transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] I'm a dog person. We have two giant great peonies. They're the best. And if you're a dog person like me, then you know they're not just pets, they're family, and they deserve the best. Which brings me to Ollie. Fine purveyors of fresh meals made with high quality ingredients, portioned specifically for your dog, and delivered right to your door. The thing about Ollie is that you can tell that they care. And since switching, the difference is pretty obvious. Mealtime is like a whole event for my guys, complete focus, bowls gone in seconds. But it's not just the food. Through their app, you can actually check in on your dog's health. Things like weight, coat, and even digestion, just by sharing a photo. Just another reason why I'm obsessed and my great Pyrenees are too. But don't just take it from me or from Moses or from Ama. Check it out for yourself and let your dogs check it out too. Head to ollie.com/richroll. Tell them all about your dog and use code richroll to get 70 percent off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, they offer an obsession guarantee. If you're not completely obsessed, you'll get your money back. That's ollie.com/richroll and enter code richroll to get 70 percent off your first box. Ollie, feed the obsession. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Roll On Alfresco Style.

Speaker 2:
[01:26] Oh, nice.

Speaker 1:
[01:27] How are you doing, man?

Speaker 2:
[01:28] It's good to see you, man.

Speaker 1:
[01:29] Welcome to my backyard.

Speaker 2:
[01:30] It's nice to be this much closer. Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[01:32] I know. Yeah. We did a solo episode recently outdoors. People seem to enjoy it. And so why not do it again?

Speaker 2:
[01:42] Yeah, man.

Speaker 1:
[01:42] More is better, right?

Speaker 2:
[01:43] Yeah. I might not leave here, by the way. After this, I'm going to use your gym and then your sauna and cold plunge facility, and then I might sleep there tonight.

Speaker 1:
[01:54] You're always welcome, but you should check the Airbnb app to make sure it's available. This is a bit nostalgic because for years, we recorded the podcast at my house. You can't see it, but right off camera over there is a room where we recorded, I don't know, how many episodes up until COVID, and then we transitioned into a studio. But it's nice to be back here. I'm feeling nostalgic. We actually had some technical difficulties right before recording, which is part of the nostalgia, I suppose. It's nice, dude. I want to just have a low-key casual hang with you, which is part of this reimagination and experimentation and exploration that we're doing with the show these days. As somebody who's been podcasting for coming up on 14 years, we're breathing a little bit of fresh air into this experience, and I'm having more fun doing it than I have in a long time by trying things and recognizing there are no rules. When the podcast began, it was just all fun and adventure, and I was a traveling salesman with a case, and I would go to people's houses and record in hotel rooms and conference rooms. I wasn't making any money. I never thought that it would be a revenue generating enterprise, and then it became successful, and then it became like this whole thing, like this engine, and it got easier and easier to just do it a certain way. And I think I lost touch with the experimentation and the trying of new things.

Speaker 2:
[03:39] The beginner's mind.

Speaker 1:
[03:40] Yeah, the beginner's mind. And now we're in this new phase, and it feels much more like play, and I'm enjoying it. Hopefully, that's translating to the audience. And the solo episode. So it started with the looks maxing episode that we did. Correct.

Speaker 2:
[03:54] That was experimental.

Speaker 1:
[03:55] By the way, how old is Zuma now?

Speaker 2:
[03:57] Five, five and a half.

Speaker 1:
[04:00] So what's his relationship with looks maxing? Has he signed up for Andrew Tate's Academy yet?

Speaker 2:
[04:05] You know, at his age, at his age, he is still not really self-conscious. Just a little bit. But like, at his age, you can't really, like if you said something to him about his looks, he would just laugh and he'd have a good time with it. It wouldn't even phase him.

Speaker 1:
[04:19] So Clavicular hasn't gotten his claws into Zuma yet.

Speaker 2:
[04:22] No, but I worry because he doesn't like boo-boos. So when he gets a boo-boo, he's very consumed with when will the boo-boo go away?

Speaker 1:
[04:29] Right, well, this is the beginning of his cosmetic obsession.

Speaker 2:
[04:32] Maybe.

Speaker 1:
[04:32] If Clavicular has his way.

Speaker 2:
[04:34] But Clavicular likes boo-boos.

Speaker 1:
[04:37] Apparently, well, is he in jail now? Like he shot an alligator and went to prison.

Speaker 2:
[04:42] He did? That fucking bastard.

Speaker 1:
[04:45] So anyway, that story's only gonna end one way.

Speaker 2:
[04:47] An alligator is gonna get revenge.

Speaker 1:
[04:49] Well, the guy's like using meth and anyway, that's a whole other story.

Speaker 2:
[04:54] You know what?

Speaker 1:
[04:54] Point being, the experimentation started with this looks maxing episode. And then I recorded these solo episodes and these episodes are getting much more interest and engagement than anything that I've done in recent years.

Speaker 2:
[05:09] Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[05:09] And that feels really good because they're fun and easy. And it just tells me, oh, it's okay to play. It's okay to experiment, try new things. So we're outdoors. And I think.

Speaker 2:
[05:20] Roll On was the original experimentation.

Speaker 1:
[05:22] That's true. Which we started in the middle of the pandemic.

Speaker 2:
[05:26] Right.

Speaker 1:
[05:26] As sort of a parasocial hang.

Speaker 2:
[05:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[05:29] And a way for me and you together, like for us together to like share our perspectives and take the lens off the guests a little bit. But even Roll On started to feel very programmed.

Speaker 2:
[05:42] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[05:42] And what I've noticed as the podcasting space has evolved is a growing desire for a more authenticity, a sense of something feeling just real, and an emotional connection, like a parasocial relationship. Because it's really crowded out there right now. And I think that the days of getting a special guest on your show, becoming like an event, those days are over. Right. And everybody has a million choices out there. And even the notion of two people sitting across from each other at a desk, it's hard to get excited about that format. There's so many shows doing that and so much content out there. And I think people want to just feel connected to a guest or to a host to feel like they're experiencing something that is heart-centered and real and parasocial, I guess, on some level like they're hanging out with their friends.

Speaker 2:
[06:48] Yeah. Well, that's what people always said about. That's why our core role on people like just hearing us talk about stuff.

Speaker 1:
[06:57] You know the other thing I realized?

Speaker 2:
[06:58] What's that?

Speaker 1:
[07:00] So many of the podcast hosts who are in my genre.

Speaker 2:
[07:05] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[07:06] Not all of them, but I'm saying there's a lot of them. These guys are dorks.

Speaker 2:
[07:14] Wait. First of all, let's unpack that for a second. What is your podcast genre? I want to know.

Speaker 1:
[07:21] The personal development. I think people misconstrue this show. I get positioned as somebody who's in the self-optimization world. I don't really consider myself that. Maybe that's how it's translating for a subset of the audience, but just the self-help, here's a host who's going to have the author of the next book that's coming out or the expert on this or the expert on that.

Speaker 2:
[07:49] Self-improvement.

Speaker 1:
[07:49] Yeah. Self-improvement, generally, health, yes, but also psychological health, spiritual health and all of that. I don't see myself as in that optimization vein, but there are other people out there who do something similar to what I do. Right. I want to do something different. I want to do something different.

Speaker 2:
[08:11] I feel it because-

Speaker 1:
[08:12] So this is part of that experiment.

Speaker 2:
[08:14] Just to piggyback on that, it's just gotten so boring where everybody wants to improve you, or it's become uninteresting. What used to be interesting, here's this academic that no one's heard of, it has this interesting mind-blowing perspective. Now, there's so many of them and everyone wants to improve you, and it's almost like, you know what? Why don't we just all relax a little bit? Maybe the improvement we all need is to stop thinking about ourselves for a little while.

Speaker 1:
[08:47] Yeah, there's an evil-gazing self-obsession that comes with the self-improvement, personal development space, and self-obsession is an antagonist to personal growth. There you go. And so the narcissistic, kind of ego-centric aspect of being in this state or in this pressurized situation where you feel like you always have to be improving yourself, I don't think it's necessarily healthy and I plead guilty. Not only am I participating in this, I'm a purveyor of it. Right. So I've been reflecting on that and I think-

Speaker 2:
[09:24] Stop guilting us with your 4 AM gym photos.

Speaker 1:
[09:27] Yeah, I know. I'm a contradiction, Adam. But I think at the core of it, like if you dig down beneath all of the layers, like what is driving all of this is a fundamental sense of being broken. We always have to be fixing ourselves. What would it be like if you embrace the fact that you're not broken? We can all improve, but it doesn't have to come from that place of feeling like there's something wrong with you necessarily.

Speaker 2:
[10:00] I think the real truth is that it's all just a repair job. This whole construct of society, you're going to get into streaming later. I won't bring this up then, but I started to re-watch Mad Men again for the fourth time. And April was like, why do you like Don Draper? And why I like Don Draper is that he knows it's all a sham. That's what I like about him. It's all basically a sham, right? Our personalities, we kind of tape together and the society could shatter. Everything is like hair trigger away from going away. And we see that sometimes and feel it sometimes. And I don't say that as a cynic. What to me, it's like, that's just fact. And so improvement doesn't solve that kind of existential crisis. What solves it is tuning into real moments. And that's my feeling. And so like, I'm less interested in optimizing it. I've never really been into optimizing or improving. I like the organic nature of connecting. That's to me like the only way to kind of get us through any sort of tumult.

Speaker 1:
[11:09] You need to get on the creatine.

Speaker 2:
[11:13] Wait, am I ponchie? You see in the ponch?

Speaker 1:
[11:17] I don't see. I see nothing but love and beauty, Adam, when I look at you.

Speaker 2:
[11:21] Was that too cynical? Is that too dark for people?

Speaker 1:
[11:24] No, I don't think so. I mean, Don Draper is an anti-hero and somewhat of a dark figure with a nihilistic perspective. So it's interesting that you are connecting with him. But I wouldn't have thought that.

Speaker 2:
[11:40] I don't see him as nihilistic. I mean, I understand why people think that, like there are no rules. That's not what I'm saying. I guess what I'm saying is there is soul beyond all the construct, and we get caught up in the construct, and improving ourselves can be a very nourishing experience, and I've done it myself, and I strive to be better also. But what I strive more for is that authentic feeling of connection and presence. I think that lost in the nihilism of John Draper is a soul, and he does connect, and he does understand the nature of things. Maybe it's just me projecting, and maybe he is written as a nihilist, and I think that's the perception. But I feel like there is a soul nature that the other people that he works with don't have that he understands, and that's why he can communicate on a deep level as an advertiser. I don't know why we're talking about this old show. But I guess what I'm saying is that's what is appealing to me more and more now, like then certain rules for getting better, or improving this or that, because I think what we found is that there are all unintentional consequences of any improvement. So it doesn't always go the way you want it, and life doesn't go that way. It's not what it's about. And so for me, it's about, I just want to encourage that connection.

Speaker 1:
[12:58] Well, there's a heart-centered, good faith desire to become a better person. And I think that commitment to yourself and the impact that that has on other people is valorous and totally of your investment of time. But I think for many people, the personal development urge comes from a discomfort with the uncertainty of life. And so when you think about what Phil Stutz has to say, these three truths, no matter what you do, there will always be pain, uncertainty, and the need for constant work. And I think in this moment, we're experiencing an acute case of uncertainty, like everything feels much more uncertain. I think things are always uncertain, but because of the way the world is at the moment, it feels particularly uncertain. And so what do you do with that uncertainty? Uncertainty is uncomfortable. What can I control? Well, I can control my body. Maybe I can control my mind. Maybe I can control my emotions. And that gives you a sense of grounding, right? And so, but that's sort of an unhealthy way to approach personal development. Like, oh, if I can just optimize my morning routine, or if I dial in my nutrition, then I can absolve myself of all of these uncertainties that unconsciously are making me deeply uncomfortable about life at the moment.

Speaker 2:
[14:25] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think you said what I'm trying to say, which is the uncertainty of life drives, like, what is improvement, I guess is the question, right? Is the improvement, I agree. Like, I go on Noom once a year to like trim down. I have goals, personal goals, fitness goals and things like that. But I think, I'm not sure that improves me. What I know improves me is meditating. What I know improves me is getting in the ocean. What I know improves me is connecting and being more diffuse. So it's like, to me, this is just my opinion for me. I'm not suggesting everyone should feel this way. But for me, the less I think of my own bullshit, the better off I am. The more diffuse I am, the more I am, I am the sky and the trees and the wind and the ocean, the more I feel alive inside. And that to me is self-improvement. I mean, to me. So I guess that's what I'm trying to say. And like the more we go away from self-identifying, probably the better. At least that's my personal opinion.

Speaker 1:
[15:31] That's not as sexy as peptides.

Speaker 2:
[15:33] No, you can't take a peptide for that. But you can microdose.

Speaker 1:
[15:38] Yes, you can, actually. You just have to change the languaging around it, you know, to appeal to a certain cohort. Right? If you switch it from being present or being service-minded into this is your mindset optimization protocol, then I don't know what the wordage would be, but you can drape it in a certain way to make it sound like it is a peptide.

Speaker 2:
[16:06] You know what? I had a nice life peptide the other day. Zoom and I do breakfast bros on the weekends. It's just the two of us, we go out. But sometimes other people join us and you don't have to be a dude to be a bro, so just so you know. But at breakfast bros, it was just the two of us, and we were sharing a blueberry muffin waiting for our plate of food to come. I just got struck with one of those lightning bolt moments, we all have them, where you realize, actually, this is the only thing that matters. Everything else I'm obsessed with in my life makes no difference at all. These moments, this moment here, I'm going to be thinking about this moment. I don't think I'll ever forget a moment like that. To have that moment where you're like, whoa, that's all really it is, is collecting these amazing valuable moments for our lives because they pass, and then they're gone, and then you're back into the obsession swamp, and then boom, lightning bolt. To me, the more present you are, it doesn't mean you're fully present, like walking around like some light being that's crazy. Nobody's like that, maybe a few people. Even Jesus probably had his shit list, you know what I mean? People that pissed him off. But if we can bridge more of those moments, be alive more often and collect more of those moments, that to me is kind of blew my mind. And so it just got, I don't know what it is, and I'm in this era where what is important to me is that. And this, to me, what you're doing, what we're doing here is kind of that. What's the distillation of the podcast? It always was conversation. It always was just sitting down and just talking and figuring out what's important to us in that moment. It's always been that way.

Speaker 1:
[17:46] Look at you. You're ascending, Adam. You know that's a looks maxing term, right? Ascending. I guess.

Speaker 2:
[17:55] Am I?

Speaker 1:
[17:55] But what you're ascending is Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Speaker 2:
[17:59] Is that what's happening?

Speaker 1:
[18:00] Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[18:01] And I have not microdosed before this podcast. Don't worry, folks.

Speaker 1:
[18:05] Microdosing on love.

Speaker 2:
[18:07] And presence. I'm macrodosing on love right now.

Speaker 1:
[18:10] I love that. I think that's absolutely correct. And, you know, any parent can testify to that.

Speaker 2:
[18:17] I mean, you still have them. You're going on college.

Speaker 1:
[18:19] Yeah, I'm taking our youngest to the East Coast tomorrow to look at some colleges that you got into. Yeah, it's like, this is like the joy and the gift, you know? Like, you get to do these cool things. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Freaks of Nature. If you're like me, active, outdoors a lot, prone to sweating tons, and into clean personal care products, then you probably have had a few experiences testing some of these products only to discover they're great in theory, but underwhelming when it comes to actually working. But I got to say, this stuff is great. It gets the job done, and then some, all without trade-offs when it comes to clean ingredients. I've been using their deodorant and their mineral broad spectrum SPF 50 Sunstick. Both of these have earned a permanent place in my routine. The deodorant is aluminum and baking soda free, of course, but somehow still holds up through long training days, which frankly surprised me. And their Sunstick really does go on incredibly smooth, leaves no white cast and makes it ridiculously easy to protect your skin when you're outside for hours. Their Sunstick sold out last summer and their deodorant sold out within one month of launching. But good news, everything is back in stock right now. I'm all in. I suggest you will be too. And right now is the time because when you go to freaksofnature.com, which is what you're going to do right now, and you use the code RICHROLL, you're going to save 20% when you order now before it sells out again. So do it. I spent a lot of time encouraging all of you people to pursue work that lights you up, to find that thing that gets you excited out of bed in the morning, enthusiastic about building something meaningful in the world. But if you're going to do that, please do. You are going to need a place where people can actually find you. And Squarespace makes all of that simple. So simple, in fact, it's actually kind of insane. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that helps you build a professional website, claim your domain, and grow your brand online. One feature I love is their built-in SEO tools. Basically, what that means is that every Squarespace site is optimized to show up in search engines with automatic site maps, meta descriptions, and everything working behind the scenes so that when people are searching for what you have to offer, the internet will do its thing and deliver them right to your online doorstep. Every site also includes powerful analytics so you can see what's working, how people find your site, what content they engage with, and where your growth is happening. And if you're building a business around your work, Squarespace makes it easy to offer services, schedule sessions, and get paid directly through your site. Head to squarespace.com/richroll for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code richroll to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. One thing that I got to do in the context of being grateful to have certain experiences, I haven't been able to share this because we haven't done this in a while, but I was at South by Southwest last month.

Speaker 2:
[21:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[21:50] And just had like a peak experience. I know South by Southwest has been around for a long time. Right. And there's kind of grousing like, oh, it's not as cool as it used to be. And they leveled the Convention Center. So the event was more diffused across Austin this year than it's typically like more centralized around this Convention Center. And people were complaining about that, but Convention Centers aren't exactly inspiring.

Speaker 2:
[22:17] No.

Speaker 1:
[22:17] Places for idea exchange or like cultural artistic events. And so I actually thought it was cooler because that meant all the events were in different types of, they were domiciled in all different kinds of buildings. It made it more interesting. Didn't seem to put a damper on the experience at all. Like I had such an amazing time. But I had this moment where in one day, I went and introduced Tom Sachs onto the main stage and got to say a few words and shower him in love and bring him up on the stage. Tom Sachs being a guest on the podcast, this New York City sculptor and kind of icon in the art world.

Speaker 2:
[23:04] Awesome guy.

Speaker 1:
[23:05] And he was so happy that I was there. He gave me a hug and he's like, I can't believe it. And it was like, are you kidding? Like, this is so cool. I can't believe you asked me to do this. Like, this is amazing. And then I left there and I went over to the Rivian House and got to spend like two hours with RJ Scorringe, the founder and CEO. And we got in a new R2 and drove around and it was all mounted with cameras. And we recorded kind of a comedians having coffee and cars or whatever that Seinfeld thing is, like a version of that.

Speaker 2:
[23:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:37] And that was so fun.

Speaker 2:
[23:38] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:39] I had such a great time. He's such a nice person and it was exciting to help tell the story of the release of the R2 vehicle for them, which is a great story.

Speaker 2:
[23:49] Did you guys do any carpool karaoke?

Speaker 1:
[23:52] We didn't sing. Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear that.

Speaker 2:
[23:55] No?

Speaker 1:
[23:57] That video hasn't come out yet. I don't know what's going on with that, but that I'm sure that will come out at some point soon.

Speaker 2:
[24:02] Very cool.

Speaker 1:
[24:02] And then after that, I left and went to a party at this bar in the late afternoon with Tyler, my stepson and producer, to and it was a party put on by a magazine slash production company called Monster Children, which is an Australian publication. It's sort of a surf skate punk rock sort of enterprise. And I went there to meet Ed O'Brien from Radiohead and Ed's son, who I'd met the night before, to just get to know him because later that week, I was going to be doing a Q&A with him on the precipice of him releasing his second solo album called Blue Morpho. And this documentary that he made to accompany that record, which is all about this journey that he's been on with mental health. So one day, Tom Sachs, RJ, and then Ed O'Brien, like, you know, of Radiohead, like my favorite band. I was like, how is this my life? But I get to have these kinds of experiences and such a diversity of experiences, like a sculptor, you know, and like this guy who is re-imagining, you know, automotive transportation. And then like this musician in the most iconic band of our lifetime. It was just so cool. I just couldn't believe it was my life. And then I got to do-

Speaker 2:
[25:38] But it speaks to South by Southwest, what you're saying. Yeah, it was like, it's still in nexus.

Speaker 1:
[25:41] It was great. I was like, I couldn't imagine having a better experience, you know? And then I got to host this conversation with Ed in a church like two days later after screening. His documentary was screened and then it was basically his cathedral. And we got to have this conversation and they adorned the entire cathedral with plants. And it was really about his mental health and his relationship to his creativity. And it was just magical, you know? Wow. It was really, it was such a cool experience.

Speaker 2:
[26:12] That is a cool experience. Yeah. I mean, like I said, it just speaks to South by Southwest, people pulling in very interesting, creative, influential people, right?

Speaker 1:
[26:22] It feels more relevant. Maybe this is just through my own personal, biased experience or lens. But it does feel more culturally relevant than it has in the past, at least with respect to film, for example, like the Sundance Film Festival, that was always like the big thing. I don't know if that feels like it's maybe on the wane a little bit, and the film side of South by Southwest feels definitely more important than it has in the past.

Speaker 2:
[26:54] Is that right?

Speaker 1:
[26:55] Yeah. I don't know. It's cool. Austin's great. You're just in this place where you're riding bikes around, everything's five minutes away, and there's just so much going on. You can't even begin to tap into 2% of what's happening during that festival, because there's so much going on.

Speaker 2:
[27:11] I mean, you were on that stage with Ed. When you do those bigger events, those bigger venues, do you get nervous?

Speaker 1:
[27:17] I always get nervous.

Speaker 2:
[27:18] How do you calm yourself down?

Speaker 1:
[27:21] Deep breaths. But it's not a bad nerves, it's excitement because I want it to go well. I want to make sure that I'm delivering for the audience, and then I'm serving the person I'm speaking to and respecting them by being prepared and all that stuff.

Speaker 2:
[27:40] Is he touring the record around?

Speaker 1:
[27:43] So the album comes out in May, I think, so it's not coming out yet. But that conversation coincided with the release of a Rolling Stone article on Ed that announced also that Radiohead is going to be touring again.

Speaker 2:
[28:04] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[28:04] It's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:
[28:05] You were saying to me that people don't realize that Ed is foundational to the sound itself. Kind of like John Fruccianti, without him, Chili Peppers wouldn't have become what they became. All their best stuff came after that.

Speaker 1:
[28:19] Yeah. When you listen to his solo album, you really understand his contribution to Radiohead. He's the guy who's creating the entire sonic vibe of the band's sound. He's the sound designer behind the scenes, and he's somebody who has always been comfortable, kind of receded into the background. If you watch concert footage or see performances of them, he'll be leaning down, turning knobs, and playing with wires and stuff like that, but less comfortable being forward-facing. This second solo album is the first time he's actually attached his name to his album. His first solo album was just EOB. He didn't even put his whole name to it. So he's sort of coming out and standing on his own two feet, and owning his talent and his relationship to music, and it's kind of beautiful to watch. Because in Radiohead, and he said this many times, his job is to serve the band and to support Tom York's beautiful lyricism and that extraordinary voice. And it's scary to step outside of that and say, well, this is me, you know, outside of Radiohead. And I don't think any of us could imagine, like, can you imagine being in a band that is that huge? But because he is sort of somebody who is always been more in the background, he can still enjoy anonymity. Like we were walking around South by Southwest, and yes, some people recognize him, but a lot of people don't. And I'm like, that dude is in Radiohead.

Speaker 2:
[30:05] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:05] You know, it's crazy.

Speaker 2:
[30:06] You don't even know. Right. Well, especially in this era where we all have different famous people anyway, like nobody has the same famous people. But I will take one bone with you in saying Radiohead is the most iconic band of our lifetime. I disagree.

Speaker 1:
[30:20] Well, you're wearing a Nirvana T-shirt.

Speaker 2:
[30:22] Yeah. Is it really a debate? Is there really a debate? I mean, not to me, like to me, I think the greatest rock star in the modern day, since the 60s, 70s.

Speaker 1:
[30:36] It depends upon your metrics because it was such a short-lived band. Yes, yes, yes. You know, and Radiohead has this greater canon of work and they're still going, you know, they're still doing stuff.

Speaker 2:
[30:50] Yeah, yeah. No, you, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:51] But if you're our age, I mean, it's like, I love Radiohead. It's like, it's, you're wearing an iconic, like Gen X t-shirt, right? Like you just, you're repping Gen X, you know?

Speaker 2:
[31:01] I'm repping the Gen.

Speaker 1:
[31:02] And I'm a proud member of Gen X.

Speaker 2:
[31:03] I know, I know.

Speaker 1:
[31:04] Like I'm down with Nirvana, you know, hardcore. And similarly, I'm wearing a Mike D t-shirt.

Speaker 2:
[31:10] You are.

Speaker 1:
[31:10] Mike D5D.

Speaker 2:
[31:11] You are.

Speaker 1:
[31:12] And the reason I'm wearing this and this relates to music, I guess we can kind of segue, is Mike D from the Beastie Boys, proud citizen of Malibu, sort of an icon in Malibu.

Speaker 2:
[31:24] I never even knew he lived here.

Speaker 1:
[31:26] Oh, you didn't?

Speaker 2:
[31:27] I don't know anything.

Speaker 1:
[31:28] Dude, he's the man about town.

Speaker 2:
[31:30] Is he really?

Speaker 1:
[31:31] Yeah. All right. Surfer, lifestyle, icon, like he moved to Malibu and he's really all about like healthy lifestyle.

Speaker 2:
[31:40] When did he move here? Not long ago.

Speaker 1:
[31:41] Forever ago. He's lived here forever. Yeah. But hasn't put out new music in a very long time.

Speaker 2:
[31:48] Really?

Speaker 1:
[31:49] He has an album coming out soon, Mike D5D, and he did a live performance in Malibu last Thursday. Where?

Speaker 2:
[31:58] Trancas?

Speaker 1:
[31:59] At that place? On PCH, there's a surf shop called Brothers Marshall.

Speaker 2:
[32:03] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[32:03] You know where the general hardware store is like right by Las Flores?

Speaker 2:
[32:07] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[32:08] They took over that whole parking lot, and he performed an unpublicized, if you live in Malibu, you know kind of thing, like all of Point Doom showed up for this. There's probably like 300 people.

Speaker 2:
[32:20] Does he live in Point Doom?

Speaker 1:
[32:21] Yeah, it was in Point Doom.

Speaker 2:
[32:22] But it was all the way over there?

Speaker 1:
[32:23] No, but it was down at Brothers Marshall was behind it, and the city of Malibu permitted this whole thing to happen. It was super cool. It was a community event. All of Malibu was there, Rick Rubin was there. It was like a whole thing, but it was super cool.

Speaker 2:
[32:42] But didn't Rick Rubin do Check Your Head?

Speaker 1:
[32:46] I think you're right. We might have to check the internet for which records he produced. Was it Check Your Head?

Speaker 2:
[32:52] The second and third, Paul's Boutique, I think.

Speaker 1:
[32:56] Did he do Paul's Boutique?

Speaker 2:
[32:57] Did he not?

Speaker 1:
[32:58] I'm not sure about that.

Speaker 2:
[32:59] We'll check the internet.

Speaker 1:
[33:00] Somebody can look. Someone can look and double-check. Yeah, Rick Rivian was there. The opening act was a band called Very Nice Person.

Speaker 2:
[33:12] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[33:13] A Very Nice Person. Look this up too. Very Nice People, Very Nice Person, which is Mike D's son's band, Skylar and Davis. All right. It's a cool band. They performed at South by Southwest.

Speaker 2:
[33:24] Right on.

Speaker 1:
[33:25] They're young kids, but they're coming up. Then they played with Mike D also, which was really cool. He's playing with his kids. Just to see Mike D do his thing.

Speaker 2:
[33:36] It's like LeBron and Brony, baby.

Speaker 1:
[33:38] Mike D is a very quiet, introverted person. He's the Buddhist, right?

Speaker 2:
[33:43] He's the Buddhist. Wasn't he a Buddhist?

Speaker 1:
[33:45] Yeah. He did a Kirtan record many years ago with Bhagavan Das, who's the guy who married Julie and I.

Speaker 2:
[33:54] Yeah. With Bhagavan Das or Krishna Das?

Speaker 1:
[33:57] With Bhagavan Das, with Bhagavan Das. But Mike D, I don't know him well, but I've met him a bunch of times. He's a very quiet, introverted person.

Speaker 2:
[34:06] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[34:07] But then you see him on stage doing his thing and you're like, this guy is a natural born performer. Yeah. He's up there and he's doing the thing that he was born to do, and everyone was so happy to see him do it. That's awesome. He's got these new songs and I don't know, it was super cool. So I'm rocking the merch.

Speaker 2:
[34:27] That's awesome.

Speaker 1:
[34:28] From that experience.

Speaker 2:
[34:29] Mike D. When I was a million years ago, when I was going door to door to people's houses to get them to care about the ancient forests and try to save the ancient forests, Laurel Canyon was like prime territory because liberals and they had money. I went up there and I knocked on the door and I'm right out of college. There was a beautiful woman sitting in the kitchen. You can see all the way through the house. There's two women and they're looking at me like, hey, because I'm like, hey, come on, I got to sign my petition, give money. It turned out it was Ioni Skye. Then all of a sudden, Adam Horowitz comes out and sees me there. There's a production trucks out front. It's like this whole weird thing going on and I'm just trying to get in there. He comes and he takes me, he moves me away, he puts his hand on my head, he moves me out of view of his home. He's like, what's going on here? I'm like, we're just doing this thing, man. He gave 100 bucks, he said, get out of here. He gives me 100 bucks and he goes away. Then as I'm coming back down later doing all the territory, one of the production guys comes up and says, hey man, we're doing a party here tonight. It's going to be a music video party thing. It's Friday, new skies record or whatever. You're welcome to come by, bring some friends, come over and come to the party. But I was so afraid of Adam that I didn't want to go.

Speaker 1:
[35:55] Dude, how could you not go?

Speaker 2:
[35:59] I don't know, man. I don't know why I didn't go.

Speaker 1:
[36:01] You didn't have a friend to talk some sense into you?

Speaker 2:
[36:04] A friend of mine in the group was like, dude, we got to go. You have to take me there. I can't go with that. I'm like, you go. Just tell him it was you. You could have gone.

Speaker 1:
[36:12] Yeah, you blew that one.

Speaker 2:
[36:14] I blew it.

Speaker 1:
[36:15] What is your relationship to music these days?

Speaker 2:
[36:19] My Spotify age is 110. Is that good? No, I listen to, I'll tell you what I listen to. I listen to, on the weekends, Alma del Barrio, that's KXLU 89.9. It's a college radio station from Loyola Marymount here in town. And on the weekends, they play old salsa and cumbia, all the old Latin music. So it's been running for 50 plus years. It's the best Latin music show in the world. If you like Bad Bunny, this is the shit you should be listening to. It's unbelievable. And so if you're not familiar with it, but you like the beats, this is the place to go. So it's 89.9 all day long. So I do that. And then I do Henry Rolland's show every week. He's KCRW. And you can get, both these can stream anywhere in the world. And so I do that. And KCRW is like a pod. You can listen to it anytime. Almond El Barrio, you have to be streaming while it's going on. And then otherwise, it's kind of like Spotify and whatever I hear from these other places I save on Shazam. I Shazam a lot of stuff. The only new band, I know we were talking about before, the only new bands, new bands is where I'm kind of like a little lost. Sometimes Henry Rolland will put some bands on. Great Australian band called TV Colors that's new that I'm into. Geese is really cool. I got that from, I think, from Tiny Desk and then Wetleg. I like Wetleg, but my new stuff is like, occasionally new stuff gets in there. But I'm a lot of times listening to old music, old jazz, old salsa, old rock and roll. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[37:48] I'm obsessed with Geese.

Speaker 2:
[37:49] I love Geese.

Speaker 1:
[37:51] Cameron Winter's burgeoning solo career.

Speaker 2:
[37:54] Unbelievable.

Speaker 1:
[37:54] That guy is off the charts, talented. I can't stop listening to him. I know he's been likened to his generation's Bob Dylan. Is that right? Time will tell, but he's so young. The fact that he's playing solo concerts at Carnegie Hall, and then touring with the hottest rock band right now, it's pretty cool to see what he's doing.

Speaker 2:
[38:21] Yeah. I didn't realize that he was soloing at Carnegie Hall.

Speaker 1:
[38:25] Yeah. There's videos of Paul Thomas Anderson filming him on stage when he was at Carnegie Hall. Is that right? This guy is like-

Speaker 2:
[38:35] And who is he touring with?

Speaker 1:
[38:37] Cameron Winter? Yeah. He's the lead singer in Geese.

Speaker 2:
[38:40] No, I know, but who are they touring with right now?

Speaker 1:
[38:42] I don't know. I don't know. You mean who's they're opening at? Yeah. They just played Coachella the other day.

Speaker 2:
[38:46] Coachella is going on right now. You said the biggest band.

Speaker 1:
[38:49] Well, they're not the biggest band in the world, but they're the band that's getting the most energy right now, in terms of new bands that are coming up. They're not that new. They've been around for a while.

Speaker 2:
[38:58] To me, they sound-

Speaker 1:
[38:58] But they're super young.

Speaker 2:
[38:59] I know. To me, they sound a lot like The Strokes, to be honest with you. They remind me of early Strokes.

Speaker 1:
[39:04] They're really iterating on that. They're doing a lot of really interesting new stuff. It's just cool to see.

Speaker 2:
[39:11] Yeah, it is cool.

Speaker 1:
[39:11] Because there was a period of time where I thought, is rock over? Are we done with it? That's right. Then, sure enough, a band like Geese comes along and you realize, oh, there's more to say here.

Speaker 2:
[39:24] Yeah, because EDM. Well, that's why I say like Bad Bunny, EDM, like all this, it all comes from musicianship. You can tell with Cameron Winter, you can tell with Geese, the musicianship is just top-notch. To me, it all starts there. That's why I like the old stuff because that's when musicianship really mattered more. I think the more things advance technologically, I used to really like EDM when it was more underground and stuff, and now I don't really listen to it ever. Maybe I'm just this guy that doesn't like things once they get popular, but it's very possible that's true. I am that, but I like the grit. I like it to come from the earth. I like it. Rock and roll, what's cool about it is it's a mix of the two. Like you're saying with Radiohead, creating that mood with electronic enhancement. That's cool.

Speaker 1:
[40:16] Never in a million years did I imagine that the world would start waking up to what I realized back in 1998, which is that life is infinitely better without alcohol in it. Giving it up isn't reserved for problematic drinkers, people like me, but it's actually something that benefits everybody. At the tip of this spear is Go Brewing, the NA beer I love so much that I decided to become an investor. One of the reasons I'm so behind Go Brewing's mission is because Joe is playing my favorite game. He's playing the long game and he's doing every single thing right. Instead of rushing to market, he and his team spent years in their brewery and lab refining their process, testing literally thousands of batches before launching in 2023. That patience has paid off. Go Brewing has already won gold and silver at the Best of Craft Beer Awards, which is pretty rare for such a young company. Whether it's Freedom, West Coast Pale Ale, New School Sour or the story Double IPA, you can feel the intention in every can. For me, Go Brewing represents something larger than beer. It's all about creating options that align with how more and more people want to live. So visit gobrewing.com/richroll50 to get 50% off your first subscription order to Go Brewing's Beer Club. This episode is sponsored by Rivian. For me, historically, a car has always just been a way to get around. But I have to say, I am just in love with the R1S Rivian Lone Bee because it's this incredible all-electric vehicle with insane tech that can take you just about anywhere, but mostly because it's so much more than a vehicle. It's like this passport for adventure, which got me thinking about my favorite road trips. I've done many over the years, and the best ones are never about the destination. They're about adventure, they're about possibility, which is basically the Rivian mission. There's storage everywhere, a front trunk, gear tunnels for wet or sandy stuff, room for boards, bikes, packs, whatever your version of adventure looks like. You can literally plug things in and power your world, coffee, camp gear, even a full travel kitchen. You can even get a rooftop tent for your R1S, and yet on the road, it's refined and quiet. But when the pavement ends, you switch into off-road and just keep going. The R1S SUV has three rows, seat seven, folds down into a perfect sleep setup. The R1T is a truck that can tow, it can haul, and still feel beautifully designed. Most vehicles make you choose between rugged and refined. Rivian gives you both so you can adventure without compromise. At Coachella right now, Radiohead has this underground bunker.

Speaker 2:
[43:17] Really?

Speaker 1:
[43:18] Have you seen this? Yeah. It's like going down into, I didn't see this personally, I've just watched videos online. You're going into some fallout shelter underground. Did you see Tenet, the movie Tenet? Yes. You know at the end when they're doing the reverse pincher movement or whatever and they have to go underground to the place to get the whatever?

Speaker 2:
[43:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[43:42] It's like that. You go in this tunnel and you go underground, and it is this massive art installation, which I think is really cool, this merging of music and art because there's so much interesting art like iconography associated with Radiohead. At the same time, we have guerrillas, speaking of semi-EDM, that is having this kind of retrospective moment right now. They were on Saturday Night Live. They had this installation in downtown Los Angeles in the arts district called House of Kong. Did you know about this?

Speaker 2:
[44:22] No, I didn't know about this.

Speaker 1:
[44:23] Similarly, this was like a temporary museum piece where you would go in to this seemingly dilapidated building from the outside called House of Kong, and inside aligning all the walls, you kind of walk through this experience of the band with all of the iconography, like all of the character drawings starting from the first iterations of them and how it evolved over time and so it's this merging of visual art with music that I think is really cool.

Speaker 2:
[44:55] Well, I mean, that goes back to Burning Man, right? I mean, Burning Man and then it wasn't Coachella kind of iterating on Burning Man and making it a more commercial mainstream music experience with art. It always had art installations. Yeah, I suppose Coachella always had that. I remember when Coachella, I don't know how much it costs to go to Coachella these days, but like early days was like 100 bucks and you can get one day passes.

Speaker 1:
[45:17] Now you need a certain number of Instagram followers to even be able to buy a ticket, I guess.

Speaker 2:
[45:23] Are you going?

Speaker 1:
[45:24] No, I've never gone.

Speaker 2:
[45:25] You've never gone?

Speaker 1:
[45:26] The boys have gone many times. Julie's gone. It's a bit much for me, honestly. I like watching videos of it.

Speaker 2:
[45:38] I could tell a Darrell X Coachella story right now, but I'm not sure.

Speaker 1:
[45:41] Yeah, no. But I would say this, I've been stuck in my Gen X music bubble forever.

Speaker 2:
[45:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:48] I realized I need to break out of this. It's just becoming too repetitive and I need to, in the same way I'm exploring a different relationship with the podcast, I want to explore a different relationship with music. One thing you'll discover, like Zoom is too young, you're at the age where you're trying to impress upon him your musical tastes, I'm sure.

Speaker 2:
[46:11] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[46:12] But when they become teenagers, they commandeer the music selection in the car. Then you have this opportunity to start to listen to what they like. So I've been leaning into that and what you realize is like, your kids are the portal to what's actually happening, what's cool and what they're interested in. I've really expanded my musical interests as a result of that. When I go into the gym on those early mornings, sometimes I'm preparing for a podcast and so I'll watch videos on the TV of some person who I'm going to be speaking to later that day. But if I don't have that, I've been more and more just exploring music and like, Jai likes this band, like let's see what's on YouTube with this band or like watching live Geese concerts or Tiny Desk concerts or-

Speaker 2:
[47:09] I like Tiny Desk.

Speaker 1:
[47:10] KEXP has a series of amazing music live performances.

Speaker 2:
[47:16] I should check them out.

Speaker 1:
[47:17] Which is really cool. I love those local stations. Then my guy Jack Coyne, who hosts this show called Trackstar in New York City, he has videos of live performances in his studio. It's opened my world to all these cool bands. Like Geese and Cameron Winter are just one. Like Turnstile, this super cool band that I've gotten really into. That is punk rock and roll. They just had a huge show at Coachella too. I think they're just so exciting and so energetic. What I love about Turnstile is in this age in which artists, creative people, musicians are being fed this story that the only way to be successful is to be just constantly releasing stuff, like putting music out every week, a new song, a new music video, a new this, a new TikTok. These are guys, this band went in the other direction, and whatever money they made from their live performances or whatever, their music, they reinvested in the band, and they have made these extraordinary music video documentaries that are executed at just the highest level, like their art pieces in and of themselves, that have just put them at a different kind of tier of craftsmanship. And their live performances are just so energetic. And I just think it's really- They're like taking this punk rock genre, and then they're adding this high level of visual art, this visual art aspect to it, that I think is super interesting. And then in terms of other bands that I've gotten into, have you heard of Angine de Poitrine?

Speaker 2:
[49:05] No.

Speaker 1:
[49:06] So this is this Quebecois French-Canadian band.

Speaker 2:
[49:10] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[49:11] It's just two people, and they dress up in these, I don't even know what you would call these costumes, but you don't see their faces. They're wearing these elaborate costumes, and it's just instrumental, and it's the most interesting musicianship that I've heard in a long time. So they're having this moment right now where they're breaking through. That's really cool.

Speaker 2:
[49:31] Quebecois, Montreal, great city.

Speaker 1:
[49:33] So yeah, and Wetleg, I love Wetleg.

Speaker 2:
[49:35] I love Wetleg.

Speaker 1:
[49:36] But there's a lot of bands I've noticed also, like in this Angine de Poitrine vein, where they're obscuring themselves, so they're anonymous. I don't know who these people are.

Speaker 2:
[49:45] Masked singer.

Speaker 1:
[49:46] Which maybe was started with guerrillas, right? Like being anonymous and creating characters, Daft Punk, yeah. Or Marshmello, I guess now. There's another band called Karangben.

Speaker 2:
[50:00] Yeah, I love Karangben, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:02] I'm super into them.

Speaker 2:
[50:03] They've been around a while now.

Speaker 1:
[50:04] They've been around, yeah, but like I'm discovering this.

Speaker 2:
[50:06] Zuma loves Karangben.

Speaker 1:
[50:08] So there you go, so Zuma already. But you introduced Zuma to-

Speaker 2:
[50:11] But Zuma's very intentional. We already listen, he already dictates the playlist, but it's cool stuff right now. But I think to your point is like, he's gonna start hearing stuff we have no idea about and he's gonna bring it to you and that's cool.

Speaker 1:
[50:23] So it's been fun to-

Speaker 2:
[50:24] What about this new band, Manger? Big fan, big fan.

Speaker 1:
[50:27] Well, this is the most happening band.

Speaker 2:
[50:29] The most happening band.

Speaker 1:
[50:31] Manger is my wife, Julie Piatt's band. She just put out her first song and music video this past week. If you follow me on social media, you've enjoyed that. She's got more to come. And it's been great to see her step into this really authentic creative expression. And she's so happy doing it. This is what she should have been doing a long time ago. And she's rocking it.

Speaker 2:
[50:59] She rocks, man.

Speaker 1:
[51:00] Owning it.

Speaker 2:
[51:00] She knows it, dude.

Speaker 1:
[51:01] It's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:
[51:01] It's like Patti Smith, Cheryl Crowe, Julie Piatt. You know, it's in that made-

Speaker 1:
[51:05] You wrote that beautiful bio for her. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:08] But I mean, it's all real.

Speaker 1:
[51:09] It's true.

Speaker 2:
[51:09] And then to have your, you know, you guys, your family involved, it's amazing. Her sons involved.

Speaker 1:
[51:14] It's super cool.

Speaker 2:
[51:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[51:15] It's super cool. And she said something the other day that's so true. Like, so we went and saw Mike D and he's playing with his two boys. Right. And then you have Jeff Tweedy, who's like touring with his kids right now. Julie's playing with her boys. It's a thing.

Speaker 2:
[51:32] It is a thing.

Speaker 1:
[51:33] Musicians playing with their kids.

Speaker 2:
[51:35] Yeah. It's cool. That's how it goes, man. That shows you how old rock and roll is.

Speaker 1:
[51:38] I know. But it's exciting to see Julie flourishing creatively, and the kind of happiness and the sense of satisfaction that comes with feeling like you're fully expressing yourself authentically.

Speaker 2:
[51:53] Yeah. And then also just the idea of music. It's interesting. I've been learning guitar last few years, but I did. I was a choir boy. I sang all the way up to college.

Speaker 1:
[52:06] With the bells? I didn't do the bells.

Speaker 2:
[52:08] No, I didn't do the bells. But then having music not really be my expression after that, became more writing, and then finding it again. There's something about the music itself, just having the music in you and around you, and you're making it, it just uplifts your energy, I think. Unless you're doing it out of pathos, if you're doing it just purely out of love, which is easy when you're new, and she's made it new again, essentially. Her whole story amazing, her brother is a serious musician, her uncle is a serious musician, so she's got it in the blood.

Speaker 1:
[52:46] Yeah. What have you been watching?

Speaker 2:
[52:49] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[52:50] Media diet.

Speaker 2:
[52:51] Media diet. Most recent thing I watched all the way through is something called The Dark Wizard, which is an HBO documentary series that's coming on online on Tuesday. By the time this airs, it'll be out. It's all about Dean Potter, the great climber, free soloist, bass jumper, wingsuit pilot, and it's his whole story. Dean was one of the, after the stone monkeys, one of the punk rock guy that came in and just blew up Yosemite Valley, and right away was free soloing stuff that nobody would even think of doing. And he was before Alex, it was Dean. But what you don't realize is that Dean was 6'6. I never knew that, 6'6. So there's advantages to being tall on a face, I guess, but there's also serious disadvantages. It's kind of like a small person's game. It's like gymnastics. So there's a scene of him soloing a root on the top of L-cap, that root that Alex has to wedge his body in and shimmy up that crack. He's 6'6, doing that.

Speaker 1:
[54:01] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[54:01] I mean, he's wedged and you can see the pain. And so, this guy is a beautiful soul, an artistic vision, a really amazing person. His journals, they have access to his journals, so his journals are just incredible. And so, you get a sense of his psychology and he's one of those guys that had mood swings. And so, he was depressed a lot. But he also was a groundbreaking athlete. So, it's amazing to watch. I think it's four episodes. Yeah, four episodes. Each one's about an hour and you go deep into it. And of course, it's a tragic end. He died when he was 43 in a wingsuit based on accident in Yosemite Valley. You know, when it was an outlaw sport, he's like one of the great outlaw athletes. And Alex is cast as the antagonist, which is, I think, refreshing for Alex also, but also kind of cool.

Speaker 1:
[54:55] How is he the antagonist?

Speaker 2:
[54:57] So, basically when Dean is the, he's the king of the valley, he's the man, right? And then Alex shows up and he's a teenager living out of his van. And he just starts free soloing stuff that Dean, he's heard Dean wants to do and he does it before. And so, and then the cutaway conversations with Alex, you get a sense of the killer instinct that created this amazing athlete that is Alex Honnold. You get a sense of it. You don't really understand why he's that way. Like, was there something that he show up? Was he treated obnoxiously by the cool crowd? Is it not? But one thing that comes across is like, Dean is climbing from a lot of pathos, even in his early climbs when he does this amazing route, he's up there like, howling like a monkey and making it very, very much, there's rage involved, there's pathos, there's passion and love too, but there's also this other stuff. Just being around Alex and watching him climb and seeing it at the end of Free Solo, he climbs from a place of joy. He just loves it. Even though he's the engineer, he's not the artist, like Dean is the artist. Dean is like, he has this amazing artistic vision. Alex is more the engineering guy that sees how to do something and then goes out and does it. But it's interesting to watch them both climb and see the difference. It's funny that you think of the engineer guys, the guy climbing from love and this guy climbing from pain. But it does seem that way. Of course, Dean, at the end, he has this relationship with Ravens comes into play. It's just an incredible film. He's just one of those iconic athletes that was gone too soon.

Speaker 1:
[56:41] Four part series.

Speaker 2:
[56:42] Four part series.

Speaker 1:
[56:42] He died in a wingsuit.

Speaker 2:
[56:44] Died in a wingsuit, base jump with his friend Graham. I forget his spacing on it. They call him Grahambo. It's Dean and Grahambo who die. They both are going for this notch from a place called Taft. Taft Peak, I think it is or Taft Exits, an exit off Taft Mountain in Yosemite, and they're going for this notch. Graham had done it before. Dean had not. There's a competitive aspect of Dean that comes into play, and it's there with Alex, and Alex does outdo him. Alex is the new athlete on the block that does take his place. I think towards the end, he was the boss of the wingsuit guys. He revitalized base jumping in Yosemite. Dean did, and he had a whole crew. A guy that I'm writing about named Jeff Shapiro was on the inner circle with Dean at the last couple of years of his life. There was this amazing elite group of phenomenal climbers, and phenomenal base jumpers, and wingsuit pilots, and they were just raging across the valley doing this amazing stuff. At first, Dean was against flying terrain. He wanted to fly long, high flights, but then he gradually got as more people started doing these terrain lines, which is where you're closer to the edge because you can feel the speed more, but it's also much more dangerous. He started to do that, and he started to do these insane terrain flights. I mean, he was an amazing wingsuit base jumper. But then Graham, a younger guy who was his protege, started to do these incredible jumps, and that kind of perked Dean's competitive nature up again. Jeff told me that confirms that. The one thing that doesn't come across that I think they show the video, but they don't talk about it, is the athleticism. At one point, Alex references free basing, which was free-selling with a base rig so that you have some safety net. They use some out of context quote of Alex dismissing that. I'm not sure how much he really dismissed that, but they use that nice quote to make it seem that way. But Dean, being able to fall off a face and then position your body where you're tracking away from the mountain. Talking to Jeff, the athleticism involved with that is just next level. You see the footage of it, it's incredible to see him do it. But to actually perform that is very rare. So we were talking about iconic athlete in his own right.

Speaker 1:
[59:12] So you're working on this writing project, interviewing lots of these wing suit guys. What have you learned? What is the common strain across that ecosystem of athlete that is different from the endurance athlete or the tennis player? What's unique about that subculture and that personality type that you've discovered?

Speaker 2:
[59:41] I'm not sure I have figured that out yet. It's a good question. I hope next time when we're actually talking about a book that's out, I'll have that down. But I'm still very much in the reporting phase. What I will say is there's something about being close to death like that, that makes you appreciate life, I think. Talking to Jeff, I can tell you from Jeff's perspective, being close to that, it does bring into focus these moments that we talked about before and how rare and precious they are. That's Jeff, though, he's a thinking man. Some of them are just chasing the fun. There's definitely people who are just like, this is fucking awesome, I'm going to rage, like that kind of adrenaline rush. But then there's others that are a little bit of a mix. I think Dean was an artist. There's an amazing shot in this thing where he is doing a slackline. He's also one of the early slackliners. He walked solo to slackline in front of the rising full moon in Yosemite Valley Cathedral Peak. He strung the slackline between the two peaks of this mountain, and he's doing it. Mikey Schaeffer, who is part of the crew in Taipei, he shot it for Dean. It's one of the most beautiful things you'll ever see in your life, this video footage. It's just incredible to see the silhouetted Dean in front of this massive moon.

Speaker 1:
[61:04] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[61:04] Wow. Yeah. That's what I've been watching. Yeah, that's the main thing.

Speaker 1:
[61:08] That's cool. Check that out. On the subject of athlete non-fiction streaming content, I did watch the Mariah Wilson documentary on Netflix.

Speaker 2:
[61:19] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[61:19] That story is one we've covered here on Roll On. The story of the gravel racer, Mariah Wilson, who is very much on the come up and was going to be this just phenom in that sport, being murdered in cold blood by the girlfriend of Colin Strickland, this woman, Kristen Armstrong. It's an insane story. It's like perfect for Netflix because it's like true crime. Yeah. I wouldn't call it a cinematic masterpiece, but if you're interested in that story and that world, I think it's worth watching. What I took away from it was A, just the premeditation of Kristen Armstrong going into this murder. They track all of her movements in the car and all this stuff. It's really bone-chilling. Then second to that, and perhaps more importantly, the impact that it has had, not just on Mariah's loved ones and family, but also on Colin Strickland. This guy will never be the same.

Speaker 2:
[62:25] Of course not.

Speaker 1:
[62:25] You can see him interviewed in the aftermath of it, and he will carry that to his grave.

Speaker 2:
[62:34] How could you shed that?

Speaker 1:
[62:37] Other than that, what have I seen that's been good? Well, I saw my boy Dan McPherson's new movie, Beast, which opened this weekend. Do you know this movie?

Speaker 2:
[62:47] No, but I saw you post about it, so tell me about it.

Speaker 1:
[62:51] Dan McPherson is a friend of mine. We've been friends since 2012. Ozzy, former Ironman, half Ironman, endurance athlete. Well-known in Australia, he was the host of Dancing with the Stars for a number of years back in the day. Moved to LA to become an actor. Things weren't going amazing. He moved back to Australia, and he's had some success since then. He's been in lots of stuff. He was in Foundation, HBO, sci-fi show. He was on a TV show called Strike Back. He did a couple of movies in supporting roles with Russell Crowe. But Beast, he's the lead, and he plays a mixed martial artist. Okay. An MMA fighter.

Speaker 2:
[63:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[63:46] He kills it, and Russell Crowe plays a supporting role to Dan. Which is super cool. Yeah. Russell was a co-writer on this movie, and I think a producer as well. It's released by Lionsgate, and it's in movie theaters. So it's like a very cool moment for him, for somebody who's been in his game for so long to finally be in a leading man role. So it's super fun.

Speaker 2:
[64:11] Congrats.

Speaker 1:
[64:12] He came over to the house this morning. We worked out, so it's great to see him and celebrate that.

Speaker 2:
[64:16] That is amazing.

Speaker 1:
[64:17] I enjoyed that. He did a great job. I know him as a guy I used to ride bikes with and talk about triathlon. Then when he got this strike back show, he bulked up because he was playing like a special forces guy. So he got all super jacked and bulky. But then he had to learn how to become a martial artist, and he spent three years studying jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai and all this. Really? So that he could really acquit himself well in this movie. By all accounts, he has done an amazing job because all of these people in the fighting community are like that, is the most realistic portrayal of our sport that I've seen on screen, so it's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:
[64:56] You mean people like Mark Zuckerberg?

Speaker 1:
[64:59] Yes. The experts, the martial arts experts.

Speaker 2:
[65:03] The best guys. You know what? I studied Muay Thai once.

Speaker 1:
[65:07] Did you?

Speaker 2:
[65:07] I did. So when I covered Thailand for Lonely Planet, I was living in Phuket for periods of time, and so whenever I was there, there was a Muay Thai gym near, and I would do it, but they kept trying to get me to do the grappling stuff, but Rich, you know me. Do I look like a grappler to you?

Speaker 1:
[65:25] You really don't.

Speaker 2:
[65:25] I don't grapple. I do not grapple.

Speaker 1:
[65:30] You grapple with your emotions and your neuroses. That's what you, you're a black belt grappler.

Speaker 2:
[65:36] When I'm grappling, something's going wrong. I want to flow. That's where I want to be.

Speaker 1:
[65:41] But isn't that what a Muay Thai fighter does? At the highest level, you're flowing.

Speaker 2:
[65:46] Yeah. The highest level, grappling is flowing. That's the thing. That's what I haven't figured out. Flowing is grappling is flowing.

Speaker 1:
[65:54] Now, we're in a vortex going to nowhere in this conversation.

Speaker 2:
[65:59] Let's go to the moon.

Speaker 1:
[66:00] Yeah. Let's go to the moon. Let's go to the moon. What do you have to say about Artemis, Adam?

Speaker 2:
[66:05] I loved it. We made it a family moment to watch the launch. We watched the launch. We watched the splashdown. I wasn't fully listening to everything, but there's a great podcast I was tuning into, 13 Minutes Presents, the BBC podcast. That was a cool little, it's a talky show with a British astronaut and then some science journalists. They talked about everything and so they brought more perspective on a daily basis to what was happening. I mean, I just think it's a, I think the main takeaways for me are like, I am a lunatic, meaning I love the moon. The language of these things, lunatic sphere of influence.

Speaker 1:
[66:45] Is that the origin? Is that the etymology of the word lunatic? Yes.

Speaker 2:
[66:49] People who love the moon.

Speaker 1:
[66:50] Is it that they love the moon or is it that like the full moon is like, yeah, it's like howling at the moon?

Speaker 2:
[66:58] Yeah, moon howler. So lunatic sphere of influence. So at one point, Artemis crew went beyond the influence of the gravitational pull of Earth and into the gravitational influence of the moon. So it was under the moon's sphere of influence. I didn't know that that was the thing.

Speaker 1:
[67:18] What does that mean though? I don't understand.

Speaker 2:
[67:19] It means you're under the gravitational influence.

Speaker 1:
[67:21] Yeah, I understand that. But why is that?

Speaker 2:
[67:22] Well, you've heard of the phrase sphere of influence, like somebody like Rich, we're in your sphere of influence.

Speaker 1:
[67:28] I see what you're saying. You're saying that is the etymology of that phrase.

Speaker 2:
[67:31] It must have come from the Apollo times, I'm guessing. I mean, it comes from physics. And then free return, another cool phrase, because after the crew went up, they were closer to Earth, they approached the moon. Then they did an interesting slingshot maneuver, a rant to get on this path to go around the far side of the moon. They're the furthest away in space of all time, and they get the amazing eclipse shot and all of that. And then they get on this path to where they're on the path of free return, which meant even if they'd run out of fuel, everything went bad, they were coming back to Earth, which is interesting to think about, like, how physics works. Like these smart people that all the math, that's one thing that I got from that podcast, all the math, all the physics, everything that you hear about, what's it for? It's for this kind of stuff. It makes that possible, to get back on that path of free return and to get back. There's so many little moments, the naming of the craters. But for me, I love the Apollo program. I have Earthrise in our dining room. I have a little print of that. I love this stuff. Yeah, it was a cool moment. I did think on the way when they splash down, I felt for them because they splash down and all of a sudden, they had to reboot their sat phone, like they couldn't call anybody. Then it took forever for the Navy to do their thing. It's like coming off of a transcontinental flight and then being stuck on the tarmac for an hour and a half.

Speaker 1:
[68:57] Yeah. There's something so relatable about the very minor challenges that they faced in the context of just the grandest, most exquisitely executed mission ever. They landed in exactly where they said they would, like within seconds of what they predicted. Everything was just nailed to such a precise, insane degree, but they did have certain challenges.

Speaker 2:
[69:27] But then they still couldn't get out for an hour and a half.

Speaker 1:
[69:30] So I saw a really funny tweet about this. Hold on. This person, Leah Crane, who I don't even know, she came up on my timeline. She says, deeply, deeply hilarious that everything on the Artemis II mission worked perfectly except outlook, a conference call, and briefly the toilet, which is just like any office workers experience. Oh, their issues are the same as mine.

Speaker 2:
[69:57] Yes, that's brilliant.

Speaker 1:
[69:59] Outlook. That's brilliant. But I think there's just something beyond just how extraordinary the whole thing was, and you were more locked in on it than I was. I watched the splashdown, I didn't watch the launch and I wasn't following it. That intensely. But here are a group of middle-aged people, who are just like good people, who are smart, who are doing a cool thing, and there's a wholesomeness to it, and a hopefulness and an optimism that is exactly the prescription we need right now. It is. I just appreciate that and I'm grateful for that. I just think it's super cool.

Speaker 2:
[70:42] They named the crater after the crew chief Reid. What's Reid's last name? Maybe Hastings, I forget. Then they named it for his wife who died of cancer a couple of years before.

Speaker 1:
[70:54] Colleen, I think.

Speaker 2:
[70:55] Yeah. The two things I want to say is that they risked their lives. It was a one in 20 chance that those heat shields wouldn't work on the way back because they were flawed heat shields and they'd had in the test flight. This crew of four people still did it. Now, why would they do it? People would ask. Some former astronauts were saying, they shouldn't have done it and that NASA was being unnecessarily risky. But one thing I will say from interviewing these wingsuit base jumpers and then I think I just got pooped on by one of your birds.

Speaker 1:
[71:24] But in a good way. We're alfresco.

Speaker 2:
[71:26] It's good luck.

Speaker 1:
[71:27] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[71:28] What you realize is these people will go for it because if this didn't happen now, it would happen two years from now and these astronauts might not get the chance again. So this was their chance and it was a one. They'd figured it out from the data, one in 20 chance and that was enough. That was good enough for them. They risked their lives, man. It was not like, I mean, it's easy that they're back now and it was always working, so it seemed fine. But they had CO2 scrubbers that were getting, it's like a rebreather. It's like living in a rebreather, like these diving rebreather that don't have bubbles, where what you breathe out gets scrubbed and served back to you as oxygen. That's what they were breathing on. So they had backup tanks and everything if they had to get back. But they were living off these CO2 scrubbers, and they were risking their ass. It's very interesting. It's also cool, like you're saying, in this era of the United States where we're waging war right now, a needless war that is causing all these repercussions from, and it seems almost mindless the way it's been executed and lacking in humility and thoughtfulness. If you're going to go to war, I would wish you were humble and thoughtful about how you're going to execute it versus rash and maybe stupid. Now, this is the other thing the United States is executing, this amazing, thoughtful, peerless experience, the deepest we've ever done. It shows you the capability of this country in both ways, and it's encouraging but also makes you feel like, wow, we're very schizophrenic like all countries are.

Speaker 1:
[73:03] Yeah, the polarity, the extreme polarity of what's happening politically and globally in terms of global conflict and this war that we're in and all the insanity that's happening right now. And then this just incredibly uplifting thing at the same time. It's a weird schizophrenic situation. It's a yes and kind of deal, I guess.

Speaker 2:
[73:27] But here's where they tie together. There's this dominance, this lust for dominance that is at the core of our culture, that has always existed in the United States. And I think Trump is part of that and all of this is part of that. But also NASA is part of that. Artemis' goal is to get close to the moon, so we can build a base on the fucking moon. It's crazy. I don't want a base on the moon. Do you want a base on the moon?

Speaker 1:
[73:56] I'm into space exploration and ultimately long term like expanding the horizon for our species. But I'm not into just replicating the mistakes that we're making here elsewhere. You know what I mean? So if you watch that TV show like For All Mankind, it really explores that idea. What was that beautiful Brad Pitt movie that's about his relationship with his father where he-

Speaker 2:
[74:29] Gannica?

Speaker 1:
[74:29] No, no, no, no, no, no. Ad Astra. I just rewatched Ad Astra like a month ago. It's the same thing. They go to the moon and the moon is just fast food restaurants and we just export our culture. You think it's going to be different and the same turf wars and territorialism and we're just replicating our mistakes, right? So this is the point you're making.

Speaker 2:
[74:55] That's the point I'm making. By the way, not for nothing, using a rich phrase, the moon does influence our tides, which is like the ocean and the weather and everything. It's like, let's be careful with the fucking moon. You know what I mean? It is part of this biological system. So let's have humility. It does take balls. It's not like humility is always the best play. It does take incredible guts and strength and focus, and I appreciate those things too. But I think to be really strong, you have to have humility. I think often force is mistaken for strength. Strength is something totally different than that. It includes humility. So that's my only concern, my only note. My only note for NASA is make sure we're humble about this.

Speaker 1:
[75:44] But that's not NASA's remit. You know what I mean? Like their remit is to do the exploration. I know, I know. The rest of it is up to us and the government, I suppose, right? But we haven't answered the most important question, the whole purpose of this Artemis II mission, which was to put the test to the Flat Earthers. Have we put the nail in the coffin of the Flat Earth movement with this?

Speaker 2:
[76:11] Definitely not. Somewhere there's a Flat Earth.

Speaker 1:
[76:14] What is the argument? What is the Flat Earther argument now?

Speaker 2:
[76:16] I'll tell you, somewhere there's a Flat Earther listening to this and being like, I can't believe Rich and Emma are falling for this Artemis bullshit. That didn't happen.

Speaker 1:
[76:24] So it just didn't. So basically, it's just saying like this was another Stanley Kubrick-esque Hollywood production and none of this happened.

Speaker 2:
[76:34] Do you know where Stanley Kubrick was the day of the launch?

Speaker 1:
[76:37] Is he still alive? Maybe he directed it.

Speaker 2:
[76:39] Oh, right. He directed it from beyond.

Speaker 1:
[76:43] Are we there yet? Is this where we're at? I don't know. Let's end on a hopeful note, Adam.

Speaker 2:
[76:49] All right. Ending on a hopeful note.

Speaker 1:
[76:50] Yeah. Splash us down with our damaged heat shields.

Speaker 2:
[76:56] Take us to safety. Well, I think the takeaway from Artemis, from the astronauts' perspective that I've seen, is the same as the takeaway of almost every experience from all the astronauts. It's that when they're up there, they fall in love with the beauty of the Earth. And everybody on Earth. And so when you're out in the vacuum, in the void, you see what we have so clearly, and it's so beautiful. It stands out so incredibly. And so I think that's where I'm at. It's like, let's enjoy the beauty of what we have, because even though some terrible things are happening, terrible things have always happened, like we've said. And so I think that's the takeaway for me. It's the same thing I said at the beginning of this episode, which is, I try to focus on the moments of beauty, because they're sublime. It's not just one beautiful thing that doesn't matter. It's like everything. And so the more deep we can be in those moments of nirvana, and Artemis was a monument of nirvana for all of us together that we could share in, then all the better. So thank you to NASA and everyone for doing that, because it's beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[78:05] Artemis II was a one-upper to Alex Honnold's Taipei 101 climb.

Speaker 2:
[78:12] It definitely was.

Speaker 1:
[78:12] They really one-upped him with that, didn't they?

Speaker 2:
[78:15] They really did.

Speaker 1:
[78:16] But it is the consistent refrain of every astronaut who has had that experience when they come back, and they're like, when you have that perspective of the Earth from such a distance, you realize, oh, it's a spaceship, we're all on it together, it's so small, we have more in common than our differences. They repeat that, and we understand that intellectually, but there's something so experiential about that, because it's so moving for them, like it changes them. I wish we could be changed just by hearing them reflect that back to us.

Speaker 2:
[78:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[78:55] We get it, but we don't get it like they get it.

Speaker 2:
[78:58] No.

Speaker 1:
[78:59] If we did, maybe we would be better at resolving those differences and avoiding going into poorly conceived global conflicts and killing each other unnecessarily.

Speaker 2:
[79:11] Well, you're bringing us down again. We've got to bring us back up, which is that there are moments like that. Life is for the person to experience, our life is to be experienced. To the tie, the wingsuit, to Alex, to this, to the astronauts, to everything. We're talking about to your, to what we were talking about at the top of self-improvement. Life is an, is a sport, it's an active sport, right? It's a sport for the people in the game. And so that's, I think that's the takeaway is you can find those moments of connectivity, they're available to you here on earth all the time. You have to seek them out though. They're not gonna necessarily bite you. Maybe a few times in your lifetime, something will smash you on the head, some realization. But you can decide that I'm gonna go sit by the sea, walk along the river, walk through the farmland. You could find a way to connect with the beauty of the earth every day of your life. I encourage it. I think there's nothing more empowering than just sitting down and watching the world go by sometimes, you know? Like that's what I think is the most important thing. And I wish more people would do that. And not just the world, not just like in a cafe, although everything's wildlife, really, we're all wildlife. But like if you can get out to some place where nature is really showing itself, you can have those moments yourself.

Speaker 1:
[80:30] I love it. You did it. You splashed us down beautifully. More evidence of Adam Skolnick ascending. I think we did it, man. Thanks for doing this.

Speaker 2:
[80:41] I love this.

Speaker 1:
[80:41] This is cool. We're out here. It's amazing.

Speaker 2:
[80:44] I felt more present with you in this one.

Speaker 1:
[80:46] Me too.

Speaker 2:
[80:47] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[80:47] To be continued. Thanks everybody for tuning in.

Speaker 2:
[80:49] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[80:50] Till next time. Peace.