Having an incredibly original voice as a leftist comedian, our guest: Jamie Kilstein, has spearheaded a subculture of comedy fans and socially aware youth and has primed himself to become the voice of a generation. He’s crafted a beat poetry inspired performance style laced with socio/political activism, and riddled with progressive politics and the chaos of contemporary culture. Additionally, he’s a Marcelo Garcia trained Jiu Jitsu brown belt and Muay Thai fighter!
In this episode we discuss:
The notorious roller coaster of emotions many comedians experience throughout their careers. Jamie dives deep into his own struggle with depression and how both jiu jitsu and comedy quite literally saved his life. Plus, we explore his journey from being an atheist to becoming spiritually curious.
Book recommendations:
•Calvin Hobbes
MAJic Tricks:
•Three ways to reprogram the brain
•“That makes sense to me because…”
Connect with Jamie:
https://instagram.com/thejamiekilstein?igshid=xs16bfbo6ijp
Listen to A Fuckup’s Guide to Self-Help at www.jamiekilsteinpodcast.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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majic hour episode #92 transcription
Angry Atheist turned Psychedelic Comedian & Jiu Jitsu Expert: Jamie Kilstein – YouTube
Transcript:
(00:01) all right we’re recording greetings boys and babes it’s the magic hour a place where we navigate through life’s peaks and valleys with all the vulnerability and shamelessness we can muster with the help of world-class guests from all walks of life we uncover new truths and valuable tools for manifesting our highest potential i’m your host mercedes terrell along with my partner in shine jade bryce hey you guys mercedes and i love a good comic and you know we love us some jiu jitsu and today’s guest is a high level
(00:36) in both yes his new album 25 capacity had me literally in tears from laughter and i believe it hit the charts at number five within only a few hours so can’t wait to share his humor and wisdom with our listeners today and you guys are gonna soak this stuff up yes me too our guest today is a comedian podcast host writer and performer who has been on the joe rogan experience showtime’s the green room and conan he is an incredibly original voice as a leftist comedian whose material is informed by progressive politics and the
(01:14) chaos of contemporary culture with his beat poetry inspired performance style and his socio-political activism he has spearheaded a subculture of comedy fans and socially aware youth and has primed himself to become the voice of a generation he’s also a marcelo garcia trained jiu-jitsu brown belt and muay thai fighter please help me welcome jamie kelsey to the magic hour hi you guys are so nice who the [ __ ] wrote that i’ve never heard that like leftist thing i’m people is it true i mean i don’t know kind of i’m
(01:50) certainly not the voice of a generation or else i apologize to the entire generation the hearing nice thing said about me like when mercedes said she even listened to the album i was like holy [ __ ] what like i’m so used to uh uh the the bad voices and every time someone has me on their podcast i’m like this is certainly a mistake and midway through when they realize it’s like a different jamie um yeah i mean no no i’m like i’m lefty in the sense that like i don’t know i didn’t dress nicely for
(02:25) this i’m wearing a [ __ ] tank top uh i like i don’t be mean to gay people or women or black people right like but i’m i’m honestly i’m at the point right now with politics where the fact that even kovid like a global pandemic somehow was made into a political issue where you’re either like you know uh you’re you’re pro mask and that means you hate jobs or it’s a political statement yeah yeah and it’s like when everybody on all the sides should be coming together i think that shows how
(02:58) divided we’ve become and i think that when you get off social media and you get off the internet and you talk to like normal human beings you realize that most of us want the same thing we want uh a nice life we want love and support for our families like all this stuff and so i i know i don’t classify myself like i have friends all over the place now on the spectrum you know i feel like i feel like the race is saying i have black friends being like i have conservative friends but like well i know um there’s a saying in
(03:30) government never let a good crisis go to waste and i definitely feel like we are all being pinned against each other um so yeah i think i mean that happened under katrina it happened after 9 11 um my friend i interviewed her a couple times naomi klein she wrote a book called the shock doctrine and it was all about that it was every time there was a natural disaster every time by the way guys i’m i’m funny but anyway geopolitics and the uh yeah the government and these corporations will kind of rush in and be
(04:02) like how can we do something cartoonishly evil off of this tragedy um and i yeah man i just wish that like good people because they’re [ __ ] on all sides they’re great people on all sides and i feel like when the great people find each other real magic can happen and that’s what i’ve been trying to do ever since i left la i was like i just want in everything in jiu jitsu and comedy i’m like i just want to find cool people and like make art and be nice and try to help people and it sounds so
(04:33) trite but it’s honestly i feel like what quarantine did for me is show me that the key to life is in all those cliches right about loving yourself about you know treating others what kindness it’s all that and there’s so much noise especially in la um that i’m just kind of done with that um california and texas i know you just moved to austin they are very friday yeah they’re uh they are very different worlds right now for sure um completely opposite i have friends that are visiting from california right now
(05:05) as well and they’re like everything feels really normal here and i’m friends visiting from new york and they’re like they came here specifically because they needed to kind of feel a little bit of normalcy yeah um and then about your tank top my kids uh go to jiu jitsu at 10 10th planet so um yeah you know so i’m i’m friends with gabe i’m going to be training there okay awesome yeah my kids go there we’re you’re big into warrior kid and hilarious there is definitely gonna be a point
(05:32) where i fight your children well no i don’t know about that and they’ll [Laughter] i think you’re in different weight classes guys like i said uh i don’t like hearing compliments about me so the way i stay confident is i fight children um i used to run the kids program at enzo’s la i used to teach it and stuff so like okay well maybe you’d be a great instructor for them i bet i know maybe you can kind of say you shot it down yeah no i felt that way when i went to la and look i’m i’m careful right i want to i’m pretty
(06:12) secure with me and kovid but like i had a i had a ufc fighter who i was doing a thing with literally cough on me and go and make a joke and goes uh don’t worry it’s not coveted and then the next day i got a text message like after like a weird one-night stand that was like um you may want to sit down for this and they had coveted [ __ ] somehow i did not get it so no one has the answers i have no idea and then i also know people who have stayed home completely isolated themselves got it whether it was a handyman
(06:49) i love what kingsbury said on one of his podcasts i don’t know if he feels this way anymore but a while ago when he was like man if a mask is gonna make like old vulnerable people like feel safer around me like whatever i want to do things that will help people with that said and to your point jade when i was in la and i lived in la for a while so when i went back to l.
(07:15) a to do press the like the tenseness and from everybody was so toxic that i was like i can’t be here like i i i was supposed to do another tour back and it’s it’s it’s it’s rough it’s weird and i know everyone you know there they’re doing the right things they’re messed up more they’re this they’re that they’re but they are all so tense and so you can just feel the negativity like radiating off people that i’m like this isn’t healthy either this is not the answer you know yeah what’s that said you know i’m in
(07:59) oh my god um but right before we got on right before you actually entered the zoom i got an emergency alert about cobit stay inside you know right or your area blah blah blah and it is i don’t know i noticed throughout my friends group it’s just hit or miss like some are really taking it to another level of seriousness and they have reason you know they have good reasons for it but some are just they haven’t really participated in it at all since the get-go so well and i got to the point where we don’t have to talk about kobe this whole
(08:33) time but this probably will segue into something else where i just deal with such depression that when like i said this on the album and this was not a joke this was true which was like my life was bad before kovit happened like literally in a week it was like a country song man like my cat died my girlfriend left the next day it was ridiculous and and then i was like well all right i can deal with this and then covet happened and i was like what the [ __ ] man what’s happening and i got to a point where and
(09:07) i live around a lot of old people i’m like the cool tattooed friend of like a lot of widows with cute dogs and i just got to a point where i was like i if i don’t get outside you know i was getting my groceries delivery i was doing all the thing and it just completely wreaked havoc on like my mental health and then once i started again being safe but like going outside and you know seeing some people and finding places where i could train safely i was like right this is so incredibly important um to do that you know
(09:46) yeah yeah i know it’s all just we’re just kind of waiting for it to like land but i don’t know if it’s ever gonna we’re just gonna have to start evolving in here somewhere there’s so many conspiracy theorists and uh speaking of kyle you brought up kyle he sure he still believes in that and and um doing what’s best for those around him but i’m so fortunate to have him as a best friend because you said like you don’t know if he still believes this because literally every week he has new beliefs
(10:13) because that is how much he grows so you know what so i’m so glad you [ __ ] said that i’ve never heard anyone say that there is this thing especially in like political social media where like if you change your mind on something you’re automatically you’re a contradiction oh yeah no they go even worse because they’re soulless where they’ll call you a grifter totally and it’s like i thought that changing your mind was evolution it’s also the hardest thing to do come up against the cognitive dissonance so
(10:42) hard to do and the thing that about kyle and clearly about you guys too is like dude i want to hear those other opinions and then i want to figure out what the best uh point of view is i want to do it with science i want to do it with jiu jitsu i want to do with my comedy that is the way you get good at things is you it’s the bruce lee uh adage but not to martial arts which is the take what is useful disregard what is useless and what’s your own and that came from him kind of being one of the first mma guys by taking from all these
(11:14) traditional martial arts and then more western martial arts and combining it into his own style you should be able to also do that with intellectual thought right with uh with politics with the fact that if you are not in one complete category uh where you’re either all progressive or you’re all conservative that you’re like excluded from the group is insane and yet that’s one of the reasons i love kyle i’m really all of the people i’m starting to meet tangentially you know you guys or just
(11:48) in the austin scene i’m so excited to get down there and just not be in an echo chamber and learn new stuff every day and maybe change someone else’s mind on something and maybe change my mind it should be something we [ __ ] strive for and the fact that it’s criticized shows you it’s like what are you afraid of if you’re criticizing me for changing your mind changing my mind then clearly you are not confident in your beliefs it’s like when you’re fighting with your boyfriend or girlfriend and the second
(12:18) you realize you’re you’re wrong suddenly you like double down and start yelling and you have to i’m sorry i i don’t yell this is you’re correct you know you have to like pull your where people are just freaking out and you know i i think that having open conversations about all this is the most essential thing we should be doing yeah it’s necessary it’s funny uh a guy we had on the show during the blm you know the big blm moment we’ll call but we want to call it a movement right uh keep it call
(12:50) keep calling it a movement um his name’s mccod brooks and we’ve been following him for a long time now i heard him on aubrey’s yeah he was great he’s great and he had so much amazing and enlightening stuff to add to the conversation when it came to blm and everything that was happening and that is still going on now and this morning i was looking at a post of his where he says for all that time and on our show he’s about you know defund the police hashtag defund the police and we brought that up
(13:21) we talked about it we went into the depths of what that really means or what it should mean and all those things and he was really behind it because he knew there needed to be a shaking at that time where defund the police will make people go wait are we sure we want to defund the police then what is it going to be just chaos you know you have to go all the way into that rabbit hole and the reality is defund the police probably isn’t the full picture right it’s just a thing to get you to start looking at it
(13:47) oh yeah so today he says you know okay i’m really looking at defund the police and the messaging behind it i need to change what the statement is because for me it no longer works because the messaging is pushing away the people that i’m trying to build a bridge toward yeah you know yeah he’s like reimagine the police let’s re-word this beautiful because it was so easy to drive people away by the way here i’ll i’ll i’ll trash trump and then i’ll oh and then i’ll go on to agree with what
(14:20) you guys are saying which is my favorite thing about the defunder police is all the trump political ads that were like showing like this is the world joe biden wants and it was like the streets on fire and uh stuff like that but it was footage from the trump administration it was footage from your administration and you’re like this is what this guy wants it’s like hey dude it’s happening right now it’s you um but yeah i agree like i think that the thing that upsets me so i was training with this dude who’s a cop
(14:53) and i asked him questions after i beat him up to assert dominance um where i was like hey man can i ask you about like the george floyd stuff and me and him and he’s a conservative guy me and him agreed on literally everything literally everything and those voices you don’t hear and i also think what happens is people get defensive right people get defensive about their side where if you’re a conservative and everyone is calling you a racist and everyone’s calling you a nazi and you’re not a racist and you’re not a nazi or if
(15:25) you’re a liberal and everyone’s calling you some like marxist anarchist kid you’re like i’m too high to make a molotov cocktail what are you talking about i think that what happens is when the other side does something right or when your side does something wrong you are hesitant to criticize it because you’re just putting up these walls right and so if anyone should be the angriest about what happened to george floyd it’s cops if someone was running around murdering people with rear naked jokes and was
(15:59) like i love jiu-jitsu i’m going to be like ah [ __ ] we gotta stop this guy you know as a jiu-jitsu guy and someone who cares about jiu-jitsu you know cops are putting their lives on the line of course they want to get rid of bad cops but we don’t have this conversation do we have like these insane like union cop guys screaming at you know and i think what i love about your friend is being open to conversations you know i had tim kennedy on my podcast afterwards and i was like i want to talk to black
(16:30) people about what’s going on but i also want to talk to someone who’s been in law enforcement in martial arts or military with him and he knows so many things and you know some of the solution ideas some of the solutions he had were sounding progressive you know and a lot of the other stuff tim talks about sounds very conservative but because we were having a conversation where we weren’t yelling at each other i probably agreed with some of his more conservative leaning points and he agreed with a lot of my more left
(17:01) leaning points and it’s like oh man it was pretty easy to do but then you go back on social media and you start being blasted and then you just turn into a maniac yeah and it all you know the cliches that you said that you realize are all true through covid the one that is the truest maybe of all is that communication is everything and it comes down to how we talk to each other in order to be a bridge to whatever we’re trying the end goal that we all want which is exactly the same and so to the point about mccod is just uh
(17:34) you know i praised him for being a changer which is the opposite of what most would think right we want to be like this binary black or white thing but the reality is that we’re all in the gray and we wouldn’t want it any other way if we really looked at it closely and so that brings me to the the idea of what makes or the question maybe of what makes a good influencer and in that moment where mccod was showing us you know how he was going to go again you know basically come up against his own cognitive dissonance and
(18:04) say hey i was wrong but i want to show you like a different way we can do this and i’m going to lead this this you know i’m going to pioneer this route well when it comes to you i know that you know you have done such an amazing job of somehow blending this world of being a comic and being in the jiu jitsu space and um speaking your voice as like i’m going to call you a philosopher or even maybe a mystic or something like that i don’t know what you love that label yourself but that’s cool i label myself a piece of [ __ ] so like
(18:36) you label me that stuff that looks amazing that is what i will i will quote you now when i label myself yeah it’s a philosopher and a mystic so if you can maybe sum up for us because we’re doing this interview maybe a little bit backwards we usually like to get just a gist of where you came from and what brought you before i started ranting incoherently about politics you’re here to make us laugh i was trying to like rewind and i was like jamie how the [ __ ] did that happen i was like all i want to do is not talk
(19:08) about politics anymore and five minutes into every year george floyd was murdered damn it damn i did it again all i wanted i told jade before this podcast jade and i were texting and i was just like all i want i was like i don’t need any more like comedy fans calling me cucks i don’t need any more of this i just want like i said with the reason i was so excited one of the reasons i was so excited to do this podcast is when i interviewed because i interview fighters i interview professional wrestlers i
(19:40) interview comedians but when i interviewed trevor hall my instagram for like two weeks was just filled with these beautifully wonderful kind men and women who all do yoga and they were sending me pictures of like romdops and stuff and i was like this this is the life i want just get me more of those fans i don’t want i don’t need any more [ __ ] fighters i don’t need any more mean comics saying terrible things i just want like very sweet spiritual people uh and then i spent screaming about politics and i’m like
(20:08) well jamie this is why you have the life you have well i think that jade and i would consider ourselves the uh bridge for people on their journey not necessarily just so fyi you know so you know yeah the following that we have is not necessarily already in that mode so you might be this is how i feel yeah you might be directly speaking to the people that you already have been speaking to you might get more of that but also um we hope that it’s people also opening themselves to gray areas you know journeying into the great but uh
(20:42) so you are an influencer for sure in this space and um you’re already influencing jade in my life and here you are influencing our the lives of our listeners as well so could you walk us toward how you came about coming you know deciding you’re going to be a comic and deciding you want to you know invest a lot of time in learning the art of jiu jitsu um in the mma space all that what yeah this is great so um comedy we’ll do comedy first um because comedy and jiu jitsu i actually do think there are a lot of parallels when it
(21:17) comes to getting high level and a lot of it actually has to do with like meditation and flow and ego stuff um but for when i started i’ve had a love-hate relationship with comedy always up until now uh the only person i told this was my manager and i’ll tell you guys and a lot of people listening to this like there’s a great chance this is my last album and i’m cool with that there was a phase when i was doing much better than i’m doing right now that i would jokingly on my podcast advertise
(21:48) every show as my last show it would just be come see my last show this week or my last show like next week like that was the bit and the reason i will get to the history but the reason and what might be interesting to your listeners is you know with comedy i can be creative and i got good at it um but there’s a lot of really toxic stuff around comedy you’re sort of glorified for being a degenerate right if i walked into the back of a comedy club with my romdos book and little beads and was like guys how do we better ourselves be
(22:27) like get out and a lot of it i have to take personal responsibility for right because like well i don’t have to drink and i don’t have to eat shitty comedy club food and i don’t have to you know try to hook up with someone after the show but it was so ingrained the culture and i was so insecure that that’s always what happened and so when i did kind of throw myself fully into jiu jitsu and mma suddenly i was healthy suddenly i was confident suddenly i had an idea what healthy masculinity looked like
(23:02) all of these things i’m meditating and waking up early but i’m not creating so then i kind of got depressed on that end so it’s always been this this battle for me i mean [ __ ] i made a very dark video this morning on instagram where i’m joking about like here’s how to be a comedian and it’s essentially like be miserable and i even talked about i mean there the guy who would talk me out of quitting comedy weekly was [ __ ] robin williams and then he died so even some of the most wonderful
(23:37) things and memories i have in comedy are still like tainted with this you know dark whatever and so going back to the beginning i didn’t really want to be a comic i didn’t think i was that funny um i loved comedy and i wanted to be in a band and i wanted to be a professional wrestler were the two things i wanted to do and professional wrestling that’s why i started martial arts when i was younger because i was like oh the little guys all do like martial arts that’s what makes them be able to compete with like
(24:10) those giant guys so that’s why i started martial arts and i was in a band um i was in a jam band which i’m sure many of your listeners have already figured out and profiled me and we were great i thought for a little high school of stoner jam band and uh i remember we were juniors in high school and i was like alright guys we had our first like big gig i was like now uh we got to talk about like touring after school and we got to talk about merch and all this stuff and they were like dude we have to go to college
(24:42) and i was like what that’s crazy but we know what we want to do we want to do this and they’re like yeah but our parents like we got to go to college and that’s kind of always been a constant in my life where i’ve been the person in the group that like we all start the crazy thing and then it just like gets whittled away and then suddenly i’m by myself doing the crazy thing um and so i didn’t sing i just played guitar and drums and i’m like well i can’t be in a band by myself and so i started kind of obsessing over
(25:10) stand-up and i would listen to all these comics i was really obsessed with like bill hicks and george carlin like the counter culture ones um because i can never do anything the easy way and i just uh i was like well i guess comedy i can still perform i still don’t have to do a regular job i was failing out of high school i dropped out junior year but i would have failed out um and i was like all right i guess i’ll just do i guess i’ll just do this essentially because how sad is this i won’t be let
(25:44) down like nobody can quit no one can leave me behind right that’s so sad and i’ve never phrased it that way um again guys by my hilarious comedy album um anyway so i’m constantly being abandoned and i’m alone um so that’s why i started comedy and then it’s just i just threw myself into it you know um i’m one of those personalities where i can’t fake things i don’t care about which is why even when i was like buckle down and graduate i literally like my brain i’m just thinking about music or
(26:16) wrestling or comedy and then but and i’ll convince myself i’m stupid i mean i’ve been on the news with nobel prize winner and i’m still will have this thing in my head where i’m like you’re dumb you’re a high school dropout blah blah blah and then but when i want to do something whether it’s professional wrestling at 38 which is insane whether it’s doing music again whether it’s stand-up i will go all in and be very very very good at like very niche unmarketable shady things um so yeah so that’s kind of the
(26:49) gist of the the beginning of comedy um yeah i want to pick yeah i want to stop you there just because i think it’s fascinating that you have that essentially this the shadow side of you is playing with the the light at the same time where you’re this overachiever you know you can be extremely motivated if the passion is piqued you know if if you see it you’re after it you’re going to make it there you don’t even have to worry about yourself in that regard if you have your back against the wall
(27:21) enough you’re gonna make it through you know what i mean you’re gonna fight right through and that’s uh that doesn’t live in everybody that’s a definitely a a gift and of course with every gift comes the shadow side and what i heard you say right now is that you play the dark horse on purpose because yeah you it it allows you to escape um being seen too clearly therefore you’d have to show up if you you know what i’m saying if someone saw your gift too brightly you’d have to show up for it and then you’re
(27:55) nervous that if you show that you are that gift all the time then you’re gonna have to be responsible for that that’s such a cool way to put it yeah my dad uh my dad would say something like that much more clumsily and horrible and so i would ignore it where but the way you put it i’m like oh maybe that’s what he meant where he would always talk about you know you hear like fear of success and that sounds like the dumbest thing ever because it’s like no i want to be successful i don’t want to
(28:22) be broke i don’t want to be struggling i don’t want to i just want to make things but when you dig really deep into you know what you’re saying it’s like yeah there’s probably a lot of that too and you know for me the shadow side was also just a lack of confidence um a lack of confidence with girls a lack of confidence with who i am a lack of confidence you know even when i was doing well with comedy i think one of the reasons robin and i bonded so hard was because you know everyone loves him but he’s a
(28:51) really quiet guy he was actually a very political guy um he you know he sponsored my podcast for a very long time um when we didn’t have sponsors so if people actually knew the show would have been called you know it would have been sponsored by [ __ ] robin williams and um and i actually put something out before he died and it was dedicated to him because i wouldn’t be anywhere without him and then he died and people i’ve talked about this in so long people assumed that i dedicated it to him like
(29:21) in memoriam you know but it’s like no it just i did that before he died and then he died and then it came out and like so where i was going with that was i’m not even like doing comedy podcasts promoting this album the reason i was so excited to do this one for real was just to have conversations like this because i don’t fit in to a bunch of comics sitting around the table finding different ways to call each other gay and like drinking i’m like very bad at that and like these are the conversations i want
(29:55) to have and then it’s like yeah but by my album i’ll be funny there but like i’m more interested in this like not proving it’s not like you know like the alpha kind of whatever and um yeah but this insecurity that i had around comics around like all of that sort of fed in that’s why i assumed that sort of darker side would come out with comedy where it’s like okay well if i’m drinking if i’m doing this if if the bar is set at degenerate then i never did anything terrible but if the bar is said as like you know
(30:30) being a [ __ ] up is cheered you know because you talk about it on stage and then everyone laughs because they can live through you and blah blah blah it’s cathartic um then i’m like this is great this is perfect and that’s why and you know this album was really important for me because everything was sober everything was written during quarantine where i’ve been really healthy and spiritual and meditating and it kind of proved that this is why i’m fine with it being the last album it kind of proved that i
(30:57) could do it and i’ve never talked about the relationship stuff that i talked about on this album i’ve never talked about sex i was always just screaming about politics and so i’m really proud that i did something like this um but it’s still a struggle i don’t get excited about comedy you tell me i’m gonna do professional wrestling in front of 20 people or i’m going to play rhythm guitar in like a cover band in like downtown austin i am infinitely more excited than about or even like i was
(31:24) talking to my manager about doing some kind of comedy stuff with even like the spiritual community or like i would that would be great you know like speaking for these different audiences but man you tell me i’m doing seven nights at a sold out a comedy club with 500 people every night but a two drink minimum and people sadly eating like mozzarella sticks like while you’re like telling a story about your dad i’m just i don’t want to do that anymore so the download i got while you were speaking was the inner king rides the
(32:02) dark horse but he is allowed to dismount at will so if that means anything to you um yeah i like that a lot too you’re gonna make me i hate listening to podcasts i’ve done and you’re gonna make you’re gonna [ __ ] make me re-listen to this so something that you said earlier too that i want to bring back around because it called me was the way you spoke about introspective work being the thing that in a way drew you out of your creativity or you had to have a reprieve from creativity just focus on this other creation which
(32:39) was yourself you know your authentic self right and my therapist the other day said specifically to me that when you are i’m not considering being pregnant but one day you know i’m a female so it’s possible um and she said basically that when you’re pregnant for a woman which is men have their own archetypes and creativity and creating things and bringing things to life so to speak and when you’re pregnant you go very much inward so all your creative energy is creating right internally in a different way than you
(33:16) would be introspectively um it’s actually creating a physical being this is obvious but when we talk about humans that aren’t in the middle of like giving birth to a physical being we’re giving birth to so many different things whether it be doing the introspective work and digging out who you you know remembering all the parts that you’ve pushed away or lost along your journey and you’re birthing literally a new you every time right every time you come out of a dark night of the soul or you know even just a deep meditation
(33:47) you’re re-birthing and so all that creative energy that’s happening does it should be okay for it to suck away some of your time that you’d normally spend on creating this thing for the world right and then what’s really cool by the way this is the first time i’ve meditated right before doing a podcast which is i think instead of why i’m like bam bam dick joke buy my album i’m just like i think it’s because it was lonely when i was 16 is where like the trauma started uh so the
(34:17) what’s cool and i’ll say this to people listening who maybe are struggling with you know depression or i mean that’s all it’s all of us um which is after i had that phase you were just talking about um during quarantine when i like lost everything what was so interesting is so i had this moment where i had this moment not when robin died i had this moment the two times i want was gonna kill myself um again comedy baby um and where i was like if i don’t kill myself i have to come out of this the best version of myself or else
(35:01) what’s the point like what’s i either give up or i have to like double down right back’s against the wall yeah yeah exactly what you’re saying before totally and so it started with just me not even creativity it started with just like okay health blah blah blah but i found that creativity i mean this year has been the best for me by far as like a human um but creativity i now put on my list even when i help people like even just listeners who dm me is every day it’s something mindful something
(35:38) physical and something creative where now creativity is almost turned into part of like my self-care and part of my spiritual practice where the days i’m like i’m to take off and just like chill out i get kind of depressed and then when i make something and by the way still totally detached from outcome not la jamie not all this better get views on instagram or this better just making something and it makes me laugh or make a video and it had someone one person writes me and it’s like dude that’s the
(36:06) video i needed today all done like i win and what’s cool is after i had that phase where i detached from comedy or sorry well yeah detached from creativity um i realized the kind of creativity i actually wanted to be doing that’s why this stand-up album is very different that’s why i don’t have the most instagram followers but before quarantine i was never on instagram i like wasn’t verified and i had like 500 followers and all of those people it’s not it’s like almost 12 000.
(36:35) not a ton but that just happened over quarantine and it only happened because i started making these weird little solo sketches on my phone and it they make me laugh so much more than any stand-up any especially the angry stand-up the self-righteous [ __ ] that i used to do these silly videos which essentially are like different versions of like a man having a mental breakdown and like so much of who i actually am it’s for the first time at 38 years old i feel like oh this is my actual sense of humor even when i was yelling on stage the stuff i
(37:11) laugh at is like the kind of weirder sillier darker stuff that i’m doing um on like instagram and the reason that i think it hit with people is because for the first time ever i didn’t give a [ __ ] what anyone thought i was like i’m going to do something for me that makes me laugh all done and that’s why the album’s the way it is that’s why i didn’t i refused to record the album at any of my club dates i’m like i want to do a weird gig in front of 30 people that sounds like 2020.
(37:42) that’s why i started making these instagram videos and my instagram did better that’s why the podcast is doing better it’s because i’m like i want to interview this professional wrestler and then i want to interview the guy who went to india with ram das and then i want to interview you know pete holmes and then i want to interview trevor but then i’m going to interview this porn star i mean the porn star we’re not actually going to talk about sex we’re going to talk about spirituality like
(38:04) and i just don’t care because i’m not surrounded by my agents anymore or i’m just like i’m just i’m doing what i want is it going to be more of a slow growth yes am i not killing myself also yes and so i feel like well growth in what exactly because it’s an extremely fast growth and growth in a lot of other ways right yeah no that’s really a point um so like what i would say to people listening is when you just start doing the thing that again sounds so simple doing the stuff that makes you
(38:37) happy it becomes self-care it’s not self-indulgent it becomes self-care you end up making great art whether it is for you whether it is for the public and like man figuring out who i am for the first time in my life has been it’s crazy it’s crazy it’s pretty beautiful i it came to mind art is alchemy or your art is how you alchemize your traumas and bring it basically to the gift space yeah i think gary gauty has said something like that recently about art he says also art uh art in the animal like he basically says when you can
(39:12) figure out how to blend your animal nature and your art your gift here you transcending yeah yeah no and eric really helped me he’ll i don’t know when this is coming out but he’s one of the more recent guests i haven’t put it out yet um where everything he talks about with your damon or just your inner voice just listening to it listening to it with art it’s the reason i move i’m moving to austin it’s the reason that i’m i i’m making the art i’m making um it is so crazy
(39:43) how hard our little brains are constantly trying to like [ __ ] block our spiritual growth or our i’m so sorry i phrased it that way or our artistic voice where it’s like come on little homies like we’re all on the same side um but they’re so scared and you know ghazi talks about that too about all of the little guardians you have like protecting your traumatized inner inner child and my inner child is dramatized and you know learning to forgive that part of you but also like override it um stay open just stay open over and over
(40:23) again even in the face of pain and fear and that’s the hardest [ __ ] thing in the world totally i’m curious uh because you’ve brought up a couple of times like the spiritual side of you the spiritual growth this year that you want to do comedy in a but like to a spiritual uh audience however it wasn’t too long ago that you were an atheist and so i’m curious how that um how that transition was for you and what brought that on well clearly i’m a grifter and atheism didn’t work out so
(40:53) i’m going into the spirituality space um yeah no it’s so cliche i had a breakup and my cat died and then i did a bunch of mushrooms um i so i never here’s where i was kind of not griftery here’s where i was i’m sure you guys will come up with a nicer word let’s just say shitty um but it came from insecurity where a lot of the things that i talked about politically or with like atheism or was really just like matter of fact this is the way it is if you i disagree it was because i was like
(41:35) smart enough to be a grifter because at least then i don’t have more money but it was because like at the time i legitimately won thought it was right um but also because of what i was talking about before with the high school dropout kind of insecurity about being smart which is i was surrounded by you know the smartest like lefty journalists in brooklyn and i was kind of like the high school dropout who did dick jokes and then when i went to be like yeah but what about this they’d be like and that just kind of like fed into it um
(42:08) the insecurity even more and so my you know i was sort of the classic stoner 16 year old where there was always wonderment until i became an atheist there was always you know the goofy conversations you have with your first boyfriend or girlfriend when you’re looking at the stars and you’re like what’s out there could there be a different version of us looking back at us or like we were soul mates and like i i just i wanted all of that stuff to be true so badly i read up on i became vegetarian at 16 because i like read and
(42:42) half understood a book about taoism i was like we’re all one all right cool like i guess and i just i always believed in something then you know you have a tragic life and people in your family are getting hurt and doing things they shouldn’t be doing and getting arrested and those are the people that are religious and so you’re kind of like i don’t really like that and then i sort of came to political awareness under george bush which was very evangelical very homophobic i didn’t want to be a
(43:13) political guy i didn’t read the newspaper i didn’t vote um but i saw what was happening to gay people and i was i was like well that’s not that’s wrong and i was like well who’s behind that republicans and the church all right cool [ __ ] them and that’s sort of my first political stand-up was all uh same-sex marriage stuff around 2000 2001-ish or whatever and so uh so religion automatically rubbed me the wrong way i was like well i don’t like that and so i just started calling myself an
(43:49) agnostic and i was the cliche you know what everybody is in college which is like i don’t like religion but i’m open to i’m spiritual but not religious is what you say and uh then i became an atheist for i think the reason that most people do is uh you get into a relationship and your partner is an atheist and you’re codependent and you don’t want them to leave and so you go yeah i’m an atheist and and that’s what i was i just felt dumb we would just have these arguments where i would my only argument was yeah
(44:23) but like look everything so everything’s so pretty like right and then she would start quoting like science and [ __ ] and i was like well okay and so then what so i was like secretly kind of spiritually agnostic said i was an atheist but then what happened was all of these big atheist organizations because i don’t know if you guys know this atheists not the funniest people um they started reaching out to me to perform because i did this thing on tv um that went like viral for its time um about gay rights and it it [ __ ] on the
(45:06) church and they were like hey do you want to do stand-up at this like atheist convention or like hey you want to open for bad religion or you want to do this thing with eddie izzard or you know i opened for it was me and reggie watts performed with christopher hitchens who like wrote that book god is not great uh at the sydney opera house i couldn’t even get booked at a shitty new york comedy club and reggie and i played the main stage of the sydney opera house with christopher hitchens it’s like yeah
(45:30) [ __ ] okay i’m an atheist word and because but again that’s the griftery part of me kind of though like i legitimately everything i said i believed everything i said about what the church did to gay people to women all of that was true um what do you think it is about about atheists that don’t make them necessarily funny is it a rigidity because no yeah i mean what’s funny is a lot of them are as rigid as religious people as i was i didn’t want to hear but then here’s where i wanted nothing to do with the atheist
(46:10) community i did a and i hadn’t thought about this story for a very long time and i did raghu marcus’s podcast and somehow it came up because we were talking about social justice um and spiritual bypass where i did this big atheist convention thing it was like the biggest gathering of atheists there were like 30 000 people on the mall in washington and they were like do you want to play in front of 30 000 people and i was like yes please and around the same time there were some prominent atheists who were saying some sex as [ __ ]
(46:43) and i was like i don’t like this and there are also there’s a sect of atheists who like suspiciously would only criticize islam but like not the white religions and like really really only went up after islam um and i was like i don’t like that either so i wasn’t gonna do it but then i was like you know what i’m gonna write this rant and it’s gonna be about atheism it’s going to be about homophobia it’s going to be whatever and then at the end i’m going to call out the atheists and that’s kind of what i
(47:17) did and it went pretty well uh it went really well there were definitely people who didn’t like me but it went very well um bad religion wanted me to come back on before they’re set so that was cool they were my favorite bands growing up and so i went to take this little victory lap and when i went behind the 30 000 people so you have like stage 30 000 people in front behind you have washington dc there was a much smaller rally with maybe like 100 people and it was for trayvon martin who was just killed and
(47:53) as i was walking there i kept seeing all these like [ __ ] white dudes come by and they’re bitching about the trayvon martin rally like these guys and i’m watching this very peaceful demonstration with people speaking about their experiences and they’re crying and it was so powerful and i was just like struck in place like i couldn’t move watching it and i was like what am i doing and the conclusion i came up with then and i said this afterwards which made a lot of atheists mad where i was like i would rather hang out with a
(48:28) christian who wants to feed the poor than an atheist who wants to just spend all day on reddit making fun of religious people i remember another moment i had where i was like yuck was someone i followed on twitter when hurricane katrina happened um made some joke there was some poor old black woman on the news who was like god has a plan god will take care of me and just there’s the smug response of like we’ll go to the one who made the hurricane and i was like homie get a boat and some canned goods and go
(49:01) do something or shut the [ __ ] up is how i felt and i was very aggressive for this very kind podcast but like that’s how i felt and so i was like and with that said there are incredible atheist organizations that do like so much good and atheist people who don’t even make a big deal out of it who do so much good like you can’t categorize anybody but i was like this ain’t the tribe for me and you know the energy of the community yeah yeah as a whole again yeah and look there are i just did this like um these 2x muslims
(49:39) podcast uh the other day and they’re atheists and like it was really funny and it was insightful and they’re liberal and they’ve had people on the left mad at them and they’ve had people on the right mat to them like there are always cool people and shitty people in every community i’m sure you find that in the spiritual community i’ve seen it already in the spiritual community what a bummer where you go well certainly everyone’s going to be wonderful here because it’s all about us all being one and trying to
(50:05) make the universe better because we’re all god and then you’re just like ugh who’s that guy and then you get mad at yourself you’re like i can’t judge someone at the spiritual community and then you’re like but i’m doing it here we are you know it’s and and what i realized again this whole year of sort of like figuring out who i am where it’s like you have to make yourself i don’t want to say strong enough but when you start becoming secure with who you are you don’t need a tribe to fill that hole
(50:33) which is what i did i needed relationships to fill that hole i needed a tribe to fill that hole i’m an atheist now okay now i’m a spiritual person i’m a vegan nope okay i’m a keto person i’m a jujitsu guy [ __ ] no i’m a comic and instead of just being like hey i’m who i am i’m gonna walk into these different communities i’m gonna take what’s great i’m gonna give everything i can and then when i see some shady i’m gonna you know bye i’m gonna go home yeah you can be a changer
(51:01) but taking that away from this episode for sure is that you can be a changer you can love labels because they help direct us but you also don’t have to tie yourself so strictly to them yeah oh my god jade i got political and i didn’t answer your question i did mushroom okay so here’s what happened it’s valentine’s day this is the first valentine’s day as a uh guys i don’t want to get your female listeners like two turned on as a divorced 38 year old codependent guy um and this is the first valentine’s day i
(51:34) was gonna be single and you know there’s such a stigma about being alone um the first time i went to a movie alone i was terrified the first time i went to a concert alone i was terrified and this is all as aggressive as an adult um and when i started doing things alone i was like this is incredible this is magic you know how many concerts and i’m sure you guys have too where you’ve taken a disinterested apathetic partner and you spend the whole time kind of like looking over like hey baby okay do you
(52:10) like do you want a snack and like you can’t just enjoy the music i showed up so nervous to a concert and then i literally assumed the band was going to stop and was like who’s that sad guy in like road 22 b by himself like the one of the tank top um and then everyone would boo i would leave and it was just i was spiritual man it was cathartic like i quit drinking i i don’t smoke weed like i was literally sober and i just felt this like energy and i’ve had so many moments like that this year sober in nature
(52:47) usually listening to music that have almost brought me to tears or i’ve left an interaction with a starbucks cashier i mean mom and pop coffee play let’s start rick’s head there’s one of us um a starbucks cashier because i made them laugh or they said like or they thanked me for something nice i said or uh they said something nice to me and i would just leave with that same feeling that i could only get if like a girl gave me a phone number or something and i was like oh my god you can have these
(53:15) like incredibly blissful moments by yourself so valentine’s day was coming up i had no intention on finding god um i was just like i’m gonna do mushrooms because i bought mushrooms me and my girlfriend were gonna do mushrooms to like save the relationship thank god we didn’t do that um and had mushrooms hadn’t done i think i did mushrooms once when i was like 17 but hadn’t had like an experience i was like i’m gonna do it by myself but do it on valentine’s day i’m gonna take this damn holiday back for single people
(53:49) um i was like i’m done avoiding all the like red aisles in cvs i’m done like time there’s like a diamond commercial like crying and turning the tv off i was like i’m gonna have a dope day and so i read up about mushrooms i like i put on a ramdas documentary knew nothing about rhombus this i now have this bracelet that was given to me by ragu that literally has like a piece of maharaji’s blanket on it that i take like everywhere with me and like ramdas legitimately all of them have changed my
(54:22) life didn’t know who he was i was like uh some like artist i like said the ramdas was cool so i’m like he’ll be my like designated safe friend so i put on a ramdas documentary in the background took a bunch of mushrooms on valentine’s day and what i don’t know if this is going to come across to the listeners is just like like a 16 year old explaining his mushroom trip but the two things that happened that were so crazy were so i had my like intentions i had my music um i was devastated about my cat dying i
(55:00) cried about him this morning and he died in january uh like i think because i’m leaving here all these like emotions are coming back up and uh there was part of me when i was scared to move to austin i literally was like well i can’t go because uh his name was tulip kitty named after tulip quality the rapper um i was like because tulip died here and like his spirit might be here and like i can’t leave him and then i started like it was a mess it was a mess and when he died i got back here from the vet at like three in the morning i
(55:37) immediately went to the dumpster and like threw out all the stuff i’m just sobbing and uh what i didn’t remember is i hid his blanket i thought i threw it out um but it was in a cabinet that i do not go to um and i hired a cleaner to come vacuum and i literally like wrote in the comments like i was like pet died vacuum all petty like it was so awful and uh i just wanted it erased you know i didn’t look at pictures of him till a couple weeks ago and uh and so i remember it it kicks in i am uh very much on mushrooms
(56:23) and the heater was at like 82 for some reason but i was like shivering i was so cold and i did for some reason not go to my big bed with a blanket um i went straight to that [ __ ] closet where i hid this blanket that conscious jamie did not remember and i wrapped myself up in the blanket and we used to uh we used to look out the window together and because i’m codependent i raised a codependent cat and so whenever i would come home like people were like oh cats are so easy because i’m everyone wonder i post so many pictures
(57:02) of me with strangers dogs and they go why don’t you get a dog and i’m like oh because i might tour and i’m moving they’re like get a cat cats or not i’m like no you you’re shitty with cats then like every cat i’ve had has been codependent because i love my cats very much so every day i would come home to lib would scream at me at the top of his lungs until i picked him up and held him like a baby and then we would go to the window and then like he was a child i would go there’s a house there’s a
(57:31) mountain there’s a car and we would do that until he got pissed off and then he ran away and um so i go to the window in this [ __ ] blanket that i hid that i forgot about and just told him how much i loved him and went to the window and i just lied down and i was like what part of my what took me there right and after that happened um again intentions find god was nowhere on my thing um but you know those moments where you’re like so far gone doing something and then you snap into it and realize what you were
(58:07) just doing like a couple of seconds ago i was just looking at the mountain with my arms outstretched saying i am open i am open i am open and then right then during the rondas movie which i completely forgot about the bell rang and it was just him saying i am loving awareness i am loving awareness and that was it for me i’m like i don’t know what my religion is but i know that i’m open i know that there’s something out there i know that we’re all connected and i know that i’m going to lead my
(58:37) life with loving awareness period um and i’ve done it ever since and my life the synchronicities the people i’ve met the things that have happened um it’s been nothing short of magic what has happened um since then you know so the the idea people being like were you lonely on valentine’s day i was like lonely i was with everyone because we’re all god son like i wasn’t alone at all um so yeah that’s my sad cat mushroom story i love that story so much so much i don’t even have uh words which is rare did you see me have
(59:21) to uh trick myself by bringing up tiny dogs so that i didn’t cry in the middle of the lib story i like split it up i was like here come the tears let’s navigate out and then we go back to the ending yeah it’s not a story i tell uh it’s not a story i tell um but it was this really beautiful moment and look that’s what i’ve sort of learned with all the bad stuff that’s happened to me because like when the breakup happened okay so we all read the self-help stuff we all read the spiritual stuff that’s like
(59:52) uh you know uh pain brings you closer to god and that’s where you learn all of your lessons and blah blah as silly as the sound because i know people have lost like humans in their life and so they’re like can this guy stop talking about his cat but like he was my only friend here like period and was like ride or die through la through me losing all my money through me coming back it was just like me and tulip and uh damn it and uh and so the so when me and the girlfriend broke up um it was a really loving breakup it was
(1:00:26) fine i was like okay i can see the good in that like i’m codependent i need to work on being i’ve never been alone and to be alone for the first time cool easy when the cat died i was just like [ __ ] you man like what good comes out of it but even with that one i wouldn’t be going to austin i wouldn’t be moving at all um if he was still here um but two i just started being like kinder to everyone the reason i became friends with all these widows that was not a joke was that i was so sad i would start petting everyone’s dogs
(1:01:02) and i was like i pet your little dog i pet their dog and then they’d say you should get a dog and then i would say well i lost my cat and then they would say well i lost my husband and then we would become friends because i would hold space for them and they would hold space for me and would take little walks or i’d watch their dog when like they needed to get surgery or whatever and i was like god i five years ago would have been too glued to my phone to even see them or would have been incomplete wouldn’t have i
(1:01:29) don’t know talked about to live to a stranger and so it even that shitty thing where it’s just like oh man it’s just like a little sweet animal who died like there’s still stuff you can get out of it to make you better or kinder or like give more you know um so yeah that’s what i’m taking out of that you can find the silver lining i noticed that in this small what hour we’ve been on here you’ve brought up death in so many different ways and it’s something that you know we’re all attracted to
(1:02:05) because it’s so you know it’s elusive but also it’s the inevitable so it’s this very interesting thing but also made me think about and maybe this is valuable for you maybe it’s not but just the idea of death being the final freedom um especially for masculine you know for the masculine energy like seeking that that unburdening and if that sits with you yeah well i’ve never really been afraid of death one of the good things about uh having been suicidal is when you hear people like be afraid of death you’re kind of
(1:02:45) like ow i was like kind of that was my goal i went at one point you know what i mean like that doesn’t really that doesn’t really scare me but for me it’s always been death of these what i’ve really been focusing on this year is death of these like preconceptions of who i was that completely held me back whether it’s shame or whether it’s lack of confidence whether it’s you know um filling the god-shaped hole as they say with relationships or drinking or with overeating i mean [ __ ] yeah that’s
(1:03:15) another thing ladies i’m pretty sure i’m a male with an eating disorder which doesn’t get talked about a lot but like all of these things that i was trying to fill fill fill fill this hole with um those are kind of like the little deaths i’m looking to shed um regular death although you know it’s crazy that you brought that up i’ve literally never been afraid of death but i was meditating before this podcast and i had this like glimpse of being afraid of it because i’m like oh i’m finally living the life that i
(1:03:46) kind of want to live or i’m like on my way there and it was just this passing thought of like what a [ __ ] bummer that would be if you died but it wasn’t like crazy um but i definitely thought about it a little bit i mean i also i haven’t the closest it’s a very weird world i have both parents all my siblings the people i have lost the only death i’ve experienced is my [ __ ] best friend cat and [ __ ] robin williams so like they’re very like weird um examples you know i mean i remember
(1:04:22) when robin died being so confused when i saw obama talking about him like two days later i was like why is the president talking about my friend like it was just all sorts of weird so i’ve had yeah i’ve had death uh just come to me in like different ways again guys 25 capacity the funniest album you’re here all year it is fascinating though that it becomes a um you know that suicide seems to be one of those things that goes with comedy sometimes and that no there’s and at the same time it’s not
(1:05:03) a surprise if you really dig into it right comedy for me this is why i got into comedy and again i said this in like a joke video on instagram this morning but it’s 100 true which is interviewers would always go hey so you’re the class clown right and i’m like you’re out of your mind the class clown beat the [ __ ] out of me called me horrible names and i like cried or sat in the corner um the comedy for me was a defense mechanism comedy for me my first memories of comedy helping me were like oh i
(1:05:36) remember the first time i saw comic relief it was no i remember when my mom was being taken away by the police or the ambulance and me and my brothers were upstairs and we were all panicked and we were crying and once someone made a joke and it was always an offensive joke because it was about a terrible thing that’s happening we would all start laughing it would feel so cathartic and then once that hit and the ice was broken now you can figure out what to do now you can brainstorm now you can problem solve i
(1:06:06) actually think that’s why i was attracted to talking about controversial issues on stage because i’m like well if i can get us to laugh about it then i can um maybe we can talk about it maybe we can come up with solutions so yeah i mean to me and i think to a lot of comics comedy we weren’t the class clowns the class clowns were [ __ ] they were the ones who were mean they were yelling at the teachers they were making like a lot of times the comics were the weird introverts in the back and suddenly we had this like superpower you
(1:06:38) know like well we can’t fight the jocks but like we can make we can be funny about it we can write about it um and so yeah i think there’s a lot of darkness there’s a lot of sadness there’s a ton of insecurity um with comedy robin was so crazy for so many people because he seemed like he was just i mean he was um just the most joyous invincible person so it just like rocked everybody um and [Music] what i try to say i say it on my podcast a lot i’ll say it i say it on any big podcast i go on or i
(1:07:15) try to which is every time i do a podcast every time i do guys my dms not filled with uh ladies sliding in they’re literally filled with like dudes who are like hey man i was gonna kill myself until i heard your podcast or someone was like hey man i heard your podcast are you gonna kill yourself and like that’s pretty much my direct messages and so i think this is really important to talk about the people that i’ve talked to or robin who have thought about killing themselves or who have killed themselves
(1:07:50) are the most [ __ ] flawed like we all are for the most part wonderful kind compassionate empathetic they’re people who feel deeply in a world where we need to feel more deeply where we’re screaming at each other online where we’re drawing these [ __ ] lines where we’re being so divisive and a lot of times the ones who feel the depression they’re just they’re just more open and honest about it than a lot of people are or they they see the tragedies and they it hurts them so much and the pain feels so much
(1:08:26) bigger than them and what i would literally beg of you guys is that if you’re feeling that way know that like we need you more than ever than ever you know the dude who’s being racist on twitter that guy’s not thinking about killing himself he’s gonna be around for [ __ ] to be around forever he’s probably going to cryotherapy now to like live to 90.
(1:08:48) um the sweet kind weird artistic people who feel like they don’t fit in it’s like you don’t understand the people who feel like they don’t fit in they have no idea how much the majority of of other people actually look up to them they feel so weird they feel so left out they feel you know but a lot of people look at them and they go wow that guy’s really brave that girl’s so brave like she can just be your [ __ ] self like i wish i could do that right i wish i wasn’t at this job i [ __ ] hate i wish i could be in that
(1:09:20) band i wish i had the balls to get that tattoo or that piercing or you know start that podcast or talk openly about sex or you know whatever it is um but a lot of times those are the kind of people who it’s like you get this beautiful creativity and weirdness that makes you stand out in the most spectacular way but then the other side of that is you also get some depression and anxiety and you feel like you don’t fit in and you feel ostracized but yeah just the big thing i really would like to say is like my god do we need more and more and
(1:09:57) more people like that and so uh don’t go anywhere man yeah thank you thank you for that so there’s a few questions like to ask everyone who comes on the show first off with all that we’ve talked about here i have a feeling this will be an interesting answer here oh boy um i repeat yeah okay [Laughter] if you could hug your younger self right now what would you say i want to start crying um you know what sucks the first thing that came to my head was i’m sorry which i hate i don’t know what i mean i guess i know
(1:10:46) why so that’s not gonna be my answer there’s no way this could be my answer um i mean i think i would say why won’t you let that be your answer it just feels mean you know and like it it’s so interesting where i talk such a big game on the podcast about your flaws make you who you are and about constantly becoming better and about all this stuff and then that’s kind of like selling that out right because it’s like i’m sorry for what like what essentially what i would be apologizing for is like
(1:11:32) hey man you’re gonna go through a lot of [ __ ] but that also like that brought me to here and that brought me and i want to be here i want to be talking to you too right now and i just posed in the middle of that if you were talking to a friend and not yourself saying sorry would be the starting the start of that conversation it would be necessary to even open that conversation [ __ ] god i love you too okay so ready here it is it’s i’m sorry things are going to be really hard but as long as you are kind
(1:12:08) as long as you keep learning as long as you keep being [ __ ] weird and then i’ll say don’t say that word to your parents you’ll get in trouble you’re very young um and as long as you can be you and make things that make other people happy everything is going to be okay and then i would hug him so tightly how old are you how old am i right now or how old are you in the vision of hugging yourself i’m so bad with ages no no no so like uh i pictured myself i still had i had you know i had blonde
(1:12:42) hair and used to be tan do you know i’m hawaiian i don’t know what the [ __ ] happened uh i’m i think like four-ish is the age i was picturing so young yeah if you could have the whole world read one book which would it be oh uh oh calvin hopps any of them calvin hops any of the cabinet hops i have a big calvin hops tattoo on my uh on my calf but before i got that tattoo i was like i should re-read calvin and hops and make sure it’s not some weird like religious occult and like i missed like any like
(1:13:13) racist undertones and it is literally all about imagination questioning authority friendship um the last panel so bill watterson who wrote it he kind of became like the um uh not holden caulfield jd salinger uh of like cartoon strips where they offered him so much money to keep writing calvin on hobbs and to make like the rights of hops you could sell little tigers and a bazillion dollars would have made and he flat out refused and the last panel of calvin and hobbes is and i think of me to live is he’s saying something calvin they’re
(1:13:59) about to walk into the woods or something and calvin goes like you know let’s go on an adventure old buddy and like that sums up uh that for me so yeah any and all calvin and hops love it he could whisper one phrase to everyone on the planet what would it be i love you it’s easy that’s good before we let you go where can people find you online great so for my ego know that i have more followers on instagram or on twitter don’t follow me there it’s a talk success pool and you should probably all
(1:14:34) cancel your accounts um follow me on instagram where i’m actually being myself for the first time uh which is at the jamie kilstein um and then i make comedy videos i talk about mental health i try to help as many people as i can in those dms um and uh if it’s on instagram that means i’m probably pretty proud of it uh and then my podcast is called a fuck-up’s guide to self-help um which you probably pieced it all together i don’t need to explain what that’s about uh and so oh and yeah if you are a
(1:15:09) fighter listen to this i have a fight podcast too called rear naked radio and then yeah the new album’s kind of the biggest thing that i’m trying to promote guys get this album to number one so i can quit comedy and just be a professional wrestler please that’s all i want that’s all i want i just want to make funny stuff i love it awesome thank you so much yeah this has been great and i didn’t know where we were gonna end up but i’m so glad we touched on all the things we did i think
(1:15:32) we even left stuff off the table we do definitely at a later time we’re gonna come back and discuss male eating disorders i think that is something that really has to be we’ll do yeah this was like this is great this it’s a perfect two-parter this was like my more like feminine open vulnerable episode and the second one would be the masculine where we talk about jiu jitsu but we talk about the eating disorder and like what like masculinity should it’s it’s perfect i set it up for a cliffhanger
(1:16:00) it’s great guys i gotta say this is uh i wanted myself to shut up so bad because every time either of you talked i was so what you do is very important and i’m very glad i got to know you guys is the succinct way to say it thank you thank you i appreciate that all right cool ah so i’m going to end our reporting here guys i want to ask you what’s the