Episode 90 - The End of The World Tour

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hey everybody michael gunger here hope you're enjoying your new year so far season five is going to be coming to you in a couple more weeks here but in the meantime we thought we'd drop a little bonus episode about the tour that we're going to be going on very soon here it starts february 18th it's called the end of the world tour and it's with my band gunger lisa and i along with the brilliance and propaganda we're going to start out in hope college in holland michigan on february 18th we're going to chicago on the 19th columbus ohio on the 20th atlanta on the 22nd nashville on the 23rd oklahoma city which is a brand new show that just got announced on the 25th february 26th in austin 27th in san antonio 28th in houston march 1st in waco and march 2nd in dallas also we just announced a west coast second leg that starts at the end of april april 25th in seattle 27th in portland 29th in chico california the 30th of april in petaluma california may 1st in san francisco may 2nd san luis obispo may 3rd ventura california may 4th from mona california and finally may 6th at the el rey theater in los angeles california we're super excited you can get tickets if you go to gunger music dot com slash tour conger spell g-u-n-g-o-r music dot com slash tour but a good place to hear some music have some fun meet some other liturgists [Music] and uh this podcast you're gonna hear today we were actually all in los angeles all meeting all the three bands and mike was around two so we thought it'd be a good opportunity to have a fun conversation about music and spirituality and all the weird stuff that we love to talk about around here at the liturgists but with some some of the people you've heard on this podcast and loved before but all in the same room this was a fun and silly conversation so hope you enjoy it and we'll be back with season five in a couple weeks much love everybody all right we're here we're coming to you from the liturgist worldwide headquarters of the backyard yes it sounds so pinnacle the biggest table in the smallest room [Laughter] like what 300 square feet yeah about that and the answer is four rolling tables three and a half adults because did you like that math that i did there this is i i was impressed with myself it's uh we did it because um michael and i don't like sitting close to people we got this table to record with four people at once i'm gonna share your burden with you there mike even though i'm not going to say that's a 50 50 burden you guys like here's the question do you hug yeah yeah you hug you do hug front front yes what's a backup you guys caught you guys do you guys do you guys cuddle no no we do have you ever we do sit in korean spas together have you spooned no no have you spooned with john no no but sometimes the closer the more intimate the man you don't touch i'm with you on that there's pr i probably have spooned with a man i've spooned with many men but a john it'd be no it'd be too easy it's not a surprise that you've spooned with many people i'm not speaking with prop right now not sexually not sexually spooning oh why but but genitals like an ass no i'm cuddle i'd like like watch like come here right now i just be like i'm calling up next to you no david you've done it with me and i enjoyed it with you so many times and i have gotten close all right this is this is hard to listen to because there's so many voices so let's go ahead and say our names we've got three bands in the room seven individuals one of who is not here yet but i'm counting him as though he will be here soon his presence i am a mike mccarth bass player and background vocals for abraham's bosom or bands pardon me four bands abrahams that's a that's our band you've never heard it you're not hurting is there anybody for all of us oh my gosh abraham's bosom all right oh this so we did that live in austin texas thinking what's a litter just crowd everybody's in on it i think a third of them weren't on it and then the other two thirds thought we were opening with a worship song is there is the track available in the back well and we put the graphic of a guy on the mountain with his hands up yeah worshiping oh my god because this is not like a worship music crap it wasn't like yes finally words of the literature oh yeah they're like wait what are they doing this is such an okie doke kind of sounds like they're like the war of the worlds like moment radio show yeah oh my god you really think martians are coming that's definitely what happened no we're just we're just kidding guys [Laughter] so that was a very long introduction for one voice it's always on the podcast so we'll keep it going around the room oh my name is propaganda uh i do hip hop and poetry and i'm a part of the literature's podcast network i'm gonna plug my pi on the red couch podcast wait now is the red couch podcast what network is that a part of um if you're not familiar it's a part of the the liturgist podcast network season one was with relevant we had a full season of season two with the liturgists and we just started season three but thank you for keeping up i mean if we're continuing the shade we're all going up to you guys you called lisa shade ninja the other day yes i think you're like shade sensation hey just uh my name's david gunger prop i love you and i'm sorry i'm just trying to keep it real and i've never listened to one of your pockets but i need to however i'm gonna become a patron i'm gonna put my money where my mouth is and i'm gonna become a patron for your podcast that's nice yeah what band are you part of dave david's my older brother michael says that because i'm bald michael would have been bald without science years ago as well are you seriously throwing that much [ \_\_ ] at me i don't know y'all's birth order i just don't know it how much older younger do you think that michael i'll take out my hat right now if you get it on the dot i'll give you a hundred dollars how many oh okay wait a minute so let's make a pleasure david is all about the money i love this are you saying how many years apart yeah you got to get the exact time apart you guys are two years apart so you're not getting a hundred dollars five years apart six right six years apart yeah me and my sister are six years apart young are you the older the younger yeah i'm the younger two so i'm the younger gunger and i am oh not the 32 not the youngest i've got we got a sister she was a host of the liturgist podcast wow which is a network if you've ever listened to the podcast but the thing is though i feel like i find out a new sibling every time i talk to you so there's they're they're solving my our podcast the brilliance podcast has also been on has been on the liturgists you didn't know he had a podcast you aired one of our podcasts on your podcast twice and you don't even know take this time to say i knew you had a podcast so first of all you didn't even know first of all you acted like i'm surprised what network you're on you don't even know i have a podcast so get out of somebody posted a podcast november really yeah i'm a big fan of the brilliance yeah i am so hey i appreciate you know i'm a fan of both of you guys yeah i'm a fan of both of you it's a lot of fans here and then we've got well this is a very special person in the room because this person has played music for all of us it feels like for years and years and years so you're your own artist who who are you oh man thank you for that i was kind this is terrance clark here terrence f clark yeah stands for [ \_\_ ] seth clark i i will play with anybody dope who has enough money i like that that's right i like that that's right okay i better preach listen he's a capitalist this tour i'm super geeked and excited it's like a big family reunion all three of you all are like some of my favorite artists and um very prolific in everything you all have ever done it's been amazing to be part of the journey and the story and to watch you all grow and do very just amazing things y'all have definitely changed my makeup and how i think about things or not being afraid to talk about stuff that i just didn't understand i didn't care to understand it's like michael used to always challenge me like yeah i think you asked me a question one time we were in china we were just on the train and you were like hey man what do you think about evolution and i looked at you like you were crazy i said i don't bro like like i was like and he was like why so aggressive i was like i just bro i don't think about that bro like i was just barely like trying to figure out where i come from it challenged me to think beyond what i think about you know it it was like you're clearly able to think about a lot of things and and you should but it it really pushed me in a direction to be more enlightened so i i appreciate that for sure and we had a lot of conversations and when i first met science mike he came on the bus and i was like i don't want to talk to that dude like you know i was in my bunk i was like man gets in his bunk yeah i get in my bunk and i'm like dude after that yeah after the show but yeah but like y'all are my favorite people on planet earth and the cosmos in general man like i really appreciate y'all like y'all are amazing yeah thank you you toured with us before we had any kids at all yeah i told y'all you're in a minivan yeah you toured with us when beautiful things first played played in the bunk for hours because you that's how emily went to sleep at night and you guys could you didn't know where the song was playing at and so it played throughout the whole night while michael and i slept in the hotel room i also was the first black man to babysit emily i don't know if anybody's done it since but i was the only friend i was also the only black man i was the first only black man to ever like like babysit a white kid yes that's man it was kind of scary man like it was scary i remember you remember amsterdam somewhere out there and that kid just sat on the floor looking at me like was chill yeah but it was amazing though it was a bonding moment we didn't use that video because my hands look like zombie hands really yeah it was a good picture yeah incredible i love you you are and i say this as my sister i'm getting everybody wonderful so wonderful i still think you have zombies i just took it i just took it kate has like the same thing happened where they get really dry hands uh if they're in specifically like denver cold cold cold dry but i have old looking hands you know it's fine i embrace oldness i don't think so you think terence thinks i don't think your hands are older i think actually can i tell you they don't look at all like zombies thank you dave all right who are you um i'm lisa gunger yeah i know introduction on this podcast yeah we've mentioned a couple times but the three bands unfortunately abraham's bosom is not one of the four bands thank you lord on tour but the other three are and we're in town together rehearsing for this tour coming up in february which by the way you can find dates for i know for me at thegungermusic.com tour yeah prop hiphop.com thebrilliancemusic.com tour it's all there man it's all there but we're in town it's called the end of the world tour and so while we were here we thought hey it'd be fun to get everybody together and talk on the podcast because there's a lot of brilliant creative minds around this table i think we could have some fun conversation about art about music about creating but also are we going to get into the end of the world stuff i don't know i've been curious why y'all named it we'll see how it goes see how it goes i've been curious why you named it i just kind of pulled into it i had no idea what where it comes from so i'm very curious well i can start that conversation that's david by the way so if you think this is yes we have a similar timbre a voice i think i might you have a little bit more mids while i sound a little bassier a little bassy or higher i don't know i feel like you have a better talking voice every time i listen back to mine it kind of reminds me of ed gunger and it makes me shriek a little my dad has a real high voice when he answers the phone they think it's a woman most of the time for the record your parents are phenomenal they are my dad is phenomenal if he answers the phone he goes hello [Laughter] gail is like an octave i just wanna i just want to put a pause here and just to acknowledge for anybody that might be a person of color listening to this show y'all notice how they refer to their parents by their first name yeah that's tripping me out bro i like that something that's they've been there something that happens no you don't do that bro we don't do that let's not pause on this yeah i just want to talk to y'all about the pit in my stomach yeah what you said how long have i called mom gayle how long have i done it probably years since i think i was like 15 or 16 years old and i knew the reason was instead of mom really what is going on with you that's what i tell you personally okay it's not our culture terrorists bro that's like there's things we don't understand i would have got smacked my my mama know the story yeah but you know you young you call him up mom mama mom my now as an apparent i understand what's happening like i'm ignoring you on purpose it's just you gonna wait your turn right i don't know that not when you're a child mom i know you hear me you know i'm not saying that i'm saying that in my head i know you hear me mom mother mom janice [Laughter] she show up out of nowhere story no it doesn't work man you don't do that [ \_\_ ] just everything stopped it was almost like it was like outside went dark like yeah it's different from a couch it's almost like my neighbors peeked in the window like yeah man bruh but they've been doing it for as long as i've known it it's a term of endearment boys so let me tell you why let me tell you what this is i mean i'm not trying to my mom like wanted to be called ruth really yeah is it to explain this give me science mike please break this down i know i won't ever understand it but my mom didn't like me my mom still doesn't like it uh well i think for parents to choose it uh it started that hasn't always been a white culture thing that started with boomers wanting to deny the aging process i think not that my mom did but a lot of her kids started having their children call them by their first name you know i had to at least say to my parents friends like even if that my parents friends their name and and i call them i can call them mr like i couldn't call themselves now i yeah i would say 30 still now friends that i've heard of my parents i'm 37 and i'm like this is not even my uncle he's a friend of my dad and i'd be like hey uncle carlton i can't i'm not going to call him carlton to this day i still call him like mr art and mrs r you do oh yeah wow but for mom and dad i know i love mom loves it she hates it it's a joke because because i've done it as a joke and then it just since she was like 14 i was like same type thing but i was like gail and it was like you can't do that and then i'd be like oh and then it was a joke so and then as soon as it became added to you know everything is a joke so we call her gail out of like it's so much love and funny that's great that's a bad joke in my family [Laughter] anyway into the world end of the world we the brilliance following suit from probably very much like gunger or probably in many ways like prop i don't want to speak for you because i'd actually like to ask these questions not assume but we were in a place a little over a year ago where we were deciding if we still wanted to make music as a band called the brilliance and we had um we had wanted to make a record that was not for church or for christian music or anything like that we wanted to just make a record that kind of went beyond that type of language and in doing so uh john and i had decided uh we had written some music but we had decided that we were going to do a series of sweets and the first suite was for daca dreamers and the second suite was really kind of dove into the idea of the hyperbole that you see on any side that is like it feels like right now is so tense and that tension is like is that are we at like no time in human history before where you're like oh my gosh the world feels like anyone and on one end like we can talk about this with dl on one end there's like technology and all kinds of things that can destroy us very quickly and on another end you look at human history and there's like a lot of hope and a lot of good things and so we wanted to make an album that reflected that tension and so we did that we're going to release it this spring and one of the cool things was we have been really inspired by both of you but specifically like the liturgists a lot of times dives into large existential questions that i feel like many people who come out of my own world that i'm still in a lot of times it's it asks these big questions and it deals with existential things and yet liturgist is always very i feel like tender and gentle now that sounds can sound a bit odd but like you face things bravely while being gentle with people and so one of the things that for us that we kind of made our mantra in making this music when we dove into social issues was not that we knew the answer to the social issues but our idea was there's no idea that's above critique for that social issue meaning we're not going to be dogmatic about like we're the ones who have the right answers and if if there's no one who's willing to talk about other things or be critiqued in their they're just dogmatic it's like arguing with the suicide bomber it just doesn't work but there's no person that's below dignity which means that's kind of our our thing on if your idea if it can be critiqued that's good but if you take away someone's dignity it's really hard to critique that so we're going to be talking about social issues specifically that make you worry about is this like where are we at for instance with we dove into the idea of dreamers and immigration and that's something that is a hot topic issue right for me as a privileged person it might not feel like that's an issue that's an end of the world issue but if you know anyone that's a dreamer or you know anyone that's an undocumented immigrant to them this issue does feel like the end of their world or not and a lot of times when you learn something you are then held accountable or responsible for that and so we want to make art that inspires empathy and so my hope for this tour especially and honored that you guys would even take the name each one of us is going to have our own perspective for what it means for us like is this the end of the world we're all going to come at it from a different lens but for us what we hope is that the art that we create builds empathy to where like we see that hopefully it's not the end of the world yeah the reason that i liked the name we had like a whole list of possibilities that we were looking at for the tour name and what stood out about that one for me um was yeah that very issue of how i think each of the three bands can subjectively come at it from a quite different place in a really important place for me in the way that i see the world and and interact with things kind of two-fold i mean i like talking about the big existential things like we talk about on the liturgists all the time and politics and where is all this headed and are we headed are we headed towards the singularity and is that going to take over is this is this the literal end of the world soon um but also on a spiritual level the end of the world can happen at every moment the world that you hold on to the world that we construct moment to moment to give meaning to our experiences that we cling to that creates suffering in us letting go of that letting go of the world entirely uh can bring a freedom that is what i think all the great traditions are getting at ultimately i i i could think of how each band could kind of interact with it in an interesting way what about you i think there's even what you guys are saying are even adding to sort of how it washed over me i think there's the part of just as far as being part of the tour both of you guys's technical ability to make music is just inspiring to me even back to like the beautiful things days like sitting in the audience going oh no wait they're like playing playing like that's that's real music like they're playing music up there you know what i'm saying so it's like just knowing like i need to be a part of whatever they're doing um but i think when i think about uh like you said these existential threats that we're facing and letting myself go off the cliff i remind myself of the mayans looking off the shore and seeing cortez coming you know what i'm saying like this is the end of the world dog you know what i'm saying right i'm going when all these off suddenly manifest destiny posters start popping up it's the end of the world dude right the first time i saw somebody wearing like an nwa t-shirt like a white girl wearing an nwa t-shirt you know what i'm saying and then boutique stores pop somebody got an airbnb in south central los angeles on 64th in san pedro i'm like that's where the crips were born you know so like i say that i'm saying all to say like gentrification like in a lot of ways it's such it's so violent and it's columbus-like taking over you understand i'm saying that it again it's an apocalypse like this i'm saying like this is it so i say all that to temper my are we at the edge of this cliff in the sense that we've been at the edge of a cliff but something has to be reborn something has to be rebirthed i know the the material is deteriorating so i mean like i don't know if i could predict that i don't know if there was any sort of if i could really point at something that is multi-dimensional exist in this divine sphere that poked into our finite world and said the end was at this moment like i don't know but i know that things deteriorate you know what i'm saying so that part to me was something that was provocative in the sense of like i know i can be creative and come with a lot of sort of conceptual like ways to craft music like you said like the death of moments the death of experiences the rebirth of new experiences like made me be like i'm i'm digging this and it's just so the name is just so gunger that i'm like yes i have to be a part of this right i mean i'm saying this to like to the literature to you guys into the literature pod because no one knows this but like i'm cooking my and before you even knew you were gonna name this but i'm cooking my next album and my next like book video series and all that right the idea is essentially it's called terraform right and any scientific science sci-fi nerd would know what i mean like you get to a planet a planet's not liveable you have to make it livable that's called terraforming so it's making literal livable worlds right so and what is and what do we have to do that well you have to examine the sky the atmosphere the soil the people and then the possibility right so this is how i'm hanging my next body of work is the idea of making a livable world rather than what if what if we don't land on mars to make it biologically livable but sociologically livable what if the what if the astronauts the first explorers were musicians we're artists we're architects so we're creating a culture right how do we create culture this is the nerd and prop you create culture by creation myths you tell stories stories shape identity stories make us is why we see the world and how we see the world in in a sense they were like the things that i can't write a thesis about the things that i can't give you in bullet points i have to show a story there has to be there's truth we're still extracting truth from star wars i'm saying because it's just it's a good story you know what i'm saying so in my mind how i make a livable world is i tell better creation myths right as i tell better narratives if i tell greater stories so that's making a world so if the tour that i do right before we launch this stuff is called the end of the world right it's because we're terraforming a new one you know what i mean and i feel like that's what like the liturgists in a lot of ways the brilliance in a lot of ways and i know for myself this is something i've always believed in i'm going to give language to stuff that you feel like you kind of feel like you've been feeling but she ain't got no words for that you know what i'm saying i feel like that's my music it's like i'm trying to go oh yeah no i know what you're talking about you're saying this oh you know the words you're missing yeah that's called racism that's the word what i'm saying so like let me help you shape this and then go well this is why it's ridiculous well this is a better way to look at the person sitting next to you you know what i'm saying if you think of a better way to look at the person sitting next to you we're just going to make a more livable world right that's that's why it like resonated with me some parts of the world need to end is that anyway yeah i mean that's one of the yes you could say one of the myths that gives a lot of meaning would be the the idea that just like always the cycle of life always comes from a place of death like death and life and just in and out one of the things that i think has inspired us in the last year and this this has to do a lot with once again liturgists so i'm i'm blowing a lot i feel like i'm blowing you guys a lot of smoke right now but they got us toned down immediately uncomfortable personally yeah and michael's bringing it in i well this is this has been for me so i read this from thomas merton and i thought of of you you guys which was thomas merton talked about the future of spirituality this was in the 60s he talked about the future of spirituality was going to be where zen met christianity and i felt like both of you came from a place of christianity and in many ways have taught a lot of people who have come out of that lens you've had experiences and mystical experiences and learned a lot and dove into meditation certain things that you've embraced a lot of i would say eastern thought that has somehow for many people in america who are coming from a western christianized place like oh they see the future of that there's something really beautiful and hopeful even though for a lot of the western mindset it looks like a lot of death in certain ways but the thing that has like inspired me for you guys and for my own journey has been learning about how with anything that within life um in the order there has to be some chaos and in the chaos there has to be some order for there to be life and and death in the yin yang there's like a little dot in the white of of the opposite and so for me it's been really amazing as a like young artist or person that's grown up with michael as a brother and growing up being able to have relationships with dear friends and artists seeing somehow your guy's journey of going like okay at times it looked deconstructive and now to me it looks very actually you're in like this really beautiful season of growth and like this type of vegetation that's really beautiful and i hope that for this whole thing there's moments of us being able to all from our own perspective kind of just be and that's that thing where i'd be like okay in the midst of this we're do we're here together and so what i'm really excited about is even though we're three separate bands is we're all like making music together and we're having a night that's not just like about our own egos as a band but somehow we're like coming together from our place and we're gonna let there there's a lot of chaos you know there's a lot of chaos but we gotta get some order to that chaos and there's also gonna be a lot of order and there's gotta be enough chaos within that and i just hope that it's like something that when people come and experience there's room for so many people to come in and just be and sing with us and listen and be inspired and it's obviously it's hard for me because john's not here right now um but i'm just dude i'm like so freaking excited to have terence back and to have like have some times within a set to where it's not just i don't know it it feels like sometimes you go on tour with bands and you try to do your best and you're like trying to stick out and i feel like for a night like this i i mean i'm not i don't feel any pressure to be anything that i'm not so for a night like this that's where i'm like man how do we best serve each other and love one another and that sounds like really ah but like how do i best serve props music how do i best serve congress music how do i best how do we tell this story together and each give each other that room and so that's what i'm excited about creating in this week yeah well something something came to mind just now listening to y'all because of course i'm just a drummer you know i mean i'm i'm a friend i've been a fan of all of you all individually for years and just something came to mind i just wrote down because all of you all have like this different like energy and spirit that i see has evolved so here we go i'll read it uh like propaganda to me you you you represent like the actual awareness and education from and for the people like it's like the street you know it's like coming from the people like you're yelling out into the world hey this is what we're feeling this is what we're thinking as at the same time you're educating the same people who should know and don't know right gengar is like the actual awareness and the questioning of the individual mind you know like always wondering what is this and how is this working and how should i feel and what should i think and questioning everything but also like coming to a synergy of self and just dealing with self right and then the brilliance to me is like this actual awareness of empathy for other people for the world like looking outward so like all these pieces come together to be like this what is it called like when you're you're dealing with like buddhism and the chakras right you have all these different things that line up i feel like all three of y'all's energy lines up in a way that is so relevant beyond just music but like the way you all teach and talk and communicate as a friend and as a fan like those are very very um powerful things that i think you all bring to the table so to see all that put together in a show and in a tour is just brilliant like i'm a fan i've always been a fan so i'm excited to watch that and you know i think it's it's amazing so thank you yeah man it's normal at so many different points in our life to feel like something is getting in the way of being present or happy something stopping us from achieving the goals that we have for ourselves or feeling connected to the people that we love better help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist to help you work on all those things you can connect with someone in a safe and private online environment for that reason it's so convenient you don't even have to leave the house and you can start working with someone in under 24 hours when working with someone through better help you can send a message to your counselor at any time and get a timely and thoughtful response plus you can schedule weekly video and phone sessions betterhelp has licensed professional counselors who are specialized in treating things like depression anxiety navigating family conflicts and so much more they're committed to facilitating 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just see seeing what happens i mean it makes me think about like all of our some of our charismatic days you know but that there's something beautiful to that like when you just give space to to listen where things should go and i think for me i don't feel that any sort of pressure performance pressure anymore that i have to be a certain thing for someone so that makes me experience the whole night in a different way it helps me be able to listen instead of just plow forward or trying to perform so yeah to what both terence and david were saying about that i'm excited about that and just reiterating what everyone already said about the name of the tour when we were talking about it at first i liked it because i thought it was kind of shocking like oh yeah and of course we're going to go with the end of the world tour but um the idea of death and rebirth i think that used to scare me for a while the idea of the end of the world or the singularity or ai taking over and this has probably been the first year for me that it doesn't scare me anymore michael we're just talking about this had this experience in our backyard not long ago where i was like fate i was looking into the sky and all of a sudden i felt the need to like turn over and just have my face towards the ground towards the earth this sounds pretty weird but i was like hugging the earth and it was like oh you're gonna explode you're going to you need to this is beautiful this is but that's amazing like you need to do this is a beautiful thing you need to do you're not destroying us you're you're birthing us all in all of it the end of the world yes you need to happen because that's the continuum that's deep i like it you know the the favorite thing that i learned last in the last year is that someone made an earth sandwich by placing a bun like if you place the bun right here yeah and then they figured out with our modern technology where the exact opposite side of the earth is and put another the bottom bun and when you zoom what i like about that is when you zoom back one click it's the earth that did that like the earth made itself a sandwich internet humor is a franky a sandwich two pieces of bread with a filling yeah i got it i'm with you click out and you're the earth sandwich but the earth made itself a sandwich like it evolved to the place yeah where it made itself the sandwich [Laughter] can i do a little translation right now i'm not done okay it's not done it's not done sorry i don't want it i need it and i'm like preach preach what did that but when you think about the end of the world and you think about these things that concern all of us one click out there's we can't do anything to the world yes amen so we're like in the flow of what's happening with these giant seismic cosmological billions of years of movement of this giant ocean and we're like in this little eddy of a tiny wave going like yeah oh no it's the end of the world and we're super worried yes yes getting up going to the kitchen and making a sandwich so like the ambiguous the ambiguous thing the earth made itself a sandwich and then no seriously the earth made itself a sandwich it made itself into yeah or if you could create bread from your own skin oh my god okay see that's what i'm trying to figure out like where did we get to that no no no no no but i'm just trying to i'm just trying to this is why you are in the he's the mind okay michael let me try to let me try to track with that idea for a sandwich but back into like i love the idea that on one end even if we're like this is the end of the world our egos like the world is bigger than our ego in the sense of like if i die the world keeps spinning and no matter what even humanity if humanity all goes to hell in a handbasket like guess what earth is still here even when earth dies like the universe keeps going however like in that letting go of just being like oh man i'm not that important somehow when you get to the end of it and you're like yeah but we're all a part of this universe we're all a part of this thing there's something that happens again where you're like i am the universe i get back to this place of going i am so that i get another sense of ego or or and i don't mean that in a negative way i mean i have a sense of self again distinction of distinction which i go back to this place of being like yeah my distinction though is birthed out of like we all are a part of the universe instead of just my world because my world may need to die it might not need to be the thing where you're like i can totally see if in a certain sense of i think when you realize that like the world is bigger than you or your own little world there's a certain ego death that happens and there's a certain sense of like humility that has to happen but then out of that humility somehow you see the kindness or the gentleness of the universe that then once again bursts life as gift and you're like oh my gosh even if this is the end of the world i'm so excited that we got to live like it's lisa hugging the earth again i'm back to like i got to be at this time where i lit i had life life is only gift yeah yeah and then i'm coming from appreciation gift and guess what then when i look at the end of the world i look at it with hope and i start going yeah but from this gift can't we create and can't there be beautiful things or can't there be and that's where i get like i'm back to that even though michael said the earth sandwich getting there existentially i understand that i'm getting there it's a little bit weird that sandwich might be like it's a little bit i just i still don't get the connection i love it i guess for me it's like i want to eat that sandwich man i will say yeah the beauty of like hugging the planet and understanding that like it's all in one it's a lie this is what it is and it has to do what it is what we already need to do what we always beautiful in the same way that we all need to do like i am of the belief that like sky and soil is yelling at you all the time like just just take a second there's actually a new poetry piece that like i'm going to have just for this tour that's like kind of around that right yeah um so you have to buy tickets because so so michael uses we'll say i'm sorry dude no no michael i'm gonna stop cutting you off i'm gonna stop yeah can i keep throwing the shade i'm just kidding i'm just kidding i'm just kidding so michael uses the earth sandwich he still does it so michael uses michael uses the earth sandwich yeah which is weird you use sky and earth right which is not so weird at all but some people could be like wait what is that like a certain type of like i don't know you get freaked out by this both deal with wonder like crazy and this is my one question for you prop because i really want to dive into this michael posted like on social media this tour with prop this no grief at all about proper brilliance you you post and you do get some grief about gang gang sorry prob don't be sorry so my question is really i'm not gonna agree with you he this is my question he obviously got there from earth sam which was his odd and sometimes he uses his own language i don't know what he got to though is my point did he get to wonder that's my point he got to wonder okay and you got to wonder through earth and sky okay now what that got to do with somebody not wanting me to i guess the christian piece for me okay like the atonement piece that's why i want to die like do you feel like people want to hear that from you about wonder only do you get boxed in like that because brilliance got boxed in like that and we kind of got out of that now i can get out of that kind of safely because i still i still work at a church right i still do that so john doesn't at all and he's out of that faith but you'd be like that's where i'm wanting like i'm pushing a button there a little bit but i'm like no it's like there's i mean there's always like the you know the association piece of just the type of thinking that would believe that like if you sit next to somebody you've wholeheartedly ingested everything that that person said and and it's like for the better or for worse you feel me like in the same way that like maybe there's somebody that i may be on at an event with with a person they think is safe you feel me that's like still still plays in the lines if you will and and i'm at the event but like i think that guy's full of crap you understand i think he's [ \_\_ ] i mean i just like some things he says overall we're really on different paths right now um i have personally reached a place to where i just don't need that type of association with a person like i don't have to love or hate what you're saying you know what i'm saying like in the sense of like you said the singularity of personhood and stuff like that like the the gungers are my friends my friends i don't you know i mean that's one thing the other thing is i have a very like hard and fast rule that i've had to learn about my public persona is that my words will be weaponized and i never want them to be weaponized against friends no matter what they no matter where they stand you understand what i'm saying in the sense that like perfect example is like so you have somebody like my one of my closest friend nj givens who's openly gay and then you have another good friend who's uh named jackie jackie hill perry who was once a lesbian and now is out of that life wrote a book about it and is um just on the total end of the spectrum of this of this uh sort of concept now where i stand i'm like that's not the point don't use my words to either tear down jay and build up jackie or tear down jackie and build up jay because they're my friends you understand i'm saying so i'm like so in that sense it's not so much that i don't have a position it's just i'm not gonna give you ammo you understand what i mean so because what's more important to me are my friends then then whether you have a comfortable whether you comfortable with where i stand on stuff what's more important to me is my friends right um so now now as far as like you said like speaking about sort of the wonder in terms of the atonement i personally feel like i came into christendom if you or ccm if you will like just christian as an industry i came in not having any idea it existed in the first place you know was it pursuing the name same didn't know it was there yeah no it was just you just do what you do you had like we so you're in california we didn't know what's up here yeah nobody talks about christianity yeah yeah i wasn't here you understand i'm saying so i didn't know that it i didn't know any of this i didn't know who to be impressed with right i don't know i didn't know none of the rules i didn't know none of that you'd understand i'm saying in a funny way like when i first stepped into nashville and i was like oh my god like there's like a cross on the wall it's so cool like you guys can be christians here that's crazy you're just over like everybody goes to church here it's crazy right because i just i just didn't come from that right so anyway so i feel like first of all i came in i saw that to say i came in as an outsider already right and then my introduction to the broadest sense of christendom was a poem i did called precious puritans which i essentially called them slave owners unbelievable songs so yeah thank you so like but that was my introduction so it was almost like i came in already like oh i'm not it's like oh i live here i'm just not from here like i'm not from this i just happen to live here you understand what i'm saying so so from it was almost like from day one i'm not gonna be on the radio i'm not gonna be on any of the bigger like festivals like i'm just i'm just i already knew out the box i was i was always going to be a fringe so with that sense so because of that since i was never a darling you understand what i'm saying like y'all were like they loved y'all yeah they're they're the ones that got you got i laugh because brilliance gets no grief like that except for like being political stuff but they don't get ever mad at us about changing because we didn't have that kind of success we were never like i was never that's that's what that's what i was diving into like so so because of that i've had a lot of now at the same time nobody wants to hear me say you know what i'm saying whoa i think penal substitutionary atonement's just not in the bible at all like nobody wants to hear me say that you know what i'm saying but if you asking me about the atonement like joe i'm saying i want to hear them say that they didn't used to yeah now they do i am of the belief that i'm of the belief that like the atonement's a multifaceted diamond and there's so many motifs and there's so many examples of somebody trying to you're trying to explain something that you you're not your receptors aren't built to understand so because of that you know i'm saying i got to give you examples that are going to fall apart in some ways because you don't even have the capacity to understand what i'm saying in the first place that a divine you have to throw away every understanding of identity placement person yet throw all that away you telling me that that in one sentence you will understand how that thing redeems and what the hell you mean by redeem in the first place what i'm talking about is saying like yo it's lofty it's above me yeah there's i'm like this so does the atonement work like this [ \_\_ ] maybe i don't know baby if you did commercials for the podcast that was a good that's the tape just right now i wasn't asking that from like i'm so glad that you answered that that way but i wasn't asking that from like you personally told me that as an artist yeah so because you dive into more and more like what's funny is you dive into stuff in a much more raw in your face yeah if they listen to the lyrics like i'm like are they listening to this right now like the puritans think it's like that's that's real yeah and that's where i'm like oh when you get pushed back like that do you feel it do you care how do you address that i feel like you were just what's funny about specifically the puritans thing was like other thinkers like like in this in the safe house thinkers were writing like blog pieces about like no he's correct like he's so i didn't even have to like defend that one it's like they're like no he's no that's that's historically accurate and i've actually been sitting over here wondering why nobody's pointing at it in the first place i'm glad the artist finally did right so in that sense i like that's the you know dodge but either way it was like at the time i had to explain to them that like well no that's that's a poem like they were still calling them raps i was like this is a poetry piece a spoken word like do you wait you understand this genre like but then there's somebody said well you spent too much time talking about how the puritans were when i was like well it's not even the that's not even the point of the song the point of the song is like we're all crooked sticks we're all you know we can we pick our poison you know you're just as evil as they are but low key like stop worshiping them you know what i'm saying so like so when i'm trying to explain that they're like well you spent 90 of the time talking about the puritans but you only talked about yourself for one percent i'm like well are you familiar with poetry like so there was such a like that triggered that people are true so so i say all that to say i get i get pushback right but it's like you knew what you were getting i never switched on nobody like you knew what you was getting in the first place i'm gonna talk about white supremacy i'm gonna talk about misogyny i'm talking about patriarchy i'm gonna talk about prison industrial complex i'm gonna talk about socialism i'm gonna talk about like i'm gonna talk about all these things already so stupid you don't don't stream the record like how were you upset about like i'm not you i'm not booked for i'm not on your radio i'm not booked on your festivals what are you mad at me about like you had to go out of your way to hear my stuff you're so upset oops it's not for you it's not it's fun and if it is if you peek into my world and you see it i'm elated i'm ecstatic i you know what i'm saying like i i believe in jesus you know what i'm saying i i don't know what to tell you dog like i'm not a republican i'm you know what i'm saying at all i do like having um prop on our podcast specifically so he can be the most theologically conservative and christian voice in the room isn't that funny that is true right now that is so that's really good i like that i'm just like i'm like yeah yeah yeah you can christianity yes you could be like we've had a conservative jesus was a literal person that resurrected from the dead [Laughter] we totally had one yes that time if i represent y'all's conservative voice boy uh jennifer napon recently and there was a similar comment she's like she's like i'm not usually the one defending any degree of i usually don't like jesus [Laughter] when propaganda is the most close-minded this episode should be called a sandwich earth sandwich yeah the most valuable thing i learned all year [Laughter] who did you learn from or did you were you just like humorous zay frank also it is a joke no it's a project where the other side of the earth is and get a bun there right now and then take a picture and make sure the buzzer is at the same time parents are back [Laughter] itself made it yeah and that was some sort of existential revelation that you got is the part that i'm like but we're white people so we're we're constantly fighting the the state of division and separateness so like i think even with the amount of like soul work or existential work that michael's done like the the natural operative tendency at least for me i can say is to view myself as something separate from the world uh it's it's a it's it's part of it's baked in from when i was a little kid you're in the world but not of it yeah so anytime you talk world it's gonna have some theological undertone for my brain from conditioning but two the frame i carry is that there's this natural world there's these animals and plants and things and then there's me a person above and separate from the whole ordeal so then so at least for me that's why there are sandwiches like oh that's a really important reminder i'm actually part of the earth like there's not a bit there's not a single quantum element that's not true there's not a single atom in my body that is not of the earth there's oceans of quantum mechanics yeah there's a lot of them that's a beautiful idea so when i i did this big trip of psilocybin for a study at nyu and while i was like super tripping in this place i had that michael vishnu was in the room with me he was one of my doctors my brother rob was the other doctor and i was having this crazy like most intense like spiritual experience doing these things and then what i learned was and i was like write this down i have to write it down it's so stupid write this down forget it i was like if my spirituality isn't playful it isn't real it isn't real that's good i know but like i laugh because right when you say oh earth sandwich and you're like laughing i'm trying to think of a time where with you two you don't have like moments of laughter when they're like the most profound things like when you do it like it's straight laughter all the time and i'm like earth sandwich i'm like it is really profound it's like my phone over here like man it always [ \_\_ ] happens and it's like a [ \_\_ ] sandwich and i got it again i was like man it came at me again ah if it's not joyful it's not real right this time that's why y'all need if i get it or don't cool that's cool i'll figure it out later you know like it's like we have to we have to totally redo like the branding of the tour now it's like a earth sandwich it could be a special tour t-shirt it would that'd be like it'd be deep cut it'd have to be very deep cut like we don't have it displayed but they just come up and they're like can i get a nerf sandwich and if they said a table or a shirt that's just for them so you don't get the shirt unless you come up to the thing and be like yeah we're not going to it's like it's like the secret menu because if you don't then the liturgist listeners will make the shirt and bring it right so let's do this they're just for literature look t-shirts are thirty dollars you come up you'll be like earth sandwich boom it's not it's not displayed it's not explained and the price isn't talked about because i don't want someone to be like wait how much was that you just like no you should know first you're slipping you know how much it is is there any questions you don't get i actually want that t-shirt so i will i will pre-order it now okay you got to get it on twitter gotta get on tour we'll be in l.a hooking me up i'll buy this shirt see how they just capitalize on that moment real friends that's good stuff hey man stop making money you're stacking that cash that's stacking that cash bro i'm all about that hr make that money dog make sure man paper stacks aka who is rich like the turkey honestly when i first heard the name i was like y'all really have lost hope man i have i know you have i'm with you though bro but i was i was like i was like man this is this is why it's good yes we could say this is each perspective you're like man you've lost hope and you've been well john have you lost i mean something different yeah but hope is relative to me i'm like i'm like everyone has a different perspective on what that is i was just excited because i was like man i'm with you mike no he is not doctor he's not coming at it from a negative no me either i'm okay with it you know i'm saying i'm definitely okay with it i'm like yeah okay i hope it's overrated yes come on look you are wrong what are you talking about you're crazy and now i'm like yeah bro what yeah this is great this is other than this yeah yeah but other than that that's where i'm going like let's dive into that a little bit okay hope for something other than this then what it is you need hope to live just get the get the [ \_\_ ] out of bed yeah yeah that's true i think it's coming up it's true but then it can become a vision for what you think your life should be what the world should be for god to save everything and make everything like you want it to be in a way that can get your eyes off i used to live in a way that of so searching for hope so wanting what is going to happen is there a god to make something work to make the world different than it is that you can lose sight of what's right in front of your face mm-hmm word there we go bro see um bro okay what are you hoping for what are you hoping in you know we didn't know it was just a handshake just a business meeting yeah business meeting man that was a great point business middle management i'm with you mike i'm with you 100 bro i am yeah that's a totally different well not totally different but it is it's totally different than just like uh you know i hope it's overrated but it sounds like what you're saying is you talk in hope is ridiculous whenever i don't need to paraphrase what you just said the point is what you what you are getting to i feel like is less jolting and like gutturally like privileged then like the first statement just felt like yes deeply privileged you never said what you're saying yes yes but then as you started like going into it i was like actually that's a that's a beautiful sentence but it's also like just a direct way of saying it it's still work you know once you understand it's kind of like drawing you in if you want to really understand what he's saying or what someone thinks like this like are you going to just stay where the statement was left or are you going to actually like be bold enough to go in to listen to yeah yeah yeah yeah and so like you listen to explanations like oh yeah okay yeah i get that and i know him now i the language is like i get it before he even explains i'm like yeah i get it bro i know where you're going with this yeah i'm with you well going now you were texting me about some people that got mad at you for being associated with us or whatever but you were saying yeah i don't even agree with alma about everything or something he said and i was like i don't even agree with myself yeah yeah that was the best answer and that's so that's like it's like the comment section you can never get to really the higher yeah discussion yeah it's really in a common question you understand i'm saying but ultimately that's the point i'm trying to make is just like the the point that they might be making is they have this grasp on certainty and that somehow the fixed north star that you among every other iteration of human has been trying to attain somehow you got it right and and if you're not at that point the rest of them is off you understand what i'm saying and i'm like you know what i thought than what i thought my north star was a year ago years that i'm saying and then five years before that so like awesome the the bigger thing is what you would the wonder you're talking about what would we try to get to what i would love to like push back on the guy is to just say like okay hear your own inconsistencies and understand that like what you said like bro you don't even understand what you believe you don't even know what you think you know what i'm saying so everybody just relax right like let's get out of people's comment sections yeah like what part of your brain or body are you talking about in what time for rep frame that believe like at any given moment at any given moment yeah there's different parts of your body that are feeling different ways your different hemispheres of your brain different brain structures mike needs a mic right now yeah this is like his whole world but yeah yeah so just like at somebody else's comment like um and it's like i don't i'm not in the i'm not a fan of like just riffing on that because these people follow me like which is you could follow whoever you want thank you you understand i'm saying so i'm not i'm not i'm not in the business of like dissing dissing my supporters you know but i put a picture of like a bookshelf and just talked about just the different books that i have on on my shelf and somebody asked well where's the solid theology and my question is and i was like well okay solid to who yeah you know so what i'm trying to get to is like it's so crazy how do i say to you the stuff y'all deal with yeah it's like how do i say to you you and i'm like solid according to who and i was just like i have an eastern orthodox book i have a saint thomas aquinas book you know what i'm saying and these are both of these people don't think each other are solid you instead of saying so i'm like solid to who you know into which that person's response was like well solid according to scripture yeah and then so i want to get to the place where i'm just like yeah that's what both of them are saying so like i like ultimately you anybody listen to this has already thought this through is to be like no what this guy is trying to say is where's the gospel coalition books like these are the guys we've all agreed are safe to read from and they're all guys and they're all guys yeah yeah yeah i'm saying some sort of shade of beige-ish white you feel me yeah to get to be the purveyors of all things solid you understand i'm saying so like ultimately like how do you where do you start with a person to go hey man like you you don't even know what you mean when you say that you know what i'm saying without which i strongly believe again like earlier about like weaponizing my words i say this without degrading him you understand i'm saying or degrading his place of understanding and development as to put myself in some sort of highly evolved like i'm in a more involved position than him it's just i'm not where you are like i stopped using those terms because i know how they washed over me you know what i'm saying and on top of that it's just books fam like it's just they're just books like i just like i'm just reading it's just books dude just read it they're just words it's just words like i can't i can't read about it like what do you say it's books bro like you know anyway i'm just grateful like that i'm able to sit at this table with all of you from different places and still find ways to relate and find common ground and laugh to have joy in this and i feel like that's what people are missing everybody wants to just fight yeah and like argue and like but my point is this and my point is that and you're it's like man if we just like listen to each other and come together on even like the most basic things i think we'll be okay but it's still like dreaming that's hopeful right like it's it's you know but if anything's up to the task music yeah exactly yeah but that's what that's where music for me as a language when you say that it resonates a lot with me is that one like historically speaking an uptick in germany like nazi germany a huge thing that was going on at that time like there's a huge uptick in nihilism and when people are seeing all this crap happen they're like it's inevitable what can you do and i see school shootings now and we still as a society are now getting to the point where it's like what what's inevitable what right there's like yeah and there has to be someone that goes like enough is enough and i call that hope like hopeful resistance yeah and so when i see that especially from the only way that you learn about that or do that are people who are actually suffering those who suffer are those who lead yes and so you have to listen to the voice of the suffering and then you have to let them lead and then from that place of be like that's where hope is birthed yeah so i don't mean a hope is in like oh you know some like escapism hope or anything like that i'm saying no but from like the ground up even in the midst of our political tension right now my hope for this tour is that like we don't just make it about this side's right this side's wrong right totally this song is beliefism or this side is like oh they're just they're not there yet like some type of yeah like we know what is the hope or future right now no like what we know is the embodiment of love and listening and being together and we're doing this together that's good and that's like yeah