A Heady, Heavy, Heavenly Share & Tell with Wyatt Cenac and Domonique Foxworth

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

We're all a bunch of bunnies.

Yeah.

And it's okay to be a bunny.

It's nothing wrong.

Dominique, it's okay to be a bunny.

Give me your hand.

It's okay.

Say it with me.

We're bunnies.

I'm a wolf.

Right after this ad.

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Remember Snarf?

See, I didn't grow up on Power Rangers.

I grew up on Thundercats.

Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats.

Remember Panthera?

The female one?

No.

Panthara's the black one, obviously.

Who am I thinking about?

Panth

no, Pantera's a band.

I think that's it.

Lionel.

Lionel.

Yeah, Panther, Panther.

What's the black one, right?

Skeleton.

Panthro?

No, it's Panther.

Panther.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

There he is.

Look at him.

Yeah, I mean.

Look at him black.

Look at him.

Look at him black.

That's the grayest black dude.

I mean.

Who voiced him?

Was it a black person?

It had to be.

Great question.

Look at that.

Look at him black.

They made him bald.

Okay, let's.

Earl Hyman.

Oh, Earl.

Hyman.

Hyman's a little bit of an Earl, though.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Nailed it.

You mean I have to fight you, Panthro?

Yes.

I can't.

And I won't.

You must, Lionel.

It's the code of the Thundercats.

Fight.

How would you describe what Panthera looks like, Shabbati?

Um.

I mean, I always knew him to be the black one, so it seems like

it's like what white people imagine a black person would look like if he was a cat.

Is why gonna show up at some point?

Who?

I mean, this is all your fault.

As we've established.

Dominique has blamed me, habitual person who was late for

having a name's on the show.

You invited us, and you have established a culture of apathy and time relativity.

So, like, I cannot hold anyone who is tardy to a Pablo Torre event.

A Pablo Torre party?

Yeah.

Any Pablo Torres party.

Oh, yeah.

It's a Torres party.

Yeah.

Any Torres party.

I know that because you've set that culture.

Like, your staff believes this.

Your friends believe this.

I know.

So, whoever was here on time or not, it is a result of Pablo's behavior.

Time is a construct, A.

But B, why it's an act.

Explain yourself.

I was on my way.

I voted.

I don't know if I could say that given when this will air.

As in whether democracy still exists by Philip Day?

I mean, yeah, that's

who knew that just a small election would upend everything.

That's right.

Yeah, I voted, and then I was on my way to the train, and I ran into a guy that I had worked with years ago and had not seen for years.

And so it was one of those rare things of wanting to be polite and say hello to someone that you haven't seen that you like and not be rude and say, oh, I haven't seen you.

I don't know what's happened to your life.

You know, we went through a pandemic and there's a strike and all this stuff.

I don't care about any of that.

I got to hop on the choo-choo so that I can f ⁇ around with my two pals on microphones.

That's right.

While we also help sell ball products.

By the way, our bathroom is full of those ball products.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I was told I had to use three before I could walk into the studio.

It does smell like you've used at least three.

Yeah, I don't, I was like, I'm I took a shower, and they were like, No, it's just a part of the thing is everybody has to use.

If you, if you were sponsored by like a mattress, they would make me take a nap before I walked in.

Bleep that out.

Did they pay for that?

No.

Anyway, I mean, this is how you get mattress to pay for it.

You bleep that again?

Bleep it again.

Bleep what?

Mattress or

that one.

Yeah.

Mattress?

Mattress?

Apostropeda.

Slew slumber.

Yeah.

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All right, so I've summoned you both of you to this episode of Share and Tell.

A special in-person episode of Share and Tell.

Yes, my lord.

You summoned us.

My liege.

My liege.

The topic I want to start with is about God.

And both of your faces indicate that you cannot wait to hear me pontificate

about

my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, which I say tongue-in-cheekly, but also literally

say with the credibility of somebody who has completed all seven sacraments in the Catholic Church.

baptism through, by the way, got married in the church.

I was at that wedding.

Yeah.

Yep.

You were kneeling in a pew um shout out to uh churches everywhere to churches everywhere because the article i was reading which is an esquire dominique and we didn't know each other dominique and i that well back then oh wow i kind of made it um very good um it's titled god magic mushrooms and me and the log line is simple um but complicated there's a growing movement among religious leaders to use psychedelics like psilocybin to deepen their faith the author attended a secret ceremony to find out whether it works that's my favorite jim henson song.

God, magic, mushrooms, and me.

Jim Henson, proud terp.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Just the legacy of puppetry, I didn't realize it was so strong to the University of Maryland.

That article,

it made me think about how church and religion, which I have become

a buffet Catholic about,

could actually become more meaningful for me in the present tense.

haven't gone to church a lot in the last two years, but I just went on Sunday, not because I wanted to make it into content, although, of course, Dominique suspects that.

Um, it's because I was

long story short,

it was my anniversary, wedding anniversary, um,

seventh anniversary, and I went to church with Liz to just sort of do the thing that I like to do sometimes, which is

examine the thing that is bigger than ourselves and reflect on where we've come in life.

As you walk into the church, the two of you hand in hand and just point at people and say, we got married here.

We got married right here.

This happened right here, seven years ago.

You're welcome.

All right.

Go on with your cataclysms.

Catechisms that have felt cataclysmic as the church has been atrophying, as it's been eroding because it's not appealing to a lot of people who otherwise might actually have that same instinct of like, I want to be a part of something that feels like it's speaking to me from a place that I can't understand.

And Dominique.

I'm sorry.

No, I was going to ask you actually.

Like,

you're the churchiest of all of us.

Am I?

Yeah, I mean, I go to church regularly.

My wife is Catholic.

We got married in Catholic church also, and the kids are doing all the Catholic things.

I think that...

First of all, it's hilarious that you want to make this about church when it's really just about drugs, just like everything else in your life.

Is like, let me find a way to help out drugs.

Like, I went back to church.

No, you saw an article that said they're giving out drugs at church.

And you're like, hey, where's the nearest church?

Let me get some of them drugs.

The article is about how some priests have been experimenting with giving, with dosing

aspiring priests with magic mushrooms.

So, I mean, I think those things are connected in some way.

And what church is, for me, at least, it wasn't something that I felt like I needed or something that I wanted to go to.

And it's not about believing, being a true believer in religion, as much as it's about

a necessary thing for most people that we don't do.

It's like a time to reflect, time to assess, a time to look back, a time to look forward and kind of reset yourself.

And I think that's what I've come to see as useful for church.

So like when you go to a Catholic church, as I do with my family, I mean, two, three times a month, most of the time, we get up in there unless they're a little too sleepy.

But when you go there,

they do readings, they do songs, and then you do like the communion stuff.

I step to the side when they do communion.

I don't go take the little snack, the little sip.

I'm not down with that.

But whether all the stuff is factual that I believe or not, it really doesn't matter to me as much as it's the principles that you hear from just about every religion are consistent.

And they're principles that I think it's important for us to reflect on sometimes and think about.

And rarely do I go back at any point through my week, do I think back, like, hey, what happened last week that I'm proud of?

What am I ashamed of?

What can I work on?

What am I going to focus on next week?

And I think church is like a helpful thing.

If I could just routinely condition myself to do it without church, then I'm not sure that I need to do it in church.

But being in church, it's someone who's talking to you.

And it's not like I'm in there thinking, you know what, God is watching me all the time.

No, these are things that are important to me.

And sometimes they say things about current issues that I don't, that don't rest

with me.

And then sometimes they say things that, but it's just a, a

spark in my mind.

And it's the same thing where I think some people need some help to get to a place

to think about these things.

And that's where the psychedelics come into it.

Yeah.

So why?

Like for me, I should be clear.

Like my experience at Mass on Sunday was.

Not on psychedelics.

Not on psychedelics.

But I was thinking the whole time about how this could help.

Because what I want out of Mass, which I tasted beyond the literal Eucharist, was the idea of, okay,

I want to feel

like,

gosh, I want to feel like there's something out there that I don't understand

that I can appeal to.

Because what I come to church with, of course, Dominique, are my fears.

I come to church with fear.

What I pray for is for the safety.

of my family, for things to go great.

I come to church from a place of

need.

And it's a place of need that is

by social custom.

I'm not going to involve my cell phone.

That's a huge part of the presence of

the experience.

But also, like, that's also what I turn to psychedelics for sometimes is I want to feel like there's something out there that is bigger than me that I can't explain, but that hints that even if I don't understand it,

there's a reassurance.

in in the vastness of it.

I know it's Wyatt's turn, but I'm a fan of this Godforsaken show.

So I do know that you tested very high on the narcissist scale.

And I also recognize that when I listen to you, I hear it.

Like, did you not understand?

You didn't hear the difference in me saying, I'm going to church to reflect on the way that I can be a better human and be reminded about the principles that I find important to me.

And you like, I go to church because I want correct.

Tell God, wash my back and give me money.

Yeah.

And drugs.

I was there to tell God that

I'm still here with my hat in hand, hoping for the the collection plate to pass my way?

I'm sorry.

You're networking with God.

I'm trying to book God as a guest on this path.

That's the most, the most popular thing I've ever heard.

That hurts.

It hurts.

I'm trying to get court side seats with Jesus.

I need to reflect on that.

Yeah.

Jesus, is it cool if I post this on Instagram?

But okay, but that, that, that, that, oh, gosh.

That I would never do.

I would only talk about it on a podcast.

I would never provide a photograph to play on the DraftKings network and or YouTube.

But why?

I don't want to box you out with my narcissism.

I don't know.

What does this story feel like to you?

I'll be honest.

As the table heathen,

there's a part of me that I don't have the same relationship to religion that you all have.

I went to Catholic high school, and that was maybe where my sort of relationship with Catholicism began and ended.

There was religion, like I grew up and we went to church and stuff like that.

And once I got out of the house, I was kind of like, eh, it's not really for me.

But

to me, the interesting thing about that story, well, there were two interesting things.

One

was

for everyone who was going through the experience in this story was just how much everyone had to take a shit

and

whatever their desire was for this drug to get closer the mushrooms the mushrooms to and some and some sassafras

whatever their whatever whatever the desire was to get closer to

their sense of faith or to

God

as a being or to their understanding

To me, there was something that was just inherently funny with the idea that it ended with a what sounds like horrible sh

one person had diarrhea and had to go to sleep.

Like, that's, do you understand how serious of diarrhea it is

when you say, I had diarrhea and then I had to go lay down on drugs?

Like, that's this, this wrecked me physically, physically where I need a nap.

It does feel like a religious experience in and of itself.

The other thing that I feel like was the big takeaway for me was

I feel like we,

all of us as human beings,

to your point of that, that thing of fear, we all fear the uncertain and

we're all scared of uncertainty and we all look for different ways to

either make sense of the uncertainty, find some sort of calm in the uncertainty, or find an answer.

And the answer may not be the right answer, but it's just the right answer for right now.

And

I don't know.

For some people, that's religion.

For some people, that's alcohol.

For some people, that's drugs.

For some people, that's witchcraft.

Witchcraft.

Literally, articles also recently about the rise in witchcraft.

Yeah.

For some people, it's CrossFit.

It just runs the gamut of things.

And

I don't know.

Sometimes where I wonder is

in that search

for some certainty,

is that

are we just sort of blinding ourselves from dealing with the fact that, yeah,

being a human being or being any living creature is f ⁇ ing scary as hell.

And

maybe you just got to live in the scariness.

My experience in church is more like therapy than it is anything else, where it's like a self-reflection.

And it's not like, I don't have answers.

I'm not searching.

Like, it feels like Pablo is searching for

some relief and like some trust and like to be able to relax.

Like, I don't feel like I need that as much as it's like I get an opportunity to.

be introspective in a way that I wouldn't on my own because I don't go to therapy.

Maybe I should.

I don't know.

But I was going to say, I think therapy offers the same sort of thing.

I think that introspection is

you trying to make sense of an uncertain world, an uncertain world that, you know, there are the larger sort of global things, but also just the little day-to-day things of, you know, just being a human being.

That, like, yeah, a tree could fall in your backyard, and then it's like, well, now I got to deal with this.

So, yeah, it's okay.

You can be scared, Dominique.

It's okay.

I can't.

It's okay.

You can be a scared human being.

I feel the masculinity coming off of me.

There's no fear here.

You know, fight.

It's a fight-or-flight response.

I'm not quiet.

And Dominique's hands are clenched.

It's a fight-or-flight response.

And here's the thing that people don't talk about.

Fight is still coming from a place of fear.

No.

They both are.

They're both operating out of fear.

Me football man.

There's me no fear.

I need a shirt that says me football man.

Me no fear.

I have one.

But I do think that religion, God, has had a marketing problem.

And that's why I was drawn to the psychedelics thing, because the people who are into like, oh, I want to feel stoned and wacky, I think what you realize when you actually like do maybe sincerely, too sincerely, try psychedelics is the idea that I'm actually

seeing the world in a different way.

And it enables you to imagine things that your rational brain does not permit.

And so this story about people

prolifically and then seeing things that remind them of a religious experience and make them closer to God.

What that did was remind me, like, yeah, going to church stoned, going to church on mushrooms, I think that would get to closer to what Dominique is saying than I think it might sound at first blush with a title like God matching mushrooms in me.

I think it's actually about what if I was standing in a room engaging with something that I'm now seeing in a different way that does make me feel both smaller and larger at the same same time.

I mean,

drugs are

a performance enhancer, like to borrow from sports terms.

Like I think doing just about anything on mushrooms is going to be a lot more intense.

The idea that they need it for a religious experience is unusual and odd to me.

I don't mean it as a judgment to say that it doesn't work, but it just sounds like a bunch of people who want to get high.

Like getting high while

reading religious texts is the same, probably

the same as getting high while listening to really incredible music.

It's like you probably feel closer to God.

Great sales pitch.

I don't think that

I guess these things are separate to me.

I read the article and it talked about how throughout history there's a bunch of different times where people, through Christianity and many other religions, where you incorporate drugs into the religious experience.

Yes, there's artwork that reflects as much.

Like I mentioned.

It's an enhancement to anything that you are doing or an additive.

Maybe it doesn't enhance the experience.

It might make it worse.

But church is no different from taking a nap, going to a concert, participating in CrossFit, watching a movie, listening to music, having sex, anything that you do while on drugs, the experience is going to be slightly different.

The idea that they're tying...

You can't do any of those things while at church.

Oh, that'd be pretty impressive.

Probably pretty fun.

But yeah, I don't know.

To me, the connection with the psychedelics doesn't.

mean that you are any closer to God.

And I guess also like, do you believe in God?

So like, right, me going to church, I think would imply that like I am a full believer.

Like I don't think much about it.

Like I don't consider myself a believer.

Like I don't think that there's like a God watching over us and he's going to decide where they go heaven or hell, but that doesn't cross my mind at all.

I don't feel like I don't belong because of it.

And I don't feel like I have to like.

profess uh everlasting lasting faith even though they will say that you do literally yeah like it's it's part of this experience the same way like you mentioned crossfit like i can go to CrossFit and go do all the exercises, but you know what?

I don't want to do no deadlifts.

That'll mean everything else in here ain't for me, you know, and it doesn't mean that there's nothing else to put on knee-high socks and drag a tire around in knee-high socks.

Yeah.

And to your point about their marketing problem, I think molesting children is probably a real big issue.

So

that is a major thing we should discuss at the marketing meeting for the Catholic Church.

That's why, by the way, Liz, my wife, opted out of the church entirely because of that, only to come back later because of the larger picture things things we're talking about.

But here's, but here's also something, as you both have said, the church has a marketing problem,

or as you said, God has a marketing problem.

But

is this a business God even wanted to run?

Like, there's an aspect of this where people are talking about, oh, I want to get closer to God.

I want to, I, you know, like, whether it's taking a drug or if I go to church even more, like, I want to get closer to God.

Does God want to get closer to you?

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So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

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Please drink responsibly.

All right, I brought an article from The Cut by Catherine Jezzer Morton.

It's called Childhood Independence is a mental health issue.

So before you start, I just want to

give you credit for crediting the journalist.

Oh, yeah.

Which, you know, I'm not saying that Pablo didn't do it.

I mean, he never did it.

In a world where I was shamed for being late,

if this is.

Paul Kicks.

Shout out to you.

Two Squire Ryder.

Paul King.

Excellent.

Excellent intentional leader.

Leader of

Tybo.

Jim's everywhere.

Paul Kicks.

God.

No, no one likes my bad joke.

Anyway, it was a story with a guy named Priest and a guy named Kicks.

Yeah, it works.

I I like it.

Thank you.

Approved by the comedian.

All right.

So this article is about generally a helicopter parenting style that has proliferated America specifically and how it impacts the mental health of kids.

And I think we all recognize that.

As years have gone on, we've gotten a little bit more fearful and protective of our children.

I imagine that we all had more freedom growing up than we give to our children.

Wyatt doesn't have any children.

Because I gave them freedom.

But

to Dominique's point, this is what...

From their birth, I said,

You are free.

Wyatt is...

You're only going to fly, little bird, without me in the picture.

Wyatt is free of the neuroses that I prayed about at church, Dominique.

This is the fear in large part that I was referring to as well.

So, yeah, I mean, the article suggests that the kids, even if you like, take your kids to the park and let them play with other kids, the fact that you are there is like having a negative impact on their mental health, not allowing them to explore and build confidence and develop things on their own and challenge themselves.

And I do remember being young and 10, 12 years old, and I'd go get on my bike and leave.

And then I'd come back later.

And like my mom knew the general, like I was going to the basketball court.

I was going to my friend's Justin's house and I was going to Highs to buy

fruit drinks and snacks if I had money.

We definitely would do very risky things

on occasion.

Like young boys, we would build ramps to jump our bikes off of.

We would

ride ridiculously fast on the wrong side of major roads.

We do all these sort of stupid things that I are back in my mind whenever I want to let my kids roam free.

And I do have to contend with like raising kids with my wife and that she is a little bit more concerned about these things than I am.

So we're at a point now where we let our oldest daughter go to like the farmer's market by herself in Quebec.

She's 12 now.

And I've been with her.

What is she getting at the farmer's market?

Well, they have lots of things there.

Okay.

Brownies and whatnot.

I mean, crepes.

I don't care.

It's like

a break.

I mean, that's just a different thing.

As a 12-year-old, I didn't know what a crepe was.

Yeah.

Girls are different, man.

But also, I think kids today are different.

Yeah, I got rich kids.

It's frustrating.

Farmers, market-eating ass kids.

Yeah, they do.

They do.

But yeah, I don't know.

I think it's the balance of

when you're making decisions for a society, I think you weigh the overarching pros and cons and you recognize.

And like, you could go back to like COVID where we're like, all right.

In order to save lives, we all need to be locked down and get shots.

There are some people who are like, well, a couple people are going to die.

And I think about that in this conversation also is like, yes.

The trade-offs.

Yeah.

It's not incredibly dangerous to let your kids go out and do certain things based on like statistics.

How often is something going to happen to them?

Statistically, you're more a danger to your kids than

the world.

But also, as this article points out, that if you coop up your kids in a room with you for that long, the kids become dangers to themselves.

Like self-harm becomes statistically

a concern.

But it's, and again, to be the sports person, to tie in all the weird sports analogies, is it feels a lot like

you wanting like a general manager doing the thing that will most protect his job and not make him embarrassed.

So like in the idea that there is a quarterback out there that everyone thinks is good, but you think he's not, you still have to draft him because if he turns out to be good, you're going to get fired.

And the same conversation is here.

It's like, all right, there's really slim chance that something's going to happen like something horrible will happen to your child if you give them some more freedom but what if it does it's something that you cannot live with and you can't imagine and you'd much rather um create this other problem that will not be attributed to you like no one's going to come back 20 years from now and like man sure should have let them go to the farmer's market more often that's why they're mentally uh depressed and it's it's that's the decision that's going through your mind whether it's that um overt or not you're You're thinking about it.

Well, and it feels like the thing reading that article, so much of that fear feels like it is the outside perception of you as a parent, that if you did give your kid a certain amount of freedom and something terrible happened, that from the outside, all of those other parents will look at you.

as somehow morally or some kind of, you're corrupt in some way.

Nothing even has to happen.

It's what the article suggests.

It's like you don't have to give them freedom and something happen.

If you give them a certain amount of freedom, the article suggests that there is an embarrassment that comes with you being like a lazy, laissez-faire parent.

And even if nothing's happened, they're like,

you let your seven-year-old go to the playground by themselves?

Well, that's so, I did not appreciate this until we had Violet, who is now three and a half.

The insecurities.

We have every bodega to go to by herself.

Have either of you ever watched that netflix show uh old enough no

it's the i feel like i would be curious if you were to watch it and oh this is about the kids who like get to wander around town they take like three-year-olds and they just follow them around with a camera crew but the camera crew is kind of far away and the whole idea is uh they give the kid a mission and it's like you need to go to the bodega and get that sounds incredible

get some oranges i'll be watching that it sounds like an ethically compromised reality television show.

Aren't they all?

Well,

I don't think they, there's no way.

I feel like when it came out, the thing that people said was, there's no way you could do this in the United States.

It's a Japanese reality program.

And yeah, the whole thing is like, you just watch these kids and they're tiny.

And there's a certain aspect of them where they seem very excited to go and do this thing.

Oh, Violet would love this shit.

But then are immediately kind of terrified of, like, well,

I don't actually know where the store is.

And the reality in watching it, and

I don't know if this is the idea, is

you're showing, I don't know how much of this is you're showing parents.

Look, if you send a three-year-old out and they're just wandering by themselves, there are enough strangers who they can go to and say, like, store and then someone will be like, oh, yeah.

And they're like, why are you by yourself?

And they're like, I'm making a reality show.

But I feel like the parental instinct, Dominique, is that

a three-year-old encountering a stranger is the actual nightmare.

It's like you don't want them to wind up in a van now

because you've encountered this stranger.

And so for me, what I underrated before having Violet was the insecurity of

how.

You're supposed to parent your kids as judged by every other parent.

There is a great vulnerability, I think, think, because no parent, if they're being honest with themselves, actually knows like how to do this the right way.

Parents love a forum.

Parents love commiserating at a playground at any event.

Parents love, to this article's point,

they love

almost performatively, exasperatingly proclaiming how tired.

they are and how hard everything is.

And all of this just adds to this notion of

we are supposed to be stressed out helicopter parents who are worried all of the time.

Yeah.

I think back to like me growing up and I don't imagine, I have a hard time imagining how my parents did it.

And I think part of it is because they did it differently

with me and my brother.

And I will say that I think what I've come to understand and accept, and it allows me to sleep, rest a little easier, is I don't have as much influence as I think I do,

positively or negatively.

Like the kids are kind of who they are.

And the best thing you can do is stay out of the way and try to keep them safe.

But one thing that I've also like just learned in general in life, and this really helped the kids help illuminate this to me is people don't learn from being told things.

People learn from experience, no matter how old or young they are.

It's a rare skill, a rare skill to have someone tell you something from their experience and you actually have that impact the way that you go about your life.

And so I realize with my kids, I tell them things often and

I do expect it to resonate, but I am lenient with them

when they touch the stove, when I told them not to touch the stove, because I recognize that that's how they are going to learn.

And as stressful, as scary as it is, just try to keep them alive.

Make sure whatever damage they do between now and the time when their brains are fully developed, that it is not debilitating.

But also to your point, there's

you telling them the thing,

it's not preventative.

It's on the back end of it.

It's if you you're telling them, oh, don't touch the stove.

It's hot.

Yeah, they're still going to touch it.

And when it's hot, that's when they are like, oh, right.

It's, he said it's going to be hot.

I understand it.

Versus if you told them nothing and they touched it, they might think,

ah, that was hot.

Is it always hot?

Is it like they like, you're just giving them, like, you're, you're basically giving them information for when they experience it

to learn.

Well, you're letting life tell them on your behalf as a parent, I told you so.

The problem is that

I would like that to be some goodwill in the bank.

It's like, I'd have told you 400 things in a row that's been proven right or 401.

Just take my word for it.

Right.

Remember, I told you the stove was hot.

It was hot.

Remember that?

Yeah.

Remember, I said, wear a jacket.

It's going to be 30 degrees today.

And you said, I don't need no jacket.

And you were freezing cold.

Remember that?

So next time when I tell you to do some, do that shit.

I love Dominique wearing his tie, sleeves rolled up in front of a PowerPoint presentation of the 401 things he was right about in front of his three kids.

Credibility, man.

I feel like we got to get a little bit lighter today.

It's been very heavy.

I feel like...

Not for me.

Not for me, the childless non-church goer.

It's been fine.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I will sleep well tonight.

What are you bringing to us, though, Wyatt, today?

So today I read this article by

Jamie Green of the New York Times.

It was, the headline is, Befouling the Final Frontier.

As humanity rushes back to space, we seem to be repeating some of the mistakes we've made on Earth.

And

I found this to be an interesting article because they're talking about how

there are so many companies now, Deloitte being one of them, which I didn't realize Deloitte is in the space game.

Right, the accounting firm.

Yeah.

But they're talking about how all these businesses have been launching satellites into outer space for business reasons, and they view it as this kind of open landscape where, you know, investment opportunities are as endless as space itself.

But the danger and the fear is that we've launched all these satellites with no regard for the future consequences.

And we're already seeing bits of it where, you know, some satellites have collided and there, and so there is this great fear that

we're doing to outer space what we've done to the ocean, which is one day there will just be a garbage patch in space and we as humans are the fish eating that garbage.

And

so I

don't know.

To me,

it feels like, it does feel a lot like the ocean.

It's like, yeah, we polluted the sh ⁇ of of the ocean in our desire to kind of like

move faster and expand our horizons and expand our

bank accounts as businesses and countries.

And we're just kind of transferring that to outer space.

And

we're just penning ourselves in on two garbage islands.

I thought this was supposed to be lighter.

Yeah.

So much lighter.

The Frontier analogy,

as it's pointed out in the piece,

suggests something that I don't think is meant by the people who present the frontier analogy and that any other frontier that we've had in American history, or forget American history, in history, we've befouled it.

And I guess we should just be fortunate that there, at least we haven't found any aliens to

kill or enslave, which is like traditionally what happens when you move into a new frontier at the pursuit of profits.

Yeah, we convert them to our religion.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a scary thought, I think, going forward, because to me, this piece is about capitalism.

Yeah.

And it's about the, to go back to the ocean analogy, it's about the water that we live in.

And the water that we live in is one that

excuses, not only excuses, but promotes the pursuit of financial gain at all costs.

Speak it, my brother.

The expectation is that we live in a balanced ecosystem and that it's okay to be 100% predator because the other parties in here are as

strong and to defend themselves.

But our ecosystem seems to have been fractured sometime around the early 80s, late 70s.

And from that point forward, the predators have gotten stronger.

And at one point, the predators were expected to be, or at least not the predators, the ecosystem felt more balanced.

It felt like the people, so to speak, had as much power to advocate for the environment, to advocate for public health, to advocate for workers' rights.

And now it feels like we've taken a lot of the protections away from the people.

So in this analogy, the predators being sharks, there's really no coral reef for us to hide under.

There's no friction.

There's no way for us to protect ourselves.

And it feels like we're hurtling to a place where it's going to be bad for all of us and it's nothing that we can do about it.

Well, but is it that or is it that?

And I agree with what you're saying, but is it that there are more predators or is it that the predators are less benevolent?

Because there's an argument to be made that, you know, the Dutch East India Trading Company wasn't like, you know, they weren't thinking about like how to be ethical to everyone.

They were just thinking, they were bringing it back in a way where they were saying,

well, well, for us and for even for the serfs in our world we like we'll take care of them a little better than we will take care of you know these brown people who we will happily exploit we were bringing it back home in a way where we're a little more benevolent where it feels like Today it is, you know, a lot of the billionaires saying, well, no, we can exploit black, we can exploit brown people.

You know, Elon Musk will happily say, like, okay, Tesla, we we can exploit every African country that we're going to mine cobalt and every other product we can, and we'll exploit that resource and exploit those people.

But also,

we can exploit those people at home in our factories.

And

we don't care what these people look like, whether they're brown, white, or in between.

I'm only looking out as Elon Musk for Elon Musk and my children who are named after math problems.

So that's why I use the ecosystem as an analogy, because it's not my expectation that the sharks will become benevolent.

The point that I was making was there was a time, or at least there felt like there was a time, where

the momentum of society was moving in a direction in that the protections and the power of

the proletariat was such that the ecosystem balanced itself.

And through America, at least, American dominance of the world combined with

lawmakers, decision making, and frankly, marketing, marketing to the idea that American exceptionalism is about hard work and bootstraps.

Like I think that has ripped the

protections.

And so I never have I, I mean, I've never in my life imagined a society where we can trust the wolves, but I would imagine a society where the rabbits had burrows to hide in, you know, and had protection and numbers.

And we, it feels as though we don't have that and we're, we're exporting that to space now that we've already exported it to every else, everywhere else on the planet.

Yeah.

Because we're the predators, right?

Like, I think, I think the idea here, the unifying theory of all of this is in the name of progress, we will do all sorts of shit that we will only think about later.

if at all.

And I think what I'm, it's the question of like, when I flush my toilet, where does the poop go?

Like, we never really think about it.

And of course, I'm not saying that we should abolish the sewage system.

I'm just saying that all of our waste

populatory finds out

abolish this, abolish the sewage system.

Got against Splinter.

You know what?

My great Asian American ambassador, Pastor Splinter, should be honored on this program if nowhere else.

But I believe that Splinter.

I thought Splinter was a New York City rat.

Splinter kind of seems like he's a racist doing yellowface.

I think Splinter was a New York City rat.

He was colonized by the ooze.

If you want to decolonize Master Splinter, that is a reboot that I'm here to discuss.

But I believe the question of like, okay, progress means that we can pollute everything because we're trying to,

you know, spread democracy or grow humanity's hopes for a multi-planetary existence.

What it does is it's very funny.

It leaves even the final frontier as like quotidian and as polluted and as familiar as any coral reef or inner city area or

Native American land.

That means black inner city.

That's right.

That's right.

Urban, urban communities.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on the shout out to Native Americans who've also suffered.

My bad.

But I think the point is, in all of these people who have been like stepped upon by progress,

we are turning like, I don't know,

our alien encounters into the same thing.

Where it's like, you know what it's going to be like?

It's going to be like seeing a bunch of trash just floating around.

Like literally, this article is about, we are releasing so many satellites into the air that they're going to bump into each other.

It's going to be harder to see.

the night sky and space.

Right.

They're already saying it's hard, like from the Hubble telescope, that it's harder

of the Starlink satellite system is making it harder for us to explore outer space.

And that, but why, that to me is like,

that is humanity in a nutshell.

We will take the most, again, vast and incomprehensible setting, seemingly unconquerable, and we will conquer it using our sh.

And it will become like everything else we have touched,

less magnificent in the name of progress.

But I also think, just thinking about two things that you, something that each of you said, which is

I think,

you know, you were saying, Pablo, that we're the predators.

And

on the one hand, I'd argue we are the bunnies.

We are bunnies who have been told we should be predators.

And it's easier to tell us to be predators because the actual predators are.

those business, those, those sort of hyper-capitalist business people who say, ravage it all for my own wealth.

And when I think about the role of government was

for such a long time, it was the bunnies putting safeguards against the predators.

And

by the predators then saying, no, no, you're a predator too, you're a predator too, it's much easier to say, hey, take these safeguards off.

We need to stop.

being fooled by predators into thinking we're predators.

We're all a bunch of bunnies.

Yeah.

And it's okay to be a bunny.

It's nothing wrong.

Dominique, it's okay to be a bunny.

Give me your hand.

It's okay.

Say it with me.

We're bunnies.

I'm a

wolf.

No, you're a football bunny.

I have an alpha wolf.

You're an alpha bunny.

Alpha bunny?

Alpha bunny.

Alpha bunnies.

The teenage mutant ninja turtles, we were talking about them.

They're fing turtles.

They're not predators.

Not at all.

They're turtles.

They're teenage turtles that should just eat pizza, pizza, and a rat should trust them to go out into the world and do whatever the f they want.

I've seen the most recent Niza Turtles movie, and the funny thing about it is a lot of

the inciting incident in that movie is that Master Splinter doesn't want to let his kids explore the world without him, and they end up doing it.

Yeah, he's a helicopter parent.

He's a helicopter dad because he doesn't trust the world because New York people are mean.

Master Splinter belongs to Facebook groups where he shames other parents.

Oh, 100%.

I don't realize he's a rat.

That's that's which is also the real indictment of Facebook is there are a bunch of like Park Slope parents who are like, this Splinter guy is really on to something.

Like, I agree 100% with what he says.

And then they're going to invite him to one of those Park Slope parent groups, and it's going to be at some like bar somewhere.

And this rat is going to walk in, and they're going to be like, what the f is this?

And they're going to be screaming and jumping on tables.

And he's like, no, no, it's me, Splinter.

Like, we were in the Facebook group together.

And they were like, never meet your heroes.

I like how they accept that he's named Splinter because some Parks Low parent also separately named their kid Splinter.

So at the end of the show,

we talk about what we found out today.

And I found out a lot.

I don't want to go first.

So

Dominique.

I found out that the Thundercats have a clothing line, and I need to cop me one of these fresh Panther varsity jackets that

Wyatt is clearly right.

Wyatt is wearing a varsity jacket.

Don't tell him, go to YouTube, watch it.

That's true.

Oh, yeah.

Look at that.

Oh, marketing.

That's salesmanship.

I was telling you not to explain it to the audio listeners.

Oh, you want your ass on you?

You excuse them.

Yeah, get your ass on the presence of an abstract Panther jacket.

Yeah.

And then maybe that inspires when they see it, and

either it inspires them to buy their own, or it inspires some

young capitalist out there to make Panthro clothing line.

There we go.

Until they then get sued by whoever owns the Thundercats.

But it's, you know, it's ask for forgiveness, not permission.

I own the Thundercats.

Oh, well, that's...

You should do more with them.

You should start the sweatshop.

Also, I just want to say, I always thought Tigra was kind of black, too.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I thought Panthro, Panthro was for sure black.

Yeah.

Tigra also was like, oh, yeah.

I could see Tigra.

Tigra didn't seem white to me.

Yeah.

So maybe Tiger

is brown.

I always saw Tigra as, yeah, Tigra.

They do spell it with a Y.

It's a very black spelling of Tigra.

Tigra.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

he never struck me as white.

Let's see.

Pablo looks him up.

White.

He looks up the voice actor.

Voice actor, Peter.

That's just the voice actor, but

I'm saying the energy and vibe of Tigra.

Sure, it wouldn't be the first time that Hollywood made a white person play someone if it was not.

This is like a Mickey Rooney situation.

This guy was breakfast at Tigris.

I learned that any religious experience that involves psychedelics

is

really going to jack up your toilet.

And

if you are like

a religious professional who is trying to convince other religious professionals that there is a value to psychedelics in the religious experience, and you invite them to your home, make sure you have enough toilets.

That, reading that article, that was the biggest thing.

If there was a run on toilets,

would they be prepared?

Because it seemed like there was one happening.

Were there just religious professionals out in the backyard just pooping?

Pooping and seeing God.

What I found out is that I'm going to have to approach how I go to mass very differently next time.

First, because I don't know if I'll be allowed back in after what Wyatt just said.

And number two, because when I confess my egocentrism, I now have this

test, which I regret mentioning on a previous episode of this podcast, that will absolutely be thrown in my face by my friend Dominique.

Sorry, Torres.

This has been Pablo Torre finds out, a Metalark media production.

And I'll talk to you next time.