S3 - Ep. 6 - Duncan Trussell

Are you leaving?

I you wanna way back home?

Either way, we want to be there.

Doesn't matter how much baggage you claim and give us time and a terminol and gay.

We want to send you off in style.

We wanna welcome you back home.

Tell us all about it. We scared?

Or was it fine? Malborn?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride? Ride with Karen and Chris? Welcome to Do you need a ride? This is Chris Fairbanks.

And this is Karen Kilgaroff.

Karen my friend. Are you a sufferer of allergies?

No?

I am having them, so there's no reason. I look outside, there's no wind. It's a mild day, and I couldn't even sleep, and I sound nasally.

What is happening?

Could you have a sinus infection?

I got it in the middle of the night.

It's somehow I don't understand what is happening and my voice I sound like Grizzly Adams.

I think that's great for podcasting now, I swear to God, because it's just a different vibe. People will start listening and they're going to be.

Like, who is this so chratistic?

Seventies after? That's podcasting right now?

Right?

Yeah? Yeah, okay, that's I like that.

Chris Sexels. I've told you this a thousand times.

You're right, it is sexy that I have flem in my throat.

Yes, women love flem and men.

Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna do my best. You better, I will I always do for today's guest.

You better do your best.

I'm very excited about today's guest.

I am too.

He's someone I have not seen for far too long. I don't even know where he resides.

Now that'll be question number one.

Yeah, we'll start with that.

But as a stand up comic, I used to love watching him perform, and I love his podcast. You probably know him from his podcast The Duncan Frescol Family Hour. Yeah, and if you haven't seen it yet, do watch The Midnight Gospel on Netflix. Yes, beautiful, because it is genius beautiful to watch everyone put your ears together?

What yees?

I almost told people to clap at home.

It would be cool.

Pull your hands together, even if you're driving, wherever you're listening at work, do clap out loud for Duncan Tressel.

Hi, how are you, buddy?

I'm great. You know that when I thought I had allergies, you know what it was?

My friend?

Uh oh COVID.

Oh really, yeah, you should get tested.

COVID's symptoms are identical to allergies, which is why it's so like rampant, because people just think they have allergies.

Oh wow, yeah, maybe it's time to go.

I don't mean to start. I don't mean to start.

I'm sorry for starting where the COVID diagnosis.

Start with the negative.

This is what's.

Happening, and why would I Yet it answers all the questions like I'm not near the beach a place I'm allergic by the way, Yeah, I'm allergic to the ocean. That's nice to find out. But yeah, there's nothing happening outside. And I used to judge, like when I lived in Austin, every day is like a Claret In commercial. There's just cotton balls, yeah, and spores flying in the air. And people used to get something called cedar fever where they'd

I used to judge them. Yeah, and now this is my come up, and it.

Is, No, it's not.

You know.

Actually that's where I got the disease was in Austin and that and it was during the apex of COVID in Austin. And the reason, my theory, the reason it was like peaking in Austin or that was an epicenter is because of just what you're saying. Everyone thought they had allergies because the symptoms are generally just allergies. Runny nose, your eyes get itchy, yep, you know, and like, but no, it's it's covid.

Wow.

And how was your COVID experience, duncan? Was it horrible and hard?

You know?

It wasn't It was medium.

You know.

I'm vaccinated, so I got the vaccinated COVID experience, which is great. Sneezed on my baby. Baby didn't get COVID. Wife didn't know, like know what, like it didn't transmit, thank god. Yeah. I sneezed COVID on my baby. I sneezed COVID right in his face because I thought I was this is what I didn't know what it was. It was just like mild symptoms. It's like fucking allergies. Sneeze, a sauce, spittle on the baby's face, plague spittle. Not no one got it accept except me, but it was.

It was.

Uh the worst part of it is this is the psychological component. You know, watching the news when you have COVID is not fun. Is you're one of them and like it's like just talking about you as like an alien who are no longer than non COVID person.

That sucked.

But I got. I mean I'm lucky.

So I had really good I had these like IV doctors coming in every day giving me like weird IV fluids, and most importantly, like a nurse. Like there's they check you every day because if your oxygen gets low, they just immediately send you to the er. So it was nice to have like that, but it's still sucks. It was ten days away from my family in a in a fucking in a Kempton.

Those are nice hotels.

It was nice, No, it was nice, but it was just like I don't care what the hotel is when you when you can't leave without infecting people with a disease.

It's who provided these IV people and nurses. It was an amenity of the hotel.

I know, we think the pandemic hasn't progressed that much.

COVID services are unbelievable form of room service.

It's like, yeah, I would like the salmon and an IV drip.

Oh, yes, I love their Continental nurse service.

No.

No, I had a show that night, and so I whenever I have a show, and I just need some time to get ready, and my family was there. So I've got two kids, and uh, it was just not gonna I needed a few hours to like get look at my jokes. So I went to this hotel just to like relax and take a napp and then like look at my jokes, and uh, you know, I thought I was hungover with an allergy, but I'm laghing in bed,

You're gonna go on stage with your allergy?

Yeah?

Like, even if it is an allergy, it's gonna be such a it's gonna be It's.

So funny how one hundred percent convinced I am that I have COVID now, because I'm like, what, why do I have allergies? Why am I so tired everything you're talking about.

Yeah, but the good thing is you can go to CVS and get those real quick tests. Like it's not the old Dodger Stadium days where you're in line in your.

Mean one of these Oh there you see, I have it in my hand.

Boom, there you go. You could do the test and do it on the.

Podcast and then we'll see what the results are.

It'll be revealed like the lambst revealed party ever.

Due I I yeah, and it happened. It was like that was what happened when the nurse came. Because I like, we called this IV service. The nurse comes, does the COVID swab, and it was like insta red, Like it was just like dark thick red stripe immediately. So I was like, does this mean I have COVID? She's like, look at it. You're you are infected. You got the disease your patient zero.

Yeah, I have got to do it. I'm anxious at least all have an answer. Yeah, yeah, you probably don't. It's probably at you probably don't have it. I'm sorry I shouldn't know, but you know, it is the same symptoms.

It's okay, I think that you might be right.

Well, and the nice thing is you are just like Duncan saying you're vaccinated. So yeah, it's that you know, this is a thing lots of lots of people do go through. But I have been thinking about that because in quarantine when it was when it was much more intense.

That is awful.

For the yes, it's awful. It's like you did. It's like STDs minus the sex.

You've got.

So so the same weird shame, but we like, remember we we just said about a museum.

To just we went over our Netflix viewing of the month. And now I've given you something.

Given you a plague that will be remembered for centuries.

Duncan, here's I haven't seen you in so long that you now have two children.

That's very upsetting to me.

But congratulations, not the children part, but congratulations. Will you tell us about your How old are they and what are their names?

Oh? I love to Yeah, sure, well the oldest is almost three. His name is Forrest, and the is almost one and his name is Done And yeah, they're and they're wonderful. Just it's the greatest thing ever to like be in the presence of all this stuff parents say.

Is it's true? Yeah, I mean that's the problem. That's everything.

Everyone said everything already, right, but it's.

That that's great though. I bet you're a great dad. But that seems like something that would really work.

I want it though. That's a huge compliment, and I appreciate it. I hope, I am. I try to be.

There's a book I'm reading and there's a termain it called the good Enough Parent. And I'll tell you, we live in a great time period. With all this therapy. We have access to that our parents didn't because we don't have to wing it like they did. They just

I'm in Ashville, you're wondering, I'm out. I'm in Ashville, North Carolina.

Beautiful place.

That's where you're from. Place you're in the mountains. That's like the eastern part.

Up here in the mountains.

Came out up here to during just to get out of the pandemic in La, you know, just get out of all that madness. And now we're gonna head back in the summer. But you know, like my parents moved me around a lot when I was a kid, and so I have all these big feelings about moving the kids to different places. In any parent that's been a parent for a while, when you tell them, they're like,

So that's the work.

I think of being a parent is like recognizing that you don't need to like trauma dump on your kids, you know, and like you know that they get to have their childhood and enjoy just the innocence of just being a kid without you having to like add to that all of your like you trying to like place your unresolved on them.

Yeah.

Yunny.

My dad I always thought it was a bad thing to grow move around a lot as a kid, because, according to his stories, it meant you go to a new school and you have to get in three or four fights and with the bully and make and make sure everyone knows you're cool, and then off to the new town.

He like was always fighting.

No, that's how it was. I mean, that's how it was.

Like our parents were like like getting in vicious fights when they were kids and they're and their parents were like.

Yeah, that's good. Did you give you did you crush his jaw?

You knock his block off like a good boy?

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I mean that's like, that's real.

I've told this story before, but there's a legendary story because my dad grew up and was a teenager in the fifties in San Francisco, and he had eight brothers and sisters, and you know that's they were like they were like Greaser's basically in the fifties. And there was one night when I was probably like eight years old.

It was summer.

Our windows were open, Me and my sister were in bed, but we weren't asleep, and we heard someone walking in the tan bark out in front of our house. And we lived way the fuck out in the countries that never happened, and there was we heard footsteps in the tan bark and heavy breathing.

What's tan bark? Sorry?

Oh, Standpark's that's stuff that like it's on playgrounds a lot where it's like big chips of redwood, and they use it in like landscaping to kind of fill up an area.

So okay, yeah, yeah, okay.

It was like a kind of a crunchy. You could just hear footsteps way better, the heavy breathing.

And heavy breathing, And so I'm laying there going no way. There's a like there's a weird pervert outside my window. And then I see my sister really fast run from her room to my parents' room, which scared me even worse because I'm like, fuck, she heard it too. I didn't say fuck because I was eight years old.

So I run in there.

I run into my parents room too, and my sister's like, dude, there's someone outside our window whatever. And my dad is like, go back to your room, opens up the night stand drawer, pulls out a switch blade, flicks it open, and walks out the front door.

And we were like, like, never seen that before.

We did.

I didn't know we owned it.

And he was like a fucking Jets and Sharks switchblade fifties guy.

He gets outside. It was a golden retriever.

There was this old dog that got lost in our in our front yard.

It must have been so hard to stab it.

We killed it, he still killed it again. You gotta go with it. Otherwise your kids, your kids know you back.

Down, Yes, exactly, the family way, you get the respect to your kids. That is one thing I've learned is like I actually I had to have a golden retriever brought in.

I didn't get a natural retriever.

But I stabbed him to death in front of the kids, and they loved me much more.

Now, Yeah, that's our dad. Anyway. Switch blades worked too.

I know. I don't think I spent one day ever feeling like even the slightest fear after that, where I was like, this guy's got it handled.

Yeah, that's look, that is badass.

I thought you were gonna say, gut right.

Oh no, Like the fact he's like, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna cut someone up out here.

I'm not gonna shoot him.

I'm gonna get up close to them.

Their eyes their eyes dilate, is like uncture.

They're drain the blood from their body with a gun.

You can't feel the blade hitting bone.

Yeah, yeah, but you know it's funny.

I just heard someone talking about the book you mentioned, which is The Imperfect Parent, right or the not the.

Good enough parent, the good good enough parent.

Yeah, because it was some podcasts I was listening to and someone said, imagine when you're a kid having perfect parents, how then that makes you imperfect all the time. Oh wow, there are these parents that are trying to do it all and be it all, and it actually kind of leaves their kids. It's then about the parents and like the kids are then just automatic fuck ups. Yeah that instead of just we're all human and doing our best.

It's the same shit.

It's like with you know, like one thing, all of a sudden, I'm sure of experience, when you're grieving, all of a sudden you realize like you've but you become a grief counselor because the people are calling you and then they start unloading on you about people that they've lost because that's how they think they can like make

Yeah, they're going out into the world where yours aren't yet. But I mean, like that when my niece started getting older, and then I remember calling my sister and going it was I was going through a terrible time in my life. But that kind of like came out as I began to have obsessive thoughts that something was going to happen to my niece and she was like three or four years old, yes, and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Where I was like because there was other bad shit.

Going on in my family and my mom was sick and all this stuff where I was like, we can't lose her now, and it was crazy.

I couldn't leave it alone.

And I finally told my sister where I was like, look, I'm just really worried something's gonna happen to Nora, and she goes, well, welcome to parenthood.

That's young every day, Like fuck you too bad?

Yeah, you're right, yeah, Okay, that's it.

I'm in it with you now.

And you know what else, you can't fucking enjoy dateline anymore because like anytime anyone's like parents are getting killed when they're kids, you know it when like im again. And maybe this is an indication of how sick I am, but you know, in the old days, you'd sit and watch these murder shows and it's like and the children was sleeping in the other room. Wow, mother was being decapitated with an hack. Whoa, that is fucked up. But you're not thinking like, oh my god, those kids right,

Well, it's almost like there's the distance of when say you're like twenty five and you're like, whoa serial killers?

That's intense, but you're way out here. You're just in.

Your own world and you're like in your twenties partying and going like I understand that the world's fucked up.

But then the.

More the more you're in the game, the more skin you have in the game, the more those stories become like.

That's the worst thing I've ever heard. Oh my god, Oh my god.

And then it absolutely evolves and changes as you evolve and change, and you if your empathy changes, which I think it gets better as you get older. I think you get smarter about the human experience as you get older, and you're suddenly processing these things not as kind of like a viewer of like oh too bad, but you're kind of like exactly that of like why didn't anyone solve this? How can this be? Where are those kids? Like it becomes this thing that is It definitely changes.

Because it was a thing of suddenly.

Like you have heard about ed geen. Right, that's what Psycho was based on. He had skulls in his kitchen or his own mother's body or whatever. And you're like what, Like, no one ever told me. And so that's the beginning fascination part. But as it goes, yeah, you start going this could be my neighbor, this could be my sister, this could be my world completely falling apart.

It's horrifying.

And my mom, even when I was a kid, she would make me nervous.

She would tell me, Yeah, there's men out there in vans that will snatch you up and we won't find you. So that's why you have to wear carry this hunter's orange vest and stop sign and call a lot of attention to yourself.

Like I was paranoid about kidnappers.

I mean, don't you think calling attention to yourself is going to increase your odds of being kidnapped?

I know.

Now I'm thinking she should have given you like a camouflage sweatshirt. Yeah, and then just like stay low and in the bushes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's so funny because I was dressed like a crossing guard. I ended up in the newspaper. And then newspapers used to do this. They just had my parents' names and our home address under the photo. It's like, well, that's, oh my god, that's just not going to help the situation at all.

How many basements was your picture on? Like how many basements? With some weird map and like a guy looking at you like I'll find the crossing God?

I mean, that is that kind of thing that they had to change stuff like that. That was like the eighties right where they're like, you know, we shouldn't put children's addresses in the newspaper anymore.

I guess they were doing it back then to say, hey, we have permission to put this kid in the paper his parents. I don't know why they went. It was just for something to say, yeah, this kid walks to school. Here's it's a dress.

I don't know.

Yeah, twice I was in the paper walking to school and I gotta get a copy of that because it was just.

You know what, they're good.

They're gonna look at people putting their kids on Instagram in the same way. Yeah, oh yeah, and ten or fifteen years people are gonna be like, what the fuck were.

You doing that for?

Didn't you know about deep fakes and AI and facial recognition and like, your kid's gonna end up in some like facial recognition augmented reality goggled thing for kidnappers so they can know their name and then like cross references all your Facebook posts and know your grandmother is and just pick them up in school, no problem. You know, like that is gonna happen, and people, it's gonna happen, and it's spooky.

What about when he fucking Markus Zuckerberg was like, oh, we're gonna stop doing facial recognition software where it's like no one knew you were doing that, and they came out like, oh, we're suspending all of that where it's like sorry, did it start already or what's this announcement?

Oh I forget what I say to public and what I say in meetings.

Holy shit, we've been doing it.

Yes, it's crazy.

It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.

And it's like the idea that they actually are just gonna wipe all that data. Think how much money that information is worth to god knows who like their people out there would pay so much money for whatever that information is. They're not going to erase that. They've already probably already sold it more than a few times. You know, whatever that thing is to law enforcement.

At least suddenly that video of Mark Zuckerberg and the you know, the boardroom meeting that when he first announced Meta and he's like, and here's what your boardroom meeting can look like. And then you log on there and you're in the meeting, Like what the fuck?

I don't like Meta?

Why am I in the meeting? Just like you agreed the last time we did a That's the thing. Every time I do the I agree to the uh we have new terms and conditions. I'm just like what, I'm not reading this and I know for a fact it says you can record me as I sleep or some shit that like I do not want to agree to.

You know, we were just in Las Vegas for this psychedelic conference. I was I was like hanging out with some friends in the hotel and we were high, and we started thinking like what if. I don't know why we're thinking this, but we started thinking, what if Mark Zuckerberg just walked through the door right now, Like would you die?

Would we die?

We were like one of us would die, Like one of us would Your heart would explode? You know, just in the horror of seeing like suddenly he's like, hey.

What's up, guys, just like what you said, Like, hey.

What's up? Yeah, terms of service.

You know, you didn't sign it, but the person we based the avatar that you are, I did sign it.

And so yeah you're mine now, like you're you're an.

Echo that I digitized and I own you completely.

That you know, why not?

Like that's the thing is, like, with all the terms of service stuff that we've signed, at some point, have we given away not our own identity obviously our own our own souls or bodies or whatever, but have we given up our autonomy over our form and personality? And you know what I mean to me, that just is so fucking creepy to imagine that we and then that you know, that gets even creeper because ideas, oh no, you've already been digitized, you know, like yeah, that's what this is.

It would be terrible.

Yeah, if there's a digitized hologram version of me out there that is also a comic and he's getting better gigs than me, having a better career.

Yeah, but in the metaverse.

But just think, isn't that like isn't that just the way like once Ai figures out comedy and like, you know, just decides it's gonna walk around in your digitized form.

And isn't it an inevitability that.

You're like whatever that is as a much more popular podcast than yours, and people kind of like you because you look like that being, but they're like, yeah, you're not quite as funny.

I'm gonna go hang out with a digital you.

I like your initial fear that Mark Zuckerberg is going to use all those terms of service to essentially be like an old style nineties pot dealer, where he's like, you have to hang out with me.

You have signed it.

In the terms of service. I'm here in Vegas and you fucking can't leave this room.

Let's start with what are you guys talking about? And he just sits cross legged.

And he has all that SPF on his face like he did in the Hawaiian photo where he's just like mind faced.

Power is scary.

Just sometimes when I'm really letting my mind wander, just the idea of like accidentally running into any of these people like Elon Musk or Zuckerberg or what's isn't that Bezos or anything? Wouldn't wouldn't there be an aspect of it that was just really creepy and scary.

Yes, especially if it's in an elevator or a sauna or something, you can't just turn around and walk out. Yeah, they're shirtless, shirtless and sweaty, just Zuckerberg sweating it out.

There was a clip of Leonardo DiCaprio, I think, meeting Bezos and his new girlfriend, and he could have been like, I love you, You're the greatest, but the physical thing that he did, he basically was like going like this and backing away, doing this thing with his hands like

I have to go over here, but it actually looked.

Like a no thank you, like he pointed at them and then moved away.

Hilarious, But look, I think that's a healthy reaction to that level of power and balance. It's just like, yes, how am I going to be myself around somebody who is like one of the new kings of like the new world order, like a duke of Hell? How am I going to like not be like slightly like jittery.

And weird just practice every day in the mirror, going hey, pay your taxes, pay some taxes. You could solve everything if you would just pay some taxes.

Yeah. Right.

But that being said, like, see, this is the thing, Like, I think there's a lot of hubris, and I think that there's something very noble in people trying to make that aspect of the economy fair. But I think the state, the governments of the world have all this hubris when it comes to their ability to control these people. You know, it's like, uh, they're kings, and they let these wizards

Everything about you.

I know when you shit, I know what you sound like when you have sex, because I've been recording it via my devices. I know every text you've sent to your wife, and every text you sent to your mistress, and every text you sent to your boyfriend. I know exactly what's an area of fifty one, and I have all this information to my servers. Do you really think we're going to give you our money? Yeah, no, of course not. And so to me, I think it's like,

Yeah, clearly they are.

Clearly they are.

Uh, that all just blew my mind.

Then you turn to your three year old and go do you want some Apple sauce?

Much else we can do?

Well, yeah, that's true.

I don't I mean, yeah, there's probably not much we could do at this point with it.

I mean, I don't know. You never know. The governments are very powerful. It's just I don't know how do you do it?

Someone's gonna find the big plug.

This was my thing when like when the Trump administration kind of when we thought it was bad, but we had no idea how bad it was about to get. My thing was like, why can't anyone figure out how to unplug Fox News? Like just some what isn't there some kind of computer system that somebody could hack and it just and turn off the feed of insanity into

That just is gonna unplug Fox News and that'll just produce another story. You know, that creates even more validity to the propaganda. Right, no matter what you do there, if you let it just run full steam ahead, it does what it's doing now if you try to control it at all, it uses that attempt to prove its point regarding fascism, and so yeah, there's really not much you could do about it, right, like there.

Is it doesn't seem like it.

Yeah, and if you take it away from the viewers, all of a sudden, they have vital time and they're going to get creative.

No, just keep watching Fox News.

Yeah, make love watch But it's so fun to watch Fox News like this is do you do? You not watch like like sit back and just sit down in front of the machine and take it all.

You must you must, simply must.

You have to.

But because you it's it's I think it's really important. I think understanding all forms of propaganda are so important. And it's a real mind fuck to switch between Fox News and Ceenn and see, you know, identical data sets being completely warped to say completely anesthetical things. But there's it's the same thing, and it's you see that, and it's like, oh my god, information and truth right now are so so impossible to really understand.

They're all distorted.

No matter what the purveyor of the information is, there's always some distortion happening. It's really uh, because something about it is so entertaining.

Yeah, if you overlook the fact that it's scary as hell. Yeah, if you step back further, it can be entertaining. I suppose it's the shift.

Yeah, you got to do the shift, because that's all the Literally when I'm thinking, like, well, what real control do I have, you know, over the megalithic whatever the fuck monolithic monolithic?

Now, I think megalith is an ancient structure.

Monolithic, like monolithic, whatever it is. The only control is to like do some kind of shift where you can like understand the absurdity of it instead of being caught and in it. You know, maybe that's cowardly or something. I mean, there's obviously real world things you could do. Tell people you got a fucking vaccine, you know what I mean, Like just real simple things, try to make try to try to help people in your community, all that stuff.

But community, don't you think community is kind of the I think that's the thing that when the storyline is everything's fake news and everything is dangerous, somehow getting in there and actually having the real world experience have a lot more compassion and a lot more connection for people because to me, you know, it used to feel really scary and then it was like to me, the people who talk about it well are the ones who talk

My brain is melting, and I swear I'm so convinced I have COVID right now that I can't I can't even think straight.

I should I was rude to me. I should have waited after the podcast.

Take the test.

I will, I will, I will. It's too involved, but I do.

I did it once before, and I do like being in control over how far you can stick that thing up your nostril because I really go for it because.

It's me, it's not someone else.

I took so many of those tests. They look like lollipops. You like, you know, you're doing this swab every time you're like, please just let the line be gone, and it's like it's not fucking gone. It's darker, you know, And then yeah, it's the craziest thing. I ended up with a just collection of these COVID I think my

It's the best.

Oh really, you just kept testing while having it to see how much was it.

It's all yeah, because the CDC's guidelines, they have guidelines about when the when it stops showing up, like when it's ethical to be around people.

Oh basically, and I just wanted I didn't want to.

I didn't feel right leaving the like, even though I like by the end I had no symptoms or whatever, I was still showing positive. I just felt I would have felt satanic right going down the fucking elevator with like COVID. You know, so it's just like you want it to be blank and then like anyway ten days they say, though, it's like we just tried to follow those those like whatever, those were just to not like

I think I do. I'm so dizzy right now. I feel like I'm on drugs.

I well know, that's the qual That's what you know.

A lot of like you hear people say like brain fog and stuff with COVID. These are people who haven't taken psychedelics. If you've taken a psychedelic and you have COVID, you suddenly are like, whoa, I'm trip. I'm tripped, Like this is making me trip, Like I'm kind of fucking high right now. And I've talked to other people I read it. They say that, yeah, it's like got a psychedelic component to it, which is really weird, like it it's affecting and just because.

I'm like a weirdo.

I'm like in bed just thinking like oh, this is like whatever this thing is you can kind of you can kind of feel it scanning your body, you can kind of talk to it, and it doesn't work like a normal It's not like normal sicknesses, Like the symptoms are similar, but the way it treats your body is if your vaccinated, statistically you're gonna.

Worried.

I am looking forward to twenty years from now having the COVID flashbacks though.

That is a little scary.

Look, we're all thinking about that, like fuck, like, yeah, right now, I'm okay, but yeah, who knows what's coming?

You know, it fucking knows.

But also guess what, even if this wasn't happening, who knows what's coming.

I mean, that's.

Actually the that's just that's the old burden we're all caring in this life, which is you can get it all organized and you can line it all up exactly how you want, and it doesn't mean the bus isn't going to come and drive right through your fucking front door.

Like it's just the way it is.

We like to pretend we have control and then we know what's going on, and we absolutely don't. I think there is the advantage that some of us had in the pandemic and in quarantine.

That was such a freaky time.

I remember, like three months in because I kept every day I'd get.

Up and go, I wonder if I'm gonna go crazy.

I want to find a snap or something, you know, ID for me, and then I and then I realized a couple months in I was like, oh no, I've been I've been through way worse shit than this. Like I've been through way more personal loss and shit and fucking all kinds of stuff where it's like, oh no, I just have to stay in my house and I might at some point have to eat the kidney beans I've had up in the on the shelf for a really long time that.

I don't prefer.

That's probably as bad as it's going to get from me here in modern America. But other than that, it's not like my mom's gonna die again, you know.

It's not like the.

Really hard, awful shit I've been through. It set this table where it's like, oh, I feel bad for the people that haven't had massive loss or had their reality completely ripped in half, because I think if you went through something like that before this shit, when it was happening, you were just like all right, I can kind of like ride this way.

Yeah, the grief tribe.

I think people with grief had like a little at an edge on people who hadn't had that bubble pop, which is what happens when your folks die.

Or just young people.

That's why right away I was like felt bad for young people going through this because it's like, oh, they've had no trauma to prepare themselves. Yes, right, and right at the point where you want to be riding bikes and going out and trying to kiss people for the first time, you're just in a house. The whole time I was thinking about kids. Yes, yeah, it's good.

Oh yeah.

That a Lake of the Ozarks picture where there was like one hundred people in a very small pool that were all like, we don't care and we're could do it anyway.

It's like mid mid quarantine.

And there was a part of me that was like, if I was twenty two, I would have absolutely been at that stupid pool because totally that was like, it's all I cared about.

It was.

I was definitely a drunk, and I was a stand up comic, and all I wanted to do every moment of the day was have fun. And be around other people my age and like connect with people. And if you were if that happened to you, and like, if I had to be quarantined at that point in my life, it would have been very dark.

It had been really fucking bad.

It is so interesting what is I'm experiencing right now with you too, because you're both saying really beautiful things. And I've never had my brain function at such a low level while also feeling like I am high on drugs even visually. Things are I honestly, it might be this allergy thing and maybe I have a bit of a fever, but I am I am convinced that while on the podcast, while recording, I have acquired this COVID thing.

Why don't you do this? We'll just do Why we do this? Why don't you do the test? Do the test? Let me, I mean.

Do it.

I mean I might as well do the test.

Also, I have to say, I love talking to you Duncan so much, and you and I do this some times, like I'm not as well read as you.

I definitely don't.

I avoid a lot of things that really scare me, Like you know, the things I like that scare me, But this stuff that scares me is like what you're talking about where it is this kind of like we've given away our we've signed away our identity. But I really enjoy discussing this with you of like this human experience.

Thanks.

I'm enjoying watching it.

It's so funny that I'm one of the hosts of this podcast and all of a sudden, I was just watching a thing for entertainment, feeling kind of no pressure to chime in one because I don't want to sound dumb, but also my brain is currently melting in my skull. I'm going to do the test, but I do want to say it's been really fun to listen to Karen, to you talk about this stuff, because it is out of character for us to be listen.

If you have it, I've got those people who were in Austin. They're in LA so I can connect you with them if you wann't, and they're like, they'll like come and get you hydrated and stuff and give you like events.

And yeah, let's I mean this that's kind of involved. I have to like it takes ten minutes.

Yeah.

By the way, Karen, can I tell you something real quick?

Both of you? I'm sorry. I don't mean to isolate because I'm sorry.

I don't know, Karen. No, I've been I've been taking a real back COVID. Yeah, you know you.

Have COVID. In ten days, we'll listen to you again.

Right now.

You're essentially a non human thing, you know, and you shouldn't have gone outside.

But that, Yeah, I can't believe I left.

So I was talking to my friend as a psychiatrist, and stop. I'm sure you already know this fact, so please stop stoping. He was saying, when in psychiatry you find yourself with a patient who is a sociopath, and you identify that because the patient isn't gonna obviously isn't gonna say I'm a sociopath, but you identify that this

Yes, Oh, my if you heard.

That before, I think I may have read it somewhere, but I, first of all love it, and that exact kind of anecdote is exactly what I'm in that whole area for because I find the way. And this is that thing of like, we don't know about our brains very much like we all think we do and everybody thinks they're so fucking smart.

We don't know shit.

We don't, We truly don't, and we don't know how we work. And that whole idea that like you know, the uh well John Ronson of the sociopath test, but there was one about sociopaths in business where they're like any person that's running a huge business, the odds that they are a sociopath are flour like really good, because that's what it takes to get to the top, is to basically you run on winning, beating people, sex and revenge. Like everything is bag. It boils down to power. Everything

But that's how they get you. That's how you become like.

A sociopath victim sociopas and psychopaths and all that.

Every part of that kind.

Of psychology stuff is so fascinating because like it's that thing of there aren't not monsters, it's other people.

Yes, Like that's the truth of it.

It's like we wish it was like just Count Dracula and he was just this, you know, he was like Supernashal or whatever. But it's like, no, Count Dracula was probably just a sociopath that was like make sure everybody gives me their money and my castle gets bigger.

Yeah, same thing.

That's interesting.

I just realized I have always thought of like, when I feel like my career isn't going well, or when it's been in a position where nothing was happening, the silver lining is, well, at least I'm not a sociopath.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't have to do what you have to do to become successful. Yeah, I'm riddled with self doubt. Like a healthy person, I had gonna lay down and not hurt anyone. You feel my brain is cooking.

You get to experience joy and get compassion and not be a living, praying mantis creature that is essentially just like some kind of awful human avalanche, like pouring destruction into time.

That's nice, man, Yeah.

It's But don't you ever wonder, like if you ever like got in Paradolin that fuck?

Am I associated?

Like, am I tricking myself into thinking that these are actual human emotions I'm having when in fact they're just some pale, shadowy, sad attempt at summoning up a human experience.

Or that like when you hear about other people's good news and you're just immediately like I fucking hate them

That's fucked up.

It's a case by case thing with me.

It is I'm oftentimes very honestly proud of people when but other times, yeah, I'm like that person, how dad?

You know what I've heard sociopaths. They don't fucking think that. They're not sitting around.

Like my I'm sociopad.

They're like sharpening a fucking knife and like watching they're sharpening a knife, looking at a video on YouTube over and over again. So somebody they're gonna fuck up, that's.

What they're doing. They're evil.

They're like, Oh, I think I'm gonna go to a psychiatrist so I can get a fuckingscription for benzos so I can put it in their drink. That's probably what I'll do, you know, So yeah, you don't have to worry. You know, you're probably But my friends, you know, I think these borderline and all the personality disorders they exit, they all exist within us, Like there's some You're not gonna have a perfect personality there's some thing in it

The fucking DSM four man.

My mom was a psychologist and I used to just sit and flip through that fucking thing.

I have that.

I'm that, I'm that.

Yeah, that's what I love it too.

Is that's the story over and over again where it's like it can't when they find that.

People are like.

You know, sociopaths, serial killers are something very horrifying and like off the charts, and people are just like he was so nice, and it's like right, they do that on purpose, Like they don't. They're never going to get pulled over and be like here, officer, here's my license and be nervous.

They don't get nervous ever. They're never nervous.

They never feel love or hate or any it's just like, get me mine always, Yeah, that's amazing.

Why do I keep thinking of Will Smith? I kind of like that guy?

Oh my god, how dare I know?

What am I talking about? My brain? It's it's a virus. I love Will Smith.

I'm saying he's the most lovable sociopath.

Honestly, one of the first symptoms of COVID. That's one of the first symptoms you think Will Smith is a sociopath.

No one knows why, but it's.

Like one of the I would have done the test on. I think it would have been a fun end to this episode if I was like, hey, it's red, but I am not smart enough to even read the directions and figure it out.

I know one of these things has to go into an orifice.

We'll follow up. Yeah, yeah, I would.

Like to know this has been I mean, I usually at the end I say, you've been listening, but I've been listening as well, and you.

Guys it was funny.

Yeah, yeah, what what's You're doing? A voice in a new series?

Right?

Yeah? Yeah, that's Crapopolis.

That's gonna you know, it's animation. So it's going to be out in a while.

I'm sooner than that. I'm gonna be at the Zanies in Nashville the weekend after Valentine's Day, so and that's gonna be one of my first show. That's going to be my return to like actually like touring and doing stand ups.

I'm excited. Sagredacious and nervous.

If you haven't seen Duncan Trussell do stand up comedy, you absolutely have to see him. He is one of the most fascinating, interesting, hilarious comedians. You feel like you were taught something at the end, you think about new things. It's an amazing live experience. You absolutely should go.

Hey, thank y'all the best.

It's so wonderful to get to get time to hang out with you, and I'm excited. I'm coming back to LA in the summer. Hopefully you can see each other in person. Hang out anytime, y'all have time. I love to have you on my show. I know you've already been on camera, but I'd love to.

Have Yeah, and I will be firing on all cylinders. My brain will be functioning. My brain took a back seat today, but uh, I will do it when I'm fully functioning.

Love it, Hey, seriously, if you do, if you're positive, reach out to me and like I'm telling I will you want some you will?

This is good. It's a good Hey.

Yeah, that was inevitable that I was going to get it. I'm fully convinced I know it. This isn't a prank I'm doing for this episode, I am getting worse and worse.

I'm like, amaz'd be an amazing prank. Yeah, all right, we'll wrap it up before you really.

Oh sorry, don great to see you again.

Yes, we love you, Thank you so much, love you.

Thanks for having me on.

Much like me today, you've been listening to Do You Need a Ride?

D y n you Are?

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Thank you, Ellen, You're welcome