Who told you go to therapy, or did you see somebody?

I think I just knew it was time. And I'm also surrounded by comedians and writers all day, so I'm surrounded by.

People obsessed with deeply wounded and deeply funny.

Deeply wounded, deeply funny.

Hi. Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. With me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes on this show, we talk to a lot of unique individuals, but I can say that there's no one quite like today's guest. Eric Andre is a comedian, an actor, a tv host, musician, probably more. You might have seen one of his pranks on YouTube or the Eric Andre show on Adult Swim, which he's been the creator and host of for six seasons. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to sit down with him. I was terrified I was going to be pranked. It turned out all right, though. You'll see. Anyway, Eric is also the star of a hidden camera comedy movie that made me absolutely cringe with joy, if that's possible. It's called bad Trip, and it's on Netflix. You need to check it out. I so enjoyed talking to Eric. I found him vulnerable and incredibly willing to be able to share some of the trauma that's been part of his life. Ladies and gentlemen, Eric Andre.

You look great.

I feel good.

You're handsome.

I'm handsome.

What's your secret? I have pickled, you know, jelly Belly.

If you make it to 75, people just treat you with so much respect. I think they're afraid you may crack and break or something, but. I've reached the Mister Danson stage.

Okay, so Noah Zempic.

No.

Oh, should we start it? So we start doing it.

Yeah. What is ozempic?

You take it and it. And it. And it. Cravings, right?

Oh, it's not for the brain. It's.

No, it's for the belly.

Or the belly.

It's for the belly. But you're a tall guy, so you.

No one has ever paid me to take my clothes off. You make a fortune.

Well, I was your clothes off. I was about to. I wouldn't say a fortune. First of all, a fortune. I make $300 a week and say, second of all, I will pay you $5 right now to get completely nude.

Well, guess what? They paid me $15 to never get.

Nudes in front of me. That's a dollar amount I can't match.

You haven't done that thing where you look at your skin and you go, what the fuck happened? And it happens in about three or four years very quickly, where it's just very sad. Very sad.

No, no, no.

Yeah. Why am I doing this to myself?

I don't, I don't know. You're beating yourself up.

Let me, let me take this back and say, because I watched for, at 08:00 I got up and watched bad trip. I apologize for missing it when it first.

No, it's okay. I'm surprised.

Brilliant.

I'm surprised I'm here and you watched anything that I've ever done.

It is brilliant.

Thank you.

Truly more in a positive state of mind, ironically, when people are attacking me, because I'm like, well, that's something to watch. But it doesn't always mean. Just because a Marx reaction is violent doesn't always equate to comedy. Sometimes it's just dark. Sometimes it's just like, there are scenes in the movie, there's one guy was going to break a bottle over my head, and we used a little bit at the bar. Yeah, we used a little bit just.As he started to use a little.Bit of him in the credit scroll. But he was really intense and gnarly, and it was in the body of the movie, and it just was it was just. It never got a laugh at any of the test screenings, and we just cut it. Sometimes it's just too, like, it's more ish than laugh out loud. So it doesn't always equate, but at least, you know, you get.People are reacting and you got to see the guy with the knife, I do believe at the. In the credit scroll where you get. When he saw him realize what was going on, or am I making that up?I don't know if we showed his full reveal, the knife guy, we showed the guy that was going to break a bottle over me.Right. But.Or whatever he was going to do, he's going to punch me or something. But I do remember he took a shot when he decided, I need to punch this guy. He did do a shot of Jim Beam, and he got up and that's what I yelled, popcorn.This is going bad. Yeah. I can't remember how you cut out of it, but it was clearly a good time to cut out.It was a good time, yeah. I think I was urinating next to him. It wasn't real urine, but he.You can understand why someone might get pissed off of you.He's a little bit upset.Did you ever get anxiety during and the filming of that?Because every day.Really. Because the real I find usually my anxiety is it's not really based on something real. It's not like, it's not like it's kind of both.I have, like, this generalized anxiety that's based on just fiction and my overactive brain. And then I have, like, real fear, like, oh, I might get punched during this bit, which is like a sub oprah. You only have one? You only have one take. A lot of times the. I think the hanging off the roof thing, we only had one take. The honky tonk, the cowboy bar, we only had one take. So you spent all this time and money and energy and writing.But that's not anxiety to my mind, that's fear. That's concern. That's real. You should be fearful of this. Right.That's true.For me, anxiety usually is like, it's.Your mind looking for trouble.It's my mind looking for trouble. I don't get anxious if, you know, if I cut myself badly, I don't get anxious. I get fearful, but I can get anxious about the thought of.Right.You know.Yeah. That's a good distinction. I think that's a good distinction.Can I keep on because I'm such an neurotic mess that I find surprised.Seem like a cool summer breeze.Right. I have psoriasis everywhere. Just because I.From stress?Yeah. Yeah. Well, I.You don't have psoriasis.Not anymore. Because they have these wonderful little biologics they're called, where you can take a shot of something.Is it like an eczema?Yeah, but then it becomes something that gets into your bones and stuff. And so psoriatic arthritis becomes a problem.You had it your whole life or recently, right after.Seriously, right after the 25 year old who auditioned for the doctors, that's when it took Valium. So it was a stress reaction, I think. I think you have a propensity, and I think diet and a lot of stuff can contribute to it, but I do believe it's stress.You ever read those John Sarno books, healing back pain divided by. Those books saved my life. I had back pain for years.Until you recognize. Oh, this is.It's a stress reaction. Yeah. I mean, to the point where I was going to get back surgery, and I read those books. I did a lot of.I know so many people who cured themselves.That guy's a saint. Those books saved my life. I recommend them to everybody.Do you think you have fear on top of anger or just, like, internal rage?Yeah, I think it's your id resents the pressure you put on yourself as an adulthood. Your childlike id. It's a battle between your id and your super ego. Some freudian shit. Yeah, it's just the pressure. And also, a lot of the people in the book with a lot of the symptoms had high pressure jobs. One was like, I watched a 60 minutes documentary about it first before I read the book, and it was like, a television producer, a lawyer, people that really put a tremendous amount of pressure, or people going through big, fundamental family changes, like their father just died and they had to take over the company. Or there was one patient he talked about where they were in a failing, their marriage was failing, and they literally got a rash under their wedding ring in the shape of a wedding ring, which is pretty poetic. So I totally believe that stress manifests in the body. How could you not believe that?Have you done. Somebody told me that you had talked about it, so I feel okay asking about, and I don't even know MDMA.I have done MDMA. Yeah.Microdosing.I mean, I've done macro dosing as well.But that. That's self treatment. Have you done it under a guided.Yes, I've done MDMA therapy.Is that the same things that they try with vets who have post traumatic stress?Yeah, big time.And can I ask? Because I've never done it, but I'm really.Well, now's the time I put it in your water. That's the point. Fantastic.So far.Half an hour for pee, but it's going to do more than that, brother.What is so. Can I ask what that is like? So you take it, and you are. You become in a whatever state that that drug makes you in. And then you talk.Well, you do a bunch of talk sessions first without the. Without the medicine, without the psychedelic. It's a psychedelic amphetamine. So you do a bunch of talk sessions first. So you just talk about whatever issues are bothering you, but the doctor is really kind of paving a pathway so that when. By the time you do the session with the MDMA, you kind of get rig. Right? You get right to it. So then. So you do a bunch of talk sessions in his office. Then when you do the MDMA, he comes over to your house. You put on headphones, you put on a sleep mask.Oh, wow.You get comfy. You get on your sofa with a blanket and your pajamas. You take the MDMA, start playing music, and then you just kind of sit there, and you only kind of. I only kind of, like, peek through the sleep mask and chime in where I'm like, oh, remind me to tell you about when that kid pushed me off of a bicycle when I was seven or something. You know what I mean? Like, something will pop up, but you're really kind of just going through and how. I can. I'll break it down. A doctor can break it down better than I can. But, you know, you store trauma in your amygdala. There's an almond shaped gland on your brain called the amygdala, or trauma stored. And usually when you have trauma, that trauma gets triggered if you try to access it when you're so, you know, let's say if you got bit by a snake when you were a kid, every time you saw something snake like, you see a garden hose out of the side of your vision, your amygdala gets triggered. So what the MDMA does, or, you know, they do psilocybin therapy.They're doing all these psychedelic therapies. It allows you to access your trauma in a way that you can't access it while you're sober and actually reroute your neural pathways around the trauma so that you can process the trauma and alleviate the triggering symptoms that happen from the PTSD response.Because without the drug, you may be.It's too painful. It's too painful. To access without the drug rewire, especially for veterans with PTSD, there's something more, deeper. Trauma.Yeah.So it allows you to enter those old traumas in a way that you can't while you're.Is it meant to be a one off or do you do this for weeks or months or however long?I've only done it. I've probably had, like 30 or 40 talk sessions with him, and I've only done it. Done the MDma with him twice.And how did it feel afterwards?Incredible. Amazing and relevant. Yeah. Like, shook up major things that needed to be rearranged. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.Yeah. I mean, now it's a full on FDA goes, yes. Or somebody's going, yes, let's experiment with this. Yeah.It's on the precipice of being legalized. I mean, there are places like Oregon has decriminalized all. It just needs to happen on, like, a federal level. Yeah, yeah.And did that happen?I saw a meme recently. It said, I like the war on drugs because drugs wonde.Where did your moral, whatever guiding principle or spoken or unspoken come from? How do you know what's good and bad? How do you behave in life? And where did that come from?I guess my parents. I guess my mom has been, like, a civil rights activist her entire life. She marched on Washington when she was 18. She saw Martin Luther King, junior s I have a dream speech. She's always been into, like, political activism for marginalized people. And my parents are both very kind. They're neurodivergent, but they're very sweet. Almost to a fault, though. They're a little bit of. They're so people pleasey that they. They fall into codependency. But, yeah, I guess from my parents.My mother was, you know, my parents, you know, I got unconditional love, which right off the bat is one of the biggest gifts you can give to your kids. But my mother was really good at dealing with the positive side to life, you know, enthusiasm, creativity, encouragement, joy, happiness, willingness, all of those things. But anything petty or angry was to be suppressed, you know? No, no, no. Don't dwell on that. So that I grew up, I didn't have a choice to be nice. I had to be nice. And that is kind of bogus because you can only really be as nice as you can be shitty. And once you start seeing, oh, yeah, I actually am really shitty and I am really mean spirit, I can have all of these things, then I can choose to be nice in a situation. And that took me a long time to figure out.Yeah, yeah. My parents didn't. My mom's alive. My dad passed away. But my parents were very like, they're nothing, but they were very academic and egghead types, very, like bookworms, but they lacked emotional intelligence. But they're very sweet. But I was also. I also was born and came into consciousness, like, at the back half of their marriage as they started drifting apart. So that was tough. They were married for almost 25 years. So my sister was born in 1974. I was born in 83. So she kind of got the. She got the ascension, and I got the decline. And when they got divorced, she was 20 years old, she was already in college, and I was like, eleven, turning twelve, which is this awkward, awkward coming of age. And they were not good at explaining that they were getting divorced either. I had to put it together. My dad was just like, I'm gonna live somewhere else for a little bit. And I was like, what? What does that mean? And they never fought either. So it was very strange when they got divorced. I was like, he's gonna live somewhere else, okay? And then I had to be like, wait, you're not getting divorced, are you?And then later, a few months later, I was like, are you guys getting. What the fuck is going on? And they were like, yeah, that was their speech. That's how they let me know they were getting divorced. I cried my eyes out. They had no capacity to be like, son, we love you very much.This has nothing to do with you.This has nothing to do with you. We're both going to be there for you 110%. We still love each other, but our love for each other has changed. I'm no longer going to live here, but I'm still going to be close, and I'm going to be in your life. None of that. And my dad was a psychiatrist. He should know how to fucking what the ramifications are just going, I'm gonna live somewhere else. And then me, a twelve year old, having to put it together and ask them. I had to, like, drag it out of them, what's going on here?And that's the time in life, especially then, when you should have all gentle focus coming your way to see so you can develop into who you are. Yeah, they have to take care of your parents.No, it was. It was not. It was not great, but I like. And I resented them for that forever. But then I realized they just didn't have the capacity to communicate what they needed to communicate in that moment. They just are both on their own parts. Of the spectrum, and they just don't have. They just. They don't possess the qualities to communicate.It's such a good place to be when you finally realize, oh, my parents are just these really nice folks who are doing the best they can.Yeah. They're human.Yeah.Everyone's flawed. There's. Nobody's perfect. It's relief when you realize that. But you. I did resent them for that for a long time. And I love them. I mean, it wasn't like I hated them at all. I loved. I. I love my dad to the end, and I love my mom very much, but my dad passed away last year. My mom's alive. My dad. My dad had cancer, pancreatic cancer.Were you around him towards the end?Yeah, all the time. Towards the end, yeah.It doesn't matter how old you are, man. You cannot prepare yourself for losing a parent.It's unbelievably painful, in a way. I was like, oh, God, I didn't know how much I love my dad until he started dying, you know? But it was miserable. I mean, it's fucking miserable. It's really miserable. But you know what? All this stuff came out, and he. He died slow enough that we got to have talk and have closure and bring up stuff that he always. Very avoidant, very aloof, very avoidant, very, like, avoided any kind of, like, emotional vulnerability his whole life. And he's just from a different world. He's from the Caribbean. He's raised Catholic, and he's neurodivergent. So he's like this bookworm from this repressive, catholic, old school, third world caribbean culture. It's like we're just from two different universes. I'm from the suburbs of Florida, so it's very hard to pull out emotion out of him and vulnerability. So we just, like. I was like, this is it. If I don't get. It's very awkward to bring some of this stuff up, but I just have to. I just have to. So.And he was willing.And he was willing. He was as responsive as I've ever seen him because he kind of knew he had to get some of this stuff out, and. And he told me. He never told me he loved me my entire life. He never said I knew. I always knew he loved me, but he never said, I love you until, like, a few days before he died. And he just eked it out. It was like, with his, like, kind of his last breaths, and it came out of nowhere. He was sitting, and it was like, right before we started we did hospice at the house. It's right before hospice started. And he was constantly watching tv. And I would just sit next to him in his bed. And then I just turned off the tv, and I looked at him. I was like, I don't want the tv on. Let's just, like, talk. I don't. Even if it's awkward. And out of nowhere, he was just like. And he looked skeletal at this point. He was at the very, very end, and he had no energy. And he just, out of nowhere, he went, I love you.And I was like, what? Like the words I've been waiting to hear my whole life. I was like, what? What do you mean? Wait, wait, what'd you say?It was like.I didn't say I love you back right away. I was like, what? And he goes, I love you. I never meant to upset you.Oh, wow.I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. And I started bawling, bawling, crying. I have goosebumps telling this story. And then he looked at me like, I'm bawling, crying. And he goes, can you ask for my nurse? So I go, okay. I go, Angela. I go, Angela, my dad needs you for a second. And he was very. Almost, like, childlike in this stage. And his nurse came in, and he turned to his nurse, why is my son crying when I'm telling him I love him? I was like, cause I love you too, dad. I love you, too. I've been waiting my whole life for you to tell me that. And we just started bawling, crying.Oh, my God.Bawling, crying. And then the eerie part was, he looked at the foot of his bed and he goes, my two friends are here. And I was like, what? And it was just me and his nurse. And I was like, what? And he goes, my two friends. My two friends from my child are here. And I go, dad, it's just me and Angela. It's just me and your nurse in your room. And he looked at me like, oh, shit, it's the end, kind of, you know? And my friend is a death doula. She's like an end of life care. She does hospitals.Brilliant.She told me it's common, that when people are dying, they'll see two people from their past, like somewhere in the room or something like that. Really? She's like, that's a really common thing. Like, I hear, like, oh, I saw two men right before. Or my dad or my mom said they saw two men before they did, so. And then the next day, I think like, yeah, I think it was, like, the next day hospice started, and he's just kind of a zombie. Yeah, yeah. And he would. He would kind of say, be lucid every now and again, but not really.It's just like, you know, did any of this change your anxiety and your performance stuff, or is a little bit?Because I think I was always seeking my father's approval because he was so aloof in my childhood, so I didn't realize how much that motivated me. So now that he's dead, I'm like. I felt, you know, it's recent, too. I felt like a lack of. Not a lack of motivation, but, like, trying to find motivation and inspiration from elsewhere. I didn't realize how much that was an engine. He died after he died. Yeah, he died in December. He died recently, so. Oh, it's been a. Yeah, it hasn't even been a year. It's, like, pretty recent. Also, everyone's on strike this year, so it was like, it's just been a bizarre year, but it was actually, like a forced sabbatical. I traveled a lot. I went to, like, Africa for the first time, and I traveled. I went to Peru and I did ayahuasca. I went to Ghana and Morocco and bopped all over Europe. So I took it as an opportunity to self reflect and find new motivation. Yeah. It is a big, bizarre, spiritual shakeup. It also feels like when your dad dies as a guy, I'm like, oh, I was like, oh, I'm an adult now.I felt like, oh, I'm an adult. Oh, I'm in charge. I don't want to. I still feel. I feel like a kid, but now I'm not. Now I'm an adult. Now I'm in charge. A kind of. I'm not in charge of really anything besides, like, you know, paying my bills, but I. Yeah, it's a very. It's a big existential shakeup. It's strange. Yeah, it's real. Yeah.I don't know where we are time wise, but I have.It's three in the morning. It feels. I gave you Mdma.I have so much respect for you as an artist.Thanks.And watching your film today really was a highlight.Oh, thanks so much. Yes.I really enjoyed talking about the emotional stuff. Cool. To me, that's what connects me to people and all that. So thank you for sharing all of that. I appreciate it.Thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate it.Do we get to, like, hug when we see each other in the street?Anytime you hug me can tackle me.Thanks, man.Thank you.Eric Andre, everybody. Please check out his book with Dan Curry called Dumb Ideas, a behind the scenes expose on making pranks and other stupid creative endeavors, and how you can also, too. That's it for this week's show. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to a friend or an enemy, whatever. If you haven't subscribed already, why not? And leave us a five star Apple podcast review. I'll be back here next week where everybody knows your name.You've been listening to where everybody knows your name with Ted Danson, Libby Harrelson sometimes the show is produced by me, Nick Liao. Executive producers are Adam Sacks, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaka, engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez, research by Alyssa Grohl Talent Booking by Paula Davis and Gina Bautista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antony Guen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne. Special thanks to Willie Navarre. We'll have more for you next time. Where everybody knows your name.Consumer cellular offers the same fast, reliable nationwide coverage without the big wireless cost freedom calls. Sign up with Consumercellular@consumercellular.com Ted 50 and use promo code Ted 50 to save $50. Terms and conditions apply.

more in a positive state of mind, ironically, when people are attacking me, because I'm like, well, that's something to watch. But it doesn't always mean. Just because a Marx reaction is violent doesn't always equate to comedy. Sometimes it's just dark. Sometimes it's just like, there are scenes in the movie, there's one guy was going to break a bottle over my head, and we used a little bit at the bar. Yeah, we used a little bit just.

As he started to use a little.

Bit of him in the credit scroll. But he was really intense and gnarly, and it was in the body of the movie, and it just was it was just. It never got a laugh at any of the test screenings, and we just cut it. Sometimes it's just too, like, it's more ish than laugh out loud. So it doesn't always equate, but at least, you know, you get.

People are reacting and you got to see the guy with the knife, I do believe at the. In the credit scroll where you get. When he saw him realize what was going on, or am I making that up?

I don't know if we showed his full reveal, the knife guy, we showed the guy that was going to break a bottle over me.

Right. But.

Or whatever he was going to do, he's going to punch me or something. But I do remember he took a shot when he decided, I need to punch this guy. He did do a shot of Jim Beam, and he got up and that's what I yelled, popcorn.

This is going bad. Yeah. I can't remember how you cut out of it, but it was clearly a good time to cut out.

It was a good time, yeah. I think I was urinating next to him. It wasn't real urine, but he.

You can understand why someone might get pissed off of you.

He's a little bit upset.

Did you ever get anxiety during and the filming of that?

Because every day.

Really. Because the real I find usually my anxiety is it's not really based on something real. It's not like, it's not like it's kind of both.

I have, like, this generalized anxiety that's based on just fiction and my overactive brain. And then I have, like, real fear, like, oh, I might get punched during this bit, which is like a sub oprah. You only have one? You only have one take. A lot of times the. I think the hanging off the roof thing, we only had one take. The honky tonk, the cowboy bar, we only had one take. So you spent all this time and money and energy and writing.

But that's not anxiety to my mind, that's fear. That's concern. That's real. You should be fearful of this. Right.

That's true.

For me, anxiety usually is like, it's.

Your mind looking for trouble.

It's my mind looking for trouble. I don't get anxious if, you know, if I cut myself badly, I don't get anxious. I get fearful, but I can get anxious about the thought of.

Right.

You know.

Yeah. That's a good distinction. I think that's a good distinction.

Can I keep on because I'm such an neurotic mess that I find surprised.

Seem like a cool summer breeze.

Right. I have psoriasis everywhere. Just because I.

From stress?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I.

You don't have psoriasis.

Not anymore. Because they have these wonderful little biologics they're called, where you can take a shot of something.

Is it like an eczema?

Yeah, but then it becomes something that gets into your bones and stuff. And so psoriatic arthritis becomes a problem.

You had it your whole life or recently, right after.

Seriously, right after the 25 year old who auditioned for the doctors, that's when it took Valium. So it was a stress reaction, I think. I think you have a propensity, and I think diet and a lot of stuff can contribute to it, but I do believe it's stress.

You ever read those John Sarno books, healing back pain divided by. Those books saved my life. I had back pain for years.

Until you recognize. Oh, this is.

It's a stress reaction. Yeah. I mean, to the point where I was going to get back surgery, and I read those books. I did a lot of.

I know so many people who cured themselves.

That guy's a saint. Those books saved my life. I recommend them to everybody.

Do you think you have fear on top of anger or just, like, internal rage?

Yeah, I think it's your id resents the pressure you put on yourself as an adulthood. Your childlike id. It's a battle between your id and your super ego. Some freudian shit. Yeah, it's just the pressure. And also, a lot of the people in the book with a lot of the symptoms had high pressure jobs. One was like, I watched a 60 minutes documentary about it first before I read the book, and it was like, a television producer, a lawyer, people that really put a tremendous amount of pressure, or people going through big, fundamental family changes, like their father just died and they had to take over the company. Or there was one patient he talked about where they were in a failing, their marriage was failing, and they literally got a rash under their wedding ring in the shape of a wedding ring, which is pretty poetic. So I totally believe that stress manifests in the body. How could you not believe that?

Have you done. Somebody told me that you had talked about it, so I feel okay asking about, and I don't even know MDMA.

I have done MDMA. Yeah.

Microdosing.

I mean, I've done macro dosing as well.

But that. That's self treatment. Have you done it under a guided.

Yes, I've done MDMA therapy.

Is that the same things that they try with vets who have post traumatic stress?

Yeah, big time.

And can I ask? Because I've never done it, but I'm really.

Well, now's the time I put it in your water. That's the point. Fantastic.

So far.

Half an hour for pee, but it's going to do more than that, brother.

What is so. Can I ask what that is like? So you take it, and you are. You become in a whatever state that that drug makes you in. And then you talk.

Well, you do a bunch of talk sessions first without the. Without the medicine, without the psychedelic. It's a psychedelic amphetamine. So you do a bunch of talk sessions first. So you just talk about whatever issues are bothering you, but the doctor is really kind of paving a pathway so that when. By the time you do the session with the MDMA, you kind of get rig. Right? You get right to it. So then. So you do a bunch of talk sessions in his office. Then when you do the MDMA, he comes over to your house. You put on headphones, you put on a sleep mask.

Oh, wow.

You get comfy. You get on your sofa with a blanket and your pajamas. You take the MDMA, start playing music, and then you just kind of sit there, and you only kind of. I only kind of, like, peek through the sleep mask and chime in where I'm like, oh, remind me to tell you about when that kid pushed me off of a bicycle when I was seven or something. You know what I mean? Like, something will pop up, but you're really kind of just going through and how. I can. I'll break it down. A doctor can break it down better than I can. But, you know, you store trauma in your amygdala. There's an almond shaped gland on your brain called the amygdala, or trauma stored. And usually when you have trauma, that trauma gets triggered if you try to access it when you're so, you know, let's say if you got bit by a snake when you were a kid, every time you saw something snake like, you see a garden hose out of the side of your vision, your amygdala gets triggered. So what the MDMA does, or, you know, they do psilocybin therapy.

They're doing all these psychedelic therapies. It allows you to access your trauma in a way that you can't access it while you're sober and actually reroute your neural pathways around the trauma so that you can process the trauma and alleviate the triggering symptoms that happen from the PTSD response.

Because without the drug, you may be.

It's too painful. It's too painful. To access without the drug rewire, especially for veterans with PTSD, there's something more, deeper. Trauma.

Yeah.

So it allows you to enter those old traumas in a way that you can't while you're.

Is it meant to be a one off or do you do this for weeks or months or however long?

I've only done it. I've probably had, like 30 or 40 talk sessions with him, and I've only done it. Done the MDma with him twice.

And how did it feel afterwards?

Incredible. Amazing and relevant. Yeah. Like, shook up major things that needed to be rearranged. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

Yeah. I mean, now it's a full on FDA goes, yes. Or somebody's going, yes, let's experiment with this. Yeah.

It's on the precipice of being legalized. I mean, there are places like Oregon has decriminalized all. It just needs to happen on, like, a federal level. Yeah, yeah.

And did that happen?

I saw a meme recently. It said, I like the war on drugs because drugs wonde.

Where did your moral, whatever guiding principle or spoken or unspoken come from? How do you know what's good and bad? How do you behave in life? And where did that come from?

I guess my parents. I guess my mom has been, like, a civil rights activist her entire life. She marched on Washington when she was 18. She saw Martin Luther King, junior s I have a dream speech. She's always been into, like, political activism for marginalized people. And my parents are both very kind. They're neurodivergent, but they're very sweet. Almost to a fault, though. They're a little bit of. They're so people pleasey that they. They fall into codependency. But, yeah, I guess from my parents.

My mother was, you know, my parents, you know, I got unconditional love, which right off the bat is one of the biggest gifts you can give to your kids. But my mother was really good at dealing with the positive side to life, you know, enthusiasm, creativity, encouragement, joy, happiness, willingness, all of those things. But anything petty or angry was to be suppressed, you know? No, no, no. Don't dwell on that. So that I grew up, I didn't have a choice to be nice. I had to be nice. And that is kind of bogus because you can only really be as nice as you can be shitty. And once you start seeing, oh, yeah, I actually am really shitty and I am really mean spirit, I can have all of these things, then I can choose to be nice in a situation. And that took me a long time to figure out.

Yeah, yeah. My parents didn't. My mom's alive. My dad passed away. But my parents were very like, they're nothing, but they were very academic and egghead types, very, like bookworms, but they lacked emotional intelligence. But they're very sweet. But I was also. I also was born and came into consciousness, like, at the back half of their marriage as they started drifting apart. So that was tough. They were married for almost 25 years. So my sister was born in 1974. I was born in 83. So she kind of got the. She got the ascension, and I got the decline. And when they got divorced, she was 20 years old, she was already in college, and I was like, eleven, turning twelve, which is this awkward, awkward coming of age. And they were not good at explaining that they were getting divorced either. I had to put it together. My dad was just like, I'm gonna live somewhere else for a little bit. And I was like, what? What does that mean? And they never fought either. So it was very strange when they got divorced. I was like, he's gonna live somewhere else, okay? And then I had to be like, wait, you're not getting divorced, are you?

And then later, a few months later, I was like, are you guys getting. What the fuck is going on? And they were like, yeah, that was their speech. That's how they let me know they were getting divorced. I cried my eyes out. They had no capacity to be like, son, we love you very much.

This has nothing to do with you.

This has nothing to do with you. We're both going to be there for you 110%. We still love each other, but our love for each other has changed. I'm no longer going to live here, but I'm still going to be close, and I'm going to be in your life. None of that. And my dad was a psychiatrist. He should know how to fucking what the ramifications are just going, I'm gonna live somewhere else. And then me, a twelve year old, having to put it together and ask them. I had to, like, drag it out of them, what's going on here?

And that's the time in life, especially then, when you should have all gentle focus coming your way to see so you can develop into who you are. Yeah, they have to take care of your parents.

No, it was. It was not. It was not great, but I like. And I resented them for that forever. But then I realized they just didn't have the capacity to communicate what they needed to communicate in that moment. They just are both on their own parts. Of the spectrum, and they just don't have. They just. They don't possess the qualities to communicate.

It's such a good place to be when you finally realize, oh, my parents are just these really nice folks who are doing the best they can.

Yeah. They're human.

Yeah.

Everyone's flawed. There's. Nobody's perfect. It's relief when you realize that. But you. I did resent them for that for a long time. And I love them. I mean, it wasn't like I hated them at all. I loved. I. I love my dad to the end, and I love my mom very much, but my dad passed away last year. My mom's alive. My dad. My dad had cancer, pancreatic cancer.

Were you around him towards the end?

Yeah, all the time. Towards the end, yeah.

It doesn't matter how old you are, man. You cannot prepare yourself for losing a parent.

It's unbelievably painful, in a way. I was like, oh, God, I didn't know how much I love my dad until he started dying, you know? But it was miserable. I mean, it's fucking miserable. It's really miserable. But you know what? All this stuff came out, and he. He died slow enough that we got to have talk and have closure and bring up stuff that he always. Very avoidant, very aloof, very avoidant, very, like, avoided any kind of, like, emotional vulnerability his whole life. And he's just from a different world. He's from the Caribbean. He's raised Catholic, and he's neurodivergent. So he's like this bookworm from this repressive, catholic, old school, third world caribbean culture. It's like we're just from two different universes. I'm from the suburbs of Florida, so it's very hard to pull out emotion out of him and vulnerability. So we just, like. I was like, this is it. If I don't get. It's very awkward to bring some of this stuff up, but I just have to. I just have to. So.

And he was willing.

And he was willing. He was as responsive as I've ever seen him because he kind of knew he had to get some of this stuff out, and. And he told me. He never told me he loved me my entire life. He never said I knew. I always knew he loved me, but he never said, I love you until, like, a few days before he died. And he just eked it out. It was like, with his, like, kind of his last breaths, and it came out of nowhere. He was sitting, and it was like, right before we started we did hospice at the house. It's right before hospice started. And he was constantly watching tv. And I would just sit next to him in his bed. And then I just turned off the tv, and I looked at him. I was like, I don't want the tv on. Let's just, like, talk. I don't. Even if it's awkward. And out of nowhere, he was just like. And he looked skeletal at this point. He was at the very, very end, and he had no energy. And he just, out of nowhere, he went, I love you.

And I was like, what? Like the words I've been waiting to hear my whole life. I was like, what? What do you mean? Wait, wait, what'd you say?

It was like.

I didn't say I love you back right away. I was like, what? And he goes, I love you. I never meant to upset you.

Oh, wow.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. And I started bawling, bawling, crying. I have goosebumps telling this story. And then he looked at me like, I'm bawling, crying. And he goes, can you ask for my nurse? So I go, okay. I go, Angela. I go, Angela, my dad needs you for a second. And he was very. Almost, like, childlike in this stage. And his nurse came in, and he turned to his nurse, why is my son crying when I'm telling him I love him? I was like, cause I love you too, dad. I love you, too. I've been waiting my whole life for you to tell me that. And we just started bawling, crying.

Oh, my God.

Bawling, crying. And then the eerie part was, he looked at the foot of his bed and he goes, my two friends are here. And I was like, what? And it was just me and his nurse. And I was like, what? And he goes, my two friends. My two friends from my child are here. And I go, dad, it's just me and Angela. It's just me and your nurse in your room. And he looked at me like, oh, shit, it's the end, kind of, you know? And my friend is a death doula. She's like an end of life care. She does hospitals.

Brilliant.

She told me it's common, that when people are dying, they'll see two people from their past, like somewhere in the room or something like that. Really? She's like, that's a really common thing. Like, I hear, like, oh, I saw two men right before. Or my dad or my mom said they saw two men before they did, so. And then the next day, I think like, yeah, I think it was, like, the next day hospice started, and he's just kind of a zombie. Yeah, yeah. And he would. He would kind of say, be lucid every now and again, but not really.

It's just like, you know, did any of this change your anxiety and your performance stuff, or is a little bit?

Because I think I was always seeking my father's approval because he was so aloof in my childhood, so I didn't realize how much that motivated me. So now that he's dead, I'm like. I felt, you know, it's recent, too. I felt like a lack of. Not a lack of motivation, but, like, trying to find motivation and inspiration from elsewhere. I didn't realize how much that was an engine. He died after he died. Yeah, he died in December. He died recently, so. Oh, it's been a. Yeah, it hasn't even been a year. It's, like, pretty recent. Also, everyone's on strike this year, so it was like, it's just been a bizarre year, but it was actually, like a forced sabbatical. I traveled a lot. I went to, like, Africa for the first time, and I traveled. I went to Peru and I did ayahuasca. I went to Ghana and Morocco and bopped all over Europe. So I took it as an opportunity to self reflect and find new motivation. Yeah. It is a big, bizarre, spiritual shakeup. It also feels like when your dad dies as a guy, I'm like, oh, I was like, oh, I'm an adult now.

I felt like, oh, I'm an adult. Oh, I'm in charge. I don't want to. I still feel. I feel like a kid, but now I'm not. Now I'm an adult. Now I'm in charge. A kind of. I'm not in charge of really anything besides, like, you know, paying my bills, but I. Yeah, it's a very. It's a big existential shakeup. It's strange. Yeah, it's real. Yeah.

I don't know where we are time wise, but I have.

It's three in the morning. It feels. I gave you Mdma.

I have so much respect for you as an artist.

Thanks.

And watching your film today really was a highlight.

Oh, thanks so much. Yes.

I really enjoyed talking about the emotional stuff. Cool. To me, that's what connects me to people and all that. So thank you for sharing all of that. I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Do we get to, like, hug when we see each other in the street?

Anytime you hug me can tackle me.

Thanks, man.

Thank you.

Eric Andre, everybody. Please check out his book with Dan Curry called Dumb Ideas, a behind the scenes expose on making pranks and other stupid creative endeavors, and how you can also, too. That's it for this week's show. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to a friend or an enemy, whatever. If you haven't subscribed already, why not? And leave us a five star Apple podcast review. I'll be back here next week where everybody knows your name.

You've been listening to where everybody knows your name with Ted Danson, Libby Harrelson sometimes the show is produced by me, Nick Liao. Executive producers are Adam Sacks, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaka, engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez, research by Alyssa Grohl Talent Booking by Paula Davis and Gina Bautista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antony Guen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne. Special thanks to Willie Navarre. We'll have more for you next time. Where everybody knows your name.

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