Episode 469 - David Bronner
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fuck sticks?
Marc:How are you?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:I'm sitting naked in a hotel room in New York City.
Marc:That's how that's where I'm at.
Marc:I know I've been doing this occasionally.
Marc:I've been doing the naked shows.
Marc:I know I'm doing that.
Marc:But here it's a little less weird.
Marc:I'm not in the garage.
Marc:I'm safe in a motel room with the windows wide fucking open.
Marc:How are you, New York City?
Marc:Look at me.
Marc:Oh, see, there's someone waving across the way who's doing a job of some kind.
Marc:This is going to be the best and biggest part of their day.
Marc:Hello.
Marc:What?
Marc:You want me to turn around?
Marc:Have a look at that.
Marc:They went back to work.
Marc:Look, folks, that was a joke.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Maybe it was.
Marc:Maybe it wasn't.
Marc:I'm just going to let you have your experience.
Marc:Who am I to deny you of that?
Marc:What am I talking about?
Marc:I'm in New York City.
Marc:I've had a great time here, but let me give you a little setup to today's episode, and then we'll talk about New York City a little bit, okay?
Marc:I had some things to do while I was in New York City.
Marc:I'm here with somebody.
Marc:I might be ready to talk about that.
Marc:I'm going to think about it while I do this other stuff.
Marc:A lot of things going on on a lot of levels in my head right now.
Marc:First of all, I'm naked.
Marc:I'm in New York City.
Marc:It's chilly here.
Marc:There's someone in the bathtub right now while I'm talking.
Marc:See, now the plot thinkin's, doesn't it?
Marc:Doesn't it?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Why am I ecstatic sounding?
Marc:Well, you know, I am, I am.
Marc:But wait, let's talk about the episode.
Marc:It's an unusual episode in the way that there's no fucking way you would ever know how this happened.
Marc:That I can tell you for sure.
Marc:My guest today is David Bronner.
Marc:And I'm not going to say anything right now.
Marc:What I want you to do right now, if you could...
Marc:is picture yourself at someone else's house and here's what's just happened.
Marc:You're at someone else's house.
Marc:Maybe you're a little uncomfortable, but you have to go to the bathroom and you have to do that one.
Marc:Not the easy one, but the harder one to do at someone else's house that you don't know.
Marc:So you go, can I use the restroom?
Marc:And they're like, yeah, it's just down the hall.
Marc:It's the first door on the thing.
Marc:Okay, whatever.
Marc:So you go into the bathroom.
Marc:Picture this.
Marc:All right, I'm leading you through a guided meditation now.
Marc:You're on a toilet.
Marc:You're on a strange toilet.
Marc:And you're a little uncomfortable in your environment because it's not your environment.
Marc:You're on a strange toilet because you had to do what you had to do.
Marc:You're in a house, perhaps a friend's house, perhaps a strange house, perhaps a bathroom, let's say an old style food co-op.
Marc:Let's go with that.
Marc:That's the guided meditation.
Marc:You're in a bathroom at a food co-op, the style of food co-op that might have been popular in the 70s.
Marc:There's still a few around if you can't picture it.
Marc:Generally, there's a lot of bin food.
Marc:There's a lot of stuff in bins.
Marc:There's things you didn't know existed.
Marc:You know, like I never knew there was lentil flour, that kind of thing.
Marc:That's what you've been going through.
Marc:Do you think these these dried fruits are good?
Marc:They seem that they've been out for a while.
Marc:I've never even heard of this spice.
Marc:There's an awful lot of it in that jar.
Marc:Hey, something smells weird in this corner.
Marc:Do you know what it is?
Marc:It can't be.
Marc:Is that something going bad or is that something they eat?
Marc:They meeting the hippie people.
Marc:All right, so it's one of those stores and you've got to go to the bathroom.
Marc:Perhaps you just had a smoothie and didn't think it would happen so quickly.
Marc:So you're in the bathroom.
Marc:All right, you choose the bathroom of what strange situation.
Marc:But here's the deal.
Marc:You're on the toilet, you're doing your business, and you're reading this.
Marc:Absolute cleanliness is godliness.
Marc:Teach the moral ABC that unites all mankind free, instantly, six billion strong, and we're all one.
Marc:Quote, listen, children, eternal father, eternally one, unquote.
Marc:First, if I'm not for me, who am I?
Marc:Nobody.
Marc:Second, yet if I'm only for me, what am I?
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Third, if not now, when?
Marc:Once more.
Marc:Unless constructive, selfish, I work hard perfecting first me, absolute nothing can help me.
Marc:Fourth, only hard work, God's law, can save us.
Marc:But if we teach only our clan, we're all...
Marc:hated then so we must teach friend and enemy the whole human race the full truth hard work free speech press and profit sharing moral abcs all one god faith lighting like six billion strong for we're all one or none all one god faith as teach the african shepherd astronomers abraham and israel for six thousand years since the year one
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:You're in a strange bathroom and you've chosen to pick up that bottle of Dr. Bronner soap to see what the fuck is on that label.
Marc:And that's what goes in your head.
Marc:That was my first experience with Dr. Bronner soap.
Marc:What is this shit in this person's bathroom?
Marc:I knew my friend said his mom was weird, but what is this magical soap shit?
Marc:And then you try to read the rest of the label and there's something about it.
Marc:You don't know what the soap is or whether it's special or whether it's weird or what, but you do know that there's a good chance that the guy who wrote this is some sort of whack job.
Marc:How could this be available at a store?
Marc:I don't even understand it, but it seems to have intensity.
Marc:It seems to have purpose.
Marc:There seems to be a mission behind this soap.
Marc:What is this shit?
Marc:And then you read on.
Marc:Fifth, whatever unites mankind is better than whatever divides us.
Marc:Yet if absolute unselfish, I am not for me.
Marc:I'm not but classless, raceless, starving masses, never free nor brave.
Marc:Only if it constructive selfish, I work hard protecting first me like Arctic owls, penguin, pilot, cat,
Marc:swallow beaver be can i teach the moral abcs all one god faith that lightning like unites the human race for we're all one or none all one holy shit what does this soap do what does this soap do i don't know what your experience is that's the end of the guided meditation so wipe and get up
Marc:Point is, I had an opportunity to interview David Bronner, who is the grandson of the original Dr. Emmanuel Bronner.
Marc:And I had seen, yeah, I use this soap.
Marc:I use it for a lot of reasons.
Marc:There's a couple of different kinds of Bronner soap.
Marc:You can get the almond soap.
Marc:You can get the tea tree oil soap.
Marc:I'm not plugging Bronner's.
Marc:I'm talking about my experience.
Marc:Look, the first time you masturbate in the shower with peppermint Bronners, you think like, this is not a good idea.
Marc:Is this going to go away?
Marc:Second or third time, you're like, I'm in.
Marc:This is the way this is going to have to be now.
Marc:I hope a vagina holds up and can get this tingly.
Marc:That's a joke.
Marc:So David Bronner, I was approached by a guy who works for Bronner's who said, I could set you up with David Bronner.
Marc:And I'd seen a movie about, I'd seen a movie called Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox, which is David Bronner's uncle.
Marc:It was Emmanuel Bronner's son did this crazy movie really talking about his father, Dr. Emmanuel Bronner, who is quite a character.
Marc:Was he a manic depressive?
Marc:Was he a lunatic?
Marc:He was like a soap maker from a legacy of German soap makers.
Marc:It's just a fascinating thing.
Marc:And he had this vision.
Marc:He had this vision, which he put on the labels of this soap.
Marc:I just had this opportunity to interview David Bronner.
Marc:I'm like, I want to know about his grandfather.
Marc:I want to know about the fucking soap.
Marc:I want to know about the goddamn label.
Marc:I want to know what the hell was going on here.
Marc:It seems like a good idea, but it also seems with a slight variation, the same kind of shit that my father could write on a good day if he had a vision.
Marc:So that's what this episode is about.
Marc:This episode is about the sort of legacy of many generations of soap makers, the vision of Dr. Emanuel Bronner as carried out through his family, and where the business is now, and the evolution it took, and how it's in this now, I guess, first, second, third generation of this...
Marc:of the Dr. Bronner soap that we know.
Marc:I was just obsessed and fascinated with the fucking label, and I was thrilled, thrilled to talk to David Bronner, and I hope you enjoy it.
Marc:I do hope you enjoy it.
Marc:So I'm in New York City.
Marc:I flew out to New York City, and I flew out here with the... Oh, boy.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:I flew out here with Moon Zappa.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It's out there.
Marc:That's what's happening.
Marc:All right.
Marc:She's my Valentine.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Some of you called it.
Marc:Some of you knew it might happen.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So there you go.
Marc:You're happy.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:We're having a lovely time.
Marc:Had some work to do, but we decided, look, you know, I wrapped my show.
Marc:I could use a break.
Marc:You could use a break.
Marc:I said to her, I think, or maybe she said to me, we decided a mutual break was in line and we did it and we're here and it's been fun.
Marc:We've been doing things.
Marc:She's making me do things like cultural things and being pleasant and opening my heart and talking about what's on my mind emotionally without yelling.
Marc:There's been tears and joy and all kinds of things that are the good parts of being with somebody and finally relaxing into a adult relationship.
Marc:uh it's been kind of fascinating and uh i'm kind of uh kind of leveled by the whole thing and trying to keep my together and i look i don't even know why i'm telling you guys this i just think you should know it and uh i'm not going to go into detail how's that going is that all right is that enough you think you think that was good are you out of the bath
Marc:Okay, so we're in New York, and what have we been doing?
Marc:I saw Wolf of Wall Street, and if you didn't like that movie, I think you missed a point.
Marc:That's all.
Marc:I don't know what the controversy is.
Marc:I've not read any of the backlash about the movie, but it was a great movie.
Marc:I was thrilled to be in the hands of Martin Scorsese at his manic best, moving that camera around, making those quick cuts, hilarious moments.
Marc:I think that if you didn't look at that movie as a comedy movie,
Marc:and as a celebration of a specific American archetype, the huckster, the salesman, or as a metaphor for the way capitalism works in this country, then I think you missed the point.
Marc:I think if you said it was indulgent, I think you missed the point because that was the point.
Marc:It was indulgent.
Marc:It was over the top.
Marc:There are moments in that movie, and if you haven't seen it, I'm not going to spoil anything, but some of the greatest moments in that movie was just when the camera just turned on the
Marc:the group of brokers in that room, and the intensity of testosterone, cocaine, and greed, where you just saw this humming, buzzing group of mostly men just sort of about to explode.
Marc:And in every shot of all the brokers, there was always like someone would erupt in just weird wrestling and violence and jumping around, throwing each other around.
Marc:And it just kept...
Marc:You know, peaking and peaking until at one point towards the end of the movie, they were literally there were brokers doing backflips.
Marc:And I just thought the nuance of that in terms of the sort of mania and manic nature of that period in that specific realm, the financial realm of American business.
Marc:I thought was pretty fascinating.
Marc:I think that maybe people were expecting something more leveling of the injustices of that type of business of stocks and the sort of the sham thing
Marc:of the stock market and how people were taken advantage of.
Marc:I think that was in the movie, but I don't think that was the agenda of the movie.
Marc:I think that what is challenging about that movie is it was more of a perverse celebration of American capitalism than it was some sort of morality tale of an individual.
Marc:And I thought that...
Marc:that Leonardo DiCaprio was better than I'd ever seen him.
Marc:I didn't know if he was going to turn on the juice, but he did something that I'd never seen him do, and he was spectacular.
Marc:Jonah Hill was spectacular.
Marc:McConaughey was spectacular.
Marc:I don't know the woman who played his wife.
Marc:She was great.
Marc:Everybody was, I thought it was great.
Marc:I could have watched it for another hour.
Marc:That's where I'm at.
Marc:Could have watched it another hour.
Marc:So I saw that and we both agreed, which is good.
Marc:It's good that when you're in a new relationship with somebody and you're having conversations about things, it's nice when you agree because then the relationship isn't threatened for that 10 minutes.
Marc:Got to be careful.
Marc:You know, like sort of early on, you never know when there's a deal breaker.
Marc:Like, well, we can't agree on that film.
Marc:I guess you're on your own.
Marc:This was a big mistake.
Marc:We're past that.
Marc:We went to see a play called Stop Hitting Yourself by the Rude Mechanical Theater Company.
Marc:I think Rude Mechanicals out of Austin, Texas.
Marc:It was very fun.
Marc:There was experimental theater in the best of ways.
Marc:There was dancing.
Marc:There was humor.
Marc:There was interaction with the audience.
Marc:It was also about greed.
Marc:And it's nice to be at an experimental theater event that doesn't make you go, well, what the fuck is going on here?
Marc:That's embarrassing.
Marc:theater can be embarrassing this was not had a great time uh then we i need to stop into russ and daughters to have two pieces of herring i just wanted two pieces of magis herring and i walked down the street eating it with onions moon wanted to taste it and i said i don't know if you're ready for this this is a this is not a thing for everybody and i gave her she insisted i gave her one bite of the magis herring and she looked at me like it was over that that's what happened in that bite of fish there was
Marc:There was a lot on the line.
Marc:She said, this is foul.
Marc:And I said, are we still moving forward with, with our relationship or whatever's happening?
Marc:She said, she took a second and, uh, and, and said, yes.
Marc:So we got through that.
Marc:We got through the herring obstacle.
Um,
Marc:I spent some time with Louis C.K., Jim Norton, Nick DiPaolo, and Pam Adalon.
Marc:And Moon was with me, and I introduced Moon to the fellas.
Marc:And Nick DiPaolo pulled me aside after he realized who she was and pointed at my facial hair configuration and said, does she ever mention that?
Marc:and uh i laughed and what i should have said was well she insisted on it did not say that missed an opportunity so let's talk to david brawner now about dr brawner soap and what the hell it is and where the hell they're at and why why what is what is that fucking label about so
Marc:David Brawner.
Marc:Now, look, I got to be honest with you.
Marc:This soap has been around a long time.
Marc:Dr. Brawner's all-in-one magic soap.
Marc:Is that what you call it still?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, like, I remember the first time I ever saw it in someone's house.
Marc:I was younger.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was like this weird, mystical thing.
Marc:That label, you know, I don't remember who I first talked to about it, but I remember like, what is this soap?
Marc:And someone said, yeah, some crazy guy made that label.
Marc:And that's his soap.
Marc:And then I never really thought about it or investigated it much, but I used the soap in my house.
Marc:And then I saw your uncle's movie.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Your Uncle Ralph.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that was crazy too, but crazy in a good way because your grandfather, Emmanuel, did you know him at all?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You did?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Towards the end?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he was 24-7, you know, sounds like, you know, he talked like the label.
Guest:I mean, he was a very intense guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, as he calmed down later in life and got to hang out in a more chill way.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So by the time, the movie, how long did he live?
Marc:89.
Marc:He was 89 years old.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he's a real character, because I pulled up the text of the label.
Marc:Now, what do you know?
Marc:I mean, I assume that because you're running the company now, and you sort of turned it around, your father ran it before you?
Guest:Yeah, he had his own company, and then he stepped in and started running Dr. Brown's as well.
Marc:So initially, though, I just want to get a little history because I think your grandfather is fascinating.
Marc:I imagine you do as well on some level.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And where does the tradition of soap making come from?
Marc:And like, let's let's start with that.
Marc:Where did your grandfather learn how to make soap?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So he, uh, he, uh, he was a third generation German Jewish soap maker in Southern Germany.
Guest:Was there a tradition of German Jew soap making?
Guest:Um, yes.
Guest:So the, uh, you know, going back, I guess, you know, Napoleon, uh, you know, it took a while for Jews to get, you know, rights to, to land and property.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, you know, I guess after Napoleon, um, the, the Jewish bourgeois quickly established itself in Southern Germany and started providing most of the tax base and
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:And all kinds of businesses.
Marc:I think the aristocratic Jews, I think they're called.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The Jewish wealthy class.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, that was kind of my family.
Guest:I mean, you know, came from nothing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he just made soap.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he would train under the guilt system at the time.
Guest:He apprenticed to another soap maker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Became a master soap maker on the yield system.
Guest:Also had the equivalent of a master's in chemistry.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So was he making mostly bar soap or was he making the liquid soap that we've grown to know?
Guest:Bar soap and actually the family pioneered liquid soap.
Guest:And so our liquid soap was in washrooms throughout Germany.
Guest:It was on the Zeppelins.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So Dr. Bronner soap.
Marc:And this was your great-grandfather soap originally?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, great-great-grandfather.
Marc:So he created a huge business for Brauners in Germany.
Guest:Yeah, with a great-grand, I guess my granddad's dad and his two brothers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, they're the ones who really cranked it up, and they had three factories, including one in Heilbronn, which is still standing.
Guest:It's a machine shop now.
Guest:Have you gone back there?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To look at the original factory?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you feel the magic?
Marc:Was there an emotional connection to that experience?
Guest:Yeah, well, the first time back was very, you know, intense.
Guest:I mean, the whole, you know, going through the whole history and Holocaust.
Guest:And, you know, we were starting the Jewish court of Laupheim.
Guest:Is that where the family was?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Heilbronn.
Guest:But it was also really cool.
Guest:I mean, the town's rad, and it turned out, and, you know, the historical society took us through everything.
Guest:And, you know, the Germans do a really good job, I think, of, you know... It's amazing what being driven by insane guilt...
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:In a way better than we have with like slavery or the American Indians.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, so interesting.
Marc:So they really have gone out of their way to sort of like try to put that history back together so people can understand what happened.
Guest:Yeah, if you go to the Holocaust sites, you know, I mean, you got the high school students traipsing through and, you know, they're really putting it in there.
Marc:I've never gone to Germany.
Marc:I don't think that any of my immediate family, most of them got out before the Holocaust.
Marc:But I mean, your family...
Marc:was profoundly affected, correct?
Marc:I mean, he got out in a nick of time, kind of.
Guest:Well, actually, he got out in 29.
Guest:Emmanuel Bronner.
Guest:Emmanuel Bronner.
Guest:It was more generational conflict with his dad and uncles.
Guest:He had newfangled ideas on soap making.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And then he was Zionist and just kind of like a little too radical and just constant clashing with his dad.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So it's more on that level that he just... He left?
Marc:Not because of Hitler, because his dad was pissing him off.
Guest:Pretty much, yeah.
Guest:He got lucky then, huh?
Guest:But his sister, his youngest sister, left when she was 16 and went to the Ingev Kibbutz in Israel, and then another got out in 38 just before the borders closed and came to Boston.
Marc:Right, so all his immediate siblings got out.
Guest:Yeah, but they weren't able to talk their parents out until it was too late.
Marc:And they were put in concentration camps and died in them?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's horrible.
Marc:And the entire business was seized and all the money was seized and everything was lost.
Guest:Yeah, it was nationalized in 40.
Guest:The actual factory, so they continued making your soap.
Guest:Yeah, there's an actual letter.
Guest:Actually, the German Historical Society just did a series on 100 German-American entrepreneurs and did this amazing research on my granddad and on our history.
Guest:And actually, they found a letter from the, I guess, the Nazi that, you know, got the factory.
Guest:And it was like this letter to the customer base, Metaform.
Guest:It was called Metaform, was the company then.
Guest:It was like, you know, rest assured, Metaform has been arianized, you know, how Hitler...
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So the fear of Jewish soap was gone.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That is crazy.
Marc:And when you say they revolutionized liquid soap, I mean, what does that mean?
Marc:Who came up with that?
Marc:Your great-great-grandfather?
Guest:Yeah, well, no, I think my great-grandfather, I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was, you know, it's still preparatory how we make it.
Guest:I mean, it's not rocket science, but yeah, they pioneered making liquid soap, you know.
Marc:And that was not part of the culture or even a reality in the world, liquid soap, until that.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what is the magic recipe?
Marc:How is it made?
Marc:What makes it so special?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, I mean, so in soap making, you're basically, it's a blend of different oils and fats with their different fatty acids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's just about the knowledge of, you know, you want high lather, you want emolliency.
Guest:It's all about getting that magic balance.
Marc:Now, when you were, it's sort of interesting because, you know, I got a little sense of the history of Dr. Bronner's.
Marc:But when you read that label, I mean, have you spent time with the label?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's like the I Ching, you know, you just, you never know, right, what you're going to get.
Marc:I mean, it's easy to look at it as sort of crazy.
Marc:I can only read, I didn't really underline portions of it, but there's political commentary, there's spiritual commentary, there's personal sort of like fight the good fight commentary, there's biblical commentary.
Marc:I mean, do you have any idea of what the, I'm trying to find, what's your favorite, do you have a favorite section of it?
Guest:Oh, gosh.
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, I like the tea tree label.
Guest:That's kind of like, it was kind of after my grandmother died, and we put out a tea tree flavor, and we all kind of picked our favorites.
Guest:I kind of like, I think, like, he'll kind of channel different historical, you know, spiritual figures.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And kind of give it his own gloss.
Guest:Right here, the first, and these are 11.
Guest:How many are there, 11?
Guest:Are they called moral principles?
Guest:Ooh, I think there's a lot more.
Guest:Lucky he was blind, so I could just pick up the bottle.
Guest:He's like, you know, I was supposed to memorize them all.
Guest:You were?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:When he told you to?
Guest:Yeah, you know, so it'd be like, you know, what's the 13th?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:The first is, if I'm not for me, who am I?
Marc:Nobody.
Marc:Second, yet if I'm only for me, what am I?
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Third, if not now, when?
Marc:Once more, useless, constructive, selfish.
Marc:I work hard like Mark Spitz perfecting first me.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Nothing can help perfect me.
Marc:Like like when I read this and I was told that this guy was unstable, I was like, this is like profoundly interesting.
Marc:It's almost like it's almost like folk art or something, that label.
Guest:No, absolutely.
Guest:Well, the first few there is that's Hillel.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Marc:It's his riff on Hillel, which is a very cryptic and difficult.
Marc:If I'm not for me, then who am I?
Marc:If I'm not, if I'm only for me, then what am I?
Marc:And if not now, when?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Something like that.
Marc:So your father, your grandfather just interpreted that into some sort of like kind of proactive mantra.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, well, the moral ABC that, you know, all brave, young, strong must, you know, must learn to, if we're going to unite lately, like, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, it's interesting.
Guest:Mark Spitz, you got an old label.
Guest:I don't know where you got that because we got sued by Mark Spitz.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Marc:No, I just, I went and just, I found a few people that had just put the text on.
Guest:Oh, that's funny, yeah, because...
Guest:We were going to have a big battle with Mark Spitz right before Phelps was going to take the glory from him.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He sued us saying we're using his name to sell our soap.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So this is recently?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's see.
Guest:It was five years ago.
Marc:Mark Spitz out of nowhere says, that's it.
Marc:Take my name off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:He wanted money.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I don't know if we're violating some kind of settlement.
Guest:But anyway, so, yeah, we gave him, like, I wanted to fight it, but we, you know, cut him a small check.
Guest:And that shut him up?
Guest:Yeah, it was lame because, you know, my granddad saw Mark Spitz, you know, he was, like, the first, you know, I mean, he was this, like, Jewish Olympian that's, like, amazing, and he's a perfect example of work hard, you know, constructive, selfish perfection.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and he's suing us about it, so.
Marc:How much of your grandfather's sort of spiritual thinking and his sort of persistence do you think was driven by being Jewish and sort of knowing what the Jews have had to go through throughout generations?
Marc:How do you think the Holocaust affected him?
Guest:Yeah, I think that was, you know, that and, you know, losing his parents, you know, the primary drivers of his mission.
Guest:And I think also the, you know, in the nuclear armed world, he just felt urgently called on this mission that all spiritual phase and all...
Guest:Traditions and giants are at their hearts saying the same thing, that we need to get over our trivial differences and realize our transcendent unity across ethnic and religious divides.
Guest:And we're all children of the same divine source.
Guest:Every man prays to God in his own language, and there's no language God doesn't understand.
Guest:you know that's he just felt that's what the label is about and he had to break through or we were going to perish really yeah and and then like and he thought that this was all going to be done through soap well yeah you know i think at times he was grandiose and i think sometimes a little more realistic that he was like a piece of the puzzle right but you know
Marc:because there was this time where i remember my experience with the soap was like i'm going to use this on everything right that like i look at this label this guy definitely had uh you know uh he had some sort of enlightening kind of uh purpose and you know i'm going to try to use this on my hair i'm going to try to use this to brush my teeth with i'm going to try to use it for uh for my laundry i'm going to use it for everything right and you can right absolutely yeah i mean if you ran out of toothpaste you know i mean like
Marc:That's not on the label?
Marc:It doesn't say teeth?
Marc:Oh, no, it does.
Guest:It does.
Guest:That's what I'm saying.
Guest:I'm being realistic.
Guest:You wouldn't recommend it for toothpaste.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:You can do it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:If you dilute it.
Guest:Yeah, just a drop on the toothbrush, and it's kind of soapy, but it works.
Marc:So that was... So how did... I think the other interesting part of the puzzle, you seem like sort of a groovy guy.
Marc:I mean, were you... It seemed that at some point, your grandfather's timing...
Marc:In the 70s and the late 60s sort of coincided with.
Marc:And I think the movie explores this a little bit with the cultures sort of breaking open and sort of becoming more mystical, spiritual, more sort of experimental that the hippie movement and the alternative lifestyle movement in the 60s kind of latched on to him.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The hippie market was the market for a long time.
Guest:oh yeah absolutely well my granite was an intense guy and yeah and i mean obviously from the label and you know and the the soap was really more to sell the label than vice versa and and um the soap was to sell the label yeah message yeah he saw himself as a prophet well he when he uh let's see so he was very intense he actually uh got thrown in an insane asylum literally in chicago
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For being as intense as he was.
Guest:Was he ever diagnosed with anything?
Guest:Was he bipolar?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, he might have had slight... I mean, the tragedy of everything he went through, my dad's mother died when my dad was four.
Guest:I mean, granted, I was going through a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just a lot of pressures.
Guest:And he was losing his eyesight as well.
Guest:Losing his eyesight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think he might have had some slight schizo tendency, but I mean, that line between mystical genius and insight...
Guest:and but i mean for the most part i mean he was just kind of this rat preaching his radical health food movement and ecology and environmentalism and all this stuff in america and in the late 40s and 50s you know it's like some weird communism right kind of thing he actually had a guy crucify himself on a bridge in chicago for his peace plan uh so but anyways wait the guy did it on his own will and
Guest:Well, obviously, someone had to help him.
Guest:It's a little vague how that all went down.
Guest:But he was inspired by your grandfather?
Guest:Yeah, my grandfather, who actually had nothing to do with it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, no.
Marc:When you become sort of a spiritual figure, people are going to interpret it in their own way.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So he decided he was going to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fred Walker.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, I forgot where I was going with all this.
Marc:But just the fact that the hippies sort of latched on to him.
Marc:But I think it's interesting that what you say is that he saw the soap like after a certain point, he knew he was making this soap and he was a master soap maker.
Marc:But his his ideology and his prophecy was what he was really concerned with.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And so yeah, so after he escaped from Elgin State Asylum.
Guest:He ran away from the asylum.
Guest:Yeah, he got out.
Guest:He came out west and he was actually lecturing in Pershing Square here in LA.
Guest:It was like a hotbed of activism in the 50s and stuff.
Guest:And so people were starting to come more to buy the soap at the end of his speech than to hear what he had to say.
Guest:So that's when he started putting the...
Marc:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:Starting to put what he had to say on the label.
Marc:So the agenda, once he had the vision, is there a point, do you know, did he have a vision?
Marc:Like, was it like a white light kind of vision?
Guest:I think he did have a few.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think he definitely, you know, in some parts of the label, he references certain experiences and...
Marc:Now I want to find him.
Marc:Well, there's some weird stuff.
Marc:It's not weird, but love is like a willful bird.
Marc:Do you want it?
Marc:It flies away.
Marc:Yet when you least expect its bliss, it turns around.
Marc:It's here to stay.
Marc:For centuries, man struggles half asleep, half living, small, jealous, bickering with mountains of red tape.
Marc:To be awakened the night God choose, giving his great reward for hard work, the moral ABC, unity, ecstasy, love, evolving man above the ape,
Marc:the moral abc unity love evolving man above coincidentally l yet oh so slow sweet kisses whisper softly into waiting ears arousing this is on soap arousing heavenly flames that enlighten renew brilliant fires blazing through dark lonesome years who else but god gave man this sensuous passion right yeah so that's a that's definitely an experience you know yeah he's like it's like it's like man on the mountain shit yeah yeah absolutely
Marc:Now, what was your father's relationship with him?
Marc:I mean, you say your grandfather was president.
Marc:Was there a time where, I mean, because obviously you're taking the company in different, not a different direction, but you seem to be, you know, kind of expanding the vision of the company, but, you know, sort of honoring this business.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Or in a way, just maybe bringing it down to earth a little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, I mean, I totally honor the cosmic vision.
Guest:I'm a granddad.
Guest:I'm all about it.
Guest:But, yeah.
Guest:Was your dad?
Guest:My dad, actually, yeah, no, that was a pretty rocky relationship.
Guest:So, you know, my granddad, you know, his wife died.
Guest:So my dad's mom died.
Guest:So my granddad was, like, caught on this mission to, you know, save the world.
Guest:And basically had my dad and uncle were...
Guest:and your uncle ralph my uncle ralph were raised in foster homes in the wisconsin area and my granddad would you know financially support him and check in and but he was out running around basically absent yeah so man with a mission right running around the country with boxes of soap right and his rant yeah and he just let them kind of be brought up by anybody
Guest:yeah and then i mean he was you know checking in and then right he had you know you know my dad went in the navy got a navy when he was 17 and when he got out he came and you know worked for my granddad and um you know but it and but yeah i did a different relationship my granddad came down to san diego my dad stayed up and continued to manufacture the soap where uh actually right here in uh la right by uh atwater right on the river
Guest:Oh, right here.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So that's where the original Bronner's factory was?
Guest:You know, it was actually another facility that we would rent time out on.
Marc:In Atwater.
Marc:Yeah, basically right there.
Marc:And so your dad and your grandfather were kind of at odds, but your father saw that there was a real business to be managed.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, he was, you know, there's a lot of love, a lot of anger.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, and yeah, so my dad actually ended up founding his own chemical consulting firm and doing his own thing.
Guest:But yeah, and, you know, the most moral man I know is my dad.
Guest:I mean, he was super upright, but wanted nothing to do with religion, period.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Pretty much, you know, as soon as my granite started on the Moral ABC, he was like, you know, I don't want to hear that, you know.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Interesting.
Marc:But it was it was the religion that your grandfather was preaching.
Marc:It doesn't sound like it's not like he was pulling stuff from a lot of different places, but it doesn't sound like it was traditionally Jewish or necessarily a specific religion.
Marc:It would seem to be his own thing.
Guest:Yeah, I think, I mean, I think it's an overall Judaic kind of influenced context, but yeah, it's very universal and, but I don't, my granite, or my dad didn't object on that ground.
Guest:I think it was more like my granite was like escaping his, you know, responsibilities, you know, as a family and whatever, you know.
Guest:So he had a beef with him.
Guest:Well, my granddad was very intense.
Guest:I mean, you couldn't talk to him about anything.
Guest:It's like, you know, my granddad would be like, you know, what's more important, whatever you're talking about, or saving this spaceship Earth?
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And just immediately dominate conversation, and we're going to talk about this.
Marc:So all the trivial, he saw all the kind of immediate responsibilities of family and maybe running a business and stuff is sort of trivial to the point that, you know, we have to save the Earth now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in a way, that was really amazing.
Guest:I mean, he would not sell to you if you didn't... Oh, if you didn't want to get on board?
Guest:Yeah, you could go to Walmart.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, if you didn't want to hear what he had to say, he wasn't going to sell you so... Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know of any accounts that you actually lost because of his...
Guest:oh i mean there's legend oh my god there is a story i forget who it is my uncle tells it you know my uncle's like who's on a phone he's like i don't know it didn't matter someone boom big oh really yeah but we've said no to walmart actually twice now in the modern era on what grounds you know just being like one of the lamer lamest you know corporations yeah yeah so just because he didn't and he didn't need it i guess
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, and, you know, their health care, I mean, primarily on their health care, I mean, low wages and health care.
Marc:The way they treat consume or the way they treat their employees and also the fact that they they actually put out they put mom and pop shops out of business everywhere.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So your father then.
Marc:OK, so he started his own his own company and you got along OK with him.
Guest:yeah yeah oh my dad was awesome and um and you were you grew up in san diego uh here in glendale actually oh really yeah so this is all familiar to you yeah yeah absolutely yeah it's funny i was like the map quest was like or you know maps was telling us like the five and ten or it was weird i was like why that's not the ten oh no no oh you came up from that way yeah there's like and did you use the google on your iphone yeah it's fucked up over there exactly i mean luckily i'm just like dude right i don't know what the fuck this is
Marc:It's all fucked up, like down where the five and the 110 meet.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I got screwed up there too.
Marc:And there's that moment where you're like, should I believe what I know to be true or should I believe my phone?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But you found your way.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So when you grew up, did you have any sort of assumption?
Marc:Did you know you were going to go into the family business or was this an afterthought?
Guest:Well, I grew up working on my dad's business.
Guest:So among other things, he developed firefighting foam.
Guest:So when you see foam dropping on forest fires.
Guest:That was him?
Guest:Yeah, so he invented that.
Guest:He modified a version for fake snow for Hollywood.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So I grew up snowing out commercial sets and movie sets.
Marc:Oh, so you'd have to bring the machinery over there?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So he actually, not only did he invent it, but he kept hold of the patent and decided to actually service the movie industry with this stuff?
Guest:Well, the patent, the firefighting patent, ironically, is Monsanto.
Guest:So Monsanto's firefighting division back in the day, so I would go and work on Monsanto's firefighting division, and then my dad would sell firefighters.
Guest:Like, I'd go around and sell firefighters on using foam, because firefighters have been using water for, you know, thousands of years.
Marc:So how do they own the patent?
Marc:How does Monsanto own the patent?
Guest:Well, my dad was a consultant, so he developed the- Oh, developed it for Monsanto.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So then he became sort of the, he'd be the salesman for it as well?
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, he was just promoting the, yeah, the embrace or adoption of foam.
Guest:And actually, Monsanto sold a firefighting division in the late 80s, and it's got bonds.
Guest:It's actually a Tel Aviv chemical conglomerate now that owns the product.
Guest:But if you ask a firefighter, hey, I know the guy's dad developed WD881.
Guest:You know, that's the industry standard firefighting foam.
Marc:So he's kind of a sort of a hero in that area.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And Monsanto, I guess, was only relatively evil back then.
Marc:You know, now they're a little they're a little questionable, too.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I didn't know better.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And whatever.
Guest:They're like a country.
Guest:They're just huge and bad in various ways.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They did Agent Orange and DDT.
Guest:So they'd already had that under their belt.
Marc:Oh, so they were already pretty shitty.
Guest:But yeah, they put out fires too.
Marc:They caused them intensely and they melt people.
Marc:But we're also helping the world.
Marc:That's the tricky, horrible moral reality of corporations.
Marc:It's not about people.
Marc:It's about the product.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So when did your old man decide that he was going to get into the soap bracket?
Guest:Well, let's see.
Guest:So my granddad got sick in the late 80s.
Guest:He was actually facing a very stressful battle with the IRS.
Guest:The IRS disagreed with my granddad's self-designated nonprofit religious status.
Guest:And so... He sounds like such a character, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he was in court and... He fought them then.
Guest:He fought them and he had gotten pneumonia and lost.
Guest:So the IRS, so he had to pay like 30 years of back taxes.
Guest:30 years.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And what about, on top of like, oh, I guess you said he was doing the family support thing, so that was cool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But 30 years of back taxes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we were in bankruptcy, and my dad at that point, so my dad, granted, got sick, so my dad at that point stepped in and kind of reorganized the company as a for-profit, fired everybody who was giving my granite really bad advice.
Marc:like your dad it seems like your uncle ralph is a much more uh you know sensitive poetic spirit yeah and your dad uh seemed to be the more practical business mind exactly yeah and and ralph was around right yeah and and my uncle ralph helped out as well i mean more on the i mean he was also more of the soul kind of right right because it seemed to me if i'm remembering the movie correctly that your grandfather had sort of created almost a commune type of vibe to the company that they there were a lot of yes people but there are a lot of people that believed in him and he
Guest:you seem like he sort of collected stray people a little bit is that true yeah yeah no it's some amazing people my granddad was really an amazing man and and like the people still my company are like my aunts you know kind of like growing up yeah you know they just love them so much i mean they came from everywhere all walks of life and he like brought in like you know kind of you know kids on the street right you know and and just you know taught them you know how to make soap yeah and then or be our accountant or whatever
Marc:really and uh yeah so yeah so yeah we had a quite an eclectic but dad didn't fire those people he fired like the kind of you know the outside accounting people and the the people that were kind of preying on it so yeah the sort of family that your your grandfather built around the soap they're still around oh yeah absolutely it's a it's a it's a beautiful thing like they're like it there is sort of uh like an old sort of you know 60s ideology to it all
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Are there people that functionally believe in your grandfather's religion?
Marc:I mean, are there people that preach the label?
Guest:There are a few.
Guest:We get asked to do, like officiate a wedding, and we have to explain that, no, we're not a religion, but we revere what my granddad's all about.
Marc:Oh, that's hilarious.
Marc:So you get sort of like, who are those people, though, if you could categorize them?
Marc:Are they older people that sort of grew up with the soap?
Marc:Are they younger people?
Marc:Because the way I picture it...
Marc:is that Dr. Bronner's was such a sort of hippies, late 60s, early 70s mainstay that there must be kids that grew up with it that grew up in hippie houses.
Marc:I'm just trying to figure out what the community that reaches out like that to you guys, what are they like?
Guest:Well, the hardcore hippie world is, I mean, they don't buy into it like hook, line, and sink or anything, but I mean, they're definitely grooving on the one love, and they're all about it, and that's my level.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, right.
Guest:You know, I guess there's like occasionally you get people like even, you know, further along, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there must be some older.
Marc:Do you ever have people that are sort of fascinated and want to tour the factory and, you know, that kind of stuff?
Marc:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They come in and say, I remember when we first got there.
Marc:Oh, it's all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do they tell you stories and shit?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Are there any people that actually saw your grandfather speak and stuff?
Guest:Yep, absolutely.
Guest:In fact, they just had a viewing of Rainbow Bridge.
Guest:It was this movie made in 1970.
Guest:It's about a commune in Maui.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it was financed by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.
Guest:Anyways, it's got my granddad.
Guest:They flew him out to Maui.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And it's like him and his heyday.
Guest:So if you ever want to check out, I mean, the movie is kind of like the best and worst with a lot of the worst of the 60s there.
Guest:But it's Jimi Hendrix's last live performance, capture and film.
Guest:Oh, I have that album, Live at Rainbow Bridge.
Guest:I never knew what that was.
Guest:He's building a bridge between our lower and higher consciousness and connecting with the planetary centers.
Marc:So now, like in current day, so, all right, well, let's get back to the fact.
Marc:So your father steps in, reorganizes the company,
Marc:and is your dad the kind of guy or was he the kind of guy that you you know had to kind of like tolerate uh the following that the soap had and the people that were into the soap because he seems a little at odds with the the hippie thing yeah he no i mean there was a little bit of a culture clash but my dad was like an amazing free spirit in his way as well right so you know he he dug everybody yeah and uh and uh
Guest:So, yeah, and actually, my granite did actually rally back and assume control again for a couple years.
Guest:Did he?
Guest:To your dad's chagrin, or was he okay with it?
Guest:My dad was all right, but my granite could have been a little more grateful, maybe.
Marc:It's so rare that you meet a guy like your grandfather who...
Marc:who you know who's just like this like kind of like radical but you know cranky visionary dude or he wasn't cranky but just persistent he was persistent yeah yeah yeah there's nothing you could do about it you couldn't stop it so they would probably fight all the time about what to do and what not to do yeah so and then my dad was you know but then my granddad had parkinson's and so basically by 94 my dad and mom and uncle had stepped back in and were running the company
Marc:And then what did it look like then?
Marc:I mean, what were they making?
Marc:Just one type of soap or two?
Marc:What was the primary product and how did it grow from there?
Guest:Well, it was liquid soap primarily with some bar soaps.
Guest:Peppermint was number one by far.
Guest:And there was, I'm trying to think early on, there was almond.
Guest:Almond.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was almond, lavender, eucalyptus, and baby, unscented baby.
Guest:And the peppermint.
Guest:And the peppermint.
Marc:And then you made that other one, the one for cleaning other things.
Marc:Sal suds.
Marc:Yeah, I had some of that.
Guest:Yeah, and then we also had a whole bunch of health food products.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, my gran actually had, his very first product was a mineral salt.
Guest:Like a mineral, like a healthy mineral seasoning.
Guest:In fact, he would insist on mineralizing everything.
Guest:You have to mineralize it.
Guest:And, you know, it'd be ice cream or something for this nasty mineral salt.
Marc:And he, like, there's some footage in the documentary of him going through some sort of weird ritual with a washcloth, I think.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Where he'd soap it up with the peppermint.
Marc:Like it seemed to me that as a personality that, you know, what he was saying and then, you know, and then all these other things that he invested a lot of belief in things.
Marc:And it seemed to sort of get him by it, get him through like his passion for it, like whether mineral salts are necessarily need to be on everything.
Marc:He believed it.
Guest:Yeah, it was rad.
Guest:I mean, it was good on avocado.
Guest:I mean, he just wouldn't distinguish between it.
Guest:So that was his original product before the soap?
Guest:Yeah, and then he had a bouillon.
Guest:The bouillon was actually really popular, and we'll still get people asking us, you know, what about the bouillon?
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When was it being made, in the 60s?
Guest:Yeah, man, it might even start in the 50s.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you don't make it anymore?
Guest:No.
Guest:You don't deal with food?
Guest:Yeah, we got out of, I mean, well, yeah, there's, I mean, there was just like a lot of problems happening
Marc:Getting FDA approval.
Guest:Yeah, and actually, genetic engineering, a lot of these products were soy-based, and all of a sudden, the soybeans were all genetically engineered, and back in the 90s, you couldn't get not genetically engineered soy.
Guest:They were fighting to not have to distinguish supply chains.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And you guys didn't want to mess with that.
Guest:Yeah, and we're just like, we're out, man.
Guest:We're not going to tank the brand over 5% of our sales if we can't get this stuff.
Marc:So the original products were the mineral salts and the bullion.
Marc:Yeah, and the peppermint soap, which, you know.
Marc:So those three things.
Marc:Those three things.
Marc:And then under your dad's, when your dad took over, he made the different soaps.
Guest:No, my dad just more or less kind of streamlined things, got things a little more logically organized.
Marc:And in terms of when you guys took it over, where was the business?
Marc:So, yeah, okay, so.
Marc:It's just you and your, who's involved now?
Guest:It's me and my brother, 50-50 partners.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Was that willed to you?
Marc:How'd that work?
Marc:Like, you know, your grandfather had it and he gave it to your father.
Guest:yeah so so yeah okay so my when my granite died my granite actually died in march 7 97 yeah same day my daughter was born wow um that's interesting yeah and i had gone through a lot of experiences i went to amsterdam after college and um had some big psychedelic experiences yeah like what happened like blew my life way to but you know just died and and kind of just saw the light and and wait let's get specific so you're in amsterdam
Guest:Yeah, well, you know, just in experiencing a society that's not shredding its citizens' lives over the drug war and just meeting a lot of Americans on the run who are great and rad people and they're facing 10 to 20 years, they step back in the great USA, and it was just for me this real radicalizing, like, whoa, you know?
Guest:Right, yeah, what country am I living in?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Right, right, the big education.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And just radically rethinking everything I was doing.
Guest:I adopted a vegan diet.
Guest:Still on it?
Guest:Yeah, still on it.
Guest:And just became much more ecologically minded and realized the disaster of our collective consumption choices as a species.
Guest:started to really understand what my grandma was about.
Guest:You know, I was just like, holy shit, you know, like, wow, this guy's on it.
Marc:So before that, you know, what kind of guy were you?
Marc:Before you went to college, I mean, were you just sort of like a Glendale kid just running around?
Guest:Yeah, playing soccer and football and just wanted to...
Guest:play ball and then in college just started partying a lot more and meeting really great people and started getting my mind opened and then in Amsterdam I guess the process completed and then all of a sudden you're like god grandpa was right I get it let me take a look at that label again
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, yeah, I know it's just like, holy crap.
Guest:And so not right away.
Guest:I mean, actually still in Amsterdam.
Guest:I mean, I wanted to not work in either.
Guest:It was more my dad's company and my gran's company at the time.
Guest:That was more like kind of the path.
Guest:and i was like i don't do either i'm gonna grow plants and you know that's my and if everyone would just stand up and stand up for you know cannabis and this thing would be over and right you know and i got all radicalized and traumatized my parents and about oh about legalizing weed and yeah yeah yeah yeah but anyway so eventually that didn't work out so i came back no you gave up that fight
Guest:Well, no, no, I didn't give it the fight.
Guest:Did you go grow some weed?
Guest:Well, I gave up the career, I guess.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The career didn't work out, but the fight, you know, goes on.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So, okay, so you come back, and what, you sit down with your dad, and you say, look, I want to... Yeah, well, I became a mental health counselor, actually, in the Boston area for, like, a couple years.
Guest:Did you go to school for that?
Guest:No.
Guest:Reagan gutted the whole mental health system so someone like me with no relevant experience whatsoever could basically get a job.
Marc:Like doing what?
Marc:Like abuse counseling, substance abuse counseling, or what kind of mental health stuff?
Guest:Mostly paranoid schizophrenic populations, but also MR and autism.
Guest:You had no training for that?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, you know what?
Guest:I mean, it just happens to some, you know.
Guest:Psychedelic experience?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I mean, that's pretty much the territory, except, you know, they don't get to come down, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you would, what, you spent two years doing that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what exactly did you do?
Marc:Did you talk to schizophrenics often?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I lived in halfway house, like just homes and just, you know, kicked it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what, just your job was to basically spend time with them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, make meals and, you know, take care of people and,
Marc:Was there ever a moment where you were talking to one of these guys and sort of reflecting on the label and thought like, oh my God, because like schizophrenics do some interesting writing sometimes.
Guest:Oh yeah, no, some amazing conversations for sure.
Marc:Because like there is a little, there is an element to the label that's a little schizophrenic.
Guest:Yeah, and ironically, I myself was borderline kind of going through some tough experience myself.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:I don't know, just negotiating, having these really intense spiritual openings and experiences and trying to reconcile to my normal world and just feeling...
Marc:Like what is reality kind of stuff?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And just kind of trying to reground.
Guest:And actually that counseling space was very grounding, you know, being a help to other people.
Guest:It was like, okay, I check all my problems at the door.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's important.
Marc:Service is important.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So when do you have to sit down with the old man about the business?
Guest:Yeah, so me and my wife, she was pregnant, and I just had to really think, okay, what's my career?
Guest:And I'm just like, I'm gonna go for Bronner's.
Guest:I mean, come on, if a company like this were offering me a job, leaving alone as my dad, I'd go for it in a second.
Guest:So I was like, hey, dad, I'm ready to come in.
Guest:And so he was super psyched.
Guest:But then a month later, he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
Guest:So fortunately, I had made the decision to come in before that, so it wasn't like, you know, so, and so he, I guess, so, you know, my granddad died, like, I guess him and my uncle.
Marc:Who died first, your dad or your granddad?
Guest:My granddad in 97.
Guest:And then my dad and uncle inherited 50-50, the company.
Guest:And then, you know, a few weeks, I don't know, like a month or so later, we found out my dad's diagnosis
Guest:And so I got a year with my dad to kind of learn the ropes and just really spend time.
Guest:Did you have to learn how to make soap?
Guest:I already knew how to make soap.
Guest:I grew up making soap.
Guest:I mean, I grew up.
Guest:You had to know how to make soap.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I mean, just running a business and inventory control and just basic stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And your brother is younger or older?
Guest:He's younger.
Guest:So he had the same problem I did, which, you know, didn't want to work in a family.
Guest:Certainly didn't want to work with his brother.
Guest:You know, but, you know, the company, I could see, like, you know, we stepped in, and, you know, within a couple years, it was just, you know, going, and I could see where we were going.
Guest:I'm like, Mike, you got to come in, and look, I'm not like I used to be.
Guest:You guys had problems?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, you know, whatever.
Guest:Not anything exceptional.
Marc:No, but what was the difference?
Marc:What was he mad at you about?
Guest:Not mad.
Guest:He was just more like, dude, I'm not going to work with you, dude, you know?
Guest:But he was like, you know, he was in Japan.
Guest:He spent a semester in Ethiopia, and then he was in Japan for two years.
Marc:What was he doing?
Marc:Teaching English.
Marc:You guys both ended up pretty noble dudes.
Marc:It doesn't sound like you were gunning for the big, you know, at least you had your heart in the right place.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:And so now, even though we're a for-profit, we run the company as if it's a non-profit.
Guest:We cap our salaries at five to one.
Guest:All income that's not needed for the business, we give to different causes and charities.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And whose idea was that?
Guest:Was that always the way it was run?
Guest:Pretty much on my ground.
Guest:I ran it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that was his case.
Guest:I mean, I guess R.S.
Guest:He's like, look, I mean, I give away all my money.
Guest:I mean, I'm not, you know.
Marc:And he really did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So as weirdly intense and somewhat unable to deal with, like, you know, immediate family stresses, he was pretty magnanimous.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And even his relationships with people kind of outside his...
Guest:children were actually phenomenal i mean he had was really well loved and really took care of people and so he took care of his kids too just sure it was yeah handful yeah he just didn't want to you know get caught up in family drama yeah and he also i think like to let he liked the attention yeah oh yeah that's it that's actually he was like i demand free speech yeah which meant everyone had to shut up and listen that's on the label yeah yeah exactly free speech is on the label it's has anyone ever written a book about the label
Guest:uh well we have we have all we have the whole philosophy compiled but we don't have a book yet written about the label no what do you mean the whole philosophy compound there's more than the label yeah yeah there's another i don't know multiplied by five i want that book and i'll get it to you moral abc one and two is it on the website or you just have it i think it might be
Marc:Because I know I saw all the labels there.
Marc:I'm going to look around a little bit.
Marc:Like, I'm surprised that nobody has ever written a sort of like a kind of a assessment of your grandfather's work and, you know, and contextualize it to the 60s and through the family and everything.
Marc:and through the continuing philosophy through you.
Marc:I mean, it seems like a pretty amazing thing.
Marc:There's got to be some obsessed fans of the- There's interest.
Guest:Actually, the reporter, he just did an ink piece, a really nice article, and he's like, oh, man, this is going to be a book.
Marc:Yeah, he got sucked in.
Guest:He's like, I'm going to- But then another guy who did a Fast Company piece, and he really got it.
Guest:Both of these guys got us, I think, did great jobs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we're realizing, like, actually, Ryan's going to be, like, kind of leading this process, like, who gets to write the book.
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:Yeah, there is totally a book to be written.
Marc:Yeah, because, I mean, it goes, you know, it seems like the steps of the book would be, you know, the evolution of the family business in Germany, you know, and then the Holocaust, and then, you know, your grandfather's journey, and then this sort of, like, you know, how it kind of evolved and where it is now.
Marc:It's pretty fascinating stuff, because you just don't, it's one of these, like, even if I, you know, you brought me a swag bag here.
Marc:You know, even if I just look at this bottle of the peppermint soap, I mean, it's like it's an icon.
Marc:The bottle itself is some sort of icon, isn't it?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And actually, you pulled out, that's our first, we're doing an agitprop special label for the GMO fight.
Guest:So we're taking on the industrial chemical ag machine on genetic engineering.
Guest:And, you know, we lost here in California in 37, which is kind of a little bit of a mess of a campaign.
Guest:But I think the movement's really got its act together and we're making a lot of progress in Washington states where we're hoping to bust through, you know, this November.
Marc:And in terms of this fight against the, what would you call it?
Marc:Is it called Big Agra?
Guest:Yeah, Big Ag, yeah, Monsanto.
Guest:I mean, basically the chemical pesticide industry in this country bought the seed industry and are genetically engineering resistance to the weed killer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, that's what genetic engineering is.
Guest:It's resisting, you know, they patent the seed, they sell you the seed, and then they sell you the chemicals that go with it.
Guest:And it's killing the other seeds.
Guest:Yeah, it's a pesticide industry boondoggle.
Guest:And then these weeds are getting blasted with herbicide all the time.
Guest:So now they're developing resistance.
Guest:Now we have super weeds, super bugs.
Guest:They're blasting ever more chemicals on this stuff.
Guest:It's just this chemical treadmill on steroids and it's horrible.
Marc:How does it affect your business?
Guest:Well, we are passionate believers in agroecological organic agriculture that we need to figure out as a society how to base our food and materials and economy generally on sustainable.
Marc:And who do you do business with to avoid having to do business with?
Guest:Well, the organic movement is made, I mean, it's just, I came out of the 60s and it's just well-established and not without problems, but at its heart,
Guest:is filled with amazing people doing amazing work right there's this whole parallel economy basically outside the control of the agrochemical uh you know corporations right so you know and it's about kind of expanding this alternative economy and making that the dominant economy and now basically people waking up and realizing the power they have when they buy a product you know are you voting for you know a world of you know chemicals being sprayed and
Guest:killing our soil and killing our water or, you know, a sustainable, healthy system that, you know, generations to come can survive and thrive.
Marc:But what do you think, and that's certainly, you know, part of your grandfather's vision, but what do you think is the biggest obstacle for you?
Marc:And it's my, you know, knowing myself and having, you know, thinking of myself as somewhat of a reasonable person and to the left and everything else is that, why do you think that more people don't engage in this fight?
Guest:because they just i think it's just because they're like i don't know it seems like what do i got to do where do i sign up and like just a type of of apathy because it seems like everybody should give a shit about this oh absolutely and this is part of what this adipro you know hopefully i will connect with our customer base who generally are you know i think pretty progressive and like hey you know this is an important issue and i know for me it was kind of back burner i didn't really care about it it's like oh it sounds like you know maybe they'll figure out how to
Guest:right you know increase yields or whatever and it took me a while to figure out the you know the just that's a joke that's marketing spin and right this is about chemical companies buying up and controlling our you know agricultural system and um you know and selling more chemicals and spraying more chemicals and
Guest:you know, and that, you know, this consolidation is hugely harmful.
Marc:Yeah, and anything in the byproducts of genetic engineering, like you said, are creating, you know, almost unkillable strains of weeds and bugs on top of polluting the food itself.
Marc:And then also once those seeds start spreading or pollinating,
Marc:there's a real risk that they're just going to take over and it'll become very difficult to separate real seeds from modified seeds, right?
Guest:Right, genetic trespass.
Guest:Right.
Guest:How do you stop that?
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:And that's the genie.
Guest:It's out of the bottom.
Guest:We need to stick it back in, and we just need to draw the line.
Guest:They've got soy, corn, and cotton, and canola, and they're trying to do everything else.
Guest:I think the movement's really waking up, and we're starting to have some important victories.
Guest:So the Roundup Ready is the dominant genetically engineered trait, and that's Monsanto's lead herbicide is Roundup.
Guest:So that technology's failing rapidly.
Guest:So now they're engineering resistance to 2,4-D, the main ingredient in Agent Orange, and dicamba, both of which are very toxic, supposedly.
Guest:They're gonna use that as pesticide.
Guest:Yeah, that's going to be the new technology.
Guest:You can spray a huge amount of 2,4-D and a huge amount of dicamba.
Guest:And it's just like, well, one, that's not going to work.
Guest:You're going to just create resistance to those poisons.
Guest:And two, these are really toxic chemicals.
Guest:This is what we were supposed to not have to use anymore.
Guest:So now that's... It's back.
Guest:Yeah, it's back.
Guest:So anyways, this whole paradigm of chemical agriculture, you can just plant the same crop in the same land year after year and just blast it with the chemicals...
Guest:is completely unsustainable.
Guest:You have to be able to disrupt and interrupt pest cycles in sustainable, organic ways.
Guest:You can't just, you know.
Marc:It's interesting that part of the book, that's another part of the book, is that there is some weird family connection to Monsanto through the fire foam.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, totally.
Guest:And we have a fire truck, actually.
Guest:We go to mud runs and parades and stuff, and we make our soap into foam using firefighting foam technology.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Just for fun?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's kind of marketing.
Guest:Yeah, well, what do you do with the fire truck?
Guest:Well, it's like final wrap in this Tibetan fire thing, and my dad's power animal is an eagle, so it's got this rad kind of eagle of love in the front.
Marc:And you just spray people with it?
Guest:Yeah, and we have like a big plexiglass shower.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's fun.
Marc:All right, so now when you got the company, because I see I got a bag of stuff here, and I appreciate that.
Marc:So you're doing coconut oil too now, so you are doing a little bit of food.
Guest:Yeah, you know, I should say that.
Guest:So one of the initiatives that I pioneered with my brother is like, okay, like, you know, we need to, one, go organic and then two, be fair trade.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, you know, organic, I mean, it's super important as we were talking about, you know, the environmental side of sustainability.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, get off the synthetic fertilizers and chemicals.
Guest:But then also, what about the social side?
Guest:What about the wages and prices and working conditions under which your organic coconuts are being produced?
Guest:And we realized we didn't know.
Guest:I mean, it could be kids being exploited.
Guest:Who knew?
Guest:So fair trade kind of grew out of coffee and the really horrible conditions that small coffee farmers face with these really volatile global markets.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So anyways, but that fair trade concept is, you know, we've expanded to our major supply chain.
Guest:So that's coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, and mint oil.
Marc:Did you use those in soaps originally?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's the basic ingredients in the soap.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It's like a coconut olive with some hemp oil.
Guest:That was something we added.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:we got in a big fight with the drug enforcement administration did you why uh well let's see right after gosh man right after 9-11 so so you know Ashcroft thought he had a blank check so he went not he slammed down he came down on hemp on medical marijuana uh-huh on Oregon's euthanasia law right I remember that yeah
Guest:So, technically, we were a drug kingpin sitting on 40,000 pounds of Schedule I THC.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Well, you had a big silo full of hemp seeds?
Guest:Yeah, we had hemp oil, parts per million, trace THC.
Guest:It's fully non-psychoactive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Hemp seed oil is really high in the omega-3, so it's really moldy on its skin.
Guest:It's good to take internally, and it makes our soaps lather much smoother and less drying.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So anyways, it was like, you know, we got a huge fight with the DEA and had to, you know, just had to beat them in Ninth Circuit Court.
Guest:And that was my first kind of really stressful, intense activist deal.
Guest:Well, what went down?
Guest:I mean, how hard was the fight?
Guest:Well, I mean.
Guest:technically we were going to go to jail if we didn't win but um actually ryan's uh uh partner adam eidinger like we we met up at that point and um we actually organized the dea taste test we served dea employees around the country hemp foods and and poppy seed bagels invited the media out so i was in front of the dea headquarters you know serving on poppy seed bagels and
Guest:and hemp red.
Guest:To prove what?
Guest:Did they know?
Guest:Yeah, well, they didn't generally eat it, but yeah, they know.
Guest:They know how absurd it is and how ridiculous it is, but for them, the whole cannabis prohibition is such a house of cards and anything that exposes the lies that it's built on, whether that's industrial hemp or medical marijuana, they're frantic about
Guest:you know, fighting it.
Guest:Why do you think that is?
Guest:Well, you know, it goes back, I think, to the war on the hippies and the puritanical kind of culture.
Guest:I think just like freaked out with the, you know, the 60s, you know, if you're on the other side, was just this horrendous, you know, disaster.
Marc:It was a threat to all order.
Guest:And cannabis symbolized, you know, nothing with, you know, that hippie, the whole crisis of the 60s.
Guest:And like that generational fight is playing out
Guest:you know now it's starting to resolve right now we're finally winning and yeah moving moving on but it's still you know i think it's you know you just got these drug warriors from that generation that's holding on that's right and it's interesting too because i from my understanding of it that the success or the potential success of the hippie movement and the sds and
Marc:And the real perceived threat that I read, I think it's called the Powell Doctrine or the Powell something, was I think at the time that the masters of capitalism, it wasn't a social issue.
Marc:They really at some point thought that these guys were going to make the country socialist, that the hippie ideology was going to spread and it was going to become a threat to capitalism.
Marc:And, and it makes perfect sense if you, if you, you know, follow the money that, you know, that's what they're really afraid of is, is, is capitalism being any way threatened.
Marc:And that was the fight that they agreed to fight for the rest of time was that there can never be an attack on capitalism.
Marc:It wasn't about democracy or social issues that became the face of it.
Marc:It was really about like, we can't, right.
Marc:We can't let these fucking hippies start farms.
Marc:And, you know, we got to have Monsanto, you know, which goes back to the Monsanto thing.
Marc:and the small business and the small farm and organic farmers, is that, you know, it's all about money, right?
Guest:Yeah, that's interesting, yeah, because you look at the origin of marijuana prohibition, and it was really, I mean, it was the economic threat that Mexican immigrants, you know, imposed to, you know, white Americans in their jobs.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You know, so, you know, demonizing the weed that, you know, that was the proxy for the main economic.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah, it all comes back to that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You know, somebody's got to take the action, whoever it's going to be, you know, to provoke the conversation and challenge the existing order.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And coming from the whole political theater, you know, I got arrested in 2010 digging up the DA's lawn, planting hemp seeds.
Guest:Oh, did you?
Guest:Yeah, it was really good.
Guest:Got a lot of good attention.
Guest:And actually, at the same time, we discovered that the Pentagon was sited on Arlington Farms.
Guest:So Arlington Farms is the USDA's own test farm for growing out different strains of hemp.
Guest:So the Pentagon got built on top of the government's own hemp fields.
Marc:You think they did that on purpose?
Marc:uh i don't know i probably not but i mean how mystical do you get with that shit yeah exactly i mean it's just one of these are you know like the the joke the spiritual you know humor of god i don't know yeah no no but i mean like you know it's weird because if you are you know even slightly conspiratorial in your thinking if you're going to go with the the mystical bent and really think about the pentagon uh the pentagram right the power of the pentagram and then now you're saying that was built over a hemp field i mean you know
Marc:Not that it has any specific meaning, but you could certainly read into it all you want.
Marc:That's a rabbit hole you should stay at it, I think.
Marc:It's a very impractical mental rabbit hole.
Marc:So when you say political theater, you're planting hemp in front of the DEA guy's house.
Marc:That seems to be pretty effective in terms of making people understand issues.
Marc:If issues are not...
Marc:If people can't quite wrap their brain around a cause or they don't want to get involved, if the political theater is effective enough or funny enough or dramatic enough, it is a way to deliver a message.
Marc:How much of that kind of stuff have you done in your life?
Guest:Yeah, I guess a few times.
Guest:I guess the very first time we blocked a courthouse up north
Guest:uh in i think 2003 up north where um in sacramento um like a medical marijuana provider was going down for 10 years you know and you know this is told travesty of justice and you know we locked and blocked this federal courthouse and you know it was a super intense fight and um you know and i think was a real turning point in you know that was the dark times of medical marijuana when bush looked like he was going to stamp it out yeah and the movement came together and you know 25 of us were arrested and you know lots of press lots of positive
Guest:Anyway, so I think people willing to give up their liberty and be arrested for something definitely catches attention.
Guest:And how'd that fight turn out?
Guest:Well, he still went to jail, but the overall medical marijuana trajectory is rock solid.
Guest:Obviously, it's been a very frustrating process, but you can see the clear path ahead.
Guest:What else have you done?
Guest:So on the hemp front,
Guest:So two years into Obama in 2010, we were super frustrated.
Guest:We were like, come on, Obama is supposed to be this guy who's going to base policy on science and reason.
Guest:And here he is perpetuating the drug war, especially industrial hemp.
Guest:I mean, this is the total no-brainer.
Guest:How can you have a non-drug agricultural crop be treated as a Schedule I substance?
Guest:And as an Illinois state senator, you voted twice for hemp cultivation under Illinois state law.
Guest:right you know but then he's just not calling off the drug war dogs you know yeah it's not you know whatever I don't know what was going on so he was being a centrist he was trying to play both sides right yeah and you know it's just lame and disappointing so you know so the first thing we did was dug up the DA's lawn in 2010 and got arrested for that
Guest:And then this past year, last year, I built a cage and we grew out like 30 industrial hemp plants, the most expensive hemp ever grown.
Guest:I had to interrupt two medical growth cycles for this guy to grow my industrial hemp.
Guest:And we grew it out to seed.
Guest:And then so I got myself locked in a cage on a trailer and I got towed into position in front of the White House
Guest:And it was all play carded, so you didn't know what was going on.
Guest:And then busted out the play cards.
Guest:I'm in a cage with a big PA and my plants, and I'm harvesting the hemp seeds and pressing oil.
Guest:In the cage.
Guest:In the cage, and yelling at Obama.
Guest:I have a big sign, Obama, let American farmers grow hemp.
Guest:And just yelling, why is my family sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to Canadian farmers in the middle of the worst recession ever?
Guest:This president, again, is supposed to be basing his policy on science and reason, and this is ridiculous.
Guest:And just had just a huge crowd, 15 different kinds of cops were swarming the situation.
Guest:And this was just recently, a couple years ago?
Guest:This was June of 2012, yeah.
Marc:But now you sort of like because of these relationships, the free trade relationships, you've got these other products.
Marc:Like it's not just the soap anymore.
Marc:You've got shaving cream.
Marc:You've got coconut oil.
Marc:You've got hand sanitizers.
Marc:You've got the whole business going here.
Marc:I've got a good array of swag.
Guest:Yeah, no, the shaving gel I'm pretty proud of.
Guest:I mean, most shaving gels in the market are just complete synthetic petrochemicals, schlock.
Guest:So this is all natural and organic.
Marc:You're going to make me want to shave again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, yeah.
Guest:And yeah, just, you know, we're kind of branching out in the different product categories.
Guest:And how is business?
Guest:We're rocking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're doing very well.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's great, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, I'm on the board of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Psychedelic Association.
Guest:Association of Psychedelic Studies sorry oh yeah it's a mouthful maps so they're the main psychedelic advocacy group they're bringing their form the year MDMA ecstasy was scheduled by kind of a you know a crew of psychotherapists that have been having amazing success with MDMA as an adjunct to trauma counseling and couples counseling
Guest:and their mission is to bring mdma and other psychedelics through fda approval process as medicine interesting so we so i work hard on that and also in cannabis generally across the board you know just reforming reforming the drug war generally i mean there's a a local um needle exchange we support here clean needles now my friend show show runs and
Guest:You know, just the disaster of the drug war, you know, where you just dehumanize, you know, addicts and, you know, instead of treating it as a health problem, you know, criminalizing it.
Guest:So a lot of energy and research goes into that and kind of in that movement.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:So, I mean, do you feel, I mean, how often do you still do psychedelics?
Guest:Oh, you know, a couple times a year maybe.
Guest:Yeah, just to clean it out.
Guest:Pretty much, right?
Guest:You know, get cleaned out, checked in, get your butt kicked, whatever.
Marc:So do you feel like, how often do you think about your grandfather and his vision and what he would think about what you're doing with the company?
Guest:Um, yeah, you know, I have a picture of him and my dad and, uh, you know, they're pretty psyched.
Guest:I think, I mean, I do kind of, you know, very much am conscious of standing up to their example and this amazing, um, engine that they've bequeathed.
Guest:And, but you know, their, their smiles in the pictures can be, you know, Hey, right on dude.
Guest:And then they can be like, you know, Hey, come on, man.
Guest:What's up, dude.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Everything's open to interpretation based on one's perception at that moment.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And how's your Uncle Ralph doing?
Guest:He's good.
Guest:He had a stroke, unfortunately, so he slowed down a bit.
Guest:But psychologically, he's still right on.
Guest:He's just kind of not out there.
Guest:He's not singing, going around the country playing songs.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Is he proud of the company now?
Marc:Oh, he's so psyched.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you, David.
Guest:All right.
Thanks, Mark.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That is our show.
Marc:That was interesting.
Marc:That was unique.
Marc:That was a conversation I enjoyed.
Marc:I learned things about something I was curious about for a long time, and I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:What else?
Marc:What else?
Marc:Get that app, the free WTF app.
Marc:Upgrade to premium.
Marc:Do that business.
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Marc:Enjoy yourselves.
Marc:Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod needs.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop over there.
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Marc:I do that every Sunday.
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All right.
Marc:You know, leave some comments if you like.
Marc:Take care of yourself, all right?
Marc:If I sound chipper, it's because I am having a good time.
Marc:Is that all right?
Marc:You guys are great.
Marc:All right?
Marc:I'll talk to you on Thursday.
Marc:Okay, I'll be back home.
Marc:Okay, I got to go.
Marc:I have to go out to dinner.
Marc:I have to get dressed.
Marc:I'm going to shower.
Marc:I certainly can't go outside naked.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Boomer lives!
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