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Mishka Shubaly
202 Plays5 years ago
Mishka Shubaly is writer, musician, runner, comedian, teacher and thinker. We got to chat all about that stuff as well as drinking and not-drinking, art, creation, nothingness and somethingness. His books 'Cold Turkey', 'The Long Run', 'Of Mice and Me', and 'Beat the Devil' and 'Shipwrecked' are intense, raw and honest reads.
I deeply appreciated Mishka's talents and his ability to range on some really tough topics. Importantly, he has a lot of practical advice to get off the sauce. It is a practical, adapt-what-you-can approach that can help save a life from addiction.
His writing and music is available on all major and minor outlets. His newest book ‘Cold Turkey’ was a May title available to Audible subscribers.
http://www.mishkashubaly.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Upcoming Guests
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Vellante, editor and producer Peter Bauer. Ken Vellante, I want to thank you for joining something rather than nothing. A quick note about a couple upcoming episodes. Very excited to have Matt Petre, a musician based in Providence, Rhode Island,
00:00:31
Speaker
with his new album, Six Syllables. And also coming up, I'm really excited about this one, Blair Bathory of Fearhouse, creating horror content and a lot of cool, exciting short film, Blair Bathory of Fearhouse, coming up soon in this episode of chat with Mishika Shubali and Super Conversation.
Celebrating Sobriety: Mishka Shubali's Story
00:00:58
Speaker
Start off this episode where I congratulate Mishka on the day of recording on his 11th year of sobriety from alcohol, a great accomplishment. And I hope you enjoy the episode.
00:01:25
Speaker
Thanks, man. I had no conception that when I got sober that like, oh, OK, I'll be sober for 11 years. But, you know, it's you just sort of put you try and put as many good days together as you can. And, you know, I mean, I feel like
00:01:44
Speaker
The word weird is something that we just sort of apply to everything. So it's so it has absolutely no meaning at this point But but yeah, it's weird to be sober for 11 years Yeah, I imagine I'm I have a 99 2009 sobriety date so one of the you know, whatever keeps you sober one of the strange gifts weird gifts that I that I've had is I
00:02:11
Speaker
not wanting to get rid of that date because it's it's too cool of a date. So whatever it takes, man, to to to build that barricade, to shore that barricade up to, you know, and I, I think, you know, not wanting to lose a good, you know, a sort of visually pretty number like that is as good a reason as any distaste over man, like really whatever works.
00:02:41
Speaker
I completely agree with you.
Childhood Influences and Nihilism
00:02:44
Speaker
We'll get into that in talking a bit about sobriety and some of your writing, but before we get into some of that stuff, I just wanted to ask you, what were you like as a young child? Were you always entertaining, doing things? What were you like?
00:03:04
Speaker
I think I always wanted to be, I was both shy and I wanted to be the center of attention. I think as a lot of kids are, I remember being very young and I like,
00:03:19
Speaker
getting to, you know, to like a family friend's house. And the first thing that I wanted to do was like, eat a couple brownies and like take my shirt off and run around the house screaming. So not much has changed. But I remember too, like,
00:03:38
Speaker
You know, people are always doing these sort of like quizzes and stuff like that on Facebook of like, oh, what was the first artist you saw? And like, you know, who woke you up to, you know, to art or music or whatever. And I remember my, you know, my parents sort of like just took us kids with them everywhere they went. And I remember probably being like, you know, six and we went to dinner somewhere. And then after dinner, there was a student, a wheelchair who got up with his guitar and
00:04:09
Speaker
sang and played songs and told jokes and dirty stories in between the songs. I was just like, man, that is it. That's what I'm going to do right there. Mom, get me a wheelchair immediately. I need to be this guy. I have no idea who he is or who he was, but just like a local songwriter type.
00:04:38
Speaker
Um, but yeah, that, you know, that really sort of changed things for me that that really opened it up for me. Yeah. And, um, and, and I know, uh, just as, as far as seeing and listening to the material you produced and, and, and haven't followed you, um, there's a huge component of, um, a storytelling, uh, in, in what you do. So it seems like that's kind of like a fundamental.
00:05:05
Speaker
component of what you do to pull people into stories with songs or with your writing. Regarding art, and obviously that was an influential experience for you, what type of art do you enjoy or did you start to develop enjoying
00:05:29
Speaker
you start listening to a lot of music of particular type and got really into that or authors. So what do you partake in as far as art? I mean, I think early on I
Artistic Friendships and Writing Process
00:05:44
Speaker
sort of decided that I was going to be a nihilist, you know, maybe, you know, being like, nine or 10 and discovering Guns N' Roses, you know, I was like, oh, you know, this is it, you know, like, you know, parents are just full of shit. And like, you know, the world is stupid. And, you know, the only thing that matters is like, you know, girls and guitar and getting fucked up, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's
00:06:11
Speaker
So it's taken me, and there's still, we are very much now the people that we are when we were children, with some few differences there. And so I carry that, it's like that seed of nihilism fell in my heart at a very young age and
00:06:32
Speaker
put down deep roots, you know, and so it is difficult for me sometimes to to get out of that and not just to be like, oh, the art that I like is, you know, married with children or the Ramones or something, you know, the sort of the crassest, most lowbrow stuff possible. But I. I was always fortunate to have smart, fucked up, crazy friends and
00:07:03
Speaker
The a friend of mine, Ben Bertucci, went on to become a fine artist and actually runs Jeff Koons Art Studio now in New York. Oh, wow. And through my my connection with Ben and my friendship with him, you know, that's been a sort of a great conduit for me into into art, because Ben is an effective sort of
00:07:28
Speaker
portal into that world, where I remember listening to guar and mega death and like driving around with Ben, you know, drinking beer when we were kids. So when he's in a gallery, I don't have there's no there's less resistance there, you know, to go and look at his stuff. And I feel like I have a window into understanding his work.
00:07:52
Speaker
through my personal connection to him and then because I'm friends with him and because I can talk to him about his work and sort of be involved in his work or have a direct dialogue with him about it, art seems less scary or less bougie, less off-putting as it might be otherwise. I definitely pick up on that and
00:08:22
Speaker
I, um, in, in, in talking about, uh, you as, as a writer, I've listened to the long run and recently on audible, um, uh, cold Turkey, uh, which, you know, I, I love that work and I'm going to, I'm going to be real here, Mishka, and just, just lay it out. I, I like, I really like how you interrogated really important questions. Um, you laid stuff out there, you laid up
00:08:51
Speaker
Expose yourself. This is fucked up. Here's how I Here's how I got sober, you know, and I know from what you're saying in the book It's like, you know, here's these crazy ass experiences I did this drink and like I was extreme in this type of stuff but you know, I stopped I stopped drinking and you know for me I
00:09:12
Speaker
I look at that type of thing as, you know, whatever works. You know, we're just talking about that, you know, me getting hung up on the nine, nine, nine sobriety date for me. Good enough. And whatever the program was AA and outpatient rehab got me sober. But what you do in cold Turkey, you're talking about your experiences and you're talking about this is how I did this. This seems like bullshit to me. This worked for me.
00:09:39
Speaker
this didn't work for me and this worked for others and this didn't work for others. And, uh, it's a brave stance in, in, in, and definitely controversial because we're talking about, um, you know, a rehabilitation, uh, or a community where say for alcohol AA is, you know, the program. So what was your experience in, in, in, in laying out cold Turkey and saying, Hey, look,
00:10:05
Speaker
This is how I did it. These are the some of the things that I put in place and, you know, give it a shot. What was that like for you? Well, I mean, I, you know, I should sort of back up before, um, you know, before answering that question and, you know, say that, uh, this isn't a project that I wanted to do. This is, um, this is very much a project that I didn't want to do. Um, and audible approached me about it. Um,
00:10:33
Speaker
at a time when I was broke and I was like, yeah, fuck it, I'll do it, I need the money. And thank God they did.
00:10:41
Speaker
uh because once i got it you know once i engaged the project and once i like really got into it i i found um that i had a lot to say about it and um and that it was deeply meaningful to me and that i you know that i cared a tremendous amount you know so i perhaps went into the venture with bad or cynical reasons um but then once i was there i was like you know it's like you can make a decision out of bad faith but then
00:11:10
Speaker
But
Sobriety and Practical Advice
00:11:11
Speaker
then you can carry through that decision in good faith, you know, and I committed to do this thing. I need to need to do the best damn job that I can.
00:11:23
Speaker
and I fucking hate self-help and I hate charlatans and snake oil salesmen and pretenders who are like, oh yeah, sign up for my book and my DVD for 39.95 and then the recurring monthly charge for 9.95 for my seminar and then you get the tote bag. It's like fuck all that shit. It's like this profiteering.
00:11:47
Speaker
You know, and it's like, I mean, it's one of the things we see find it so despicable right now with the coronavirus that, you know, the price gouging and you know, we find it so repellent when individuals do that. But that's exactly what the pharmaceutical industry does. They find a need and then they exploit it as much as they can get away with, you know. And so it was it was really important to me to provide
00:12:13
Speaker
Um, to provide the greatest amount of information that I could, um, to be a hundred percent honest about my experience and what my authority, my level of authority is and isn't. And then to just try to give people value for their dollar, man, you know, try to, and that was, that was, you know, a big reason why I was, I'm so grateful to audible, um, you know, for making the book free for this month. Um,
00:12:41
Speaker
Because I said point blank in the book, I don't want this to be a, the best business is repeat business. I don't want your repeat business. I want you to listen to this book. I want you to be able to use the tools that I lay out there for you. And then I want you to never need me again. There's no guarantee. Addiction is incredibly,
00:13:11
Speaker
it's uh you know it's like trying to clean up an oil stain in a puddle you know i mean it takes a lot of work it's very it's incredibly slippery but i
00:13:23
Speaker
I just tried really hard to tell people to download all the information that I had about about addiction, about alcoholism, about getting sober on your own, about recovery. I did give a rigorous interrogation of AA and 12 step and that, you know, that culture. I think that, you know, the
00:13:48
Speaker
the best way you can, you know, I was thinking about this when I was running today, you know, the I, I need my body, I rely on my body, I'm 43. So I don't think I can honestly say that I love my body, but I count on it. I need my body to do shit for me.
00:14:07
Speaker
And because I need my body to do shit for me, I work it hard. I test its limits. Can I do five more pushups? Can I do two more pushups? Can I do one more? All right, I'm going to run to the stoplight. You have to push the limits to keep it as fit as possible.
00:14:30
Speaker
That's the same thing you need to do with democracy, it's the same thing you need to do with art, same thing you need to do with music, the same thing you need to do with recovery. You need to rigorously test the strength of the system, make sure that it's still working. It's like your computer, you have to install the updates, you have to upgrade it.
00:14:54
Speaker
you know, and I feel like, you know, not to not to attack anyone who's had success in a or any 12 step program, because if it works, it works, man. And if a has worked for you, then you don't need me at all. But I do think that there's
00:15:17
Speaker
there's not one solution that works for everybody. So I just wanted to add another voice to, you know, if AA didn't work for you, or if you have a ton of resistance towards AA, then here's another way. Yeah, here's another direction. I like what you had to say there and some deep wisdom and kind of like stretching systems and stretching
00:15:39
Speaker
you know what we're doing to see if the damn things work. And I like that dynamic because it demands a lot, you know, on yourself, but on what's around you. And you mentioned running. My brother's a runner and I've known a lot of runners in my life. Now I haven't been a runner. I've been getting fitter and fitter the best I can. Long walks, I check with my brother for kind of advice around diet and kind of keeping things up.
00:16:10
Speaker
There's something about runners I really trust. And I really think that they have some deep intellectual insight, even though you think about it that they're just running. What's running done for you? I was thinking about this the other day, too. I don't know if this is a response to the question or if it's just an interesting question. No, that's fine. Whatever.
00:16:39
Speaker
I feel like running is like the opposite of sex because when you're having sex, you're intently focused on the one thing, right? You're just totally in the moment obsessed with that thing. When you're running, your body is occupied physically.
00:17:01
Speaker
If you're, if you're somebody who's always obsessed with working and being efficient and being productive like I am, then you can, you can feel, you can sort of pat yourself on the head and be, you know, I'm being a good boy. I'm doing work. I'm doing a thing. But while you're running, uh, your brain is free to wander and
00:17:22
Speaker
So it's, you know, it's almost, you know, if you go out running by yourself and you run for two or three or four hours or whatever, you don't have an iPod or an iPhone or whatever with you. It is, it's like a forced meditation. Can you imagine like just, just sitting there in a chair with no music, just sitting there with your eyes closed and just thinking for three hours, like that would,
00:17:49
Speaker
that would never happen, you know? And if I knew someone who did shit like that, I would be like, Do I need to check in on you, man? Like, you know, but, you know, so a lot of times, you know, running always, for me, it's, it's paired with, with writing, because you write to you get to a point where you're stuck.
00:18:15
Speaker
And then you're like, fuck, I can't go any further. I'm going to go for a run. But you're holding in your head the problem, you know, like, you know, she she needs to what she wants to walk through the green door, but I need to get her to walk through the pink door. But how do I get her to walk through the pink? And then so if you if you go out for a 15 mile run with that in your head, then for the next three hours, that's the only thing you're going to think about. So
00:18:40
Speaker
you'll fucking figure it out because you have to you know you're just you're turning it over and over in your head you know and you know similarly um you know with recovery you know um i will you know i'll go running you know running about something that i'm angry about um or you know or that i'm grieving about you know the um
00:19:03
Speaker
My if I get into a fight with my sister, she's pissing me off. Man, fuck her. She's fucking always like this, you know, and then you go out for a run and then you're like, oh, well, I mean, I remember when seventh grade when, oh, man, I really I was so horrible to her in seventh grade, you know, and then so you have you have an opportunity to spend sustained time with your emotions. But
Running as Meditation and Higher Power
00:19:30
Speaker
But it's not like you're in a room doing therapy or something like this. You don't have your hackles up. You know, what you're doing is running. But there's the other thing that happens with all the shit that happens with your brain. It's like, you know, you go to sleep and you lay down and you rest and that's your primary job. But your secondary job is dreaming, you know. So it is like this, you know, this waking dream, you know, a
00:19:55
Speaker
friend of mine died last week, the ultra runner, Dave Clark, and like fucking heartbroken about it. We, we, we, we all are, you know, he was an incredible guy and, um, you know, I, I've just been running through my grief, you know, just take sunglasses. So people can't see that you're crying, you know, or go early enough or late enough. There's not a lot of people out on the street and just, and then just carry him with you and just sort through that, you know,
00:20:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sorry for your loss. And I definitely understand running through that. You have an idea and a kind of a meditation or an ability to think when you're running. And during these times, I was wondering, Mishka, just about you're obviously an intelligent guy. You think a lot.
00:20:52
Speaker
You run, you write, you're an entertainer, you create. What's it been like doing your stuff, doing your creative stuff in a pandemic? Actually, you know what? Let me tag one more answer onto your last card. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. One of the things I want to say, too, that I need to say about running
00:21:19
Speaker
Since I was a child, I never understood theism, you know, that I just, I remember being like six and walking out onto the driveway and I was wearing my little green running shorts and you know, and I think I have a skateboard. I looked up at the sky and I was like, nah, there's, there's nothing up there, you know? And I could never understand.
00:21:39
Speaker
why people were so attached to this concept of there being a God or there being a greater wisdom or intelligence or design up there. And I always struggled too with, I have a lot of friends in AA, some of my greatest friends, and they're always sort of like trying to get me to understand the concept of higher power, and it's something bigger than you.
00:22:06
Speaker
And I was like, oh, running. And then the more that I explored my relationship with running, I was finally able to sort of understand theism and the appeal of that. For me to be able to think, running is all around me. It surrounds me. And whenever I need it,
00:22:32
Speaker
I can just go out and have a direct line of communication with running. And when I need running, I can take as much as I want. Running is limitless. There's no amount of running that I can take from the hole that will diminish it. It will always be greater than me. And it will always be surrounding me, even if I'm not currently running at the time.
00:22:59
Speaker
On a larger cosmic level, my relationship with running was able to help me parse other folks' relationship with God or gods or spirituality or anything like that. Thanks for bringing that in. I hadn't heard that perspective or don't recall that.
00:23:26
Speaker
I think you're right. I think within the higher power question within life, you know, but but certainly within AA or That which is bigger than you or that higher power. I think it's it's it can be tremendously helpful For whatever reason you're looking at it and for you to find that that great activity of running where you're connecting of understanding I call that for me I call that like the sublime where something's just bigger than you you're kind of in like awe and reverence of how big it is and
00:23:57
Speaker
Right. And in my I have I've always had to try to figure out a way of understanding the higher power or understanding what people feel when they go to church. And for me, I have such an emotional connection to beautiful art, particularly paintings. And when I'm in a discussion with a believer, I try to express that is what I believe spirituality is for me. I'm experiencing the sublime.
00:24:25
Speaker
It's impacting me. It's bigger than me. It makes me feel good. It makes me wonder. And I think people experience that in different ways. And for you physically and mentally with running, I'm glad you brought that into it. And you felt that when you thought about that or had that experience a bit more, you were able to connect a little bit more with what folks were saying when they're saying AA, higher power, what that is, right?
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean, it ended up being it was a real aha moment, you know, where it it sort of in that moment I was able to build a bridge to to the friends and strangers who had had a hard time, you know, understanding where they were coming from or what their attachment was, you know, I mean, I I still gripe with a that
00:25:18
Speaker
the higher power quickly becomes god and quickly becomes a white a straight white patriarchal, you know christian god um because
00:25:31
Speaker
Now I'm fucking totally on board with this higher power shit, man. I think it's a great idea. You know, I love it, you know. And now that, you know, now that I was able to see it through running, I, you know, I see it everywhere. You know, my, my sister's old dog, she had this, she had this chocolate lab who was, she was like fat and she smelled bad and she was such a beautiful animal. And like,
00:25:55
Speaker
I could just she would just be laying on the floor now I could just look over at her and the minute that we made eye contact she would smile at me and her tail. Floor you know if I looked away like her tail would stop and she would sort of you know chill out and then if I looked at her again she would just smile at me with her eyes immediately in a tale would start going you know it just that connection between her and I you know in the connection between
00:26:24
Speaker
you know, any person and any dog, you know, that's a that's another higher power there, too, you know, and so it was like, once I was able to see it in running, then I then I was able to see it everywhere. And and I love it. And like, man, that's got nothing to do with the Bible or church or hellfire and damnation and hating gay people. And I was like, come on, man, like higher power rocks, you know, they I
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely know and I think the word that you mentioned connection there I kind of like kind of once when I get floored, you know, by by, you know, hearing certain things and I heard Russell Brand talking he was saying that the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety.
Connection vs. Addiction
00:27:11
Speaker
It's connection. Right. And I that's why I heard that word connection with you. And at firstly, it's kind of like dropped what I was holding. I'm like, whoa, because so many of us
00:27:23
Speaker
you know, like in the pandemic, whether we're trying to communicate with people on video, or, you know, you're calling up, we were doing a podcast on Skype, or like, however we're trying to connect, it was we're craving a connection, and there's something profound, you know, in that.
00:27:39
Speaker
I used to have this experience over and over again with friends in New York where they would be like, well, I've had a man, I'm fucking moving to this place out in, you know, Arkansas or the Catskills or whatever. And I'm done with New York. I'm done with people. I'm just going to build a cabin. I'm, you know, I'm never coming back. And I would be like, all right. They're like, well, you know, are we going to say goodbye? And I was like, nah.
00:28:04
Speaker
go, go have fun, you know, three months later, they'd be back and they'd be like, maybe I couldn't fucking hack it, man. I'm like, yeah, no, this is the, this is the worst thing about being a human being is we need each other. You know, that's one of the things that's so terrifying and so horrifying with the pandemic is that we need people, we need each other and not just the fucking pizza delivery guy. You know, we need all the different sort of,
00:28:35
Speaker
contact and connection that we have with all the, you know, all the different people that we see, you know, during the course of our day.
Pandemic Fears and Risks
00:28:42
Speaker
And also, we are the enemy. We are the disease, you know, it's, it's not
00:28:53
Speaker
It's not the Russians and it's not China and it's not invaders from Mars. It's the the invisible boogeyman is, you know, a viral agent that's carried by other human beings. So the very thing that we need the most, the thing that makes us human is also the thing that could make us incredibly sick or cause us to lose our lives or carry, you know, my greatest fear is
00:29:19
Speaker
you know, getting it and not getting particularly sick and then giving it to my mom and then it killing her. Right. You know, very, very, very real fears of the, the vulnerability. And I think, I think, you know, what you said is, is really important. Um, kind of quite thought about in that way, just in the sense that, yeah, it isn't, there isn't an external, you know, country or planet or, you know, some supernatural aspect to it. It's, uh, it's something that, that human beings are, you know, sharing.
00:29:49
Speaker
with each other. We're chatting with Mishka Shubali. And Mishka, I got a track here that I talked about, wanted to introduce everybody, and they might already be familiar with your music.
Mishka's Music: Existential Storytelling
00:30:05
Speaker
I love your music. I love his style. I was trying to describe it to somebody, but I liked it. It's kind of like a raw existential storytelling. I really vibed with it.
00:30:18
Speaker
So what I wanted to do was to play a track, destructible, and play that now, and then when we get back, we'll chat a little bit about the other iteration of yourself. How's that sound? Sounds great. All right. Farmer John, you've got a lovely daughter.
00:30:48
Speaker
Green apple conditioner like blood in the water. Chip and fingernail polish. Second year of college. What secrets does she keep inside her heart-shaped locking? Tea's so sweet.
00:31:26
Speaker
I'm in love with your daughter She lets the towel fall and steps into the water Her slender body swings
00:31:48
Speaker
As close to the beginning as I am to the end I am destructible, paranoid, untrustable Glass half empty, resentful Out of patience, out of time
00:32:16
Speaker
Fire prone on bullet proof I cannot tell the truth Cut the shades down for the lights The darkest hour is just before the middle of the night
00:32:52
Speaker
Jokes are getting tired Time's not on my side It's not too late, it's never too late for you
00:33:28
Speaker
Glass have been tearies and cold Out of patience, out of time Fire phone on bullet print Black cannot sell a tree Cut the shades down to the lights The darkness now is just the most
00:33:58
Speaker
Cut the shades down for the lights The darkest hour is just the fall The middle of the night Cut the shit now, kill the lights My darling, goodbye Thanks for writing that song, Mishka
00:34:27
Speaker
I wish I didn't have to. It's destructible off the album when we were animals, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It accidentally lined up perfectly with what we were talking about. I sort of took an inversion of indestructible
00:34:52
Speaker
and just said destructible, you know, to talk about human weakness. Sure. Oh, and one of the things that I always say out of the gate to my writing students, you know, is that they they all come in there and, you know, I just say, you know, look around like seriously, look at the other people in the room here with you. We we've all shit our pants. We've all pissed the bed. We all carry a terrible secret.
00:35:22
Speaker
where, you know what I mean? And this is, and let's not, let's not try to gloss over this. This is what makes us human beings. This is what makes us who we are to keep it secret, to keep it private is to grant it power. And what we're here for is to understand, you know, and it is by going into that stuff and, um,
00:35:49
Speaker
is sharing, I guess it's sharing that weakness that we all have with each other is what makes us stronger. Yeah. And I, and I, I really vibe with what you're saying there. Is that the, is that the most difficult damn thing to do though? It is, but it, you know, it gets easier. Um, the in 2001 I was shipwrecked and in the process of making out of that misadventure alive,
00:36:21
Speaker
I drank my own urine. And my friends fucking love that story, right? So like, haha, pee drinker, you know, the it does just, you know, if it tickles the child inside each of what, you know, each one of us like, haha, you drank your pee. Sure, sure.
00:36:43
Speaker
And for a long time, I felt weird about it and ashamed about it, obviously. But then coming out with that story publicly and writing about it and publishing that story and telling that story, now I'm like, fuck yeah, I did that. In a bad situation, I'm the guy
00:37:10
Speaker
You want in the foxhole with you because I will do what it takes to survive, you know And it was it's one of those things, you know, it's like being an alcoholic, you know I mean your first year of sobriety or three years or whatever you're it's just such a weird Awkward dirty word. I'm an alcoholic, you know Such a piece of shit and now I'm like fuck. Yeah, I'm an alcoholic. Yeah, you know I even with that
00:37:39
Speaker
I've managed to do this. And and from being an alcoholic and from the time that I've spent fucking having to, you know, having to work long hours when I was hungover or having to scramble to find a new job when I got fired from the last one or, you know, finding different ways to eat, to survive, to to keep moving forward. I, I have a very particular skill set from that now, you know, I'm like the
00:38:09
Speaker
You know, I'm I was scared and I am scared about this pandemic shit, but like I shouldn't be, man, because I was I'm like half cockroach and half coyote. Like I was born to you know, born and then trained for the end times, you know, just to survive. And you got enough. You got enough stories. I think you just dropped that in there and it wasn't a metaphor that you were a shipwreck. You were shipwrecked. What the hell happened?
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, I was literally shipwrecked. Yeah, I was crewing on a sailboat with friends of the family in 2001 in July. And we ran aground on the uninhabited point of an island in the Bahamas in the middle of the night. And, you know, the next morning the captain said, well, there's, you know, there's a town 25 miles this way, I'm going to go and get help. And I surprised myself by being like, nah,
00:39:05
Speaker
I'm gonna do that instead and you're gonna stay here with the boat and Yeah, I no longer enjoy long walks on the beach That was mission and survival beast, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely Wanted to ask wanted to ask you a question about
00:39:32
Speaker
you know, just in general about your creativity, have you ever asked yourself why it is that you create songs, write books, create books? Have you ever asked yourself why you create? No, I mean, I think I know now why I do. I think, you know, when I was
00:39:58
Speaker
Um, my mom was huge on the public library, you know, and we would go to the library twice a week, you know, when I was, I was a kid and we would go and check out as many books as we were allowed and go home and read them all. And, you know, I had a series of little reading lights and headlamps and stuff like that, you know, reading in the car on the way home from the library. And, um,
00:40:23
Speaker
The so I was like, telling I understood narrative and I was like telling stories, you know, from a very young age. And so, you know, initially I was, you know, I just make stuff because something pops into my head, you know, like, you know, there's an idea or there's a punchline and then you have to work your way backwards and find out what's the setup for that punchline or whatever.
00:40:50
Speaker
Um, last night I was like laying there on the couch and, uh, the big thing on Twitter of like Karen's, you know, like these privileged white women who are, uh, you want to talk to a manager and, you know, yeah, yeah. So, and I came up with, uh, Karen Abdul Jabbar and I was like, anything yet. But one day I will write a setup.
00:41:19
Speaker
It's like, it's like Jeopardy. You work backwards from the answers. I was listening, um, I was listening to Dave Chappelle. Um, he did a Netflix special and he talked about his fishbowl that he writes the, the punch lines in the fishbowl. And then he works backwards from the fishbowl that's in his living room. Um, now, um,
00:41:49
Speaker
One of the things I wanted to ask, and it's just like what this was like, I had mentioned to you, speaking about comedy, and I know you've opened up for Doug Stanhope, who's just a fantastic, wild comedian and thinker. What did you do to open up for Doug Stanhope? I mean, he,
00:42:17
Speaker
He famously hates my jokes, hates my comments, just wants me to be a trained pony and get up there and play my songs and then shut my mouth and get off stage. But you can't put the genie back in the bottle, Doug.
00:42:37
Speaker
The no, I mean, I just I got the gig because my you know, the dude on my record label at the time, you know, was like, oh, Stan Hope, you know, tours, playing rock clubs. And sometimes he brings musicians out to open up for him. If I can get you that gig, you know, will you do it? I was like, yeah, of course I'll do it. You know, but like it's it's never going to happen. You know, I mean, how would that ever happen? That's it's not going to happen.
Opening for Doug Stanhope and Comedy Transition
00:43:01
Speaker
And then and then he fucking stopped Stan Hope until Stan Hope was finally like, OK,
00:43:07
Speaker
He had gotten Doug's phone number somehow and he had Doug on the phone and Doug was like, okay, I'm here. I have the CD in front of me right now. As soon as I hang up the phone with you, I'm going to listen to the CD and then you're never going to call me ever again. My friend was like, okay, I get it. That's fine. Then 20 minutes later, his phone rang and it was Doug. Doug was like, hey, what's Mishka's phone number?
00:43:35
Speaker
And then he just he called me, brought me out on tour with him, man, and changed my fucking life. You know, so so it might be a perfect set up guy, perfect fall guy. I'm not sure which way. Yeah, I definitely felt like I was, you know, his his whipping boy at times that they're out on the road. But, you know, I mean, I think it you know, I think it came from a very a very genuine place, you know, for him, you know, that like when
00:44:03
Speaker
uh when we experience something it's like oh man you gotta try this you know or you gotta hear this band or you gotta see this movie or you gotta read this book you gotta see this painting or you know we we take so much of our enjoyment um in this world by by proxy you know um i remember doing a tour with a couple of of bandmates who hadn't
00:44:25
Speaker
Driven through the country endless, you know an endless number of times and driving through New Mexico They were like what the fuck is this place and I was like, oh, yeah, New Mexico is so weird, man I fucking love this place, you know, but had I been driving through by myself. I wouldn't have Remembered the New Mexico are cool. Sure sure and you played you played
00:44:50
Speaker
You played music, right? I mean, you played played your songs and did you try to tell a couple jokes or? Well, that's the thing is, like when, you know, when I was first doing stuff with Stan Hope, I was mostly just playing the songs and then I'd have it like a little one liner or something like that in between the songs, you know, going from one to the next. And but then getting getting Stan Hope's blessing
00:45:15
Speaker
You know, he has he's such a cult figure and he he cut such a large shadow on underground comedy that then, you know, that he was like playing my music on his podcast. And that one, you know, a whole new crowd and a much larger crowd. And then those people would invite me to come and perform on their comedy shows. And then, you know, I was performing with a bunch of sort of like open mikers. And I remember like seeing them and hearing their jokes and thinking, like,
00:45:43
Speaker
man, I'm funnier than this, you know, and for the the longest part, it was just nonfiction. It was just funny or embarrassing stories from my life. And then and then, you know, one time I wrote a joke and then at a show I was like, all right, fuck it. I'm just going to do this joke. And I did the joke and it fucking killed. And and I was like, oh, shit, you know, I guess I guess now I'm doing that. And then
00:46:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's a slippery slope, man. Be careful. You could wind up a comedian, too. Hey, and thanks. Thanks for I mean, you know, thanks for all all your writing, all your work, the jokes, the music, just incredible stuff. I got one more question for you. And then I kind of want to open up and just kind of let you know, folks, you know, tell folks how to connect to all your great stuff. But the big question is, why is there something rather than nothing?
00:46:47
Speaker
I think there is something because there is nothing I I don't think there's any I Don't think there's any order to this world I think the only order that we see is the order that we impose on the world and so I don't think that I
Reflections on Life, Love, and Creativity
00:47:07
Speaker
I don't think the world in itself has any intrinsic meaning. I think we're just sort of like born onto this ball hurtling through space to live and eat and fuck and die. And it doesn't mean anything. There's nothing inherently meaningful to it. However, we've been given
00:47:33
Speaker
we've been given, we have brains that are too big and too small. You know, we have brains that are large enough to record every trauma that's ever happened to us, but brains that aren't big enough to figure out how to release that shit. Um, so you just, you sort of carry it with you. And so we find ourselves compelled to, to see meaning or to see an order. Um, and 43 years old, the only,
00:48:04
Speaker
The only way that I've found to make sense of this fucking senseless world is is is is to love to love people to love dogs to love cats to love old guitars to connect with people, you know to
00:48:26
Speaker
to make a joke with the person making your coffee or whatever, or the person you're making coffee for, you know, try and get people to laugh, try and have it, you know, there be some kind of connection and, uh, and to make stuff, to make something, you know, I mean, the, um, I think the only response to nothing is something, you know, when you're given a blank chalkboard or a blank canvas or,
00:48:56
Speaker
you know, a hole in the ground. You got to put something in it. You got to put something on it. You have to, you know, uh, even now if I'm walking by, you know, freshly, um, freshly poured concrete, I'm going to stop and write something in it. You know, maybe not my initials, you know, but we have that, you know, um, that spirit. Yeah. So I, I mean, I think we're just trying to, uh,
00:49:25
Speaker
We're just trying to make sense of it. We're trying to make it mean something. And if we try to make it mean something, it means everything, dude. It's so fucking meaningful. Yeah, thanks for that, Mishka.
Finding Mishka Online
00:49:37
Speaker
Mishka Shubali, how do folks how do folks find you? Obviously, I've hinted, you know, you got some you got some you got your music.
00:49:44
Speaker
Uh, you got, you know, you got some stuff on audible. I know there's some stuff on Amazon. Can you just lead listeners to, to, to come in contact with your, with you and your works? Well, I'm, I'm the only Mishka Shabali out there. So if you just, if you Google my name, you'll find me everywhere. I'm at Mishka Shabali on Twitter. I'm at Mishka Shabali on Instagram. I, um, I have,
00:50:07
Speaker
like an official page on Facebook and a personal page. Um, the, I'm on Spotify. If you search my name on Amazon, you'll find all my, um, all my writing, my audio books are all on audible. Um, yeah. Uh, you're on a band camp too, right?
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm on Bandcamp. I'm on Spotify, Google Play, every I have Venmo cash app. I have every single way of getting my music to you and every single way of accepting a tip or a T-shirt sale from a drunken patron in a bar. That's that's that's. That's what you got to do.
00:50:49
Speaker
Well, thanks, thanks for that. And I appreciate, you know, I mean, and I deeply appreciate that, you know, part of the reason I do the program and reach out to you, Mishka, is that, you know, you know, obviously about the sobriety, my own personal journey, but
00:51:05
Speaker
I really like, I really, really enjoy your honesty, talking about the human condition and writing, singing, telling those stories, doing all these things that you do. I just want to let you know that that works important. And I think another component that I like about it is that it jostles me and I'm always
00:51:26
Speaker
interested in thinkers and creators who jostle us in order to think fresh about it, question things. And you certainly do a lot of that. So I really, I'm just honored that you've spent the time on the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And I just want to let you know, I really appreciate you and your time. Absolutely, man. My pleasure. Thanks, Mishka. And you take care. All right, take care.