 The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you. You sad pathetic humps. The New York Times says the Mushroom Cure minds a great deal of laughter from disabling pain. Time Out New York says the Mushroom Cure is riveting. A true life tour de force joining us is the star and the author of the Mushroom Cure. Adam Strauss, hello Adam Strauss. Hi David. Thank you for having me. And thank you for that intro. Thank you for doing this. You are the winner of overall excellence at the New York Fringe Festival. The Mushroom Cure, let me remind you what your one man show is about. The Mushroom Cure inspired by a scientific study showing that hallucinogenic mushrooms can potentially cure obsessive-compulsive disorder, Adam Strauss embarked on his own program of vigilante psychopharmacology. What is obsessive-compulsive disorder? Well what is obsessive-compulsive disorder? What is obsessive-compulsive disorder? That's good. Have you seen my bit? If you have OCD raise your hand six times. What is OCD? I think that's sort of the common, the popular conception of it is repetitive behaviors. And that's true. I mean I look at it as an addiction along with a whole host of other behaviors. You can view it as an attempt to minimize or eliminate pain that actually creates more pain. So someone with OCD will typically have an unwanted thought or an emotion. Usually both, you'll have anxiety and you know a thought. The thought could be my hands aren't clean enough. And so to get rid of that emotion you'll engage in a behavior, say hand washing. That works actually in the short term. Like all addictions, OCD it does work in the very short term. You'll feel a little bit of relief 30 seconds a minute. But then of course the doubt creeps back in, you know maybe you missed a spot. So you'll do it again. And the irony is this attempt to avoid pain. You're actually just amping up the pain because you're trapped. Okay so the hand washing is not, is a symptom of something deeper? Yeah. I would say it's interesting because as I've met, partially through doing the show, people who have a lot of people with OCD, the symptoms can often be very different. I didn't have hand washing. For me it revolved around decision making. So I would make a decision, could be a totally trivial decision, what to wear, what to eat. Sometimes even what side of the street to walk down. And then I would have a, at times an overwhelming compulsion to reverse that decision. But it didn't come out of nowhere. There was a thought. There was some rationale. Oh it's sunny around the other side of the street. I need sunlight at the middle. In the winter I need vitamin D so I'd cross over. But then, and I talk about this in my show, but then I'd realize wait I'm not wearing sunscreen. You know, I need to worry about ultraviolet radiation exposure. And I would sometimes actually zigzag down the street. I mean, as insane as that sounds, and that's a fairly minor example. Before we dig down deep, and I haven't seen the show, so I don't know what you're willing to discuss. I don't like gossip on the show. I don't like, you know, we just had Sheba Mason on the show. I hate her. Sorry. You're joking. I'm joking. Yes. And she's Jack. She's great. I like she's daughter. And I always, you know, I don't want any gossip. I don't want to know what it's like to have Jackie Mason as your father. That's gossip. So I want to be careful here about the questions I ask you and how, because I, but you do a one man show which I'm going to see about your OCD and how hallucinogenic mushrooms cured it. So I would throw in the caveat. The show is called the mushroom cure. And what I tell people is that's what I was going for. And we can talk about the actual outcome, but I wouldn't say it was as simple as I took these drugs and they cured me. Okay. Let me ask you a couple of questions and if it's too personal, don't answer. Where'd you grow up? Newton, Massachusetts. Jewish? Yes. Professional parents. Yeah. My father is an oncologist, a lung cancer doctor. My mother was a teacher. Now she works part-time. What did she teach? Reading. Reading disabled kids. Father is a doctor. Father's a doctor. Treats cancer patients. Yes. You like your dad? Yeah. I'm very close with my parents. Brothers and sisters? On the oldest. I have a brother who's three years younger and a sister who's seven years younger. So the oldest brother is the spokesman for the father. He has to help control the family? Wait. Spokesmen are helped control the... Usually the rebels are the younger children. Oh, I see where you're going with this. Spokesmen for my father, because I believe very strongly in his work, he's actually done a lot of public health stuff that I basically anti-smoking and pro-screening for lung cancer. So I actually, to the extent I ever can talk about his work, I try to. So I am a spokesman in that way. But no. In terms of... Maintaining discipline in the family? No. I was the breaker of discipline. I was... So the story, the family story, which... Sure. Let's just... I want to paint a picture. Because I don't know... I think this... I know your work. Yeah. And you know I'm a big fan. Thank you. And likewise. And I don't understand why you're not, like, more successful. And we can talk about that too. But I blame no one for that but myself. But here's an anecdote that I think is... Well, let me ask you some questions. You go to college. I was going to give you the family... Did you go to college? Yes. Did you get the degree? Yes. What did you major in? I majored in psychology with a minor in music. And where'd you go? Brown. Hard to get into. Yeah. How old are you? I am... You know what? Someone told me... I'm 41. Someone told me two weeks ago I shouldn't say my age. That's not true. Yeah. Because you look about 15 years younger. Thank you. Unfortunately there's no video evidence with this podcast. You went to Brown, which is a lot harder to get into than Harvard. I don't think that's true. Yes. Everybody wants to go to Brown now. Okay. I'll take that. Okay. And what was your college experience like? Were you a good student? I was so brown. I don't know if this is true anymore. You can take classes past fail. So I didn't have OCD at this time but I've always been obsessive. And we can talk more about that if you'd like. So at that point in my life I was very obsessed with being a jazz pianist. And so I practiced six or eight hours a day. I wasn't very good by the way. I started playing too late. I didn't have a lot of physical talent, but I just force of will to find some sort of identity. So you come from brilliant genes. Your father is a genius. Um... Oncologist. I don't... He's... I have a tremendous amount of admiration for him. He came from nothing. He was the... His parents didn't go to college. Where'd he grow up? Brooklyn or Bronx? He grew up in Queens. Queens. Yeah. Grandparents come from where? So grandparents were born here in New York. Great grandparents Eastern Europe, Russia, Lithuania... Mother of Brilliant. I don't know if I'd say any of us, including myself, are brilliant. I think... Bar Mitzvot? Yes. I'm trying to discern a through line with these questions. I'm trying to pigeonhole you. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to pigeonhole you. Please do, yeah. Fire away. I was Bar Mitzvot. Okay. And did you continue your religious studies after your Bar Mitzvot? I did for a few years after. I went towards... I think it's confirmation, right? We have that too, isn't there? Yeah, yeah. So I don't know if I was actually confirmed, but I took confirmation classes. But you were Bar Mitzvot? I was Bar Mitzvot. You're... Orthodox? I'm gonna guess... I'm gonna guess conservative. No. What's the liberal... Reformed? Reformed, yeah. Okay. Religiously observing family? No. No. Passover? Yes. Fast on Yom Kippur. I gave up the fast... I don't remember how old I was, maybe a teenager, and there was no pressure to maintain it if I didn't want to. Bill Maher says religion is OCD, true or false? I think there's... I've never heard that before, but I think there is elements of truth in that. The rituals. Oh, I wasn't even thinking of rituals. I was thinking the attempt to basically resolve pain, and I would say the pain that religion tries to resolve is uncertainty, which I think is the most fundamental pain of being human. The mushroom cure, Adam Strauss, winner of the New York Fringe Festival award for overall excellence. When did you write this play? I wrote it 2012, is when I started working on it. I did it in Edinburgh in the Fringe There 2012. Were you a stand-up comic at the time? I was, yeah. And you're a great stand-up comic. Thank you. You really are. I really appreciate that. And I can't wait to see the mushroom cure. When did you... When were you diagnosed with OCD? So I was diagnosed in, it would have been maybe 2003, I'm going to say, around then. So I was, you know, late 20s. Okay. Playing the jazz, playing jazz on the piano for six hours a day. I had given that up long before, but... Is that OCD? No, not necessarily. I... Because I'll tell you. I mean, clearly it's not OCD. If you were a successful jazz pianist, which you could have been, is it fair to say that practicing six hours a day and becoming a world-class jazz pianist is resolving by practicing all that time you're dealing with some unresolved issue by practicing? Is that a form of OCD? No, not at all. So what is OCD then? I'm not clear on it. So let's talk about it. So again, the commonality to me is any behavior that, an addictive behavior. So in my case, decision making was the most prevalent symptom and the most impairing symptom for me. Handwashing is a common one. Checking is very common. And again, the commonality with all these is you're looking for some sort of certainty, some sort of reassurance. So someone will think, well, wait, did I leave my stove on? I'm pretty sure I didn't. But maybe I did. You know what? Let me go back and check. And they'll turn it on and turn it off again. Okay, it's off. And they'll try to leave. Wait, but was it totally off? Or I should go back and check again and people can lose, you know, seven, eight, nine hours. They can lose their lives with this disease. Just checking. Just checking. Just checking. Light switches, stoves, that's a common one. Some people have what's called puro, pure obsessive, trying to just resolve thoughts. So coming from a, I have a mother, I've heard, who always second guesses me, just, and now how much of OCD is nature versus nurture? Because I don't have OCD. I say I do. And I do obsess on, but I obsess on the right things. Right, and that's the thing to keep in mind is I think obsessing is necessary and positive in the right context. And I'll give you a good context. I can be obsessive about my work, my material, and that's useful. I think, I don't want to say you have to be, but I think most people who are successful in this area are. It's when you're, you're focusing on things where there's no real return on that investment. Checking your stove for nine hours, ironically, it doesn't make you more sure you're less sure. The more it goes on, and these people are reduced to just, you know, they're totally frantic because at a certain point, well, it's almost an existential thing. You realize you can't be absolutely sure of anything, even these very basic physical things. I think I turned off the stove, but can I be sure my misremembering? Okay, so earlier, I asked to pigeonhole you and dealing with my stereotypes of Jew successful. Jew. Sounds accusatory. Yes. Jew, doctor, that you could have been raised. Did you do this? Did you do that? Did you do that? Oh, I wasn't. I wasn't. Well, this was the end of it. Let me make sure about that. Because the stereotype is, did you study your half-torch? Did you practice the piano? Did you write the thank you notes? That's how did. Well, the funny thing is, I would say I had that, but it was in my own brain. Nobody was saying to you. No, I was, my parents were, I think they did a great job given what they had to work with. What I mean by that is I came out of the womb, and the nurse told my mother that I did something she'd never seen before, which is when the nurse went to put in my, I guess their antibiotic eye drops, I swatted her hand away. Now, presumably, I didn't have enough visual resolution and muscular coordination to do that intentionally, but I do think there's something to that. I was extremely obstinate and driven from the family stories from the earliest age, so I think my parents did a good job not being too disciplinary, but also not trying to give me completely free reign. But if they aired on one side, it was maybe giving me a little bit too much free reign. Do you believe in God? I think that word is probably the most problematic word in any language. So I think if there's something beyond us to connect to, I think it has to be an individual connection. I think the idea of basing your life on someone else's connection who lived thousands of years ago is literally insane, or not insane, but it's just a waste of your own. I mean, if there is a God, he made me individual and you individually, I don't think he wants us to just, you know, model ourselves on someone who lived thousands of years ago. Engage with him yourself, it yourself. I had another show about this, so I've done a lot of it. Yeah, oncology, being the son of an oncologist. That's tough. That's tough work. It was. I mean, lung cancer, so as he said, almost all of his patients died. So how much of that bleeds into your childhood? Not much in that I think my father was aware of that, or the danger of that. There were, though, a few times, and it's very touching for me to remember this, that I remember seeing him crying, and I would ask him, and he'd, you know, say, oh, you know, I lost this patient, who I really care about. So I'm just trying to figure out nature versus nurture when it comes to OCD. Here's, do you want my joke on it? So at least for me, I would say I probably had certain predispositions towards obsessing, and at a young age, I didn't have OCD, but I had what would today be called body dysmorphic disorder. From a very young age, seven or eight, I was obsessed with my lips. I thought they were hideously ugly. Well they are. Thank you. Yes. So that's not dysmorphic. It's a relapse. I'm going to sue Alex, because he's clearly the one with the money in this operation. Okay. Now that's amazing, because there's absolutely nothing wrong with all three of your lips are beautiful. No, seriously. No, you're right. I realize that. But it was literally ten years of my life that I was obsessed with the idea that I was hideously ugly. I attributed all of my life's problems to this. That wasn't until I was in college where I had enough contrary evidence in the form of positive attention from women that I eventually accepted that, oh maybe I'm not a deformed monster, and I'm not exaggerating. I really thought I was a deformed monster. So the fact that I could get so obsessed about an idea that I think most objective observers would say is false, I'm not a deformed monster. That was there, I think, from birth. That's really interesting, because one of Alex Brazell is here, and I talked about you because you're a good-looking guy. Thank you. And I said to him, I said to Alex, I don't understand why this guy isn't more successful. When I watch you perform, there are women in the audience who definitely are turned on by you. Isn't that interesting? Sometimes. That's interesting. What's interesting specifically? Is that the brain? That I had that obsession. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yes, and I think it gets into deeper issues as to why to assume that form, but the obsessiveness, I guess, was the point I'm making, was there at an early age. And I saw psychologists, Newton has or had the highest per capita of psychiatrists and psychologists of any city in the US. So it was not unusual to see a psychologist then, but I did from an early age, a lot of it was this very volatile sort of relationship with my parents. Volatile. Yeah, because I wanted my way from a very early age. My mother would tell me to clean up my toys. No. Just because you're an adult, I don't have to do what you say. Does she call you a monster? No. No, no, they were, and I've talked to her about it, you know, now that we're adults and we have a very easy relationship, I think they were very cognizant of not coming down too hard on me because I think they realized that it was temperamental. But like. So how? OK, how? Well, let me just bring this home for you. How much am I digging here that's uncomfortable? Oh, not at all. I really, I don't hold anything back. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Virgin? I think tonight's the night. I saw the way Alex was looking at me on the way in. If you have, do you mind if I ask you? Yeah, go for it. I mean, how old were you when you lost your virginity? 18. How was my freshman year of college? Hm. Fract party. I mean, all the stereotypes. OK. And was that an eye-opener for you about? I feel like you're more thoughtfully mulling over that answer than anything else I've given you. I'm always interested in how people lose their virginity. Yeah. Yeah, let's get it. Because hopefully one day it'll happen for me. All right. OCD. So I would assume. Well, I have OCD. I still have it where I keep polishing the helmet of in the left side of my shaft with my hand. I keep polishing my penis. I like how something wrong you took to get to the fact is your penis. My head is on the mic. I like though that you think out loud. And I like it on stage two. I love the last set I saw you do where you were working out the stuff from Montreal. And it was really, it's so instructive to watch you work off notes. Because you really do let us see the gears turning. And it actually helps me as a writer seeing that. Oh, I think Alex doesn't agree with me. He's my manager. Or maybe he does agree, I'm not sure. I think if I just giving an expression that I would categorize as sort of derisive snorting. Yeah, yes. I think my act would be I'd be more successful as a comedian if I just showed all the gears. That I literally brought my notes up, told the jokes, then discussed the jokes with the audience. It would be a much more satisfying performance. But it would be the height of unprofessionalism. But what does that mean, professionalism? I think that's audience expectations which are fluid in comedy. We can, Andy Kaufman would be the classic example, but there's so many others. We can change that. At the height of my standup prowess, there were nights where I would go to the Improv in Los Angeles and it would be a pack crad on a Saturday night. And I'd just take out my notes and start reading jokes. And I would kill discussing the jokes. Because the way you deliver jokes, even when you're not working off notes, is so it's the way you talk now which has a certain intensity. Actually, intensity wasn't the word. Purpose. Deliberate. There's a deliberate quality to it that I think is hilarious, especially with, I mean, your material is great. And some of it is unexpectedly, I don't want to say lowbrow. But I am. Well, I do the same thing. I have a lot of dick jokes. And I like mixing in the dick jokes with the more highbrow, quote unquote, philosophy religion, that stuff. I think it serves the purpose of A, hey, I don't take myself too seriously. And B, it's just unexpected and surprises, obviously. Let's go back to the mushroom cure. Adam Strauss. I appreciate how often you're saying my name. Well, I'm curious. OK, so you have OCD. It's diagnosed in the early aughts. Did you try medication? Yes, I was on medic. So I was on medication even previous to that for, as I was saying, I saw a psychologist. There was a generalist called Malaise, which I don't think is that unusual, teenagers. But it's kind of overrated. I've been saying a shrink since I was 18. Yeah, I mean, for me, it was probably eight. But I wasn't on medication until I was maybe 17 or 18. So, yeah, I'd already been on the medications for depression are the same as the medications for OCD. And I have to put all this stuff in quotes because I feel like the idea of discrete mental illnesses is just, it's bullshit. What do you mean? I mean, there's never been a, I don't want to go off on this rant. Most people, if you ask them, they'll say, oh yeah, depressed people, they have a chemical imbalance. There's never been any finding whatsoever that people with depression have lower serotonin or dopamine levels than people without depression. The actual finding is that serotonin and dopamine vary a lot. So there are depressed people with high serotonin, normal people with low serotonin. So the idea that these are, we basically don't know what's going on. But they have found that by giving more serotonin, it helps depression. Yes, but if you look at now, there's more and more evidence and I don't want any listeners to go off their medication. The evidence is scant at best. It was a lot of cherry-pricking of clinical trials, the clinical trials for, again, I have to turn this into a rant, but Paxil, which I was on for over a decade, the FDA approval was based on, I believe it was 48 clinical trials showing positive results. It turned out Freedom of Information Act, people found out there were 47 other trials that weren't published that showed negative results, or no results. And how was it, what was it like getting off Paxil? That was a fucking bitch, man. That was, I tried and failed several times. We now understand more about SSRI withdrawal. And Paxil is one of the most difficult ones to withdraw from because it has a short half-life. So you go off and you crash hard. Didn't mean to turn this into a psychology lecture. No, no, no, no, no. But to answer your question, I was on many medications. Hospitalized? I was never hospitalized for OCD, but it was close. Yeah, I've been there. It was close. Yeah. What for? Depression. Yeah. Anxiety. Close. I think it was not so much. The hospitalization was more a reflection, not being hospitalized, I think, was more of a reflection of my health care plan than my condition. In that, that was the only way you could actually get care was if you... No, I didn't get hospitalized. But you're saying you had you been getting care more consistently. No, well, I, you know, I... First of all, I was also in Las Vegas at the time. And I think once I got out of Las Vegas, I was fine. Did you live in Vegas? No, I was working in Vegas, and I just had a complete meltdown. And I remember what Eli Wiesel said when it lifted. They asked Eli Wiesel about Auschwitz, and he said, there's no God there. Wow. And I remember thinking about Vegas. There's no God here. You come to Vegas to get away from God. Yeah. And what did you expect? It's human appetite there, so... Yeah, it's... So once I left Vegas, I was stuck there for a week. A lot of it lifted. But that's me, not you. So then you tried mushrooms. Yeah, so I... Accidentally? Or... No, I... There was a study per the blurb you read earlier that I read. I stumbled across it online in a reputable journal, the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. This goes back, I think, to the 60s, this study. No, this study, this was the first... One of the first sort of new wave psychedelic studies. Now there's a ton of them, or not a ton. It's still a trickle, but there are maybe two dozen that have been completed or are ongoing right now. But this was 2000, December 2006. And basically, small study, only nine patients, but all of them had significant remission of symptoms by giving them psilocybin, which is the active compound in mushrooms. And I tried mushrooms once in college. It hadn't really worked, probably because I was on antidepressants, which tend to often block the effects of psychedelics. And... Would your doctor recommend that? Mushrooms and antidepressants. Oh, to you at the same time? There actually is some risk now that serotonin syndrome. So probably not. I don't even remember who I was seeing at that time. But yeah, so I really had no experience with psychedelics. Now my understanding of psychedelics, I know not to take them because I don't want certain doors unlocked that can't be... Well, that's okay. I don't want to unlock. You want to keep them locked, which is a choice that you can make. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not so sure once you open them, you can... Well, actually, let me say something about that. I don't think... I think if you can make that choice, great. But I think for... I think often that choice is not a choice we can really make in that we think we're locking the door. But the demons are seeping under the door jam and knocking at the door. And so I feel like... So okay, some of the demons come out and then what happens? Well, I mean, even if you keep... You think the door is locked, but it's not really locked. Or the door is locked, but you can't enjoy your life because you're constantly checking the door and making sure that door is still locked or you're looking back over your shoulder. To extend the metaphor. And that's part of the OCD. I would say that's part of human suffering in general in that we try to avoid or repress difficult material, emotions, memories. But it's in there. So the psilocybin... So then the demons come out? It can have that effect, yes. It can have that effect. And that can be... I would think that would be absolutely horrifying. Did that happen to you? No. I don't think I have... I was going to say a silly thing. I don't have any demons. Of course I do, but I don't... There was never an experience of horrible memories emerging. There was though, interestingly, the experience of, oh my God, I have horrible repressed memories and I can't keep them down anymore while I was tripping and then finally realizing I can't keep them down, letting go, and there was nothing there. That was actually a very liberating experience, realizing that often I just scare the shit out of myself. But did you take the psilocybin... Now let me ask you this, is it a mushroom or is the actual pill that you can take? With the research they're doing, the clinical research and they're doing a lot at NYU right now, actually with cancer patients, not for the cancer, but for the anxiety, they give them a pill. In my case, I didn't have access to that, so it was a mushroom. They give them a psilocybin pill for anxiety? For crippling anxiety, that really impairs their ability to have any sort of life. When I think of psilocybin, I think of anxiety. I think that... Well, but actually, don't they also use caffeine to treat anxiety with kids? Well, they use stimulants to have a paradoxical effect with like ADD. Yeah. But this is a little different and I don't know the theory behind that. I know a little bit, but with this, the idea is... Well, the thing to keep in mind with the actual research and obviously, I was not part of a study. This was, as I said, vigilante psychopharmacology. With the actual research, it's very carefully controlled environments. There's a lot of preparatory work. So people are meeting with therapists for months beforehand. Therapists are present during the session while they're tripping. They spend the night overnight at the center. There's a lot of follow-up. So it's embedded. The trip is embedded in this very well-designed, carefully conceived, therapeutic protocol and the results are astonishing. And you went through that? No, I didn't. You did it by yourself? Yeah. I did it by my... Or with a woman who I was seeing at that time who's a big part of my show. Did she trip with you or she was your sherpa? She... I like that. That's a good way to put it. Sometimes she would trip with me. Sometimes she would be more the sherpa. Did you have sex? Yes. On shrooms? Once... No, we had sex and I also... I did quite a few... Quite a lot of drugs over a compressed period of time. So one of the things that I did was psychedelic cactus. And so we did have sex on psychedelic cactus. And... Berkeley? It was a little too intense. I think for both of us it was a little too... Are you able to... Perform? Well, forget that. Are you able to focus on the other person or do you get to... I mean, to me sex is all about losing your ego. Exactly. Well, that's what I was gonna... So that's what it was. It was sort of... It pushes you more in that direction. Towards yourself. No, towards losing your ego anyway. So it can kind of... I think we only... You forget who you are completely. Yeah, I think there's always... And that's sort of the... That's bad sex. Well, is it bad sex? I kind of look at sex as like... It's almost like dancing where you want to not really... There's an awareness of the other person, but... I don't know, with the cactus it was just... I think it was too strange for me. We only did it once and... How many times have you taken mushrooms? Mushrooms, I... Or how many times have you done this? Psychedelics in general? Yeah. Dozens over... I mean, it's been a few years, but sort of the show... Those events took place 2007 through 2009 and probably... 40, 50 times maybe. And it's called the mushroom cure. Yes, because that was the original study. Are you cured? That inspired... Or do I have to see the play? Well, I'd love for you to see the play, but what I would say is I'm not cured. I am dramatically better. My functioning is massively improved. OCD is not a factor in my daily life. It does flare up occasionally, but it used to dominate my daily life for years. Yeah, it was interesting. The first time I met you, you were running a show. And you were... And I was watching you and it was... You were stressed out and, rightfully so, people weren't showing up. But it was control. It was, and that... It still manifests. Sorry, I didn't mean to jump in. Well, it's kind of interesting because you've gravitated to stand up, and you... Which, to me, is all about accepting lack of control, but trying to control your lack of control. That's a beautiful way to put it. I love that. Yeah, and I would say that's actually... Minus maybe the last part, but I think that's the potential benefit of psychedelics is the acceptance of lack of control, which lists a huge burden off of you, where you realize, well, I actually can't control this. Right. I have found with stand-up, which I think, for me, cured whatever... Really? I remember having my nervous breakdown in Vegas, and the only time I was free from the anxiety was on stage. Yeah. I was doing two shows a night at Harris. It's amazing how it can just flip your mood. And then I'd be fine, and then the minute I stepped off stage, it came back. Yeah. So you think it cured you in that specific, in that week, it's what got you through? Well, it's the mindfulness of the audience, and focusing on these little baby steps of set-up punchline. It's all that matters in that moment. Right. Yeah, the same beautiful about that. So what do you love about stand-up? I mean, it's a hard question to answer. I guess what I love and value more and more about it is, yeah, the potential to form a real connection, which I think I can form with my show too, but with the show, the solo show, the mushroom cure, you know, there's not the same interaction. I'm talking, people are listening, or laughing, or sometimes crying. Whereas stand-up, I mean, I like doing crowd work, and even absent crowd work, there's much more of a sense that we're here creating this moment together with stand-up. Right. Right. And there's something beautiful about that connection. There's more vulnerability in stand-up than there is in a one-man show, because a one-man show is very high-brow and sophisticated, and the audience knows their role. I'd say there's different, for my show, because it is so revealing, like I just, I don't hold shit back in that show, and I don't necessarily come out looking great in that show. I mean, there's, so there's a different vulnerability there in that I can talk at length about my pain and things I've done that I regret, but you're absolutely right. With stand-up, there's a vulnerability in the moment where this could go off the rails at any time, you know, and that's why I really don't enjoy watching stand-up videos. I mean, I do, but you lose when you, you know it's going to turn out okay, and you don't care as much when you're not in the room with the person, and that's interesting. Yeah. You like the High Wire Act. Yeah. What comedians do you like? Well, Eddie Pepitone, who you introduced me to, and I hung out with an LA, is just... You knew who he was before. Oh, yeah. Well, I saw him the first time in Edinburgh in 2012, and holy shit. I mean, that routine about him heckling himself, but that's why I love Eddie, is the vulnerability is, and being so funny, which was, I mean, Richard Pryor, like many comics, I would say is my all-time favorite, and that's why, I mean, the vulnerability and just being so fucking funny is, that's the ultimate marrying that. I love Maria Bamford. I mean, I just think she's just at a different level as a writer, as a performer, the rhythms of what she does, her pauses, she's just, I mean, she's, I think she's, it's silly to say the best or the, but I think if you had to say one the best, I think it would be her. She battles with it. Yeah, something. Yeah, yeah, OCD, yeah. Stuart Lee. Is it OCD for Maria? Yes, it is. I think she also has some other diagnoses, but I think that's her primary one. Interesting. Well, you read, right? I do, I'm very proud of my, I am literate. How is that possible if your mind is always racing? I think that's probably one of the things I like about reading and about stand-up for that matter, is that, you know, I don't want to say it forces you to engage, but there's something, when you have, whether it's 20 people or 200 people, there it pulls you into the present. But what is reading for me? Same thing. If I had someone I really love, it's just I'm there. I'm there. And you don't wonder if the stove needs to be turned off. Well, I don't have that sort of OCD anyway. I never had that sort, but I certainly can have my obsessions. But yeah, I think there's something absorbing about a great book. And you don't, your mind doesn't drift off into worry and anxiety while you're reading. I mean, how many hours a day can you read? I don't read a lot now. I mean, I, you know, like most people in the city, I just, you know, and comics especially, I'm running around constantly and my reading is often in, you know, 10 minute increments on the subway. So, I mean, it's not like I'll sit down with a book for four hours. Rarely will I read for more than 30 minutes at a time. Do you, so in a given day, how much reading are you doing? Not a lot. I mean, there are days where it might literally be, I'm saying literally a lot, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. How much TV are you watching? I don't really watch TV. I don't, this sounds so, so, period. I don't have a TV. I've never been that engaged by visual entertainment. TV, movies, radio. Music? You listen to music? Yeah, I listen to music. What do you do with, so what are you doing the whole day? I ask myself that question all the time. I have a part-time day job, you know, now that we're gearing up for this run, we're doing the show at Cherry Lane Theater starting in June. Yeah, so there's a lot of rehearsing, PR stuff. But you talk on the phone with friends all day? I mean, what? No, I mean, no, I rarely talk on the phone with friends. I'd say my average day is, you know, I have some day job stuff, maybe a rehearsal. Doing stuff for the show. And then, you know, I do stand up most nights. Great. But yeah, I always feel like I should have a lot more time. I'm slow, I will say that. I'm slow at everything. I'm a slow reader. I'm a slow writer. So, yeah, I'm a plotter. Interesting. Tell me the dates for the mushroom cure. So, we have, and this is at the Cherry Lane Theater. You can take its information at TheMushroomCure.com. Though, I'll update that tonight. TheMushroomCure.com. We're June 13th, which is a Monday. June 27th, which is a Monday. And then we're from July 13th to July 31st. We're doing every single night, except for Mondays. At the Cherry Lane. At the Cherry Lane. That's a big theater. There's, well, there's two spaces there. We're in the smaller space. The 60-seater. Colin Quinn was in the, you know, the 180-seater. But yeah, it's, it's, they have a good rep. I love the space. It's a great space. It's perfect for the show, so. Adam Strauss is the star and author of The MushroomCure. You'll come back? I would love to come back. Thank you, sir. Thank you.