EB 142: Our Solo Excursions

(upbeat music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Link. – And I’m Rhett. This week at the brown table of dim lighting we’re gonna be catching up with one another about some recent solo outings that we had, some solo weekends – Uh uh. – That we’ve been holdin onto these stories for – As we do. – For a number of days. – Oh yeah, so we’re gonna, I’m gonna share my experience of going out into a weird place in the California Badlands. – Badlands. – Out in the desert. With just me, I wasn’t alone cause I took Jade– – Oh, you did, didn’t know that. – I did not take any of my human companions, family members or friends. And then you’re gonna give me the story of you going to where? What badlands did you go into? – I went to the good lands. I went to the Central Coast of California. – So maybe there’s some contrast in our stories. – Yeah. – I think there may be. – I didn’t take my dog. – You didn’t? – My dog’s a little bit more of a handful. But anyway, we had some experiences there. We don’t know any details of what happened to on another, but we know the places that we went, the kinds of things that we did. I actually had to make myself notes of this one thing that happened to me because when it happened to me, it was so ridiculous I was like; I have to immediately write this down. So I wrote it down and now I just went back through what I wrote down and made notes for myself so I could give you the details of what happened to me. – Okay. – That’s the kinda thing we got in store. – Yeah, and just a teaser from me; I feel like there were more than one point when, did that sentence, that wasn’t grammatically correct. – Typically you’d say there was more than one point. – There were more than one point. – Points. – There were multiple points in my experience where I said out loud– – Ear Biscuits. – For no one to hear; what have I done? (laughing) I’m just gonna say that. – That’s a question that you ought to be asking yourself quite a bit. – Because. – It’s a sign of things, that you’re doin somethin right. – And we decided not to go on a trip together so we’d have something to talk about on this podcast. No, that’s not really the case. I mean, it’s so hard to have an opportunity, we never have an opportunity for solo excursions. – Yeah. – But because our plan, I’m gonna tell em, so what? – Our plan. – Our planned trip to go to India didn’t work out. Just full disclosure, we were going to travel to India and do a weeks worth of shows to wrap up the season of Good Mythical Morning. And the logistics didn’t work out. I mean, it just didn’t work out. You gotta get certain paperwork in a certain amount of time and it just didn’t come together. And we were very bummed, but that was gonna be a week and a half trip. – It wasn’t our fault though, I do wanna say that. – Yeah, it wasn’t our fault. – We basically– – It really wasn’t anybody’s fault. – We basically weren’t let in the country to do what we wanted to do. We didn’t get the visa that you need to go and make videos in India. – We didn’t get rejected, it just, we never heard back. – Right. – In the amount of time that we need it in order to do it. – ‘Cause we were trying to do it all in the right way as opposed to just goin over there and starting filming. – So we do still have a dream of going somewhere outside of the United States in order to produce– – Take the show on the road, you know? – Produce like a weeks worth of Good Mythical Morning. I mean, I did not anticipate how disappointed I was gonna feel when we knew that it wasn’t gonna happen. ‘Cause it was gonna be a big surprise for all the mythical beasts. And now it’s just something that– – Now it’s just something you said that didn’t happen. – I hope you’re okay with me saying it because– – I mean, I’m fine with it, it’s just all negative. It’s just a disappointment to bring it up. Makes me want to cry a little bit. – But we’ll go somewhere– – Just, you know we had the intention to travel with the show at some point and everything was kinda lining up and then it fell through. – And because we were gonna be gone, Christy and Jessie planned a weekend away. And then we had child care arranged for all of our kids, so. – But I’ve been planning– – Then we were left with this weekend when we were gonna be in India, now it’s like, well my kids are gonna be at home but there’s childcare, so that means I gotta get outta there. I gotta take advantage. – It was more calculated on my part ’cause I’ve actually been planning a solo trip. And I’m planning another week long solo trip, probably during the summer, just heads up. – Just tell me when that week is. – Okay. I don’t, I meant I want, maybe not week long, but we’ll talk about what happened to us and then we’ll decide whether or not that’s a good idea or not. – If you need to do it again, yeah. – But before we get into that, I just feel like I have to briefly address something. First of all, shout out to rhettmc on Twitter. If you follow me on Twitter, you already know this, that I have begun to tweet about Fortnight. Yes, I’ve become that guy. You can hate me if you want, line up. I think it’s actually; get in line, is what you’re supposed to say. – Like, you’re like, is that what your tweet, that’s what you’re tweeting about only? – No, so, let me give you a little background on this. Of course my kids play Fortnight because they’re children in America or just children in the world in 2018, right? So that have an Xbox or a PC, or whatever you can play it on. And they play it and– – That makes you feel better about your kid’s addiction to Fortnight and that you can say it that way? My son, Lincoln, is also very much– – Your son plays more, I guarantee he’s playing more games that my son. – Yeah, he’s better. – I’m sure he is. I’m sure he’s better than me too, so. – Yeah, he’s pretty obsessed. – I’m not a gamer, I’ve never really been a gamer. The only system that I ever really owned was the very first Nintendo system and Sega at the same time. That was a great, great, year. And but I fell off of the whole gaming thing and then I’ve done, like I’ve talked about on the show, I’ve done a little bit of mobile gaming. But I see the kids and they’re doing the first person shooter games and the way the controller’s happening and they’re aiming and every time I’ve tried to just step into the situation, I feel like someone stepping, like all of the sudden– – So you play, you play. – I’m on a ballet stage and I’ve got no training and I’m just an idiot in a leotard. And they’re like; look at the guy’s bulge. You know, just really just embarrassing situation. That’s how I feel when I’m playing these games. – Exposed. – And I’m horrible at em, I die instantly. I did a little bit of that Star Wars game when it came out, which is also– – Battlefront – Battlefront and I got killed so much and I hated myself for playing it. But then Fortnight rolls around, everybody’s talking about it, Drake is playing it. You know, and I’m like, I just feel like I am at a tipping point, maybe at a tipping point is, I’m at a decision point in my life as a 40 year old man where I can make a decision to shut it down and just say; I am not going to be part. As you get older, you see society moving forward and they’re adapting and they’re enjoying things and they’re doing things. And then at some point you get to an age where you’re like; that is not going to be for me, I’m checking out of that, I’m not going to be into that type of music, I’m not going to seek to understand that type of clothing. You begin checking out. And my theory is– – And dying. – Is you begin, you’re already slowly dying, basically right after you’re born, but you begin to accelerate the process of dying the more you begin checking out from the things that youth are doing. – In the brain you mean. – That’s my theory, yeah. And so I was like; I have to figure out how to play this game in a way that can be somewhat enjoyable, as opposed to just sitting there dying over and over again. But in my quest to somehow have some success– – Because that’s what happened. You played the game and you just died repeatedly, like that Tom Cruise movie. – Without killing anyone. – I’m sorry, that Emily Blunt movie. – Without killing anyone, because dying is kinda the point of Fortnight unless you’re the last person to win, which that will probably never happen to me. – Uh huh. – But the thing is that most people who die all the time are also killing other people though all the time. And I’m not, I’m just dying over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And so I had died like 25, 30 times in a row and just thought there was no hope. – I thought you just had to build a fort before the storm hit. Those are the things that I understand. I know that there’s shooting involved, but that’s just when people are trying to tear down your fort before the storm hits. – The storm is an ingenious tactic. – I was joking, I know what it is . – To get you to fight. – That’s the only way I can connect with my son, is to talk about his Fortnight play. – Well you should talk about it in a way that makes sense with the youth. – I was making a joke. – I didn’t understand what was funny about it. – Yeah. (laughing) – Okay, so, I am in the midst of dying multiple times and then I’m like; I’m gonna tweet about this. I don’t tweet a lot, but I was like; I think I gotta tweet that be, you know, some relevancy. I’m gonna hashtag Fortnight, I’m gonna be that guy. – Oh, you did hashtag Fortnight? – Then I tweeted; how many times do you have to die in #fortnight before you’re actually dead inside? – Oh. – Pretty good tweet, you know. – It was about as good as the joke I made earlier you didn’t get. – Right. And I tweet that and then the very next day I’m back on Twitter and I had learned about this Ninja guy, the Ninja, his name is, his gamer tag is Ninja. And he’s like the top of the gaming world, you know. – [Link] Yeah. – He’s gaming it up with Drake and famous DJs, et cetera. – That’s when I heard about it. – And I mean, this guy’s huge right now. And so I’m like, I see him pop up on Twitter. I’m like; I know who that guy is with the blue hair. Yeah, yeah, he’s the Fortnight guy. Follow him. – Oh, he’s got blue hair too? They all gotta have colored hair. – He’s done different things with his hair. – You followed him. – I follow him. I follow him at like 11:30 at night after a Fortnight session. – Okay, you were grinding? – Grinding. – On Fortnight as they say. – By that time I killed two people. – Oh. – 52 attempts, killed two people. – You’re a murderer. – And he immediately follows me back. ‘Cause you can see on the verified. And I’m like; oh, he’s got one of those accounts where he just auto follows you back. And then I go to his account, I’m like; he’s got like almost two million followers, he’s only following like 800 people. I think this is a legit follow. And then I realize that he has replied to my tweet about Fortnight. – What? – Directly to me. So I’m like; whoa. And he says, I can’t remember what he said exactly. – How old is this guy, by the way? – In his 20s, he’s married. – Oh yeah? – But he’s in his 20s. – Okay. – And he said– – Not a child. – Just one more time, in answer to my tweet. – Yeah, ’cause that’s the mentality. – What’s your tag? – What’s your tag? – First of all, I was like; what is my tag, what does that mean? That was the first question that I had. That’s how much of a newb I am. – I hope that wasn’t your next tweet. – So I don’t remember what I said back to him, but something about I’m horrible, I’m worse at the game than a newborn baby. I actually then tweeted my tag back to him, but then somebody was like DM next time. And I was like; oh, DM right now, delete tweet. Took my tag off, because I don’t know anything about what I’m doing. Again, I’m like a man in a leotard just walkin around exposing himself. – Yeah, I remember. – And so I retweeted, I tweet back at him. Long story short, I’ve been in a DM Twitter conversation with the Ninja himself. This is like having a conversation about basketball with Lebron himself. You know what I’m saying? These are the kinds of things that are happening on the Rhettmc Twitter. – Oh, wow. – And I am, I’m not gonna tell you what we talked about, okay? – But I will say, in one sense it’s not actually an exaggeration, the analogy you made, because he’s that good at this game, according to what Lincoln tells me. – It’s amazing. – The dude is, he’s a professional gamer. But it’s almost an understatement in terms of like– – It really is phenomenal to watch. I’ve never watched let’s play videos ’cause I haven’t played any of the games. But now– – When you play the game then it kinda clicks? – I understand the dynamics of the game. It’s just like you play a little bit of basketball, you play a little bit of golf and people are like; why do you enjoy watching golf? Well because I’ve played a lot of golf. And so I can– – You know how hard it is. – It looks like just some lazy fat dudes walkin around hittin balls around, but when you understand how difficult it is, you become, you admire it and you wanna watch it. – But what is the conversation, the DM conversation? – The DM conversation is about some plans that we’re making. You know, you know, you know, just plannin some things. I don’t want to disclose that. Don’t know if the plans will come to fruition. But you know, just my bud, Ninja and I, just talkin in Twitter like we do. DMing, that’s what you do with your friends on Twitter, rhettmc. – Makin plans. – Makin plans. However, let me just say you’re involved in this because I also, I started having Fortnight dreams. – Seriously? – And I had a dream, first of all, weird stuff started happening. There’s a house that’s being constructed in my neighborhood and it’s just wood frames right now. And I saw it and I thought fort. It’s like, that’s how, ’cause it looks like one of the forts in the– – You’re brain is turning into kid mush. – Yeah, I’m turning into a youth. I believe I found the fountain of youth. – Yeah. – You know what I’m saying? – It aint makin you smarter. – When you begin looking at– – You look at a house and it becomes a fort. – It’s like I’ve hooked up my– – Somebody’s buildin a fort across the street, Dad. That’s a house, Son. – I hooked up an IV directly to a teenager and I’m getting their blood. It is coursing through my veins. It’s causing some weird things to happen, but– – What’s happening to the teen? – The teen is slowly dying. – I know, and you don’t care because it’s the first person shooter and you know what those do. You lose your conscience. – You’re in one of my Fortnight dreams. – Oh yeah? – Something about freezin, for some reason– – Am I jumping around trying not to get hit? – No, it wasn’t in the game of Fortnight. – You jump. – Yeah, you kinda look a little stupid when you do the jumping. You’re not jumping ’cause you’re not in the game. Me and you have assembled a large group of people and we’re doing a seminar about Fortnight. And you’re walking in in the dream, you walk in in the dream and I’m like; oh, Link doesn’t know anything about Fortnight. And I like whisper to you, I’m like; just make something up. (laughing) And then we begin. I don’t remember the specifics of what we said. – Yeah, I can do that. – But we had a Fortnight seminar. So maybe that’s what I’m on the road to. Ninja’s my best friend on Twitter. He’s DMing me constantly. – Constantly? Oh yeah, of course. – Yeah, once, he did it once. But maybe he’ll do it again. And then I’m playing as I see fit into my schedule, which is not a lot, but not incredibly busy right now, so I’m actually able to do a little bit. And then I’m having dreams about it. Maybe we’ll have a seminar. I’m hooked up to the youth. I kinda feel like a new man. – I could tell something was different about you. You kinda like– – Got a little flare? Got on my sweatshirt. – Pubescent hormonal awkwardness voice cracking. – You can smell me when I come in the room. – Yeah, voice cracking kind of a thing. – I smell like I’ve been running. – Yeah. – Teens always smell like they’ve been running. – Facial features kinda out of proportion. – Yeah, a little bit of awkwardness. – It’s gonna happen. – You got zits in weird places. – Well in one sense my journey into solidarity is in stark contrast, I think both of ours, to being in Fortnight. But in some ways maybe I had some of the same feelings. – Well I can’t wait to hear about it. But let’s take a short break to remind everybody that you can get the shirt that Link is wearing, not the exact shirt. – Be your mythical best. – But a shirt that is designed exactly like that at mythical.store. This is one of my favorite pieces of merch that we have. – Three quarter length sleeves. You got this, it’s called baseball. – Baseball because the baseball players, they need three quarter length. But they need their forearms to be exposed. I don’t know why. Do you know the theory? – I thought this was like wreck softball shirt. I don’t know that professionals actually wear these. But if you don’t like your sleeves this long, you want them shorter, we got plenty of those too. – But the reason you want your elbows covered is for sliding head first. – Yeah, sliding, sliding. – Mythical.store, the place to equip yourself with things you want and need. – Thank you for supporting internetainment for all types of stuff, even cologne, I’m serious. – We got that, seriously. Okay Link, tell us about your time. – As with many things, you mentioned you were taking a solo trip and I didn’t know if my feelings should be hurt. ‘Cause I’m like; well okay, so that’s the nice way of saying I’m not invited. – Oh, come on. – Okay, so then I’m like; I gotta come up with something. But we had talked, we dedicated a chapter of the book to isolate yourself with yourself. – Yeah. – It’s an aspect of mythicality to, is an opportunity to rejuvenate potentially, to reflect, to you might use the term recenter. So my feelings were not hurt. I was like; yes, you’re exactly right. I can do anything, I could go anywhere. – Reading Rainbow. – And I’m gonna do that. And I thought about your experience out in the desert alone and I had not had one of those yet. So I was immediately thinking– – This is your first weekend alone– – This is my desert. – Since getting married. – My desert solo experience. – Like going off. – I can’t recall a solo trip since that summer before I got married when I went to Nashville. But I visited our friend, Josh. – A long time ago. – But he worked during the day. So during the day I was solo. – Right, okay, so we’re talking a long time ago. – Oh yeah, 1999. So I was thinking about the desert, then I’m like; well, I don’t know, after hearing your story about the tent camping thing and you kinda got freaked out. You can read about it in the book. I’m like; well maybe before I go total tent, I’m gonna search Airbnb. – Okay, all right, ease in. – They have these things called experiences. It’s not just about places to stay now, but they can give you stuff to do with like sherpas guides types situation. And I thought maybe I won’t sign up for those, but I’ll use it as like using the map as I can drive for a road trip and come up with something to do that’s inspired by one of the experiences even though I won’t sign up for one. And then low and behold, I went to the map view and I started dragging it East, kinda towards Joshua Tree, kinda towards where you went. I’ve been wanting to go back to Joshua Tree. And then the map view is really wide and there was nothing that popped up except all the sudden one Airbnb popped up in the middle of nowhere. And I zoomed in and I was like; whoa, this is past Joshua Tree, this is past Palm Springs. Oh no, that big body of water, that’s the freaking Salton Sea and it’s passed that. – Oh, passed that. – ‘Cause I always wanted to visit the Salton Sea because it’s like an abandoned getaway community. – Yeah, that was part of my solo trip the first time, the Salton Sea. – Oh, you did go there? – Yeah. – I didn’t remember that part. – Yeah, on the way back I drove South, stayed there for a couple hours. – [Link] Okay. – Did you end up going there? – And then the place that popped up when I zoomed in was just passed that and when I zoomed in I was like; oh crap, it’s Slab City. – Right. – I’ve heard of this place. It’s the type of thing that Vice will send one of their journalists out to the Slab City to– – And didn’t we talk about it on that episode of GMM? – And we did, yes. It was one of those list episodes back when we used to alternate telling like most isolated places on Earth or something. – Yeah. – And it was– – The history of Slab City or something. – People tend to write about it in a way, and maybe I don’t remember how we talked about it on the show honestly, but they tend to sensationalize it as a lawless community that’s totally off the grid, meaning off the electrical grid, there’s no– – Oh, it was places with no laws. That was the episode, I don’t know the title of it, but it was places that aren’t subject to laws. Which is to really true, but claimed to be true by them. – So I’m like; hold on, if there’s an Airbnb there amongst the Slabbers, because what it is is, it is a place in the middle of the desert with no electricity, no running water. It’s literally just a World War Two military base, very small, that was abandoned by 1960, 1961. They took everything off, but they left the concrete slabs that they had poured to build their, I’ll just say barracks. – Just say it. – For lack of a better word. And then, ’cause I researched the back story. In the sixties some people came in to harvest creosote, which I think is, I don’t even know what it is. It’s the stuff that you put on light poles in order to preserve them. – Is this a natural thing that you get out of the Earth? – Yeah, I guess so. – I thought it was an oil by product. – And the people who are out there getting it whatever way they were getting it, started camping there on these slabs. And then some people just ended up staying there permanently and squatting on what was and is public land. So it’s not technically legal, but ever since then there’s been people who’ve gone out there and just squatted, just lived. I mean, you might be tempted to say it’s a homeless commune, but I needed to find out for myself. – Okay. – So I’m starting reading the reviews and it was like; okay, this is a super host as certified by Airbnb, maybe I can start to feel a little bit of comfort here in renting out for 30 bucks their what appears to me to be based on the pictures, an abandoned immobile RV. – Okay, this sounds great. – You know me and RVs. – That is at, that’s on a slab at Slab City? Or near Slab City? – It turned out it was very near Slab City. I was not in the middle of the slabbers community. – Okay. – It was across the street from a huge art installation that is called Salvation Mountain. – Yep. – I’m gonna tell you more about Salvation Mountain later, but tourists will come through, they’ll see Salvation Mountain, they’ll take some pictures in front of this mountain, which is crazy. And then they’ll leave. – Mmmhmm. – They might drive through Slab City at a rapid pace and then get out of town. – Not a tourist destination? – Yeah, not so much. – Not typically an Airbnb experience either. – But I’m reading on the Airbnb and they’re like, okay it’s, people are leaving reviews and they’re like; Cherry is so nice, she will make you a vegan meal. – Cherry? – Cherry. – Not Sherry, but Cherry? – Cherry and her husband. – Is she on top? – Of? I don’t know how to answer that. – Okay. – She was on top of it, yeah. According to the reviews, she’s on top of things. – Got it, that’s what I meant. – Cherry’s on top of things. And she’ll make you coffee and breakfast. I’m like; okay, so I can go out here, there’s no, you’re off the grid but somebody will make me breakfast. – What’s her husband’s name? – Able. – Oh, I love it already. – Cherry and Able. And he was very able. And so, okay, I’m like; you know what, I think I’m gonna do this. And so I clicked. I was like, you know what, I would tend to walk away from my phone at that point, be like; I’m gonna think about this for another day and then I’m gonna find all these reasons not to go to Slab City. I’m like; you know what, I’m not gonna do that, I’m gonna click and I’m gonna do it. And them immediately we were having a conversation and she accepted my request and boom, I’m booked on the edge of Slab City, across the street from Salvation Mountain. – $30 you can never get back, you’re in now. – Oh yeah. (laughing) The RV was painted red all over it, even the tires, which were like shredded. You could not drive this thing away. So then I leave and the three hour drive ended up taking five hours. – Coachella, man. – Yeah, ’cause it was the same, that was the second weekend of Coachella. It definitely didn’t help traffic. So I drive passed the North side of the Salton Sea, which is, that is just crazy because– – Did you get out, did you stop? – Not on the way in because the sun was setting and I wanted to get to the RV before it got dark. So– – That part of the state is like an alien landscape. – It really is. The Salton Sea is the biggest lake in California. – Mmmhmm – And it was made by accident, like a water overflow from the river. And then the water is trapped in such a way that the salt content was so high that it messed up the eco system that certain times of year there’s lots of fish that die on the shore. And where they thought it would be this water skiing and boating community with Sonny Bono, people just abandoned it. Now there are still people who live there. – Yeah. – Which, when I drove back through, Jade and I went on the beach and then we drove through another little town, Bombay Beach, where they have power and running water. – That’s good, you need those things. – Which at that point in my trip was revolutionary. – Yeah. – After the two days that I spent outside of Slab City. So anyway, I get to the RV, it’s just getting to be dark. Boy, I was nervous, I was just, you know. And then I pull in– – Does your phone work out here? – The phone does work. – Okay, that makes ya feel better. – Made me feel a lot better and I did have one of those other, I took one of Lily’s battery extender things. You can charge that up and it just gives you a second battery for your phone. So again, between the Airbnb reviews and the battery, I felt a little bit better. And when I pull in I realize; oh, it’s not just one RV, there’s three here. And as I pull in there’s these two women. – Is one of em Cherry? – No, and they’re like waving me, they’re waving at me like stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Like, don’t drive any further. And I like, aw, and I was like; oh gosh, I’m here and there’s people, there’s freaking villagers already. And so I stop and I’m like, roll down the window, I’m like, hi. And they’re like; just don’t drive any further because the sand, you might get– – Stuck. – Stuck in the sand. I think you’re okay where you are. And so then I’m in a conversation. So then I start walkin over there and one woman had just arrived from Sweden and had met this other woman in San Diego, I think. And then they both found their way to this RV to be my neighbor. – So Cherry and Able rent three RVs? – Yes. – Smart, why rent one when you can rent three? – Yeah. – They all painted different colors? – Yep. – Red? – White and then off whitish. – Oh, gosh, shucks. – Not much there, Rhett. – Red, white, and blue. – The other woman– – Red, green, and brown. – The other woman had a sign hanging in front of her RV that said; psychic readings $5. – On her RV? – On the little fence in front of it. – So she’s been there for awhile. – Turns out she has been there maybe two weeks. But I guess she carries the sign wherever she goes. – I don’t know the order of events here. – They were both very friendly. They were drinking wine and eating steak. – Oh. – I could smell the campfire and– – Sounds like a party. – They were very friendly. And then I’m like, well and it got totally dark by the time I was talkin to em for 30 minutes. And then I’m like; well, I gotta get over here. And then I finally get to the RV and there’s no step to get into the RV. – But Cherry and Able are not at the RV. – No, I haven’t met them yet. – They just give you instructions on how to get in? – I texted her and I said I’m here. And she was to show up, but she wasn’t there yet. And then I, I mean, I have some pictures I’ll show you. And for the video version I guess we can throw some of those up there, but. The step leading into the RV was a milk crate with a board almost twice as wide as the milk crate strapped on top of the milk crate. And then printed on the sign, printed on the board in black paint and handwriting it says be careful. – Well yeah, I mean. – And it– – You step too far to the left or the right and you’re gonna take a tumble. – But I couldn’t help but wonder where they also referring to my entire experience? – Potentially, and then it says carefully above that. – Yeah, on the, one the, it says careful – careful. – And it has two L’s, they misspelled it. – Well that means extra careful. – So then you go in the RV. I took some pictures. – There’s some portraits of Jade. – Well the next day it was a moment of solitude and I got a little bored. The only piece of artwork inside of the RV was this detailed eyeball, bloodshot, with blood tears coming out of it. And when you look closely you realize; oh great, there’s also a hand crawling out from the bottom eyelid. – Oh yeah. – That’s not disturbing at all, when it’s pitch black and there’s no light inside of this RV, which was basically just, like I said, an abandoned RV that was, it was very well swept. You know, and there was some bedding. – But no power? – No, well they did have an LED, like a solar charged LED light bulb that you could turn on, which actually made it freakier. So like, and then I get in there and I’m like; okay, these people are nice next door, but okay Jade, we’re in this together. We could just stay in this RV the next two days and not leave. Maybe we’ll be okay. I stayed in the RV that night. It got a little scary. But then Cherry and Able drove up in their car and they had food for me. They were very friendly and they said; we’re going into Slab City tonight because there’s some musicians that are gonna be performing. – Yeah, they do that. – They’re like; oh, there’s a stage and then people bring their own chairs. – I’ve seen this on video. – So just people with a solar powered PA system, which once they started playing I could hear it. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear the sound coming from around the bend from in Slab City. – You didn’t go? – From my RV. I ended up not going that first night. I was like; I’m gonna eat dinner and you know how, I just… – Getting settled. – I was gettin settled, I didn’t feel like, I don’t wanna go into town in the dark. I’d rather see it in the light first. – Yeah, first night, yeah. – The next morning I go to, well Able comes in his car, he’s like; I will lead you to my house. And so I get in my car and I follow him, which is driving off the road into the desert, just driving around. – This is to get breakfast ’cause they provide that? – Yeah. We drive for about a mile, like literally through the desert. And you start to see what at first to the uneducated eye looks like piles of trash, like huge mounds of garbage. And then I was like; oh, we’re gonna drive right passed this pile of garbage. And then we get closer and I would realize this is somebody’s dwelling. – Yeah. – And it’s– – Pile o’trash home. – It’s pieced together in such a way as to construct shelter and boundaries, things like this. – All public land or they own this land? – Public land. – Yeah. – And so you realize it’s not trash, it’s reclaimed scrap that’s been used to build a home. – And that’s what Cherry and Able live in? – And then we round another corner and I see a whole compound of hodge podge of stuff. This one has a fence made of pallets of wood and a couple of different structures, one of which is two stories tall. And there’s a parking area with rocks put down. And you drive up to it and there’s a sign that says; camp freedom. And this is their compound. And then I go through the gate, Jade and I go through the gate, I close the gate behind me so she doesn’t run out into the desert and never come back to me. And Able’s super friendly, Cherry’s super friendly. – How old are these people? – Late twenties. – What? – They’re young. – Okay, I’ve not yet, okay. – You pictured? – I was picturing older people. – Yeah, very tan people. – Okay. – Like very sun baked. I don’t know, she might have been… Well, she might have been mid thirties. I tend to think of myself as like 28, so I tend to age everybody else down. So but definitely not older than us. – But he didn’t have toupee because you can’t usually spot those. – I definitely can’t spot those. – Spot a toupee. – He didn’t have a toupee. – He’s toupee blind. – And then I meet their five children. – What? – Their five kids. Ranging in age from 13 to toddler. – Well then I would assume they’re not in their twenties. – Yeah, that’s what made me rethink that. – Yeah. – But they did start early. – Yeah. – And the kids were, the younger kids were shy. – What kinda names do they have? – But the older kids– I can’t remember, but it wasn’t anything like Cherry and Able. – Like Rock. – No. – Stilt? – No. But the oldest– – Cactus? – The oldest daughter was very nice and engaging. They homeschool them there. When I walk into what I’ll call the corral, that is like their front yard, they have a raised garden that they said the wind blew it over and they were trying to fix it and they’re growing some stuff. They have to haul in all their water. And then there’s a two story structure made out of wooden pallets and plywood put over it. They explained this to me. Cherry said; hey, we’ve got the only two story dwelling in Slab City. They had been there for many years, probably like four. – Crazy. – And then in front of the two story structure was like a black mesh that they repurposed as like a sun block/ fly net, what’s it called? Mosquito net type situation. And that was over a queen size bed, which was basically sitting in front of the house. So their bedroom was covered in a net in front of where everybody else lived. And they had television because I heard it. – Did they have a generator? – They have solar power. – Solar power. – Solar power. And then she had taken and made a pony wall around the side and so they had this little courtyard area made out of adobe mud with old glass bottles stuck in it and then it was just a wall that then they had a table and I sat down there and ate my pancakes and drank my coffee. And talked to them and just got their story. – But Sweden and San Diego weren’t there? – They were not there. Again, super nice. Obviously I explained to them that I, what I was interested in and how I was just fascinated. So I kinda got into conversation with her. And she said that, yeah, they’ve been here for awhile and they just the decision that they wanted to live off the grid and homeschool their kids. It’s a place where you can freely be yourself. Now Cherry had a hint of an accent, like a British accent. And I said where are you from? And she said Oregon. – Yeah. – And I sensed that I shouldn’t ask any follow up questions. – Right, got it. – Because she’d already said that you can be anybody you want. There’s people who walk around town and they like– – And she wants to be slightly British. That’s what she wants. – I could be wrong, maybe she– – Lindsay Lohan did that for awhile. – Maybe she did that, maybe she, I didn’t ask her. Maybe she grew up in Oregon then she went to England or wherever she got her accent. – Time in the desert might do that to you. I don’t know, give you a little flare. – It’s not like I wanted to press her, you know? – [Rhett] Yeah. – I was just like, okay. Because that was the whole point. It’s like we’re out here, we can be who we wanna be. There’s people in town who, they get up every morning and she stands up and she starts doing the motions of I’m gonna put a bandana here. I’m gonna put a bandana here. I’m gonna paint this side of my face. And I’m gonna put these bracelets here. And I’m gonna walk around town this way and you’re gonna call me Trog. You know, there’s people like that in Slab City who just– – And everyday it’s different bandanas? And different places and different names? – She said it was the same. Like that was who he was. – Trog. – Yeah. She said that the land is owed by three different entities, one of which is the California Teachers Association so that- – Of course. – Retired teachers can go there and snowbird. Have you heard the term? – Snowbird? – Snowbird. It’s when you go out into, I’m being overly specific, go out into the desert in the winter for the winter months in your RV in order to like– – [Rhett] No. – But in the summer they get outta there. And she said; we can’t leave during the summer because someone will come and take over our compound. And that’s the law of the land. You know, it’s like– – ‘Cause nobody owns it. – Yeah, she wants, she said; we wanna buy our land. A couple of people have bought their land. Like Salvation Mountain was bought and then now is being maintained. – So they stay through the summer? – Yes. – With these kids? – She said there’s what we call 90 days of hell where it’s 120 degrees everyday. And she said the kids have a pool. And I’m looking around and I don’t see a pool. So I think they had a reclaimed, it was either hidden or it was reclaimed or maybe it was made out of adobe. – Well, I’ll tell you one thing, those kids are tough. – They seem totally like normal kids. – If those kids make it – Kids you see anywhere else. – Through 90 days of hell. – Yeah. – Because humans are actually much more capable of environmental extremes, as we’ve been talkin about, then we give ourselves credit for. So these kids will probably turn out better than our kids. – After talking to Cherry, I felt like I knew someone on the inside who was a pillar of the community. She was talkin to me about the community and about how everybody knows everybody and it’s, it became much less scary when I connected with– – Cherry. – Their family. – Life’s scary when you connect with Cherry. And Trog, I’m interested when he comes into play. – I never met him, so non spoiler alert. – Oh, okay. – There’s not somethin worth spoiling on that. I’d like to skip to your story, but I’ll just say we can come back to my experience leaving their house with a little more confidence. And then I went and saw some of the sites. And then had an interesting second night. – Okay, well interestingly I will say that I think there is a theme that is emerging here. Because the theme of my trip in one sense was you can’t remember something that you don’t do. And I’ve been instilling that in my kids. We talked about this in the Book of Mythicality a little bit. I don’t remember exactly the words that we use, but essentially you can’t tell a story about something that never happened. – Well you can, but it would be fiction. – Yeah, and you find yourself in different situations and when you were sitting there trying to make the decision to either go stay in this weird RV or not, most people, and this is why it cost $30. – Yep. – Most people made the decision to not do that, but having made the decision, you’ve got this experience and you’ve got this story that’s made your life richer, I assume. And that is kind of similar to what happened to me. Now, I didn’t stay in an RV. So I wanted to go to a place where I could have access to hot springs because that is one of my favorite things. And originally I was gonna go up all the way to almost Mammoth, yeah Mammoth, north of Bishop, like five hours away up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to a place that piped in, hot springs into individual campsites, but it was all taken up. And I do want to do that at some place, but at some point. But I had a long list that a friend recommended, like these are places that I’ve been that are cool. And one of the places, the place that I chose was the Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort and Spa in Avila Beach, which is just north of Pismo. I think I’m saying Avila right, not sure. – Is there an H at the beginning? – It’s A V I L A. – Okay. – And first of all, I just swallowed part of my mustache. First of all the drive up there– – What did it taste like? – Nothing If you take the five through the middle of the state, it’s boring. – That’s tough. – But if you get on the west side of the state and you take the one and then there’s another highway. – Oh yeah. – Once you get to Santa Barbara, something cosmic happens. – Like cosmic? – I honestly believe, well I don’t honestly believe it ’cause I’m not really into that kind of thing. I honestly believe– – I conveniently currently believe it for the sake of this story. – There is a feeling that the energy changes, which may or may not be a thing. – Okay. – It’s probably just the way that I’m interacting with my environment and the way that things change, but Santa Barbara is beautiful and then you get north of Santa Barbara and you go up this mountain road and you drive through this wine country. There were these little towns and it looks like a Bob Ross painting. It’s these great– – That’s great, so it wasn’t burned because of the fires? – I saw quite a bit of burned areas, but I think I missed the vast majority because thousand and thousands of acres, hundreds of thousands of acres were burned. So I didn’t see that, so Santa Barbara looked great all around it. – [Link] Okay. – And then north of it was these amazing rolling hills with these oak trees, kinda sparse oak trees. You know there’s this thing, it looks like just a grass covered mountain? – Yes. – And then there’s just a few trees on it. There’s just something about – Like a green little hill. – That state of nature that is exactly what I want. I wanna put a house on there. – You wanna sit under that tree. – Right, I wanna deface the mountain with a house. And sit up there at night, enjoying my mountain. – I know a guy who can make you one out of pallets. – Good. So I continue, but I don’t stop there, I don’t get out and build a house. I go up to this resort and this is not like a super place, this is, I said resort and spa, but this is a little bit of a like you’re getting up there closer to Big Sur and you’re kinda, in a different way, not the desert sort of hippie, you’re kinda getting into– – Nor Cal? – Yeah, that part of the state. And you’re getting into, it’s a hippie sort of situation. Like, to give you an example, there’s no room numbers at this place. – Okay, well you are saying things like cosmic energy, so. – Yeah, I stayed in a room called virtue. (laughing) You know what I’m saying? – Listen, as long as you can laugh a little bit at it. Once you stop laughing a little bit, then I start to get concerned. – They also had different suites. And the suites next to mine were the Mythical Suites. – What? – I didn’t stay in the Mythical Suites. That would have been serendipitous, but it didn’t. I stayed in some other ones and virtue was my room. And it’s not a super nice place, like I said. It’s not like you’re staying at the Ritz Carlton or anything. It’s like kinda cheesy decoration inside and you know. But it’s got a good energy, you know what I’m sayin. And they have pumped the water from the mineral springs, the natural hot mineral springs there into all these hot tubs that are on the hillside that you can come and rent by the hour. But then they’ve also put the water into hot tubs on the balconies. – Oh! – Not balconies, but the deck, the back deck of the room. – You have your own individual jacuzzi? – So I had my own, but it was like, you know, it was like a jacuzzi you might get from Craigslist, is kinda what it looked like. – Like above ground. – It wasn’t like it was made to look like it was natural. It was just like there’s a plastic tub in the back that’s got the water that we use in there. It smells a little bit like sulfur, but that’s ’cause it’s got the minerals in it. Anyway, I immediately got into it naked, of course. – Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You were naked before your drove up. – Right. – I assume. – Under my clothes. – That’s pretty cool. Could see the actual springs where they were being piped from? – No. – Okay. – I couldn’t. And I didn’t seek that out. – Okay, ’cause you don’t wanna know, you may not wanna know the truth, right? – There’s a lot of PVC pipe around the property. – Okay. – I didn’t wanna follow the PVC. – Yeah. – I usually make a, as a rule, a personal rule, don’t follow the PVC. So, but I was very happy, I was very pleased. I was like this is gonna be a nice time. I’m trying to discover some things about myself. But just a quick word, a quick word about the beach area there. So it’s this amazing community that was this, according to the history of the town was this very small podunk biker town, is the way that it’s described when you read about the history of it. And there was some oil pumping that was happening that was leaching into the soil and they didn’t know about it. But when they discovered it, Exxon discovered that they were screwing up the environment. They were sued or whatever. – Really? – And then they had to end up completely razing the town and digging down like 15, 20 feet to get rid of all this oil slick. – What do you mean razing the town? – ‘Cause it had leached into the soil. – You mean wiping the town away. – Getting rid of everything except a few structures. – Bulldozing the town. – And then razing with a Z. – Picking up the dirt. Oh, razing with a Z. – And then building it back up. And now it’s like a cool beach town that is just these pristine cliffs on both sides and there’s piers that go out and there’s all these sailboats. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen. – Oh wow. – Now these cool beaches are all up and down the coast, but Pismo Beach is more populated. And this one was special. I hiked up onto the hill one day and kinda looked down over the beach, thought; I could have my palace here. But that’s not allowed. Anyway, the really interesting thing that happened to me that was like I’m gonna make a decision to do this. I wanted to just stay in my room. They had a restaurant on site that would do room service, so I was kinda just staying in my room and eating things that were being brought to me. I felt like a king, only clothed when someone came to my room. – Oh. – I was like a naked king. – Okay. – Don’t you think most kings are naked most of the time? Except when they have to do business. – I don’t. – So I go to the yoga dome because on Saturday morning they had a yoga class, like a hot yoga, or I don’t know what the word is. – Do you need to drink some water? Oh what? – Hava, hava, I don’t, it’s a type of yoga. – Okay. – I’m just familiar with yoga general, not yoga specific. – They had a dome? – It was a dome and I walked up, as I’m walking up to the yoga class and the yoga dome, a man about my age is coming down. He’s like; it’s packed, man. And I’m like, at that moment I was like, I was right on time, I was like; I’m gonna walk into a yoga class, hard to find a spot, I know I’m gonna be one of the few males in there, that’s just how yoga works. And– – And he was leaving? – He’s like; I left my girlfriend in there. It’s kinda her thing. – Oh, he’s shaming you. – And I’m like, oh, I’m gonna go in there. I’m a big man, I’m kinda hard to hide. And I go in there and I look and it’s just a sea of women and there looks to be no spots, but they’ve spotted me at this point. They see me and I’m like, committed. – You froze like a deer in headlights for a second? – I’m so glad that I went in as you’re about to learn. – Oh wow. – The only space where no one has put a mat yet, we’re talking like 30 to 40 women. – Is there a stage? – Is the front. – Oh no. – So I’m like screw it, I’m here. There’s one other guy, an old guy. He looks to be alone. The girls seemed to be in groups, types of groups, you know? – Yes, yes, what are you wearing? – I’m wearing just a skin tight spandex yoga suit. No, I’m wearing a tshirt and dry fit shorts. – Okay. – You know. – You could of pick up basketball type scenario. – Yeah, I’m ready for several different activities. – Okay. – Now they’re all wearing the girl yoga stuff. You know, tight pants, that kinda thing. So I go to the front– – ‘Cause I didn’t know if this was like hippie flowy yoga people. – Interesting, the instructor talked about that. I’ll say that in a second. – Okay. – I set up my mat in the front. At this point I realized these women think I’m the instructor. – You, shoot, really? – Okay, all right. Now they probably know I don’t look like the instructor and the look I had on my face when I walked in, the look of confidence draining probably didn’t say teacher, but he went to the teacher’s spot. – Confidence draining. – He went to the teacher’s spot. – Oh no. – So then, after I kinda, I think I’m making it clear that I’m not the teacher when I don’t say anything for like a 30 second period. – Well did you face them or something? – No, I faced the same direction they’re facing. – Okay. – But they’re all facing my back and I’m kinda sitting there, probably my face is getting a little red. I don’t know, I’m embarrassed easily. – Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you think. – So then an older woman– – You can just feel their eyeballs burning into your back, like; when’s he gonna turn around and instruct us? – And older woman comes in– – Oh, she wasn’t even in the room. – The instructor, she comes in, she has on a little bit of a flowy thing. – Yeah. – And it’s tight underneath, but then it’s kinda flowy. She’s got like kinda whiley white hair. She is a seasoned instructor, you could totally see what she looked like in the seventies, you know what I’m sayin. – [Link] Yeah. – And she looks at me and she’s like; is this the advanced class? – What? – She thought that I was the instructor for a different class because she knew that she was suppose to be there, but she was confused that maybe ’cause I was in the instructor’s spot. – Are you kiddin? You were officially in the (laughing) – Yeah, but I was off center. I didn’t center myself. But it’s a dome, it’s a circle. So they left a spot and I went as far into the circle as I could, but I was committed at that point. – That was, okay, so that was her I’m gonna believe the best about this man. And instead of saying; sir, you’re in my spot, she was like. – This man in a V neck and dry fit shorts and footy socks must be the instructor for the advanced class. – Yeah, there’s now way. – I was like– – That she actually believed that. – I was like, no. ‘Cause I knew she was thinking about me. And she was like; oh, I thought maybe I’d come into the wrong class, but okay, it’s just very crowded or whatever. Okay, let’s get started. This woman was a character and a half. She was like, if you need to cast somebody to be a yoga instructor in a movie, you know what I’m saying? So we start and she’s like; everybody say ome. But she’s kinda dancing a little bit. And she’s like; shake your hips. She’s trying to get us all to loosen up. – Mmmhmm. – She’s doing these sort of sexy moves and getting all the ladies to do these sexy moves. And I’m very glad that I’m in the front because if I’m in the back I’m like– – ‘Cause that way everybody can see you. – I’m the creep looking at all the booties moving. And you don’t wanna be that guy in the yoga class, you know? But in the front I’m like the six foot seven guy who’s obviously he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s not comfortable, and I’m like doing the things. I’m like; gosh, why am I here? – You were doin em? – So then she starts asking people are you guys together, what groups are these? Turns out it was two big groups of women who were bachelorette, maybe three groups, that were like bachelorette weekends. Okay? – Oh gosh. – So girls who are really making each other laugh, happy to be together, you know the way that goes. (high pitched laughing) – We gotta put a sash on your head and take you around to the bars. – Right. – Is this that type of thing? – Different kind of weekend. And then the old dude, who I don’t know who he was with. He could just be a creep. – But did she ask you. You, tall one? – No, somebody was like; it’s bachelorette party, or whatever and I’m like; please don’t ask me. And I was thinking about what I was gonna say. I was gonna be like; I’m alone. I just didn’t know, weekend of solitude. I didn’t have any words. – I’m trying to find myself. So far, I ain’t going great. – I’ve just been naked this whole time til right now. There’s nothing that I could say at that moment that would have gone over well in the room. Thankfully she didn’t ask. – It was a middle school please don’t call on me teacher kind of situation. – Yeah, okay. Now she begins to do these chants and things and I’m participating and of course, my voice is sticking out like a sore thumb because it’s an octave lower than everyone’s. – I cannot imagine you participating in this environment. – And then she begins to talk, she’s got a lot of ideas that I find questionable, metaphysically speaking, about the energies and manifesting flames on top of our heads. – Oh. – We began to caress a flame on top of our heads. I’m literally in a group of women caressing an invisible flame on top of my head, like trying to get the thing to light. I don’t know what we were trying to do, but I did it, I was there for that. Then she breaks out a picture of the Mona Lisa. (laughing) I’m not making any of this up. – She’s gonna do prop work? – She was like; what do you notice about this woman? – This doesn’t sound like yoga at all. – It was though, man. And I was so happy by the end, I gotta tell you. And so she holds up a picture of the Mona Lisa and she’s like; what do you notice about this? And people are like answering in the class or whatever. But she’s like; the smile, you see that, some people might call it a smirk, I don’t like to use the word smirk. It’s a very gentle smile. You can do a lot with that smile. For this next exercise I want us all to make this expression. I once saw a man stand on his head without his hands for five minutes simply making this smile. – Headstand? – She would tell these stories of things that had happened, the supernatural things that had happened because of the smile. The following things were also said by this woman during the yoga class; I used to spend time with tigers three times a day. I wrote all this down because I wanted to remember. – Were you taking notes during the yoga class? – As soon as I got back. – You were really like scrambling for a pen. – Soon as I got back to my room I got naked then I started journaling. I used to spend time with tigers three times a day. – Did she allow, I hope there’s a time opening the floor for questions. ‘Cause once you start dropping tigers, I got a few follow up questions. – Okay, it gets better. I used to ride an elephant, and the elephant was happy. Turns out she was in the circus, guys. She was in the circus, but she has apologetic for the circus that makes it okay, what they did to the animals. I once saw a man put a tiger, a horse, and an elephant in the same cage because he understood their energy. (laughing) – At what point did you piece together; oh, she’s a carny? – Well, she’s not a carny. I don’t know what she did at the circus. I think she rode an elephant. – Well it was happy, I’m sure. – But she, and then the favorite one of mine, she said; I was a mime for awhile. (laughing) – I thought once you go mime, you stay sublime. I don’t know how it goes, but– – No, I think you become a yoga instructor. And once it wears off– – I was a mime for, were these non sequiturs just her spouting off statements? – She would say things like; I was a mime for a while, and I find it helpful to do this with this move. And then she’d start doing like a mime thing. I love this woman, by the way. I wish I knew her name, I can’t remember it. I can probably go on the website and figure it out. She’s one of the instructors, but I actually love this woman. But let me just continue because then, at this point I’m growing more comfortable with what’s happening. But then she says; now we’re going to do some partner work. – You didn’t bring a partner. – And so I’m like; what the crap? What are we going– – You’ve gotta crap your pants at this point? – What does she mean by this? And then she says; okay, find a partner. And I immediately make eye contact with the old man. ‘Cause I’m like; well surely, he’s my partner, otherwise I’m gonna be, I’ll go with the old man. He zeroed in on a woman. – Of course he did. – He’s already partnered up with a woman. It’s one of those things where everybody’s getting into their thing. I’m like; oh crap. And I turn around– – This is another middle school experience. – And the girl right next to me– – Okay. – She has looked around trying to get away from having to be partner with me. She understands what’s going on. Turns out this girl is the bride. – You’re, nobody wanted to partner with the own bride? – I got partnered with the bride from the bachelorette party. – Why did all of her bachelorettes abandon her? – I think they thought; you know what, she got one last chance. – Oh shoot. – Bearded advanced yoga instructor’s in here, let her have her fun before she gets married. – Gosh, okay. – And what we did was not exactly fun. So she begins, the instructor begins to demonstrate what we’re about to do. And it involved, this is what you do with your partner, you stand back to back facing away from each other. – [Link] Okay. – And then you bend over and your butts touch. And then you reach through and grab each other’s arms and pull. – Uh. – So I put my butt up against this bride’s butt. – Well how tall was she? ‘Cause your butt is high. – I had to squat a little bit, but there wasn’t exactly great butt to butt contact. She was getting a little bit low, if you know what I mean, I had to watch myself. So I was trying to– – She was making it hard for you. – Yeah, probably not the correct– – She was making it difficult for you to go butt to butt. – Right, and so we’re butt to butt, we lean down and I’m grabbing the girl like– – Reaching between your own legs– – Yeah. – And grabbing her forearms? – Yeah, forearms and then pulling. you know, to her credit, she really took it like a champ and wasn’t, like I’m trying to like say things– – Maybe she was a mime once. – I’m trying to take the edge off of the awkwardness a little bit. But she’s just going for it, and so– – What do you mean going for it? – I mean, she’s just like pulling, you know, she’s– – Was there conversation? – I was saying things like; where are you from? I didn’t know why. And she was like; we’re from Sacramento. I don’t know where they’re from, San Jose? – You were both looking through your legs at each other? – Like, we would do that and then we would get up and I’d say something because I felt like I needed to break the tension a little bit. – Yeah, yeah. – And then I was like; who’s getting married? And she’s like; me. I was like; great, congratulations. So then we had to interlock arms like swing dancers and dance around in a circle, and I don’t know what– – This yoga is not. – Once yoga frees your body, then you can do these kinds of things. So now we’re going around in a circle and I’m like, I don’t know why I said this, but I was like; you’re having quite a weekend. (laughing) I just, you know, because it– – That’s a bit self aggrandizing. – Because it struck me that she’s gonna tell this story. – This moment you’re having with me right now is making your weekend. – But then she just said; I’m really hung over. So I think they’d have a good time the night before. – So she was about to vomit on you. – But, you know, it was a beautiful experience. But the class closed with, she brought out this ball and she was like; I want you to hold this ball and we’re going to dance by ourselves. And we’re gonna dance like these figures in this painting right here. There’s another painting. I think she’s just picking random paintings in the room and just coming up with stuff, potentially. But she was like; you see how this person is jumping up and kicking their legs out? I want us to do that. And she’s like; the music I’m going to play is a CD called Yoga Chants for Women. (laughing) As if I hadn’t been made to feel a little bit out of place, it was like; we’re gonna close this class by dancing to a CD called Yoga Chants for Women. She did look at me and say; I’m sorry I don’t have anything for men. I was like; I’m okay. – Was that a joke? – She was kinda, you know, whatever. – Yoga Chants, the Rapper for Women? – Nope, Chance the rapper was not involved. By the end of this class, I am jumping up with joy, kicking my legs out, I mighta hit the bride, I don’t know. All I know is that at one point the instructor said; he’s got the hang of it. She used me as an example. Also, I was probably very difficult to not look at, so you might as well draw more attention to it. And I gotta say though, as soon as I quit dancing and she said class is over, I rolled my mat up and got out of there. I didn’t wanna have any conversations with anybody. – Just a beeline for the exit. – Yeah. Left the yoga dome, went back to my room, stripped off clothes and began to journal about this story. – So that’s where the phrase; when in dome, comes from. – Yep, exactly. – You just go with it. – But you know what, I’m so glad it happened to me. And I actually went back– – I am so emotionally exhausted having heard that crazy story. – I actually went back to the yoga dome the next day for meditation and apparently they were doing gentle yoga leading into meditation and I came in right when they’re starting meditation and I interrupted the gentle yoga class. Which, gentle yoga, not as popular as hava yoga. Because nobody was there, it was like three people. But as I walked in they were all being very gentle and wrapping up their class and she’s like giving them aromatherapy and stuff. My ankles crack a lot, you know, when I walk. And I’m setting my stuff up and my ankles are cracking, I’m very self conscious, but I did eventually settle into a position and remained in silence for half an hour. My time in the yoga dome– – Was that guided? – That was guided. My time in the yoga dome was so worth it, not just– – Did you take any pictures? I kinda wanna know what the yoga dome looks like. You’re like frolicking then pullin out your phone and snapping a snap. – I didn’t take a picture of the yoga dome. You can see one online. – I didn’t take a picture of Cherry’s house because I didn’t think that was appropriate. – Yeah, gawking. – Right. – When I came back, after I wrote this story, I wrote some commentary, just about how I was feeling about how obviously I made the decision to do this and my intention in going into the yoga class was as part of my weekend I’m trying to unwind, I’m trying to learn more about myself. But it wasn’t really to go and have this story to tell. I’m glad that I’ve got the story to tell. It helps with the podcast, which is great. But I was like; as much as I am a very purpose driven guy and I have goals and that kinda of thing, I still don’t like to make decisions to put myself in situations where I don’t feel in control and I don’t know what to do. But I need to do more of that. That’s why, even after my experience, that’s why I went back to the yoga dome the next day. I was like; I’m gonna go back. Who knows what’s gonna happen, but I’m gonna kinda embrace this. The one thing that I didn’t do that I had talked about potentially doing is going to the restaurant and eating in the restaurant by myself versus just having it brought to my room. Mostly I didn’t want to put my clothes on, but also I was like; I don’t know if I’m ready for that level of exposure. – In a similar way I, on the second night, I’m skipping ahead, did not decide to go into town even though after having dinner with Cherry, Able, all five of their kids, and my neighbor, Liz, but not the Swedish woman, she was gone. They were eventually going into town and I said; I might see you there. And I thought there was a chance that I would go, but then I didn’t. But I did take many huge steps, like you’re sayin, to just put yourself out there and say; you know what, I’m gonna physically leave my comfort zone and try to be open to self reflection. I mean, it sounds cheesy but it is really what I think we were both tryin to do, which is a level of self discovery. I was reading about how your personality, or at least aspects of your personality are, and this is me reading while I was there during that day, my first full day there. After breakfast I went back to the, well I saw some sites, which I can tell you about, but at one point I went back to the RV and I was reading about how one way to understand personality is that when you’re young it’s a way to, you build your personality in order to protect yourself and survive. – Right. – And then as you get older and you may not need their certain protective layers and techniques for how you engage with the world in order to convince yourself that you’re going to be able to develop and make it physically. There’s certain aspects of your personality that you build that then are not arguably necessary and become a shell and a protective layer that you don’t need anymore and that you could live your life without. That’s just one way to look at aspects of your personality which may have negative impacts on you that you can begin to dismantle, right? – Uh huh. – So I was thinking about these things and that was kinda something that I was reflecting on and trying to put myself in a position to say; okay, I’ve got time, I’ve got silence, where I can think about my true self and what am I adding, in what ways is fear in a general sense driving the way that I act and the decisions I make, and the things that I don’t do. So as an example, you not going to the restaurant or me not going into town, might for us have represented being fearful, or the things that we did do like you going into the dome, even though the guy said; turn back while you still have a chance. – Right, he almost got me to not go. – Making a decision is like; you know what, I’m gonna learn something from this experience and not run from it, even though I may fear embarrassment by putting on a Mona Lisa smile and a Jack and Jill frolic, or whatever she was getting you to emulate. I would say that was a theme of my self reflection, and I’ll come back to that. But the next morning when I left the Camp Freedom compound, I drove back around to Salvation Mountain, which in the seventies there was a guy who had like, he found Jesus, okay? And then he got so excited that he decided to go out to this very spot in the desert on this big sand berm and start painting it, like with adobe cement and ultimately a crap ton of latex paint. And this guy lived out of his truck, he’s squatting in the desert around Slab City, where there was a community. And he started painting like; God loves you, Bible verses, all this stuff on Salvation Mountain that you may have seen in like a Cold Play video or a Kesha video. – [Rhett] Right. – Among others. And my RV was just across the street from it. So there are people driving in and parking and seeing this thing. There’s no admission. – [Rhett] Can you walk on it? – And you can walk on it. The only places that they say to walk on it, there’s like a yellow brick road that goes across the whole thing. And I can show you pictures here so you can look at it. It’s three stories tall. My selfie game is a little off. If you go to the, there, you can flip that. So you see it says; God is love at the top of the mountain. It’s basically three stories tall and you can meander and I’m taking Jade on her leash and we’re meandering and you feel like you’re gonna fall off at any moment. But it’s like slick undulating latex paint, like layers and layers and layers of it. And it’s absolute, it looks like the craziest put put course installation that you would would ever see without the put put part. And you can climb all the way to the top of it. And it’s just crazy, so I did that. I’m not talking to anybody, even though there’s people around. And then next to it there’s this thing called the Hogan, which might be a Native American term, it’s also the last name of an awesome wrestler. But this other hill over here that looks like another painted latex hill, you can see that it has windows in it. Well this is not, he didn’t paint the hill. He built a huge dome made out of hay bails and adobe. And when you walk inside of it, it’s held up by these trees, it’s crazy. It was like I was walking around in another world, which just felt awesome. But it’s weird because there’s this constant self consciousness of like, I don’t belong here. There’s people who live here and they know I’m just kinda walking through. I feel like I’m stepping on their toes and like; who’s this hipster guy walking around, you know? So there’s this constant self awareness that I had to continue to check in order to, I wanna enjoy myself and on the other hand to like, I don’t know, to feel like kinda break through and have a legitimate experience. – Right. – Does that make sense? – Yeah. – And then I drive into Slab City, ’cause that was out of town, and there’s an area called East Jesus, which actually has no religious connotation at all. – Is it just East of Salvation Mountain? Is that what it is? – Well, in reading the Wikipedia, East Jesus just means it’s like two clicks left of nowhere, is basically what it means. It’s like a way of saying the middle of nowhere. That’s what people say; oh, it’s in East Jesus. It’s like; you’ll never find it. It might even seem anti Jesus or something, I don’t know, where the origin of the saying. But when you get there, there’s like a Cessna that’s turned on it’s side that’s not become a, it’s just like a art piece. And there’s all this reclaimed crap, like cars and stuff that are turned into sculptures. – Oh I’ve, yeah. – And you walk around– – [Rhett] I’ve seen the pictures. – You walk around in the courtyard and there’s like freaky baby dolls, and I mean, I’ll show you the pictures. But it’s an interesting feeling to be walking around in such a creepy place baking in the desert all by yourself. You know, when you’re not talking to anybody except your dog. There were two dads with their kids that were there for a little bit. And I kinda wanted them to leave because it was screwing with my experience. – Kids. – And then there was like a cornered off area on the edge of it and there was all of these old abandoned RVs and a tour bus that was half buried comin out of the desert. People would live there, but I think they had all left because it was too hot. But they come back. – It was getting too hot. – It was getting really hot. It got so hot that after that I drove through Slab City and there’s like, it’s a grid, of what looks to be RVs, a few new, but most all of them look abandoned and to the point where people put signs out and say; do not enter. Because people think they can just take over. But people are actually living in them. There’s people walkin around. I didn’t really talk to anybody. I just kinda cruised through. – You walked or your drove through? – I drove through. – Okay. – With my AC pumping. It was really hot to me, like 96 degrees. – Does anybody else drive through? – Not really. There’s a few people who drive around. They’ll go to East Jesus and then leave. But I was driving up and down the rows and looking at people. Some people would wave. They’ve just chosen as a way of life to live here off the grid. It’s like a simple life. They bring in huge containers of water and then they’ll make runs an hour away to the Walmart or something once a month. And then they’ll just live out there. There’s people riding around on bikes. – Is anybody selling anything? Are they making any money? Are they just living off of? – There was one guy who would just set up shop out of his van selling trinkets. But I think that’s more for tourists closer to Salvation Mountain. So not really a lot of that. Like The Range is the name of that outdoor bar area, but they don’t sell drinks, you have to bring your own drinks if you go there at night. – Did you end up going there? – I did not, I went back to the RV and it got so hot I couldn’t be out. And I didn’t wanna have Jade out in the heat. I didn’t think she was used to it. – But when you’re in the RV you’re just in shade. – I’m in shade and there’s a little breeze and that was all I could ask for. And then that night I went to eat dinner with Cherry and Able and the family. And then that was great. And then on the way back, on the way to my RV, I took a little detour to the hot springs that is out there. And this hot springs was like the most legit hot springs, the way you imagine it. It was literally a water hole in the middle of the desert and it was– – Were palm trees around it? – No, some smaller brush trees. And it was, I would say about 30 feet across. And it was cloudy water and just mud walls and it was bubbling up in the middle. And there were two old naked men putting on their clothes and sayin; all right, I’ll see you down at The Range later. – You just missed it. – Just missed em. So then nobody was there. The sun was going down. – Oh no. – I got naked and I walked down a wooden ladder into it. And it was, it could of, like 96 to 98 degrees. I mean, it was hot. – Well, so cooler than your hot tub. – That’s how much I would put mine on for. – But like 104 is as hot as you can get your hot tub. – Yeah, yeah. – It wasn’t that hot. – It was almost that hot. I was surprised with how hot it was. – ‘Cause sometimes the hot springs will be hotter than the regulations. – I didn’t know that, but I knew that the guys had gotten out and they said get in it, so. – Yeah, there are some that are hotter than like, there are some you can’t get in. There’s one that’s like 170 degrees. – Oh gosh. – Yeah, you can’t get in where it comes out, you can get in down the stream, when it’s cooled down. – But it was over my head. And I was alone, I think you might would have done it. But I did not swim down and try to touch the bottom where it was bubbling up. I didn’t wanna do that. – Yeah. – Jade was on the banks and she was looking at me like; what the heck, why you getting naked? What are you doing jumpin in this water? She thought I was nuts. But that was like a surreal moment. I took a mental picture ’cause I’m like, once you walk over the slope starts to come up and you can be in the water up to you waist and ultimately your ankles and you can get out another way. But I’m standin there and the sunset is across the desert and there’s nobody there. It’s how you imagine you wanna do the most rustic hot springs. – I can’t believe that nobody was there. – At that point, yeah. It was crazy. I mean, no one would be there during the day ’cause it’s so freaking hot. Then I went back to the RV and just hung out by myself, did some reading. And then I ended up talking to the neighbor. She was outside on her phone. She was like, I couldn’t see her ’cause she was around the corner. She was like; Link? And I was like; yeah? She was like; if I’m talking too loud just let me know. I’m like; no, it’s fine. Then she got off the phone and I ended up going over there and sitting down with her and just hanging out instead of going into town. We were having a conversation and I’d forgotten about the psychic sign. – Oh, she had the psychic sign? – Yeah, she was the one with the psychic sign. And so we were looking at Salvation Mountain and I had heard her on the phone talking about she had used tarot cards to determine where she was going to live. And I was sparking conversation, I was like; do you think that that guy who on a mission from God painted that hill over there and the universe, as you refer to it, that’s speaking to you through these cards to tell you where to live, do you think it’s the same thing? My point is not to get into her answer or the philosophy of it all, but just to say that that’s the nature of the conversation. And I think I might have inadvertently had a condescending tone when talking about her tarot cards. ‘Cause I’m like, I’m asking detailed questions like; well, if you use the cards to tell where you were gonna live and you ended up in San Diego, well did you say anywhere on Earth, the cards please tell me? Or did you say San Diego ’cause I kinda wanna go there and a couple other places? And this is in retrospect ’cause graciously, I mean, she was very kind, friendly person. But at one point the conversation turned and she was like; I don’t know if I should say this, but I feel, so I’m taking a risk and– – Oh oh. – And it’s dark and we’re not sitting next to each other, she’s like sitting eight feet away from me and I can’t see her face because of the way that the moonlight and the shadows of her trailer. I felt like I was in the light of the moonlight, but she was in the shadow. So it was kinda creepy. I couldn’t see her face at all. I could see just her silhouette. And then she’s like, she starts ask, she said; maybe it could be, and I don’t remember exactly what she said, but she kinda described what might be someone’s mental, where someone might be coming from from a place of fear when having the type of conversation that I was having with her. And it was like, weird. Just like, it kinda freaked me out. And I was like; did you just like give me a reading or something? And she was like; I’m sorry, I shouldn’t do that. It was like she had described, it was just weird. It freaked me out a little bit when she was talking about when people, I think you’re speaking from a place of fear when you’re having this conversation with me about these things that my practices and beliefs. – How did you respond to that? – And I was like, the way I responded was; did you just like give me a reading or something? And then I made a joke about how I didn’t have $5. So I deflected. Which, she ended up saying; well, I’m an empath, I can tell. And I legitimately felt like she did have insight into how, like the psychology of how I was feeling. But to clarify, I didn’t think it was spiritual or, I didn’t think it was negative in nature, or even spiritual in nature. My interpretation of it, looking back on it, was in the way that you would have a conversation with a therapist who would have insight into; okay, you’re kinda hiding behind your fear here in the way that you’re asking me these types of questions. Does that make sense? That’s ultimately how I felt like she was talking to me. – She could tell that you were speculative. In the nature of your questions. – Yeah, not speculative, that’s not the right word. The right word is suspicious. – Yeah. – Yeah. But it was kinda a weird moment and I think, we kept talkin and I think she was like, she wasn’t gonna offer to like give me a palm reading or whatever it is she had her sign up for. But she gave me the opportunity to ask for that, but in the moonlight and in the, I had reached I had reached my level of comfort. I’d reached the limit of that and I was like; you know what, I think I’m gonna turn in. – I’m goin to bed. – So it kinda had this, it didn’t end abruptly, but I kinda had this, I don’t know, it was kinda a weird vibe kind of a moment that’s like, I didn’t know– – Did you see her the next day? – I saw her the next day and I was like, I was packing my stuff up and I was leaving and I was like; you know, I appreciated our conversation last night and I wanted to apologize if I felt condescending, if anything I said seemed condescending. And she was like; no, I think whenever people speak from a place of fear it’s always, if you understand it, it’s always understandable. Like, if I were to understand what it is you’re afraid of, I would not hold it against you. Just we didn’t discuss it. Is kinda what she meant. Does that make sense? – Yeah, I guess. – I guess somebody who’s out in the desert with a sign and finding themselves, they can say these type of things. – I know the mode that you go into with those kinds of questions, so I could see how she would take offense at it. – I didn’t mean to, well. – But I could, like what was underneath your – But also there was this level of fear that I had about being in the whole place and like, what am I, like I said, audibly a few times I was like; what am I doing here? After the conversation with her, I went back and I went to bed and I’m like into bed and I’m like trying to go to sleep. And then I could hear her footsteps. – She’s sneaking. – And I just felt like they were coming around my trailer. – She’s gonna kill you because you doubted her. – There was a little scratchy scratch on the door. And Jade perked up in the bed, but Jade didn’t bark. I’m like, I’m just gonna lay here really quiet. I don’t know what I’m doing here. But if I make it through the night, I’m getting out of here. And then in the morning I felt, I talked to her and I felt fine. And I don’t think she was creeping around my trailer. – Anything else significant happen? – It’s like you spend quality time with yourself. You isolate yourself with yourself and you learn a little bit. Well, I can’t say exactly what I learned, but. – It’s funny ’cause the stuff you talked about with the personality stuff is stuff that I’m kinda exploring within myself– – And I think that, I don’t mean to cut you off again, that’s the part I left out is I think that’s why it kinda freaked me out was because she talked about fears – And that was one of the things– – And that was the thing that I had been thinking about and that I kinda walked around, I was uneasy being there. So there were a couple different levels of fear that I had that I think anyone, not anyone could pick up on, but someone who, it doesn’t have to be creepy in order to pick up on it. But it freaked me out a little bit. – I’m processing some of the same stuff. That was one of the reasons that I went away. Now I also kinda knew that a couple of days is not enough time to actually make any real progress, just people that I know that have done like– – Right. – The time alone, you need a few days before you have some kind of breakthrough. The main thing I learned besides how to have an awesome yoga class with a lot of bachelorette women is I’m not very good at being alone. As much as I want to be alone and I’m introvert through and through, and I say things like; I need my alone time, I find when I am finally in that place where I’m alone, I’m kinda like; I’m not that good at this. And there is this slightly complicating factor of somebody might know who I am. It’s like I went to the spa, I got a massage, and went into the hot, I was interacting with this girl and she was like; this is where you can go, there’s another hot tub on the hillside that I went to for like 30 minutes ’cause it comes with the massage or whatever. And then I come back down the hill, I’m paying and she’s like; by the way, I’m a big fan of your show. And because that happens pretty regularly, thankfully, great, that means people are watching, that’s why I didn’t go to the restaurant by myself, right? – Yeah. – Because there’s self consciousness. There’s this like; oh, Rhett’s eating alone. What’s, he’s weird. I’m gonna go tell my friends, you know the guy from the show, the Good Mythical Morning thing, he eats alone at restaurants, he’s a creep. Even though I know that’s not what that actually means, I have fears associated with that. And so there’s a lot of self consciousness as I’m kinda going about my alone weekend. That’s why ideally I would just go to the desert where I’m completely alone and we don’t have to interact with people and I’m forced to confront the things within myself, which is what I hope to do later. – Yeah. – All that to say, I end up doing things like; I’m not gonna watch any TV, but then I watch TV. I’m not gonna watch a movie, but I ring up a movie online. You know what I’m saying? It’s like I don’t actually completely disconnect. I kinda feel like, the lesson I learned is I need to set boundaries and rules going in and actually follow through with them. – I mean, if getting in touch with yourself is first getting in touch with your self consciousness, I think that is an element of what it sounds like we both did a little bit. – But I confronted it head on in that yoga class. – Or butt. – And I was dancing at the end. (laughing) Okay, well this has been a fun catch up conversation. – This has been quite a weekend for you, huh? – What a weekend, huh? – For you. – You’re gonna tell this story, right? You’re tellin this story right now. About the big guy that you touched his butt with your butt right before you got married. You’ll tell your husband about it, right? – Oh, that was crazy. – All right, shout out to all my slabbers in Slab City and we’ll talk at you next week with another one. – Yeah. – Thanks for hangin out. – [Link] To hear this Ear Biscuit in its entirety and make sure you don’t miss an episode, follow the links in the description to subscribe on Apple podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are available. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the play list on the right. – [Rhett] To watch more of our daily show, Good Mythical Morning, click the playlist on the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] Thanks for being your mythical best.