333. Dirt Event

This is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, look at the sky. It's Dubai Friday. Dubai Friday. Good after morning, Marlin Man. How are you? I'm great, Alex. How are you? Really? Are you? Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. I'm I I was actually uh a asking because I just noticed as I was looking and preparing for this show, uh, because I prepare for the show, that you called me this morning? What? What did it do? Wait, did I call you this morning? No, Alex. I I woke up and I called you to say I'm sorry I missed your call because I'm fucking with you. I holy fuck. Holy fuck. Well this Huh. I did! I called you at eleven twenty-two AMD. No, I do, I do.

Oh my god. What what were you thinking when uh l was there anything going through your head when you saw that you missed a call from Alex Cox? Yeah, actually there was. Um What was it? Alex called me. Oh boo. Boo. That's it? That's it? Oh. Oh, is this a bit? Oh my god. Oh no. I thought that. You um I I don't know. I just you know, you're you're in the you're in the zone. You're one of the people I wouldn't mind calling me. Uh I'm fine with that. See we're is this g is this gonna be last week all over again? 'Cause I I I said to myself just now Uh you're like two hours late. I I I I have been sitting and I well, if I'm being honest, I was laying on the couch. I was looking at my phone and I was listening to the uh Kraut Rock band Noy.

And I was thinking, man, Noy is really good. And I was laying there and then I was thinking, you know It's okay to have a silly one like last week sometimes, but we can't all be like that. And I said, I'm going to be in the moment 100% with Alex. But I I fear that we may be moving toward the thing that happened last week where no matter what I say, y you do you I'm not sure what you want to talk about. You wanna start the show? Yeah. May I start the show Why'd you call me this morning? I think I called you because I was trying to text you and ask if we could start later, but then fell asleep on my phone and then probably called you. Like like physically on your phone? I mean I assume. Like thonk?

Like the way the Kindle used to fall on your head? Mm- uh-uh, I was probably in bed, so I was probably texting on my side. Oh, you're you're a side texter? No, but I'm a side sleeper, so that's why I think I Fell asleep. Side sleeper wines tonight. Uh-huh. Huh, interesting. Are you always do you sleep consistently on just as long as we're here? Do you sleep consistently, if I could ask, it's intimate. Do you sleep always on one side? Is it always the same side? Or do you alternate between sides? And by side, I understand that every everything technically has sides to it. But in the parlance, when we say side sleeper, we mean somebody we're like, you know, the side of their body is the part touching the bed or similar.

Correct. I do have uh I I I mean I have a side of the bed, but if uh m my spouse Maddie is not there, I will e you know, do a w what I think of as a starfish and kind of embrace And either um Oh, I use every part of Buffalo. When I'm in love with the biggest. Yes, exactly. I move straight to the center to the part of the bed that isn't slumpy. One reason I get sleep injuries I think is because of our mattress. Oh no. And uh and I I'll starfish. I'll do that. So you don't have just the right sink or balance anymore. It's like making a snow angel in in your bedroom. Yes. Oh yes, exactly. And you push the pillows, it's great. However, I do switch sides of like how I am l laying based on the mucus in my head because I can't if I can't breathe out of one nostril the Well they change signs?

Those are I only have visual hallucinations now, luckily. Very very good voices on both sides. Uh I assume you've seen the new John Mullaney special because you are a super fan. John John Mullaney's uh new special, Baby J? Yes. Yes. I I j I didn't I d I didn't know. You don't you you're you're the one who doesn't watch John Mullaney. Uh well last last night I did watch John Mullaney. Um and we'll get to why in a moment. Let's look at your sides. Yes, this will this will get back to my sides. Uh I uh as of last Wednesday, I pulled like a reverse Mulaney in that I didn't want to take any sort of prescription drugs. He has a um cocaine and uh you know, prescription drug abuse problem. They wouldn't even let it let him have his prescriptions.

Yeah, they wouldn't even let him have his his prescriptions. But but me can I go to the bathroom? Of course I instantly I I because I have everything on the brain title, um, I I I don't know, lines from succession kept coming out of my mouth while we were watching it. When he says, I can I can I go to the bathroom and I always think of Kendall saying I could do with a straightener. Yes I just need to get myself right. Better hope those Russian judges like it. You did a reverse millaney, and that means you decided not to take your brain drugs? Is it because you were sad about your cat or what was it? I uh I uh I would like to say that I was sad about my cat. Like that that seems like an easy out, you know, so that people be like, oh, Alex was sad about their cat.

Which was i incredibly true, but I thought l after last Wednesday, huh, this do by Friday was pretty silly. I wonder if it's because There's something with my meds that might be off. And then that gave me the reason to say, well, what if I just took a break? You know, I just what if I took a break? And then Monday happened to to me. I Is it good that I left you alone or is it bad that I left you alone? Oh God, I I I mean it's good, I supp I d bad I I I I I I don't I don't know what to I no no no, I'm being serious. Like I don't know how to be in a situation like that where like I've I've done all the like passive aggressive stuff. Like, you know, hey buddy kind of passive aggressive stuff of like you think you put a show up this week?

And I wasn't hearing back from you at all. Is that an instance where you just fell asleep on your phone? No, that was an instance in which I don't know where I will w what I was doing. I was based on my drafts, um What's it have to do with drafts? Be because the when you take a note, it tells you where your location is. So if I have a bit of a blackout when I don't take my proper bipolar brain drugs, sometimes I get a little bit um Yeah, again, a a bit of a reverse Mulaney. Well it's sound normative if I say these words out loud that maybe it's a good idea for you to consistently take the right amount of your medication. Oh yes. No, that's Is that normative? No, no, no, no, it it's it's not. In in fact, if I were to be uh invited to a large Zoom call right now, I would absolutely assume uh similar to to Mulaney, like, oh, this is an this is an intervention.

Because just n deciding not to take your meds one time is a little bit of a like, mm, that's a bad bad bad thing that that Alex did. Bad bad bad. Um I was like, man, I wasn't I wasn't fast. I wasn't funny. You know what would help this? Ta not taking the drugs that have saved my life for you know, this is you're not the first person. I mean you're far from the first person to do that when the when the first you know, anti Well I I've of course I'm I'm thinking primarily here of Robert Lowell, though there are a lot of people that got early, you know, what thoraxine, lithium, prolixin, like the early kind of like the drugs that make your body Makes you drool and do weird stuff and I mean they're they're lifesavers, but but I mean let's be honest The Dolphin was not Robert Lowell's finest work.

And that I mean No, green. You know what I'm saying? It's no life study. Yes. But um but but there's always that temptation. I mean and and I did a reverse r I do a reverse reverse Mulaney. Oh fuck. I should tell you, I took Vivance yesterday and like holy fucking Shit. I bet it was the best. It was fucking the best. It's like I've been walking around in this fake, ill-fitting Merlin man suit for months. And then yesterday I was like, oh, that's right. I'm a person. Yep. And that is what it feels like the first day that you haven't or or for me like even the first few hours that you haven't taken. the bipolar methods. Because there's enough in there. So like but but is it no boy I'm oh gosh, this is really not anything medical.

But I I wonder if it's something I mean let's dumb it down and t think about something like you know, s stimulants like caffeine or something like alcohol where, you know, a like one drink feels like it helps you sleep and like fifty drinks. Like the sugar rebounds at two in the morning and you lose your mind. Like i you you found the sweet spot for a moment of that curve dipping. Where like you got the fog do is it is it a fog lifting kind of feeling? Or is it a clarity like w when you're when you stop I'm actually super interested in this. So y you do you generally take it's like a pill you take every day usually? I take uh around eight. Is it like a Funstone's vitamin you take every morning or at the same time?

And then one day you don't take it and and then what what's the f what's the good feeling you get from not taking it or the good uh cognitive state from not taking it initially. Yes, I do take m all of my Bipolar meds every morning at uh like a beer bong, that just pours it out. I'd say he's more like a goose. No, sorry, sorry, tip two. I say eats more like a duck. Damn it, fuck. I'm Lenny. Well this this is Carl and Homer. I'm Lenny. I gotta go back to my mansion and eat my lobster. Sorry, go, go, go. Fog. Fog lift? No. No. Because if you are on a the right amount of medicine And you've had the privilege to see a doctor that is a good doctor, you shouldn't feel like you're in a fog. But when unfortunately for before you hit the like sweet spot of feeling like yourself, you do you do.

You feel like you're in a fog. You feel very slow. But when eventually it gets to a point, and it probably was my cat passing away al along with other like family str everything's fine. Other family stress stuff that I was like, you know what? I am I'm so much faster. I'm just better without this. Just Not taking um lithium for a bit, it'll be fine. And it gives me quite a pep in my step, let's say. So so the part the part that's And and and again, as as stipulated, I don't know anything about this. I only know what I've heard secondhand from people. But it sounds like what you're describing here is The the medicine does it's complicated. What w what's being done chemically on your behalf is pretty crazy.

Like what you start with is nuts, obviously. We don't say that anymore, but You know, don't take crazy away from me, you guys. It's such a good word. Um, but no, but like you start out going like, ah, and there's all this stuff and uh oscillation, uh, I think they call it cycling, right? Between like very high energy, you know, running for office in Washington versus then the like falling asleep on your phone, right? Isn't that kind of part of the challenge, right? So is it fair to say that like the is maybe what I'm so I'm so sorry. I I really hope I'm not getting up in your shit, but I'm really curious. So you stop taking it. Maybe one of the first effects is that the what one might describe as the tamping down of mania.

is less tamped, so the energy comes back up, you become more ambitious, you feel faster. Right? Is that it? The first so like so but but like a clinician or similar might say, oh yeah, that's the mania talking. Get back on the drug. At your normal time tomorrow or whatever? Yes. Okay. Unfortunately, sometimes y you do happen to be fast. And uh you you are in that sweet spot of hypomania where you haven't done anything dumb. And so people uh find you more likable and think that you're fun. I should do that. And you think yeah, yeah. And you're like, oh hypomania sounds like it might be for me. It is um well I I have the comorbidity of it, you know, uh ADHD, so I I'm not allowed to take uh so a doctor says now and I still don't really believe him.

I'm like, isn't that just hypomania? He's like, whatever you call it, here's the medication for it. Here's what you do. Here's what you do. You go into the directory of doctors. There's like three different things he's. We need a Dr. Michael. Just Michael, one name. But when um Hello. Um, but when he said that I was like, God damn, that's so smart. Uh-huh. I mean, I bet people in things like sales do stuff like that all the time. to like discover like you know, I mean I'm sorry, I don't want to overstate this but yeah John Mulaney's he's my favorite mm probably my favorite comedian working today. And he um and he talked about his struggles with addiction and ultimately his struggles with the best phrase, of course the best line in the entire show, like ability as a jail.

Like what it's like to have to think about how you present yourself as a performer and a person. when like the world has all these ideas now about who you are and crashing on Jimmy Kimmel's couch or whatever. But um but the He said to go and find places where he could get drugs, legal the legal drugs, he would just go s go to a directory of doctors and sort by rating and go to the lowest rated doctor. Yep. Because all that guy knows how to do is is give drugs and flu shots. Yep, yep. And he uh enjoys looking at men without their shirts. Because everyone's got a thing. Everyone's got a thing. No, I didn't do that. I'm going to need to see more. Oh God. Anyways I really when when John Laney said, like ability is a prison, I'm like, oh fuck me.

Because I don't think I'm very likable, but when it happens, I enjoy it. I enjoy when people like me. I I projected my own meaning onto that for my own selfish reasons. I think likeability is a he sings a little song in the clues the line, likeability is a jail. And what I take from that is that like, well, if that's your brand is that hey, this me that you've seen in these three very good stand up comedy specials that he worked very hard to refine. So we saw him at Berkeley. on this tour. Yes. Okay. My kid has so much John Mulaney gear, including a shirt. A lot of good compliments for this shirt. Uh I saw John Mulaney right after he got out of rehab. That's such a good show. But he did this when we saw this, you know, uh show in Berkeley a few months ago.

And um I think like Louis C. or others, like he just he tours for so long on you know, refining, refining, refining. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. That's that's become kind of a modern last night my kid said something about I forget why apropos of what, but goes I said, gosh, that's that's wild that he can XYZ. And Billy goes, Well, you know he's really rich, right? And I said, Well, I don't know that he's really rich and I which is an odd thing to say to me, but also like I don't know how Do you get rich from like two big checks from Netflix? Like he's not selling records like Steve Martin. He's got shows and stuff, but Somehow in my head I imagine it being much more lucrative for say Eddie Murphy in 1984 than for John Mullaney in 2023, but but but but I but I don't know.

But what I took away from like abilities of jail is like, well, if you're if this is if my brand is, you know, the guy who uh is another person named John. um you know, play what's new Pussycat at the salt and pepper diner 20 times. You know, the thing is then when you hear stories about how he's his wife is divorcing him and oh no and my first thought of course because I'm fucking six is like oh no petunia Yeah those those smile oh no who's gonna get the dog? I know you're I know her vulva itches but But that's a little gargoyle looking up out of the baby carriage. That's what I took away from was like in my own and my I say that and I'm I'm I'm mincing around this, like some kind of like a Paul Lind appearance on Bewitched.

Where I what I'm trying to avoid getting directly into is like, yeah, I I super want to be liked. That I've always wanted to be liked, much to my detriment. I've done things that work very much against my and my the interest my interest and the interest of the people around me by constantly pursuing the short term goal of somebody liking me. And the thing is if you're on a big stage and that has been built up, what did you what did you think it means? Uh I mean e b e exactly that, but w with the asterisk of when he was doing all of those things and getting the attention he was on drugs. Yeah. Well he even says at the beginning he was like, I'm a little different. The I like his hair. I'm gonna be a l oh so do I oh he's uh the I that's uh this is a g I mean he he's He's no um kid gorgeous, but I like man gorgeous.

He's very man gorgeous. But uh we know now that A lot of his material uh has I don't want to say has come from cocaine, but like I don't frankly I don't buy that. There's there's a part of me that feels like he's leaning into this because it's the story. Mm-hmm You watch uh Kid Gorgeous's uh Radio City, right? That's the one with JJ Bittenbinder, right? I don't know the names of all of them. New in town. I am homeless. Anyway, um you got New In Town, you've got um Anyways, but so so Kit Gorgeous, yeah, his movements around the stage. I mean, this is the problem. When I say a song, when I say something like uh ebony eyes by Bob Welch is a song that is made out of cocaine. I am not saying when I say the Billy Jewel's video for Big Shot is made out of cocaine.

There is a part of me that's saying, wow, I think everybody had a lot of cocaine when they did this, but it's not that. It's the the sensibility, the the the way your mind Would n and again just uh I'm saying this as somebody who has done cocaine exactly once and it did exactly nothing to me. Don't know why. I was drunk when I did it, but like this is in 1991. No, I know. I know it's better that way. I know it's better that way. But but but what you can't tell these kids today. You can't tell there's there's a lot of things you can't tell these kids today, and who would? Because why bother? They're they can't be helped But ha ha nuclear war. No no we all woke up every morning literally terrified that this would be the day we were incinerated in a nuclear war.

We didn't even see it coming. That was a real thing in the 80s, cocaine. People thought cocaine was harmless. Into the early 80s, until baseball players started fucking dying. There were a lot of like pretty above average intelligence people who thought you cannot overdose from cocaine. And the the line at the time, and it's probably in like, you know, movies with key parties and shit, is people saying stuff like, you know, alcohol is a lot more dangerous. Um apparently it's auto from The Simpsons, but You know uh alcohol's a lot more dangerous than cocaine. People would do so much cocaine. And the thing is though, here's here and this this gets to the heart, unfortunately, of so much of what we're talking about this week, which is that I I my sense is that let's put it this way.

Um, if I've had I mean, I don't drive and I certainly don't drink and drive, but I mean a priori, but like a person who's had two two drinks has better judgment about driving than somebody who's had fifteen drinks because judgment is one of the things that goes away when you drink a lot. And now you don't even have to be like a blackout drunk and most people don't actually understand what that means. Which is okay. But like if you if you lose time, you're like some fucking um you know um the the the the the kid in uh in South Carolina, you know, uh uh Buster Murrah or whatever. You're some kind of like really crippling crippling addicted, somebody whose body is not processing alcohol in a wholesome way.

You don't have the judgment. Alex may not know. Did I do that thing? Did I not do that thing? Do I did that happen the way I think it happened? You start doubting yourself. And then the opposite problem for music that is made out of cocaine is like you there's something about the cocaine culture that leads to a certain kind of risk-taking, maybe a little bit of carelessness. You know, the irony is that rumors is not really the very coked up as famous for all the cocaine they were doing up in Sausoleto at that studio when they did rumors. Honestly though. um, Tusk from nineteen seventy nine is when they were actually doing a fuck ton of cocaine. I think that's when Stevie Nicks I think so. I think that's when you you'll remember those stories about poor Stevie Nicks in the eighties and like you know, her septum collapsing or whatever.

I think I think Tusk is the one where anyway, I'm just saying like the culture around what you do, the people you spend time with. the peop you know what I mean? Like if you're spending a lot of time with with you know buying drugs, doing drugs, going to SNL for a quick free haircut, all those kinds of things, like your judgment is is not good and you And then once you realize that it's not wholesome or that everybody's kind of looking at you cockeyed, then it's mostly a game of covering it up. Which we all try to do. I don't want to seem like a weirdo. You don't want to seem like you're dissociating. Like it's not fun. None of that is like entertaining when you're living through it. It can take a long time though for someone to figure out you're either on uh too many drugs or not any like crazy.

And I'm I'm I'm not saying that like he hi his performances uh that John Mullaney's performances were uh him uh just If you knew anything about show business, you would probably know that's not exactly likely to have happened in the way you think it happened. No. It's not like Neil Young coming out on stage with the band. And having a big cocaine booger hanging out of his nose. I mean it's not nineteen seventy-six. Right, right. But uh you can still, as the person creating something, still associate your drug use or mm m mental illness with something that you've created that's good and the attention you've got that is positive. I loved I loved how much I could write when I was taking Adderall and I think it would be I could un I could completely understand saying, well of course.

You give anybody a bunch of Adderall and they're gonna write a lot and it'll probably be shit. It's like no but the thing is I the Adderall in that instance It it gave me it made my writing bio available. It gave me access, not to like, not in the same way as like I'm gonna take a pound of mushrooms and and wander around the redwoods. But more in the way of know what that Adderall did was set aside all those bumps that define my life in a way that I could sit down and go, okay, I guess I'll just write until I don't feel like writing anymore. Which is how I would like to be. And I mean, you know what I'm saying? Which is like again, you can take take a bunch of weed. You you could smoke a bunch of weed, you could take downers, you could do all those things, but here's the thing.

Those are those might have mental, emotional, and physical uh cause those kinds of changes in your body, but you're still in that suitcase you're carrying around all the time. You know you're in that suitcase. Like you you're so it'll tamp down those in those instances, those symptoms. But it's still you there. I mean, unless you're getting into full-on like Ray Leota third act of Goodfellas type shit. Unless you're getting into like Alfred Molina in Boogie Knights type shit. Oh It's the sauce. Sorry, I keep cutting off, keep going. Oh no. I uh I just spent the weekend doing not uh I I again I don't know. A a lot of writing, a lot of podcasting, I'm sure no which will never be re released. Well, well why why didn't you why didn't you edit the show?

I did. It just was No, you did I mean like it wasn't in it wasn't done. It wasn't in Dropbox. Because I wasn't connected to the internet. I was roaming about sh the Chicago. Why would I need internet? That's I'm actually I'm kind of honestly asking though. Like we finished doing the show. I uploaded the files. We we've had weeks and weeks and weeks. I'm not trying to make this difficult, awkward, or I'm not trying to like do an intervention, but like we've talked a lot about the whole like I'll just say this publicly, like, like I it's difficult for me to unhook from my work until my work is done. And my work is not done until your work is done. So if if the policy becomes, Alex gets the files and puts them up whenever, I will with much I very begrudgingly, I will just stay out of the way and hope the show's show goes up.

But I'm half the show with you. I mean I'm not half the work, but I'm half the show. And it's like it means a lot to me. Like we record it Wednesday, it comes out on Thursday. Like that's how we've always done it. You seem to think it comes out on Fridays, which it doesn't. It's always come out on Thursday. Thursdays. And then like, but if I don't hear from you until like Saturday, I'm like, I don't know as a friend, as a business associate, as a person who I hope cares about you. I'm not sure what to do about that. 'Cause like I I I'm I'm not your mom and I don't want to act like your mom. I think it's really to everybody else I know I would say, I'm not gonna do that. So that's a That's a grown person and like like but like how do you just like what happens where like the files get uploaded, we're talking about it, and then I don't hear from you for four days?

Like what what is What's happening in that time? Or what what what how did w what did I miss? Did I miss that things were not were were were bad when we stopped recording, or did something change after we hung up and you went on a bender? Or like what is it that happens between the time we finish recording and the show going out? Already uh that that morning I had not taken my m my meds. You should do that. So it w yeah, that's you know, for the show I mean. I I hope whatever. But like yeah, get the beer bong out, really jam em in there. I th I thought uh um well here here's the the thing too. Um when when people want you to take your prescription drugs, they also don't want you to go to the bathroom because then you can just, you know, flush them down down the toilet instead of um snorting them You do that a lot?

Uh not uh uh when I am in a bad But we're not going to be able to do that. Correct when I'm not when I am when I'm being uh d difficult, as Elaine Bennis's doctors would say. They were right on the forum. Yeah there's n diffux. No. Oh god, you can't unhear it. Oh no. Oh no, it's in my head now. There's a woman at my temple who's very similar. My nephew. God. Oh. Alright, and Mr. Lippmann's uh son. Oh fuck, that's so funny. But you just but something just slips away and like do you know when you're before things have gotten to where you're not as cognizant. Like w are there I'm just curious, are there like sort of red flags, warning signs? Are there things that you watch for or notice that suggest uh uh Or for that matter I guess that Matt could notice or anybody.

Are there things you notice that are like, ah, these are those kinds of things. Here that you know, a phrase I like to use, oh, here comes that feeling again. Do do you have those here comes that feeling again of like, oh I better be careful 'cause within the next twelve hours I might be swung in from the sh I mean the feeling is I I feel like myself. So it's very hard. Were you manic last week? Is that why you were running around Chicago? Yeah, oh yeah. Okay, uh can I just say I'm really sorry, I'm the stupidest person, not only on this call, but listening to this recording. You so that happened because you were manic. Yeah, yeah. Holy shit. Yeah. That must be so fucking weird. The uh yes, I I will oh uh it's a little bit.

Can I ask you two more times today? Because here's the thing. Uh I'd rather get paid uh uh this week than next week Yes, I'll ask you two more times today. I will not ask a fourth time. I will just start taking your medicine. I can't do that. Uh when when you take your it medicine, people want to wa watch you do it because you will otherwise flush it down the toilet. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm gonna I'm gonna do something I don't normally do. You know, I'm always dinging you for like the well here's what other people think and everybody says this and everybody blah blah blah. I'm not gonna do that, but I'm gonna do something similar right here, which is to just say, I'm gonna continue be to be the dumb guy, like I'm so good at.

I'm gonna be the dumb guy in this and keep saying I it had not fully occurred to me until I just realized you did not tell me you were manic last week. I didn't know. You didn't tell me today either. And it doesn't matter that you didn't tell me, but the reason I'm saying that, Alex, is that I wonder if the listener is in the same place I am of going, oh, that explains a lot. Like I didn't I figured you were super sad about You're kitty and I don't know. I I I I didn't know, but but I don't I only say that to cover my ass, to say like I don't know I'm not sure how to be a remote friend sometimes. And I certainly I obviously I don't work with anybody because I'm a terrible remote business associate, but but um okay, so so you were already kind of on your way to the medicine thing when we recorded last week and that's why it was a partly I was silly too, but that's why it was kind of silly.

I w was sad about n Ness dying and and so the day after the stupid cat. So the day after was was was the, you know, I I wanna feel like myself, so I'm just not gonna take my meds today. You know, there's nothing wrong with how like it'll be a little bit more than a lot of things. But again, that's like me with the Vivance yesterday, whereas like I I have two of these left. Because like I'd stopped taking them when I was warned I might qu quote unquote stroke out. I haven't been myself. I've been I've been like wheeling around in this Merlin man suit doing the best I can every fucking day. It's been really, really difficult, who cares? But it's been really difficult and because I I feel so far away from even the baseline.

sometimes barely functioning me of adulthood. And it's I'm so far off of that. And it's really it's difficult and it's um It's embarrassing. It's what's the word I'm looking for? It's very undignified to have to say to people like I I I'm is everybody mad at me right now? Because I kind of feel like everybody's mad at me right now. And then of course people say what they say because they're full of shit. They go, no, no one's mad at you. And I'm like, mm. Right? But I have to check my perceptions or I've learned over much with much difficulty over time to check my perceptions and to start trying to control for factors that if somebody was to like s stick some kind of a microphone into my head, they'd hear a million screaming memes in my head, but my brain is so used to tamping all of that down, I'm not even sure when the memes got louder.

Right? So like it's it's not like you flip a s I mean it can be, I guess if you do certain kinds of drugs. Um I mean famously for me at twenty five minutes after an Adderall, I was cock of the walk. Like You know, because that, yeah, it gave me energy, but it also would break down. And I do have an update this week on continuity if we get to it later. But um yeah, I've been working on that. And um That but the thing is w if you can't w w when you learn when you realize or start it starts dawning on you that you can't or shouldn't trust your own perceptions. I mean, it sucks. My kid bit a fork weekend before last. I felt really bad. You ever bite a fork when you're eating? Oh, l literally? I was like, what does that mean?

I don't think I have, but I don't do it. I don't do it every day, but through my life I've done that where I'm like and then you bite the fork and you bite down on the tines of a fork as though it were a piece of rice. Oh yes. And the kids tooth got a little bit chipped and we had to go to dentist and stuff. But but the th I kept saying I'm I'm so sorry that happened because your mouth is such a f you don't realize how familiar you are with your mouth until something's not right. Whether that's like a cold sore or a canker sore. Think about popcorn. Stupid, stupid, right? Popcorn between your back teeth. is you look at look at a the size of a kernel of popcorn, the little brown crescent that gets stuck between your teeth is this it's like the sand in an oyster.

It's like this impossibly tiny thing, but your mouth, I'm going to use the word, it's a very intimate area. You're very familiar with that terrain. If you just chipped one of your lower front teeth. like right up front, like you're gonna keep running your tongue over it and then keep going, Oh my god, I have a sharp tooth now and I can't stop doing this. You know what I mean? That's when something if you can't trust your perceptions, it's like biting a whole fuck ton of fork. It just doesn't feel like your mouth anymore. Oh, that's really good. That's really good. No, how about that? Um unfortunately If you're bipolar and you're medicated in a way that you are safe and not a danger to yourself.

Sometimes it it feels like you're holding a bunch of forks in and you have to be biting down and it's uh but not too hard because then it you're gonna get s super sad, but not too d not too soft, otherwise the forks are gonna fall out, aka you won't take your meds, and then everything feels better for a little bit. And uh so uh I was not I I I feel I feel um uncommonly stupid that I did not I mean somewhere in the back of my head I must have been thinking, ah, oh Alex, Alex has something going on. 'Cause you got a lot going on. I mean That's that way. I mean it as your pal in the sense of like you've you've got a a lot competing to win in your mind. And some I suspect uh I can kind of speak for myself, but I'm gonna guess on your part.

Like you have these warring tribes in your head, and again to to quote that that that woman, uh fuck I forget her name, Britt Frank. You know, every the the the the part that'll that'll really change your she said something that really changed the way I think about a lot of shit, including trauma, which is you first start by understanding that every way your mind and your body are responding to let's say external stimuli or your internal, you know, cognition thoughts, turmoil. Everything that your body and your mind is doing makes complete sense. It's just the way uh now these are my words. It's making complete sense about the wrong thing. The ladder is not against the right wall. So when you have a Besser Bessel Vanderkook style traumatic response Remembering literally watching everybody in your squad get killed a different way in Vietnam in the same night.

Like you imagine like what your brain is doing and y you end up doing some weird stuff. Yeah, you might get real violent and kill a bunch of their guys like he did, that other guy, the guy who's patient. the PTSD guy. It could be that you, you know, you fight, you fight, you freeze, you know, you rest, you digest, all those things. Like, but whatever your brain and your body are doing are on some level, this is the problem, arguably. sensible, like rational responses. If your body and your your your senses, your everything says that there's a lion here, it's about to attack me, there's a snake there, it's about to bite my kid. Like w the way your body and your mind, your emotions respond to that is completely sensible in one way.

It's just not sensible in the way that's helpful. When that horrible thing happened, you know, at uh I don't know with somebody who should have been taking care of you, when that horrible thing happened to you at a certain age and you live with that for the fucking rest of your life. Your body and your mind, your emotions, they're all trying so hard to protect you. It's just that that that already happened. Yeah, you don't want it to happen again, but How far do you go to never feel that feeling again? Well, you'll go all the way to never feel that feeling again. But the irony is once you start doing that, there's a possibility you'll never feel anything but that feeling a lot of the time. That's like trying to make yourself not think of an elephant or what have you.

And that makes it, I think that makes it so much more difficult. And to an outsider, I've said this a lot of times about procrastination because I'm comfortable. But, you know, if if you at least provisionally accept the thought technology that all those parts of you are responding rationally, it's actually strangely comforting. To go like, well, you know, I have this grave fear of snakes because, you know, why is Indiana Jones, you know, afraid of snakes? And I only know why in the, you know, in the sequel. that was his trauma, like right. Like would he prefer not to be scared of snakes? Yes, I think probably, but that's trying to protect him. And do you is this making any sense? I think about this a lot, Alex.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean I haven't I haven't found a solution as a result of this thought technology, but it certainly is a wholesome beneficial reframe to what feels like damage in our sense of self. And yeah, certainly on some level it is damage in our sense of self. But you know, if you've ever had a really, really, really bad trip and like somebody who's very into fish comes up and says, here's an orange slice, just watch the movie, you're like, fuck all the fuck the way the fuck off. Uh this you this could not be any more real and you getting in my face. Wait, what is happening? Oh j oh a drink. That's what people say. When you're having a bad yeah, when you're having a bad drink they'll say just watch the movie in the sense of You know, and I think in some ways what you're trying to just like just do the normal thing?

Well, which is great if you've practiced it for fifteen years. But if it's the second time or w however it time you've taken drugs and you've you're having a profound sense of loss of self. a loss of um of of feeling your place in the world and that like you're entirely menaced. Like the bed trips are no fucking fun. And but like I understand why somebody tries to help by saying just watch the movie. Like, okay, that's great if you've practiced that. You might as well say just play the solo from Stairway to Heaven. Well okay, once I'm off drugs, give me six months and I'll get good at that. If you practice, if you rehearse, the reason I say napping is a is a practice. You have to practice napping.

If you failed at napping once and have now declared yourself a bad napper, you haven't practiced enough. You need to practice. You need to say failure is a big part of this. I mean, you think Paganini was great at violin the first time you picked it up? Guessing probably not. Like you had to practice. You have to practice all of these things. And if you practice things like, oh, it's just a movie. And you get the kind of like an ability to separate what you're feeling from who you are, like that's hard to do when you're in the middle of a bad trip, which is kind of what you were on last week. Yeah, absolutely. It is a bad trip for everybody else, but for me it's an awesome trip, which is the problem.

Yeah, other people's problems are a bummer, but this one's mine. This yeah, okay, this is this is great. That's the real the real problem is the one I have. Yeah, I think yours are amusing and unfortunate. This week's challenge was to look at the sky. Look at the sky was the challenge this week. Yes. I had a lot of fun doing this. Oh, yeah. And I don't know. I bet by like, you know, Saturday evening you were ready to look at some fucking sky. Oh, I was looking. Give me drafts? Do you have any drafts about it where you can geolocate where you are? The it it was disappointing because Cancer is a crab and it's talking to me. Ah Oh, oh, well hold on quick quick s quick sidebar. Quick sidebar before we get to the challenge.

Um I'll do whatever you want. Today though I was um I I have uh gotten back on um uh my m medication again. Sidebar to the sidebar to the sidebar. How long does it take? before you get back to like your steady state. Oh, I mean a lot m I'm couple days. Pretty m n yeah. No, I'm asking in in the in the generic, if you stop taking drugs one day and then you started taking drugs five days later, how long would it take for you to get back to where you were before, whether that's good or bad, to back back to where you were not manic? For me, for in terms of mania, like twenty-four hours. But that's very different if you are uh in a dose episode. You've got a body b not a body burden, what do they call it?

You've already like built built up a dose. Yes. Right. So my body knows, oh, this is the thing that i i is going to m make you chill out. Whereas if it is a depressive episode, um which is it longer? Yeah, because um just Uh SSRIs work differently and i if anyone has um you know like clin clinical depression and shit is complicated. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's much oop my phone fell. Whoops. Um but uh like twenty-four hours, so I I'm pretty much back to normal. Um And s and and last night I was good and I took the um m meds I'm supposed to take to make me go to sleep because part of having a manic episode is not sleeping. So didn't sleep for like three And then when you do, you crash, right? Yes.

Not you, but one. Well like when you're when the in the midst of the mania the cycling part then is That's when you fall asleep on your phone after, right? Yeah, but that wasn't the reason I fell asleep on my phone this time. The the reason was last last night I had taken my sleepy meds. It's everything was good. We were having a nice family evening. You're watching John Money. I was, um, yep, and um and m Matt was playing with our dumb cat Francis, who then decided that for the first time in his life He has played with this toy for seven the same kind of this toy for seven years. Uh, but last night he decided to chomp a toy in a single That cat sounds with all due respect, I know you've had a loss.

That cat's trash. He's trash acting stupid. What a dumb cat. He's so dumb. I mean, it's like, no, I don't want to be unkind or I don't want to be ableist. I'm not a cat ableist by choice. He's so dumb. He's really dumb. Like he makes he makes bad decisions, he has the opportunity to correct it, and then he just digs in. Does he fall off things? Uh oh no. Well uh oh he does, but he does knock things down though, right? Doesn't he do the cat thing where he knocks things off the table? Yes, and both intentionally and unintentionally. So yes, he's he's dumb. Um My Roomba ran over my my Mac yesterday and I got very upset. Over your Mac? Yeah, I've been trying to troubleshoot a battery problem. So I was charging it all the way up to do a, you know, do a do a drain, do a maintenance cycle.

It was on the floor in the kitchen because I wanted to make sure it was the good outlet with the good cable with the good everything and I'm sitting there monitoring it. This is the least interesting kind of problem to solve. It's When we hang up here, I'm gonna try and after three months once again figure out why usernote D process is taking 100% of my CPU on this Mac. uh uh nobody can help me with this. Nobody has any idea what it is. I gotta figure it out. It's driving me fucking crazy. It's so boring. And I hear reel, reel, reel. You know, I got one of those new modern ones where it takes pictures and it's smart and it doesn't eat shoelaces. You know, they've come a long way. I got the nice room butt and and I just I I go and I run into the nook, the breakfast nook, right as I see it going, trying to make my mat clean You know my favorite phrase, the favorite thing I learned since having a roombo the last two, three years?

My favorite phrase. What? Dirt event. That's right. Mommy! Mommy, I had a dirt event. I had a dirt event. It's okay, sweetie. It happens to all of us. We've all had an event. That's exactly the way Madeline talks to the lizard. It's so fucking cute. She came in today. I was laying in bed doing a starfish. I listen to Boy Genius, who I discovered. And I'm laying in bed. I'm doing a starfish. I wanna be emaciated. I wanna have rock it out. And I hear she comes in, she goes, oh Who is that? What what are you doing? Oh look at you made a big poop. You had good yummy worms because she's a permanent lifestyle mom now She doesn't she well in addition to the little lord, she's not. It wasn't the actual child the human child.

He has dirt events at school. It is a wins. So S You you were saying. Oh I was talking about the wizards. I interrupted you. a mania wait what we talking about last night. We were we were talking about how how last night, um, as I'm getting very groggy from my sleepy time meds, my cat accidentally swallows. Oh, your trash cat ate a ball. uh a a a little mouse looking thing. And so immediately I'm like so stupid. He accidentally swallowed he's so fucking dumb. This food? Like the guy with the butterfly? His eyes got so wide, like what I do, what I do, what I do. And then No, even I know I'm stupid now. Oh, and uh so then this is what what uh I uh m Matt had to take him to the emergency vet. As one does because the universe is kicking Arg and Cat's balls in the uh Oh no Look at this.

Alex, why didn't you warn me about this? This is horrible. Alex has sent me an extremely upsetting photo. I said, Oh, oh, he's he well, and so yeah, um Does it say infant on the tube? I don't uh let me in oh I've I have no idea. It should say letters fucking idiots. I'm attracted to letters. Um This is the trash cat. Apparently it looks like knocked out. Intubated and is intubated with the scope i under him because The vets uh the Matt's like it's it's gonna be fine. Alex, stay here. You're listening you're gonna fall so you pump everything. Can't pump a half. Oh, you can You you can if it's if it has happened right away. Yeah, yeah, you you go like it's it's more common with dogs, uh, because they accidentally swallow toys.

Um uh oh this is AM. Um This is the middle of the night. This is the remaining trash cat gets taken in. You're you're gonna sleep it off. And Trash Cat gets an infant tube. And then what are they holding here? Are they giving a COVID test? This is this is the conclusion of the evening. First Matthew went to the emergency vet because normally you can give a cat ippicac and then it it'll puke up whatever it ate. But our cat is like that this American life guy who cannot throw up. He was so nervous he could not throw up. He literally like for two hours at this point it's like one of the things that I've done. help. But not enough because it's really dumb. Yeah. And and at this point, even though I'm I am basically as sedated as He is I but I still am like Matt what's happening?

Matt Matt what's happening? Matt what's happening? And he's like it's okay, but we do need to go to a uh another emergency vet because they don't have the equipment here to um scope his stomach. And I'm like, what? What? And And Matt's texting texting me just so you know he might need surgery, but it's it's okay. It's gonna be fine. So so then this is what uh at around four uh what what what is it like four four twenty two AM that Matt sent this to me. Also those gloves, those are kinda like the Mr. Clean nitro gloves I use when I cut garlic. I don't think those are medical grade. Oh wait, that's Matt in the room No no no no no Matt is Matt is taking this picture. He is he is not operating on the cast.

Hey, can you pause a second while I go try to make less noise? Yes, go go. You can hear that, right? Hang on, stand by I wanna be emaciated. I wanna hear a song without thinking of you Just me and my dog in an impossible view. Matt's taking the picture. Yeah, so so Matt decided uh uh uh Matt is at the that wa watching our cat uh be intubated and they pulled out the entire mouse from his tummy. So he's okay, uh uh but needs Did he try to eat it again? No. No. He that's the thing. He was w He is still groggy r right now. Oh slipping it off too, little precious angel. Yeah, the the precious fucking idiot is basically like, why do I have a sore throat? What's happening? Like, he has no idea of uh what has occurred.

He barely know when when Matt and Francis came home from the from his emergency sur tree last night he uh was just like whoa what what the cat's walking around like whoa what's happened why whoa moms are stressed what's oh no And uh then we had to sit up with him to make sure he didn't uh like, you know, puke or I'm thinking that you should get a plaque for your apartment that says House of Blackout. But yeah, all all is well. And so I think probably and and I was like uh around eleven AM I was like, all right, I'm gonna take a nap and I think I probably tried to text you because I was like, so fucking tired and Oh, this is about why you called me? I I think that I fell asleep on my phone and then accident and started texting you.

Fell asleep and then accidentally called you. Okay. That was well, my cat is mentally ill, uh, but that was just a s series of a I can't believe Our second cat almost died. That's so fucking stupid. He's so stupid. Anyway, that was the happy ending to the journey. That would be a pretty crazy week. Feels like carelessness. I I I would I would say you should get a bearded dragon. Get a little young bearded dragon. Now you have to fuss a little bit at first with a bearded dragon because they're when they're little you gotta do special things with their food and stuff, but The second ours dies, I'm totally getting another one. Well, but here's the here's the problem. It's uh very problematic to uh not uh uh adopt something uh from a shelter and you got got your dragon because it's problematic not to adopt something Problematic to whom?

To to the um I don't know the people who don't like things. Yeah, I want to more often interrogate who you think thinks things. No, this is a very common thing. Pro Like you shouldn't I I'm doing a really you you see because my sense is you could probably come up with a fake person who thinks almost anything because it's not real Yes. Well that's Which ultimately may not be the most wholesome way to to govern your decision making. But that's what do I know? If listening to bearded dragon. If both of oh if both of my cats die within the same two weeks, I feel I should get special dispensation to go to one of those fancy breeders and get a fancy, like non shiny. Yeah, yeah, like both of both of our cats were yeah, yeah.

I I want one of those designer dogs that can't breathe and uh and just Yeah, they're never heard that that's good. I re I read that their uh what is the one that Petunia is? What's the one with the super smash face? Is like a French bulldog, right? Uh I think they're trying to breed those with longer snouts now, so they'll breathe better. They just have to keep the breed alive long enough to let it be filled with air. They're doing like opposite puppy eugenics and it's uh what about the vulva itching? Can they do anything about that? Oh yeah. Oh all right, that's the end of my story My interest in looking at the sky comes from lots of things. The primary one in the last couple weeks has been an interest, I I don't know.

I I've got a few little like pre-projects rolling around right now. I'm getting into birds. I'm getting a little bit into fish. I'm gonna get into birds. Um, and I am getting I used to live in places with less uh cloud cover and less light pollution. And like ever since I moved here, I've kind of gotten away from even my amateur amateur astrology. Sorry. My amateur amateur astronomy. I thought I actually joked with my family a couple nights ago. I still think they're getting very, very into astrology. But only in the sense of just saying the stupid shit that people who are into astrology say and having no idea what it means. Oh my god, my last three proctologists were Pisces. What does that mean?

I don't know. Oh my god, you're such a Libra. Oh my god, my last three proctologists were Pisces. What does that mean? I don't know. I oh good for you. Good for you. I could tell. You're such a Sagittarius. I'm such oh my god, I'm a Sagittarius with a Libra falling. Uh oh. Oh my god, I'm an aquarium drinker. You're looking at your birds and well oh where are you looking at your fish? Is there a a place that's a few years ago? Well I got a concentration's guide on fish. Uh I got the bird one because I want to start identifying birds better. I don't know if I'll become like a birder person. Burder. But uh but I'm very I'm interested in learning about birds and learning to identify them. Uh but the problem is like uh the the weather really has conspired against me.

I've been trying to find good nights, as we mentioned a week or two ago Trying to get the little lord to come out and look at Orion's belt with me at night. It's kind of a tough sell after shower time and but like you know, but the card it's there's the cloud cover's been terrible. Last night was supposed to be good, uh Tuesday the twenty fifth. But there ended up being a ton of cloud cover. I'll come back, but like so I was s slightly rebuffed by my original reason for the challenge, but I I do have things to share about that. the sky. How did yours go? You love the sky. You're on a you're on a bender. I I I was on a sky bender. I there's so much light sky The adventures of Scott. There's so much light pollution where I live that you really can't see.

So even if the weather's even if the weather is clear or something. Yeah. And I I also went down the weather app journey that I think a lot of people are going down because they're all listen to a second podcast, Alex. Listen to a second podcast? Oh, they did a whole TV D about weather app Oh oh. Oh that's right. You're on the project because you're not listening to podcasts. There's so much for me to keep track of in your universe. They spoke with a meteorologist who explained in a very sane way Why why they suck? Well I whether apps don't do what you think they do. And the way a weather app works to go, it's gonna be exactly 57 degrees tomorrow. Like you do need to understand a little bit about the earth.

And take that with a grain of salt. Like, would you accept in this day and age, would you accept one hurricane track for like, no, we look at all these different tracks and all these different models. And like this guy says, like there's, you know, butterfly wings, right? Like there's no way to like calculate far enough out. So what happens is you go like, okay, it says that Friday's gonna be nice, so let's plan a picnic. And then Thursday night it's like Friday's gonna be shit and you're like, weather app, you're bad. And it's like, no, I mean they're all using similar science data. It's just that like, first of all, did you grow up understanding what percentage chance of rain means? Because I'd I'm not completely what that means.

What does it mean? And what they're not telling you that's a fifty percent chance it's gonna rain today. They're saying that based on our model today, over this geographic area that we've carefully defined There's there's a whole bunch of different ways this could go, but if we want it in pigs and bunnies, there's a an approximately fifty percent chance that it'll rain too. And then it rains and people were like, oh, I thought it was only half a chance of rain. And you're like, no, it's that's the why weather's weird. Yeah, no, I've I had to be able to do that. If weather weren't weird, we wouldn't need apps for it at all. Yeah. And I guess I should say that not weather apps suck, but weather APIs suck suck.

That sky, sky. Uh but that's why I like Carrot Weather because it's easy to switch between different um information s sources so I can feel like I know more. I d I do Apple Weather. What do you do? Well I I also have my sorry I have ice. Um I have my home weather station. It's the is yours still run mine broke like a year or ago. In the tapmill Yeah. No, it's still working fine. Kara's the first one in a w cause like I I'm so confused, but like whether Underground stopped working with my old one a long time ago and then it stopped working with this one and now All of a sudden I fire up carrot and it goes, got a personal weather station? I'm like, yeah, it goes pop it in here. So I get that plus I benefit from then all the other regular forecasts.

stuff. But I'll mention this again for folks because if you are interested in uh in astrology, that there's a neat little thing you can get on your card in Carrot where it'll say like, here's blue hour, here's golden hour. Here's sunset, here's sunrise and they don't get they don't go all the way down the hole on like, you know, uh nautical versus civic sunset and all that stuff. That's for the real heads. H But it will say in words like, tonight's stargazing conditions are good, or they are excellent, or they are poor. And then you can uh act accordingly. It's so in in other words, I had hoped this would be a chance where I could go lay on a blanket like somebody in like a nineties video and stare at the sky, but and I've done some staring at the sky, it's just I didn't get to see that many stars.

I got to see some stars because I uh used a b not not a bunch of, but a few. AR apps. Skyview. The yes, Sky Skyview and Star Walk 2, which if you if you just kind of point it in the right direction, it'll be like, ah, here's the The thing first time I ever ever ever used one of those was at uh one one of my ill-fated trips to Max OneCon at Lake Arrowhead. And um and I was out like in this, I was like, fuck, I gotta get away from fucking everybody. I have to get away from my family. I have to get away from everybody. This is going so fucking poorly. And I just walked out to like this really dark area with no lighting at all. And I had Skyview on there and it was fucking incredible. To like be able to see like I mean, uh a couple weeks ago or so I saw Mars, because now I know where to look, and like it's so wild.

You like that little pinprick, that little kind of red, pink, that's fucking Mars. And I can I can see it from the Sunset District. That's so fucking that was my big takeaway is I just don't look at the sky enough. I look at the sky more in movies than I do in life. Oh fuck, that's true. Oh dear. I don't like knowing that. Oh no. Oh God, you're right. Does it change how you feel about me? No, I don't I I do the same thing. I'm thinking about Uh actually I'm thinking about Arrival, which I I really want to watch again. I love that movie. Uh wait, sorry, that was Interstellar. Wait, which one did I do? She talks to the yeah, she talks to the cool the cool aliens and then makes the decision that Syracuse uh disagrees with, but he's wrong.

Uh dwarf hypothesis. Another great phrase. They talk about it with Gabon Costello and the idea that learning a language, it's kind of the like the way in to their interesting twist. Is that learning a language makes you sort of think differently? Yes. You know, like do you dream in Spanish, you know? I am kind of obsessed right now with The the the reason I I am dying to re-watch Arrival is because I wouldn't say that I am becoming a a bird person or a fish person, but Octopuses are Holy shit, I can't believe you said that. I might get super into octopus. We went out to dinner in a new place. Come join. Join. Come. It's it's great down here. Of of all things, of all fucking things, in the year of our Lord 2023, in the outer sunset, there's a new restaurant um that's like fresh seafood.

Um, you know, like This is really good. They've got clams, they've got oysters, they've got they do these really nice dishes. And we were seated underneath this this kind of like slightly abstract painting of an octopus. And I turned to my family and I said, I think I might get super into octopus. Every time I see an octopus, even on a shirt, it kind of makes me happy. They are so upset. And like watching them escape a boat. You ever seen the octopus escape a boat? Oh yes. That's the most upsetting thing I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, yeah, because they're very good at it. And they are no b no bones. No bones No bones. Jerry. I can see the oxygen 'cause I was squinting. Uh there there um there's been a bunch of books about their intelligence l lately.

And you know, I had the obsession that's oh about octopus intelligence? Yeah, it's uh yes, it is indeed octopuses, not octopi and not. Yep. I don't have arguments about pronunciations anymore. I think actually you mean Jap. It's a gaffe. Like Pinocchio's father. Oh, you're talking about the portable document format? That's that's a PDF. No. I I Padi for it. No, no. As you explore AI more, I think you will enjoy learning more about uh the octopod's intelligence because it's sort of similar in that it like sort of integrates information in ways that are different from humans. Did you watch the Netflix thing where the guy has sex with the octopus? or whatever. I haven't watched it because it seems off putting, but No, I intentionally am afraid to what's it called?

I I think my my friend the oc my friend the octopus octopusy octopus my left octopus my octopus teacher the butterfly Uh my octopus teacher? That sounds that sound mmm I wanna watch it. It does sound like you're getting drilled by a sea beast. It's it just Would you uh would you this is Andre, he's my fuck Kraken. Oh yeah. What does that mean? Oh he's a kraken who fucks me and I love him. He's also my teacher, but it's not weird. You see, the love of an octopus teacher is very different from that of a square. The thing you need to understand about every octopus is that they're that's why they're called nature's teacher. Because they will fucking pound you like veal. From behind while they're reading a book in a language that they've never even learned.

That's what you get when you have no bones. Squiddink, squiddink, squiddink, squiddink. I want to be done soon because we still have to do an after show and you started two hours late. And I wanted to say there's still a benefit to looking up. There's still a benefit. It's good for the chimneys. It's good for you. But um, you know, it's uh the hack is awareness as ever, you know? Just being aware. Being aware is a big ass fucking sky out there And like I think there's a lot of benefit to looking down as you walk around because I am, as my my kid has pointed out, basically like a distracted dog and I'll pick up and sniff anything on the street. But cause you know you find good stuff like uh these rubber bands that I find on the street.

Like I I pick up rubber bands because our postal peoples That's what they're called. Our postal peoples, when they undo their mail, they just drop like six rubber bands on the ground. I'm like, hey, that's a good rubber band. So I I get them and I wear them. Um there's that, but there's lots of benefit from looking down. But looking up, I'm telling you, man, to look for the chimneys thing. Alex, get my back. It's kind of real, isn't it? Uh it's very, very real. Inclining your head up from the straight ahead angle. You're not a pig. You can look up. Do you know that a pigs can't look up? Yeah, it's really sad. And that's why there's a pig in Nope and he doesn't get eaten by jean jacket. Yeah, I know.

Did you know that? Because the pig can't look up? No, my family knows pigs. We were aware of the pig anatomy. Yeah. Nope. Oh my gosh. Uh are there it will it be a series? Are there other kinds of teachers? Are there other kinds of animals that will teach you and pound you? No We're done. We're done. No, we're not. We're not even there. We're not done. We're not done. Yeah, we're done. raw transcript