760: Matt McCusker

Summary

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Duncan Trussell Family Hour #760 — Matt McCusker

Release Date: July 10, 2026
Guest: Matt McCusker (comedian, co-host of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast)

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Episode Overview

Duncan welcomes Matt McCusker back to DTFH for an unfiltered, funny, and philosophical salon weaving through the nature of reality TV, animal instincts, drug dealing economics, the grind of comedy, virtues, and the future of creativity in an AI-driven world. The friends riff on their past hustles, the long road of self-improvement, and finding meaning as they take on family life while still nurturing mischief and comedic madness.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Reality TV as a Window into Humanity: Animal Instincts and Love Island

• [01:44 – 07:39]
  Duncan marvels at the dystopian vacuity of Love Island:

  “It is the most dystopian slop... just to sort of marvel at the apocalypse.” — Duncan [01:49]

  • The show’s premise: a superficial, humiliating meat market, revealing primal mating instincts and social dynamics.
  • Matt and Duncan riff on the strange rituals of mate selection, comparing it to “7th grade party dynamics” and likening physical preferences (height for women, breasts for men) to evolutionary selection.
  • Discussion segues into the deeper point: all humans are driven by basic animal needs unless they transcend them through connection with something higher.

2. Are We Animals? Spirituality, Envy, and Shedding Comparison

• [08:03 – 12:20]
  • Duncan draws from Hare Krishna teachings:

    “If all you’re doing...you’re just an animal. The only time you stop being an animal is when you start connecting with God.” — Duncan [08:18]

  • Matt connects this to petty jealousy:

    “Every single person I’d see...I’d either be like, ‘fucking piece of shit.’” — Matt [10:05]

  • Both admit to knee-jerk, reflexive judgments—then laugh and analyze how people try, and fail, to outgrow these animal instincts.
  • Matt: Aging is liberating because you naturally shed petty comparison:

    “It is nicer as you start shedding a lot of the animal stuff...I love getting older.” [12:34]

3. Freedom, Kids, and the Myth of Unlimited Time

• [16:14 – 18:02]
  • Matt finds true appreciation for “freedom” after having kids—time becomes precious, not burdensome:

    “You don’t even know what freedom is until you have kids.” — Matt [16:14]

  • Shares what his “freedom-rich” days were like: lots of idleness, low-level hustling (selling weed), wasting time with little direction.

4. The Economics and Ethos of Weed Dealing — Lessons from the Hustle

• [18:02 – 24:45]
  • They reminisce about pre-legalization cannabis, regional differences (Philly “beasters,” Hendersonville “swag”), and the logic of illegal markets.
  • Matt outlines his “business” trajectory:
    • Began by pooling orders to get a free quarter ounce, then scaled up as opportunities presented.

    • “That was your first introduction to the magic of capitalism.” — Duncan [40:51]

  • Discusses the risk, tension, and lessons learned—how hustles forced the development of certain skills, self-reliance, and a pathological ability to lie as a necessity (“Never let no one know how much dough you hold.”) [47:17]

5. 10 Crack Commandments Applied to College Weed Dealing

• [46:50 – 50:18]
  • Duncan and Matt riff through Biggie’s “10 Crack Commandments,” confirming that secrecy, paranoia, and never trusting anyone are sadly applicable rules—even for mellow college weed dealing.

    “You become a pathological liar because you have to. You have to lie to every single person you meet.” — Matt [47:17]

  • Dealing brings freedom...but also paranoia and an inevitable spiritual cost.

6. Escaping the Animal: Virtues, Freedom, and the Good Life

• [79:47 – 87:07]
  • Matt recounts how reading philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (“After Virtue”) reframed his understanding of morality—not as stifling rules but as time-tested frameworks for happiness:

    “Our modern morality is just like a broken, chaotic, jumble ... We use as almost like snakeskin to just get our way.” — Matt [79:47]

  • Both reflect on religious and philosophical wisdom:
    • Rules exist for a reason, born from thousands of experiments in what actually makes life better.
    • “You get befuddled, and you start conflating freedom with hedonism. You start thinking those are the same thing.” — Duncan [85:04]
  • Matt contrasts the dark satisfaction of living “without rules”—funded by criminal enterprise and complete so-called freedom—with the deeper (and harder-won) contentment of having family, values, and real purpose.

7. The Stand-Up Grind: Writing, Critique, and the Comic’s Ego

• [24:45 – 30:38]
  • Matt shares how his substack will mix essays, book synopses, proto-standup, and fiction—writing for joy above all else.
  • The agony of writing “jokes by force,” AI joke-writing (spoiler: it never works), and how it takes tough, truthful partners to be real comedy barometers.
  • Both agree: a comic’s true job is to let the audience have fun, not to “blow their minds” with forced genius:

    “You’re slightly cooler than a magician as a comedian, in my opinion.” — Matt [30:15]

8. AI, Animation, and the Future of Human Creativity

• [67:47 – 77:48]
  • Matt describes working with animators for his projects, and the endless tweaks/second-guessing involved.
  • Both discuss the arrival of AI in the arts—its unstoppable trajectory and the disturbing “corpse feeling” of AI-generated humans:

    “I am always slightly disturbed and uneasy...I get like a really uneasy, weird feeling.” — Matt [75:59]

  • Duncan likens AI art to “freebase capitalism”—the drive to minimize labor, maximize product, and erase the rewarding effort that makes art worthwhile.
  • They reaffirm: the best art is made by making—not by focusing on the end product/market.

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Notable Quotes

On Animal Nature and Reality TV

“This is the y primordial level of the universe, man. You got big jugs, you're a tall, symmetrical dude. You live in an alternate reality.” — Duncan [06:32]

“If all you’re doing...you’re just an animal. The only time you stop being an animal is when you start connecting with God.” — Duncan [08:18]

“That's one of my go-to responses when I'm getting mogged... ‘Yeah, this guy’s fucking gay. He’s a fucking famous British actor. Good luck—you'd never get him.’” — Matt [10:58]

On Comedy, Critique, and Audience

“Let me just try to have these guys have a good time… It takes so much weight off you where you're just like, oh, I’m having a good time.” — Matt [29:31]

“It's a form of, like, healthy surrender... You start thinking you're, like, the Oppenheimer of jokes or something.” — Duncan [29:35]

On Hustling and the Cost of Freedom

“That was your first introduction to, like, the magic of capitalism... the basics of being an entrepreneur and how insane it is that you could just... buy shit cheap.” — Duncan [40:51]

On AI Art

“I am always slightly disturbed and uneasy... that's not a real person. And I get like a really uneasy, weird feeling.” — Matt [75:46]

“It’s just freebased capitalism. It’s created a way for people to remove the creation process almost entirely.” — Duncan [77:48]

On Virtues & the Good Life

“Our modern morality is just like a broken, chaotic, jumble of all of these different things that we use as almost like snakeskin to kind of just get our way so we can gain external rewards.” — Matt [79:48]

“Rules... not because we're trying to make you miserable. It's because this works. If you want to be happy... you are going to have a much happier life than if you don’t.” — Duncan [84:02]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Intro, Love Island & Animal Instincts ..................... [01:44 – 07:39]
• Spirituality vs. Animal Nature ............................... [08:03 – 12:20]
• Freedom after Kids, Wasting Time ............................ [16:14 – 18:02]
• Weed Hustle Economics & Pre-Legalization Era ... [18:02 – 24:45]
• Comedy Writing, AI, and Critique ............................ [24:45 – 30:38]
• Ten Crack Commandments Analysis ........................ [46:50 – 50:18]
• Morality, Virtues, and Meaning ................................. [79:47 – 87:07]
• Animation, AI Art, and Creative Process .................. [67:47 – 77:48]
• Wrap-Up/Plugs for Matt’s Tour & Projects ............. [88:01 – End]

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a comedic and philosophical journey spanning the ridiculous and the profound. Whether recounting the mechanics of stand-up, the existential pitfalls of drug hustling, or the eerie promise of AI art, Duncan and Matt keep it honest, self-deprecating, and full of sharp, dark insights about what it means to grow up and find meaning in an anxious, animal world. The contrast—between youthful hedonism and the fulfillment of responsibility, between animal urges and spiritual striving, between AI slickness and the messy process of creation—drives the conversation, making it a memorable, reflective, and hilarious listen.

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Links:

• Matt McCusker Tour & Substack
• DuncanTrussell.com

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Transcript

[Matt McCusker]

I started ornate in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end and sell things online easily.

[Duncan Trussell]

If Shopify were a bike accessory, I

[Matt McCusker]

think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. So start your free trial on shopify.com.

[Duncan Trussell]

greetings to you, my loves. This is the Dougla Trussell Family Hour podcast. And today I have with us a shaman. The shaman. But before we get into that, I gotta do some housekeeping. Friends, why don't you check out my new podcast with the great Kurt Metzger, the Mystery Boys, which is now on YMH. Just look it up on YouTube. Links are down below. Even better, why don't you come see me at the Comedy Mothership coming up in July? Also, I'm going to be in Houston. All the dates are down below. I'm going to be at the Milwaukee Improv July 23rd to July 25th. Now everyone, let's get this show on the road. With us here today is the co host of Matt and Shane's Secret podcast. He is an incredibly funny comic. I hope you'll come see him at the Mothership in July or the San Jose Improv in August. But first, listen to the singing of the shaman. Everybody welcome Matt McCusker back to the DTFH. Let's do it.

[Matt McCusker]

Ready?

[Duncan Trussell]

Hold on. Wait, let me.

[Matt McCusker]

Sorry. Your podcast. You drum the table. I was over stepping.

[Duncan Trussell]

No, that's. I like it when the guests drum the table.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Duncan Trussell]

Have you seen Love Island? Oh my God, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

How is it?

[Duncan Trussell]

It is the most dystopian slop, like right when you, you know, it's that thing where you like to watch satanic garbage just to sort of marvel at the apocalypse.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And you always think that it can't get lower than this. And then someone figures it out. That's Love Island. Really, it's the most soulless, vapid indictment of humanity that you've ever seen in your life. And it's not. It's not even bad good, it's just bad bad. It's like watching cardboard or something. It's hard to explain how soulless it is.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. So what is the actual premise? It's just they're people. Do they have to like fall in love with you? Like, do they have to not fall, but they have to be like, are they like basically made to have sex. And whoever doesn't have sex is out.

[Duncan Trussell]

They're not made to have sex. See, that would make the show incredible. If they were forced to fuck, that I would watch.

[Matt McCusker]

Forced to fuck both people, by the way.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, they consent, but they don't consent to who will be fucking. Forced to fuck.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, they're down to fuck.

[Duncan Trussell]

And if you say no, you're out. That's all. So it's not, you know, you're out.

[Matt McCusker]

You're just out. That's fair.

[Duncan Trussell]

But no, it's not that. So basically, they find a group of, like, incredibly symmetrical, beautiful women who are all, like, in their 20s, who probably, in a moral world would not be allowed at that age to participate in this because they. Your brain hasn't finished developing, as they say. But more just because at that age, when you're in your 20s, you don't know what you're doing. But they've been lured into this horrific trap where they then, like, have to date. There's so many different humiliations in this, but the initial humiliation is they have to do a choreographed dance at the beginning of the show. And then they interview each of them. And, you know, they're all varying degrees of, like, that narcissism of youth. They think they're gonna live forever. They don't know they're gonna get old. They don't know what happens when the baby comes. They don't. They haven't. None of that has come to them yet. They're immortal beings that are mortal. And so everything they're saying is what. It would make sense if you were immortal. But they're not. They're going to die. They're going to wither, they're going to get old, their parents are going to die. All those things are coming their way. So they're just like, I want a man who is as organized as I am and beautiful. You know what I mean? Can you turn my head? So, dude, I don't.

[Matt McCusker]

So then they get in there and then there's these guy count. The guy counterparts, same age or they hitting him with like.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, yeah, same exact thing.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And this episode was basically what happens is each of the guys goes to this circle, and then based on a sort of brief hangout, I think they made them all kiss each other. The women decide which guy they want to be their partner during the show.

[Matt McCusker]

Cause of the kiss.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. And you realize how important seventh grade parties it is. 100%.

[Matt McCusker]

It's a boy girl party.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's like seventh graders wrote the fucking show is what it feels like.

[Matt McCusker]

That's crazy.

[Duncan Trussell]

And this one, though, it's like, you know, you always hear, like, women talk about they want a guy six, three, six, four. They like tall dudes.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Like, I guess tall guys for ladies are like big tits for guys.

[Matt McCusker]

Think so. I think that's a fair.

[Duncan Trussell]

Jugs.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

So this fucking beautiful, godlike black dude, he's giant. Just, you know, like, fuck you. Fuck you for getting to be that in his life. You bastard. You've never once been lonely. You don't know what it's like to go home from a bar alone. You have no idea. You've never struggled with that before. But he's not a dick. The other problem is he's very humble. Like, he could be president. He could be, like some kind of global king. And so all the, like, three of the women all go to, like. All the women go to him. And, like, you just see, like, oh, I get it, man. This is where how polygamy started and this is how, like, multiple wives started and all that stuff. Because, like, look, why shouldn't. Why shouldn't he have.

[Matt McCusker]

These ladies, are they starting to fight and bicker amongst themselves for the, like, top role amongst this man?

[Duncan Trussell]

Low level. You know, it's that really.

[Matt McCusker]

So it's pretty. It's working.

[Duncan Trussell]

Of the show. They gotta seem.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And then the saddest part is this poor dude who's. They're all beautiful, but this guy's like five, six, and he's. But he's dressed like. He's wearing, like, a weird banana suit. But he's cool. He's cool, but he's standing in that circle alone. And you're just looking at it. It's like, God, this is the y primordial level of the universe, man. You got big jugs. You're a tall, symmetrical dude. You live in an alternate reality. Welcome to the podcast, by the way, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

Thank you. That's. That's still. That's sad. So the guy gets rejected on tv. And then for the women, if they're. Whoever doesn't get, like, the hottest, tallest guy has kind of get, like, kind of humiliated a little bit because they're, like, losing a very. The ultimate, the ultimately personal battle, which is you're just women's beauty.

[Duncan Trussell]

You're standing in a circle on a show in a banana suit with this other dude swarming with ladies and. But you do. Everyone gets a lady. Like, you know, he could only pick one guy. The God man could only pick one. One lady. He picks one lady. And Then the other two are just sort of like, paired off.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And then that's how. That's how you're watching it. But I think I'm making it sound better than it is.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. That's how I feel like if ever when I would, like, go to the strip club, I would feel like I was in some sub level of the human process where I was just kind of like, oh, fuck, dude. Is this how things really work? You know, really just like, here's money?

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't know. Yeah, on one level. Yeah, for sure. How much of it is like that and how much of it is just sort of coping and making up a story so that you don't have to admit you're an animal like all the other animals?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

I don't know.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't know. I mean, this is the Hare Krishna, dude. His divine grace, Ac Bhaktivedana Swami Prabhupada said that, you know, humans are like, animals are. They do three things, eat four things, eat, sleep, mate, and defend. This is what animals spend their day doing. One of those things. You're doing one of those things if you're an animal. And humans also engage in those same four activities. And the only time. So if you're. That's all you're doing throughout your life. Fucking eating, fighting people off, sleeping. You're an animal. According to Prabhupada, the only time you stop being an animal is when you start connecting with God. That's according to Prabhupada. Animals are not engaged in any kind of religious activity there, which would be awesome.

[Matt McCusker]

That would be so sick. Yeah, dude. I think about that all the time. The, like, especially if you're an animal, if you see a bigger animal, you're inherently afraid. You're like, fuck, this animal could kick my ass. It's a bigger animal.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Humans bigness is, like, shot out across a bunch of dimensions that aren't related to size. But it's the same exact reaction where it's like, this guy has more stuff or they have a cooler car or they're more attractive. And that's why humans get like, I think the same visceral. Visceral reaction as like a. A bacterium seeing a bigger bacterium. There's like, no. And there's a point where then usually it leads to being like, that guy. That guy sucks.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And it's just because you're like, I feel bad when I see you.

[Duncan Trussell]

That piece of shit.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

He doesn't deserve to be that. You See that fucker's mitochondria?

[Matt McCusker]

No, I think that's a huge thing. And it's just like. As soon as you recognize it, I remember this is what my inner monologue. I would walk through a grocery store and every single person I'd say, I'd either be like, fucking piece of shit. Look at that guy. See a tall hawkeye. You're like, guy's probably fucking gay. Fuck that guy. And I was like, why am I doing this is never ending. It's just all day long of me just being like, fuck that lady. What the fuck's up with that?

[Duncan Trussell]

That's one of my go to responses when I'm getting mogged. Like I. We were watching, we were watching the new House of Dragons. Is it out now? It's so good.

[Matt McCusker]

Fuck, I want to. That was the show I was following,

[Duncan Trussell]

you know, the, like, I don't know, the white haired Dragonlord Dudamion or something.

[Matt McCusker]

Yep, yep.

[Duncan Trussell]

And I'm watching it with my wife and of course she's like, he's so hot. And like, why do they do that? First thing that popped in my head that I wanted to say that I didn't was, he's gay. Trust me, that guy's gay as fuck.

[Matt McCusker]

That's the best. Well, that's the front line defense against hot actors. Every time I'm like, yeah, this guy's fucking freaking gay. He's a fucking famous British actor. Good luck with. You'd never get him.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's number two. Thank you. Thank you. I can't wait for the next episode to come out. I'm gonna have that one in the quiver.

[Matt McCusker]

Just be like, yeah, dream on.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, please.

[Matt McCusker]

He wouldn't even look at you. He wouldn't even see you.

[Duncan Trussell]

He would. He might kill you if he saw you. He might just have an instinctual response.

[Matt McCusker]

That is a good thing to be like. Honestly, if that. If there was a circumstance that arose where you'd either have sex with you or kill you, he might choose to kill you. He might kill you so he didn't have to have sex with you.

[Duncan Trussell]

So yeah, you'd be in this circle.

[Matt McCusker]

If you want to get personal, you'd

[Duncan Trussell]

be in this circle on Love Island. But all those things I guess are like the human equivalent of like, you know, you go, you see a Chihuahua, they're so fucking cute. But they're so mean.

[Matt McCusker]

They're so.

[Duncan Trussell]

So you always want to touch a chihuahua because they're so cute. But you get close in there. That's our version of that. I guess, Right? Like, you're gay. He would never. You. Yeah, that's the snarl. The animal snarl coming out.

[Matt McCusker]

It's so true. Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think on one level, the nihilistic view is you can't argue with it, but then you don't have to be an animal.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, no, that's true, man. That is. I think that does. And that's why I feel bad for the Love island guys. If you're 20 and you're like, I'm gonna be famous, and there's no foresight or being like, yeah, this could be potentially humiliating. Most likely will be.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. And then. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

But as you get older, it is nicer as you start shedding a lot of the animal stuff where you're just kind of like, whatever, man. It's just so much. I don't know. I like, I'm so happy to get older. I love.

[Duncan Trussell]

Me too.

[Matt McCusker]

I love getting older.

[Duncan Trussell]

I do, too.

[Matt McCusker]

It's the fucking best. Getting older rules. I always try to tell my wife, I'm like, no, getting older is sick.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

At least for a guy.

[Duncan Trussell]

How many kids you have?

[Matt McCusker]

2.

[Duncan Trussell]

You have two kids? I think that's part of it. I think getting older minus kids, it could be. It can. It could get lonely and dark because you're sort of staking your future on. I want to thank Factor for supporting this episode of the Dark. You know what? I don't know if you've ever had, like, friends who get those super fancy meal delivery services. You go to visit them, they got that stack of freshly delivered refrigerated food sitting on their doorstep. Delicious, healthy meals created by some kind of advanced nutritional advisor, celebrity chefs, whatever. But most of us don't have access to that level of nutrition. At least we used to not have access. But thanks to Factor, now we all do. Factor meals are incredible. They save my ass during my wife's pregnancy. It's so nice to be able to throw something into the microwave. And your lifetime of disappointment with microwave food. It sets you up to think this is gonna suck. Not with Factor. Factor meals are truly delicious. And even better, you feel good after you eat them. As opposed to most microwave meals where you feel like you just ate a radioactive steel ball that you then have to push through your digestive system. This is not Factor. Why Factor isn't frozen? Factor meals come to you fresh. They're prepared by chefs, and there's so many options. You could check them out on Factors webpage if you want. Like, if you're working out. Maybe you're like me, you have diabetes and you're on Ozempic and you want something so that your muscles don't atrophy. They've got everything for you. And again, let me emphasize, it's delicious. You should definitely try them out. I would not rave about them so much. And yes, they are paying me, but they also sent me a bunch of factor meals and they were gone. They were gone so quickly. Everybody in my house loves them and eats them whenever they're available. Again, these are fresh, never frozen. They're delicious and they're ready in two minutes. Factor shops, preps, cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love. This spring, head to factor meals.com dunkin50off and use code duncan50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See their website for more details. Freedom, basically the sense of this is what freedom is.

[Matt McCusker]

I think you don't even know what freedom is until you have kids. That's the problem. Because then I was awash in freedom. I could, I would be like, I'm fucking bored. What the fuck am I going to do now if I have a half an hour free? I'm like, oh my God. Oh my God. I'm really laying in bed on the

[Duncan Trussell]

road and you get in that hotel room, that womb of silence. Tell me what like a typical Philadelphia day for you was like prior to becoming a, a breeder. What would you do? Yeah, one of these days of freedom, what would you do?

[Matt McCusker]

Dude, I'm a weird case because I had. Because I used to sell weed. Just kidding. To my life insurance policy because they were asking about that. But yeah, just kidding. Obviously love insurance. But yeah, so I, I had a. From a young age I was like free time rich. And it was weird at first because I was like, I was, you know, I was always. Just had a worker, I was going to school and working and blah, blah, blah. And so I kind of. Dude, I would wake up. I mean I was the ultimate time waster. I would wake up. I don't even know what I did. You know, I'd be texting people like, hey, and I would like run little weed errands here and there. But for the most part I had. I would like just walk my dogs. I just would do. I didn't even have hobbies. I'm like trying to think. I didn't play video games. I don't know what I did Wow. I would just kind of just like, look at weed and be like, damn, that looks nice. And I'd bring it to my house and I'd drive around all nervous and like. So I. I had a lot of free time.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

That luckily I would do stand up at night. That was like, the thing that I was doing and kind of thinking about.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

But I. My A day in the life before was really like, wake up 11 o' clock and run a couple. I always call them running errands. I would just drive around, do stuff, chill, eat, go for walks. I would, like, write on my laptop. I'd abandon 40 million novels. Just, like, literally dick off so hard that I can't even fathom it anymore.

[Duncan Trussell]

How did you get into not selling weed?

[Matt McCusker]

The podcast. The podcast started doing.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, no, I mean, like, I have to say, not selling YouTube talk, you know.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, right, right.

[Duncan Trussell]

Preten and all that.

[Matt McCusker]

You know what it was? I was in senior year of high school, and I remember. I like. Cause, you know, like, we were like, younger. Just like, there's. People just have weed. And you're like, yeah, sure, I'll smoke weed with you. And they're like, all right, I need money now. And you're like, how much is this stuff? And they're like, it's 45 bucks for an eighth. And I was like, that's like a whole day of work for me. I can't do. Like, I used to get paid 60 bucks.

[Duncan Trussell]

Those are. What year was that?

[Matt McCusker]

This would have been. What year did I graduate high school? I graduated high school 2004.

[Duncan Trussell]

Okay, so those are 2004 prices. Yeah. Because, you know, you. It's weird. Like, I still have high school drug menus in my head. Like, hit of acid, five bucks. Quarterback, 35, 40 bucks, 55 for an eighth.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

That is fucking. Do you think that's Philadelphia, or do you think weed just got more expensive?

[Matt McCusker]

Weed? No, weed plummeted. Weed was way more expensive.

[Duncan Trussell]

Maybe I'm misremembering.

[Matt McCusker]

No, no, no, hold on. No. A quarter depending on what grade weed was it, though.

[Duncan Trussell]

Was it Beasters Fucking Hendersonville, North Carol. Sticks?

[Matt McCusker]

So it was just swag. It was just swag. We. It was just complete swag. Okay, it was swag. So that was the hot eyes and headache weed, where you just seeds popping that you could get for cheap. That stuff was like. That's always been pretty cheap. But. So there. There was swag. My older brothers only ever, you know, they bravely went before me and they were just sweat, like tin foil Training day weed. We were just like disgusting. And then when I was in high school, it was beasters, which were like, they were from. They're called beasters. They're from bc, like British Columbia. And they were like, before all the nice, like headies. What came later, they were like pretty low thc, but they were like nice round little buds that smelled like hay. They had no scent to them whatsoever. They just smelled like literally straw. But you got them. I was like, dude, look at those boosters. Or there's triple A beasters where you'd be like, bro, I got some triple A's.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, wow.

[Matt McCusker]

It's all just bullshit.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

But that was. I was getting beasters, which were like low grade. What you could, let's say medical grade weed for like you'd see in a dispensary. It was like that, but you didn't really see crystals on it, but it actually had a nug.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

As opposed to just like the chaotic mess of swag.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember when we, you know, every once in a while you would come upon beasters, which we were just like, we. You would listen. Mind blowing. A UFO landed.

[Matt McCusker]

They were wet. They're always wet too, boy.

[Duncan Trussell]

Stand dried them out, but we don't care.

[Matt McCusker]

One or the other.

[Duncan Trussell]

Get them the out of here. Just get them the out.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, the water weight makes up a lot. So if you don't cure it all the way now, it's like a pound of wheat. The ounce would be like that big.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, that was because, you know, back then, you got to put in perspective, man. We're talking like before legalization.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Weed was a whole different animal back.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh yeah, it was crazy.

[Duncan Trussell]

It was. You had to actively search for it. You had. You remember when droughts would come?

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah. Every summer. It's a summer bummer. That's when you were waiting. You were waiting for the. The growers to grow. Everything was. Most of it ended up started coming from like California, so you had to let them finish. And then everyone towards before summer was like. Or during summer was all the old from like a year and a half ago. And then that would just finally run out. Then everyone was just waiting for that new outdoor cut.

[Duncan Trussell]

See, you're. You are more sophisticated in your weed consumption than we were in Hendersonville because we didn't know any of that.

[Matt McCusker]

I. Dude, it took a long time.

[Duncan Trussell]

There's a drought. What happened?

[Matt McCusker]

That's what was going on. That all this. And a lot of the growers take vac before they start the new year. So, yeah, the summer bummer was the worst. Moldy, shitty weed.

[Duncan Trussell]

It was horrible. The droughts and the. They're bad. And. But. And so back then, High Times magazine seemed edgy. Like, if somebody had a copy of High Times, like, whoa, dude. Like, this shit's illegal. Yeah, he's crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

And you'd order seeds from the back and you'd be like, oh, my God.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, my God. Because that was. Weirdly, it was legal to order seeds, which is so odd.

[Matt McCusker]

It's fucking crazy.

[Duncan Trussell]

So odd. You know, if you get conspiratorial about laws like that, it's clear why they're there. Because let them grow it, let them sell it, let them make so much money, buy a nice house and cars, and then you get to take the house and the cars. It's like, it's perfect.

[Matt McCusker]

That's perfect. Especially for the net, you know, it's like. It's not like. It's like black tar heroin. It's like, yeah, let them grow weed and we'll come. And the sentencing guidelines are hilarious for growing because it's like, between one and 50 plants. Plants 50 and 100. So if you grow one or two plants, you might as well grow, like 45. You're gonna get the same scent for the most part. And I think they can, like, weigh them because they. Yeah. So. But yeah, the sentencing from growing weed was crazy for. In firm. In terms of, like, the level of

[Duncan Trussell]

plants and stuff, all the drug laws are still insane. It's just. Just old people who, like, have no idea what their. What the drugs are like. You should have to, like, take the drug before you come up with a sentence for them.

[Matt McCusker]

I. I think that's fair. Yeah. And the. I. I remember someone I know selling, like, weed brownies at a festival, and the cops just weighed the tray of brownies and just were like, yeah, you had, like, seven pounds of weed, and they got fried. They got crushed.

[Duncan Trussell]

Same with lsd. Like, lsd. They met. They weigh the paper, and LSD is so potent, you add the paper and you've got, like, a swimming pool worth of lsd. Like, enough to, like, get New York high for a decade.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, they were sending people to jail for LSD for, like, 15 years. They were killing people.

[Duncan Trussell]

Life sentences. Life sentences. Okay, so I'm interested in this, like, you're sort of wandering weed dealer days because now look at you. You're, like, super motivated, man. You got kids. You got one of the best podcasts out there with Shane. You're making cartoons, writing Books and I. And you got a sub stack.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I'm so, I'm trying. Yeah, I gotta get the sub stack going. It's still. I, I took it down to like redo it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Took it down.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, it's, it's coming back up. I wanted to like substack reached out to me. Stokes, stokestack, stoke, stack. It's coming. I am like trying to like. I'm trying to use that to make me like give me basically a writing deadline that I always have looming over my head.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, that's smart.

[Matt McCusker]

So that's the whole point of that. So I'm gonna like take all of the stuff I have and like, like put a. Get a nice little back catalog. So that way I can kind of like not be just like completely getting crushed by like the deadline. So I have a little bit of a buffer.

[Duncan Trussell]

When we've talked about writing, you have told me you're working on a western. Is that what you're putting on your sub stack? Is it fiction?

[Matt McCusker]

It's going to be a mix. It's going to be. So I want to have it as like essays on books I'm reading because I always, I like to read books and from what I gather there's a lot of people who like to like at least just like only books that I think are good. I'm not going to be like this book sucks and then be turned into like a critic. But basically this book was cool. Here's a synopsis about it, why I thought it was cool. Here's some thoughts on it and you know, quick 700 word thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

So it's gonna be like kind of like book synopsises, random essays and then like just bullshit. Almost like proto standup material while just, just write like free. Right. Just bullshit. Hopefully it's entertaining. And then I'll have a little fiction section too. So I'm gonna have just like a one stop shop of just anything I'm working on. Yeah, the fiction I'll release in little like snippets to be like here, here's an excerpt from this thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know that proto standup material idea. I do think that's the best way to write jokes is just to free. Right. I think when you sit down and try to write a joke, it's like always bad.

[Matt McCusker]

It's terrible. It's. I might as well have like a jeans and a blazer on a turtle. Like I can't. I have to just like.

[Duncan Trussell]

I just like write it out.

[Matt McCusker]

I just like writing. That's the thing. I like writing. And if I. If I think about writing stand up, I get like, a rash. I'm like, oh.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, it's awful.

[Matt McCusker]

It's horse.

[Duncan Trussell]

You'll never do.

[Matt McCusker]

It's the worst feeling.

[Duncan Trussell]

And if you do do it, it's. It's. You know, people every once in a while, check in with, like, ChatGPT and have it write a joke. And I've been doing that now for a while, and only once did I ever try a joke it wrote on stage. Just out of curiosity, because it was a remotely okay joke, but boy, yeah, it ate shit.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it can't. You can also trick chatgpt by being like, here's a joke idea, and give it total nonsense, and it'll be like fire. And you're like, that actually doesn't make sense. You actually. You're a dumbass. It makes no sense.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's like the most evil friend you could have.

[Matt McCusker]

Just a sink of fan, like, fire, man. Amazing. Take it to the stage. You're an edgy, dark. And it's like, all right.

[Duncan Trussell]

Our vows, when I got married in the vows are, do not tell me something's funny if you don't think it's funny, because if your fucking wife starts trying to make you happy by lying to you about whether something's funny, you're dead meat.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And you know what this translates into? My wife doesn't laugh that much at me.

[Matt McCusker]

Although sometimes I have a similar tough critic wife about jokes. But sometimes I'll say something that she'll just go. I watch her shoulders drop, and she'll be like, off. She'll get pissed. And I'm like, yeah, that's gonna. That's funny. That's gonna work. Sometimes I know she gets, like, furious. I'm like, that's good. That's gonna be a good one.

[Duncan Trussell]

You're changing my life. I'm subscribing your substack, man. I swear to God, you're changing my life. Stokes, stokestack. I'm in already. Two things. Two beautiful marriage tips, man. That's incredible.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, you gotta piss her off every now and again. You gotta just piss her off.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

I love it, dude. I love it. I dig in when she's in a mood, I'll. I just dig in just quietly and almost. Like, if her vibe's low, I go so, like, annoyingly high vibe, high energy. And just hover around her until she's like, what the hell are you doing?

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

What the. Dude, chill. It's like. It's a Sick pleasure. But I love it. I love it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, that. You know, that's like. That's like. Next. Next. That there should be a law against it.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

It should be criminal. That's.

[Matt McCusker]

It's. I'm an energy vampire. A little bit. I could be a little bit of an energy vampire. I'll be honest.

[Duncan Trussell]

Aren't all comedians.

[Matt McCusker]

I think so.

[Duncan Trussell]

Aren't we just, like, laugh vampires? Like, we're absorbing energy. Like. Like, you want it. Ideally, it's a symbiotic relationship.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, it's when. It's when it becomes parasitic. And you can always tell the comedians where it's a parasitic relationship because they're like that with everything. You know, if you forget, like, you're not that.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

You're not there to get jerked off by the audiences.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Adulation. Like, loving you.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's. That's. They're what, they're buying tickets to jerk you off.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. That'd be true.

[Duncan Trussell]

Incredible.

[Matt McCusker]

If that was so awesome. That's the good life of the guy on Love Island. Yeah, that is. That was a big switch for me in stand up just being like, dude, let me just try to have these guys. These guys have a good time as much as. Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's just.

[Matt McCusker]

It's just a hacky print. And I'm like, I don't really care, honestly.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

If these guys have fun, it's like a revolt. Like a mental reversal where you're just kind of like, exactly what you're saying. Like, dude, they didn't come here tonight to be like, I'm prepared to have my mind blown by this. This one out of 40 comics and 4,5000, you know.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes.

[Matt McCusker]

Showcases is like, just let them try to make them have fun.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And it takes so much weight off you where you're just like, oh, I'm having a good time.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. So it's. It's a form of, like, healthy surrender. Right.

[Matt McCusker]

Like, you.

[Duncan Trussell]

Because it's, you know, like, it seems like a phase of comedy is you start thinking you're like the Oppenheimer of jokes or something.

[Matt McCusker]

It makes me laugh so hard when I hear it, when it's just like, I'm just, you know, I'm just doing, like, something totally. It's like, dude, it's a cheap bar trick. You're doing a. You're a vaudeville cheap bar trick. And it's fun. It's a good thing. But, yeah, when it gets into, like, I'm just hit it like, I'm next level. It's like, all right, shut up.

[Duncan Trussell]

You see it in their bodies. They carry that. They carry this, like, completely unnecessary weight. It's like, what? What?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it's. You're slightly cooler than a magician as a comedian, in my opinion.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. And that's arguable. That's hard. You could debate that.

[Matt McCusker]

You're a little bit cooler than a magician with, like, a wrapped car being like, I do party.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

It is debatable, too. Magicians. Yeah, they could. They could. Yeah. Oh, close.

[Duncan Trussell]

I had this. This. This magician was doing the matinee show. Holy shit. It was in Philadelphia.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes. I love Philadelphia. I want to talk about that in a second, But. So it was in Philadelphia. Will you look up Ass Magic? Josh. I can't remember his name. I think it's Jack. This dude. Does ass match.

[Matt McCusker]

What?

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, yeah. Oh, not with a K. Whoa.

[Matt McCusker]

Hey, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

Sorry. Ass Magic. What? No, that's it. Ass Magic. Look it up. Oh, wait, go back. What came up?

[Matt McCusker]

Skin repair.

[Duncan Trussell]

What?

[Matt McCusker]

Okay, hold on.

[Duncan Trussell]

Jack Gray. There he is. Pull that up.

[Matt McCusker]

Jack Grady, Ass Wash and Cream.

[Duncan Trussell]

Jack Grady, Ass Magic. He got kicked off of America's Got Talent faster than anyone ever has in the history of the show. I want to. You know what? Let's show it. But we can't show it on the. On the thing. But we could just watch it. Just so you get an idea. And I'm just using this as, like. I don't know, man. I could argue this guy's cooler than most comics. Look up Ass Magic. Jack. Jack Grady. Like, Overlook Hotel. G R A D. Yeah. Jack Grady. That was his name, right? Grady in that.

[Matt McCusker]

I thought it was great. Yeah, it was G R, A T, E. Yeah, whatever.

[Duncan Trussell]

Grady.

[Matt McCusker]

Here we go.

[Duncan Trussell]

GR There is Jack Grady. But look up Jack Grady, America's Got Talent.

[Matt McCusker]

Sure.

[Duncan Trussell]

You ever buy magic tricks for your kids?

[Matt McCusker]

No.

[Duncan Trussell]

They fucking suck every time.

[Matt McCusker]

My kids been doing. Trying to do magic tricks on me recently. Been really fun.

[Duncan Trussell]

Here he goes. Watch how quickly gets thrown off.

[Matt McCusker]

Yep, that's me. I bet you're one in this situation. Eight years old, I was watching tv.

[Duncan Trussell]

I saw Chris get out of there.

[Matt McCusker]

We take a. We take.

[Duncan Trussell]

Find the actual one. No offense, Jack, if you're watching this, but I love this dude. Bud.

[Matt McCusker]

No. Whenever you see. Here's the video. Here we go. We take a bottle, becomes a glass. Where'd it go?

[Duncan Trussell]

It's in my.

[Matt McCusker]

That's amazing. Me now, man.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

He's. Yeah, he's. He's great.

[Matt McCusker]

That's awesome.

[Duncan Trussell]

So. But okay to get Back. Maybe I'm trying to do too much of an interview on a podcast. I'm just curious because you've become, like, a juggernaut, man. Like, you are just, you know, anytime a dad is, like, doing anything, you're like, whoa, that's amazing. But you got a lot of plates spinning, man. So what happened?

[Matt McCusker]

You know what it was? I like, okay, so if I went all the way back to the answer, way back when, it was like, you know, I'd had jobs in high school, and I was like, they're, you know, you're in high school. They're bad jobs. And I go, this sucks, dude. And then I. So I'm like, what were the jobs?

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm sorry.

[Matt McCusker]

It was mostly construction type jobs. When I was younger, it was kind of sick because it was mainly, like, I would, like, throw rocks into, like, a machine bucket in front of my uncles, and they'd be like, come on, get it. I'm like, yeah. So it was fun, but that was, like, kind of brutal work. Then it was like, ice cream place. I worked in a candy shop in the mall pool company. Like, just. It just sucked. Like, I. I remember just being like, damn, this is hard.

[Duncan Trussell]

Mall candy shop mall.

[Matt McCusker]

I was in the mall candy stand for a little bit.

[Duncan Trussell]

What. Do you remember the name of it?

[Matt McCusker]

Scoop 2 Nuts. Funny enough. Scoop to Nuts.

[Duncan Trussell]

This is. So this wasn't even a. This wasn't even a store. This was like one of those.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it was a thing. Kiosk in the middle. Yeah, it was a candy kiosk up.

[Duncan Trussell]

Did they make you, like. You know that there's a mall around here where they, like. Like, they'll yell.

[Matt McCusker]

I didn't have to do any of that. I just chilled. I would just chill and kind of read books, and then they would come up. I remember I got that job. I got grounded for a month for drinking. And then I was like, I might as well go get a job. And I just went and got the candy shop job so I would at least get out of my house while I was grounded and make money.

[Duncan Trussell]

How'd you hear about the job?

[Matt McCusker]

Walking. I was just in the mall and I was. I used to, like, apply for jobs and walk around, and that place had just. It was only female employees.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

So just babes. And I walked by and I was like, are you guys hiring? And the manager was like, yeah, actually, we're hiring somebody. And, yeah, it was like, a whole thing. But, yeah, I got. I got hired there.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow, that is a. Well, that's cool.

[Matt McCusker]

It Was awesome. It was cool.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's cool.

[Matt McCusker]

It's me and babes and I was stealing money from the register the whole time.

[Duncan Trussell]

Everyone was. That guy was like, how's this happening? I don't. I don't understand.

[Matt McCusker]

I didn't take anything until the. I was working. The lady who hired me was a sweat equity partner who was working for these two guys who owned it. And she was supposed to be an owner. Once I they her over, they basically like, you know, we're like, yeah, whatever, you're out. And they didn't honor their thing they were saying she was gonna do. She was running it for them. She told me that and was like, I'm gonna be out of here. The dudes came in and they were fucking dickheads. And that's when I was like, okay, now I'm gonna take.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't think shitty bosses understand how much it's costing them to be shitty, because that's giving your employer a raise. Like, when you're being shitty to them, you're basically like, go ahead and pay yourself whatever you want. Cause all loyalty, honor goes out the window. Add just like a brief introduction to Karl Marx. Forget it. You're gonna get raw.

[Matt McCusker]

Especially now. Yeah, you're done, dude. Yeah, you're gonna get. They're gonna be they. And they're. It's like. They're like a prisoner essentially, where they have all day to just scheme and they can see the inner workings. And it's like, especially me, I would sit and it's like, if I like the boss.

[Duncan Trussell]

This episode of the DTFH has been brought to you by my friends at Ultra Pouches. You know something really, I don't know. This is probably way too much information for an ad, but I'm getting piano lessons for my kid. And these lessons, believe it or not, the parent has to get some lessons first so they can help their child practice piano. I've got a great piano teacher. She's strict. And she noticed me sticking one of those pouches of nicotine pouch into my mouth. She's like, you know what? Why don't you try not doing that for the lesson? And you know, in my mind, it's like, what are you talking about? You want me to start sobbing during the lesson? But she's like, a lot of people do way better without nicotine in their system when they're working on piano. I tried it. She was right, as it turns out. And I only know this now because this is what they want me to read in the ad. Nicotine Is a vaso constrictor somewhat less dangerous than a boa constrictor, but basically what it means. It narrows your blood vessels and restricts oxygen delivery to muscles which can directly counteract the pump you want to get out of your workout. I was supposed to talk about probably working out. Not piano lessons, but that piano pump, you're not going to get that with nicotine. Why didn't you tell me this, Josh? It raises cortisol, which can lead to muscle breakdown and worse recovery. And because nicotine increases your heart rate and blood pressure significantly, it can create unnecessary cardiovascular stress during workouts. What the f. What the fuck? Seems like nicotine isn't good for you. Well, this is why I started using Ultra pouches, and they've been a complete game changer. This is next level nootropic magic. These pouches give you instant focus and the energy boost without the vasoconstriction, crash, and addiction that comes with nicotine. Why? They use clinically proven nootropics and adaptogens to deliver immediate focus and smooth energy that lasts one to two hours. They just give you this wild boost. It's fascinating. So, you know, for me, unfortunately, a nicotine addict who reaches for a freaking pouch in the morning, it's incredible. The difference in my mornings when I reach for an ultra pouch, totally different feeling, much better. And now I know why. I had no idea nicotine was bad for you. Somebody should talk about that. They've got a lot of great flavors. I like wintergreen, but they also have cool mint, tropical watermelon and blue. Raz Ultra is the ultimate guilt free pouch, delivering instant focus and minimal clarity without nicotine or caffeine. New customers can use Code dunkin to get 15% [e-mail] that's takeultra.com for 15% off with code Duncan. After your purchase, they will ask you where I heard about them. Please, for the love of God, support our show and tell them our show sent you.

[Matt McCusker]

A complete boy scout. I would like, hey, this, that completely straight up and honest. As soon as I detected some shittiness, I would just literally be like, I'll destroy this place. I will do everything I can to sink. I was a. I was 17. Yeah, it's like, I'll sink this place. You know, I'd make like 60 bucks out of it and be like, dude, they're probably now. But the. So it really, like, I had like a. So, you know, answers go all the way back. It was like, I remember buying weed and Be like, damn, this weed's expensive. And then I remember being like, I have a lot of friends that smoke weed. So I just was like, hey, do you guys want any weed? Because I was gonna get an eighth. And they were like, yeah, actually. And so I just ordered it. I took a lot of orders, and I went and got an ounce, and I went, huh, I got a quarter ounce of weed for free. And then something clicked, and I was like, that's really nice. And then I just started like, what if I bought a quarter? A quarter pound? And, you know, I just slowly did that until it turned into this big thing years later.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's your first introduction to, like, the magic of capitalism. That's your first introduction to, like, the basics of being an entrepreneur and how insane it is that you could just. If you have the capital, you can buy shit cheap. I'm, you know, I'm doing lemonade stands with my kids to try to teach them. This backroom's lemonade. That's the theme is the back room. So it's like we have this up weird painted sign and shit, because my kid, like.

[Matt McCusker]

It's called backroom lemonade.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Back rooms lemonade.

[Matt McCusker]

How's it going?

[Duncan Trussell]

We've only, you know, on our launch, we. It did great because it's. But it's like, you know, everybody. It's. People are just so sweet. They want the kids to, like, learn business, but they're not teaching them business at all. Because, like, they come, they're like, I'm gonna. I'll buy five glasses, and then they give them, like, 20 bucks. I know.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, like, this is how it works.

[Matt McCusker]

I did a lemonade stand with my cousin when I was, like, younger, and my older brother. Our older brothers, as he had older brothers as well, went up the street and then put their own sign up saying, like, support. Either put, like, Nazis or the KKK lemonade stand. So people just drive by.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's hilarious.

[Matt McCusker]

Jerks. Yeah, jerks.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, some places, I don't know

[Matt McCusker]

if they actually did that or they were just teasing us, but I still have it in my head. I got to ask.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's a great idea.

[Matt McCusker]

It's very funny.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's a great. I have so many ideas like that. I have so many terrible ideas like

[Matt McCusker]

that that you could. If you get a kid. Yeah. It'd be like, support, you know?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

But antifa terror, so.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, God. Antifa lemonade is incredible. Black block lemonade. Some anarchist flyers in the front. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

But that was the. So that was kind of the thing. And then. Then that led to, you know, I went to. I still. It was hard to get it right, though. Like, it's. It's harder to like, make money selling weed. Like, you stink. Like, oh, you just do it and you make a bunch of money. It was very difficult at first. I didn't have a digital. Yeah, it's very risky. And so when I went away to college, that's when I could really be like, all right, I have my own place. I can finally like.

[Duncan Trussell]

You went to Bryn Mawr?

[Matt McCusker]

No. Well, that was. That was for my master's. Later on I went to Drexel.

[Duncan Trussell]

Okay, okay.

[Matt McCusker]

My bachelor's was at Drexel. Yeah, I did Drexel. And that's when I was. I had my. This Indian guy in front of me. An ounce of, like, really shitty. I was back to like, the midis. It was called, like, in between Schweg and Beasters. He was getting me for like 400 an ounce on midis. And I had no scale, so I had to eye everything out. That was not profitable. But that's how I kind of learned everything.

[Duncan Trussell]

What would you say, like, if you had to guess and obviously this is improv and it's. None of this is real. And you're a really good improv for sure.

[Matt McCusker]

Thank you.

[Duncan Trussell]

So natural. But what if you just. I mean, what do you. How much do you think total you netted from your business?

[Matt McCusker]

I would say if I had to just like, fuck around and make something up.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, make it out.

[Matt McCusker]

I mean, dude, it was 14 years. So towards. There was a re. There was peaks where it was like 4k a week. Once I got good at it, just net. And then it like kind of settled out to like. I probably made just like 150, 200 grand a year for a while there.

[Duncan Trussell]

Josh, will you over this part for real? Will you flash. This is improv. These are trained improv actors doing a bit.

[Matt McCusker]

But yeah, I had a long stretch, dude. I had a long, long stretch. And.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hold on one second.

[Matt McCusker]

I bottomed out a couple times, though, or I would lose everything.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hold on, let me. I'm sorry, I forgot my next line. Whoa, dude, that's so much money. Damn. That's incredible.

[Matt McCusker]

It gave me like, an incredible amount of freedom as I was younger. And like, my wife always laughs at me because whenever people are like, back then, they'd be like, I hate my job. I'm like, quit. Your just quit. Who cares? Because I would also have jobs. I would get jobs when, like, things would Slow up. I'd lose like a major customer. I'd be like, I would get a job, work the job, and then I try to find out who smoked weed. And I would start selling them weed at the job. And then once I had my customers going back, I would leave the job. And I was like, a little.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's a good business plan. So smart.

[Matt McCusker]

It's kind of nice.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. It really is fascinating to me that in like, in the world, like, it's especially. Oh, I don't know what it's like living in other place I want to live in America, but here it's, it's odd because you, you get this sense that like there's this sort of, like, I don't know, people. What you're talking about is available to anyone at any time. If you can get the capital together,

[Matt McCusker]

even if you can't, you can still get fronted too.

[Duncan Trussell]

You can get fronted. Which was dangerous. That was. We tried that in Hendersonville to get fronted these dumbass kids. One of our shit friends was like, no, man, he's gonna front us a key. And we're like, really? Do you know how many. We made like at least three different trips up to Charlotte to get this, this mythical kilo that some psycho would have given to a bunch of grubby drug addled mountain stoners definitely wouldn't, Would have killed us, but we never got it. So we failed in, in that pursuit in the front.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it's tough. You need, yeah, it's.

[Duncan Trussell]

You need credit. I mean, you need some kind of credit. Like how if I'm fronting weed to somebody, like, start small.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, the thing is, is like, you go, all right, I can. If they don't, here's an ounce. I'm getting pounds of weed. I confront these guys, announced to kind of feel them out, and if they pay me back on an ounce, you go, okay, like. Because I was. Honestly, dude, maybe like 15% of people can successfully get an ounce of weed from it and not smoke at all. 85% of people, if you front them there. I've learned this, obviously, getting around through experience. The. They'll smoke it all and they'll go, fuck, man, I'm so sorry, dude. My fucking boy was supposed to pay you. So there's a very small percentage of people that can do it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Pull up the Google, the 10 crack commandments. So we can just run it by you and you could verify not, not the lyrics. I mean, just. I want the commandments. There's got to Be a poster of the clear. Just go to image search. Okay. Yeah, there you go. Just pull up the lyrics. Fuck it. I'm sure there's, like, a dumb poster. Blah, blah, blah. Keep going. Okay, here we go. Let's go up to. Okay. Rule number one. Never let no one know how much dough you hold. Is that true?

[Matt McCusker]

Well, that's the worst thing about it is it's like, you know, so you become a pathological liar because you have to. You have to lie to every single person you meet. Because you can't be like. If you tell people, first of all, you can't tell anyone, whatever you get it for, because then that you're, you know, you're up. I mean, you can technically just be like, here's what I charge you.

[Duncan Trussell]

And.

[Matt McCusker]

But people start to fucking fight about that, right? So you become like, you can't tell anybody.

[Duncan Trussell]

You can't let people know what you're.

[Matt McCusker]

Or just very minimal people. Or just how much money do you have or you have? Because that is true. Especially more so, though, because I. I was around Drexel, so I was dealing more with college students. That was chill. But then I would kind of, like, bump up against, like, real inner city drug dealers. And, like, dude, you would. I knew multiple people that would be outside with, like, you know, guys from North Philadelphia, West Philly. And they were like, yeah, man, we sell weed too. Like, like college kids. And they would get home invaded, like, right away, right? Multiple times.

[Duncan Trussell]

Where would you keep your dough? Where did you keep it?

[Matt McCusker]

I at first was, this is always under your bed. And then eventually you can get, like, storage units and. And kind of like hit the storage unit.

[Duncan Trussell]

And did you ever listen? Like, when you were running weed around, did you ever listen? Oh, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

Listening. Listening to rap. When you're selling anything, doing anything illegal is.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's.

[Matt McCusker]

It's for real. So tight. I can't imagine how cool, so sick. It's. You feel like the ultimate main character. It's like the ultimate main character sickness where you're just kind of like, dude, they're basically talking about me. Yeah. Like, having an ounce of coke on you for sale and listening to Beanie Siegel was like, peak experience. Wow. So tight.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow.

[Matt McCusker]

It's like so cool.

[Duncan Trussell]

EDM and ecstasy. Exactly.

[Matt McCusker]

But it's so dumb because you're like. You're, you know, you're kind of larping in a sense where it's like, you know, you're, like, from the suburbs. You're mostly in the suburbs. It's a pretty. I Was. I was like a furry almost in a sense where like, I was larping pretty hard.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

But the.

[Duncan Trussell]

But still, it's dangerous.

[Matt McCusker]

It is dangerous. I got robbed. I got robbed a couple times.

[Duncan Trussell]

Let's go to number two. I think that does actually bring us to number two. Never let them know your next move. Don't, you know, bad boys move. That's great reading this. Like, don't you know, bad boys move in silence or violence. Take it from your highness. I done squeezed mad clips at these cats for they bricks and chips. Did you move in silence?

[Matt McCusker]

I relatively, you know,

[Duncan Trussell]

sorry.

[Matt McCusker]

No, no, I. No, relatively. That's the thing you become. You become a recluse because you're like. And dating becomes a nightmare because then you meet a girl, right? And you're like, you got to slowly, by degrees, be like, here's kind of what I'm up to. And then if that goes south to go, oh, I have a bitter enemy right now who knows all my deepest.

[Duncan Trussell]

No, that is a cop.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, true. That was another stage of it. My wife became a cop eventually.

[Duncan Trussell]

Which brings us to number three. Never trust nobody. Your mom will set that ass up. So. So you're paranoid. You go into a paranoid.

[Matt McCusker]

You're paranoid. You think everybody's watching you all the time. It's. It like, up your nervousness. It's actually. I would say it's really bad for. It's like a bad life. Life. When you're younger, it's the same as Love Island. Like, this is going to be so sick. And then you do it. You're like, this is a sad, brutal life.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, it's like day trading.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Sucks. You just sit and, like, sit in front of. You're always checking your stupid Robinhood account.

[Matt McCusker]

And it's funny, the thing you're like, this would be so sick if I could become. I did the same thing. Like, dude, becoming a day trader would be so sick.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, do it.

[Matt McCusker]

You're like, this sucks.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm guessing this goes all the way up to the billionaire life. You know, I'm guessing that, like, everyone's like, why are they like that? Why don't they just retire anything? It's like, they can't. They're amazing. Amygdalas are permanently in a state of deep. Getting chased by a tiger. Level stress.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Constantly. They're thinking about millions of lives they're supporting. They're. They're just. They're totally frazzled. I'm sure Bezos shits blood. If I had to guess, no matter how many?

[Matt McCusker]

They probably like, recycle it back into his body, though. He has a technology where it just comes out, goes in a little clear tube and back into his neck. You're 100, dude. I think you're 100. Right? And it's also like, imagine being famous for money, specifically. You know, it's not like a skit. I mean, it's. You know, there's skills of acquiring it, but it's like. That's a weird one, man, where you're like, I'm famous for money. Not like, you know, dancing or. Yeah, it's just like, I make so much money. There's money in my family that goes back to, like, before the French Revolution, and I've expanded it and it's. It's like. Yeah, it's weird, dude. That's you. You need a whole staff just to, like, do your banking.

[Duncan Trussell]

And you've broken so many laws.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. You do whatever you want.

[Duncan Trussell]

You've done so many vile things. Or you're friends with people who have done vile things. And that girlfriend feeling. You've got so many people around you who know where the bodies are. And so you just live in this perpetual state of, like, at any second, the fucking sword is going to drop and I'm dead. Like, I'm gonna get skewered.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, you have friends that could, like, wield the power of the state against you. You're like, oh, yeah, yeah. So scary.

[Duncan Trussell]

Friends in the Supreme Court who just. They get annoyed with you. They can pass a law that.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Who's the guy that's going to jail for Trump? I always forget his name. He's. He's white hair. Bolton, maybe.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, yeah, yeah. This just.

[Matt McCusker]

This is so funny, right? Like, I was watching him. I'm like, well, first of all, he's not really going to jail. I don't think.

[Duncan Trussell]

Who's the guy going to jail for Trump? That you're gonna get, like, 100 names.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, no, it's. Oh, yeah, this is big, white, bushy eyebrows.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

There he is. John Bolton.

[Duncan Trussell]

Bolton agreed to a plea deal. The one felony count of a legal retention of classified national security information.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, they were just, you know, buzzing around, drinking cognac, smoking cigars. I mean, like. And they're like, dude, you're going to jail. Oh, fuck.

[Duncan Trussell]

But this is. I just read about this. Look up. Guy goes to jail. Guy finds gold. Like this treasure hunter, this dude. I guess you don't have to look it up. Guy finds treasure and goes to jail. Instead of revealing it oh, really? This is really interesting. He did the right. He did. He was right. It was like $5 million. I don't know, it doesn't matter. But I just read about this. This dude, maybe it is Thompson. I don't think that's him. Basically, this guy found $5 million in gold. I don't know, pirate treasure or some shit. And I guess when you find treasure, it belongs to the state, which is bullshit. And he decided not to give the treasure to the state and he did. Yeah, I guess it wasn't Tommy Thompson. It's not. I don't know. I read it on fucking Instagram.

[Matt McCusker]

But somebody did this.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. And he decided to go to jail for five years instead of telling where the gold was. Because it's like, go to jail. You're gonna make a million dollars a year tax free income. And then it's your $5 million. You just have to do five years. And he did it.

[Matt McCusker]

And like, oh, they want to put it in like the Smithsonian, basically. Or just be like, this is ours. This is our shit.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah, it's theirs. If you find treasure, I think you have to.

[Matt McCusker]

That makes sense. Treasure does belong essentially to like the highest.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, that is. Tommy Thompson chose to spend, oh, 10 years in federal prison rather to reveal the location of the gold, which is

[Matt McCusker]

multimillion dollar waiting room. So funny.

[Duncan Trussell]

But you know, I like, with anyone going to jail for Trump, I guarantee.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, he's gonna do.

[Duncan Trussell]

The other side of that is a fortune. So there's like, yeah, I just have to fucking.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, he didn't get the fucking gold back on.

[Duncan Trussell]

What?

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, well, it's saying they remain missing. He's not allowed to touch them.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, wait, he's got the gold.

[Matt McCusker]

Well, they ordered him. They sued him basically for $19 million.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, the court system, the FBI and his original investors have mechanisms in place to ensure that if the gold ever resurfaces, it will be immediately seized. Oh, please melt that down. Just go in your garage, melt that down. You could, you could sell. That's ridiculous. This. If he tries to sell even a single one of the 500 missing coins. The rare coin market is so tightly monitored. Just melt down the gold.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, I think. I'm sure he figured something out.

[Duncan Trussell]

He definitely figured something out.

[Matt McCusker]

I hope he did. Otherwise we should hunt for the gold.

[Duncan Trussell]

Let's go to jail.

[Matt McCusker]

I mean, it does belong to the king. A treasure. Whoever rules America, you have to get. You can't just have treasure.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude.

[Matt McCusker]

Talking about.

[Duncan Trussell]

I hate that law, though. Not that I'm ever Going to find gold. But it's always bothered me. It's like, what? There's supposedly. Look up the gold trove in Austin. There's supposedly a treasure in Austin.

[Matt McCusker]

Really?

[Duncan Trussell]

You're not allowed to dig for it. Cause so many people know about it. They were ripping up fields and stuff. Yeah. What gold?

[Matt McCusker]

I mean, yeah, this is the wild west. There's probably all kinds of weird things

[Duncan Trussell]

of Not a gold mine. It's like, what? Just look up undiscovered treasure. Austin. Probably some stupid thrift store will come up. Undiscovered treasure in Austin. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Shoal Creek treasure.

[Duncan Trussell]

Gold worth up to $3 million while digging in city parks is illegal. Local history enthusiasts dating Back to the 1830s, a legend claims a massive Mexican army payroll was stolen and buried near the Creek. In the 1890s, the story sparked gold fever, driving residents like Travis County Treasurer A.G. jernigan to illegally dig up the banks. Another tale claims Confederate troops buried 80,000 in gold coins near Shoal Creek. So there's all these, like.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, everyone used to do that. All the criminal, like, bank robbers back then would rob a bank, bury all their money, and, like, chill for like, three months and then come back to town, dig it up at night, and leave. So that way you didn't get caught with the money, and it would, like, kind of died down.

[Duncan Trussell]

Didn't Carlos Mencia just do that? They, like, They've like, they. He had 30. Didn't he have, like, 30?

[Matt McCusker]

What'd he do?

[Duncan Trussell]

Didn't pay taxes.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, how do you have. Yeah, I don't know why people think you can. You can never get away with that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Can't get away with it.

[Matt McCusker]

Especially if you're high profile. They're gonna come. They're definitely gonna get that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, they're definitely gonna get it. Like.

[Matt McCusker]

And yeah, you can't even joke about selling weed, you know, getting attacked by life insurance company.

[Duncan Trussell]

You can't. You're calculating like, your wife is gonna be like, why did our life insurance go up? Joked about selling 8.7 million.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, and they're gonna put. They're gonna put those o. It's the district attorney.

[Duncan Trussell]

So there's some new law that they. And they're using him as the example.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, bro, that's.

[Duncan Trussell]

They.

[Matt McCusker]

They start hitting you with interest on that too.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, dude.

[Matt McCusker]

Apparently, though, if the IRS comes after you, you can get on a payment plan and just pay the minimum amount. And after so many years, it just. It goes away. Yeah, but it sucks because you have, you know, they're on your Ass all the time.

[Duncan Trussell]

And. But also, I think it. It's. It sort of depends on, like, what you have.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know what I mean? If you have a bunch of stuff, they'll take it. Yeah. I think they do this. Just a quick calculation, which is like, what are we gonna make more money from, like, a payment plan or just taking all of this dude's shit? They did that with Mensia, and they're like, take a shit.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, fuck. I forgot about that. They give us your house.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, they could do that.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. The guy. I knew a dude who was doing it, but he was just, like, renting a place. He kept it pretty low key.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And he got nailed. Cause he was. He like, bought a airplane.

[Duncan Trussell]

Whoops.

[Matt McCusker]

They were like, what the. And they just nailed him.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And now he keeps. He had to do everything his whole. For years. Had to be all under the. Everything was under the table, under the table, under the table. And then one day, he was getting ready to pay. He's like, I got to give him one more payment. Because he would let it lapse. And they got to come find you again, start all over. He did it for years, and he was going to go pay, make a big chunk one day. And he found out about that law from someone he knew, like, where it just has to end at a certain point. And it was just. It was over.

[Duncan Trussell]

Over. Oh, wow.

[Matt McCusker]

Thank God I didn't pay them. He's about to get another big, substantial.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow. That must have been the best feeling on earth.

[Matt McCusker]

He did. He said it was one of them, and it went on. This was like a decade of this dude. It just never stopped. Left alone.

[Duncan Trussell]

God, it's terrible.

[Matt McCusker]

It got him so bad, too.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

He was being such a bad boy.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. They know everything I know.

[Matt McCusker]

Especially now everything's on their cell phone and they have your location, everything. You can't do anything now. No, that was the thing, too. I was pre smartphone, and I remember pre smartphone into kind of smartphone era. And just like. Like, you're just bugging out about, like, damn, dude. They could probably, like, hear everything I'm doing. And, you know, so nowadays it's like you put the cameras everywhere. Like, you really can't do. I mean, you can do illegal stuff, but, like, if they want to get you, they got you pretty much.

[Duncan Trussell]

That is for sure.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. It's like, you can do it as long as you want, but that's for sure.

[Duncan Trussell]

They just. It's just like, is it worth it? Is there a reason?

[Matt McCusker]

And I don't think that's a. That's the big thing. It's such a. You kind of, like, you should be developing a skill when you're younger and, like, eating. You have to go through that phase at least I think, where you're just kind of eating as a young person, learning a skill. Because that I, like, thank God I did stand up or something, because it was like, I wasn't. I was just, like, not learning. I would try to write here and there, but it's like, I wasn't. That, like, pressure of being young and, like, feeling like, damn, I suck is, like, needed to, like, okay, this is gonna boost me to, like, learn something and, you know.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Create some sort of value. You. I just was, like, for years, like, I didn't. I didn't have that pressure. Really?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, man.

[Matt McCusker]

And it can really kind of degrade. Luckily, I thank God I just had, like, a work ethic in terms of, like, I had to be doing stuff all the time. So writing, thank God, was, like, a thing I always did.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is that from doing construction, you think? Is that from, like, having to do those, like, insane, grueling jobs and you learn how to, like, just, like, grind yourself?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, you do, because it's also. You go. Then you get to go, well, dude, that's fucking sucks. It's like July in, like, 94 degree heat. It's 80 humidity, and you're, like, shoveling dirt and.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

Or you're in, like, an old grocery store that burnt down and, like, you're in now the dairy aisle. After months of sitting out, you got to load that into a dumpster. Like, it sucks so bad that anything else, you're like, well, it's not the bed as bad as that. You get, like. You get to appreciate. Like, yeah, this is. This sucks still. But it's nowhere near as bad as that.

[Duncan Trussell]

I was a dishwasher at Chili's.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, yeah, it sucks. Like, it just sucks.

[Duncan Trussell]

That was one of my favorite jobs, by the way, outside of stand up.

[Matt McCusker]

I will say the one thing is I was only ever a busboy, but I used to peep, like, the giant faucet and the high pressure shit. And I'd always be like, damn, that's kind of sick.

[Duncan Trussell]

Actually, it's the best.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's kind of cool.

[Duncan Trussell]

No one expects anything from you. Your only job, at least in those days, the dishwasher had to make the Italian dressing, which is, as I recall, it's like, just mayonnaise and ketchup mixed together. I think that's what, not Italian? No, that's called.

[Matt McCusker]

I know you're talking about the yellowish one.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, you just squeeze a bunch. You just squeeze ketchup into mayonnaise and stir it with this nasty long ass spatula in buckets. It's nasty. Don't fucking order dressing at restaurants, guys.

[Matt McCusker]

Dishwashing, it was just high power spray and then dip into the blue like barbershop liquid. And then that was it. What is like, when does a plate get clean in a restaurant?

[Duncan Trussell]

The plate. No, it's high pressure spray. Then you throw it. Then there's industrial washer that you throw them in and then that sprays off anything that you missed and it bakes them. Dude, I've washed dishes in a few different places. One place I got a dishwashing job at, and this is way before like the trans thing. The other dishwasher was an actual hermaphrodite. Like the real thing. Like had both.

[Matt McCusker]

What?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, I, you know, they were like, do you want to see? He. They wanted me to see and I said no.

[Matt McCusker]

So. It's so funny thinking about sending your kid out in the world. There's just like a pure Pinocchio story. You're like, go get a job, son. You'll be all right. This is you. And from Aphrodite. You want to see both my genitals? I don't know, I've never seen that before.

[Duncan Trussell]

I really regret saying no to that.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, true.

[Duncan Trussell]

In. In my old age, I look back and like, that's one of those things. You're like, yeah, sure, yeah, I want to see that.

[Matt McCusker]

Let's see it. Yeah, let's see what's up. But I remember, no thank you. No thank you, sir.

[Duncan Trussell]

I think I tried to be cool about it. I was like, nah, man, I gotta get home. Because they wanted to take me to their house to show me their dick and pussy. Yeah, you know, but the, the old story, but

[Matt McCusker]

your father was in the belly of a whale. Like I gotta get back to him. I can't see your penis vagina.

[Duncan Trussell]

But man, I can remember, I can remember. Cause the dishwashers. I think we were bussing tables too, but I can remember I was out front bussing.

[Matt McCusker]

Did you ever see the bulgel toe on the hermaphrodite? Did they ever have like a bulge slash camel toe stick?

[Duncan Trussell]

I never saw it.

[Matt McCusker]

Never bulgel toe.

[Duncan Trussell]

I never noticed it. I know, but I did think, you know, you're like, whoa. Like I think that's the first time I. I'd really heard of that before. Yeah, it's Just like, whoa. Sounded like a. A lie, but it's funny.

[Matt McCusker]

They just had a dick. It was just like an old gay guy.

[Duncan Trussell]

They were my age. They were my age, but I was busing. This is a really fascinating story. I was busting tables and I hear this, like, piercing shriek coming from. It was during a thunderstorm and I hear this. This piercing shriek. It went through the whole restaurant, ran back there and. What? Lightning had hit the restaurant and electrocuted him, knocked him. He survived. What? But he got struck by lightning washing dishes. Like it.

[Matt McCusker]

The hermaphrodite was struck by lightning?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes, bro.

[Matt McCusker]

What the.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude? I know, I know. It could have died. Could have exploded him all over the kitchen. But, like, he survived. He had to go home. But he was like, what the. I know. Crazy. It was crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

That's insane.

[Duncan Trussell]

This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Amantara. Oh, dear Lord, we thank you for the bountiful gifts of nature. One of those gifts is Amanita muscaria, a completely legal psychoactive mushroom that has been used for millennia for a variety of spiritual purposes. What's interesting about this particular mushroom is that it affects the GABA receptors, which happen to be the same receptors that are affected by alcohol and benzos. Wild. It's wild. It's the most interesting psychoactive I know of. And when I say most interesting, it's like, by now all of us have done psilocybin, right? This is a psychedelic high, but it chills you out. It's the best. It's a dream come true and psychedelic. It also gives you incredible dreams. By the way, if you've gone to any gas station, you might have seen Amanita in the weird place where they sell like obscure semi legal drugs shipped in from weird parts of the world with ingredients that probably aren't the actual ingredients. This is not the same Amanita. No, no, no, no, no. I've made that mistake. You see, the Amanita market is genuinely shady right now. Products are mislabeled, adulterated, some containing actual research chemicals or synthetic compounds. This isn't a minor quality issue. It's a safety issue. Amantara is the largest importer and supplier in the US. Third party tested, clean sourcing education first. They have over 60,000 happy customers. Christian, who I consider a friend, the founder used Amanita personally to get off benzodiazepines. That's Xanax, if you didn't know. This is personal for them, not just a product down below. The link is in description amantara.com go dtfh this will take you to exclusive first Timer bundles. Code Duncan11 gets an additional 11% off the already discounted bundle price. Star low dosage varies a lot person to person. Thank you. Amantara. I wanted to ask you about the animation stuff you've been doing. Can we show some.

[Matt McCusker]

Larry? Yeah, for sure.

[Duncan Trussell]

Pull up some of this cool animation, Matt. Is it on your Twitter?

[Matt McCusker]

Is it on.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's on his YouTube. YouTube.

[Matt McCusker]

YouTube, yeah. Yeah, that was fun. Again. I just kind of like writing more so. But I was like, well, let's see if. You know, this could be.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wait, hold on. What's that? What? This new fucking genre of like talking about podcasters is the most insane sub is the most insane cottage industry.

[Matt McCusker]

That's horrible.

[Duncan Trussell]

Burt Kreischer crashes out over Shane Gillis. You got a picture of Kreischer like he just was in a horrible car accident. Picture of Shane looking handsome. I don't want to watch that, but. Wow, that's crazy.

[Matt McCusker]

That is an interesting kind of. You never thought that'd be coming.

[Duncan Trussell]

No.

[Matt McCusker]

In depth analysis of podcasts.

[Duncan Trussell]

There's a lot of them. I know it's an industry. It is.

[Matt McCusker]

If you. Yeah, if you click my thing, it should pop up.

[Duncan Trussell]

There you go.

[Matt McCusker]

Papillon Paradox. We still.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hold on. Pause the drive. We probably still can't show this even though it's him. Like YouTube will just auto ding us.

[Matt McCusker]

Really? Really.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't know. Let's just show a clip and see what happens.

[Matt McCusker]

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. What if I took both at the same time? You don't want to do that. That will you up my. Wait, you're allowed to call me that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Mike, what is the issue?

[Matt McCusker]

He can't call me that, right? It doesn't make sense to call me that. I'm white.

[Duncan Trussell]

At least that's what I've been told. Right, but he's black, so he's allowed to say it too. Great. We don't have to show awesome man, but who's animating that? That?

[Matt McCusker]

It was Patrick Kane and directed by Frank Gwelski.

[Duncan Trussell]

How'd you find Patrick Kane?

[Matt McCusker]

Honestly? He was. He hit me up on Instagram. He had animated clips of the podcast and I was like, dude, do you want to do. I didn't know about animation. I was like, do you want to like, do animate stuff? So that was it.

[Duncan Trussell]

I love animation.

[Matt McCusker]

I. I like, I like that. I like writing it. What I don't like is it takes forever. Dude, watch it a thousand times. You go, I hate this. This is not even funny. This is the dumbest thing. But it is. When it all came together, when it finally put the sound and all that stuff on it, it was really cool to have them all come out.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude. When we did the Midnight Gospel and I realized what goes in to like three sets forget just the animating part. Dude. When you're like doing dailies and everything in an animated scene that you see.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is like if there's a spoon, somebody drew five different spoons. You gotta pick the spoon. Everything is carefully picked to form the final product and you. And yeah. God knows. The first draft of the Midnight. I'll never forget when I watched the first episode. It titmouse. And I'm. And I just. I felt myself die inside. I'm looking, I'm like, well, yeah. I remember telling people, well, I guess it didn't work, guys. And then I was so wrecked. And then the producer, one of the producers came up to me and was like, Mike Mayfield came up to me and was like, Duncan and Sweno, your reaction to the first draft is everyone's reaction to the first draft as an animated. Everyone dies inside.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And then it gets funny. But that first.

[Matt McCusker]

Oh, there's no sound on it. It's just like. And they're showing me story. Was it like the storyboards or whatever or whatever that's called when it's just. They're just like, here's like a drag. A hand drawn sketch of what this. And I'd watch him like, dude, just animate it so I can see the thing. And then they do it. And you're like, well, it's all locked. You can't change anything now. And he's like, what the. But they did a great job. But I. I agree. Midnight Gospel too, visually was one of the sickest things I think possible. That thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

They were. There's Jesse Moyni. These guys are so fucking talented.

[Matt McCusker]

Especially when you know what goes into it. I like, watched that. I was like, oh, my God. It wasn't. That was unbelievable, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

Thank you. Yeah, it's. But I, you know, this is like. I think this is one of the, like terrible horrors of AI Especially for people like us who just like have a dumb idea. You want to get it out? You know how long it Takes to animate stuff. It's so dark because you want to like see this idea in your head. And you could pick between what you did, the right thing to do because it's always going to be better get a human to animate this stuff or just sit down in front of the fucking computer, type out your idea and it spits it out. Then you upload it and everyone wants to kill you.

[Matt McCusker]

I mean, yeah, hey, I feel bad for animation because I know AI is coming for a lot. I mean, it's like, obviously I think you always need a human touch, but dude, background, all that stuff, it can at least get you started and just cut out so much time. And I, I'm pretty sure a lot of the. There's a lot of AI animation studios that's coming. Oh yeah, that's coming big time. And it's going to be again, it's one of those things we'll probably just kind of like, instead of having X amount of animators will have a couple who will just kind of of do it. Like detailing and touching up.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, you know, I was fucking around with AI and realizing like, any idea I have, it's kind of making it, but it's too polished.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

No matter even if you try to tell it to degrade it or whatever, it's too polished. So then I took my own shitty drawings, took pictures of them because, you know, that's how you make AI video content. Take the beginning and the end of a scene and it kind of like figures out how to put the frames in between. And so I gave it my shitty art. I'm like, you know, animate this person. I don't know what I wanted him to do. I don't remember dancing. And it would take my art and make it like I could draw and then do the animation. So it made it look good, which I didn't want. That sucks. It looks too good. It's too polished. I don't want that. I want it to look like shit. I just don't want to take the time to do frame by frame drawings. It takes forever. And I was saying to it, stop making it look good. You're making it look like I could draw. And ChatGPT was like, yeah, welcome to the big problem with AI video generation is I can't make it look as if as bad as you draw.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, no, it. Well, that's with the AI stuff. I, I always try not to be super reactionary against it, where I'm like, this is evil, this. Well, you see that? And then you know, because there's part of me going like, all right, is this. See, there's like, a lot. You see people like college, you know, commencement speeches where it's like, it, they start. A guy will be like, yeah, you know, there's a lot of developments, and the students like, boo you. So you can gain a lot of social currency by being like it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right, Right.

[Matt McCusker]

It's like, okay, whatever. Maybe you really feel that way. Maybe you're just getting, I don't know. I can't say I don't know what you think, but the. I don't know, I kind of, like, am interested in it. But it's like, I also get it. If it, like, erased my livelihood, I'd be like this, right? So, like, I get it, but I, I don't know, I try not to be, like, knee jerky about, like, how I react to it or perceive it or, like, signal, you know, whatever. But I, I, I think it's cool, honestly. My, my genuine thing is, like, it is cool. It's like a calculator for, like, symbolic thinking instead of math. But it's like, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like language calculator. But I will say, I'm saying all that to say, like, when I see things generated by AI, I am always slightly disturbed and uneasy. Like when it's like an AI person, I don't know what, just innately, I'm kind of like, ah, that's weird.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, it's looking at a corpse.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah. Literally. That's such a good way to put it because that is kind of the feeling I get where I'm like, it's not a real. And it's just a subtle, almost unconscious thing where I'm like, that's not a real person. And I get like a really uneasy, weird, weird feeling.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's when you see your dead grandma feeling.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, you know, it's that, that's exactly the feeling. I haven't been able to identify the feeling. It's a corpse feeling.

[Duncan Trussell]

You're like. The scientific term is dead grandma. Yeah. Dgf. And, and you, you. Which, you know, my view on making stuff is just make stuff. Like in there are no, like, like when it comes to making stuff, if you're thinking too much about where it will go. If you're thinking at all about where it will go. Now you're a marketer, you know you're getting caught. The marketing is poisoning all the good stuff. Nobody thought, like, this is going to make a ton of money. Probably they just needed to make something and they got lucky and it took off. That's my naive theory on it. So with, you know, dead grandma feeling. Well, that's a real feeling. That, that does mean AI generated video is inspiring an emotion in people. Meaning to me, that's art. It's not art in the, like your animation. It's not art in like human, human animation. It's a different, completely different animal. But it is art to me in the sense that it's, it's making people feel a certain way. But I just feel like it's like the best critique of it outside of the obvious shit, is that it's just free based capitalism. Cause in capitalism you want maximum return on your investment. And so it's taken art and it's created a way for people to remove the creation process almost entirely.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, it's weird.

[Duncan Trussell]

So it's all about production. It's all about producing. And anyone who's ever worked on a book or anything, you know that the book that you thought you were gonna write isn't the book you end up writing. And you would never get there if you could tell a computer, write this book. God help you if something could perfectly write your first idea for a book. Yeah, because you're not going to write your book. That's a different book. Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And you don't enjoy. I mean, that's, that's the big thing too. Which like you're saying the freebase capitalism thing where there's like, obviously, yeah, if you want to write books, you say, well, yeah, I'm right, I'm gonna sell them. But then there's like, there's the, the joy inherent in the task itself where it's like if you just outsource all the work and try to get all the money, it's like, hey, the thing's not, I don't think it probably won't be good or like groundbreaking in any sense, but it's also like, you know, when you write a book, aside from like selling, there's like the external rewards of selling a book, but there's so many internal rewards to things that people now just like try to completely over. Like if you're a carpenter and you build a barn, it's like, yes, you can sell your barn, but you've also gained the skills. You have the pride. You can like feel the wood and everything. And it's like evening buyer's remorse. Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get Started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price.

[Duncan Trussell]

I even have seven days to love

[Matt McCusker]

it or return it. So there's no.

[Duncan Trussell]

No, no buyer's remorse.

[Matt McCusker]

More like buyers rejoice. I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our 7 day return [e-mail] Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. Twas a lovely suv, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Tonight we feast.

[Matt McCusker]

An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up. Fees may apply. I think everyone lacks it. There's a really good book about that. This guy, Alistair McIntyre, he was a philosopher in like the 80s, got real into like Aristotelianism, virtue. Like this is the kind of a thing that's been me up lately, dude, Alistair Mac McIntyre's After Virtues. I think it's. I had to read a book basically summarizing the book. It's one of those dense things written by a giant genius guy. But dude, his. He goes through all this stuff basically he's saying our, our modern morality is just like a broken, chaotic, like jumble of all of these different things that we use as almost like snakeskin to kind of just get our way so we can gain external rewards. It's pretty, it's pretty up. But dude, it's true because he was saying like back a long time ago, as far as I can tell, a long time ago, it was like you had the virtues and they were just more so about like how to excel as a human being across. It wasn't like necessarily like we have rule following morality. So there was like the virtues, which is like how do you live the best human life possible? And how can that way that you live make life better for as many people as possible if they do these same. If they have virtues. If you don't have virtues, your life's just going to collapse. And then the, the church kind of came through and I think Thomas Aquinas was the one who was like, no, no, this stuff is cool, stop trying to rail against it because. But more or less what happened was virtues got collapsed into being virtuous, which just meant you're a rule follower. And then that's when you lived under the oppressive like medieval times, modern you know, 1950s, you were like a virtuous man if you just followed rules and that was that. And if you, if you suffered like so be it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is this Nietzsche? Nietzsche's idea of. I never know how to say his fucking name. If it's Nietzsche or Nietzsche, no matter what, someone will correct you either way. But is it his slave morality? Is that what he.

[Matt McCusker]

Pretty much, yeah. It was just. You're just following rule. But I think Nietzsche was like, you just have to make up your own things and go off. And the guy McIntyre is like, no, you have to return to like the aristocracy Aristotelian idea of virtues and pursuer. Pursue and practice things that when done give you a good inherent in itself not necessarily a marketing or. And again, it's one of those things where I. I can't hardly summarize it, but sounds good.

[Duncan Trussell]

I got you.

[Matt McCusker]

It's amazing. But then the, the pro. Then it's like you had all these rule followers and then it became, you know, virtuous or desirable to now just go the postmodern thing. We're like, break all of these rules. Then you'll be. And they're still miserable too. And it's like. And his book's basically like, you have to get back to like a being a community minded individual who's connected to like a deep tradition at some point which you have to learn about in order to critique rather than burning it down and becoming like just a lost person adrift in like complete personal subjectivity. And. Yeah, it's pretty sick, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's.

[Matt McCusker]

It's. What I think is it's amazing.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's amazing.

[Matt McCusker]

It's awesome.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, you sort of like, oh God, it's so fucked up, man. You ever see like those hermit crabs who they like make their shells out of like they find on the beach and stuff?

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hermit crabs just kind of like huddled in like something that kind of looks like a shell. It's like a. Yeah, it's like a Dannon. An empty Dannon yogurt. Yeah, that's plastic yogurt thing. They're huddled in there and it's just like there that it could be better for you. Crab. Like

[Matt McCusker]

that's. No. And he gets in, he calls it emotivism where it's like our morality now is just like people just take from scraps of like morally coded language to just get their way. So there's making emotionally based arguments and being like you're a piece of. If you don't agree with how I feel emotionally about this subject. Here's why. And then, like, no, actually, you're a giant piece of. Here's why. And it's just people just both just trying to get their ways. It's not tied to, like, an external good for people or a thing. Like, if everyone pursued this, would this lead to a good life or bad? It's just kind of like, you're a fucking piece of shit.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's like whenever you see. Like, I don't remember which religious text I was reading, but whoever was writing was trying to explain, like, the reason for these prescriptions of how to live is not because we're trying to, like, make you miserable.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's because this works. If you want to be happy. If you do these things, you are going to have a much happier life than if you don't. And for thousands of years, everyone experimented with not doing these things. The experiment in drunkenness has been done.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, dude. I mean, literally, these are people who have lived after other people lived for thousands and thousands. And be like, hey, I did the whole thing. I'm front to back, I'm telling you. And you're like, yeah, fucking right. What the fuck do you. And all those people know? Yeah. And you're like, I'm gonna get hammered and gamble.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. I cheat on my wife. It's like, dude, we did the experiment in infidelity. Everyone tried that.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

It always fucks you up. We did it. We've tried the. I think a lot of these religious people are like, if only.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

It just. It's like, the same way. Like, you shouldn't, like, put a hair dryer in the bathtub. You're gonna get shocked. I don't know what that is or why or what. It's just the way it fucking works, man.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And, yeah, I think when you. This gets back to what we were talking about earlier about freedom, you get befuddled, and you start conflating freedom with hedonism. You start thinking those are the same thing. The hedonic life is the ultimate life of liberty or something. And do without will, do without wilt, shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will. But people, I think, confused that. I mean, I always. People get mad because they think I'm some kind of Crowley defender, but I don't think he meant, like, he. He was so disciplined until he got on morphine. But that's another topic. But you know what I mean?

[Matt McCusker]

Sum it up. That was it. I grew up in, like, a. A Catholic household. You're like, this sucks. And then I go out just completely polar opposite into like a criminal underworld. And I'm like, I can do whatever. I remember to the point where I was like, I have enough money where I could go get a massage and get jerked off every day.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Matt McCusker]

And you're like, this is sad. Yeah, this is so sad. And you go, yeah, I'm definitely. That's because I remember being like, why wouldn't someone get jerked off every day if they had enough money for that? You go like, oh, because you feel like a lizard walking. You're like, this is disgusting.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, especially when you eat. Like the walls are thin and you hear someone next door getting jerked off.

[Matt McCusker]

Or you're just like, this is. I should not. This can't be the primary mover of my exit. Like, obviously getting jerked off rules, but then there's higher order things that you should be taking care of. And you know, when you're younger, you just don't see it. And then you get older and you're like, oh, having like a family, not even just for the sake of saying you did it. It's like you're, you're literally doing your little part to like push society, humankind forward in a good way. Yeah, it's just way more satisfying even if you don't have a family. Even if you're like working with people and other people. You know, I just took forever to click for me and I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, I have values now. And that's helps because now I'm not like gaming every social interaction to try to come out on top in some sense. I'm like, no, this is what I feel is right. I try to do it as much as possible right wherever I land amongst that I think feel good.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, you have a. You know, if you're not doing that, you're just tossed on the sea like you, you, you, you're just tossed around from one reaction to the next. You're an animal. You know, like, not that animals are bad. They're cool. I love fucking animals. It's like, I don't know why everyone's like, you're an animal. It's like, you don't have to be though. I mean, look, you know, when I look at squirrels, they don't seem happy that you. They seem freaked out and hungry half the time. Running from everything. They're so scared. Every creature seems to be in varying degrees of like mortal danger all the time. And you don't have to be like that. So, yeah, what are we doing on time? It's 12:55.

[Matt McCusker]

Fuck.

[Duncan Trussell]

We gotta wear up.

[Matt McCusker]

We gotta wrap. Let's part two it. We'll part two it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, you are so brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on this show.

[Matt McCusker]

Thank you for coming, man.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wait, what you're doing, you're on tour right now?

[Matt McCusker]

I'm on tour right now.

[Duncan Trussell]

Healing Frequency Tour.

[Matt McCusker]

Yeah, the healing frequency. Matt McCusker. Mattmcusker.com it's kicking off September through whenever.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, Beautiful. All the links will be down below if you're watching this on YouTube. Thank you, sir.

[Matt McCusker]

Thank you.

[Duncan Trussell]

Cheers. That was Matt McCusker, everybody. Don't forget to come see my upcoming shows. All the links are down below. Tune into the mystery, boys. I will see you in just a few days. Goodbye.

[Matt McCusker]

Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana.

[Duncan Trussell]

Twas a lovely suv.

[Matt McCusker]

An inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Tonight we feast.

[Matt McCusker]

An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.