647. - Ray Cappo

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. How long gone? Summer's day here in Manhattan. The sun is blazing. Jason, the people are out. The streets are swarmed. Balthazar was humming. How are you feeling today? Happy for you is how I'm feeling today. So happy for you. It's not raining, but it's not not raining. Sure, sure, sure. The sun does come out eventually around between 12 and 4 p.m. Okay, midday. You will get a little blaster, but it's a bummer when you live in a place and you spend a lot of time and money living in a place. that is supposed to be sunny and it's not. And, you know, I don't know who to blame. Well, God is who I always like to blame, but I feel like it's also, this is a limited engagement. This comes around every season, but then most of the time it is much nicer than where I'm living. Sure, of course, of course. You know, take that. And I know, you know, I think part of this doom and gloom could be coming from the fact that it looks like Ben Affleck and J-Lo are getting divorced, Jason. And I think that... Is that true, though? I thought that was just a rumor and everything was all good. Chris, I thought everything was all good. Yo, I thought everything was all good with Ben and J-Lo. Well, many of our listeners know if you've ever dated a Latina, you thought it was all good. And then the brujeria comes out.

No, I think that Ben Affleck is a tortured artist. And I think that he is... Who's torturing him? Duncan. Duncan is obviously torturing him. Okay. But I think that he is a lot to deal with. And I think that actually... And not that J-Lo is not. J-Lo is obviously a monster. But I feel like this is Ben's fault. I honestly feel like... jen from the block uh and the block i mean brentwood is somehow not at fault here this is a i gotta say this is a on chrisman like take to side uh to side with like this you would you would think i mean because everyone else in the in the media is sort of you know and even dj them jeans is making these latina jokes here and there it's it's easy it's sitting right there but you you're saying that ben is a monster I mean, I'm saying that I think someone like Ben is a very, I think he's a very difficult character to deal with, and I think that this was doomed from the beginning, obviously, because I think when two people are this famous and this powerful, it's not going to work. And her music and tour flopped sensationally, so you know she's in a bad mood. Like, he flopped at the Tom Brady roast. It's flop season over there in Brentwood, and they're both suffering. Mark Antony's selling more tickets probably, right? Ain't that son of a bitch. Mark Antony's playing in the same place as we play, but he's technically selling more tickets. So, yes. Mark's over here. He's like, bitch. Unless he's into Spanish speaking. You know, I'm selling the same amount of tickets as you. But my mic is turned on and yours isn't. That's the real difference, fam. I don't give a fuck that I look like Skeletor. I'm still singing better than your ass. That is true. We need to give Mark Anthony his due. At the time, he was just sort of second fiddle or second whatever a Latinx fiddle would be. He was giving backup dancer, and that's the problem. That was his vibe. Even though he was an artist in his own right, he felt like a backup dancer. Yeah.

Share style relationship. Yeah. And we've talked about this before of, you know, like this artist should be a Taylor Swift level. They have so much more talent, so much more showmanship, some of the lyrics, music, everything. What's the difference? And you're like, oh, yeah, Mark Anthony's ugly. That's why. That's why he's not. That's the way because the vocals are. Or slamming. And he's ripped, too. He's very thin. He looks pretty good for his age in that regard. But, yeah, he looks a little gone. Rip all you want. Rip all you want. You know who else is ripped? Lenny Kravitz. And you know who's going to – he could text somebody and be like, hey, I'm going to go do pull-ups in my backyard, and 12 news vans will show up. That's true. Mark Anthony says that. Leave the homie on red. I think if Mark Anthony goes to a country where they speak Spanish first, he's good to go. That's what I found. I think he's – I think he's like Enrique Iglesias. He's doing 40,000 tickets in Mexico. And also, to circle that square, I don't know if J-Lo can do that. Because where does J-Lo go back to? We don't know. Miami? Massachusetts? Yeah, there's nowhere for her to go. I mean, it's going to be bad for both of them. But let's... I mean, we all saw it coming. It's not like this is a surprise to anyone. But my point is I think it's affecting the weather. I think it puts a sour and dark, somber mood over Los Angeles. This has taken a toll on even the big man upstairs, and he's sort of been slacking on his sunshine. Because he's been dealing with this trauma. He's on the Daily Mail scrolling just like me looking for updates. He doesn't have time. He doesn't have time to move the clouds out of the way so you guys can get some sunshine. Yeah, I get it. I get it. When? I don't have the fucking time. I don't have the fucking time. Yeah, it's a big deal. I mean, a lot of stuff is happening. We got the IO Vanity Fair cover. um which is you know a big big yeah she looks great big look it is it's very cool um you know there's there's there's plenty of other stuff going on but i you know i want to check in with you just make sure you're good jason as we come up on oh thanks man you know as a guy who's um so prideful and loves his country so much are you feeling kind of emotional um on um with with memorial day looming i was every every word

additional word you said, I was like, I'm starting to feel like this check-in is becoming less and less sincere with every syllable spoken. As a proud American grill master, this is your weekend. This is kind of your time to shine. Are the patties made? Is the corn bought? Or are you putting that off? I mean, we have a lot of week left, but I thought you might be getting two or three BBQs in before Monday. Jason, is the corn bought Well, I'll tell you how invested I am in Memorial Day weekend. You telling me right now that it's Memorial Day weekend is the first I'm learning of this. I had no idea that this was Memorial Day weekend. But you should subscribe to my subsec if you haven't already because I may have added some grill-friendly content in there organically. This has nothing to do with the calendar. I swear to God. You're lying. You're lying. I swear on truly anything. I swear on truly anything. I had no idea that Memorial Day weekend was coming up. And now I have to rephrase Act 1. My Act 1 is Rui. Look, that's on you, bro. You have to keep up with the calendar. Also, stuff like this is usually... Apple populates it into your calendar. Free of charge. Something you don't even have to do yourself. You just have to look. But we know you're not the best calendar user. I'm not the best calendar user. I don't know how to use my calendar, just how you don't know how to reply to an email. But we all have our strengths and weaknesses, Chris. Here's what you don't understand. Hold on, hold on. What you don't understand is that those emails that I'm not responding to, it's because they don't garner a response. There's no need to respond to a PR person with a bad idea. You just got to, you got to, you can't. If I respond to all those, I wouldn't have time to do any work. No, I'm not talking about, I too get 11,000 bad PR emails a day, which I don't. respond to i'm just talking about the ones that i send you oh reply to me oh yeah i'm not reply i mean i don't need to reply to you we talk enough i don't think i need to reply to you i mean if you need me text me you know what i mean i'm i'm i'm like a i'm gen z no you're right i could be better at that i could be better at that i feel like i honestly look at this motherfucker come in full circle pussy ass no i said ping me you know and then he started sniffling in one you know what i could be better you know what i'm sorry i just i thought you were

I thought you were going to hit me on Discord, too, and I just got confused. No, I do think that there's – I love email. You know that, and I don't think you love it as much as I do. I feel like you check email once a day kind of vibe, and I'm on it all the time, which I actually think I either respond to something immediately or I forget about it, and that's something I could work on. That is your problem, Chris. For somebody who's glued to it, you write back in 45 seconds. Or never at all, which is also very, I don't know, founder of you. It's very Tim Cookian of you. It's very Zuck of you. Don't Zuck me. Don't Zuck me off. What I'm learning, no, that's a compliment nowadays. Zuck is getting his tight little front and back. But I think what I'm learning here is that if you don't respond to my email, That means that's something that I need to work on. That's exactly what the takeaway of this should be. I need to be writing better emails. Well, look, the key is all the information that you want to get to me should be in the subject line. Let's work on that. So there's some brevity. There's some brevity involved, but also, you know, also I do think that we communicate. So you're saying that's going to help with my click through and my open rate. Your open rate will go up if you put all the information, the entire body of the email and the subject line. Your open rate. All right. OK, for moving forward, I have to result. I have to resort to. To cheap marketing tactics, I'm going to have to write like four dollar signs in the email subject just to get your attention. The alarm emoji. Exactly. Different colors will be in play. It'll be J.Crew factory tactics. Honestly, that works. I'm just telling you. 40% off. There's a lot of stuff that you've got to break through in my inbox. It's constantly full. I've never deleted an email. I mean, we're looking at hundreds of thousands of emails. Wow. But I'm glad that we could talk this through because I do think we communicate so often in so many different ways that it's time for us to move to Slack or Discord and just kind of keep it organized, unfortunately. I'm good. Never, never doing that. You can't be serious. No, I'm not serious. I'm not serious. We do have a guest today. We're talking to a motherfucking legend today, Jason. Yeah, I think we're off to a good start asking ourselves,

deep personal questions because we have a we have a guru on today we got a motherfucking guru uh ray capo also known as uh ragunath das uh is the former ray of today aka youth of today and shelter legendary hardcore bands from jason as youth who's also in better than a thousand uh he is he also i didn't realize he founded equal vision records that's kind of wild as a cherry on top i didn't realize that but he has a new book i didn't know that either From punk to monk, his memoir, because he obviously is, you know, he did all this stuff, but he's also a big proponent of the Hare Krishna lifestyle. He's a yoga instructor. He's a podcaster even, if I'm not mistaken. He's got a real rig. Yeah, he started a pod around the time when we started, except whenever we tell people we do three episodes a week, they're like, oh, that's so crazy. He does one. I think more or less daily. Oh, wow. So we need to talk to him about that, his cadence, as well as his thoughts on Guy. Let's give him a jingle. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down. The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned. They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcast. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? You know, especially when it's not, you know, from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince.

Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, and they're just easy but still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated. but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer and quality European linen pants and shirts. Upgrade that look starting at just $34. You know, if you get a nice linen suit, a little t-shirt underneath it, some chill shoes, you're looking good, but you're staying cool. The inside of your special areas are nice and dry as you turn up with your besties. So elevate that summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash how long for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, even on a nice holiday now available in Canada. That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. I'm in New York. Jason is in L.A. Where are you? OK, cool. I'm in upstate New York, about two and a half hours north. Oh, I didn't realize you were an upstate guy. Are you are you over by Walter? Other side of the river. Other side of the river. Got it. South of Albany. The right side of the tracks. I got it. I got it. That's close to the Berkshires and the mass border. How long ago did you relocate to upstate New York years and years ago? 2008, I think. Was there a reason or was it just time? 2009. It was sort of like family things. My kids weren't adjusting well living in New York City. Yeah, I could see that being a challenge. I could see that being a challenge. Some kids do it. I've got nephews and nieces that grew up there.

I got a nephew that watched both planes hit the Twin Towers. And he's good to go? When he was five years old, yeah, he got a Ph.D. from Yale. I think he's doing pretty good. All right, that's fine. Okay, that's good to hear. Glad to know. So you're saying the towers helped his education almost? Yeah, it sounds like it. It didn't work well for my kids, though. They struggled. And so we immediately moved and brought them to a Waldorf school up here. Was that a tough decision for you as a longtime New Yorker? You're ready to go. No, I was ready to go. So your kids were trailblazers back in 2008 saying, I need to touch grass, daddy. And that term hadn't even hit yet. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's very interesting. As soon as I can just share a little bit. One was in nursery school, preschool, and one was in kindergarten. The teacher called me in one day and said, I just want you to know that your daughter is mute. She doesn't speak. I was like, really? He goes, yeah, all year long. She won't speak to anyone. She communicates non-verbally. I was like, oh, well, is it just a phase? They said, well, no. This is called selective mutism. where you actually get it's an anxiety disorder that you get so she was talking at home but just out in school she talked to me but she wouldn't talk to anybody else and then her brother caught on her younger brother my son and so uh they were like yeah we recommend you put her on medication right away this can last into their 20s and i was like no so that day we drove upstate And, you know, the Waldorf teacher, whom I really love, the kindergarten teacher there, said, you know what? Sometimes if you were to put poison in a fish tank, the fish would seem sick. But the fish aren't sick. The environment is sick. You bring those kids up here, they'll talk in two weeks. And sure enough, she started speaking in one week. It was just amazement how environment can really.

change a person yeah that's that's really interesting i didn't i mean new york is intense but i didn't know it affect i mean it affects everybody differently obviously but you know i guess we're just thick skinned you know yeah we're thick skinned and when you put a person who's like not thick skinned they they just have to like deal with it and they just sometimes internalize it i mean i say all the time you you know pretty quickly if new york is for you or not kind of, especially if you're, you know, in your early twenties, late teens, whatever, when most people move here. But as a, as a child, when it's not your choice, you know, it's a different, you're reacting, you're reacting very naturally to whatever your kids in New York. No, no, no, no, no, no. I barely can take care of myself. Um, and I have a lot of bills and other things that I take care of, but I, I went to LA for a couple of years, but we're, we're back now like full time. And I, I missed it. I like need the action. I get bored anywhere else is the reality. I think it worked for me when I was single and where LA worked for me too. Once I had kids, neither worked for me anymore. It was just not, I wasn't attracted to raise my kids there. And usually I think it's just the parents ambition that keeps them there. And they, they explain it out to be like, well, it's more cultural and it's more connected. And it's. And it's more problematic, truthfully. You can't just let your kids go out. I never had my kids watching TV until I moved to New York City because you can't just say go outside and play. They have to be like, okay, they can't go outside and play. They're going to have to watch the Teletubbies. We don't want her stepping on a needle, so let's put her in front of the flat screen tonight. I know. That became the babysitter, and I hated myself for it. And you're married? I was married. I just got divorced about a year ago. Well, we were married for 18 years. We had five kids. You have five kids? Is it civil then, I assume? It's reasonably civil. Civil-ish. Well, actually, I was listening to you on a pod recently, and you were talking about going through that divorce, and you said you experienced, for the first time in your life, anxiety attacks. Yeah. In your 50s?

Yeah. What is it like feeling your first anxiety attack in your 50s? Yeah, I never had anxiety. Matter of fact, even when it hit me, am I having a heart attack? I'm having a stroke. And it wasn't until I was actually in Nepal when it happened. And I woke up my assistant and I was like, I think I have to go to the hospital. Something's up with me. And fortunately, one of the people was a doctor. And I asked them, like, here are my symptoms. I think I'm having a stroke. And they're like. well, do you have anything going on in your life? Like, are you worried about anything? I was like, no, everything's fine. I'm in Nepal. And they're like, well, what's going on in your life? Well, my wife left. My wife left me. And I'm not sure where I'm going to live now. And my business, my home is also my business because this is where I do my retreats. And he's like, it sounds like you've got so much of the majority of major things in your life shifting right now. It sounds – all the symptoms you've described is like a serious anxiety attack. And I was like – I don't – it was interesting because on the outside of my life, I didn't feel like I'm worried, I'm fearful. But they're like deep-rooted, and I guess I wear a pretty good mask, or I guess I'm just very gregarious and can just laugh things off. But the body keeps the record of actually what is going on, and I found repeatedly. It happened to me, and I've never had that happen to me before. That is shocking to the system because we're not used to feeling kind of a lot of new things as we get older. You know what I mean? I thought I've been there, done that. I thought I've done everything. Yeah, the peaks and valleys, you kind of know. I'm almost more curious to know how you got this far in life without ever having anxiety. That's a good question. You know, I did a lot of yoga. I did a lot of fasting. I mean, I do a lot of yoga, do a lot of fasting, go on pilgrimage to India a lot, and I do about two hours of meditation a day. Obviously, I mean, now as a guru. The therapist will prescribe to people I've been doing since I was a teenager. Yeah, sure, sure. Early adopter. But, you know, me as an adult, you know, everyone now experiences anxiety a little bit. But, you know, from the age of zero to once you became who you are now, you know, those are prime anxiety years. Yeah. So were you?

fighting fucking i mean i mean like i said i've done yoga a lot or i did martial arts a lot and i you know i took care of myself and i um you know i ate well i fasted a lot i did two hours of meditation a day like that that works good with anxiety but these big things like home income children where your children going to be these are like the big things that are as a as as a human being These are like the core things, the core pillars of your life. And when those things start to shake, it affects you on a much deeper level, deeper than you're even like maybe deeper than we even understand. Like I didn't even quite understand it. And when the doctor explained it back to me, I was like, oh, I get it. I should be a wreck right now. This is very normal. This is a very normal reaction to perhaps losing your career, perhaps losing your children, perhaps losing. Everything that you hold dear. Just to be clear, everything's good now. Everything's good. I feel really whole and in a healthy relationship. My kids are steady and stable. I kept my home and I kept my job. Everything shook out. Everything shook out. Beautiful. Sometimes you have to go through things. Sometimes you have to feel a little bit of that. push you to some next level in life it can't be all the sea it can't be an endless summer our life we have to go through these seasons you're telling me my life is hell often so i get i totally get it i totally get it no i'm kidding my life is amazing but i've had i've had some ups and downs myself i get it yeah that's that's part of the deal the human contract we get but what i always tell people also is that when you're younger you think those problems are serious and you get to be in your late 30s, early 40s, and it's like people are ODing and dying. There's like real problems that happen when you get a little older that are, you don't, I don't know why you don't expect it. I think because when you're younger, you're dramatic and you're wrapped up in things and you have no perspective, but it's much worse as you get older. Yeah, yeah. I mean, first of all, there's, you know.

This is I'm 58. These are the these are the ages where people just drop dead. You know what I mean? My father died at 64. His father died at 62. You know, this is one of those things where it's not that weird when people start to drop dead. Whereas if you're in eighth grade and people are dropping dead, it's very weird. Yeah. So, you know, it's one of those things like you, you know. check in with your high school graduating class, you're like, in honor of, wait a second, he died too? It's like you start real life. I mean, my mom's going to be 98 this year. All of her friends are dead. She tells me that repeatedly. All of my friends are dead. Like, to hear that, like, I haven't thought of it like that. All of your friends are dead. Okay, I guess that's true, Mom. Yeah, thanks. Positive spin on it. Positive spin. Yeah, I mean, I guess as you get older, it's sort of like every day you become less and less invincible, but then do you also become more and more grateful that you woke up again? Or do they kind of... Cancel each other out? I think it depends what your state of mind is. My mom's incredibly upbeat, got a great attitude, very gregarious and outgoing. I'm a lot like her. She's very positive, great attitude, has no aches and pains whatsoever at 98. Damn. It's unbelievable for a woman who did no physical... Witnessed her entire life except carried babies around. That's what I was going to ask. I was like, she wasn't a yoga. Seven kids in 11 years, something like that. Dang. Is that even feasible? I mean, I'm 10 years older than me. 12 years. 12 years, seven kids. Are you the freak of the family or we got some competition? I'm the freak. I'm the freak. When there's that many kids, there's a pretty good chance there could be one other. Or at least one other. You're saying you're the Beyonce of freaks in the family. I'm the freak of the litter. But my mom, for the first time, said she was proud of me after reading my book. I was like, I can't believe you even read it. I can't believe you even read it. She's like, yeah, I think it's great. I think it's going to be a bestseller. She's like this old Brooklyn lady. Grew up in Brooklyn in 19.

I skimmed it. I skimmed it. But yeah, it seems good. That generation, the great generation, in order to have any success in your life or to get it out of your social or economic status, you had to go to college. And it just wasn't for me. And all my brothers and sisters did. And I just chose not to. And so for that. The parents back then, they just had too many expectations of who they want you to be, and I didn't fit into it. So I was always looked at sort of like he didn't do it. He's in a rock band. And then I become a Harry Christian, and that's like, oh, my God, we've lost this guy. Well, look, to be fair, that will put any parent over the edge. I mean, come on. Yes, it will. But also a lot of your big accolades and career marks are things that – people of that age and generation are not able to wrap their head around. They're not even interested. My mom was never interested. I was like, hey, mom, we were in Guitar Player magazine. I have two records that were in Rolling Stone and made two of the top best hardcore bands in history. It means nothing. Okay, honey, call me when you write a book. That's what meant something. I didn't expect her to even like this book. I didn't even tell my family about the book. I stopped telling them about the things I do because I feel like – they would say things like, you're going to India again? Why don't you go to like Aruba? Why are you going to India again? Try Hawaii. I know. I know. They just – they didn't get it, and I'm okay. I understand. No, but I think that apparent approval is very interesting as you get older because I would say that my parents don't necessarily understand what I'm doing, but they – know that it's going well so therefore they're happy for me and that's enough we don't have to get into the details well to be fair nobody knows what a creative director does no of course not of course not of course not i've been called worse podcasting is pretty nebulous as well though you know what i mean it's like people people know like joe rogan you know and everything else they're kind of like what is it exactly and uh i mean i when i started doing a podcast i didn't even know

even what a podcast was. I didn't really listen to podcasts. I just had students that would listen to my class. I was into Zoom before Zoom was a thing because my students would listen to me every morning at 5 a.m. I'd give a class. On Zoom or is this like Skype era? This was on Zoom a year before the pandemic, starting in 2019. Early adopter. I would give classes every morning. And this ended up merging, and then it became a podcast in 2020, January 1st. Because it was just like, I'm already doing this, so why not? I'm already doing this, and people want to hear back episodes, so why not just upload them to whatever cloud it is up there that holds podcasts? Sure, yes, of course. I mean, we do three a week, and that's considered insane by our peers, you know what I mean? But I think the way you're – but we have this big – we're very big on like – That's what we do. We stick to it. That's our cadence. That's why we do this. And I think that doing it daily or almost daily is insane, but it's the same kind of thinking. Like, I'm doing this. Let's do it. It's a cadence. We're doing it. We're in it. We're just going to show up and do it. And sometimes I have to miss a day because I travel. Some days I have to miss a day because you're sick. But for the most part, we try to do it every day. We try to hit like an 82% mark of every day. I mean, yeah, that's a good percentage. I'll take it. You've never had any sort of real job, right? No. Okay. I mean, I was from like a teenage rock star, Harry Krishna, and then teenage rock star and yoga teacher. Yoga teacher, is that a real job? Not really, maybe. No, not the way you do it. No, not the way you do it. And I do podcasts, take people on pilgrimage to India. No, I've never had a job. I mean, I did work at a restaurant when I was 20, and I was a waiter. At a vegetarian restaurant when I was 20. Which one? In New York? In New York City. It was called Ahimsa. It was on 9th and 1st. Okay, okay, okay. And I don't know if I mentioned in my book. Maybe I do. And I worked in some nightclubs. I mentioned that in my book. I worked at the tunnel with me and Purcell and Gavin from Byrne. We all worked at the tunnel together. 87. Was that security?

I'm guessing security more so than bartending. We were like barbacks. We were just walking around. tables yeah sure but you know that that atmosphere gets real old real quick well in in your state yes in the state i was in it was pretty fun but i understand what you i understand what you mean there definitely was an element of fun and then it just started getting gross and i just want that's that's kind of how that's kind of how it goes that's kind of how it goes yeah so nothing you've never okay i didn't i didn't think you'd ever had a real job but i uh i wanted to check because that doesn't i mean i started i started three record labels i started i started revelation records. I started Equal Vision Records. But at the same time, yeah, I've never had a job. You started Rev and then bounced and he kept going. What about Equal Vision? You weren't involved that long, or were you? Because this was all happening while living in an ashram in Philadelphia. I said, why don't you come back to the ashram? You launched Equal Vision Records from an ashram in Philadelphia? Yes. So what's the – how are you able to kind of conduct business, if you don't mind me asking? How does that work? Kinko's. Because, I mean, let's face it. If one of the missions of a spiritual organization is to spread your message, who is spreading that message more than shelter? People heard of it all over the world. So many people from all over the world were touched by Shelter's lyrics. And in that scene, are you guys from the hardcore scene? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw Shelter at Showcase Theater, maybe 96 or something like that in Corona. Oh, yeah. You were there. He's like, oh, yeah, I remember that one. That was a great one. That was a great one. No, that's when we played with Judge. No, it was not Judge. I forgot who it was with. I can't remember. But my point is it's a time that people were just sort of opting into ideologies. It's a very formative time of your life. Yeah, yeah. So we just said, well, we are going to do what I did before I was into this spiritual life. I'm going to do it as a devotee of Lord Krishna, and I'm going to do it in an ashram. And I had a whole team of other monks that were also into it with me. And so from then on, Steve, because I'm not really interested in running businesses. Hold on, hold on. Do you think these – were these –

Were these monks, were they fucking with Shelter, or did they just like you and the message? No, they were just sort of like fans of the band who were also into being monks at the time. Wow. You know who was, I was just talking, I just did an interview with Norm from Anti-Matter. Yes, yes. He was one of them. Yes, yes. He was one of them living in the ashram with me. Steve from Equal Vision, Purcell from Judge. Sorry for interrupting. Is it possible to be a monk and a music PR person at the same time? You know, there's different. There's different criteria to be a monk, at least in different traditions. They'll have different criteria. We had to be like very strict about our keeping it all together. It means keeping keeping it together, what you put in your ears and your eyes and your and your mouth. Right. We were all celibate. So that's a special type of that's a special type of practice in the 90s in the music scene. Yeah. What age are you celibate? I was celibate from like 22 to 29. Those are kind of the prime fucking years. Those are kind of the prime. Those are the prime years. He's like, you're telling me, buddy. You're telling me. No, no. Of course you can screw up your life. I agree. Yeah, but that's the biggest tugging on your senses at those age of life. No pun intended, I'm sure. No pun intended. I was protected. Tugging on my senses. You're 22. You're celibate. You are in a band. You have a record label. What's the diet at that point? This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, sort of our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world... writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly, a website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools.

So those future graduates can find me and, you know, I'm able to accept, quote unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new, you know, 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early, and we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more. So head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How Long Gone. It was brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need a fucking something put together, a cabinet? Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf? TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. And, I mean, how it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture. repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a Tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because Taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs, handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world, is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app. using promo code howlong. Taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. The diet was also very strict because we couldn't, to be celibate without what Freud would call suppression.

You have to sublimate that passion. That means you take that passion and bring it to a higher place instead of pressing it down. Freud said that would make you crazy. So there were particular practices you could do to keep your mind healthy by doing that. One is the food you eat has to be cooked by people of good consciousness. You change your consciousness by a spiritual or meditational practice. So if my consciousness is just like I'm just going out looking for girls, looking for booze, looking for drugs, looking for – that's what's considered a defiled consciousness. And if someone cooks, their consciousness goes into the food. So we'd only eat food that we cooked ourselves or that one of our team members would cook or cook by the priest in the temple. And even when we'd go on tour, that was what we kept. So we brought a whole kitchen with us whenever we went anywhere. You had the rice cooker. Dude, we brought a candy stove. I mean, it was unbelievable. I brought things of cumin and coriander seeds and turmeric. It's what we're doing in our 20s. I love the fact that, yeah, you can't have an omelet from a tatted up line cook because you know he's doing bad shit. So you got to kind of make your own. You can't trust anyone but yourself. It's an interesting theory, but more than ever, the consciousness of the cook affects the food, which is why there's this feeling of a home-cooked meal is very attractive. So I thought there was some insight there. I still, after practicing this stuff for 30-plus years, I still think that's an important part of health. We have a concept of health food in the West, which is like, you know, I ate a bar for breakfast, and then I made a shake. And we think that's healthy, and it's almost laughable by these cultures that we consider these lower-class cultures like India, where people, even the poorest people, cook their own food every day, fresh food.

I mean, I never made fresh food. I never made food from scratch. And now I know why Columbus went to India. What do we eat? We just eat a piece of meat and an onion. That's like our idea of a fancy meal. Columbus went for the spices. Yeah, sure. And they know how to cook. They know how to cook. And everything's fresh. I mean, they grind their own flour. The poorest people grind their own flour. I've never ground my own flour for food. I've never come home with wheat berries to grind, but that's normal, and that's considered healthy food because it's cooked with that appropriate intention. It's cooked with a feeling of spirit of serving, and that comes off, and it's a missing ingredient. in what we call health food nowadays i've always felt very similar to you in that you know you could really sense if somebody has put the love into it or not if this was cooked with positive intentions or from a negative place for sure and i think it's cool how just sort of maybe subconsciously you've created this network of people all over the world where there's any city that you ever go to on tour there's going to be a restaurant where a person is working in that place who's going to make food for you with love and he's waiting or she's waiting to make you that food an interesting thing is that when you really say like this is what i am and you make that sort of declaration to the world and to the universe the universe somehow reciprocates like we would have exactly what you said people would say hey we know you don't eat bread from the store we baked this for you hey There's a mango tree growing in my yard. I know you like fresh food. We brought you a huge bag of mangoes for the tour. Hey, and that would happen again and again. It's like you have to choose what you want to be, what you want to consume, who you want to become, and then you'll find the world will reciprocate with you. If you just run on autopilot, you'll get autopilot. And now you can come to L.A., you go to Crossroads, and they're like, no check. You ain't paying, buddy.

That was, you know, I just was at the Crossroads. Did you hear that? I like that. Yeah, I heard it. I like the idea, though, that, you know, like, let's say Maroon 5, they bring a yoga instructor into where they have a full gym in the bus, you know, the whole thing. You guys would show up in the 15 pass with basically a kitchen. And you could set that up anywhere, in any venue. I mean, because the venues were shitty, let's be honest. On the side of the road. On the side of the road. We could pull over and on the side of the road, turn up the propane, light up the candy stove, and start making kitchery, which is boiled lentil and basmati rice, throw in our spices. I mean, we were good. We were into this. This is like we were passionate about it. Yeah, yeah. Sit down and eat together with your friends or your family. That's like the nicest. It's the most peaceful, relaxing thing you could do. Yeah, it's up there. As opposed to a meal. I mean, it's the things that people remember on their deathbed. I remember sitting down with the people that I love and sharing food with them, cooking for them, taking care. My finest memories of my children, taking care of them. cooking for them eating with them and at the same time our concept of health is that i'm running to the gym with a bar in my you know backpack all right all right stop coming for me i'm not gonna i'm gonna you fucking slander bars one more time and this podcast is over no no i i you're absolutely right that is a hundred percent are you one of those guys who goes to costco and buys the box of bars i would never go to costco first of all, because that feels below me, and that's all made up. But no, I do like a go- He goes to the bodega and buys a new bar every morning. Yeah, it costs $5 at single-use bars, $2.50. No, I think that bars have gone too far, but the Go Macro brand, I know you're not going to eat this, but the Go Macro brand is considered the best version of the bar. I've had it. It's a good bar. Oh, so you've had it. Okay, so you're not that. I've had bars. I eat bars occasionally. But bars are low-frequency food that you only consume in an emergency. I agree. I agree. To the degree that it's unrefined and you're just eating. For like a year and a half, I was a raw foodist, and it's the same type of thing. It's just right off the vine. It's right off the tree. When you're going raw, how good do you feel?

thin are you dude i was like 145 soaking wet with a crystal in my pocket like i was so light it was unbelievable my endurance and my stamina was like out of control really like really out of control i was living in southern california in a good way yeah wow yeah i i would fight i would because i would do jiu-jitsu and i would just fight with endless endless you know stamina powered by raw Powered by raw or fasting or juice fasting or water fasting. And I would tell you, it's like the body just becomes clean and light. It feels difficult, though. When do you get over the hump? Like a couple weeks in, a month in, three months in? I found that if I was to cheat a little, that taste of a cooked food, you'd want it more. It's a little addictive. But it's hard. I found like you couldn't overeat. If you give me a pizza or something, you could overeat a pizza. If you give me a peanut butter and jelly, I could overeat a peanut butter and jelly. You give me a salad, who's overeating salads? Who's overeating watermelon? Who's overeating a peaches? There's like a natural cutoff in fig, in anything natural. There's a natural cutoff where the same thing that you were just enjoying has now become distasteful. Like a fig will make your mouth burn. The sweetness of the watermelon will become bitter, and you don't want it any longer. Something shifts in the body where you're like, I've had enough, and it's very difficult to overeat it. Well, did you ever try dabbling in being a fruitarian, pushing it even a little further? I felt like I had some intuition of what to eat, and mainly it was fruit for me, for my body type. Mainly it was fruit and then a little bit of greens at the end of the day. That's how I would do it generally. A little greens for dessert at the end of the day. Treat yourself. Just to clarify, I was in Southern California, and I was in the San Fernando Valley, and it was very hot. And I could, in that heat. In that heat, it makes fasting and eating fruit super easy. Right. The watermelon is like a steak. I struggle with it on the East Coast. Yeah. It's definitely more difficult. It's definitely more difficult. Where were you in the San Fernando Valley exactly, Ray? I was in two different places. I had a house in West Hills, and I had a house in Canoga Park. Okay. Nice. And then I lived in Santa Monica for a while, and I was in LA for about eight years. And then I lived in Culver City as well.

What era of your life, what were you doing then? I was teaching yoga. That seems competitive out there, whereas maybe upstate, you kind of got a lock on the market. It was competitive, but there was a lot of yoga. There was a lot of schools. There's enough to go around. There's one school, and there's one class a day. But I was good at it. I was good at it, and I found it pleasurable. If you know me personally, I'm more of a talker and a communicator than I am a musician. And so when I started teaching yoga, I felt like, oh, this is what I do naturally. I can teach. I can speak. I can present this culture that I'm very fond of to all these people. And some people get furious and are like, how can you say you like teaching yoga better than being in youth today? Are you stupid? And I was like, well, when I teach a yoga class, if somebody doesn't like the yoga class, they just don't come. I don't have to worry about like a beer bottle getting whipped at my head at a yoga class. I mean, I'm so like damaged from the hardcore community. I remember there was one time I was teaching a big hacked class in New York City with like 60 people in it. And everybody's like in a child's pose, so no one can see. Everyone's forehead is to the ground. And there's one guy way in the back, and I'm at the front, and he's big. And he gets up, and he looks right in my eye and starts walking towards me. I was like, damn, really? This is on? It's on right now? I'm going to have to get a fight? And he's walking right towards me, like when everybody should be resting. And I was like, all right. So I got in a stance, get ready. I'm getting ready. to like fight a guy i'm thinking of like how i'm going to take him down if i'm going to go for a single leg a double leg he's tall should i jump should i just and and should i punch him first and then he's like this is where my brain thinks and he reaches down and grabs a tissue because his nose was running and i was like oh how damaged i am from you're you're ruined you were ruined growing up hard hardcore with a twist of mixed martial arts did you guys fight that much though were you were you guys big fighters

I wasn't a big fighter, but I've sort of been fighting since – there's two types of guys I call in this world, guys who've been in fights and guys who've never been in a fight. That's one of the ways you and I are different. No one would ever touch this face. I don't know, man. I haven't been in fights since I was a little child in author school. through the hardcore scene, you know, I wasn't crazy about it, but, and then I got into martial arts and then I've fought joyfully, but not as, not as, not as an aggressor, more like as a chess player. Yeah. You know, I was just going to ask the, what you believe the correlation or whatever is in common between jujitsu specifically and then people who are straight edge or sober in recovery, you know, everyone I know. You know, all my straight edge bros from Orange County who are still edge all do jujitsu. And then everyone in L.A. who became a drug addict and then got sober also do jujitsu. Why that specifically? I have no idea. I have no idea why they got into it. Jujitsu is something that I have been exposed to strictly by guys that are sober. Those are the only people I know that do jujitsu. And there's a lot of them. Also, Anthony Bourdain, when he cleaned up, he was super jujitsu guy. I will say it is an incredible bonding experience. Like, you walk out of there. Like, I would do yoga every day, astanga yoga, where there's no talking. You're just doing a set sequence. The teacher's not even talking. You're doing a set sequence. I've been in that class for five years and don't know anybody. You go to a jiu-jitsu class, you're like best friends with everybody by the time you walk out that door. It's an incredibly bonding experience. Because you know what their testicles smell like specifically. Exactly. It really brings people together. You can pick them out in the crowd by smell alone. In the deepest way. But there is an element of something like...

to fight a person who's ready to kill you you know and in jujitsu you you go to the like you know if you've ever boxed or done muay thai or something in order to really get better you have to pull your punches you can't hit that hard or else you're you know these guys who do muay thai for real they retire when they're 19 or 20 because they've been starting when they're 13 because you cannot get kicked and hit that much So in order to train in Muay Thai, you've got to go with pads or you've got to go very light with somebody else. And occasionally, if you're training for a real fight, then you have to make it real. In jiu-jitsu, you go real every moment, and at the last minute, right before it's about to snap, break, or you go unconscious, you tap. So you're playing real, and you're fighting in real time, and there's something about... fighting another man who's trying to kill you that's so exhilarating meets primal that now I have to turn it around and kill him. And you know he's pretty hot and tatted up on top of that. That's a recipe for disaster. And sweating all over you. Have you snapped anyone? I've only hurt, I failed two people, and they were both better than me. Maybe three people. They were better than me. And what happens when you're better and you know it, you just refuse to tap for the person. And so they didn't tap and they got hurt. And the only time I really got hurt in jiu-jitsu, I mean, you always get bruised and you always get sore. But the only time I actually really got hurt is when the same thing happened. A guy that wasn't as good as me got me and I refused to tap. And he just popped my knee. Too proud to tap. Yeah, he just popped my knee. And when you say pop your knee. How long were you sidelined for for that little ego hit? You know, I just did a lot of ice, and I was doing a lot of yoga. Fortunately, yoga goes – it complements everything you do, whether you're a snowboarder or a runner or a jiu-jitsu guy. If I wasn't doing yoga, my injuries would be exponentially worse. But I always felt my body was pretty open, and it was sort of to get stacked on by a big, heavy guy putting all their weight on you, and your legs are getting twisted.

It was sort of business as usual for a yoga guy. So that sort of saved me, I think, from a lot of injuries. So even when he did that, definitely something got screwed up. But there was a quicker recovery, that's for sure. And I was on that very clean diet at that time, and that helps for recovery as well. Yeah, every time I break a bone, I stop smoking for those three months, and it really... Just clears things up, you know? Well, actually, I wanted to go back to the food really quick before I forget. What are your thoughts on ghee? Ghee? Like, do you consider it to be a vegan product? Is it a vegan product? No, it comes from a cow. I know, but... It comes from a cow. So as it reports, it's not a vegan product. It's the healthiest thing you could cook in as far as... Because oils start to break down. Cooked oils are one of the worst things we could put in our bodies. As far as I can understand. And the more you process the oil or expose the oil to light, then it just becomes more and more corrupt. So the cleanest oils, the best oils to cook with, vegetable oils, are probably a cold-pressed coconut oil where you purchase it in a dark bottle, like an amber bottle or a green bottle. But once you buy it in a clear bottle, oil is photosensitive, so it breaks it down also. Olive oils break down. They change their molecular structure at lower heats. But ghee, you can actually bring it up to a very high heat. Yeah, high smoke point. Well, I guess I was more so – like when I was a kid – or not a kid, but when I was a teenager, I would go – I was vegan, straight edge. I would go to the Krishna Temple in Laguna. Oh, yeah. Laguna Beach. And they'd be like, if you go, they'll give you a free meal. I'm sure you've been many times. I would go to Taco Loco. And when we didn't have enough money, we'd go to the Krishna temple because the food was free. And then we'd be sitting on the floor eating, you know, eating the rice and the doll and all that stuff. And we would say like, damn, this shit is good as hell.

It tastes so buttery. Cooked with love. Cooked with love, but also cooked with ghee. And we were all wondering, if you cook and remove the milk solids and the fats out of it, and it is just a pure oil, even though it came from an animal's body, where's the line? I mean, it depends on your intention of why people are vegan or not. If they want nothing to do with animals, then they've crossed that line right there. If they want to find ghee that's been ethically sourced by cows that aren't killed, then that's another thing. Okay, we found a loophole. I like that. They call it a himsa ghee or a himsa dairy, meaning that the cow is part of the family and you're never going to slaughter that cow. When people talk about how old cows live to be, no one actually knew unless you go back and study. people who like hindus that actually take care of cows to their death we were all too hungry to find out how long they could live for yeah cows are always considered commodities they're considered things we take what we want from them and then we kill them and we sell their bodies to either eat and the rest of the parts of dog food companies or animal food companies and so that type of relationship where you depersonalize beings it creates problematic problem a problem in society completely It creates sort of a hard-heartedness, and that's the theory behind that. And some vegans I understand because they're so frustrated with the animal. Animals have become like an industry, and everything has become depersonalized. And it's really easy to kill when you take spirit out of things. It's like almost going to war and watching a propaganda film, and you depersonalize the enemy. It makes them easier to kill. You know, we personalize our dog. We personalize our cats. We personalize a pet bird. And, you know, we dress up our dog. We give our dog a name. It's hard to kill them when you give them a name. Cats and dogs have all the luck. They have all the luck. And so it's one of those things. They really do. They really do. Sorry. Of sorts. Okay. So do you ever make your...

Do you ever make your own Ayurvedic blessed ghee with healing herbs and spices? I've actually made my own ghee. I've never made it with herbs in it, but I've used it to cook with. I usually get my – I go to India a lot, so I always bring ghee back with me. Oh, okay. Oh, he's moving weight. I have that luxury because I go there a lot. Or I find people that take care of – cows here and i buy it from them and support them okay follow-up question on the diet because i just this is i need to understand where what were your what were the top vegetarian restaurants in new york city in the 80s let's say what about 90s can we go 90s That's when there was Zen Palate. Remember Zen Palate? Yeah. That's what I was kind of looking for. Zen Palate was banging. But I always liked Suen, which was like a macrobiotic diet. Suen's still open. The one in these stores is still open. Okay. Yeah. Suen. I never was crazy about Angelica's, but that was there. But I worked at this place. Yeah, me neither. I worked at this place in Ahimsa, which I really liked. And then they had a bookstore. The same guy had a bookstore. called Ayurveda, and he had a health food store called Prana. Purcell and the guy from the Misfits and a few other hardcore people all worked at Prana. There's a rich history of hardcore guys working at health food stores. It's a real lineage. I worked with John Watson, who was the first singer for Agnostic Front. He worked with me. It was the Lower East Side back then. The Lower East Side crew. Anyone who didn't think brown rice was gay was there. Exactly, exactly. Side note, side note. Youth of Today was going to move to Los Angeles. And we went there to play a bunch of shows. And we were all about to live there and get gigs. And we lived with the guys from Justice League in 1987 or so. And I'm the only one that got a job. And I got a job at a vegan restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard called I Love Juicy.

And it was great. It was a raw restaurant. It was like a pretty raw restaurant in 1987. I love Juicy. I have a pair of sweatpants that say that on the ass. That's a great name. Damn, that's fucking good. It was before Juicy Couture. I can't imagine. If Youth of Today moved to L.A., that changes everything. It would have been much different. In L.A., we don't know how to wear the construction gloves with the X's on it. That's a whole other situation for us that we're not prepared for. We hire people to do construction here in L.A. We don't do our own part. We're good. As somebody of your spiritual background, yoga, healing, all that stuff, while also coming from the straight edge background, Where do you stand on incense? Those worlds don't cross typically often. Incense or incest? Great question. Let's go. I was thinking incense, the stick that you like, and the smells happen. Oh, what do I think about it? I love it. I burn it every day. Well, it's a very un-straight-edge practice. lighting incense and your your home smelling like nug chompa you know what i mean i i walked away from the straight edge community in 1988 okay does that mean that you do do you put poison in your body now no i don't but you've you've flirted you've done some mushrooms you've probably done some you know you've you've had that was that was on my i mean that's all in my book you can read it yeah yeah yeah it's uh it's uh okay i explain it thoroughly i gotta read the book now Well, we should talk about the book as well because obviously that's why you're doing lots of podcasts around the world. So From Monk to Punk, is that a title that you came up with or is that something that the publisher said? I thought it was a stupid title. I thought the publisher was like, why not Punk to Monk? And I was like, that is so cheesy, that title. I mean, I happen to be friends with my publisher too, the guy who owns the publishing company. So maybe he felt like he could be honest and vulnerable with you, and also that title is catchy. Well, he's not hardcore whatsoever. He's like, are you kidding? That's a great title. I was like, no, it's not. Ask the people in your office. They'll tell you. And so he's taking a survey of everybody, and they're all like, that's the best title ever. You lost that battle. I think it's catchy. I lost it quick, and everybody tells me they love that title.

So now I just surrendered to it. But you're the first people that asked me if I chose it, and you're the first people I told that I did not choose it. Well, I was listening to another podcast, and they were talking about how the title of a book can greatly change sales. If there is a negative into positive is a thing that people want to – they don't want to focus on the negative. They want to focus on the positive. Things that are rhyme, things that are simplistic, you have a heady enough brain to write an entire book so that title is going to feel a little elementary to you. But in the struggling publishing world, we need every trick that we can get to sell as many copies. And these guys really know – they know how to sell books. Exactly. They know how to sell books, and they were like, you need something that's going to catch mainstream America. I was like, all right, I trust you guys. That's what you do. When you're doing a project like this, which is pretty all-encompassing, it's a very difficult thing to do, how much of this is from memory versus how much did you have to talk to old friends and maybe look at a journal and the mix of that stuff? It was a little bit of both with a little bit of fudging as well. I can't remember exactly the conversation I had. Zach DeLaRocha when we were sitting in the temple, but I remember the gist of it. I can't remember the word-for-word dialogue I had with this spiritual mentor in Brooklyn, but I know what he did teach me. So some of this stuff has to be fabricated, but that being said, it doesn't go outside of the boundaries of... reality you know um and some of the stuff even might be out of sequence it's just i can only remember what i can remember as well and i i gave a little disclaimer i think in the introduction as well how long did it take you how long was this process you know what it was it started off like i really didn't want to write a book about myself i really wanted to write a self-help book and that's what i i published or that's what i pitched to the publisher and they're like oh that's a great idea first let's get your story though

I was like, oh, I don't really have much of a story. It's like I wasn't in jail. I never took drugs. I'm not like recovering. I made it out of the rehab clinic. And they're like, no, you got a good story. Just tell your story. I was like, no, seriously. It's really linear. It's not. And they were just like, just tell your story. And so I was like, okay, I'll tell my story. But I'm going to write it like in little chunks. And I'm going to make it like really choppy and out of chronological order. And it will be artistic. So I tried that. And I don't work well in writing a whole linear arc of a story. So I was just like, I'm just going to read. Here's a little blurb I remember, and it has a beginning, middle, and end. That's one little thing. Then I'm going to go back in time. I'm going to train in India, and this happened. And then I'm going to go on this crazy fight that broke out. I'm going to write that. And they said, wow, these are great stories. It makes no freaking sense whatsoever. Who's Purcell? Where did he come from? How did you end up in India? Why is he have a different name now? How did you get to India? So he's like, so we kept a little bit of the out of chronological thing in the beginning. And then we took it into my starting from childhood again. And then they're like, OK, you've got to fill in these blanks. You have one island and one island. You've got to build a bridge. We have to figure out who these people are. It makes no sense to the reader. And you're writing not even for hardcore fans. You're writing for anybody that picks up this book and thinks it's an interesting book. So I wrote it with the intention of not of Youth of Today fans. I wrote it with the intention of if anybody can find some worthy message in there. that their life's journey you know in their in their um hero's journey in their life that they'll be able to relate it because as as different as we are and i was in this scene he was in a metal scene he was in a into classical music as different as we are we have a lot of similarities as well we all you know we all have experienced joy uh if we fall in love we get our heart broken we uh get get get a lot of money we lose a lot of money these things happen to a lot of a lot of us we get some chronic sickness

So all these things are – just confront all these things that have happened to me, but I try to make it so anybody can relate to it, even if you know nothing of punk or hardcore or even me. So anyway, when we tied it all finally together, I was like, all right, here it is. It's like 600 pages. They just like shaved off 250 pages. I was like, what are you doing? I have some of the best stories in those. That's my life. I know, and they were like, well, it doesn't help the arc of the book. It's good, but it's just – and so I just had to surrender a little bit. They didn't need to hear about you at the Showcase Theater with Judge. They're like, we can skip that one and kind of move on. They didn't want to hear Jason's seeing me in Corona. They want to just – if it doesn't fit and assist the storyline to unfold, they weren't interested. So they did a lot of cutting the fat and weeding. But there's some great stories in there that just never fit in there. Yeah, of course. Well, look, there's always round two. There's always round two. There's always round two. I'm hoping there's not a round two about me. You've had enough? But it was therapeutic. I'll definitely write more, and I'm looking forward to it. But I don't really want to write another one about myself. Yeah, I mean, I feel like the memoir is kind of one and done, ideally, if you did it the right way. But now that you have that completed, now you can begin. your work on the self-help book, what's your angle there? My angle is to take a lot of the esoterica stuff that I really study and the stuff that I really love, but make it more digestible and approachable. It was one of my biggest issues with even the Krishna stuff was like, it's so esoteric and heady, I cannot get through the first few pages. If you were to boil this down to an essential teaching, what is it? I think it's got a lot to value, but nowadays, People don't even read books nowadays. They watch clips that are less than 60 seconds, and that's all their attention span can give them. That's right. So you have to boil things down and get to the essence and get to the sugar candy or the maple candy of it by just getting to what is digestible and usable so people can cope with a crazy world. That's what I want to do. Okay. As we're wrapping up here, what is the –

What is your kind of collection vibe? Like, do you have everything? Did you get rid of everything? You know what I mean? Collection records? Records, T-shirts. Are you a hoarder, basically? Do you have all the artifacts of your life? Not at all. I don't even have my own records. You fucked up on that because it's worth a lot of money now. You could at least unload it. I could have held. It would have been a better investment than stocks. Or bombs. I saw a shelter. Look, I saw a shelter long sleeve. I saw a shelter long sleeve last week for $350. That's not bad. $350? $350. How about the shelter Krishna bead bags? Those things that go for a read. I saw one guy with one. I was like, where did you get that? He goes, you don't want to know how much money I paid for this on eBay. I mean, no. He's like, no, you seriously do not want to know. It's always shocking to me because it feels like something that was so. It was big, but it felt small and personal, you know what I mean, whatever it was. And then you get older, and everybody's got a little bit of money, and it's like everybody just wants to rebuy that stuff and collect it and take themselves back there. It's silly. And at the time, you know what happened? Me and Purcell, we went to California on our first tour, and we met Tim Yohannam from Maximum Rock and Roll. We met a few other older punks, and they had these massive record collections. And they introduced us to, oh, yeah, this is a limited edition vinyl. And it was limited only because the bands would come. They'd have a following, and they'd break up, and they don't press any more records. And there was not that many people around. So you'd press 1,000 records. And then after the band broke up, more people got into hardcore. Those bands became sort of legendary, but you just couldn't get it anymore. And then, of course, there was the colored wax and stuff like that. So what we did was we went back to New York with that thing of, like, we're going to become record collectors, and we scoured all of New York City. And me and Purcell single-handedly got the biggest, best record collections ever because no one really cared about it or was interested.

And then we put up lists on record stores. This is what we want, and this is what we'll pay for it. And the stuff you'd get would be like fishing in a bucket. You'd get whatever you wanted. And then because we put up lists like that, other people would see our list, and they would be like, oh, these are things people collect. You didn't even understand it was a currency. And then when Revelation started, we were like, Oh, I understand now. We're going to print our own money, so to speak. We are going to make 300 orange vinyl Warzone records. And when it costs us 98 cents to make, we're going to use and trade it for a green vinyl SOA single. We're going to take our Plur 10 money. and then buy real money for it and but eventually of course all the revelation stuff became real money too and people wanted all that stuff it was an incredible lesson in economics and how money without gold behind it is really just an idea and so is soa on green vinyl worth anything or is um uh bad brains with a picture sleeve pay to come is it worth anything no it's it's worth it's plastic you know it's vinyl and it's paper Unless you put meaning on it. And so that whole idea of currency nowadays without the gold standard is we put some meaning on it. And our economy fluctuates when the U.S. government is struggling and we're held. What is the American dollar worth? Whatever the globe puts some meaning on that dollar. And so our whole currency is like that once you go off the gold standard. And the record collecting is the same way. whatever you think it's worth. And so my big, and I mentioned this in the book too. You guys are touching all these things. I can tell neither of you chumps read the book because this is all in the book. Well, if we didn't ask you the questions about what's in the book, then nobody's buying the book. So you're fucked on that. Well, check this out. I was sitting in the Sivananda ashram on 24th Street. And I think I mentioned this in the book. I said,

Where do you find your happiness from? Is it from happiness of the self or happiness from the ego? And I thought, well, where do I find my happiness from? I've got the biggest record collection of anybody I know on the East Coast. And the only person second to me is Purcell. And I had just found 10 Bad Brain singles in an obscure record store for $2 each. And so it was like, this is unprecedented. Somebody just gave me the antidote test pressing for free as a gift. He didn't even know what it was, and I brought it home and played it, and I lost my mind. So I was in this position. It was before record collecting was a thing in New York City, and I just had this massive collection. So I thought, where am I getting my pleasure from? Well, I get my pleasure from my records. And I thought, well, that's a real pleasure. That's a pleasure of the self. And I said, well, not really because I don't play my records. I keep them all preserved and plastic. I look at them. Yeah, I look at them. And I place them all on cassette, and I play all the cassettes. I said, well, how do I get pleasure out of my records? Well, I guess I get it when someone comes over my house and they know this is of value. And they think you've got the antidote test pressing. You've got the nasty front test pressing. You've got all the discord and danger house records that were ever released in every pressing. And I'd be like, yeah. And I said, wow, this is all pleasure from the ego. It's got nothing. So my pursuit of my spiritual life, it ruined my enjoyment of the material world. This is all pleasure for my ego. And after that, it just killed it for me. It killed it for me. Pleasure for my ego. Thank you for joining us. I can't. I mean, that's the story of our lives. No, but thank you, honestly. It's the story of everyone's life. We're not alone in that. It's still the pleasure of my life. But I have to be careful not to lean into it so much. Or I cheat myself out of real pleasure because there is real pleasure too in just living a healthy, connected lifestyle. That's what we find our real pleasure. And I find to the degree that I find my pleasure, my ego, I'm setting myself up for some type of failure because our ego is like fragile like an egg and can crack at any moment. I can lose all my records. I can lose my health. I can lose my hair. I can lose my loved one. I can lose my child. We can lose everything. And so if we can just learn how to be here and learn how to love and be detached,

it will save us from so much pain in this world. All right, that's bars. Let's go, Ray. Let's go. This book is in stores everywhere. The book is in stores everywhere. You can get it where books are sold. Good questions. I'll be buying a copy. I think you can. Or shout out to Generation Records or Headline Records who both carry it. Or Revelation Records. Go stream all those songs. Hopefully you get a little kickback on that. Let's pray. Yeah, I'm going to buy this book from Revelation. That's a great idea. Yeah, I think they have some. They made a limited pressing themselves of 200 with a unique cover. Oh, I love that. It's on purple paper. Very hard to read. Something like that. They did. It's crazy. It's a marble paper. You can't really read it. No, thank you. Thank you for joining us. It's a pleasure. Thanks. It was fun questions, you guys. We'll see you soon. Thank you. Okay. I appreciate it, brothers.