Ep 595 - The Man Who Saves the World? (feat. Gabe Polsky)

Wow.

Wow, wow, Wes.

All right, we're live.

Gabe Polsky, man, thanks for coming.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Thank you for coming.

I wanted to bring you here.

I saw your documentary a while back.

I got a little, little screener copy.

Honestly, I said I'm not just fluffin' you.

It was what I thought was one of the best things

I'd watched in a really long time.

So, a man who saves the world, that's it.

Question mark.

Not the man who saves the world, no question mark.

That's about a guy who didn't drop the nuclear bomb or something.

Yeah, yeah, that's another film.

Yeah.

Years is the man who saves the world, question mark.

Which dude, I swear to God, I like, I,

Brandon, our mutual friend from Ruffal, sent it to me

and I was like, all right, you know,

and I'm like, I'm pretty like precious with my time.

Some someone's like, hey, do you wanna watch this two hour thing?

I'm usually like, yeah, yeah, yeah, watch it.

But I read the tag line, I'm like, dang,

that sounds kind of cool.

Dude, one night, I saw it through it, so.

Congrats on that.

Yeah, it's 85 minutes because I know that, you know,

two hours scarce people, but.

Dude, now I feel like,

now the documentaries are six hours.

Yeah, it's murder mystery doc.

I have things long as.

I know, but the murder mystery doc,

I'm telling you man, I don't wanna start

by, I don't know, negative no, but like,

dude, I would really like to move back

from the six hour twisty murder doc.

It's like just, I don't need to watch this for six hours.

Just give me an hour and 20, hit me with a twist at the end.

I agree, I'm the same way.

It's like a full work day, yeah.

I'm signing up to watch this lady get murdered

and it's like, dude, hit me with the facts.

I know.

Give me the facts.

There's a stretch in, you know?

Yeah, yeah, true.

But no, I thought your, I thought your documentary

was honestly fantastic and just to like,

I don't know, I don't wanna give the whole thing away,

but just to recap, I try to explain it to people

and I like, I always sound crazy.

It's about a guy who, by the guy alone,

could have been, what's his name?

Patrick McCallum.

Patrick McCallum, I mean, obviously,

it could have just done one on that guy alone.

His life is crazy.

He was a peacemaker or, you know, he just does everything.

But he got convinced somehow that he was the center

of some ancient indigenous prophecy

that he was going to, was it save the world

or bring everyone back together

and thus save the world by saving the Amazon?

That's right.

I mean, the second part, yeah, so basically,

these indigenous elders from the Amazon

came to this guy at like a peace gathering in India

and they said to him, you know,

we think you're this guy in our prophecy

that we've had for, you know, hundreds of years.

So different, different tribes of the Amazon,

they all kind of got together and identified this guy

and said, you know, we think you're this guy.

And, you know, initially, he's just like,

I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm just kind of a regular guy.

I don't think I'm the guy.

And they basically for eight years kept coming to him

and saying, you know, when you're gonna come

and fulfill this prophecy of ours,

you're gonna come and unite the tribes of the Amazon

and essentially save the Amazon and restore the earth.

And after many years, he's just like, all right.

Like, I guess I'll like do what I can and go down there.

And first of all, how, that's crazy

he was able to fight that off.

I would immediately be like, yes.

I, I, getting hit with the chosen one

is my personal fantasy.

So that's crazy.

He got to live that out.

And it's not that he, he was like, no, no, no, no, no,

I'm not, which obviously you're the chosen one.

If you're gonna be like, no, I'm not the chosen one.

It's like, you're definitely chosen.

Yeah.

So he was right.

But dude, he, but then you, I saw him like, okay,

that's first of all, that's a, that's a kind of a wild concept.

Then you get into that guy's life.

And it's like he, it's, that guy was,

I've never even like heard of or seen a guy like that.

Yeah, I mean, most town guy, I think I've never seen.

Yeah, no, that, that's kind of what drew me.

And honestly, the prophecy part of it was just,

to me, just so bonkers that I was like, this,

this is, this guy's a bullshit artist.

This is crazy, you know, and I was, you know,

incredibly skeptical of it.

And then ultimately, I, you know,

first of all, I started doing a lot of research

I hired a private investigator, you know,

to look into this guy.

You know, I was saying he's best friends with Jane Goodall.

And I didn't really believe him there.

I forgot about that.

He was buddy with Jane.

Yeah, and then, and then I, you know, reached out

to her personally and got an interview.

And she said this guy is the most fascinating guy

she's ever met.

And, you know, one of, and so obviously that voucher,

really, what, what kind of drew me in was how weird

and amazing this guy is life was.

He was like the most fascinating guy I've ever met.

He's, you know, he was a carny.

He was a jeweler designer to, I guess, you know,

Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and Russell Crowe.

He was, you know, a carny, a carny.

So he basically at, at 12 years old,

he like joined the carnival for like four years

because his brother got cut in half.

Yes, I remember.

Okay, yes.

And his parents needed, it's crazy.

Yeah, I don't want to laugh at his brother.

He can cut half, but yeah, his brother got fucking cut in.

Yeah.

And so his parents had to go basically take care of his brother.

So he was left kind of on his own at 12 years old.

And so what he decided to do was join the carnival.

And there he kind of met all these freaks

and married a prostitute, which isn't in the film.

But, and then, these are like a mythical guy.

I swear to you guys, it's like fours gump.

It's like Zealig.

It's like the guy has literally done everything.

Yeah, he's, and so yeah, I just felt like him alone,

as a character study, I don't know if you,

you sort of like character study of movies

or documentaries, you know, just a fat,

just him alone, I knew would be kind of fascinating.

And then on top of that, you've got this whole prophecy,

you've got, you know, indigenous,

you know, going into this sort of indigenous world

that, you know, most people have no idea about,

you know, and learning about, you know,

there are wisdom and connection and all that.

And then having this guy kind of fulfill this prophecy,

it's just like the strangest story I've ever heard.

And you kind of followed him around more so,

kind of like fact check.

Yeah, which I could pick up on towards the middle,

towards the end of the dock was pissing the guy off.

When you were fact checking him,

and he was just like, well, you don't believe me dude.

You don't believe me, I'm the chosen one to say for you.

So yeah, I don't want to give it too much away,

but it was due to the documentary is fantastic.

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So, so how does that work?

Like when you want to do a documentary,

you just, I guess you just got a hot tip somehow.

And then you got to go like, you just follow the guy around.

Like what was it like?

I mean, I guess you weren't with him all day every day.

When I see a documentary, for some reason I imagine

you're just like living, eating, and sleeping

in the same quarters with the guy.

I was going to say sleep with the guy.

You're sleeping in the same quarters with the guy,

but you're just kind of popping in, recording, popping out,

you know, going back and forth.

What is that like after a certain time?

Do you guys become like super close

or is it just kind of like all biz?

Yeah, well, everyone is different.

I mean, this one I actually really did sleep at his house twice,

which was pretty wild.

I mean, his house, he's got two places,

one in Morocco, California, and one in New Mexico.

And they're both kind of really wild.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, in this instance,

you know, it was kind of on and off.

And, you know, you just, you know,

I was kind of documenting him and following him,

but it was really kind of on and off, you know?

So I would shoot with him for a few days

and then like, you know, maybe a couple months would pass.

I would sort of shape the story a little bit more

than know what, you know, something else is coming up

that I would go and shoot that, you know,

until I kind of, you know, was trying to wrap it all up

and say, where is this going?

When is this going to end, you know?

That was actually the most.

How many films were, how long you said?

About three years, you know, on and off.

Thanks.

That's going to be nerve-wracking,

especially if you're filming, filming, filming.

You're like, all right, come on, go meet these guys,

go do the stuff.

Yeah, how does you handle kind of like,

trying to keep them on a timeline with that?

Well, I would constantly ask like,

is this happening, what's happening next?

Is the prophecy, you know, going to be fulfilled?

Like, you know, in our culture, you know,

we're constantly, you know, we want results, you know,

we want, and plus like, I don't want to be shooting this

for like 10 years, like, I've got other things to do

and whatever.

So, yeah, I would be, you know,

putting a little bit of pressure on him

about where is this going?

And that was kind of the most nerve-wracking part

of this particular documentary that I made

was just that it was so unknown where this was going.

And I know, I don't know if you've ever been

in a situation where you get involved in something,

you have just no idea where it's going

and you think you're crazy.

Why am I doing this?

I couldn't even...

Like a marriage or something?

A marriage thing?

It's so hard to put.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, a little idea.

No, a project like that would be,

it would drive me insane, to not know.

I was literally on the verge of insanity, like...

Yeah, especially because I, you know,

I don't know if you've staked it yourself

or you have financial backers, you're doing this

and this sounds awesome

and you're like, fuck, dude, come on.

Well, this one I was kind of on my own

because as you said earlier, you know,

pitching this story to like Netflix

and HBO and places like that,

I mean, it's just so far out

and so weird, they're not making this kind of stuff, you know?

I haven't seen anything like that before.

And so I even going to investors, you know,

they're just looking at me, like,

what the hell are you talking about?

This is too weird, you're crazy.

And so I was kind of on my own at a certain point

when I decided to commit to this, you know,

I realized that I was kind of going to be on my own here.

So that put a lot of even more pressure on the financial

also, like one of my biggest fears is like wasting my time,

you know, if you spend three years in life,

like what have you been doing, you know,

you talked to your friends and family,

like, well, what are you making now?

You're just like, yeah, this guy,

he's in the middle of a prophecy.

They think they're like, dude, dude, you're out of your mind

and you gotta go see somebody, you know?

And so it's been hard to kind of,

but I did see a vision, you know,

about this film, no matter how crazy it was,

I knew that somehow I could weave all these really interesting

things together into something really meaningful

and funny and really bizarre.

It's like a trip.

This is this whole thing's like just going into like

a psychedelic kind of weird trip,

but that also, I think, you know,

gives you a lot to think about afterwards.

Yeah, and especially, yeah, again,

it kind of does too.

And I'm actually reading a book right now,

speaking of the Amazon,

about the first conquistadors who like sailed or like went down,

I guess in a canoe or whatever,

navigated the entire Amazon river.

And the author went down there,

because he always likes to visit like the historical sites

or whatever he's writing about.

And he did say, he said the Amazon in particular is like,

he's like, it's literally like a magical world.

And he's like, you know, there's obviously a lot of it.

It's been like destroyed.

But he was basically saying that if we,

if we do lose like the rainforest,

we're kind of, we're kind of fucked.

Yeah.

He'd like retains moisture.

And if you knock down the trees and plant different trees,

they don't retain the same amount of moisture

and it gets hotter and blah, blah, blah.

But so hopefully, it's true.

Hopefully he does the thing,

because it's like, I don't know, again,

no spoilers,

but I was like, you watch it and you go, maybe he did.

Yeah.

Maybe he did the thing.

Yeah, I mean, you know, that that was the whole thing.

I mean, I would go to these gatherings,

you know, where he was essentially uniting tribes

at the Amazon, you know,

and, you know, they would be these sort of smallish gatherings.

You know, they'd be, they'd be tribes

from various parts of the Amazon and, you know,

well, let's just say about a hundred people.

No.

And, you know, I'd be looking at this

and they'd be doing, you know, indigenous ceremonial things

with feathers, with fire and all kinds of things

and connecting with spirits and so on.

But from an outsider perspective,

you're just looking at this thinking, you know,

what the hell am I looking at?

You know, this is so weird.

This is about saving the world.

It's a uniting the tribes here.

But then I started thinking to myself,

how does any business deal or any,

even Jesus Christ for instance,

when he was doing his sermons and starting out

and talking to people, it probably didn't look like anything.

Just talking to people and doing about some weird stuff

and, you know, no one, no one would have said,

this is the guy he's gonna do this is happening.

Everything happens even on a big things

that end up having these ripple effects that huge.

They start off really small

and they probably don't look like anything that's special.

Yeah.

Well, that was you guys started your podcast,

you know, it was just you guys in a room

and then it becomes a far from glamorous.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that was the meetups in the hotels

where it's just like a 20 person meetup

in a hotel convention center.

Well, that was kind of crack.

That was cracking me up.

You're just like, bro, wait, this is the big meeting.

I will say what I liked about him too

is that like he would do those meetings.

You know, it doesn't look great.

There's just a couple of people who will strewn

and he would get out and be like, that was awesome.

Yeah, that's exactly what we needed to do.

That's exactly, he's like this insane optimist

and every time I would talk to him,

it would just be like literally he just did

the biggest thing ever and I'd be like,

were we at the same place?

Like what is going on here?

Yeah, no, I don't know if have you met people like that

that are just like so positive

and so almost in slightly delusional way

but it becomes kind of contagious

and weirdly self-fulfilling.

Yeah, it is.

On my good days, I can kind of do that myself a little bit

but then I slip all the time.

I'll just go anywhere to do a show and be like,

this is it, I fucked up, I'm done.

This is how I'm gonna freak out on stage.

I'm gonna walk off.

It happens to me like 40% of the time.

I'll be in the middle of starting a set

and I go, well, I'm gonna have to leave

and everyone's gonna be furious

and I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna move back in with my parents.

I'm on stage, this is the first like seven minutes

and I'm like, I'll just move it back in with my parents.

It's no big deal.

But yeah, I try to persevere.

There is something nice about that,

especially now where like, I feel like intense pessimism

and negativity is almost like in, in a way

where it's like, it's almost cool to be like,

fucking world's ending dude, we're screwed,

everything's done, it's like, I don't like that stuff,

honestly.

I mean, it's such a fight to stay positive,

but it's so important.

Yeah, man, I mean,

well, it's like how do you do everything dude?

And once you start that negative talk to yourself,

it's really bad dude.

And yes, it's literally like the worst thing you can do,

but there's nobody, in my opinion,

there's like no emphasis put on the responsibility

of not being a gigantic bummer.

Yeah.

Cause if you ever had like a, you know,

I remember having like regular jobs,

90% of the people I've worked with were like massive,

just chronic bunners.

Every single person I've worked a regular job with shows up

and they're like, shit sucks.

Yeah, it's like, no other way.

This is one of the, just show up and be like,

another day here, this fucking bullshit ass place,

I hate this way, like dude, I just, I just got here.

Can we just chill a little bit?

So yeah, I mean, I wonder what people would need though,

cause I don't know, I feel like without religion,

I don't know what else could possibly stoke somebody

day in and day out like that.

You know what I mean?

Somehow my mindset, I mean, even like, you know,

making documentaries, it seems like the greatest thing.

I ever, oh my God, you get to tell that story

in this one and that one.

But on a daily basis, the grind of it and the,

the pressure is, you know, it's so easy to get into that

negative talk.

Have you ever been tempted?

Even the best thing.

I mean, they should teach it in schools, you know,

about kind of the art of positivity.

Because that's all related to this mental health.

You need it.

You need that.

The problem is it's being delivered by school teachers

who can be a little negative and nasty.

You know what I mean?

It's tough.

If you're like a 27 year old lady being paid 30 grand a year,

it's tough to get the kids and be like,

guys, life is awesome, life is great.

You guys just gotta believe in yourselves.

Yeah, teachers, that's, you know, that's one job I would never,

I would like to have, but it's a, I don't know if I can do it,

man, especially like,

it'd be one thing if you had like other sources of income,

but if you're just living on that, like the teachers I've talked to,

apparently they just get crushed by the administration,

is there like, you have to do it this way.

None of it makes sense, but this is that the way

we're gonna be funded and every parent is like, dude,

you suck.

My kid's right, you suck, blah, blah, blah, blah, so.

With coaching, too, he is.

Yeah.

Similar.

Yeah.

About the parents getting involved.

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It's good to be right.

It's cool, man.

I love it.

I don't know, like the pressure for coaching,

I don't know if that's like,

is that like scholarship pressure?

Like I played sports, my parents are just like

happy around the house.

They would show up and be like,

great.

Yeah, it's my zero points.

Mine didn't show up that much, but yeah.

Oh, man.

Sorry.

No, no, no, no, but I'm saying, I'm just saying,

you know, I didn't,

sometimes it's a good thing, you know,

that your parents are there every single time.

I prefer them not to be there, honestly.

I didn't like, if they came, it was like sucks.

Then like, you know, I would ride the bench for most of it.

There's nothing worse than your parents showing up

and you're on the bench the whole game

and you're like, I'm sorry, I brought you guys here.

I know.

I agree.

That happened in college a couple times, you know,

when I played college, right?

I played college hockey.

What?

They yell, yeah.

Damn, dude, what the fuck?

What position?

So I was a forward.

What?

Yeah.

What the hell, I didn't know you were a hockey player.

Yeah.

You don't strike, I mean, again, I'm not saying,

you're not like rough and tumble,

but you don't strike me as a fucking college hockey player.

I'm going to keep on your teeth.

Yeah, we wore masks in college, you know?

Yeah, okay, fair enough.

Well, when you play it professionally,

then the masks will come off, but why?

I don't know, I don't know why they,

they kept that rule.

Maybe they wanted people's faces to stay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Until until you play pro.

Those time to take the mask off

and show that beautiful hockey face.

Yeah.

For advertising, they need to see the faces.

True for the game, yeah.

Yeah, because if you're wearing a mask,

it's not, you can't relate to the players.

Yeah, that's true.

So what was the hockey grind like growing up?

You must have played.

It was tough, yeah.

Yeah, that's a sport you play like early in the morning.

Yeah, it was, it was, you know,

like anything, just such a huge commitment,

but to find ice time often times

like when you're a little kid,

you have to wake up at five in the morning

and work for school and stuff like that.

I think a couple of times a week.

It was, it was, you know, just like,

it was just a huge commitment your whole life.

You know, you want to be a great player.

You want to play the ice?

Did you cop the scholarship to Yale?

They don't, you know, they give financial aid.

So if they look at your income

and decide what they, to do with you.

You know, they're not allowed to just,

I don't know about now, but back then,

you know, that's how they did it.

But I got, I got offered a couple of scholarships

from like Notre Dame and other places.

So you're nasty.

I was, you don't want to,

you don't want to, you're not on to your own when I get it.

So how many documentaries have you done?

I've done, I've directed four and then, you know,

made five.

Okay.

Well, what was your favorite one, you think?

You know, well, this one,

that they've all been very different.

But one that's kind of near and dear,

we're talking about hockey.

Well, I've done, I've actually done several there

so somewhat hockey related.

But I really love in search of greatness,

which is about the greatest athletes of all time

and about the nature of greatness,

told from the perspective of the greatest athletes.

And it's really about kind of creativity

about how, you know, most of the greatest athletes

from Gratsky to Tom Brady to, you know,

Massey, they're not what we think they are.

They're actually on a spectrum of like athletic ability

and speed and this, they're actually like worse

than the average athletes, strength and speed.

Gratsky, let's take, for instance, you know,

I don't know that.

Yeah, I mean, he was, he was like an anomaly.

It could barely bench press anything.

He wasn't very necessarily fast.

He wasn't, didn't have the hardest shot.

He was, but he was just, because of these weaknesses,

he had to figure out, you know,

another way to play the game.

And he just, you know,

was the greatest ever by far, you know,

because he had to come up with these, you know,

compensation tactics.

So he, he just thought, he thought faster.

The same thing with Tom Brady,

if you look at his combine score, whatever.

So what I was trying to argue is that I think we,

we see sport in a, in the wrong way.

We were not looking at the right things, you know.

For me, it's all about like creativity

and sort of what we do with our weaknesses, you know.

And that we can actually reinvent our fields

by thinking about sport or whatever it is

in a completely different way.

You look at artists, it's the same thing, you know.

In order to reinvent something, you have to, you know,

it's not what you think, you know.

I know, I know you're saying it's not all about

like the 40 time, it's not all about the whole lot.

I mean, it's totally the opposite.

It's about the mind and about creativity.

That's pretty cool.

Did you see the movie Inside Out 2?

I'm a few watched out with your kids.

I don't, no, I don't think I do.

Inside Out 2, a lot of motions.

Yes, it's all about emotions and stuff,

but there's a part in that where, you know,

it's all about like a kid having the motions,

the motions get out of control

and they got to find some like equilibrium

and that's kind of like the whole movie, basically.

Well, there's a part in the end of Inside Out 2

where the girl, Josh, you've seen this movie?

This girl's having a tough time,

her motions are all out of whack.

She's obviously sitting puberty too,

so there's like new emotions.

And there's a part where like the thing you're talking

about finally clicks and it shows that like,

she's all like gung-ho, like I gotta be the hardest

and fastest and then like she just

gained some sort of peace in herself

and there's a thing where she's like skating,

serenely, through the ice, playing hockey.

And I started to cry.

It was just such a beautiful,

you stuck with me for three days,

just I was like, God, man,

that was, because there's so much going on in her life

and then she just was like quiet inside her head

and she was able to just like part through,

like having fun rather than like gnashing your teeth.

That's exactly what the point of this movie is.

And in fact, my greatest memories of maybe in life

are like playing hockey in an outdoor rink

just skating on my own and just like that

and enjoying kind of the feeling of it.

And you know, it's magical.

And that's what the essence of life is and sport too.

It's just this free,

this feeling of freedom and being able to experiment

and it's the same with, I'm sure comedy too.

It's all about just that period of experimentation

and just unstructuredness about it.

That creates...

Well, yeah, once you get in your head, it sucks.

It becomes a nightmare if you get in your head.

And it becomes ritual, I gotta do this.

I gotta do that.

Yeah, you know.

No, I was talking to a, God, I'm blanking

on the guy's name Kirk Fox.

Who's a guy?

Kirk Fox is a comedian.

He's in LA and I was at the mothership

and I was just like in one of my little funks

where I'm like, I had like started doing newer material

at a workout the hour and I was just like, you know,

possessed being like this has to be good.

Oh, and I would just go on stage

and I could feel crowds being like, ugh,

cause I'd come out like, you guys and they'd be like,

you know, that's not what this is about.

I should be having fun and making us have fun.

And I got off and I was about to go on

and maybe I was between shows and I was just like talking to him,

like, I don't know, I'm just like fucked up right now

about all my stuff and he was like, he's like looked at me

and he's like, who cares?

Like just go have fun, stop being, you know, such a simple...

Such a dumb thing, but at the moment it hit me

and I was like, God damn it, you're right.

I went on after that and had a blast and I was like, yeah,

I was doing it to service to everybody else

by being so self-centered and being like,

no, you have to be the best.

This needs to be great.

It's like literally a scourge.

I get, we all fall into that crazy trap, you know,

but it kind of comes back to what we were talking about

earlier about positivity and just kind of having fun

with things, you know, and trying to find that somehow

because you get pulled back into that seriousness

of the negativity and you know what I'm saying?

And you can't, oh dude, it's literally the worst.

You can't perform either as well, you know.

No, it affects all things.

I'm up the age now, I'm turning 40 in like literally a week

and I like clockwork now.

Like I was my whole life, I've been so cock sure

in terms of erections and man, like I'm noticing now,

I'm like, dude, if I even think about anything else

while I'm having sex.

You know what I mean?

I agree.

Like anything else enters my field of awareness.

If I start going like, what's this like, is it gone?

I'm not even gone, but it's just not, you know,

it's not, it's not the dick.

It's gone, and it's like, it's been fun for me now

being like, all right, how do I, you know,

what do I gotta let go of, you know,

and maybe it's just gonna get worse and worse

as I get older, but that's an interesting one.

I've never had that problem and like,

I mean, that's like a very, you know, localized example.

But, you know, we'll see, that'll be my next quest

to see if I can somehow overcome that, but it's, you know.

It's like, you know, if you're with the same person,

it, you know, it's a little harder.

What are you talking about?

What are you even talking about, dude?

No, yeah, it's amazing.

But I'm just powered by the strength of our connection.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

No, yeah, obviously, it's like, you know,

you know, as I find that, like if you close your eyes

and not, not that, you still connected to your partner,

but turn on the lights and put on your plugins for,

no, no.

Internally and stuff, how you're feeling and, you know,

less stimulus.

Yeah.

So it, that helps a little bit.

I think so.

I think so.

For me, I just eat pussy and I recharge,

but the, that helps.

That's the move.

Like a babe, time out.

I need a water break.

I need a water break, babe.

But I agree with you, man.

It's like, you know, that's, if I could somehow, you know,

if you think about distilling all of your life's efforts

into like one thing,

for me, it really is trying to figure out

how to kind of spread the stoke as much as possible.

And not even like, I feel like it gets a better app

because there's that like,

vapid version of that where you're like in the mirror

being like, you're a champion.

It's like not that at all.

It's like, no, you're a worm and you're pathetic

on some level, but despite all that,

you can still transcend that inside yourself

and not be a total drag on your own life

and, you know, everybody else's.

Yeah, like when people say, you know, it's,

I hear this saying all the time,

well, you got to love yourself.

You got to love it.

I can't quite.

Different try.

I do it.

I do it.

Yeah, it's just a weird thing, you know.

So it's, I don't even think it's that.

I don't, I don't think that you do have to.

You shouldn't like, hey yourself and beat yourself up.

That's the thing.

But yeah, loving yourself.

How do you do that?

Oh, I love you so much.

It's the weirdest thing.

I've literally tried this.

I was, I can't, I was on LSD one time.

And like towards the end of it,

I got this wave where I was like,

I got to show up for myself.

I got to love myself.

And I like looked at the mirror

and there's a first start of my brain.

I was like, shut up.

And I was like, all right, my bad.

Try to love you, but you pushed me away.

But yeah, I personally think,

yeah, I think that's one of those things

that like it sounds great.

And then you try it practically and you go,

okay, like this is impossible.

I personally think you should,

not beat yourself up like you're saying.

And just rather than trying to place

some weird mind game with yourself

and like loving yourself,

just go do something for somebody else.

That's the easiest.

That's easy.

I can pump someone else up.

I can show someone I love them.

But yeah, that whole thing like love yourself.

I don't know where that comes from

or like where that even originated

because there was no way.

That's, I think that must have come in like the 80s.

Like that was, nobody said that in like the 50, 60, 70s.

Maybe 70s and 60s, but.

But I do think that love itself is a key to it.

That feeling of like,

if you can get that right here to love other people

and to get that feeling for other people

and for life and you know,

makes a big difference too.

It's similar to positivity or whatever.

But that feeling of love is what I think we all crave.

Yeah.

And a non, not to be cheesy or whatever,

but there's something to that too.

For sure.

That's what you say helping other people.

Yeah.

It's that makes me feel transformed you.

You know, if you could get wake up

and sort of try and channel that feeling of love

rather than hate or, you know, yeah.

Or I mean, it's what all religions,

what all spiritual traditions, you know, are saying,

you know, all the great people from, you know,

Gandhi, Martin Luther King.

It's the key themes to have a, you know,

have a good, for me like,

if I want to try to alter my own mood,

it's such a labyrinth and mind game

that it's like, I'm just going to end up

probably having a panic attack.

If I like close my eyes and start going like,

all right, dude, let's make yourself feel

as good as Bob.

I'm going to, I literally did this the other night.

I was like, putting my kids to sleep

and I lay on the floor while they're like

getting ready to fall asleep

and I like started having a panic attack

and I was like, all right, I got to get out of my head.

But I can easily text my wife

and like, you look great today

and she's just like, oh my God, thank you so much.

And then I'm like, oh, I feel good now.

Yeah.

I'm going to have to apply it yourself.

Yeah.

I, I, I, I, you can, yeah.

So what I do is I do really nice things

for a lot of people and then I keep score

if they do nice things for me.

And then I eventually explode on them

and say, you found nothing for me.

Don't you look nice 10 times this week?

Yeah.

But yeah, man, it's a, yeah, keeping scores is,

can't keep score, can't keep score.

You just got to be it, especially if you're married, you know,

jeez, can't keep score.

You can tell them how hard you don't keep score.

That's what I do.

I go, look the other day,

you left your stuff out, I didn't say anything,

but I don't keep score like that.

So yeah, exactly right.

But that, I mean, marriage is one of those things that like,

yeah, man, it's like, if you really want,

as I feel like, again, I only know my own self,

but I do feel like, let's say collectively,

it is like a, like a furnace,

because you and another person,

you have different ways on like, this should be done this way,

this should be done that way.

And in my experience, you either like,

let go of a lot of stuff, or just fucking explodes.

Like there's no other way.

You have to, you know,

and also you got to really anticipate that people

are going to change, that nobody stays the same.

That's not the point of life is to stay the same as to,

people are growing, they're doing different things

and to anticipate that.

And then really, I think make that just commitment

to kind of go with it and whether

and not fight against it.

No, no, Tony, I used to always,

always when I was younger, I hear people say,

like just that similar, like kind of folks,

the happy, happy, happy life stuff.

And I'd always be like, never.

I'll never give up.

And then you, you get to point off,

I can give up, dude, I'm done.

I'll do, I'll just fucking clean up my plate

or whatever you're so freaked out about.

But yeah, but it's good.

You know what I mean?

It's like, it sounds not, but it's like,

I don't know, like you know what for me?

This is like kind of different, but like COVID for me,

like this whole thing about like being kind to other people

because I was like, I'm a nice guy.

And then like I would notice, like,

I didn't notice how much I did this before COVID,

but I would be in a grocery store

and I would like, I would just see a person

and like my brain, my brain was constructed

to like keep myself somehow above anyone around me

and any way I could think of.

So I would like see, I would see like a tall, handsome,

muscular man, I'd be like, fucking loser.

Guys, probably a big dork thinks you're so fucking cool.

Guys, literally probably a dumbass.

And then I would just see like a lady,

like, look at that fucking lady.

And I would just do this in my head.

I know the time.

I know the time.

I'm the same.

It was not now.

No, I would do this.

I would walk around and go,

I'm just fucking look at this guy.

And then COVID heightened it

because it was like people would have the mask.

I wasn't a fan of it.

I was like, I think it's weird, we're all afraid of the air.

So I would go out.

I wasn't being like super aggressive with it,

but like if I was outside walking my dog,

I'm not wearing a mask.

Like I'm fine, I'm not worried.

We're all far apart from each other.

And I would get like dirty looks in my neighborhood

because everyone was like completely K95ed up.

And I had that, they're like it heightened that thing

in my head.

So now it was like enemies to me.

And I was like fucking look at this fuck.

Now I was like really amped up.

And I remember, I think I was in like a whole foods

or something and I like, I realize somehow

that every time I'd walk past a person

and be like, look at this fucking piece of shit,

it gave me a bad feeling.

Yeah, exactly.

And I just, something like snapped in me

to where I start every person I saw

and be like rooting for them on some level.

And be like, I wish them the best.

And you know, I still have that like,

look at this fucking lady's weird ass fucking password.

I'd be like, but I wish her the best.

And dude, I have filled with like an incredible sense of peace.

And ever since I've been,

his whole thing for me is like,

even if you see somebody who's like kind of unbearable,

like maybe doing something crazy or whatever,

once you have kids, you're like,

oh, that's somebody's kid.

Yeah.

So like if my kids are out in the world,

God forbid someone to walk past them

or like nice fucking hat dumbass,

I'd be so upset.

So I started being like, well, I'm gonna treat everybody

like there's someone else's kid.

And you know, and it's like,

cause you know, I would hope their parents

would like want them to be treated nicely.

And if their parents don't care if they're treated nicely

or not, then they need even more,

kind of like loving careness or you know,

loving care and whatever it's called.

And the kids really helps with taking

that kind of perspective too,

especially like with your own parents,

like once you have a kid thinking about your own parents,

how they dealt with you and have a little respect for that.

Being a dad and having a dad, you know.

Oh yes.

And other people too, like you're saying.

But I don't know what that is.

I had that same thing about judging everybody.

And it's a weird, where does that come from?

I had a few, even if you're self-aware,

you're like, why did I keep doing that?

I have a theory, I have a theory.

And it's a, my theory is that so it goes,

I think it goes all the way back to like,

it's just a thing in nature.

Like if you're an organism,

you have to size everything up.

Exactly.

But if you're an organism, say,

and like there's a bigger organism than you,

you have a fear of annihilation instinctively.

You're going, this thing's bigger than me.

Now I'm going to die.

And I think humans have so many dimensions to judge

where it's like money, looks, success.

What it, it's like infinite, like it's so like comparing.

So if you sense someone somehow bigger than you,

then it's like you have to somehow cut them down in your head

because there's like a weird innate fear that pops up.

That's my theory.

Yeah, yeah.

So you just walk around the day at all, maybe.

And then if there's someone that like,

you can just completely slam dunk on,

it's probably just a feeling of victory.

You were like, there's fucking piece of shit.

So yeah, I don't know.

That's my theory about that.

But it doesn't help you.

And the thing is, is you think you get this buzz off it,

but I really think it makes you feel worse.

Yeah, it does.

It's kind of like when you're in grade school,

doing that, you know, it starts there almost.

Oh, for sure.

Kids are making fun of other kids.

And so you still feel like when you're an adult doing that,

you feel like you're a kid essentially still.

It's a rough one.

But I, yeah, I mean,

well, it's one, I mean, if you're with your bros,

it's fun, it's fun to mess around with your bros like that.

But yeah, if you're out in like in public around someone

who's essentially a stranger and you're like,

I know a lot of people do this.

It's just start just absolutely ragging on people

when you can't do that.

It's not nice.

Yeah.

But, but that helped me with social comedy, though.

Don't you always have to be observing and like,

it's part of it is picking people apart

or they're inter-syncrasies and part of the,

if I'm struggling on stage, I'll sacrifice a crowd member

just because I'm like, I'm not doing well

and I'll just absolutely sacrifice somebody.

And I know I'm like, this is wrong,

but I need this laugh right now

and I'm gonna make fun of your hat

and I'm gonna make you feel terrible right now

so that I can continue, yeah.

And I know it's not right.

But it's, you know,

or you're doing it to yourself too,

like about your own life and how.

Yeah.

Well, I do that.

But if I, if I,

that's an easy trick to get a crowd on your side

is absolutely just crush somebody in the crowd

and then they're like, all right,

and you guys want this?

You better start fucking laughing at me.

Yeah, I will fuck you.

No, that's how I'm like growing up.

My family dinners were like that, though.

Like we eat all, I was one of six kids

and we'd all sit around the table

and it was just like, it was a war zone.

Like everyone was starting making fun of each other.

Yeah.

Like my dad would get involved

and like, he would just like, it would be one victim.

You'd be, if it, the light turned on you,

everyone would start just saying whatever they could

to just completely humiliate you.

Yeah.

And you had to like strike out against somebody else

and it would turn the attention on them.

And it was like, it was like every night at dinner.

That's probably how your comedy started, no.

It could be, I don't know.

But it's definitely, that could be at least

where that very critical negative voice came from

as you're to be eating and like,

do you have five other people being like,

whoa, look, you're fat legs and you'd be like,

fuck, you don't have to fire back somehow.

Yeah.

So, it's not the best, but it is fun.

I don't know.

I do think it's fun though.

Like, it's fucking with people if they're, you know,

I don't know, even when they get,

when they react negatively to it,

it is so much more fun.

If you catch someone who takes themselves so seriously.

Yeah, I know, I know, right.

I'm kind of like a bloodhound for that.

If I detect somebody's kind of like getting like,

pissed like that, I can't help it.

I'll sort of like, needling a mess around.

Yeah, yeah.

But when I was, when we were kids,

yeah, my friends and I would just kill each other.

Like, yeah, I assume it's like in every,

you know, in every circle when you're a kid,

we just kill each other.

Yeah.

Over and over.

It's part of the whole.

And then, but people would laugh, you know?

Yeah.

It's just, it's funny too.

That's a different way.

Yeah, if you got to be able to take it.

Yeah.

Cause that's my, that's my mom's big critique of my dad loves

giving it out.

But if you get him, he's just like, you guys are asshole.

He doesn't, he doesn't like, he doesn't like it at all.

Love's dishing it out.

Can't take it.

Which I think that's probably everybody.

But, but nice man.

So the, the sports doc, so you're talking Gretzky.

Who else, who else is an example of that?

There's Tom Brady, Gretzky.

So Rocky Marciano, who was one of the greatest,

obviously boxers ever of his time was like, you know,

really short.

He had no reach, but he developed this style, you know,

where he would just really, like Tyson had this too.

He would get, he basically was undefeated and he would get close

and, and basically like hit from up close.

He would just keep, you know, get staying your face.

Yeah, exactly.

And he was undefeated.

But his body was like, you know, was not meant for

heavyweight boxing.

And I'm saying he was short, you know, not very heavy

and had a short reach.

But developed a style, like Lionel Messi.

I mean, he was also shorter than most people.

He had this, you know, human growth issue where he, like,

wouldn't grow when he was a kid and had to get testosterone.

But he was, you know, he also developed this flea-like style

of like, you know, deking people and he was so good with the ball

and smart.

You know what I'm saying?

Something like that, deficiency.

But he over-compensated it in other ways.

I mean, you go through it even jury rights.

So he's, when best receivers in history, he said he wasn't

very fast, you know, but he basically memorized timing

and routes so perfectly that it gave him that, you know,

competitive advantage because he was in the right place

at the right time.

You know, exactly when the ball was coming.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I'm just thinking of all that.

That's really nice, too, because I, especially, like,

with little kids, I've noticed it's like, maybe it's always been

that way, but like I'm just noticing now, so I have kids.

But there's like a serious paranoia about any even signs

of, like, just kids showing any developmental delays,

blah, blah, blah.

People really freak out about that.

And it's nice to think like, yeah, rather than trying to, like,

force my weaknesses to become something they'll never become.

How can I kind of, you know, adapt and kind of, you know,

play to my own strengths?

Like even, like, Greg Madd, X, I was just thinking, I mean,

he was not even in my film, but like, same thing.

I mean, he sort of doesn't really look like a baseball player.

Like he's a little bit schlubby.

He's not that tall.

He's not that strong, but his accuracy and his ability

to understand batters and, you know, was on a whole

and other level.

Yeah.

It's, you look at every sport, every of the greatest athletes.

It's something like that, you know, that's completely

unexpected, you know, I call it, like,

Polsky's Law, because it's like everything you see,

everything you see is like the opposite.

Yeah.

You know, that's pretty cool.

You coin that?

It's a paradox.

I did coin it.

Damn.

I say to my family, I don't like, well, now here on the podcast,

but just that, I don't like to be like a douchebag, you know,

why?

I want coining, buddy, no one else is going to do it for you.

Yeah.

You don't do Polsky's Law.

People are going to take it and they'll call it,

maybe McCusker's Law.

Everything you see is the opposite.

Yeah.

So what is the law again, you're saying everything is opposite

is what you, everything is the opposite of what you see,

you know, what you think.

So if somebody's like happy all the time, you know,

like somebody, you know, they might be, you know,

the saddest people got you.

You've seen things like that are, you know,

these sort of paradoxes of opposites.

Yeah, like the surface, like the thing you present is,

yeah, the reality is probably compensating.

Yeah.

Hey guys, real quick, I have some shows this weekend coming up.

I'll be doing live, stand up comedy.

I'll be at the building theater in Hartford, Connecticut,

January 23rd, that'll be Friday, Saturday.

I'll be at the egg, the heart theater at the egg

in Albany, New York.

Both the take, both those shows are almost sold out,

so please come.

And if you want to come, there's, you know,

if you take it's left.

Also, the, I'll be in Las Vegas, then Denver,

Moesie Idaho, Salt Lake City, Cleveland.

Just go to matmacusker.com.

There's a bunch of other places for tickets.

Thank you.

I'll be in Helium, Atlanta tonight.

Thursday through Saturday, please come if you can.

If I know the weather's gonna be bad,

but I'll still be there.

So please come, shongardini.com.

The link is below.

Thank you very much.

I'll be at Dallas, Hyenas, the 23rd, which is Friday,

or in Yellows, Ken, on Saturday.

Amy's in about the podcast, come on guys.

This episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter.

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Did you ever see the guy on Instagram

who does facial scanning?

Where he'll be like, the big guy,

this guy has a this kind of face

and he has always funny names.

So there's like tree face, block fit.

And it's like, it's not like it's a rocket-tower thing.

He's like, these are the facial structure terms.

But he'll like, he says no one's two eyes are the same.

And he'll be like, so we'll cover up the left eye,

make the right eye as the eye of the father

and that's your secret hidden self.

And like, look how afraid he looks in this eye

and they cover this eye and they'll be like,

this is the eye of the mother

and this is like your outward personality

but it looks like angry.

It's really kind of fascinating.

Wow.

And when you see it, it's like it's not complete bullshit

because like everyone does have like

slightly different looks in each eye.

I've been in the mirror non-stop

the last couple of weeks just trying to like see

which eye is wet and like what it says about me.

It's kind of a tear that he like looks at people's faces

and he breaks them down to a tee.

And some of the people that people he like knows

nothing about and then the producer goes,

oh, this guy like killed his entire family.

He goes, oh yeah, I told you he looked kind of fucked up.

And the craziest thing they said,

there's a term called,

but it's called whites on three terms,

three sides of the eye.

So like when people have a lot of white showing

underneath their eyeball,

he's like that's like a giant red flag

because he had done the guy,

fuck, I forgot his name,

the guy who killed his parents.

Nick Riner, he did a facial analysis of that guy

and that dude's eyeballs are like,

like you see a lot of the whites under his eye.

So I've been on the lookout for that lately.

But there's a, it's like a Japanese saying

for whites under three sides of the eye

and it's like kind of like you see that?

Be careful.

Oh wow, that is cool.

Sam Paku, is that what it's called?

Oh yeah, Sam Paku,

whites on three sides of the eyes.

Yeah, I feel like all those serial killers,

they all have that look.

Yeah, I don't know if we're sort of,

if that's a stereotype.

I don't know.

But they do have,

I don't know if it's like,

you know, they took too much acid or whatever.

Could be.

I, the funny thing was,

so I heard about that whites on three sides of the eye thing

and I kept saying to myself,

like I would hear people be like,

oh, I just did like a bunch of ayahuasca

and a lot of them would get this wonky look in their eyes

and it's literally, it kind of looked like

you'd see a little bit underneath

and I could never like pin down like,

what is that about that?

But it was like a, I don't know.

Yeah, I've done, I've done ayahuasca.

Have you done ayahuasca?

Yeah, do I have that?

How do you, no, you don't have that.

You have, you're free from, what's it called again?

Tonosaki.

Yeah.

What's your thoughts on ayahuasca?

Well, I, you know, it's very mystical.

It's, opens kind of like a portal

to different dimensions that, you know,

it's just, it's very hard to describe

but it's very mystical.

It's beyond opening a portal to something

that you can't experience without, you know,

taking ayahuasca, you know, imagine, you know,

God or somebody saying, you know,

let me just show you this new dimension

or several of them of what's possible in the mind

and you're just like, oh my God, this is insane, you know,

to have an experience like this.

Sure.

And, you know, part of it is, you know,

and I can't confirm this but is the healing, healing of,

of, you know, past traumas and you're throwing up,

you're purging, you know, you feel better afterwards.

It's not that I didn't do it because,

and necessarily I'm looking to get healed or anything.

For me, it was more of a curiosity

and just sort of understanding a deeper understanding

of who are we, what are we doing here?

What is all this, you know?

Yeah.

And it's just, if you're somebody who is curious

about reality and mysticism and sort of understanding

deeper about reality and stuff like that,

I think it's fascinating and enlightening in that way.

You know, go, I mean, it's definitely still confusing

because it's like you're opening into this portal

and you're just like, what the hell is all this?

This is, this is incredible and crazy and strange

and you know what I'm saying?

But it's not like, oh, here's the answer to life.

For sure, yeah.

Some people do say, oh, I was told this and, you know,

I met Jesus or I don't know what they happen to them.

For me, you know, I can't say that I have a lot more clarity

about everything, but it gave me a richer feeling

about life and what's beyond what we can see.

Yeah, you know, I don't know if you've ever,

I mean, you know, you get that with mushrooms.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you.

How does it compare to like a super high dose of mushrooms?

I don't know if you've ever done it.

It's a different, almost a dimension.

Really?

You know, mushrooms you go into, in one dimension,

which is like, I don't know, it's also mystical.

You're in a portal.

You're seeing things that are, you could never imagine,

you know, but I was cause like even a little bit

of a different, each plant has its own almost world

or something.

Did you feel like out of body or was it

you're just looking around at stuff?

Kind of, but you're just, you're just in another world.

You don't even feel a part of your body.

You're just almost going into other dimensions

with different, you know, patterns.

You feel like almost, and again,

and everyone has different experience,

but I felt like I was in some kind of strange matrix

of patterns that were, you know,

in the patterns would sort of tell you stuff in a way

or how many times you're feeling.

You'd have these feeling, you know.

How many times did you do it?

I've done it like seven times.

Really?

So, yeah, that's been my thing with ayahuasca.

I've never done it because I talk to people

and they're like, I've done it like 55 times.

Like literally like 55 times.

And I'm like, what, why would you think

so many would do it that many times?

Well, why would somebody, I mean, I don't know,

there are people do it for different reasons.

Some people, they like, they like need to get healed

or they're trying to get to something

and they're trying to, it's a medicine.

I mean, some of these shamans or people in the Amazon,

they're doing it thousands of times, you know?

So for them, that's not a big deal.

You know, it's just part of daily life.

They want to access the spiritual realms.

You know, they want to be close to that

because there's a lot happening right now

that, you know, we're not perceiving, we're not seeing.

You know, some people can be in both worlds at the same time.

They can be in this reality, but also experiencing,

you know, this spiritual reality at the same time.

The question you ask was, why do they need to do it that much?

I've also noticed that people can do it a thousand times

and they're still kind of the same, you know?

Which is, I don't know, are you trying to change so much?

Or I see what you're saying.

It's like looking at it from like a cure perspective

where it's like, I've seen people get better mostly,

you know, mostly you get better.

That's cool.

Of a person.

That's nice.

Yeah, I mean, so if you're somebody that is just like,

constantly depressed or has negativity,

just, you know, generally.

Well, Will Smith, after the slap,

I think he had done ayahuasca like 30 times.

For real?

I sort of got, he did, he came out of the ayahuasca portal

in his slapped Chris Rock right in the face.

I could be wrong about that, but I read his book

and he was like that, he claimed like that was something

that came kind of for like the right time for him.

But yeah, that makes sense.

So it's not like a cure all,

but it definitely, because I agree with that.

Like with like, you know, just doing like mushroom,

I've only ever done like mushrooms and acid and stuff.

Have you done it like in a party setting

or more just like, whoa, I'm gonna go deep.

I'm gonna go on my own and I don't like the party set.

Yeah, I don't like that.

Although I took acid out of concert, it was awesome.

But that was sick.

But the, but I prefer to like lay down somewhere quiet

and do it.

That's how I did the mushrooms and it was like, it was awesome.

Yeah, it's great.

For me, it's like, it's awesome.

It really does like shape.

For me, like in the experience of it,

you're like, oh, I've all figured it out.

Why don't you're in it?

You're like, I figured it all out.

But in reality, for me, it does like shave edges off slowly.

So maybe I answer my own question.

That's why I do it 55 times.

It does feel like it like shaves off edges slowly,

but you know, it's like a 2%.

Once you, weeks later, once you like the afterglow

and that stuff wears off, you're like,

you're like, I'm still the same,

but it has like shaved off a lot.

Like the mushrooms.

It works your subconscious, didn't it really?

And it helped, the mushrooms helped for me realize how much,

I didn't realize how neurotic I was.

Yeah, I always knew I wasn't like, you know,

you know, like not neurotic,

but when I took those mushrooms,

it was like the five grams.

I like laid in bed that whole thing

and kind of blindfolded and all that.

And I, the day of, I was like picking out clothes,

like they're like, I'm gonna like wear something comfortable

and there was like, I was looking at my closet

and there was like stuff I had gotten

a long time ago from Goodwill.

And I would look at shirts and like,

that could be, that could be like a dead guy shirt.

I was like, I'm not wearing that today.

I didn't realize, and then when I did it,

it was like, it just really just kind of like,

I always tell people, it feels like there was like,

you know, like your own frame of awareness

is like a football helmet, you can't take off.

And it was just like, take it off.

And I got to like look at it.

And I was like, dude, I'm fucking nuts.

And then I was like, I'll fuck.

And then, but it was good.

And then like,

well, I'd like wake up in the middle of the night to pee.

And I would just get like rushed with the most insane thoughts

of like, I gotta get it back better right now.

If I don't fall back asleep,

and it's like, it just kind of like dead it a lot of that stuff,

which was that was like nice.

Yeah, and it's hard to,

sometimes you'll feel like you've got the key to life.

It's right there.

I figured it out.

And then literally like two seconds later,

you forget what just happened.

You forget everything.

It's amazing.

You have the most incredible experience.

And you know, a day later,

you just can't remember anything.

Yeah, that's kind of weird to think.

But it does go into your subconscious.

That's true.

And I do think it'll be nice, said this before,

but it'll be nice for people now

who will like have to confront death.

You know what I mean?

Like when you're getting older,

it's like, yeah, like that's gonna be a godsend.

Cause before it was like,

you just had to like smoke cigarettes and like watch TV.

And that's like a really gritty way to like die.

You know what I mean?

To try to like contextualize your death

and like come to peace with it.

So yeah, I think that'll be a good thing for a lot of people.

I think that like, did you get this sense

when you did psychedelics that like somehow you,

this is where you're going like after you die

like into this kind of dimension or that it kind of would

prepare you for it.

I didn't get that feeling honestly.

I honestly, I just more so get stuff of like,

you know, mine's more about like life,

about like this is just kind of what life is

and you know, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

But no, I've heard people say that with DMT,

like, oh, like it, I now I know like,

it did feel like that with ayahuasca that like somehow

that I'd been to that place before this weird dimension

that I've been there many, many times, you know.

And so I do feel like that might be where you're headed, you know?

Yeah, it's plausible.

I mean, I know I agree, man.

That's the one thing of like just having some form

of religious or spiritual sentiment,

like sentiment, like whatever sentiment out.

I don't even know the words, sentiments.

Or just having something to be like,

I am not going to die in rot in the ground for nothing.

You know what I mean?

Like it's my life as a meaning, like that's, it's so bad for you.

And I remember reading, I think it was Carl Jung was saying

that like he had, I think that's how AA kind of started

where he met whatever the guy's name was Bill W.

And told the guy, the guy was like,

dude, I've tried everything to get off alcohol.

I don't know what to do.

And he was like, yeah, dude, you're like 35.

Like if you don't somehow come to grips with like

some concept of God, you're toast.

And he's like every person I've ever worked with,

that's kind of the X factor.

You're like 40 and you're like, I'm a staunch atheist.

He's like, yeah, you're going to be depressed though, so.

Yeah, good luck.

I kind of agree with that.

Yeah.

Yeah, some spirit, some creator, some, something.

I mean, you know, I mean, we're here for some reason.

I mean, you know, we're we're we're,

well, it's funny.

This is a childish superstition.

It's like, I can face it by myself.

It's like, fucking good luck.

Yeah, I can't handle it.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, that's cool, man.

That's a, how long, when did you start doing it?

Like, when did that kind of come into the mix?

I think actually during this process of making this film,

that makes sense.

Yeah, exactly.

But I've always been super scared of it

because when I was like 12 years old, I smoked pot,

you know, and I totally freaked out and thought

I was crazy and just like for a good six months,

like I had a panic attack and was still like just in shock.

It totally tuned me up.

And I was just like, what the hell?

You know, it was devastating.

And so after that for like 20 years,

I was afraid to do anything.

Like, wow, if pot, you know what I'm saying?

Like, oh, so you went from like, no, anything, nothing.

Nothing for like, you know, I mean, obviously,

you know, alcohol and stuff like that.

But because, you know, I think weed was so like insane

for me, I've been experiencing jockeying and...

What was the bug out like at 12?

Because I used to smoke weed when I was younger and I was chill.

Wow, it was hard.

No, I did do it one time and it was chill, then I did it again

and I just completely lost it.

Like, yeah.

I was just like a panic attack.

I wasn't prepared for the psychedelic aspect of it.

I mean, it was just like really, you know, I did a lot.

Like a lot of kids, you know, and just everything was like this.

And I thought I was going to die.

I thought I was going crazy literally for whatever.

And it was so traumatizing that for months,

I was just like, is this real?

Is this what is going on, you know?

Yeah.

And no one knew like what to do.

They thought I was like crazy.

And he couldn't tell you, but I just, I did tell them.

Did you realize I was just like, you know,

I needed to go to the hospital.

Like, this is...

Dang, what did they say?

They hung with me.

They had no idea what to do.

I mean, gradually, it's dissipated.

Yeah.

But I still never felt like my old self, you know,

and it really kind of tuned me up and made me feel like very vulnerable.

Yeah.

And it's all right.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

And so since that point, I was like terrified of losing my mind, you know?

But ultimately, I gained enough courage, you know, in the last few years to like, you

know, it's just so curious that I wanted to try it.

And I kind of started to terrifying that like, absolutely.

And I think everybody's a little bit terrified of these, you know, these plan medicines

or mushrooms because, you know, everyone's afraid of losing their mind, you know?

Yeah.

True.

But I think part of it is, is that's what we kind of need to do, you know, that this

world is...

It's rough.

Yeah.

And I've been just for like, you know, what are you doing to podcasts, you know?

I'm like, I should know, like, what's the top 10 news stories right now?

And I've been, like, rocking being like, you know, what's it means, the top 10 news

stories?

Yeah.

So scary.

Everything you read is like really bad.

Yeah.

And it's like, fuck, this is, you know, and it is, it is funny.

I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, we should just get along, but it's

like, it's got to be something we can do.

This is, this is kind of nuts.

We read every story.

It's just like, the technology is too good.

We can't keep fighting.

Technology is too strong.

Get into like bio weapons, all this other shit.

It's like, do we got to be nice?

That's literally where we're going to die.

Yeah.

And we're all going to die.

And like a hot nasty flash, and it's going to be pretty, pretty sad.

And going back to the movie, I mean, you know, I guess what I learned was that a lot

of these indigenous prophecies kind of were all saying the same thing.

So for the past like 100,000s of years, they've been saying, you know, at this time the

world would be going through incredibly difficult place, like cataclysmic kind of things

and that it will be in such a bad place that, you know, we're going to really need indigenous

wisdom.

Go back to the original, they called the original order, you know, the go back to the origins,

you know, of indigenous wisdom and connection to earth that we're going to need to basically

save ourselves.

Yeah.

You know, part of that is connection to, you know, the earth, listening, the earth, listening

to all what's going on and then behaving in the right way.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I mean, it's fair.

Because you're here, we're going to run out of water.

It's like, fuck.

Yeah.

Three quarters of the rest.

It's all water.

Yeah.

Fucking use it up.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that freaks me out is I think human beings need a cataclysm.

If you're not going to like completely like rock your socks with psychedelics, it's

like, well, reality's going to reach a fever pitch so hard that like, it's either going

to make a plague, you know, we, COVID was like a minor, that was like a little bit, but

like, I mean, it's nothing like, you know, like the black death in Europe.

That was like a real kind of rock your socks moment.

COVID was like scary, but, you know, it wasn't like, you know, kids dying.

It was still like the elderly, which is like, you know, sucks, but it's not like,

as gripping, I would say, is like every, you know, 10th kid fucking dying, which is

like, maybe we'll never have that again because of medicine, but, but yeah, it's a, I do

worry that humans need another big old cataclysm to kind of like, like, all right, all right,

all right.

And that, I think now, like, God knows what that could look like.

If it's not a natural disaster, if it's like a man made cataclysm could be, that could

be rough.

Yeah.

And it's for like, for what, it's like, you know what I mean, like, what are we, what

are we doing here?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

Yeah, the reality is definitely getting weirder and weirder, you know, right now, the world

and it's just an understanding, reality, understanding, you know, what to believe.

You know, that's kind of these are big things in my movie too, it's just what, what stories

do we choose to believe?

What do we believe in this kind of chaos, you know, you know, it's true.

Yeah, I, again, I just read the news now and I just prayed, don't know this is true.

I hope it's all fake.

I hope it's staged to scare me.

That's like the best case scenario I need to look at it like now.

These are probably a bunch of psychos fighting and, you know, yeah, we shall see, but Gabe,

thank you brother.

Thank you.

Dude, definitely go check out the movie.

It's called The Man Who Saves the World, Question Mark and it's, dude, I, I'm telling you,

I liked it so much.

I was, as soon as I watched it, I was, I was talking to Brian and I was like, dude,

this is, the shoot was awesome.

Where the fuck, where'd you get this?

What, you did a theater run in it, right?

You released it in theaters.

Yeah.

So we're still in theaters.

We're doing basically like a tour, like a common, you know, a comedy tour where basically,

you know, been all over the country and, you know, so people at the end of the month

where we're doing four cities, you know, we're, we're doing San Francisco on the 27th and

then Oakland on the 28th and then Boulder on the 30th, January, January.

Okay.

Nice.

And then from there, what are the plans?

Yeah.

So we're, we're kind of building, you know, this grassroots, you know, brand, you

know, audience swelling and then ultimately, you know, it'll be more widely available.

But cool.

Yeah.

So we're, we're just, we're out there getting the word out and doing these theatrical

events.

Nice.

What do you, what do you have?

Do you have anything down the pipe?

We're, we're going to be in Austin, by the way, February 26th.

Oh, there you go.

Nice, man.

You, what do you have any other projects you want to work on?

You know, I'm so focused on just taking care of this.

Yeah, the, this kind of my main focus right now is just making sure that this is really

swell.

And then, yeah, I've got, I've got a bunch of other things I'm, I'm sort of thinking

about.

Cool.

Yeah.

All right, man.

We'll do.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you, dude.

Of course.

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