He Met God on Mushrooms at 16. 30 Years Later, Here's What He Knows.

And she's like, listen, I'm here to heal, and these plant medicines are coming more online, everything from boga, mushroom, psychedelics, because the world needs it. We should be the first mushroom trip in space. That's our goal, the tough guy's goal. And Derek, you're coming. If you fucking don't like your city, you gotta fucking leave. We're leaving Seattle when we came during the pandemic. We're like, are we in a communist fucking dictatorship up there? Because it was like, we were told that this is like dangerous down here and all this shit, and we're like, everyone's just chill and have fun. The most friendly, nice people, everything's open. If you come to Austin and you're not supposed to be here, it will just boot you out. And it's not in a rude way or like you're not welcome here. You as a person will make the decision that you don't belong. You remove yourself. I want to make these really big movies with like, you know, sci-fi film, Matrix and Avatar type stuff. Where am I gonna find the 250 million or the 250 specialists to do this thing because I haven't been in the Hollywood system for so long. And then now that AI started to present itself, then all of a sudden it's like, I don't need all those people with all that money. We can create special effects now from a laptop. So it got really exciting. The advent of AI, it was two prongs. One was holy shit, I'm gonna be out of work. The second part of me was like, this is the best thing to ever fucking happen to me.

Gentlemen, start your engines. We're taking this vehicle to the next plane of consciousness and existence. Yes, please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times. And you are now approaching hyperspace. Best part about being in Austin is you meet the coolest fucking creative individuals and Me to you, Derek, you are doing some wildly cool shit, and you created such a cool life for yourself, so, tell everybody a little bit about, like, some of the projects you're working on and have worked on, then we're just kind of let it rip. Cool, thanks, Brent. What's up, Tony, what's up, Derek? Well, speaking of cool shit, we all, at least I met Tony at this uh amazing raging Valentine's Day party, like I think now, like the parties that are in Austin are just kind of like. The parties of parties, we kind of always thought the Playboy Mansion would be and and whatnot it, but it's just a blend of like setting a really beautiful container and amazing people that are being successful, not only in like the normal average day to day world, but also in their deep spiritual journeys and this combination of people.

In a safe space leads to like, you know, women feel safe to express themselves, you know, very beautiful and everyone's, you know, just comfortable in their sexuality. So like, yeah, there's a lot of cool things in this town, and it's a pleasure to be here. Um, I've been here 3 years. I lived in San Diego for 17. And um what brought me here was to film and edit Aubrey Marcus's podcast, which I've done for several years now. And recently I went from full time to independent videographer again. So, um, I'm no longer just shackled to be in town all the time. So I've taken on some pretty good exciting projects. I've been a filmmaker, videographer for 30 years. I've seen that landscape change many times and staying on top of that technology has been. You know, if you don't use it, you lose it, you kind of have to adapt as you go, and now we are in the age of AI, so the landscape is continually changing, but what hasn't really changed is storytelling, you know, most cultures passed on everything through an oral tradition. We have our myths, we have our legends, and the winners have written history. So I think, you know, telling our story is.

The most important thing. So I appreciate this opportunity to sta with you guys for us to share some stories together. 100%, man. And we're extremely grateful that you found time in your extremely insane schedule from Bali to Austin to filming a festival just to make a movie out of it. Uh, yeah, we're grateful to have you here and to and to be in the studio with you, man, right next to your samurai. Look at that. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to go over to the, the. The festival and then the other documentary coming out because I, I never made it out to that festival. Yeah, you. I was, I was, yeah, he wanted me to leave, he's like, let's go at 7 o'clock on Sunday when I gotta train people, it's like 7 in the morning. I'm like, it's a 45 minute drive. You want me to go to a festival for an hour and then Another 45 minute drive back and then try to go to bed. Yeah, send it, don't at home, you cock. Yeah, you guys got to send it. So, I mean, for a lot of people in Austin, they know the story. I think a lot of people outside of Austin probably have no idea this even existed. But you essentially helped throw an actual music festival strictly.

To film a movie. And it was a full festival and a feature film. And that's one of the coolest things I've ever heard. It's also the most Austin thing I've ever heard. It's, it's so Austin. And so, yeah, if you could share a little bit about what that experience was like and how you got into it. Yeah, I think this festival slash film is a story whose time has come. You know, the Burning Man community has been growing, transformational festivals have been spreading, you know, this idea of the same, the kind of like the party I mentioned, that is a throw off, it's like a, a sequitur of that style where, you know, you're combining workshops and knowledge and yoga and breathwork and all these different things. And then at night, people choose their substances in a way, you know, there's a lot of psychedelics and heart medicines and There's very little alcohol and the connection that people find at these festivals is, I think it's a new culture, and it's a subculture that the mainstream hasn't seen yet. And the credit belongs to the man in the arena, Mr. Brent Pella, who, um, some of you may know, some of you may not. He is a comedian that um has worked in Hollywood and been on shows like Wild N Out for several years, and he found himself.

He grew up going to, uh, Grateful Dead festivals with his parents. Oh shit. So yeah, he, I didn't know he was on Wild N Out. Yeah, cool. So he's, he's very good, you know, he, he's known for his content, you know, he's a stand-up comedian, and he is the guy that is making fun of this particular culture, you know, this festival community, this conscious community, and he's done in such a way where he's gained a great following. And his, um, with a lot of people in the culture. Yes, yeah, right, especially in the culture specifically, which is awesome because it's like he's a part of that culture and he is, you know, we can make fun of it, he can make fun of it the most and I've, you know, done videos with him. I've filmed and edited, and he's, I noticed he's such a good director, like, quick, he knows what he wants. He's an excellent actor, um, no fluff, we're able to execute things fast and independent, you know, way. So when he mentioned about a year and a half ago that he was making a film called Peking. And um about a couple that goes to a festival and they're trying to have a threesome and what you find is all the funny shit that that entails, but also all the token festival people, you know, you have like your work and then like your candy raver and like the the crazy DJs and then the person that's never been to a festival that it changes their life. So he wrote all these characters in this film. When I read the script, I said, I want to be involved in whichever capacity.

And we worked on a film together that my friend Dylan made called The Academy of Everything Is Possible. And Brent was on it acting and I was um one of the cameramen. So he said, yeah, like we want you on board, let's do this thing. And um You know, like you were saying, I'm, I'm pulled in a lot of different directions with different work. So I was in Bali for a while, and um they were so busy. So what, what was crazy was at first he wanted to film partially at Lightning in a bottle, which is a very popular festival in California. It's almost like if Coachella and Burning Man had a baby. But then that was the logistics behind that and the specific scenes they wanted to shoot was complex. So he had the outrageous idea. He's like, you know what? We're just gonna throw a festival, cause he's got great DJ friends and he's got all the contacts in the right community. And, but that would mean I have to, you know, triple my budget. And this is a story for him to tell about how the movie came about, but he gathered the people, he gathered two of the most famous art cars from Burning Man, and he got the DJs and he got, he set up the stages, and he threw this festival and told everyone to come to the festival.

So the festivals are incredibly difficult to throw and very complex. Movies are incredibly different to incredible, incredibly challenging to film and all the problems, but to do them together is outright insanity. And he, we did it, you know, and um my participation in that, originally I was gonna be part of the film crew was hired, and then because of my dates coming back from Bali and the shooting schedule, and I hadn't heard any communication. When I got back, they said, actually, Derek, we don't have a paid position for you. So I said, totally cool. I'm just gonna volunteer. I'm just gonna show up and help because I know you guys need help. But then I flew out my festival crew from California to be a part of it. So I was hosting them, partying, having a good time. There'd be scenes where we'd get in front of the camera and, um, occasionally I'd like run something for someone, help build some things, and then they got rained out a couple of days, lightning storms where they had to shut everything down. You know, a lot of adversity, a lot of things happened, so the film got pushed back a few days. So a lot of people they hired had to go. So he said, hey, can you come out tomorrow? I said, I'm already on property. I'm already planning on helping. They're like, no, we need you to, we want to pay you.

So I did everything from being a PA to like, you know, being like a almost like a third assistant director at times. I worked with this with a virtual effects team, and at one point they were missing a character. So I said, Hey man, I got my festival gear. So he's like, Derek, here's your line. Go in front of the camera your cameo, my I got my cameo. Nice. Uh, what was your line? Can you tell us? Yeah, it was, hello ladies, a classic. Yeah, right on brand for you. Didn't have to practice that too much. Yeah, it was a scene where That was a method acting. Yeah, there's a scene where an easy up ha, like, you know, the, the shade structure. So Brent and Nicky play this couple that go and they've never really been to a festival. So they're supposed to, you know, you're supposed to put your easy up, you're supposed to hammer it down with stakes, and people don't. And almost every festival I've been to, an Easy Up will go flying, and there's always a flying tent or something. There always is. So they did a whole scene on that, and this flying tent's destroying barbecue grills and like tents and stuff. So I play a guy who's sitting there. Uh, with his homie and these beautiful women walk by and I say hello ladies, and as they're looking, the easy up just takes them out, just like knocks them down. Yeah, so that was the scene that I played. I really wanna see this. Yeah, yeah, how, how do you, is that a, is that gonna be CGI, the flying easy up, or did you put a giant fan and Yeah, how, how did you film that? We had a massive fan and we actually had, um, people pulling it with ropes that we're gonna cut out. We're gonna mask those out. So when I was done filming that scene, I was one of the guys pulling the easy up. So we're pulling them through all kinds of stuff, and people donated their tents and they got destroyed and it was, um, very ambitious, you know, the whole project is very ambitious, but every single scene I saw was funny and like cinematically very beautiful. Um, I really have a firm belief.

He calls it super bad but with a festival, you know, it's got that kind of humor. It's almost, almost naked Gun-esque in some of the comedy, so good, and we needed a like there's no comedies like that anymore. Yeah, some have tried, but they, they can't compete and I have a theory that Marvel killed movies. That's, that's my people love going to movie theaters for the experience of like cinematic craziness and explosions and stuff that you can really only see that like is gonna make a big impact in a big screen. And so then comedies lose their luster. That plus PC culture has really dampened it. I think it is a big piece, but I'm so happy that there's more comedies coming like Naked Gun, Leslie Nielsen, like that style of comedy, so fucking funny, dude. Airplane. Yeah, so I'm super happy that that's coming back online because we need that. And Brent and Nikki are definitely like the forefront of that style of, of humor. They are, and they're really good at it. And comedy is actually the most difficult of all the genres to make because Timing and what's funny, what's not, who's gonna laugh at it, different types of comedy itself. But yeah, you gotta know the audience and sometimes when there isn't one you create one. So you know the aspirations of this movie is to bring this, this culture to the mainstream, and it's kind of there. It's like a movie whose time has come. I feel like this cult, this transformational festival conscious Burning Man culture is about like 1 or 2 years away from being very, no, everyone knows about it.

So it's almost there, so I think this movie will really put things on the map. Yeah. Is this gonna go into theaters? I believe so. I don't know exactly what the distribution plan is, but the goal is to get it edited by South by Southwest and to have it screened there first. And then that's when there's an opportunity to be picked up by bigger studios, you know, to do a, a wide screen, you know, wide, you know, several theaters, and I'm, you know, I'm just sort of guessing just from hearsay there's also an option that maybe it'll be a Netflix thing too, you know, um, which is great, but, um. Yeah, but you know, post-production takes time and you know, we're again like almost any movie, it's over budget, so they're still looking for donations if you guys feel compelled to donate to the film, the link will be in the credits. That's awesome. And then your other documentary, which is very interesting because I've done several different ayahuasca ceremonies, but you, like you did an original documentary a long time ago, right? And you've spent a lot of time.

In the Amazon and really getting to know the actual culture and the understanding the indigenous have about. The plant medicine down there and I don't think you come across very many people who have a, a deep understanding through long study and experience. I'd love to hear just about that like original going back down there. Yeah, I was very fortunate that, um, I think I found myself as a spiritual seeker when I was very young. Um, both grandmothers were, you know, my mom were Catholic, so naturally I was like, OK, well, I trust this is the, the right religion, you know, because I trust my family, and I would go to church and I would read the Bible at home and eat bread till I get ready for the Eucharist, and, but there's something about it that didn't land with me. Like I didn't get it. Like there wasn't, I didn't feel like I was convening with God when I was in church. But, uh, fortunately for me my father was very different, you know, I would go into his office and he had all these books and he'd be reading them and I would ask him like like what's up with the elephant with all the arms and he's like that's Ganesh and this is Hinduism and they believe in the cycle of samsara and you know karma and I'm like, who's the laughing fat dude like, oh, that's Buddha. And he meditated under the bodhi tree and found his own enlightenment with God like damn, you know, and The guy with all the light coming out of his face, oh, that's a, a shaman, and it was the Carlos Castaneda books, and they used to eat visionary plants to have visions and connect with the spirit world.

And I was just thinking as a kid I'm like that's way cooler than trying to chant Latin in some church when you don't know what the hell's going on. So, um, I had a, a yearning to, you know, we got into meditation at a young age and then growing up in Maui, we, I heard about these mushrooms, these hippie girls were picking in the fields and they called them magic mushrooms, and I go, magic. They go, yeah, you eat them and you hallucinate. I go, Yeah, I want that shit, you know. So it got me into a, uh, spiritual path very young. Out of mostly curiosity more than, you know, healing trauma, so you know, 25 years working with different plant medicines and, um, uh, working with Aubrey, that's what the connection with Aubrey was. He's a psychonaut and he knows these spaces very well, and I felt a kinship and then joining him for his podcast, I got to meet a lot of really amazing people and hear amazing stories through the podcast, but also through his mastermind fit for service. Real quick, before you go into that, I wanna know like your first. Like profound ceremony when you're young. Like you're starting to get in, you probably took mushrooms from the chicks and what like, but you went to a ceremony.

Yeah, um, and like because you haven't been to that space yet. Now it's like it's like I know the highway system or whatever, right? You're getting around Austin, you don't need a GPS, but I imagine that first time it's, it's such a, it's like such a, yeah, it's an it's an experience. It is highways. Still daunting, you know, no matter what, and how we drive, we have to make sure we have our hand on the wheel and we're not swiping right on Tinder when we're in the middle of traffic, you know, not to be distracted. Um, two stories come to mind. One was my buddy, his father was part of the Native American church on Maui, and he got hit by a car and died. And my buddy was at my house when the mom pulled up and told him, and he started crying. It was, you know, quite a moment, but he asked me, he said, we're gonna have a peyote ceremony to celebrate the passing of my father. And I only knew about peyote from Young Guns, that Emilio Estevez movie where they eat the peyote with the Indian and they're tripping balls, and is it a mescaline or what is a peyote? Yeah, mescaline is the active ingredient in peyote. It is a cactus bulb that is the part of the same family as the San Pedro cactus, whichuma.

A very, uh, masculine grounding, you know, medicine, and, um, so we went up to Haleakala and this, you know, one of the men had had land and they set up the teepee. And um we sat in the teepee all night, you know, you know, drumming, singing songs and saying prayers, and um the peyote, they said, listen, you know, if, if you want to go deep, eat more medicine. If you're feeling nauseous, eat more medicine. If you're feeling tired, eat more medicine. I'm like, OK, cool, I'll just eat medi eat more medicine. But if anyone has eaten peyote before, it's very acidic. It's very hard to, to swallow. It's, it's kind of nasty actually, especially for a, you know, 15 year old. And um I tried to eat as much as I could but I just couldn't, you know, and I was expecting this full. I threw up at midnight. It was the one time I left the teepee and I was expecting all these visions and all these hallucinations, but I didn't um but once they opened the teepee at sunrise, I walked out and it was just a state of bliss that lasted for days. It was a super incredible. So that's the first ceremony space I'd sat in.

But the first time I think what you're reaching for the first time I, you know, met God on psychedelics and knew it was just, it was something beyond entertainment was we'd always picked fresh mushrooms in the fields and we just eat, we didn't know what a dose was, we would just eat them and laugh and go play in the pond. This is why. What's up? Where is this? This is in Maui. Maui. He's doing my teenage years. Yeah, it was quite an upbringing to be what a cool place to fucking grow up. Hit the karmic lottery with my family and my upbringing. Great place to do mushrooms for your first time. Yeah, they just grow on the cow dung out there, like wildflowers, not yeah, Seattle and like downtown. Yeah, you can still find mushrooms in Seattle, but it's not as good ideal place to do them for the. No, no, no, definitely not. It's not as fun as being out on the fields and going to like Black Rock or Black Sands and Maui and yeah. Yeah, and just the, you know, not even knowing that like nature is the perfect container for that. Or so every spring break we would hike through the crater. We'd start at the rim, get dropped off. We'd hike down one day. Second day we'd cross the whole crater where you would see red and purple and yellow sands and moonscapes and Mars. It's just, it's, it's stunning. It's definitely Holy is gorgeous. It's gorgeous, the heart of, you know, the Hawaiian Islands, and it's, um.

It's a really powerful space. And the 3rd day we'd hike through the gap in the crater where the lava used to flow down called the Couppo Gap, and we'd hike down, and then one of our parents would pick us up on the other side. It's a 3 day hike where we'd carry everything. And we do it every spring break and we, you know, choose different substances each time. But the third time was different because one of my friends came, he goes, Listen, I got these things called cubensis mushrooms, and we're like, What are those? He's like, No, these are grown specifically. And he opened up the kit, and they're tiny. They're small, and we're looking at these. We're like, we're not gonna get, we're not gonna trip on these because we're used to eating handfuls. That's exactly what people say before they trip their balls. Every time, every, every time the mushroom listens and they're like, oh this is gonna be a good one for a test, yeah, you know what's gonna happen now, so. So basically we got like a quarter each, you know, and you know I ate half and then I ate the other half, so it's like 7 g shit, you know, and I didn't know, you just didn't know and after a while we all kind of went our own ways and I remember when I started to like the come up was hitting hard and I'm starting to get into like that peaking state where I'm crawling on these rocks and they're like these little puma stones that have like, you know.

Little circles kind of like Swiss cheese where the bubbles used to be and I'm crawling on them and I'm wondering if I'm gonna die because it's just like beyond anything I'd ever experienced, and I heard my mom say, you know, my mom like, be safe, don't do anything stupid, and I'm like, am I, is that why she said it? Am I gonna die here? But then the stones turned into faces, and it was some, for some reason, some Aussie accent. It's like, go on, mate, you've got this. You've got this. So I sat down and That's when I, the first time, you know, I understood the concept of God and, and my own interpretation, it's the energy that is in everything, you know, it's infinite and omnipresent, but that was the first time I really got to talk to, you know, this, this energy that creates the cosmos, and it's Any question I ever wanted to know I had the answer to, and I sat there and meditated for a while, and then opened my eyes and my one friend appeared on the, the east horizon, one friend appeared on the west, and one appeared on the north. They just on their trip. They everyone just walked up and just sat next to me, and we're just sitting there, and I mean it was fucking awesome, you know, it was a really good time, so.

Coming back home, um, it's kind of a funny story. There is this girl I had a crush on, and she, she lived up the street, and she was on my bus every day, but she was the daughter of a Christian pastor, and I kept saying like, Hey, let's hang out. Let's, you know, I'd leave letters in her mailbox. And um but she's trying to convert me all the time you know like she goes what religion are you? I'm like, well I was raised Catholic. She goes, that religion's wrong and I'm just like what like who are you? So then I remember after the mushrooms she was on the bus and I was just like. She's like, You wanna talk about Christ? She's like, I would love to. I'm like, Have you eaten mushrooms? She goes, No. Then I said, We can't have this conversation because I've met God. Of course it sounds insane, but like it pretty much on brand. What was your reaction to this? She, she said we can't date, you know, you're a drug addict. Yeah, I know it. You're crazy. She was like, Catholics, she was talking about the rapture and saying like, Well, what if like you showed up tomorrow morning and me and Alicia and all these other girls weren't on the bus? Like what would you do then? I'm like, I don't know, just eat more medicine, eat more medicine, go surfing, you know. I found it just, I think that's what turned me off about the, the major religions because a lot of the places I lived in, people were constantly trying to tell me I was wrong and constantly trying to convert me and You know, um, I think our, our relationship with Christ is not determined by a system or anything like that.

No, it gets in the way, I think, in a lot of times, telling you how you should experience it and you can't experience it when you're you're doing mushrooms in a field, you're like, well, I'm pretty sure that was the most real knowing of an experience I had, and then now you're telling me no, so then it's like. So you have the guidance system to me of like how I should live my life and connect to God, so I have to always come to you. No, I don't think so. No, yeah, it's like the priests and the religions had all the answers and we come to them for the answers, and eventually became science, we gotta go to the scientists, they have all the answers. Well, it's very unchristlike to believe that, I mean. Christ Himself said, God is within you. Like you don't need, he's a proponent for you having a relationship with God, not having to go to a church every Sunday. And oh yes, thank you and pray and sit and kneel and stand and stand and kneel and eat the cracker. Like none of that was necessary, but we just by pure. In Christianity spread it across the world for some silly reason. We need more, what do they call it? Soc Socrates, Socratic, Socratic, yeah, like Socratic, like you let the experience dictate what's real to you. Like your actual.

I think that's kind of how we all are. It's like we meet God in our own ways, right? Yeah, we're not against God. Like, if anything, we're really connected to God, right? How have you used this connection to God that you found through plant medicine and spirituality and these other aspects of your life? How have you allowed that to infuse into the work that you do? Oh, that's a really good question. Yeah, it was just acknowledging that if God is omnipresent and omniscient and infinite, that everyone's path to God is unique and you can be worshiped in many, many different ways. So it's just accepting other people's paths and everything else, um, being in the vision space and, um, you know, once you, you spent time in the vision space and things like angels and demons are actually quite real and communion with spirits becomes quite real. You know, it's almost like if the self is just the amalgamation of all the experiences we've had. And there's certain memories we're just never gonna remember. I think of dreams, you know, we have dreams every night, and sometimes a dream will be so potent that it's stronger than a memory you've actually had, but that counts as an experience. So the self is made up of not only your memories but your dreams, but also like your, your connection to God, whether it be in the medicine space or meditation or making love or just whatever it may be.

So wanting to tell those stories, you know, I feel like there's not a lot of films or videos that really show that. I mean, there's some great ones, but, you know, the stories about the medicine space, you know, haven't, I think there's a lot of room, just kind of like this festival movie about the festival culture, and that is sort of the documentary you were alluding to earlier. Um, this one is called The Astral Gunslinger, and this is a story about a grandmaster. Of ayahuasca from Puyalpa, who's been drank medicine at 9 and became a healer and um. You know, Aubrey had taken his ex-fiancee to him years ago, and he kind of cleared a hex that she had. There's a lot of darkness also in the Ayahuasca tourism space, you know, just like any, it's the wild west, it's the wild west. It's like any medicine, you know, you have, I mean, just like religions, you have the Satanists and you have the, the Christians in the Ayahuasca space. You also have the people that work with dark magic, and it's actually a quicker, easier path to gain power. It's like the force, you know, the dark side of the forest and the white, you know, the light.

And just like anything, you know, the advent of ayahuasca becoming more popular, you know, I think with our culture we have a lot of dissonance and a lot of programming and to break through the noise, plant medic nature's like, listen, I'm here to heal, and these plant medicines are coming more online, you know, everything from boga, mushrooms, psychedelics, even like, you know, ketamine is not exactly a plant medicine, but it's a path to opening up these channels, 5MEO, yeah, all these things, a lot of ancient knowledge, so. They go to the Amazon to find ayahuasca, and then a shaman will be like, Hi, come to my ceremony, and then they go and, you know, sadly there's some dark brujos which are kind of like, um, you know, witch doctors, and they can do anything from like put something like toe into the ayahuasca, which will numb you, and then women have been sexually molested or they want their power, so they, they'll put a hex on them, you know, and, uh. Some people come out of these, you know, Ayahuasca tourists experiences worse, you know, and their traumas are even worse, or they may have a hex or whatever it is.

So Master Alberto was known as the guy that you'd go see if harm had been done. He can go into the medicine space and see, like, actually you have, you haven't been able to sing your last several ceremonies because you have a blockage in your throat, and we're gonna clear that. We're gonna clear that through a chupada or a ventiada, and, uh, he's a particular type of medicine that's really quite potent. It's the strongest I've ever had. So, um, and sometimes what's really wild about this, this, this man. Was that he's got several stories where he's in the medicine space and the entity, the demon or even the other evil shaman, let's say, comes into the medicine space and he says, he's trying to cut the cord. And the other shaman's like, no, that is my person. And they actually have an astral battle where they call up on their own guardians and angels, and it's a, it's a power of imagination. Who's stronger in the space if you have a strong mesa, you know, the ceremony space, if it's clean and clear and powerful, then.

You know he's able to cut these cords and he's kind of pretty much undefeated. So, um, Aubrey said we want to make a documentary on him so he assembled a crew of like all these really powerful medicine workers and healers and I was brought along as the video guy, you know, to with the, to do the interviews and to film the documentary, um, but that also included me sitting with the medicine. So there were times where I was actually in the medicine space. And then I'd switch into another. I would look at my camera and think like, what is that apparatus even what is technology? Can I even operate that thing. But um you know there'd be people singing with their guitars and like going at it and I'm looking at them and I go that's their gift that's their medicine. I'm here to document so I'd go over there and like throw a punch over the camera and somehow get some footage while I'm just my my mind and soul and body are in a different dimension so it was, um, it was a really powerful time. It's a really powerful subject to film. And um I am in the, you know, the middle of editing that documentary now, which comes out in a couple of months hopefully, yeah, yeah. Can you talk about some of the maybe Extraordinary things you maybe witness or experience without giving too much away like in um there was one woman who had a hex on her and uh you know, every day we would, it was a very strong brujo that I put it on her like he really did work and she was someone who's, she's a, a witch in a in a beautiful way she's been working with the medicine her entire life and was sort of unaware of this blockage but you know eventually figured out, OK.

It was this guy who romantically came on to me and I said no and since then I've had trouble, you know, speaking and singing in ceremony, particularly so, um, master goes in and has like, you know, a hard time clearing that so that was really amazing to witness, yeah. Can you tell us more about hexes and how that works and what kind of hexes there are if you, yeah, know them. Um, there are a lot of people who are way more versed in this than I am, but you have these, I mean, exorcisms have been used in the, the, you know, Catholic and Christian Church forever, and, um, there's two ways of looking at it. A lot of times we have the spiritual way of looking at things and we have the scientific way of looking at things and, um. You know, demons have been alluded to be everything from deep hidden traumas that take on a persona of their own or even parasites because parasites suck your energy and they, they change your, your personality, your personality it's like you have a demon in you, yeah, so I think they're mutually inclusive, you know, um.

And uh so it could be expressed in so many different ways it's just hard to say it's just like they did medicine and something's just slowly off and off and off yeah, sometimes the trauma comes from an outside force, sometimes it's suppressed emotions, repressed emotions or emotions that have been too expressed, um, and, um, I think they work together, you know, the demonic energy sometimes they're, I mean, we have to face it, there is evil in this world, and there are, you know, the, the Gnostics talked about the archons and like. You look at our politicians and our government and there's some fucking evil shit going on and they're like how is that because I mean they're eating children they're eating on an island and people just forgot about that yeah we've been desensitized very quickly we just forgot about it. That's OK back to. Everyday life within a day, you've gotten probably watched like 100 videos. That's the problem with the social media news cycle is your whole world can get turned upside down, proof that your politicians and leaders are kidnapping and eating children, and we're like, this is huge news for 48 hours. we just move on.

It's actually insane. I recently did it like a, so I did, uh, I began and one of the like. As I was coming out of the experience being in for like almost a day. I was in this state where I was like. I could see the room, but I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed, and sometimes be open, and it would just go back and forth, and things would have this like translucent electric look to them, but there was a constant. Repeating vision I had of me pulling my phone out and looking at it, looking at it while I'm in bed, and I would have this feeling of fuck, I'm not supposed to look at my phone because like I'm still in the thing and that's the last thing you should be doing on your phone and they're like stay off your phone and then being there seeing so many people, especially some people so addicted, and it made me think. Most of our problems are because we're not. In our experience of our life, right? And I understood social media was not great in this, but I didn't realize how like a lot of your anxieties or worries or like things you're desiring or going after. Perfect examples, I was living in Thailand and I was, it was like when it was like 10 years ago, Instagram was not very good.

But I was trying to build a wellness following and I just was so depressed and always burning myself out and I started to think I, I was, I was doing things based on what I could potentially film and post. So I deleted the account, not the app, I deleted the whole account. And when I did that with it took about like 72 hours, all of a sudden I was like actually half the world away from the US versus there I was, I watched people's stories and I was like. Parts of me were in all these other places. It was like I never actually left, so I wasn't actually getting that restoration of being away. And so there's this company you ever heard of like, I think it's called Luminous something. They have these phones that I was looking for a phone. I was like, should I get a flip phone? But they have these phones that you can text, take photos front and back, pretty OK camera. You can do a couple other things, but you cannot. Social media will not go on it and it has no blue light. It's like a Kindle screen. So I'm like, that's what I need to do, and I imagine just that thing alone will completely change so much.

Yeah, I agree. You know, programming is such a thing, and, um, like fire, right? Fire we used to, when we discovered fire, it would cook our food and keep us warm, but that shit can burn down your house and kill you. And like now we have the technology of gods, but we have the biology of primates, so our, our psyche hasn't adjusted to. So much information so fast all the time and it takes us out, like you said out of the present moment, you know, in fact, I think one of the biggest sicknesses hitting the human race is that we've lost contact with nature or what we call nature, you know, we feel like we're separate and we live in boxes and we drive to another box in a box and then our psyche is now held in a box in our hand, you know, and I feel if you really want to party, you drink out of a, out of a, uh. Um, what's the uh the shape, an oval, a bottle. What shape is that? Yeah, it's the one time you get to do something not box related, box of wine. Yeah, there you go. And I feel like with ayahuasca, a lot of the, a lot of the turbulence is.

You're detoxing from not being in nature, like you're having to recalibrate and a lot of the like uncomfortableness is like pulling all of that out because once you're there, you're like so attuned to nature, you're so at peace, and then when you come back, it's always such an adjustment. It's like very sensitive, but you're like, oh, this isn't you see how unnatural, like, especially when you go to like a city, you're like. Oh, like, this is so much I'm taking in all the time with my system, right? Yeah, nature's if we just had more nature, but psychedelics help you reconnect to nature. But it's a lesson I always come back from is like, be in nature, be in nature, be in nature, be in nature. There was a Joe Rogan comedy special from, I don't know, like early 2000s. Do you guys remember this? And like the intro to the special was him just he was probably some high thoughts he was having after smoking a blunt. And it was like, he was flying over LA and like looking down at LA and he was like, LA is mold. Cities are mold. Think about how it grows. It's just like this fungus that just grows upward and outward, and it's stinky and it just eats everything around it. And it's like we are just this.

This cancerous moldy growth on the earth that just is consuming it and then in nature like that's what it's supposed to be that's real life that's what a healthy earth looks like and we're just these like moldy spots on it we are, we are, you know, it's the hermetics talk about as above, so below, then things are fractal in nature you can find things in, you know, the subparticle realm, and then they find things in the, you know, the astral or the universal, the cosmos. But that we all kind of mimic each other, you know, like technology is kind of like based on us. If you think about a, a laptop, the hardware is our brain and the software is our consciousness, and yeah. Tony's tattoo has a brain that it's half brain, the other half looks like a microchip, you know, and yeah, exactly that. And um because one of the crazy things about if you look at a cellphone. It's still God. It's still nature. It's made of silica minerals. There's nothing on our earth that isn't from God. So this relationship we have with technology that is like a symbiotic.

Animal that we're creating, you know, it's, I mean, this is, we can go so many directions with I think like. I think with AI people that are fearful. It's, it's like this necessary thing we needed to allow the psychedelic and the psychedelic medicine space. To start to begin to flourish because more people, as you see like, like in Bali, but you're starting to see that here like sauna cold plunge, high-end gyms, like way like barely anybody's drinking, it's like the lowest amounts of people buying alcohol ever, right? And it's like everyone's like, well, it's gonna take my job away, but it's like, guys, you don't actually wanna go to your office. I know you think you feel like you have purpose and whatnot, but you really actually don't fucking wanna go work at Amazon. Like you don't like, maybe some stuff is like, you know, your cybersecurity and it's super passionate, you get super nerded out, but they like everybody below, you're like, are you really having a good time? And if you take that away, it's like, well, imagine if you could go do stuff, what would you do? I'd probably be in nature. I'd hang out with my family. What do you do on vacation? Like, what's your ideal? You go to festivals, you would just do more of that stuff. So because of that, You got to clear your shit, right? And because they are, you can pull so much more data so easy and you can refine these healing centers to help people. And I think right now it's like, They patent like Trump signing that executive order on IBgain for like the funding and then I think there's like 4 different things he's passing for like mushrooms that's gonna get passed a lot sooner and so it's like, oh shit, you're, it's like AI what started popping off like 2 years and it just hasn't slowed down. I think you're seeing just the like first spark of it.

Like right now, and it's not gonna stop. It's like right behind it, but because AI it's gonna allow it. I agree. Yeah, this is a super potent topic and we need it to integrate with AI. I think AI is a cool intelligence and for humans to evolve and to get to the stars and populate around the world, we need it. Like we need to befriend it and like it needs to integrate with us, like, maybe not in us, but maybe some people. I might sign up, but uh. I don't know. I don't know if I trust Meta to not hack my brain and then I fucking start doing weird shit. The only, the only thing I'm worried about is I would do like Neuralink or something like that, but yeah, it's someone like sends a secret like link and they're like controlling. I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about they're gonna make me pay for the free version you got like 5 and then I get fucking ads in my brain. Yeah, they're like I have it at first. I'm like, wow, this is great. They're like, hey, by the way, we've, we've implemented tiers and so you're on the free tier right now and you're gonna have to pay, you know, $10,000 a month for the scrolling for no ads. Yeah, and then I just get fucking like, have you tried AG1 in my brain? I'm like, I'm gonna fucking kill myself. So that's why I'm not doing a brain chip.

No, I never considered that at all. And it's like looking at the transhumist agenda, and I can see why there's certain people that would wanna. You know, plug themselves in the machine and become immortal and all that, but, uh, I might butcher this quote, but I believe Einstein said something along the lines of Technology will surpass us, but only for us to then come and surpass the technology. That's good, you know, it is like a, a rival or, um, it needs to catapult us, yeah, it needs to catapult us slingshot, so it'll force us to evolve faster because we have that we're living in a super. Computer, we have a quantum forgotten all of it. We've forgotten like with the telepathy taste, people learning about like like the research they do on mediums and telepathy, NDEs, and there's a lot of research in the way they're studying it's like it's all real and we probably had access to that all the time like the indigenous. Having a relationship with spirits and whatnot is like, well, that's what we've been doing for 2000 years. You guys don't have spirit homies.

We don't have at all anymore. The airline just went out. Nobody has spirit anymore. Yeah, it's so true. There was a story I heard in the Amazon where someone was in a canoe and they're getting dropped off somewhere, and he goes, well, how am I gonna, how, how are we gonna get picked up if the canoe is just traveling away? He goes, no, he's gonna call me. It's like I didn't see a cell phone anywhere. He's like, no, he's just gonna call me, you know, it was telepathically, you know, you think of someone, then they call, you know, we've forgotten this power that we have. We forgot our intuition truly is a, a superpower. It truly is a superpower and just like as above and so below, Wi Fi is just an example of the fractal nature of our superconscious telepathy, telekinesis, psychic powers that I, we've forgotten because we've become so. Materialistic, you know, and we live in this society that science, what's only what's observable in the material world can we determine to be real. And then now they realize quantum mechanics is like, no, that's all bullshit. So science is catching up with the spirit. Um, it's a real quick, is, is this where like the eagle and the condor like come into play like North and South America where The like, the eagle is like the mental, like, you know, technology working.

Cities, all that and the condor is like that heart love connection and isn't the story something like they come and connect? Do you, do you know that story? Yeah, the Rainbow prophecy of the Eagle and Condor, and I love that interpretation you just said because I haven't heard that. I read a book a long time ago from a, and I, it's very old memory, so it could be totally wacky. No, I love it, and that's a beautiful perspective on that. Um, how do you understand it? Yeah, it is happening. It's similar to that. It's like, you know, there will be a time where, you know, the prophecies and philosophies and, you know, medicines of the north will match the South because they're bringing it to the world at wide. This is why like. A lot of the younger men and shamans in these tribes, once they get a cell phone, they don't want to follow the medicine path anymore. But also there's just like martial arts was in China, do we give it to the white men or not, you know, so now it's There are a lot of these shamans are, are visiting the United States and they're sharing their medicine and their teachings because the world needs it. It's a time where like the problem solution is there, you know, where the, the society has fallen asleep and nature's, you know, guy is like we have to wake up and the only way to jumpstart our psyches because of all the programming is, are these medicines.

And it and it was like the world as we expand out into the stars need to think of as one tribe and to do that we're gonna have to spread everything around and share and learn and integrate and create almost like a, a new hybrid developed from new technology to every indigenous, take what works really well and have like one people, yeah, right, it's beautifully said because um I think Bruce Lipton was talking about how You know, in our body, each of our cells, it has its own thing, like it's, it's it. Um, it mates, it defecates, it finds its food, it has its function, and we have like 1 trillion cells in our body. So as above, so below, the human beings are the cells of the earth, you know, and then as of recent, we got the brain of humanity, which is the internet, you know, all these, now because we're all sitting here because we connected with a podcast or, or like. You know, that's how I, I'm in Austin because I met Aubrey through his podcast and I came out here and I'm filming. So through this brain of humanity, which is, you know, technology, um, it's the, it's fire, it's, it's bringing fire like Prometheus. Like it's gonna burn you oral oral to be your it's what saved humanity against the It's why we've evolved because we were able to use fire against our predators and we were able to warm ourselves and that was this new technology is that and then there's the route of the transhumanist where it's like all technology and then there's the people are more like the Amish were like, well, I'm gonna stay away from all that. There's a symbiotic relationship. It's here to stay and it's gonna progress. So it's, I think the most important thing is how are we gonna use this? How are we gonna take the ancient technologies of plants and the ancient cultures and merge them with our new technologies, so the eagle Condor, you know.

Um, the advanced modern technology that, you know, has proliferated in the United States with the internet and Hollywood and films and all that, and now, um, we're leaning towards merging with these ancient technologies, and I think that's the example of what Burning Man is, you know, this, we're going back to the festival culture. People gather, it's a new gathering of the tribes, and people gather in nature, and we camp in nature and we're exposed to all the natural elements, and we're like half naked, you know, at the same time you have. The lasers and the bass music and the lights and the sound and the generators, you know, to generate electricity, so it's like this merging of both in one place, building a city that has come together just in creativity and love, and that's why so many things happen there. And it's a new subculture I think is really when I go to the burn, I see hope for humanity because I see a different way where money isn't being used. It's all gifting and love and taking care of each other and bonding. That's, yeah, that's, is it Birdieman you. Like favorite festival, like the one you always return to it just always has a special place, or yeah, because it's beyond a festival, it's a city that it's built and everything is burned and you leave no trace, so you come, you gather, you build this thing that is unique only in that period of time, and it just kind of represents the impermanence of the human condition. We're not everything that we know will die one day and everything is impermanent, so to live in the moment like you said earlier about um.

You know, when you're in Thailand and you're like not in the moment because you're pulling on all these threads across the world and then by getting rid of your phone, you're able to be super present, yeah. I'm curious with AI and since you're a filmmaker, since we're talking a little bit about AI. How do you think it's gonna affect or how does it affect your? Filmmaking or industry like and people like in media like how should they think about what's coming like where where should their heads be at? Yeah, we're living in a sci-fi movie right now, you know, usually it's the, it's the science fiction that we make that ends up creating our reality down the road. Everything is created with imagination. So, um, with the advent of AI, it was two prongs. One was holy shit. I'm gonna be out of work. Like, you know, why would they need me if they can create everything on a platform or, you know, imagery? And the second part of me was like this is the best thing to ever fucking happen to me because I always followed an independent filmmaker route. Like I didn't go to Hollywood to pull cables and bring coffee to people because I found that massive movies.

You know, when I was studying film, you know, Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and the independent film movement got really popular. Like, no, you get your own money, you make your own film, and do it creatively without all the money. So then, um. As I've been progressing through my own career and seeing like, well, I wanna make these really big movies with like, you know, sci-fi films, you know, Matrix and Avatar type stuff, where am I gonna find the $250 million or the 250 specialists to do this thing because I haven't been in the Hollywood system for so long, yeah, the massive multi-million dollar budget to blow stuff up and, yeah, yeah, film it all to do these huge things. So, um, backed by certain people and blah blah blah, yeah, so you just need to it's a lot. It's not impossible. It's just very. You know, films rarely even make break even or make money. So to find that that realm seemed very difficult to me. But, um, you know, being a storyteller and having these amazing stories, I didn't wanna, like, I wanna make them these stories the way they need to be. And then now that AI started to present itself, then all of a sudden it's like I don't need all those people or that money. I can, I have the stories and I can, we can create, you know, special effects now from a laptop that would cost.

You know, all this money and all these people to do, so it got really exciting. So now the pressure is to learn it because there's so many different ways. There's so much to learn, and, um, I think everyone is trying to figure out how to best use AI, whether it's for coding or for marketing or for, um, individual space. It's how to. When someone, when people were painting portraits and everything else, when the actual digital camera came out, they were saying no one's gonna want my paintings because now you can just capture an image, but they're different mediums, you know, like painting is still around and you can still sell a painting like this for, you know, $100,000 you know, there's still value to it. So with, you know, people can at this point in time people can see something and be like that's AI, and they don't connect with it. They don't feel like it's real. So the old, the old methods of capturing actors and real emotions and, um, you know, capturing real moments in documentaries is still very important, but now you can paint it with, uh, you know, captivating images that are, you know, sci-fi. If you want to talk about demons in the astral realm, you don't need a multi-million dollar budget. Yeah, like after you left, I got on Higgs Field because I was looking for my editor was like, I was like, which, which program should we use? So I got Higgs field.

And I used to do graphic design just for fun. I would make brave rave brave flyers all the time. I'd pull shit from like, and I would put together cool ass rave like flyers. And like for different raves, it was like favorite thing. So I, I got an account and I was like, I'm gonna get a fuck around in here. I, I'm like, it opened my mind to like limitless creativity. I'm like, I could make a whole cartoon series. I could do like different movies. I was using Kling and I was like imaging myself trying to figure out the different Kling motion versus Kling Omni. And like one does an overlay and then you can make character spreadsheets and it's just the endless rabbit hole of how detailed and deep it could go and that's just the video only like and I love making logos. I'm like, I have everything I always want to unlock in my mind is like being able to unlock more and it's not easy. It's not easy. People think like, oh yeah, you're just gonna be able to generate something. It's like, no, that doesn't. The detail like uh in Higgs field there's something called like cinema 3 or something where you could pick the type of camera, the angle it starts from, the way you prompt it from this to that, and then now watching people's creation, you're like, I, I'm just like blown away like, man, that's so cool. I love following AI AIRs. There's like some like digital Japanese cyberpunk, like some of this stuff is like so ecstasy looking. There's this one I ever send it to you, it's just like.

Anime, it's, but it's like got this really detailed, cool, vibrant color. And she's like a, this is like a skull, she has this tube down and this spark happens, cause the cat hits the cord, and it goes and it fills up her whole body with like skin, and then the cat fucks the cord up again and like her whole skin melts away, and it's like this 32nd thing, but you're like, visually, it was fucking insane, and then you're thinking. Trying to make this fucking stupid thing and they like fuck up on their words and it's like the videos all getting mutated and shit. You're like, how the fuck did he pull that off? How the fuck and I have to like, I can go and like cloud and fuck around, but I have to like getting on my laptop to go on like Higgs field is like Pandora's box. I have to have it like 6 hours set aside because I, if I open that, I can't come out. It reminds me of like I was 10 years old, how like you can't go like you're staying up till 3 a.m. playing video games, even though your eyes are cracked out, you just can't stop.

I've played video games recently, but I never feel that. I kind of like get bored pretty quick, but that reminds me of being. A 10 year old playing video games again, I can't pull myself away. The like creative possibilities and you're like, all right, I gotta stop fucking around because I only have so many credits. We gotta like think about one project to maybe work on. Yeah, imagination is truly the limit, you know, you've, we've been able to get rid of a lot of the middlemen that prevented that process to happen, and now we have it. So now it's, um, even with building companies with like Claude and agents and whatnot, it's like. Now 3 dudes can start a pretty cool business and they don't need to be in a certain city with a bunch of funding and all this startup and all that it's like it's like Silicon Valley is everywhere now. It's remote. And same with creators, and it's, I'm so excited to see if I had a kid right now that was like 5 years old, I'd be like, you don't go to school, you play sports, we do cool shit in the woods and you fucking learn AI video and shit, right? And we make cool movies because if that kid starts at 5, by the time he's like 10, he's probably making masterpieces. That's it.

The little kid in Ghana can make a film that the world can see. So yeah, it's the era of storytellers and everyone has access to this, you know, power now and, uh. It's a really exciting time, you know, you know, just like anything that accelerates, you're always gonna have a, like an equal amounts of evil and good, and I think we're actually living in the best time ever to be human beings. It just seems noisy because we're now we see everything. We, we didn't have access to all this information before of like Gaza and other things going on in part of the world, and you just like heard one thing every like once or twice every so often you were still present in your own tending to your own garden. Um, but I think with these technologies I feel I'm an eternal optimist and I feel humans are very resilient, you know, now we have a super intelligence that is our ally and it's gonna create weapons of destruction, but it's also gonna heal all kinds of things. So, and you know, like you said earlier, you know, hopefully take us to the stars. I think it I'm, I'm, I'm excited. I never thought I wanted to go to Stars, but now like David Sinclair's working on this like longevity to like reverse your age quite a bit, and I'm like, well, I guess if I did live to like 150.

I bet the spaceships are probably pretty good by then. I think I would be down to by the 100 age of 150, OK, if I'm gonna live longer, I think I'm gonna, I'm down to go to a new planet. You wouldn't wanna go into space. Before that? Not you have no interest in space. Not like maybe just to go up and come down, but like go to a planet and be there. Yeah, that's like in my mindset, like, would I ever want to just go about a trip to the moon. Yeah, sure, it's like a couple days, couple day trip, yeah, a couple day trip. Brent's 100th birthday bash at the Hilton on the moon. Now you do aya moon rocks, yeah, do psychedelics while you're cause they say like I wanna have the trip they have because all of them have the, we should be the first mushroom trip in space. That's our goal. The fun Guy's goal. And Derek, you're coming. You're the 3rd fun guy. Yes, Red Bull sponsor us. We're doing the 1st mushroom trip on the moon. We may lose our minds.

Imagine looking at the Earth. On mushrooms on the like on you're on Earth and you're looking at the Earth. Oh yeah, I don't even know. That's a moment of satori for sure. Oh, exactly, yeah, and you're heading nicer. You're heading back to Bali now. I am, so I'm headed back to Bali. I am currently living half the year in Austin and half the year in Bali. It was an interesting alignment, and I just kind of follow the bread crumbs for a, um, a beautiful project I have going on down there, the documentary series. It sounds amazing, just like. This is so like the Marvel thing, a bunch of that slop came out. I think we're in this period of time, we haven't seen it come out yet, but you're seeing these originals start to come back out that were things we loved in the past. But even deeper or more niche or whatnot, and, and people are just going for it. Like it feels like this last year. Artists and creators and.

Anybody who's produced like, you know, some kind of art, whether it's a movie book or whatever, or like going for it. It's like there's no, there is no rulebook anymore, like a Hollywood movie rulebook or a certain kind of thing you gotta make, and what you're making out there sounds. So original and I think a lot of people will resonate with it because they will because it's a lifestyle that they probably always fantasized about someone I didn't think it was possible and if you can see someone's story. And connect with them, then it becomes a possibility. And you can like we can do something different. The ring's engagement procedure, and she looks at him and he has the ring and she's like, oh, we weren't in danger. He's like, No, no, no, I just kind of faked it. So he had put in a GoPro on the dash, and this is a while ago, so no sound whatsoever. So I read the lips and I put subtitles. We put music to it, and they posted it, and the video went viral, like it, you know, 5 million views. And they were invited to be on, you know, the Ellen Ellen's show and the Today Show. So our very first venture in working together was a smashing success. So years later he came to me and he's like, I have this idea for a show, um, and he's filmed his family for the last 5 years. So they tell the backstory about his, his suffering and coming close to suicidal ideation, all these things, and how he's brought his family out of it.

So the first season's about, you know, Bali being the, the substrate. The show, the idea of the show is Anthony Bourdain, but instead of food to immerse yourself in the culture, it's gonna be like meeting remarkable people. You know, ceremonies, you know, hiking adventures, wisdom from everyone from like, you know, Hasidic Jews to like the, the baba that smokes hash on the side of the Ganges, and it's, it's trying to find growth and it's the path of becoming a self-actualized man in the modern world. And because he's got tons of stories, so do I. We, we're well traveled, and I'm not only am I filming, but I'm also his confidant. So like I'm showing him certain things. He's teaching me certain things, and we're going on these, these crazy adventures together. Um, it's the antidote to the mantaverse, you know, the mantaverse, we have all these, you know, the youth have certain idols, and they're looking up to Andrew Tate and Dan Bilzarian and Um, it's proliferating more of the toxic masculinity and culture. So our goal is to show, like, which is just immature masculine, it's a little boy parading around what they think a man is, but they're not actually a man.

Well said, yeah, and you know, I feel like. The way he's raising his family and his, his ability to talk to people and same with me, you know, I've, I started on a spiritual path very young. I had a very great family. I've had a very blessed life. How do I give that back by telling stories? So by going out there and after we film and meet them and do adventures, we have a podcast style debrief where we just talk and that's where all the narration comes from. So meeting, going out and meeting and connecting with, you know, for me it's a lot of the people I met on Aubrey's podcast, these interesting people that are doing things in Ecuador and in Colombia and around the world, um, so this was a worthwhile project where the quest felt bigger than the actual project itself, you know, no matter what happens, this path that we're taking, it's ambitious, but, um. And it's Peter, you said earlier, you know, people are creating companies on AI. We're, we started a company and we're building our systems and our, our, our foundation through agentic Systems with Claude. So it's like it's me, him, and his wife, but it feels like we have 15 people working for us because he, he's so brilliant. He's almost neurodivergent and almost ADHD, and he, he can create systems in a way in coding that I cannot. It's like not my realm. But at this point in my, my life, I can pretty much film and edit anything I want. And now with AI I can tell any story.

So we're gonna use all our skills and put them into one lane and um and I love it in Austin. This is a, this, the community in this place is unparalleled unreal. I feel people move here every week that I know from parts of the world and every time someone lands here, the amplitude and the magnitude of this vortex, it's a very special time in history. It's kind of like Haight Ashbury in the 60s with the hippies meets the dot com boom, biohackers and tech, and we're all very young and it's a renaissance. It's a renaissance, you know, and um. So it's like I bought a house and I got a cat thinking I would ground myself and be in one place, but you know off to Bali, yeah, that I didn't choose the travel life. It chose me. I've grew up with a family where we moved and moved to Chile, Brazil, Hawaii, Miami. We moved all over and you know the worldly perspective is huge and to, to go to these places and tell stories about these different people with Ancient technologies, you know, ancient megaliths and plant medicines, and how could you not, we're fulfilling the eagle and condor prophecy in a, in a way that the youth can look up to it, um, so it's very, it's super exciting, and, um, as soon as I decided like how do I do, do I, is it just all this or Austin like this or that, the path that was laid out in front of me was yes and.

I found two great roommates to take care of my house. I don't have to move my stuff out. My cat's taken care of. So anyways, God put the bread crumbs out, and it's, it's been aligning so perfectly. I can't say no. This is a project that's bigger than anything I've done. Yeah, this is the kind of city where these kind of opportunities appear and you have to go after them and then you're taken care of. It just all works out and it's, it's navigable. I don't know if any other city right now is having the kind of, I mean, everybody I know you meet is having synchronicities. Austin's almost like being at a festival because everyone's so open and friendly and down to collaborate and chat, where like in Seattle, it was like it was, I don't talk about, and if I'm doing well. You can kind of maybe hang out and we're not gonna talk, like, it was always so closed behind the door of like what we're doing this and that. It just, everyone's down to come on a podcast, whether they're a really big podcast or they're not, like, I'm always down and that's how I've always been like, I'm down to help anybody as well because it just always comes back and the more you help people, the more you spread that energy around, it's just like, yeah, let's just keep doing that, just replicate that, like, let's collaborate and then random cool shit happens that It is so different, like a festival that's also a movie. Like only this place could do that because people are so like, do you guys want to do that? Yeah, like other like, I don't know, that sounds weird, lame. We're like maybe a couple of people are down. It's like, here's like, of course. Like, like that sounds like a great idea. Why haven't we been doing that in general?

Well, that's, that's really beautifully said because I feel the same way about this place and I think there's something about the Southern hospitality as the underlying fertilize's got family vibes to it like it's so cool. Like it's cool. It's a very special gathering place where you go into a bar and you have the cowboy, the biohacker, the spiritual fuck boy, the tranny, that, and everyone's getting along. Everyone's like, and what you said about Seattle, I felt in Southern California like I was in San Diego for 17 years. But it honestly felt like the same year 17 times things weren't really moving faster. The synchronicities, like you said, weren't happening at the level where it could fully push the needle. And when I talked to people, it was this energy, um, alluding to what you're saying. It was more like, well, what can you do for me here? People genuinely are like, what can I do for you? And it's everyone. So we're all growing together. I don't know what it is that we're building here, but I can feel it, and it's substantial. I've, I've been saying in the last like 6 months, it's a, it's a city of the future. I have this like as AI and technology advance, certain cities and certain demographics in parts of the country reject and see it as.

A negative and they rebel against it. I want more government support. I'm, I feel insecure and so the government takes advantage of that. Like, yes, I'll take care of you. Like Seattle, that's what I think it's going through is like it's always kind of been that way, but now it's really like billionaires are bad at making money and like cutting the energy supply off just small businesses and keep. Giving into these weird policies that stop creativity and here you have the embracing of creativity, collaboration, AI, wellness, spirituality, fitness, and all that, and it just is like. Because of that we embrace it, robo taxis and all this, so we're not afraid. Maybe there's some people, but we're like we're embracing it and we will be a city of the future. I mean it will just be however cities are going to take shape and interact. This will be one of those first places I think in the US. But I think you have to be a like in a certain place in your mind and heart, and I think that's maybe what attracts people here is you have to be at a certain like resonance or opening.

And in other places like it, like, I don't know, I've met a couple people that come and they just, it doesn't, it feels like weird fog to them to be here. Austin is soap. That's how I've always described you out. Yeah, Austin is self-cleaning like soap. If you come to Austin and you're not supposed to be here, it will just boot you out. And it's not in a rude way or like you're not welcome here. You as a person will make the decision that you don't belong and you will remove yourself. You're like, I just don't get it. I just don't. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not it's like it's a self-protective orb where if you're not in the frequency, great, we still love you, but you're gonna go over there and we're gonna, we're gonna keep our Haight Ashbury. Tech psychedelic bubble all to ourselves and we're gonna spread it around the world whether you like it or not, but we gotta, we gotta create the hub here. I feel that. What brought you here and what's your story with Austin me personally. So OnlyFans, yeah, that great opportunity for selling Pete pics. Um, so Brent and I were both in Seattle. We actually made the decision to move to Austin together. So, yeah, we lived in Seattle together, and he actually was the one who was like, dude, we gotta go check out Austin. It's this booming city. It's popping off, and I'm like, Texas? What the fuck is in Texas? Racism and tumbleweeds. There's no, there's nothing in Texas for me. I'm a, I'm an Arab guy. Like, what, what are we gonna do in Texas?

And he's like, no, we gotta check it out. And so we, uh, we came to visit and we both just fell in love with Austin. And like that trip, we decided, all right, what's keeping us in Seattle? Nothing really. Let's fucking move. And he came down before me, um, because we both had businesses, but mine took a little longer to like, also, I was a trainer and I knew they were gonna keep fucking around shutting the gyms down. And so I'm like, I gotta get out of here also before like fall and winter come because it gets so dark and dreary. We only had this little shed in the back. It was like, yeah, he was training clients out of our garage in the back. A bucket with a with a 2x4 on top of it is the is the bench. I went, I went on OfferUp. I bought some old dudes like powerlifting squat rack. Another guy, he like builds for fun, like lifting platforms. So I bought that, put it all together, bolted it down, had an old school bar and some plates and then some just dumbbells from like family's house and I just ran it out of there. But Summer's only nice for so long and dark and dreary and then I'm stuck in that house. I was like, and I, I just, I sensed that Seattle is gonna keep shutting, shutting stuff down. And my buddies who stayed up there as trainers, it stayed like Seattle for 2 years, they, they weren't able to train in gyms. I was like, I, I knew they were gonna fuck around.

It was terrible. Yeah, you got out at the right time. So then we both just decided we gotta come here and we made it. I would send him messages all the time. I'd be like, Tony, like the experiences in the 1st 6 months of like, I, you know, I sold like I completely shut down my business. I mean, it was already falling apart because they wouldn't let me do anything, but getting here, building my business was the easiest thing ever. Yeah, he wouldn't, he wouldn't shut the fuck up. It just always, I got like I got I got 3 20-minute long, 10-minute long voice notes a day from this dude. I was blown away. This is a lot, but I listened to them all and, and Like he kept being like, you gotta get here. You gotta get here. I'm like, buddy, I am getting here. He was paranoid that I wasn't gonna do it. He thought I was just gonna, like, I was all talk and I was like, we're gonna move and then he gets down there and I'm like, no, I'm gonna stay here. Well, because I'm the kind of guy where like, I'm all about momentum. Like I don't think long term, like I'm gonna wait 6 months. Like that's forever. I might get with employees. Like I couldn't just, I couldn't leave. You're a trainer. I had to like train someone to take over my company.

Yeah, it was, yeah, this place is red. I really think it's the, the springs. I think it's the like, it's a, it's a feminine like spirit energy that comes out of the springs. Which produces that creativity in the air. I think that's where it comes from. The springs definitely play a part 100%, yeah, it's, yeah, it's again, I was talking earlier about, you know, you can look at things from a science or a spiritual way, and they're always intertwined. Um, the springs are actually, yeah, it's, it's the cenote here, and the cenotes were the powerful limestone karst water pools and, you know, Tulum and in the Yucatan Peninsula that the Mayans revered so much, and we have that here, and apparently what I know about the springs with indigenous cultures was that was the place they would actually, they were all able to gather the different tribes where there was no fighting. They could actually come to the spiritual spot that was a vortex like the watering hole that springs that springs. That's why do you think they built a pool around it and a gate because it's sacred ground. They built a temple there and you know the minerals in the water are super healthy. It stays at a certain temperature and the waterways, you know, it conducts energy and electricity. So every time I go to the springs and jump in that water, I feel baptized. So that was the gathering, you know, for this, this particular city.

And another interesting fact about Austin, it's on the same latitude line by like a, a tiny variance of a degree from Alexandria. And if you guys know anything about Alexandria, it was where it was, it was the mecca of knowledge and wisdom from the Persian Empire, from the Greeks, the Romans, and the ancient Egyptians, and they had the biggest library in history there that got sacked and destroyed, and we lost so much history, but it was a gathering of information. That was destroyed by empire and here we're recreating that now with modern information and modern technology bringing in the ancient knowledge as our empire is doing fucked up shit. So it's again like history doesn't repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes. So we're all brought here. I never thought I would come here. This was not in the plan, but I went through my own, own dark night of the soul, and when I was sleeping on the floor of my office, I got the phone call and I came out. And here I am as a surfer. I live in Austin. How long, how long ago was that? This is 3.5 years ago.

It's not like, yeah, pretty recent. You got here about the time we got here, yeah. And like you said, the, the current of synchronicities and connections and people, it's almost. It's not even ridiculous anymore. Um, we all have such a huge community of amazing people, and it's people I've known from other places that somehow know the connections between all the people here. It's ridiculous. Like, wait, how do you know so and so? Oh, we used to date in LA, or like we met in Bali and like we've been, you know, friends, and now you're here. Now how do you know? I met them tonight, but it seems like you know them and It's the plot lines are not normal. It's quite remarkable what's going on. The whole thing is a movie. The whole thing is a movie. There's a million movie plots happening every day, yeah, and it's not like that everywhere, you know. You go to other towns and sleepy towns, or I spend a lot of time in Florida and like. Jacksonville. Nothing happens there. There's like no energy. Yeah, I, I go to Scottsdale a lot, and I'm like everything is so perfectly manicured and there's not a flower or plant out of place and it makes me wanna gouge my eyes out. It's I'm like, you put a cactus here that's like a little out of place and like a leaf falling off or like don't have the streets be perfect and I don't know. You know, there's something for everybody, right? If you love that purely perfectly manicured city, by all means great, but like I can't do that for more than a day or two.

Yeah, cool to like check out and then get out of there, to live in that. It'd be like, I gotta get out of here. It's like a resort. It's like a weird resort. Yeah, it's like if you were too clean all the time. It's like when a dog, when you clean a dog and they're like, I hate this, and they go rolling. Yeah, that's how I feel after I leave Scottsdale. I need to roll in mud. I gotta pee on something. Let's roll in the weirdness. That is Austin. Yeah, and I dabbled a little bit with astrocartography and um uh my I have a very strong line that comes through here which is an external it's like here I'm able to make things happen and then Bali is like an internal one like all the the growth comes internally. I didn't go deep, but living so many places in my life like. There's certain locations that just spread their legs for you and you just show up and synchronicities happen. You meet the right people. There's an abundance of wealth coming in from like unexpected places, and there's some places where you just, you wake up, you're just not motivated. You're just, you don't feel good. You don't, you're not tapped into your highest potential, and, um, it's really beautiful and remarkable that at this time and place, so many people are coming here with that same flavor.

And I bet people listening to this are like, dude, these guys won't ever shut the fuck up about Austin. And it's always, always there talking about it when I was like, look, I was in Seattle till I was fucking 35 and I, I was always, I couldn't quite figure out where to go or to leave or I'd always be afraid like maybe I'm just running from something. I'll get there and I'll develop a life and I'll realize it's not. No, I realized if you fucking don't like your city, now, I'm not just saying like, it's OK. Like, if you don't fucking like it, like, it's not awesome. Like, you gotta fucking leave. It's like you've been brainwashed. We're leaving Seattle when we came during the pandemic, we're like, Are we in a communist fucking dictatorship up there? Cause it was like, this is a completely different place. We were told that this is like dangerous down here and all this shit, and we're like, everyone's just chill and having fun. The most friendly, nice people, everything's open and you go back upstairs, you're like, You want a coffee. Where's your yellow card with your vaccine? You're like, What the fuck is happening? Yeah, show me your papers and put your mask on. Yeah, the tolerance level of acceptance in the city is something very, very special, especially being in Texas, which has got a reputation for other things, you know. So yeah, it's, we're all here rolling in this shit together, and it's, it's fucking beautiful. Yeah, well, I'm pumped to.

I wanna watch all those movies, right? Um, yeah, when, when do these come out for people to keep their eyes peeled? Yeah, um, the peeking, they wanna get that done for South by Southwest Astro Gunslinger. I am, this is a unique occasion where I'm, I'm actually locked in the editing room working on this thing, so I wanna get as much of it done as I can. So when I go back to Bali, I can focus on that. But you know, good things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day. I'd like to get that done in the next few months. That'll be on YouTube. I will definitely be posting short form content and blasting it out once that gets going. And the becoming is a 4 year project that is something that it's in its early stages of development, but we see, we see that something substantial like this is gonna take a few years, and we're really taking our time with the foundation, building these systems, learning cloud. Cloud's integrated with editing systems now that like it feels like I have a team of people working for me now instead of being a lone wolf and having to do everything. And the, the editing process is accelerated now and it's scary and overwhelming, but that's where the growth is, you know, this potential to become way bigger than I've ever been to, you know, as technologies advance and change to stay on top of that and to keep adapting.

It's cool, it's cool that 4 years, you're gonna go have all these wild experiences. Track this story while in order to produce it, you got to develop all these AI tools over 4 years, which who the fuck knows where that'll all be. And you will come out of that just like. Yeah, like advanced in tech and AI, but also in human beings. Yeah, it's beautiful. And so to watch that, you're like, oh, that's, there's no way that can't be a rich film, like richly deep. You can't do for like and do as much work as you're doing, and I think it's smart that you're a part of it, right? That's that like really pulls us in. Yeah, as a storyteller, I've been asked to like, hey, you need to get in front of the camera. You need to share your story and storylines, and I'm open to it and like I'm excited for that, that aspect of it to be a, a participant in the, the storyline itself, and, um, yeah, it just feels like, um. The beautiful thing is, is I was looking at my path to make, you know, the bigger films, these sci-fi movies that I've had, and I've been writing since I was a kid, you know, and learning all these systems and going out and filming these things is actually the, the, the road that'll lead to the bigger films, whereas that road was kind of nebulous before, there's so many different ways to do things now as technology changes, but you know you.

As an artist, nothing can take the place of action. The most important thing is you can have all the inspiration you want. Was it 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration, taking action, you know, and that is where I'm at now. It's like. This the edit for the Astral Gun Singer is one of the biggest edits I've ever done, and it's a lot of moving parts, and it's overwhelming at times, but I'm excited when I'm in front of it and I'm watching it, and I, what I want to bring to people ultimately when you put something on film or, you know, you, you put something out there, it's the emotions you want to evoke, and it's the if people are gonna pay to spend 2 hours of their life to view something, you want it to be substantial, and that's those 2 hours are created over 20 years or 2 years or whatever it is. Um, so it's like casting a spell, you put all these ingredients together and there's a certain type of energy, things that you thought were gonna work out just don't, and things that you never expected are gonna come, and then the merging of all those together. I'm putting it out there, future time stamp that we all need to make some kind of documentary together.

Yes, and we got plenty of time, but I was like, I just want to put that some time out there. I think we would fucking come up with something, and we'll be pretty free to do whatever and we'll do whatever. I'm also very grateful that you're gonna be in front of the camera for this, for this film, because you're obviously extremely talented behind the camera, but now getting to talk to you, hearing you tell stories, I see how richly talented and profound. You are with your voice and so you being in front of the camera, I think is an equal gift to being able to curate from behind it. So I'm really excited to see this film or this project that you put forth? Like, will you post as you're going through the process of filming so people can follow you or you kind of just keep it? Yeah, I've thought about that. Um, I think you should just at least one, maybe everything that you kind of film and take pictures of, just do one edited reels a week, just as like to kind of gently pull us along. So it just you're building over the, I mean, that's 4 years, like, say it's 4 years, you're getting like, we're really invested. I mean they like people love following founders if they start and they're the struggle and yeah, people eat that up and so like that would like.

Then I haven't forgot about it for 4 years. Like, oh, my movies coming out. You're like, no, I'm like he's because it's only a teaser each week. It's like everything that you filmed and edited, you just create like a quick, I don't know, 60 seconds, you just post it, and it's, since it's only once a week, then it's, you're like, oh, I wanna watch, it's like an episode. You're like, it's very interesting. It's not just overly produced, just I'm filming this, I'm in the bathroom. I like at a yoga thing and da da da da. It's like. You know, and I'm sure with AI you can compile something really fucking cool. Yeah, I love that, um, because, you know, every time you sit down with people to talk or if you're on a podcast, there's always some sort of unexpected gem or pearl that comes out of it, and the consideration to share my journey hasn't really been there. I was in Bali for a month. I didn't take a single photo. Most people, I, which I wouldn't either. You're like, I wanna be here. Most people didn't even know I was even there, but like going into it this time, it's like, well, let me tell people like I'm gonna be here half the year and I'm developing something really exciting and to show that, like, thank you for that invitation to share the process of it, um, because sometimes, you know, you make a film for an audience, sometimes you create like a product, sometimes, well, I got this idea for a product. Let me create the, the fans, the fans. Let me create the audience first before you put it out. Now because of social media we have that power.

So that's um, I will, it's a great invitation. I didn't, I wasn't considering that, but now that you mentioned, I go, I see that as being very fruitful. I always, it's one of those things where like, damn, I should have maybe did something the last 4 years to just bring people along. Yeah, how I always think about stuff like, yeah, fuck, OK, I gotta do at least something. Yeah, yeah, well I'm excited and you know the juxtaposition between like where am I doing something to aggrandize my ego and be seen and where am I actually putting quality stories and inspiration out there like instead of, you know, social media can be, oh look at me, look at me, which we all get caught in especially. You know, when you're a single man or whatever it is or a girl who's posting their straps, but the idea is come with me instead of look at me, it's come with me. Like I'm actually doing really cool things and like this, I should share that, you know, and then you build this interest and this intrigue and this audience so that when the big thing comes out they've seen the process and it's an interesting if you're only posting once a week and you've been filming and doing all this shit to try to compile a 1 to 3 minute reels or TikTok.

How and if you're following, like there's no way you can't be so rich of substance and creative and slightly interesting and maybe hinting it like you don't really know. Like that's a new kind of format of creating that high quality of just one reel, right? That's and then you have what, 4 years, you got fucking over like 200 of them and you'd be really good at those. Yeah, no, and it's, I love doing them, you know, there's several journeys and adventures that I've had that I haven't been able to edit because I'm constantly. Editing and doing stuff for other people, you know, most recently is this trip I went to Egypt, which was like a life bucket list item, and I shot some amazing stuff, and I knew the song in my head while I was there filming and I just haven't gotten around to it, but I was thinking like maybe on the flight to Bali I can like because it, you know, when you film a lot of stuff it's like carrying. You know, like karma with you, and if you don't put it out there, it kind of weighs on you, you know, like unfulfilled projects, whatever you may be doing, you know, or tasks or fucking yard work, like it's just growing and you haven't mowed the lawn yet, you know, it weighs on you. So I think that's the impetus here. Your invitation is like, no, get that stuff out, get that stuff out, get it out, and, um, you know, the such a huge blessing that, um, I am able to do what I love.

And to watch the world change to benefit that, you know, before it was like I was shooting on videotapes and like, you know, someone may see their. Wedding or you'd have to get it to a TV studio or a a film company and then I was on MySpace and then I saw YouTube and it was like wait a second actually now anyone can broadcast anything so we all have stories to tell and then we've seen influencers and people take that and have changed governments, you know, because of their, their influence so it's, it's a powerful thing and um. I believe the world needs good stories and um like we're here to tell them. Oh yeah well this is dope. I'm so glad we got to connect with him before he took off. Yeah, so grateful, man. How do people find and prepare for your upcoming works and also find your past works? Yeah, the best thing to do is to eat 7 g of cubs. And then when you're in the actual space just call upon the shamanic samurai and he'll come and help you out.

Yeah, perfect. He'll bring you his DVD library. Yeah, the DVD library in the back of my trunk. Um, yeah, the easiest way is Instagram, and that is, um, at shamanic_samurai. And then, um, you know, if you're in Bali or if you're in Austin and you know the story has touched you or we're looking for allies, all of us are, you know, there's a point in time where we've all been lone wolfing it and there becomes a time where, you know, if you go alone they say you go faster, but if you go together you go much farther and, um, you just connecting with you guys on this podcast like you said, there's a documentary in the works. I'm sure there's, there is, yeah, it's stewing up there it's stewing, yeah, yeah. Let's make the stew full of beautiful ingredients, healthy and tasteful. Well, blessings on your trip, brother. Keep us updated. I wanna like know what's going on. I'm sure you'll pop back in with you. I'm sure you'll pop back into Austin every once in a while to, like, you know, do some stuff and then go back out, right? Yeah, come back and like sort of put my toe in the water and then get pushed in the Martin Springs. That's just how it's been. This place is a vortex.

Be careful. Yeah, it's a big magnet. Well, thank you, brother. It's been honestly a, a pleasure, and I'm really glad we get to know each other. Yeah, this is amazing. Yeah. Cheers, cheers.