking guitar at like five years old. And like they clearly haven't put in the 10,000 hours. But they're just like as good as like the best guitar player. That's like 6D. You're still a person in all of these states of consciousness, at least in this world. Other places I don't know.

Yeah, I just didn't want to like, I guess there's always eating and stuff like that too. But I was thinking like, if we all move into a state of where we're telepathically communicating with each other, that we just evolve away from needing our tongue. And it's just like, no man, I like having a tongue. It's fun.

You're gonna keep the tongue.

Okay, good.

You're gonna get up to back while I keep the tongue.

Don't say that. You can do whatever you want with tobacco if you know that it's not bad for you. I know that sounds stupid. But it's not.

This is the Abraham Hicks type stuff here.

I don't, I never read Abraham Hicks, but I mean, I do know that what creates our reality is our mind and our imagination. And I've literally had McDonald's before I had it. I laid down for 15 minutes and I was like, listen, I'm gonna go to McDonald's right now. I'm gonna get what I call a one, two combo, which is a number one, a big Mac.

You had a prayer appetizer.

I did, and listen to this shit. So I get the worst thing in McDonald's. 'Cause when I go, I wanna go.

What do you get the big Mac combo meal?

I get the big Mac combo meal and two cheeseburgers.

Oh, I mean, that's goal four.

One, two combo. Go for it if you go to McDonald's where you don't get a fucking salad. What are you doing with your life? Get a salad and a soda?

Last time I went to McDonald's, I had the fish filet.

I mean, there are people who are into that. Is what I'll say about that. Donald Trump people.

Well, I've been off red meat for a while, but. But yeah, no, that's a good, that's a pro move though. You go to McDonald's, you get the big Mac combo meal large. And you just.

And two cheeseburgers.

And two cheeseburgers. And you just, I would always get, this was my move at McDonald's. I would get the spicy, or not the spicy. I'd get the chicken sandwiches, which are like a buck 50. You get two of them for like three bucks.

I don't think that's on them.

And I'd say, no mayonnaise.

Have the cost still these days?

Yeah, you get like two for three.

Oh shit.

And at least at my spot. (laughing) They know me over there. I pull up and they're like, two Mac chickens, no mayo. Nailed it kid, 'cause when I get home, I just dump hot sauce on it.

Nice move though. That's also a pro McDonald's move, because it's gonna be infinitely better with hot sauce. Anything, wow, yeah.

So yeah, I mean, next time tomorrow, when you go to McDonald's, after your appetizer prayer, get the big Mac combo meal, and then get one cheeseburger and one McChicken. You can do mayo if you want. Mayo is just has like more, there's just a lot more calories if you get the mayo.

No, no, no, you're missing the point. Let me explain to you what happened.

That's why I'm saying you get the mayo, because you do the mental thing beforehand where it's not going to affect you.

So I didn't know if it would work, but I had a feeling it would work, and I told my sister, and I was like, listen, I'm going to go staying with her. I'm like, I'm going to McDonald's, 'cause she has a McDonald's right next to her house. It's weird, upstate New York, but it's just like, there happens to me, McDonald's right there, so I'm like, I have to go. So I was like, I'm gonna go, but let me lay down for 15 minutes, and I'm gonna imagine the feeling of after having had, 'cause sometimes you have fast food, you're like, I feel like shit, my life sucks, I'm a bad person. I was like, I'm gonna imagine feeling really great, and knowing that this won't affect me physically, in any way, negatively, did that for like 10, 15 minutes, got up, went to McDonald's, brought it back, had my sister eat one of the cheeseburgers, 'cause she seemed like she wanted it, even though she says she wasn't, I'm like, it was good.

Felt fucking fantastic afterwards, just like, felt amazing, not like just like the fast food hive for like hours later, it felt great. That was three weeks ago, definitely did not affect me negatively, I've lost weight and been in better shape since then, and I, you could say, okay, well, you know what, there's any number of physical things that led to that, but my conception of reality now is, as hard as it may be to leave for some people, is if you can just lock into that belief, weird shit starts to happen.

I'm gonna try this.

Try it, it's fucking nuts.

After I leave here, you gotta do the thing first though. Like across the street from my house is a McDonald's.

Dude, please do it, please do it.

I'm gonna report back.

Please do, and if it does--

I'm gonna be Big Mac meal. (laughing) Even though I'm off-red meat.

Please do it.

I'm gonna not feel bad about it.

Don't feel bad about it.

And I'm gonna get two McChickens with Mayo.

I'm telling you, man.

And then I'm gonna dump a bunch of fucking hot sauce on 'em, 'cause it actually makes for a better mix with the Mayo.

Of course it does, the Mayo hot sauce combos fucking incredible. - It makes it more of a sauce. - Why would you restrict?

That guarantees those calories are going on you when you pull away the Mayo. That's the thing that pulls it--

Now let me ask you this.

Yeah.

Because I'm already doing it. (laughing)

I get it, man.

I'm already doing it. I was gonna do it as soon as I heard you say, I went to McDonald's the other day, but first I laid down for 15 minutes. I was like, I'm doing this. (laughing) I'm doing this, I am doing this. Now let me ask you this question.

Yes, yes, yes.

Because you know I'm into this system.

Yeah.

And I'm a big proponent of it, and I'm getting better and better at locking into it.

Yeah.

And because I used to have a poverty mentality, I make fucking money now.

Amazing dude.

I make money.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Amazing.

And people are like, oh, so how much did you make? I'm like, dude, you're not listening. I make money.

I make money.

Don't ask me about the details.

I do it.

Just know that I make money. It's all I need to know. Can I do this? Can I just, do I have to lay down, or can I just focus on my driver? 'Cause it'll be 45 minute drive for me home at least, probably, depending on what I leave.

Okay, so--

Can I focus while driving about this?

I mean, the answer is yes. I mean, a big reason I enjoy cannabis, even to a higher degree these days, is because it does shift you into these imaginal realms while you're completely awake. It's like, I think one of the reasons that people stop dreaming so much when they smoke weed is it suppresses that need, 'cause you're just doing it here. So you're kinda getting pushed in that liminal boundary. I recommend five minutes even sitting. You don't have to lay down, just with eyes closed, so you can really lock into the feeling.

Okay, so it's like I can just go home. I just didn't want my Big Mac to get cold.

Yeah, I hear ya. I would do it-- - So I'll just bring the food home, go through the drive-through.

I'm gonna give you even a more inconvenient thing, but it's gonna really prove if you want it. I would go home, or you could do it here. I would either do it here, or I won't judge you if you just close your eyes for five minutes, if you wanna do this. Do it here, or go home before you go to the McDonald's, because I think there's an act that habitually happens when a lot of us get fast food. We're like that, oh, we're goin' to the fast food place. There's something that seeps in where the judgment comes in, you're like, this feels familiar. I noticed when I went there after I laid down, I was so excited.

And no judgment whatsoever is like, this is gonna be--

I'll be honest with you. Whenever I go through the drive-through of McDonald's, which I really hardly, I mean, I'll get like a beyond meat burrito from Del Taco, which is like a Taco Bell-ish type place for people who don't know.

Yeah.

They've got like a great burrito that's got fake meat in it.

Yeah.

I'm never like, why am I doing this?

You're like, I know exactly why.

I can't wait to fucking eat this.

Yeah, so you'll be fine. I mean, if you can just lock into the feeling, it doesn't matter whether you're in that state or not. It's just, you need to believe for real that after you're done eating it, you know you will feel great. And you may pressure test yourself for anyone listening. You may pressure test yourself and feel like a little weird for a second. Just don't buy into it. This is what I've been doing with colds. I've traveled cross-country now, four flights in the past month. I've not been sick at all. I have toddler, I've been around kids fucking at preschool, all of this shit, haven't been sick.

I've felt, at various times, a little tickle, something that before I would have been like, I'm getting, turns into a cold. This time I'm like, nah, don't get sick. And that shit sounds totally crazy to people, but I know my relationship to my own body. So it's just a matter of locking into the--

My brother and I used to do that shit.

It's nuts, right?

We should tell people, 'cause my mom would always be like, you need health insurance. My brother and I would be like, we don't get sick.

No, we don't get sick.

We don't get sick. And I don't know if we talked about this, but the minute I got health care--

Yeah, you told me.

I got strep throat three times within a year.

Yeah, man.

Because you're in the system, you got locked in the pendulum, yeah.

But now I just don't get sick again. I mean, I still have health insurance, but I don't fucking need it. And so, and I'm not gonna need it, but I do love that. And I love fire cider too, I make fire cider, which is like a concoction of apple cider vinegar with a bunch of shit that's seeped into it for five weeks, and then you strain it and you do a shot of that. And like if you even think you're gonna get sick, like if someone even thinks they're gonna get sick and you do a shot of fire cider, it's like your body, it's just like, you know, it's infused with like this fucking shit will cure anything.

And you know it's like a spell.

And you know it will.

It's a spell.

Yeah, and it's just gobble, and then your body's just like, "Get out, motherfucker!"

And you're good.

It's what everything is. That's why I use songs as spells, I use probiotics as spells, I use microdosing. They're all spells.

That's why I love magic.

Yeah.

Because it's about, you know, setting intention, creating your reality, this is what it is.

And it's, yeah.

And it's like, and even when it comes in a different way that you weren't expecting, it's like for example, we talked on my podcast about how I had my first experience of, you know, planned deja vu.

Yes.

And it was, I make money now.

Yes.

And then I visualized my royalties each month going up.

Yes.

And it was even higher than I expected.

Right.

And so I imagined it even higher than that for this past month, but it was lower.

Yes, which is totally, I had the same thing happened with me on YouTube.

Which was, and so it was like three times lower.

Yeah.

And, but my reaction was shocking to me. My reaction wasn't, oh fuck.

Right.

And my, you know, like it could have been like, oh fuck, I was budgeting for this new reality.

Right.

Fuck, I'm fucked.

Right.

My reality was like, this is what it is this month.

Yeah.

And guess what? I've got fucking nothing to worry about 'cause I make money. This is just part of me making money, son. Like, and I'm gonna, guess what? That money's coming from somewhere.

It's coming from somewhere.

It always does.

Yeah, and I'm not just sitting on my ass in my room playing video games all day, waiting for money to come in. Not ever, I'm not, I'm taking action is basically.

It's good, naturally I would assume.

Yes, naturally.

Because I was talking about this with Jessica 'cause she was saying like, you know, I'm a big action person. I tell people to take action, and I specifically in a lot of these techniques would tell people specifically not to take action. And I've been adding that that is more of like a beginning part of it so you just understand that that actually is what's doing it. But what I told her also is I imagined myself being in better physical shape. I started there and then what started to happen is I naturally wanted to exercise.

Exactly.

It wasn't like I then was like, I have to exercise. So it is that allowance of just letting the thing happen and the non-reaction to like when money goes down or a relationship thing goes weird or anything like that. Trust me that, building that muscle of non-reaction and still being like, nope, it's coming from somewhere. It's, dude, I went to sleep a few nights ago.

I thought they were gonna say, I went to sleep six years ago and I just woke up.

Just woke up.

I was like, dude, I'm gonna imagine myself being able to sleep for three days.

Yeah, just hibernate, just hibernate. That's a new da Vinci thing, just hibernate for years. But I went to sleep the other night 'cause when I came out here, I closed all of my readings for the time I was out here 'cause I don't want people to just pop up randomly. It's gonna be too much. But I did offer these in-person ones. And the first week I was here, my books had been open. No one booked one of them. And I was like, I caught myself being like, oh shit. Like, oh man, like maybe this was just overzealous on my part, but one night I went to sleep and I was like, no, I know why I did this. Like I did this 'cause people are definitely gonna book this 'cause it's awesome and like people will enjoy it, woke up two people had booked.

And I was like, I was like, I forgot. It's like, I forgot for maybe like half a day, but even that, like-

You're a human.

I'm a human being, and it was grateful. I was just like grateful that I had forgotten 'cause it got that other reminder that like, oh my God, that magical thing. Like I wouldn't have had that experience of remembering that it was cool, so.

Yeah. - I would argue.

Yeah.

In the friendliest of ways.

Yeah, yeah.

I agree that when someone, myself included, really want something. When you imagine yourself with something that you, you know, in this reality. - Yeah.

In the future of already having it, right? If it's something you truly at your core really want, action isn't something you have to make a point of doing, right? Because if you really want to go see a fucking movie, guess what? It's not like, I have to make sure I get in my card above.

Yeah, it's your goal. - To drive to the movie.

You're going.

You're going to, you don't even think about it. You're going to the fucking movie theater, right? However you have to get there, you're going, right?

It's the removal of the barriers, I think, is the yeah.

You don't have to, you don't have to like set, you don't have to like take action to take action.

That is, exactly. - It just becomes, it becomes inherent in the want of the thing.

That is really insightful and it is kind of like, if you think of like, by setting your intention and imaginal act, and then you go downstream because you've set it and so you're going downstream, you would have, you don't need to do anything except remove the shit out of your way. You don't have to send yourself, propel yourself, you're already moving, you just have to make sure there's nothing in your way and what would be in your way of wanting to see a movie if you really wanted to see, it's like, it's too far, it's cold.

Traffic. - It's something like that. Traffic. - Parking.

Park, all those things, but if that's really your desire, like none of those things are going to matter, I've also noticed this weird thing in LA, man. Like, I don't have a big traffic problem. It's weird, like I get to places almost always on time, even if the thing says I'm going to be late, it weirdly like manipulates before I get there that I'm not even early anymore, I'm just fucking on time. And in a place where it's notorious for like, you're going to get fucked with traffic. And granted, I've only been here cumulatively like 20 days, but still-- - The giant spell that the city is trying to cast.

Yeah, I know, right, and then they're going to be like, "Eh, you're starving as fuck, traffic is my traffic, traffic, traffic, it's like, motherfucker, are you, is this like a, is this a communal champ?"

Yeah, what's going on?

What are we doing?

I was like one, like this city is a giant hoo doo jar, like we're just trying to fucking curse each other. Yeah, I think, yeah, the things that will, the barriers that we have to remove, right, when you mention that, like let's say I want to have a, you know, let's say I want to get jacked, a yoked body.

Yeah, man, just fucking go for it.

The barriers and why I think it could be helpful like you were saying to do the imagining before, you're talking about going to the gym.

Yes.

Because the barriers can be very like, can appear very real, when it comes to like, "Oh, like, do I, I don't, I don't go to the gym?" Like, I mean, I go to the YMCA by me, I haven't been in a minute, but like, the things I had to work through at first were, okay, I don't care about looking like an idiot at the gym, right? - Oh, yeah.

Or not knowing how to use a machine.

Oh, yeah.

Feeling self-conscious.

Yeah.

Being overly self-aware of, of me in a space.

In relation to the people who are gym people.

Exactly. And it's like, no, everybody's at the gym because they're working on themselves.

Yeah.

Different people are different phases of that. So like, if you spend like a week or however long it takes, so like, remove those barriers of feeling you don't belong somewhere.

Yeah.

Like, no, everybody belongs there. It's open to the fucking public. Like, for a reason. And if you go there and don't feel like you belong there, well, guess what, you're at the wrong gym.

Yeah.

You're not supposed to be at that gym. I don't know what's funny, you know what gym I joined.

Wait, I know. I remember it's that fucking--

It's the douche bag.

The douche bag.

The douche bag.

The equinox.

Yeah, the equinox.

And I love it there. I've never felt more, in YMCA's, I went to when I was younger all the time. I hated them. I feel, it's so, there's this weird thing I've been talking about it a lot. It's just like a personal thing I'm going through. I am just completely realizing I'm fucking bougie woo. Like, real bougie woo. But like, I don't want to get sucked into being like, you know, like, you can only attend my $5,000 lecture. So I'm never going to do that, but like, man--

Well, Noah always has a headset on everywhere he goes.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Why does he always have one of those little thin translucent microphone things wrapped around his ear in front of his mouth? Like, he sleeps with it.

Yeah, oh, of course. Got him, man, shit to do, shit to do. I do like, I joined it at first because I had a day pass. Duncan was like, do you want to work out? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, I'm an equinox. I'm like, cool, I've always wanted to go. Also the owner of the Miami Dolphins owns equinox. I'm a Dolphins fan. So there's another little like reason I can accept it. For sure, sure.

I'm into that. I mean, I'm excited about this. This is a red soft season right now. They signed a big free agent.

You're a red fan?

I'm a huge red fan.

Are you a baseball fan above?

Oh, I love baseball.

I mean, I'm in like three fantasy baseball leagues everywhere.

Oh, cool, I used to play fantasy. Which is one too many, because now I'm rooting against my own players constantly.

What league do you play on Yahoo?

I do, yeah. One league is an ESPN league, which I don't like.

Yeah, I hate their fantasy.

I hate it too, but the other two, one of them I run, the other two on Yahoo.

Amish.

Amish?

Yeah, I'm the commercial.

Amish.

I was, I was newspaper comish back in the day. That's how long I've been doing fantasy baseball.

What is newspaper comish?

Every Sunday I'd get the Sunday paper. I'd tally the stats by hand.

Oh, straight old roto, my dad.

And I would email everybody the results for the week. Like I had to tally all the stats by the day.

Wow, wow. That's similar. Like I used to have to call up, I was a dolphin fan. I'd have to call the George Michael sports machine in DC, where you'd call it up and they'd tell you the scores. And I'd have to find out.

I know they had a line.

Oh, dude.

I just always watched it on--

Dude.

It was Saturday night or Sunday night late.

Yeah. So he was in DC. He's based. He had a local number that you could call because I live in the suburbs of DC.

I love the George Michael sports machine.

Yeah, dude.

It was the best. And so I'd call up and I remember the one time I called up and they told me that Dammarino had torn his ACL against the bills. And I was like, "No!" And everyone in my family was like, "What's the matter?" And I was like, "Dammarino." What the fuck? What's the matter with you?

George Michael sports machine responsible for ESPN.

I mean, it was definitely a precursor, right? Oh, yeah. For sure. It was local. He was the local sports guy in DC. And he parlayed it into, I guess, a nationally syndicated show. And it was really awesome.

It was good.

It was incredible.

Yeah, it was really good.

I loved it. And it was on late.

Yeah.

On the east coast or anywhere it was. It was on super late. I love that.

Yeah, man.

I really enjoyed that.

All right. We've spoken. We could, I think pretty sure we could speak for infinite hours.

Yeah, I'm sure we could.

I asked three questions at the end and then one open ended one. We'll do this again soon. What's your favorite color?

Right now. Oh, God. It vacillates between green and blue.

Okay.

I'm gonna say, oh, shit, I'm blue. I'm into blue right now. I mean, by jacket over there. I love that blue. I mean, look at that blue. I mean, you can't see it if you're listening. Imagine the brightest blue jay on a branch in spring juxtaposed against, like, you know, the bright green so you can really see it. I mean, mix those two together, you get purple. I used to think blue and green made yellow or yellow and green makes blue and yellow and blue makes green. Anyway, we can talk about that.

The mixing of colors. What's your favorite number?

Oh, nine.

Oh, I knew that was weird. What's your favorite animal?

Oh, lizards.

Ah, I shouldn't have known.

Used to be giraffes now, it's lizards.

And the year of the dragon for you, it's tough to really pick between a dragon lizards. I love a lizard.

You can choose both. It's a laugh.

Yeah.

I hear a cool story about--

I do want to hear a very cool story about you.

Oh, shit. Bernie Taylor, I believe is his name. He wrote this book called "The Face of Orion" where he lays out his argument about how the cave-- like, the earliest cave paintings, what-- it's a French cave--

Yeah, I forget what it is. I know each other.

Where they have like that story--

The bulls in the--

Of course, these things.

Yeah.

Anyway, he has gone through examination of all these things. He's laid out evidence of much more happening in those cave paintings than people have ever given it credit for. And through a fictional account of a shaman taking a young initiate from a village going to someday be a shaman, it's like the initiate-- the kid has to like, work through. And he lays all this-- and he shows all the astrological correlations and how like, this is a fucking calendar. This is so many things. There's so many other animals here that people aren't noticing. Some people accuse him of having paradolia, but it's like, no, this is--

Where you just see stopping everything.

Yeah. Anyway, he identified all these new animals that are in those paintings. And he hadn't named the giraffe yet. And I was telling him how much I loved giraffes. And so he named the giraffe. So the giraffe that is in the cave painting, which I wholeheartedly believe at some point in the future will be academically recognized as--

Yeah.

Oh, he really blew this fucking thing wide open. That giraffe is named Marjorie after my grandma.

Oh, shit, ma'am. And because he hadn't named the giraffe yet, and we hit it off really well. So he's like, I'm going to-- you get to pick the name for the giraffe. So I named it Marjorie, which is named after the woman who really sent me on all this fucking journey to begin with.

Wow.

We talked about my grandma, Clark, who I used to call grandma Jesus. So giraffes will always have a special place in my heart because the oldest known depicted giraffe in the history of Earth is named after my fucking grandma.

Dude, that's awesome. Well, you actually have to go with giraffe. I take it back.

Okay.

I'm sorry. You can't pick--

I can handle it. I can handle it.

That's awesome, man. Last question. What's a practical tip that has helped you in your life that you could share with people listening?

Oh, here's one of the best ones that I have implemented in my life in the last like four or five years. I define success. I get to choose--

Right.

I get to define my own success.

Right.

I found I was miserable, I would become bitter, I would become bitter, I would become jealous envious because I was operating in a system where I measured my success by the system, by what everyone told me success was in my chosen life and the things I aspire to do. Once I realized that that was bullshit that I had surrendered all of my power to the faceless masses of commerce or whatever you want to call them, once I realized I get to define what my success means to me and what is me being successful, that freed me in a way that has nothing else I've ever done to myself has freed me in such a way.

It's your world now.

I live in my world and it removes all shame from people's expectations about what I should have and what I shouldn't have like, "Oh, you're 43, you don't have your own place."

Yeah, I got roommate's motherfucker because I believe in art.

Yeah, who gives a shit?

Or, yeah, I have roommates, I also don't mind sharing and someday maybe I'll have my own place.

If you want to.

You can.

And so, right now, yes, I have roommates, yeah, I'm right where I need to be because that's where I am and it's like, I am probably the most successful person that I intimately know.

Yeah, and that's the most important thing for people is their conception of their self-success.

Yeah, so that's the tip to find your own success.

I love it.

Free yourself from the shackles of other people's expectations.

You're doing what you're born to do, my friend.

Yeah, we're trying alone.

Thank you.

This was fun.

This was really fun.

Thanks, man.

Thanks for imagining me off Jory.

Yeah, my pleasure, dude. (laughter)

Well, thank you all for listening until they had a episode. I don't know why I went with that accent. If you like Ryan, if you like Ryan, you just listen to a two-hour podcast. You like Ryan. Okay, go subscribe to his podcast, Me and Paranormal You. Go subscribe to everything he fucking does. Go support him. If he's had a fucking comedy venue near you, go to it because it's good, because you have to, because you're fucking funny. You will be hearing more from Ryan and I. I am sure Ryan and I, Ryan and I, that's a funny way to say things. Yeah, L.A., peeps. Look it up. Let's go. Let's do it. If you got weed in L.A. and you want to hang out, fucking hit me up, know@sinkpodcast.com.

Click these, this podcast is literally just a vehicle for me to get drugs at this point, which I am hoping to. Okay, that's it for this episode. I will see you probably next week. Maybe I'll do a bonus one, but probably next week we'll just do with the Jesus, the Jesus stuff. All right. Happy imagining.