THC 14: The Shroomfest Special w/ Paul Herrmann, Mike Vinn, & Ari Shaffir

00:05 In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the Fireside Chats. His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times. From 1930 and I deal with a different kind of fire For a new era of worldly frustration we offer a fresh conversation. I'm Greg Carlwood These are The Hireside Chats Listen up people, I am here with Ari Shafir the guy who spawned the idea for Shroomfest which i'm totally psyched to be here questioning him about the first Shroomfest. So what really is Shroomfest? Shroomfest is an international mushroom festival where we're all doing mushrooms across the globe all together not in the same place but in the same frame of mind you know

00:57 We're gonna be doing out on the higher side chats. We will we will send our anything that happens I can take one of these they're filming for Ryan done today who just couldn't make it On the last day of shroom fest which is Kind of an event RG fear, I guess started the shroom fest ideas this is the first annual shroon fest created by Ari Shafir best known as the internet sensation The Amazing Racist that you can find on YouTube and all over the place. Hi, I'm Rory Shafir and I am The Amazing Racist. For an agent she kind of has to ask huh? Right right! Say it with the art. Right... Can you do it? Yeah its like 420 but for shrooms. Exactly And is three days long instead of one

01:51 Do you think it needed to be three days? Do you think he'd need three days for mushrooms? Um, well... Depends on how many are doing. Yeah You know I don't think you need three days To do them but uh does make for one hell of a party Fuck yeah Which is what we are doing right now That is correct We all My lovely girlfriend was nice enough to give us all an equal dose How do you normally ingest? What's your favorite way, you just eat them. I just eat them. Why waste time preparing the preparations and just trying to make teas and all this other stuff when it is right there you can just eat it because its all going the same way. This how I do em. Just dip in water first. Moistens him up. It's the heat that pulls

02:48 Like you ever sit in the sun all day and get fucking tired as shit just cause your in the sun? It's because the heat from the sun is taking shit out of you. Yeah I got a sun stroke in Thailand. Orange juice is supposed to... We used to do orange juice when we would take other hallucinogens. They say vitamin C is the best thing on a cake. That was raw! You gotta have a cigarette before uh, you start. Oh yeah We'll go back. Restart Oh, we already started? Yeah No I'm sorry

03:30 my kids, my potential kids. I just don't have any kids but in 20 years my kids could be sneaking out on June 20th to do Shroom Fest and i'm gonna be like you know what? I was at the first Shroom Fest, I was part of it Your fucking father Corey hated you Talked to the guy before he skipped out He talked to the actual man who set forth this actually helped spread the word about it Before he hated you and beat you. I'd beat him mercilessly for not going to bed on time We've all eaten about an eighth of mushrooms three-and-a-half dried grams It was about 15 minutes ago About 15 20 minutes so in about another 10 minutes we should be just starting it or Exactly all fucked up now make this happen

04:21 This is actually this is I figured it what's the most appropriate place to celebrate? Shroom fest and on the higher side chance the last time you were here. That's we did exactly yes for your birthday Paul wasn't here Paul was a cool back then no At the Comedy Store, I started doing open mic there a few years ago and Got serious about it, I guess about two years, year and half, two years ago. Been working there for about a year now so... What is the, cause you guys both actually work. You don't just perform at the store you work for the store right? Yeah What is the process like I guess you have to do a show in front of Mitzi No no that's uh that's the Hollywood stuff She doesn't come down here to do those things Oh no no I've seen her twice In these six and half years I've been at The Comedy Store

05:20 five years working. But you do have to basically audition? Do you have to be a comic to work at the store too? Yeah, well for the guys that's how we find who is next guy because as soon as when you get a job there um... you get moved up to the best of San Diego which means your no longer on the open mic uh... doing shows three nights a week eventually you get to do weekend shows and uh... it's just its process And everybody paying their rent Not really. No, it's not about that. Mostly everybody else has day jobs and I don't have a day job because my day job is the comedy store and I get a lot of perks like I bartend there too so I get tips which keeps me afloat he just broke.

06:05 Awesome to be able to do this again on Shroomfest and last day Ari was cool enough to come and meet me at the Comedy Store last time he was here. To talk about the Shroomfest, and I I like it because people, in a lot of cases if you just say it's a holiday for something people do it. That really is all it takes. Cinco de Mayo everybody will get drunk. I could be an AA for two years but hey... Cinco de Mayo! It's an excuse. So having a day for Shroomfest is just awesome. Overdue. It's three days. Is today the 20th? I didn't realize that. Fathers Day weekend was a misplay

06:47 I ranted and raved about my people's shroom father. What better gift for your dad than mushrooms? Him leaving, that is why the last day of Shroomfest is a day after Father's Day because if the fathers didn't leave then we probably would never have done shrooms. But Paul's Dad still around. I was just a fucked up kid. He's a fuck-up. No excuse for this one! At least, I don't try to make one. So what was the last time you did mushrooms when you were on the show? Yeah, last time i did mushrooms was uh... on this show March 25th. I think so

07:29 It's a good couple months. Mushrooms are obviously not something you can do every day, you'll end up like Dave. Oh yeah that's why he is not here Paul when was the last time you did mushrooms? It has been at least 10 years Are you serious? At least 10 years and your doing it here On the higher side chats I appreciate I Everything else so yeah, I guess hanging out with comics now. I'm around a lot more drugs than I was my mother freedoms when I was married to Satan so that was not clear mom. That's like that's my first wife my current wife. I would never refer to as Satan because She's really awesome my current wife is fucking awesome but yeah My first one was uh was Satan and

08:27 Was your first wife, would she bitch at you if you did something like this? Would she that kind of thing? She... I went home. I didn't smoke anything uh..I didn't do any drugs the whole time we were married except for I went home for like a week for vacation and I smoked out with a buddy and she was like uh... it flipped out! Like threatening divorce over this shit man! Like just yeah irrational By the way shits just starting to hit me right now so its about that time Yeah, it's a girl I just I just like that as soon as I can and people are really into it Just do shrooms have fun plan your party. Very exciting. Yeah, it's

09:08 I think it does a lot to... This girl on the radio today, she was like, oh I want to but my girlfriend's like bachelorette party. And I'm like yeah, go to the bachelorette party! You see her face light up and you're just like Oh My God Yeah! No one has ever done bachelorette parties on mushrooms no ones done that That's epic Whatever you got to do don't use that as an excuse Use is like ooh that'll be way cooler on shrooms It does a lot to remove the mystery and the danger from mushrooms. Mushrooms are kind of thought to be next level for potheads, people that sort. And I think it does a lot just make it a little bit sillier like hey you know your not gonna... its not that dangerous Its just fun Nobody ODs on it What's going to happen is nothing

09:49 You might get diarrhea later once you recover, you can get a little diarrhea. I always kind of have an upset stomach and i feel like great afterwards but the laughs! You have amazing laughs every if you go out walking every group of people you see seems like characters of themselves and you can categorize them very easily. I did a bunch of shrooms at the Ottawa Blues Festival last year as was leaving I knew everybody else that was on shroom. I could just see them yeah they're on it there all these people sober Anyways, back to your miserable wife. next life no he has a reaction as his wife less is new if it's wonderful amazing way yes here if you could do if you can come to this stuff today yeah i call it out now so i think of issues like our whatever the hall pass my dad like movie i mean she and see how she super cool we got married last august or come up on her year anniversary and uh... like when we got uh... couple nights before had the bachelor party in sheets on my boy will who discussed them but like my brother since we were kids and shit

10:48 Uh, she like gave him money for the strippers. It was like make sure he... Make sure he has all this stuff? Make sure he has a good night and gave me a stack of ones and you know so yeah She's cool as shit Yeah my girl is pretty fucking cool. She weighed all this shit out for us And then she just let me walk I know! That was awesome That's a good girl Hopefully she comes back What kind of training is involved with that Greg? Yeah, I stumbled into it. She's gonna catch on one of these days sweet and I'll be left paying more rent than I can afford I'll be doing these from an outlet outside a fucking moon doggies So I'm feeling like I definitely have taken mushrooms oh yeah That's that's that's far out magical mushrooms could have medical benefits researchers say in Yahoo! News just sitting right next to me

11:46 Does anybody want to read this? You can read it if you want. No, not right now. Basically they're just saying I think it's happening a lot more in the media and what I see is medical marijuana and then the next thing to roll out is mushrooms. In Amsterdam they have mushrooms that sell them in stores. So it's kind of the next thing, but right now yeah. It was yesterday on three different websites I saw the same story of people at John Hopkins University they see that there might be some medical benefits to mushrooms. There have been theories about that for a really long time. Well apparently 90% of people there had

12:25 Long-lasting positive experience as they say it changed their life, you know And then it says this is long lasting positive experiences in there and then it follows up with It gave someone the courage to leave their husband They just had a bad dose and just wigged the fuck out when that's like I was a monster You guys put all that Kind of metaphysical stuff on mushrooms, or do you just see it? Do you see it as a way to get fucked up? Or you're just having fun. I'm certainly not gonna claim that It's helping me with any medical issues right now all right But do you think there's anything people talk about I think there's validity to it I mean like especially with some of the psychological conditions. I mean it cracks me up that people are so quick to judge and

13:15 natural stuff when they've prozac numbers are through the roof and Adderall and like all these different tons of different antidepressants and drugs that are made for ADD and everything else it's like they're being taken in record numbers and nobody talks about that but marijuana is automatically attacked. They make you sit there and think, God you look at your life and you're like man I'm just going to work every day letting some asshole tell me what to do. I have no fucking control of anything for what? For some change? For some fucking money just so I can live paycheck-to-paycheck and barely keep a roof over my head? Just so I can get fed. I gotta deal with this guy's shit just so I could eat Those are the drugs that really tuned me into that kind

14:12 process. Whereas if I'm just going to get drunk every night, I'll just wake up with a hangover and get a cup of coffee and get my ass to work." You don't really have the introspective thoughts on them? I don't know if mushrooms and weed causes I think they open up creativity and everything. Like, I love what George Carlin said about his writing process is that he would like spend time, you know weeks or whatever writing and then when he was ready to get all the punchlines out he'd smoke And that helped him. So he set the premise of the jokes up, but then for the punchline you know... He would use that for creativity so I think it can definitely open up the creative side of people It does open a creative process

15:05 enhances a way of thinking. It's like normal people, I use the term normal people as like people that don't do comedy? That aren't comics? That aren't on stage? Normal people! Yeah Greg well you're not really normal because you have this... Blurring the line trying to but uh without the internet i would have killed myself Yeah, but normal people they don't think of things in a certain way because they're born and bred to do this. This only little thing but people that do comedy or entertainment or something artistic you know they view things in a whole different demeanor whereas comics you can

15:45 You can talk about whatever the fuck you feel like saying. And I'm starting to lose where this is headed off. As a comic, it's hard to hold conversations... What I'm trying to say is we do drugs! That's what all rants are about. We see things in different ways Do you see shrooms as more than just a party drug? Yeah, it's not just a fun time. Absolutely! I see things clearly when i'm on mushrooms. I sort of see things through that. I'm not talking about any sort of metaphysical connection to the universe or others if you want to believe that that's fine. I am more of an atheist and don't believe in sort of that stuff. I'm not going tell you're a liar or wrong but for me its like it helps me see clearly like have ever talked through a problem and your like oh I get

16:28 That girl's cheating on me. I get it now. Exactly! It just helps you see things clearly so i would like, I made a rule the first time we did Mushrooms I was like I should compliment other comics more. I don't know why I don't compliment them and so I remember calling my friend Chris Fairbanks or yeah writing him he was like You're really cool comic you're an interesting technique that's funny you say that because just a few... That's not a bad thing it's a good thing. Right? Yeah A few episodes ago I was talking about how I had the same exact feeling with Ecstasy. My roommate wanted to spin fire, you know a fire boy and he started doing it with tube socks and tennis balls to get the feel down of spinning fire. I did actually, you know...I watch him do this all the time and never say anything. He's doing it by himself he doesn't get any encouragement And i'm like go for it dude spin that fire! It's nice to be able to say we're good at what we do We're too much of a beach Good job practicing Get out on the beach and spin some fucking fire It's easy shit on things but also just easily point out the good stuff

17:22 And drugs of a lot of types make that just easier to do. Not all, but some of them and mushrooms really does I remember calling my friend telling him I was so sorry about his dad dying and I just never really wanted to...I felt bad about it for him He's like thanks man what's wrong with you? I'm like I want some mushrooms he's like alright that makes sense It's fun when you can have like, I'm sure that at some point I will definitely have to go back to the day job grind which i am not looking forward too but I don't think I can go back to what I was doing before because it was soul crushing. And sometimes you need something to take the edge off and if its

18:03 If pot or mushrooms is your thing, then cool. I don't think that there's anything different than... It's nothing different from taking Prozac or antidepressants or whatever. It helps to fill a chemical imbalance in some people. I guess you think people just naturally they'll find the drug that they like most and stick with that? Yeah, definitely Well, I mean like if crack is your drug then you're going to find that and it's gonna fuck you. You don't think there is an excuse to say I just have a crack personality? Right! That's just filling in my needs. Yeah... That's what I'm saying. It's like I just woke up one day and was like you know what some people get high some people get drunk. Crack thats going to be my thing. I'm just gonna pick up rocks and smoke them

18:54 I can say that, um...I'm at a point with these mushrooms now that it is hard to follow my own train of thought and its also hard to listen to a full sentence from either one of you guys. It's hard to hear the end of the sentence, I'm like where the fuck- what were we talking about? Jobs! Yeah who works? Rock work. Working as a- I'm going there tomorrow in less than 12 hours I might as well be in prison. At least you're not driving a bus or anything though. Nothing important like that where people's lives are at risk You know, yeah, you're not a fireman. I've done more drugs than firefighters It creates me feel super safe the next time I do We're not cops or just there to fucking put out fires and save old people like they do They party more than anybody else that I've ever met in my life Firefighters firefighters firefighters

19:50 the I It's the Air Force. It's a generational thing too, it's like the military you know? It's like oh my grandfather was a firefighter and my dad was a firefighter. People gotta be able to fly planes for as hard as they are. Planes don't naturally fly but cars do. Firefighters is like the air force of the military. The crazy ones? Yeah well they're not really crazy towards easier to get into fire fighting than it

20:51 I'm just going off again, sorry. Shit just kind of starts hitting you. And I just wolfed him down, so I didn't even wait. It's funny to have...I know that I'm going to look back at this and laugh but at this point I don't want to do this at all! You really want to do the podcast now? I see that cracked open door and I'm like frisbee golf or something. Get outside. So with this idea connecting everybody to each other too

21:29 Like it's like internet age where I made a Facebook fan page for it. Yeah, exactly And that's the place people can go post pictures and whatever Twitter we got a hashtag Shroomfest Exactly So anything you do fucking hashtag it up and people just follow along in real time yeah, yeah some crazy shit going down It really is! Look at my friend Bobby he's hugging the dirt and you just take a picture of that You're like oh alright these guys are shooting me I'm gonna shoot tomorrow or I'll shoot them yesterday Let me watch these guys today Do you have any concerns about Being you know the way people put up sell their videos and just be nonsense. Just crazy Do you have any any concerns of it being nonsense? do you want people to get something out of it or do you really see that's a cool thing just fucking do It I don't watch for myself. I don't want anything out of it. I might host some place on my website re shafir Comma, or either great calm just like a place to put people like pictures and videos and stuff just to host them But like I wanna anything I just want the idea of everybody doing them. I didn't like it So it's like for whatever reason

22:23 I got the idea so i'm in charge. No that's you know and then let's just do it, let's get it done So yeah we go eat a shit ton of shrooms relax for a little bit talk amongst friends and then When it's time to go it's time to go i feel like a giant right now i just That's just me We're hitting on a lot of deep Deep subjects here. A lot of subjects. Mike feels like a giant We're all about to start tearing up This is when it needs to end I think so, yeah We are peaking right now I think is what we're all trying to say and it's gonna be really hard to if we're not peeking That's an early peak, right? It probably pretty much is but I mean I feel like If this is not halfway there then I'm fucked. Yeah you're like What is an hour from now going to be like... Alright, I'm feeling good. You guys want to go somewhere

23:21 I reached a fear. To me this is the end of my fucking day, my day is deep right now That's why you're smart to do this at your house. We had to drive and pick up Paul in East County Yeah he had to drive all the way because I was like I can't...I'm able to do it but I can't drive afterwards. And I was like yeah fuck it I'll do it. Oh look at that somebody just walked in There she is she's back from her walk How you feeling? She's giggling. Teresa just walked in. She is a regular guest here, right? Yeah she lives here. She's heckling me! I think we're the guests tonight actually this is her house. We are in her house and this is our living room. We are invading her space it's always about her.

24:11 So I don't let them get involved in these types of things. Well, I think that's about it right? Yeah we'll edit that out. I'm about ready guys! I'm about ready too Do you feel that way? This has nothing to do with your guys' life You know you've got to party or out here shitty dicks. I do have one interesting piece of history though before we go Uh...I was listening to the intro and it was talking about FDR doing fireside chats. I used to work at the US Grant Hotel, which I probably shouldn't admit on anything that's being recorded... but i used to work at the U S Grant hotel and um... It was like top secret shit you know it was like head CIA he worked at this hotel. Well no no I just don't want to announce to people that might have asked for a job in a couple months that I was doing mushrooms See thats the bugger yeah exactly

25:02 are the extreme you're in the middle of your head like he was uh... yeah well i'm not going on a million dollars tomorrow and then we'll go right now but um... anyways us grand hotel though that penthouse suite which i got to live in for a couple months when first into san diego which is also uh... wasn't originally it was the first radio station that was ever in california and fdr on the home in corrado so he did he get a lot of his fires uh... the far side chats from that radio station at the u s for hotels um... all right there's san diego throughout downtown san diego c when i was a little circle sir mushrooms are about is everybody feels like we're one we've pretty much our fucking line right to bring some melted together

25:56 I'm world order of comedy or some shit. I talked to you guys about that but it's not gonna happen we came, we tried and were going to call it a day because im at box! Adios! Would ya like to hear a song? There was a mushroom sad little mushroom there was a meadow ready to cry there was a sparrow

26:46 And there was an eagle, silent and high. And the Lord said, laugh children laugh. The Lord said, laugh children laugh. The Lord said, laugh children laugh.