Category: General Interest

How To Live 101 with Andy Andrist

The Strongest Man I Know Delivers A Holiday Message

Andy Andrist has been through more than it would take to break most people. Every one of us has had some hardships and trials to deal with. Andy has had more than his share and then some and maintains a sense of humor, combined with a sense of purpose to face life”s hardest challenges in a way that should be a lesson to all of us.

Andy’s family back story includes nightmares of pedophilia, rape, a severely disabled father, hard core drug use and alcoholism, career disappointments, economic hardship and enough drama to fill an entire season of Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer combined.

One week prior to Christmas, his daughter was the victim of a smash and grab burglary, resulting in being robbed of presents intended for her students and having Andy’s car window broken with damages not covered by insurance deductibles. Merry Christmas. 3 days later he was diagnosed with having one of the more challenging cancers to treat. He handled it all with grace and his unique brand of dark humor.

On Christmas eve. he joined  me for the morning show to talk about his situation and how he is focusing on being at his daughter’s wedding as motivation and inspiration for beating his current Goliath. I am proud to know this man and call him a friend.

Oh and, he happens to be the single funniest comedian alive today.

Like most independent entertainers and normal workaday folks in the USA, Andy’s healthcare coverage only covers him when he doesn’t need it. The last thing he needs in his battle with cancer is stress about going deep into debt. Please help ease that burden.

Use Venmo or Paypal to send directly to andyandrist@yahoo.com

https://www.patreon.com/Issueswithandy

Transcript:

matt nappo 1:02:56
Where were we ah, there he is. He’s got some very close up thing going on. It will say Oh, whoa wait.

Andy Andrist 1:04:45
Holy fucking yeah the angle 30 pounds to your flannel.

matt nappo 1:04:51
is gonna say you look like you’re playing Santa nail. You swallowed Andy Andrist, Santa.

Andy Andrist 1:04:56
Yeah. I keep this I get the hat out for Do I do sort of like what you do for Christmas Eve, I haven’t done it for a few years. But it started as like a pitch on the man show is like, Let’s deliver a beer to the homeless. Like, it was like, you know, the beginning of one of the wars, and was sort of a, you know, timely pitch. And they know, they, they came up with every reason why we, you know, like, like, for instance, what if one of the host gets picked by a homeless guy? Well, if it’s Rogen, it’ll be fucking great TV.

matt nappo 1:05:31
I don’t know, I saw it on fear factor, and he was trying to break up a fight and he looked like a pussy, to be honest with you.

Andy Andrist 1:05:39
I doubt he would be like, down with get bit by a homeless guy, you know. Now, he just takes some horse medicine and he’d be fine. back then. So I don’t know, it was a few years after the man show. And now the you know, the pitch was going to, we’re going to deliver beer to the homeless, and then the idea grew. And then we’re going to like give them you know, disposable cell phones, they could call family, it turned into it would have been a pretty nice idea. And it never would got past the lawyers. So I was home and I had a bunch of shit beer, you know, leftover from summer, whatever. And I got it all in the freezer. And I went around and handed it in, I got a bunch of like the whiskies and you know, any booze that had been stored for a while that I wasn’t going to use fucking homeless people will, you know, they’re not going to go, oh, I can’t use this cooking brandy. No thing so but it was kind of a It was cool. And I did it, you know, it’s just gonna drive and and, you know, it’s, it’s like every red flag you could put up the, the cool part was she was getting out and hand and beard it you know, they think, oh, it’s gonna be somebody with a toothbrush and some soap or like, Hey, man, you want to get fucked up? I got some beer and some shots. And you know, and then I did it for years. And then I started adding food to it, thinking well, I’m getting camera shots and all the you know, I’m kind of exploiting them for my own entertainment purpose. So I pizza. And, and you know, so there’s like families or you know, there’s kids that are homeless and aren’t ready to start drinking. If your

matt nappo 1:07:20
Carl made the point this morning, and I agree that what do people for if you can’t use them for content, but the point about homeless people will take anything was made. I think last summer when you were handing out tuna fish sandwiches in the middle of the summer with no refrigeration after like 24 hours.

Andy Andrist 1:07:35
Well, those were the ones those were the ones they wanted what they you know, they cuz if you’re homeless, you’re already fucked. So you might as well get food poisoning, and call it good. Or as James James, my friend put together peanut butter sandwiches, which, uh, you know, if you’re homeless, you can put that away and have it, you know, the tunas. And I think this is why they were more popular is the tuna you just eat right away. Like, you know, I was presenting it and James was the one who had the idea and peanut butter sandwiches. And then I was like, fuck that. I’m gonna upgrade and go, Hey, would you rather have a peanut butter sandwich or a tuna? And they’re all almost all of them said, Yeah, tuna.

matt nappo 1:08:13
Wow. Wow. Well, good. You know, and that’s great that most people would think well, that’s just he’s just being kind of making fun of the situation, but you’re helping out and you. Yeah. humanitarian effort.

Andy Andrist 1:08:28
In fact, on that one, we really didn’t get many, you know, pictures. I went to this I got all these cans. You know, I haven’t been to the you get 10 cents a can and sign up, throw him away. I just bagged him up. And I had like six big garbage bags full of them. And thinking, well, maybe I’ll use some of this to finances pizza, homeless? Nah, fuck no, there’s these twin brothers. They’re like 6263 Even they’re just lanky fucking guys. And they work a grid, picking up cans. Like you’ll see one up here and the next street over the other one and they kick ass as far as you know, if you’re gathering cans you don’t like these guys, because they’re fucking the Trumps of can gathering and Trump’s the bad. You know, the Trump’s aren’t good at anything. So that’s not even the apt, but why would

matt nappo 1:09:21
they be Out Stealing cans from homeless people just need them just to make sure you don’t get anything

Andy Andrist 1:09:27
technical, or they run the machines where they cash them in and take the money and, you know, send the dog out. But so I’ve done that I’ve given this guy like a few bags of cans before I don’t know their twin brothers, so it could have given them to his brother, but a few years ago, and the guy just made me feel great for the fucking gesture. You know, it’s like, here’s, here’s 60 You know, dollar 60 And he’s like, but I gave him you know, probably 50 $60 worth of cans yesterday. And in the fucking guy, you know, he fucking squeal. You know? is just so happy and you know about it. And then you gave me a hug, I took a picture of, you know, the two of us, and I can’t, I’m not going to post it because I don’t want to say, Hey, I, you know, but it just, it just that gesture, you know, I had those cans, I didn’t really want to take them in, but I also knew, you know, there’s, these fucking guys will appreciate it. And some say they smoke crack, or crystal meth. And the teeth on this gentleman would suggest that, you know, they definitely some hard times or whatever. But if I’m out, you know, living on the streets with my brother, picking up cans, that’s just like winning the lottery. So when his brother shows up, they’re like, you know, they gotta go, I think you can only get $35 at a time. So they probably take them and you know, shifts and work, or kuntang or whatever. But at the end of it if they smoke, some crystal meth and that gives them a little, you know, rip and a happy buzz on the holiday, then fucking mission accomplished. Those guys aren’t gonna be here forever. And neither Meyer, any of us and it’s like this fucking disconnect between people like that train picture. It’s just some people. It’s like a humanity test. Some people see Oh, my God, these people are fucked. And you know, I don’t think I could live around a big homeless population like that, because I got fucking walking empathy.

matt nappo 1:11:22
But in LA, for the mantle, you had to live in LA, right?

Andy Andrist 1:11:26
Yeah, yeah. And it’s just like it was. Yeah, I brought one guy. I forget how. Anyway, I brought one guy into the man show a lot. Like, oh, yeah, we’re pitching it. You know, like, this is my actor I’m bringing in and I just let him use the facilities. You know, like, you know, and I think I call down wardrobe and got, you know, so they come in shave him wash him. I didn’t, you know, he did all that on his own. And then I just called wardrobe. And let’s say, you know, hey, we’re working on a thing. We need a pair 32 under underpants and some pants. And I do those kinds of things. You know, I usually like help somebody at someone else’s expense.

matt nappo 1:12:05
Yeah, my wife had a thing where she would and she still wants to do this a lot. bringing it home with people. Oh, they’re only going to stay, you know, till they get on their feet. Well, that ends up being a year, two year three years. And then they rob us. And, and we call the cops on him and the cops are mad at us for taking them in. Like basically, what Yeah, homeless people, what do you expect, you can’t be bringing these people in your house.

Andy Andrist 1:12:31
They weren’t born. They weren’t. I mean, most, for the most part, most of our born homeless, right? And regular people, and they just got fucked up along the way are like these brothers. You know, it’s like, I’ve been intrigued with these guys for years, like, you know, like me and my brother gathered cams back in the day, and he’d fucking rip me off and we’d fight. And eventually, both of us gravitated towards other aims in life. But like, these are twin brothers, they probably they look like they could have been athletes back in the day. I’m sure their parents didn’t see him going into fucking gathering up cans. And but if I was their parent, at least I would be like, god dammit, you guys are the best. You know, if they smoke math, it does not interfere with their fucking in fact, that might enhance their ability to get cans. You know, somewhere along the line avoid stop coming home for Christmas. And they, you know, they do what they do. And hell I you know, I I’m not going to judge anybody. I mean, if I was out on the streets, I would be looking for fucking quick. Hi.

matt nappo 1:13:39
Oh, yeah, I would I don’t know. Especially here. I mean, if I was on the streets, I would be in Key West. That’s the immediately go down, man. Yeah, you

Andy Andrist 1:13:51
want to Well, you want to go to the warm miss most liberal place you can find and that’s why a lot of them are in LA. or San Francisco or whatever. It’s, you know? Yeah, you know, I’m intrigued by you know, Midwest homeless. It’s like goddamn when health you know, yeah, I would have a sign that says need a bus ticket. There you start building incrementally but just me walking Cago Milwaukee being homeless in Milwaukee is like Fuck yeah. You know,

matt nappo 1:14:23
and scary thought holy.

Andy Andrist 1:14:27
Yeah. Yeah, he wants you know, you walk around with fucking brown feet. You know, fucking your hair gets all dreaded out. And you might just be a completely mentally unstable low life but Keywest you might get also be accepted as a fucking guru. You know, there’s so many fucking Ritchie’s there, you know, takes us one or two of them to to finance a sidewalk Jesus.

matt nappo 1:14:56
Well, I was just thinking I could probably walk into Westbeth but Oh, Baptist what is Westboro Baptists? And tell them I’m the second coming and they might even believe me. Yeah, I’m here.

Andy Andrist 1:15:09
Yeah, I went by that church. And there was a, like, I think there’s a Dairy Queen, something I saw excited to, like a woman with one leg, a big moo, moo. And she ordered food up there and ate, what she couldn’t, you know, like the she had an ice cream cone and bags of food. So she jammed the ice cream cone, and then did a wide swing around with her leg, the wheelchair and the bags, and you know, kind of, I didn’t order anything to eat, see, and hurry filled me up. And then across the street, there was a group of kids protesting tobacco. I was like, it must have been an off day or whatever. But it’s like, you know, they just like it’s, it’s part of their whole fucking thing. What are we protesting today? I don’t give a shit. Just hand me my sign. I’m against it.

matt nappo 1:16:01
You got to be pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel when you get to tobacco these days?

Andy Andrist 1:16:06
I know. Yeah. But it was like a group of kids. Like, they don’t give a fuck, you know, kids bought, you know, it’s like, you got to go back about 10 years to have kids who are genuinely genuinely upset or concerned about their parents smoking maybe 2030 years ago. You

matt nappo 1:16:25
know, I don’t want to make light of your situation. But you mentioned a homeless guy hugging you any concern that you’re already dealing with some health issues, and that might be not the best

Andy Andrist 1:16:39
for you? I haven’t, you know, I don’t know how I feel about the homeless and their backs, you know, but I did not ask for a VAX card. I should have said, Hey, man, you’ve been boosted. And I’m not talking about that shit. You inject yourself? The real shit? No, I didn’t. I thought about that early on. Like I have this a case called hobo Danny around. He calls himself hobo Danny, and I’m not sure what happened to hobo Danny, I think he may or may not have disappeared. And somebody went into his account, but early on in this thing. He saw me down there. And he’s like, oh, you know, I had a mask on. He goes, You’re not buying this bullshit. Are you? And I don’t know, man. And he. And then he wanted to smoke weed with me. And I was like, usually that would be fine. And maybe not. No, but yeah.

matt nappo 1:17:31
If it’s that kind of situation, I will roll you one and roll me one now.

Andy Andrist 1:17:39
Right now, for a while I had like that, you know, alcohol wipes by my pipes. Like

matt nappo 1:17:50
Did the doctor give you any kind of you can’t smoke weed shit or no?

Andy Andrist 1:17:55
Well, if you don’t ask, I don’t you know, like, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

matt nappo 1:18:00
Ask them Oh, quit. Yeah. Merry Christmas.

Andy Andrist 1:18:04
Christmas. Yeah, I feel like no one I did a lung scan. That was the last thing I did a couple like, early this week. And, boy, I’ve never been more nervous about test results in my life than okay, they’re, they’re taken. So far I got this cancer or what they’re calling a cancer and it’s in one tiny spot in my bio duck. But they’re taking a look at my lungs. And the lungs are the ones

matt nappo 1:18:33
I get it, man this

Andy Andrist 1:18:36
ship. And so, you know, she called up and I you know, I just kind of took it as Oh, she’s saying I’m fucked. I go, oh, god damn it. No, really? And she goes, No, no, this is good news. And I don’t even you know, she’s like, we did your lungs. And there’s, you know, there’s no I think she said there’s no malignant, you know, there’s no, whatever, but I just heard, you know, I was expecting the worst. So I just really, you know, because if my lungs or if there’s cancer anywhere else, you know, I’m gonna I’ve got a I haven’t started it yet. But I have a wish list for hospice. And if I find out I got cancer anywhere else, it’d be better to just get them the list early. Because some of that wouldn’t be hard to find. You know, horse tranquilizer sure ketamine and, you know, all the usuals but I might want to explore down the list a little.

matt nappo 1:19:33
Yeah. And call Rogen quickly and say, you know, what do I need? What do I do doc?

Andy Andrist 1:19:38
human growth hormones. You got anything to sprout hair up?

matt nappo 1:19:43
Well, that’s great. If you get a lung scan and the worst news they deliver is Oh, you got to switch to Indigo from sativa right.

Andy Andrist 1:19:53
And I have I have done a little that just so for, for sleeping. And I sleep all right. I or whatever but it’s like you know I haven’t really embraced that difference between I’m a sativa guy and I don’t get why you know but now that I want to just shut some shit down yeah indica is great I got an indica edibles and even a couple of green green indica buds

matt nappo 1:20:19
I’ll be honest with you, I’m thinking that I’m wired backwards with the sativa indica stuff because I get the opposite of what I’m supposed to get. So I’m I get with tea because I want to get creative and write music and stuff and all it does is put me to sleep I get the Indigo stuff and then all of a sudden I’m getting green Yeah, I’m like hybrid is the best bet for me.

Andy Andrist 1:20:43
I don’t run into it as much anymore but it used to just fucking infuriate me to go to a pot store. I know what I want. I know what today is the deals and all that shit and then somebody who’s like you know need to marijuana 101 class you know, what am I gonna feel? Is this one gonna, I’m looking for you know, and then they’ll go this little give your body like you know, just this one will take the edge off of my suicidal thoughts. So could you please get the fuck out of my way? You know, body high shear. This one. This one will really aid you know, if you’re writing a screenplay. This one will really punch it up in a green jar, you Fox Well,

matt nappo 1:21:29
this is kind of a one of the reasons I’ve obviously so most insignificant reasons, but you got to stick around because I am working on a screenplay that kind of you gave me idea for it. I was going to make you a executive co producer when I get a deal for

Andy Andrist 1:21:45
well, it’s easier like Rocky Sylvester Stallone stole a lot of this other this book club boxers story. Right and it probably would have been better for him if the real rocky had died. All right. Yeah. I come up with all of this. I forget the guy’s name but yeah, yeah, check. chaotic. You know, Chuck should assume Sylvester Yeah, it’s good. That’s pretty amazing. Like he took he took this guy’s you know the the beats of this guy’s story and turned it into a fucking movie franchise and never gave fucking Chuck anything.

matt nappo 1:22:26
Yeah, he was doing church tours. Chuck at camp. What’s nurse something like that? Yeah. But he was doing church towards giving inspirational talks about his how we and they were building him as the real rocky.

Andy Andrist 1:22:40
Right. Yeah, like there’s that real Kramer know what a fuckin sad thing that is. Touring in support of being a fucking footnote.

matt nappo 1:22:55
The sign I never saw the sign before the signing of the issues with Andy it looks like it says Dr. Seuss with Andy. Is that new? I never saw that before

Andy Andrist 1:23:06
it’s been up there. I don’t know how to frame my shit and Shaylee goes it looks at when I first read moved over about four feet. Shaylee said it looked a little busy because it worked for you. Like it’s you know

matt nappo 1:23:21
you look perfect today like I’m sure Charlie’s gonna be saying well the lighting was perfect. I know what the hell

Andy Andrist 1:23:27
yeah, I know I haven’t I have a heat dish and then the lights askew but it’s yeah that morning. I don’t know they they timed it so that I have either fucking direct sunlight in my face. Or you know darkness so yeah, if they we I say we do it in the morning.

matt nappo 1:23:45
Your call is coming back in for considering everything you look fucking healthy man.

Andy Andrist 1:23:51
Well that’s what uh that’s the fucking Stan you know cuz my liver was getting fucked with all this whatever and so I was kind of in liver failure and there are no liver failures. Their liver to do a lot more than others and then they fucking burn out.

matt nappo 1:24:12
It’s all a learning curve for you. It’s all a journey and a learning experience for your liver I find that there are two liver failures they all do like all of us they just learned

Andy Andrist 1:24:23
at first your liver fails I don’t know your thoughts

matt nappo 1:24:28
so that that show you did way way you got hammered. That tended to be a kind of a blessing

Andy Andrist 1:24:36
was kind of a hidden suicide attempt. Because my liver was severely fucked people around me were noticing that my skin was yellowing and and and then the guy says you want to do a shot and yeah and then not only did I want to do that when I wanted to revisit my fucking alcoholic roots and and go all in. So yeah, I got fucking completely blackout drunk fell that you know, it’s like, okay, yeah, you know, it’s like, you gotta You gotta listen to, to least the fucking basics. Yeah, okay my skin, like I could Google yellowing skin and find out I was having liver problems, you know, but and I don’t I’m not even sure I want to count that show cuz if I don’t do another show is that my last Oh god,

matt nappo 1:25:23
that was my same thought like no, this is the reason you have to beat this just to do another show to get more

Andy Andrist 1:25:29
or just jump on an open mic on this week’s but yeah, I did it open for Billy Wayne Davis and I’ll go ahead and count that as my last thing, if that’s what you know if I don’t get better or whatever, but I you know, it sounds sounds like I’ve got a pretty good odds of, of, you know, continuing this drama

matt nappo 1:25:51
on I have a good feeling about the outcome of this thing. But my point is, if you hadn’t done that and hadn’t crashed really hard at that last gig, you probably wouldn’t have gotten to the doctor and probably would not have discovered this until later. And that makes my chances worse.

Andy Andrist 1:26:07
Well, I think I was in the process to I don’t I don’t remember where I was, but I think I was at the very least had the MRIs scheduled and stuff. But, you know, yeah, bad, bad, you know. So it’s kind of fitting to that I would do a show for about six people and then fall down blackout drunk in front of, it’s like, that’s kind of a bookend with my career. That’s how it started. I forget there was a town and maybe billings or so town in Montana, where they really just didn’t care about the opening act or really anything but they just wanted to see the opening act should hammered. So they kept sending shots, and I did them all. And I remember closing with a gun, I’m gonna fucking puke and I ran to the bathroom. So I guess it would be a nice book and

matt nappo 1:26:57
yeah, we can’t think of that. But I do have some good news for you because and I know a lot of people gonna be like trying to be played doctor who never went to medical school and all this stuff. But I actually know some doctors who are very prominent and have worked in with the Whipple procedure. Yeah.

Andy Andrist 1:27:17
And I don’t like something that would happen in like a like some roller derby. Shit. Mr. Whipple, the whip. You know, the big fucking hogs. Grab the skinny girl and flinger into somebody else. That’s what it sounds like the whipple surgery in a maneuver. But yeah, and I talked to Coach, he’s an opera head coach of Auburn track is a friend of a friend. And he, he had the surgery done. He had every symptom, everything, every procedure and every symptom that I’ve had, and he sounds a lot like JB Smoove and buddies, I’ve heard he’s a religious guy, and you know that, but I had a good conversation with him. And he’s like, and I kept expecting a motherfucker. He was like, we are that we lucky ones. We are the lucky ones. Let me tell you that we the motherfucking lucky ones. It helped. And I think I said she at some point. And then I was like, oh, yeah, that’s just cuz he sounds like JB smooth. He wants to hear me, me go on, like motherfuckers really, you know, they’re gonna remove that motherfucker out of my fucking bio. Part of my fucking this. But he had all that done about two or three years ago. And, and, you know, he made it sound like, you know, no big deal, you know, go in there and he he’s a bit of an Exaggerator so he was like up in a couple of weeks. I’m like, okay, maybe a month, a month and a half. But it was comforting to hear somebody that had just gone, you know, gone through it and, you know, is on either side of it and doesn’t have diabetes and any of these other things that you know, came up in the discussion,

matt nappo 1:29:03
right? Well, it used to be a tough thing but now they say it’s so precise that the the only the biggest concern is going to be you afterwards making sure you behave yourself and don’t rip because that becomes a really you know, a tender area and you can’t do anything physical and you got to you know, not go out and piss in your yard in the middle and or even

Andy Andrist 1:29:25
know coke. I’m not going to ask him that. But uh, yeah,

matt nappo 1:29:31
somebody there to make sure you behave yourself.

Andy Andrist 1:29:34
Well, that’ll just I think my kids gonna bounce in for a bit but I mean, it’s gonna it sounds like a long recovery and at least you know like laying around and shit so you know, try not to binge watch every thing that’s available right now. Because I figure you know, yeah, I am just going to be kind of like fuck on a shelf for a bit and and, you know, I envision like a fucking you know, cabin overlooking the mountains and snow dropping and stuff and artists on my fucking couch couple of cats trying to squeeze me out of my spot

matt nappo 1:30:09
you have Stephen King right your recovery that’s right

Andy Andrist 1:30:15
I definitely could use a fucking hobbling I gotta find that cable from my phone in a minute here, but uh, well, that’s I was trying to get on the computer and shit. But then I, you know, I’m a podcast so sometimes you got to jump on other shit. Right? But I know how it goes. And I got a few minutes of like charge here but uh, if I hop up and run in there, grab a cable and you can fill the air with Christmas thoughts.

matt nappo 1:30:46
You can do that I can actually sing a song. Alright,

Andy Andrist 1:30:49
yeah. Which I just heard a couple heard again this morning and last night and I’m honored sir.

matt nappo 1:30:56
You wrote it I just put the words in order every every word and that song came out he

Andy Andrist 1:31:01
Yeah, well. Yeah. And I was fucking Oh, they’re dead. I dropped out I dropped this but that fell into there but uh, I I was like that was when I first got the stand and I could eat again. And and then I like fucking for some reason I was just I needed macaroni salad. I went to a Hawaiian place a couple of times. And then I would go to the deli and you know nothing that makes you feel dirtier than ordering macaroni a tub of macaroni salad and I tried to go just a spoonful and then I got maybe a little more yeah don’t stuff at all. Okay, that’s good. And then I go home. And one time I woke up at like three in the morning and and I went to this the little fridge and I didn’t even have a spoon. I just started fingering macaroni salad and my face like and I don’t even really care for that shit. So that’s why I thought there must be some sort of white trash fuckin cancer that needs to have macaroni salad fed to it to lose it.

matt nappo 1:31:56
I was thinking you could because you’re a mushrooms in the mac and cheese type of guy. Substitute right now so

Andy Andrist 1:32:03
I guess yeah, I’ll probably do more starting on hallucinogenics a little bit next week or two just again well I mean it’s I don’t have any real thing anything to take the edge off and and here’s the thing about this is I had a few times where I got a motion you know crying or whatever. And then i i Go what you know thinking what am I fuckin Who am I crying for? You know my crying because I didn’t dying my it’s a surprise. Like I’ve known you know, in fact, I’ve had suicidal thoughts. Oh, shit. All right. I’ll be right back. All right,

matt nappo 1:32:42
be right back. We’ll see if we get him ties. I want to play this song. I’m going to hate to get fucking serious with Andy but it’s okay to cry for yourself is what I’m going to tell him when he gets back if he gets back. It’s definitely okay for that. I think we shortchange ourselves on it should a lot. Is this the one yeah, this is the one I’m gonna play the song. This is a song that Andy wrote. I put the music to it and didn’t know he was writing it. Linda Allen had said Andy wrote about the maca macaroni salad thing that he had some kind of low a white trash low rank cancer window read that into somebody’s got to make a song about write a song about this white crash low rank cancer blues and I took that as an assignment this is it.

Got the blue yellow, red and blue Job flow red cancer blue it ain’t no

Yay I had to do that everything gonna be alright, cuz I know everything’s gonna be alright. Yeah. Well, before I don’t want to keep you serious because I don’t want to get emotional here, just for your sake, but I want to let you know that it’s perfectly okay to cry for yourself, man. Um, you need to just fucking let it out. It’s the healthiest thing you can do. And I

Andy Andrist 1:36:48
you know, I yeah, I just I analyze everything so when I cry I’m like who am I? Is this for me? Why am I doing this to me? You know, I’ve had you know there I don’t have a big bucket list of things I’m hoping you know, like, I wish things had gone a little easier. But there’s no reason to fucking carry on but I think it’s you know, I mean, the first thing that popped in my head was Oh man, I’m not going to be here for my daughter’s wedding. And, and all that but we went and saw Ghostbusters and and now I can see that even if I can’t be at her wedding. We can just get the guy who was the warden and Shawshank to play my body and then animate my head. And it’ll seem like I’m right there.

matt nappo 1:37:33
Well, Chad’s got a no good taxidermist. No,

Andy Andrist 1:37:37
y’all Yeah, Chad

matt nappo 1:37:38
could stuff yeah, we can. We can have you stuffed and like oh, you my

Andy Andrist 1:37:43
boy. This is a dude. Nobody Oh,

matt nappo 1:37:47
it’s got a voice. Yeah, he’s

Unknown Speaker 1:37:49
a crooner. And yeah, that’s how I knew I was in sang was getting to me as I called him. I said nobody wants to hear your whining you can’t and I shoved him out of my room. Spent the last week make it up to him like

matt nappo 1:38:07
oh yeah, I know all about that kind of stuff. Those Oh, I feel regret now for for the way I treated you

Andy Andrist 1:38:16
see nigh on everything, it’s like 17 years old but yeah, I mean, you know, I’ve very rarely ever been to him. And I felt that’s all for a cat man. Yeah, and he he kind of all he does is shift it’s sort of annoying but I you know, he’s like my old man he I let him out in whatever time it wants to go out there and then I just go look for him a few minutes later with us spotlight you know Oh, he’s got he’s fucking you know he he goes out and he just stands there and he doesn’t you know it’s like I thought you needed to piss you or you know nothing

matt nappo 1:38:52
Wow, no, my cats my wife is the cat lady. And we we have half cat but if we let them out they’re gone for like two months. So we don’t let them out ever they don’t run

Andy Andrist 1:39:03
Yeah, always we’ve always had you know even my my well my family growing up we’ve always had cats and they’ve always been in and out. Yeah, they like my cat cats will go out and well not Mr. squishes anymore but the other one you know murder shit. And it’s a bummer but it’s you know, see a cat a little cat, carrion and big rat and then and then about 20 minutes later it’s on your lap rubbing up against your face and and I couldn’t do the rat thing even close to me, but it seems better once removed. I just

matt nappo 1:39:40
off the guy. Let me give you a hug.

Andy Andrist 1:39:43
Yeah, yeah, I know. I know all about the Black Plague.

matt nappo 1:39:50
Wow. You mentioned before you’re a podcaster This is a surprise to me. I didn’t know you have a podcast.

Andy Andrist 1:39:57
Well, I must think so. I’m on One.

matt nappo 1:40:00
Right. But the question and I know this is a small concern to you, but people we count on that podcast, honestly, to keep their mental health in check. Are they expecting one today?

Andy Andrist 1:40:14
Yeah, we got one today. And I, I think we, we, Erickson mentioned that we’re going back up on YouTube for a while. I mean, we’re just because we kind of pulled it and without any notice. And, and and then we kind of, we thought we’d do more clips and shed or whatever we did, we just kind of lost our audience on YouTube to kind of grow our Patreon. And right now, we’re going to just ask that Patreon subscribers, if that, you know if they can, they want you to continue on, but we’re also going to make it free for YouTube for the foreseeable future. And, and hopefully, we’ll carry on and it won’t turn into you know, Andy’s health crisis updates, because I don’t, you know, I don’t want to get in, you know, I know how that would be as a listener. So I don’t want to you know, but it is, you know, I talk about what’s going on in my world. And that’s kind of overwhelmed my, my thinking for a while, but, uh, yeah, hopefully, we’ll get back to some fucking, you know, some fun ribbing, and move away from this, you know, the scare I had, which, you know, like I said, I think I’ll be fine after the surgery. So,

matt nappo 1:41:26
gonna get tired, you’re gonna get tired of talking about it, because everybody’s so concerned about you, they’re gonna ask you about it every time they see you.

Andy Andrist 1:41:33
That’s why I kind of wanted to, you know, like, I call Doug. You know, I called Doug, one to lighten the mood in the car with me and my daughter, you know, and we weren’t, it was just, you know, I had Erickson was one of them. And on and you know, Texas, Erickson, he’s a lot more, you know, you know, into his feelings, or whatever. And, and she goes, was that Doug? And I go, No, no, and let me call Doug. And I called Doug and I go, haha, I got cancer. Aha. He goes, Oh, you want a podcast? And, you know, I thought I could either, you know, not say anything to, you know, to a bigger audience, and have people you know, hear about it through the grapevine. And then they’ll call you know, like I talked to in men a couple, you know, people will hear about it. So I’d rather be in front of it, and just say, I got cancer. And here’s what’s going on, then to get you know, to feel those phone calls where I, I don’t mind the phone calls. I just don’t want to inform you know, like, here it is, here’s what’s going on on it. You know what, just listen to Doug’s podcast, I cover the beats on it, and then call me back. But, uh, yeah, so it’s like, you know, it’s like anything, like if you get it Dewey, or whatever, and people hear about that, and then that’s all your conversations or whatever. So hopefully, you know, people can want to talk to me about stuff can move past those, you know, that shit and just, you know, whatever they need to tell me you know, however, however this like I heard from Travis Lipski, I haven’t heard from him for ever and and I didn’t know who it was for quite a while and you know, so it’s like, you know, when when you hear this kind of thing about a friend or somebody that you you like or remember, or whatever, you know, you do want to kind of check in with them and I don’t mind that because I really don’t have a whole lot you know, going on right now.

matt nappo 1:43:27
Yeah, you Doug sounds like he reminded the his reaction reminded me of a friend I had and he just passed away but my friend Jeff when I got caught my another friend had a mail order bride from Russia, and I would do an acoustic show and this mail order bride from Russia did not know protocol, and she was she took off her panties and was rubbing her vagina all over my bald head on stage and my wife got the pictures of it. And I was furious and I got caught you know what there’s a girl rubbing it on your head and I went over to my friend’s house I said Laurie found found out about the girl rubbing the twine on my head the first thing he did was he went and got a bottle of bourbon and in April and put it right in front of me so you know we don’t need to talk about this. Okay

Andy Andrist 1:44:15
yeah yeah, no no need to keep this drum all bottled up. It’s talking about a high rate of speed. Yeah.

matt nappo 1:44:29
So are you planning on like putting getting a lot of shows in the can before you think totally you don’t let your fans feel like letting them down but people need to hear from you.

Andy Andrist 1:44:41
Yeah, I think until January 20th. I’ll be feeling normal. Right I can you know, weed for a while I wasn’t getting high so I you know, I I still smoked weed but I just wasn’t getting high. Yeah. Change when I go This stent and all this other poison leaked out of my system. So I can definitely, you know, smoke weed and, and, and, you know, talk about shit that pops in my head and hopefully I won’t be like, you know, what was me you know, here’s another thing, you know, I think I think I’ve, you know, they’ve established I don’t have or at least to be a surprise if I have it in other parts, you know, they’ve done enough scan. So really, you know, it feels like, I get the surgery, it’ll save my existence. And, and and then that’s it, you know that, like, they’ll eradicate what was in there and then I’ll be like, you know, back to semi healthy human being. And also know that my lungs are clear. My livers clear. So no, on the other side of this if I want to really, you know, drink heavy,

matt nappo 1:45:56
no, no, stop right there. This is an excuse like to go 90 miles an hour everywhere you go through life now and just think,

Andy Andrist 1:46:06
what if my reputation like my reputation is I’m a fall down drunk? And I’m more of a lightweight, but what if, what if I get on the other side of this and I can really change people’s perceptions like, not only am I a drunk, but I can also drink a huge amount of alcohol

matt nappo 1:46:25
you got a bad attitude with the with the long term vision of how this is gonna go, you should come out expecting to be another world champion drug user, you should just do what you need to, to enjoy the experience without getting to the point of where you’re going to get yourself in this position.

Andy Andrist 1:46:45
Right? Well, I mean, you know, in one, two, though, I mean, like the weed that we have been smoking weed since I was, you know, a teenager. And pretty much, you know, escalated through the years I haven’t curbed it. It’s gotten more and more. So I was definitely surprised to hear that my lungs were okay. And that’s, you know, fucking big tobacco. I don’t

matt nappo 1:47:07
mind on I don’t I can hear the wheezing at night, right?

Andy Andrist 1:47:11
Yeah, and I was like, I don’t feel like I’m, I’m in shape. Like you know, I you were talking about the runs that five K’s and I used to do 10 K’s all the time. Or not all the time, but a couple three for a year. And then I did completed marathons and stuff and now I can hear myself breathing heavy to walk up to the mailbox. And fortunately, I fought the war on the mail. So that I don’t have to go down the hill and then climb back up. But um, it’s you know, I felt like, you know, there was a part of my body that I ruined besides my penis. I would say my lungs. Yeah. And I haven’t I haven’t ruined my penis. I’ve just made it stronger. For wind resistant.

matt nappo 1:47:56
I don’t know how you how you do that. But hypochondria is contagious, you know and so everybody hears you saying well my skin was changing color and I had Batman I had liver problems are the big one now is I don’t want people thinking because I got a bet because she said I wasn’t getting high and this has happened to me and I don’t want people just assuming that if you smoke a ball and don’t get a buzz from it oh my god.

Andy Andrist 1:48:22
Well, you might want to check the THC content you might have got CBD you know there’s like a troubleshooting thing you know, how are you plugged in? Okay, so Okay, well alright then my next thing is you probably have cancer

matt nappo 1:48:40
hypochondria definitely is the most contagious disease going I mean I hear things and I’m always I’m looking at my skin color now. Do I need to change the lighting or am I getting sick?

Andy Andrist 1:48:51
Yeah, yeah and I really didn’t even notice it you know and my daughter come home and you know said I look like one of the Simpsons which is the go to for any white man and he’s turned jumped this Yes, yes. We do look like Simpsons and no we don’t like to be made fun of please stop yellow hate directed at White people who have liver failure. Need a subset? You know? Yeah, we’re not Simpsons. We’re alcoholics. And

matt nappo 1:49:21
so what if there is any benefit to you being having to be concerned with your own personal situation right now? Is it distracting you from any all the bullshit in the news? And yeah,

Andy Andrist 1:49:33
I stopped I don’t give a shit. Good. I like Rachel Maddow is tidbits and you know her storytelling and I don’t give a shit. I’d still like to see the Trump’s fucking tortured or something. But, you know, it’s like, you know, it’s kind of I guess it’s like every man for himself. When you find out you’re, you know, potentially got something that’s going to kill you in, you know, a reasonable amount of time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s like that and I’m in, I’m less likely to put up with shit from people. Like there’s a fucking hippie at this place me and my daughter, we’re waiting in line. It’s a real narrow, you know, and only probably two people should be in there waiting. And there was me and my daughter, we’re in there. And then this dude comes in, he’s like, joins the line. He’s talking to this young hippie girl, and he’s an old hippie dude. And he’s like, has a scarf and he’s like, just it’s not even about to go Hey, man. mask up, bro. You know, I mean, you know, it’s just, you know, I’m in a fucking bucket now. I can’t get fucking sick from this shit. And this guy was like, he kept talking up this girl and he just and I go, I go, I see your fucking nose Wavy Gravy. And then I go, you know, mask up, bro. That’s like, Here I am, like fucking confronting somebody on the ship. But I was like, you know, I gotta wear a mask. Everybody in here is wearing a mask. The people behind there. They got mask on. And this fucking guy thinks what he has to say to this. He said, It was like, I just moved to Eugene. But it just felt like destiny. Well, I live in Eugene and I didn’t want you to fucking change your destiny to get the fuck out of it. So I he stepped over to look at something and then both me and my kid wedged him out. So now he went from being second in line to fourth. And he just looked around and then he laughed, and he wasn’t gonna let it go.

matt nappo 1:51:27
But I’m gonna channel Erickson for a moment here. What he would say to you, I think and this is you definitely don’t need COVID But one thing you need even less than COVID is an ass beating from some white trash white dude. Yeah, you know?

Andy Andrist 1:51:45
Yeah. Walk away. And liver failure. Cancel my belly but I can still need an agent if he’s asked me you know you just grabbed a Husker that fucking hair that’s you know attached to a ball. How’s it even hanging in there anyway? Got a fucking bullet hanging from a bond spot I yard that down there it’s in and then kick. No,

matt nappo 1:52:13
no fighting because it’s not whether you can put a hurting on him. That’s not what I’m

Andy Andrist 1:52:20
what people fight cancer in different ways. And maybe fully fuckin hippie refuses to look out for my safety and other people’s safety. That’s fighting cancer,

matt nappo 1:52:30
right? I’m not gonna compare this to cancer at all. But I think you’re onto something there because I’ve had severe sciatica, where I couldn’t walk, and somebody pissed me off. And all of a sudden I was ready to fight them and get that adrenaline rush. And when it was done, the sciatica was gone.

Andy Andrist 1:52:45
Yeah. And this is off subject. But one time my, my daughter came back, she’s went to Colorado University, and she was at a football game and we were in I was wearing Colorado gear. She was and it was an Oregon Duck Game. Colorado, lose a close game. But this guy in front, my daughter two rows down, kept heckling back to her, you know, like I’m and then and he just won’t let it go. And then at some point, my daughter goes, What do you want to fucking fight me, you piece of shit. I’m a girl. And I was like, oh, so proud of her. And but then you have a you know, it’s like, when you say that you should have a plan. And you know, not that he would have needed it. But you know, because I was there. And I will fight anybody. If I have uphill position. You know, bleachers that you know, because I was already planning to throw a shoulder into this guy and knock him about six rows down. That’s how I like you know, I visualized fights like, you know, I don’t get in. I haven’t been in a fight and a long time. I can’t even remember, but I plan it. You know, like, they’ll grab that guy’s hair, shocking him down, kick him in the balls and then drag it. It’s like I was like four steps ahead. And this guy’s still deciding between vegan options. Wow. Uh, you know, don’t put that fuck I’m serious here.

matt nappo 1:54:08
I never had the luxury to plan it and I used to get into a lot of fights in the day and I thought about the number of ass kickings I got in my life. Add them all up. It would be I should be dead from the amount of ass kicking I can I yeah,

Andy Andrist 1:54:25
I didn’t. Well, I was a shitty or inattentive, defensive back. That’s the word for it. I was inattentive. And I didn’t always cover my guy perfectly or whatever. But you know, I had other shit going on, or whatever. But I played special teams. I love playing kicking team work and even kick receiving team. Because you could just that’s that and that’s how like if I was at a group of friends and there was going to be trouble. I always look for somebody not necessarily involved in the play. You know, somebody who’s like mouthing off but has a say had you know it’s like a sucker punches you know what I do like in in the kicking team, I would always deliver a big hit. And like the one the kind where the coach or watching film going that’s the way you hit. I was hitting a guy who was 30 yards away from the play and not watching it’s like that scene in waterboy

matt nappo 1:55:24
Oh, froze up. Oh, why,

Andy Andrist 1:55:30
and had no chance of getting hit and I would fucking level that guy not top or fucking the part of the play, but that’s how I would fight in a situation it’s like, you know, or anything is like I scan it look for the fucking the one that I could take down. And that’s who I’m going to fucking hit if it gets into it.

matt nappo 1:55:52
Well, I guess that’s the safe approach, but it never worked out that way for me. Before he talked I forgot I wanted to mention this today on the program, but you brought up psychedelics before, and the guy who called them before was with me 51 years ago today. I know this you know where you were the first time you took a psychedelic 51 years ago today we yeah, my did lie.

Andy Andrist 1:56:17
with some friends and cool a couple mushrooms didn’t really know what it was we went to like a Fred Meyers and, you know, I’ve learned that you don’t want for being high. Remember, like dogs that I could understand that dogs were communicate, you know, like I was really in tune with. Okay, that dog saying this and then the dog down the hills responded with that. And then he’s telling the dog down the hill that that was? And then I really do them again for years. I don’t know why they just said you know, we gave them to me. Yeah, and then I and then kind of as an

matt nappo 1:56:58
end up grabbing some Wi Fi troubles. Yeah. Anyway, 51 years ago today and

Andy Andrist 1:57:05
stuff in your head, just kind of, you know, demanding answers all at once or whatever. So you know, I now I can talk myself out of a bad trip and move. noodley

matt nappo 1:57:19
you know what, Andy, I’m going to try putting you out of the room and bringing you back in. Hopefully this works. We’re having some Wi Fi trouble here. Let me see if this works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s better. Yeah, we were having Wi Fi trouble. I fixed okay.

Andy Andrist 1:57:32
Yeah. But, yeah, like I you know, so I like you as a kid. I, you know, that amazes me, like, you know, if I would have gone that route, I don’t, you know, because I like the exploration in the learning curve of how to do it, you know, and maybe if I had done it as a youngster, I wouldn’t have appreciated it, you know, but I used to think if I do any hallucinogenics it’s going to be I’m going to find a ledge and I’m going to jump off it. I’m going to freak out. I’m gonna cry and I’ve done all that. But now I kind of go get a hold of yourself, man. rein it in. And then I can have a good time on the other end of it, but it’s like kind of, it’s like kind of challenging your brain it’s not like getting it to me it’s like challenging your brain to to follow the fucking the light path and not get distracted.

matt nappo 1:58:20
Yeah, well, I haven’t done it since 1987, anything like that. But well,

Andy Andrist 1:58:25
this year this year, and I’m saying this year at Panamint in you know, maybe you’re in an RV, or whatever, but we’re going to do it up big this year to Panama and it’s a perfect place to do hallucinogenic for anybody but uh you know, for

matt nappo 1:58:43
me No, I wanted I offered to pick up Craig in Albuquerque this year. I was going to go this year I had every plan on going and I asked Craig if you want me to pick you up and he said I can’t I’ll be back with those guys. Don’t tempt me and I’ll be back on the horse I’m doing mushrooms with him

Andy Andrist 1:58:59
Yeah, well maybe you’re in a better spot now Craig

matt nappo 1:59:04
but if you got if you guys do it again this year I’m definitely gonna go I got talked out of it by people. My cuz my Yeah, I was gonna drive cross country and they like your age. You’re gonna drive I don’t want to fly. A mask on was not my thing.

Andy Andrist 1:59:20
Your age you can stop at any place and get discounts let me throw out my AARP card here and get a 15% off our breakfast. Yeah, you eat early. You go to bed early. You know? Yeah, I’d say traveling old is the way to go.

matt nappo 1:59:44
Yeah, that

Andy Andrist 1:59:47
nobody wants to wake you and arrest hurry to rape you.

matt nappo 1:59:52
That’s not true. I had a 96 year old lady told me the other night and I’m sure if she could do what I wanted to

Andy Andrist 1:59:59
do. You won’t find yourself Rest here in Topeka.

matt nappo 2:00:05
Yeah, so but the thing about Panama, I think you got a book now if you really want to get a cabin or something, because

Andy Andrist 2:00:10
No, when, whenever we decide is, that’s what creates the demand. You know, I mean, if we we say it’ll be this week that you know, because I think it would be a great sitcom to just to see the inner workings of the crew and what goes on there on a day to day because it’s fucking fascinating. I don’t think anything goes on there until you know, there’s a group like ours, and then, you know, then they fire it up. But I feel like it’s almost like a doormat, you know, like that. It’s like, when you go well, I went, I went into the Mustang or ranch or whatever, and how they, you know, it’s like, you walk in, and then they all show up and present themselves or whatever. But you know, I would like to be in Not that I’d watched that stupid show, the cat house or whatever. But it’s more interesting to me what goes on when they’re not out? You know, here we are. You know, I’d love to hear the interview. I know that show was they showed you what they wanted to show you. One time I was driving through back from probably Panamint party or Vegas and and there was a horror horror house. I you know, that’s a crude term for it, or whatever. That’s what it is. Yeah, it was a hoarder house. And they advertised showers for truckers and, and breakfast. So and it was like 430 in the morning, open 24 hours. So I went in and hung out and I had a great time just having coffee and watching the You know, the four o’clock shift complain about the morning crew, you know, they don’t even wipe to come off of the walls, or whatever. And then when the tired old hag, there was she was served the coffee and behind the counter. And then I go I think I’m gonna go the shower. And then she asked, like, threw us like a fucking raspy cigarette voice company. And I wasn’t sure if she was on, you know, like she’s bringing up well, maybe, or it was PR. Either way I declined because I you know, it wasn’t there for making love. Or killing time. You know, and then having a nice breakfast, but that’s, you know, that’s what I like to hang out for, you know? Oh, that one time I went to Florida strip club with Doug’s mother and the dollar store and we were hanging outside waiting for the pussycat lounge to open. And when it did, there is a chick with a mullet. A lot of bruising. not blaming, you know, I’m not saying her old man beat her ass, but she did. And she had the old school aerobics Reebok shoes on and she got up and had her fucking floppy tits out. While she was cleaning the like she removed her top to wipe the pole down and stuff. Damn it, you know and excellent. Imagine being in a more a better strip. You know, like, I’m not a gentleman. And I don’t buy into the Oh, the gentleman’s in in the VIP lounge. I want to see a chick who’d been slugged around a little bit wiping off the pole with sitting also had a cigarette. Dang. I was like, I don’t need to see the rest of the crew here. I’ve gotten everything I need out of this.

matt nappo 2:03:25
I’m pretty sure that’s a sublime song. Yeah.

Andy Andrist 2:03:30
Yeah. And parts of that weekend were told in one at Doug’s books. Mother was holding the cocaine and

matt nappo 2:03:38
just a line just hearing the line. I remember going to a strip club in Florida with Doug’s mother. It’s just sent me like into Oh, yeah.

Andy Andrist 2:03:46
Well. We had I think it was like Keywest. And when there was three shows, one I did real well. And then the middle one was a people were threatening to get me. And like Doug jumped up there on stage that offend me. It was like, I was being heckled by Haitians, Cubans and fucking Irish cops. And that and that was only like, that was it. They’re like, 12 people. There’s three groups of four that were all hated me. And But Doug got up there yelled at the audience. And then he goes, Do you want to do any more time and I go fuck, no. And then he leans in and he goes, we’ve got coke and mothers holding

matt nappo 2:04:26
another line that has never been said,

Andy Andrist 2:04:29
I know. So yeah, like, you know, my mother was sober as far as I knew. And then Doug said she had cocaine so like, a mother. Let’s do some coke and went into the bathroom while Doug was trying to tame down the the uprising and did some big bump. She, she was like, you know, either rookie added or hadn’t held a bag in a long time. It was like really? Another one. All right, sure.

matt nappo 2:04:55
Oh my god. Imagine this stuff. Yeah flat Florida strip club alone I mean Florida strip club is all you got to say. I mean those two elements bring you to a very good picture but

Andy Andrist 2:05:11
yeah and 11am to you know before they even pretend to have left

matt nappo 2:05:18
well only thing that can make it a little bit more busy tell me it was a Sunday morning

Andy Andrist 2:05:23
I know Sunday was yeah Sunday I remember the regret regret and be enormous. Fucking yeah guilt that Sunday morning was and that was probably Thursday morning.

matt nappo 2:05:39
Well, you know, that’s what they that’s why they go to church on Sundays. You know, they build up all the sin and all week long and then they got to go and tell somebody that sorry.

Andy Andrist 2:05:49
Yeah. I just remember dropping off a friend made that night that wrestled with on the floor of the club, like old school style, you know, on fours and all that and and then I dropped this person off at a trailer she wanted to be dropped like up the road. Oh, did I say she was probably could have been a she I don’t know gender. I don’t like to label people. But the person often I didn’t like skywriting, but it was in a circular and it’s and then it said God loves you and it had a happy face. It was like that was like kind of like above that trailer. Wow Yeah. Wow. So

matt nappo 2:06:33
that’s what made it made you the believer in faithful

Andy Andrist 2:06:37
religion. That’s how I knew it was Sunday Sunday in Florida full of cocaine and this is the perfect time to drop some fucking cryptic bullshit above a trailer

matt nappo 2:06:51
well, they knew they wouldn’t know which shell it to go to to which is really telling in itself like super cheap. Hey Shay. And again I don’t want to label people but I’m guessing he or she whichever it was or in between must have a this situation going on every Sunday that the guy with the plane the god guy with the plane knew exactly what

Andy Andrist 2:07:11
to do with Dr. Martinez team has trailer the messages that she was at a show and had this dude who was like a friend and the message is this guy blew up her phone what that I heard were fucking fabulous. They went you know I’m a nice guys is worried about you and to you. You call me back ground you fucking cut you off. It’s always the way it is with us self identifying nice guys. Nice guy. They’re just waiting to cut the head off of the check. You know until she she admits that she likes him a little cutter fuck. That’s really the nice guy.

matt nappo 2:07:56
The era of social media has made that happen faster because people used to say, well, you don’t call me back within a couple of hours. I get pissed off. Now. If you don’t answer that text message within two minutes. They think you’re totally avoiding them. I love you. Where are you mad at me? You?

Andy Andrist 2:08:13
Yeah, yeah. Good Times in Florida. I did write a follow up on Doug’s book and just say now this is part Doug didn’t remember. That way weirder.

matt nappo 2:08:26
Funny, he doesn’t remember the podcast, because you were on with the drinking bros. Oh, by the way, fucking Fiat Spider. shit about that car. I love that car. I had a fucking perfect car, by the way, right? Like that. That’s not the car that you would pick. What are you gonna pick a Testarossa? And the guy’s gonna be able to avoid that. No, that

Andy Andrist 2:08:47
was there in Texas. So they probably I ball and Range Rovers or something. And they came out with a new version of that, like a few years ago. Yeah, so I was like originally thinking I’d asked my petty file who he does to set it up. I was promised by the guy who was molested me, you know, to try to keep the fucking spark going that he was going to buy me a car when I graduated. When I saw him 30 years later in Florida, I brought along my diploma. And was you know, in my mind, I kinda envisioned this car shopping. But I don’t want I no longer want that. 1984 ragtop I want the 2000 was it 2016 That they came? They want that’s what I want. But those plans kind of went up in flames and lawsuits and such. I don’t think we’ll be car shopping anymore.

matt nappo 2:09:40
That’s a damn shame because what is the deal? Right? And you got an associate’s degree on top of it, so I only think it’s gonna get serious.

Andy Andrist 2:09:49
Yeah, yeah. When the car salesman comes back in for me, Mr. Spleen sitting in there. That would be the undercoating talk. I would like the sports package upgrade and alter Yeah. I would I actually have my name on the I guess the glove box like he had his name on the glove box. That’s what I you know, I’d want to add to and then in a fucking coupons for sizzler Nice. Yeah,

matt nappo 2:10:25
I get it you branded? Yeah. You kept you kept up your end of the bargain.

Andy Andrist 2:10:30
Yeah, that’s the thing. I mean, and I’m still that way like this one a few years ago this guy bet me the outcome of Michigan State vers Oregon and I said, and he wanted to do money, and I’d like how about this football, my dog will fetch your football Michigan State verzorgen. And then the guy just didn’t pay, like my team one covered or whatever, and he wouldn’t pay. And I was like, Kevin every time you like, I’d see a Facebook post on it. And I’d write welcher. And I really didn’t give a shit about the thing. But it’s kind of like some sort of attention deficit or whatever it is. I remained focus until that guy gave me the football. And then I was like, moved on. And that’s kind of I got burned on, you know, underwear modeling gig and it 19 7980. And, you know, promises were made, and I fulfilled my end of the bargain. By graduating and then this fucking cunt won’t give me my you know, it’s like, it’s not extortion. It’s like, let’s just buy me the fucking car. And then we can have the conversation about all the other shit. When you were two

matt nappo 2:11:35
years of interest. 35 years of interest on top of that, yeah,

Andy Andrist 2:11:39
yeah. And all that. And then like, you know, hey, you know, probably cost you a lot to get, you know, therapy or whatever. No, I didn’t do therapy. But let’s lump in a cup, let’s say 100 grand from the time I was 14 to the time, you know, I got over it or whatever. So yeah, he owes me more than a car. And I felt like it was more than fair, that we just settle on the car, because that’s the that’s the fucking Michigan State football to me. But he kind of, He scoffed at it. I felt like that was a moment where he’s kind of like, like, you know, okay, sorry, motherfucker. Kochi. Oh, high school, didn’t have great academics. But I graduated I was, you know, I was in the top 100.

matt nappo 2:12:26
That guy doesn’t appreciate the good deal that you because that is you don’t get that’s a very easy out and easy payment for the for the crime he committed. And then that is the cheapest best bargain. he’s ever going to get a car and a credit card. What $30,000 A time? Yeah, that’s a great deal. He’s,

Andy Andrist 2:12:46
he’s gonna take that. Yeah, he’s a you know, he likes to roll out like he had money and shit. He lives in a community. That’s like, you know, okay, you know, I mean, it’s he walked away. It’s like, you know, okay, man, the lawyers are gonna make that fucking car and then some. And as it turned out, he had to pay for several lawyers, and he had to pay my lawyers eventually. And he had to pay his lawyers any any kind of lost. And what he lost is, is, you know, that he, he lost control of that fucking narrative. And I filmed him. And I told him, I filmed him. And I can do what I want with that, you know, and what I did was I put it on a real slow burn, Paul, for Vince is making a movie, but it’s, it’s been 10 years or so. And it’s like, you know, that guy’s probably still alive, wondering if Paul’s ever going to finish the project and so my, or whatever, but I you know, that that’s got to be a bummer to have that hanging over him, or, you know,

matt nappo 2:13:45
definitely was to have the fear of where, where you might release it and all that kind of stuff is gonna be worse than when it really actually happens to him. So in a way, that’s the worst torture you can have. Have that hanging over his shoulder and

Andy Andrist 2:14:01
you’re like to kind of there I talked to Todd Snyder’s management about using the song too soon to tell for like, you know, just and then the band twiddle is agreed to let me use a song or whatever, I’d like to still this guy, the my molester. He would play ELO when, you know, he had a great stereo and crank up ELO and I kind of just was overwhelmed by the music and didn’t you know, I didn’t like it. But I would i There’s a song on it. Called caught in a trap. It’s a V side. Whatever. So it’s like an ELO song that nobody’s probably ever used. And I would love to have that just so I could have that in there to stick it to them to like, hey, you know, your favorite band back then. lent me a song. You dick. Well, I’m

matt nappo 2:14:50
gonna get I’m gonna get that for you as a Christmas present to be able to hear but I’m gonna reach out today, but um, what can we do to help prevent to get this done? cuz I have access to like video editors production tweets, what does he need?

Andy Andrist 2:15:04
I feel like Paul’s, you know, he’s got he’s got a lot of it done, he does all of it in himself. And it’s like his backroom is is, is, you know, full of stuff that I sent him. And I feel like he’s just kind of, I feel like the timing is perfect. You know, this thing happened 10 years ago or whatever, where I confronted the pedophile. That’s when I flipped the script on my whole, my whole brain at that point, because I eat that guy used to fucking live rent free in my brain. And then I felt like I even the odds,

matt nappo 2:15:41
even rent free in his brain thinking, when’s that shoe gonna drop?

Andy Andrist 2:15:45
Right? And yeah, and he used to have shoes with the brace built into them. So if his shoe drops, it’ll also have the thing of extra fucking here. But you know, and kind of like, right at the beginning, I did it for revenge, I stopped the camera on him because he stuck a camera on me. And I wanted to just straight up get revenge on him. And then Paul started talking more seriously about, you know, using it and making a film out of it. And then that kind of, you know, and then I’m involved with that. And, and that’s a weird way to get over, you know, did this fucking drastic therapy. And now I’m turning it into a project. And then now getting, you know, fucking cease and desist letters and the, you know, threat of lawsuit. And that could have ruined me, you know, I couldn’t lose to that guy a second time. And then I had to go sit in a courtroom with him on a like, it was like to I left home on Christmas, flew to there. And so like New Year’s Day, I’m sitting in a courtroom with my pedophile, and it’s like, five or six people in the courtroom. And it’s like that motherfucker. So I had to really get belly deep in the whole fucking thing. And years past, and I kind of forgot about the project. And then I didn’t want the project to happen. I begged Paul out, you know, it’s like, let’s fucking throat you know, and we got he called me. Fuck you. God dammit, you’re a fucking artist started acting like one. Oh, loosely reheated. You know, that was basically saying, you know, I know, You’ve spent about seven years on this, but let’s fucking throw it in the dumpster man.

matt nappo 2:17:27
No, I Well, I can appreciate your, your take on that. And I can also appreciate his take on that it’s a different Yeah.

Andy Andrist 2:17:35
And we become really good friends throughout all that. And, and I want to, I want it to happen for both of us, you know, because and I, you know, and I don’t even like a deed for like, oh, go, you know, maybe get more gigs or whatever. You know, I don’t give a shit about any of that. It’s like the news to me anymore. You know, but I want it to succeed. I want you know, I want to see what Paul did you know what? And I think Paul’s you know, he’s called it his opus. Right? So he’s putting his fucking heart into it. And I think what we need at this point is, you know, well, I said, I put him on a deadline. I called call up and I called him, you know, yeah, I got cancer and all this. And he’s like, God, damn, you know, what are we you know, and I go, I’m not calling to tell you this. As a friend, I’m calling to tell you this as a filmmaker, you’ve got your ending, man. Get a camera crew up here. We’ll be in and then when they don’t come out, and you know, that’s wrong. To Todd Snyder.

matt nappo 2:18:35
But I’m serious, though. I, you know, I know. You probably get people just and it’s a pain in the ass sometimes. But I would do anything if Bob needs me to fucking be a laborer to come out there. Well done.

Andy Andrist 2:18:49
And I think, you know, from a practical standpoint, I think we’re, he’s getting pretty close. And then it’ll be like, like, what I ran into with the comedy special, you need to have, you know, you need to have somebody do this, this, this and this. And I, like we’ve had people we’ve had a, well, we had one person come in as a producer, and he just ripped off. He just, he just, he got money, use my story got money, and then he used it as his own ATM. So then it was like, that was the guy who’s pushing, you know, let’s do this and this. And, you know, and then I think both Well, Paul’s a lot happier not having somebody fucking bother him. And when the time comes, I think we are going to hit we’re gonna do a fundraising effort to raise the cost of to finish it out. Perfect. You know, the way Paul wants to? I feel like it’s almost all there. So yeah, I think you know, when when we get clear of things or whatever, I think we’ll probably do a push to get either some producers or a pot of money to finish it and you know, not like 100,000 More like, you know, 30,000 or something like You know, I don’t know. But I feel like that, you know, Paul’s not far from it. And I feel like you know, the timing of everything is kind of, you know, it’s like he can’t change the timing sometimes. That sounds weird, but but, you know, it’s like, five years ago, I would have been eager for this thing to be done now. I don’t you know, I’m not motivated by any anything like, you know, want to tour bonds or, like, you know, I did tell Inman the other day that if I don’t die a cancer, me and him will will come out your way. I said, let’s get my dog on this. And we’ll we’ll go out to Long Island. And we’ll do a gig out there and he goes, alright, you promise?

matt nappo 2:20:44
I’m definitely on that. Man. I got a theater all set up for it. And I’m thinking of an actual, like, a three or four man show, but that was definitely in my mind for after your after. This is all in your rearview mirror. So

Andy Andrist 2:20:57
there you go. It’ll work out and then I can put that Falco’s show behind me, but

matt nappo 2:21:04
Falco’s because we had we had a titty bar. That was actually called Falco’s and you say, I remember you saying that. You wouldn’t call it Teddy by that, but we had one.

Andy Andrist 2:21:13
Yeah. felters maybe.

matt nappo 2:21:19
It was like an old man buy that they turned into a titty bars, and Falco was the original owner, and they never changed the name of it.

Andy Andrist 2:21:29
There’s a billion teams out there and shouldn’t be one of them. All right,

matt nappo 2:21:32
we’re coming up on 230 and 1030. Here, I’m gonna end it there. But I want to honor it. Everybody wants to help. And you know, this, and I know, you’re kind of feeling like an awkward place here. And I don’t want to I don’t want to make you feel awkward about this. But people do want to help because we know, as a comedian, you don’t have the best health care coverage. You don’t have Trump coverage. Nobody.

Andy Andrist 2:21:57
I mean, maybe Congress does, but you know, I pay five or 600 a month for health insurance. And I get in there and so I’m in a position now where you know, my wife’s on disability and I’m going to probably have about nine or 10 grand in bills on top of what insurance pays with if I didn’t pay for insurance, I’d have money to pay for the other so if you know if that’s if people wanted to help and donate or however that does I know Brett Brock’s doing something can Harris is doing something and I’m going to bank all that money and use it to cushion to cushion against this fucking you know, the $100 co charge here. You know, the surgery and all that shit. It’s it’s a fucking heartbreaking thing not just for me, but for people that you know fucking try to you know, I’ve got insurance but it doesn’t cover when you’re sick, you know, covers part of it. But why the fuck doesn’t cover everything. I wouldn’t need help and people could help other people. But yeah, it’s, I appreciate all of it. It’s kind of overwhelming. Because I’m, you know, I’m not somebody who’s like, Oh, I got this helped me out, man. But I feel like, my back is against the fucking wall on this.

matt nappo 2:23:08
No, I and I applaud everybody to kind of think about this health care. Insurance is something you pay for if you don’t need it, but once you need it, you’re fucked. Because, you know, no, insurance is going to cover all this stuff. And the last thing we should be thinking about right now, right now you’re gonna fucking pay for all this shit and be worried and have tension and anxiety about that.

Andy Andrist 2:23:29
You’re getting shoved into the MRI tube is like, how many fucking pictures are you taking a couple would be good. I don’t want to pay for it. I don’t want to get in a situation where I’m paying for 10 photos. And we’re only looking at two of them. But yeah, that’s the thing. And and, and I don’t feel like I have that stress. It’s weird because I you know, I, I don’t want to get emotional either. But people have stepped up and it’s like, okay, I don’t have that worry right now. Other worries,

matt nappo 2:23:57
I’m adding to it. And just to let people know, I’m working on a new five OC three real nonprofit so that we can donate 100% to you of the money that comes in, and people could still use it for a tax write off. So that should be in place by the second week of January that will be there’ll be a button for it on mine.tv.com You want to give it to Andy directly for these medical costs stuff. And you’ll get 100% of it. No, nothing taken off the top no bullshit administrative costs. And you can use it as a tax write off so and I’ll help you to Kitty to get it’s tough.

Andy Andrist 2:24:34
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I haven’t. Yeah, I know. It’s it’s been kind of a you know, like the thing my daughter’s car got ripped off and people you know, I wrote something people helped put that, you know, it’s like a real fucking bummer, you know? And then it’s like, you know, my daughter’s done so many cool things for people. It’s like, well, this is coming back, you know, so it’s like, yeah, so I’m

matt nappo 2:24:58
hope we don’t make a religious guy out of you. After all this stuff, you don’t you don’t end up being a believer because

Andy Andrist 2:25:05
hey, if I if I die and there’s some sort of god entity, I’ll be like, What the fuck are you? Oh, shit, man.

matt nappo 2:25:13
Yeah, no, I can imagine how that would be a shock. I had a guy on last week who was gonna prove the existence of God, but he left angry. He’s a little angry at me now talking about cease and desist letters.

Andy Andrist 2:25:32
So he did prove the existence of God tree lawyering.

matt nappo 2:25:36
Exactly. No, but the atheist stepped up to help a guy in need that day. So I thought that was a AHA justice on that kind of show. The the atheist sit stepping up to help a guy get his medicine and gas money and all that food.

Andy Andrist 2:25:51
Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen Doug Stanhope do more acts random acts of kindness than anybody from my church upbringing. And ever done, you know?

matt nappo 2:26:02
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate getting to talk to you today. You know, there’s an outpouring of love for you. But there was before you just didn’t notice it now that now people are being vocal. But

Andy Andrist 2:26:13
yeah. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than accepting that you’re loved by others. I know.

matt nappo 2:26:18
And especially so many people, I mean, seriously, I know that to blow smoke up your ass, you’re a gift to a lot of people big issues with Andy dropped about 40 minutes ago, and people say but breaking those. Yeah, issues with me that they look forward to Friday, like, and your show, like, it’s a life line to them. So

Andy Andrist 2:26:39
well. And that’s, that’s why I’m glad, you know, in the, in the short term or long term that we’re back on YouTube, because I you know, I mean, I know, I don’t like going behind paywalls. And, you know, and if, if, you know, the people who were with us before, you know, can enjoy that, I appreciate that. They’re, they’re able to do that. And hopefully we can come up with a way to keep Patreon. You know, interesting or, or whatever. But, uh, yeah, so I, you know, it’s like, I’m used to being a comic and going around, and having, you know, people like what I do, and also the complainer’s and all that shit, and through this, you know, doing the podcast that, you know, kind of grown a bit of a family and I may not No, a lot of them, but they know who I am. And I appreciate that, that what I blather out or say or do is entertaining to folks so

matt nappo 2:27:35
and everybody’s going through this with you so you have the support of anybody and again, not to end on a downer note here but if you need any support from anybody don’t feel embarrassed about asking for it man, you’re human. You I know you’re the strongest man on the planet for all you’ve been through and still continue to keep a sense of humor. I applaud you for that but I you know you don’t expect people to think that you your don’t have your tender moments man, we love you and yet you can you can get you can get as emotional as you want ever and nobody can hold it against you.

Andy Andrist 2:28:05
Yeah, now after I get done here and cry, I’ll blame you. Why am I crying? Because

matt nappo 2:28:11
I’m like the Barbara Walters of comedians I make every comedian cry.

Andy Andrist 2:28:15
Yeah, mine dog mind fuck maybe. Yeah. Well,

matt nappo 2:28:19
Chad has agreed to come on the show and I think he has been reluctant because he thinks I am the bad guy who can make him cry and and kind of expose his inner psyche Yeah, well, but I’m not

Andy Andrist 2:28:36
Yeah, I said Well, we did the our show and or Death Valley. We did a podcast there and I had I had Shaylee crying but it’s not one that we’re we decided not to air it. That would have been the best rated one now maybe maybe maybe with the proper I don’t know. I’m not sure what I know. There was a couple of stories I told you know, but Patreon we may put that up at some point it was a you know, but uh, I felt like I was a preacher like Shaylee was kind of on the edge she’d been on drugs for hours and I feel like cracking you know?

matt nappo 2:29:11
And he said

Andy Andrist 2:29:15
like Sam Kinison. You know, raising your boys lower in it. And then you know, so yeah, I got I know I can track my team if I need to. Oh, I

matt nappo 2:29:24
love that. I love you got you got to do some of that just for the ratings. Just just those numbers as well. You have a great day, man. Great. All right, sir. I appreciate it. And you’re celebrating have have have a joyous one. Well, I’m going to get pizza

Andy Andrist 2:29:39
to hobos. So that’s how I’m doing Christmas Eve and beer. Of course,

matt nappo 2:29:43
not gluten right now.

Andy Andrist 2:29:45
Now in fact, even I’ve even talked about a second class system where we get a better pizza for ourselves.

matt nappo 2:29:56
Be well, man and have a good one. Thanks. Love you Dog Have a good day Bobby to buy the fabulous Andy understand folks great to have him hear from him and know that his his sense of humor hasn’t been diminished in the least anyway. I got to get to work I got not work I don’t have a show today I have to actually get to work and go do some traveling to pick up some some stuff for the holiday celebration here. Hope you have a great holiday. Thank you for joining me thank you for sticking with me for on the overtime. And for all you do everybody have a great Christmas holiday or wherever you’re celebrating for people who celebrate Kwanzaa on Sunday, Canadian Boxing Day whatever the hell that means that the day after Christmas or day after Thanksgiving, I don’t know. But the kidneys have a special day on the 26th they do up there whatever the hell you do up there, do it well have fun, all that kind of stuff. And so until Monday I’ll be back with your hour everyday next week. So join me then Monday 9am for coffee with the dog till then I’m Matt nappo for coffee with dog bye for now man. I hit the wrong fucking button you see that? You see what he made me do? Round Round Listen to me, listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me.

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Punching Henry Podcast Style

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On Monday, October 11th, 2021, The great Henry Phillips popped in to delight Minddog and his listeners with talk about music, filmmaking, acting, and story telling in general.

And welcome my friends to yet another episode of the mind dog TV podcast. I’m Matt nappo Thanks for coming. It’s great to have you here as always got the great Henry folks with me tonight. I’m gonna bring him in just one minute just before I bring him in No, I just because I Henry has a habit of getting misconstrued in the press and stuff like that. So I want to bear all the responsibility for these comments, and no weight on Henry at all. For the racist and homophobic things I’m about to say. Really not just the happy indigenous peoples day, if you still call it Columbus Day, good for you. But it’s also Coming Out Day. And it just occurs to me. I mean, first of all, there’s no indigenous people want to call people who got here before the white Europeans that’s more accurate. So it’s happy people got here before the white Europeans day, Columbus was not Italian. So my Italian friends who just feel like they’ve been cheated out of a day to celebrate Italian heritage, Italian, whatever it is ancestry. Columbus was an Italian and he sailed for Spain. So get over that. The other part is National Coming Out there, which I’m all for. Everybody’s got a day, but 365 days in a year. We shouldn’t be competing over days. I mean, there has to be another day pick tomorrow. Pick yesterday, yesterday wasn’t a day that I knew about anyway. So we’re just causing a lot of conflict and a lot of unnecessary bs going around about whose day it is and all that stuff, but happy whatever day it is Monday night, and I got Henry Philips you know, Henry Philips, if you don’t know I almost want to tell you You shouldn’t be listening or watching this live stream shouldn’t be listening to my podcast, if you don’t know who Henry Henry Philips was born to be a rock star. But I think and we’ll find out about this but I think his humility and his sense of humor are what caused him to change his life cost and direction and career choice slightly ever so slightly. He is a rock star of sorts, but he is a singer, songwriter. troubadour extraordinaire, filmmaker, writer actor probably a bunch of other things I want to say chef but I don’t want to say let’s just say he’s a cooking show hosts and leave it at that Ladies and gentlemen, please open your ears open your minds and help me welcome in the fabulous Henry folks in mind on TV pockets Henry welcome.

Henry Phillips 4:21
Hey, thanks for having me.

matt nappo 4:23
It’s my pleasure to have you now as I mentioned I think you were born to be a rock star you got a great voice I know you probably you’re very humble about that and might argue with me about that but I think you had a great voice great ear for melody and good player and it seems like you were born to be a rock star. Do you agree with that at all?

Henry Phillips 4:44
Thanks. I was gonna say I your your intro and not everybody. I can’t say this about everybody but your intro was really pretty accurate. I was just like, yeah, you know, the sense of humor and everything sort of took me away from that and the humility of course, because being a

rock star is all about flamboyance and you know, muscle on your way in front of the crowd and standing out. And I’ve always been pretty bad at those things. So that that might be why I sort of ended up doing what I’m doing. But uh, but I appreciate that. Yeah, music is a huge first love for me. And I can tell you’re into it, too, with all those guitars in the back. And

I yeah, I’ll never stop doing it. So anything that I do, I always try to figure out how I can get the music in there. But right, but the rock star thing didn’t pan out for me.

matt nappo 5:31
Well, let’s talk. Yeah, and rock star is overrated and a lot of ways and I think you are a rock star of sorts in your own world right now I don’t I think you’ve got the market cornered on what you do, because there are a lot of guys who go out there with a guitar in a comedy club. But as you kind of alluded to in one of the, the films I’m not, I look at them as like one film right now like the Godfather saga. Yeah, Henry saga. But you kind of alluded to the fact that there are a lot of guys, and without naming any names or bashing anybody. There are a lot of guys out there with guitars. But more a lot of them are doing parody and stuff like this and not doing necessarily what you do. So I think you are a rock star in creating a whole new comedy genre, musical genre. So congratulations.

merch

Henry Phillips 6:21
Thanks. Well, yeah, I mean, it’s been, I guess, gosh, we’re going into the third decade now. You know, I mean, I think it was probably like 92 are something that I was hanging out with all musicians and I would crack my buddies and my bandmates up by just playing the guitar and kind of doing sort of a foe love song or something. But I’d read newspaper headlines or, or I would just sort of throw in a line in there about, you know, that you would never hear in a soft ballot or something like that. And then, yeah, my friend started saying, you really got to go up there and do this at open mic nights around town. And I never would have done it if it weren’t for friends of mine pushing me to do it.

matt nappo 7:05
You know, you mentioned going through the headlines and stuff and one thing I’m noticing about you is I don’t not sure if you’re reading lyrics or something, it seems to me, you make it as hard as possible on yourself. And Bob Dylan wise, with so many words to remember, I mean, I want to learn one of your songs. I couldn’t do it I don’t think I can do without relying on the lyrics or a teleprompter for year is I know you make it rough on yourself. I think how do you remember all

Henry Phillips 7:35
your right and I’m and I’m lazy about it too. Because like once I’ve got it in my brain, and like I have a couple of songs that are like ripped from today’s headlines and, and I’ll memorize them and then in order to do in order to update it, like it should be updated. I have to memorize it again. And I can’t do it sometimes. So I wound up doing the old version of fitness starts sounding dated. But yeah, it’s not easy. I mean, it’s just like anything else you have to just put in the time you know, if you say something to yourself over and over again for an hour straight while you’re staring at the wall. You probably can eventually bang it into your head but it nobody wants to do that. I don’t want to do it. But um, but you’re right. I have a there’s YouTube clips of me on the radio, doing songs and just screwing up halfway through and I’ll look at it and I’ll cringe I’ll be like, Oh, come on. Why didn’t you just learn the lyrics before he got on the radio? Wow,

matt nappo 8:30
I haven’t seen any. I mean, I’ve seen so much of your work. Unless I just it goes by me and because

Henry Phillips 8:36
I try to make a joke out of it. I’m like, you know, yeah, like as if that’s part of the joke or suddenly you know, but yeah,

matt nappo 8:45
yeah. And it seems to me that you know, the beauty of it is you’re listening to all the words so if you add live or impromptu or change a line here and there, there’s no way I because you have so many words in the song. There’s no way I’m gonna call you on it. Anyway. There

Henry Phillips 9:00
you go. Yeah. Well, a lot of times when in the middle of the live show, I’ll just sort of improv something a little bit more updated or whatever. And, and also because of the fact that it’s comedy, it doesn’t have to follow the exact meter. In fact, sometimes it’s funnier if it doesn’t, and it doesn’t rhyme. It catches people by surprise. So yeah, you can be a little loose that way, you know?

matt nappo 9:23
Yeah. Christopher doesn’t naturally Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, some of those some of this stuff is really the melody though. Makes me think that at some level there there is a composer in you that wants or needs I should say, a classic rock hit song because, again, I’m not to blow smoke up your ass. But I think melody writing and the melodies you pick out are very unique, very radio friendly, at least for my generation. My job. That’s

Henry Phillips 9:59
that’s really cool to hear that you’re absolutely right. I’ve always tried really hard that the song that you just referenced to that turned out to be the duet that I do with my friend Julia lillas which is a completely ridiculous song with all kinds of sex references and stuff but the melody on that one, I was listening to a lot of that Brian Wilson stuff right after Good Vibrations, you know, when he started taking his downfall and started running some of the most beautiful melodies, like Surf’s up and a bunch of other ones and, and I was influenced by that and i and i actually that that melody was part of a song that I was writing for a friend of mine who’s whose mom had just died. And I I didn’t have a career. I didn’t have a career as a songwriter I couldn’t there’s it really honestly would have fallen completely on deaf ears for me to finish that song as nice as it might have been. But I wasn’t a recording artist, if nobody would have ever heard it. But I did have this comedy thing going so I when Julia and I came up with the idea for that duet, I started going back to other melodies and going oh, I never used this one for anything. But if that just for people that are interested on YouTube, you just put duet with Henry Phillips and Julia lillas. And it’s in it’s in you it’s on YouTube. And it’s the the melody is a very sincere and I’m actually very proud of it, but no, but I appreciate that you notice it because a lot of people don’t even think about it. They just hear the jokes. But yeah,

matt nappo 11:37
a lot of them a lot of you songs, you have great melodies. And again, I’m really impressed by your voice when you’re doing and I’ve seen some clips where you weren’t necessarily trying to be funny, but you were just singing from the heart and noticing your voice technique and it’s like wow, well you got to really, again not blowing smoke up your eyes. This is a genuine sincere compliment. Really a really good voice for pop rock. You know folk music, all that kind of stuff. What, cuz I have to ask what you’re and it’s a cliche that I hate asking any musician but your influences seem to be all over the place. And I will say that because I’ve never seen anybody go from F 13 chord into a B major ever in my life until I saw you do it. I’m like, wow, that’s some heavy jazz influence, right? Oh yeah. Why would you listen to where’d you get that stuff on? Yeah,

Henry Phillips 12:34
13th is great. Okay, so I used to be partnered up with a buddy of mine who would sing and I’d play guitar and we’d be on the patio at restaurants and we’d make like 100 bucks each and we would go through the whole catalogue of you know we would do Eagles songs and you know Billy Joe or whatever, but it was guitar and vocal but every time every now and then he would throw a song at me that he wanted to do but it wasn’t a guitar song like like a perfect example is just the way you are but Billy Joel and I was looking at the course and I was already a semi accomplished guitar player at this point. This is this is in the 90s and I looked at the chords I was like these are not Guitar Chords you know it was like the first one is de that’s fine and then it’s B minor six and then it’s G major seventh go into a G minor six we’ve added 13 I think and or added nine or something but I was just like whoa let’s happen in here but but I went ahead and took the challenge and I was like and I want to tell any any guitar players out there, take that particular piece of music and learn those chords and it’ll really expand your vocabulary, your chord vocabulary and and other ones to bridge over troubled water. If you watch Paul’s Paul Simon who is a guitar player, his chords are fantastic. I mean really, really good. Especially like his solo stuff. I was really inspired by the movie one trick pony. When we made our punch in the clown movie which the director of our movie Greg v ns turned me on to that movie and I was like wow, but But yeah, so his songwriting so I love when, when songs are on the guitar, but they do piano chords. So those are a couple of influences. Still on the pop genre, but also Tom Waits I’m big on who’s always of course a big piano player. He has he has a song called invitation of the blues that I learned that one on the guitar and that’s got some beautiful chords in it. And yeah, just all those singer songwriter guys, but I love a good good top three chord guitar song, but I also like when they start getting a little more experimental with the court. You know what another good one is you just got me on something that I’d love to talk about too, by the way, but the song by the beegees How deep is your love? Oh

matt nappo 15:02
yeah, great song on Guitar Man. Boy, yeah,

Henry Phillips 15:06
that was one that we did too. And I was just like, Whoa, I think the whole thing is like in key of E flat. But it’s all, you know, going from the minor to the major. And yeah, that’s a great one too.

matt nappo 15:19
I took that song apart years ago for a kind of like workshop to kind of say, how do you write this song? Because you don’t start out with those chords and try to put a melody to it? I think you’d be and I don’t know this for a fact. But I think the beegees kind of start out with singing the song and then figure out what are the chords that will make that really, that melody really jump out. But that that song in particular got me going like, wow, how do you how do you write a song?

Henry Phillips 15:48
I know. Yeah, I know, I think it’s the way that you just said, yeah, that’s the way that I’ve always done it. Like, the melody kind of comes first. And then you try to figure out which chords fit and you try to be as, as interesting as you can, without messing up the integrity of it, you know, but, uh, yeah, and then, but with me, it was an extra step, because I would think of a funny stand up idea. You know, I’d be like, Okay, well, what about a song about a, you know, a, you know, all the people that have, you know, made contributions to Western civilization, you know, you know, Da Vinci and you know, all of the Western philosophers and all these people. What about a song that talks about how great they were, but also what freaks that they were, because they all had these weird sexual fetishes and all that stuff. So then that’s like the stand up kind of idea, the comedy idea, and then it turned into Alright, so what’s the melody that I’m going to use and then I would just file through all these ideas that I had for melodies that I probably written just completely in earnest, that were supposed to be regular songs. And then I’d pick one and then I would just so so that way, at least the music still has a chance like if you didn’t speak English, and you heard it, you’d probably just think this is a regular folk song or something, you know, and that and that’s my favorite kind, you know, where you can’t tell because nobody’s really putting on a funny voice or making a funny music. You’re just just taking the idea and putting against a song that sounds legit.

matt nappo 17:26
Sometimes it’s sincerity with which you deliver it makes it all that more funny. Like he’s saying something that’s ridiculous. But you, you have this very serious and sincere tone in your voice and look on your face. Like you’re delivering a rock anthem, but you’re saying something like, crafting a great, you know, format, which is standing on the shoulders of the freaks. The song you just mentioned, it’s hard to explain. You know, when you go to see a comic, you can come back and say, Man, I saw this great comic last night, and he told some jokes. And here’s basically some of them. Yours. I mean, if I go to explain standing on the shoulders of freaks to my wife, she just looked at me like, what the hell? What the hell are you talking about? That’s funny. Well, I got to see him do it. Yeah.

Henry Phillips 18:17
Yeah, it’s not really a very easily repeatable thing. Yeah. But um, well, you know, I think one of the things that I was inspired by Well, a lot of the stuff that was going on on SNL when I was a kid was just mind blowingly funny, mostly those sketches that would happen in the last half hour that I don’t even think you can find them online anymore. It’s weird, but But remember, you obviously remember deep thoughts, you know, on SNL. So that was that kind of thing, right? Where he was saying it in that really, you know, small t sort of a poetic kind of a way, you know, touchy feely sort of new agey and they had the music and the presentation and everything and then all the more reason for the punchline of the jokes to just kind of blindside you you know, and it’s that presentation that I really liked a lot, right?

matt nappo 19:08
A couple of things they just want to ask you for my personal understanding of value because I’m a I’m a huge fan but I need to and this is for me, not for the audience. A couple of things I noticed is that this the old son pick, I know Yeah, play with that but you’re not doing what I call Travis picking it you’re using it in a very rock and roll kind of wait. Okay.

Henry Phillips 19:33
Wait should correct me so Travis is the one where you’re doing it like this? Is that right? Or

matt nappo 19:37
you’re doing the alternate baselines and doing and you’re locking your hand and be able to play the melody and the baseline at the same time time? Yeah, time your manual those drums, bass and get the end there. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

Henry Phillips 19:49
No, I, you know, I, what I do is I’ll do I’ll use my thumb. Okay, if it’s a G chord, for example, We’ll just a standard G I’ll do a thumb to hit that lowest note and then with these three fingers I’ll just grab the the other, you know, three of those chords or strings whichever ones that they are. And so it’s more of a you know, your own it’s a little like a drummer, you know, bass snare bass boom, didn’t you know, something like that. But I’m also singing at the same time, but I will say that I was doing that naturally anyway. And then I had a one of the first guys that I met when I was doing like coffee houses and stuff was a guy named Marty Canada who ended up being my manager. And probably the main thing that he did was increased my musicality because he was a guitar player and, and the first thing he told me to do is you got to use that thumb pick because when I was on stage, the bass notes were getting lost, right? And, and because there’s just obviously the way the guitar is, it’s your, your thumb would have to be working extra hard in order, but you know, so I started using that thumping, and everything sounded much more balanced. And that was great. But um, but yeah, I don’t, I don’t really I just tried to make sure that all the notes of the quarter in there, but I’m not, I’m not necessarily doing anything fancy that way. But I will say that I did some classical training too. So when I’m just doing solo guitar, like the probably the most difficult one I ever learned was the entertainer for the guitar, which was really difficult. I found some sheet music for it some somewhere but but yeah, I’ve only dabbled in that never really mastered

matt nappo 21:36
Chet, Chet Atkins swing doing the entertainer and he’s using his own picking. Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that traditional Travis picking and now Yeah, yeah, that’s unbelievable. That’s just good. And you know, I thank you for the audience for indulging me on that, because I’m just curious. Where some pics come in. A lot of people just adopt them naturally. For me, I think you’re right, though. bass notes. If you’re just using your thumb, and I’m, you know, especially if I’m playing electric. I’ll never use a thumb pick. Oh, yeah. playing acoustic bass notes just don’t come through if you’re just using the right go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we kind of we mentioned the films and kind of a casual conversation away. For people who don’t know punching the clown was the first movie, it was highly acclaimed. And then there was a follow up just a few years ago, I think, like five years ago now punching Henry. I see them all in one movie. But so in order in order to condense that whole long singer songwriter troubadour extraordinare, how about we just call you a storyteller? Because I think that’s what you are. And now I’m curious about your relationship with the director, I think, from if I have it correctly, you know him from undergraduate years in college, and you’ve kept a relationship all the time, and now putting films together?

Henry Phillips 23:00
Yeah, absolutely. The so so he and I met in college, I had pretty much given up on any dream of being a rock star. And I was out here in LA, which is basically my hometown, I spent some time in New Jersey, and which I think is one of the reasons our mutual friend, Tom Konopka and I, you know, got along really well, but so I, after jersey, we moved out to LA. And I went to UCLA, and I went through this whole like community college system, and eventually got to UCLA. And my one friend that I have is this guy that I’d sit next to all the time, we were political science majors. And we just chatted a lot. He was from France. I thought that was interesting. He thought it was fascinating that I was in the music and so we’d sort of share you know, stories about that. And then and then when we graduated, he went to film school because that was his dream is to become a filmmaker. And I’ve started going full on into the stand up comedy thing, just kind of backed into it. By my last year of college, I started doing these open mic nights, and having a lot of fun with it. It was sort of a hobby, and but I would tell Greg is my friend there and I would, we still kept up and I would tell him these stories, you know, I’d just be like, Oh, man, I played at this bar last night where the guy says that he’s gonna give me $4 for every person. And he gives me $14 at the end of the thing, and we had like, 40 people there, but I know he’s ripping me off, but I mean, at least rip me off with a number that makes sense. Like if he said 12, then that’d be like, Alright, well, according to his books, he counted three people, but 14 isn’t even divisible by four. So I don’t know how he could get, you know, so I would tell him stuff like this. And he was like, man, we got it. We got to make a movie of this. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. But that’s so his final project at UCLA I’m sorry at Syracuse University is where he went after graduate school or undergrad. He, he made a little short film that was made there was basically a precursor to our punching the clown movies and that available to see and yeah, there’s some of it on YouTube if you if you put punching the clown portrait because it was called a portrait of Henry Phillips, you can see little bits of it, it’s on there somewhere not the whole thing, but we might eventually put it on there.

matt nappo 25:25
I’m sorry to interrupt you.

Henry Phillips 25:28
That’s all right. But anyway, so that that started our whole thing. And then ever since then we, we became writing partners. And we would just, you know, do outlines for feature film and dream of making a feature film that tied all these stories together. And then we started seeing things pop up, like Curb Your Enthusiasm, which was really similar to what we were kind of going for and the stuff that Ricky Jabez was doing. And so I think in 2007, we finally, technology got to a point where you could rent a camera that looked almost like film and, and Greg just showed up to my door one time, and he just he said, Man, let’s just make this movie, I don’t know, I’ll borrow money from family, I’ll use whatever my life savings is, but we’re just going to, because he’s like, I’ve got films, he became a film professor. And he’s like, I’ve got film students that can help us. And they’re making films by themselves. And I’m teaching it and it’s like, I never wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to be a filmmaker. So you know, let’s do this. And I was like, well, let’s do it. So we wrote out an outline and, and just eventually had a couple of false starts, but eventually landed a kid who was one of his film students to produce it. Meaning, you know, to make up all the calls to the, you know, the locations get sag on board, you know, and all the crew get the crew together. I mean, there’s a lot of work there that neither Gregor are interested in doing. And, and eventually, in 2008, the first couple months, to date, probably just about the most exciting. Three or four weeks of my life was the beginning of 2008 when we were actually making that film that we had been talking about for 12 years, or whatever it was, and it was fantastic. And and, and then a year later, we were done with the movie and showed it at a Theater in New York called quad cinemas and and then it got on Netflix. And before he knew it, it was I was literally like walking around the streets of New York and San Francisco and Houston, Texas. And every now and then not all the time. But sometimes somebody be like, Hey, I think I just saw a movie of yours on Netflix. And I was like, Wow, that’s so cool. Because it was on during that time where everybody started doing the streaming thing. So they didn’t have a ton of stuff. And people just kind of run would run out of stuff to watch and they just start browsing. Okay, punching the clown. Let’s see what this is all about. And so yeah, that’s that’s the story of that. And Greg and I still work together to this day. I mean, I just yesterday, we talked for a couple hours about a new screenplay that we’re trying to put together.

matt nappo 28:15
Oh, Tao, please tell me it’s a third. Henry. So sort

Henry Phillips 28:19
of, it’s a well, the idea was always that I, mice, all of my stories are still from that era when I started, which was the early 90s. So they’re just all they don’t really work in today’s world because of social media and cell phones. And there’s so many plots that you couldn’t really have any more so we thought, maybe it’s time to do a period piece. So it’d be like a prequel, like the early 90s. But you

matt nappo 28:46
can’t play yourself as a kid. I mean, you look young, but

Henry Phillips 28:51
yeah, be a kid has had some rough years. So yeah, so we’re changing a lot of who the main character is and whose perspective it’ll be from and everything like that, but but the stories were always to me the most important part of it, and those will all be in there because we we left a lot of stories untold from that era.

matt nappo 29:12
You know, I have to mention this. I don’t know if anybody has ever said this to you before, but you have a resemblance to a young or middle age now. Robert Redford, you could do okay. I think you could probably pull up the rug.

Henry Phillips 29:31
Yeah, maybe I can have him. Well, that’s,

matt nappo 29:35
that’s your movie. So I love them. And again, this is no smoke. I would rate them right up there with the top films and again, I look at them as one film now. It’s like the Godfather saga. banri Saga, but um, there’s a line in there, but you broke my heart. You really and I think it’s in punching Henry. Yeah, it is. Funny, I set you online. Your reaction to it got me but the line from funny guitar boy says I wouldn’t want to be. I wouldn’t want to be playing these rooms in my 40s and you just gave that like sigh and at that moment I said, imagine playing those rooms in the 60s because that’s my life. Oh yeah. Should I kill myself now? Or wait till the end of the movie? Tell me

Henry Phillips 30:25
behind you. I mean, at this point, I’m in my 50s so I’m not far

matt nappo 30:29
but you’re playing those types of rooms? Oh, yeah.

Henry Phillips 30:33
Well, I don’t know I’ve got the loony bin coming up in Wichita, Kansas next, a week and a half from now. Now I’m certainly not doing like you know, all glitzy theaters and stuff every now and then I’ll get I’ll get a gig that’s got a little more glamorous, but it’s like the smaller the town The better the? The treatment, I guess. Because Yeah, if I went to New York, I would be. Yeah, I’d be in a basically a shoe box.

matt nappo 31:00
To convince myself that, wait a minute, he’s right about fat, you know, funny, you’re tall boys, that I want to be nice to my 40s. But as I got into my 40s, that’s when I started enjoying playing those rooms. And if I look at it, honestly, right now, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t trade what the rooms I play in, which are those kinds of rooms and sometimes bigger rooms. But I wouldn’t trade that for the theater experience. I liked the intimacy, I liked getting to know the crowd. As long as they’re not too drunk and rowdy after I like getting to know the people that are coming to see me. Do you agree with that and feel like,

Henry Phillips 31:34
I do agree. And I want to make sure I’m not doing this laughable thing that I saw you to do. Like when their popularity started going down. I saw an article that it looked like they were trying to spin it and they’re saying, We’re gonna start going into more intimate venues now because we feel like we miss and it’s like, Oh, come on, you’re just not getting the crowds that he is. It’s a voluntary thing. It’s like, you know, we just sort of we’ve done that the arena thing. Now we wanted to go to the smaller venue. But so I’m not trying to say that it wouldn’t be great to just show up to some place and have 3000 people and then you’re on to the next town. That would be great. But, but you are absolutely right. And I think that most comedians that I know, I’d be really surprised if they didn’t agree, you know that they all started in comedy clubs. And comedy clubs are a lot of fun, you’re in the back of the room hanging out with the waitstaff. They’re all your friends for the week, and then, you know, 30 feet away from you, your buddies up on stage and says, There is bring up, you know, whoever it is, and then you go up. And you can see everybody’s faces, you can see them when they’re laughing. If they’re not laughing, you can work on that you can say, all right, well, what’s going on here? Well, you know, a theater you just see lights or just nothing. And that’s, that’s a lot more cold, you know, and But no, I love being in, in rooms, you know, clubs. Yeah. And I feel like the sensibilities better to there’s a I don’t know, well, I mean, I tried to do colleges for a little bit. And that was always really difficult in terms of the venue, it was either in the cafeteria, or even, like, if it’s in an auditorium or something, it’s just too wide and echoey, and the sound got lost or whatever. And, and I was, and I don’t think that the college students were grown up enough to start having a dark sense of humor, you know, and so I was like, most comfortable when I was like, between 30 and 40. And at a comedy club, and you could email everybody’s having a few drinks, maybe a couple people or divorced people started getting that kind of jaded. Sort of a little bit darker sense of humor, and I like that, you know, I would think it at theatres, I’m sure it’s great, but you don’t really have any, any gauge of what the personality of the audience is, you know, just some, some couple that’s never even been to a comedy show. But they figured that something that they saw on the newspaper that they’re going to be doing tonight, you know, but yeah, I really, really do like the comedy clubs,

matt nappo 34:12
especially doing the kind of work that you do. Sometimes the laughs aren’t, aren’t always like, especially in the beginning, like belly laughs they’re small laughs And if somebody is 1000 feet away, that small laugh isn’t gonna make it to the stage and you’re not getting any of that energy that you need. Oh, I

Henry Phillips 34:29
know. That’s very true. Now I kind of rely on having everybody pretty close together so that if one person laughs It sounds like they’re all kind of with me, you know? Yeah, there’s a some expression that I’ll probably butcher but it’s something like you know, if you have 10% of the audience that’s on your side, they can turn a whole show and your favorite you know, and it’s a lot harder to reach that 10% if you’ve got several 1000 people, but you know, in a room with 100 people in 10 people sure Yeah And yeah, no and and there’s some great comedy clubs around this country too.

matt nappo 35:06
Yeah. Another thing you allude to in the first film, I think it was Yeah, what’s the first film? I think you’re in a recording studio and this kind of struck me it’s a lot of your songs take a lot of bravery because you bravery might be the wrong word. I mean, nobody’s gonna kill you. But you’re taking your time to get to the funny part like a lot, especially with music stuff. And I know this for a fact when people want to, they want that laugh upfront and sometimes it takes a minute of listening to you sing to you get to the part that gets the first laugh. Yes, well, that takes some bravery and take some conditioning to get your get yourself able to deal with that and stay maintain your composure and say I know the laugh is coming to confidence and I know that they’re gonna get this eventually but I have to set them up properly. That that’s professional and it takes some getting used to tell tell me about how you got to that point because I would be nervous starting out that oh my god, I’m a minute into this. I haven’t gotten a laugh yet. I better get that pretty quick. get thrown out. There gonna flash the light. If we get off today. It’s whatever. How did you acquire patience and confidence?

Henry Phillips 36:18
Yeah, what you’re describing was the hardest part about what I what I did. And I so in the beginning, it was copy houses where people were expecting a real song. So it was like a minute and a half of this song. Everybody’s going okay. Alright, so he’s he’s upset about a breakup or whatever’s going on. And then all of a sudden, the lyrics would take a little bit of a turn, but still completely straight faced. And they’re like, Okay, well, now he’s talking about calling the police and, you know, and now this is starting to get out of hand and, and he’s losing control of his bodily functions in the middle of the living room, and just like, what the hell is this? And then and then and then everybody went, Oh, okay. It’s a joke. All right, I’m on board. And then they get on the mailing list and you develop a little bit of a following. But then I started doing comedy clubs in like 99 that was about about six years into trying to build this act that was based on exactly what you’re talking about that kind of Sucker Punch thing. And I’m telling you there were some rough ones, there were some really rough ones. And when I was the opening act, it was okay because there’s not as much pressure and and they would sort of go along with me. And then when they found out it was a joke, they’d be like, Oh, this is great. But then I started getting booked as the headliner because those middle middle act shows went really well. And that’s when I had some really really difficult ones I’d be I remember a string of them that I did up in Michigan was like in Grand Rapids Michigan and then clearly it should have been called the Henry Phillips sucks from one town to another tour because ever they’ve just we’re not getting it and the club owner in every case was standing in the back just go on I don’t think this is funny and then by the time I started getting to the funny parts, they had already checked out right? And that’s the fear so yeah, so I had a difficult time after several years of having this problem. I started I pretty much coward you know, chickened out. But but but in a way that I that I liked, I started because I at this point, I had a lot of jokes in between my songs that I would do some banner. And so I thought, Well, why don’t I just do all those at the top without the guitar? And so I started just doing stand up comedy. So if you were to get at the loony bin, or the funny bone, you went to see stand up comedy. So from the middle act, going into the headliner, okay, we’re still in that genre. Now the guy’s standing there, and he’s doing jokes. So I would do that. And I’d say, Hey, does anybody want to hear music? And then they already knew I’m joking, right? So it was a much much easier situation but it took me years and also, I can’t tell you how much envy I had when I watched people like the Flight of the Conchords or Tenacious D or these guys that were really doing that that serious songwriting thing but they weren’t they didn’t have to do it at the funny bone they were just they were sort of famous already. So they they were able to do that kind of thing that I was always you know, wishing that I could do but I couldn’t if I ever wanted to work at the comedy club again. It’s It’s ironic like you kind of have to be well known when you get messed around like that. Yeah, exactly. But but but I’m happy now I go up and I do. I do probably 15 minutes of stand up and I do you know, a lot of topical stuff and, and then I’ll just jump right into the songs and I’m kind of liking the groove that it’s got now.

matt nappo 39:49
Even your stand up has that kind of sincerity within the delivery of a bed. That makes it very It’s a different kind of stand up than anybody else does. So, you know, I know I’m blowing a lot of smoke at you, buddy. stuff. Now again, I love the films but like with historical fiction and novels, I’m a sucker for wanting to know what’s real and what’s not real because obviously these films are semi autobiographical. Yeah, I want to know what’s real and what’s not. And what what I take away from being a musician for 45 years now I’m performing. I’ve never been heckled. I’ve tried stand up and didn’t even get heckled doing stand up I shot, but I didn’t get heckled. I don’t know what that experience is like. But since you broach the subject, I think three times in both in both movies combined, this idea of getting heckling, I have, I have to think that at some point, it’s in your psyche, just that the whole you know, being hurt or wounded by some of these assholes can show up and they don’t do it for acting. They don’t do it for music. comedy is the only place you’ll see assholes show up and want to ruin your show. Is any of that stuff that’s in the movie based on reality? And is there a woman?

Henry Phillips 41:13
Yeah, Oh, absolutely. No, because I’m a I’m an incredibly self conscious person. It’s a lot of people are just like the worst nightmare that they could ever imagine as being heckled as a comedian. It’s like I I’m an idiot who picked that to be a possibility in my career. It’s like, I can’t believe that I wound up in that situation. But yeah, absolutely. Oh man, I’ve had some terrible terrible ones. In the movie, we depicted a couple of them. You know, one of the in the first movie, we had one where there was just a miss booking, you know, I was supposed to be performing my comedy and then they said, Oh, yeah, we also booked and it’s always some event, you know, it’s like, we also booked I think in real life, there was one that was like, it was all a, you know, cancer survivors or something like that. And it’s like, not not that they couldn’t have a sense of humor, but they were a pretty serious bunch and, and dark humor was not going over? Well, I mean, dark humor is really one of those kind of things that you you’re sort of privileged to be able to, to make those types of jokes, and then you don’t really think about him too much. But I yeah, I felt really uncomfortable one time doing a show like that. And I was just like, what? When do I get to that point where everybody’s there? Because they want to see what I’m doing? Because I was there. But um, yeah, no, I also had one. I remember having one in MLA of all places where it was a sports bar, and the guy ran the bar was British. And he didn’t really know much about American sports, but he definitely wanted to sell beers. And he did a whole promotion where he bust all these kids from USC to come in and watch their team basically clinch the season. And, and then he didn’t want any space between the end of the game and then me going on right after that to perform and he was just, you know, serving them tons and tons of drinks the whole time. So they were pretty drunk. And the guy lines up overcompensating, and so the game’s not even over yet. And he goes, Okay, go go go on there. And I go, Well, I don’t think the game’s over yet. He goes, it’s alright. They already know who won’t just get up up there. Like he had some kind of OCD about, like, God forbid, there’s a couple minutes in between the game and you know, right. Yeah, and they couldn’t, because they were all bused in there anyway, and it was like it didn’t even give them a chance to go to the bathroom or go up and get another beer or whatever. So then I went up there and going back to what you were saying, I’m doing this, this kind of Sucker Punch thing. So all of a sudden, they went from watching their game and they’re drunk to now they got a folk singer on stage, just singing for a minute and a half of a song that sounded like it was at that time I was opening with this song sounded like a religious like a campfire, religious song, and about God’s creatures or whatever and, and they’re just like, what is going on here. And literally, people started throwing things at the stage. There was a band that was going to play later. So the drum set was set up and one guy threw a chair and it crashed into the drum set. And then that was then the band that was there started jumping in and the guy who was doing the sound became sort of a bouncer. And he started and it was just absolute chaos. So yeah, and so and then I got I got off the stage because I was afraid somebody was gonna throw something at me. Or kick my ass or whatever and, and then the guy didn’t even pay me the 100 bucks that I was supposed to get. Because I didn’t do the set and I’m like, what you gave me an impossible situation here and

matt nappo 44:51
they have no sympathy for their mistakes. Oh, yeah,

Henry Phillips 44:54
it was awful. Yeah. But yeah, no, but in the movie, I would say overall Everything is at least based on a true story except in the you have to have an over reaching a plot, right? And so so in the second one, when you watch and the first movie, when you watch it from scene to scene, I can tell you the parallel real life story for just about everything in that movie. Except there’s this sort of telephone game thing where I say something off the cuff and eventually go That’s racist thing. Yeah, well, I’ll tell you the true part of it. I went to a meeting with a manager out here in LA. And it wasn’t bagels, it was donuts. He had a bunch of doughnuts. And he’s like, he’s a real powerful guy. And he’s like, and refill up. So would you like one of these donuts? And I was like, Okay, I’m just eating a doughnut. And there’s kind of a low in the conversation. And eventually, I was like, these are good doughnuts. And he’s like, yeah, they are good, aren’t they? And I was like, yeah, so where are they from? And he’s like, I don’t know. And then he gets, you know, on the speakerphone or whatever. And he’s like, Hi, Lisa. Can we find out where we got the doughnuts? Henry Phillips is here and he’s he’s a you know, an up and coming new comedian. He wants to know, and then, of course, the Secretary was like, I don’t know where we got the frickin doughnuts, but she’s trying to figure it out. And then she calls back and she’s like, hey, Dave got the doughnuts. And he’s I can’t get on the phone with him. Right now. He’s on a run, I guess be in just like before everybody was all hooked up with their cell phones and stuff. And so then he gets on the phone. He picks it up and he goes, Henry, I’m sorry. And he’s like, why is this a problem? Why is this a problem? I asked you where the doughnuts are? It’s the easiest question in the world. You can’t tell me I’ve got Henry Phillips here. I’m trying to you know i mean he he’s I don’t know what he said he is up and coming comic. You know, he’s, he want the guy wants to know where the doughnuts are? Find out. He hangs up and I’m just sitting here going, Oh, this is mortifying, you know, yeah. To hear

matt nappo 47:07
and the girl thinks you’re a dick. No, absolutely.

Henry Phillips 47:11
She thinks that I’m some asshole. Like, I’m a 28 year old guy. And I’m just some guy going, I want to know where the damn doughnuts are. So anyway, so that was the end of the real story. And then and then we started thinking, Well, what could have How funny would it be if if it turned into some kind of telephone game thing? You know, we made it bagels, because that way it’s like, oh, maybe he’s being anti semitic or something like that. And, and, and that was the big thing at that time, right? Like when it Cramer from Seinfeld is on on his show. And he went viral for his rant and then,

matt nappo 47:49
but he actually said so.

Henry Phillips 47:52
But the thing is, how funny would it be if there was a guy who got blamed for all that stuff, but never even did anything like that? I mean, that’s the worst punishment Yeah, that you could get so. So that’s pretty much where that that idea came from.

matt nappo 48:05
I live that there was a period of time back 2020 years ago. So we were playing at a very popular spot all the time. And there was a bouncer in a club who happened to be black. And White was getting into some altercation with some regulars who happened to be white. And a lot of white people started to gang up on the guy and I went to defend him. Now it was a hells Angel guy who started throwing the N word around a lot. And they chased this guy into the back alley to kill him. And I went back to protect them. And somehow it got around that I was one of the guys chasing him. I was one of the guys yelling the N word. And I had to kind of leave the band for a couple of years and leave that town basically known as the racist guy took a couple of years of me to kind of clear up my reputations in I was there to protect

Henry Phillips 49:01
no good deed. Yeah, so

matt nappo 49:03
I relate to a watch your movies. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah. It’s like the story of my life.

Henry Phillips 49:12
Yeah, well, it’s funny that you bring that up, too. Because remember, I mentioned that guy, Marty categor, who is my first manager, the guy taught me about the thumb pics. He was telling me, we were talking about the movie Spinal Tap, which I could not get enough of, I must have seen it. 50 times I had the whole thing memorized and everything like that. And he loved it too, because he loves humor. But he was telling me he goes a lot of guys. I guess. He was probably about 20 years older than I am. And he said a lot of the guys that I knew didn’t like the movie. Because they didn’t think think it was funny at all. They just thought, Man this is bringing up bad memories. I remember when we had the show, you know we had the record company. The record store signing and nobody showed up and everybody’s yelling at each other. I mean, these were all real stories that were hilarious to me, but a lot of people live through them. And, and I and I’ve had a little bit of that with, with my movies, too, because I, I’ve had people say that they’re depressing. Yeah. And it’s like, real life,

matt nappo 50:23
don’t do one or two lines that you kind of take. Wow, well, yeah, that that’s a real moment. But all comedy I think has to have that, that. It has to be comfortable. At some point, that little bit of uncomfortableness will make the punch line all that more funny when you get to that point. And it’s it’s an important thing to kind of take that uncomfortable moment in and really absorb it and say, what does it mean to me?

Henry Phillips 50:51
I agree. There’s the movie, the movie King of Comedy is a good example. Have you seen that and a lot of people wouldn’t even classify it as a comedy to me, I’m laughing my ass off. But I’m like, there’s one part of that movie where every time it used to be on on TV, I had to change the channel. Like I couldn’t be in the room while that scene is going on when. When he invites when he invites a date over to Jerry lewis’s house. And Jerry loses coming they have that dramatic irony of his show. And I’m like, this is just too much man. I gotta change the channel. It’s like it’s so incredibly uncomfortable, but at the same time, it’s so awesome that it makes you feel that way.

matt nappo 51:34
douche chills. That’s what I call it. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so yeah, the movies are great. And we got some comments in the in the chat room about the Densmore incident. I just discovered that in the last week.

Henry Phillips 51:50
Oh, the Densmore house in Kansas. Yeah,

matt nappo 51:54
I didn’t I didn’t even know that that video existed and then I found that the battle a week ago, and I’m trying to explain it to my wife, I of course, I do a very poor, but that that had me actually, like, laughing out loud at a computer screen, which doesn’t happen too often. Was that a real incident? Was that bass? Yes,

Henry Phillips 52:15
that was absolutely real. I mean, I played it up a little bit with the music and tried to make it like like one of those drama things, you know, but uh, but yeah, no, that absolutely I was born out of my mind driving all the way back to LA from I think it was Iowa and just Kansas, I think is about six hours from one side of the state to the other. And just you’re hoping a tornado is going to happen just so that you can see something. And I kept on seeing a sign saying, you know, Densmore house, you know, check this out. And so I just thought, well, I’ll do anything at this point, I had to go to the bathroom anyway. And so I went, and there’s this house that was built by a civil war veteran, and they were doing tours, and they had a lot of old people getting off the buses and to take this tour. And I was like, What the hell, you know, I’ll take the tour, and I paid like the 10 bucks or whatever. And I go in, and it’s pretty amazing. There’s a house where everybody, everybody was marveling at the fact that the guy built this thing by hand, and there’s a lot of incredible design stuff. And there’s engineers that couldn’t replicate the things that he did with his house, you know, typical museum type stuff. But at one point, somebody started noticing that it smelled like dogshit. And, and I smelled it too. And I’m just like, what is this and we’re like, up in one of the bedrooms or something like that. And the tour guide is like, yeah, I smell that does you guys, do you want to check your shoes or whatever, and I pick up one of my shoes, and it’s just completely just matted down with dogshit. Yeah, and I looked everywhere. And I had been tracking footsteps of dogshit throughout this whole house. And all these old people are like, ah, Tim grows, what are you doing? And I felt like such an asshole. You know, I just felt like such an outcast. And they were like, okay, let’s all go out in the backyard. Do sir if you don’t mind taking your shoes off or whatever. And so but and that’s another one where the story basically ended there. But of course, my mind is thinking Am I gonna have to pay some kind of cleaning costs? And how much is that going to cost? You know, I don’t know what kind of wood that they’re using. You know, I mean, they’re taking all these precautions to preserve everything and But yeah, I pretty much ended there. But But yeah, so the whole the whole video is, yeah, it’s on there. It’s

matt nappo 54:46
the question and bear with danger. The question it begs is has any of the people who were there taking the tour that day, seen that video and contacted you and saying, oh, you’re the head? Oh, yeah, no,

Henry Phillips 54:58
it happened. I’m guessing about maybe 10 years ago or even more. And

matt nappo 55:06
the internet being what it is, though somebody who is going to see it eventually

Henry Phillips 55:11
I kind of I kind of hope so. I mean, I would think it would come come up when people search YouTube for the Densmore house because other stuff, but no, I’ve never had anybody that noticed it, but I, hey, maybe I can help, you know, bring bring people to help make the place famous or something. That would be

matt nappo 55:32
beautiful. Check that out tonight, I think and I’m gonna encourage the audience playing search terms within Morehouse and Henry Phillips to kind of push that up in this surgery. Yeah.

Henry Phillips 55:45
algorithm. Yeah. But yeah, on YouTube, it’s called brush with danger. If anybody wants to look it up and right. It was gonna be I was gonna make it a series or something. But we never really did that.

matt nappo 55:56
I loved the treatment that you gave that because it does start and I thought, wow, is he part of one of these? You know, television shows that real life incidents and then to figure out it was a gag, but I love that treatment of it. Because it’s it’s so and you went very far out of your way to get all the lighting right in the hallway. Oh, yeah. the look and feel of that testimonial piece?

Henry Phillips 56:19
Yeah, well, I did that through. There’s a production company called all things comedy, which is run by a bunch of comics that they set up. The cinematographer did a great job. I don’t remember his name, but I’m sure it’s on there. But yeah, it was it was pretty fun.

matt nappo 56:33
Now, we are coming up on time, and I want to be respectful of your time. I’m grateful to have you here. And thank you to Tom Konopka for making this happen. Yeah, but I also want to talk quickly about the highway man and Henry’s kitchen if we can squeeze both of those in now. The highway man, funny stuff, very influenced by, I guess, late 70s 80s. network television shows, I guess, the most recent episode, I think, is the one I have in my way. Brendon Walsh is Yeah, photos and get the tattoo. Yeah, so there’s, yeah, tell me about the heart. There’s

Henry Phillips 57:12
there’s two there’s the ones that I put up on YouTube, which I’ll take some time and sort of tweak them and everything and just put them out randomly and those are publicly released. And you can see those on YouTube. Just to let people know that they’re on if you put Henry Phillips YouTube you’ll see all the stuff that we’re talking about here but um, so the highway man Yeah, there was a whole bunch of shows that was like Kung Fu, the Hulk you know, $6 million man Highway to Heaven. All these shows were just involved a drifter, you know? And so I thought, well, I want to be one of those guys, you know, but I want to be the 50 year old guy who’s like mysterious who just drifts from one town to another but my I don’t have a special talent. I’m not good at anything. In fact, I, I wind up making things worse in the town before I move to the next one, you know, and so it’s called the highway man. And, yeah, I’m just a guy and I’ve got a wig. And I’ve got like a jean jacket. And I’ll see mostly people stranded on the highway, and I’ll try to help them with their car, but it winds up being worse than it was before I got there. But yeah, the Brendan Brendan Walsh is great. And I’m working with a lot of my comic buddies on it, which is great. So yeah, there’s an episode where my buddy Brandon Walsh is in the like, at a high highway turn off, and he’s taking pictures with this camera. And then I’m witnessing a thug named a comic named Steve Gillespie, who’s just a guy who is, you know, mugger basically and he shows up to steal the camera and they wrestle with it. And eventually Steve gets branded on the ground starts kicking his ass and highway man is just sitting there in the bushes, watching the whole thing. And even writing down trying to make a drawing of the thing is if that’s going to help anything, and so once the coast is clear, and Steve takes off with Brendan’s camera, and then Brennan’s dusted himself off that’s when highway man comes out of the bushes and says Hey, man, I got I got the police sketch of the guy you know, you can give this to the police maybe they’ll be able to find it and Brennan’s like Who the hell’s this guy? So yeah, those are all on YouTube and, and, and Henry’s kitchen also. So about 10 years ago, I made a kitchen video out of my bachelor apartment, I was going through a breakup so it came off extra depressing. And I wrote music for it that was over the top depressing and and the second one that I did was called Henry’s chili for one and it went viral, it got over a million views. And so I was like, well, maybe I’ll turn this into a regular thing. And so I’ve been making them ever since for 10 years. And when the pandemic hit, I wasn’t going to be able to do a lot of the live stuff anymore, or any of it really and and I started kind of looking for a way that I can do more stuff out of home. And so, so I started these two web series, or I continued the Henry’s kitchen and the highway man. And they’re both the exclusive videos come out every month on Patreon. So there’s patreon.com slash Henry’s kitchen patreon.com slash highway, man. But that’s all in the videos. So if people like them, they can subscribe. And then I put them out every month and

matt nappo 1:00:24
every month. That’s pretty aggressive. I have to say, yeah, as a one man production company.

Henry Phillips 1:00:31
Yeah, I keep busy. And then, but but now I’m going back on the road, man. I’ve got a Wichita Kansas, Kansas week, a week and a half from now. And then I’m going to go to St. Louis, to open for a band called Ludo at the pageant theater for a few nights. And then I go to Wisconsin, Western Wisconsin and Wisconsin Rapids to do a couple of rural gigs there and, and then, and then Fresno after that, but I’m finally getting back out there and performing. And it feels good. I’m really happy to

matt nappo 1:01:03
be here for you. I have the link to your website. Yeah, going down there. It’s in the description. Also the links to the Patreon pages for the shows and all that kind of stuff. And I’m imagining I’m guessing the tour dates are on Henry Phelps. Yeah, yeah.

Henry Phillips 1:01:18
Well, it’s a good question, because I’m usually pretty bad about that stuff.

matt nappo 1:01:22
Most comedians aren’t. People in the music industry are cool. I mean, anytime I talk to entertainers on the show, I go to their website, and they say your website is totally outdated. And

Henry Phillips 1:01:36
it’s true. And I’m definitely one of those guys, because I never got to that point where I could get somebody to do it. Right. Most most of my comic friends eventually get to a point where they’ve got somebody who volunteers or somebody who gets a paycheck or whatever, to do all that stuff. But it’s for me, it’s me trying to figure out how to navigate the damn thing, you know, but it’s up to date now. So

matt nappo 1:01:57
yeah, well, I appreciate you being here. Now. I just have to note that you’re the second guest. on my show that has actually been interviewed by Larry King, I find that Yes. Wow. To me is that’s an impressive thing getting interviewed by Larry King, I’m guessing because there was no context to the one I saw. I’m guessing it came out right after punching the clown. That’s one

Henry Phillips 1:02:21
after the second movie. So the second movie punching Henry which by the way, both those movies are on Amazon, if anybody wants to see them, I think you have to pay a couple bucks. But But Amazon. But so punching Henry was done through a studio so that that had an actual budget where they hired a PR person to get me interviews. And Larry King wasn’t on on cable news anymore. But now he was doing it on the internet, and, but still just as cool. And so I was able to sit down with him and do a whole interview. And I think there’s two on YouTube. There’s the full interview. And there’s also like, just a quick q&a one,

matt nappo 1:03:02
right? Well, just and again, I’m trying to be as respectful of your time as possible. But there are a couple of questions I have to ask you about. Sure. First of all, he he seemed like he was reading off of something that is on your Wikipedia page. And that was included in the second one where you’re in the room with the record company executives and they’re talking badly about you they’re talking like a blockhead. Oh, yeah. His two best friends are despair and failure and all this kind of stuff, making you feel like a real loser. And I it says something like in your wiki page or Wikipedia page that Henry is known for playing a character who is a loser, and it’s like, Yeah, but you say I’m right here in the room, and then Larry, Larry King says something like you’re even a failure at that. People have no respect for this guy.

Henry Phillips 1:03:59
Yeah, a failure of being a failure. I don’t even remember that. The exact context of that, but uh, but yeah, so um, I all of the stuff that we talked about Kingdom comedy guy when I was a kid watching Garry Shandling do his stand up, you know, Rodney Dangerfield, these were all the people that I laughed at, you know who I guess their persona was losers, but I loved it. I Bob Newhart was another guy. Albert Brooks, you know,

matt nappo 1:04:30
I was gonna say your filmmaking and your approach to filmmaking and I didn’t want to kind of, because I didn’t know how you would feel about this because of your comparison. But I think when I look at your filmmaking and your approach to filmmaking, be Albert Brooks, influence to me jumped out at me that was the first Yeah, these films make me feel like you know, reminiscent of that kind of delivery, that kind of attitude.

Henry Phillips 1:04:55
Well, yeah, no, I appreciate that. Yeah. Modern Romance would be nice. Number one, you know and then yeah defending your life and loss in America. I mean, I love those movies. But yeah, those guys, I don’t know if I just saw all those people at a time where I was like, Oh, Okay, I get it there’s a world where it’s okay to be a loser and it’s actually encouraged you know, and it’s called comedy you know, and I love it you know, Chris Farley Will Ferrell you know all these guys you know, I mean that’s, that’s what it is, you know?

matt nappo 1:05:32
Right. And before I let you go together thing from the Larry King interview that came out he asked you at one point what would you What would you like to be more successful at I think it’s how we put it and your answer was I’d like to be a better kept actor. Now I think, again, not blowing smoke up your ass but I think you’re a great character actor. It just seems that most often you’re playing yourself as a character but I know you’ve done some other acting things. Anything like that in the horizon? Because I do I do think you have the ability if I read I know your father was a known as a character actor. any of that on the horizon for you other acting work? I’m not Henry.

Henry Phillips 1:06:13
I love the idea of it. But yeah, I guess what I was getting at there is my dad was a character actor. And yeah, that’s in the Wikipedia too. There’s a bigness to what a lot of character actors do that I love. Well, like Rip Torn would be a great examples, right? Like, you know, it’s like, that’s something that you know, if he asked me, What would be something that I wish that I could do that I can’t I’d say it’s that kind of grandiose, sort of character acting where you just command the whole room to you know, you just walk on there and everybody’s like, Oh, yeah, I mean that. That’s fantastic. I don’t feel like I’m that guy. I don’t necessarily aspire to be that right now. What I like I did I did several episodes of Silicon Valley, the show on HBO and I was pretty much I was playing a character for sure. But that character was a little bit of an offshoot of myself, you know, I was just kind of trained to be as dry and real as possible. And yeah, I’m all for doing parts like that. And you know, I’ll keep pursuing it. It’s not it’s not really a and a career that you get to choose whether you get to do it or somebody else has to put you in there stuff. But I

matt nappo 1:07:27
got suckered away. But yeah, yeah, it is fate. And it is a lot of luck and all that stuff that plays into it.

Henry Phillips 1:07:34
But we live in a time where we can make our own stuff which is really helping me out a lot.

matt nappo 1:07:39
I agree I visit that’s a double edged sword you know, and you know, this probably a conversation for another day because I do want to let it go because I you know, I’ve kept your over an hour now. But there, there is a point where all comergence like may say there’s no good music or anymore No good comedy around anymore. It’s just not true. It’s just you have to dig a little harder to find it because a lot of great artists aren’t getting the sweetheart promotional deals from record labels or movie studios. And they have to produce this stuff on their own. So you have to dig a little harder to find it, but it’s out there. So

Henry Phillips 1:08:13
it is out there and word of mouth is the best you know, and you just every time you talk to somebody who’s got similar tastes, just say, Hey, who are you listening to now? or What are you watching or whatever, and that’s the best way to do it.

matt nappo 1:08:26
Right? come to New York sometime soon.

Henry Phillips 1:08:28
Oh, absolutely. I’d love to. I’d love to. Well,

matt nappo 1:08:32
well hey, me. And Tom Kanaka says hello. He’s in the one of the chat rooms he says. Please have Henry back for round two. This was great. Bah bah bah, bah, bah, bah. Thank you, Tom. Thank you again, for hooking this up. Please stay in touch and do feel free to come back anytime you want. I appreciate this morning, you know, and I wish you great continued success and till next time Till we meet again. Be well. That sounds great. I appreciate it. Bye for now. Henry foe folks. Wow, what a great guy. What a great talent. One of the one of the most creative people in the world today. I say that you know, with no exaggeration, I mean, we’ve got a lot of things going on. I didn’t kind of chef, the chef stuff. Listen. The only reason I made that comment in the beginning about the chef stuff is I know a lot of serious chefs who struggle struggle they have YouTube shows and they struggled to get 1000 views and then this was kind of making a joke out of a cooking show getting millions of views. I know my chef friends are very hurt by that. But bad bad is a great stuff too and very entertaining Henry’s kitchen. I hope you’ll check out all the Henry stuff the movies, see the stand up the the music on iTunes and all that kind of stuff. Everywhere you find Henry in so many different creative endeavors. So that’s our show for today. Tomorrow, I have a musical group from LA to boo droz which is a cigar box foot stomp and rock and roll band. Anyway, I hope you will join me then 8pm tomorrow till then I’m Matt nappo for the mind dog TV podcast. Thanks for coming. Have a great night. Bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Dr Rick Strassman – DMT- The Spirit Molecule

The Spirit Molecule

Dr. Rick Strassman is an American clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He has held a fellowship in clinical psychopharmacology research at the University of California San Diego and was Professor of Psychiatry for eleven years at the University of New Mexico. After 20 years of intermission, Strassman was the first person in the United States to undertake human research with psychedelic, hallucinogenic, or entheogenic substances with his research on N,N-dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT. He is also the author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, which summarizes his academic research into DMT and other experimental studies of it, and includes his own reflections and conclusions based on this research.

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Transcript:

Could psychedelics be the bridge between science and spirituality? We’ll talk about it on this episode of the minddog TV podcast

And welcome my friends to yet another episode of the mind dog TV podcast. I’m Matt nappo. Thanks for coming. It’s great to have you here. As always, we’re gonna talk about DMT. Today, if you don’t know what DMT is, you probably never listened to the Joe Rogan podcast. I only found out about DMT It’s also known as dimethyltryptamine. I hope I pronounced that correctly. It’s a hallucinogenic. psychedelic. I’m not sure if it’s clinically classified as a drug because it’s a natural occurring substance in the human body. I don’t think it can be a drug and, and be something that is naturally occurring within the human body. But my guest today is the authority on the subject is so the man who is responsible for at least Joe Rogan finding out about it. And that’s how I found out about it quickly. Just want to say here, we are not glorifying drug use. I have talked a lot about my drug use in my teen years. And I had some heavy experimentation with psychedelics, hallucinogens, whatever you want to call them, in the 70s, in my teenage years, stopped when I became an adult. Until, like 10 years later, when somebody slipped me some LSD and Stevie Ray Vaughan concert 1988. That’s the last time I did it before then probably around 78 1977 when I became interested in DMT, more so for the spiritual aspect of the experience that so many people who have done it claim and it’s kind of like the UFO thing where enough people come back with the same exact story of their experience, that it tends to lend some credibility to it. I’m extremely interested in spirituality and this whole idea of a pathway to greater understanding through what we call a pineal gland. We used to be called a psyche guy, when I was part of a cult in the 1990s, where a lot of psychics and healers would talk about this strange gland that sits in the middle of our brains behind the behind the bridge of the nose right here. And they call the psychic guy, the psyche guy. And so I became intrigued with that idea of what’s really going on back there. My guest today seems to know more than anybody in the world about this and I’m gonna make this a really short thing. Oop, there we go. Dr. Rick Rick strassman is a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He had held a fellowship at the clinical psychopharmacology Research at the University of California, San Diego, and was professor of psychiatry for 11 years at the University of New Mexico. He was the first person in the United States to undertake human research with psychedelic, hallucinogenic, hallucinogenic, hallucinogenic. Can I say that substances, which is researching and dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT, is also the author of the Spirit molecule DMT, the spirit molecule, which summarizes his research into DMT and a couple of other books, but the one I’ve read recently is called Joseph lavey escapes death seems to be a bit autobiographical. Ladies and gentlemen, please open your ears, open your minds and help me welcome in Dr. Rasmussen, my dog TV podcast. Dr. Strassman. Welcome. Thanks, Matt. Good to be here. It’s great to have you here. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a long time, as you heard me mentioned in the in the intro, yeah, I’m confused. Is DMT a drug? Or is it as a classified as a drug?

Dr. Rick Strassman 4:27
Well, it just depends on what you want to call it on any particular day or any particular context. If it’s being used on the street for recreational purposes, I guess you’d call it a drug. And if you’re looking at it from the point of view of being produced endogenously in the human body, you could call it a substance or compound.

matt nappo 4:50
Okay, I’m just interested. Do you think it does the government classify it as a drug So basically, it’s a controlled study. Since in if you bought it on on the street, you’d be arrested for it. Yeah, it’s a schedule one drug according to the DEA. Okay. What fascinates me about about you and the book and i’m pronouncing it Lavie. Now, all my life. I’m a New Yorker. And I’ve had plenty of friends who had that last name. And I’ve always called them levy or Levy, because that’s what they call themselves, never heard it pronounced as labor until I listened to the audio book. And I was like, that’s how you pronounce it, I am in New York, we pronounce it wrong. What I’m fascinated by is the idea of, first of all, a scientist, a medical professional, who also has an interest in spirituality. And we do today Oh, God. And and so I’m bet that interests me about you, when I talked to my bass player in my band who was Jewish, but also identifies as an atheist, and we’ve had long conversations about what it really means to be a Jew. And, and, and the belief in in the God that we call and I don’t use the word Judeo Christian, because I don’t like to separate Christian belief systems are different, but that one god that both of those religions seem to believe, and that seems to be a contradiction for science, a scientist to be going down that path. Tell me about your interest in spirituality and religion.

Dr. Rick Strassman 6:31
Um, well, I started my psychedelic research career with spiritual questions, in a way I was looking for the biological basis of spiritual experience. And I believed if you could find something going on in the brain that was occurring. Well, let me backtrack a bit. When I was in college, I was impressed with the similarities and descriptions between the psychedelic drug state and that resulting from certain kinds of meditation. So I thought there must be some common biological denominator, which was being activated or turned on as a result of either taking psychedelics or doing certain kinds of meditation. So, I started looking for what I suppose could be called the spirit molecule, even back then, you know, was there a part of the brain or substance released that, you know, was comparable to, you know, the effects of of well, which would stimulate the you know, the common experience that people described either on psychedelics or through meditation. And as you mentioned, in the introduction, I began looking at the pineal gland, because there was some evidence back then other melatonin, which is the main hormonal product of the pineal, what psychoactive This was back in the 1970s 1980s. And also the pineal gland on has a long illustrious history in in esoteric, you know, psychos, spiritualities, you know, like, the sefie wrote of Kabbalah, you know, the, you know, kept her that, you know, the crown is corresponds to the anatomical location of the pineal, the 1000 petaled, Lotus, of you know, Hindu Physiology or chakra systems, is also anatomically located there. You know, so I started off my studies looking at melatonin in the 1980s, but it was only, you know, sedating. Um, it wasn’t psychedelic at all. And, you know, by then I started to learn about DMT worked on the protocol, and began my studies in 1990. You know, so, my question other than, you know, can you get this kind of research off the ground again, after 20 years, you know, you know, my unspoken but more near and dear question was, if you know, DMT is a spirit molecule in and of itself. If you just give DMT without much in terms of your proper preparation, you’re setting up expectations. You know, when to induce a spiritual experience and the spiritual experience that I was mostly interested in interested in at the time was that of enlightenment, you know, Buddhist enlightenment as especially, you know, Zen and the kensho experience, you know, which is a unitive, mystical kind of state that there’s no self, there’s no time, there’s no space, there’s no ideas, there’s no images, there’s no feelings. It’s completely empty. And I was, you know, wondering if I gave enough, you know, DMT to people in an unstructured, but supportive environment is the pharmacology of the drug in and of itself spiritual? And, you know, so there were a couple answers to that question. The first answer is, um, that DMT isn’t inherently spiritual, it is a psychedelic, you know, drug, you know, rather, you’re rather than a man and Theo genic drug, it is only able to work on what’s already there, in your mind more or less, consciously. You know, so for example, you know, the one I, you know, near death experience in our group of volunteers occurred in a nurse with a long standing interest in the near death experience. And she’d been

Dr. Rick Strassman 11:25
studying it reading books about the N D, E. And you volunteered to be in the study, because of her belief that, you know, DMT, could you mediate certain aspects of the near death state. And also, her experience was the closest you have to the classical near death experience of any of our volunteers. You know, there was a software designer who saw, you know, the origins of ones and zeros, you know, there’s an urban shaman, you know, who was dismembered and then, you know, brought back together in a shamanic experience, you’re the one your mystical unitive kind of kensho state occurred only in one volunteer, and you this was an individual with a long standing interest in kensho, in the Enlightenment experience, and he’d been studying and you’re practicing, and you’re volunteered to have that kind of experience. And he did it. So, you know, it turned out that you know, DMT isn’t inherently spiritual, you know, but it is, you know, psychedelic, it’s mind manifesting or mind disclosing, it stimulates amplifies, makes more true, you know, things which already were existent in your mind, and you’re more or less consciously, potential, you know, which is being actual as you Yeah, so the other question or the other answer, um, is that, you know, the DMT state, you know, wasn’t anything like enlightenment experience, it was not empty, it was, you know, full of stuff. You retained your personality, there was the passage of time, there’s experience of space. There were all kinds of, you know, visual imagery. You know, there are beings with which the volunteers interacted all kinds of feelings, ideas, things like that, you know, personality was able to observe carefully and report back. You know, so the experience wasn’t at all like, the Enlightenment experience of emptiness. You know, so once I completed my study, oh, and also there was an overwhelming feeling of the state of allowing the experience of a reality more real than this one, you know, that was a, you know, compelling and quite frequent report of the volunteers. You know, so after the studies, you know, wrapped up, I started to look for other spiritual models, which might be more consistent with the kinds of effects of my volunteers and you’re responding to DMT. So as raised, you know, conservative Jewish I, you know, went through an extremely long, you know, 20 plus year detour through Zen Buddhism. And after a while, you know, the Zen, you know, model, the Zen beliefs, you know, the practice And began kind of wearing FIM. Well, you know, the bowing I was, you know, wondering about all the bowing to statues and pictures of former teachers and things, you know, to each other. You know, it was explained to me while you’re bowing, you know, to the pure essence of each other in the process, but, but but still on my thought, you know, if you’re going to bow, you know, why not bow to the most high as opposed to just this big, golden statue of Buddha? Yeah, you know, um, and also, you know, the whole idea of, you know, Buddhism, you know, not having a god, you know, I’m Jewish, you know, you know, even genetically and, you know, the constant, you know, discussion that there is no God or suddenly karma started to where it kind of thin as well. And I, you know, began asking questions, which in Buddhism are called not conducive to enlightenment? You know, for example, you know, what occurred, you know, before cause and effect it, you know, on my favorite thing, you know, if, you know, cause and effect,

Dr. Rick Strassman 16:10
you know, determines everything, you know, what determines cause and effect, you know, so, you know, that, in a way is a question about what occurred before the big bang, right? I, you know, what, just God is, you know, God, you know, temporal or are not, you know, so, you know, those kinds of questions, were discouraged in the morning, a practical approach, but still, you know, there were some strange things, which we were expected to assume or to believe, and to do, you know, within Zen practice, yeah, the other was, you know, karma is supposed to be neutral. It’s just, you know, kind of it started somehow, and then every effect has got antecedent causes, you know, but I started to wonder, as well, you know, why are things, you know, the way they are, you know, why are, you know, why are certain ideas and behaviors rewarded, and others, you know, seem to be punished. You know, like, if you’re angry, you get an upset stomach. But, you know, as opposed to, if you get angry, you know, why don’t you make a million dollars, or you grow a pair of wings, you know, so, you know, things are a specific way in existence. And so, I began, you know, thinking, you know, their karma seems to reflect, you know, the will and the power of, you know, some overarching intelligence, you know, we just got a scheme, which is supposed to benefit us, as opposed to harming us, you know, so yeah, combined with, you know, those kinds of ruminations, you’re looking for another model of spirituality as revealed through the DMT effect. I started reading the Hebrew Bible, and ended up you know, being convinced of a prophetic state of consciousness, which pervades the text, which is quite DMT, like, but at the same time is quite different because of the information contained in the Bible as compared to, you know, contained in the DMT experience. So, you know, one of the things you’ve got to work through in the text is the existence of God, like the first word or the second word, in the, in the Bible, as in the beginning, God created heaven and earth. It’s like, Who’s God? What’s God do? How does that work? Right, right. So I spent years, you know, just, you know, be the I, you know, beating my head against the wall, you know, what does, you know, this God, and I started to, you know, read the medieval philosophers, you know, who are quite sophisticated, you know, back in the day, you know, 900 to, you know, 1400 in the Common Era. Yeah. And, you know, gradually, you know, slowly but surely, I began to believe in God, you know, want to understand, you know, God’s characteristics and interaction with the world. You know, my first you know, toeholds for I’m accepting, you know, the notion of God, you came through Buddhism actually, and it was around you know, those two issues of karma. You know, who created and, you know, who sustains karma, and what’s going to exist once karma is, you know, done as everything else is done, according to the law of karma. And also, you know, why does karma seem to operate in a particular manner, right, you know, so those were the two footholds with allowed me to start thinking, Oh, you know, it must be God who created and sustains cause and effect, which works in a particular way, which, you know, reflects, you know, so to speak the mind of God.

matt nappo 20:16
Wow, that’s so interesting. Now, there’s a lot to reflect on in that answer. First of all, the idea of similarities between nd ease and the DMT experience. I think one of the differences that I’ve noticed with that is because I’ve talked to a lot of people who, you know, found God through. And he is, an atheist will convert after a many times and atheists will convert to a somewhat of a believer in something hot, bigger and higher than ourselves after an nD nD. But I know a lot of atheists who have had the DMT experience and remain atheist, but also atheist in a very judgmental way in that, well, if you believe in God, you must be an idiot, if you believe this. And especially you mentioned the Bible, they’ll they’ll bring that up, like, how could any reasonable person take the stories in there to be literal truth? And I think that’s where we get into a problem with this idea of the old man in the sky. God, do you? How do you address that? Because I don’t think anywhere in the Bible, it actually says like, oh, man in the sky. But that’s, that’s the atheist view of what the belief is, how do you how do you address that or you don’t address it?

Dr. Rick Strassman 21:44
Yeah, you’ve got to address it. And it’s kind of, you know, like a DMT experience, you need to suspend disbelief in an order, you know, to get the most out of what you’re, you know, perceiving or reading or apprehending. You know, in the beginning of my DMT studies, I was pretty skeptical of the reality or, you know, bases of people’s experiences, you know, like, you know, when they were telling me about these are being encounters, you know, these, you know, critters or bees, or robots or cactuses, and doing things and interacting with people, I thought to myself, well, it’s your brain on drugs, or as a Freudian impulses, or conflicts, you know, being represented visually and emotionally. It’s some kind of union archetype. You know, but it was anything, you know, but real. And, you my skepticism, even though I was keeping it to myself, still kind of leaked out. And the volunteers weren’t as comfortable describing the stranger parts of their experiences. And, you know, I picked up on that, and then started to, you know, treat the experiences to be as real as the volunteers believe they were, you know, like, you know, the state is quite common, or it’s because it’s consistent. It’s, you know, visual, it’s not a body. If, you know, rapidly changing, there’s beings you interact with him. You’re a bit confused, a bit anxious early on, but then it just completely opens up, you know, so, I thought, Well, okay, you know, these are, you know, this drug, you know, this compound seems to allow people to enter into free standing, completely consistent, independent universe from this one, which is more real than real. So, you know, when you start reading the Bible, you have to do the same thing, you’ve got to say to yourself, okay, you know, this is describing a universe a particular, you know, world which is more real than real for those who are in those narratives. You know, if you read about your prophecy, you know, like Ezekiel, for example. You know, he just, you know, falls down because of the intensity of the visions, and it’s the most your real, overpowering thing that’s ever occurred to him in his life. You know, so you can say, Oh, that’s just crazy. That’s just schizophrenia, you know, but you need to, you know, I guess, you know, suspend your disbelief. You could study the text carefully. You don’t you know, learn about that. character, you know, who is he he’ll? And you could enter into his mind and you see what’s going on there? You know, what’s he saying? And why? And, you know, what are the implications back then, you know, nowadays, you know, the story of Abraham, you know, the first, the first Jew, you know, Abraham is, you know, living in, you know, you know, like an idol of infested Babylonia, and he gets a call from God to go to Canaan and to worship the one God. You know, so you know, who is Abraham, you know, is, you know, like, Are there qualities of Abraham in me? You know, who were his parents, his wife, his kids, his travels, his servant, his maid servant, Ishmael, and Isaac, you know, so it’s this, it’s this free standing universe. And you could say, Oh, it’s just a bunch of, you know, hooey and promoting a genocide and the chosen people and all that. You could just say, okay, that’s fine. But what does the text actually say? And your friends on who say, Oh, you know, the Bible is just, you know, Bs, you can ask them if they’ve ever read the Bible. And if they have, if they’ve ever studied it,

matt nappo 26:18
yeah, you know, most of the time, most of the time, the answer will be very surface level reading, so and they will go right to the easiest part parts of it like, no, there’s no way no one could have had to have every species on Earth on the on the end, that kind of stuff. So I think they have a probably have not read it, but have heard the stories enough to believe they have read it, if that makes sense.

Dr. Rick Strassman 26:50
Yeah, well, you cherry pick well, right. It’s, um, you know, kind of like the story or you know, that, you know, saying your first fear is a mountain, you know, then there is no mountain then there is, you know, the first time you read the Bible, it’s, you know, literal, and it’s just, like crazy. And, you know, there’s nothing like, it’s just, you know, nonsense, and, and, you know, then once you’ve begun to study it in earnest, you can start to glean the gems of information, which are embedded in the narratives in the poetry and the wisdom and the legal code,

matt nappo 27:31
right? Part of the nd II experience seems to be precondition. In other words, if, you know, the whole idea of, if you’re, you committed suicide or tried to commit suicide, and have the NDA, you will have visions of the hell or, you know, very dark experience. And if you, you know, whatever died in an accident, or you sleep, whatever the, you know, be non suicidal way that you might have had, you tend to have a more heavenly type experience. Are there people who are in DMT, who have that DMT experimentation that have had that dark experience, the hell experience where the beings don’t seem to be friendly beings, but judgmental beings?

Dr. Rick Strassman 28:25
Well, I’m not sure if I would call them judgmental, you know, but at least aggressive, and hostile, and even harmful, um, in a way, you know, one of our volunteers was a young guy, you know, tie dye, your long hair, hippie Dude, you know, loved MDMA, had taken small doses of your mushrooms in the past, and was completely into the loving light, you know, delusion, as it were. He was, you know, hard for him to face his own your darkness, you know, so on his first, you know, large, you know, dose of DMT he was raped in Italy by crocodiles who pinned into the bed. He he couldn’t move, he was paralyzed, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t ask for help. And, you know, the first few minutes of the DMT experience, I’m just, you know, kind of crossing my, my fingers together and you’re praying is going to go all right. And I had no idea was going on with him. And, you know, at about the 20 minute point, he opened up his eyes and said, that was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. Wow. You know, so that was, you know, one experience like that, you know, some other guy came in, um, after having a big, you know, pizza and your beer dinner the night before, because he figured DMT I could handle that. Yeah, and he was a bit hung over a bit full stop. From all that pizza and his DMT experience was rather frightening as well, this black warrior with a shield and a spear just appeared right in front of him and said You dare enter here, you know, so it would depend on your state of mind, your personality, your approach, you know, going into the study, you would need to be psychologically healthy and mature. You already mentally, physically, you know, so it wasn’t just a shirred, ecstatic beatific state, it could be quite taxing.

matt nappo 30:38
So So with that in mind, you can have a bad experience on this, is there any real therapeutic use, because in therapy, the last last thing you want to do is drive somebody further into a dark place? I mean, the, the whole purpose of therapy is to get them to a brighter, lighter place. And it seems like, you’re never sure what you’re going to get. And so is there a real therapeutic use for the empty?

Dr. Rick Strassman 31:10
Yeah, well, there’s two important issues there, you know, one of them is, you know, the whole notion of psychotherapy, and, you know, if you’re going to be, you know, successful doing psychotherapy, you need to increase at least usually, you need to increase slightly the amount of anxiety that you know, that the patient is feeling, I’m in order to spur them to start challenging themselves, to look at stuff that they would rather not look at our you know, think about things they would rather not think about. You know, so you want to increase their, their anxiety, but not too much. Otherwise, they’ll just be too anxious and won’t be able to attend, or they’ll get spooked and flee. You know, so you wouldn’t necessarily start off if you were doing, you know, psychotherapy with DMT, you might not start off with a full dose, you might start off with a lower dose that just kind of gets the wheels turning in a different way. You know, so that’s, you know, one issue, um, you know, there’s another issue, you know, specific to DMT, you know, which is it’s extremely short duration of action, it only is effective for maybe 1520 minutes or so, that to me. Right, right. That’s why I used to be called, you know, the business man’s trip. You know, but, you know, there are a couple of groups overseas that are developing a continuous infusion model of DMT. You know, so you could keep somebody in that state for an hour, you know, two or three, and you could turn it up, you could turn it down, you know, depending on the content of the material coming up in psychotherapy, you could turn it off and just interact with the patient. You know, in a sober state, it wears off so quickly. And you could do that for a few hours. And it might be extremely useful or you know, psycho therapeutically. Yeah, the other notion which is a bit more of a mind, bender is the whole field which is coalescing around the issues of neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. neuroplasticity is where a compound or activity increases the complexity and the number of connections between nerve cells. And the other notion is neurogenesis is neurogenesis, which he points to the growth of new neurons from stem cells. And the psychedelics seem to induce you know, both neuroplasticity and neurogenesis and ketamine also does as well. And your ketamine is a psychedelic in a way and it’s an anti depressant. And you may not really need to attain to any particular subjective experience with ketamine in order to still see an anti depressant response. You know, so, you know, people are starting to think, you know, do you need to experience anything subjectively in order for these drugs to work in terms of anti depressant effect? You know, is that all going on behind the scenes? Is it just the stimulation of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity? You know, so the psychedelics also do that and in the same time course You know, like ketamine, you know, so yeah, there’s a, you know, move to develop non psychedelic psychedelics, which stimulate the same parts of the brain and stimulate your neuro and stimulate, I, you know, the plasticity and the stem cell affects you without any subjective effects. You know, so it’s a strange thing, you know, some people are saying, Oh, you need the subjective experience, if you’re going to be getting any healing, and others are saying, no, that’s not necessary. It just occurs behind the scenes with, you know, sprouting neurons, you know, that you’re not aware of, until after the fact.

matt nappo 35:43
But, well, part of this, I have to think that you’re pretty brave in going down this route, and even suggesting that there might be a spirit module molecule. And I know, you know, you’re not the first person in the history of mankind to kind of come up with that idea. But being a medical doctor and a professor and you know, what’s there any kind of just ambivalence about you know, what, what your colleagues might, because I talked to a lot of people on here, we’ll talk about consciousness talk about spirituality all the time, but most of them aren’t rooted in science and have nothing, no, nothing to lose by going down that path. We went. And so when you were first starting in this, was that a concern for you to even broach this subject?

Dr. Rick Strassman 36:41
Yeah, yeah, it was quite a concern. And I kept the spirituality aspect completely to myself. I never really talked about it with my colleagues, with my, you know, regulators with the people, you know, funding my studies, it was all strictly in psychopharmacology. You know, dose response work, endocrine results, cardio, vascular effects, those kinds of things. Yes, yeah. So I really stay clear of both spirituality and psychotherapy, you know, because a lot of the reasons or, you know, one of the reasons Anyway, these kinds of studies ended in the early 1970s is, you know, because of the spiritual flavor that was being, you know, kind of permeating, you know, the psychotherapy research, like it was, you know, mystical experiences, you know, which were, you know, curing depression, or OCD or end of life care, as opposed to, you know, psycho pharmacological effects. And, you know, regulators back then, especially back then, we, you know, we’re not going to teen on your mixing categories like this, you know, it’s either your psychotherapeutic or it’s spiritual. And, you know, I’m, I learned my lesson or, you know, I’m, I learned the lesson, you know, that the first generation of scientists, researchers learn is to just keep it psychopharmacological, you know, so, it wasn’t until I stopped my studies, and began, you know, looking at, you know, the, you know, the largest and broadest container, you know, to understand the experiences and, you know, that I started to speak more openly about, you know, my interest in the spiritual aspects of these compounds,

matt nappo 38:52
right, when we talk to people who were come from those fringes on this program, and I don’t even really know if I that’s disrespectful to say those fringes, people who have different belief systems than mainstream religion, about what what the experiences they took the word that always comes up is consciousness and it comes up in your book, too. And but in in terms of the separation of consciousness from the body, and I’m still trying to nail down exactly what consciousness is. We use the word so much. Can you help me out with that at all?

Dr. Rick Strassman 39:35
Um, probably, you know, not too much. Well, you know, consciousness, I suppose it’s, you know, like pornography, right? You can’t define it, but you know it when you see it, right. Yeah.

matt nappo 39:48
Yeah. Time displacement stuff, I understand. But it’s still when we’re talking about what consciousness is. I mean, cuz I it feels like a scientific way. of saying spirit without saying spirit?

Dr. Rick Strassman 40:04
Well, yeah, it, you know, is pretty complicated. Well, well, you know, when you’re a medical student, and you’re going on around, you know, they speak about consciousness, you know, what is the state of consciousness of your, of your, of your patient? Um, is a stable and alert, is it drowsy? Is it confused? Um, is it asleep? Is it in coma responsive or not? You know, so, it’s a you know, medical expression um, at least in you know, within the medical you know, context you know, a lot on a spectrum of alertness to coma and stability um, is at a stable level of consciousness or is it fluctuating Are you alert for a few minutes and then you get drowsy or fall asleep, you become alert again, you know, consciousness within your psychology, more partakes of awareness, attention, those kinds of things, right. And yes, in spiritual circles, it can assume, you know, your more abstract, you know, kinds of properties, like, you know, being elevated or being, you know, dance those kinds of expressions. Your spiritual is no complex term to and, you know, I usually like to call it our feelings or thoughts or behaviors or perceptions, which you partake of the elevated, the non ordinary, the special, the unique, the memorable, the more real than real. You know, so you have to be conscious in order to have a spiritual experience, you know, so that, you know, plays in, in, in to the definition as well,

matt nappo 42:22
right. And part of part of this whole idea about separating consciousness from the body. It’s confusing, because I’m thinking of the, the psychoactive effect of DMT seems to be opening up the pineal gland, I’m guessing, to experience something that is external, not internal. That’s the part that that confuses me. Because if I can work a really short story, and again, for the people on YouTube who monitor me, I’m not glorifying drug use. In the early 70s, mid 70s. I did LSD at Carlos Santana concert. And I was brought up in a supposedly Catholic New York Catholic upbringing, but what that really means is you don’t have religion, you don’t talk about religion, you don’t talk about faith it, it’s just a tag we put on you, you’re not going to go to church, you’re not going to read any Bible, you’re not gonna do any of that stuff. And don’t talk about it with your friends, because they’ll just, you know, they’ll tune you out. So I we were at a Carlos Santana concert with a girl who was in Catholic school, but still not religious. And we both had the same experience of telepathic communication on LSD, what we what we we are sure that we were having a conversation, and both of us felt like we were having the same conversation that like, I think you’re saying one thing and one thing and we’re after we said, Yeah, that was great. We actually could recount our conversation that we had without speaking a word. And so I, this this idea of, is it out there doors in an internal experience? is a drug doing something to our brain to make us believe something is happening externally? Or is it really an external experience? And it’s just opening up a pathway? Did you gain any, you know, definitive belief about what what’s really happening? Is it an internal experience, or is there really something out there that we are tapping into?

Dr. Rick Strassman 44:27
Um, yeah, well, yeah. Well, well, that’s an important question. And, well, yeah, before we, we go there, let me you know, clarify or shed some light on, you know, the notion of, you know, consciousness, leaving the body in my volunteers. You know, I think, you know, a more precise description of what took place is that people lost awareness of their body. They, you know, they were no longer aware of their bodies. You know, like with ketamine as well, you’re unaware of your body just.

matt nappo 45:07
So that’s different. I don’t mean to interrupt, but that’s different from the MDD nd experience where they believe that above their body and could look down and see it, so they’re conscious of their body.

Dr. Rick Strassman 45:19
Right? Yeah, there was no one with you know, that kind of experience in our group, you know, that, you know, they could view their bodies in from a distance, or they traveled, you know, like, you know, downtown Albuquerque to look around. Yeah, so, um, you know, so is the content of the experience in your mind? Or is? Or are you just able to perceive things which drops out of your mind? You know, because of the alteration in your brain chemistry? Yeah. And we just don’t know. I mean, it’s really impossible to say, you know, your experience of telepathy? Yeah, you know, that would point you to a model that proposes that you’re perceiving things which aren’t, you know, generated within you, you’re just in perceiving rather than, you know, generating it, you know, so, you know, that would be consistent with an external, you know, world that you’re now able to tap into, you know, the other model is the neuro theology model, which is, you know, this is your brain on drugs, you know, there are certain parts of your brain being, you know, dinged by the drug, and you’re generating, you know, the impression of, you know, reading your friends, your mind at the time,

matt nappo 46:44
right. And so, and part of the, the thing that confused, again, further complicates that is, we think both of us were taught never really, or conditioned, never really talked about being spiritual with that the conversation about it didn’t happen for 10 years after. So we were both kind of remembering the experience of what it what it was because she bade, I basically heard her telling me, we need to be up front in the front row, can I get on your shoulders, and I just lifted her up on my shoulders and ran to the front row. And we both remembered it that way. But 10 years can be a long time. And so the question really is to people on DMT. And I guess it would only happen on low doses, where you don’t have that experience of losing losing connection to your body, have any of those telepathic kind of, you know, experiences that part where I feel I can communicate without speaking?

Dr. Rick Strassman 47:43
Um, well, we only gave you know, DMT to one person at a time. You know, so, you know, there was never a case for people, you know, to be in that same stone space and interacting in that space, you know, with their minds only, you know, the closest thing might be one of our volunteers was, you know, sometimes asked to do a psychic work for the police, you know, to locate missing people. And so she was hoping on her DMT experiences to be able to make contact with those missing people. And it didn’t occur. So yes, and no one and it was a you know, didn’t work out

matt nappo 48:33
big letdown for the people who want to believe in the psychic experience right there. And I’m sure most any of them who are listening to that are waiting for you to say, and it did in your hands, her ability to find missing people. And we are kind of short on time here. And I wish I had you for three hours. But I want to be respectful of your time. I want to talk about the book. The other book, not the spirit, my my new book, The Joseph lavey. if I’m pronouncing that right way we escaped death. Yeah, difficult for me. I’ve just conditioned for 60 years to be saying levy. It seems autobiography, autobiographical, it seems like it’s, it’s definitely you. If so, if I’m writing that, why even bother with the pseudonym.

Dr. Rick Strassman 49:28
Right, right. Well, the well, you know, pronouncing the last name lavey. As you know, based on you know, the spelling in the Bible. The Hebrew spelling is um, is Lavie, which would be you know, you know, that’d be hard, you know, but I, you know, wanted to retain the verbalization anyway, right. Well, it’s completely autobiographical. But yeah, it describes You know, bad tooth procedure that just kind of, you know, took me down in so many hellish rabbit holes. I swore if I ever survived, I would write about it. Because it was just impossible to make this stuff up. So yeah, you know, what I tell people is everything which occurred to the protagonist occurred to me, and every, you know, thought that passed through his mind and passed, you know, through mine as well. But still, it’s a snapshot. It’s, you know, it’s a facet of my personality, as opposed to me. Well, you know, Philip Roth always used to be asked, you know, what’s the difference between you and Alexander Portnoy? And he’d say, I’m not Alexander Portnoy. You know, so, it’s the same thing. You know, I’m not Joseph lavey. But still, I couldn’t have written that book without being me. You know, why did I, you know, disguise things and names and places? Well, you know, with respect, you know, to the places I don’t, you know, paint the healthcare where I live in a very good light. And

matt nappo 51:13
I wanted to talk about it. But yeah, I’m sorry to interrupt.

Dr. Rick Strassman 51:16
Yeah. And I was concerned, if I said, Oh, it’s, you know, my hometown, and this is the name of the hospital. And if I ever needed to go to that hospital, they’d say, oh, you’re the guy that just completely trashed us, we’re not going to look after you. You know, it’s, you know, difficult to imagine they could have offered worse care, you know, than they did otherwise. But still, you know, they just might refuse to see me. The other is, you know, that, you know, there’s some, you know, some personal stuff, friends and family, women.

matt nappo 51:50
It’s an uncomfortable read, and some of the things I wish you would have kind of disguise. I mean, for the non medical people, people who might be a little bit squeamish, squeamish? Yeah. Some of the things in there are a little bit too detailed and too real for a guy like me. And I worked in pathology and did autopsies for many years. And so you would think, but your book definitely got me. Wow. But, um, the idea of your situation there, I had a friend, who, when I started to read the book, and I’m like, this is Andy story, he started with this tooth the same way the bad crown, ended up going through all the things that you went through. So you’re not alone in that. But on the healthcare thing a couple of weeks ago at Lee Tomlinson on who was a former corporate guy in television, and also a very successful guy who went through a lot of not quite just up rabies, struggles with the healthcare system, but some struggles with the healthcare system. And he came out and wrote a book about the lack of empathy. And he used that word, probably 1000 times in his book about the lack of empathy in the healthcare system. When I read your book, it felt it felt like I was talking to him all over again, about this chronic state of people. People get in doctor and I don’t have to tell you, doctors and nurses get into the field because they want to be helpful. They want to help people they want to, you know, be heroes. And then at some point along the line, it seemed like a lot of them, whether it’s because overworked stressed, the system that they’re in, seems to beat the empathy out of them. your take on that?

Dr. Rick Strassman 53:45
Yeah, I think that’s true. And if there’s one thing well, there was incompetence, like there was gross incompetence, which was difficult for me as an academic physician, you know, to count an ensign, I wasn’t very subtle about my suggestions for them, you know, kind of increasing their game, you know, upping their game, you know, but, you know, the empathy was, yeah, it was really lacking. And, you know, the nurses, you know, their radiology, well, well, the radiology department was great, you know, they were kind, supportive walk me through everything. I was cold, they put a blanket on me and stuff like that, you know, but everybody else was just out to lunch. You know, they forgot about me when I was getting a respiratory therapy on your treatment, you know, they just left me, you know, they just left the machine in there. going and going and going and there’s no more medication there is going go so I just unplugged it. Yeah. And you’re like half a day later and they say, Oh, we never pick this up. Did we? Yeah. So yeah, you know, if you see enough difficult patients, if you fail in your duties or your responsibilities, easier, your own expectations, you know, for helping people. You know, you, you begin to realize that only a job as opposed to you making your life worthwhile. All kinds of things like that. You start burning out. Yeah, you know, so I stopped your practice, you know, my own psychiatry practice, you know, when I started burning out, and I lost empathy, you know, like I had been, you know, working with your psychiatric patients for 30 years. But, you know, one thing I was smart, around was never working full time seeing patients, I only worked in three, four days a week. Otherwise, you just get overwhelmed. You just have too many people’s problems in your mind. You know, so I always had other things going on, I was living in beautiful places that I could, you know, drive around, you know, hike around you. But after a certain point, I was at a clinic between Santa Fe and tau, it’s a small town called es es Mineola. And it was the most hardcore group of patients I’ve ever had, you know, murderers. Just a lot of murderers, actually. And unbelievable amounts of you know, drug abuse and domestic violence and intergenerational abusive is just nuts. And after your tears at that, I had said, I don’t really want to hear about these things anymore.

matt nappo 56:35
Yeah. And I can understand that, yeah,

Dr. Rick Strassman 56:38
yeah. You know, so, you know, my contract was up, I said, I’m taking a break. And that break has become the 13 years now.

matt nappo 56:45
So I think it’s really important for medical professionals to read your book. I do. But the question I have for you is, and I don’t know if you can really answer this because you seem healthy now and probably haven’t. Get First of all, the book is just so frustrating. You just feel like my god is this is and I imagine you going through it probably said that 1000 times, is this ever going to end? The torture, you see personal physical torture, you seem to be enjoying? But do you have any sense that the medical profession, the medical industry, how we care for people? Has it improved since that time or not?

Dr. Rick Strassman 57:24
Well, I think, you know, small town, you know, health care, you know, generally, I mean, it’s a burnout. You know, I live in a small town, like, well, you live in a certain small towns, you know, like upper crust, your retirement, small towns like towns, you know, for example, you know, it’s a very small town with, you know, great positions and a great hospital. Yeah, yeah. But that is the exception. And you’re like, I live near them? Well, you work? Well, well, so I live, you know, near that, you know, the Navajo reservation, and it’s impoverished, and it’s really hard to attract physicians out here, your nurses and whatnot. Yeah, you know, so the healthcare is pretty poor, in small towns, especially if they’re extractive industry, kind of towns, you know, non University kind of towns, you know, without the kinds of things which appeal, you know, to, you know, well educated people. Yeah, and I think, you know, health insurance is just grim. You have to spend all your time, you know, begging for treatments or prescriptions to be filled in those kinds of things. Yeah, I don’t think it’s getting any better. And that’s

matt nappo 58:43
a shame and something, you know, we talk a lot about health care in this country, but it’s not just the insurance and how we’re going to pay for it that matters, I think, the approach to burning out doctors and nurses, to the point where they, they are not angels anymore, they’re just, you know, overworked, angry people, like the rest of us is the probably the worst thing we could do for the country in terms of health care, and I think that needs to be addressed as much as the financial part of it, and how we pay for all that we agree.

Dr. Rick Strassman 59:16
Yeah, and I think, you know, the, you know, the whole concept of electronic medical records has been a really mixed blessing. You can get your hands on, you know, medical records, you know, much easier now, you know, but at the same time, the amount of time you need to spend entering and checking boxes and all that on your computer after you, you’re done. You’re seeing a patient. It’s just really hard to do. You know, if you’re a large clinic with a lot of staff, you can hire a you know, somebody, you know, to take transcription, and you know, they can enter all that stuff in the computer, you know, but if you’re a solo practitioner, it’s important community, you’re stuck in bringing home an enormous amount of work, you know, much more than was the case, it’d be the instance, no

matt nappo 1:00:09
doubt about it. My wife is a nurse and her normal working hours at 40 hours a week. But the report work that she has to do is another 40 hours a week she she spent the equal time after she’s all done with her, doing her treatments and stuff with the reports. And so I feel that I hear it. And I think that’s something that needs to be addressed. I want to be respectful of your time. I know, you’re very busy man and very wanted on a lot for a lot of reasons. Not wanted into the way that guy in posters. But I do appreciate your time here. Just Finally, on the DMT thing. Do you feel like you’ve made you come to any, like real? Will enlightenment through your own experimentation About what? What’s really going on? Or? You know, I know that’s a loaded question like, but I’m so curious, this is why I want to do DMT. And I just want to do it once, just to see what that experience is. Did you out? Do you have any feeling like that you’ve been enlightened? beyond what I know right now from interviewing people?

Dr. Rick Strassman 1:01:27
No, not really. Well, you know, a couple of years ago, a study came out from the University of Michigan, demonstrating, you know, concentrations of DMT in the mammal brain, which are as high as serotonin, for example, which then, you know, points to the possibility of a DMT neurotransmitter system. And you’ve got to wonder, you know, what, you know, that might be doing in the brain? And, you know, what is your mediating, and your the hallmark of a DMT experiences is more real than real, you know, so it’s, you know, attempting to speculate that the role of a putative DMT neurotransmitter system is to mediate our ongoing sense of reality, you know, which is a very strange thought, because, you know, then you need to wonder, what’s your regulating the substance that’s regulating our feeling of reality? So that’s where it gets pretty spooky.

matt nappo 1:02:29
Does? Yeah. Wow. So I think the the, the big conclusion here with with today’s is really a big chicken and egg discussion going around in circles about, and I don’t think it’s ever going to end and so I feel like humanity is never going to get any closer. It’s like, you’ll know, when you die. What what happens after this? Or what goes on?

Dr. Rick Strassman 1:02:56
Yeah, yeah. And I think you know, you know, contemplating or wondering about what occurs after you die, it’s kind of moot. You know, it isn’t all that important in a way, you know, you’ve got no control over it. You know, nobody really knows what it’s like, you know, so, you know, that’s, you know, where the importance of, you know, living your life as best as you can, you know,

matt nappo 1:03:19
I get it. Yeah, and I but that fear of the unknown is what drives our curiosity. And that’s why I think we all want to know, I do appreciate your time here, and I’m gonna let you go. But I do want to say I will be continuing to suggest the books and promote the books, and I wish you great success. And And listen, if you ever have anything, like, be come across any big epiphany that you would love to share with me. I would love to hear that. Sure. Good. I’m so curious about this stuff. Thank you for coming. Have a great day. Well, thanks, man. Take care. Afterwards, Rick strassman. Folks, I wish we had three or four hours with them. I know you do, too. I feel like we were just scratching the surface there. But the overall conclusion I think, for me is some things are unknowable. As much as we want to know, I still I you know, that hasn’t deterred me from really wanting to have that one short, 15 minute experience with DMT. Again, for the YouTube folks, I’m not glorifying the experience. I’m not recommending anybody else do it. not suggesting that people go out and look for illegal substances. I’m just I’m a little disappointed that the government does classify it as a controlled substance and a drug but so I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Write to me at info at mind dog TV. com info at mind, dog tv.com. Please remember to check out Dr. strassman books. One more time. We got this DMT the spirit molecule and Joseph lavey escapes death which is you know what, that’s a real hard Read and frustrating read about you, you should have some empathy before you even open the cover of that book because it’s a really hellish experience. I mean hell on earth. He talks about you know, we don’t worry about what’s going to happen if you die because it seems to me he went to hell him in back in this lifetime on it during this life and that’s my takeaway from that book that’s my great book but not to be read on the cold heart because he does go through some and it is extremely frustrating you just like you just wanted to be suffering to end this great book. So anyway, that’s our program for today. tonight. I have Joseph Serra with me, who has written a book called The devil pulls the strings and puts things with spirituality, and time travel and all this kind of stuff and should be an interesting way to end this very strange week with psychics, palm readers, BMT discussion, scientists who are doing studies on Gen Z. It’s been a very full week of very wide subjects, that you can make infection come and talk to me. Round Listen to me, listen to Now listen to me, listen to me now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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