Episode 120 · The GaS Digital / Ray Kump Era
The Morman and the Meth Head with Jessa Reed and Aaron Woodall
with Aaron Woodall and Jessa Reed
Nov 2, 2018 · 1:08:17 · 19 segments, 148 moments indexed
- 1 min
Tim welcomes returning guest Jessa Reed and her new partner Aaron Woodall, co-hosts of the podcast Mormon and the Meth Head, and asks how they met at a comedy festival in Billings, Montana.
2moments
- 0:30Jessa Reed returns to the podcast as a guest.
- 0:42Tim introduces Aaron Woodall and clarifies the spelling of his last name.
Jessa ReedAaron WoodallThe Mormon in the Meth Head
- 3 min
Aaron describes growing up Mormon on the East Coast, attending Brigham Young University, signing the honor code agreement banning masturbation, facial hair, and alcohol, and the campus culture of roommates narcing on each other for the honor code office.
7moments
- 1:05Aaron quit Mormonism and met his co-host at a comedy festival in Billings where she was quitting meth—he calls them similar stories.
- 1:40Tim asks why Aaron thought Mormons were cool until he met enough of them.
- 1:58Tim learns BYU students have to sign an honor code agreement that prohibits masturbation, facial hair, yoga pants, sex, and alcohol.
- 2:29BYU will accept non-Mormons but they still have to sign the morality clause.
- 2:49Aaron describes how BYU encourages roommates to report each other, framing it as saving them from the devil.
- 3:17Tim notes the honor code office exists as a literal campus department to process violations and comparisons it to virtue police in Saudi Arabia.
- 3:30Aaron emphasizes the honor code office on campus is specifically tasked with handling reported violations.
MormonismBrigham Young UniversityBig Sky Comedy Fest
- 3 min
Jessa explains her lifelong attraction to indoctrinated men, listing her exes including multiple pastor's kids and a ten-year marriage to a LaVeyan Satanist, with Tim probing whether that Satanism involved actual black masses (it didn't).
8moments
- 3:55Jessa describes a lifelong pattern of attraction to indoctrinated men, starting with marrying a pastor's kid at 16.
- 4:13After multiple pastor's kid relationships, she married a Satanist and stayed married for 10 years.
- 4:32Tim explains that LaVey Satanism is essentially Buddhism with a performative 'fuck you' rather than actual devil worship.
- 5:21Jessa clarifies her ex-husband didn't attend black masses; his Satanism was philosophical, not performative.
- 5:34They had a Wiccan priestess marry them instead of a Catholic priest.
- 6:00Tim asks what attracts her to indoctrinated men, whether she's drawn to their certainty or lacks that quality herself.
- 6:18Jessa attributes her attraction to indoctrinated men to growing up on the wrong side of the tracks and lacking that programming.
- 6:36During her meth use, she thought of herself as a backslidden Christian before the alien experience happened.
satanismborn again ChristianityCatholicismBuddhismWicca
- 3 min
Aaron discusses quitting Mormonism at the same time as his divorce, and the pair discuss him experiencing alcohol, coffee, weed, masturbation, and his first blowjob at age 30 as a kind of reverse adolescence.
8moments
- 7:11Tim grew up Catholic but never really surrendered to the religion beyond drugs and alcohol.
- 7:25His Catholic high school had a theater teacher making out with kids in the hallway—it was a cool place.
- 7:55Aaron got clean, came out of the closet, and started comedy all within a three-month period.
- 8:08Standup comedy became the new drug after he gave up substances.
- 8:49Aaron never tried alcohol, weed, or coffee and now needs to experience these things for the first time.
- 9:13He used to masturbate but felt so guilty he'd cry afterward—now he's learning he's allowed to touch himself.
- 9:35Tim explains you have to talk yourself up to masturbate, like putting on a weird voice.
- 9:58Aaron is experiencing American teenager firsts at age 30, including his first blow job.
- 2 min
Aaron describes his cautious, moderate approach to trying new substances and experiences (weed, mushrooms, alcohol) with Jessa supervising, except meth, which she's forbidden him from trying, plus a bit about his disastrous first cup of coffee.
8moments
- 10:24Tim asks if the guest worries about developing addictions or sexual compulsions now that he's experimenting with new experiences.
- 10:52Guest says he goes slowly with new things — his first drink was one vanilla vodka crayon and he called it a night.
- 11:12First few times trying mushrooms, he took such small doses he felt nothing because he was too scared to go further.
- 11:29Guest says weed is the one he worries most about getting addicted to, which he identifies as the most Mormon thing about himself.
- 11:44Tim asks when the guest is going to try meth.
- 11:56Guest's first coffee ever was three sips of his companion's cold brew, which gave him diarrhea for 24 hours.
- 12:10Tim asks if the guest's family has disowned him.
- 12:21Guest told his family about leaving Mormonism and getting divorced at the same time, sneaking the religious part into the conversation about the divorce.
- 4 min
Aaron recounts breaking the news of his divorce and his exit from the church to his family simultaneously, and discusses fears about raising a kid without religion before realizing it was actually easier without it.
10moments
- 12:35Tim left the church at the same time his wife left him.
- 12:52He held onto Mormonism longer than he wanted because he feared he couldn't teach his kids about life, death, and morality without religion.
- 13:25When both he and his ex-wife hit their breaking point simultaneously, they quit the church together.
- 13:38He realized raising kids outside religion is easier because he gets to make all the rules and decide what happens when they die.
- 14:10Tim says he's never been vulnerable and has been hard his whole life.
- 14:34Even his podcast vulnerability is calculated—he lays everything out to maintain control and prevent others from using it against him.
- 14:50Last year he started reconciling parts of himself he'd hidden and had to confront his negative relationship with feelings and shame around emotions.
- 15:20The guest was the first person in Tim's life who was in touch with his feelings and didn't hate himself for having them.
- 15:42Respecting the guest allowed Tim to see those emotional qualities as acceptable in himself, possibly preventing a psychotic break.
- 16:03Their relationship functions as mutual training—each helping the other develop qualities they previously suppressed or lacked.
- 2 min
Tim tries to pin down whether Jessa and Aaron are friends or romantic partners, leading to jokes about aunt-nephew porn categories and the revelation they only became official three weeks ago after a year of an intense platonic-then-sexual relationship.
7moments
- 16:09Tim can't tell if the relationship with his collaborator is a friendship, has a romantic angle, or what it actually is.
- 16:34Aunt and nephew dynamics are a major porn category.
- 16:47Their podcast theme song says they're friends, and they insisted for a long time that they were just friends, but didn't know for a year.
- 17:00The connection felt instantly like a very old, lived-in friendship despite just having met.
- 17:24Tim didn't want it to be romantic at first because he thought that would cheapen what they had, and he has a lot of fear of intimacy.
- 17:47After a year of that weird connection, which caused fights but also great art and learning, Tim finally asked her to be his girlfriend.
- 18:01They've been having sex almost the whole time they've known each other.
- 3 min
They discuss the structure of Mormon missions -- being paired with a randomly assigned same-sex companion 24/7 for two years -- and riff on gay Mormon subtext, referencing the film Latter Days.
6moments
- 19:08Tim watches Mormon porn called Latter Days about two young missionaries who find each other instead of God.
- 19:33Mormon missionaries on the New York train are always well-dressed and look like Twinkies.
- 19:48Mormon missions send teenagers out at 18 or 19 with a companion they spend all their time with — a fascinating social experiment.
- 20:20Missionaries have to pay for themselves but receive some money to do the work.
- 20:41Tim's guest got sent to Italy — where God was — while others got stuck in places like Missouri and Kansas.
- 20:51Shittier places have much better conversion rates because nobody in Palermo is becoming Mormon.
JessaMormon mission
- 5 min
Aaron describes getting sent to Italy on his mission and hitting on women by mentioning George Clooney, contrasted with missionaries sent to grim assignments, and a story about a fellow missionary who secretly didn't believe and just flirted with Italian women while reading Sports Illustrated.
9moments
- 21:24Tim used George Clooney as his opening line to strike up conversations with Greek shipping magnates and their trophy wives around Lake Como.
- 21:40Missionaries are randomly assigned companions with no say in the matter, thrown together for at least six weeks at a time.
- 22:35Over two years on a mission, you cycle through several companions and end up with a mix of people you loved and people you hated.
- 22:55Tim says he strongly dislikes all his close friends despite loving many of them, and any extended time together is a chore by necessity.
- 24:16Does a companion ever turn around and admit the whole thing is pointless when they could be getting drunk or laid instead?
- 24:38Tim was so serious about converting people that no one would have dared suggest he do anything other than knock on every Italian woman's door.
- 24:54Many kids are pressured into missions by their Mormon parents and don't actually believe—if they don't go, they're considered failures.
- 25:16One companion Tim trained didn't believe and didn't want to be there, which made it really hard for him.
- 25:37This unbelieving companion tried to tell Tim about a Sports Illustrated magazine, but Tim refused to engage because church rules forbade outside media.
Mormon mission workThis Is Not HappeningJoseph SmithLake ComoGeorge Clooney
- 2 min
Jessa describes her unglamorous, calculated realization that she could get clean from meth by essentially scamming drug dealers on a flight to Delaware rather than having a dramatic rock-bottom moment.
7moments
- 26:31Jessa's sobriety took about six months to develop, starting when she stopped shooting up and began seeing things clearly.
- 26:43She got on a plane to escape a bad relationship, moving to the East Coast to avoid going back.
- 26:54On that plane, she'd already arranged for people to mail her meth to Delaware, having researched that it wasn't available there.
- 27:07She decided not to pursue it because she figured the dealers would rip her off and never send the drugs.
- 27:25Getting clean isn't the movie moment people imagine—no gutter, no white light—just realizing there's another way to go.
- 27:48The turning point is simply recognizing you could choose a different direction, which is what's actually interesting about transformation.
- 28:00Tim reflects that many people never have massive transformations, but he, Jessa, and the guest have all undergone significant ones.
- 5 min
The three discuss whether they surround themselves with static or transformative people; Tim argues friendships have a 'golden age' and describes his own attraction to chaotic, delusional, con-artist-type friends, including an anecdote about a friend with shamans burning leaves in her house.
10moments
- 28:54Tim switches characters almost every five years, attracting people from different versions of himself throughout his life.
- 29:20He's attracted to introspective people looking to get better and change things about themselves.
- 29:36Tim's controversial take: he makes new friends every two years, though it doesn't mean he stops loving people.
- 30:09People get angry when he says his friends change, claiming they've had the same five friends their whole life.
- 30:21Tim suggests it's sad to grow up with five people and never experience life changes like marrying a Satanist or buying a house with a subprime mortgage.
- 31:51All of Tim's friends are pathological liars, con artists, and self-interested people—yet somehow also good people.
- 32:17His friends pretend to have more money than they do and sneak into parts of society where they don't belong—they're chaos people.
- 32:39Tim describes a friend in L.A. who walks into three-star restaurants in sweatpants screaming at people and sleeps next to an Emmy won ten years ago.
- 32:55His chaotic friend had shamans burning leaves in her house to clear energy because she wanted to get married in 2019, despite already being married.
- 33:09Tim acknowledges he'll probably eventually have to mature and grow out of being drawn to chaotic people.
Emmy AwardsMormonismGirl ScoutsSatanists
- 5 min
Jessa describes her philosophy of doing things 'for the story,' a CBD-induced vision of reality as a game of mirrors where everyone projects their own fears onto each other, and Tim connects this to his own delusion-driven career in comedy.
8moments
- 34:09Dor Williams quote: "I don't do things for the moral of the story. I do them for the story."
- 35:03Tim's life philosophy: living for the story, which is why he has so many of them.
- 35:14After appearing on Bert's podcast with fake teeth glued in, a dentist offered him $20,000 implants, which he got three days later.
- 35:43A CBD pill given to Tim post-implant surgery triggered a weed-like haze and a half-dream he calls the 'game of mirrors.'
- 36:07Game of mirrors concept: everyone projects their own movie onto a mirror worn by everyone else, creating human conflict from unaware self-play.
- 37:07The people Tim surrounds himself with often have an unhealthy relationship to truth and reality.
- 37:29In comedy, Tim had to be delusional and manifest things—walking around claiming he'd be a comedian making money and appearing on TV despite skepticism.
- 37:55Delusion is essential to what Tim and his guests do: taking things from their heads and making them into jokes, stories, and podcasts.
Dor WilliamsBert KreischerBrady Smith
- 2 min
Tim riffs on Los Angeles as a city of collective delusion, using Johnny Depp as an example of a celebrity finally 'getting real' after years of excess, before pivoting to ask Jessa where rising social media anger and political division are heading.
4moments
- 38:26Everyone in LA is nuts, including unemployed friends who talk about castles in Ireland like three-year-olds while having no money.
- 39:00If LA got real, it would stop existing — the delusion is structural to the place itself.
- 39:18Tim on aging celebrities like Johnny Depp: they spend decades in fake vapid emptiness, then crisis forces them to finally get real and end up broke in castles.
- 39:55America right now feels like we're all being forced to get real, though it's unclear if that's actually what's happening.
- 6 min
Jessa lays out her belief that society creates its own reality with thought and that authority only exists because people believe in it; Tim pushes back with his fear of Pokemon Go-era augmented reality and people fusing with technology, citing adults running through Central Park chasing Pikachu during North Korea tensions.
11moments
- 40:53Tim explains his belief that we create reality through our thoughts and that the current tumult signals the dawn of revolution.
- 41:47The old guard's resistance sounds pathetic to him, like a death rattle of something already beaten.
- 42:15Stop talking about how powerful the government is; Tim argues that authority only exists because we collectively believe in it.
- 43:02If we unplug from the system collectively, government and authority cease to exist as anything more than a shared fiction.
- 43:29Tim says he should get a Mormon boyfriend to develop more faith in people, then notes he needs to believe more in humanity.
- 43:46The revolution happening now is deeper and more fundamental because humans are merging with technology in strange, unhealthy ways.
- 44:06Pokemon Go terrified him—he watched people running through Central Park chasing imaginary creatures while a potential war with North Korea was brewing.
- 44:58When a smart friend he respected told him he was playing Pokemon Go, Tim thought: we're fucked.
- 45:19Augmented reality and the capacity to escape reality constitute a revolution that scares him because he doesn't know where it leads.
- 45:47What we call reality was never real—just a collective delusion everyone subscribed to; the next age will be half technology, half consciousness.
- 46:14Tim suggests mummification in ancient Egypt was essentially uploading consciousness to technology, making him ready for a digital future.
- 5 min
Tim asks whether there's value in objective truth like gravity or biology versus the idea that reality (including gender) is entirely subjective and can be manifested, using the trans/gender-spectrum debate as his test case.
9moments
- 46:54Tim argues people are ready to upload themselves into digital reality rather than engage with the physical world.
- 47:26Technology gives people power to create subjective realities when they dislike the one they're in.
- 47:56Life remains difficult regardless of technology; people improve by becoming introspective and evolving, not by escaping reality.
- 48:32Pokemon Go as example: augmented reality teaches how subjective people's perception of reality is.
- 49:00If someone questioning their own reality could recognize their beliefs aren't objective truth, violence might be prevented.
- 49:15Is there value in objective truth—gravity is gravity, water is water—versus the idea that everything including gender is subjective?
- 49:41Gender debate illustrates the conflict: some say men and women are biological facts; others say gender is a spectrum to manifest individually.
- 50:33The concern: telling people they can manifest their own reality contradicts objective science and biology, creating a dangerous precedent.
- 51:02Scientific method has produced real achievements like medicine; what do we do when people reject those disciplined processes and claim subjective truth instead?
gender identityPokemon Go
- 5 min
Jessa recounts her near-death experience 18 years ago where aliens told her reality is a 3D fear-based dichotomy game (good/bad, male/female) that is dissolving, that humans are actually God who forgot they were God, and this spirals into a joke about when society will allow blackface again.
9moments
- 51:35Tim describes his near-death experience 18 years ago where he claims to have communicated with aliens.
- 51:54These dichotomies will dissolve and everything will become everything, then humanity will enter an eight-dimensional reality with many more options to play within.
- 52:11When the aliens said male and female would cease to exist in 2000, Tim had never encountered the concept of gender as a construct.
- 52:50The alien message according to Tim: humans are God and created everything they've ever experienced.
- 53:02Mankind's evolutionary journey involves progressing from not knowing they are God to realizing it, after which they get to play a different, cooler game.
- 53:32Borders and parameters will dissolve, genders will fuse with technology to allow humanity to reach a higher plane of existence.
- 54:05Tim compares texting to training people in telepathic abilities by learning to communicate without audible speech.
- 55:11Tim objects to needing external authority figures—whether religion or science—to tell him what is real instead of trusting his own experience.
- 56:21Tim interrupts the cosmic philosophy to ask when people will be allowed to do blackface again, questioning why it can't be part of societal evolution.
- 4 min
Tim praises Jessa's unshakeable self-possession and happiness as a kind of power, they discuss comedy shifting toward personal storytelling over pure jokes, Aaron's start doing comedy at BYU, and vague teases about projects they're pitching.
10moments
- 56:52Tim can't put Jessa in a box or back her into a corner; she plays a different game in arguments.
- 57:13There's something powerful about the happier person winning an argument instead of whoever got shredded in the debate.
- 58:05Comedy is moving into an era of stories rather than just jokes because people want more than punchlines.
- 58:32Tim and Jessa bonded over doing the same kind of comedy—funny, sad, autobiographical stories—which he's been doing before it became popular.
- 59:03Jessa started doing comedy at Brigham Young University, where she had to sign a squeaky-clean contract.
- 59:18BYU crowds are so eager and energetic because students aren't supposed to be going to comedy shows, so they lap up every joke.
- 59:54Tim and Jessa have been touring and performing stand-up, which they really enjoy.
- 1:00:05For the first time, they have fans who book shows and pay directly for tickets instead of Tim doing $300 club gigs in Boise.
- 1:00:38Their podcast blew up quickly and they're still figuring out what it will become, with segments where Jessa talks about alien school and Tim rehashes Book of Mormon stories.
- 1:00:58Tim and Jessa are pitching several projects right now but won't discuss them until they're actually happening.
- 4 min
Tim wraps up the interview complimenting the pair's personal growth, they plug the Mormon in the Meth Head podcast and Aaron's upcoming New York Comedy Festival bus tour show, and Tim jokes about performing comedy exclusively on a double-decker tour bus.
7moments
- 1:01:16Tim refuses to discuss his special, shutting down questions about it.
- 1:01:28What makes people like his guests interesting is they've walked dark paths and found a way out.
- 1:02:35The pair came from polar opposite backgrounds but the process of personal change is identical.
- 1:03:39Mormon in the Meth Head podcast can be found on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and their website.
- 1:04:11Aaron will perform at TVS Comics to Watch New York Comedy Festival on Wednesday, November 7th.
- 1:04:32Tim claims he no longer performs in clubs or theaters because he thinks they're hack and the comics who do are losers.
- 1:04:54He argues the only real comics perform on public transportation, which is why he does a double-legged tour bus show and nobody else does because they're afraid.
- 3 min
The Matrix Bus Tour Bit and Sign-Off
#Tim riffs on his fictional double-decker bus tour of New York where he explains the 1% and the matrix of money and power to tourists, contrasting it with Jessa's spiritual escape route, before closing with plugs for websites and social media and thanking listeners.
8moments
- 1:05:05Tim describes his New York bus tour format: standing on the top deck and discussing human trafficking, money laundering, and the city's financial cycles.
- 1:05:18The tour covers the 1% and wealthy people who control things, which Tim characterizes as emotionally controlled beings fundamentally different from ordinary people.
- 1:05:50The insanely wealthy pursue non-democratic means to affect society and build consensus with each other before selling it to the media and the public.
- 1:06:38Tim contrasts his approach with Jess's: he shows you the matrix but doesn't offer metaphysical tools to escape it, whereas she provides the spiritual escape route.
- 1:07:14His matrix tour includes showing people where the wealthy eat well—fusilli with red wine, braised octopus, spaghetti with Santa Barbara crab—because being in the matrix is actually good.
- 1:07:29Tim references the original Matrix film, noting the character went back to the matrix just for the food, illustrating that ignorance can be bliss.
- 1:07:43MormonInTheMethod.com hosts everything; listeners can find podcast content from Jessa Reed and Aaron Woodhall there.
- 1:07:57Tim Jay Dylan is on Twitter and Instagram @TimDillonD-I-L-O-N, putting out funny videos and cool content.
MormonInTheMethodAvery StudiosAaron WoodhallJessa ReedNew YorkJessRed Comp