Raccoon Wars, NFL Scammers & Past Crimes - Matt McCusker
In a Nutshell
Matt McCusker recounts his chaotic childhood of tormenting bulls with slingshots and his decade-long drug-dealing career that involved multiple armed robberies, before reflecting on how fatherhood shifted his priorities from escape velocity to stable income. He criticizes the human tendency to manufacture problems when life improves, using Morgan Housel's story of a ruined Mexican vacation to illustrate how people focus on trivial flaws rather than appreciating achieved goals. The episode explores broader themes of moral culpability, the value of 9-to-5 structure versus entrepreneurial chaos, and the realization that meaningful work requires purpose beyond personal gain.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Currently battling raccoons in the backyard. They have destroyed a nice couch left outside and torn up one Croc shoe. The ongoing conflict feels demoralizing, particularly losing a war of wits against animals that survive on garbage. Multiple attempts to resolve the issue have failed.
Trapping is recommended as a solution, though this requires hiring a professional to handle removal. The professional would trap and release the raccoons elsewhere rather than euthanizing them. The speaker mentions growing watermelon during the summer, where raccoons destroyed a large watermelon that had been forming.
Watermelon can be grown in Austin despite the climate not seeming exotic enough. The growing season is short, requiring an early start to avoid the fruit getting burned out in the sun. The recommendation is to place watermelon behind a fence for protection.
The speaker describes imagining a physical fight with raccoons, noting their claws would make the person appear like a lunatic. Mentions having only one Croc remaining after the raccoons took the other, and considering using a broomstick for self-defense in a manner reminiscent of World War I soldiers sent over the top with minimal equipment.
A former neighbor kept two raccoons as pets in a cage, which is apparently illegal. The neighbor fed the raccoons Urkel cereal from the Family Matters show. The speaker remembers this detail from childhood and shares it whenever raccoons come up in conversation.
Steve Urkel had his own cereal line in 1991 called Erkalos, which was strawberry and banana flavored Froot Loops. The speaker recalls seeing Urkel cereal next to a raccoon cage and being struck by the image of raccoons eating this cereal.
The conversation turns to fake banana flavoring, which is polarizing. The speaker mentions banana Runts candy from childhood, which they enjoyed and would trade for in variety packs when others didn't want them.
Discussion of Francis Bourgeois, a train enthusiast who appears on The Grand Tour successor show. He is described as a train spotter who documents seeing the largest steam locomotive, Big Boy 4014, in Pennsylvania. The video shows his phone dying during an important moment, forcing him to use someone else's phone.
During the Big Boy locomotive event in Pennsylvania, several train spotters passed out due to extreme heat while waiting in a field. The speaker mentions that if their child passed out waiting for a train, they would step over them and continue watching rather than miss the event.
Two categories of stereotypical British people are identified: one being Francis Bourgeois as the train enthusiast type, and another being "Big John," a British food reviewer who does takeaway reviews with distinctive mannerisms and food preferences.
Big John is shown ordering pies and mash, declining eels, and requesting chili vinegar. The reviewer demonstrates eating with just a spoon and fork, ignoring the knife. The British breakfast discussion follows, with the speaker expressing distaste for beans in the morning due to digestive concerns.
The speaker describes being "nocturnal" with farting patterns, experiencing four consecutive days of nighttime flatulence. Discussion of sleep tracking apps that record noises including snoring or flatulence, with the idea of creating a compilation of recorded farts.
The speaker admits to waking a partner from sleep due to flatulence, describing it as creating equal parts shame and pride. They mention both audio and smell-based awakenings, with smell-based being particularly devastating as it causes groaning consciousness followed by immediate return to sleep.
After getting away with waking a partner via smell, the speaker eventually confessed the incident two days later, feeling compelled to atone despite initially getting away with it. The partner had forgotten the incident until reminded.
Attended a PBR (Professional Bull Riders) event where Shane was present. The event featured Nelly performing and was noted for lacking racial diversity in the audience. The speaker found the sport strange, involving spectators hoping for injury to riders from large animals.
Comparison between bull fighting and bull riding, with bull fighting described as particularly cruel due to bulls being pre-stabbed before fights. The red capes used in bull fighting are red to hide blood rather than because bulls react to the color red.
The speaker grew up on property in the suburbs of Philadelphia that was rural at the time of moving there. The family property was adjacent to cousins, with a neighboring property rented to a man who kept various animals including the pet raccoons and a bull.
The neighboring property had a bull that the speaker and cousins would torment from apple trees using slingshots to shoot crab apples. The bull became increasingly aggressive from this treatment, leading to its removal. The speaker was approximately 9 years old during these incidents.
At the PBR event, the speaker questioned the CEO about bull riding rules, training methods, and scoring systems. Learned that bull owners take pride in bulls that have never been ridden, with strategic matching of riders to bulls based on turning patterns and rider strengths.
Discovered that PBR has teams representing different cities, complete with walkout music for riders. The home city gets to be the final event, and there are coaches who understand bull behavior patterns for strategic rider placement.
Mention of taking two-step dance lessons in Texas, taught by an older woman who would grab and smack women's backsides while making racially charged comments, which the speaker found astonishing given the context.
Element is an electrolyte drink mix containing sodium, potassium, and magnesium without sugar, coloring, or artificial ingredients. The speaker has used it every morning for 5 years and notices the difference when not taking it. The product is used by Dr. Andrew Huberman, Olympic athletes, and FBI sniper teams.
A swing dancing event features a woman who aggressively insults Asian tourists, with one attendee noting "she thinks the war's still going." The atmosphere is described as fun and equalizing, bringing everyone down to the same level. The event is compared to British-style insulting of everyone. Dancing itself is considered easy to learn but becomes chaotic with 30+ people on the floor, where participants must navigate traffic and lead their partners. The gender ratio favors men, with many women attending as groups, making it easy to ask someone to dance in the formalized setting. The instructor actively feeds women to skilled older male dancers.
The NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere required cult members to kiss on the lips when greeting each other, allowing him to kiss every woman without suspicion. He was eventually convicted of sex trafficking after moving women across state lines for sexual purposes. The discussion notes that crossing state lines elevates the charges from state to federal jurisdiction, bringing in the FBI. The legal framework requires the conduct to have a connection to interstate commerce, meaning local sex trafficking without using payment processors or crossing state lines might not trigger federal charges.
35-year-old Dejon Love was arrested for posing as a San Francisco 49ers starting wide receiver to scam 26 women out of $1.3 million. He used dating apps to meet victims, created fake Instagram accounts, bank statements, and even had an 18-year-old friend pose as his investment adviser on FaceTime. One victim lost $87,000 and helped him qualify for a McLaren purchase. Another gave $7,000 for an apartment that never materialized, and another provided $30,000 for a Mercedes. Love was photographed working out on the beach wearing a football helmet.
Lindsay Clancy, charged with killing her three children, received a mistrial when one male juror held out for 6 days against 11 others. The husband has already remarried three years after the incident. Clancy is paralyzed from a suicide attempt and remains in psychiatric care. The case has become highly divisive along gender lines, with women predominantly supporting her release due to postpartum psychosis. The discussion notes that approximately 3 in 10,000 women experience postpartum psychosis, and 5% of those develop homicidal ideation. The broader context involves debates about free will versus medical conditions, with some arguing that if free will is an illusion, individuals who commit such acts should simply be removed from society.
Modern isolation after childbirth contrasts with historical "laying in" practices from the Middle Ages, where new mothers received a month of constant community support. The discussion argues women shouldn't be alone after giving birth, as this represents a relatively new phenomenon. Brain changes occur in both mothers and fathers - mothers lose about 3% of gray matter affecting executive function while gaining enhanced focus on child-related matters. Support from the local community appears to be the primary mediating factor in postpartum mental health outcomes.
Breastfeeding requires constant nursing which continuously releases hormones, and this can prevent mothers from producing enough milk. The 90-day maternity leave standard came from an English therapist named Winnott who determined that 90 days was the bare minimum for new mothers. Some countries mandate nine months of maternity leave, and mothers can choose when to take it - whether a month before birth and eight months after, or other arrangements.
A business partner's wife attempted to maximize her maternity leave by attending a Spice Girls concert on her due date and the day after giving birth. She had floor tickets to the concert.
Watching a woman go through pregnancy and childbirth creates a profound shift in perspective, leading to greater appreciation for women's capabilities. Childbirth is described as terrifying, and observing the stoicism required during labor changes how partners view women. The experience provides a deeper understanding of the full spectrum of human capability.
Having children creates a fundamental shift in thinking patterns. Before children, thoughts tend to cycle selfishly throughout the day in a natural but self-focused pattern. After having a child, another person becomes planted in your brain that you constantly think about. This leads to an inner transformation where certain selfish pursuits die off.
A tweet suggested that people aren't necessarily autistic but may be spending too much time alone in the house, making them weird. The brain isn't designed to think about yourself for more than about 30 years. Jimmy Carr described having a child as a surgical procedure where your own heart now lives outside of your own body.
Many of the malaise, business pursuits, weird habits, and obsessions that men have are seen as surrogate families they haven't gotten around to creating yet. Having children provides a baked-in purpose that makes sense of previously unclear motivations.
Children constantly hit fathers in the nuts because they're at the perfect height and have no concept of testicles. They jump on fathers, punch them, and cause ongoing physical discomfort. Sleep becomes fragmented with constant early wake-ups. Despite these challenges, fathers report being happy to endure them.
Small unexpected rewards come from children's random behavior, such as finding an inflatable alien dressed in a Princess Peach dress at the top of the stairs, creating moments of genuine laughter.
Fatherhood puts other people's behavior into perspective - realizing that difficult people were once someone's child encourages treating others more kindly. However, if someone threatens or hates your own children, it triggers a much stronger protective response. The principle of "do unto others" becomes amplified when considering your own children.
Sam Harris presents a thought experiment about Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son, who was considered more ruthless than his father. Uday would attend weddings, kill everyone except the husband, assault the wife in front of the husband, then kill both. The question becomes at what age does someone like Uday become culpable for their actions, considering genetics, upbringing, and environment.
This connects to broader questions about when people become responsible for their actions, reflected in legal systems having juvenile detention systems. At some point, people who cause irreparable harm lose their chance at rehabilitation, though it's acknowledged that they were once someone's child.
Norwegian prisons are notably comfortable, with a quiz online asking whether images show Norwegian jails or British university residence halls. Some university halls were converted from old correctional facilities, with bars removed and paintings added.
One speaker had an apartment in an old insane asylum used as an office during the day but never slept there due to concerns about ghosts.
Leo Tolstoy's diary entries include notable examples:
- September 19th, 1858: "Decided that one must love and work and that's it"
- September 20th: "Tired, didn't work, and didn't love"
- March 31st, 1852: "Woke up at 6:00, woke everyone up. I did not get up and slept until 9"
- January 25th, 1851: "I've fallen in love or imagine that I have went to a party and lost my head. Bought a horse, which I don't need at all"
Russian writers from the 1890s period are noted for their wild, stark storytelling that presents life as mean, gray, and difficult, making readers feel better about their own lives by contrast.
"A Swim in a Pond in the Rain" contains nine Russian short stories with explanations after each story about how to read them. Russian literature from this period is characterized by its stark portrayal of difficult circumstances.
The focus should be on not sinking into complaining mindsets. When things are good, trivial annoyances can be magnified to seem catastrophic. The goal is to defeat the voice that complains about circumstances.
Reality is undefeated regarding complaints - the more someone complains, the less accurate their view of reality is because they're complaining about reality not meeting their expectations. Traffic exists because you didn't anticipate it, and you're part of the traffic yourself. The more someone complains indicates they don't understand how the world works.
When you have loads of big problems, you think all of them are significant. When there are no problems, the demand for problems stays fixed and the supply needs to be brought up to meet it. People lower the threshold for what constitutes a problem until they're able to make things that are happening in their life seem like issues.
Morgan Housel planned for a long time to go away to a holiday with his wife. This was the first time they were taking both of their kids, and it was going to be a big deal. The kids were going to go abroad for the first time. They had saved up the money and even looked at the restaurant in the resort in Mexico. They knew the menu in advance and knew the table they wanted to sit at because reviews said it had the best view of the sunset. They planned the cocktail they were going to get and decided to get it blended.
They arrived and it was a nightmare. The kids were at the nursery. They had their first time to sit down away from the kids in another country. The first thing he thought was that it was nice but there was sand between his toes and the sand was distracting him. He thought he should have got the cocktail blended rather than on the rocks. The sunset was nice but he thought the reviews weren't quite right and a different table would have been better. He didn't bring his glasses and the sun was hitting him in the face and it was uncomfortable.
What the fuck am I doing? I've dreamed about this thing and the experience is so close, but I just focus on all the ways in which it's not as nice.
The human curse is for everything to be not quite as nice as you thought it was going to be, and then to focus on all the ways in which it's not as nice.
When you live and die by having a job you hate, you think one day it'll come together and you'll make a living doing something you like. When that starts to become reality, it feels really unsettling. You had all these problems you could rely on - your boss is a dick, you hate this, you don't have money. When that stuff starts to go away, you feel weird. It's comfortable to be familiar with the problems you had, and then when you get out of that, you're flooded with different problems. You end up doing exactly what you said you wouldn't do.
Learning how to slow yourself down and not be such a spaz every day is important. If you don't get something done or one day if you don't get this or that done, learning how to chill and hash out priorities rather than just doing the things you think you're supposed to do is essential. You don't have to perfectly dominate the day, and if you don't then you don't go to bed a loser.
Your ability to dream a world is always going to outstrip reality's ability to deliver that to you. You're fantasizing about what a cocktail could have tasted like or how the sunset was or the lack of sand between your toes. If you set an impossibly perfect standard for every single day, you're guaranteeing yourself to be miserable.
Connor had lived in his car and rode a motorcycle with spikes glued onto the helmet. All the things that would be red flags in your future son-in-law. His life could have gone in a horrible direction - smoking weed, selling weed, drinking booze, getting in fights. He wasn't a good productive member of society.
When he was married with a house and a wife who was pregnant, he had a moment of realizing he made it out. He got free of what could have happened in his past life. He was blown away by where he was. The emotion was very confusing - that could have gone so wrong and now he was in a new place and didn't have to worry about those problems anymore.
All of his motivation and ambition was driven by not wanting to be that guy who lived in his car in a Walmart parking lot anymore.
Being possessed to escape the 9-to-5 job was a driving force. There was a terror of working in an office that led to taking insane risks just to get out of it. The 20s were insane and there were a couple times when death could have happened and it wouldn't have been crazy.
Guns were pulled on him twice when selling weed. Any other day that guy could have just shot rather than not do it. The robberies were happening constantly and the response was just whatever, fuck it.
Being punctual, on time, and quality control forward was the approach. Never trying to rip people off. Money was always to buy freedom rather than nice stuff. Never wasted money, would save all money to have six months of freedom. When getting robbed, the attitude was to just make it again.
The realization was that chilling out internally could have worked rather than going that crazy. It could have been figured out slowly but surely. Now there's relief in never having to worry about being robbed or arrested.
Getting pulled over by cops now is just a casual hey what's up guys, whereas before it would have been thinking life was over, going to jail. Now it's just hello, how you doing brother. It's nice.
Being a drug dealer now means being an online marketer. It's about how good your Facebook ads are. It's a completely different world. Suppliers on the dark web are running essentially a Shopify store - it's about product photos and writing headlines. There are guys in one-bedroom apartments quietly raking in millions of dollars a year. They do it for a couple years then get out with Bitcoin.
A Netflix documentary showed a guy who ran a similar service to the Silk Road from his bedroom. They recreated the bedroom perfectly with the exact computer, desk, and dimensions put into a sound stage. After he got out of jail, they put him back into it and seamlessly cut from archive footage to reenactment.
Doing it for a decade fried the nervous system. Hair went hyper gray really fast because of being adrenalized every day for 12 years. The main worry was being arrested, not being killed. The logic was that they weren't going to kill him.
One guy pulled a gun and was told he had to front stuff from then on. The reasoning was that if there was no leverage, there'd be no reason to try to rob. Going back after being robbed was like being a battered wife - hang out again but don't do that.
A guy thought he had been robbed because money was given to go get something and he came back saying they took all the money. The response was why would I rob you to take my own money back. The guy cocked a gun and held it. The roommate came out and the guy ran outside, then ran after. The roommate was mortified and not involved at all.
Weed was the strong suit because it was dealing with like-minded people and pretty chill. Scaling up into bigger money brought in a real criminal element.
Someone got shot in the face point blank trying to set up a 50-60 pound deal. Someone flew out cross country to meet them and was shot right in the head.
Dabbling in selling coke happened despite never having done coke. Stopping people and saying they were doing it too much led to being told to shut the fuck up. Being an ethical drug dealer is crazy.
The thing learned horribly the wrong way in early 20s was that school is geared towards achieving for yourself alone - get into the best school, make the most money. But then you're set on a track where you don't really care about that but also want to do well and have a nice life.
If talking to a 20-year-old now, the advice would be to find something you like to do that benefits other people, and that will give enough meaning to endure the horrible time in your early career.
Trying to lightning jump ahead of that was a disaster for 15 years. Almost died because of being such a bitch about having a job and thinking deserving more than that.
Seeing office guys hanging out at lunchtime with 10 people at lunch led to being envious. That actually looks nice - being there with friends, everyone chilling, not needing to take work home, not worried about someone breaking your door down.
Almost craving boredom at a point where the wish was to be bored. Not having to worry about 90 million different things.
People talk shit about university and 9-to-5 jobs. Being able to do your own thing or build your thing or work on someone's thing with more ownership is great, but it's not necessarily better. Not having to take work home, getting weekends off, not having to worry about making pay for people who work for you.
A lot of people think working for themselves means choosing when to work, but it results in working all the time. The question is whether that's what you want. You're going to have to eat some shit. The question is what flavor of shit can you eat.
Some people can eat the cubicle coffee lunch break shit super easy. Other people can eat the I'm never going to get a day off shit super easy. It's about which pain you want in your life.
The line about doing what feels like play to you but looks like work to everyone else ignores that even the most existentially aligned thing regularly feels like work. So what shit do you want.
Even writing books, you turn up having managed the perfect morning, seen sunrise, kids are off, trained, right amount of caffeination, sit down and think fuck. Or you're tweaking a sentence for the 30th time and feel like passing out, sitting in a chair with no blood going to the brain.
Anything, even things you love like writing, has that fuck moment. The question is why are you doing this outside of your own personal gain, because that will fizzle out even if you get it. Is there a compelling reason to do a thing? Is it for other people? Is it for creating something new of yourself?
That was the one thing completely missed, and getting older brought the realization of there it is. There should be a name for when you disregard cliches and then in future realize that the cliche was right.
Reading GK Chesterton's essays and currently reading his book called Orthodoxy. He started out criticizing other philosophical systems and when asked what his philosophical system was, he laid it out and realized it was Christianity. He starts his book with the story of a sailor who's off one degree, thinks he's going to South Africa, and ends up rediscovering England.
The speaker describes a friend's experience with discovering Orthodox Christianity, where the person thought they were making a groundbreaking discovery only to find out the tradition had existed for 1,800 years. The friend had been under the impression they were "10 minutes ahead of the pulse of everything" but realized they were actually "1,800 years behind." This led to reflections on aging, where younger people are "all sparks and fireworks" while older individuals find themselves giving advice like "be careful before you make decisions" only to be dismissed with responses like "Shut up, old man. I'm doing this my way."
The speaker discusses their disillusionment with university education, specifically questioning the relevance of learning about "Henry Ford's principles of scientific management" when they never intended to use such knowledge. After university, they hadn't read a book since Harry Potter at age 14. During a media lockdown for Love Island in Palma, Mallorca, with restricted movement and no phone access, their mother gave them "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. The key lesson from the book was that "going on a journey and ending up at the same place that you started is not the same as having never left," which helped them feel less like they had wasted time on experiments that proved wrong.
The speaker criticizes the lack of emphasis on people's interior lives in education, noting that American schools focus on "work, get a thing, get a job" without teaching introspection. They advocate for spending 10% of one's day on self-reflection, suggesting activities like going for walks, writing thoughts out, or focusing on internal states. The speaker mentions participating in a podcast episode with three coaches (a monk, someone who studied Ayurvedic medicine in Tibet, and someone experienced in shadow work) who reached similar conclusions about the importance of understanding why one does things.
Despite hating the course content, the speaker acknowledges that university provided structure and rules. They also found value in 9-to-5 jobs, noting they provided stability even when not intended as permanent positions. They criticize the "lone ranger make your own way in the world" mentality as potentially harmful.
While in Bali for a show, the speaker met a former employee who had left finance to do nutrition coaching via WhatsApp, earning £5,000 monthly and being "the happiest that she's ever been." The speaker immediately began advising her to scale her business with websites, funnels, lead magnets, upsells, sales calls, and Facebook ads, only to realize mid-conversation that he was trying to "curse" her with the problems everyone advises against. He stopped and told her to disregard everything he had just said.
The speaker briefly worked as a private investigator doing insurance work, receiving a temporary badge without a full license. The job involved surveillance work, including sitting outside a warehouse for two days with a grainy photo trying to identify a subject among twelve similar-looking individuals during winter when everyone wore hats and scarves. He found the work extremely boring, spending time reading books instead of conducting proper surveillance, and quit after two days.
The speaker describes a cyclical pattern of selling drugs, making money, getting robbed, taking legitimate jobs during bust periods, saving money to buy more drugs, finding customers at the legitimate job, then quitting to return to drug dealing. This pattern continued throughout his career with multiple jobs taken during slow periods in the drug trade.
After having children, the speaker experienced a shift in perspective about employment, becoming less fixated on finding the perfect job and more focused on having stable income to support his family. He mentions seeing a hospital worker changing paper towels and thinking he could do any job if it provided money for important things rather than viewing work as his entire world.
The episode concludes with promotional information directing listeners to mattmccusker.com for standup shows and The Matt McCusker Podcast for additional content.
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