Speaker 1: You could be a skateboarder. You could be a punk rocker,
Speaker 1: or a hip hopper, or a yoga practitioner, even some
Speaker 1: of the words of suit and tie. And to me,
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with outside. It really is
Speaker 1: all about inside. Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think, ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good Wolfe thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest today is Chris Grosso, a
Speaker 1: public speaker, freelance writer, recovering addict, and best selling author
Speaker 1: of Indie Spiritualist, a nobleshit exploration of spirituality. Chris is
Speaker 1: also a touring musician and is currently working on a
Speaker 1: second book, doing two thousand fifteen. Here's the interview. Hi, Chris,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much for having
Speaker 1: me on. It's it's a pleasure. Yeah, it's great to
Speaker 1: get you on here. We uh we tried this a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago and had maybe our only technical
Speaker 1: difficulty in about forty interviews. So you uh, you drew
Speaker 1: the short straw there, but we we got through it,
Speaker 1: we did, and it's it's great to connect a few
Speaker 1: weeks later. So again, very happy to be here with you.
Speaker 1: So our podcast is based on the Terrible of Two Wolves,
Speaker 1: where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and
Speaker 1: he says, in life, there's two wolves inside of us.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you. Woh, well, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a great parable Um. You know, the first thing that
Speaker 1: comes to mind is I resonate with both wolves. You know, um,
Speaker 1: the majority not the majority, but a better part of
Speaker 1: my life is spent or was spent lost in active
Speaker 1: drug and alcohol addiction. So I was certainly feeding that wolf,
Speaker 1: you know, the one of fear, not so much the
Speaker 1: hatred or greed aspect, but definitely the fear. Um. So
Speaker 1: you know that that was that was the wolf that
Speaker 1: that resonated for me. The thing was that I also
Speaker 1: had periods of sobriety um In in that time it
Speaker 1: was probably about maybe twelve or more years that I
Speaker 1: was really a fall on addict. But the thing was
Speaker 1: during that time I would get these periody periods of sobriety,
Speaker 1: which were often a year, maybe even a little more.
Speaker 1: And during that time I was feeding the other wolf,
Speaker 1: you know, the good wolf and the one that was
Speaker 1: healthier in nature. Um, but feeding it, I guess metaphorically
Speaker 1: kind of processed foods rather than organic. And so you you,
Speaker 1: as you said, spent a lot of your life and
Speaker 1: active addiction, you clearly had an interest in spiritual things
Speaker 1: throughout that period. You got sober, and then you started
Speaker 1: your website called The Indie Spiritualist, which then has become
Speaker 1: a book. What is an Indie Spiritualist for our listeners? Okay,
Speaker 1: so Indie spiritualism it ended up. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of people actually look at me and they see a
Speaker 1: heavily tattooed person with big holes in their ears, and
Speaker 1: they often associate that with with the indie spiritual vibe.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, but that really, for me
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with it. Um. It really is
Speaker 1: more about people that are looking into their hearts and
Speaker 1: honoring you know what, what's in there, honoring their truth.
Speaker 1: And you could be a skateboarder, you could be a
Speaker 1: punk rocker, or a hip hopper, or a yoga practitioner. Um.
Speaker 1: Even some of the wards of suit and tie and
Speaker 1: you know has a nine job. It's to me, it
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with outsides. It really is all
Speaker 1: about insides and and I think that's something that's resonated
Speaker 1: with a lot of people because it's a pretty unifying theme.
Speaker 1: When did you start the Indie Spiritualist website? How long
Speaker 1: ago was that? I think it was in roughly two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, um two, somewhere in that area. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, about about four years ago. I would say, Okay,
Speaker 1: you've interviewed quite a quite a cast of characters through there.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot of great interviews in there. Yeah, thanks,
Speaker 1: well thanks. I you know. The weird thing was, especially
Speaker 1: in the beginning, I don't know how I was getting
Speaker 1: approved for these interviews. My friend Jessica, who did a
Speaker 1: show that just ended last year. It was a great
Speaker 1: radio show called Where's My Guru? And um, she would
Speaker 1: interview some really wonderful spiritual teachers as well, and people
Speaker 1: would ask her, and people have asked me separately, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you get to interview these people? And we
Speaker 1: both had the same answer, which was just simply we
Speaker 1: asked exactly you know, right, if you just have to
Speaker 1: ask and put out there. I definitely haven't interviewed everyone
Speaker 1: I've hoped to. But um, but like I was saying,
Speaker 1: especially in the beginning, I remember just shortly after I
Speaker 1: started the website. UM, I think it was my second
Speaker 1: or third interviews were both on a day I went
Speaker 1: up to Worcester, Massachusetts, and I had scheduled Danny Trejo,
Speaker 1: who's the actor from Machete and you know a million
Speaker 1: other movies. Um, and George Romero, who's the director for
Speaker 1: A Night of the Living Dead, and you know, all
Speaker 1: those incredible zombie films, and I got to interview them
Speaker 1: back to back in person. They were doing a horror
Speaker 1: convention up in Worcester, mass And I was so nervous.
Speaker 1: I remember, just like, you know, because it was I'd
Speaker 1: been interviewing people for a while, but I had taken
Speaker 1: a very very long break and um and most of
Speaker 1: the interviews I had been getting back into were over
Speaker 1: the phone, but these were in person, and uh. And
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, like, how I just started this website.
Speaker 1: How am I able to interview these people? And again,
Speaker 1: you know, really I asked and it came through. And
Speaker 1: the Danny Trejo thing, just a quick funny story I
Speaker 1: haven't told us a long time, but um, not I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about it came to mind. Was we we did
Speaker 1: it in an Uno pizzeria and we were sitting there
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, kind of nervous, but kind
Speaker 1: of also like, wow, this is Danny Trio. I love
Speaker 1: this dude. And uh, and so I was letting me know,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm probably not gonna ask them most of
Speaker 1: the same questions He's used to I like to do
Speaker 1: things a little different. And he looked at me and
Speaker 1: he's like, all right, that's cool, no problem. He's like,
Speaker 1: and if I don't like the questions, and we had
Speaker 1: silver worth the table and steak knats. He picks up
Speaker 1: the steak knife and he jokingly like motions that he's
Speaker 1: going to stab me. So I'm like, and the one hand,
Speaker 1: um laughing. But on the other hand, I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is Danny Trio, and you know, maybe he could really
Speaker 1: stab me. But it went amazing and U and that
Speaker 1: was an incredible experience because we were supposed to only
Speaker 1: have fifteen minutes and we totally hit it off and
Speaker 1: we ended up doing like an hour long interview and
Speaker 1: it was just really awesome. So anyway, sorry to get
Speaker 1: off on the tangent, but that was just a really
Speaker 1: fun memory. No, that's a that's a great story. And
Speaker 1: I think that that idea of just asking is so
Speaker 1: relevant in general to just because I think it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that a lot of people we just
Speaker 1: don't ask. We tend to not ask, whether it's fear
Speaker 1: of rejection or just not thinking about it, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of been the way with us. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: we've started to have some success as of late, but
Speaker 1: when we started, it was just you know, how many
Speaker 1: podcasts are out there, there's no end to them and
Speaker 1: U and but you just ask people and yeah, I
Speaker 1: get a lot of no answers or nos, and but
Speaker 1: I get enough yes is that are that are good?
Speaker 1: And we just keep going. Yeah. And I think with
Speaker 1: people like yourself and your program and myself and what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, when when you're doing it from a place
Speaker 1: of integrity and passion, you know, and trying to make
Speaker 1: an impact in the world, that that's what matters most.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't mean to speak for you, but
Speaker 1: it sounds like you might share that in common where
Speaker 1: it's okay that people say, no, you're not doing it only,
Speaker 1: you know, to get X amount of views and whatever
Speaker 1: else may come from that. You're doing it because for
Speaker 1: the love you know. I know it sounds a little cliche,
Speaker 1: but you know, I believe that for me at least,
Speaker 1: it's a very sincere truth. And so when you get
Speaker 1: those notes, it's okay. You know, you get notes, and
Speaker 1: then you move on and you get to interview other
Speaker 1: people that um that not only impact you, but you know,
Speaker 1: will impact your listeners hopefully, and and that in and
Speaker 1: of itself is really what makes it worth it. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So one of the questions that I ask guests from
Speaker 1: time to time, and it's something I'm always curious about,
Speaker 1: is what does the word spirituality mean to you? So
Speaker 1: you use it in your title, it's, uh, it's a
Speaker 1: fairly nebulous word, but I'm kind of curious what it
Speaker 1: means to you. Yeah, you know, and it's it's funny,
Speaker 1: asset because as we were talking before we started the interview,
Speaker 1: I'm working on my second book right now and and
Speaker 1: actually talk like a bit about spirituality because it's such
Speaker 1: an open ended broad word. Um. And for me, just
Speaker 1: I simply say, it's about waking up, you know, I
Speaker 1: just do it really easy. It's about waking up to
Speaker 1: the fact that there are deeper truths happening than what
Speaker 1: most of us that have been conditioned, you know, to
Speaker 1: believe as an ultimate truth is physical, manifest world, which
Speaker 1: is certain me part of the truth. But there's another
Speaker 1: side of the truth, which you know, in Buddhism they
Speaker 1: would call it ultimate or absolute reality, the unmanifest, the
Speaker 1: dharma kayah or in mystic Christianity, the Godhead. Um. But
Speaker 1: but that's what it is to me. It's about just
Speaker 1: waking up to these deeper truths in our lives. You know,
Speaker 1: that that there's more than needs the eye in life. Um.
Speaker 1: But one thing I always tell people when I'm speaking
Speaker 1: or doing workshops or even writing, is that that's my experience.
Speaker 1: You know. I always encourage people to become their own
Speaker 1: spiritual scientists, you know, to find out what spirituality truly
Speaker 1: is for them, you know, because we are the only
Speaker 1: ones that will ever know what's really happening inside of us.
Speaker 1: You know, we're the only ones that ever feel what
Speaker 1: we're feeling. I can tell you what I'm feeling, but
Speaker 1: you know you're not going to experience it. So I
Speaker 1: think it's important to learn from those who walked the
Speaker 1: path before us, and at least in the traditions that
Speaker 1: resonate for us. Um. But to really honor our internal
Speaker 1: guidance and what that's telling us from where that's leading us. Well.
Speaker 1: That said, I was just having coffee a few weeks
Speaker 1: ago with someone named Chris Stedman, and he's an atheist.
Speaker 1: He's the humanist chaplain down at Yale University and he
Speaker 1: is an a phenomenal writer and author of a book
Speaker 1: called Statheist, and the book is about finding common ground
Speaker 1: with religious believers are spiritual people. And I will tell
Speaker 1: you that Chris is one of the most spiritual dudes
Speaker 1: I have had the pleasure of chatting with recently. And
Speaker 1: he would probably cringe it that because I know he's
Speaker 1: not a fan of that word, and that's cool to me.
Speaker 1: Words are kind of you know, we get caught up
Speaker 1: in the semantics of them. I I don't know, like
Speaker 1: you know, God is a very loaded word for people.
Speaker 1: For me, it's not, but I understand for a lot
Speaker 1: of people it is. UM. But you know, here's Chris,
Speaker 1: an atheist who has no in triest in you, organized
Speaker 1: religion or most spirituality, though he did UH study. I
Speaker 1: think some kind of Zen was his undergraduate study. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know he's concerned about how can we come
Speaker 1: together as humanity to make things better than this planet?
Speaker 1: You know, how can we serve one another? Where are
Speaker 1: um what unifies us rather than sets us apart? And
Speaker 1: that's a very spiritual thing to me. So again, you know,
Speaker 1: spirituality is whatever we make of it. And uh, and
Speaker 1: for me, it's just just waking up. I like that
Speaker 1: the just waking up piece. That's a that's a good one.
Speaker 1: The one I've been using is one one of our
Speaker 1: earlier guests had, Kevin Griffin, and he said it was
Speaker 1: spirituality is just the realization that happiness comes from the inside,
Speaker 1: which I was like, that's a really that's a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty simple and straightforward approach to So I like that one. Also.
Speaker 1: So you're musician and you you love music. You some
Speaker 1: of your music is available in your in your book
Speaker 1: and online, and you you interview musicians and you tell
Speaker 1: a story about a near mystical experience that you had,
Speaker 1: um while watching a particular rock band. Can you can
Speaker 1: you tell us that story that's the Van Halen was
Speaker 1: I think it's that. Yeah, Okay, so um yeah, that
Speaker 1: was just four years ago. My brother and I had
Speaker 1: gotten free tickets I think my parents did UM to
Speaker 1: a Van Halen concert out here and they had just
Speaker 1: reunited with David Lee Roth, which I was super excited about. Um,
Speaker 1: so you know, we have free tickets and we're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go check it out. And so we went and
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun, and I was sober
Speaker 1: at the time, so I just clear that up. But
Speaker 1: there was a point where the band left the stage
Speaker 1: and Eddie Van Halen was doing like this incredible just
Speaker 1: twenty minute guitar solo by himself, and I was just
Speaker 1: so captivated by it. Um. It became an incredibly transcendental
Speaker 1: experience for me. UM. I, you know, I had had
Speaker 1: similar experiences to this and meditation leading up to it,
Speaker 1: but never one. UM really just in a complete waking state,
Speaker 1: and especially with so many people around me and just
Speaker 1: a very loud environment. But you know, I it was
Speaker 1: it's hard to put into words, but I mean it
Speaker 1: was basically everything tuned out. All I could hear was
Speaker 1: his guitar, Like the noise of the audience around me
Speaker 1: was gone, and it was just note for note what
Speaker 1: he was playing, and I was just locked in on
Speaker 1: his fingers moving on his fret board. And then it
Speaker 1: was kind of like even that started to fade away.
Speaker 1: And at that point, I, you know, I was standing
Speaker 1: there and I literally my body started to let go
Speaker 1: of itself, and and that's what kind of snapped me
Speaker 1: out of it, because I was I caught myself starting
Speaker 1: to fall into the row of seats, in of me,
Speaker 1: and it was I like, I remember, like seb, I've
Speaker 1: been feeling a little embarrassed, but I looked around and
Speaker 1: you know, nobody knows because everyone else was just completely
Speaker 1: enthralled in this ridiculous solo he was doing. But you know,
Speaker 1: I write about that in the book because part of
Speaker 1: what I talk about is that a lot of people
Speaker 1: have a limited kind of perspective on what spirituality is
Speaker 1: supposed to be, what it's supposed to sound like and
Speaker 1: look like. And um, and I personally, I'm a firm
Speaker 1: believer based on direct experience in numerous different occasions that
Speaker 1: if we're open to it, you know, we're able to
Speaker 1: have these experiences at all time. It's not about the
Speaker 1: experience per se. But you know, I think that's just
Speaker 1: been nice little motivator that keeps us going on the path,
Speaker 1: lets us know that we're on the right track, that
Speaker 1: that we do have some of these experiences. But again,
Speaker 1: it's not about them, it's just, you know, they're a
Speaker 1: nice side side effect. We could say that, Um, that
Speaker 1: experience you described at the Van Halen concert, that sort
Speaker 1: of overall rapture overtakes my my co host here when
Speaker 1: he hears air supply so UM nice. So you UM,
Speaker 1: you have a phrase. I think it might be one
Speaker 1: of the chapters in the book called no no Mud,
Speaker 1: no Lotus. That's actually UM. I saved the hell out
Speaker 1: of that one. UM. I hope I acknowledged it. But
Speaker 1: um tick not ham. That's just saying. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it originated with him, but that's where I became
Speaker 1: familiar with it. You know, he often uses that in
Speaker 1: his Dharmatox No Mud, no lotus um. And that's something
Speaker 1: that deeply resonated for me, you know, in my own life,
Speaker 1: having gone through the cycles of addiction I did, but
Speaker 1: recognizing that it was similar to the lotus blossoming through
Speaker 1: the mud. You know, that's where a lot of the
Speaker 1: the grists for our spiritual mill comes from, you know,
Speaker 1: is the adverse times in our lives. You know, at
Speaker 1: the times it really cause us to step back and
Speaker 1: reevaluate things. UM. I guess I showly speak for myself,
Speaker 1: but you know that does seem to be a pretty
Speaker 1: recurring theme and a lot of people on the spiritual path.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's these experiences that for me, it
Speaker 1: inspired me to Again. It was slow in the beginning
Speaker 1: because I was only kind of skimming the service, but
Speaker 1: later on to really start, um, you know, looking at
Speaker 1: my heart and touching it and allowing myself to get
Speaker 1: raw you know in the process. And it's not it's
Speaker 1: not easy work, but that was the work that I
Speaker 1: realized I haven't gone through these mud experiences that I
Speaker 1: really needed to do in order to begin sincerely healing
Speaker 1: in my life and to not only cultivate compassion for others,
Speaker 1: but to really start with myself and to learn to
Speaker 1: love myself more so that I could truly offer that
Speaker 1: to other people. So, yeah, it was through the mud experiences. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I always I always think that's a great point to make,
Speaker 1: is that none of the great experiences that we have
Speaker 1: are the people that we become. It tends to not
Speaker 1: be in spite of the problems we have, but because
Speaker 1: of them, yes, right right, And and that you know
Speaker 1: that The other thing too is that, um, a lot
Speaker 1: of people look down or not down, but you know,
Speaker 1: we're very averse to the pain and suffering in life.
Speaker 1: And I understand that it's not fun. But again, you know,
Speaker 1: these can be our our great teachers, the catalysts that
Speaker 1: really tell us further in our spiritual path. And there's
Speaker 1: a quote from MDAs that I absolutely love. Um, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget the first time I read it. It was
Speaker 1: very deeply impactful for me. And he he writes that
Speaker 1: suffering is the standpaper of our incarnations. It does its
Speaker 1: job of shaping us. And you know, that came to
Speaker 1: me in my life years ago at a time I
Speaker 1: really needed to read it because I was severely depressed.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that magically made everything better, but
Speaker 1: it was a time where you know, it's like, if
Speaker 1: if all this you know existence, for me at least
Speaker 1: it was just about pain and suffering, then what's the
Speaker 1: point and uh, And reading that really helped to shed
Speaker 1: a different light on it for me. So and that
Speaker 1: kind of opened, um, some of the cracks that were
Speaker 1: already in my heart armor and and has gone on
Speaker 1: to continue opening and widening throughout the years since. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, I think it when you're in the midst
Speaker 1: of it, sometimes that idea said in the wrong way
Speaker 1: can be very patronizing, like oh just shut up, um,
Speaker 1: but said in the right way can also be very
Speaker 1: hopeful and inspiring. And um, I just I love that phrase.
Speaker 1: No mud, no lotus because it just does remind me
Speaker 1: that I can't bypass I have it. I think we
Speaker 1: all do have a desire to just always be happy.
Speaker 1: Which there's a ton of problems with that way of thinking,
Speaker 1: but but one of them is if I was always happy,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I wouldn't have the things that caused me
Speaker 1: to to grow and to um ultimately experienced life more fully.
Speaker 1: Absolutely that that's that's so perfect. And act say it
Speaker 1: was just reading a a quote from from Wilke yesterday,
Speaker 1: I think it was. And it was because they let
Speaker 1: everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going.
Speaker 1: No feeling is final, you know, so as we're going
Speaker 1: through that mud, and and you know, our natural tendency,
Speaker 1: or at least mine was, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of humanity shares us is to not you know, face
Speaker 1: the pain and not not look at it, you know,
Speaker 1: to For me, I would turn to drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1: For others they turned to shopping or food or sex
Speaker 1: and so on. Air supply of course, but you know,
Speaker 1: when we're not really looking at it, we're just keeping
Speaker 1: ourselves locked in this perpetual cycle is more of the same.
Speaker 1: So it's really um cultivating that compassion for ourselves and
Speaker 1: learning to touch those places, you know, become directly intimate
Speaker 1: with life and all of this ups and downs. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that we were able, I believe, to begin
Speaker 1: to more skillfully work with those difficult times and and
Speaker 1: face them. And it's not an easy thing, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's worth it. The pain that may come up
Speaker 1: from old wreckage of our past, that's there no matter what.
Speaker 1: So it's up to us if we want to keep,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing it down, or you know, start to
Speaker 1: allow it to come up when it when it does,
Speaker 1: and and work through it and be there with it
Speaker 1: and and hold it again. Not fun, But what else
Speaker 1: are we going to do? You know? I guess these answers. Yes,
Speaker 1: keep suppressing it, but again it's just it's still there.
Speaker 1: It's not going anywhere, right yea. It finds a way,
Speaker 1: finds a way out somewhere, right. Yes. Absolutely. You have
Speaker 1: a series on your website called ten Questions that you
Speaker 1: ask a variety of people, So I thought it would
Speaker 1: be fun to turn some of those back on you.
Speaker 1: Well played, sir, Well played? Um, So who or what
Speaker 1: do you attribute the person you are today to? God?
Speaker 1: I haven't done one of those interviews and literally it's
Speaker 1: been like two years. So okay, let's see who do
Speaker 1: I treat you the person I am today? Two? Um,
Speaker 1: you know the cliche quick answer. You know, actually, no
Speaker 1: one's ever asked me these so um so really well done,
Speaker 1: Like no one's ever turned the table on me. So
Speaker 1: I've literally never really I mean I did think about
Speaker 1: him when I was writing them, but I have not
Speaker 1: gone back and revisited them. So you know the first
Speaker 1: thing that comes to mind is really my my parents
Speaker 1: and my brother. Um. I have been so blessed to
Speaker 1: have you know, this supportive family network in my life.
Speaker 1: And you know, my parents are still together to this day,
Speaker 1: which I know is rare for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you know, to have not gotten divorced. Um. And you
Speaker 1: know a big thing for me about still having them
Speaker 1: in my life is that, you know, I know so
Speaker 1: many people that have gone through what I've gone through,
Speaker 1: or not even as bad with addiction and just done
Speaker 1: pretty bad things in our life, and you know, their
Speaker 1: family turns their back on them and is done with them.
Speaker 1: And my parents never did that. I Mean, there was
Speaker 1: time they had to uh show tough love, but they
Speaker 1: never completely wrote me off. And and that is something
Speaker 1: that's really huge to me and and it's very inspiring.
Speaker 1: And I think that was one of my great teachers
Speaker 1: regarding compassion in my life was that, you know, they
Speaker 1: didn't completely write me off. In same with my brother,
Speaker 1: you know, because I put them through so much pain
Speaker 1: and suffering in their lives, you know, they having for
Speaker 1: them having to see me, like the number of times
Speaker 1: I would be in the emergency room strapped down, UM,
Speaker 1: totally incoherent. UM. I had a seizure in front of
Speaker 1: my parents once. I was out in my driveway black
Speaker 1: out drunk at their house one time, and I had
Speaker 1: a bottle of well, yeah, I know, I was inside
Speaker 1: their house blackout drunk, had a bottle of kolon a pin,
Speaker 1: and my dad confiscated it because the colonic pins of
Speaker 1: benzo diazepine that you mix it with alcohol, it's just
Speaker 1: bad news all around. And they knew that, UM. And
Speaker 1: so I took a big kitchen knife out of the
Speaker 1: drawer and went out into the driveway holding it to
Speaker 1: my throat, threatening to kill myself if they didn't give
Speaker 1: the pills back to me. So, I mean, these are
Speaker 1: just like some of the things I put them through,
Speaker 1: and you know, here we are years later and with
Speaker 1: a very strong relationship and bond and even after things
Speaker 1: like that, they never turned their back on me, So
Speaker 1: that that was that was really big. Of course, there's
Speaker 1: many other things, but I think that's probably the biggest
Speaker 1: to be honesty, What are some of the musicians and
Speaker 1: albums that have impacted your life and in what way?
Speaker 1: And I'm going to qualify that with all time. And
Speaker 1: then I'm always interested in what people are into recently,
Speaker 1: sure boy, all time. The first one that comes to
Speaker 1: mind is Johnny Cash. He's a He's a big one
Speaker 1: for me. Um, I have a big old Cash tattoo
Speaker 1: in my arm. I went out with a friend. We
Speaker 1: took a road trip to visit his grave out in
Speaker 1: Hendersonville shortly after he died, and we visited his grave
Speaker 1: with his very next to his wife June. So just
Speaker 1: something about him and is just badass three and his
Speaker 1: rawness has been Um, I don't big for me in
Speaker 1: my life, but man, there's so many others. I think
Speaker 1: I've had a huge passion for punk and hardcore music
Speaker 1: and underground hip hop, um obscure bands that I'm sure
Speaker 1: most of your listeners won't know, but bands like Dead
Speaker 1: Guy and blood Let and Isis and Neurosis in the punk, hardcore,
Speaker 1: drone doomy scene, they've been huge for me. Hip hop wise,
Speaker 1: I am a huge fan of bands or groups like
Speaker 1: Tripical Quest, Public Enemy, de La Soul, Cannibal Ox, Hieroglyphics,
Speaker 1: that Whole Crew with Della Punky Ala Sapien, and Souls
Speaker 1: of Mischief. Um. But yeah, then also like Texas is
Speaker 1: the Reason and uh Sam I am in jawbox. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm super just eclectic towns band Zant. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna We're gonna get off this interview,
Speaker 1: and of course I'll think of like a hundred bands
Speaker 1: that I wish I named, But I'll get emails for
Speaker 1: the next three weeks from you, like and I forgot
Speaker 1: so and so, and I need you to call me
Speaker 1: back and recorded so we can stub it in there.
Speaker 1: But no, yeah, I just I'm a lover of music
Speaker 1: and you know, and most genres. So um yeah. As
Speaker 1: far as recent though, actually right before you called, I
Speaker 1: had saw that Stills a Mischief, who's a hip hop
Speaker 1: group just their album came out today and it's streaming
Speaker 1: on USA today and I was listening to it blown away. Um,
Speaker 1: the state of affairs and hip hop is a mess,
Speaker 1: which I think is no secret to real hip hop fans.
Speaker 1: But listening to this album like gave me such faith
Speaker 1: again in hip hop. It's it's got a real laid back,
Speaker 1: old school vibe. It's it's exactly what I think hip
Speaker 1: hop me today. So, um, I was really really excited
Speaker 1: and I'm really excited about that. Uh. And then there's
Speaker 1: I don't know, Converge. I'm always listening to them, Jef Heaven,
Speaker 1: they just released a new song their albums Sunday there
Speaker 1: was phenomenal and they just had a new track amount
Speaker 1: I think this week that's great. And well it's the
Speaker 1: new Earth album is fantastic and ah yeah, I think
Speaker 1: those are a few. Um home, I'm listening to them
Speaker 1: a lot, insane. Um, I haven't heard that the name
Speaker 1: in a while? Which which name? Oh yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: I thought of that because I had I run probably
Speaker 1: about five or six times a weekend. They often come
Speaker 1: up on my iPod shuffle. I'm a big fan of there.
Speaker 1: So you know, bads like that in Helmet and Melvin
Speaker 1: and you know, old school stuff like that. It's funny,
Speaker 1: you know, my my iPod still consists of like so
Speaker 1: much of the music I was listening to in high school.
Speaker 1: That's still predominantly what I listened to these days. Um,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of new new groups, not that
Speaker 1: I don't like them. I just I get new albums
Speaker 1: from bands that I liked that are still together. But
Speaker 1: I just am so busy with things these days. It's
Speaker 1: hard to set aside enough time to really explore new stuff.
Speaker 1: So luckily have a few friends who would turn me
Speaker 1: onto things and and I'm really grateful for that. So
Speaker 1: otherwise I would just I'd still be listening to Primus
Speaker 1: and I don't know stuff like that all the time.
Speaker 1: So what does the human experience mean to you? You know,
Speaker 1: terror and beauty and everything and nothing all at once.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really the more I get in't I've
Speaker 1: gotten into Nagarjina's two truths about the absolute reality and
Speaker 1: the relative reality, and you know that they're both simultaneously existing, Um,
Speaker 1: the manifest world and the unmanifest and and having experienced both, um,
Speaker 1: it's everything and it's nothing. And I know that's like
Speaker 1: one of those vague WI kind of answers. So if
Speaker 1: any listeners are listening, like yeah, after this guy, like
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you, after me. Sure, But that's
Speaker 1: my my real, real answer, Like it really is. It's
Speaker 1: it's incredible and it's terrifying, and and it's nothing. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I think about like all
Speaker 1: of the thoughts and emotions and experiences that have come
Speaker 1: and gone in my life and the countless ones I'm
Speaker 1: sure that are still yet to happen. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: then there's that ever subtle, pervading I am awareness underlying
Speaker 1: all of it, and that's never changed, you know, since
Speaker 1: I was born. It's it's the same sense of being
Speaker 1: of business right now as it was when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, you know, playing soccer, though I wasn't really
Speaker 1: aware of it then, you know, but then some punk
Speaker 1: skateboarding in high school who still wasn't really aware of it.
Speaker 1: But it was the same then as it is now,
Speaker 1: as it will be until the day I die, and
Speaker 1: then you know, and then it continues on, so everything
Speaker 1: and nothing. The question you ask is, and I think
Speaker 1: it's I'm just curious. Um. As a recovering addict and
Speaker 1: alcoholic It's an interesting question. I think you ask people
Speaker 1: what they're thought is on mind altering drugs, and I
Speaker 1: remembering correctly, yeah, right, exactly was I I don't remember verbatim,
Speaker 1: but that's yes, that was the core of it, correct
Speaker 1: what Because I asked that, UM, and I liked asking
Speaker 1: that from people who have both you know, suffered from
Speaker 1: addiction and who haven't UM in my life. And I
Speaker 1: know this ruffles feathers sometimes when I say it with
Speaker 1: those who are in recovery, but I don't look at
Speaker 1: all of my past experiences as as negative with with
Speaker 1: drugs or alcohol. And I still have friends that are
Speaker 1: able to drink or to do certain drugs and it
Speaker 1: doesn't impact our life at all. They're responsible, they're able
Speaker 1: to do it in a in a manner that UM,
Speaker 1: you know, does not destroy their lives. And to them,
Speaker 1: I say, awesome, that's great, Like to each their own.
Speaker 1: I thoroughly believe that in my life. I look back
Speaker 1: and it wasn't the alcohol. I mean, that was my
Speaker 1: main drug of choice, and that just you know, always
Speaker 1: got terrible and ended up and just awful circumstances. But
Speaker 1: I look back at, you know, the hundreds of acid
Speaker 1: and mushroom trips that I took when I was younger,
Speaker 1: and I know that those played a role in expanding
Speaker 1: my consciousness. I was not doing it with that intention,
Speaker 1: you know. I was doing it just because it was
Speaker 1: weird and I loved the weird things. Um, but it
Speaker 1: would be ridiculous for me to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: that did not have an impact on on opening my mind. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I think to some of the deeper truths
Speaker 1: in life, and I'm not saying that doing those things
Speaker 1: are necessary to awaken to that, but I honored that
Speaker 1: that was part of my path. And the funny thing
Speaker 1: about that is, Uh, the one time, the very last
Speaker 1: time I ever took any sort of hallucinogen. I think
Speaker 1: this was back in two five or two thousand six maybe,
Speaker 1: Uh it was. I took an eighth of mushrooms by myself,
Speaker 1: and it was a Sunday afternoon and I was really
Speaker 1: into Ramdas at the time, and um, reading be here
Speaker 1: now for like the twelfth time or whatever, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to take these and I'm going
Speaker 1: to see the face of God and it is going
Speaker 1: to be incredible. And I took them and it was
Speaker 1: just a terrifying experience that resulted in me, like three
Speaker 1: or four hours into it, calling my parents, who lived
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes away. I don't know, I didn't call friends.
Speaker 1: I just called my parents and I told them, you know,
Speaker 1: I was tripping on mushrooms. I need them to come
Speaker 1: get me. And my parents they didn't know what that was.
Speaker 1: So my mom asked, should we call an ambulance and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, god, no, get me. And so they,
Speaker 1: you know, they got to my apartment like half an
Speaker 1: hour later, and it was you know, like eight, no, no,
Speaker 1: probably seven o'clock, and I remember I could barely even talk.
Speaker 1: I was I was just so gone at this point.
Speaker 1: And they took me back to their house and I
Speaker 1: handed my mom my copy of Be Here Now. I'm like, here,
Speaker 1: maybe this will explain it. And we were walking to
Speaker 1: the car from my apartment. I remember looking up to
Speaker 1: the sky and just seeing all the stars and I
Speaker 1: don't look at my parents, and I just all I
Speaker 1: could say was everything is too real and that was it.
Speaker 1: Like they were not impressed, but they brought me back
Speaker 1: to their house and I remember the Simpsons were on
Speaker 1: because it was a Sunday night, So that kind of
Speaker 1: started to bring me back down. And next morning I
Speaker 1: came downstairs and my mom had read the whole thing
Speaker 1: of be here Now and she still was not impressed.
Speaker 1: She gave it back and didn't understand, not get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh God, bless her soul, though for again never turned
Speaker 1: her back on me. And here I am today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great story. So I think we are near
Speaker 1: the end of our time here. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: would want to leave the listeners with that we haven't
Speaker 1: covered or last thoughts on the theme? Yeah? No, I
Speaker 1: I really appreciate your time, um, and and I think
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing is tremendous, so I commend
Speaker 1: you for that, and and I I'm glad that you're
Speaker 1: carrying on and you know, spreading the good word. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, nothing on on my end. I I'm
Speaker 1: doing what I'm doing. If anyone cares to check out
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, the Indie Spirituals dot com is my
Speaker 1: website and from there you can find me on social
Speaker 1: media and whatnot. But that is the only shameless plug
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you guys and bother you with.
Speaker 1: But sincerely thank you so much for your time. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it and really respect what you guys are doing. Oh,
Speaker 1: you're welcome, and we'll definitely have links to your site
Speaker 1: and your social media stuff up on our show notes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: It's been a really enjoyable conversation. Yeah, the feeling is mutual.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. All right, take care. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about Chris Grosso and this podcast at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net. Slash Gros