#1887 - Maynard James Keenan

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Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

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The Joe Rogan experience.

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Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

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Do you have a sauna? Do you do that?

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I have a sauna, yeah.

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Yeah?

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Well, it had, initially it had issues because it was like a janky ass actual

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heater that died and we had to try to get another.

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Yeah, we had to order another one, but no luck with that company.

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So we just, it's like, oh, that company doesn't exist anymore.

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And so had to get a different one in there, but it's fine.

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We just got done putting a bunch of the oil on it.

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Sauna oil, it's kind of, because Arizona, the sun just like cooks the fucking

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wood.

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So there's like, it was cracking in spaces.

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The real hardcore folks, they use the wood-fired sauna, old school, like you're

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cooking pizza.

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Yeah, well, they can do that.

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Yeah.

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I'm not that guy.

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Yeah, they sell those.

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I'm like, that seems like a lot of work.

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Plus, you got to kill trees.

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Yeah, we, you know, so we, you know, we use it quite a bit, actually, when it

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was running.

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But then, like, I was on the road and then harvest, we didn't bother with it

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until just now we got it back running.

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It's so good for you, man.

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It's so good.

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I just got out.

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I do it after every workout.

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It's like religious.

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I make sure I get in there right afterwards.

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It's the best.

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All right.

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You're training hard there, fella.

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Well, John Donaher teaching you finder points of triangles.

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That was fun to watch.

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Yeah, I mean, it's hard on, as you, I discussed this before, being on the road

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is, it's hard to find consistent training.

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Consistent training is your gym, that instructor in your city, your drive back

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and forth to your house, doing two classes a day, maybe, if you can.

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You know, like, that kind of thing.

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But, like, the road is, like, inconsistent.

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So the only consistency I can really rely on is picking a particular subject

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and going to people that I know that know how to do it.

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Rather than allowing them to go, hey, I got this cool thing where you go upside

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down and stand on your head and do a backflip and, like, buggy choke.

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Don't, please, I don't, I'm 58.

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Please don't try to tell me what a buggy choke is right now.

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You can't do a buggy choke?

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I might, someday.

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But right now, I just want to fucking get the triangles right.

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Buggy choke's a good thing to learn, though.

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Yeah, I want to learn it, but, like, I got, it's, let me, let me learn it when

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I'm going to spend three weeks on it and focused on it with somebody who

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understands the details.

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Somebody who also understands the counters.

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Because the counters end up being as important as understanding the actual

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thing.

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Somebody caught a buggy choke recently in MMA.

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I think it was in Bellator, and the dude picked him up and slammed him.

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And he's out.

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Yeah, he got fucked up, and then he beat the shit out of him.

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I was like, hmm, yeah, that makes sense.

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Because it's like, you really are committed to that.

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You've attached yourself to the person and that they're big and strong and can

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drop you on some, a surface.

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You just don't have options like you do with a triangle.

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You know, like if someone picks you up with a triangle, you drop down to the

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leg, you let go.

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Like, when you're in a buggy choke, you're kind of committed, I think.

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Maybe I'm wrong.

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Maybe I should talk to, like, the Rotolo.

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Yeah, this is it right here.

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No, this is not it.

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This is a different one.

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But people are getting these left and right now.

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You know, someone pulled one off in the UFC the other day, and people didn't

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even know what the fuck it was.

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I had to kind of explain it, and I'm like, this is so fascinating that this is

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a technique that is, you know, for jujitsu, it's been around for like a year or

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so.

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He's out cold.

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For jujitsu, it's been around for years, rather.

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But for MMA, it's just starting to be applied.

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Right.

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But the beautiful thing about, especially that high level of MMA, is that

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somebody's going to figure out how to counter it or prevent it.

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And then it's gone.

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Yeah.

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I mean, for a while, all of a sudden, people were catching the Von Flu, and

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then all of a sudden, people were like, no, no, we're going to counter that now.

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But then every now and then, somebody catches one.

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Yeah, well, OSP's the master.

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He's the best at it.

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He's caught more of them than Von Flu.

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Von Flu, I think, invented it.

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But OSP, I think, has more than anybody.

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He gets it all the time.

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It's like, it's a natural instinct when someone takes you down to hang on to

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that guillotine.

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You just want to have some sort of control over them.

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And then all of a sudden, that person shifts weight, and they're on top of you

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sideways.

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You're like, oh, shit.

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Then your arm is trapped.

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Good night.

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Yeah, it's a nasty joke.

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There's just, jujitsu is so beautiful.

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It's so cool watching you guys today, like watching Donaher.

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Like, I learned something, that position of the knee to the ear.

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Like, I didn't know that.

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I kind of did it anyway.

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But watching, like, he's so good at pointing out the finer details.

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Yeah.

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You know, he's just such a master.

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What a fucking interesting person he is.

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There's no John Donaher's out there.

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No.

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Like, if you said, I want a guy who was a professor of philosophy at Columbia

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University,

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who's a genius, who fell in love with jujitsu,

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and is dedicated to it so much so that he walks around with a rash guard every

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day.

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Yeah.

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He doesn't even have regular clothes.

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I was like, I just, you know, I was just kidding myself.

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Like, so, John, are we going to do gi or no gi?

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Ah.

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I think he abandoned the gi a long time ago, right?

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Yeah.

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He's like, no gi.

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Yeah.

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I mean, you can do, the good thing about doing the gi is you must be defensively

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responsible

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because you can't get out of stuff.

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You can't just power out of things.

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You know, like, there's certain techniques that you just, you know, when you

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get trapped

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in them, you really have to mind your P's and Q's when you get out if you have

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a gi.

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And, you know, I like training both because I like kind of training my mind to

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not rely on the gi.

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But then when it's, when there's something like a lapel or, you know, a jacket

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or a gi available,

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then I've trained how to deal with that piece of fabric that's your, now a tool

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for you.

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Well, I got very fortunate that I learned gi from John-Jacques Machado and John-Jacques

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Machado only has one hand.

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His left hand, he only has a thumb.

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So, John-Jacques game was always overhooks and underhooks and clinch.

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And, you know, that's why he was so successful in Abu Dhabi in the early days

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because it,

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all of his strategy completely applied to no gi, you know.

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And so I sort of, when I was training with gi with John-Jacques and no gi with

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Eddie Bravo,

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I would do the same things.

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I would just have to be more responsible defensively when I trained with the gi.

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You just, you just can't explode.

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Right.

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You know.

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I got back problems.

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I probably shouldn't train as much gi anyway because guys get a hold of it.

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And then you're, you're dealing with lower back issues.

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Do you have back problems?

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What kind of back problems you got?

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Just lower back stuff.

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Yeah.

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Trying to do all the, try it every, it's just age and beat, beat down and

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traveling, you know,

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like on the bus, trying to describe, I was just trying to describe bus life to

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your guys out there.

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Like, you know, you're sleeping in kind of a coffin.

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Mm-hmm.

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So it's kind of weird.

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You know, you can't really sit up because there's a, there's something above

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your head.

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How much time do you spend on the bus?

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Well, between every gig, unless there's a day off.

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So, you know, we're doing two on, three on and you're, so you're sleeping on

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the bus.

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But it's like, imagine sleeping and then four people on each corner of your bed

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every 45 minutes,

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just shaking it.

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Fuck that.

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Yeah.

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So you're like, you're trying to get a solid seven, eight hours sleep, but you

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end up having to get 11 hours of sleep

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because three or four of that is you waking up in the middle of the night

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because you hit bumps, bad roads, you know.

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So what do you do?

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You have the driver drive you in the middle of the night?

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Yeah.

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So after the show, you're in the bus and you're going to the next city.

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And, you know, depending on the, depending on the drive, if it's, you know,

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four hours, six hours, eight hours, nine hours.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I have friends who do that.

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Like Bert Kreischer does that.

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That's his thing.

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He loves tours and buses.

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I'm not into it.

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I don't love it.

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Um, I enjoy performing the songs.

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The travel part is the most difficult part.

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And then, you know, so you're, you're in air conditioned, uh, scenarios.

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So you're getting a little dehydrated.

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You're trying to have to hydrate a little bit more than you normally would.

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And you're having to perform that other, that night.

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So training is, can be difficult on the road.

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So try to do where I, you know, do whatever I can, uh, to get training in.

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Yeah.

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I admire people that like just hit gyms, like random gyms to show up to places

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when they're on the road.

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Like that's a bold move.

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Never know who you're going to train with.

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Yeah.

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No.

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And that's, and I'm, I'm a, I'm a pussy that way for sure.

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I, I, I, people that I know, I have, I have the mats that come to me or if it's,

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if I'm going to a place, it's because I know the person.

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Do you weight train at all?

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Not much.

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I used to a little bit.

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Um, it's really good for preventing injuries.

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Like when you're talking about your lower back situation, I'll show you some

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stuff, some of the equipment we have out there afterwards.

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Yeah.

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Is it, um, like kettlebell stuff?

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Kettlebell stuff's great, but for the lower back, there's a machine called the

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reverse hyper that we have out there.

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Okay.

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That's phenomenal because it decompresses your back and it also strengthens all

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the muscles around it.

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All right.

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It was invented by Louie Simmons, who's this, uh, genius.

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That's Louie right there.

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Rest in peace.

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Hello.

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Hi, Louie.

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He has left us and gone on to the next stage of existence.

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But that machine, he developed because, um, Louie was like a world famous power

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lifter and his, um, his back got fucked.

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And they told him to get his back fused because it was compressed.

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And so he figured out a way to decompress the spine with, uh, active decompression.

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So that thing, as it swings down and you'll, you'll feel it, I'll show it to

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you afterwards when we go into the gym, that, that thing decompresses your

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spine on the downswing.

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And then on the upswing, it actually strengthens the muscles around the back.

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Okay.

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Anybody that has the room for it and has like some issues with their lower back,

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even if you don't have issues, if you don't want to ever have issues, I can't

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recommend that machine enough.

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It's phenomenal for the back.

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I will, I will take that advice.

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I just feel like when you get to our age, you must weight train.

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It just, I don't think it's an if and or, but I think it's, you have to do it

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because you, otherwise you lose muscle density, you lose bone density, you, you

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know, we're deteriorating.

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Yeah.

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Father time wants to fuck us over and grind us into dust.

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Yeah.

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And you know, that's, and I, this is me making excuses, but you know, there's a

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lot going on with the winery.

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Oh yeah.

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So even just going to do jujitsu during harvest is like nearly impossible

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because you're doing 10 hour days.

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And so I just don't have the time and you're in the sun.

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So by the time your day is done, you're like, I need a beer and I need to go to

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sleep.

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Yeah.

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Do you take electrolytes?

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Mm-hmm.

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What do you take?

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I don't know if the, Henry Aikens turned me on to this little packet of stuff

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that it's pretty good.

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Do you know the company that makes it?

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No, I don't, I don't have.

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There's a bunch of good ones.

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I like liquid IVs.

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That's like when I have, when we have like a couple extra interns that are

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starting with us in the cellar, because it's Arizona.

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It's a hundred, you know, it might be 90 degrees, but it's 110 on the concrete.

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Just that, all that radiant heat off the, off the concrete.

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So I make everybody have electrolyte drink to even just before we even start

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here, drink this.

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Now we're going to take every 15 minutes, stop, grab water, drink water, just

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because it's a, you know, it's, it's not, it's not easy working in the sun like

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that.

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I think you live a fascinating life.

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I think that the combination of the things that you do is so unique.

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You know, the fact that you run this winery and you're very serious about it.

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You make this amazing wine and yet also you're making this fucking killer music

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and you're doing the two of them together.

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I also, I also make great pasta.

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Yeah, you do make great pasta.

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You make great pizza too, man.

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That pizza place.

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Steve makes the pizza, but yeah.

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Well, your, your restaurant, your Osteria, that's how you say it, right?

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Osteria, yes.

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That place is awesome.

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Yeah, it's good.

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Scottsdale.

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Yeah.

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Um, so I'm on here to talk about stuff.

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What do you really want to talk about?

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Because I'm doing, I'm doing stuff.

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So, you know, full disclosure, I'm here because I'm pimping stuff that I'm

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selling.

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You're pimping.

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Yeah, I'm pimping.

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What are you pimping?

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Pimping my wares.

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Uh, so we did this.

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You look like a pimp.

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Look at that jacket.

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Hey, hey.

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It's very pimply.

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Hey.

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Forget about it.

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I love that jacket.

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Uh, so I, we, there, when the, when the whole lockdown shit happened, um, and

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we were,

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we couldn't tour, um, it sucked because I just, I just released, uh, the Tool

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album.

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And then on the heels of that, I released the Pussifer Existential Reckoning

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and we couldn't

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tour Existential Reckoning.

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So what we did, we figured out, okay, screw it.

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Everybody's doing these, um, these, uh, streaming events, pay-per-views.

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Right.

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So we did one for the, for the release of the album.

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And for Pussifer, it just made sense.

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That was the thing that for what we do with our characters and some of our

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sense of humor

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and the nature of, you know, some of the kind of interesting, uh, heady, uh,

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landscapes

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that we kind of paint with some of the songs.

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It's just, it's a really interesting format for us.

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And everybody in the band, uh, went, this is a great, this is a good thing for

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us.

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So we did another one.

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We did, um, Billy Dee and the Hall of Feathered Servants, which was all of the

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Money Shot album

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and all the luchador stuff, uh, that we shot at the Mayan theater.

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We released that one.

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So we went ahead and did this still during lockdown before we actually got back

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on the road.

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Uh, we did, uh, Conditions of My Parole, the whole album called Parole Violator.

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So it's a bunch of stuff that's got Billy Dee and Major Douche and a bunch of

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the characters,

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Hildy and everything, along with everything from Conditions of My Parole.

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And we did, uh, a bunch of the V is for Vagina era songs, uh, reworked them

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completely and shot

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that all in the Sunset Sound studio in Hollywood.

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There's come, there's come some bits in that one as well.

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But, uh, those are two pay-per-views that are coming out, um, this coming

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weekend, Halloween

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weekend.

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So.

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And do you do these pay-per-views off your website?

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Well, we're going to, we're, yeah, the Pusser4TV.com is where they're going to

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live for now

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as, as a temporary thing, eventually we'll release them on Blu-ray and through

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iTunes and

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all that stuff.

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There it is right here.

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There he is.

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Double feature.

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Oh, yeah.

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Nice.

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Yeah, so it's, it's just a, it's just such a fun, when I figured out, when I

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figured out

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what it was and how we can do it and how we were like duck to water with it,

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which is,

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all of us are really good with, um, just the concepts, putting it all together.

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Matt Mitchell's an incredible, um, not only just a producer with,

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for the record, an engineer, but also his approach to figuring out how to put

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all these

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things together, uh, and our team, his, his girlfriend, Elisa.

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You live in a fun life, dude.

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Oh, yeah.

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I like what you're doing.

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Yeah, so it's just, it's just, uh, it's, I don't know.

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We just kind of went, uh, it's, it resonates with us, this approach of doing

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this thing.

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Like, the idea of, like, doing a, like, a series, a poster for a series, that

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doesn't

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really, I think, full concert with all the cool stuff in it.

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Are you bandied about doing a series?

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Have you thought about it?

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Yeah, but I think, you know, uh, uh, friends with, uh, Mark Brooks used to be a

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part of

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Metalocalypse and conversations I'd had with him and various other people that

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have been

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involved in those things.

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They're like, as soon as you go down that path with somebody like Adult Swim or

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Comedy Central

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and one of those things, they just own that thing now.

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So imagine, like, me getting in the wrong contract and now all these characters

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that I've developed,

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I can't even take these on the road now because some other douchebag owns them.

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Oh, you can't do that.

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No, no, no, no.

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Yeah, we're not doing that.

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No, no, no, no, no.

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But what about doing it independently?

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What about doing a series, you know, doing it yourself?

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Well, I think, I think my, my attention span, I think having, being at the full

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hour,

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hour and change thing, that makes sense.

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Doing, like, the small episodes and having to, to build in all those stories

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for an entire season

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and have somebody expect following through with the next season.

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I don't think that I could, I don't think I could do that.

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Do you, you have to kind of manage, you have so many interests.

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You kind of have to manage your time wisely, don't you?

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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Because the vineyard, the winery requires so much focus and so much attention,

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as does

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the creation of the music.

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And I couldn't, I couldn't do with the winery, the success of the winery, I

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couldn't do it

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without people like, you know, my wife and, and Tim White and Calvin and the

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various people

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that are involved, Aaron Weiss, in kind of handling their jobs, the delegation

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of what

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you guys do.

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I have to be there to make the decisions when it comes to the winemaking, I'm

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on the

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forklift, I'm the one, I'm the one, you know, there deciding what's going to go

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in what

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tank, because every, everything ends up making, it changes the outcome of what's

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happening.

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And there's just the approaches of when we're picking the grapes, what grapes

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are we planting?

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All those things are, come back to me, but the follow through, if I didn't have

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Jen and

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Tim and Calvin and Aaron and all my vineyard managers, Chris and Jesse, if I

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didn't have

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those people in place, I couldn't do it at all, at all.

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So it's not just a matter of me organizing my time, it's also about me delegating

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to people

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that I can trust to make the decision beyond the initial framework that I've

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set in place.

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And when you make wine and you grow these grapes, the grapes vary seasonally,

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they vary, does

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it, does the flavor vary dependent upon the weather conditions and what you do

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and don't

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do to the soil?

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Like, does that mature or change over time?

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Yeah, you know, and generally speaking, you're trying to pick a location that

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the soil itself

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is going to express something in this way for a very, you know, forever.

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That's going to be what that site does.

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You're not going to...

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And what are the, what's the variables when it comes to the soil?

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Well, this is a word called terroir.

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Terroir?

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Yeah.

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And it's everything, everything, every completely untrackable thing that you

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could think of

18:25

in terms of the levels of moisture, when that moisture hits that soil, how deep

18:30

does that

18:30

moisture go in, the content, the geology of the soil, you know, the weather

18:35

patterns in

18:36

that area and how they shift year to year.

18:39

What grape, what actual clone did you plant in that spot and how that clone is

18:43

going to

18:43

react differently to all of those infinite variables of just the soil, nevermind

18:48

the infinite variables

18:49

of the weather.

18:50

And then when you choose to pick how you choose to prune, how many clusters you

18:56

decide to set

18:57

on that particular vine, how you decide to train that vine is going to be a unilateral,

19:02

is it

19:02

going to be bilateral, is it going to be just a bush pruned, all these

19:05

different variables

19:07

about how you're going to do that farming.

19:09

That affects the outcome.

19:11

In general though, if there's a particular region that does well with a

19:16

particular grape, like

19:19

Oregon with Pinot Noir, there might be various ways that they're pruning and

19:24

adjusting how

19:25

they're training and growing that fruit, but it's generally speaking, it's

19:29

going to be

19:30

Pinot from Oregon.

19:31

It's going to have a particular profile across that state.

19:37

Variations from region to region, from site to site, from producer to producer,

19:41

but in

19:42

general, it should have a signature that suggests Oregon Pinot, allegedly.

19:50

Allegedly.

19:51

Do you follow like other types of, do you follow like cigar growing or coffee

19:59

growing or all these

20:01

other different things that vary so much on the soil and things along those

20:05

lines?

20:06

Coffee a little bit.

20:07

We just picked up a, well, it's not here yet.

20:09

Do you like, you want some?

20:10

Have some of those?

20:11

No, I'm good.

20:11

I'm good.

20:12

This is good stuff.

20:13

I had, I've had two today, so I'm going to yammer a little bit.

20:17

I like yammering.

20:18

Hey, yammer.

20:18

That's what we do.

20:19

I just picked up, it's not here yet.

20:22

We picked up a nice modern roaster.

20:25

So, because once I move the Osteria that's in Cottonwood up to the new Hill

20:30

Project, that

20:31

building in Cottonwood will become a coffee, a roaster and breakfast, brunch

20:36

place.

20:38

So, we're actually, we're actually pursuing relationships with beans and, you

20:43

know, importers of coffee beans.

20:46

So, when you do that, like, I'm good friends with Evan Hafer from Black Rival

20:50

Coffee and he'll travel all over the world.

20:52

Yeah.

20:53

And try out different beans and try out different things and that's what this

20:56

stuff is right here.

20:57

Yeah.

20:58

I've gotten really into it.

20:59

Oh, this is Black Rival?

21:00

Yeah.

21:00

Get some of that stuff.

21:01

Well, then I gotta, yeah, I gotta.

21:02

That's what I'm talking about.

21:03

Sorry, brother.

21:03

I didn't know it was yours, brother.

21:05

I'm sorry.

21:05

Yeah, no, he's, cheers, sir.

21:07

Cheers.

21:08

Always good to see you.

21:08

Yeah.

21:09

Evan makes some fucking phenomenal stuff.

21:11

Oh, yeah.

21:14

Yeah.

21:15

So, you know, so I have my, you know, Todd Fox is basically my, my go-to guy.

21:21

He, he actually has, he has that eye of the tiger on those kind of things and

21:26

he'll point out things.

21:27

Cause I'm just, dude, I'm, I'm living and I'm going and he'll go, check out the

21:32

difference between these Colombian beans and this Brazilian beans.

21:36

And I'll go, okay.

21:37

He'll be the one that kind of slows me down to focus on, check it out.

21:42

You're like, you know what?

21:43

All right.

21:43

Like, then he'll put stuff, you know, randomly we'll have some stuff.

21:46

He goes, what do you think of that one?

21:47

And I go, I really like that.

21:49

He goes, that was, those are the Brazilian beans.

21:51

So, so he's starting to help me kind of identify what it is that I like in a

21:56

coffee, in an approach because I don't, like a band, I don't have to sound like

22:03

Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin.

22:04

I just have to sound like me and, and express the way I'm going to express.

22:08

So I don't need to be able to make every kind of coffee from every part of the

22:13

world.

22:14

I just need to figure out the ones that, that I like because I'm kind of, in a

22:18

way I'm making it for me, but I'm also selling it.

22:21

But I'm not selling it to everybody.

22:23

I'm selling it to the people that are going to like it and they're going to

22:26

come to my place because that's unique.

22:28

I had a guy on the podcast years back, Peter Giuliano, is that his name?

22:33

He's like a legitimate coffee nerd.

22:35

And he, we went down like a three hour rabbit hole of coffee where he explained

22:40

to me all the beans initially came from Ethiopia and how their flavors changed

22:45

as they moved them to South America and grew in Colombia.

22:48

That's an expression of terroir that just, it changes clone to weather, to soil,

22:55

to grower, to roaster.

22:57

I mean, there's so many rabbit holes you can go down with that kind of stuff.

23:01

Like, you know, your average large commercial facilities that have a consistent

23:06

coffee that's not great, it's usually over roasted or they overheat it when

23:11

they, when they do the coffee because they, because they're just trying to

23:14

cover up flaws.

23:16

Right. Well, it's just like when people talk about coffee and they talk about

23:19

commercial places, most of the people are buying stuff that's just, they're not

23:23

really buying coffee.

23:24

They're buying sugar water.

23:25

Right.

23:26

That's got caffeine in it.

23:27

I was at, I went to do an article and a training session out at Gunsite in,

23:33

outside of, in Paulden, Arizona.

23:37

It's an old school training facility.

23:40

And I went there, you know, early morning, we were going to do this whole gun

23:43

range thing.

23:44

And, uh, this guy named Charlie, I'm sitting at the table.

23:48

He goes, you want some coffee?

23:49

I'm like, sure.

23:50

He goes, cream and sugar?

23:51

I normally don't.

23:53

But like, it sounded like that's what he, yeah.

23:55

Yeah, sure.

23:55

He goes, I asked if you wanted coffee, not pudding.

23:58

So he's testing you.

24:00

Fucking clotheslined me.

24:01

First, out of the box.

24:03

Fuck you.

24:05

Um, but I fell for it.

24:07

Yeah, I only go black now.

24:09

It's been like a couple of years now.

24:11

I only drink black coffee.

24:12

I do, I do a little bit of cream.

24:13

Uh, and I think, and I've, and I'm, I've been pretty consistent with that

24:17

lately because, because I'm now, I'm focusing on what beans I like.

24:22

And for me, I know it's going to change once I, once I remove the cream, but

24:26

that's the lens that I see the coffee through is I have to have the cream in

24:29

there because that's how I'm going to drink it.

24:33

So I'm trying to figure out what ones I like and with that lens.

24:36

I know that if I remove that, that lens, it's probably going to change my

24:40

perception of what coffees I like.

24:42

It's funny, the cream debate, whether or not you should put cream in coffee.

24:47

It's, it's, it's an interesting thing because.

24:50

I think there's far bigger issues in the world to discuss.

24:52

There definitely are.

24:53

There definitely are, but it's just such a funny snop thing.

24:55

Leave my cream alone, man.

24:57

Listen, I like it.

24:58

I like cream.

24:59

I like cream in a Kona, a Kona coffee.

25:02

I like a little cream in there, but generally I just drink it black now.

25:05

Yeah.

25:06

I'm going to, I'm planning trips to Hawaii because I want to establish some

25:09

relationships with some Maui growers so that I can actually part, make that be

25:14

part of what I'm doing in Arizona, but also because I get to go train with Luis.

25:20

Oh, okay.

25:21

Yeah.

25:21

Maui Jiu Jitsu.

25:22

Luis was my first instructor ever.

25:24

He taught me my first private lesson.

25:25

Really?

25:26

Yeah.

25:26

He had Hickson's.

25:28

Okay.

25:28

Yeah.

25:29

On Pico.

25:29

Yeah.

25:29

1996.

25:31

Yep.

25:32

I must have just missed you.

25:33

Yeah.

25:34

Well, I only went there a couple of times and then I found Carlson Gracie's and

25:37

I was so dumb.

25:38

I didn't know.

25:39

I'm like, oh, this is a different place, but it's the same name.

25:41

It must be the same thing.

25:43

And I caught Carlson Gracie's right when Vitor, when they were still calling

25:47

him Victor.

25:48

Right.

25:49

And he had just competed against John Hess in Hawaii.

25:54

That was his debut.

25:55

He was like 19 years old.

25:56

And then he was about to make his UFC debut.

26:00

Yeah.

26:00

I remember sitting behind Vitor one row behind him when Silva broke his leg.

26:10

Oh, wow.

26:12

Yeah.

26:12

But it's like, here's Vitor's head.

26:16

And I'm like having to figure out how to see around this fucking brick of a

26:21

head.

26:22

His head is huge.

26:23

Well, when he got up to like 240 pounds when he fought Randy Couture, it was

26:28

preposterous.

26:29

Yeah.

26:30

He was an enormous man.

26:32

Yes.

26:32

But those days, like those early days of the UFC were so interesting because

26:37

like, there's nothing like MMA in that regard or Jiu-Jitsu where you can go

26:43

back just 25 years and you go and look at the difference between the art form

26:48

then and what it is now.

26:50

It's just evolved and leaps and bounds.

26:52

It's evolved, but there's also, yeah, there's some, you know, we could, we

26:57

could go on for hours about it.

26:59

But when I first started at Pico, it was, you could tell that there was a, you

27:03

know, there was a, there was a club within the club and I was never going to

27:07

have access to that information.

27:10

Oh, back then there was, yeah.

27:12

Back then it was really weird.

27:13

And you're not allowed to go to somebody else's gym.

27:15

So I'm traveling and I'm like, I couldn't, I couldn't train with anybody.

27:20

I had to like, I had to wait till I got back to LA to, to pick it up.

27:23

Unless I brought somebody with me on the road to train some techniques, I had

27:27

no idea what the hell we were doing.

27:30

Yeah.

27:30

I was very fortunate that Jean-Jacques did not have that attitude.

27:33

Jean-Jacques was just to go train my friend, train, train everywhere you can.

27:38

Yeah.

27:38

And he was such a great guy and he had such a loyal, uh, student base that he

27:43

had zero concerns about people leaving him.

27:46

You know, his concern was just that you trained.

27:48

Right.

27:49

Which is very fortunate.

27:50

I didn't, I didn't have that because it was just such a weird at that moment.

27:54

Well, it was a famine mentality in the early days.

27:57

There were, well, there was also lawsuits going on because like, uh, they were

28:02

like the Gracies were suing other people for using the Gracie name, you know.

28:08

Like, uh, Orion, didn't he sue Carlson?

28:12

I think they, they, they sued, he sued someone for using the term Gracie Jiu-Jitsu,

28:17

even though Carlson's last name was Gracie.

28:20

I don't know if it was Carlson.

28:21

I don't want to misrepresent it, but I know that there was some lawsuits

28:24

involved because Gracie Jiu-Jitsu itself became like a different thing.

28:29

They were calling that a different thing than just straight Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

28:32

Right.

28:33

And now I think it's the, like, I, you know, I'm not sure where it is now, but

28:37

whatever.

28:38

I give up.

28:39

Well, I mean, that's where it becomes fascinating where a guy like John Donoher

28:43

kind of like leaps to the top of this thing with just this analytical

28:47

perspective that's completely free of dogma.

28:50

Right.

28:51

All he cares about is what is the correct way to do things.

28:54

It was the most effective.

28:55

Right.

28:56

In tried and true competition format.

28:59

Like, this is what we've learned.

29:01

Right.

29:02

Without any bullshit.

29:03

Yeah.

29:04

And, you know, that's been great for me to be on the road training with

29:09

somebody like John, like my friends at Easton and Denver and, you know, Dave

29:15

and Dan Camarillo.

29:17

They all have a slightly different approach to the things.

29:20

Some of the guys are going to be a little more self-defense oriented.

29:24

So they're going to be looking to check your position and make sure you can't

29:27

get hit in the face.

29:28

Right.

29:30

But if you but I'm a grown ass man.

29:32

And so you go, OK, I am playing jujitsu.

29:35

I'm not worried about getting hit in the face.

29:36

I'm going to train this position to understand how to move my body because that's

29:39

what it is about.

29:40

It's about at the end of the day, it is about me taking you offline and

29:45

advancing.

29:46

But really, it's about you and your self-discovery and your ability to for self-control,

29:53

me being able to control my body to do a thing.

29:57

And if you don't if you don't have that self-awareness of understanding that

30:00

this isn't just you flopping around like a fish accidentally kneeing some dude

30:04

in the face while you're going for a move.

30:06

You're not really progressing if you don't understand that it is about your

30:09

self-control.

30:10

So, OK, yeah, that's self that's a self-defense approach to the jujitsu.

30:14

But I'm also conscious enough to know, OK, I'm going to do this like I'm going

30:17

to play around with X guard and see what happens because I've never done it.

30:21

And I want to see how that what that is.

30:23

How much does that how much is training in jujitsu help just your your mind,

30:28

the way you approach life and we think about things?

30:32

Well, it's it's like I've mentioned before on your show.

30:35

This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

30:36

This is not does not come easy for me.

30:38

I am the perfect example of a klutzy dude who this is not this is not natural

30:44

for me to do.

30:47

And because of that, because of that, forever, it was stressful.

30:51

And so you're activating your mind in a stressful situation.

30:55

And, you know, you're still getting oxygen in your blood and you're moving and

30:59

you're and you're and you're opening up things.

31:01

But at some point it became more like chess instead of this.

31:07

Oh, my God, this guy's going to tap me.

31:10

Well, of course, he's going to tap you.

31:11

If you just get that in your head, like I'm going I might lose today.

31:16

I'm probably going to lose today.

31:18

Be comfortable in that moment of understanding how to, like, be conscious and

31:23

aware in that moment so that you can recognize the moment before you get to the

31:27

moment now for next time.

31:29

That was a weird shift for me getting to a position of like I'm in a

31:33

compromised position, but I'm going to get to a safe position within the

31:37

compromised position.

31:39

Take a deep breath and pay attention to what he does next so that next time I

31:45

can be ahead of what he does next.

31:48

Weird mental thing.

31:50

And then training enough that you could store all this data and have it

31:54

accessible when these scenarios present themselves again.

31:58

Yeah, because, again, it's about body control and understanding what your body

32:01

is going to do naturally now.

32:02

The drilling, the drilling, the drilling.

32:04

I cannot stress enough the drilling in a safe environment with somebody who's

32:08

not trying to tear your head off with a good training partner who's going to

32:13

give you the resistance you need to be able to rep, you know, the repetition.

32:18

And then replicate that movement.

32:20

Yeah, we're talking about jiu-jitsu, but we're not.

32:23

We're talking about making pasta.

32:25

We're talking about making wine.

32:27

These are things that apply to every area of your life.

32:30

If you can find one that's more difficult for you than the other ones, you'll

32:35

improve the things that come naturally to you by focusing on the thing that

32:39

doesn't come naturally to you.

32:41

Yeah, it's the great quote from Miyamoto Musashi.

32:44

Once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in all things.

32:48

Yeah.

32:48

Yeah, I agree with that.

32:50

Yeah.

32:51

That's the beauty of martial arts.

32:54

And that's the thing that's missed by people that don't practice it, that think

32:59

of it as like some sort of brutal endeavor for, you know, macho brutes.

33:05

Yeah, I mean, but, you know, we know those guys.

33:08

They exist.

33:09

Yeah, they exist.

33:09

But they need to exercise, too.

33:10

Yeah.

33:11

Yeah, they do.

33:14

But, you know, I think that just that finding that thing that's actually

33:19

challenging you physically, mentally, spiritually helps with other things that

33:25

come along.

33:26

Because there's, you know, the world's weird right now.

33:29

That's, there's things, I don't know, I feel like we're helping train people to

33:34

understand that the world goes through a lot of changes.

33:38

There's going to be a lot of stress.

33:40

Nobody's going to, and 90% of the people in the world are not going to agree

33:44

with you.

33:45

And if you can get through that mentally and emotionally and spiritually to

33:49

know that there's something on the other side.

33:52

Yeah.

33:53

I think things like jujitsu, things like growing food, resigning yourself to

33:58

nature and having to navigate farming, those kind of things, they start to

34:03

reset you in a way where, like, it's not this, not everything has to be an

34:08

argument.

34:09

Sometimes it's you just having to navigate the fucking weather.

34:13

Yeah.

34:13

If you can get to that mindset, you get a lot more done, honestly.

34:17

And you'll survive shit that some people won't because they're so focused on

34:21

the petty, dumb shit that they're going to miss the bigger picture.

34:25

I think a lot of the petty stuff is people also want you to agree with them.

34:29

That's not really necessary.

34:31

You know, so many people, they have an opinion and they feel like if they can't

34:36

convince you that they're correct or they can't force their opinion on you,

34:41

that somehow or another invalidates their own perspective.

34:44

Yeah.

34:44

I find that, you know, going back, again, we can go right back to jujitsu.

34:48

Mm-hmm.

34:48

We know guys that are like, no, this is the only way to do this move.

34:51

Right, right, right.

34:52

Yeah.

34:53

Well, I just watched this guy beat the shit out of everyone at ADCC and he's

34:58

not doing the things that you're telling me that you're supposed to only do.

35:05

Mm-hmm.

35:06

You know, and then like, this is the only way that, well, you know, like using

35:09

Hickson example, Hickson says, only do this, this, this, and this.

35:12

You never do these other things.

35:13

It's like, have you not watched his Vali Tudo videos?

35:17

He did everything the opposite of what you just said.

35:21

Mm-hmm.

35:21

He had his nose before his toes.

35:23

He had like all these things that you're like, you're not supposed to do.

35:26

And it's like, hey, you know, those things are not necessarily 100%.

35:31

So you have to be open-minded.

35:34

You have to disagree with it being one way.

35:38

Yeah.

35:39

I mean, it really is an art.

35:41

And then be open to hearing the way that you didn't think it was.

35:45

Mm-hmm.

35:45

And then there's all these variables, like the size of your frame, you know,

35:49

the way your body moves, whether or not you're flexible.

35:52

There's so many variables that will present themselves in this sort of equation

35:56

of how do you express yourself on the, on the mat.

35:59

Mm-hmm.

36:00

Now that, you know, the one thing that I was talking to Donald, the guy you

36:04

just met today, you know, you were trying to convince a couple of friends to

36:09

take a class.

36:10

You know, they're not very athletic, but they're, you know, musician friends.

36:13

Like, yeah, just come in and take the white belt class.

36:15

You're in a safe environment.

36:16

And getting them to understand, like, when you walk in the room and you see a

36:21

dude shaped like you, that might not be the biggest sniper in the room.

36:30

He probably works in a library.

36:32

Yeah.

36:32

Oftentimes it is.

36:33

And he's the one who's going to fuck you up.

36:35

He looks like he's like, you know, the nerd in the corner with the glasses and

36:38

the goofy hair.

36:39

Yeah.

36:40

He's the guy who's going to fuck you up.

36:41

The nerd assassins.

36:43

Yeah.

36:43

Well, because they're analytical, you know, and jujitsu favors the analytical

36:47

approach.

36:48

You, you analyze positions and analyze possible counters and, and traps that

36:53

you can set.

36:54

That's why I love guys like Mikey Musumechi.

36:57

Because he's, you know who he is?

36:59

Mm-hmm.

36:59

No.

36:59

He is a fascinating fellow who, I had him on the podcast.

37:04

He's like the smiliest assassin, thick glasses, only eats pizza and pasta.

37:10

And he only eats once a day.

37:12

Trains, no bullshit, 12 hours a day, just constantly drilling and going over

37:17

positions, big ass smile on his face.

37:20

He's multiple time world champion.

37:22

Okay.

37:22

And he's just fucking assassinating people.

37:24

We have, we have a guy, a new guy at our gym, a brown belt out of Easton.

37:27

And he, and he has, he's kind of a geeky dude, tall with glasses, his name's

37:31

Clay Wimmer.

37:32

He's from a mall's gym in Colorado.

37:34

Yeah.

37:35

He's out of a Centennial.

37:36

I think he got his brown belt from Velour.

37:39

And he, when he's, when he's rolling, he's got this creepy grin on his face.

37:47

Like, what are you, you're creeping me out, dude.

37:50

Stop grinning.

37:51

And he's like, he's one of those backpack fuckers.

37:53

He gets red on your back and you're like, you're screwed.

37:55

And he got there.

37:56

You don't know how he got there, but he got there.

37:58

And he's grinning the whole time.

38:00

I'm like, sometimes chewing gum.

38:01

You're like, are you, you're chewing, you're chewing gum and you're grinning.

38:05

You're creeping me out, man.

38:06

That's Mikey.

38:07

Pull up Mikey Musumechi takes Iminari's back.

38:11

There's a video of him.

38:14

Watch this.

38:14

This is, he already took the back.

38:16

Watch how he, he takes it back.

38:18

Go, go back a little bit of ways and you see the position.

38:21

So they're in a scramble and Iminari, who's like the master leg locker, watch

38:26

how Mikey takes his back.

38:28

This is so fucking beautiful.

38:30

He takes him out.

38:30

This is Mikey on top here.

38:32

And this is, again, this is against Iminari.

38:33

Look at this back take.

38:34

Look at that.

38:35

Oh, he got that, that neck grab.

38:37

Do you see how sweet that was?

38:39

Yeah.

38:39

Look how sweet, back up a little bit.

38:41

Look how sweet that was.

38:42

So he's in the, look at that, man.

38:44

Fucking so slick.

38:47

Yeah.

38:47

And that's, and again, that's him doing it to Iminari, who's just a fucking

38:51

legend.

38:52

And he traps the arm.

38:54

I mean, just incredible stuff.

38:57

Super, super high level.

38:58

And that, that's Mikey.

39:01

And I think he's 24.

39:02

And I think he's 24.

39:02

You got it.

39:03

Look at him.

39:06

That's Mikey.

39:08

I love that guy.

39:10

He's amazing.

39:11

And it's to me that he's my favorite example when I show people.

39:16

$1,000 bonus for that incredible performance.

39:21

Yeah.

39:22

Wow.

39:23

He's just such a sweet guy, too.

39:26

And so talented.

39:27

That's what I love about Jiu-Jitsu.

39:29

That's like, that's a world champion.

39:33

Right.

39:33

That it's just, it's, it's an art form.

39:36

I mean, he might as well be playing the violin.

39:37

You know, he might as well be, you know, making paintings or something.

39:42

It's like, that's what he's doing.

39:43

Yeah.

39:44

It's a beautiful, it's, yeah.

39:46

And like I said, it's the hardest, one of the hardest things I've ever done in

39:48

my life.

39:49

It's fucking hard as shit.

39:50

Yeah.

39:50

Yeah.

39:51

When I, that's, I, there's a bond that you have.

39:54

Like, I hung out with Guy Ritchie this past weekend in London and we had that,

39:59

the same

40:00

sort of conversation.

40:01

Like, he did my podcast a few years back and he said, I wanted to do your

40:04

podcast because

40:05

I knew you were a Jiu-Jitsu guy.

40:06

He's like, I knew we would have like very common perspectives on things.

40:10

Like, there's a thing, if you've done it and you've gotten to, like, he's a

40:13

black belt

40:14

in there, Henzo.

40:14

Guy, guys, he's really legit.

40:17

You know, and you would never know.

40:19

Like, he's like super unassuming guy, but then you start talking to him about

40:22

details

40:22

and stuff.

40:23

Like, oh, you're fucking legit.

40:24

He's for real.

40:25

I love those guys.

40:27

Yeah.

40:28

Those, you know, the guys that, doesn't really happen anymore, but like the

40:32

kind of guy that

40:33

you wish you were at the end of the bar in some scenario where two dudes or one

40:37

guy's

40:37

just fucking with the nerd at the bar.

40:39

Before cameras, before, you know, before these, so you could actually get away,

40:43

he could actually

40:44

get away with it, you know, like, you know, in a bar and I'd like, just go, oh,

40:48

this

40:49

is going to be great.

40:49

Did you see the video of Henzo Gracie taking some guy down on the subway?

40:54

Yeah.

40:54

Some asshole just get really shitty.

40:56

And he's just like, my friend, you've made a big mistake.

41:02

Yeah.

41:04

Yeah.

41:04

Don't do that anymore.

41:05

It's a, it's a way of life though.

41:08

It really is.

41:09

It's a, it's a way of like making this thing so difficult that the rest of life

41:15

seems maybe

41:16

not less complicated, but more understandable.

41:20

Okay.

41:21

You know what I'm saying?

41:23

Yeah.

41:24

Yeah.

41:24

Through that struggle of that thing, you can kind of like apply those lessons

41:30

to other stuff.

41:31

Yeah.

41:32

Yeah.

41:33

I agree.

41:34

I think it's, I've, you know, I've over the years, I've applied it to, of

41:37

course, writing

41:39

and, and putting music together.

41:41

That's definitely that, that struggle of like you hit a, you hit a wall and you

41:48

have to

41:48

navigate, you know, through around or over.

41:52

When you write, do you write, um, on your own?

41:56

Do you write with other people?

41:57

Like, how do you create music?

41:59

Do you create music alone?

42:00

It's, it's, it's like, for me, it's, it's okay.

42:04

I'm going to train, I'm going to train jujitsu.

42:06

Okay.

42:06

We're going to bring it back to that.

42:07

Cause that's, that's our, that's our, that's our, our, our, our base here.

42:10

Uh, if I'm, you know, if I'm going to train with somebody, every different,

42:17

every body type

42:18

is going to be a different thing.

42:20

And I can't just, you know how it is.

42:22

If you, if you're just going to force your will on some other dude, then it's

42:26

just two

42:26

idiots trying to force their will on each other.

42:29

And you're going to gas out.

42:30

You have to see what this thing is and this person, how they're approaching you.

42:35

Are they approaching you standing?

42:36

Are they butt scooting?

42:38

Are they going to, you know, are they going to, you know, whatever they're

42:41

going to do.

42:41

Each song and every riff or whatever is a reaction to what I'm seeing or

42:46

hearing.

42:47

Right.

42:49

So I'm not just going to come in with a lyric and come up with a line on top of

42:53

some kind

42:53

of rhythm or a melody.

42:54

I have to pay attention to what's in front of me and, and work around that

43:00

thing and listen

43:02

to it and pay attention to it and drill.

43:04

So how does this process start?

43:06

Like say you have a blank slate, blank slate.

43:09

So for me, there's not really a blank slate.

43:11

It's me going to, maybe it's me going to Matt and going, okay, just in general,

43:18

I'd like

43:21

to see what we can do with, there's some sounds that I heard on this, you know,

43:25

maybe as a

43:26

movie soundtrack, maybe it was a record, you know, maybe I'm picking out like

43:31

mandolin or,

43:32

you know, some kind of a particular pedal from a guitar or a film that has like

43:37

a Rykooter

43:37

riff going through it or something, a vibe.

43:40

And maybe Matt has picked up in the case of existential reckoning, he picked up

43:45

a bunch

43:45

of amazing old synths, like Fairlight and St. Clavier and all this kind of cool

43:50

shit that's

43:51

in a way it's...

43:53

What are you saying?

43:53

Synths?

43:54

Synthesizers.

43:55

Synthesizers.

43:55

Yeah.

43:55

So old school, like, you know, Kraftwerk, you know, yes, old, like, you know,

44:00

Michael Jackson's

44:01

like, like that familiar sound that's from a very specific thing.

44:09

And you can manipulate those sounds to a point, but you're kind of, you're kind

44:14

of boxed in

44:14

on what those things can do in some cases, like the Fairlight's very, it's

44:19

going to give

44:20

you a very specific sound.

44:22

Well, now there's the framework and he'll come up with a melody or a thing and

44:26

he'll throw

44:27

it to me and I'll just drill, drill, drill that thing into my head, driving

44:33

around with

44:34

it in my car, truck, you know, putting headphones on on the plane and just

44:39

listen in the cellar

44:40

I'll put it on while I'm working on stuff, just to, just to put that thing on

44:45

loop and

44:46

drill it into my head of what it is so that I can figure out how to go through

44:51

around or

44:52

over this thing, work with it, work against it intentionally.

44:56

So it's, it's a, it's a mathematical three-dimensional geometric puzzle.

45:02

So when you're listening to it and you're just like going over in your head,

45:06

you're just like

45:07

allowing it to talk to you?

45:08

Correct.

45:09

Correct.

45:10

You know, just like we were going over today with Danaher, like, okay, we're in

45:14

this position,

45:14

but did the guy retract his elbow or did he leave his elbow forward?

45:17

Is the riff giving me an elbow or is the, is the riff cutting me off on a

45:23

particular rhythm

45:24

or a melody?

45:25

Cause you know, you might have a melody in mind, but you get closer to the end

45:29

of that

45:29

riff and it might have changed directions and your note is sour.

45:33

So you have to pay attention to what note goes with that thing and rhythmically

45:37

as well

45:38

as sonically, like, you know, melodically.

45:41

So it's a, it's you getting used to this thing cause, and he might be able to

45:45

move it.

45:46

I might go back, Hey man, can we, can we adjust a few things in here and move

45:49

forward?

45:50

So it is definitely a step-by-step piece.

45:54

I will respond.

45:55

Then he will give me back a thing that he's developed further and I'll respond

46:01

to his response.

46:03

And then at some point I'll go to Karina and go, Hey, I'd like to hear before I

46:09

go too far,

46:10

I want to hear what you would do over what I've done over what he's done.

46:14

And now it's a triad of, of us navigating that sonic landscape.

46:21

So it, it, it must be an interesting dance in that you have to do it with

46:26

people that have

46:27

sort of the same engagement that you do, the same level of discipline, the same.

46:32

Same level of discipline, but strengths where I don't have strengths, I have

46:36

strengths where

46:37

they don't have strengths.

46:38

So you're, it's, it's, you're kind of, you're kind of filling in each other's

46:42

gaps with a

46:44

common goal.

46:44

So, yeah, so we have, we had, we definitely have common things that we like,

46:50

but we also

46:50

bring different strengths to the table to make it work as a whole.

46:54

That's one of the more challenging things I would imagine about a band is that

46:59

you kind

47:00

of have to get everybody on the same sort of...

47:03

You have to remain open.

47:05

Your, your listening skills are, should be as important and as honed as your

47:10

regurgitating

47:11

skills.

47:12

I'm successful and this is what I do.

47:15

Fuck you.

47:16

No.

47:17

Then it's just sounds, starts sounding the same.

47:20

You're not really, you're not progressing as an artist to like kind of reinvent

47:24

yourself

47:25

and see things from a different perspective.

47:27

Do you, my opinion.

47:29

Do you see this like, uh, this process, does it, do you see this process clear,

47:35

more clearly

47:36

now than you did years ago?

47:39

Like, is this something that you get better at?

47:40

Oh yeah.

47:41

Like anything.

47:42

It's just, it's, you, you get better.

47:44

I think you just get better at listening the more you listen.

47:48

And I've, you know, it's like, it's like anything.

47:52

There's a, there's a, an action reaction.

47:55

And then there's, there's some kind of reinforcement of that behavior, right?

48:00

I found that when I started listening more and reacting more as a listener, the,

48:05

the reinforcement

48:07

of that behavior was that there was a better thing that came out the other end

48:10

rather than

48:10

just sounding like something had already done before jammed over something that

48:16

somebody

48:16

else has already done before.

48:17

So you reinvent.

48:20

And then the behavior is reinforced because the thing, not, not from somebody

48:25

externally,

48:26

but like from the thing that you're hearing, you go, I've never heard me do

48:31

that before.

48:32

Great.

48:33

Keep honing that knife.

48:35

How long can you do that for?

48:38

Ever?

48:40

Forever.

48:40

Yeah.

48:41

Just listen forever because you're, you're going to be hearing it at a

48:45

different age.

48:46

You're going to be hearing it differently than you would 10 years ago or 20

48:49

years ago.

48:49

Right.

48:50

And for you, as long as it's engaging, as long as it's fascinating, you keep

48:55

doing it.

48:56

I will definitely, you know, probably already, you know, I'm in, have my head

49:00

up my own

49:01

ass, but you know, I won't be relevant to the TikTokers of the world because it's

49:07

just

49:08

not, it's not on their radar.

49:09

It's not those people that listen to the things they listen to and the things

49:12

that respond,

49:13

the people that respond to the things they respond to.

49:15

Now I'm not necessarily relevant, but there's an entire generation of people.

49:20

That's not just my generation.

49:22

There's people older than me and much younger than me that have grown with this

49:30

thing.

49:32

And so as they're aging, they're, they're, they're, they're discovering it.

49:37

Right.

49:38

Right.

49:38

Can you think, do you think about that though?

49:40

Do you think about like whether or not you're relevant or whether or not?

49:44

You can't because you'll start being desperate and getting plastic surgery and

49:48

looking like

49:48

a fucking alien and trying to insert yourself into some stupid fucking thing.

49:53

I'm not talking about anybody.

49:55

Yeah.

49:56

No, you can't.

49:56

I'm not talking about my peers.

49:58

Fuck, man.

49:59

If you're alive, you have to assume other people are going to, you're on a vibe.

50:04

There's other people that are going to be on that vibe.

50:06

There's so many people.

50:07

Yeah.

50:07

You can't, yeah.

50:08

The, the, the quest for relevancy is like, oh boy.

50:11

It, it, it, it, it turns to desperation very quickly.

50:15

Yeah.

50:15

It reeks.

50:16

So just maintain your art, dude.

50:18

Like just, and then, I don't know.

50:21

We're just having, we're having fun creating.

50:22

Well, you guys are also so diverse.

50:24

Like your sounds are so diverse.

50:26

And I think that's one of the, the strengths of you is that with Tool and Pussifer

50:30

and like,

50:31

you know, Perfect Circle, you've done so, so much different stuff.

50:35

It's like.

50:36

That's the listening part.

50:38

What does Billy do?

50:40

What does, what do Adam, Justin, and Danny do?

50:42

What does Matt and Karina do?

50:43

I'm listening to what they're doing and having that conversation with them and

50:48

building on those

50:49

relationships.

50:50

Yeah.

50:51

They're different conversations.

50:52

They're different people with different life experiences.

50:54

The art and the sounds that come out of those people is going to be 100%

50:57

different.

50:59

Even if I'm the common thing.

51:00

If you, if, if nobody knew that I was in Pussifer and you were just listening

51:06

to it, you might pick up that I, that kind of sounds like the guy from Perfect

51:11

Circle, but probably not.

51:14

Like it would be a whole different experience if you didn't know that I was

51:17

involved.

51:18

Yeah, for sure.

51:19

That's why I think these kinds of conversations are so interesting to other

51:22

artists because they get to like see this sort of like, you know, you've, you've

51:28

been around long enough that you're, you're, you have a foundation, you know,

51:31

you're solid in your approach.

51:33

And there's a lot of people out there that are like, am I doing it right?

51:36

I mean, what am I doing?

51:37

I don't know if my, is this the right way to do it?

51:39

Is it, should I change it?

51:41

Should I, what, what should I do?

51:42

And then I have that, you know, I'm, you know, I'm fairly confident in some

51:47

things, but I try to like change it up as much as I can.

51:50

I guess, you know, it's, you know, going to start roasting coffee soon.

51:55

So maybe that's one of those like resets of like, I don't know what I'm doing.

51:59

Right.

51:59

Let's relearn this thing that I don't have any idea and it might suck.

52:03

Those are valuable, right?

52:04

Those new things.

52:05

I, I think, I think.

52:06

So I think just that, you know, it could be written off to like midlife crisis,

52:11

but I think it's also just understanding that chaos and change is part of life.

52:19

And if you can kind of get yourself to recognize that things aren't, you're not

52:24

going to just get to a spot and it's going to be that for the rest of your life.

52:30

It's always going to be something changing.

52:32

I think it also speaks to the con, the complex aspect of thinking itself,

52:38

because like, you know, what is, what are thoughts and creativity and how do

52:44

you keep them inspired and engaged?

52:46

And I think one of the ways to do it is to become a beginner again.

52:50

Yeah.

52:51

To just try.

52:52

That's why I, I started getting back into jujitsu.

52:55

It took me forever to get back in because I was living in a remote area.

53:00

But then when I got into it, I was progressing and then I felt like, okay, I

53:05

need to, you know, I need to ruin my day.

53:09

So I took up Muay Thai, which is like, way, like, I'm, I'm, I'm not great at jujitsu.

53:16

Holy shit.

53:16

I really suck at Muay Thai.

53:18

Well, you also did it after a hip replacement, which is pretty wild.

53:21

Yeah.

53:22

Well, I'm not smart.

53:25

But you are because it's like, why not?

53:29

It fucking, they fixed it.

53:31

Yeah, but that works, that kind of a reset where you're, you're jolting your,

53:34

your brain into, uh, understanding a whole different thing you don't, you're

53:38

not familiar with.

53:39

The reset is huge, I think.

53:42

And, you know, now, but you know, I'm, I'm a fairly successful musician.

53:49

I have a backup plan.

53:50

I have these things.

53:51

I think on some level I can do that.

53:54

Not a lot of people can think in terms of like their entire career of a reset

53:58

of their entire career, because there might not be something for you.

54:01

You might not be able to do that.

54:03

Right.

54:03

I can, I can kind of get away with that for now.

54:07

Well, it's also harder if you're boxed into it, like if you're a pop star, you

54:11

know, you're boxed into it.

54:13

You know, you have like a very specific genre that you're successful in.

54:17

Very hard for those people to branch out.

54:20

Yeah.

54:21

You know, because I'm sure you've met people that are fucking huge in their, in

54:28

their, their genres.

54:31

That are just pop star huge.

54:32

And I don't, I don't know.

54:35

I haven't met a lot of those people.

54:36

I have no idea if there's, if there's a core person to have a conversation with.

54:42

I have no idea.

54:43

Because I haven't, I'm not.

54:44

There is with some of them.

54:45

I don't travel in those circles.

54:46

Like with Miley Cyrus, there is.

54:48

She's fascinating.

54:49

That's a, she's a unique little artist.

54:52

I haven't met her.

54:53

She's wild.

54:54

She's very interesting.

54:55

She's a real artist.

54:56

You know, but she's also a pop star.

54:58

I make, I make fun of her in our new show.

55:00

Not bad.

55:00

It's like, I think she would find the joke.

55:02

I'm sure she would.

55:03

She's got a good sense of humor.

55:04

She's fun.

55:05

But, you know, she's a pop star, but she's also like, she experiments with shit.

55:10

And she's, you know, she's trying to find whatever it is that, that's engaging

55:16

to her.

55:16

Right.

55:18

Yeah.

55:18

And I, I, I have friends that are mutual friends with her.

55:24

And I think that's, that's what I'm hearing.

55:26

Yeah.

55:27

Is that she's, she's digging.

55:29

I became interested in her when she did, she covered Jolene.

55:33

You know, I heard that song.

55:34

I'm like, Jesus.

55:35

Like, there's a soul to that girl's voice that belies her age and, you know,

55:41

and what you would expect from her.

55:43

Right.

55:44

You know, to cover that Dolly Parton song and do it.

55:47

And it's like very unique way with a, like a beautiful fucking sound to it.

55:51

Right.

55:53

You know?

55:54

Yeah.

55:55

But again, trapped in that machine.

55:57

Yeah, for sure.

55:58

And that was that, you know, she literally had to start swearing every other

56:03

word to break out of at least part of that.

56:06

You're so trapped into, you know, Hannah Montana thing that in order to get out

56:11

of that, you had to start, you know, almost like go full Mike Patton and start

56:15

smearing shit on everything.

56:16

Just to fucking erase it, you know, to start over.

56:21

Well, that just, that happens to a lot of those people.

56:23

They just get stuck in this thing that's like uber successful.

56:27

Yeah.

56:28

But, you know, it seems like she's, she's figured out a way to wiggle.

56:31

She has.

56:32

And broaden out of it.

56:34

Yeah.

56:35

Wiggle out of it.

56:36

But man, what a fucking, what a salmon trip up the fucking waterfall that is.

56:42

Yeah, because there's so many people with their hands out.

56:44

So many people don't, that have a piece of that.

56:46

So many people that don't want you to, to, to branch out because, you know,

56:50

anything you do that's not that they think could ruin the gravy train that they're,

56:57

that they're enjoying.

56:58

Right.

56:58

So we can see how that might be.

57:00

And the egos involved, like the, of the popularity and the, and the, the

57:06

attention and the money, the people that you get to hang out with.

57:11

Yeah.

57:12

I'm just not, I'm not in that circle.

57:14

So I don't know.

57:16

I don't know.

57:16

I'm not wired for it.

57:19

I'm not, I'm not, that's not part of my world.

57:21

I'm not, I'm not judging it at all, but I, I, that's not part of my world.

57:25

I don't know how I would react if all of a sudden, you know, if I can name five

57:31

huge pop celebrities of actors and musicians, if they go, hey, we want to come

57:37

to your show.

57:38

Like, what did I, what did I do?

57:41

You know, what, what did I, what, how does that, what is what I'm doing have

57:46

make of any interest to you?

57:48

Right.

57:49

Like, I don't know what that would look like or what you, what are you seeing?

57:53

It's somebody, what?

57:55

I would be very suspicious of those people coming and actually reacting to what

58:00

we're doing.

58:01

But is that because you box them yourself?

58:05

Like you decide that like what they've created is all they are?

58:08

No, no, I, I'm just, would want, be wondering what, yeah, maybe, I guess, maybe

58:12

I'm being judgmental.

58:14

Uh, it's easy to do, right?

58:15

Yeah.

58:16

Especially, it's fun to do.

58:17

But like, because I know that I'm busy and those people are busy.

58:22

So why would they stop what they're doing to come and do, to, to pay attention

58:26

to this thing?

58:28

They already have all this shit going on.

58:29

Like, why would they come to the thing?

58:31

And I'm talking about numbers, not just one person, like five or six people at

58:35

once decided to come, you know, like, you know, Gwyneth Paltrow.

58:38

And fucking Brad Pitt and somebody, somebody, somebody wants to come to your

58:41

show.

58:41

I'd be like, are they, were they promised something?

58:45

Is there something I don't know?

58:46

Like, why would you come here?

58:47

Right.

58:48

What, what, what, what interest would you have in this thing?

58:51

And I, that doesn't, this, how is this even on your radar?

58:54

You know, that would be, I would be very suspicious of that.

58:57

That's funny that you'd be suspicious.

58:59

Yeah.

58:59

Do you watch Black Mirror?

59:00

Uh, I started to, uh, back when it first, first, first came out.

59:06

And there's, some of those episodes are pretty fucking amazing.

59:09

Amazing.

59:10

Well, there's a really wild one with Miley Cyrus.

59:12

And in this one, she has like this evil aunt who's like controlling her career.

59:17

And, uh, they download, spoiler alert, they download, download her mind into

59:25

this little doll, like this, like robot doll that you can buy.

59:30

And it's like your little Miley Cyrus friend, but it actually is her inside

59:36

this thing.

59:37

And some multiple versions of her.

59:39

Yeah.

59:40

But it's like, it's, I, I don't want to fuck this up because people should

59:44

watch it.

59:44

It's a fun episode, but it's her trying to escape her pop lifestyle, but she's

59:49

being controlled by all these people that have, you know, vested interest in

59:54

her making extraordinary amounts of money with that.

59:56

Right.

59:57

That genre.

59:57

And then she gets out of it eventually.

59:59

Right.

59:59

But it's pretty wild, but it's that thing.

1:00:02

It's like speaks to that struggle.

1:00:03

Yeah.

1:00:04

Yeah.

1:00:04

It's like, you know, you assume that Justin Bieber is just that fucking guy

1:00:08

that sings like a girl, you know, like he sounds like first heard Justin Bieber.

1:00:13

I'm like, what a beautiful voice that girl has.

1:00:14

And then I'm like, that's a guy.

1:00:16

I'm like, oh, what?

1:00:17

Oh, he's young.

1:00:19

Oh, okay.

1:00:20

And then, you know, he matures over time and he becomes this different thing.

1:00:23

It's like, but it's still a human, you know, like if he wanted to go see a Pussifer

1:00:27

show, I could imagine you'd be like.

1:00:30

What?

1:00:31

He would be welcome.

1:00:32

Sure.

1:00:32

Sure.

1:00:33

I wouldn't, I would never say those people can't come to my, you know, I would

1:00:37

be happy to entertain.

1:00:38

I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm an asshole, but not that kind of an asshole.

1:00:42

You're not a snob.

1:00:42

I'm not a snob.

1:00:43

No, you're a hundred percent welcome to come to those things.

1:00:47

But yeah, I wouldn't exclude anybody from that art.

1:00:51

It's art, you know, something might resonate with them that would end up

1:00:55

showing up in something that they did next.

1:00:58

Right.

1:01:01

We all, artists all feed off each other in some way.

1:01:04

There's like, I'm inspired by a bunch of different films, TV shows, bands.

1:01:10

Mm, for sure.

1:01:11

Visual artists, you know, those things inspire me and they get me thinking on,

1:01:15

you know, the next thing that I'm going to do.

1:01:18

And how do I build on that and make it make sense?

1:01:21

Well, music is inspirational in such a weird way too.

1:01:24

It's like a drug, you know, like prison sex, that song, there's something about

1:01:28

that song that makes me want to lift.

1:01:30

Like when I'm lifting weights, that song is just like the guitar riff.

1:01:34

It's just fucking, it just like gives you extra juice.

1:01:38

Okay.

1:01:39

You know, there's something about music that it provides, like it opens up a

1:01:45

specific pathway in you.

1:01:47

That, that it's like a drug.

1:01:49

It really is.

1:01:50

It's an amazing drug of inspiration.

1:01:52

And it can be a, it's a neural map in a way that opens up that, whatever that

1:02:00

is you're getting, there's a rhythm and a tone to that thing that's inspiring

1:02:06

those myelin connections in you to do the, do a thing.

1:02:09

I could see that.

1:02:11

Yeah.

1:02:11

Yeah.

1:02:12

It also, it speaks to, especially like older music is like a time map.

1:02:18

It's like a map of the culture when that song was created, who this person is,

1:02:22

how they fit into the culture, whether or not they're around anymore.

1:02:27

Like whenever I listen to Hendrix in particular, it's like Hendrix to me is

1:02:31

like a map of the sixties in a lot of ways.

1:02:34

Yeah.

1:02:34

It's like the rebellion from the Vietnam era.

1:02:37

It's a, it's a, it's a wine.

1:02:38

It's, it's something that happened on that day at that time on that site in

1:02:42

that place made that certain way.

1:02:44

That's a time capsule of that, of that moment.

1:02:46

Yeah.

1:02:47

Yeah.

1:02:48

It really is.

1:02:49

And unique in that way that you could kind of listen to it and it transports

1:02:55

you.

1:02:55

It takes you there.

1:02:57

Like Janis Joplin does that for me too.

1:02:59

Okay.

1:02:59

It brings me to that time, you know, it's just, just like you try to imagine

1:03:04

the context of how, when it was created, who she was.

1:03:08

So going back to your original question of how we write, you have to be true to

1:03:14

me for the way that I write is I'm trying to be true to who I am today.

1:03:20

Because those are way points, like you, as you pointed out, those are way

1:03:24

points along your particular history and your experiences.

1:03:28

So if I can be in the present moment when I'm writing those things about what's

1:03:32

happening, how I'm feeling about things, even though some of the experiences

1:03:37

are life, lifelong experiences, how I perceive those experiences today and how

1:03:43

I can attach those to a bed of rhythms and sounds and melodies.

1:03:48

Will end up hopefully being what you're talking about.

1:03:51

It's a way point for that moment in time that now you can go back and revisit.

1:03:55

Yeah.

1:03:56

That's, it's such a unique art form in that way that it just, it just encapsulates

1:04:02

so many different things, lyrics and sounds and feelings and, and just, you can

1:04:08

just turn it on anytime you want.

1:04:11

Like, I mean, what a weird time too, because like you just talk to your phone

1:04:15

and tell your phone, Hey, play me this.

1:04:17

Yeah.

1:04:18

Oof.

1:04:19

Yeah.

1:04:20

So strange.

1:04:21

It is wild.

1:04:22

The access, the access to that art is so instantaneous now.

1:04:27

Just so bizarre.

1:04:30

But like any, but like anything, it's a, it's, it's a hammer, right?

1:04:33

You can use that hammer to build something.

1:04:35

You can use that hammer to destroy something.

1:04:37

This is, this is such an awful thing and such an amazing thing, depending on

1:04:43

how you're, how you're dealing with it.

1:04:46

Like you can use it to gain more control, more money, or you can use it, you

1:04:52

know, to share things with people and help them find a way.

1:04:57

And also like having a level of discipline is so important when engaging with

1:05:02

that thing.

1:05:03

Cause that thing can, you know, we were talking about tick tock earlier today

1:05:08

about how the parent company of tick tock is using tick tock to specifically

1:05:13

monitor the locations of American individuals and how fucking crazy that is.

1:05:19

I deleted it.

1:05:20

Yeah, I never had it.

1:05:21

I wouldn't, I, right away I was like, what?

1:05:24

And then when they were talking about banning it, I started looking into it.

1:05:27

I was like, that thing's, that's a problem.

1:05:29

And then we read on one day, uh, during the podcast, we read the terms of

1:05:34

service and what it's allowed to do.

1:05:37

If you, in which nobody reads and, uh, agree.

1:05:40

Yeah.

1:05:41

Agree.

1:05:42

Everybody agrees, but it's so fucked up that when I read it, I couldn't believe

1:05:46

that it was real.

1:05:47

We had, I had to go over it from multiple different sites and then like, I'm

1:05:50

going to know that this is, am I being accurate with this?

1:05:53

Is it, does it really have access to your computers that aren't connected to

1:05:56

tick tock?

1:05:57

If you have the same, like if you use the same email account, you have the same

1:06:00

computer and a network?

1:06:02

Yes.

1:06:02

Yes, it does.

1:06:03

It has access to everything you do, which is fucking bananas.

1:06:06

So I read that over and one of my kids came home and she said that her friend

1:06:12

was mad because her mom listened to me talk about the terms of service.

1:06:17

And made him delete tick tock from his phone.

1:06:20

Yeah.

1:06:21

It's new world.

1:06:25

It's a whole new world.

1:06:26

But on the other side, there's so much, there's so much interesting stuff that

1:06:29

you can get off of it.

1:06:30

I'm, I'm so much more educated about so many different subjects because of it,

1:06:35

because of that access to, to.

1:06:37

Yeah.

1:06:38

If I, you know, I just, um, I just harvested, um, some, uh, some of the stuff

1:06:43

from our, our produce from our garden.

1:06:45

I'm like, I have this rant, these random things.

1:06:47

I'm going to try to do something with these random things.

1:06:50

Just type in the random ingredients recipe, like all these things.

1:06:56

And there's 12 fucking recipes involving these things.

1:07:01

And now I can make this amazing salad with these things.

1:07:03

It's fucking delicious.

1:07:04

And my wife's going, what the fuck is this?

1:07:07

You know, so there's those benefits of like, how do I, how do I roast coffee

1:07:10

again?

1:07:11

How do I, you know, how do I, how do I make this particular sauce for a pasta?

1:07:16

It's all right there.

1:07:17

How do I fix this, this specific power washer that's broken?

1:07:21

How do I fix this power washer so I can get back to cleaning bins?

1:07:25

Oh, here's a whole, like four video options of like understanding how to, you

1:07:30

know, fix that, that mechanical thing that you could never, you would have to

1:07:35

take it to somebody 10 years ago.

1:07:38

Yeah, we just don't have the, the user manual for how to use it correctly.

1:07:43

Right.

1:07:44

You know, it's like everyone knows you can't drink whiskey all day long.

1:07:50

You'll die, you know, but you could have a drink or two and it can enhance

1:07:55

conversation and it's a social lubricant.

1:07:58

You feel great, but we know that.

1:08:00

Right.

1:08:00

Because we have a human history of use that dates back hundreds and hundreds of

1:08:04

years.

1:08:04

This, there's no thing going, turn this fucking thing off.

1:08:08

Yeah.

1:08:08

I just got a notification from my phone the other day that said, uh, my, uh,

1:08:13

screen time is down 77%.

1:08:15

And I'm like, yes.

1:08:16

Congratulations.

1:08:18

I did it.

1:08:19

Yeah.

1:08:19

Yeah.

1:08:20

But that's because of that, because I'm trying to like make my own user manual.

1:08:25

I find that the reason I'm on it more than I would be is because three bands,

1:08:30

three wineries, you know.

1:08:32

Sure.

1:08:33

With all the businesses that I have going on, I end up being on it a lot more

1:08:37

than I want to be just because I'm answering questions or inspiring plans or

1:08:41

whatever.

1:08:42

Yeah.

1:08:43

I just have to be responsive.

1:08:44

Yeah.

1:08:46

For me, it's a quest for interesting shit to stimulate my mind.

1:08:50

That's, I mean, I'm always looking for like, what's a new place for me to go to

1:08:53

find things, you know?

1:08:55

And I sometimes feel boxed in.

1:08:57

I'm only going to like a specific six or seven different sites to try to get

1:09:01

information.

1:09:02

Well, I need a new site.

1:09:03

I need a new thing.

1:09:03

Like, how do I get that thing?

1:09:05

Right.

1:09:05

Right.

1:09:05

Where is it?

1:09:06

How do I get access to a new perspective that I didn't consider before?

1:09:13

Like, and not get overwhelmed by fucking pop-up ads and bullshit and nonsense.

1:09:18

Yeah, I do.

1:09:18

I do.

1:09:19

You know, we're on the, we're currently on the road.

1:09:22

This is a stop on the way.

1:09:24

We're playing Texas with the new version two of the Pussyford Tour.

1:09:28

And I find that when I'm, when I'm in the break after soundcheck or before

1:09:33

training jujitsu

1:09:34

with whatever person I can find in that town, I end up, rather than going to

1:09:40

those things

1:09:41

that I should, like you're talking about, I'll just go back and I'll be

1:09:45

watching in my dressing

1:09:47

just old episodes of stuff.

1:09:49

So it's almost like, for me, it's like I'm turning my brain off with my Apple

1:09:53

TV.

1:09:54

I'm just, I'm just going to, I'm just going to zone out and have like whatever

1:09:58

light lunch

1:09:58

I'm going to have before the show, play with my dog and just let that kind of

1:10:03

be almost

1:10:04

background noise of what's going on.

1:10:07

So I feel like there's, there's a, an unconscious Zen thing happening with that

1:10:14

eye candy.

1:10:16

Uh, and you know, familiarity, like I'm, how many times can I watch Teledega Nights?

1:10:19

Many more, to be honest, I'm going to watch that many more times, but like that

1:10:25

kind of

1:10:25

thing, just being there on the background as a, as a familiar comfort, you know,

1:10:29

blanket,

1:10:29

you know, um, um, um, to have it on so that I'm not, I'm not thinking too much.

1:10:35

So in a way I'm putting that on, so I'm not on this.

1:10:38

Right.

1:10:38

So you're learning.

1:10:39

I'm learning to just put a movie on that like, it's going and I'm, meanwhile, I'm

1:10:43

cleaning

1:10:44

out a drawer in the road case of shit that I didn't need.

1:10:46

Like everybody hands me t-shirts.

1:10:48

I'm trying to figure out like, okay, do I really want to hang on to this t-shirt?

1:10:51

There's so many t-shirts.

1:10:52

There's so many shirts.

1:10:54

So many shirts.

1:10:56

I intentionally didn't bring you anything today because like, I always, like, I

1:10:59

feel

1:10:59

like you're probably just every fucking time somebody comes in there, they're

1:11:02

just giving

1:11:03

you shit.

1:11:04

Yeah, but you know, every now and then you get good shit.

1:11:07

That's true.

1:11:08

That's true.

1:11:08

It's cool.

1:11:08

I have a lot of cool shit because of that.

1:11:11

Right.

1:11:11

Some of it's nonsense, but.

1:11:13

Right.

1:11:14

But it's, again, it's like the phone thing.

1:11:15

Like, you got to filter out what is nonsense.

1:11:17

Yeah.

1:11:18

What are you doing in Texas?

1:11:20

Which shows?

1:11:22

We just played, uh, Pulsifer just played, uh, San Antonio on El Paso.

1:11:26

We play, uh, Houston tomorrow and Fort Worth the day after.

1:11:32

And I don't know where the fuck we go from there.

1:11:34

I think it's, um, I want to say Louisiana, Baton Rouge and, um, New Orleans.

1:11:41

Eventually, I think Halloween, we're actually playing in Nashville, which I'm

1:11:45

kind of excited

1:11:46

about because I love Nashville.

1:11:47

Nashville's awesome.

1:11:48

It's, it's getting a little weird.

1:11:50

It's getting a little Hollywood, but still.

1:11:52

Yeah, but everybody, every place is going to get that way.

1:11:55

Of course.

1:11:55

You know, especially again, right back to this and right back to a podcast like

1:11:59

this.

1:11:59

I say, oh, I love Nashville and that now people are going to, you know, there's

1:12:04

going to be,

1:12:04

even if it's five people that decide to go to Nashville because of hearing you

1:12:10

say you

1:12:11

like Nashville or me saying I like Nashville, you know, when, when did somebody

1:12:15

say something

1:12:16

about Austin that made you move to Austin?

1:12:19

Cause I, you know, somebody said something and inspired you to move to Austin,

1:12:22

which when I used

1:12:24

to be here, it was a much different town when I hung out here in 1985 at what's

1:12:30

now, uh, Elysium

1:12:32

is the, is the club now on, on Red River.

1:12:36

It used to be, it might, it might still be, it was like a gay bar.

1:12:39

And on a one night a week, it would have a thing called Club Iguana.

1:12:44

And it was like a, kind of a goth punk rock night in that location.

1:12:49

And that area was, you know, it was like the sketchy 7th street was all the,

1:12:54

you know, kind

1:12:55

of cool alternative gay bar punk rock thing.

1:12:59

And the 6th street was all the frat boy things.

1:13:01

I think it's still kind of that 6th street's pretty weird now.

1:13:05

It's got a lot of cool shit.

1:13:07

Is it?

1:13:07

Yeah.

1:13:08

Cause it, you know, cause all the hip hop clubs.

1:13:10

Yeah.

1:13:10

Well, Elysium now is like, I think I could be completely wrong, but it's, it's

1:13:14

more like

1:13:14

it's now it's goth most of the time, but I don't know that I haven't been in,

1:13:19

in years.

1:13:20

Oh, I started coming here in 99 and I just, I always liked the fact that it

1:13:25

seemed different

1:13:26

than any other city.

1:13:27

Yeah.

1:13:27

It's got its own.

1:13:29

Is this it here?

1:13:29

This is Austin in 1985.

1:13:31

Nice.

1:13:33

They look like they're dancing a wham.

1:13:36

Wake me up.

1:13:37

And where, and where is this?

1:13:38

I typed in that club you said, and this is a video that popped up.

1:13:41

So.

1:13:42

Club Iguana?

1:13:42

Yeah.

1:13:43

I don't know that it's it specifically, but it's someone interviewing people on

1:13:46

the street

1:13:46

down there.

1:13:46

Okay.

1:13:47

Prouds that come here, we all know each other.

1:13:49

How fucking amazing would it be if you see me in this video?

1:13:52

Cause I would.

1:13:53

I was hoping.

1:13:54

Yeah.

1:13:54

Great.

1:13:54

I wouldn't, you know, by day I had my, you know, my army cap on and my full, my

1:14:01

full,

1:14:01

BDUs, you know, and then, you know, as soon as we at the weekend hit and we had

1:14:05

the time

1:14:05

come off, hat comes off, two-tone hair, mohawk, wear some like Adamant looking,

1:14:11

you know,

1:14:12

Sergeant Pepper looking jacket.

1:14:14

I forgot about Adamant.

1:14:15

And then like wearing, you know, like stretchy, a blouse for pants with a belt.

1:14:19

So like, it's, it's actually a shirt if you're wearing it, like almost like

1:14:22

tights.

1:14:22

Like, you know, we were, we had a fun time.

1:14:25

It was a good time.

1:14:26

Just absurd.

1:14:27

If you saw photos of me, you'd be like, I'm posting this shit on the internet,

1:14:30

dude.

1:14:30

Fucking don't you fucking dare post that on the internet.

1:14:34

But that was a good time.

1:14:36

It was fun because it was something I wasn't used to.

1:14:38

And like Michigan, we didn't have a club like that.

1:14:40

Right.

1:14:41

And it was like such a mixed, diverse, you know, a group of people.

1:14:47

I just love that area.

1:14:49

And so I've always had a thing since then.

1:14:52

I've always had a thing for Austin, but I've watched Austin change over the

1:14:56

years.

1:14:56

But it seems like it has this great, I don't know if the word's libertarian or,

1:15:01

you know,

1:15:02

whatever, but you've got, you've got a mix of everybody here and they've

1:15:06

managed to get

1:15:07

along and not kill each other.

1:15:08

Well, it's a good combination of a blue city and a red state, which is kind of

1:15:13

my favorite.

1:15:14

Right.

1:15:15

It's like open-mindedness and progressive, but yet surrounded by people with

1:15:20

guns who farm.

1:15:22

Yeah.

1:15:22

Yeah.

1:15:23

You know?

1:15:24

Yeah.

1:15:24

And that's kind of, and that's kind of what we have kind of up in, like in

1:15:28

Jerome, Sedona

1:15:29

area.

1:15:30

It's, it's very much that mix.

1:15:31

Yeah.

1:15:32

But, you know, it's, it's a, I don't know.

1:15:35

I've just, I've always had a thing for Austin.

1:15:37

I just like coming here.

1:15:38

It's, it's that town.

1:15:40

Yeah.

1:15:41

Well, it makes sense to me.

1:15:42

Yeah.

1:15:42

As did I.

1:15:43

That's why I moved here.

1:15:44

Los Angeles.

1:15:45

I don't, I don't resonate with Los Angeles.

1:15:48

I don't resonate with far kind of more right cities either.

1:15:52

You know, that's, there's, you know.

1:15:55

Is there a right city?

1:15:56

I don't know.

1:15:56

It just seems like there's.

1:15:57

They don't even exist, do they?

1:15:59

Well.

1:15:59

That's the thing about you get a group of people together.

1:16:01

They almost always become a Democrat city.

1:16:04

That's, that could be.

1:16:05

Yeah.

1:16:06

It's weird.

1:16:06

It's fascinating that you just get enough numbers and they go blue.

1:16:11

Almost always.

1:16:12

All right.

1:16:14

That's the big fear about Texas.

1:16:16

Is that you get enough people come here, it's going to go blue.

1:16:20

They're all worried that they're going to lose that fucking weird edge of

1:16:23

freedom that makes Texas unique and independent.

1:16:27

Yeah, Texas, Texas, you know, I don't think you have anything to worry about

1:16:31

Texas.

1:16:32

Texas is an amazing state and it's just going to, it's going to maintain its

1:16:36

identity through whatever.

1:16:37

Hopefully.

1:16:38

Yeah.

1:16:39

Yeah, I like it.

1:16:40

I hope.

1:16:41

It's just, you know, when you see like that video from like 1985, what's

1:16:46

interesting about that, that that, that was pre-internet, right?

1:16:50

So the identity of that was kind of organic.

1:16:52

People just sort of, you know, they just decided to all like meet at this point.

1:16:58

That was ground zero for ecstasy.

1:16:59

That was like, that was.

1:17:01

Well, Dallas was, right?

1:17:02

Yeah, but like it was, when I was in, in, uh, at that club, it had come here in

1:17:06

its purest form and I was still in the military and I'm like, yeah, I'm not

1:17:10

going to, I'm not going to chance that.

1:17:13

Getting caught with it?

1:17:14

Yeah.

1:17:15

Or I don't know.

1:17:15

Like they said you couldn't, it wasn't technically illegal.

1:17:18

It just wasn't legal.

1:17:19

You know, it was that weird thing.

1:17:20

But like when there's just always that clause in the military of like, but up

1:17:25

to our discretion.

1:17:27

So like, you know, and I'm not going to, I'm not going to chance it because

1:17:31

maybe they would detect it somehow and, you know, I'd be fucked and sent to

1:17:35

fucking the brig.

1:17:38

There's a podcast called Psychedelic Salon.

1:17:40

There's a guy named Lorenzo who runs it, who has also been a guest on the

1:17:44

podcast, but he was a pretty straight-laced guy and he was living in Texas.

1:17:49

I think it was Dallas and then did ecstasy for the first time and was like,

1:17:54

whoa, like, okay, like, this is a different.

1:17:57

Fucking world.

1:17:58

Yeah.

1:17:59

I can see why people might do this.

1:18:01

Yeah.

1:18:01

And then he became a, not just a hippie, but a guy who runs a podcast that

1:18:07

plays like old Alan Watts speeches and Terrence McKenna things.

1:18:11

And I mean, Psychedelic Salon is probably like the best resource of like just

1:18:17

psychedelic conversations.

1:18:20

And people talk and it's run by this guy who's, God, I think he was a lawyer,

1:18:24

wasn't he?

1:18:25

Do you remember?

1:18:25

I forget what his, but he was like super straight-laced guy who someone turned

1:18:30

him on to it.

1:18:31

You know, it's like Jack Harer, the guy who wrote The Emperor Has No Clothes.

1:18:34

Like that guy was a, like a Goldwater Republican and got divorced, met some new

1:18:41

gal, they smoked pot together, and then all of a sudden he became this like

1:18:46

hemp activist.

1:18:47

And, you know, became this like super open-minded hippie who's writing books on

1:18:54

mushrooms and marijuana.

1:18:56

Yeah, I can see that.

1:18:58

Yeah.

1:18:58

Because those things are, you know, they alter your perspective and they open

1:19:03

up neural pathways that you hadn't, that hadn't been open to you before.

1:19:07

Now, I wonder if you're a kid who grew up in that thing as a young kid and you

1:19:13

tried it, if it wouldn't have the same effect because you're not, that

1:19:18

consciousness shift, that near-death kind of thing in your body or whatever

1:19:23

that shifts your perspective, that opens up new possibilities.

1:19:29

If that was always kind of present in you, are you a person who would build

1:19:33

something interesting or go down some interesting path or would it take you

1:19:38

trudging along in the world that you live in and all of a sudden having that

1:19:42

moment, that consciousness opening thing that you've already established what

1:19:48

you think the world is and then it changes your perspective?

1:19:52

Yeah, I've found, I've met some people that started out that way.

1:19:56

They started it out like very liberal, open-minded, progressive drugs and free

1:20:01

thinking and then they got annoyed with all the negative aspects of it and they

1:20:06

eventually became conservative.

1:20:08

Which is, you know, they eventually realized like, hey, like hard work and

1:20:13

dedication and discipline are, they're very important components of a

1:20:17

successful existence.

1:20:19

Interesting how that flips, right?

1:20:21

Yeah.

1:20:21

Yeah.

1:20:22

I could see that.

1:20:24

I could see that.

1:20:24

That makes sense.

1:20:25

Yeah.

1:20:26

It's just, what's one of the beautiful things about America is there are so

1:20:32

many different ways to live and you can find these little patches of humans

1:20:37

that sort of have just gotten to this different mindset together, you know?

1:20:43

Yeah, it's not easy to arrive at.

1:20:45

No.

1:20:46

It's like there's so many, I mean, there's different ways to live your life and

1:20:50

there's different cities that you can go to and they'll help you with that.

1:20:55

They'll feed that vibe or destroy it or turn you into them or, you know, turn

1:21:02

you jaded, like the New York City vibe.

1:21:05

Yeah.

1:21:06

No, I'm just, you know, I grew up in a small town, so I kind of, that's kind of

1:21:11

where I resonate more.

1:21:12

I feed off of a larger city vibe when I'm there in it for those temporary

1:21:19

moments.

1:21:22

But then I got to retreat back to population 500.

1:21:27

Yeah.

1:21:27

Even when I lived in L.A., I didn't live in L.A.

1:21:30

I lived outside of it in Ventura County and just, you know, dealing with coyotes

1:21:35

and shit.

1:21:36

Because, like, that to me made more sense.

1:21:38

Just, I need some peace.

1:21:39

Yeah.

1:21:40

I mean, I have friends that love to be on top of it.

1:21:42

They love living in Manhattan on the 34th floor and beep beep honk honk.

1:21:47

I always kind of lived right in that kind of near between Cahuenga and Wilton

1:21:54

in the Hollywood Hill area where you get, like, coyotes the size of fucking Buicks.

1:22:00

Yeah.

1:22:00

In that area.

1:22:02

The Hollywood Hills are always, it's always been weird because it is kind of

1:22:06

urban, but it's kind of not.

1:22:07

Like, it's really quick to get into, like, you get to Chateau Marmont in, like,

1:22:11

five minutes.

1:22:12

Yeah.

1:22:13

And you're not, or, you know, needles and bum shit.

1:22:15

Like, that's right there.

1:22:17

And Chateau Marmont's right there.

1:22:19

And then, like, the Gucci's right there.

1:22:20

And then there's, like, a coyote and, you know, fighting over a fucking raven

1:22:24

and fighting over a rabbit.

1:22:26

Well, especially now.

1:22:27

Like, have you been now and seen the, like, the human wildlife is out of

1:22:32

control now?

1:22:33

Yeah.

1:22:34

It's nuts.

1:22:34

I don't, I don't know what to, you know, I have no, I can't really speak on it

1:22:39

because I have no solution.

1:22:41

I don't like speaking about things that I don't think I have maybe, like, a

1:22:44

suggestion of a solution.

1:22:45

I just, it's, it's, it's a, it's a matter.

1:22:50

I can, I can acknowledge it's a mess and I have no, I have no idea how to get

1:22:53

out of it.

1:22:54

Does it shock you?

1:22:55

Do you see how much different things are, like, three years, like, post-COVID?

1:22:59

Yeah, it does.

1:23:00

I just assume, and I guess my retreat is to try to grow more food, to teach my

1:23:07

friends how to grow food,

1:23:09

and to understand how to, you know, distillation, roasting coffees, like,

1:23:16

growing things, making, producing things in-house.

1:23:20

That's, uh, that's my default of understanding, like, whatever's going to

1:23:24

happen, unless it's a meteor or something crazy that interrupts, you know, uh,

1:23:30

what we, what we've recognized to be as weather patterns and growing seasons

1:23:34

and those kind of things.

1:23:36

Whatever's happening politically, financially in the world, if we can just

1:23:42

remember how to secure fresh water and grow things and survive whatever this is,

1:23:48

I don't have any answers other than that.

1:23:50

That's, you know, that's my default, is to, to grow things and to, not hoard,

1:23:57

to actually be active in, conscious, aware, in the space to figure out how to

1:24:03

survive this thing.

1:24:04

And it's, yeah.

1:24:06

It might be the only thing you can do.

1:24:08

Because it doesn't seem to me that anybody has real answers.

1:24:11

No.

1:24:11

They have opinions and they express those opinions and some more confident than

1:24:15

others, but it doesn't seem like there's any real clear path as to how things,

1:24:20

I think it's just a time thing.

1:24:22

I think, you know, it's like, um, like the Hindus came up with the, the concept

1:24:27

of the yugas, the different ages of civilization.

1:24:30

I think that was very astute.

1:24:34

I think they were, they were accurate.

1:24:36

I think there's something to that, that things have to go in sort of a natural

1:24:40

cycle of success and decay.

1:24:41

It'll come to a head and it'll, we'll figure out a way through it.

1:24:45

Yeah.

1:24:45

You just gotta take care of yourself while it's all getting weird.

1:24:49

Yeah.

1:24:50

And also help people, other people take care of themselves too.

1:24:53

So, cause that's, that's where the, the old, um, the walking dead shit goes

1:24:58

sideways when people are like, just not taking care of each other.

1:25:04

Right.

1:25:04

Yeah.

1:25:05

That's what's interesting about that show or interesting about any concept of,

1:25:09

uh, the apocalypse end times.

1:25:11

It's the real concern is other humans is how humans react to this deterioration

1:25:16

of civility.

1:25:18

Yeah.

1:25:18

Yeah.

1:25:20

I would like to think, cause I'm an idiot and romantic.

1:25:23

I'd like to think that we would, most of us would choose the right way to do a

1:25:27

thing.

1:25:28

But when faced with impossible situations, I think that we're probably going to

1:25:33

go back to our, I think

1:25:35

primitive, many of us will choose the right way.

1:25:38

But the problem is there's been so many people that developed in sort of a, an

1:25:46

environment where

1:25:48

you didn't really have to, to have earned character, you know, where you don't

1:25:55

really develop the

1:25:57

concepts of discipline and of, you know, of postponing pleasure and, and, you

1:26:07

know, like to, to farm

1:26:11

off all the important things that need to be done to work to, to have society

1:26:17

function correctly

1:26:18

on other people, but yet expect it to work.

1:26:22

And then it goes away and you never really developed the discipline or the

1:26:26

skill or the understanding

1:26:28

of what's required.

1:26:29

Yeah.

1:26:30

Just understanding, you know, and I don't, this is of, I don't know if I'm just

1:26:36

kind of

1:26:36

making this up, but it seems like that, that 40 hour work week, I know that's

1:26:42

kind of a

1:26:43

standard, like, you know, that's your weird corporate, that's the way we've

1:26:46

grown up.

1:26:46

But if you can do a thing and focus on doing a thing where you're, you know,

1:26:51

you're working

1:26:52

your 30 to 60 hour week of something that you're doing that I feel like as long

1:26:59

as it's feeding

1:27:00

you in some way, that's, I'm, that's what I do.

1:27:04

I, I, I, I don't have like, I don't work like, I don't know, 10 hours and then

1:27:11

coast for the rest

1:27:12

of the fucking week.

1:27:13

That's, I'm working that moment where you're starting your workout and you're,

1:27:22

you're

1:27:22

heart rates going up and you're like, man, I don't know if I'm going to be able

1:27:25

to do

1:27:25

this today.

1:27:25

Well, you got to just get past, you got to get past that first five minutes of

1:27:30

getting

1:27:30

it to the next, to the next thing.

1:27:32

Yeah.

1:27:33

And then you can do that thing for fucking 70 hours a week.

1:27:36

Right.

1:27:37

You know, it's like, it's, you can get past that, whatever that little initial.

1:27:42

The resistance.

1:27:43

The resistance.

1:27:43

Yeah.

1:27:44

That's the thing that people don't learn how to do.

1:27:47

And, you know, now people are struggling with remote work because they don't

1:27:52

want to go

1:27:52

back to an office where they're forced to actually get past the resistance.

1:27:56

You can kind of like fuck off and you use an app that pretends your cursor is

1:28:00

moving around

1:28:01

and you get caught jerking off on zoom.

1:28:04

No, I didn't.

1:28:06

Um, when?

1:28:11

But you know what I'm saying?

1:28:11

Like, it's like, you are a guy who wants to be stimulated often with your

1:28:17

endeavors and

1:28:19

some people never learn that.

1:28:20

And that's sad to me.

1:28:23

That's unfortunate.

1:28:25

Cause I think we all could be that and we all could find satisfaction and, and

1:28:30

just a real

1:28:31

sense of purpose and a real sense of, uh, I want to say accomplishment, but

1:28:38

that's not

1:28:39

really the word.

1:28:39

It's like a engagement, you know, that where life becomes rewarding and, and,

1:28:47

and stimulating.

1:28:49

And it's like you have these robust moments, these like exciting things that

1:28:54

are happening

1:28:55

in, in these endeavors, these things that you're choosing to do that are

1:28:59

complicated

1:28:59

and difficult to do.

1:29:00

And if, if you can get past that initial resistance, but some people did just

1:29:04

never develop that.

1:29:05

And that's, that's what's unfortunate to me about people that just work, they

1:29:10

just have

1:29:10

a job and the job doesn't engage them and they just want to get out of there.

1:29:15

It's like, there's other ways to live life.

1:29:17

And if you could find a life that is engaging, and if you could find things

1:29:21

that do stimulate

1:29:22

you and find things that you do get real satisfaction out of the complexity of

1:29:29

them and the learning

1:29:30

and the, the growing and the, you know, the, the, the constant stimulation of

1:29:36

those things.

1:29:37

It's like, I think part of it, and this is just my upbringing.

1:29:41

I don't know that this was everybody's, but there was, my dad was very, and my

1:29:44

stepmother

1:29:45

were very inspirational for me to be able to always assume that maybe you don't

1:29:53

know what

1:29:54

you think, you know, and also work, you know, work toward a thing, um, so that

1:30:02

you can develop

1:30:03

just that focus and those skills and understanding connecting A to B to C.

1:30:09

Like, we're going to weed this thing.

1:30:11

We're going to till this ground.

1:30:12

We're going to do this thing.

1:30:14

And at, at the end of the day, you're not going to know what, what you just did.

1:30:19

We're not going to know until like next week or four weeks from now or six

1:30:22

weeks from now.

1:30:23

Now we're weeding that spot to make sure that this thing survives.

1:30:28

And then you're harvesting that thing.

1:30:29

And we're going to have that thing for dinner.

1:30:31

When you start connecting that all the way back to the cause and effect, uh,

1:30:36

that was a very

1:30:37

important lesson and how some of the things I did wrong.

1:30:41

So we don't get to have this part.

1:30:44

So understanding everything you had to do for your day to enjoy the thing you're

1:30:49

doing, but

1:30:49

also understanding you're doing it for a bigger purpose.

1:30:53

You have a connection with it.

1:30:55

Um, I don't know.

1:30:57

I just, that was instilled in me early.

1:30:59

And I think you're right.

1:31:00

Like people that don't really understand if you're doing this thing just

1:31:04

because you're

1:31:04

trying to survive and you don't really, you're not connecting the beginning to

1:31:09

the end.

1:31:10

Yeah, I guess you are miserable.

1:31:12

You're going to pick up the app that's going to move the cursor around because

1:31:14

you're not

1:31:15

really helping anyone, but I don't know.

1:31:18

They don't have examples of those people around them, which is part of the

1:31:23

problem of all of

1:31:24

us is that we, you know, like you were talking about how all art is kind of

1:31:29

inspired by other art.

1:31:30

Well, there's kind of an art to living life.

1:31:32

And sometimes we don't have local examples of someone who's doing it in a way

1:31:38

that you

1:31:39

find engaging and stimulating.

1:31:41

And so you don't know what to do.

1:31:42

And if you're surrounded by people that are just using that app to move the

1:31:46

cursor around,

1:31:47

you think that this is just the way to do it.

1:31:49

And then you seek thrills in drugs or in entertainment or in something that

1:31:55

just numbs you.

1:31:56

The dopamine addiction.

1:31:59

Yeah.

1:32:00

Dopamine, alcohol, jerking off, gambling, anything.

1:32:04

Something that just like removes you from the...

1:32:07

Sounds like a Saturday morning to me, sir.

1:32:09

Sunday morning and a Monday morning and a...

1:32:14

I'm just kidding.

1:32:15

I don't gamble.

1:32:16

At all?

1:32:17

Yeah, no, yeah.

1:32:22

I feel like there's...

1:32:24

It's a treading water disconnect from the bigger picture of things.

1:32:33

Yeah, that's a whole other six-hour conversation, right?

1:32:35

Just not...

1:32:36

Are you just a clock?

1:32:40

You're just like an hourglass?

1:32:43

Yeah.

1:32:45

You're just marking time until you're done?

1:32:47

That's a lot of people.

1:32:48

It doesn't make...

1:32:49

That's sad to me to try to...

1:32:52

Well, it's sad to them, too.

1:32:52

That's why so many people are depressed.

1:32:54

It's one of the reasons.

1:32:56

Well, you know, we've talked about before, like, the action-reaction, the

1:32:59

immediate...

1:33:00

Like, the immediacy of everything.

1:33:01

I want this thing, and I'm bitching because Amazon didn't deliver it to me

1:33:06

before I ordered it.

1:33:08

They should already know what I want, and it should come yesterday.

1:33:11

Life is just not like that, and when that goes away, and you're, like, trying

1:33:17

to figure out how to, like, find fresh water, fuck, good luck to you.

1:33:21

Well, there are so many people that develop things that do give you that

1:33:26

immediate satisfaction, and some people get addicted.

1:33:30

Like TikTok, you're just constantly getting just stimulated versus being a

1:33:36

farmer.

1:33:36

Like, I've always been fascinated with farmers because when you talk to them...

1:33:41

That's the long game, dude.

1:33:42

Oh, my God, that's the long game.

1:33:44

The amount of work involved...

1:33:46

You talk to a real farmer, a real get-up-at-five-in-the-morning farmer, work

1:33:51

till dark, and be exhausted, and then do it all over again, and not get rich.

1:33:57

And, you know, all the challenges come along with it.

1:34:00

Because now I'm getting my phone's blowing up the last couple days because we're

1:34:05

spotting a bobcat in the neighborhood.

1:34:07

Well, that means now I've got to bring...

1:34:10

I'm not even there, and I've got to make sure that I'm checking with Jen to

1:34:13

make sure she's bringing the ducks home early and paying attention in the

1:34:16

morning.

1:34:17

Don't let them out too soon because we want to make sure there's people around.

1:34:21

And I'm literally doing things like peeing into a fucking water bottle and

1:34:26

spreading it around the perimeter of the fence because some of those predator

1:34:31

cats, they don't like...

1:34:33

They think that that territory's been marked.

1:34:36

Right?

1:34:37

Does that work?

1:34:38

Well, I hope so because I'm the idiot at pouring bottles of piss along the

1:34:42

fence line.

1:34:42

My buddy Andrew's like, yeah, you piss along the fence line.

1:34:46

I'm like, dude, I'm not going to go out in my yard and pee on the fence with

1:34:48

all my neighbors staring at me.

1:34:50

I'm going to have to, like, do the weirder thing, which is peeing a bottle and

1:34:53

then pour.

1:34:55

If it works, then great because I've got, you know, two dozen ducks that I have

1:34:59

to protect them.

1:35:00

So what do you do?

1:35:01

Do you hire someone to, like, watch the ducks or kill the bobcat?

1:35:06

Well, you can't really kill the bobcat.

1:35:08

It's protected.

1:35:09

So you just have to pay attention to when the ducks are by themselves and do

1:35:12

things like pee on your fence line and, like, hope that they just pick...

1:35:17

Are you allowed to chase the bobcat off?

1:35:19

I think so.

1:35:20

What are the laws in terms of...

1:35:21

I think you have to call, like, the, you know, the local fishing game to see if

1:35:27

they can relocate it, maybe.

1:35:29

But once that...

1:35:32

If that bobcat finds out I have ducks, there's not much I'm going to be able to

1:35:36

do.

1:35:37

It will come back until it gets all of the ducks.

1:35:40

Yeah, we had that in California with chickens and coyotes.

1:35:43

They got all my fucking chickens.

1:35:46

Just a matter of time.

1:35:47

So just mark your calendar because eventually, like, in about, you know, a year,

1:35:52

you're going to, like, the video surface where I'm out there half naked peeing

1:35:57

on a fence chasing off a bobcat, you know, with a fucking paintball gun.

1:36:02

Yeah.

1:36:03

A lot of people just hire someone to deal with that.

1:36:07

But that's not us.

1:36:09

This is what we do.

1:36:10

This is part of our world.

1:36:12

We raise ducks.

1:36:13

We raise quail.

1:36:14

My wife's a...

1:36:16

I don't know if I told you this.

1:36:17

She's a falconer, licensed falconer now.

1:36:20

So she's...

1:36:21

We have a hawk named Loki.

1:36:23

Whoa.

1:36:25

And so she has a full-on hawk.

1:36:27

So when you say licensed falconer, do you use that falcon to go do stuff?

1:36:32

Eventually.

1:36:32

Is that falcon going to snatch the quail for you?

1:36:34

Well, yeah, it loves the quail.

1:36:36

But, you know, we can take it around the vineyards eventually and it'll chase

1:36:41

off ground squirrels and rabbits out of the vineyard.

1:36:44

I was at a Tohono Ranch recently, which is in central California, and it's...

1:36:49

There's more ground squirrels than you could possibly imagine.

1:36:54

They were telling me that the body mass, the biomass of ground squirrels is

1:36:59

greater than the biomass of cows they have.

1:37:03

So they have beef cows everywhere.

1:37:04

There's enormous cows everywhere.

1:37:06

But there's more body weight in ground squirrels than there are cows.

1:37:10

That's nuts.

1:37:11

There's so many of them.

1:37:12

There's little holes everywhere you go.

1:37:14

I have a solution.

1:37:15

It's called...

1:37:15

His name's Loki.

1:37:16

Loki would have to go to work.

1:37:18

I watched an eagle catch something.

1:37:20

I don't know what it caught, but a golden eagle.

1:37:22

I watched it snatch something and then drag it up into the cover.

1:37:26

I couldn't see.

1:37:28

But I watched it come down, snatch this thing, and then it was moving with this

1:37:32

thing on the ground.

1:37:33

It's incredible how they can see that from so far away and like, boom.

1:37:39

And those little fuckers are trying to get away from that eagle too.

1:37:42

It was just a beautiful dance.

1:37:43

But to be there right when it caught it was wild.

1:37:46

I tried to get close enough to take a photo of it, but I couldn't.

1:37:50

But it's, you know, that's the balance.

1:37:52

Like, you have to have that.

1:37:53

Yep.

1:37:54

And when you fuck that balance up with like a giant pack of ducks that are all

1:37:59

in this one...

1:37:59

It's like, this is so much food in this one spot.

1:38:01

Yeah.

1:38:01

Why am I going anywhere else?

1:38:03

Right.

1:38:03

Fuck ground squirrels.

1:38:04

These things don't even fly.

1:38:05

Yeah.

1:38:06

And they'll come after your ducks.

1:38:07

What do you use the ducks for?

1:38:09

Eggs?

1:38:09

Eggs.

1:38:09

You eat them?

1:38:10

No, the eggs.

1:38:11

I make the...

1:38:13

Well, Chris at the Osteria mix uses the yolks for our pasta.

1:38:18

And then eventually when I open up the brunch place, we'll use the whites to do

1:38:23

a quiche.

1:38:24

Duck eggs have a weird way of like coating the surface of your mouth.

1:38:29

Yeah.

1:38:30

Like the roof of your mouth.

1:38:31

Yeah.

1:38:32

It's a weird egg.

1:38:33

Yeah.

1:38:34

That's why I like when you put them in the pasta, it actually works better.

1:38:37

Rather than just having the scrambled duck egg, I don't prefer the scrambled

1:38:41

duck egg.

1:38:42

I like using the yolk for the pasta and the...

1:38:45

We'll use a couple of yolks, but mainly like an egg white with some yolks, quiche.

1:38:48

We were talking about this before I know, but are you getting your wheat from

1:38:53

other sources?

1:38:54

Like you're getting it from outside the United States?

1:38:56

Yeah.

1:38:56

The best...

1:38:57

The best...

1:38:58

Generally speaking, the best wheat flour are...

1:39:04

It's an Italian milled flour, but a significant portion of that flour is

1:39:11

actually hard wheat,

1:39:14

winter wheat from Arizona.

1:39:16

So you mix them like a blend?

1:39:18

Well, they do.

1:39:18

They'll get the...

1:39:19

You know, all the wheat that gets grown around, you know, the Midwest and

1:39:23

Arizona ends up going

1:39:25

to a central...

1:39:26

It's a commodity.

1:39:26

So it goes to a central area.

1:39:28

Then it gets shipped to a place like Italy and they mill it and blend it and

1:39:32

sell it back

1:39:33

to you.

1:39:33

And what's the benefit of adding the Arizona wheat?

1:39:37

It's just that...

1:39:39

Just the way that it works with pasta, you know, the gluten structure of the

1:39:46

pasta, that hard

1:39:47

winter wheat from Arizona is a good ingredient to make it.

1:39:51

Just for texture?

1:39:53

Texture.

1:39:54

Holding the pasta together, keeping the form, you know, the form, it's pretty

1:40:02

cool to know

1:40:03

that, like, there's a significant amount of Arizona wheat in our flour that we

1:40:09

use.

1:40:10

Even though it's not milled in the state, it's a part of the blend.

1:40:15

And is this an heirloom wheat?

1:40:17

Is this a modified wheat?

1:40:18

We were using quite a bit of heirloom flour from Arizona, but the combination

1:40:25

of the blend,

1:40:26

whatever the Italians do to blend that thing together, it just ends up being

1:40:29

better.

1:40:30

So we're trying as much as we can to use Arizona wheat, blend it in.

1:40:33

We blend more in than when it comes in, just so, because we're trying to

1:40:37

support the flour

1:40:39

from Arizona.

1:40:40

But at the end of the day, you know, it's got to have structure.

1:40:44

It's got to be tasty.

1:40:45

So we've got to do what we've got to do to make the end product be presentable

1:40:50

and awesome.

1:40:51

How much do you pay attention to glyphosate and, you know, the real debate now

1:40:55

about how

1:40:56

much glyphosate is getting into our food supply?

1:40:59

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

1:41:01

You don't know what Roundup is?

1:41:02

Oh, yeah, Roundup.

1:41:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:41:04

Yeah, we don't use it in the vineyard.

1:41:07

We used to, because we thought that's what you're supposed to do, right?

1:41:11

And then our southern Arizona, the 80-acre vineyard down there, we have awesome

1:41:15

ground

1:41:15

cover down there.

1:41:16

And so we just mow the ground cover down or mulch it down.

1:41:19

So we're not using any of the pre-emergent or the weeding shit anymore.

1:41:24

It's a big debate now, because there was a recent study that I think it was

1:41:28

like 80% of

1:41:29

people they tested had glyphosate in their bodies.

1:41:31

I would imagine it's all of us.

1:41:33

Yeah.

1:41:33

Yeah, that makes sense, because we used it on everything forever.

1:41:39

Yeah, it's a creepy herbicide.

1:41:42

And also, I think they've genetically modified certain foods to have glyphosate

1:41:49

in them.

1:41:50

Yeah.

1:41:50

Which is crazy.

1:41:52

Yeah.

1:41:53

So we're doing our best to not, you know, we use as much as we can, just, you

1:41:58

know, manual

1:42:00

weeding, or we use the ground cover in the vineyard to eliminate that part of

1:42:04

the process.

1:42:05

Do you pay attention to people like Joel Salatin from Polyface Farms or any of

1:42:10

these people

1:42:11

that have like regenerative agricultural practices where they, it's interesting

1:42:16

because I don't

1:42:17

know if it's scalable.

1:42:18

Like the big question is like, that's, that ends up being the issue.

1:42:23

Too many people.

1:42:23

Right.

1:42:24

Too many people not growing food, which is the big problem in cities.

1:42:28

Yeah.

1:42:28

Too many, yeah.

1:42:29

Too many people not growing food.

1:42:30

Too many people in general, or just the scale of doing that thing with the

1:42:35

current, the way

1:42:37

we do farming.

1:42:38

Like, you know, the debate of, you know, migrant workers coming in and working

1:42:42

on things.

1:42:43

It's a, it's, it's a lot.

1:42:47

It's a lot to do.

1:42:47

So that's why you end up defaulting to things like Roundup and those things,

1:42:50

because they're

1:42:51

trying to make the margin and cut the corner to get the thing done.

1:42:55

And it's a, a, a economy of scale, I guess.

1:43:00

Um, so we're trying as much as best we can to do that in-house.

1:43:05

We grow our own food for the, the Trattoria Osseria in the place in Scots that

1:43:09

we do as much

1:43:10

as we can to grow food for those locations.

1:43:13

So the stuff that's on the pizza, the stuff that's stuffed in the, the raviolis,

1:43:17

the salad

1:43:18

you get on the Labrador, uh, plate, um, a significant amount of that is what we

1:43:24

grow.

1:43:25

You start to supplement.

1:43:26

So when we supplement, we supplement from local growers in Arizona that are,

1:43:31

you know, organic

1:43:32

growers that are not using the, the Roundup.

1:43:36

But again, that's, you're dealing with a couple, three room size, three

1:43:39

restaurants.

1:43:40

Yeah.

1:43:41

Yeah.

1:43:41

We're not, we're not, we're not talking about a chain of olive gardens across

1:43:44

the country.

1:43:45

Right.

1:43:45

They couldn't.

1:43:46

Just a city.

1:43:47

Yeah.

1:43:47

You know, a city of, you know, 15 million people that aren't growing food.

1:43:51

Right.

1:43:52

Just the sheer bulk of the amount of stuff that's consumed.

1:43:55

Right.

1:43:56

That's the weirdest thing about cities is that we, we've figured out this way

1:44:01

to make these

1:44:02

centers where you have extraordinary populations with, you know, cement

1:44:06

structures and, you know,

1:44:08

water piped in underground, but there's no food.

1:44:11

Everything has to be trucked in.

1:44:13

Yeah.

1:44:13

Yeah.

1:44:14

I don't know.

1:44:15

I'm sure there's somebody smarter than me could figure that out.

1:44:18

But it's all at margins, isn't it?

1:44:22

Do you ever play it out?

1:44:23

Like, where does this go?

1:44:24

Like, if the population keeps increasing, cities keep growing, you're, you're

1:44:28

in the food

1:44:29

growing business.

1:44:30

Well, I, you know, I used to work in a pet store, so, um, eventually the rats

1:44:36

eat themselves.

1:44:36

You can't put, you can't put a bunch of rats or hamster, hamsters are worse

1:44:40

than rats.

1:44:41

Hamsters, you can't put a bunch of hamsters.

1:44:43

Hamsters in a, in a, in a terrarium or aquarium for, you know, people to come

1:44:46

and buy, because

1:44:47

you put too many in there, you'll come back and half of them are dead.

1:44:50

They eat themselves?

1:44:52

They'll fucking kill each other.

1:44:53

Really?

1:44:53

Yeah.

1:44:54

Just from overpopulation?

1:44:55

They will, they will turn on each other and they will, they will eat each other.

1:44:58

I've read a study once where we're talking about rat population density studies,

1:45:02

um, that

1:45:03

their behavior mirrors the behavior of high population cities, that you have a

1:45:08

certain amount

1:45:08

of mental illness that occurs, a certain amount of violence that occurs.

1:45:11

I could see that, yeah.

1:45:12

Yeah.

1:45:12

It's just a function of.

1:45:14

And then, you know, we would get in the shipment of the new, uh, hamsters this

1:45:19

week and I would

1:45:19

have to take this aquarium, move it away, put a new aquarium there, put fresh

1:45:24

shavings and

1:45:25

stuff in it, and then move those hamsters and those and put them in together

1:45:29

that way.

1:45:30

If I put the new hamsters in with the old hamsters in their environment that

1:45:34

they've been pissing

1:45:35

in for a couple of days, they fight.

1:45:37

You have to basically introduce them to a new environment so that it's new to

1:45:41

all of them

1:45:42

and it's new smells and then they won't fight as much.

1:45:46

So we need to start a new country, as you're saying.

1:45:48

Correct.

1:45:48

That's the move.

1:45:50

Hey.

1:45:50

Where do we go?

1:45:51

Maybe with global warming, Greenland will be available.

1:45:54

Yeah.

1:45:55

Or, or we could just take all the garbage and pile and compact it into bricks

1:45:59

and make an

1:46:00

island.

1:46:00

Ah.

1:46:02

Garbage island.

1:46:03

That's not a bad idea.

1:46:04

Something has to happen.

1:46:07

I patented it just now.

1:46:08

Copyright.

1:46:09

Yeah.

1:46:11

I wonder, you know, I wonder when you look at, you know, the human race is

1:46:14

approaching eight

1:46:15

billion people.

1:46:16

Like at what point in time do we all exhibit, like is that the future of the

1:46:21

human race?

1:46:23

It's like the worst aspects of urban living just universally.

1:46:27

There's, you know, that's, I think it's going to sort itself out.

1:46:30

I think it's going to end up coming to a head in some way.

1:46:32

And I don't know, civil war, meteor, virus, something will kind of-

1:46:40

Alien invasion.

1:46:40

Alien invasion.

1:46:41

Turn us into fuel.

1:46:43

Hmm.

1:46:44

Or the other concept is that when people live in these urban areas, they, they

1:46:52

actually have

1:46:53

less kids and that slowly population growth sort of declines naturally because

1:46:59

people are

1:47:00

people could become obsessed with their careers and, you know.

1:47:03

That doesn't seem to be happening.

1:47:05

It is happening in some places apparently.

1:47:08

It's like Japan has an issue with that right now.

1:47:11

And some different cities do have-

1:47:14

They don't have the sustainable population for their future of what they're

1:47:16

doing?

1:47:17

Yeah, that's the, the, the thought is that people are having so few children

1:47:22

that ultimately

1:47:23

at one point in time, you're going to see a population decline and that there's

1:47:28

going

1:47:29

to be the sort of an implosion.

1:47:30

Like Elon's actually talked about that.

1:47:32

The importance of having children, you know, like so many people aren't having

1:47:37

children that

1:47:38

live in these urban areas that you're going to see a collapse.

1:47:41

I'm, you know, I'm, I'm sure there's a mathematician out there that can say,

1:47:44

okay, for every person,

1:47:46

how many kids should I have?

1:47:48

One, two?

1:47:49

Right.

1:47:51

You know, so if, if between my wife and I, there's two kids, is that enough?

1:47:55

That seems like enough.

1:47:56

One.

1:47:57

But if you only have one, then naturally you're going to have a decline.

1:48:00

Two people have one kid, you got to decline.

1:48:03

Right.

1:48:03

And that's a lot of what's going on.

1:48:05

And maybe some people are not having kids at all.

1:48:07

Right.

1:48:08

Because they're dedicated to their careers.

1:48:10

Okay.

1:48:10

Makes sense.

1:48:10

Yeah.

1:48:12

Voucher system.

1:48:13

Voucher?

1:48:15

Oh, well, then you got the government involved.

1:48:17

Telling people what to do and not to do.

1:48:19

And that's never good.

1:48:20

Sometimes it's okay.

1:48:23

You live in a, like, how many people live in Jerome?

1:48:27

500.

1:48:28

Jesus.

1:48:29

That might be the way to go.

1:48:32

You like it, huh?

1:48:34

But the, the, the, the contrast between that and touring has got to be pretty

1:48:39

cool.

1:48:40

But if you just live there with no touring, you might get a little bored.

1:48:43

Well, but you know, you've got Flagstaff to the north.

1:48:45

You've got Sedona.

1:48:46

You've got Phoenix to the south.

1:48:47

Right.

1:48:48

You can visit other spots.

1:48:49

Yeah.

1:48:49

That's not, it's not that far away.