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

Support the D. A. W. G. Z. @ patreon.com/MSsecretpod Go see Gabe's Film in theaters @ https://themanwhosavestheworld.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 in ATL tonight @ https://www.shawngardini.com/live helloo. We got cusky back at the podiums this week - with our new bro Gabe. Check out his latest film 'The Man Who Saves the World?'. It's sick as hell, and could be coming to your city soon. See his website for info. Check out his other films as well. Please enjoy. God Bless. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/DRENCHED and use code DRENCHED and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! 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.

• 0:00Matt McCusker?

  All right, we're live. Gabe Polsky, man, thanks for coming.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 0:06Matt McCusker?

  Thank you for coming. I wanted to bring you here. I saw your documentary a while back. I got a little screener copy. Honestly, I said, I'm not just fluffing you. I thought it was one of the best things I'd watched in a really long time. So, "The Man Who Saves the World," that's it?

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:20Matt McCusker?

  Question mark. Not "The Man Who Saves the World," no question mark. That's about a guy who didn't drop the nuclear bomb or something.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's another film.

• 0:29Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Yours is "The Man Who Saves the World?" question mark. Which, dude, it's, I swear to God, I like, I, Brandon, our mutual friend from Raphael, sent it to me and I was like, all right, you know, and I'm like, I'm pretty like precious with my time, so someone's like, hey, do you want to watch this two hour thing? I'm usually like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll watch it. But I read the tagline. I'm like, dang, that sounds kind of cool. Dude, one night, I just, I saw through it, so congrats on that.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's 85 minutes because I know that, you know, the two hours scares people, but uh,

• 1:00Matt McCusker?

  Dude, now I feel like, now documentaries are six hours.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's,

• 1:03Matt McCusker?

  Murder mystery doc.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Everything's long, it's,

• 1:06Matt McCusker?

  I know, but the murder mystery doc, I'm telling you, man, I don't want to start by, on a negative note, but like, dude, I would really like to move back from the six hour, twisty murder doc. It's like, just, I don't need to watch this for six hours. Just give me an hour and 20, hit me with the twist at the end.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  I agree. I'm the same way.

• 1:23Matt McCusker?

  It's like a full workday.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25Matt McCusker?

  I'm signing up to watch this lady get murdered. It's like, dude, hit me with the facts.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:30Matt McCusker?

  Give me the facts.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  They're stretching, you know, they're,

• 1:32Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah, true. But no, I thought your documentary was honestly fantastic. And just to like, I don't know, I don't want to give the whole thing away, but just to recap, I try to explain it to people and I like, I always sound crazy. It's about a guy, who, by, the guy alone could have been, what's his name?

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Patrick McCollum.

• 1:50Matt McCusker?

  Patrick McCollum. I mean, obviously, you could have just done one on that guy alone. His life is crazy. He was a peacemaker, you know? He just does everything, but he got convinced somehow that he was the center of some ancient indigenous prophecy that he was going to, was it save the world or bring everyone back together and thus save the world by saving the Amazon?

• 2:12Speaker 01

  That's right. I mean, the second part, yeah. So, but basically, these indigenous elders from the Amazon came to this guy at a, at like a peace gathering in India, and they said to him, you know, "We think you're this guy in our prophecy that we've had for," You know, hundreds of years. So different, different tribes of the Amazon, they all kind of got together and identified this guy and said, you know, we think you're this guy. And, you know, initially he's just like, I don't know what you're talking about. I, I'm just kind of a regular guy. I don't think I'm the guy. And they basically for eight years kept coming to him and, and, and saying, you know, when are you going to come and fulfill this prophecy of ours? You're going to come and unite the tribes of the Amazon and essentially

• 2:52Speaker 01

  save the Amazon and restore the earth. And after many years, he's just like, all right, like, I guess I'll like, do what I can and go down there and.

• 3:02Matt McCusker?

  First of all, how, that's crazy. He was able to fight that off. I would immediately be like, yes. I, I getting hit with the chosen one is my personal fantasy. So that's crazy. He got to live that out. And it's nuts that he, he was like, no, no, no, no, I'm not, which obviously you're the chosen one. If you're going to be like, no, I'm not the chosen one. It's like, you're definitely a chosen one. So he was, but dude, but then you saw him like, okay, that's first of all, that's a, that's a kind of a wild concept. Then you get into that guy's life and it's like he, it's, that guy was, I've never even like heard of or seen a guy like that.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean.

• 3:35Matt McCusker?

  Most talented guy I think I've ever seen.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that, that's kind of what drew me in. Honestly, the prophecy part of it was just to me, just so bonkers that I was like, this, this is, this guy's a bullshit artist. This is crazy, you know? And I was, you know, incredibly skeptical of it. And then ultimately I, you know, first of all, I started doing a lot of research. I hired a private investigator, you know, to look into this guy, you know, who was saying he's best friends with Jane Goodall. And I, I didn't really believe him there.

• 4:03Matt McCusker?

  I forgot about that. He was buddy buddy with Jane.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, and then I, you know, reached out to her personally and got an interview. And she said, this guy's the most fascinating guy she's ever met. And, you know, one of, and so obviously that vouched for him. But really what, what kind of drew me in was how weird and amazing this guy's life was. He was like the most fascinating guy I've ever met. He's, you know, he was a carny. He was a jewelry designer to, I guess, you know, Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and Russell Crowe. He was a.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  You know.

• 4:38Matt McCusker?

  You say Carney at first?

• 4:40Speaker 01

  A Carney. So he basically at, at 12 years old, he like joined the carnival for like four years. Cause his, his brother got cut in half.

• 4:49Matt McCusker?

  Yes. Okay. Yes.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  And his parents.

• 4:52Matt McCusker?

  It's crazy.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:53Matt McCusker?

  I don't want to laugh, but his brother got cut in half, but yeah, his brother got fucking cut in half.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so he, his parents had to go basically take care of his brother. So he was left kind of on his own.

• 5:01Matt McCusker?

  Yes.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  At 12 years old. And, and so what he decided to do was join the carnival. And there he kind of met all these freaks and married a prostitute, which isn't in the film, but, and, and, and then.

• 5:15Matt McCusker?

  He's like a mythical guy. I swear to God, he's out of a myth.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  It's like Forrest Gump. It's like Zelig. It's like, the guy has literally done everything.

• 5:21Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  He's, and so, yeah, I, I just felt like him alone as a character study. I don't know if you, you sort of like character study of movies or documentaries, you know, just a fat, just him alone. I knew would be kind of fascinating. And then on top of that, you've got this whole prophecy. You've got, you know, indigenous, you know, going into this sort of indigenous world that, you know, most people have no idea.

• 5:49Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  About, you know, and learning about, you know, their wisdom and connection and all that. And then having this guy kind of fulfill this prophecy is just like the strangest.

• 5:59Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Story.

• 6:00Matt McCusker?

  And you, you kind of followed him around more so kind of like fact check. The guy, which I, I could pick up on towards the middle, towards the end of the doc was pissing the guy off. When you were fact checking him and he was just like, well, you don't believe me, dude? You don't believe me? I'm the chosen one to save the world. So yeah, I don't want to give too much away, but it was, dude, the documentary is fantastic. What? This episode is brought to you by AG1. Dude, real quick, gotta tell you guys about this.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I like this.

• 6:25Matt McCusker?

  I like that too. AG1, the healthy stuff I've been drinking recently. Still just one scoop, once a day, vitamins, minerals, probiotics. All this stuff my actual diet doesn't provide. Mixes great, doesn't taste like a fistfight. Packaged travel easily if you're on the road, doing shows or just too lazy to measure anything out, which dude, come on. They also recently came out with AG1 Pro, the same foundation, but with creatine in one simple delicious drink. So if you're someone who trains a lot or wants to get more impact out of your stack, this one might be worth checking out. So hurry up and go to drink AG1.com slash secret pod and for a limited time only get

• 7:07Matt McCusker?

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• 7:19Matt McCusker?

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

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, everyone is different. I mean, this one, I actually really did sleep at his house twice, um, which was pretty wild. I mean, his house, he's got, he's got two places, one in Maraga, California, and one in New Mexico, and they're both kind of really wild.

• 8:07Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, in the, in this instance, you know, it was kind of on and off and, and you know, you, you just, you know, I was kind of documenting him and following him, but it was, it was really kind of on and on and off, you know? So I would shoot with him for, for a few days and then, and then like, you know, maybe a couple of months would pass. I would sort of shape the story a little bit more than know what, you know, something else is coming up. Then I would go and, and shoot that, you know, until I kind of, you know, was trying to wrap it all up and say, where's this going? When is this going to end? You know?

• 8:44Matt McCusker?

  How long?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  That was actually the most.

• 8:45Matt McCusker?

  And you filmed for how long, you said?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  About three years, you know, on and off.

• 8:49Matt McCusker?

  Dang. So yeah, that's gotta be nerve wracking, especially if you're filming, filming, filming. You're like, all right, come on, go meet these guys, go do the stuff. How does you handle kind of like trying to keep him on a timeline with that?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Well, I would constantly ask like, where is this happening? What's happening next? Is the prophecy, you know, gonna be fulfilled? Like, you know, in our culture, you know, we're constantly, you know, we want results, you know? We want, and plus, like, I don't want to be shooting this for like 10 years. Like, I've got other things to do and whatever. So, yeah, I would be, you know, putting a little bit of pressure on, on him about where is this going? And that was kind of the most nerve wracking part of this particular documentary that I made was just that, that it was so unknown where this was going. And I had no, I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you get involved in something, you have just no idea where it's going and you think you're crazy. Why am I doing this? I couldn't even pitch this.

• 9:45Matt McCusker?

  Like a marriage or something?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  You were saying it's so hard to pitch. Yeah, exactly.

• 9:50Matt McCusker?

  I have a little idea. No, a project like that would be, it would drive me insane to not know.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I was literally on the verge of insanity, like.

• 9:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, especially because I, you know, you gotta, I don't know if you've staked it yourself or you have financial backers, you're doing this and it sounds awesome and you're like, fuck dude, come on.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Well, this one, I was kind of on my own because as you said earlier, you know, pitching this story to like Netflix and HBO and places like that, I mean, it's just so far out and so weird. They're not making this kind of stuff, you know?

• 10:22Matt McCusker?

  I haven't seen anything, yeah, I haven't seen anything like that before.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  And so I, even going to investors, you know, they're just, look at me, like, what the hell are you talking about? This is too weird, you're crazy. And so I, I was kind of on my own. At a certain point, when I decided to commit to this, you know, I realized that I was kind of gonna be on my own here. So that, that put a lot of even more pressure on the financial. Also, like, one of my biggest fears is like wasting my time, you know?

• 10:55Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  If you spend three years of life, like, what have you been doing? You know, you talk to your friends and family, like, well, what are you making now?

• 11:01Matt McCusker?

  Tough one to explain.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  I'm just like, yeah, this guy, he's in the middle of a prophecy. They think, they're like, dude, dude, you're, you're out of your mind. You gotta go see somebody, you know? And so, uh, it's been, it's been hard to kind of, but I did see a vision, you know?

• 11:23Speaker 01

  About this film, no matter how crazy it was, I knew that somehow I could weave all these really interesting things together into something really meaningful and funny and really bizarre. It's like a trip.

• 11:35Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  This whole thing's like just going into like a psychedelic kind of weird trip. But that also, I think, you know, gives you a lot to think about afterwards.

• 11:47Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, and especially, yeah, again, it kind of does too. And I'm actually reading a book right now, speaking of the Amazon, about the first conquistadors who like sailed or like went down, I guess in a canoe or whatever, navigated the entire Amazon River. And the author went down there, because he always likes to visit like the historical sites or whatever he's writing about. And he did say, he said the Amazon in particular is like, he's like, it's literally like a magical world. And he's like, you know, there's obviously a lot of it's been like destroyed. But he was basically saying that if we do lose like the rainforest, we're kind of, we're kind of fucked.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:22Matt McCusker?

  Because it's like it like retains moisture and if you knock down the trees and plant different trees, they don't retain the same amount of moisture and it gets hotter and blah, blah, blah, blah. But so hopefully it's true. Hopefully he does the thing because it's like, I don't know. Again, no spoilers, but I was like, you watch it and you go, maybe he did.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:39Matt McCusker?

  Maybe he did the thing.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, that that was the whole thing. I mean, I would go to these, to these gatherings, you know, where he was essentially uniting tribes of the Amazon, you know, and, you know, they would be these sort of smallish gatherings, you know, there'd be, there'd be tribes from various parts of the Amazon and, and, you know, well, let's just say about 100 people, you know, and, you know, I'd be looking at this and they'd be doing, you know, indigenous ceremonial things with feathers, with fire and all kinds of things and connecting with spirits and so on. But from an outsider perspective, you're just looking at this thinking, you know, what the hell am I looking at? You know, this is so weird. This is about saving the world. Is he uniting the tribes here? But

• 13:24Speaker 01

  then I started thinking to myself, how does any business deal or any, even Jesus Christ, for instance, when he was doing his sermons and starting out and talking to people, it probably didn't look like. Anything. It's just him talking to people and doing about some weird stuff and you know, no one, no one would have said, this is the guy. He's gonna, this is happening. Everything happens, even on a big things that end up having these ripple effects that huge, they start off really small and they probably don't look like anything that's special.

• 13:57Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Well, that, that was.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  When you guys started your podcast, you know, it was just you guys in a room and then it becomes.

• 14:02Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Far from glamorous.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 14:04Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that was the, the, the meetups in the hotels where it's just like a 20 person meetup in a hotel convention center. Well, that was kind of cracking, that was cracking me up. It was like, bro, wait, this is the big meeting. I will say what I liked about him too, is that like, he would do those meetings. There, you know, it doesn't look great. There's just a couple people strewn and he would get out and be like, that was awesome.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:25Matt McCusker?

  You're like, that was what we needed to do.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  That's exactly. He's like this insane optimist and every time I would talk to him, it would just be like, literally, he just did the biggest thing ever. And I'd be like, were we at the same place? Like, what is going on here?

• 14:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, no.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  I don't know. Have you met people like that, that are just like so positive and so, you know, almost in slightly delusional way, but it becomes kind of contagious and weirdly self fulfilling.

• 14:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it is. I, yeah. I, I, uh, on my good days, I can kind of do that myself a little bit, but then, you know, I, I slip all the time. I'll just go anywhere to do a show and be like, this is it. I fucked up. I'm done. This is, I'm going to freak out on stage. I'm going to walk off.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:08Matt McCusker?

  Happens to me like 40% of the time. I'll be in the middle of starting a set and I go, well, I'm going to have to leave and everyone's going to be furious and I'm going to go home. I'm going to move back in with my parents. I'm on stage. This is the first like seven minutes and I'm like, I'll just move it back in with my parents. It's no big deal. But, uh, but yeah, I try to persevere. There is something nice about that, especially now where like, I feel like, um, like intense pessimism and negativity is almost like in, in a way where it's like, it's almost cool to be like, fucking world's ending, dude. We're, we're screwed. Everything's done. It's like, I don't, I don't like that stuff, honestly.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't either. I mean, it's such a fight to stay positive, you know, but it's so important.

• 15:47Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, man.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  You know, I mean.

• 15:48Matt McCusker?

  Well, it's like, how do you do it?

• 15:49Speaker 01

  It's everything, dude. And once you start that negative. Talk to yourself, you're, it's really bad, dude.

• 15:56Matt McCusker?

  And, and yes, that's, it's literally like the worst thing you can do, but there's nobody, in my opinion, there's like no emphasis put on the responsibility of not being a gigantic bummer.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:06Matt McCusker?

  Cause if you ever have like a, if you ever had like a, you know, I remember having like regular jobs, 90% of the people I've worked with were like massive, just chronic bummers. Every single person I've worked a regular job with shows up and they're like, shit sucks.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:22Matt McCusker?

  No other way, this is what it is.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Cultural thing.

• 16:24Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, just show up and be like, another day here, this fucking bullshit ass place, I hate this place. Like dude, I just, I just got here. Can we just chill a little bit? So, yeah, I mean, I wonder what people would need though, cause I don't know, I feel like without religion, I don't know what else could possibly stoke somebody day in and day out like that. You know what I mean?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Somehow a mindset. I mean, even like, you know, making documentaries, it seems like the greatest thing ever. Oh my God, you get to tell that story in this one and that one. But on a daily basis, the grind of it and the pressures, you know, it's so easy to get into that negative talk.

• 16:59Matt McCusker?

  Have you ever been, have you ever been tempted?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Even the best things, I mean, they should teach it in schools, you know, about kind of the art of positivity.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Because that's all related to this mental health.

• 17:12Matt McCusker?

  You need it.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying?

• 17:13Matt McCusker?

  You need that. The problem is, it's being delivered by schoolteachers who can be a little negative and nasty. You know what I mean? It's tough. If you're, if you're like a

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:21Matt McCusker?

  27 year old lady being paid 30 grand a year, it's tough to get the kids and be like, guys, life is awesome. Life is great. You guys just gotta believe in yourselves. Cause the teachers, that's, you know, that's one job I would never, I would like to have, but it's a, I don't know if I could do it, man. Especially like, it'd be one thing if you had like other sources of income, but if you're just living on that, like the teachers I've talked to, apparently they just get crushed by the administration because they're like, you have to do it this way. None of it makes sense, but this is that the way we're going to be funded. And every parent is like, dude, you suck. My kids write, you suck, blah, blah, blah. So.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  With coaching too, yeah.

• 17:57Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Similar, about the parents getting involved.

• 18:01Matt McCusker?

  This episode is brought to you by PrizePix. The big game is right around the corner. Once championship Sunday hits, there's only three more football games this season.

• 18:12Matt McCusker?

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• 18:19Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:19Matt McCusker?

  With player picks and team picks, you can pick how many yards the QB will throw. Or who will join Bad Bunny on stage.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Don't do that, Bill. Bill, don't do that.

• 18:33Matt McCusker?

  No intense zoom ups, dude.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  Bill, no intense zoom ups.

• 18:36Matt McCusker?

  Dude, it's out of our contract.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  I don't like the way I look. I don't like the way I look. And what you're doing is that's not right.

• 18:43Matt McCusker?

  It's like an up shirt.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  You're guarantee what? I don't like it.

• 18:46Matt McCusker?

  That's literally like doing an up shirt on a leg.

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• 18:57Speaker 03

  No, hold on.

• 18:58Matt McCusker?

  What specific players you think you're gonna do really well?

• 19:00Speaker 03

  I think Christopher McCaffrey is gonna continue to do well.

• 19:03Matt McCusker?

  He dominated.

• 19:04Speaker 03

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• 19:18Matt McCusker?

  I, I don't know, like the pressure for coaching, I don't know if that's like, is that like scholarship pressure? Like I played sports, my parents are just like, we're happy you're out in the house. They would show up and be like, great.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:28Matt McCusker?

  Scores zero points.

• 19:30Speaker 01

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

• 19:32Matt McCusker?

  Aw, man.

• 19:34Matt McCusker?

  Sorry.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  But I'm saying, I'm just saying, you know, I didn't, sometimes it's a good thing, you know, that your parents aren't there every single.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  I prefer them not to be there, honestly. I didn't, I didn't like, if they came, it was like, sucks. Then like, you know, I would ride the bench for most of, there's nothing worse than your parents showing up and you're on the bench the whole game. And you're like, I'm sorry I brought you guys here.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  I know. I agree. That happened in college a couple of times, you know, when I played.

• 20:01Speaker 03

  You played college ball?

• 20:02Speaker 01

  I played college hockey.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  What?

• 20:04Speaker 01

  At Yale, yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Damn, dude, what the fuck? What position?

• 20:08Speaker 01

  So I was a forward.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  What?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 03

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

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  You don't strike, I mean, again, I'm not saying you're not like rough and tumble, but you don't strike me as a fucking college hockey player. How'd you keep all your teeth?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we wore masks in college, you know?

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, fair enough.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  When you play it professionally, then the masks come off, but.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  Why?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know why they they kept that rule. Maybe they wanted people's faces to stay.

• 20:37Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Until until you play pro.

• 20:40Matt McCusker?

  Thought it's time to take the mask off and show your show that beautiful hockey face.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  For advertising. They need to see the faces.

• 20:46Matt McCusker?

  True for the game. Yeah.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, because if you're wearing a mask, it's not you can't relate to the players.

• 20:51Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's true. So what was the hockey grind like growing up? Because you must have played.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  It was tough.

• 20:55Matt McCusker?

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

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was. It was, you know, like, like anything, just such a huge commitment. But all right, to find ice time in the more oftentimes like when you're a little kid, you have to wake up at five in the morning.

• 21:08Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Before school and stuff like that. I think a couple of times a week.

• 21:11Matt McCusker?

  Damn.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  It was. It was, you know, just like it was just a huge commitment your whole life. You know, you want to be a great player. You want to play.

• 21:20Matt McCusker?

  Did you? Did you cop the scholarship to Yale?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  They don't, you know, they they give financial aid. So if they look at your income and and decide what what they to do with you, you know, you're they're not allowed to just I don't know about now, but back then, you know, that's how they did it. But I got I got offered a couple of scholarships from like Notre Dame and.

• 21:41Matt McCusker?

  Dang.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Other places.

• 21:42Matt McCusker?

  So you're nasty.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  I was.

• 21:45Matt McCusker?

  You don't want to you don't want to your own horn. I get it. So how many documentaries have you done?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  I've done I've directed four and then, you know, made five.

• 21:55Matt McCusker?

  Okay.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:56Matt McCusker?

  What was your favorite one? You think?

• 21:59Speaker 01

  You know, well, this one, they've all been very different. But one that's kind of near and dear, we're talking about hockey. Well, I've done I've actually done several that are somewhat hockey related. But I really love In Search of Greatness, which is about the greatest athletes of all time and about the nature of greatness, told from the perspective of the greatest athletes. And it's really about kind of creativity and about how, you know, most of the greatest athletes from Gretzky to Tom Brady to, you know, Messi, they're they're not what we think they are. They're they're actually.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  On a spectrum of like athletic ability and speed and this, they're actually like worse than the average athlete's strength and speed. Gretzky, let's take for instance, you know.

• 22:48Matt McCusker?

  I didn't know that.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he was, he was like an anomaly. Could barely bench press anything. He wasn't very necessarily fast. He wasn't, didn't have the hardest shot. He was, but he was just because of these weaknesses, he had to figure out, you know, another way to play the game. And he just, you know,

• 23:09Speaker 01

  was the greatest ever by far, you know, because he had to come up with these, you know, compensation tactics. So he, he just thought, he thought faster. The same thing with Tom Brady. If you look at his combine score, whatever. So what I was trying to argue is that I think we, we see sport in a, in the wrong way. We, we're not looking at the right things, you know? And for me, it's all, all about like creativity and sort of what we do with our weaknesses, you know? And, and that we can actually reinvent our fields by thinking about sport or whatever it is in a completely different way. You look at artists, it's the same thing, you know?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  In order to reinvent something, you have to, you know, you know, it's not what you think.

• 23:55Matt McCusker?

  I know what you're saying. It's not all about like the 40 time. It's all about blah, blah, blah.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Totally the opposite. It's about the mind and about creativity.

• 24:02Matt McCusker?

  That's pretty cool. Did you see the movie Inside Out 2? I don't know if you've watched that with your kids.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't think I.

• 24:08Matt McCusker?

  Dude, Inside Out 2.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  About emotions.

• 24:11Matt McCusker?

  Yes. It's all about emotions and stuff, but there's a part in that where, you know, the, it's all about the kid having the motions, the motions get out of control and they gotta find some like equilibrium. And that's kind of like the whole movie, basically. But there's a part in the end of Inside Out 2 where the girl, Josh, you've seen this movie? This girl's having a tough time. Her motions are all out of whack. She's obviously hitting puberty too. So there's like new emotions. And um, there's a part where like it all, like the thing you're talking about finally clicks and it shows that like, she, she's all like gung ho. Like I gotta be the hardest and fastest. And then like she just gained some sort of peace in herself. And there's a thing where she's like skating serenely through the ice, playing hockey. And I, I started to cry. I was, it was just such a beautiful, it stuck with me for three days. Just, I was like, God, man, that was, because there's so much going on in her life. And then she just was like

• 24:56Matt McCusker?

  quiet inside her head and she was able to just like part through, like having fun rather than like gnashing her teeth.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Exactly what the point of this movie is. And in fact, My greatest memories of maybe in life are like playing hockey in an outdoor rink, just skating on my own and just like that, enjoying kind of the feeling of it. And you know, it's magical.

• 25:18Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  And that's what the essence of of life is in sport, too. It's just this free, this feeling of freedom and being able to experiment. And and it's the same with, I'm sure, comedy, too. It's all about just that period of experimentation and and just

• 25:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  unstructuredness about it, you know?

• 25:39Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  That creates.

• 25:40Matt McCusker?

  Well, yeah, once you get in your head, it sucks. It becomes a nightmare if you get in your head like.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  And it becomes ritual, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, duh, duh, duh, duh, you know?

• 25:49Matt McCusker?

  No, I was talking to, um, God, I'm blanking on the guy's name, Kirk Fox. Who's the guy, Kirk Fox is a comedian, he's in LA. And, you know, I was at the mothership and I was just like in one of my little funks where I'm like, I had like started doing newer material, I had to work out the hour and I was just like, you know, possessed being like, this has to be good. Uh, and I would just go on stage and I could, I could feel crowds being like, ugh, because I'd come out like, hey, guys. And they'd be like, you know, this is, that's not what this is about. You should be having fun and making us have fun. And I got off and I was, or I was about to go on and maybe I was between shows and I was just like talking to him. Like, I don't know, I'm just like fucked up right now about all my stuff. And he was like, he's like, looked at me and he's like, who cares? Like, just go have fun, stop being, you know, such a simple.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 26:29Matt McCusker?

  Such a dumb thing, but I like, at the moment it hit me and I was like, god damn it, you're right. And I, I went on after that and had a blast. And I was like, yeah, I was doing a disservice to everybody else by being so self centered and being like, no, I have to be the best, this needs to be great. And it's, it's, it's like literally a scourge, like it's.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  We all fall into that crazy trap, you know? But it kind of comes back to what we were talking about earlier about positivity and, and just kind of having fun with things, you know, and trying to find that somehow. Because you get pulled back. Into that seriousness of the negativity and you know what I'm saying?

• 27:04Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  You can't.

• 27:06Matt McCusker?

  Oh dude, it's literally the worst.

• 27:08Speaker 01

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

• 27:10Matt McCusker?

  No, it affects all things. I'm up the age now, I'm turning 40 in like literally a week and I like, like clockwork now. Like I was, you know, my whole life, I've been so cocksure in terms of erections. And man, like I'm noticing now, I'm like dude, if I even think about anything else while I'm having sex. You know what I mean?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 27:33Matt McCusker?

  Like if anything else enters my field of awareness, if I start going like, what's this like? Is it, it's gone. Not even gone, but it's just not, you know, it's not the dick. It's not the dick. It's gone. And it's like, it's been fun for me now being like, all right, how do I, you know, what do I gotta let go of, you know, and maybe it's just gonna get worse and worse as I get older. But that's a, I swear, that's an interesting one. I've never had that problem and like, I mean, that's like a very, you know, localized example. But you know, we'll see. That'll be my next quest to see if I could somehow overcome that, but it's, you know.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Plus like, you know, if you're with the same person,

• 28:10Speaker 01

  you know, it's a little hard.

• 28:11Matt McCusker?

  What are you talking about? What are you even talking about, dude?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  But.

• 28:20Matt McCusker?

  I'm just powered by the strength of our connection. I have no idea what you're talking about. No, yeah, obviously. It's like, you know.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Sometimes I find that like if you close your eyes and not, not that you still connected to your partner, but.

• 28:31Matt McCusker?

  Turn on the lights and put on earplugs.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 28:35Matt McCusker?

  It does.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Internally and sort of how you're feeling and you know, less stimulus.

• 28:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  So it, that helps a little bit.

• 28:43Matt McCusker?

  I think so. I think so. For me, I just eat pussy and I recharge, but the.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  That helps.

• 28:49Matt McCusker?

  That's the move. I go babe, time out. I need a water break. I need a water break babe.

• 28:55Matt McCusker?

  But I, I agree with you, man. I, it's like, you know, that's if I, if I could somehow, you know, if you think about distilling all of your life's efforts into like one thing, it for me, it really is trying to figure out how to kind of spread the stoke as much as possible. And not even like, um, I feel like it gets a bad rap because there's that like,

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:15Matt McCusker?

  vapid version of that where you're like in the mirror being like, you're a champion. It's like, not that at all. It's like, no, you're a worm. And you're pathetic on some level, but despite all that, you can still transcend that inside yourself and not be a total drag on your own life and, you know, everybody else's.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like when people say, you know, it's, it's, I hear this saying all the time, well, you gotta love yourself. You gotta love it. I, I can't quite.

• 29:38Matt McCusker?

  Did you ever try?

• 29:39Speaker 01

  I do. I, I almost, yeah, it's just a weird thing, you know? So it's, I don't even think it's that.

• 29:45Matt McCusker?

  I, I don't, I don't think.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  You do have to, you don't, you shouldn't like hate yourself and beat yourself up. That's the thing. But yeah, loving yourself. How do you do that? Oh, I love you so much.

• 29:56Matt McCusker?

  It's the weirdest thing. I've literally tried this. I, I was.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  I can't.

• 29:59Matt McCusker?

  I was on LSD one time and like towards the end of it, I got this wave where I was like, I gotta show up for myself. I gotta love myself. And I like looked in the mirror and there's a first thought in my brain was like, shut up. And I was like, all right, my bad. Tried to love you, but you pushed me away. But yeah, I, I personally think, yeah, I think that's one of those things that like, it sounds great. And then you try it practically and you go, okay, sure. Like this is impossible. I personally think you should not beat yourself up like you were saying, and just rather than trying to play some weird mind game with yourself and like loving yourself, just go do something for somebody else. That's the easiest.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  That's a great.

• 30:38Matt McCusker?

  That's easy. I can, I can pump someone else up. I can show someone I love them. But yeah, that whole thing like, love yourself. I don't know where that comes from or like where that even originated. Cause there was no way that's, I think that must've come in like the eighties. Like that was, nobody said that in like the 50s, 60s, 70s, maybe seventies and sixties, but.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  But I do think that love itself is a key to it, you know, that feeling of like, if you can get that right here to, you know, love other people and. You know, to get that feeling for other people and for life and you know, makes a big difference too. It's it's it's similar to positivity or whatever, but that feeling of love is what I think we all crave.

• 31:23Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  And and not to be cheesy or whatever, but there's something to that, too.

• 31:30Matt McCusker?

  For sure. That that was the

• 31:32Speaker 01

  You say helping other people.

• 31:33Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  It's that.

• 31:35Matt McCusker?

  Makes me feel good.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Transforms you, you know, if you could get wake up and then sort of try and channel that feeling of love rather than hate or, you know.

• 31:43Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, or I mean.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  This is what all religions, what all spiritual traditions, you know, are saying, you know, and all the great people from, you know, Gandhi to Martin Luther King. It's the key.

• 31:55Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Seems to.

• 31:56Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  To to to have it, you know, have a good.

• 32:00Matt McCusker?

  For me, it's like, if I want to try to alter my own mood, it's it's such a labyrinth and mind game that it's like, I'm just gonna end up probably having a panic attack. If I like close my eyes and start going like, all right, dude, let's make yourself feel as good as possible. I'm gonna, and I literally did this the other night. I was like putting my kids to sleep and I lay on the floor while they're like getting ready to fall asleep and I like started having a panic attack and I was like, all right, I gotta get out of my head, but I can easily text my wife and like, you look great today. And she's just like, oh, my God, thank you so much. And then I'm like, all right, I feel good now.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:29Matt McCusker?

  But when you try to apply it yourself, it doesn't work.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  You can, yeah.

• 32:33Matt McCusker?

  So what I do is I do really nice things for a lot of people and then I keep score if they do nice things for me. And then I eventually explode on them. It's like, you've done nothing for me. Told you you looked nice 10 times.

• 32:45Matt McCusker?

  But yeah, man, it's a

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, keeping score is is.

• 32:49Matt McCusker?

  Can't keep score. Can't keep score. You just gotta be a

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Especially if you're married, you know, geez.

• 32:54Matt McCusker?

  Can't keep score. You can tell them how hard you don't keep score. That's what I do. I go, look, the other day you left your stuff out. I didn't say anything, but I don't keep score like that, so.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, right.

• 33:04Matt McCusker?

  But that, I mean, marriage is one of those things that like. Yeah, man, it's like, uh, if you really want, I feel like, again, I only know my own self, but I do feel like, let's say collectively, it is like a, um, like a furnace. Cause you and another person, you have different ways on like, this should be done this way. This should be done that way. And in my experience, you either like let go of a lot of stuff or it just fucking explodes. Like there's, there's no other way. You have to, and it's, you know.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  And also you gotta really anticipate that people are gonna change, you know, that, that nobody stays the same. That's not the point of life is to stay the same. It's to, people are growing, they're doing different things and to anticipate that. And then really, I think, make that just commitment to, to kind of go with it and weather it, not, not fight against it.

• 33:57Matt McCusker?

  No, no, I'm telling you, I used to always, always when I was younger, hear people say like, just that similar, like, kind of folksy, happy life, happy life stuff. And I'd always be like, never, I'll never give up. And then you, you hit the point, you go, I fucking give up, dude, I'm done. I'll do, I'll just fucking clean up my plate or whatever you're so freaked out about. But yeah, but it's good. You know what I mean? It's like, it's, it sounds not, but it's like, I don't know. Like, you know what, for me, this is like, kind of different, but like COVID for me, like this whole thing about like being kind to other people. Cause I was like, I'm a nice guy. And then like, I would notice, like, I didn't notice how much I did this before COVID, but I would be in a grocery store and I would like, I would just see a person.

• 34:37Matt McCusker?

  And like my brain, I would, my brain was constructed to like, keep myself somehow above anyone around me in any way I could think of. So I would like see, I would see like a tall, handsome, muscular man. I'd be like, fucking loser, guy's probably a big dork, thinks he's so fucking cool. Guy's literally probably a dumbass. And then I would just see like a lady, like, look at that fucking lady. And I would just do this in my head, like all the time.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  I'm the same, I, not now, but.

• 35:03Matt McCusker?

  No, I would do this all the time. I'd walk around and go, fucking look at this guy. And then COVID heightened it because it was like, people would have the mask. I, I wasn't a fan of it. I was like, I think it's weird. We're all afraid of the air. So I would go out. I wasn't being like super aggressive with it, but like if I was outside walking my dog, I'm not wearing a mask. Like I'm, I'm fine. I'm not worried. We're all far apart from each other and I would get like dirty looks in my neighborhood because everyone was like completely K 95 up. And I had that like it like heightened that thing in my head. So now it was like enemies to me and I was like, fucking look at this fuck. Now I was like really amped up and I remember, I think I was in like a Whole Foods or something and I like, I realized somehow that every time I'd walk past a person and be like, look at this fucking piece of shit. It gave me a bad feeling.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 35:48Matt McCusker?

  And I just, something like snapped in me to where I start, every person I saw, I'd be like, like rooting for them on some level. It'd be like, I wish them the best. And you know, I still have that like, look at this fucking lady's weird ass fucking pants. And I would be like, but I wish her the best. And dude, I get filled with like an incredible sense of peace and ever since I've been, because the whole thing for me is like, even if you see somebody who's like kind of unbearable or like maybe doing something crazy or whatever. Once you have kids, you're like, oh, that's somebody's kid.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:15Matt McCusker?

  So like if my kids are out in the world, God forbid, someone walked past them or like, nice fucking hat dumbass. I'd be so upset. So I started being like, well, I'm going to treat everybody like they're someone else's kid. And you know, and it's like, cause you know, I'm, I would, I would hope their parents would like want them to be treated nicely. And if their parents don't care if they're treated nicely or not, then they need even more kind of like love and care and this or you know, loving, caring, whatever it's called. And

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Having kids really helps with taking that kind of perspective too, especially like with your own parents. Like once you have a kid, thinking about your own parents, how they dealt with you and having a little bit of respect for that, you know, being a dad and having a dad, you know?

• 36:55Matt McCusker?

  Oh, yes.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  And, and other people too, like you're saying, but I don't know what that is. I had that same thing about judging everybody and it's a weird, where does that come from?

• 37:07Matt McCusker?

  I have.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  You can't, even if you're self-aware, like, why did I keep doing that?

• 37:11Matt McCusker?

  You know? I have a theory. I have a theory and it's a, my theory is that, so it goes, I think it goes all the way back to like, it's just a thing in nature. Like if you're an organism.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  You have to size everything up.

• 37:23Matt McCusker?

  Exactly. But if you're an organism, say, and you say, like, there's a bigger organism than you, you're, you have a fear of annihilation instinctively. You're going, this thing's bigger than me. Now I'm going to die. And I think humans have so many dimensions to judge where it's like money, looks, success, what, it's like infinite, like, so like.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Comparing.

• 37:43Matt McCusker?

  So if you, if you sense someone somehow bigger than you, then it's like, you have to somehow cut them down in your head. Cause there's like a weird innate fear that pops up. That's my theory.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:52Matt McCusker?

  So you just walk around the day, all day. And then if there's someone that like, you can just completely slam dunk on, it's probably just a feeling of victory. We're like, this fucking piece of shit. So.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:03Matt McCusker?

  I don't know. That's my theory about that. But it doesn't help you. And the thing is, is you think you get this buzz off it, but I really think it makes you feel worse.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. It's kind of like when you're in grade school doing that, you know, and it starts there almost.

• 38:17Matt McCusker?

  Oh, for sure.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Kids making fun of other kids and.

• 38:21Matt McCusker?

  So.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  You still feel like, when you're an adult doing that, you feel like you're a kid essentially still.

• 38:28Matt McCusker?

  So.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  But I, yeah, I mean.

• 38:32Matt McCusker?

  Well, it's why, I mean, if you're with your bros, it's fun. It's fun to mess around with your bros like that. But yeah, if you're out and like in public around someone who's essentially a stranger and you're like, I, I know a lot of people do this, start just absolutely ragging on people. I'm like, bro, you can't, you can't do that. It's not nice.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:47Matt McCusker?

  But, but yeah, that helped me with social.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Comedy though, don't you always have to be observing and like, it's part of it is picking people apart or their inter-synchronicities and.

• 38:58Matt McCusker?

  I'll, I'll do it.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Part of the.

• 39:00Matt McCusker?

  If I'm, if I'm struggling on stage, I'll sacrifice a crowd member just cause I'm like, I'm not doing well and I'll just absolutely sacrifice somebody. And I know I'm like, this is wrong, but I need this laugh right now and I'm going to make fun of your hat and I want to make you feel terrible right now so that I can continue. And I know it's not right, but it's, you know.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  You're doing it to yourself too, like about your own life and.

• 39:21Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  How, yeah.

• 39:23Matt McCusker?

  Oh, I do that. But if I, if I, uh, that's an easy trick to get a crowd on your side is absolutely just crush somebody in the crowd. And then they're like, all right, any of you guys want this? You better start fucking laughing at me. I will fuck you. No, that's how my, growing up, my family dinners were like that, though. Like, we'd all, I was one of six kids and we'd all sit around the table. And, uh, it was just like, it was a war zone. Like, everyone would start making fun of each other. Our, like, my dad would get involved and, like, he would just, like, it would be one victim. You'd be, if it, the light turned on you, everyone would start just saying whatever they could to just completely humiliate you. And you had to, like, strike out against somebody else and would turn the attention on them. And it was like, it was not, it was like every night at dinner.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  It's probably how your comedy started, no?

• 40:04Matt McCusker?

  Could be, I don't know. But it's definitely, that's, that could be at least where that very critical negative voice came from, because you'd be eating and, like, did you have five other people being like, whoa, look at your fat legs? And you'd be like, fuck. You know, you'd have to fire back somehow. So, it's not the best, but it is fun. I don't know. I, I do think it's fun, though, like, fucking with people, if they're, you know, I don't know, even when they get, when they react negatively to it, it is so much more fun. If you catch someone who takes themselves so seriously.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I know, right?

• 40:34Matt McCusker?

  I, I'm kind of like a bloodhound for that. If I detect somebody's kind of like getting, like, pissed like that, I, I can't help it. I'll, I'll start, like, needling and messing around.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:44Matt McCusker?

  But.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  When I was, when we were kids, yeah, my friends and I would just kill each other. Like, it, it, yeah, I assume it's like in every, you know, in every circle when you're a kid, we'd just kill each other.

• 40:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Over and over. It was, it's, it's part of the whole. And then, but people would laugh, you know? I mean, it's, it's just, it's funny, too.

• 41:05Matt McCusker?

  That, that's a difference. If you, if you gotta be able to take it.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:08Matt McCusker?

  Because that's my, that's my mom's big critique. And my, my dad loves giving it out. But if you get him, he's just like, you guys are asshole. He doesn't, he doesn't like, he doesn't like it at all. Loves dishing it out, can't take it, which I think that's probably everybody, but, but nice, man. So, so the, the sports doc, so you're talking Gretzky, who else, who's, who else is an example of that? There's Tom Brady, Gretzky.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Uh, so Rocky Marciano, who was one of the greatest, obviously boxers ever of his time was like, you know, really short. He had no reach, but he developed this style, you know, where he would just really, like Tyson had this too. He'd get, he basically was undefeated and he would get close and, and basically like hit from up close. He would just keep, you know, get.

• 41:55Matt McCusker?

  Stay in your face. Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. And he was undefeated, but it, his body was like, you know, was not meant for heavy weight boxing.

• 42:04Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? He was, she was short, you know, not very heavy and had a short reach, but developed a style like Lionel Messi. I mean, he, he was also shorter than, than most people. He had this, uh, he, you know, human growth issue where he like wouldn't grow when he was a kid and had to get testosterone, but he was, you know, he, he also developed this flea-like style of like, you know, deaking people and he was so good with the ball and smart. You know what I'm saying? So he had that deficiency, but he overcompensated in other ways. I mean, you go through even Jerry Rice. So he's one of the best receivers in history. He said he wasn't very fast, you know, but he, he basically memorized timing and routes so

• 42:49Speaker 01

  perfectly that it gave him that, you know, competitive advantage because he was in the right place at the right time. He knew exactly when, you know, when the ball is coming. You know what I'm saying?

• 42:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Um, I'm just thinking of others.

• 43:01Matt McCusker?

  That's, that's really nice too, because especially like with little kids, I've noticed it's like, maybe it's always been that way, but it like, I'm just noticing now because I have kids, but there's like a serious paranoia about any even signs of like, is this kid showing any developmental, you know, delays, blah, blah, blah. And people really freak out about that. And it's nice to think like, yeah, rather than trying to like.

• 43:23Matt McCusker?

  Force my weaknesses to become something they'll never become. How can I kind of, you know, adapt and kind of, you know, play to my own strengths?

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Like even like Greg Maddux, I was just thinking, I mean, he was, he's not even in my film, but like same thing. I mean, he was, he sort of doesn't really look like a baseball player. Like he's a little bit schlubby. He's not that tall. He's not that strong, but his accuracy and his ability to understand batters and, you know, was on a whole nother level.

• 43:51Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  It's, you look at every sport, every of the greatest athletes, it's something like that, you know, that's completely unexpected. You know, I call it like Polsky's law, cause it's like everything you see, everything you see is like the opposite.

• 44:05Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  You know?

• 44:07Matt McCusker?

  That's pretty cool. You coined that?

• 44:09Speaker 01

  It's a paradox. I did coin it.

• 44:11Matt McCusker?

  Damn.

• 44:11Speaker 01

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

• 44:16Matt McCusker?

  What?

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Just that I don't like to, to be like a douchebag, you know?

• 44:21Matt McCusker?

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

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:25Matt McCusker?

  You don't do Polsky's law. People are going to take it and they'll call it maybe McCusker's law.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Everything you see is the opposite. Yeah.

• 44:32Matt McCusker?

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

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Everything is the opposite of what you see, you know, what you think. So if somebody's like happy all the time, you know, like, you know, they're, they might be, you know, the saddest people.

• 44:47Matt McCusker?

  Gotcha.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  You've seen things like that, or, you know, these sort of paradoxes of opposites.

• 44:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Like the surface, the thing you present is, yeah, the reality is probably compensating.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:59Matt McCusker?

  Hey guys, real quick, I have some shows this weekend coming up. I'll be doing live standup comedy. I'll be at the, uh, Belding Theater in Hartford, Connecticut, January 23rd. That'll be Friday. Saturday, I'll be at the Egg, the Hart Theater at the Egg in Albany, New York. Uh, both the, most of, both those shows, shows are almost sold out. So please come. And if you want to come, there's, you know, a few tickets left. Also the, I'll be in Las Vegas, then Denver, Boise, Idaho, Salt Lake City, Cleveland. Just go to mattmccusker.com. There's a bunch of other places for tickets. Thank you.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  I'll be in Helium Atlanta tonight, Thursday through Saturday. Please come if you can. If I know the weather's gonna be bad, but I'll still be there. So please come sean gardini com. The link is below. Thank you very much.

• 45:48Speaker 05

  I'll be at Dallas Hyenas, the 23rd, which is Friday, or in Yellow Rose King on Saturday. Panties in the mouth podcast. Come on guys.

• 45:56Matt McCusker?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Dude, real quick, gotta tell you guys about this.

• 46:01Speaker 06

  Oh, I like this.

• 46:01Matt McCusker?

  I like that too. AG1, the healthy stuff I've been drinking recently. Still just one scoop once a day, vitamins, minerals, probiotics. All this stuff my actual diet doesn't provide. Mix is great. Doesn't taste like a fistfight. Package travel easily if you're on the road doing shows or just too lazy to measure anything out, which dude, come on. They also recently came out with AG1 Pro, the same foundation, but with creatine in one simple delicious drink. So if you're someone who trains a lot or wants to get more impact out of your stack, this one might be worth checking out. So hurry up and go to drinkag1.com/secretpod

• 46:42Matt McCusker?

  and for a limited time only, get a free immune support bundle, including omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D3 plus K2 with your first subscription to AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/secretpod.

• 46:56Speaker 06

  This episode is brought to you by Quince.

• 46:58Matt McCusker?

  Nice.

• 46:59Speaker 06

  What do you know about Quince?

• 47:00Matt 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, I'm a big fan.

• 47:11Speaker 06

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• 47:36Matt McCusker?

  It's pretty crazy.

• 47:37Speaker 06

  That's a bargain.

• 47:38Matt 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.

• 48:02Matt McCusker?

  Fair. Did you ever see the guy on, there's a guy on Instagram who does facial scanning? Where he'll be like, they're like, all right, this guy has a this kind of face and you know, he has all these funny names for like tree face, block fit. And it's like, it's not like a derogatory thing. He's like, these are the facial structure terms, but he'll like, he says like, no one's, two eyes are the same. And I'll be like, so he'll cover up the left eye and like the right eye is the eye of the father and that's your secret hidden self. And like, look how afraid he looks in this eye and they cover this eye. And they'll be like, this is the eye of the mother and this is like your, you know, outward personality, but it looks like angry. It's really kind of fascinating. And when you see it, it's like, it's not complete bullshit. Cause like, everyone does have like slightly different looks in each eye. I've been in the mirror non-stop the last couple of weeks, just trying to like, see which side, which eye is wit and like what it says

• 48:47Matt McCusker?

  about me. It's kind of a terror that he like, looks at people's faces and he breaks them down to a T. And some of the people are people he like knows nothing about. And then the producer goes, oh, this guy like killed his entire family. He goes, oh yeah, I told you he looked kind of fucked up. And they, the craziest thing they said, there's a term called, um, I forget what it's, but it's like, it's called whites on three terms, three sides of the eye. So like, when people have a lot of white showing underneath their eyeball, that he's like, that's like a giant red flag. Cause he had, he had done the guy, uh, fuck, I forget his name. The guy who killed his parents, Nick Reiner. He did a facial analysis of that guy. And that dude's eyeballs are like, like you see a lot of the whites under his eye. So I've been on the lookout for that lately. But there's, it's like a Japanese saying for whites under three sides of the eye.

• 49:32Matt McCusker?

  And it's like, kind of a like, if you see that, be careful.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. That is cool.

• 49:36Matt McCusker?

  Sampaku. Is that what it's called? Oh yeah. Sampaku. Whites on three sides of the eyes.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I feel like all the, those serial killers, they all have that look. Yeah. I don't know if we're sort of, if that's a stereotype.

• 49:49Matt McCusker?

  I don't know.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  But they do have, I don't know if it's like, you know, they took too much acid or whatever.

• 49:56Matt McCusker?

  Could be. I, and this, the funny thing was, so I heard about that whites on three side of the eye thing. And I kept saying to myself, like, I, I would, uh, hear of people be like, oh, I just did like a bunch of ayahuasca. And a lot of them would get this wonky look in their eyes. And it's, it's literally, it kind of looked like you'd see a little bit underneath. And I can never like pin down like, what is that about that? But it was like, uh, I don't know.

• 50:18Speaker 01

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

• 50:19Matt McCusker?

  Have you done ayahuasca?

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do I have that?

• 50:21Matt McCusker?

  How do you, no, you don't have that. You have, you're free from, what's it called again? Tonsakit? Yeah. Sampaku. What's your thoughts on ayahuasca?

• 50:29Speaker 01

  It's, well, I, you know, it's very mystical. It's opens kind of like a portal to different dimensions that, you know,

• 50:44Speaker 01

  it's just, it's just, it's very hard to describe, but it's very mystical. It's, it's beyond

• 50:51Speaker 01

  opening a portal to something that you can't experience without, you know, taking ayahuasca. You know, imagine, you know, God or somebody saying, you know, let me just show you this new dimension or several of them of what's possible in the mind. And you're just like, oh my God, this is insane, you know, to have an experience like this.

• 51:14Matt McCusker?

  Sure.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's part of it is, you know, and I can't confirm this, but is the healing, healing of, of, you know, past traumas and you're throwing up, you're purging, you know, you feel better afterwards. It's not that I didn't do it because necessarily I'm looking to get healed or anything. For me, it was more of a curiosity and, and, and just sort of understanding, a deeper understanding of who are we, what are we doing here, what, what is all this, you know?

• 51:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  And it's just, if you're somebody who, who is curious about reality and mysticism and sort of understanding deeper about reality and stuff like that, I think it's, it's fascinating and enlightening in that way. You don't go, I mean, it's definitely still confusing because it's like you're opening into this portal and you're just like, what the hell is all this? This is, this is incredible and crazy and strange. And you know what I'm saying? But it's not, it's not like, oh, here's the answer to life.

• 52:14Matt McCusker?

  For sure.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Some people do say, oh, I was told this and, you know, I met Jesus, I don't know what, what they, happens. And then for me, you know, I can't say that I have a lot more clarity about everything, but it gave me a richer

• 52:32Speaker 01

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

• 52:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know if you've ever, I mean, you get that with mushrooms?

• 52:41Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. That's what I was going to ask you. What, how does it compare to like a super high dose of mushrooms? I don't know if you've ever done.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  It's a different, almost a dimension.

• 52:50Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 52:50Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, mushrooms, you go into

• 52:55Speaker 01

  In one dimension, which is like, I don't know, it's also mystical. You're in a portal, you're seeing things that are, you could never imagine, you know, but ayahuasca is like even a little bit of a different, each plant has its own almost world or something.

• 53:11Matt McCusker?

  Did you feel like out of body or was it, you're just looking around at stuff?

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Kind of, but you're just, you're just in another world. You don't even feel a part of your body. You're just almost going into other dimensions with different, you know, patterns. You're, you feel like almost, and again, and everyone has different experience, but I felt like I was in, in some kind of strange matrix of, of patterns that were, you know, and the patterns would sort of tell you stuff in a way, or.

• 53:40Matt McCusker?

  How many times did you do it?

• 53:41Speaker 01

  You'd have these feeling, you know.

• 53:45Matt McCusker?

  How many times did you do it?

• 53:46Speaker 01

  I've done it like seven times.

• 53:48Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:49Matt McCusker?

  So, yeah, that's been my thing with ayahuasca. I've never done it because I, I talked to people and like, I've done it like 55 times, like literally like 55 times. And I'm like, what, why would you think somebody would do it that many times?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Well, why would somebody, I mean, I don't know, there are people do it for different reasons. Some people, they're just like, they'd like need to get healed or they're trying to get to something and they're trying to, it's a medicine. I mean, some of these shamans or people in the Amazon, they're doing it thousands of times, you know, so for them, that's not a big deal, you know, it's just part of daily life. They, they want to access the, the spiritual realms, you know, they want to be close to that because there's a lot happening right now that, you know, we're not perceiving, we're not seeing, you know, some people can, can be in both worlds at the same time. They can be in this reality, but also experiencing, you know, this spiritual reality at the same time. The question you asked was why do they need to do it that much?

• 54:48Speaker 01

  I've also noticed that people can do it a thousand times and, and they're still kind of the same, you know, which is, I don't know, are you trying to change so much or?

• 55:00Matt McCusker?

  I see what you're saying. It's like looking at it from like a cure perspective where it's like you hear that.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  I've seen people get better mostly, you know, mostly you get better.

• 55:09Matt McCusker?

  That's cool.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Of a person.

• 55:12Matt McCusker?

  That's nice.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, so if you're somebody that is just like constantly depressed or

• 55:19Speaker 01

  has negativity, just, you know, generally.

• 55:23Matt McCusker?

  Well, Will Smith.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  They're better.

• 55:25Matt McCusker?

  After the slap, I think he had done ayahuasca like 30 times.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Really?

• 55:28Matt McCusker?

  I swear to God, he did. He came out of the ayahuasca portal and just slapped Chris Rock right in the face. I could be, I don't want to be wrong about that, but I read his book and he was like that. He was, he claimed like that was something that came kind of for like the right time for him. Um, but yeah, that makes sense. So it's not like a cure all, but it definitely, cause I, I agree with that. Like with like, you know, just doing like mushroom. I've only ever done like mushrooms and acid and stuff.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Have you done it like in a party setting or more just like, look, I'm going to go deep. I'm going to go on my own and.

• 55:58Matt McCusker?

  I, I don't like the party setting.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  I don't like that.

• 56:00Matt McCusker?

  Although I took acid at a concert and it was awesome, but that was sick. But the, um, but I prefer to like lay down somewhere quiet and do it. That's how I did the mushrooms and it was like, it was awesome.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:10Matt McCusker?

  It's great. For, for me, it's like, it's awesome. It really does like shade. For me, like in the, the experience of it, you're like, oh, I've all, I figured it out. But you're in it. You're like, I figured it all out. But in reality, for me, it does like shave edges off slowly. So maybe I answered my own question. That's why I do it 55 times. It does feel like it like shaves off edges slowly, but you know, it's like a

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:29Matt McCusker?

  2% like once you, weeks later, once you're like the afterglow, all that stuff wears off, you're like, you're like, I'm still the same, but it has like shaved off a lot. Like the mushrooms.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  It works your subconscious, you know, really.

• 56:41Matt McCusker?

  It, it helped. The mushrooms helped for me realize how much, I didn't realize how neurotic I was. I always knew I wasn't like, you know, you know, like not neurotic. But when I took those mushrooms, it was like the five grams. I like laid in bed, had a whole thing and kind of blindfolded and all that. And I, the day of, I was like picking out clothes, like they're all right. What am I? I'm going to like, wear something comfortable. And there was like, I was looking in my closet and there was like stuff I had gotten a long time ago from Goodwill. And I would look at shirts and like, that could be on a, that could be like a dead guy shirt. And I was like, I'm not wearing that today. Like I, I didn't realize. And then when I did it, it was like, it just really just kind of like,

• 57:19Matt McCusker?

  I always tell people, it feels like there was like your, you know, like your own frame of awareness is like a football helmet you can't take off. And it was just like, take it off. And I got to like, look at it. And I was like, dude, I'm fucking nuts. And then I was like, oh, fuck. And then, uh, but it was good. And then like, or I'd like wake up in the middle of the night to pee and I'll, I'll just get like rushed with the most insane thoughts of like, I gotta get it back to bed right now. If I don't fall back asleep, I'll put it. And it's like, it just kinda like deadened a lot of that stuff, which was, that was like, nice.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's hard to, sometimes you'll, you'll feel like you've got the key to life. It's right there. I, I, I figured it out. And then literally like two seconds later, you forget.

• 57:55Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  What just happened? You forget.

• 57:57Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Everything. It's amazing. You, you have the most incredible experience and you know, a day later, you just can't remember anything.

• 58:05Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's kinda, that's.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Weird thing, but it does go in, into your subconscious.

• 58:09Matt McCusker?

  That's true. And I, I do think it'll be nice. Said this before, but it'll be nice for, uh, for people now who are like, have to confront death. You know what I mean? Like when you're getting older, it's like, yeah, like that, that's gonna be a godsend. Cause before it was like, you just had to like smoke cigarettes. Like watch TV and that's like a really gritty way to like die. You know what I mean? To try to like contextualize your death and like come to peace with it. So yeah, I think that'll be a good thing for a lot of people.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  I think that like, did you get this sense when you did psychedelics that like somehow you're, this is where you're going? Like after you die, like into this kind of dimension or?

• 58:48Matt McCusker?

  No.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  That it kind of would prepare you for?

• 58:51Matt McCusker?

  I didn't get that feeling, honestly. I honestly, I just more so get stuff of like, you know, mine's more about like life, about like, this is just kind of what life is and you know, blah, blah, blah. But the, uh, but no, I've heard people say that with DMT, like, oh, like now I know like.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  It did feel like that with ayahuasca that like somehow that I'd been to that place before this weird dimension that I've been there many, many times, you know? And so I do feel like that I, that might be where, where you're headed, you know?

• 59:23Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's plausible. I mean, I, I get it. I don't know. I, I agree, man. That's the one thing of like, just having some form of. Religious or spiritual sentiment, like sentimentally, whatever sentimental, I don't even know the words. Uh, sentiments is the word. Just having something to be like, I'm not going to die and rot in the ground for nothing. You know what I mean? Like it's my life is a meaningless, like that's, it's so bad for you. And I remember reading, uh, I think it was Carl Jung was saying that like, he had, I think that's how AA kind of started where he, he met, whatever the guy's name was, Bill W. And told the guy, the guy was like, dude, I've tried everything to get off alcohol. I don't know what to do. And he was like, yeah, dude, you're like 35. Like if you don't somehow come to grips with like some concept of God, you're toast.

• 1:00:08Matt McCusker?

  And he's like, every person I've ever worked with, that's kind of the X factor. If you're like 40 and you're like, I'm a staunch atheist. He's like, yeah, you're going to be depressed though. So.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:16Matt McCusker?

  Good luck.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  I kind of agree with that. Yeah.

• 1:00:19Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Or yeah, some, some spirit, some creator, some, something. I mean, you know, I mean, we're here for some reason. I mean, you know, we're, we're, we're.

• 1:00:29Matt McCusker?

  What's funny, people like this is a childish superstition. It's like, I can face it by myself. It's like, fucking good luck.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't.

• 1:00:35Matt McCusker?

  I can't handle that.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Matt McCusker?

  Well, yeah. Well, that's cool, man. That's a, how long, when did you start doing, like, when did that kind of come into the mix?

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Um, I think actually during this process of making this film, uh,

• 1:00:50Matt McCusker?

  That makes sense.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But I've always been super scared of it because when I was like 12 years old, I, I smoked pot, you know, and, uh, I totally freaked out and thought I was crazy and just like for a good six months, like, I had a panic attack and was still like, just in shock. It totally tuned me up. And I was just like, what the hell? You know, it was devastating. So after that, for, for like 20 years, I was afraid to do anything like, wow, if pot, you know what I'm saying? Like,

• 1:01:24Matt McCusker?

  Oh, so you went from like, no, anything.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Nothing, nothing for like, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, alcohol and stuff like that. But because, you know, I thought weed was so like, insane for me of an experience and shocking and.

• 1:01:38Matt McCusker?

  What was the bug out like at 12? Cause I used to smoke weed when I was younger and I was chill.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Wow. And later. No, it was, I did do it one time and it was chill. Then I did it again and I just completely lost it. Like, it was just like a panic attack. I, I wasn't prepared for the.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  For the psychedelic aspect of it. I mean, it was just like really, you know, I did a lot, like a lot of hits, you know, and just everything it was like this. And I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was going crazy, literally for whatever. And it was so traumatizing that for, for months, I was just like, is this real? Is this, what is going on? You know?

• 1:02:16Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  And no one knew like what to do. They thought I was like crazy.

• 1:02:20Matt McCusker?

  And you couldn't tell your parents?

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I, but I just, I did tell them.

• 1:02:24Matt McCusker?

  Did you really?

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Cause I was just like, you know, I need to go to the hospital. Like this is

• 1:02:29Matt McCusker?

  dang, what'd they say?

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Something's wrong with me. They, they had no idea what to do. I mean, gradually they, it's dissipated.

• 1:02:35Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  But I still never felt like my old self. You know, and it really kind of tuned me up and made me feel like very vulnerable.

• 1:02:43Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  And that's all right.

• 1:02:45Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that, uh, dang, that's crazy.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  And so since that point, I was like terrified of losing my mind, you know? But ultimately I gained enough courage, you know, in the last few years to like, you know, I was just so curious that I wanted to,

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  to try it. And I kind of started to

• 1:03:04Matt McCusker?

  That must've been terrifying though.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Like absolutely, like, and I think everybody's a little bit terrified of these, you know, these plant medicines or mushrooms, because you know, everyone's afraid of losing their mind, you know?

• 1:03:16Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. True.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

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

• 1:03:24Matt McCusker?

  It's rough. Yeah. I've been, I've been just for like, you know, as you're doing a podcast, you go, I might, I might, I should know like what's the top 10 news stories right now? And I've been like grocking, being like, yo, what's hit me with the top 10 news stories?

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:38Matt McCusker?

  So scary. Everything you read is like really bad.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Matt McCusker?

  It's like, fuck, this is, you know, and it is, it is funny. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, we should just get along, but it's like, it's gotta be something we can do. This is, this is kind of nuts. You read every story. It's just like, the technology's too good. We can't keep fighting. The technology's too strong. Get into like bioweapons, all this other shit. And it's like, dude, we gotta be nice. That's literally, we're, we're gonna die. We're all, we're all gonna die in like a hot nasty flash. And it's gonna be pretty, pretty sad.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  And going back to the movie, I mean, you know, I guess what I learned was that a lot of these indigenous prophecies kind of were all saying the same thing. So for the past like hundred thousands of years, they've been saying, you know, At this time, the world would be going through incredibly

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  difficult place, like cataclysmic kind of things and that it will be in such a bad place that, you know, we're going to really need indigenous wisdom. Go back to the original, they called the original order, you know, the go back to the origins, you know, of indigenous wisdom in connection to the earth that we're going to need to to basically save ourselves.

• 1:04:56Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  You know, part of that is connection to, you know, the earth, listening to the earth, listening to all what's going on and then behaving in the, in the, in the right way. I don't know, it's

• 1:05:08Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I mean, it's fair. Especially here, we're going to run out of water. It's like, fuck.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Matt McCusker?

  Three quarters of the world is all water.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Matt McCusker?

  Fucking use it up. But yeah, that's a, yeah, I mean, I, I, the thing that freaks me out is I think human beings need a cataclysm. If you're not going to like completely like rock your socks with psychedelics, it's like, well, reality is going to reach a fever pitch so hard that like, it's either going to make a plague. You know, we, COVID was like a minor, that was like a little bit, but like, I mean, it's nothing like, you know, like the Black Death in Europe. That was like a real kind of rock your socks moment. COVID was like scary, but you know, it wasn't like, you know, a ton of kids dying. It was still like the elderly, which is like, you know, sucks, but it's not like as gripping, I would say, as like every, you know, 10th kid fucking dying, which is like, maybe we'll never have that again because of medicine, but,

• 1:06:00Matt McCusker?

  but yeah, it's a, I, I do worry that humans need another big old cataclysm to kind of like be like, all right, all right, all right. And that I think now, like, God knows what that could look like. If it's not a natural disaster, if it's like a manmade cataclysm, could be, that could be rough.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Matt McCusker?

  And it's for like, for what? It's like, you know what I mean? Like what are, what are we, what are we doing here?

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, the, the reality is definitely getting weirder and weirder, you know? Right now.

• 1:06:31Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  The world is, it's just.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  And understanding reality, understanding, you know, what to believe, you know, that's kind of, these are big themes in my movie too. It's just what, what stories do we choose to believe? What, what do we believe in this kind of chaos, you know?

• 1:06:47Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:06:50Matt McCusker?

  It's true. Yeah. Again, I just read the news now and I just pray none of this is true. I hope it's all fake. I hope it's staged to scare me. That's like best case scenario. Then you look at it like, no, these are probably a bunch of psychos fighting and you know?

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:02Matt McCusker?

  We shall see. But Gabe, thank you, brother.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Thank you, man.

• 1:07:06Matt McCusker?

  Dude, definitely go check out the movie. It's called The Man Who Saves The World? Question mark. And it's, dude, I, I'm telling you, I liked it so much. I was, as soon as I watched it, I was, I was talking to Brandon. I was like, dude, this is, this shit was awesome. Where the fuck, where'd you, where'd you get this? So what, you did a theater run in it, right? You released it in theaters?

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we're still, we're still in theaters. We're doing basically like a tour, like a comedy, you know, comedy tour. We're basically, you know, been all over the country and, you know?

• 1:07:32Matt McCusker?

  So people-

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  At the end of the month where we're doing four cities, you know, we're, we're doing San Francisco on the 27th and then Oakland on the 28th and then Boulder on the 30th.

• 1:07:43Matt McCusker?

  This is January?

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Aspen, January.

• 1:07:45Matt McCusker?

  Okay. Nice. And then from there, what are the plans? Just keep-

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So then, so we're, we're kind of building, you know, this grassroots, um, you know, brand, you know, audience swelling and, and then ultimately, you know, it'll be more widely available, but-

• 1:08:01Matt McCusker?

  Cool.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

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

• 1:08:06Matt McCusker?

  Nice. What do you, what do you have? Uh, you have anything down the pipe or?

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Wouldn't it be in Austin, by the way, February 26th?

• 1:08:12Matt McCusker?

  There you go. Nice, man. Do you, do you have any other projects you want to work on?

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  You know, I'm so focused on just taking care of this that, that it's kind of my main focus right now. It's just making sure that this is released well. And, and then, yeah, I've got, I've got a bunch of other things I'm, I'm sort of thinking about.

• 1:08:30Matt McCusker?

  Cool.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Matt McCusker?

  All right, man. Well, dude, thank you.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Thank you, dude.

• 1:08:34Matt McCusker?

  Of course.

• 1:08:44Speaker 07

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• 1:09:14Speaker 08

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