Ep. 20 | From Bomb Squad to Brain Healing | Navy EOD Tech Branden Vriens - Mind Body Mushroom

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm like, actually, I am 33 miles directly eastof the Imperial Beach Pier.
Oh, no shit.
Yeah.
Dude.
Yeah.
Used to be.
I mean, I was president of the Tijuana ShitSurfers Club, but I've, dude, I had to, I had

(00:33):
to resign and disband the club, dude.
I actually, unfortunately, I haven't surfed IBin, like, two years.
And that, hands down, man, Imperial Beach isthe best beach break and sandbars in San Diego
County.

(00:54):
Hands down, Imperial Beach is the best sandbarsin San Diego County.
Unfortunately, it's full of poop, and it'sworse than it's ever been.
I've got pictures.
I've got some photos of epic barrels at IB in,like, chocolate milk water.

(01:14):
Oh my god.
But it's around room.
And, like,
I was taking the pictures, like, in innerbarrel shots of chocolate milk tubes.
Oh my god.
It is so bad now that you can smell the sewageall the way back from the 905.
No way.

(01:34):
Which is almost five miles from the beach, andyou can smell it.
The last time
at the beach, it's fucking it's super poopythat, like, you can smell it.
Bad.
It's so bad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're finding that, like, there are levels ofit's like arsenic and something else that is a

(01:58):
byproduct of decomposing poop.
And, like, the levels in the air are 200 timeswhat the EPA allows is safe.
How does it not, like, go up further north?
You know what I mean?
Oh, it does.
It does.
It does.
Fast.
Everybody.
Coronado's been shut down for over a year.

(02:20):
IB has actually had the signs up for threeyears now.
Coronado like a permanent thing.
It's pretty much just like don't surf here.
It would not be a great idea.
Yeah.
Imperial Beach, like, as soon as anytime youget in the water at IB, the lifeguard comes up
and says, hey, like, get in the water at yourown risk.
If you need help, lifeguards are not enteringthe water to save you.

(02:42):
Oh my God.
It's bad.
But it goes all the way up.
It's just it kind of dissipates and, you know,everybody up north doesn't get it as bad.
But even, yeah, even at OB, I've been out Iwent out at OB a few times in the summer.

(03:02):
And even that water was pretty poopy.
Dude.
Yeah.
I was trying to think because I'm like I'm likeone beach up from OB pretty much.
Yeah.
I don't see how it wouldn't.
You know, you're at least getting someparticles,
some poopy particles.
We have, so typically, the Northern PacificOcean current where we're at on the Pacific

(03:25):
Coast runs north to south.
Right.
But with that elbow in the coast of Californiawhere Point Conception is, mhmm.
In that area, which is all Southern California,we have an eddy where the water and the current
goes from south to north.
Yeah.
And so all the poop's going north.
It's just, it's spreading out.

(03:45):
Yeah.
This is in IB.
It's dumping right there.
That's so gnarly, dude.
Well, let me introduce you first, and then Iwanna talk about your background.
But I'm Jordan Ryan, founder of Wind and SeaCoffee, and welcome to the Mind Body Mushroom,
the podcast where we explore the magic ofpsychedelics, plant medicine, and all the ways

(04:06):
you can naturally upgrade your health andwell-being.
Today, I'm thrilled to welcome our newestambassador to the Wind and Sea team, Branden
Vriens.
Branden's story is nothing short of inspiring.
Former Navy Petty Officer 1st Class and skilledEOD tech.
His journey has taken him from diffusing bombsto cofounding Los Pigotes, a viral surf and

(04:32):
skydiving brand that embodies the adventurousspirit of veterans and thrill seekers around
the world.
These days, Branden has embraced a new role asmaintenance technician where he's perfecting
the art of keeping things running smoothly andaspiring to channel his inner icon, Homer
Simpson.
But that's not all.
Branden is also a talented traditional cowboyartist using his skills to keep the legacy of

(04:54):
cowboy arts alive.
If that weren't interesting enough, Chachi Bidiis so funny, dude.
He's a self-proclaimed conspiracy theoristextraordinaire and a dedicated chicken farmer.
For the record, that's all he does to thechickens.
Yes.
I can't wait to dive into his eclectic journey,his creative pursuits, and his unique take on

(05:16):
life.
Branden, welcome to the pod.
Thank you.
Thank you.
No.
That was a great that was a great intro.
I am learning how to be a Homer Simpson, whichis I I work at a power plant.
Right now, I'm the maintenance mechanic.
K.

(05:36):
I'm not a janitorial husbandry maintenance guy.
I am a maintenance mechanic.
Lets me get my hands on everything before Istart beep booping all the buttons.
I'm I I play the role of Homer Simpson, but Ivery much look like Ned Flanders.

(05:57):
So
Fact.
That that is that's a fact.
So where'd you grow up, Branden?
Orange County, California.
Yorba Linda, home of the birthplace of RichardNixon and home of the Richard Nixon Library.
RIP.
Kind of a big deal.

(06:18):
Kind of a big deal.
Yep.
Yep.
Grew up on the last natural section of theSanta Ana riverbed in Orange County.
So I don't know.
That's kinda special.
Santa Ana is?
Like, I've been through Santa Ana before.
So I was I was used to that.
Yorba Linda is like, we were I was literallygrew up on the border of Orange County and

(06:43):
Riverside County off the 91 Freeway.
We were the last stop before you hit Riverside.
So we were we're we're east east Orange County.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Right in that lines.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, it was, it was it was splitting hairswhen you're like, I'm from Orange County.
Like, you heard Gypsum Canyon, Green River.

(07:05):
You're like a half mile away from border there.
Yeah.
Grew up in Yorba Linda.
Had three brothers, second oldest.
All of us learned how to surf at a really youngage.
Been surfing since I was 5.
Awesome.
All four of us played water polo in highschool, competitive swimmers.

(07:29):
Did you go to college before?
Maybe.
I got a four-and-a-half-year degree.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got an associate's.
I'm going to college now, finishing my degreeand didn't play sports in college.

(07:49):
Just got the general ed done.
Took my time.
What were you looking for?
Like, what what were you studying?
And then I
just, dude, I didn't wanna go to college.
Yeah.
I wanted
a job.
Parents were very much on the train of, like,you're going to school.
Uh-huh.
So, I went to community college for too manyyears.

(08:12):
Four and a half.
Four and a half.
Yeah.
I took some cool classes though.
Like, I was trying to prove a point.
No.
Like, I don't wanna be in school.
So, like
Right.
Right.
History of rock and roll, surfing, you know,all kinds of environmental sciences, a lot of
hippie classes.
I did four years to get a degree in liberalarts.

(08:35):
Yeah.
So that's when the Navy came in.
The Navy came in.
Yep.
So then, decided to do that.
Joined the Navy.
Came in in 2012.
Originally came in to be a SEAL.
Yep.
My younger brother and I both went to BUD/S.
Oh, no way.

(08:56):
He actually he actually got in before I did.
I after high school, I took a few years hiatusfrom exercise and fitness.
Oh.
And I just I surfed and smoked a lot ofmarijuana for four or five years.
That's what I did.
I had hair down to here.

(09:17):
I looked like Tony Alva.
I surfed four to five days a week, and workedin my free time.
And then great.
Yeah.
But anyways yeah.
So he he got his contract before I did, but weboth came in to go to BUD/S.
Do you guys class up at all, like, close toeach other or anything like that?

(09:39):
Yeah.
We're we're pretty close, but he was before me.
So he was class 296.
I was class 300.
Oh, you
were in 300?
No way, dude.
I was in 304, and I remember the I rememberguys from 300.
Oh, yeah, dude.
And they they built up class 300 so much.
Like, you're the Spartan class.
Uh-huh.

(10:00):
Whatever.
Yeah.
I got rolled out of 300 in, like, after thesecond week.
Yeah.
And then I went into 301, made it through HellWeek.
I got med dropped after Hell Week.
Mhmm.
And, dude, really?
That's well, to be fair,

(10:21):
Sure.
I kept getting in trouble.
I kept getting caught for all the stupid shit.
Mhmm.
I got caught
in extra gear and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Every time, dude.
Every time,
you
know, they just had enough of it.
And the warrant officer was like, if I ever seeyou in my office again for anything, like,

(10:45):
you're gone.
Well, then I made it through Hell Week, crushedit.
My boat crew didn't lose a single person.
We came in first or second place, and everyrelay, like, crushed.
We crushed it.
Yeah.
But I was hurt, and I showed up in his office,and he was like, what did I tell you?

(11:06):
So I got I, I got dropped, and then my friend,I won't name his name because he's still in.
He was actually classed up with my brother in296 and then rolled into my class in 301.
Oh, wow.
We became good friends.
We became best friends.
Yeah.

(11:27):
We both got dropped together, med drops.
And I remember we're sitting on that bench bythe instructor office.
I was like, Bart, that's not his real name.
What?
It's not his real name.
I was like, dude, what are we gonna do, Bart?
And he's like, damn.
I don't know, because we go EOD.

(11:51):
I was like, what's EOD, man?
He's so he's from Little Dirt 2 Dirt Roads inSouth Carolina.
It's called Fork.
And it's literally 2 dirt roads in aconvenience store.
And this is.
So I'm like, Bart, what are we gonna do?
He's like, we're going EOD, because.
I'm like, well, what's EOD?
He goes, damn.
I don't know.
I just heard they're badass, and they run withthe frogs.

(12:13):
So we got dropped from BUD/S on a Thursday.
Friday, we had to check in to the SAP Barracks.
Yeah.
Monday, we went back to BUD/S Medical and madethem sign our medical records as fit for full.
Even though, like, we couldn't walk.

(12:34):
We're still bleeding.
Like, we're still hobbling, and we put on ourdress whites, went over to the EOD Group 1
building, knocked on the commodore's door.
Oh, wow.
Dress whites.
We've got blood coming out of our armpits andour waistbands from chafing, and he answers the
door.
And he's like, how can I help you guys?

(12:56):
And, you know, sir, damn seaman Flowers, seamanVriens, we wanna go EOD.
And he's like, what kind of joke is this?
Like, who are you?
Where did you come from?
Does anyone know you're here?
We told him, like, we got dropped from BUD/S onThursday.

(13:19):
We just made it through Hell Week.
You wanna go EOD?
He's like, cool.
Show up tomorrow, and you'll do a PST.
And four days out of Hell Week, took a PST.
We passed.
They wrote us contracts, and off to dive schoolwe went.
That's incredible that he was receptive to thatbecause, dude, maybe in the next three classes,

(13:49):
some stuff went down.
But it was so anyone that didn't make itthrough BUD/S and was looking at other
programs, and specifically I remember the EODprogram being like, this isn't your plan B.
Like, yeah, you know, get out of my, you know,there were all these guys that were hoping to
maybe strike EOD and do that, and they're justlike, no.

(14:11):
Like, you're gonna go do some time with thefleet.
You're gonna go, you know, pay your dues, andthen we'll see you then.
But I've always thought it was just kind oflike a waste because you get a lot, I mean, the
attrition rate of BUD/S is what it is, and itdoesn't mean that everyone that doesn't make
it, like, doesn't...

(14:31):
Yeah.
Doesn't mean do well.
The program.
Right.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So it's just kind of like a bad use of talent.
Like, you're getting all these people.
A lot of them have college degrees.
A lot of them, you know, are fit.
They're motivated.
They wanna be there, you know, and they clearlyhave their stuff together enough to even get to
BUD/S.
And then just, you know, because it is what itis, you know, they kind of like...

(14:53):
but it's just I think...
What happened was, like, Bart and I were kindof an anomaly.
I mean, like, we told nobody.
We, like, we were...
supposed to be checking in...
with the broke dicks, and we snuck out, justwent over there.
And I think they kind of respected the factthat we broke every rule to just be there.
And at that time, they told us, like, if youhadn't made it through Hell Week, like, you

(15:18):
absolutely wouldn't be considered.
Yeah.
And I'm sure that a couple...
of guys who followed in after us.
Yeah.
And we had vouched for them while we werethere.
And then they just, when they got there, theybecame total turds.
Oh, no.
While we were mud popping at group.
And so then group was like, you're the lastguys where

(15:40):
we're gonna
be shit.
Yeah.
So
Because I know, like, 302, 303, like, thoseguys were trying to do it and not having any
luck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
That's that was that's that was my myexperience.
Yeah.
But it was I mean, it was totally been, like, Istill don't know how we pulled that off.

(16:01):
I still like, the com I remember it was thegroup command master chief.
It was it was Master Chief Bymer.
He's retired now.
Wait.
That's Chief Byron?
Bymer.
Oh, Bymer.
No.
I think it's
a scam.
Good.
He's retired now.
Retired several years ago, but, like, he openedthe door.
And I remember he was, like, looking around,like, who's fucking with me?

(16:26):
Like,
he said,
where did you come?
Does anybody know you're here?
We're like, no.
We just we showed up, dude.
Yeah.
We're like, bleeding.
I remember they made us do a PST, and we'relike, okay.
07, and he should close the door.
And, man, I wanted to punch Bart in the face sobad.

(16:48):
Yeah.
Like, fuck.
That wasn't even the worst of it, though.
We had no idea that EOD was actually the bombsquad.
Oh, really?
We did not know what we signed up for.
We knew Oh, shit.
That it
was still special operations.
Right.
We get to run with the with the frogs, andthey're attached and do cool stuff.

(17:09):
That was all we knew.
It took
us until so you go to dive school first.
That's eight weeks of dive school.
And, again, there, you're in Panama City.
Yeah.
Warm water.
Dude, it's super relaxed.
Like, you're just diving all the time.
You're always in silkies and a tank top.
Like, lights chill.

(17:30):
You just run a lot and you dive and you're inFlorida.
Panama City, it's great.
Nobody mentioned defusing bombs.
Like, what are we diving for?
It's like, I don't know, man.
It's just
Yeah, bro.
They're teaching us, like, how to
locate things with sonar, and
we're like, oh, cool.
Alright.
We're finding.
Yeah.
We'll tell it next week.

(17:51):
Dude, I'm gonna be a treasure hunter.
And then, bro, we got to EOD school and, like,day five of school, you do four days of, like,
in doc and paperwork and classroom.
And then day five, that Friday, you're on thedemo range, and they hand you a stick of
dynamite and blasting caps.

(18:13):
And they're like, cool.
We're gonna learn how to use explosives today.
They introduce you to live demos super fast.
So we were stoked.
Second month of EOD school, we're back in theclassroom.
And I remember it was like, where it was beforebreakfast, and the instructor was like, okay.

(18:36):
And then tomorrow, we're gonna teach you guyshow to walk down range and do a recon on live
ordnance and how to render do render safeprocedures.
And that was when it hit.
And I remember Bart and I looked at each otherand were like, render safe procedures?
Live ordnance?
And and they release us to breakfast and we'rewalking.

(18:59):
And I'm just, dude, I'm walking, hands in mypockets, head down, like, what the fuck did we
sign up for?
Like, he just said render safe ordnance.
Like, we're gonna defuse bombs.
And I'm thinking in my head, and Bart's like,hey, damn, because, like, why are you so sad?
I was like, Bart, did you hear what he said?

(19:23):
Did we sign up for the fucking bomb squad?
He's like, we're fucking for treasure, dude.
I don't think we're being treasure hunters.
He's like, damn, because I heard that too, man.
I don't wanna do no fucking bombs, man, whilekicking doors and shit.
Because I was like, bro, what did you get us inshit?
He's like, I don't know, man.

(19:44):
But, hey, I tell you what, if you wanna quit,I'll walk with you to the office.
I was like, I'm not gonna fucking quit, youidiot, because you won't quit behind me.
He's like, I know, but I'll be there with youwhen you do.
And your ass on the back.
Oh my god.
Yeah, dude.
We had no idea what we're getting into.

(20:05):
Like, honest to god.
And, and we didn't, I mean, we didn't askeither, but we're just like, cool.
We're not on a ship.
Yeah.
We're not undesignated seamen.
Like, we're learning stuff.
Mhmm.
Cool.
We're doing something.
Right.
Yeah.
And then we, yeah, we made it all the waythrough school together.

(20:27):
Was a guy named Schnackenberg close to you inclass at all?
Like, he was in 304 with me and eventuallybecame EOD, but he probably now I'm thinking
about it probably later because he had to go dothe whole you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
I don't not
don't remember the name.
So, so you finished training and then, youknow, what was kinda next for you?

(20:53):
So EOD school after training, I got stationedin San Diego.
Again, super lucky for our class.
We were told there are two spots available inSan Diego.
Everybody else is going overseas.
Uh-huh.
Two of us in the class were married, and ourspouses lived in California.

(21:17):
So we both got the San Diego spots.
I ended up at Mobile Unit 11 in Imperial Beach,and that's where I stayed for the remainder of
my career.
Oh, nice.
So I did a total of 10 years.
I would say seven and a half of them were atthe mobile unit.

(21:37):
The first two and a half years were, like,BUD/S in EOD school.
Nice.
Where did when people go overseas, like,stationed overseas, is it, like, just kind of
wherever, or is there, like, a big, like, EODspot, like, in Rota or something like that?
Yeah.
It's Rota, and they owned Guam.
And Guam.
Yeah.

(21:57):
That makes sense.
Guam, Spain, Virginia, California, the four bigNavy spots.
And the mobile units are pretty much what isgonna go with the SEAL team, right?
Like, are there other billets that you couldtake as an EOD where you're not really doing
anything sexy?
Yeah.
So the way EOD works is, it's just our missionset is so broad.

(22:22):
Right.
It's kind of like the fire department.
Right?
The fire department gets hit with, like, thecat in the tree, the bees, hazmat, hazmat
spills, you know, bee swarms, like,
fire type.
Bullshit and medical, like, yeah.
I know.
Medical calls.

(22:43):
EOD is like the red-headed stepchild of theNavy where whenever they don't have anybody
specifically designated to, they throw to us.
So it's underwater and on land, and it's thewhole gambit of, like, fireworks, underwater
mines, biological, chemical warfare, nuclearweapons, improvised devices.

(23:09):
They still training the, like, dolphins andshit?
Is that like a thing?
That program became civilianized, so themilitary is no longer doing that.
It's still there, but it's fully run bycivilians.
But the EOD, the way it works is, like, we haveso many mission sets.

(23:31):
So, like, this platoon is gonna be strictly tounderwater.
This platoon is gonna be your surface responsecall stuff.
So they'll go to, like, Bahrain, and they'll bethe response for when tiny Tim leaves his gym
bag outside.
Yeah.
Or whatever.
Like and then you have guys who support theSEAL teams.

(23:54):
Mhmm.
So, yeah, that's just kinda how it is.
A
lot of it is luck of the draw.
A lot of it is your reputation as an EOD tech,especially working with the SEAL team because

(24:14):
you are then representing the whole EODcommunity.
And it's a whole different mission set.
It's a whole different way of thinking andattacking problems doing NSW EOD versus
standard response.
I have the bomb suit.
I have robots.
You know?
Right.
Right.

(24:35):
Tools at my disposal, EOD.
And you can, like, you know, really cordon offthe area.
Be like, alright.
Hey.
Where is that mine?
We gotta, you know, send whatever we're gonnado.
Whereas, yeah, the other you might be in, like,a, you know, contact situation where, you know,
the the the scene is not safe, and you have tothen go through your procedures and stuff like

(24:58):
that.
I wrote I came up with a, I call it the logictree of NSW EOD, and it basically is like, if I
don't have to touch it, yeah, we're gonna leaveit alone.
Yeah.
And it won't mark it.
If I have to touch it, we're blowing it up.

(25:19):
And, I mean, that's not the case foreverything.
But NSW EOD, we in EOD, we have a saying of youhave to know the rules to break the rules.
Mhmm.
And when you're working the NSW side, thatreally applies because you really have to
understand your capabilities and limitations ofwhat you can do, what your tools can do, what

(25:41):
the explosives can do.
And then it's kind of like jam band improv fromthere.
Right.
Wow.
That's interesting.
And so, you end up deploying with the SEALteam.
Right?
Is that correct?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I did one deployment.
I did one deployment with SEAL Team 7.

(26:01):
Cool.
Where'd you guys go?
Anywhere?
We were in Iraq.
It was very late Iraq, 2019.
That's like Mosul Iraq.
Or if you're not Jewish.
After.
Yeah.
It was just after.
So my brother was in the battle for Mosul.

(26:25):
Oh, really?
He was there.
Yeah.
So he was on the second wave.
The first wave for Mosul, I have a friend,Steve, who was there, brand new guy right out
of school.
Got put on SW.
He was there for the initial push, and then mybrother was there for the second wave, and they

(26:48):
pretty much, like, opened it up.
Like, no rules.
Yeah.
Take Mosul.
That all kind of ended when we got there.
Uh-huh.
My deployment was not very kinetic.
Yeah.
To be honest, though, like, we did a lot ofgood work, but our platoon, specifically,

(27:15):
things never really went hot.
don't care, I'll say it.
Bro, we cleared our target deck.
Yeah.
Everything we did was direct actions.
We captured everybody we needed to capture, andwe took them alive.
Never had to fire a shot.

(27:37):
Heck.
Which to most people would be like, a lot ofguys would be like, man, that sounds boring.
But, honestly, things could not have gonebetter.
Every op we ran went fucking perfect, andthat's why shit never hit the fan.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Went that well.
I mean, there was, like, yeah, dude.

(28:02):
We rolled up everybody that was on the billetto the point where we're running out of
targets.
Wow.
And, dude, when
you get older, it's like you don't like, youkinda have, you're like, oh, wow.
Shit.
Nothing.
Shit didn't hit the fan, and, like, we didn'thave to, you know, use every bit of our
training for, you know, like when you're youngand you're like you're chopping at the bit,

(28:24):
that's like what you want to do.
And then in the rest of Spectre, kind of like,that is the best possible situation, you know?
We didn't have to lose any of our guys.
We didn't have to make, like, morally ambiguousdecisions out there that we're gonna have to
live with for the rest of our lives.
You
know, there's a lot that goes into it that Ithink a young guy doesn't have the perspective

(28:45):
and appreciation for all the time.
You know?
Yeah.
Oh, I mean, and honestly, especially, like,with where we were.
So we were in Rutbah, which is about 2kilometers from the border of Jordan and Syria.
Mhmm.
We were a 5- to 7-hour drive to the closest USmilitary base.

(29:09):
We were actually, like, for a little while, wewere outside that golden window of getting a
medevac.
We didn't want shit to go down.
Right.
Right.
We were, like, we were on a very small compoundliving with it was kind of like an SF mission.

(29:31):
We were completely embedded and living withIraqi partner force, completely reliant on them
for food, water, all of our power, Wi-Fi.
And, you know, within a month of us being outthere, we actually scooped up.

(29:54):
So we had, you know, we had the pyramid tree ofbad guys hanging on the TOC.
And one of the guys in that top 10 pyramid treewas living in an abandoned building at the end
of our ECP.
No way.
He was I yeah.
He was like the walleye of Anbar province.

(30:15):
The walleye is kind of like the master at arms.
Okay.
He was like one of the head weapons smugglersfor that entire Al Anbar province for ISIS.
Al Anbar province is a third of the size of thecountry.
It's the largest province of Iraq.
Wow.

(30:36):
And he was down the street from you.
400 yards away.
400 yards away.
What are the chances?
Every night, there is anywhere from, like, 60to 100 drones flying in the air coming from the
actual town of Rutbah, trying to fly overhead.
Yeah.

(30:56):
Like, we were out.
We were we were hanging it out there.
And, dude, I'll be honest.
Every night, I prayed that nothing wouldhappen.
And, yeah.
I didn't pray.
I wasn't praying then like I do now.
I was, like, burning sage and palo santo and,yeah, playing my flute around outside.

(31:18):
Like, yeah.
I could do whatever, man.
I was just like, I don't want like, this couldgo really bad.
Real sad.
Yeah.
We were out there.
We were starving, man.
We were living off of your daily rations wastwo scoops of rice, like a regular serving

(31:42):
spoon, two scoops of rice, you got a chickenbreast, and four eggs.
And that was your ration for the day.
For the day.
Oh my god.
One piece of fruit a week.
Wow.
And no MREs or anything like that that you guyswere

(32:02):
We were getting MREs airdropped to us every twoweeks.
We were also with 20
Yeah.
20 SP MAGTF, the Marine security forces
Mhmm.
And, like, four army dudes that were runningthe fuel for the helicopter pad we built out
there.
Oh.

(32:23):
And they were just wrap fucking every MRE.
So you'd go in it, dude.
There'd be no entrees.
Like
Oh, no.
There's no Skittles in this one too.
I don't know what happened.
That's crazy.
Dude.
Another one.
All the candy was gone.
What?
All the candy, dude, every single you'd go inthat box, dude, and you'd open it up and every
single MRE was cut open.

(32:44):
Yeah.
All the candies gone, the fucking muffin tops,like, the energy bars.
The only entrees that were left was that nastypork sausage and the maple Mhmm.
Jello.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Where you can see the, like, the jiggle of theI know
what you're
talking about.
Yeah.

(33:05):
Luckily, though, like, I did get word from mybuddy who I relieved, like, hey, man.
We're starving out here.
I brought a Pelican, like, a 1660, a bigPelican.
Yeah.
Just full of full of stuff.
Yeah.
And everybody did.
Like, everybody knew, like, cool.
We're gonna starve.

(33:25):
Yeah.
Go under that.
Bring some extra food too.
But Right.
Man, by the end of that,
you lose some weight?
Dude, man.
Yeah.
Everybody drops probably 15 pounds.
20.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Super lean.
Super
lean.
That's crazy.
So Yeah.
You know, as okay.

(33:46):
We were talking about this, a couple weeks ago,you you and me.
But, you know, as EOD tech, you're gettingexposed to, like, a lot of blast trauma and
blast exposure.
And, you know, one thing that we talk about onthis show and has been kind of a big mission
from for Branden Vriens is, you know, brainhealth and, you know, traumatic brain injury.

(34:11):
I mean, you're probably the dude to talk aboutwith that, you know, just what what's been your
experience?
Yeah.
So I I got medically retired for traumaticbrain injury.
And I'm not a dude.
I'll be the first one to tell you.
I'm not the coolest EOD tech.
Like, I I have not diffused all the IEDs.

(34:34):
I have not been Captain America.
I've got to do some cool stuff.
But I would say on the grand scheme, I'mpretty, as far as my experience goes.
More than most, because not everybody gets towork with the SEAL teams and get that kind of

(34:54):
exposure and experience.
But at the same time, as far as, like, gettingto do real-world EOD work, I'm right there in
the middle of everybody else.
Sure.
I don't have any awards for valor or I'm notthat guy.
But with that, you know, I did the math.

(35:16):
And in a two-and-a-half-year period, I wasexposed to between 70 and 100 explosive events.
And all of those are explosive breaches.
Wow.
So, you know, we and we know now, like, at thattime yeah.

(35:38):
Like, everything yeah.
That's all in training.
We're still standing at our safe distances, butthe Army and the DOD have now changed their
policy because they now know that our safedistances were not actually safe.
Yeah.
And even at the calculated safe distances thatwe've been using for decades, we now know that

(36:00):
we're still causing traumatic brain injury.
For sure.
And do those, like, charts or however they, youknow, factor in what your safe distance is, is
it taking into account, like, the materials ofthe walls and, you know, getting that, like,
kind of concussive, like, blast from just theair in the room not being able to dissipate

(36:21):
kind of thing?
You know what I'm talking about?
No.
Yes and no.
There are internal breaching distances, andthere are external breaching distances.
But it doesn't regardless of your internalblast waves reverb, and they bounce.

(36:45):
It's like sound.
And so when that blast wave bounces off thewall, when it comes back and hits itself in
that point of contact, your PSI has doubled.
Wow.
And there's actually, you know, somethingcalled a triple point effect where when a blast
wave, say, bounces off a wall, it comes back,it bounces off the ground and hits the blast

(37:09):
wave still traveling in that direction.
It is now at the exponent of 3.
Oh, wow.
And when you're working with the SEAL teams,like, you do a lot of internal breaching, I
mean, you'll do, like, well over 100 charges ina week.

(37:30):
So it's a lot.
It's like I think the math came out to, like,getting punched in the face every other day.
If, like, Mike Tyson punched you in the faceevery other day for two and a half years,
that's the type of trauma and exposure thatyou're being subjected to.
So

(37:51):
And this is like your run-of-the-mill EOD techin a sense, because you like you said, you
know, you're kind of, you know Yeah.
I mean, this is like not getting blown up byIEDs or Right.
You know?
Just doing your job.
This is just doing the job.
This is training to go to deployment.
Yeah.
Right.
Exposure.

(38:11):
And, yeah.
So, I mean, like, when I came home, Idefinitely started noticing change.
Even when I was in-country, I started noticingthings.
A lot of it too was stress.
You know?
I also dealt with pretty severe PTSD for awhile.
But I started noticing things like I was ondeployment and I couldn't remember my

(38:32):
girlfriend's last name.
Mhmm.
And I started waking up in my bed, like, notknowing where I was.
It took me a bit to figure out, kind ofresituate myself.
Came home.
We immediately had to get into another workup.
I think the third week I was home, we weresleeping in the field at Camp Pendleton.

(38:56):
We were training because we were two monthsbehind for the next deployment.
And I tried to stick it out, man, but I wasstruggling.
And I kept kicking and screaming for an MRI.
I knew something was wrong.
Finally got one.

(39:17):
Mhmm.
And they told me I had multiple hemorrhages onmy brain.
The way that story went down was, like, I wasstruggling for a while.
Kept reaching out for help.
The PTSD was getting really bad.
I don't know how far into that you want me togo.

(39:38):
But
As far as you wanted to share.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It
it got pretty dark.
It got to the point where I was telling mychief, like, hey, man.
The pistol's coming out of the closet lately.
I need help.
And my command was basically just telling me,take Friday off, come back on Monday, and

(40:04):
you'll be good to go.
And that happened a number of times.
It got to the point where, you know, I was dryfiring a pistol into my mouth every day for
about nine months.
And it's not that I wanted to do that.
Nobody wants to do that.
And, honestly, I think we should talk aboutthat a little bit more, like, later on about,

(40:26):
like, how the mind works because that'sdefinitely illness, especially if you have a
medical background.
You know, the brain wants to do everything tosurvive.
But that's where I was at.
And so, like, I kept telling people, I keptreaching out for help and I kept getting told,
like, well, we need you on the platoon.
So take a couple days off, figure your shitout, and come back and keep going.

(40:51):
And, eventually, it was our embedded therapist.
My medic, our corpsman would not order the MRIfor me.
I had to get the therapist to tell the corpsmanto order the MRI.
Wow.
So I
get an MRI.
I'm waiting on results.

(41:13):
About two weeks later, I'm sitting at home.
I think I'm having a heart attack.
Like, chest is just doing weird things.
My heart felt like it's stopping, and then it'sgoing super fast.
It did that all day Saturday.
Typical guy.

(41:33):
I was like, well, if it does it tomorrow, thenI'll go to the doctor.
If I wake up and you're still doing it.
So, Sunday, still doing it, man.
I'm like, it'd, like, stop me in my tracks.
Went to Balboa.
Tell them I got this heart thing going on.
Immediately, they admit me.

(41:54):
They start doing all these tests, and they juststart drug testing me right away.
And I'm like, what do you you know, they drugtested me three times.
They kept coming in asking me what kind ofnarcotics I'm using.
I'm like, what is what is going on?
Like
We know you're stationed with the SEAL team.
Just tell us.
Just tell us.
They're like, no.

(42:15):
They told me, they're like, look, dude.
We've never seen anybody's heart do this thatisn't taking methamphetamine.
So you're doing meth, you're doing cocaine, oryou are just shotgunning, like, energy drinks
all day long.
I was like, I don't touch energy drinks.
I don't even, I don't even, wasn't evendrinking coffee at the time.

(42:38):
Like, I was like, no.
Like, I'm not doing any of that.
Drug test me a bunch.
They had me in the hospital.
What was happening is I would sit there, and myheart would go from 50 beats per minute, normal
resting heart rate, to 180.
Just like that.

(42:59):
Wow.
And that's when I felt like my heart wasstopping.
But what was happening, it was just beating sofast.
It was taking my breath away.
Holy shit.
They ran all the tests, man.
Blood tests, ultrasound, couldn't work findinganything.
I'm laying in the hospital, and the doctor ofthe cardiology floor walked in.

(43:26):
Like, my heart started doing it.
He runs in my room.
He's like, bro.
And I was just like, I'm just laying there.
He's like, dude, where are the Red Bulls?
What are you doing?
Are you keister stashing Red Bulls?
Are you doing jail sign jacks on me?
Yeah.
I was like, dude,
I'm
I was asleep, and there's no Red Bulls underthis hospital gown.

(43:47):
What's happening?
He's like, there's something going on with yourheart.
So I talked to the cardiologist.
We had one more test to do.
They wanted to test my kidneys.
They said sometimes, like, if your kidneys arefailing, it'll affect your heart.
Mhmm.
I was like, look, man.
Can I just go home?
Like, I wanna go home.
You're not finding anything.

(44:09):
I've been here for three days.
He goes, look.
I have one more test to do.
Right now, I don't know what's wrong with yourheart.
It's very possible that you're just gonna die,and it happens all the time.
We have healthy young men like you where theirheart just stops.

(44:33):
He's like, if you die, I want you to die herein cardiology.
So until we can do this test on your kidneystomorrow morning, I don't wanna let you go
without knowing I've looked at every possiblething I can.
Wow.
I was like, oh, cool.
Well, so should I call my girlfriend and haveher come, like, say hello before I die?

(44:59):
Get off.
I wouldn't like to die in cardiology for therecord.
I'd like the record to be known, I don't wannadie here in cardiology.
So she brought me some Carl's Jr., hung out fora bit, clogged the arteries.
But now I got I got released.
Dude, this whole time, I'm telling my chief,like, I'm in the hospital.

(45:22):
I'm being admitted.
Like, I've got serious heart issues.
We don't know what's happening.
My I didn't hear from anyone in my command.
CO never called to
Wow.
Command IDC never called to check in.
Nobody nobody came to the hospital to be like,hey.
Are you okay?
Like, they think your heart's gonna fail.

(45:43):
We should make sure you're alright.
I got released on a Wednesday afternoon.
I called my IDC.
I was like, hey.
I'm out of the hospital.
They couldn't tell me what's wrong.
I'm on heart medication now.
And, you know, my CO calls me after, hey.
I heard you were in the hospital, and, yeah,you fuck.

(46:07):
That that shit got sailed to the Commodore.
Like, that's a CCR.
That goes straight to the Commodore when I gethim into the hospital.
I've been here for four days, and nobody'sasked how I'm doing.
We thought I the the cardiologist told me I'mgonna die.
Yeah.
Wow.
Anyways, I got home.
When I got home, the neurologist called me.

(46:28):
And I had just been released from the hospital,like, two hours before, and the neurologist
called me.
He's like, hey.
This is Doctor Brown.
I wanna go over your MRI results.
I was like, sweet.
What's going on?
He's like, well, I don't know how to put it toyou, but you have the brain of a 70-year-old
man.
Okay.

(46:48):
He said, you have roughly 12, 1 to 2 millimeterlesions on your brain, and they're all
concentrated on the anterior interior leftcerebellum.
So cerebellum is the back of your head here,and it's kind of in, you know, your brain's in

(47:10):
two hemispheres.
So all of my injuries were on the front innerside on the left hemisphere of my cerebellum.
To me, I made a lot of
like, it's like memory.
Right?
It's like, memory.
Memory.
A lot of it is motor function.
Motor
function.
Yeah.
Balance, hand-eye coordination, depthperception.

(47:36):
And he was like, look.
To be honest with you, the TBI is not affectingyou.
I was like, bullshit.
It's not affecting me.
He's like, no.
You don't understand.
If these injuries were affecting you in thepart of your brain where they should be
affecting you and would be, you would be avegetable right now.
Wow.
They said where these injuries are and howdense they are together, even though they're

(48:02):
micro lesions, you have so many in one area,you wouldn't be able to walk on your own.
You'd have no depth perception.
You'd have lost most of your motor function.
And, dude, I don't.
The biggest the biggest problem I have for meis when I close my eyes, I fall over.

(48:25):
Still to this day?
Yep.
To this day.
Yeah.
But that's incredible that it wasn't, like,giving you more issues.
I think there's so much of the brain that we,like, don't even fully understand.
You know?
Well, it definitely was.
Right?
Because I think my heart was related to thebrain injury.
Like, yeah.
We're talking autonomic nervous systems.

(48:45):
Right.
And, you know, when something is messed up,it's going to have a ripple effect throughout
the body and the nervous system.
And cardiology kept saying there's no waythey're related.
I was like, how?
Like, this is my nervous system.
Nervous system is messing up.
Yeah.

(49:06):
Your brain and heart are not connected in anyway.
Trust me.
I've spent my entire life only learning aboutthe heart, so I know.
But, I mean, it definitely did affect me interms of memory and, like, memory, cognitive
function, a lot of things like that.
But in terms of, like, those actualhemorrhages,

(49:30):
where
they were on my brain, you know, dizziness whenmy eyes are closed.
It's well, I'll give
you this too.
How much of your PTSD do you think was relatedto your TBI diagnosis or symptoms
of that.
You know?
Symptoms of?

(49:53):
I don't know.
I mean, it's like I actually got in a fightwith one of the neurologists.
She believed that I didn't have PTSD at all,and all of my issues were a result of finding
out I had a brain injury.
Oh my God.
Even though it

(50:15):
was, like, retrocausality.
How does that—I was, like, are you
have you even read my record?
Even though I had been diagnosed with PTSD,like, six months before I even got the MRI.
Okay.
And even knew I had a brain injury.
Uh-huh.
But, yeah, they tried to pull a lot offast—there's a lot of overlapping symptoms with

(50:38):
PTSD and TBI.
So the military does do a really good job ofthis now where if you're diagnosed with one,
they are automatically gonna screen you for theother.
So as soon as, like, I don't know.
You remember when you come home from adeployment, you gotta do one of those
post-deployment health assessments.
Right?
Uh-huh.
Stupid survey on the computer, and then youcall a number, and the nurse gives you, you

(51:03):
know, these were your results.
Mhmm.
You know,
I remember I did that.
I was home for probably three or four weeks,maybe.
I did that.
The lady called, and she was like, sir, I don'tknow how to tell you this, but, like, you have
severe PTSD.
Just based off of my scores on that.
Right.
And, I remember, like, getting really flushedand almost tearing up and just—I just hung up

(51:28):
the phone.
Wow.
And I just swallowed it and kept going.
And, several months later, then I gotdiagnosed, and then I got the MRI.
A lot of them are overlapping, though.
You know?
Yeah.
You're talking a physical trauma in the brainthat hasn't had time to heal and recover

(51:52):
Mhmm.
with ongoing psychological trauma in the brain,and it's really hard to differentiate between
the two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what came from what?
I don't know.
It's hard to say.
Right.
Right.
But they were it's a double whammy.
So now you have this diagnosis.

(52:12):
You kinda get medically separated.
I wanted to maybe transition into some of thisother stuff, including how art was therapeutic
for you in that.
Do you wanna talk about that?
Because I just did a podcast last week or acouple weeks ago with this girl.

(52:35):
She has these healing through art clinics.
And yeah, the big thing is that it's helped herprocess PTS symptoms and, you know, just really
changed her life to have a creative outlet.
Dude, honestly, at that point in my life, I wasreaching for everything I could to try and

(52:57):
help.
Art was a big one.
Horses got me through a lot.
I got into a horsemanship program out here inSan Diego called Saddles and Service.
That got me through a lot of shit.

(53:18):
Horses taught me a lot about myself, taught mea lot of self-awareness.
There's a lot of great science around that aswell, in terms of the way being in the presence
of a horse can regulate the human nervoussystem.

(53:38):
Interesting.
Yeah.
It all has to do with heart rate variability,which is the gap between heartbeats.
What they found is heart rate variability isnot only a determining factor of whether
somebody has PTSD, but can also determine howlikely it is they can get PTSD after a

(54:04):
deployment based on the variability of theirheart rate.
And so there are a couple studies that havebeen done, that you can find on the NIH, and
what they did was they measured the heart ratevariability of the human being before ever
being in the presence of a horse, and then theytook the heart rate variability after.

(54:30):
So we're electrical beings.
Right?
Like, everything, all the signals, they'reelectrical signals, your heart's electricity,
your heart has actual nodes that create its ownelectricity in your body.
The electromagnetic radiation from the humanheart is measurable outside your body 4 to 8

(54:54):
feet.
Wow.
Depending, yeah, depending on your emotion atthe time, which is just funny, because
everybody always talks like high vibes.
Right?
High frequency stuff.
Like, I don't wanna be low vibe.
Right.
Right.
They obviously they don't know jack shit aboutcomms.

(55:17):
Right?
Because ultra high frequency, high frequenciesmean you have a lot of waves in a short period,
but those waves are not strong and don'tproject very far.
Low frequency waves actually project further.
When you're in a good mood, the EMR from yourheart projects further outside your body, and

(55:41):
your bubble can expand upwards of 8 feet.
I'm gonna turn the light on real quick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go for it.
That's super interesting.
It's fine.
I'm not even tripping about it.
When you're depressed and you're sad, thatfrequency, higher frequency because of chaos

(56:01):
and stress, it actually shrinks your bubble in.
So anyways, what they found, orphans.
A horse's heart is similar to that.
A horse's heart, that bubble expands 20 feetoutside of its body.
What they found was when a human being comeswithin that 20-foot bubble of a horse, it

(56:22):
actually regulates our sympathetic nervoussystem and causes our heart rate variability to
match the horse's.
And because a horse's heart operates on such alow frequency, it's actually it's like jamming
our nervous system.
That's crazy.
I understand.

(56:43):
That's fucking wild.
Yeah.
It's it's honestly like radio jamming.
And yeah.
It's like a physical it's not just like, likean emotional support type deal.
So I just open it.
It's not just like an emotional response.
It's like literally, physiologically changing,the electrical signature of your heart, which
is crazy.

(57:04):
Yes.
And when the human heart operates on the samefrequency that a horse's does, which was I
don't remember his name numbers off top of myhead.
But I know that when we were in that frequency,it puts your brain in what's called the alpha

(57:24):
wave, which is, like, where you're at when youget a dopamine release and your sympathetic
nervous system is regulated.
So it that's why horses are so therapeutic.
Makes sense.
Because there is a physical reaction happeningto you being around them.
That is a

(57:44):
lot study that with any other animals?
Like, do you know if, like, dogs or, you know,maybe it's, like, the the radius that, like,
20-foot radius that you were, saying that makesit is able to, like, penetrate through the
human body a little bit easier and kinda get inshape.

(58:04):
I mean, yeah.
Like, dogs are therapeutic too, but that's justbecause, like, there's so much affection and
physical contact.
Like, you're getting oxytocin from that, whichalso regulates your nervous system.
But with horses, like, you're standing in thisEMR bubble.
That's
And it's literally jamming the electronics ofyour nervous system to regulate you back to

(58:30):
baseline.
Wow.
So I did that.
I did that for a while, ended up volunteeringthere for a long time, while I was going
through my retirement board process, and it wasamazing, man.
I was then volunteering there, and I wasteaching people horsemanship, and I was getting
to just watch people completely just and I'dhave so many people be like, man, I feel like

(59:00):
I'm stoned right now.
Like, I feel drugged.
And it's because I'd have to tell them, like,it's because you've been running on so much
cortisol and your nervous system running sohigh and so much chaos.
What you're feeling right now is actuallybaseline where you should be, but you feel
drugged because you've never come down tobaseline in who knows how long.

(59:23):
Wow.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
I'm, like, super silhouetted.
Oh, it's all good, dude.
No.
Whatever you're, like, whatever just makes itnice for you so that you're not, like, just
sitting in the dark if you know?
But
Yeah.
I want to look I want I wanna look good,though.
Damn, girl.

(59:46):
But yeah.
And then as far as art, I got into art a lot.
I've always been kind of into art, always beeninto painting, poetry.
I write a lot of poetry, a lot of writing, andthen I ended up finding, dude, this didn't help
at all.

(01:00:07):
There you go.
There we go.
That's better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Much better.
Here we go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Whatever.
This is my record player.
It's my broken that's the broken computer.
But, yeah, then I got into cowboy arts.
I really got into doing leather work.
I really got into rawhide and rawhide braiding,which is it's a very, very old craft.

(01:00:36):
And, essentially, what you're doing is you'retaking the fresh hide off of a cow.
You're fleshing it, so you're scraping all ofthe fat and sinew off the underside of that
skin.
And then you soak it in an alkali solution.
A lot of people use what's called slack lime.

(01:01:00):
Or I've got a wood-burning stove in my house,so I use all the hardwood ash creates lime.
Kinda like Fight Club, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a
lye in your freezer.
So I soak it in a hardwood ash and watersolution.
And when you pull it out, all of the hair willfall out.
And you string it up on this big frame.

(01:01:23):
You dry it for multiple days.
And then it's hard and tight like a drum.
From there, you soak it back in water to softenit up.
And then you start cutting strings.
And then from there, you can you can braid it.
There's all kinds of I'll show you.

(01:01:44):
Actually, I've got, I got something right here.
Grab some.
And what do you do with these things?
Like, is it just for, like, the art at somepoint?
Like, you're just making it for the sake ofmaking it, or, was the point of these to be
made into something?
Yeah.
These things get made into it.
So this is called traditional cowboy arts, and,basically, what you're making is usable, your

(01:02:07):
usable gear.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
So, like this here, this is called a a Honda,and it's made completely out of rawhide, and
you can see that it's it's braided.
Yeah.
This is what goes on the end of your this iswhat goes on the end of your lariat.
Oh, definitely.

(01:02:27):
So this all came off of a cow hide, a fresh cowhide that I cut, dried, split.
You can do decorative braids like this.
This is on a headstall for a horse.
These are called pineapple knots.
Some of it is decorative.
So, like, this piece, all the rawhide that yousee on here, all this white stuff, that's just

(01:02:52):
decorative.
It doesn't have any function.
Things like the Honda, that's functional cowboygear.
You can make I make basals, which is like anose band that you put over the horse to steer
them, control them.
It's kind of the earliest form of leatherbefore we started tanning leather.

(01:03:17):
Oh.
It's called rawhide because it is the rawcowhide.
But I do it.
I love making my own cowboy gear, and I
make gear for
other people with as far as the rawhide goes,but I really got into leather work too.
I do a lot of leather carving.

(01:03:38):
Do you do, like, patches and stuff?
Do you do some leather?
I mean, I haven't done patches, but I can.
You know, I've done, like actually, here'slike, this was a leather Bible cover I made.
Oh, yeah.
Let's see.
It's a hummingbird.
Let me get some bad light.

(01:04:04):
But, like, this is all Yeah.
That's
dude, so we should
we should, can I would love to, commission somesort of so, let me show you not this hat?
I, I really like this hat shape that this onein particular, I found the blanks for them.

(01:04:25):
Yeah.
And but it does it with a, like, a patch on thefront.
So my idea has been, like, I'll buy, like, youknow, some of these blanks, and then I would
like to get a patch done.
I was really mostly considering cloth stuff,but, dude, maybe a sick leather thing would be,
like, a cool cool way of, like, implementingyour craft with, you know, making some merch

(01:04:48):
out of out of here.
I could totally make some patches for you, and,yeah, I can totally do that.
I can I'm I'm set up now.
I'm pretty much set up to run a full-blownleather shop out of my house.
Oh, yeah.
It's just right now, it's like it's time.

(01:05:09):
You know?
Like, I
have a full-time job, so I don't need todedicate as much to it.
But I've made a lot of stuff.
I've made I've made chaps.
I've made purses.
I've done I've a lot of it, I make for myself.
Yeah.
Custom dash covers.
Cool.
But, you know, I've made I've made, like,wallets, eyeglass holders, you know, your

(01:05:35):
typical leather stuff, belts, whatever.
Yeah.
I I don't know.
I've got some floral carving stuff.
I'd have to grab it.
I don't know.
I'm into that.
Did did the leather work?
And and how did, I guess, the, like, arttherapy side of it contribute to your therapy?

(01:05:55):
Yeah.
So it, well, I got to go to Intrepid Spirit upat Camp Pendleton, which is, like, their TBI
camp for eight weeks, and there we did arttherapy and music therapy.
And at first, I really found a lot of relief inthe music therapy.

(01:06:16):
And I had started trying to learn how to playguitar, and it was just that any time you pick
up any kind of new habit, it promotesneuroplasticity.
Totally.
And that's what it's all about, it'sneuroplasticity, which is we used to think that
when your brain cells died, they were dead.

(01:06:38):
And, you know, you only get 12 marbles, andwhen you lose them all, they're gone.
Yeah.
We now know that the brain will fully healitself.
And it's more just like taking detours alongthe way.
So those neurological pathways may be brokenthrough injuries and scar tissue occurs, but

(01:07:01):
your brain will create new neurologicalpathways around those injuries.
We can't promise with psychedelic therapy too.
It's all about, you know, getting thatneuroplasticity and kind of making new
connections.
You know?
Yes.
So for me, art, like, art had always been kindof a part of my life, but I'd, like, pick it up

(01:07:23):
and put it down and pick it up and put it down.
And then after going there in Intrepid Spirit,I really made an effort to really keep art a
part of my life in any way it was.
Whether it was writing or drawing or painting,I even got really hipster with it.
I bought an old typewriter so that when I wouldwrite poems, it would be this whole deal of

(01:07:48):
typing it out.
Right.
And then, you know, through horses and gettingreally into cowboying.
I've always been fascinated with earlyCalifornia history.
So, yeah, learning horsemanship here in SanDiego, where the cowboy was invented and cattle
ranging started in the United States.

(01:08:09):
It was like, absolutely.
So then that's how I ended up getting intoleather and.
It allowed me enough creative freedom to.
To get that out while still kind of having.
Some lateral limits of what I'm doing with it.
Yeah.

(01:08:29):
Right.
Right.
You know,
I I like to try to do kind of unconventionalleather work stuff too, like mix mediums and
and just play with it.
I've always been a fan of mixing mediums withart.
Yeah.
Even for a while there, I got really intosewing, sewing clothes.
So I started sewing with your, van life it.

(01:08:53):
Right?
Is that kinda around that same time you wereYeah.
Yeah.
That's that's actually where I really startedwas, I picked up an antique Singer sewing
machine.
It was a 100 it was from, like, 1913, handcrank, and, I just started sewing on it.
And so I got really into sewing.

(01:09:14):
I was sewing, like, custom Hawaiian shirts, Notfor Los Bogotes, though.
Like, I could not pump them out at that level.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You guys forgot.
You guys got pretty basic.
But I was just making them, and they're justany kind of art and craftiness, you know, I

(01:09:34):
would take I took an old pair of Crye, like ouroff camis, AOR1 desert cam, and I cut all of
the elastic gussets out, like, around theknees, the crotch, the butt, and I replaced it
with, like, tie-dye spandex.
And that's awesome.

(01:09:55):
You know, like, I because, you know, I wouldyou know, I was just I was doing stuff like
that.
And, at the time, you know, I was a, I still ama big proponent for psychedelics for brain
injury and PTSD.
I have to be honest.
I never did it in a clinical setting.

(01:10:17):
Yeah.
Like, there are some organizations out there.
There's Mission Within down in Tijuana thatdoes Ibogaine treatment.
I have several friends.
It has changed their life.
It has saved their life.
At the at the time, that finally started comingaround, or at least I got exposed to it.

(01:10:38):
Mhmm.
I was already over the hill in in my
my psychological were kinda working.
Yeah.
Right.
And so I, at the time, had decided and this isbeing a guy who's, like, very I was very pro
psychedelics.
Like, to the point, bro.

(01:10:59):
I mean, I swear I got the book somewhere.
Oh, yeah.
You like this.
Like like this book here.
Or this book's about, Stanley Owsley.
He was the guy that made all of the LSD for theGrateful Dead and one of the largest largest

(01:11:20):
LSD producers in the country of all time.
Him and, and then his protege, Nick s,something with an s.
Anyways, I mean, I used to think that, like,LSD was the source, and there was no way you
could understand God if you had not taken LSDor been, like, this huge psychedelic trip.

(01:11:43):
Right.
So I was very big on and then I started doingthe research.
You know?
I did do the actual Paul Stamets microdoseprotocol for a while.
Oh, nice.
Which for people who don't know, that's, it's,it's what is it?

(01:12:05):
It's I wanna say it's 10 milligrams, or 0.1grams of psilocybin.
Right.
And you take it five days a week, five days on,two days off, and you do that for a 30-day
period.

(01:12:27):
And then you can do that for three months andthen take 30 days off.
So he has a very strict protocol for it.
The reason why it's
the one with, like, niacin and other stuff.
Right?
This isn't
that.
No.
Okay.
Gotcha.
Got it.
Because this was, like, 2020, 2021, and he Ithink he had just he had just released a

(01:12:51):
podcast at the time, like, giving stating hisprotocol on what he's discovered for
microdosing.
And the whole point of microdosing is it's asubsensory dose.
So you take it, you're not supposed to feelanything, you're not supposed to trip out.
But what it does is it does release theneurochemicals that promote neuroplasticity,

(01:13:14):
and it allows you you will feel I did feel adifference, like, in terms of mood.
You know?
There were definitely I definitely felt like mybrain was working, firing on all cylinders, a
little bit clear-headed.
But you're not tripping balls every day.

(01:13:34):
But with that, I think a lot of confusion withmicrodosing because at that time at that time,
I had not been exposed to Ibogaine, buteveryone in my community was talking about
microdosing.
Yeah.
But people were microdosing as just a way tofeel good, like, just to feel better.

(01:14:00):
Yeah.
But and and so the issue with that is if you'regonna use a microdosing protocol because you
want to you want to change things maybe you'redepressed and or it's the way you're thinking
or you've got habits you're trying to break youhave to make changes while on the microdosing

(01:14:22):
protocol because if you continue the behaviorsand thought patterns you're trying to get rid
of while microdosing, you're actually justmaking them stronger.
Wow.
Because it's promoting those neurologicalpathways.
Yeah.
And so if you're still participating in this,whatever this bad habit is you want to get rid
of, and microdosing, you're just making itstronger.

(01:14:45):
That's interesting.
Now, if you are changing your behaviors andcatching your thoughts, so you're not going
down these rabbit holes, it's allowing you tocreate new neurological pathways that promote
those habits and those behaviors so you canbreak away from the old ones.
It's like building a new habit and breaking anold habit is kind of the same, like it's the

(01:15:11):
same mechanism.
Yeah.
Same mechanism.
You know?
Just same neurological mechanism.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
So there was, like, I was very for it.
I was all for it.
I was doing I was microdosing, but I was alsovery much, like, putting in the work.
Yeah.
And it was working for me.

(01:15:31):
Yeah.
And then there was I had a lot of friends who,like, wanted to try it, and I'd let them try
it.
And they're, like, that's great, man.
I feel good on it.
And I actually started moving away frompsychedelics because I didn't want to influence
my peer group to make that that's your firstchoice and that's your go-to.
Sure.
Because it can definitely be abused.

(01:15:53):
Yeah.
Or do more harm than good.
Sure.
But, you know, the Ibogaine is 100%.
It's proven.
I mean, yep.
And if you just watch that Joe Rogan with BrianHubbard and the other guy, former governor of
Texas, like Eric Barry.
Harry, like, it is out there.

(01:16:16):
Yeah.
It definitely works.
I'm all for it.
I have not put my money where my mouth is, andI've not done
Right.
But I
mean, the big thing that I've, like, tried tokinda promote with, like, my business and this
podcast and and it's it's trying to, like,stuff.

(01:16:36):
Yeah.
Well, it's it's functional stuff, but, like, itI don't believe in silver bullet solutions.
You know?
I'm not here to, like, sell you that this isthe answer.
Oh, you're depressed.
You're this.
Just go do psychedelics, and then it'll fix allyour problems.
Like, it exactly.
Matter what, dude, it's gonna take a lot ofwork.
You know?
And and what works for me may not work as wellfor you, and there might be, you know, part of

(01:17:00):
promoting holistic health and alternativewellness is looking at your health from, you
know, as a whole and finding, you know, howmany ways can we attack this one problem?
Because it's like we said earlier, dude, likeyour brain and your heart and your kidneys and,
like, all these things are and and yourpsychology, all of it is intertwined into this

(01:17:22):
thing that is you, you know, and trying todisentangle it and be like, well, let's just
zoom in and treat the heart like a cardiologistwill do.
That's that is what is the shortcomings ofWestern medicine for chronic disease is because
by the time shit is chronic, dude, it isinvolving a lot of other aspects of your your

(01:17:43):
body and your psychology, you know, and so youhave to treat it from a variety of different
ways.
And psychedelics is a great tool, you know, butit's just a tool, you know, so is force
therapy, so is art therapy, so is exercise, sois talk therapy.
I just did this with that healing, throughwellness thing.
We did, sound bath and, breath work.

(01:18:05):
You know?
Or were 2 things.
So people are, like, microdosing, sound baths,and breath work, and then it was a macrame, you
know, like, clinic.
You know?
And, like, some combination of those things,dude, you just feel so good leaving it, you
know?
And outside of the microdose, which you didn'thave to do, none of that was pharmacological,

(01:18:25):
and none of it was even something you consumed,dude.
It's all natural.
Just your body, your breath, you know.
100%.
And there are so many ways.
And and, like, I agree.
And that was why, like, when I found out aboutMission Within and like, that became an option,
I was like, I told myself, no, like I do notwant to do that because I don't want to just

(01:18:49):
reach for a silver bullet.
Like I want to figure this out.
I'm already doing the work.
I kinda already made it over the hill.
Yep.
I'm gonna I'm gonna do this.
There are definitely people in cases where,like, Ibogaine is gonna be your only resort.
And I have some friends who are like that.

(01:19:10):
But like you said, I mean, when it comes tohealth, when it comes to your psyche, your
mental health, your nervous system, there areso many different ways that you can attack it.
There's there's so many different systems inplay, and that's, honestly, that's exactly what
I did.

(01:19:31):
For a long time, I cut out caffeine, becausedrinking my cup of coffee on an empty stomach
in the morning was just firing my anxiety, orit was bringing out my rage, and I was just
getting angry.
I went through a lot of periods of, like,severe rage, like, blacking out and and coming

(01:19:54):
to, you know, 30 minutes away from where I'msupposed to be.
I remember when it happened, the first time Irealized I had a rage problem, I was driving
home from work, and I don't know how long I wasgoing at it, but I'm just fucking at the
windshield.
Right?

(01:20:14):
Oh, goddamn motherfucking son of fucking.
Like, losing it, bro.
Windows up.
I'm sweating.
I'm beet red.
I'm at a red light, I guess.
And I'm just going to town, and the dude nextto me honked his horn.
And I've looked at him, and he looked at me.

(01:20:35):
He was like, are you okay?
And I was like, oh my god.
I was, like, really doing this right now.
Because I thought I thought I'm just thinkingin my head.
But I'm no.
I was like, whoa.
Wow.
And, like so I had to attack it from everyangle.

(01:20:56):
So it was diet.
I started cutting out all the sugars, all theprocessed sugar, processed carbohydrates.
I've been pretty strictly carnivore for twoyears now.
Completely changed everything.
I think it doesn't have to be carnivore.

(01:21:17):
Just get rid of the shit.
Right.
Get
rid of the shit.
Get rid of the preservatives.
Get rid of the food colors, the naturalflavoring, the artificial flavoring.
They're all neurological disruptors.
Get rid of that shit.
Eat real food.
It's that simple.
Like just eat real food.
I think another aspect of, you know, to thatsame point that it seems like in your story

(01:21:41):
changed was your spiritual diet.
For sure.
For sure.
You wanna talk about that?
Yeah.
There's
much or as little as you'd like to go into, andthen we can kind of, you know, turn the corner
and hit our conspiracy hour.
Because conspiracy corner before we wrap up.

(01:22:01):
And we have plenty of time.
There's no rush.
But I just mean, like, I'd like to get in apiece of that, and then we can talk about some
of the other stuff that we're
No.
I really appreciate that.
Absolutely.
I will be honest.
In the depths of my struggle, like, when I wasclack clack, dude.

(01:22:23):
And I don't say that, like, I say it like that.
You know?
I have to make some light of it because Ofcourse.
While that was happening, like, while that washappening, I told myself I knew what I was
doing, I knew what the thoughts were, they'relike, I just want, like, if I just died, I

(01:22:43):
wouldn't have to deal with this shit anymore.
But every day, I told myself that is not whatyou actually want, and I'm not gonna be a
fucking statistic.
Because every time I kept reaching out forhelp, I was just getting dead-ended.
And I was like, dude, these people, like, thegovernment, the VA, they want you fucking dead

(01:23:05):
because it is so much cheaper.
It's millions of dollars.
Yeah.
They don't have to spend on you for the rest ofyour life if you're just fucking dead.
And so out of spite, I told myself, I'm not Idon't care how many times
You ain't getting off that easy.
Dude, it actually, like, I started making funof myself when I was doing it.

(01:23:30):
Because I was like, bro, this is so gay.
Like, do I put my lips on it?
You know what?
I don't wanna bite it because then, like,
the metal hurts my teeth.
But then, like, do you how deep do I put it in?
Like, I started telling myself that every timeit would come up.
And I was like, dude, quit being a coward.

(01:23:51):
Like, get this out of you might as well suckdick right now.
But wow.
Even in the depths of that, dude, like, evenwhen, like, I went through a period of time
where I couldn't see color.
Like, I was that depressed.
Like, I was seeing the world in black andwhite.
But even in that time, I still never I neverhad faith, and I never reached out to God.

(01:24:14):
I was I was still very much in my pagan ways,and I say that because that's what I was doing.
I made up a god.
I made up a way of worship and religion, whereI would, like, burn incenses.
I hodgepodged all this stuff together, and itwas everything.

(01:24:37):
I was looking for God everywhere except forChristianity, and I wanted to follow every
religion and follow every religious leaderexcept for Jesus.
And I did that for most of my life.
High school out of high school, I got reallyinto Hinduism, read the Bhagavad Gita, got into

(01:24:59):
Buddhism.
I even had some friends.
I grew up with a lot of Mormons.
I explored that one, got away from that realquick.
But was constantly looking for it.
And then I just started, like, as I wasexploring with psychedelics, and then I was
finding out more about, like, these Peruviancultures and, you know, Huachuma, like San

(01:25:21):
Pedro cactus.
And I just started, dude, it was the most,like, cultural appropriation, like, white
person thing I could do where I just mixed itall together and, like, cool.
That's my religion and call me spiritual.
And then I mean, I mean, what's really changedmy life, like, in even all through of that, and

(01:25:46):
even as good as I was doing, I was still havinga lot of struggles, still struggling with a lot
of anger, a lot of anxiety, easily irritable,trouble sleeping, just not feeling any kind of
peace.
And, to be honest, I've spent my whole life forlove.

(01:26:10):
I call myself a hopeful romantic.
I have been writing love poems my whole life.
My hands, it says love love.
Blasters, knuckle blasters.
Yeah.
I do.
Love love because I like everything I did, Iwanted it to be done with love.
Love is the most powerful force in theuniverse.

(01:26:31):
It's the most creative form of the universe.
One of my favorite books.
I don't know if I'll be able to pull it rightoff the shelf.
No.
It's called The Symposium by Plato, and it waswritten by Plato.
It's an entire symposium on the complexities oflove.
And so what I'm getting at is, like, in thedepths of my sorrow and depression, I never hit

(01:26:56):
the level of despair of needing to actuallyhave faith.
It wasn't until I really fell in love with awoman.
And from the beginning, I kept hearing thisvoice in my head of, like, you need to know me
or you'll never know love.

(01:27:17):
And I was like, OK.
I don't know what that is.
But then I noticed, like, she got reallyuncomfortable with, like, the way I would
describe to her that I would pray.
Like, I'd burn sage and play my flute, and Iwould sprinkle tobacco on the dirt outside and
dance in it.
And I had these massive quartz crystals, andshe'd be like, what the fuck are you doing?

(01:27:39):
I just got really uncomfortable with it.
And I kept hearing, like, you'll never knowlove until you know me.
And slowly and, like, one day, I just had thisfeeling, like, I should start reading the
Bible.
And I told her, like, I think I want to startreading the Bible.

(01:28:00):
She's like, yeah.
I think that's a great idea.
Started reading it still with a lot ofobjectivity of, like, okay, I know God is real.
I'm not sold on Jesus.
You know, if God says worship no man, but Jesuswas a man, why are we worshiping Jesus?
Like, there's so much contradiction in here.

(01:28:21):
A lot of it was ignorance because I never readit.
As I was reading it, as I read it, I started tobelieve it more.
And, honestly, one day, like, I don't mean toget into it, but a relationship ended,
completely crushed me.

(01:28:41):
And, I think because I was at a point in mylife where I felt like I had finally found the
love I'd been looking for my whole life, andnow it was gone.
That was if God was gonna reach me in any way,it was gonna be through love of some kind.
It's not
gonna be through anger or danger or sadness orfear because, like, none of that shit bothered

(01:29:05):
me.
It was love.
Wow.
Well, he took it away, and I remember just thatwas it.
I was like, okay.
Like, I'll share my story.
I had a moment.
I was outside, and I just started crying to theLord.

(01:29:25):
And I was like, Jesus, like I had had thesedreams that I thought were very real.
Like, you know, we're going to get married,we're going to have kids.
Like I saw my whole life before us.
Right?
Well, obviously that was all gone.
I was like, Lord, I knew I read in the Biblethat God speaks to us through dreams and

(01:29:47):
visions.
So I was like, okay, God, give me thediscernment to know the difference between your
dreams and my delusions.
What is in my head that's coming from myimagination, and what do you want from me, and
what are you trying to tell me?
And I remember I came inside the house, and Igot a message on my phone.

(01:30:10):
It was 10 o'clock our time.
It was from my friend's mom.
My best friend, Josh Christie, had passed away.
I took care of him while he was battling a veryaggressive form of brain cancer, called the
butterfly glioblastoma.
I was with him every day, pretty much fromdiagnosis till departure.

(01:30:37):
Extremely hard.
Right?
Having to, like, spoon-feed your best friend.
But his mom and I became very close, and shelives in Florida.
It's 1 a.m.
her time, and she messaged me.
And she said, Branden, somebody sent me thissong, and I think it'd bring you some peace

(01:30:57):
right now.
And I open it up, and I play this song, and thesong opened with I speak the name of Jesus over
you.
In your sorrow, in your hurting, I ask my Godto move.
And I had just literally just got off my kneesand prayed, God, let me know your voice,
and let
me know the difference between my thoughts and,like, what you want me to think and my

(01:31:21):
delusions.
And I walked in.
This is on there.
Wow.
Dude, lost it.
Yeah.
And so I was like, okay.
Like, I've always been told God is real.
This just proves, like, I don't know.
I I don't believe in coincidences.
I'm giving my life to Jesus now.

(01:31:42):
And, and I'll be honest, stepping into my faithhas been the greatest thing I've done for my
mental health.
There's an incredible amount of peace thatcomes with it.
I have not been angry in eight months sincesince I did.

(01:32:10):
I don't know.
I think I think just when there's a it's asurrender.
It's a letting go.
And it's it's trusting that trust.
That's that's a big It's trust.
It's I know God is not going to do bad thingsto me.

(01:32:31):
You know, Romans 8:28, God uses all things forgood for those that believe in him.
All of the bad shit in your life, God uses thatas tools to do good things.
And it kinda goes back to, like, everythinghappens for a reason.
Right?

(01:32:53):
So all the bad shit that happened in your life,it made you who you are, got you to this point
in your life, and beautiful positive thingshave come from it.
Hey.
Maybe I got my heart completely broken, and thewoman who I thought was, like, the woman of my
dreams is no longer with me.
But, like, dude, I'm stronger in my faith thanI've ever been.

(01:33:15):
I'm experiencing more peace than I've everfelt.
I lead a men's group, in Bible study everyweek, which is absolutely unheard of for
Branden.
And I'm going to seminary school, and I havejust a comfort in my life now of knowing that,

(01:33:37):
like, I don't need to stress over trying tofigure it all out.
Mhmm.
Because that's really what it comes down to,and that's the trust and the surrender of,
like, bro, you don't know what's gonna happenin your life tomorrow.
You don't know if you're gonna wake uptomorrow, and that happens a lot.
Dudes your age or my age, go to sleep and don'twake up.

(01:34:01):
You don't know what's going to happen, and noamount of worrying is going to change it or fix
it.
But which is biblical as well.
Do not be anxious about your life.
You know, it's because just knowing that Godhas your back and whatever you're going

(01:34:21):
through, one, if you're in a hard time, there'sthings for you to learn through that.
Yeah.
That is for you.
That is for growth and for learning,self-awareness to build your insight.
It's not like wallowing, oh, God.
I'm the victim, and this bad thing happened.
And, yes, feel your feelings.

(01:34:43):
But at the same time, you have to understand,there's so much you can get out of this
position.
Maybe somebody betrayed you.
Somebody wronged you.
People close to you hurt you.
Great.
Guess what?
You get to learn how to forgive, and you get tounderstand what true forgiveness is and what
real love is.
Do you only love those people because theyloved you back, or do you love those people

(01:35:05):
because you love those people?
Well, then why do you hate them now justbecause they did something to you, you know?
It's like you're something you get from everytrial in your life.
Yeah, I've heard this one phrase.
I'm probably gonna butcher it, but it'sessentially it's like, you it's it's a it's a
variation of, like, you're exactly at whereyou're supposed to be, you know, like, the

(01:35:27):
challenges, the difficulty of the challengesthat you have, you know, is exactly as
difficult as you are capable of of handlingbecause that's why they're in your life right
now.
Like, you and it may feel overwhelming, butthat's where maybe, like, the the faith and
trust is that, like, you would not be dealingwith this right now if it was the wrong problem

(01:35:48):
for you to be dealing with.
You know, it's exactly the right challenge foryou at this point in your life.
100%.
If you look back on your life, all of theshitty situations you got put in, I guarantee
you can connect the dots of all of the positivethings that came out of that.
Right.
Right.
And even with trials and tribulations.

(01:36:13):
I mean, that's biblical too.
It's like rejoice in your tribulation becauseit builds perseverance, and perseverance builds
character, and character builds endurance.
And we're living a life that is of endurance.
This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Yeah.
Right.
And any hardship you encounter is just going tobuild your character.

(01:36:33):
And if we can look at it like that, like, man,I'm facing some really hard shit right now.
Well, I can tuck my tail.
I can try to drink it away, but it's not gonnago anywhere, and I can try to hide and escape.
You know what?
There's nothing wrong with trying to escapereality, but there will be consequences to

(01:36:55):
escaping to the reality that you escape.
You know?
Mhmm.
So right.
For me, faith, like, prayer is extremelypowerful.
I have seen a number of miracles in my lifethat are just unexplainable other than being a
miracle.
I have really close friends of mine who havebeen witnesses to miracles.

(01:37:21):
Actually, I have a friend, a female.
She's a physician's assistant.
I just saw her last night, and she told me thestory that she had a patient in the hospital
with her.
He was a do not resuscitate, and he was inthere for a heart condition.

(01:37:43):
And she said there's a code blue, and it was toher room.
She ran in there.
Everybody's in the room.
She's like, it's her patient.
She's like, what the hell is going on?
Like, what happened?
He's a do not resuscitate.
Don't touch him.
He absolutely doesn't wanna be resuscitated.

(01:38:05):
She stood there next to him.
She said, I put my hand.
I've took his to take his pulse, and I'mwatching the monitor, and he's flatlined.
"And he is dead.
And I am right about to call him, like,pronounce him as dead.
And she said, all of a sudden, his arm shot up,and he sat up completely like this, like

(01:38:30):
Frankenstein style.
And everyone was like, 'What the fuck?' And shejust slowly put his arms down, and she went to
check his pulse again."
"She says as soon as she touched his neck, shefelt his pulse and saw it read on the screen,
and his heart started beating again.
And he came back, and he woke up.

(01:38:54):
And he woke up, and she was like, 'Do youremember what just happened?
Like, do you remember?' I guess they werehaving a conversation with him before about,
like, a possible pacemaker.
He's like, 'Yeah.'"
"I remember you were talking to me about apacemaker." She's like, "Okay.
Well, you just died, and now you're back.

(01:39:15):
Do you still want to be a do not resuscitate,and do you still you know, are you still in
your stance of you don't want a pacemaker?" Andhe was like, "Alright."
"Put the pacemaker in, but I guess go on back.
But, like, you know, like she had said she wasin tears.

(01:39:35):
She's like, 'Branden, I have seen so much deathin the hospital.
I have never seen anybody completely flatlineand unassisted just come back to life like
that.'"
"Her words, it was a miracle.
Yeah.

(01:39:55):
You know?
Yeah.
I don't know."
"You know,"
"it's a good"
"part in my recovery now.
It plays a big part in my life and in myhealth, my mental health."
That's great.
Yeah.
You know, you said something earlier that Ikinda wanted.
This, I think, is a good segue.
When you were talking about how it was like theVA, you know, you are cheaper dead than you

(01:40:22):
know, it's like they kinda want you to to Yeah.
To die or they don't really want theresponsibility of having to kinda take care of
you in an intensive way.
I just I'll send you this episode when itposts, but I interviewed this guy named, Kagan
Gill.
He survived the fastest ejection from anejecting seat.

(01:40:48):
He was a fighter pilot.
Was coming down at a 51-degree angle.
It's about 22,000 feet off the ground.
He has to eject.
The speed is, like, 700 miles per hour.
It's, like, rips through all of his shit.
I mean, he shouldn't have died.
Goes through a whole TBI thing after, ends upflying planes again, doing the thing.

(01:41:11):
Starts having similar deals where he's blackingout of memory.
Can't remember, you know, half of the flightthat they did, stuff like that.
So he's been going in.
They're trying to check him, like, what's goingon?
What's going on?
They just keep giving him these, like, SSRIsand various forms of psychological, like,
medications for this, and he's not gettingbetter.

(01:41:31):
He's getting actually a lot worse and isstarting to have these delusions where he
thinks the government is, like, trying to killhim and, like, they're you know, he thinks that
they're, like, poisoning him, which, you know,ironically, is, like, they kind of were.
They are.
But, like, the final straw was he's makingdinner or his wife's making dinner, and he has

(01:41:52):
2 young kids.
He's, like, my age.
She was, like, 34.
Yeah.
But so this was, like, a couple years ago.
But his wife's making dinner.
He runs into the kitchen and just takes the panand throws it in the trash and goes, like,
don't eat that.
It's all contaminated.
They're trying to poison us.
And that was kind of when his wife was, like,all right.
We gotta do something about this.

(01:42:12):
So they take him to the hospital.
They're doing all these tests, trying to figureout what's going on.
He essentially voluntarily checks into aninpatient, like, psychological ward.
And for three months, tries to get out.
Once he's, like, in there, he's, like, I I Ilabeled or I titled this episode.

(01:42:35):
I said, like, from the cockpit to the cuckoo'snest.
You ever seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
Dude, it it the way he was describing it wasexactly that.
And it was like if you were so he was like Iwent to SEAL school, you know, he was like I
thought we I would be using these skills, like,behind enemy lines.
I had never thought I was gonna have to usethem at the fucking VA hospital.

(01:42:57):
You know, he was improvising weapons, like,there he was, like, planning a whole escape.
They they were gonna use a fire alarm, and sohe he attempts to to to do this.
He had bed sheets, like, a rug like, all sortsof shit.
But I guess people had tried it in the past.
And so they they, they evacuated the hospital,but they didn't evacuate any of the patients,

(01:43:18):
you know?
And so they're like, fuck.
Somehow it gets out that he was the oneresponsible for that.
And so it's like, if you were doing somethinglike that, you must be crazy.
Therefore, we're gonna keep you here.
But if you acquiesce and just take themedication and become a vegetable in there,
they're like, well, yeah.

(01:43:38):
See, he clearly belongs here because so, like,it's like you there's no escape.
There is no way out of this situation.
Fortunately, it took him about three months.
His family had to advocate for him, like, superheavily and and and and whatever.
And and he's now he's doing so much better,through a variety of different modalities, but

(01:44:00):
psychedelic therapy was one of them.
But, anyway, I was kinda using that story as aas a segue to transition into our little
conspiracy corner.
Because I think, especially, you know, afterwhat happened with the wildfires up in L.A.
and, you know, there's also the UnitedHealthCEO assassination.

(01:44:21):
We're we're kind of getting, waking up as acollective to realize that these people and
institutions that we thought are there to takecare of us, they don't give a shit about you,
and they are actively, in many cases, you know,trying to work against your best interest.
What are your thoughts?
Absolutely.
A hundred percent.

(01:44:43):
I mean I mean, we know, like, especially inhealth insurance, medical care world, like, you
you are a bottom line.
You're not a person.
You're not a patient.
You're not a human.
You are a bill and and a, you know, what do youcall it?
An invoice number.

(01:45:04):
Like
Yeah.
Right.
We know that.
The VA is really bad with it.
Like, I'll give the VA some wiggle room in thatthey are severely understaffed, but at the same
time, it is the second largest department ofthe United States government next to the
Department of Defense.

(01:45:25):
Now how the DOD is bigger than the Departmentof Veterans Affairs, to me, that's backwards
because we're producing far more veterans a daythan we've got service members coming in.
And I understand budget, you know, airplanes,Navy ships, whatever, but, like, taking care of
the veterans that you're creating should bepriority number one.

(01:45:50):
Because not only that, but, like, you'remistreating, like, the most capable demographic
in your country too.
Right.
To promote, like, a government overthrow or acoup d'état.
Right.
Right.
But
There was the levels of Matt, Matt Lesburg orguy.
I don't know if I'm getting his name wrong, buthe was the Tesla truck bombing, and then, you

(01:46:16):
know, allegedly his manifesto or something cameout.
And, you know, but it was kind of it was, hismain point, if I'm remembering it correctly, is
largely that, like, Americans, this is not aterrorist attack, but this is, I'm trying to
bring attention to something.
And American public violence and spectacle isthe only way to, like, reach people, you know?

(01:46:39):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that one too, like, you couldtotally break it down.
Right?
Like, that guy was, like, a 27-year, ArmySpecial Forces Green Beret.
And, what did he do?
He rolled up in a Tesla truck, which arebulletproof.
Like, a bulletproof truck.
Fireworks, not explosives.
Supposedly, he shot himself in the head with a.50 caliber Desert Eagle before clacking off

(01:47:06):
all the fireworks in
the
truck.
The thing is, though, is that fireworks in thetruck, he knew that with that vehicle being
bulletproof, you know, it can stop a9-millimeter bullet.
There was not going to be a lot of spalding orshrapnel or explosive debris moving outside.

(01:47:30):
It's fireworks.
Right?
Yeah.
A lot of fireworks can do some shit, but it'snot like he made HME, homemade explosives.
Two, like, somehow they say he shot himself inthe head even though there's no there's no
audio, there's no indication via cameras,there's no muzzle flash in the window of when

(01:47:50):
the vehicle is parked there.
Nobody heard any type of signature of gunfireor gunshot that were witnesses that were in the
area.
No.
You would hear a Desert Eagle clack off, dude.
Right.
You
would see the the flash.
It's it's a fucking massive fireball at the endof that.
Yeah.
You'd see and you'd see the muzzle flashthrough the windows in in the street cameras.

(01:48:11):
And then he was the body was burned beyond allrecognition.
However, his military ID survived the fire, andthey were able to identify him via his tattoos,
but he was burned beyond all recognition.
So I mean interesting detail.

(01:48:32):
I didn't know.
Yeah.
That one yeah.
They had they had said on the news that theywere able to identify that it was him because
of the tattoos on his right arm.
And they showed a picture of of the tattoos of,like, his arm, but it was like, you said he was
burned beyond all recognition and somehow

(01:48:52):
And his right arm would be closer to theexplosion as well, like, relative to your left
arm, which maybe you can make the argumentbetween the door or something like that.
It it it it was very indicative of sorry, dude.
People are gonna get really upset about thisone.
But the fact that, like, two airplanes flyingto the World Trade Center, and everything

(01:49:20):
becomes rubble and dust except for theterrorist passports?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But we're Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't trust the government.
I mean, the idea and the conspiracy of aone-world government, a new world order goes

(01:49:45):
way back.
John F.
Kennedy did a speech on it on public televisionabout the new world order.
You know, Eisenhower and Truman warned us aboutthe military-industrial complex, and it's
biblical.
The Book of Revelation talks about there willbe a one-world government, and that's when

(01:50:06):
Satan comes and rules the earth.
And it's, I mean, all throughout history,governments have, at some point or another,
taken advantage of their citizens and startdoing more harm than good until the citizens
rise up
and
tell the government we're not gonna do thisanymore.
And I'm not sitting here promoting we shouldrevolt or coup d'état, but I'm just saying

(01:50:30):
that, like, these things have happened allthroughout history as long as we have had some
sort of authority and power through us.
Dude, the I think the TikTok ban may havesomething to do with that as well, because it's
a channel that 170 million people are on daily.

(01:50:54):
That is more difficult for the U.S.
government to put their thumb on that scale andcontrol what gets said, what gets not, relative
to, like, Meta, Instagram, you know, onTwitter.
And we just found that out.
I mean, we found it out a while ago, but, like,Mark Zuckerberg just went on Rogan, was talking

(01:51:14):
about how during COVID, the Bidenadministration was, you know, telling him, oh,
they can't say that.
They can't we don't want people to be hesitantto take the vaccine.
Okay.
So the government, you know, it's not about,like, the national security threat is that the
government can't control directly, you know,what we see on there and influence it in the

(01:51:35):
same way.
Now the Chinese government can.
Yeah.
For sure.
But, I mean, why aren't they having the sameissue with Temu?
They can get all the data.
Yeah.
It's a Chinese app.
Millions of people shop on there.
There's a ton of data that is on there.
Why aren't they locking that up?
Because they don't care.
It's about controlling the message.
You know?
Can't control it.

(01:51:56):
Because they can't control it because it's aforeign-owned entity.
And me personally, like, I used to be like,yeah, dude.
Ban TikTok because China is degrading ouryouth.
And then that turned out to not be true.
The whole thing that, like, people were sayingthat, like, China's TikTok algorithm promotes

(01:52:17):
engineering and science, and the American onepromotes stupid dances.
And it's like, no, dude.
Americans have been falling down that path fora while.
Like, we're lazy.
We're stupid.
We're complacent.
That's life in Western civilization.
Yeah.
We were doing that back with MySpace, bro.
Right.
Right.

(01:52:37):
Right.
Like, TikTok's nothing new, but they can't puttheir thumb on there the way they can with Meta
and Facebook and Instagram and Twitter.
And it is.
It's all about it's it's government control,which honestly, like, I'm super stoked Trump is

(01:52:58):
coming back.
But at the same time, like, all of this talkabout, like, acquiring Greenland and acquiring,
yep, Canada.
Like, that yeah.
That, honestly, like, wait a minute.
We were just talking about shrinking governmentand leaning it out, and now you're talking
about expanding it globally even greater, notinto it.

(01:53:21):
Plus, if America starts taking over countrieslike that, I mean, we're moving even closer to
the new world order and the one worldgovernment.
And right.
Then then then the return of Jesus, in the Bookof Revelation.
Right around the corner.
You know?
Yeah.
The other one is, you know, that it's so we hadtalked about this, like, briefly.

(01:53:43):
I'm kind of trying to shoehorn it in here, butit's it's relevant and interesting is, you
know, with the the wildfires, you know, withall of these with there's so many things that
have happened in the past, like, 12 to 18months that always get chalked up to just like
incompetence.
Like, it's just a series of factors and it'salways coincidences and it's just like, yeah, I

(01:54:07):
mean, these things aren't impossible, but it'slike the MO becomes weaponized incompetence.
No one's gonna tell you, hey.
This is the conspiracy we're doing.
Like, fuck you.
You know?
They're gonna make it look like it's just theseare the things that that can happen.
They're all possible.
You know?
And it's just like, oh, everyone dropped theball.
We didn't clean the the, you know, brush for x,y, and z reason.

(01:54:31):
The cover was gone.
This was done.
We didn't have enough firefighters.
The budget was cut.
Like, all very mundane explanations, butthey're all stacking them together.
And then you sent me that thing showing therailway over where the fire burns.
Fucking go off.
Yeah.
I mean, it alright.

(01:54:52):
Like, to be honest, like, go deep into thewoods.
It's all it's a blood cult.
It's a blood cult, and it's all satanic.
And part of that karmic law states that theyhave to tell you what their intentions are, and
what evil they're going to do to you.

(01:55:13):
That way, it's not a surprise, and you can't bea victim.
You've been warned.
Okay.
And right.
We have put that that has been the key.
That has been the case for every majorcatastrophe that we've done.
Okay.
You look at COVID-19.
They ran a full-scale simulation of a globalpandemic that came out of China in it two years

(01:55:40):
prior.
And they had planned that it was going tohappen at the end of 2019-2020, and lo and
behold, the whole thing worked out exactly howthey had simulated.
Prior to the World Trade Center, they wererunning simulation drills on airplanes being
hijacked flying into the World Trade Center.

(01:56:04):
In terms of day.
Like that fucking a or rugby.
Yes.
Yeah.
When you look at other, you know, like, youlook at these wildfires.
Right?
This is California.
We've been dealing with wildfires for as longas California's been a thing.

(01:56:25):
This whole environmentalism, and we can't doprescribed burns, and the truth is if, like, if
the environmental movement was trulyenvironmental, it would be a back-to-nature
approach instead of a technological approach.
Everything in advancing technology is sodetrimental to the environment.

(01:56:48):
Here we are, you and I, speaking on thiscomputer, probably 30, 40 miles away, right?
And we think that this is a massive advancementin technology.
But in order for us to get raw materials tobuild this computer, there are people in a
third-world country in flip-flops that have agarden trowel digging in dirt for rocks to make

(01:57:13):
the power to create this technology.
At the end of the day, it's all technology is abig facade to make us think we are more
powerful and advanced than we actually are.
At the end of the day, we still gotta dig inthe dirt to get the materials to build this
shit.
Right.
So, I mean,
that's what we just said earlier.

(01:57:34):
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Go
I was saying advancing technology, which, likeso the wildfires.
Right?
We know
Yeah.
L.A., California has this thing for 15-minutecities, and now they're calling them smart
cities because people caught on and didn't likethe idea of a 15-minute city, which are
15-minute city is they create these bubbleswhere every all of your necessities and needs

(01:57:59):
are within 15 minutes of walking or riding abicycle.
Cars don't need to exist in these areas.
You don't have to order anything.
You can walk.
You live in a bubble.
Now we're calling them smart cities because nowwe're implementing AI technology.
If you go downtown San Diego, you're seeing,like, on all of the light posts, there's

(01:58:21):
cameras with audio recordings.
They're videotaping you all the time, facialrecognition.
China's doing this, using facial recognition inpublic to develop social credit scores.
And we're calling it all in the name of safety,security, and environmentalism.
But the truth is it's pure evil.
Oh.

(01:58:41):
It's control.
It's evil.
Surveillance, control.
It's evil.
Right.
Right.
It takes all of the autonomy away from theindividual.
Yep.
And if you look at how advanced we are intechnology now, yes, we have significantly
advanced in technology.
However, we are so vulnerable we are morevulnerable to extinction as a human race now

(01:59:05):
than we've ever been before.
Why?
Because if the grid went down, if the Internetturned off, how many people do you know can
survive the way we used to?
I don't know very many people that couldprocure their own food in any way.

(01:59:25):
Can't grow a damn onion or a potato, let alonego actually hunt.
And God forbid you have to hunt here in SanDiego County.
We have the lowest percentage success rate ofdeer hunting in the entire country.
Oh, shit.
You have a 7%.
Yes.
This is San Diego County D16 is the mostdifficult place to fill a deer tag in the

(01:59:49):
country.
Wow.
So good luck.
Well, and did warfare become more, like,ethical as technology advanced?
It was becoming less ethical.
Yeah.
It became way less ethical.
Right.
You know, and even to the point where, like,now I so I remember back in the early days of

(02:00:16):
the war in Iraq when, you know, they werecutting off Americans' heads.
And I remember this is back in the days of Idon't know if you remember Kazaa, which was a
music downloading.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was called Kazaa.
And Kazaa, like, we found out, like, you werejust downloading viruses by the dozens.

(02:00:39):
But, Kazaa, you could find everything.
And I remember, like, you were able to find thevideos of Americans getting beheaded on Kazaa.
And there was, like, that kind of stuff on theInternet was illegal at the time.
Like,
you couldn't you could not post death andmurder on the Internet.

(02:01:02):
Even Internet pornography was still not cool byany means.
And,
dude, just today at work, one of the dudes atwork was watching a compilation of Russian
drone kills on Russian soldiers from Ukraine.

(02:01:24):
Like, you're watching drones and you see pointdetonating fuse, and they're just flying into
dudes and black.
And you're seeing their face.
Like, now things have become way less ethical,you know, now we're watching people get
murdered for entertainment.

(02:01:46):
Pornography is rampant through the world insociety.
Like Yeah.
I mean, that's a whole other thing, butinteresting fact, the Internet advanced as much
as it has and as quickly as it did because ofInternet pornography.
Mhmm.
Right.
They actually there's they actually provedthat, when as the Internet became more

(02:02:12):
available to the public, Internet pornographysearches increased dramatically.
And the Internet was the that the the demandfor higher quality Internet porn was driving
the advancement of Internet technology andvideo streaming.

(02:02:33):
And video stuff too, like HD and, like, youknow, it's all
because of
porn.
And stuff.
It's all because of porn.
I've heard that too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because of porn.
And then, I remember, with the first, like,like, VR, augmented reality type stuff.
Like, what was some of the first applications?
Porn.
Porn moves that needle.

(02:02:55):
I mean and and, you know, that's that's, it'sinherent to man.
You know?
Lust, one of the hardest things for people toit's the easiest to be tempted by and the
hardest temptation to fight.
Right?
Like, having wanting sex is inherent to being ahuman being, wanting to reproduce, to

(02:03:18):
procreate.
I mean, that at its core is what what it is,but we've completely defiled the act to just,
like, everybody's fucking, fucking everybody.
And while everybody's watching, but but withtechnology and these smart cities, like, you

(02:03:39):
look at L.A.
I mean, dude, the writing's on the wall, andthey're saying the quiet part out loud.
Yeah.
I know that's
Gavin is openly talking about changing land useover the Pacific Palisades.
Where he's where he he's, like, he's talkingabout how he just got off the phone with the

(02:03:59):
governor of Hawaii, you know, and then, youknow, they're just talking about changing the
land.
He's just kinda, like, laughing about it.
I'm like, dude.
Like, what the fuck?
You go to Hawaii.
Right?
And so on Maui, like, developers are buildingmultiunit houses over areas that were burned

(02:04:20):
down, but people still haven't been paid out bytheir insurance companies.
Like like like the like the you and me's thatlost their home over there Yeah.
Still have done nothing.
Meanwhile, developers are coming in buying landout from under people.
Pennies on the dollar.
You know?

(02:04:41):
Yeah.
Pennies on the dollar.
I mean, the Newsom said it out loud and thateverybody was calling it from the beginning.
Like, I live out here in the rural area.
I'm on what's called the California Fair Plan.
California Fair Plan is a backup homeinsurance, fire insurance for people where

(02:05:01):
insurance companies won't insure you becauseyou're in a high wildfire risk area.
The entire state of California is a highwildfire risk area.
Right?
But so I I cannot get actual home insurance.
I use California Fair Plan.
What California did was because insurancecompanies wouldn't give fire insurance, they

(02:05:25):
make all the insurance companies pool into thispot, and that's where they pay it out of.
Well, within the last year, I think a total of2,600,000 customers in the state of California
have been dropped from their home insurancebecause because California also ruined it.

(02:05:45):
Right?
California, we drove the housing market andhome values through the roof after COVID.
We we made we made borrowing money super cheap.
You know, interest rates were down.
I, dude, I got into 2 and a quarter.
Like interest rates were super low.
So we're giving out all this free money.
We're driving up the value of homes, but thenthe state of California said insurance

(02:06:10):
companies are not allowed to charge oruninsurance based on the value of the home.
We're gonna put a cap to it.
Well, you're gonna insure this home with a capat a $400,000 value, but the state just raised
the value of the home to 750.
That doesn't make sense.

(02:06:31):
They're losing money.
So insurance companies left, dropped everyone.
72,000 customers were dropped, just within,like, 2 months of these wildfires.
Pause right there.
Because I
wanna pause for a second because I wanna justdouble down on something that you said that's
super important because it's important forpeople to understand what you just said,

(02:06:53):
because it creates this feedback loop.
So people, though, these greedy insurancecompanies, can you believe that they dropped
all these people, you know, right?
A year before the fire was gonna go.
So they're pissed off at the greedycorporations, which I get it.
Who the fuck likes insurance companies?
So then California, they go to their electedofficials and say do something about this.
So what does California do?

(02:07:14):
They double down with even more restrictions.
Maybe we need to make that cap even lower.
Maybe we need to mandate that.
So they're creating the insurance problem wherethe insurance companies are going, like, well,
then we have no other option but to leave.
So, sorry to throw you off the flow, but I justwanted
to double
click on that because it's super important toget a nuanced fact.

(02:07:35):
You bring up an excellent point because thisentire problem was caused by the state of
California.
Right?
It's not like it came as a surprise overnightthat the insurance companies were gonna leave
and stop doing business in the state.
Like, California, like, they give plenty offair warning to California.
Look, if you don't lighten up, we're not gonnado business here.

(02:07:57):
It's the same that Elon did with SpaceX.
Hey.
If you keep going this way, I'm moving out ofhere.
I'm going to Texas.
We saw it during the pandemic.
How many big corporations, how many wealthypeople left the state?
California caused this catastrophe.
Right?
And I'm gonna speculate that it wasn't byaccident because here's what happens.

(02:08:21):
The federal department of insurance looked intothe California Fair Plan.
And this article came out March of last year.
What they found.
So people like me who can't get insured by aregular insurance company because of where I'm
at, or let's say my State Farm left the state,and nobody else will take me on.

(02:08:46):
I go to California Fair Plan.
I am insured by the state of California that ifmy home burns down, they'll rebuild and they'll
pay me out.
Right?
The problem, the way the California FAIR Planworks is it is only responsible for rebuilding
the structure itself.

(02:09:06):
So it's not like a normal homeowner's policywhere it covers everything in the confines of
your property, your home, all of your stuff,all of your property.
It only covers the cost to rebuild thestructure itself.
So then we're forced to take out a secondinsurance policy to cover all of our property

(02:09:30):
and everything else.
This article that came out March of last yearfound that the California FAIR Plan
intentionally underinsures its clients belowthe state's minimum standards of insurance
coverage.
So by what the state was legally forcinginsurance companies as a minimum to cover their

(02:09:54):
clients, the state of California purposelycovers below that standard.
And the state of California
That second policy?
Is that the motivation?
No.
No.
No.
No.
This is separate because California FAIR Planwon't insure all of your stuff.
They're just gonna insure your dwelling.
It's a dwelling policy.
If your house burns down, we'll rebuild yourhouse.

(02:10:16):
But either you gotta replace or have adifferent policy for your stuff.
But they are underinsuring that policy torebuild your home.
So let's say, you know, the insurance companyon my home, they take the square footage, year
it was built, material it's built out of, andthey say it'll cost you $200,000 in the state

(02:10:41):
of California in 2024 to rebuild your home.
Well, the state of California throughCalifornia Fair Plan is only insuring me to
$170,000 in value to rebuild my home.
Which means if my home burnt down, Iwouldn't—the insurance that the state is
forcing me to use doesn't cover the entire costto rebuild.

(02:11:04):
Wow.
And there's a lawsuit that came out in June of2024 suing the California Fair Plan, and that's
when the Federal Department of Insurance foundthat California decided it is cheaper for them
to pay a misdemeanor fine for the 400,000-plusindividuals they cover than for them to

(02:11:30):
actually insure us up to the standard that thestate legally requires.
So this is the state of California basicallydriving out all insurance companies, forcing us
to take up the state's insurance policy thatknowingly and admittingly underinsures us below

(02:11:56):
the state's own legal standard.
And then in July, I think it was June or July,actually, Gavin Newsom and the state of
California, there's another article thatpublished that said if there was a single

(02:12:18):
disaster in the state of California, it wouldcompletely bankrupt the California Fair Plan.
Well, guess what?
Right.
The wealthiest community in the state ofCalifornia just burned down, and the majority
of those people were on the California FAIRPlan.
You have just bankrupted the state's entireinsurance company.
Right.

(02:12:38):
Wow.
And now here we are, and Newsom's alreadytalking about changing land use policies for
the area because they know that many of thesepeople, well, he knows if they have insurance,
they're underinsured.
Yeah.
Right.
And two, they don't or they don't have anyinsurance.

(02:13:00):
And I don't care if you're worth $50 million, Ihighly doubt you've got $11 million, $12
million in cash sitting around that you canpull out to then rebuild your home.
People are gonna have to sell for pennies onthe dollar because they're still gonna be

(02:13:21):
forced to pay property tax on land that'sburned down with no dwelling, and we've already
increased the value.
Are four times as expensive as they were if youeven were lucky enough to have it in the first
place.
Yeah.
And if you had total just
forget your money and you were just like, youknow what?
I'm just gonna do it.

(02:13:41):
I love my plot.
I love the view I had.
I love I'm just gonna do it, and I have so muchmoney done.
You know?
It's still gonna take you five years.
Now what are you gonna do for five years?
You know?
And what people don't realize too is, like, alot of people living in the Pacific Palisades,
like, they weren't all, like, the Mel Gibsonsand, right, the, you know, Oprah Winfreys.

(02:14:04):
Like, there was a lot of older neighborhoodsand communities there where people like our
grandparents or our parents, like, bought inearly and that home's been passed down for
generations.
Yeah.
Now it's worth $2 million, $3 million, but thatguy doesn't have $2, $3 million to rebuild that
home.
You know?

(02:14:24):
He was living in a home that was completelypaid off that he grew up in and was handed to
him.
They're like, Pacific Palisades is, excuse me,is not just a a new, you know, yuppie,
mega-million, neighborhood.
It's it's got all kinds of people living there.

(02:14:46):
Right.
Right.
Even where I grew up in Yorba Linda, you know,we were in one of the first communities built
on that side of town in '87.
But by 2005, there were $4 or $5 million homesbeing built on the on the hill above us.
And we were by no means in that same level ofof class.

(02:15:10):
Right.
What you know?
Like, we're, we're our home was built in '87,dude.
Like, these people were there were rumors thatSchwarzenegger was moving in up the hill from
me because Yeah.
There were mansions being built.
But, it's it's like a lot of people weregetting screwed.
Those kinds of people aren't gonna be able toaren't gonna they're out of luck.

(02:15:33):
Yeah.
And then when you look at the map, the way thefires in California have been burning and the
projected route plan for the high-speed bullettrain that we're now $100 billion over budget,
and all they've been able to build is, like,200 yards of track.

(02:15:53):
Mhmm.
Over the last 15 years.
Crazy.
That's why, like, I started saying that, like,you know, San Diego's next because on the San
Diego website, we are projected to become asmart city.
Right.
And well, the biggest, like, thorn in the sideof the smart city plan is that it's really

(02:16:17):
expensive and in some ways, like, not evenreally possible to retrofit urban sprawl for
15-minute smart cities.
Like, yeah.
Especially L.A.
You can't retrofit.
That's the thing.
You can't retrofit.
You have to build from scratch.
Mhmm.
And that's why, like, Maui was completelyburned down, and Maui was on the list.

(02:16:41):
Like, Maui claimed we are gonna be the firstsmart city.
L.A.
wants to be yeah.
Maui said we are gonna be the first smart city.
And coincidentally, they burned down.
L.A.
wanted to be wanted has been wanting to becomea smart city before they host the Olympics in
2028.

(02:17:03):
Coincidentally, started 2025 all of them.
Oh, yeah.
Burnt down.
And now we're already talking about rezoningthese areas, to turn into a smart city.
L.A.
2.0 as Gavin calls it.
He he used the term, we have a Marshall Plan.
A Marshall Plan was the euphemism used byEurope during World War II to rebuild Europe.

(02:17:27):
Like, we have a collective governmental plan onhow we're going to rebuild this.
Yeah, like, well, that's good because there'sstill ashes smoldering behind you.
I'm glad that you guys already have a plan,almost like you had a plan before.
And these two
No remorse.
Right.
No remorse.
No compassion.

(02:17:48):
Like, dude, I'm still getting updates on myphone.
I have this app called Watch Duty app.
It's 100% funded.
It's a nonprofit.
It's run by firefighters, and I get pingsanytime.
I can choose whatever counties to follow, and Iget notifications whenever Cal Fire or the fire

(02:18:08):
department's putting out updates to the public.
Dude, the house aides, man, they're stillfighting that fire, and Newsom's already
talking about how he's gonna rebuild and has anew plan for it.
Like, there's no remorse, dude.
Joe Biden came out and said, you get a one-timepayment of $770.

(02:18:29):
Yeah.
Like, well, fuck yourself.
Go and they did it.
They did it out
of the week.
North Carolina.
They did it in Florida.
Yeah.
They did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, they did.
Oh, there was a one-time $750 loan.
That wasn't even a payment.
People so people were were taking it.

(02:18:52):
You had to sign a form, terms and conditions.
Right?
People were signing it to get the $750.
Then they read the terms and conditions.
It was putting the title to your property ascollateral for that $750 loan.
Oh
my God.
So there's gonna be people who don't pay the$750 back, and they lose their home because of

(02:19:13):
that.
Wow.
Yes.
Tell me that's not a land grab.
Yeah.
I mean, come on, dude.
Like, at some point, it's like the mentalgymnastics of, like, not calling a spade a
spade because they don't want to, like, that'sconspiracy talk.
I mean, fortunately, it does seem like it, youknow?
My girlfriend the other day, she's like, I usedto think a lot of conspiracies were, like,

(02:19:36):
crazy and bullshit, and now she's like, I don'teven know if there's anything that I would
categorically rule out as a possibility.
You know?
Well, yeah.
I mean, here's the thing, man.
Like, it's gonna get much worse.
It's gonna get much scarier.
But going to what you said of, like, how do youstay sane during this and understand, like,

(02:20:01):
look, because it's very easy to lose yoursanity, like, through this, right?
Just super anxious, stressing out abouteverything.
I gotta prep.
There's no way I've got enough to survive.
I need to buy this.
I need to buy that.
Like, here's what I say, and here's what helpsme.

(02:20:22):
And this comes back to faith is we live in afallen world.
Okay.
Evil walks this earth.
Satan rules the earth.
Okay.
And we know that, look, humans are falliblecreatures.
We have been messing up since we were created.

(02:20:44):
That was from a faith perspective.
Adam and Eve were the first humans.
They've been sinning since they were humans.
Right?
We mess up.
But we also know evil exists.
Evil walks this earth.
The whole point of evil, right, is to destroy.
Evil destroys everything unto itself.

(02:21:07):
Meaning if you look at disease, parasites,right?
Think of evil as a parasite.
Evil, as an energetic thing, let's say, isthriving off of the earth and human beings.
Okay?
What's a parasite do?
A parasite gets its host so sick and ill untilit dies.

(02:21:32):
Well, then what happens?
That parasite has to either find a new host orthe parasite dies.
Evil in itself is designed and created todestroy everything unto itself, ultimately
destroying itself.
We know evil is out there.
Things are going to get much worse.
But at the end of the day, evil loses, andtruth and righteousness prevail.

(02:21:58):
I'm just going to read something really quick.
This is what I turn to instead of fearing thesethings, right?
So when I look at everything going on in theworld today, a lot of it is prophetic.
You can go in the Bible, you can look in thebook of Isaiah, you can read the book of

(02:22:21):
Revelation.
There are a lot of things that are happeningthat have never happened in history before.
They're happening now that are fulfillingprophecies.
Jerusalem is a city again.
Damascus has fallen.
I'm not a huge prophecy expert, but there arethings happening.

(02:22:42):
And even still now, we will never know the houror the day when Jesus comes back and the
apocalypse happens and the, you know,revelation people get taken.
We don't know when that's gonna happen.
We don't know the hour or the day, but we knowwhat generation that's gonna happen in.
And we know this world's gonna get much darker.

(02:23:04):
You know, put faith aside, dude.
Just look at the direction of it.
Wars are happening more often.
There's a lot more world hunger than there'sever been.
We're creating more food.
It's just things are gonna get really bad andreally weird.
What I go to is Book of Revelation chapter 20,verse 7.

(02:23:29):
So it says now what this says is I don't I'mnot gonna go in.
I'm just gonna read it.
When the 1,000 years have expired, Satan willbe released from prison.
So where we're at, Jesus returns, Satan getschained up and put into hell for 1,000 years.

(02:23:51):
After 1,000 years of righteousness and truth,positivity and love coming back into the world
for 1,000 years, evil has got to come out andwalk the earth a little bit.
So that's where we're at.
Chapter 20, verse 7.
Now when the 1,000 years have expired, Satanwill be released from prison.
He'll go out to deceive the nations which arein the four corners of the earth, Gog and

(02:24:15):
Magog, to gather them together to battle whosenumber is as the sand of the sea.
It says Satan, the devil, is gonna go out andhe's gonna gather all of the forces of the
nations across all four corners of the earthand he's gonna bring them to attack the new

(02:24:36):
Jerusalem, which is heaven on earth.
Right?
They went up on the breadth of the earth andsurrounded the camp of the saints in the
beloved city.
This is the new kingdom of Jerusalem that Jesushas returned, and he is ruling over all
nations.
Satan gets released, and he gathers an army andsays we're gonna go defeat all of the holy

(02:24:59):
people in the new city of Jerusalem.
They went up on the breadth of the earth andsurrounded the camp of the saints and the
beloved city, and fire came down from God outof heaven and devoured them.
The devil who deceived them was cast into thelake of fire and brimstone where the beast and

(02:25:19):
the false prophet are, and they will betormented night and day forever and ever.
What this is saying is, like, things are gonnaget dark, and things are going to get weird,
and they're gonna get scary, but at the end ofthe day, at the end of it all, righteousness
prevails.
Evil never prospers, and we know that.

(02:25:40):
Right.
Evil never prospers.
We look at every conspiracy and hoax that hascome out against our government, and the truth
has come out, and the truth prospers.
Was there a Russian collusion, like,conspiracy?
No.
We turned out that was all fake.
Did did people really not know that the U.S.

(02:26:02):
embassy was being overran in, in Benghazi.
Benghazi?
Green fault.
Benghazi.
Sorry, dude.
I was gonna keep going to say Gaza becausewe're there now.
Like, well, I know.
We know that, like, Hillary was was was stillwas not aiding people.

(02:26:22):
She wasn't calling the shots like she wassupposed to.
Right.
Right.
The truth comes out.
The truth prevails.
And so what I say is your greatest preparationfor whatever bad shit is maybe coming, prepare
your soul first.
Because, one, nobody gets out of this worldalive.

(02:26:46):
No matter what, nobody gets out of this worldalive.
Whatever happens here will stay here.
So the best thing you can do, prepare your souland prepare for whatever happens next.
Do we know for sure there's a heaven?
I believe there is.
Do we know for sure there's not?

(02:27:07):
No.
Do we know what happens after you die?
Not scientifically, but whatever happens hereis temporary.
Everything on this earth and in this life istemporary and will fall ill to rust and
degradation from moths, as Jesus says.
Like, you have faith, you believe in a God thatwill take care of you, believe in truth,

(02:27:32):
believe in love, believe in righteousness, therest of this, it will just roll off your back
like water on a duck.
Like, there is no evil.
There is no force of evil that can prevail overgood and love and truth.
Sometimes it takes time.
It may take time for the truth to prevail, butit always prevails.

(02:27:58):
And that that's like because, you know,sometimes I post some wild shit on Instagram
and I get people like, I have a close friend.
She's like, look.
I believe everything you're saying.
What do I do?
How do I prepare?
When do I know to leave my house?
What should I pack?
What should I be stocking up?
And, you know, I tell her like, yeah.
Like, you can do this and prep for that.
But, like, at the end of the day, God is onyour side.

(02:28:21):
And if God is for us, who can be against us?
Because when if people believe in evil, how doyou believe in evil and not believe in a good
and not believe in a God?
How do you not believe in righteousness?
So if you do know that evil exists, well, therehas to be a counter to that.
Goodness and righteousness.
That was kind of my way I approximated my waythrough it, dude.

(02:28:43):
What was that?
It's like, you know, I'm always intrigued by alittle bit like, you know, the fascination by
the darkness out there.
And then when you kinda look into that abysslong enough, you start realizing, like, it's a
real thing.
Like, it's it's and if it's a real thing, thenthere has to be a counterweight to that.
And in which case, like, I don't know, thatkinda there's your ontology right there.

(02:29:07):
You know?
The world is this way.
Satan and evil are real.
Satan and evil are real.
We like, it's so prevalent in society and ourculture today.
Right.
And right.
And, you know, like, I'm not I'm not trying topush anything on anybody, but I do think it's
it's worthwhile to ponder why is Christianitythe most attacked of all of the religions.

(02:29:33):
Why is there no restriction against Hinduism orBuddhism or or even Islam?
We're always protecting Islam in America, butwe're always attacking Christianity, and we're
attacking God, and we're attacking Jesus.
And if you believe in an evil and a dark force,you have to believe in a light and a positive

(02:29:54):
force.
And if you put your energy and focus on that,evil has no power over you.
Evil has no power.
The reason why I wanna read that passage isbecause that passage says that evil will be
destroyed and tormented forever and ever.
That is Satan will be chained up and throwninto the lake of fire and sulfur and be

(02:30:18):
tormented day and night for all eternity.
What that tells you is that evil has alreadylost, and it has no power over you other than
the power you give it.
When you start feeling fear, when you startfeeling anxiety, when you get into episodes of
anger or rage or depression, I call thesespiritual attacks because none of these things

(02:30:43):
are positive or pointing me towards God or Godis not giving me anger or depression.
But what happens when I focus on that anxiety,when I focus on that depression, when I focus
on anger, I am no longer focusing on the good.

(02:31:04):
I'm giving power to these negative things.
Right.
And and you you're you're just ruminating onnegativity.
And that's why, you know, gratitude.
How important is gratitude and how can that beso changing in your life?
Tony Robbins, even Andrew Tate, like, hisname's Brad, something everybody talks about

(02:31:29):
gratitude.
Deepak Chopra.
Like, everybody's on gratitude because youcannot be you cannot be grateful and anxious at
the same time.
It works in the same part of your brain.
And as long as you focus on these negativeemotions, you're not focusing on the positive.

(02:31:50):
And you're giving power to the negativity inyour life.
And evil negativity, it's already lost.
It's a defeated foe.
Whether you want to call it Satan, the devil,spiritual attacks, or just bad vibes, dude, bad
vibes already lost.

(02:32:10):
Like, bad vibes never win at anything, and thebad vibes will always be bad vibes as long as
you put attention to it.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, it's about not focusing on the fact thatyou're being attacked, but like we talked about
earlier, celebrating your tribulations and yourtrials because it builds character.

(02:32:38):
Right.
Hey, man.
This world's gonna get weird and dark and ugly.
You know what?
Bring it on.
Because I know evil will not prevail.
And even if I die fighting, hey, I died inpositivity, and I died in love, and the truth

(02:32:58):
will come out.
You know?
Yeah.
Right.
You made yourself right.
Gratitude and love.
God, man.
Dude, the closest I've ever felt, like, todivine sort of, like, connection has been in
states of gratitude.
Like, it's just been, like, you know, tearscome out of my eyes.
Like, so thankful for the opportunity to dothis or to see this or to you know what I mean?

(02:33:20):
Like, that's when it's a real thing, man.
I mean, that's why on psychedelic experiences,people a lot of times, very common to have a
spiritual experience on psychedelics becauseit's so heart opening.
And you're
Mhmm.
the the bullshit is washing away.
You're getting the feel-good chemicals in yourbrain.

(02:33:41):
You're you're getting oxytocin, serotonin, anddopamine.
You're feeling good.
You're finally in a place where, like, I canfocus on gratitude, and I can open my heart up.
And what that is, you're you're, you know, thenpeople have this spiritual experience, and
right.
It really just comes down because you're notthinking about the bad stuff anymore.

(02:34:04):
Yeah.
You're focusing on the positivity.
Yeah.
It is.
So
it's, I mean yeah.
You know, evil has always existed.
It will exist for a lot longer.
But everything is truth and love, man.

(02:34:27):
Truth, love, and love, dude.
Like
I love that, dude.
That's such a good kind of place to tie a bowon it.
This is such a good conversation, man.
I'm so stoked.
This is why you're a wind and sea ambassador,dude.
You're bringing bringing the the good vibes,the the the right bugging stuff to kind of,

(02:34:49):
like, set your mind ready for, you know, thethe trials and tribulations of the future, man.
So I've just it's been a pleasure getting toknow you better, and, like, I'm just stoked
that you're my friend, dude.
So do you wanna have any final yeah.
Yeah, dude.
Of course.
Is there any sort of final note you wanna justtie it up?

(02:35:12):
Yeah.
I wanna say, like, how much I appreciate you.
Like, for people who don't know, like, in LosBigotes' early days, like, we we built up kind
of a a pretty good network of a lot of localcompanies, and that was what we wanted to do
was start bringing everybody up with us.
Because Los Bigotes the reason why Los Bigotesisn't around anymore was because it grew way

(02:35:37):
beyond our means to keep up.
Well, especially with three of us still activeduty, on deployment cycles, out of the country,
we couldn't do it.
It was getting to the point where it was morestressful than fun.
But in that, in all of that growth, Wind andSea Coffee was a huge supporter of ours.
You, you really did.

(02:35:58):
You supported us.
You promoted us.
When we started doing subscription boxes, youwere throwing your coffee in our boxes.
You even took the CBD out of it because we'relike, the military customers are gonna freak
out.
And, and, honestly, man, then when youapproached me and you're like, I'd love for you
to be ambassador.
I was like, dude, I have there's there's nobetter way for me to say thank you and repay

(02:36:21):
you.
And also, like, totally honored because I lovewhat you're doing with Wind and Sea Coffee,
which we didn't even talk about.
But, man
Oh, dude.
I talk about it.
Those who haven't checked it out.
I am it's a I'm gonna throw the plug in now,dude, because you did it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do it for me.
For those of you like, we're talking aboutmushrooms and stuff, like, why I love Wind and

(02:36:45):
Sea Coffee's products so much better and morethan other ones I've tried.
I've done MUD\WTR.
I've bought my own functional mushroom powders.
I've done the micro.
The thing is, like, you have an extract ofthose powders of those mushrooms.

(02:37:05):
Right?
You're not taking the mushroom and justgrinding it into a powder.
Right.
You're getting an extraction of it.
Right?
And how is it?
Is that like a distillation process or
So is
it being distilled out in here?
Or
For my coffee, it's a triple extraction, whichis a distillate.
It's a glycerin-based distillate.

(02:37:27):
For the powders, they're double extracted, andI'm not exactly sure how they extract it, but
you're right.
That's kind of the point, that if you just trythe mushroom and grind it, there's a lot of
cell walls that your body has to go through toget the good stuff out of it.
And so, yeah, you get more bioavailability isthe term.

(02:37:47):
You know?
Yes.
Yes, dude.
And that's what I'm getting at.
Your products, with them being extractions likethat, your body is not having to break down,
metabolize this physical substance andsustenance.
And then only a portion of that makes it intothe blood-brain barrier to be bioavailable for

(02:38:08):
your body.
Like, yours is an extraction.
So when it goes in my coffee, it liquefies.
I'm drinking it.
It's readily absorbable, and I'm getting fullBenny from it.
And I can feel the difference on your products.
And I've done, dude, Laird Superfood hasnothing on you.
MUD\WTR has nothing on you.

(02:38:31):
I've even bought the organic lion's mane,reishi, chaga mushroom powders, put them in my
coffee myself.
Nothing on you.
That's good to know.
Not the same.
To know, dude.
I love that.
I've tried them all.
I've given them all, like, several weeks tomonths trials.
Yeah.
And right.

(02:38:51):
Right.
Yours immediately from the first time I usedit, noticed a big difference above and beyond
all of those.
And this is not a paid advertisement.
I've gotten, like, two free bags of coffee fromthe guy.
Like, I'm just saying full disclosure.
I have used it, and as somebody who has been inand exploring that for several years now, hands

(02:39:16):
down, you've got the highest quality productI've tried.
That means a lot to hear, dude.
I mean, I take a lot of pride in putting itout, and I wanna make things for especially
veterans.
Like, this is my community.
These are people that I care about, and itreally means a lot to hear that from you, man.

(02:39:37):
Branden, this has been amazing.
Plug.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
Oh, so another there's a little bit of a lag,so it's like the delay a little bit.
Oh.
There's, like, a slight delay.
It's good.
It's good.
It's my Wi-Fi.
I'm in the country.
I actually drank the Loco Mocha in my coffeebefore we filmed this.

(02:39:59):
When I was drinking my coffee, that's what Iwas having was the Loco Mocha.
Oh, dude.
Yeah, dude.
Thanks for
the support, bro.
I just
wanna say thank you.
Thank you.
It's a play it's, dude.
It's a team it's a team sport, man.
It's a team sport.
So
Yeah.
This was fun.

(02:40:20):
Cool.
I'm probably gonna get a lot of weird looksfrom anybody who listens to this.
But
No.
This is great, dude.
Like, this I think we it actually, like, weavestogether nicely.
Like, we actually hit all this the littlewickets that we had set out, and
it was good.
But let me let me hit stop real quick just so Ican wrap this, and then let's, anyway, this has

(02:40:43):
been the Mind Body Mushroom.
Thank you guys so much for cruising by, and,yeah.
We'll we'll, stay tuned for next week.
Love love, baby.
Woo.
Dope, dude.

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Ep. 20 | From Bomb Squad to Brain Healing | Navy EOD Tech Branden Vriens

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 20 | From Bomb Squad to Brain Healing | Navy EOD Tech Branden Vriens