Joe Rogan Experience #2499 - Marcus King

Marcus King's journey to sobriety revealed a destructive quality in his drinking, driven by repressed emotions. Quitting alcohol allowed him to confront his anxiety and depression directly, a process further aided by microdosing psilocybin.

There's just something in me that just wanted to completely burn my life to the ground every time I drank... I think a lot of it is repressed emotions. Um, and that's where they find you when your when your brain is off the bottle. Yeah. I mean, it's like I was saying like micro doing mushrooms was like the first thing that I actually felt some kind of lasting result.

Joe and Marcus discuss how rock and roll, while not "dead," has changed, with southern-inspired rock seeing a resurgence. They note the cyclical nature of music, comparing the current "cowboy chic" trend to a potential rock revival.

Well, it's not dead, but it's different. And a lot of the rock that's out now that's doing really well is like a southern inspired rock... It's interesting how cyclical the music industry can be. And like I feel like for the first time in the last 10 years, like since Urban Cowboy came out... now I go out there and everybody's got a cowboy hat on. Really? It's like chic. Yeah, that's interesting. It's like in Vogue, like the cowboy thing. I think rock and roll is kind of having a a similar resurgence.

Palantir, a tech company, publicly advocated for the US to move towards universal national service, interpreted as reintroducing a draft. Rogan criticizes this, questioning why a tech company would push for mandatory military service for youth.

Palanteers publicly call for the US to move away from an allv volunteer military and towards some form of universal national service that many observers interpret as reintroducing a draft or conscription. Why the [__] would a tech company be saying that we need to move towards a universal national military service? How about [__] you?

While GLP-1s can curb appetite and potentially aid addiction, they carry severe side effects like stomach paralysis, pancreatitis, and even vision problems, especially at higher doses. Joe emphasizes that discipline and lifestyle changes are a healthier alternative.

Some people are experiencing all kinds of wild side effects. Stomach paralysis is one of them. Um, Brian Simpson got pancreatitis from it... Can cause vision. Permanent blindness... acute pancreatitis, gallbladder problems, gastroparesis, stomach paralysis, bowel obstructions, and potential thyroid tumors... Or have some [__] discipline. Go to the gym, eat better, be healthy.

Recent studies indicate that depression is not simply caused by a "chemical imbalance" (e.g., low serotonin), a popular but outdated explanation for SSRI efficacy. While SSRIs help some, their mechanism is not fully understood, and they can have severe withdrawal symptoms and side effects like sexual dysfunction.

There is no good evidence for the simple chemical imbalance like low serotonin that directly causes depression or automatically means someone should take an SSRI. But SSRIs do change brain chemistry in ways that can help some people... Experts now describe the chemical imbalance story as an oversimplified or outdated way of explaining a much more complex condition.

The 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which classified many psychedelics as Schedule I, was primarily enacted by the Nixon administration to target the civil rights and anti-war movements, not based on scientific or medical evidence.

So, when in 1970, the Richard Nixon administration passed the Controlled Substances Act, and it made uh DMT, psilocybin, LSD, all these different things. It made them schedule one... But the only reason they did that was to target the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.

Both Joe and Marcus agree that social media is a "rough one" that "rots your brain" by exposing users to constant negativity, fostering anger, and creating a need for engagement that can be mentally draining for artists and individuals alike.

And then there's also the newest element that targets your mental health and goes after it, which is social media. That's a rough one, boy. That's a rough one. And so many people treat that as if it's no big deal. Like you just shooting heroin into your eyeballs every day with that stuff. It rots you.

Marcus King explains that studying jazz theory provided a "vocabulary" for musical concepts he intuitively understood, allowing him to better articulate and expand upon his craft, particularly useful in collaborative settings like Nashville recording sessions.

And then later when I was in high school um I studied jazz theory with um Steve Watson... which was which was really beneficial because it's it's good to put a put a vocabulary to things that you you kind of knew you know but you didn't know how to quite name it.