Ep 620 - In Defense of Sunlight (feat. Rowan Jacobsen)

Support the D. A. W. G. Z. @ patreon.com/MSsecretpod Support Rowan @ https://www.rowanjacobsen.com/ Go See Matt Live @ mattmccusker.com/dates Go See Shane Live @ shanemgillis.com Go See Lemaire Lee Live @ https://lemairelee.fun/ Go See Shawn Gardini Live if you want @ https://www.shawngardini.com/live Good morning :) Hope you're all getting your sun today. Big Kahuna's away so Matt got Author, Journalist, and Sun supporter Rowan Jacobsen at the podiumzz. Check out Rowan's book In Defense of Sunlight, it's really interesting stuff. Check out his other books as well - all available on his site (its all fixed up). Please enjoy. God Bless. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/DRENCHED and use code DRENCHED and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/MSSP Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Wow, wow, Wes.

• 0:01Matt McCusker?

  Hey, welcome to Matt and Shane's secret podcast. I'm here today with Rowan Jacobsen. What's up, man?

• 0:06Speaker 02

  How you doing? I'm doing great. I'm happy to be here.

• 0:09Matt McCusker?

  I've been awaiting this. I, if you guys don't know, I have a little booking service that, you know, throw me guest ideas. I saw the sunlight book and I was like, I gotta, gotta talk to you. I, I happen to be deep in, uh, what is it called? Heliotherapy, you call it. Just get in the sunlight. Yeah, I'm, I'm a big sunlight guy right now. As you can see, my nose, I'm like, I have, I'm bad with it though. I have, this is like three days of sunburn on sunburn. So I just keep going deeper and deeper into it and, uh, I'll be fine. But yeah, I'm a huge proponent of sunlight, man. It's the best. Cause I was telling you, I, I grew up on the east coast, northeast and, uh, just those winters would crush me, man. When I, when I read the beginning of your book, when you're saying how you're just like, you know, you're in Vermont and you're just like, no matter what you

• 0:51Matt McCusker?

  do in the winter up there, you literally don't feel the sun touch your skin. And then after I, it just makes me like, I, I like, I really do get like, ugh, thinking about it. And yeah, ever since I've been down here, these hot summers, I'm like, still having complaint. Like people are, it's too hot. I'm like, you have no idea what the lack of light feels like, man. It's horrible.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  I think about it. Cause yeah, like you say, uh, those winters, they're crushing, especially after a while. And yeah, down here, you're like, wow, you could just be cruising around in shirts and, and shorts and a t-shirt like most of the year, essentially, right?

• 1:23Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  So that makes huge difference.

• 1:24Matt McCusker?

  All year round, if you're a fat white guy, apparently fat white guys.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Or a teenager.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  I mean, even in Vermont, you see the teenagers waiting in the bus stop. It's like 10 degrees below zero and they're in their shorts, like their long shorts.

• 1:36Matt McCusker?

  That is, yeah, that is kind of weird. Or, or they, they're, I, I noticed with teenagers, they're either it's that shorts when it's freezing, or it's like a hoodie when it's hot and you're like,

• 1:45Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:46Matt McCusker?

  What do you guys, what the hell you guys doing? But you know, I guess that's what they do. So yeah, how long, so okay, just give me the whole thing. Like you, what is your background? Cause I've watched interviews with you. I would say you're Dr. Smart. You sound Dr. Smart, but I don't see the, the M D or P or, so what is your background?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  I'm, yeah, no, I'm a, I'm like a word guy. I've been like, made my living as a writer for, yeah, like 25, 30 years, like started in book publishing and then I did a little bit of ghost writing. Um, and then at some point I was like, I'm sick of this. I don't want to fix other people's words. I may as well just do my own words.

• 2:19Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, how did you? I feel like ghostwriting is dastardly. It's like I'm a big co-author guy. If someone's going to help you with your book, hit them with the co-author. There's no shame. I would feel so weird, which is funny because I would like in school cheat on all my tests. But like writing a book, the ghostwriting thing freaks me out. I don't like it, man. It's like just, just give that person credit if they ghostwrite or hire them as an editor, something. But the ghostwriter thing is I get the heebie jeebies around that.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  I, yeah, totally. And sometimes I did get credited as a co-author. Sometimes, sometimes they didn't want my name anywhere on there.

• 2:50Matt McCusker?

  Right. We won't name names.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't name those names.

• 2:52Matt McCusker?

  No, JK wrote, no. He wrote the Harry Potter.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  I wrote them all, actually. Now the world knows.

• 3:00Matt McCusker?

  But no, yeah, so that would, that seems like that would be frustrating where you're like, damn it, I did the thing.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  It was actually, you know, like as a like beginning writer, it was actually the perfect first step because your ego was not in it. Like you were not going to get recognized as a thing. So in terms of just like practicing your writing, it was like playing.

• 3:19Matt McCusker?

  That's nice, yeah.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  So in retrospect, I realized that was a good way to start because I was like, oh, this is fun. No one's going to know whether I screwed it up or get it right.

• 3:27Matt McCusker?

  True.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  But then at some point, after a while, you're like, I think I know how to do this. I just want to do it for myself.

• 3:33Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's cool. So, and that started, what was your like, so it was more so just the writing. What did you naturally gravitate towards initially in terms of like, you know?

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Subject matter? Yeah. So it was almost random. I was living in Vermont and I happened to get a gig as an editor for this like cult foodie magazine called The Art of Eating. This was like early 2000s.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  And it was like, it was like this one man show by this one guy who was this like super persnickety gourmet. And he was doing this really in-depth food writing. So I, I worked for the magazine, started writing for the magazine. Then I got an idea out of that to do a book about oysters. It was like.

• 4:15Matt McCusker?

  I saw that you wrote a book on oysters. Dude, can you please just break it down? What do you know about them? I was a really stoked.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  One of the experts on oysters for sure. So I wrote the first book. Kind of like helped trigger that oyster revolution in the early teeth. Texas is, um, Texas is coming on really strong with oysters.

• 4:31Matt McCusker?

  Dude, yeah, there's, I, I just had oysters the other night. I, I love them.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. I mean, yeah.

• 4:36Matt McCusker?

  So how did you, that's such a sick thing to write a book about because I don't even know what they are like. I know they're like a fucking little weird little.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  I'm still not sure what they are 20 years later.

• 4:45Matt McCusker?

  So what do you, what's like the, just, can you just blow my mind with a couple of oyster facts? Not, not to put you on the spot, but I, I would just love stuff to bust out next time I crack into some oysters.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, they're live when you eat them.

• 4:55Matt McCusker?

  Nah, dude, fuck that. What are you talking about? Are they really?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. So if the, if an oyster is holding its shell shut, if an oyster shell is shut, the oyster is the one holding it shut. And it's like holding on, shell clamp down is like, you know, like, I hope, I hope this goes better than I think it's gonna go. It's just like waiting to get back in the water or whatever. So then you shuck it, right? When you are, you are overcoming the oyster's resistance, like its muscles are pulling that thing closed. And you're cutting through its muscle to take off that shell. And so you just hurt it and it's, you know, it can, it's going through the tunnel. It can see the light, right? But it's not, it hasn't gotten to the light yet.

• 5:31Matt McCusker?

  So the tunnel is just your mouth.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like turns out it's the wrong tunnel.

• 5:37Matt McCusker?

  But no.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  If you, if you, like I, guys who are really good shuckers, you'll see like, you know, they're like surgeons almost. And they don't hurt the oyster too much as they take off that shell. You can see the oyster's heart beating and as you, as it goes down.

• 5:50Matt McCusker?

  What?

• 5:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:51Matt McCusker?

  Hold on. So oysters, okay. So even when they're out of water, so they're not like a fish where they, they can only breathe underwater, like.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  They are, but they can hang on for a really long time, like a super long time.

• 6:02Matt McCusker?

  What? And they have to be pretty fresh to eat.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  They have to be. Yeah. You don't want to eat a dead oyster for sure. I mean, unless it's cooked, if you just cooked it, fine.

• 6:10Matt McCusker?

  Nah, nah, I want that thing. I want to see the heartbeat. I'm gonna try to feel it on my tongue next time.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Well, I do think that's part of the pleasure in it. Like you see people, you know, you know, like. A pile of oysters appears on the table and people go nuts.

• 6:21Matt McCusker?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  And I think it's partly because they didn't realize it, but it's because they're eating, they're getting this like live chi, you know? And it's like, it's getting them a little excited.

• 6:30Matt McCusker?

  It's like the poor man's adrenochrome. I would say upper middle class working.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  It used to be the poor man.

• 6:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I know. So was lobsters.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:38Matt McCusker?

  Lobsters were just like, there's prison, literally, they served them in prison.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Right. And the prisoners complained.

• 6:43Matt McCusker?

  I know. Well, they were picking a lot of dead ones too and tossing them in there.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  I'm sure it wasn't very good lobster.

• 6:47Matt McCusker?

  That's okay. So, okay. Sorry. I mean, that's, that's one and over deliver on an oyster fact.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was my best.

• 6:53Matt McCusker?

  I didn't know they were alive. I thought they were long dead.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  No, they're, they're still kicking. And if, if, if they die, if their shells open, you don't want to serve them to people. They, yeah, you trash them.

• 7:04Matt McCusker?

  Wow. Well, yeah, that's wow. So I'll, I'll just, I'll save the rest for the oyster book. That's amazing. They're fucking alive. I didn't know that.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they are delicious and they taste different from every body of water because they're basically concentrating that body of water.

• 7:18Matt McCusker?

  Oh, wow. Okay. And then there's the aphrodisiac component. I've heard that as well. That's just because you, you're eating a living thing and nothing's hotter than that. So.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  You're also pounding the booze with them, which don't hurt, right? I've always thought that was probably part of it.

• 7:31Matt McCusker?

  God, I can't wait to tell my, I'm gonna let her eat it next time. So you know, things are alive. This episode is brought to you by PrizePix. I think I'm going to get into soccer this summer with PrizePix. They're offering everything from group stage winners to goals scored. And I'm hyped to watch the USA teach these other countries about real football and win money while doing it. Other than the US nominate an official quote unquote, Matt and Shane's secret podcast player or team that we're rooting for this summer. Ooh, Sean, who are you thinking about? But you're the big, what's this? What do you think? There's that name we were all saying earlier, we're talking about World Cup. Who?

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Pulisic.

• 8:10Matt McCusker?

  Pulisic, dude, he's so, Pulis, Pulisic, so fucking good, dude. I love that guy. He's the quote unquote official M and S podcast player. That's Team USA, right?

• 8:22Speaker 03

  Hershey, Pennsylvania.

• 8:23Matt McCusker?

  Is he really? Hell yeah, dude, we're rooting for you. The biggest summer of soccer is on. Now it's time to lock in yours on PrizePicks. America's number one sports picks app. The biggest summer of soccer is on and with PrizePicks, you can make lineup picks all tournament long while rooting for your favorite teams from all around the world. Stack game winners from soccer, basketball and baseball on top of my player picks for even bigger payouts. Make your picks for all these events and more this summer on PrizePicks. Download the PrizePicks app today and use code DRENCHED to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Yes, 50 bucks when you play your first five.

• 9:05Matt McCusker?

  Visit the PrizePicks promos board for more info. PrizePicks, America's number one sports picks app. That's amazing. So, back to sunlight. Okay, so that makes sense. You're just, you're more so following curiosities around the natural world, is that fair?

• 9:20Speaker 02

  Well, so after that, I got a reputation as a food writer. So then all the magazines were coming to me and being like,

• 9:24Matt McCusker?

  It always happens that way. I've talked to a decent amount of people who were like, I don't know, I was just kind of like doing my thing. And, uh, you know, a lot of writers especially, like you'll do a history book now, like people are like, oh, you're a historian, you're like, yeah, sure, whatever.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Totally, so you get pigeonholed. And like, if you're gonna give me a pigeonhole, that was a pretty good one.

• 9:40Matt McCusker?

  It's not bad, actually.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, like better than being like the proctology writer.

• 9:44Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  But, um, so I did it for a long time, but I was always folding a lot of science into my food writing because I was interested in, you know, what is this thing that you're eating? And where, what's it, where does it come from? And what makes it taste good?

• 9:57Speaker 02

  So then at some point, uh, I started doing more straight up science writing.

• 10:02Matt McCusker?

  Okay, and that's how you, and then I remember the beginning of the book, you talking, you just started noticing, and this is how I guess you got interested in the whole sunlight as like a medicine thing. You were, you were just feeling a little, just like slacking down in those east coast.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  For sure, like middle age, you start, like, you know, when you're younger, you can sort of like, you don't notice anything.

• 10:22Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I'm 40, I'm 40. My oyster, my oyster shell is being ripped open by time right now as we speak.

• 10:30Matt McCusker?

  But yeah, I know what you mean.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  So yeah, I started definitely noticing summer's good, winter's bad, and I live in Vermont, so long, long hard winters. And then, yeah, I was actually doing a science fellowship at MIT. This was like 2017, 2018. And this like study came out, or I came across this study.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  They had realized that when sun hits skin, it actually triggers a release of endorphins in the brain, like natural opiates in the brain. And that's why people kind of get addicted to sunlight. That's why it feels good.

• 11:02Matt McCusker?

  Hmm.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  And like the dermatologists who did the study were like, this is why people are addicted. This is the problem that that people love it so much. That's why we can't break them of their sun habits. And that, you know, they're like, we should treat this as a, as like a drug addiction, sunlight.

• 11:16Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  I was like, or it means that if our bodies are rewarding us for sunlight, there's a reason in evolutionary terms that that came to be, right?

• 11:27Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Like, we were, people who are seeking out sunlight did well in some way.

• 11:31Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. And that's, and that's the funniest thing about the whole sunlight as like, you know, a thing to be avoided. And it really does get back to the dermatologist. It's very funny to see like dermatologists, they do kind of get crushed in the sun debate because they have been making a whole living out of being like, don't let that stuff touch your skin.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  They do. And to their credit, like their job is to prevent skin cancer.

• 11:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  So if that's your only thing you're trying to do, tell people to stay out of the sun.

• 11:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  And also it covers your ass.

• 12:00Matt McCusker?

  And I, I have nothing against dermatologists, you know, when I have a weird rash or, you know, wart, I'm glad they're there to freeze it off me or whatever.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 12:05Matt McCusker?

  I will say as a, you, there, what there's, I would say kind of sneaky about is you don't think when you go to a dermatologist that there's any chance they're going to see you naked. And there's basically a hundred percent chance they're going to see you. Like when you go to a dermatologist, they'll be like, you got a wart and like, you want a full body scan? I'm like, it sounds good. And I'm like, oh yeah, my skin's all over my full body. And I'm like, all right. It's just weird. I didn't know, you know, whatever. Anyway, but the, uh, yeah, I mean, it is, luckily for me, I've, I've, I don't know if this is good or bad, but a lot of stuff, I remember hearing like, oh, you gotta stay out of the sun. I remember just my whole life being, that sounds dumb. Like, I'm not, why would I, that's crazy. Cause I, I know too, if I, if I'm in the sun, I'm getting sunlight. I have like weird food allergies, that stuff kind of lessons, like my whole body functions a thousand percent better.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 12:50Matt McCusker?

  It's pretty crazy.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  So that is, so one of the big things sunlight does is it just tells your immune system to relax a little bit, to chill out. So all those things that are like the immune system overreacting, like, which is what allergies are, um, they get chilled out by sunlight.

• 13:05Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Cause I, I noticed that, you know, where I was like, even like if I catch a hangover in the middle of winter. It's it's like so brutal. Whereas if I'm like kind of in a sun drenched environment, it's like if I I don't really drink that much, but if I do, I've noticed like the hangovers like shortened. I just I just I feel I need less sleep. I eat less. It's like,

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:25Matt McCusker?

  That's why I was like, dude, I'm not whatever, you know, especially with I didn't realize skin cancer, like it's 98% of them or 98% of the times is pretty harmless.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. So there's good different kinds. There's melanoma and then there's what they call the BCCs and the SCCs, which is squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma. And yeah, like 98% are those, the BCCs and the SCCs. That's what everyone you know tends to get and they just get cut off.

• 13:52Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  They don't tend to have long term health benefits. I mean, health effects if you cut them off relatively soon. Melanoma is the bad one, but it's really uncommon.

• 14:03Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's 22%.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:04Matt McCusker?

  What does melanoma do?

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Melanoma can get invasive and then you get that's when you get a cancer that spreads to one of your internal organs.

• 14:10Matt McCusker?

  That's bad.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  That's the bad one. But that one's not associated with regular doses of sunlight, actually. It's associated with burns and especially burns in childhood, which means we're all screwed.

• 14:21Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, fine.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  That's the bad news.

• 14:24Matt McCusker?

  Wait, how do they associate that? Who hasn't been burnt by the sun in childhood?

• 14:28Speaker 02

  I know, right? Well, people with darker skin for one.

• 14:31Matt McCusker?

  True.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  And they have almost no risk for melanoma.

• 14:34Matt McCusker?

  See, I've heard that I've heard that people with darker skin do have a risk for not melanoma. Maybe it's a lesser skin cancer.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  They very low rates of all those skin cancers. They can still get them. So I think what dermatologists are trying to do is like some people who have dark skin think they can't get skin cancer. And so then something pops up and they don't get it checked. So when they do get it checked, it tends to be at a later stage because of the sense that I don't have to worry about it.

• 15:00Matt McCusker?

  True, true.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  So they've tried really hard to make sure that even people with dark skin do worry about it, which is good, but they truly don't have a lot to worry about. They they it's rates are like 100 times lower.

• 15:13Matt McCusker?

  Okay, so it's so it's truly lower. What about I mean, is there a world in which dermatologists can start isolating melanin and just give everyone melanin?

• 15:24Matt McCusker?

  Just a little bit, just, no, I wouldn't pick out, but just like, you know.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, melanin is good. Melanin is awesome.

• 15:29Matt McCusker?

  I know, I was reading the book.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Amazing molecule.

• 15:31Matt McCusker?

  I know, I was reading the book and I was like, God damn it, man, I'm trying to activate mine right now. This is the tannest I've ever been.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  So that's what I was gonna say, like, uh, um, you know, 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day, you will start to make a little more melanin. And also it will, it'll move, like, from the bottom of your skin, it'll move up to the top to be, you know, there, there's supposed to be like little like sun.

• 15:49Matt McCusker?

  Oh, it's, it's there to kind of like, all right, if it gets to here, I'll step in.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  It's the parasol at the beach, kind of thing.

• 15:54Matt McCusker?

  Whoa, that, that was the one thing from the book that kind of blew my mind when you were talking about, um, the little, there's like little microbes all over your skin that kind of just like eat sunlight and just kind of get powered off it. That, that like, and then if you get a lot of sunlight, you make more of these microbes. Cause I guess it's like better conditions for them. No, I had no idea about that.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, the skin microbiome is really important and you know, like you, we've heard about the gut microbes that are, can be good for us or bad, depending on which ones we have. But the skin ones and the gut ones are like talking to each other every day.

• 16:25Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they're like, you know, they're running more of the agenda than you would think.

• 16:29Matt McCusker?

  I know, that's, I mean, that's definitely, you know, if you're paranoid about that kind of stuff, it's not good news. You're, you're covered in tiny little bugs, although the fact that they're.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  No, they're good. They're mostly good.

• 16:38Matt McCusker?

  They're the good, they're eating, they're eating sunlight and fucking protecting me. That's pretty cool. There's a.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  There's, there's tanning injections, injections that you can get.

• 16:45Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, but is it gonna give me the, I want the real stuff. I don't want.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  It'll make you darker, but it increases your chances of getting skin cancer.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:53Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I, yeah.

• 16:56Matt McCusker?

  That makes sense, actually. That's kind of what you get, honestly. That's crazy.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Right. The same people who are staying out of the sun for their health are then like plugging themselves.

• 17:05Matt McCusker?

  Oh, why?

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 04

  For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

• 17:15Speaker 04

  Tremfya offers self injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremfya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self inject Tremfya, proper training is required. Tremfya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections, or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremfya today.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit tremfyaradio.com.

• 18:08Matt McCusker?

  I've heard the whole like genuinely avoid, I get it, I can't, I'm pretty fair skinned. So I can't have that much sunlight and I kind of a little overindulge a little bit, but the whole thing of like stay out of it altogether gives me the creeps, man. I've seen, and I actually like, I'm sure you know Brian Johnson, right? Health guy. I like his stuff. I like that he shares all the things. I can't get with him on sunlight, man. That whole like carrying umbrella, like genuinely vamp life, stay out of the sun as much as you can. It's like, I just, it's like sickly. I don't know. It's really weird.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's funny. He had a, he had a post last week where, you know, where he listed like, here's, you know, for life, here's my 50 things or whatever. And one of them was that, exactly.

• 18:52Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  And all the experts I know in the sun field were like, can you work on Brian Johnson? He's like, he's not up to speed on this one, so.

• 19:00Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I mean, it does seem like he's open to following research, which is cool, but he's like really, really anti-sun, so.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  He is, and he's because he's getting the wrong information. Like he's relying on like dermatologists of the world to supply him. If he, you know, if he put ChatGPT on the job, he could solve that.

• 19:18Matt McCusker?

  True.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  I mean, seriously, those, um, right now, we're in this like weird little state. I think where those AIs, they haven't been bought yet, I feel like by any companies. They'll, they'll give you the straight dope and they've read frigging everything.

• 19:33Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  So just put, you can put them on the job on this stuff and they'll like call up like the, the key papers for you.

• 19:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. No, I, I, uh, that is kinda cool. They, I use them for stuff when I'm like, I'll just get an idea where I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is how it goes. And I'll be like, let me double check. Cause I, I'm like sensitive to caffeine. So I try to, for some reason, I don't know. This was out of spite. I try to prove that like coffee is actually bad for you. So I'm like really feeding these things. Like, come on, man. Give me my argument. And it was just like, no, it's actually good for you.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  See right now they're, they're pretty solid.

• 20:04Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  I, you gotta feel like money will eventually be able to buy their answer.

• 20:09Matt McCusker?

  I thought about that before. I'm like, this is not gonna last very long.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  It's just like the early days of the internet was, it truly was like this, like, like Wild West where you could just, uh, you know, there weren't companies that were sort of managing it all for you.

• 20:23Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, no. I, cause I was even like, well, you know, I was trying to point to the whole thing where alcohol was like, remember when it was like drinking, have a drink a day and it's good for you. And then it's like complete, not really true, not true whatsoever. I was like, well, a lot of the studies on coffee are probably done by coffee company, kind of like research bodies. And it was just like, yeah, not really, man. Like some are for sure, but there's a lot of independent science on coffee. And I was like, damn, it's actually is good for you. So I try to ruin it for billions of people who enjoy coffee. But it turns out it's actually great. So yeah, so I'm me. So yeah, where, where do we stand now in terms of like, just a quick run through of like, some of the science of sunlight being good for you, how to get it and X, Y, all that stuff.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  So basically what happened is like 10, 15 years ago, uh, researchers started noticing that people who were naturally exposed to more sunlight, had better lifespans and lower rates of like all the classic chronic diseases. So cancers other than skin cancer, uh, heart, heart attacks, strokes, all the big stuff, um, was lower in people who were getting more sunlight. And they didn't know why. Um, but now they've looked into that and they're starting to get a sense of why that is. And I kinda put it into like three buckets. So one is stuff we make with the energy from sunlight, like vitamin D.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  And nitric oxide, which is another chemical made in the skin with sunlight that lowers blood pressure. And blood pressure, huge killer, high blood pressure. So if you're lowering blood pressure a few points, like globally, that's gonna be a huge impact.

• 22:00Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's huge. Nitric oxide, they used to sell it at GNC because you would take it and it would like make your, it like makes your veins.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  It dilutes blood vessels. Viagra is based on nitric oxide.

• 22:07Matt McCusker?

  That's pretty sick.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  So the sun, you know, it might be nature's Viagra too, a little bit, but.

• 22:11Matt McCusker?

  It definitely is, I can attest to that.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Well, there, so there was a crazy study. They shown light on mice and then tracked their sexual behavior. The mice who got the sunlight had bigger balls and got a, were considered sexier by the other mice.

• 22:32Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Which they measure in like terms of like squeaking and sniffing.

• 22:37Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  But anyway, so yeah, there is actually some like, a little like hint that sunlight might actually make you a little sexier.

• 22:46Matt McCusker?

  Well, there's this stuff about, and again, I just get all my stuff off like the internet, Instagram and stuff, but I have heard that if you're like, if the sun hits your chest for whatever, you know, however many minutes a day, you produce, produce more testosterone, all this stuff.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's interesting. I haven't, I haven't seen, but it could be.

• 23:03Matt McCusker?

  It's probably true, man. Well, vitamin D apparently is a big precursor for production of testosterone, so.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Then for sure.

• 23:09Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  That makes sense.

• 23:11Matt McCusker?

  That's pretty crazy, but that's, so that's, it just started with people noticing little things and then.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Anti-inflammation is the other huge one, I think.

• 23:18Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Like, basically the sun, when it hits your skin, it's, it triggers a little bit of inflammation, like redness, right? Like, because it is, it's like a challenge to the body. It's like, the body has to deal with it. So the body produces all these different repair compounds, anti-inflammatory compounds, fixes all the damage. And then basically it sends signals to the immune system saying, don't freak out, we got this, this is just normal, you know, daily life, you know, on the savanna plains of Africa or whatever. And so the, it basically that, the response to the slight challenge of sunlight.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Triggers a strong like healing response by the body, which goes beyond the skin and actually keeps everything else kind of calm and running smoothly.

• 24:09Matt McCusker?

  That makes sense. They go check on the other things while they're out. They're like, all right, let's go.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like you call the fire department.

• 24:14Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, they're like, let's go look around.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. They're like, what else can we fix while we're here?

• 24:18Matt McCusker?

  Nice. And then, and the funny thing too, that I, or something I noticed from the book was this was like, kind of accepted as like, this is kind of what you did back during, what is it? Cholera or not cholera, tuberculosis.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Totally, yeah.

• 24:33Matt McCusker?

  And what was the other one? It was tuberculosis and there's another.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Rickets. So the very, like, so those two diseases got super bad in the Industrial Revolution. Tuberculosis, because everyone was living in packed, dirty cities, right? So they were all, the germs were just spreading much easier. Rickets is caused by lack of sunlight. Because lack of sunlight means lack of vitamin D and vitamin D is what gets calcium into your bones to make them strong. So kids in the Industrial Revolution, like when kids were on farms, they got tons of sunlight.

• 25:06Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Rickets wasn't a thing. Suddenly rickets pops up late 1800s because the kids are either working in factories or like living in like tenement, like blocks.

• 25:15Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  In like places like London, they're never seeing the sun. The cities are also choked with coal, coal smoke. So suddenly all the kids are getting rickets and they figured out that sunlight could cure the rickets and could also cure like the skin form of tuberculosis. So then there was kind of this like beautiful era in like the twenties and thirties when like everyone was sending their kids up to the Alps to like ski in their underwear in the snow.

• 25:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  To prevent tuberculosis.

• 25:41Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I heard you talking about that. And even the teacher would sit out there. That was, that's like.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  There's awesome photos. It's like a Wes Anderson film.

• 25:47Matt McCusker?

  That's really funny. It's like everyone in their undies chilling, getting light. Yeah, that's a, that's pretty cool. And the other thing too, that I saw that I was a kind of shocked by was like, it's not even like, you don't even have to be in that much direct sunlight. It's like, if you had, you can be fully covered with clothes. All the light's still going to penetrate through your clothes. If you, you know, that you're going to get a bunch of like, stuff from basically just being outside. Like, the one that really blew my mind was like, sitting under a tree. If you're in the shade, the light hits the leaves and you're getting now like, green light or something.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So there's, so there's two, yeah. So in infrared, which is part of the spectrum that we can't see. It's like beyond red. So our eyes can't detect it, but it's, you know, it's photons of energy, just like all the other visible light. It goes through clothing really easily, you know, like, like visible light goes through glass. And it goes through tissue pretty easily too. So, so about 50% of the sunlight is infrared and it'll go through your clothing and then into your body and it'll kind of like, those photons will bounce around like billiard balls in your body. And then eventually get absorbed. And they kind of like, they make, they, they help you produce energy more efficiently. They go into your mitochondria. So, yeah. So when you're getting all that infrared, it's just kind of like

• 27:04Speaker 02

  making your metabolism work a little better. It's, it's, it's giving you free energy.

• 27:09Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  So you get a little bit less wear and tear, trying to make energy from your food. And plants don't like infrared, like for photosynthesis, they just want blue and red light. So they bounce green, which is why they look green to us. And they bounce infrared. So anytime you're surrounded by plants, by green leaves or grass, that's a bunch of green photons and infrared photons.

• 27:34Matt McCusker?

  Bouncing off of it.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, bouncing off the plants and into you. So you're getting like a double dose. You're getting it from the sun. And then you're getting it from the plants. So if you're in the shade, you're not getting too much UV because you're out of the sun, but you're getting tons of green and infrared. And green is good too. They're like doing some research at two places, Harvard and University of Arizona right now. Because they found out accidentally that green light relieves migraines and other like pain.

• 28:01Matt McCusker?

  What?

• 28:01Speaker 02

  And anxiety. So yeah, you can now like you can buy green lights to to treat your migraines down.

• 28:08Matt McCusker?

  That's crazy. I didn't I didn't know that.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So that's that's gonna be one of the next like red light therapy is really big.

• 28:13Matt McCusker?

  I've I've seen that stuff.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  So green's gonna be next.

• 28:15Matt McCusker?

  Little green. And really, you're saying also just go outside.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Just go outside.

• 28:19Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, you can just go outside. Having my red light, my green light here. And actually, fuck yeah, I'm getting some green right now.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  You do. You got a little green light there.

• 28:25Matt McCusker?

  Green LED. I'm getting some green LED. What do you have? Have you ever looked into the whole sun eater guys who claim to like not need food, but can just kind of stare at the sun in the early morning?

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So there's a bunch of those dudes in Mexico at the nude beach down there. Zipolita, I think it's called.

• 28:42Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  So I have a friend who's like a mezcal importer. He's like, dude, you gotta go hang out with the.

• 28:48Matt McCusker?

  Sounds awesome, actually.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  With the sun eater. Because yeah, there's these guys who are just like, like in the sun all day. And they're like, I haven't eaten in years. Like, I don't know if I believe them.

• 28:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's what I'm always I'm always kind of like, all right, I can't really prove it. So I'm not gonna hang out here for another year.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  But I totally want to find out. So I want to find out what their deal is. I do have sort of like, when time frees up, I want to go.

• 29:09Matt McCusker?

  Go check them out.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Hang with the sun eaters.

• 29:10Matt McCusker?

  And they there's just dudes that are just standing naked on the beach who claim not to have eaten. Fuck, that's kind of cool. I mean, I'd be impressed if you can do it for three days. That's pretty, pretty impressive. But yeah, I've heard that too a long time ago, that if you look at the sun when it's when it before it hurts your eyes.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:26Matt McCusker?

  You kind of catch it in the morning, catch it as it goes down. They they claim they get all the energy they need. I don't know. Who knows? Plants do it. Why can't we?

• 29:34Speaker 02

  It might be it might be sun and cannabis that's giving them all the energy.

• 29:37Matt McCusker?

  True. Yeah, true.

• 29:40Matt McCusker?

  So I the one thing I liked as well, because I'm a big fan of like, I this is the part where you have like a little light primer in the book.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:48Matt McCusker?

  Whenever I get into like just the physics on photons and lights and all that stuff. It's honestly like the coolest, not even just cool. It's like, it's like beautiful when you read about that. Almost on like a spiritual level when you're like, damn, this is, this has been thawed out or I don't know how. Personally, it's like, it's hard to kind of argue against, you know, kind of intelligent design when you read about just the way light works. Like it's insane. Like I know, well, I, I, I'll be curious to get the, you know, again, just razzle dazzle me with some light facts. But the one that I have that I had recently was that I didn't realize sun. So there's like the whatever hydrogen fusion or whatever in the sun. Particle fusion in the sun.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:25Matt McCusker?

  The light that's on earth is trapped in the sun's core for like a hundred, roughly a hundred thousand years.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:31Matt McCusker?

  And, and it just, just like steps down because otherwise the gamma would just destroy us.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 30:37Matt McCusker?

  But it stepped down for anywhere from like 15,000, a hundred thousand years. And then once it's ready, you know, it just beams in eight seconds.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:46Matt McCusker?

  It's fucked. It's crazy. That's amazing.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. I, I didn't realize any of that until I got into the book either. But so light is just pure energy, right? The energy without matter, without mass.

• 30:57Matt McCusker?

  I mean, for that alone is fucked up. It's like, if you really get into like, you know, what is a spirit? It's like, it's literally that. It's.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  I do think, I think light, and you know, you've seen like so many religions, basically have used light as a metaphor for spirit. And you do start to think it's not, maybe it's not actually a metaphor at all, right? Like maybe light is kind of like that divine force.

• 31:15Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Cause light, the time does not exist for light, which is, it gets really cosmic.

• 31:22Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is like Einstein. Like, you know, like if, if as we, if as you, we speed up closer and closer to the speed of light, time slows down, right? They've established that like the faster you move, the slower time moves for you. If you could actually make it to the speed of light, which you never could, but um, time would stop. And, and for light, time doesn't exist. It's everywhere at once that it has ever been. And it's only when it like hits matter and gets absorbed into matter that it kind of like falls into time.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Right?

• 31:58Matt McCusker?

  So fucking sick.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  But so it seems like, yeah.

• 32:01Matt McCusker?

  That's crazy.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Like, so if light is, um, like, light can't do anything on its own, right? Like, it's pure energy. It doesn't really interact with anything. It just, it's like the Silver Surfer.

• 32:11Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  It just creates this new universe. Then when it like hits like matter, then suddenly it's in time and it can have like cause and effect and that energy can start to do stuff. So then you start to think of Earth as like this, like, sort of like experiment where like light from the sun is like

• 32:30Speaker 02

  being captured and is doing stuff.

• 32:33Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's, that's pretty wild. I was doing the, uh, you know, I have a little kid, so I'm constantly doing like, Dad, what color does this make? Have you mixed this? And, uh, it was, it seemed so dumb, but I was like genuinely mind blown when I was like, like, what color is green make? And I was like, I don't know, red and yellow, or no, um, blue and yellow. And I was just like, damn, sunlight and water makes green for plants. And I was just, I was like, hold on, guys, give me a second. This is actually kind of cool. But yeah, that, the, the light stuff is really amazing. When you get into the physics of the, the photons, just like packets of energy just moving faster than we can even conceive. It's literally moving faster than time, which is like.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Faster than time. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah.

• 33:13Matt McCusker?

  Crazy. And then, and then you get, you know, it just like goes into your skin and your body's like nice and you know, use it. It's, for me, that kind of stuff really, I think buttresses a, you know, uh, spiritual worldview as opposed to one where it's like just all meaningless photons bouncing or whatever particles. And I, I just, I'm allergic to that worldview. So. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile. Mint took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. No gimmicks, no gotchas. You can even bring your current phone and your number. Go to mintmobile.com/drenched.

• 33:52Matt McCusker?

  Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months. Plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20GB of hotspot. Capable devices required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See MintMobile.com.

• 34:11Speaker 05

  Incredible. This episode is brought to you by Quince.

• 34:15Matt McCusker?

  Nice.

• 34:15Speaker 05

  What do you know about Quince?

• 34:16Matt McCusker?

  I love Quince. I'll be, I'll be honest. They sent me the stuff and I, their boxers, they use like cotton, like regular materials, not a lot of polyesters, natural fibers. I'm a big fan.

• 34:27Speaker 05

  Well, not everyone wants to spend forever on the perfect look. Quince gets that. It's why they make staple pieces for your wardrobe that go with pretty much anything, man. They're, uh, they're really easy to style and they feel great to wear because they're also made with premium materials, including, like you said, organic cotton, merino wool. There's even 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters, starting at just $60. That's, I mean, talk about a deal.

• 34:52Matt McCusker?

  It's pretty crazy.

• 34:53Speaker 05

  That's a bargain.

• 34:54Matt McCusker?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Matt and Shane's secret podcast. It's the best way to support the show.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, no, that, the material view is like, it was kind of like right in front of them and they missed it.

• 35:23Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  But, cause yeah, the light, the, um, all the energy that makes us alive, like everything that makes us not a pile of mud.

• 35:31Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  It was light, was sunlight that came to earth, got captured by a plant. And then either we ate, we got it directly from the plant, or we got it from the thing that got it from the plant.

• 35:41Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  But it's all sunlight, like passing through, you know?

• 35:46Matt McCusker?

  It's fucking awesome. And so in, in this book, you know, you're, you're basically, I guess trying to balance out the pervasive fear of sunlight. I see it a lot too. And again, it's I. What I like about this isn't like, cause there's the opposite thing where it's like, just go outside and just bake in the sun 24, which I've tried and it's just, that's not the move. I, again, my face hurts. If I put anything on it, it's still burning. But it's like, um, the message really is like, sunlight's not bad for you. Don't pig out on it. But also like, if you're just outside, even, you know, protected or never, you're, you're still absorbing its benefits, you know? You don't have to have it like, kind of radiating, kind of right into your skin all the time.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Totally. Yeah. And I actually think that whole like lying out on the beach for hours thing isn't good for anyone, even if you are wearing sunblock. Like you're just getting, you're going to get too many, too much energy. You have too many photons of energy that your molecules can't handle.

• 36:42Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  It makes a lot of free radicals in the body. Um, but yeah, the, the daily doses, really good. And basically hiding indoors all the time, clearly really bad. Uh, the science is like very clear. So that's, that was kind of where it started for me is because we had sort of gotten to this extreme place where the recommendations are never let unprotected sun touch your body, use sunblock 365 days a year. Even if you're indoors, even if you're, you know, it's mid winter, like that's crazy.

• 37:17Matt McCusker?

  That's insane. It's genuinely insane. I feel like if you're not getting burnt, you're good. That's like in the winter, I'm not getting sunburned. I don't need sunscreen. I don't need sunscreen.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's what a bunch of the experts have said to me. And, um, I kind of, you know, tend to say like, and make sure you don't get anywhere near burnt because it's easy to think, you know, oh, I'm good. And then at the end of the day, you're like, ooh, I'm a little pink.

• 37:39Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's, trust me. It's, it's every single day, but it's nice to know now that if I wear, you know, one of those long sleeve lightweight shirts, I'm still out getting my daily dose. That was my big thing. I was like, man, I don't, there's something about me. I always feel defeated. If I, I've seen people in the pool with like the long sleeve pool shirt, big brim hat, and I'm just kind of like pussy. Pussy. But now I know you're still getting all the benefits.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  So, or some of the benefits, not, not the UV, but the rest. Yeah.

• 38:08Matt McCusker?

  Well, how much you so you're saying if I got like 10 minutes of UV a day, I'm good.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  In Texas? Yeah, I'd say, I mean, y'all are blessed with some good photons.

• 38:16Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. So that's all I need is 10. Dude, I completely, I've been overdoing it like crazy. I've been doing like an hour.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  In winter, an hour is probably good.

• 38:23Matt McCusker?

  No, summer, it's like yesterday.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Summer hours a lot down here. Your UV index is probably like, gets up to like 10, 11.

• 38:30Matt McCusker?

  So you only really need, and that's, the timing seems to be a thing. I mean, people have heard this before, but it's like, you have to go out morning is like, the best time while as it's like the sun's kind of coming up.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially for, for somewhere like, like here that you've got a lot of light to work with. Yeah, like an hour midday would probably be too much this time of year. But an hour in the morning is just right.

• 38:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Okay. Nice. That's I, cause I have a garden in my backyard and a lot of times it'll be like, these plants are full sun and I put them out in my backyard. And it's like, I've learned that full sun doesn't always mean Texas. Full sun. I'm like, it'll, it'll wilt some of like plants that say to be sun lovers and you know, so.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:12Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. So that's pretty. So what do you do personally? How, how is like writing and researching all this stuff kind of affected you? Or were you kind of on the sun path before that?

• 39:21Speaker 02

  I was, um, you know, instinctively I was like, I definitely feel better like on a cellular level when I'm getting a fair amount of light in my day. Um, but then once I, like unfortunately, I was writing a lot of this book in winter in Vermont and I was kind of like, oh my God.

• 39:38Matt McCusker?

  She was longing for it.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  I'm destroying myself. Stuck in my office. Um, so I'm trying to figure that part of it out right now. Like summer, perfect where I live. Winter, I'm not going to be able to get the UV that I, that I need for sure. So I do, um, I head south.

• 39:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  There's also these, um, I think what's, there's a, a new sort of like a generation of, um, light devices coming out that are designed to give you a, a dose of UV safely.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  And I think that's going to be part of the solution for a lot of people who can't just like, you know, go to the Caribbean all winter.

• 40:18Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, just basically just stand under that thing for like 10 minutes or whatever.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and 10 minutes is it's even less than that. But yeah, their FDA cleared, first ones are just coming out now. So yeah, I think honestly, like, people are going to think about their light diet, the way they think about their food diet now in some ways. They're going to like be a little more intentional about what they surround themselves with.

• 40:44Matt McCusker?

  Well, that's what I'm always again, for me, it's always about like, what's the quickest and easiest and like, freest thing you can do because there's so many gadgets and gizmos and you know, people are always looking for something, you know, people feel like, I don't feel good. What do I just pull up your phone and you're like, you know, whatever this powder and whatever. But the, yeah, that's why I like the, I like the sun stuff so much because it like, it really, really works. Like I, I can personally attest to it.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's free.

• 41:08Matt McCusker?

  It's free, yeah.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  It's free for everybody.

• 41:09Matt McCusker?

  Widely, widely abundant.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:12Matt McCusker?

  And free. I, um, yesterday talked to, it was actually the opposite. This is kind of a fire and ice week. I talked to a, an ice swimmer.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:20Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, a guy, Chris Ballard wrote the book, wrote a book on ice swimming and all that stuff.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  And yeah.

• 41:25Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's like one of the, it's just again, cold water, pretty easy to come across. You can just ice, get a couple of bags of ice, throw it in the bathtub and sun. And it's like those two things alone is like, yeah, they really set you up like, you know, they, and then just walk or run, you're kind of good.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  But it's that, and it's actually the same thing, like all that stuff, um, you know, hormesis is the term they use, like the, the exercise bros use.

• 41:47Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  But any, any of those things that are, you know, a test for the body, but a doable test.

• 41:52Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  Where the body's like, whoo, I gotta, I gotta raise my game a little bit.

• 41:56Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  That's really good long-term. Like, I kind of think probably what makes for really good long-term aging has more to do with how good your body is at dealing with like little bits of damage and fixing it than like any particular like nutrient or supplement you're putting.

• 42:11Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I, I think so too, man. I, you know, just again, for me, the big thing is just getting outside, being active.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:18Matt McCusker?

  Just at least for 30, 40 minutes a day. Like I, I've, because I've done both. I've done it where I've been an indoor creature for like 90% of the day. And I, I feel wretched, like mentally, I feel horrible and then, you know. So that, that's been my big thing of like trying to avoid becoming like human veal. That's like, that's when it's like.

• 42:38Speaker 05

  Oh, I might steal that phrase.

• 42:43Speaker 05

  This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Summer is a lot of fun, but it can be a lot. Summer's fun, but it can be a lot. Matt.

• 42:54Speaker 05

  It can be a lot.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  Lamatt, tell me, what's one thing this summer that you have a lot going on? What did you do? Did you enjoy being that busy or did you prefer a more relaxed itinerary?

• 43:09Speaker 00

  I, I enjoy the business a little bit, but I would like some more relaxed.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  You need to relax more. That's what I always say about you.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:16Speaker 05

  People ask me, they say, what's it like living with Lamar? I said, I wish the guy would fucking relax.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  Too much of a busybody.

• 43:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 00

  I got so much going up here.

• 43:27Speaker 05

  You do. It's true. The police radio never turns off. True. We do have to get you a scanner. Oh, man, actually you would have fun with a scanner.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think so. You go to crimes in progress.

• 43:44Speaker 05

  You'd be feared in the city. The criminals, the bad guys would go, oh shit, it's Lamarr.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  This is the leverage, he's coming.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  He's gonna get you. The leverage, you get low on him, fire out.

• 43:58Speaker 05

  So if you're feeling overwhelmed, try BetterHelp. They're one of the biggest online therapy platforms and pretty highly rated too. They can connect you with a professional therapist who can help you understand what you need to truly enjoy your summer. You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off betterhelp.com slash MSSP. That's better H E L P dot com slash MSSP.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Now let's get back to the show.

• 44:23Matt McCusker?

  Guys, real quick, oh my God, 626, 627, I'll be at the Stardome Comedy Club, Birmingham, Alabama. That's huge, that's major, please come, that is June 26th, 27th, the weekend after this weekend. After Father's Day, I'll be in Birmingham, Alabama. And then August 7th, I'll be in, August 7th, August 8th, San Jose, California, the San Jose Improv, August 7th, August 8th. And then 8:13, 8:14, that's August 13th and 14th. I'll be at the Spokane Comedy Club, Spokane, Washington, I'll be back for, I believe, the second or third time. Yay.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Jeez. Yes, come, please come see me, I'm gonna be in Virginia next week. Alexandria, Virginia, the 24th, Charlottesville, Virginia, the 25th, Cosby's Comedy Club in Newport News, the 28th. And on the 27th, I'll be in Columbia, South Carolina, so please come out to those shows. And you know where I'll be on June 23rd?

• 45:16Matt McCusker?

  Opto Notus.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Yes, here, in Austin, Texas, at the Creek in the Cave.

• 45:19Matt McCusker?

  Yes.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  Panties in the mouth.

• 45:26Matt McCusker?

  But yeah, the, I've, I've get that, I've gotten to that point many times in my life. And it's just, God, I feel terrible. And there's just something about, you know, especially when you're structuring your time and day. And like, what am I doing, why am I doing it? It's like, there, there is, especially the older I get, it's like, just getting outside every day is, it's like, important. Like, you really, really need to do it, otherwise you get kinda cut off from like, what the world actually is.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:51Matt McCusker?

  You get stuck into like, the internet and your house and, you know, all your bullshit. And it's like, it kinda, it kind of, I get freaked out about how real, I should say, or how do I say this? The internet is like a substitute for actual, physical reality. I feel like it's getting more and more kinda pervasive, where we're putting more importance on the internet. And it's like, just the world, basically, outside.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is the thing I think about all the time.

• 46:16Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it kinda freaks me out.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're transforming into something different than we used to be.

• 46:21Matt McCusker?

  Dude, I, I've, you know, I get, I get a hard wake up, I get hard wake up calls with. All the time. Cause like, you know, I'm online. I do a lot of stuff online. I'm always promoting stuff. And then there's like, there's like, you have part of your identity on the internet and you're going like, what do people think about me? And you go, okay, mostly negative fuck. And then like, so you're like really pulling in, you're like, you know, so I'm like, I find myself trying to like mitigate this, playing this like game layered on top of my actual life. And it just gets like so stressful with the, the whole point is every now and again, I'll be like, oh yeah, it doesn't matter. Like that stuff genuinely doesn't matter in terms of like, you know, I have a family and I, you know, I, there's like real physical beings around me, but you're like clouded by this kind of just, you know, digital kind of thing.

• 47:03Matt McCusker?

  And it's just, man, I, the more, the less I kind of engage with it, the genuine, like the better I feel. And it helps to be like, I'm just going to go outside. I want to do this. I'm going to do that. And it's like, it's like a spider web. You, I mean, I mean,

• 47:13Speaker 02

  It'll trap you.

• 47:14Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's very bad, man. I don't know. It's very bad. And the worst part is I feel like the internet gives you almost like,

• 47:23Matt McCusker?

  it almost puts everybody, uh, how do I say this? Like before, like, you know, if you were in the eighties and seventies and you were, you were, you know, a construction worker, there was no part of you that even considered that you could one day be famous for some, it was just wasn't, you're like, no, I'll never, that's not a thing. You have to be an entertainer. The internet, I feel like has thrown every single person into the game where it's like, hey, man, yeah, you knows, man, you could. And I just, I do feel like it has not good effects.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  So I had a funny, um, just in the past 12 hours, funny experience with all that. Um, so my book came out yesterday, right? Huge wave of media attention. Like suddenly like interview requests are pouring down on me. So I said to my, a friend of mine, uh, who's like pretty website savvy. I was like, can you tweak my, my website looks a little crappy right now? Could you just tweak it for me and make it look a little better? She's like, sure.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  At 1 a.m. last night, I got a text from her. She's like, I broke your website. She's like, I can't fix it. I'm so sorry. It's down. Apparently, like, some recovery link went to some administrator email. I don't know. We don't know who it. So I was like, okay, like, the day that my website's gonna get the most hits ever, it's down.

• 48:41Matt McCusker?

  Fuck, this was yesterday?

• 48:43Speaker 02

  This was the day, 1 a.m., like, a few hours ago.

• 48:45Matt McCusker?

  Aw, man.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  Okay, like, this is a good test of your zen ability, right?

• 48:49Matt McCusker?

  It is, man. That's the, you say zen ability?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:52Matt McCusker?

  Zen ability is a highly overrated skill, man. You really need it to be like, well, fuck.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:57Matt McCusker?

  All right, what are we gonna do now? I'm not, there's, there is this part of your mind that's like, it's almost like delicious when you're like, yeah, I get to fucking freak out right now. And you're like, you have to be like, not even going down that path.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, but so as you were saying, it's like, okay, maybe it wasn't that important after all, you know?

• 49:13Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, so what, did you get it fixed?

• 49:14Speaker 02

  No, it's down.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  I'm just ignoring. I can't do anything about it.

• 49:20Matt McCusker?

  That's the thing, man. Yeah, you really can't. It's like, shit. I mean, ah, shit, yeah, that must have been really stressful.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Almost at 1 a.m. They're like, okay, there goes to sleep for the night.

• 49:33Matt McCusker?

  Well, fuck, I'm sorry to hear that. But again, it's one of those things where,

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 49:36Matt McCusker?

  I don't know, it'll get fixed and then it is what it is. When I, when I did my last comedy special, I, uh, I had two shows on Friday, two shows Saturday, and I was gonna just, you know, see which was the best show out of all four. You have a lot of chances to get it right, basically. So I had four chances to do it. First night, shows were good, but I was like, I didn't feel like that was the one. Saturday, I'm like, all right, I got two more chances, feeling good about it. Uh, that morning, yeah, it was that morning of the show Saturday, I had to film something for the intro, so I had to wear this kind of like camera rig thing on me. It was like a POV. And I leaned forward too fast and it, the camera thing put up, like, literally cut my head. It was bleeding for hours.

• 50:15Matt McCusker?

  But then the problem was now I couldn't splice. If I had like a great, if I had like a good take from one, so those two others were rendered mute where I was like, I can't use these. So now, and then I remember there was just like a bunch of people there, just putting on makeup on my head, camera, different light, and they went back and forth maybe 15 times. It was like a collective freak out for an hour and a half, right before I was about to go on. And I just remember being like, Guys, just stop. It's okay. I appreciate you working hard, but like, it is what it is. It's, it's like, we're just gonna deal with it and figure it out. There's, let's all just stop freaking out and just move on. Cause you can really get caught in that like, anxiety freakout loop. We could have stayed in it up until the minute I walked down on stage. I remember just being like,

• 50:57Matt McCusker?

  fuck it, guys. Let's just do it. Who cares? Who cares? Yeah. And it went great. It was fine. I remember it almost for me was kind of freeing to be like, I, it's just like, I was like, that's what I, whenever I try to take anything remotely serious, I, I tend to get reminders just from like circumstance where it's just kind of like, dude, shut up. Just go do your thing. So. Now that was a, I remember just kind of laughing and being like, of course I fucking smacked my head on a camera today. This is, this is kind of more, this is just what I do.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Friend, friend of mine who's a photographer for the New York Times. Um, so he's had a pretty good career, but at some point he's kind of like, this is, who cares? Right?

• 51:33Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  So he just, he has this thing. He says, whenever anything comes up, he's like, just remember, we are animals and we made this all up.

• 51:42Matt McCusker?

  That's a great line.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Comes in handy.

• 51:44Matt McCusker?

  It really does.

• 51:47Matt McCusker?

  Damn, that's amazing. Actually, that's really good. I'm gonna use that on my wife.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  Right. So it can backfire on you.

• 51:54Matt McCusker?

  When she freaks out, like, we are just animals. We're making it all up. So, let's do what animals do, babe. How about you forget about that?

• 52:04Matt McCusker?

  So what, um, so what's next for you, man? Are you, you're, so you're on, you're on the big, you're on the book tour, moving around. What do you, what do you got on the horizon? What are you, what are you thinking about doing?

• 52:13Speaker 02

  So I am, um, a couple of things. I'm trying to decide which way to go. I'm waiting for a sign, right? So one of them is kind of what we were talking about. Like, the more you think about light, then you start to think about energy and you start thinking about us as, you know, rather than just like piles of molecules, we're basically like this flow of energy, like, like a standing wave of energy, of sense. Um, and does have like the spiritual aspect to it. And there's some really interesting new science coming out around that. It's like hard science, but I think there could be a really fun, just like easy mainstream book about that concept.

• 52:45Matt McCusker?

  So you're going quantum, you're thinking?

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 52:48Matt McCusker?

  Now's the time.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  I was thinking the title would be, could be Quantum Me, right? And I could just experiment, self-experiment.

• 52:54Matt McCusker?

  I mean, I, I'm, I'm no stranger to like the, uh, just a lot of different spirituality books and stuff. And a lot of them tend to just dabble. A lot of them, you, they borrow from quantum elements to be like, hey, you know,

• 53:07Speaker 02

  That would mean.

• 53:08Matt McCusker?

  We can be two places at once, you know, and you're like, what the fuck? You're serious?

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Totally. The entanglement stuff.

• 53:12Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  You can apply that to so many different things in life.

• 53:16Matt McCusker?

  So you've been sneakily researching quantum, basically just quantum property?

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that stuff.

• 53:21Matt McCusker?

  Quantum, or is it more just like your body as a non-physical or energy, whatever?

• 53:25Speaker 02

  It is. It's all quantum mechanics, because like down at that basic subatomic level, it's all about electrons and photons interacting.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  And, you know, for the physicists, they figured this out 100 years ago, that like energy and matter are like two sides of the same coin. Biologists like learned this yesterday, it seems like they missed it for 100 years. But now they're like, oh, we need to think about magnetism and energy and how all these things like change the stuff that we are.

• 53:55Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  It's hard stuff, but it's, um, but that's why I think there's like the light version of it would be, could make a really good book.

• 54:02Matt McCusker?

  That is cool.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. But then the other thing, when you're, you know, a bit of a contrarian, you write a contrarian book and everyone's like, you're an idiot, you're so wrong. And you're like, I might be wrong, but I might not be wrong.

• 54:12Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  And then you have to figure out, how do I know if I'm wrong or not? So anyway, I think it'd be really fun to write a book and this would be a book, I think 99% audience would be dudes. It would be, the title would be.

• 54:25Matt McCusker?

  You're in the right place right now. This is a very dude heavy environment.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  When you are, when you are right and everyone else is wrong, right? That'd be the title.

• 54:33Matt McCusker?

  That's great.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Like a field guide to unrecognized genius. But it would be tongue in cheek.

• 54:39Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Here's how to know if you are genius or if you're just entirely wrong.

• 54:44Matt McCusker?

  How would you, how would you summarize that then? Because there's a lot of people who have been right that a lot of other people, you know, like a lot of the advanced, like germ theory is the biggest one or one of the biggest ones.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  That's one of the best examples.

• 54:55Matt McCusker?

  The guy died in insane asylum.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  So many of them, they got it right. No one ever recognized them. So yeah, and they often kill themselves.

• 55:03Matt McCusker?

  Shit on them, like actively shit on them to the point where they end up killing themselves. The uh, God, who's the guy? Uh, Godel, the mathematician starved himself to death.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:14Matt McCusker?

  He apparently, and I still, I've tried to read about it a million times, but he proved that math, the axioms mathematics were founded upon contradicted the mathematics himself, which just like they wanted, they wanted math to be this like concrete, physical reality that like they wanted to take it almost away from like, they didn't want anything kind of like airy about it. Like, no, this is hard, physical science. And he kind of out of nowhere was like, yeah, no, it's not. And proved it using their own axioms. And then they were like, fuck you, dude. And he just, he starved himself to death.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:46Matt McCusker?

  But apparently everyone's like, yeah, fuck, he was right.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  It sucks to be the, the guy who's right, but totally ostracized for it. Like,

• 55:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Couldn't be worse. But anyway, so yeah, so part of it would be looking at all those examples through history and like, can we recognize a pattern? So we can start getting better at recognizing these people?

• 56:02Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  And then the flip side would be like, how do we, how do we tell when you're full of shit? Like, how do you tell when you're full of shit?

• 56:10Matt McCusker?

  Well, the fun flip side is just going through the, there's, I mean, there's gotta be no shortage of people who are like, I got this. And then it just turned out they're one million percent, which is really fun. Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  And we're almost always wrong. So that's the thing. How do you, so is there a better or faster way of figuring out?

• 56:24Matt McCusker?

  Figuring out you're wrong.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. And except for that one time when you actually did get it right.

• 56:28Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. And the, the problem too is that, cause I've seen, I forget what I was watching, but I was watching, uh, not even a debate. People were just like talking, one of those YouTube videos where they, they kind of referenced that whole thing about how like everything we know now will be wrong for the most part. And you know, and how do we kind of accelerate that or factor that in? It's like, you really can't. You just have to like wait till you definitely know you're wrong. And be like, all right.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  See, so that's what I'm wondering. Is there a better, you know, a better algorithm?

• 56:55Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Also, it'd just be, you know, fun, like all, you know, your uncle who is certain that he's always, always right.

• 57:02Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 57:02Speaker 02

  It's a good gift for the uncle.

• 57:03Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that would be, that actually, just the title alone, they'll probably be like, yep, put it down.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  It's basically a beach read for dudes.

• 57:11Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I remember, I mean, it's slightly related, but I grew up doing construction, like a lot of family, family construction businesses. And I remember my, my job this one time was like, I had to run a tamper and compact dirt and gravel. I had to, I think it was like a 97% compaction rate. That's what I needed. So I'm going over like 93, 92, 95. And my, a lot of my uncles are just, you know, done construction for a long time. So like, there's a thing with construction workers and engineers, where construction workers will be like, you don't know shit, man. Like, they do it every time. Like, you fucking, you don't, you, you couldn't possibly use your book smarts to like, you know, your blueprints are wrong. There's like, there's always, they're always going back and forth. So there's, there's just this young kid, he was

• 57:55Matt McCusker?

  that he was the engineer, probably intern. And he's just, he had, every time I would compact it, he had to stick this probe down into it and measure the compaction rate. I remember my uncle just stood over him the whole time and be like, so dumb, what are you doing? And it was just kind of just like going back and forth. And eventually, I remember him be like, you're never going to get 97. Just like, he was like, I know for a fact you're never going to get 97. And then I remember I ran the tamper like backwards across the thing. And then we ended up getting 97. He was just like, that thing's dumb. But there's, the point is that, yeah, as you get older, there's a, I would say, almost a sexual pleasure in being right. I'm telling you, dude, all of my, my dads, if you talk to my dads or any of my uncles,

• 58:36Matt McCusker?

  huge chance they're going to hit you with a story about a time they were right, and the other guy was wrong. And it's just, it's just a five minute story where in the end, like, yeah, so yeah, I was fucking right. So.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It's a guy thing.

• 58:46Matt McCusker?

  It is. It's awesome. Telling a story about a time you were right is, it's a fucking, it's such an insane premise.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Right, right. But yeah, so yeah, you just, you want to be the one who bucked all the idiots and got proven. Like instinctually right somehow, but it's those people are rarer than.

• 59:04Matt McCusker?

  You gotta be alive for it. That's the thing that kills me. I always read about these guys that like, I always think of Emerson. He was out in the woods, just writing about stuff. Everyone's like, what a fucking dumbass. Like, this is the worst guy ever. And then it just, just 200 years later or whatever, they're like, this guy's genius.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  And almost all the, like, the geniuses are told they're wrong. So it's like, how can we spot those guys faster?

• 59:26Matt McCusker?

  I don't think you can, because I feel like once you even start looking for it, and you're like, yeah, it'll just be more just my, it'll just be more group think, and then it'll be a fake genius and.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  So group think, yeah, basically, it's like, I hate group think.

• 59:37Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  I absolutely fucking hate it. And you see it everywhere. You see in scientific institutions are some of like the worst examples of group think.

• 59:45Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  You know?

• 59:46Matt McCusker?

  No, it's, it's, it's really bad. I mean, I, I luckily, it was like a cool experience. I don't know if I really did anything with it, but I got to go back to school in my 30s. I went back, I got a master's in social work, which was like, you know, I would say save your 50 grand, whatever. But the, uh, it's just, dude, dude, anyone, anyone, you can go get one, anyone can get one. You can go get a master's in social work if you basically, it's whatever. But I remember just as an adult going back to school and really seeing those dynamics at play in terms of group think where it's like, it'd be a question that you could literally say anything and they'd be like, huh, I've never considered, like, they, they would, it wasn't like biology, they're like, wrong.

• 1:00:26Matt McCusker?

  And I just, no one would raise their hands ever, like, ever. And then it'd be like, just to, there were certain, you know, things that if you said, the place would spaz and like, I just, I just watched in real time, people just be like, I'm just gonna just agree and just get along. And, uh, yeah, it's kind of terrifying when you think about it. I would say 85% of people, it might be even 90, would just be like, I don't even, don't even bother me with thinking. I just, I just want everyone to be cool and I'm just gonna just sit back and chill and let people dictate what's going on for me.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  And the internet and AI, like, it becomes harder to be an outlier. Like, it'll find, the group will find you now. Like, it's harder to escape the group than it used to be.

• 1:01:05Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I can see that.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  So did those, uh, social work skills? So do you use those for for stand up for interviews? Do you use those in your daily life? Was it useful that way?

• 1:01:16Matt McCusker?

  You know what it was useful for? I I had I was like about to have a kid.

• 1:01:22Matt McCusker?

  Right when I went to social work school and I got like there while there I got definitive proof that you're not supposed to leave your kid in the crib to cry it out. That's like that common folk wisdom like let him cry it out. They'll be fine. They're like, that's bad. It doesn't work. And just like definitely don't hit your kids if you can help it. And I remember just being like, all right, those are two actually decent facts that I have. You know, on the record, because you hear it all the time. They're like, they'll be fine. Let them cry it out. And you know, I. And I, you know, if I had to like tap into my collective wisdom of like family and friends, they'd be like, yeah, it's totally fine. And I. Remember at school, they're like, no, that's just the baby giving up. And you're like, fuck, that's so sad. That's so sad. I mean, I remember. I remember those sleepless nights being like, we can't let him cry it out.

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Same here. Like it is hard to hear that. Like.

• 1:02:07Matt McCusker?

  Oh.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  Every instinct of your body is like, go rescue that.

• 1:02:11Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. And you can do like two minutes of here and there, but when they're just like. Let them do it. It's just like, yeah, it's not, it's not good. Not a good thing. So I got that from it.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Glad to hear that.

• 1:02:21Matt McCusker?

  But hey, thank you. And then I also, for me, it was just cool where I was like. It's just like a personal thing where I remember being like, oh, these are like, this is a master's. I thought I was going to be around like literal geniuses. Because I was like, master, this is like a step away from doctors and like doctors or, you know. And I, it was for me, it was kind of like a peek behind the curtain where I was like. Okay, academia is not the, you know, it's, there's a lot of smart people, obviously, in different fields, doing a lot of stuff. And even in that field, I'm sure. But I remember thinking like, oh, it's like a, it was like a self limiting belief kind of thing where I was like, I couldn't possibly hang around, you know? I was thinking it was like. I don't know. I just thought people would be like. Brilliant beyond belief. And it's like, no, a lot of these people at the top of certain things are.

• 1:03:04Matt McCusker?

  There's some very, very smart people, but a lot of them are just pretty normal too. And it's, you know, so for me, it was kind of like, oh, you can kind of, you can do anything.

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've had that experience a few times too. I kind of feel like, like the process of maturity and adulthood is just getting to each stage and going like. Oh, everyone here is just as dumb as I am, right? So I may as well do this stuff, cause like.

• 1:03:25Matt McCusker?

  That was the, that you just summed up my answer. It was ever, I was like, okay, everyone's pretty fucking dumb too. That's good. I thought I was, I thought I was gonna be around like perfect people. And then it was just like, yeah, no, this is, this is a mess.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, every level you're like, oh, nope, not here either.

• 1:03:41Matt McCusker?

  It's every, every rock I lift, I go, yeah, a bunch of idiots. More idiots, great.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Matt McCusker?

  So, but no, man, I'm excited for you. I can't wait. I'm gonna finish this. I cracked into it last night. And I highly recommend In Defense of Sunlight. It's, uh, again, I like the cold water stuff too. I'm big on the cold and it's, you know, almost like, people can watch it online. They go, oh, more stuff about, it's like, just try it. That's the big thing. It's like, actually try it. It's super simple. I think to put into place and I don't know, there's no downside. It's like, go outside. Now, now for me, it's like, I can be outside in the shade and I'm thinking about little green photons hitting my skin. Amazing. I'm going, yeah, I am fucking peaceful now. This is, this stuff works. And so I think this is a great book. I appreciate you writing it. Is there anything else you have to say? Any more razzle dazzle facts or insights?

• 1:04:31Matt McCusker?

  I mean, they've always their shit kill me. I can't wait. I can't wait to talk about that.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  Um, all right. This is a terrible thing to leave everyone with, but uh, I was just looking at a bunch of studies showing that citrus consumption raises your risk of skin cancer.

• 1:04:45Matt McCusker?

  Okay, hold on. I saw that. So, uh, I saw there was in the attached emails. I thought they were like talking points. I've read it. I'm like, I can't, I can't understand the goddamn stuff. So they were saying citrus.

• 1:04:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Matt McCusker?

  What?

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Matt McCusker?

  I skimmed it being like, he's probably just saying citrus is good for you. So citrus is linked to skin cancer.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  It's linked to skin cancer by multiple studies.

• 1:05:05Matt McCusker?

  So what'd you, what do you take from that?

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  I eat fewer grapefruits these days.

• 1:05:10Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  This is what I take from it.

• 1:05:11Matt McCusker?

  What?

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  It's the combination. Yeah. If I'm gonna, know I'm gonna get a bunch of sun, I won't eat like a grapefruit.

• 1:05:17Matt McCusker?

  Dude, I just planted a lime and lemon tree in Kamikaze.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  There's this thing called margarita burn that like, is well known. Like people go, you know.

• 1:05:26Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  They go to the tropics and pound the margaritas and then they get extra fried the next day.

• 1:05:32Matt McCusker?

  What?

• 1:05:34Matt McCusker?

  From all the citrus.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  From all the citrus.

• 1:05:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, but then if you don't have this vitamin C, you get scurvy.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Well, right, right. It'll keep you from scurvy.

• 1:05:40Matt McCusker?

  Okay, but you're saying.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  You won't get, you definitely won't get scurvy.

• 1:05:43Matt McCusker?

  That's good, but they're saying vitamin C can with sun can.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  It's not the vitamin C. It's this thing called sorolens that are in the citrus.

• 1:05:52Matt McCusker?

  Oh, fuck.

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:55Matt McCusker?

  That sucks.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  I think, I think a little is fine, but don't pound that whole bag of oranges, maybe.

• 1:06:03Matt McCusker?

  I'm dude, look, I'll, I'll be honest. I'm not worried about skin cancer. I'm really not. I just, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  Not many people die of skin cancer.

• 1:06:12Matt McCusker?

  That's what I'm saying. Like you get all the other cancers or you die so much more frequently.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Colon cancer, breast cancer.

• 1:06:18Matt McCusker?

  Bad.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  Those are bad. Lung cancer, the biggie.

• 1:06:20Matt McCusker?

  Eesh, that'd be terrible. Yeah, my dad had skin cancer. They just like blasted his face with lasers.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:25Matt McCusker?

  They're, we were calling him Michael Jackson for a while.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's not, it's no fun. We shouldn't.

• 1:06:29Matt McCusker?

  It wasn't fun, but.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Downplay it too much, but.

• 1:06:31Matt McCusker?

  I mean, I'm gonna downplay it. I'll be honest. I'm gonna fucking downplay it. I got white spots. I go to the dermatologist. Yeah, you're not allowed. I'm gonna fucking downplay it. I get white spots on me every now and again. I go, yeah, photons. Who gives a shit? Let them fucking in there. I'll heal it up. It'll have, I always tell myself by the time I need to, they'll have a cure for that. I'll be fine.

• 1:06:51Matt McCusker?

  Well, dude, I hope your website gets back in order. Um, and I appreciate the insight. That thing of just as we're animals, we made all this stuff up is, that's my new mantra. Honestly, that's amazing.

• 1:07:03Speaker 02

  Well, thanks for having me. This was.

• 1:07:04Matt McCusker?

  Dude, thank you for coming, Ron. Appreciate you. All right. Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's secret podcast on Spotify.

• 1:07:10Speaker 05

  Do it.