Episode 77 - BONUS Twelve Questions

[transcript automatically generated - cleanup in progress]

well hello friends it's uh it's a very tired mike and vishnu here we spent last week uh like all week just recording podcast episodes all day every day and so this is the release week and we don't have an episode uh so we thought we would share with you a really fun thing we did last week which was a little conversations recording with not only us but william and hillary as well if you don't know what that is that's the liturgist conversations podcast is the one that patrons get uh people that subscribe to patreon and so we just played a little game uh where we all asked each other some questions and since we don't have a podcast this week a new one quite ready for you yet we thought you we'd uh let you in on on this one because it was it was a fun one and it conveniently also kind of lets you know what the chemistry is going to be like next weekend in austin texas for the liturgist gathering which we're super excited about may 25th and 26th tickets are still available and we have a pretty cool announcement we know some of you are very limited in your income and so uh we have a limited number of low income or income restricted tickets available at a reduced price so if the thing that's been keeping you from joining us in austin is the uh whopping 89 ticket charge um and that's that's not to make light for some people that really is a significant sum of money we do have a reduced price ticket available now at the liturgistgathering.com so please uh if you're anywhere near austin it's going to be worth it just just the people that you meet forget us just the people that you'll meet uh the other liturgist listeners and patrons and everybody that are there um every gathering we always meet fascinating people and new relationships develop and um it really is worth worth the drive and uh and we're excited to be able to offer a price discount because we have heard of a lot of people that are like oh i really want to do it i just really can't make it happen financially so this is a good opportunity for anybody that wants to to be able to make it so hope to see you there and since we know that texas is both our second largest download market and a state where people aren't necessarily able to admit to others they listen to the liturgist podcast if you would like to attend under a pseudonym don't worry we don't check id all right patrons special treat we've got the we don't have a name for you the other two whoa wow my internal mental construct for them what tell us i want to know the kids the kids are here i mean it's like i've always wanted to have two dads all right we're like your dads your podcast host dads william's as old as carefully though not your daddies that's different i feel very a lot of complex emotions about this what is this stuff i'm the oldest yeah you're the oldest all right so years old though um here's the plan for this one we each ask each other this is an idea that just happened in my brain each ask each other one question okay that'll be fun so you want to start yep so that'll be 16 questions or 16 responses uh 12 responses because i'll ask the three of you and then you'll ask yeah okay okay so uh to start us off would you rather have who are you talking to all y'all she's asking the same one yeah you can do it differently if you want would you rather have pubes as teeth or teeth as pubes isn't that the same thing no no it's either pubic hair coming out of your gums or teeth surrounding your genitals and extruding from how are the teeth laid out in the general region i assume they would extend with the same distribution distribution pattern that follicles have they wouldn't be sticky yeah this is a weird question this is the best i take it very seriously that's right would you rather is serious business for me i'll take the teeth pubes why because i could put a protective covering on for sex and i can't eat pubes oh i see okay i have a different answer okay um again assuming now i have pubes with the distribution pattern of teeth which is not that much hair in my mouth all i have to do is keep them loosely trimmed and and use dentures i guess that's true replacing pubes in your mouth is far easier than minimizing the like i'm imagining sitting down with teeth literal teeth yeah in my testicles it's pain every time yeah that's a better decision no i'm going with the teeth down there really the idea of pubes in the mouth yeah but if you could use the dentures but just let's let's imagine each other i've had pubes in my mouth it's not that bad i feel so uncomfortable okay done wow that was fast i could ask you another one i could ask enough oh no i got one okay hillary okay if you could sleep with any celebrity who would it be jesus was it truth or dare holy shit wow you know what she literally made me think about pubes and teeth that's a revenge question first okay let's just set up a scenario where this actually would would be no no no i just wanted no no kevin has died no she's not always she died yeah she's not going to be unfaithful to kevin kevin has died it has to be right now no right now if they walked into the room you'd be like i would i would do that the thing is like i'm not really attracted to people because of their celebrity stuff it's not about attractive because of celebrity i mean what good looking so what celebrity that's i'm just thinking like a well-known person that you would go if they walked into this room right now pants down legs up oh oh my making positional assumptions yeah so here here's where it gets complicated i'm attracted to people often because of my connection with them okay and because i feel inspired by them and i want you said awesome it's very rarely do i see someone and feel like i want to lust after them with my loins so i would say this i'm not joking to you i'm not joking there's a a woman who is a famous feminist psychologist a jewish woman in her 80s and because her theories have been most influential in my life i would probably choose you are weird you are weird yes oh jesus that is the point i'm sorry you couldn't just say channing tatum like you're interested in him i don't they're no i'm not celebrity it doesn't mean anything to me come on bradley cooper no maybe in a weird no i just can't i was like is it somebody nerdy do you need to be with somebody like what's a nerdy looking celebrity benjamin cumberbatch it's not the it's not the it's not the look it's like i want to feel invigorated and inspired by their intellect and our connection with each other that's fine i understand that but at the same time you gotta look at a face and be like yeah kevin i mean that's all it is okay so what if you're well i guess that'd be my question because kevin and i have like a deep emotional bond that to me feels like why i'm attracted to his body and his face you're so i roll from william over here very unsatisfied okay go on who what are your questions for everybody else science mike oh my gosh just remember i take all questions sincerely and honestly i take them seriously and i answer them honestly that's a way of dignifying your identity and that includes joke questions here's my question for science mike what do you see in me oh god i thought you'd give me a hard question jeez man what do i see in you what do i see um i see someone who is effortlessly creative in a way that sometimes frustrates me the ease with which you articulate your responses to things either through language or through musical performance um i noticed that despite my proclivity for language um one of the most powerful moments we've ever had at the liturgist gathering was in seattle as you were leading everyone uh singing that they are free like i am free free will i'll be free and the amount of um grief processing and release from trauma that offered all these people who in many cases told us on forms they thought they would be traumatized if we sang together you have a capacity to [Music] not only have an awareness of aesthetic beauty but to disregard it and see what lies under it simultaneously meaning i've never known someone who was so fascist conscious who also loves deeply unfashionable people it's that kind of mix of contradictions between um apparent intellectual orientation and emotional distance and a readiness for vulnerability and empathy happening in the most delightful wave function superposition i've ever seen wow oh what a marvelous answer what's that like to hear um you already asked your question [Laughter] if there's going to be rules that should have been my question asking everybody how they felt about the question they were just like that would have been oh you're just i'm so glad you're in my life that's all wow yeah i mean i especially staying up late drinking with my mother yes me and ruth to 2 a.m you tapped out of 10 jenny tapped out by 11. me and ruth and william till 2 a.m your mother your mother gave me the best advice on forgiveness that i've ever i think i've received wow really she did she really did uh because she actually told me to my face she said you know what i think you actually have forgiven she said the problem for you is the member the re-traumatization by things that trigger you in the memories she was like and that for me was like yeah that's how like that's how i feel i feel like i've moved on from from a lot of traumatic things yet the thing that trips me up is the like the memories or seeing people or like you know being yeah and then she was very like when that happens this is what you do this is how you combat it it was i don't know it was very i think a lot of people usually approach that subject uh you know if they're ever like talking to me about things i've gone through whatever as like you just need to forgive and you just need to die and once you do that and it's like like and she was the first person to ever tell me no i you forgiven she was like you just have to remember that ruth throwing down the the gauntlet of wisdom any day i'll take that tallahassee girl any day um oh yeah okay um michael gunger also known as vishnu das excuse me vishnu das aka michael gunger who's your best friend the lord jesus christ i mean mike's my closest like friend lisa's my partner depending on what you co like who is your platonic best friend platonic mike that's huge can you say mike mccarthy is my best friend michael clark is my best friend that makes me deeply uncomfortable i want to take that loop it and make a song out of it that we play to you mike every day i would run away i think that's huge for your relationship oh what is happening over here oh my gosh you're making the therapist uncomfortable [Laughter] you know the shit she hears that's true hello enneagram 9 please contemplate the word best in regards to people in relationships well i've just heard you say on several occasions you're like i don't have a best friend and i'm like i don't know i've said that true yeah i've heard you say that i don't know if that's true well you just told us so you've clarified to the world i mean i hope none of my other really really good friends are hurt by me saying that but i hang out with you i was worried for your other friends because i have like lifelong friends but i mean i spend a lot of my time with mike and it was an immediate he's right here and it felt like a i don't know you have those relationships that feel i don't have that many lisa um but that feel it's hard to put like part of your soul you know what i mean he's in your soul yeah i guess when you guys get together it's like two boys at camp there's like the energy there is like two best friends from camp who just like are buddies you know and they're like it's true the way you guys delight each other is really unique there is also a yin yang thing happening where you complement each other you guys do very well are you deeply uncomfortable i'm all right all right i'm not uncomfortable with my affection for you i'm uncomfortable with the discussion of our relationship so first that's the first great questions yeah matthew is the third thank you thank you thank you namaste namaste if you want if you want some bonus questions at the end because you were you used to pube teeth because she had the best questions so far okay i have a really this is the i love wood rathers yeah this is the problem with being a therapist though i i don't actually know how to ask questions except if they're deepening and go straight to the heart of your pain well do that ah oh god no for me [Laughter] i'm the only one here that doesn't ever do therapy so if you you ever see something you want to like find you see this exposed nerve you just push that thing i don't know why you're not the number one person in therapy [Laughter] you need to be the test case like you are the jesus christ michael get yourself into a therapist just saying amazing are we going clockwise well you two are the ones that haven't said anything ask questions your questions mike william when's the last time music made you feel at one with everything it's funny because i'm hearing birds chirping in the background and i kind of qualified that as music and every day when i get up i go to my porch and i just hear birds chirping and i just take a moment to kind of embrace the day and it's really soothing and something about that like experience on a regular basis like sues me and i feel connected to my city i feel connected to the world i mean i literally have the you've been on my porch it's a beautiful little wrap around porch with jasmine and flowers growing along the lattice and then it's just these beautiful birds and hummingbirds come like right there so every day i'm hearing and seeing like creation singing and and also the beautiful city sounds of hollywood in the distance because i'm right in the hills so i get a bit a bit of that like city noise out in the distance but close right there is is nature so that way i consider that music i consider um i feel like creation is singing all the time and i'm blessed enough to live in a space where i can hear that um there are tons of i mean i'm always i'm moved deeply by music but your question was uh into oneness um truthfully some of the orchestral tones on my album uh when i've isolated them and just like when we were kind of reconstructing parts of it and i just hear like a chill on violin section i feel like i could just close my eyes and just get lost and not come back um yeah um as i composed the question i thought how can i give william an opportunity to be emotionally vulnerable and if desired plug his new record cosmos of which the debut single is on all streaming platforms right now i listen to it on the way here thank you i appreciate our friend propaganda's on it it's normal at so many different points in our life to feel like something is getting in the way of being present or happy something stopping us from achieving the goals that we have for ourself or feeling connected to the people that we love betterhelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist to help you work on all those things you can connect with someone in a safe and private online environment for that reason it's so convenient you don't even have to leave the house and you can start working with someone in under 24 hours when working with someone through better help you can send a message to your counselor at any time and get a timely and thoughtful response plus you can schedule weekly video and phone sessions better help has licensed professional counselors who are specialized in treating things like depression anxiety navigating family conflicts and so much more they're committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed anything you share with your counselor is confidential so many people have been using better help that they're recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states start living a happier life today as a listener you get 10 off your first month by visiting betterhelp.com liturgists join over 1 million people taking care of their mental health again it's betterhelp h-e-l-p-com slash liturgists that's good keep asking questions oh i can sure hillary yes sir what's something you wish that people understood about how life changes when you do public work why did you just give him the eye he's asking questions to illicit responses [Laughter] obviously that's what we're all doing about her not me that was definitely you wanted a response from us but not okay all right ask the question again what's one thing you wish people understood about how life changes when you do public work one thing it may be multiple things if you prefer i was trying to lower the obligation in the question for you i just my mind is flooded with so many things immediately um feeling like like becoming an object for people to use and in a way if as an enneagram two i often feel and i'm starting to realize i feel like i don't know how to ask for what i need and i feel unseen a lot of the time and i don't know how to ask to be seen in certain ways and yet the irony being i'm more visible and more accessible than i've been before but i feel less known and less seen and i think um this sounds really really strange to say but i'm not doing anything that i wasn't doing before i was doing the same thing i've been doing and i say all the same things that i'm saying here normally in a confidential therapy office um it's just weird it's weird for people to ascribe meaning and value to them because i'm more visible and then to feel like that's supposed to mean something about me and i think it's all just made up in a construct anyway i'm just really interested in connecting with people and in some ways i feel like i do that less now or there's the assumption what's very strange for me is when i walk up to people and they say hi hilary nice to meet you i'm so and so when i go oh hi my name's hilary because i forget that they know my name and they've said my name first and so i say my name after and i feel like how it feels weird that you know me but i don't know you and like you've got a head start on something and you've come up with ideas about me that i didn't get to participate in shaping yeah get used to that that unnerving feeling never goes away you're on the right track though by still forcing it back into the realm normal by saying i am hillary in response yeah that reminds people as well yeah yeah now question designed for a five ah i have we'll see vishnu is there a way or ways you can think of that i could be a better friend or supporter of you if so list as many as you're comfortable [Laughter] listening nice and i wrote that before the other question with the superlative [Music] um hmm that's a hard question i would do require me desiring something other than now [Laughter] you sometimes ask me where i want it to launch which is an equally question which pizza i mean there are there are no lingering [Music] things that i think of like gosh i wish mike would do this um yeah it's a tricky one for me um yeah that's what like for a five asking for asking for things for other people is sometimes not the thing you want to do [Laughter] because then what and then why oh you shit [Laughter] um yeah that's tricky i mean say mike i need you to i'm like i need from you god that more i hope to need i feel like we're teaching you how to speak right now it's okay you could just start we're giving you on-ramps to fill in the blank um [Music] but you'll notice in the architecture question i said are is there a way or ways which created a possible answer of no okay so you do have an out if it goes too far don't give me that i tried to create a challenging accommodating question for you yeah thank you uh i mean no i don't need anything i'm sure it would be when when we go on there are sometimes i would imagine that if i didn't call you we might not talk for that's true an indefinite amount of time [Laughter] but i like that on some level i like that you're just doing your thing how many relationships in your life are you the person that consistently is the one who reaches out very fast and how can we do better can we do better on that i don't know i mean again things are fine we talk enough yeah but if i ever drop off the face of the map it'd be nice if you noticed yes yeah or [Laughter] i always notice so if i actually reach out yes yes because i'll be like in my office and i'll be like boy i really love jenny i'm like she's probably busy so i'll just stay in my office so i don't bother her i'd be like i wouldn't have a day michael's having oh you know he's probably busy it's probably best if i just sit here and don't bother anybody if anyone's ever if you know me and you're like how come i've never heard from mike mccarthy it's because i assume if i reach out i will be an imposition on your life so i appreciate you saying that because i need an affirmative reminder that my basic existence is not offensive to the people who care most for me even when he comes over for like i'll find him skulking around the property like bringing in mike cables i'm like you can stop it hi [Music] he's like trying to sneak not bothering anybody like hey it's nice to see you [Laughter] that happened today [Music] who's that man skulking i just like i want all the mics set up before 10 so everyone doesn't have to worry about it but before that if they're having a good morning i don't want to fuck it up by being noticed you see what i'm dealing with [Laughter] i literally just like show up like at least once a week and just like pop in over here just make sure michael's alive don't i at least give not two to three times a week and just literally go open which i appreciate hey okay good i'm like i steve urkel it [Laughter] hey what you're doing you and tom are the kings which is another thing i like about you william yeah you're not afraid of exerting the fact that you exist which i find to be i'm serious truly magical you'll just be like hey everybody on the text thread i had a thought and opinion that i value enough to share with you and i'm like oh my god how is that possible it's amazing new literature's course william how to how to do life like william i'd watch i'd i'd sign up maybe it is for some people yeah the twos and nines of the world all right i don't have all my questions yet but i'll make it up as i get there hillary how do you picture your life at 40 years old i haven't really thought about that much at all because i feel like i'm really enjoying what life is like right now and i i hope all the things that i still enjoy are happening and i think i hope that the things that are happening then that i enjoy i don't i'm not really concerned yeah yeah and it's like i'll elephant i'll be finished my phd in a year like we might try and start having a family but i'm not really attached to any anything else being any particular way yeah so maybe just uh enjoying life as much as i do now that's pretty much it that's all i got okay i should have asked a better question well okay okay that's like asking you a question well it's great that's a great question yeah great answer and it's like asking you a question you're like i'm not attached to anything including an answer [Laughter] you made up the game i think so i'm working on a few book ideas um might want to have kids i'd like to i've traveled to some more places i haven't been yet i'd like to know some more things that i don't know now get some of them grills get a grill i thought at first you it was like you were pointing to your beard and i thought you were gonna say grow a beard that was where my head went immediately the last thing i expected here get some grills get some grills you know me 14 year old canadian woman that's right that's right man the world's really weird in 20 30. i can't totally picture it yep but that's that's okay because i'm picturing all y'all with pube teeth right now so [Laughter] yeah okay that's it that's my answer okay good uh william let's see what are you most afraid of oh is it too dark maybe not five to five never falling in love again oh wow wow and second to that i'd probably put um being alone though it's funny because i can i can be by myself very easily and very well uh but only to a certain extent so i think those two are connected um yeah i felt like i was in love once i don't know and then there's that and have it haven't felt it since and it's been a long time that was sad [Laughter] it's like you're it's funny lisa was like the other day she was like we were sitting on the porch she was like you okay what's wrong and i basically just said that he was like yeah i just wonder if i'll ever be in love again [Music] and that's the only thing i feel like is missing in my we should do a we should do a podcast on the four four fundamental or four ultimate concerns of existentialism meaninglessness ultimate aloneness death and freedom versus responsibility is like a human thing like ultimate aloneness feeling like we won't be known seen have have connection and the way that most matters to us is like an existential concern yeah all right um all right mike i don't have a question for you i gotta think of it here [Laughter] i tried let's make it a science question okay what about um what about science and empirical ways of thinking what's under that like why do you want to be correct about data um two reasons one i think a consensus on some shareable perspective on reality facilitates meaningfully influencing the probability of major events in our individual and collective existences vis-a-vis we can measure temperature and climate data over time and that can tell us that the average temperatures on the earth are warming even if individual weather events seem to say the opposite and two we can measure the carbon release beginning primarily in the industrial age and demonstrate that the climate is changing because of human economic activity and we can look at rates of species die off and forest distribution and things like that and see that this has ecological harm which means we can make policy and individual actions that begin to make the chance of existential climate events happening in the near future less likely so that's like what i would say what's the actual reason science and being correct matter to me uh is because it's how i found meaning as a kid with no friends um i couldn't climb the rope i couldn't run fast i couldn't say things that made people like me but uh probably when i really fell in love with science as when i read the star trek next generation technical manual and realized i could really easily describe to someone how warp drives work and that was a really complicated piece of source material that i could explain ever very easily and then i figured out i had a far better conceptual understanding of how digital computing worked and i could explain that to people as well so that's when i started helping uh teachers learn to use computers so they could teach students how to use computers and it gave me some sense of meaning and belonging when i didn't have any friends so you know science and jesus were my childhood friends well good game everybody we're some sad motherfuckers except for hillary why no she's disappointed motherfucker she's disturbed i'm just saying you had the most game-like question i did but now i'm thinking of all the questions i actually want to ask i'm happy to give hillary a bonus question for hillary okay what do people most misunderstand about you [Music] michael vishnu um people often interpret my um sort of lightness slash aloofness um as something other than that they often interpret it as like making fun or um being like arrogantly like seeing myself above other people or or in some sort of negative way rather than more like a really just like kind of laughing in the same way that if somebody farts or not you know like it's just it's just fun silly that's how the whole world is like this giant crazy playground to me um so everything's absurd and um i i mix too many things into there but i think a lot of times i'm kind of in my magical weird world and people misinterpret that as though um i in any number of ways but they do i think it's hard for them to to relate to that sometimes for people to relate to that sort of really loose hold on reality um and interpret it as though it's like something negative against them or that i'm thinking poorly of them or mocking something that's happening or it's really not that thank you william what's the same question oh new question what new question i'm trying to decide between how did you feel about making cosmos and how do you feel about releasing it something about that kind of your felt experience of this project i'll do the latter um i think anytime you release creative content that you've worked hard on there's a fear and a vulnerability to it and i think this record has a lot a lot more vulnerability than i've ever put into songs before so there's a fear about that being you know misunderstood or or people making it what they want to make it which is normal to do in one sense but also uh also to be honest like i i think a lot of like i compare myself a lot uh i can compare myself a lot but mostly like as a writer and wanting to be taken seriously as a writer and not wanting especially coming from work writing primarily worship songs it's like you're not always taken seriously you know as a writer or if you are it's like oh well you do that you know and so i think i've kind of been on this quest of proving to myself and you know other people around me that i'm i'm something to be taken seriously uh and i feel like that's i'm always trying to beat myself first and foremost i used to think of it like i want to like compete with everyone and i do want to compete with everyone it's the only area i'm actually kind of competitive uh is in that kind of craft mode um but yeah so my fear would you know would be people don't like the record or they misunderstand the record or it gets uh it's not taken seriously and i kind of want the record to be taken seriously so i'm kind of willing to do whatever i need to do to do it and whatever how much money i need to do to do that and i just want to best myself first and foremost but i also want to let you motherfuckers know i'm not here to play hey yeah there it is yeah okay mike mr mike mccarg last question here what you're hoping we forgot you i'd like to be a middle question okay but i'm still i this is last for a reason this is last for a reason how do you feel about being called science mike and if you could be called something else what would you be called i mean i'm at peace with the science mic thing i hated it at first only because i'm not a scientist and so people who don't know me and encounter my work assume they're like so what's what re what university are you working out of school of hard knocks i took night classes um but there's no question from a a search engine optimization standpoint science mike is a more googleable phrase than mike me charge you e whatever unintuitive vomit of scotch irish anglicanized consonants and vowels is my a little more yeah can we get more consonants in there more consonants and then just string vowels on the end that don't usually go together um so as i like i've come to appreciate for someone who's public work involves a lot of personal uh emotional processing and vulnerable sharing i like having just a little bit of a of a stage name to step into so when i walk out on stage and i'm going to be authentically vulnerable with a thousand people at a time which is not a normal human psychological move being able to go hey i'm science mike like that it is in some way freeing yeah um if i could be known as anything other than science mike that would be the asserting of a preference uh which would mean having one [Music] um i mean yeah my whole life is my dad was already mike so i was michael scott i moved out of the house i got a band it was already a mic in it so i was mike two literally for decades of my life like i just as soon as mike michael scott ran scores i was mike too wow as soon months after i finally shook the mic to label science mic yeah so i've never actually been known as mike in my entire life uh even when i at the agency where they didn't call me mike ii since my name was mike mccarg they said it sounded like r like a pirate and since i uh started an i.t they called me the apple pirate so uh i've never had like a preferred label it's always just been something that a community projects onto me and i accept [Laughter] so maybe mike mike but even mike is like the most common name for males in the united states for like 70 years straight maybe it sounds like he should like so it's not like an obscure name i tell you what i really wish um i and we'll do a podcast on this at some point i've been in a multi-year project of dismantling my personal whiteness because that's what's going to take to dismantle systemic whiteness and i have contemplated dropping the ue off the back of my name to go back to the scottish spelling m c h m-c-h-a-r-g um and uh that's too weird uh the first mccarrogan america was named alexander and his father was named uh alexander and then um the son who fled south after uh anger in the family because alexander mccarrigan america um remarried had a child with the second wife i think his first wife died but in his will he left everything to the son of the second wife except for five dollars which were split among the five mccarth brothers um i don't know i thought a lot about the names alexander and james like if i had a son i probably would have named him james alexander alexander james to more honor the lineage my family had before it was erased when we became white people instead of lowland scots northern irish wow good answer [Laughter] folks all right good game everybody see you later you