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

0:00Wow, wow, wow, Wes. all right we're live Gabe Polsky man thanks for coming yeah thanks for having me thank you for coming I uh I wanted to bring you here I I saw your documentary a while back I got a little little screener copy honestly I said I'm not just fluffing you it was what I thought it was one of the best things I'd watched in a really long time so the man who saves the world that's it yeah question mark not the man who saves the world no question mark that's about a guy who didn't drop the nuclear bomb or something yeah yeah that's another film yeah yours is the man who saves the world question mark which dude it's i swear to god i like i uh brandon our mutual friend from rafael sent it to me and i was like all right you know and i'm i'm like i'm pretty like precious with my time so someone's like hey do you want to watch this two-hour thing i'm usually like yeah yeah yeah i'll watch it but i read the tagline i'm like dang that sounds kind of cool dude one night I just, I saw through it.

0:53So congrats on that. It's awesome. Yeah. It's 85 minutes. Cause I know that, you know, the two hours, two hours scares people, but. Dude, now I feel like now documentaries are six hours. Yeah. It's murder mystery. Everything's long. I know. But the murder mystery doc that I'm telling you, man, I don't want to start by it on a negative note, but like, dude, I would really like to move back from the six hour twisty murder doc. It's like, just, I don't need to watch this for six hours. Just give me an hour and 20 hit me with a twist at the end. I agree I'm the same way it's like a full work day yeah I'm signing up to watch this lady get murdered it's like dude hit me with the facts I know give me the facts they're stretching you know they're yeah yeah true but no I thought your I thought your documentary was honestly fantastic and and just to like I don't know I don't want to give the whole thing away but just to recap I've I try to explain it to people and I like I always sound crazy it's about a guy who by the guy alone could have been what's his name Patrick McCollum Patrick McCollum I mean, obviously, you could have just done one on that guy alone.

1:54His life is crazy. He was a peacemaker. He just does everything. But he got convinced somehow that he was the center of some ancient indigenous prophecy that he was going to, was it save the world or bring everyone back together and thus save the world by saving the Amazon? That's right. I mean, the second part, yeah. So basically, these indigenous elders from the Amazon came to this guy at a peace gathering in India and they said to him, you know, we think you're this guy in our prophecy that we've had for, you know, hundreds of years. So different tribes of the Amazon, they all kind of got together and identified this guy and said, you know, we think you're this guy.

2:34And, you know, initially he's just like, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just kind of a regular guy. I don't think I'm the guy. And they basically for eight years kept coming to him and saying, you know, when are you going to come and fulfill this prophecy of ours is going to come and unite the tribes of the amazon and essentially save the amazon and restore the earth and after many years he's just like all right like i guess i'll like do what i can and go down there and first of all how that's crazy he was able to fight that off i would immediately be like yes i am getting hit with the chosen one is my personal fantasy so that's crazy he got to live that out and it's nuts that he was like no no, no, no, no, I'm not.

3:16Which obviously you're the chosen one. If you're going to be like, no, I'm not the chosen one. It's like, you're definitely a chosen one. Yeah. So he was, but dude, but then you've, so I'm like, okay, that's first of all, that's a, that's like kind of a wild concept. Then you get into that guy's life and it's like, he it's, that guy was, I've never even like heard of or seen a guy like that. Yeah. I mean, most talented guy. I think I've ever seen. Yeah. No, that, that's kind of what drew me. And honestly, the prophecy part of it was just to me, just so bonkers that I was like, this, this is, this guy's a bullshit artist.

3:46This is crazy. You know? Um, and I was, you know, incredibly skeptical of it. And then ultimately I, you know, first of all, I started doing a lot of research. I hired a private investigator, you know, to look into this guy, you know, he was saying he's best friends with Jane Goodall. And I, I didn't really believe him there. I forgot about that. He was buddy, buddy with Jane. Yeah. And then, and then I, you know, reached out to her personally and got an interview and she said this guy's the most fascinating guy she's ever met and you know one of the and so obviously that vouched for him but really what kind of drew me in was how weird and amazing this guy's life was he was like the most fascinating guy I've ever met he's you know he's a carny he was a jewelry designer to I guess you know Ronald Reagan John Wayne and Russell Crowe he was uh you know a peacemaker at first a carny so he basically at at 12 years old he like joined the carnival for like four years because his his brother got cut in half yes okay yes and his parents it's crazy yeah i don't want to laugh but his brother got cut in half but yeah his brother got fucking cut in half yeah and so he his parents had to go basically take care of his brother so he was left kind of on his own yes at 12 years old and so what he decided to do was join the carnival and there he kind of met all these freaks and married a prostitute which isn't in the film but and and and then he's like a mythical guy i swear guys it's mythical it's like forrest gump it's like zealig it's like the guy has literally done everything you know he's and so yeah i i just felt like him alone as a character study i don't know if you you sort of like character study of movies or documentaries, you know, just a fat, just him alone, I knew would be kind of fascinating.

5:38And then on top of that, you've got this whole prophecy, you've got, you know, indigenous, you know, going into this sort of indigenous world that, you know, most people have no idea about, you know, and learning about, you know, their wisdom and connection and all that. And then having this guy kind of fulfill this prophecy, it's just like the strangest story. And you kind of followed him around more so kind of like fact check the guy, which I could pick up on towards the middle, towards the end of the doc was pissing the guy off when you were fact checking him and he was just like, you don't believe me, you don't believe me, I'm the chosen one to save the world.

6:15So yeah, I don't want to give it too much away, but it was, dude, the documentary was fantastic.

6:47So, how does that work? when you want to do a documentary, you just, I guess you just got a hot tip somehow. And then you got to go, like, you just follow the guy around. Like, what was it like? I mean, I guess you weren't with him all day, every day. When I, when I see a documentary, for some reason, I imagined you're just like living, eating and sleeping in the same quarters with the guys. I sleep with the guy. You're sleeping in the same quarters with the guy, but it's like, you're just kind of popping in recording, popping out, you know, going back and forth. What is that like after a certain time?

7:14Do you guys become like super close or is it just kind of like all biz? yeah well everyone is different i mean this one i actually really did sleep at his house twice um which was pretty wild i mean his house he's got he's got two places one in moraga california and one in new mexico and they're both kind of really wild yeah um but yeah i mean in the in this instance you know it was kind of on and off and and you know you you just you know i i was kind of documenting him and following him but it was it was really kind of on and on and off you know so i would shoot with him for for a few days and then and then like you know maybe a couple months would pass i would sort of shape the story a little bit more than know what you know something else is coming up then i would go and and shoot that you know until i kind of you know was trying to wrap it all up and say, where is this going?

8:10When is this going to end? You know, how long was actually the most. And you filmed for how long you said? About three years, you know, on and off. Dang. So that's got to be nerve wracking, especially if you're filming, filming, filming, you're like, all right, come on, go meet these guys, go do the stuff. How does you handle kind of like trying to keep them on a timeline with that? Well, I would constantly ask like, where, is this happening? What's happening next? Is the prophecy, you know, going to be fulfilled? Like, you know because in our culture you know we're constantly you know we want results you know we want and plus like i don't want to be shooting this for like 10 years like i've got other things to do and whatever so yeah i would be you know putting a little bit of pressure on on him about where is this going and that was kind of the most nerve-wracking part of this particular documentary that i made was just that that it was so unknown where this was going and i i had no I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you get involved in something you have just no idea where it's going and you think you're crazy why am I doing this I couldn't even like a marriage or something like a marriage yeah exactly you have a little idea no a project like that would be it would drive me insane yeah to not know I was literally on the verge of insanity like yeah especially because I you know you gotta I don't know if you've staked it yourself or you financial backers you're doing this and it sounds awesome and you're like fuck dude come on well this one i was kind of on my own because as you said earlier you know pitching this story to like netflix and hbo and places like that i mean it's just so far out and so weird they're not making this kind of stuff no you know i haven't seen anything yeah i haven't seen anything like that before and so i even going to investors you know they're just look at me like what the the hell are you talking about this is too weird you're crazy and so I I was kind of on my own at a certain point when I decided to commit to this you know I realized that I was kind of going to be on my own here so that that put a lot of even more pressure yeah financial also like one of my biggest fears is like wasting my time you know yeah if you spend three years of life like what have you been doing you know you talk to your friends and family like well what are you making now what are you making i'm just like yeah this guy he's in the middle of a prophecy they think they're like dude dude you're you're out of your mind you gotta go see somebody you know and so uh it's been it's been hard to kind of but i i did see a vision you know about this film no matter how crazy it was i knew i that somehow i could weave all these really interesting things together into something really meaningful and funny and really bizarre.

11:01It's like a trip. Yeah. This whole thing's like just going into like a psychedelic kind of weird trip. But that also, I think, you know, gives you a lot to think about afterwards. Yeah. And especially. Yeah. And again, it kind of does, too. And I'm actually reading a book right now, speaking of the Amazon, about the first conquistadors who like sailed or like went down i guess in a canoe or whatever navigated the entire amazon river and the author went down there because he always likes to visit like the historical sites or whatever he's writing about and uh he did say he said the amazon in particular is like he's like it's literally like a magical world and he's like you know there's obviously a lot of it's been like destroyed um but he was basically saying that if we if we do lose like the rainforest we're kind of we're kind of fucked yeah because it's like it like retains moisture and if you knock down the trees and plant different trees they don't retain the same amount of moisture then it gets hotter and blah blah blah but so hopefully it's true hopefully he does the thing because it's like i don't know again no spoilers but i was like you watch it and you go maybe he did yeah maybe he did the thing yeah yeah i mean you know that that was the whole thing i mean i would go to these to these gatherings you know where he was essentially uniting tribes of the amazon you know and you know there would be these sort of smallish gatherings you know there'd be there'd be tribes from various parts of the amazon and and and you know well let's just say about a hundred people you know and you know i'd be looking at this and they'd be doing you know indigenous ceremonial things with feathers with fire and all kinds of things and connecting with spirits and so on but from an outsider perspective you're just looking at this thinking you know what the hell am i looking at you know this is so weird this is about saving the world is he uniting the tribes here but then i started thinking to myself how does any business deal or any even jesus christ for instance when he was doing his sermons and starting out and talking to people it probably didn't look like anything it's just him talking to people and doing about some weird stuff and And, you know, no one would have said, this is the guy.

13:12He's going to. Yeah, that's true. This is happening. Everything happens, even on big things that end up having these ripple effects that are huge. They start off really small, and they probably don't look like anything that special. Well, that was, yeah. When you guys started your podcast, you know, it was just you guys in a room, and then it becomes. Yeah, far from glamorous. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was the meetups in the hotels where it's just like a 20-person meetup in a hotel convention center. That was kind of cracking me up. He was like, bro, wait, this is the big meeting. I will say what I liked about him too is that like he would do those meetings.

13:47You know, it doesn't look great. There's just a couple people strewn and he would get out and be like, that was awesome. Yeah, that's exactly. That was what we needed to do. That's exactly. He's like this insane optimist. And every time I would talk to him, it would just be like, literally, he just did the biggest thing ever. And I'd be like, were we at the same place? Like what is going on here? Yeah, no. I don't know if have you met people like that that are just like so positive and so, you know, almost in slightly delusional way, but it becomes kind of contagious and weirdly self-fulfilling.

14:21Yeah, it is. Yeah. On my good days, I can kind of do that myself a little bit, but then, you know, I slip all the time. I'll just go anywhere to do a show and be like, this is it. I fucked up. I'm done. This is, I'm going to freak out on stage. I'm going to walk off. Yeah. happens to me like 40 of the time i'll be in the middle of starting a set and i go well i'm gonna have to leave and everyone's gonna be furious and i'm gonna go home i'm gonna move back in with my parents i'm on stage this is the first like seven minutes and i'm like i'll just move it back in with my parents it's no big deal but uh but yeah i try to persevere there is something nice about that especially now we're like i feel like um like intense pessimism and negativity is almost like in in a way where it's like it's almost cool to be like fucking world's ending dude we're we're screwed everything's done it's like i don't i don't like that stuff honestly yeah i don't know what i mean i mean it's such a fight to stay positive yeah but it's so important yeah man you know i mean well it's like how do you do everything dude once you start that negative talk to yourself you're you're it's really bad dude and and yes that's it's literally like the worst thing you can do but there's nobody in my opinion there's like no emphasis put on the responsibility of not being a gigantic bummer yeah because if you ever have like a if you ever had like a you know i remember having like regular jobs 90 of the people i've worked with were like massive just chronic bummers every single person i've worked a regular job with shows up and they're like shit sucks yeah no other way this is what it is yeah just show up and be like another day here this fucking bullshit ass place i hate this place you're like dude i just I just got here.

15:58Can we just chill a little bit? So yeah, I mean, I wonder what people would need though. Cause I don't know. I feel like without religion, I don't know what else could possibly stoke somebody day in and day out like that. You know what I mean? It's somehow a mindset. I mean, even like, you know, making documentaries, it seems like the greatest thing ever. Oh my God, you get to tell that story and this one and that one, but on a daily basis, the grind of it and the pressures, you know, it's so easy to get into that negative talk. Have you ever been tempted? Even the best things. I mean, they should teach it in schools, you know, about kind of the art of positivity.

16:36Because that's all related to this mental health. You need it. You know what I'm saying? You need that. The problem is it's being delivered by school teachers who can be a little negative and nasty. You know what I mean? It's tough. If you're like a 27-year-old lady being paid 30 grand a year, it's tough to get the kids and be like, guys, life is awesome. Life is great. you guys just got to believe in yourselves. Teachers, that's, you know, that's one job I would never, I would like to have, but it's a, I don't know if I could do it, man. Especially like, it'd be one thing if you had like other sources of income, but if you're just living on that, like the teachers I've talked to, apparently they just get crushed by the administration because they're like, you have to do it this way.

17:14None of it makes sense, but this is that the way we're going to be funded. And every parent is like, dude, you suck. My kid's right. You suck, blah, blah, blah. So with coaching too. Yeah. Yeah. similar about the parents getting involved. This episode is brought to you by PrizePix. The big game is right around the corner. Once Championship Sunday hits, there's only three more football games this season, which means you're running out of chances to get it right this football season, and there's no better place to get it right than PrizePix. Oh, yeah. With player picks and team picks, you can pick how many yards the QB will throw or who will join Bad Bunny on stage.

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18:37That's code Drench. Get$50 in lineups after you play your first$5 lineup. PrizePix. It's good to be right. Oh, man. I love that. I don't know. The pressure for coaching, I don't know if that's like – Is that like scholarship pressure? I played sports. My parents were just like – We're happy you're out in the house. They would show up and be like, great. Yeah. Scores zero points. Mine didn't show up that much, but yeah. Oh, man. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no. But I'm saying, I'm just saying, you know, I didn't necessarily, sometimes it's a good thing, you know, that your parents aren't there every single time.

19:11I prefer them not to be there. Yeah. Honestly. I didn't, I didn't like if they came, it was like, sucks. Yeah. Then like, you know, I would ride the bench for most of it. There's nothing worse than your parents showing up and you're on the bench the whole game. and you're like, I'm sorry I brought you guys here. I know. I agree. That happened in college a couple of times. You played college ball? I played college hockey. What? At Yale, yeah. Damn, dude, what the fuck? What position? I was a forward. What? Yeah. What the hell? I didn't know you were a hockey player. Yeah. You don't strike. I mean, again, I'm not saying you're not like rough and tumble, but you don't strike me as a fucking college hockey player.

19:47How'd you keep all your teeth? We wore masks in college, you know? Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. When you play it professionally, then the masks will come off. Why? I don't know. I don't know why they kept that rule. Maybe they wanted people's faces to stay intact until you play pro. So it's time to take the mask off and show that beautiful hockey face. For advertising. They need to see the faces. For the game. Yeah. Because if you're wearing a mask, you can't relate to the players. Yeah. That's true. So what was the hockey grind like growing up? because you must have played. It was tough. Yeah, that's a sport you play like early in the morning.

20:25Yeah, it was, you know, like anything, just such a huge commitment. But to find ice time, oftentimes like when you're a little kid, you have to wake up at 5 in the morning before school and stuff like that, I think a couple times a week. Damn. It was, you know, just like it was just a huge commitment your whole life. You know, you want to be a great player. You want to play the highest level. Did you cop the scholarship to Yale? they don't you know they they give financial aid so if they look at your income and and decide what what they to do with you you know you're they're not allowed to just I don't know about now but back then you know that's how they did it but I got I got offered a couple scholarships from like Notre Dame and other places so you're nasty I was you don't you don't want to your own horn I get it so how many documentaries have you done i've done i've directed four and then you know made five okay yeah what was your favorite one you think you know well this one that they've all been very different but one that's kind of near and dear we're talking about hockey well i've done i've actually done several that are somewhat hockey related but i really love in search of greatness which is a about the greatest athletes of all time and about the nature of greatness told from the perspective of the greatest athletes and it's it's really about kind of creativity and about how you know most of the greatest athletes from Gretzky to Tom Brady to you know Messi the they're they're not what we think they are they're they're actually on a spectrum of like athletic ability and speed and this they're actually like worse than the average athlete strength and speed Gretzky let's take for instance you know I didn't know that yeah I mean he he was he was like an anomaly could barely bench press anything he wasn't very necessarily fast he wasn't didn't have the hardest shot he was but he was just because of these weaknesses he had to figure out you know another way to play the game and he just you know was the greatest ever by far you know because he had to come up with these comp you know compensation tactics so he he just thought he thought faster the same thing with tom brady if you look at his combine score whatever yeah so what i was trying to argue is that i think we we see sport in a in the wrong way we're not looking at the right things you know and for me it's all all about like creativity and sort of what we do with our weaknesses you know and and that we can actually reinvent our fields by thinking about sport or whatever it is in a completely different way you look at artists it's the same thing you know in order to reinvent something you have to you know you know we it's not what you think i know i know what you're saying it's not all about like the 40 time it's not all about yeah i mean it's totally the opposite it's about the mind and about creativity that's pretty cool did you see the movie inside out too i don't know if you've watched that with your kids i don't no i don't think i dude inside out too about emotions yes it's all about emotions and stuff but there's a part in that where you know the it's all about the kid having the motions emotions get out of control and they got to find some like equilibrium and that's kind of like the whole movie basically but there's a part in the end of inside out too where the girl josh you've seen this movie this girl's having a tough time her emotions are all out of whack she's obviously sitting puberty too so there's like new emotions and um there's a part where like it all like the thing you're talking about finally clicks and it shows that like she's all like gung-ho like i gotta be the hardest and fastest and then like she just gained some sort of peace in herself and there's a thing where she's like skating serenely through the ice playing hockey and i started to cry yeah it was just such a beautiful i like stuck with me for three days just i was like god man that was because there's so much going on in her life and then she just was like quiet inside her head and she was able to just like part through like having fun rather than like gnashing her teeth.

24:29That's exactly what the point of this movie is. And in fact, my greatest memories of maybe in life are like playing hockey in an outdoor rink, just skating on my own and just like that, enjoying kind of the feeling of it. And, you know, it's magical. Yeah. And that's what the essence of life is and sport too. It's just this free, this feeling of freedom and being able to experiment. And it's the same with, I'm sure, comedy too. It's all about just that period of experimentation and just unstructuredness about it. You know, that creates. Well, yeah, once you get in your head, it sucks. It becomes a nightmare.

25:10If you get in your head like. And it becomes ritual. I got to do this. I got to do that. You know. No, I was talking to, God, I'm blanking on the guy's name. Kirk Fox. who's a guy uh kirk fox is a comedian he's in la and you know i was at the mothership and i was just like in one of my little funks where i'm like i had like started doing newer material i had to work out the hour and i was just like you know possessed being like this has to be good and i would just go on stage and i could i could feel crowds being like because i'd come out like hey guys and they'd be like you know this is that's not what this is about you should be having fun and making us have fun and i got off and i was or i was about to go on and maybe i was between shows and I was just like talking to him like I don't know I'm just like fucked up right now about all my stuff and he was like he's like looked at me and he's like who cares like just go have fun stop being you know such a simple that's it such a dumb thing but I like at the moment it hit me and I was like god damn it you're right I went on after that and had a blast and I was like yeah I was doing a service to everybody else by being so self-centered and being like no I have to be the best this needs to be great and it's like it's it's like literally a scourge like it's we all fall into that crazy trap you know but it kind of comes back to what we were talking about earlier about positivity and and just kind of having fun with things you know and trying to find that somehow because you get pulled back into that seriousness of the negativity and you know what i'm saying and yeah you can't oh dude it's it's literally the worst you can't perform either as well you know no it's it affects all things i'm up the age now i'm turning 40 in like literally a week and i like like clockwork now like i was you know my whole life i've been so cocksure in terms of erections and man like i'm noticing now i'm like dude if i if i even think about anything else while i'm having sex you know what i mean like any if anything else enters my field of awareness if i start going like what's this like is it it's gone i had not even gone but it's just not you know it's not yeah it's not the dick it's gone and it's like it's been fun for me now being like all right how do i you know what do i got to let go of you know and maybe it's just going to get worse and worse as i get older but that's a i swear that's an interesting one i've never had that problem and like i mean that's like a very you know localized example but you know we'll see that'll be my next quest to see if i can somehow overcome that but it's you know plus like you know if you're with the same person you know it's a little hard what are you talking about what are you even talking about dude no yeah it's amazing but i'm just powered by the strength of our connection i have no idea what you're talking no yeah obviously it's like you know you know as i find that like if you close your eyes and not not that you still connected to your partner but turn on the lights and put on earplugs no no it does internally and sort of how you're feeling and you know you know less stimulus yeah so it it that helps a little bit I think so I think so I for me I just eat pussy and I recharge but the uh that that helps that's the move like a babe time out I need a water break I need a water break babe but I I agree with you man I it's like you know that's if I if I could somehow you know if you think about distilling all of your life's efforts into like one thing it for me really is trying to figure out how to kind of spread the stoke as much as possible and not even like um i feel like it gets a bad rap because there's that like yeah vapid version of that where you're like in the mirror being like you're a champion or it's like not that at all it's like no you're a worm and you're pathetic on some level but despite all that you can still transcend that inside yourself and not be a total drag on your own life and you know everybody else's yeah like when people say you know it's it's i hear this saying all the time well you got to love yourself you got to love it i i can't quite do you ever try i do i i almost yeah it's just a weird thing you know so it's i don't even think it's that i i don't i don't think you have to you don't you shouldn't like hate yourself and beat yourself up that's the thing but yeah loving yourself how do you do that oh i love you so much it's the weirdest thing i've literally tried this i was i can't i I was on LSD one time and like towards the end of it, I got this wave where I was like, I got to show up for myself.

29:32I got to love myself. And I like looked in the mirror and there's a first thought of my brain was like, shut up. And I was like, all right, my bad. Try to love you, but you pushed me away. But yeah, I personally think, yeah, I think that's one of those things that like, it sounds great. And then you try it practically and you go, okay, sure. Like this is impossible. Yeah. I personally think you should not beat yourself up like you're saying and just rather than trying to play some weird mind game with yourself and like loving yourself just go do something for somebody else that's the easiest that's a great that's easy I can I can pump someone else up I can show someone I love them but yeah that whole thing like love yourself I don't know where that comes from or like where that even originated because there was no way that's I think that must have come in like the 80s like that was nobody said that in like the 50s 60s 70s maybe 70s and 60s but but i do think that love itself is a key to it you know that feeling of like if you can get that right here to you know love other people and you know to get that feeling for other people and for life and you know makes a big difference too it's it's similar to positivity or whatever but that feeling of love is what i think we all crave yeah and not not to be cheesy or whatever but there's something to that too for sure that that was the that's when you say helping other people yeah it's that makes me feel good transforms you you know if you could get wake up and then sort of try to channel that feeling of love rather than hate or you know yeah or I mean it's what all religions what all spiritual traditions you know are saying you know and all the great people from you know Gandhi Martin Luther King it's the key yeah seems to yeah to have it you know have a good for me like if I want to try to alter my own mood it's it's such a labyrinth and mind game that it's like I'm just gonna end up probably having a panic attack if I like close my eyes and start going like all right dude let's make yourself feel as good as I'm gonna and I literally did this the other night I was like putting my kids to sleep and I lay on the floor while they're like getting ready to fall asleep and I like started having a panic attack and I was like all right I gotta get out of my head but I can easily text my wife and like you look great today and she's just like oh my god thank you so much and then I'm like all right I feel good now yeah but when you try to apply it yourself it doesn't work you can yeah so what I do is I do really nice things for a lot of people and then I keep score if they do nice things for me and then I eventually explode on them and say you've done nothing for me told you you look nice 10 times this week but yeah man it's uh yeah keeping score is can't keep score can't keep score you just got to be especially if you're married you know geez can't keep score yeah you can tell them how hard you don't keep score that's what I do I go look the other day you left your stuff out i didn't say anything but i don't keep score like that so yeah exactly right but that i mean marriage is one of those things that like yeah man it's like uh if you really want because i feel like again i i only know my own self but i i do feel like let's say collectively it is like a um like a furnace because it's you and another person you have different ways on like this should be done this way this should be done that way and in my experience you either like let go of a lot of stuff or it just fucking explodes like there's there's no other way you have to and if you know and also you gotta really anticipate that people are gonna change you know that that nobody stays the same that's not the point of life is to stay the same it's to people are growing they're doing different things and to anticipate that and then really i think make that just commitment to to kind of go with it and not not fight against it no no i'm telling you i used to always always when i was younger i hear people say like just that similar like kind of folksy happy life happy life stuff and i'd always be like never i'll never give up and then you you hit the point you go i fucking give up dude i'm done i'll do i'll just fucking clean up my plate or whatever you're so freaked out about but yeah yeah but it's good you know what i mean it's like it sounds not but it's like, I don't know.

33:48Like, you know what, for me, this is like kind of different, but like COVID for me, like this whole thing about like being kind to other people. Cause I was like, I'm a nice guy. And then like, I would notice, like, I didn't notice how much I did this before COVID, but I would be in a grocery store and I would like, I would just see a person and like my brain, I would, my brain was constructed to like keep myself somehow above anyone around me in any way I could think of. So I would like see, I would see like a tall, handsome, muscular man. I'd be like, fucking loser guy's probably a big dork thinks he's so fucking cool guy's literally probably a dumbass and then i would just see like a lady like look at that fucking lady and i would just do this in my head like all the time i'm the same i not now no i would do this all the time i'd walk around and go fucking look at this guy and then covid heightened it because it was like people would have the mask i i wasn't a fan of it i was like i think it's weird we're all afraid of the air so i would go out i wasn't being like super aggressive with it but like if i was outside walking my dog I'm not wearing a mask like I'm I'm fine I'm not worried we're all far apart from each other and I would get like dirty looks in my neighborhood because everyone was like completely k-95'd up and I had that like it like heightened that thing in my head so now it was like enemies to me and I was like fucking look at this fuck now I was like really amped up and I remember I think I was in like a Whole Foods or something and I like I realized somehow that every time I'd walk past a person and be like look at this fucking piece of shit it gave me a bad feeling yeah and i just something like snapped in me to where i start every person i saw i'd be like like rooting for them on some level i'd be like i wish them the best and you know i'd still have that like look at this fucking lady's weird ass fucking pants but i'd be like but i wish her the best and dude i get filled with like an incredible sense of peace and ever since i've been because the whole thing for me is like even if you see somebody who's like kind of unbearable like maybe doing something crazy or whatever once you have kids you're like oh that's somebody's kid yeah so like if my kids are out in the world god forbid someone walked past them or like nice fucking hat dumbass i'd be so upset so i started being like well i'm going to treat everybody like there's someone else's kid and you know and it's like because you know i would hope their parents would like want them to be treated nicely and if their parents don't care if they're treated nicely or not then they need even more kind of like loving careness or you know loving care whatever it's called and having kids really helps with taking that kind of perspective too especially like with your own parents like once you have a kid thinking about your own parents how they dealt with you and having a little bit of respect for that you know being a dad and having a dad you know oh yes and and other people too like you're saying but i don't know what that is i i had that same thing about judging everybody and it's it's a weird where does that come from I have, you can't, even if you're self-aware, you're like, why did I keep doing that?

36:38You know, I have a theory, I have a theory and it's, uh, my theory is that, so it goes, I think it goes all the way back to like, it's just a thing in nature. Like if you're an organism, you have to size everything up. Exactly. But if you're an organism say, and you sit in like, there's a bigger organism than you, you're, you have a fear of annihilation instinctively. You're going, this thing's bigger than me. Now I'm going to die. And I think humans have so many dimensions to judge where it's like money, looks, success. It's like infinite. Yeah, yeah, comparing. So if you sense someone somehow bigger than you, then it's like you have to somehow cut them down in your head because there's like a weird innate fear that pops up.

37:18That's my theory. Yeah, yeah. So you just walk around the day all day. And then if there's someone that like you can just completely slam dunk on, it's probably just a feeling of victory where you're like, this fucking piece of shit. So. Yeah. I don't know. That's my theory about that. But it doesn't help you. The thing is, is you think you get this buzz off it, but I really think it makes you feel worse. Yeah, it does. It's kind of like when you're in grade school doing that, you know, and it starts there almost. Oh, for sure. Kids making fun of other kids. It is fun. You still feel like when you're an adult doing that, you feel like you're a kid essentially still.

37:55Yeah. I don't know, but I, yeah, I mean. Well, I mean, if you're with your bros, it's fun. to mess around with your bros like that but yeah if you're out and like in public around someone who's essentially a stranger and you're like i i know a lot of people do this and start just absolutely ragging on people i'm like bro you can't yeah do that it's not nice yeah but but that helped me with social comedy though don't you always have to be observing and like it's part of it is picking people apart or their idiosyncrasies and i'll do it part of the if i'm if I'm struggling on stage, I'll sacrifice a crowd member just because I'm like, I'm not doing well.

38:33And I'll just absolutely sacrifice somebody. And I know I'm like, this is wrong, but I need this laugh right now. And I'm going to make fun of your hat and I'm going to make you feel terrible right now so that I can continue. And I know it's not right, but it's, you know, or you're doing it to yourself too, like about your own life and how, yeah. Oh, I do that. But if I, if I, uh, that's an easy trick to get a crowd on your side, just absolutely just crush somebody in the crowd. and then they're like all right you got any of you guys want this you better start fucking laughing at me yeah i will fuck you no that's how my growing up my family dinners were like that though like we'd all i was one of six kids and we'd all sit around the table and uh it was just like it was a war zone like everyone would start making fun of each other our like my dad would get involved and like he would just like it would be one victim you'd be if the light turned on you everyone would start just saying whatever they could to just completely humiliate you yeah and you had to like strike out against somebody else and would turn the attention on them.

39:26And it was like, it was not, it was like every night at dinner. It's probably how your comedy started. No, it could be. I don't know, but it's definitely, that's, that could be at least where that very critical negative voice came from because you'd be eating and like, did you have five other people being like, well, look at your fat legs. And you'd be like, fuck. Yeah. You'd have to fire back somehow. Yeah. So it's not the best, but it is fun. I don't know. I do think it's fun though. Like it fucking with, people if they're you know i don't know even when they get when they react negatively to it it is so much more fun if you catch someone who takes themselves so seriously i know right i'm kind of like a bloodhound for that if i detect somebody's kind of like getting like pissed like that i i can't help it i'll start like needling and messing around yeah yeah but when i was when we were kids yeah my friends and i would just kill each other like yeah i assume it's like in every you know in every circle when you're a kid and we just kill each other yeah over and over it was it's it's part of the whole and then but people would laugh you know i mean yeah it's just it's funny too that that's a difference if you got to be able to take it yeah because that's my that's my mom's big critique of my my dad loves giving it out but if you get him he's just like you guys are assholes he doesn't he doesn't like he doesn't like it at all loves dishing it out can't take it Yeah.

40:48Which I think that's probably everybody, but, but nice man. So, so the, the sports doc, so you're talking Gretzky, who else, who's, who else is an example that there's Tom Brady Gretzky. So Rocky Marciano, who was one of the greatest, obviously boxers ever of his time was like, you know, really short. He had no reach, but he developed this style, you know, where he would just really like Tyson had this too. He would get close. he basically was undefeated and he would get close and and basically like hit from up close you would just keep you know get stay in your face yeah exactly and he was undefeated but his body was like you know was not meant for heavyweight boxing yeah and i'm saying he was he was short you know not very heavy and had a short reach but developed a style like lionel messy i mean he was also shorter than most people he had this uh he you know human growth issue where he like wouldn't grow when he was a kid and had to get testosterone but he was you know he he also developed this flea-like style of like you know deking people and he was so good with the ball and smart you know what i'm saying so he had that deficiency but he overcompensated in other ways i mean you go through even jerry rice so he's one of the best receivers in history he said he wasn't very fast you know but he he basically memorized timing and routes so perfectly that it gave him that you know competitive advantage because he was in the right place at the right time exactly when you know when the ball was coming you know what i'm saying yeah um i'm just thinking of other no that's that's really nice too because especially like with little kids i've noticed it's like maybe it's always been that way but like i'm just noticing now because i have kids but there's like a serious paranoia about any even signs of like this kid showing any developmental disability you know delays and blah blah blah people really freak out about that and it's nice to think like yeah rather than trying to like force my weaknesses to become something they'll never become how can i kind of you know adapt and kind of you know play to my own strengths like even like greg maddox i was just thinking i mean he's not even in my film but like same thing i mean he was he sort of doesn't really look like a baseball player like he's a little bit schlubby he's not that tall he's not that strong but his accuracy and his ability to understand batters and you know was on a whole nother level yeah it's you look at every sport every of the greatest athletes it's something like that you know that's completely unexpected you know i call it like polsky's law because it's like everything you see everything you see is like the opposite yeah you know that's pretty cool you coin that paradox i did coin it damn i say to my family i don't like well now here on the podcast but what just that i don't like to to be like a douchebag you know why i what coining no one else is going to do it for you yeah you don't do polsky's law people are going to take it and they'll call it maybe mccusker's law everything you see is the opposite yeah so what is what is the law again you're saying everything is opposite as what you everything is the opposite of what you see, you know, what you think.

44:07So if somebody's like happy all the time, you know, like, you know, they might be, you know, the saddest people. Gotcha. You've seen things like that or, you know, these sort of paradoxes of opposites. Yeah. Like the surface, the thing you present is, yeah, the reality is probably compensating. Yeah. Hey guys, real quick. I have some shows this weekend coming up. I'll be doing live standup comedy. I'll be at the Belding Theater in Hartford, Connecticut, January 23rd. That'll be Friday. Saturday, I'll be at the Egg, the Hart Theater at the Egg in Albany, New York. Both those shows are almost sold out, so please come.

44:47And if you want to come, there's a few tickets left. Also, I'll be in Las Vegas, then Denver, Boise, Idaho, Salt Lake City, Cleveland. Just go to mattmccusker.com. There's a bunch of other places for tickets. Thank you. I'll be in Helium, Atlanta tonight, Thursday through Saturday. Please come if you can. I know the weather's going to be bad, but I'll still be there. So please come. SeanGardini.com. The link is below. Thank you very much. I'll be at Dallas Hyenas the 23rd, which is Friday, or in Yellow Rose Kane on Saturday. Panties in your mouth podcast. Come on, guys. Fair. Did you ever see the guy on Instagram who does facial scanning where he'll be like, all right, this guy has this kind of face.

45:31And, you know, he has all these funny names. So there's like tree face, block face. And it's like, it's not like a derogatory thing. He's like, these are the facial structure terms. But he'll like, he says like no one's two eyes are the same. And he'll be like, so he'll cover up the left eye. Like the right eye is the eye of the father. And that's your secret hidden self. And like, look how afraid he looks in this eye. And they cover this eye. And they'll be like, this is the eye of the mother. And this is like your, you know, outward personality. But it looks like angry. It's really kind of fascinating.

45:57Wow. And when you see it, it's like, it's not complete bullshit. Cause like everyone does have like slightly different looks in each eye. I've been in the mirror nonstop the last couple of weeks, just trying to like see which side, which eye is with, and like what it says about me. It's kind of a terror that he like looks at people's faces and he breaks them down to a T and it's some of the people are people he, he like knows nothing about. And then the producer goes, Oh, this guy like killed his entire family. He goes, Oh yeah, I told you he looked kind of fucked up. And they, the craziest thing they said, there's a term called, um, um but it's like it's called whites on three terms three sides of the eye so like when people have a lot of white showing underneath their eyeball that he's like that's like a giant red flag because he had he had done the guy uh fuck i forget his name the guy who killed his parents nick reiner he did a facial analysis of that guy and that dude's eyeballs are like like you see a lot of the whites under his eye so i've been on the lookout for that lately but there's it's like a japanese saying for whites under three sides of the eye and it's like kind of like you see that be careful oh wow that is cool tampaku is that what it's called oh yeah sampaku whites on three sides of the eyes yeah i feel like all the those serial killers they all have that look yeah i don't know if we're sort of if that's a stereo i don't know but but they do have i don't know if it's like you know they took too much acid or whatever could be yeah i and this the funny thing was so total i heard about that whites on three side of the eye thing and i kept saying to myself like i i would uh hear people be like oh i just did like a bunch of ayahuasca and a lot of them would get this wonky look in their eyes and it's literally it kind of looked like you'd see a little bit underneath and i can never like pin down like what is that about that but it was like uh i don't know yeah i've done i've done have you done ayahuasca yeah do i have that how do you no you don't have that you have you're free from what's it called again tonosaki yeah sound box What's your thoughts on ayahuasca?

47:51It's, well, I, you know, it's very mystical. It's opens kind of like a portal to different dimensions that, you know, it's just, it's just, it's very hard to describe, but it's very mystical. It's beyond opening a portal to something that you can't experience without, you know taking ayahuasca you know imagine you know god or somebody saying you know let me just show you this new dimension or several of them of what's possible in the mind and you're just like oh my god this is insane you know to have an experience like this and you know it part of it is you know and i i can't confirm this but is is the healing healing of of you know past traumas and you're throwing up, you're purging, you know, you feel better afterwards.

48:47It's not that I didn't do it because necessarily I'm looking to get healed or anything. For me, it was more of a curiosity and just sort of understanding, a deeper understanding of who are we, what are we doing here, what is all this, you know. Yeah. And it's just, if you're somebody who is curious about reality and mysticism and sort of understanding deeper about reality and stuff like that. I think it's fascinating and enlightening in that way. You don't go, I mean, it's definitely still confusing because it's like you're opening into this portal and you're just like, what the hell is all this?

49:29This is incredible and crazy and strange. And you know what I'm saying? But it's not like, oh, here's the answer to life. Some people do say, oh, I was told this. and you know i met jesus or i don't know what what they happens then for me you know i can't say that i have a lot more clarity about everything but it gave me a richer feeling about life and what's beyond what we can see yeah you know i don't know if you've ever i mean i've done that with mushrooms yeah that's what i was gonna ask you what how does it compare to like a super high dose of mushrooms i don't know if you've ever done different almost dimension really it's like you know mushrooms you go into in one dimension which is like i i don't know i mean it's also mystical you're in a portal you're you're seeing things that are yeah you could never imagine you know but ayahuasca is like even a little bit of a different each plant has its own almost world or something did you feel like out of body or is it you're just looking around at stuff kind of but you're just you're just in another world you don't even feel a part of your body you're just almost going into other dimensions with different you know patterns you're you feel like almost and again and everyone has different experience but i felt like i was in in some kind of strange matrix of of patterns that were you know the patterns would sort of tell you stuff in a way or how many times feelings feelings you'd have these feelings you know yeah how many times did you do it i've done it like seven times really yeah so yeah that's been my thing with ayahuasca i've never done it because i ever i talk to people like i've done it like 55 times like literally like 55 times and i'm like what why would you think somebody would do it that many times well why would somebody i mean i don't know there are people do it for different reasons Some people, they need to get healed or they're trying to get to something.