Episode · Aug 5, 2026 · 2 hr 8 min
A School Shooting, a Shipwreck, and the Long Run to Sobriety
with Mishka Shubaly
Mishka Shubaly is a writer, musician, ultrarunner, and Ken Rideout's close friend and book editor.
Summary
Ken and Mishka start with the book they made together, then compare how childhood scarcity shaped their views on money, family, and success. Mishka describes the anxiety that stayed after he got sober and how addiction once let him control his feelings. He traces his upbringing through a father who left, an early move to college, a school shooting, family divorce, and a long slide into drinking and drugs. Later, he explains why he left acting for writing and how Columbia changed his sense of what he could do.
After years of instability and touring as a musician, Mishka recounts the Bahamas shipwreck: the boat ran aground, and he walked without food or navigation before rescue. He and Ken revisit his reality dating show near-miss and the moment he decided to get sober. A furious first run became a path into ultrarunning. They close on love, parenting, creative plans, and the cold email that led Jeff Bezos to write a foreword.
Show notes
Mishka Shubaly has lived several lives: gifted student, touring musician, Columbia-trained writer, addict, shipwreck survivor, ultrarunner, Yale professor, and the editor who helped Ken Rideout turn his life into a book.
Mishka joins Ken for a personal conversation about growing up with a distant father, leaving home for college at 15, surviving a deadly school shooting, and watching his family lose everything shortly afterward. He recounts years of destructive drinking and drug use, getting shipwrecked in the Bahamas, walking for miles without food or navigation, and drinking his own urine shortly before being rescued.
They also discuss the realization that finally pushed Mishka toward sobriety, the furious first run that changed his life, becoming an ultramarathoner, nearly joining a reality dating show, and how a cold email led Jeff Bezos to write the foreword to his book. Ken and Mishka reflect on addiction, anxiety, ambition, friendship, marriage, and the difficult process of believing that the life you have built might finally be enough.
Transcript
Made from YouTube's automatic captions and lightly corrected, so a few words and names may be off. Click a time to play the video from there.
Ken Rideout
All right, today's special guest, probably one of my closest friends who I on paper have the least in common with.
But who who I love just as much as any of my other friends, my friend, book editor, and partner in crime, the great Mishka Shubaly.
Mishka Shubaly
We meet at last.
Ken Rideout
Thanks for being here, brother.
Mishka Shubaly
It's funny, man. I was like you know, I wanted I want to do a good job. So, like when we booked this, I was like, all right, I got to think about, you know, I was like, man, [ __ ] Ken and I have talked for 10,000 hours. I don't need to prep anything. I we're just, you know, but it's it's a pleasure to be here. I love seeing you. I love your family. The I'm so [ __ ] proud of you and like this book that you did.
I mean, it's it's just
Ken Rideout
For those of you who don't know, Mishka like basically helped me write the whole book and was like intimately involved with every single word of every single chapter. So,
Mishka Shubaly
It's a great [ __ ] book, dude. You know, the anytime I like go back to, you know, flip through something, I'm like, ah, we got it there. You know, we really got it.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, it's crazy. You know what's the ultimate compliment to you is when people are like, man, when I read this book or when I listen to it, it sounds like you're talking right to me. It's like I can see you saying these things. And I was like, if if anyone ever did a masterful job of capturing someone's voice, it was you. In the way that you captured everything the way I said it. And I mean, I try to tell people like, yeah, it is my voice cuz that's what I said.
And Mishka helped make sure that it was delivered on the pages exactly the way I said it.
Mishka Shubaly
That's a great compliment that people, you know, feel like you're speaking directly to them because the whole time that we were doing it, I I was like, God, Ken's narrating my [ __ ] problems and my life and my shortcomings right back to me. I mean, I remember, you know, some of the conversations we had like getting off the call and knowing like, oh, we got to get through 800 words here or 1,000 words and being so like so fired up. I was like, I don't even want to [ __ ] write, man.
I want to go out run. I want to like do [ __ ]
Ken Rideout
It's funny that is a common theme with people like, "Yo, I didn't want to do anything and then I read part of your book and was like, now I'm like obsessed and trying to run marathons and stuff." Which is crazy cuz I didn't I wasn't writing the book trying to be inspiring or I wasn't trying to do anything other than be authentic, honest, and like open with the story. Hey, this is what happened to me and these are the things I I realized obviously winning some of the races I won was significant.
But as you know, like I never ever felt I'm inspiring, I'm motivating, I'm anything special. I'm a [ __ ] drug addicted loser. So there's part of me that still lives like that. So when I'm telling the story, I'm like, this is me. This is who I am and yes, I won these races, but that's not everything in life. It's not But people came away from that feeling like, if he can do it, I can do it. Which is what I wanted.
Mishka Shubaly
Why this [ __ ] book worked is because you're not telling people, here's how you do it. Let me instruct you. Let me Let me form you. The You're sort of like reporting on your own that I don't know how I got here. Like I You know, I don't I feel like I don't deserve to be here, but but here's But this is what happened. Here's how it happened.
Ken Rideout
Dude, that's it. When people ask me for advice, I'm like, you know that I'm guessing, right? I'm Like, what shoes should I wear? I'm like, I don't know. Here's the process I used. I tried everything until I found a pair that worked. And then when you get lucky enough to win races and have some performance, then people want to give you stuff and you figure like how to make their stuff work. You're not necessarily like it's not a silver bullet. Like, hey, Ken, what shoes?
So this is for everyone who asks me, what shoes should I wear? I'm like, I don't know. What [ __ ] tires did the NASCAR winner win right at the Daytona 500? It's irrelevant. Are you a truck or a Toyota Camry?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Like you need to find the shoes that work for you and that's what I did. So when people ask my opinion like I'm an authority on anything, which I'm not, I'm like, uh I [ __ ] guessed. And then I bought a lot of shoes and I figured out what worked and then I stuck with them.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Like I said, then I got lucky enough to get a deal with Reebok and their shoes were good and and I wore them and it was like
Mishka Shubaly
And do you race in new shoes?
Ken Rideout
I would only wear a brand new shoes to race, but they would be a model that I had run in a gazillion times. So like I've only run real races marathons in Nike Alpha and Vaporflys and eventually I figured Alphaflys didn't work for me for a lot of reasons and for people listening, if you're not an elite runner and but you think that the most expensive shoe Nike makes for you makes is the right shoe for you, you're out of your [ __ ] mind. It would be again, like thinking that the tires that they ran in the Daytona 500 are going to be great for your you know, Honda [ __ ] Accord.
Mishka Shubaly
It's like putting the spoiler on the Accord. You're wow, now you're getting up to 86 miles an hour.
Ken Rideout
Those shoes are designed for guys with perfect running form. Typically guys and girls that weigh like 80 to 130 or 40 pounds max. And now you got like a 185 pound guy with dog [ __ ] form who's striking his heel and when you're heel striking on those carbon plated shoes, the heel is super soft and supple. So your heel is sinking super low below your forefoot and then your calf is working hard to get over that carbon plate and in my early days of marathoning in the LA marathon in particular, my calves were on fire and and a guy who was like a shoe guru, I forget I forget his name.
I'm embarrassed, but he's like he analyzes all the shoes at every marathon. He's like he consults with all the shoes company. I met him at an event in New York around the New York marathon and he's like, "Hey, how are those Alphaflys working?" I'm like, "Oh, they're fast, but my calves are on fire after race." And he's like, "Yeah, they're all wrong for you." He's like, "I was looking at pictures of you when your heel is sinking so low." So he convinced me to try the Vaporfly, which is just a one step down, but still like a $300 shoe and they were magical.
They like were So once I once I figured okay, through trial and error, Vaporfly works for me more so than Alphafly, I then did all my training in those. So so I'd run a race in a brand new pair with my Currex insoles in them. Always ripped out the insole and put in my own Currex insole that had arch support. And then I would run the marathon in those shoes and they only last for me they would last one month like 300 miles cuz the the the foam has a very light coating of rubber on the outside of it so they're not made to last a long time.
Matter of fact, Adidas makes a $500 shoe that's only good for one race. All the foam wears out. So I would wear a brand new pair and and again, this isn't for everyone. I had the luxury of being able to financially to be able to do this but I would run the race then those would be my training shoes for a month. And then, you know, occasionally I'd buy new ones and just train in them and have I'd always rotate several pairs so that one pair was never worn every day till they're new then worn out.
There would always be a pair in different stages of being worn out so my shoe or my foot would never get too used to it. This is like way too inside for
For anyone who's a [ __ ] true running dork, that's what I did. So I always had like three or four pairs of shoes and at a big important race, brand new pair of shoes but in a model and a exact everything that I had been running in already. But that that foam gets compressed and it only has a certain life lifetime.
Mishka Shubaly
I do the same thing with shoes of like cycling several different pairs but they're all three
Ken Rideout
No one has [ __ ] more beat up [ __ ] than you. You are the most frugal. No one loves being a struggling artist more than you.
Mishka Shubaly
Dude, when I was when I was leaving the house today I like you know, I get up at 7:00, 7:30 every morning and then this morning I was going to get up at 7:00 so I had plenty of time and of course didn't set an alarm last night, got up at like 10 to 8:00 like
And then I got on the plane and I realized not just that I like it's muddy where we are. I realized that I don't just have like mud on my sneakers. I had it on the back of my hat. I had it on my [ __ ] sunglasses. I was like I'm just in my pig pen era.
Ken Rideout
That's very on brand.
Mishka Shubaly
And going to hang out with the most put-together guy in [ __ ] endurance sports.
Ken Rideout
Well, like I said, no one enjoys suffering more than you. I don't know anyone um that has less high-end [ __ ] and more houses than you. This guy's like a real estate tycoon and like wallowing in his like dumpy bedroom. Like he when when when when we would zoom, I'd be like when you had to put the blur on the background, I was like, "Dude, what the [ __ ] is going on in the background of your room?
It looks like you're in a Sanford and Son set." [ __ ] junk everywhere. I'm like, "Dude, you're a grown man."
Mishka Shubaly
Well, let's talk about this because I feel like the I feel like there's two two different things to it. You know, one is that like my mom is the second of 17 kids.
Ken Rideout
What?
Mishka Shubaly
Yes. The
Ken Rideout
Your mom has 16 siblings?
Mishka Shubaly
Yes. 16 brothers and sisters.
Ken Rideout
From the same two parents?
Mishka Shubaly
Yes. One set of twins.
Ken Rideout
What?
Mishka Shubaly
And her father came from a family of 24 children.
Ken Rideout
Holy [ __ ]
Mishka Shubaly
And the you know, both of my parents are the first you know, farmer kids. Um both the first in their families to get their college degrees. So, they grew up real poor. You know, that's definitely something that I got from them is like how to stretch a dime. How you know, don't don't throw that rag away until it's dirty in every corner, you know? So, the I will argue that I do think that there's something honorable in like using something until it's it's completely done.
You know?
Ken Rideout
Agree with that, but there also comes to a point where when you have the capacity to like have a relatively new car that you can rely on. It's not going to break down. Whereas, you'll drive the car like Fred Flintstone with no [ __ ] floorboard. And like, "Dude, how are you driving that car?" And then you'll be like, "Oh, my car broke down, this, that." I'm like, "Isn't the peace of mind of just buying It doesn't have to be a fancy car, just a newer car that like is never going to break down." I hate when [ __ ] breaks.
Mishka Shubaly
Dude, my 1995 Jeep Cherokee that I drove today has the [ __ ] Fred Flintstone option where I It's like my floorboards is just a a no parking sign.
Ken Rideout
But like even when we were talking about water pressure, you're like, "Yeah, I can either have hot water or water pressure." And we've got a [ __ ] waterfall and the water pumps down through gravity. And I'm like, "Wouldn't it be worth it to spend like two or three hundred dollars on a water pump so you could take a nice hot shower with shower with water pressure?" That to me would be worth the price of like the few hundred dollars that you definitely have.
Mishka Shubaly
So that's the flip side of it where I can articulate an argument that it's it's good to use things until they're you know, until all the life is out of them. And it's good to economize and be frugal and And then the other side of it is I feel like it's something pathological.
Ken Rideout
Yes.
Mishka Shubaly
That you know, that just that sense that I got from from my parents and from everybody in my family that we don't have enough. You know, be careful. Like don't that you got to get all the ketchup out of the ketchup, you know, put some little water to shake, you know, and the and that has like I mean, also like when I was 15, I watched my parents [ __ ] lose everything.
Ken Rideout
Yeah,
Mishka Shubaly
[clears throat]
Ken Rideout
That'll do it.
Mishka Shubaly
The The bank took our house and we had this like yard sale that just stretched on for months where our neighbors would come through and like pick through our belongings and be like, "Ah, this is 50 cents. I'll give you a I'll give you a a quarter." You know, and just like And so I just had that thing of like, "Oh god, you know, if I hadn't Maybe if I hadn't gotten a pogo ball, then then my parents would you know, wouldn't have lost the house." You know, and so And so I carried a lot of that.
And then I think too that you know, some of it is just sad like [ __ ] alcoholic addict mindset where like you have a beautiful car. I love driving in your car. I I it's like the between your driving and that car, I feel like I'm on cocaine the entire time. It's like it's so fun.
Ken Rideout
[snorts]
Mishka Shubaly
And I would feel like such an impostor driving a nice new car. Even you know, when I the first time I got a car that had the the tech where you push the button to unlock the doors and it goes beep beep. I was like like oh, this is ostentatious wealth, you know, that I'm showing off that I have. It's for like tech from like 2005, you know, and and that was too much for me. Um
Ken Rideout
Well, for the record, I often feel like a fraud even when I'm driving my own car. But then but then there's another part of my brain that's like who gives a [ __ ] I love driving this car. I like nice cars.
Mishka Shubaly
That's I mean, I think that's important too that like man, we got to enjoy what we're doing.
Exactly.
Like I will tell you that damn it, you're right about getting water pressure. And I will I'm I'm putting that on my like to-do list of the my wife will love that, too.
Ken Rideout
I don't want to eat them like that." I was like, "Get off plate and get the F over here and get these eggs out of the trash and eat them right now." And it was just sitting on top of some other stuff. It wasn't like it was
Mishka Shubaly
Oh, I'll I'll eat out of the trash, don't worry.
Ken Rideout
You know how many times I've looked in there and there's like a grilled half a grilled cheese sandwich? I'm like, "What the hell? Who did this?" And I just eat it.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
But, if you have a problem with like getting the last squeeze of ketchup, these kids will throw a half a [ __ ] ketchup bottle away and be like, "Dad, we needed more." I'm like, "This What?" And I'm not You know, I'm not I'm not cheap. I'm not frugal at all. I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I don't want to like have to shake it too hard if it's close up."
These kids will throw it like These kids will throw half a [ __ ] they'll eat half a banana and throw it away. It's just a kid thing. Their brain doesn't work like that. They don't have to pay for anything. They don't realize the wastefulness. Open a freaking seltzer, have a sip and leave it there for a week and I'll be like if I'll just wait. Someone's going to eventually come back and claim this seltzer and then I'll be like, "Who opened this seltzer on Wednesday?
It's Friday." and left it here. "Oh, sorry. That was me." I'm like Dude, they drive me insane. Leave all of the they they have like when I was a kid I had one basketball my whole life. They've got like six basketballs. They'll shoot hoops in my driveway and leave all the basketballs out in the driveway and every time I'm like and there's a field behind the house and I'm like, "Who left the basketball?" cuz not only is it does it look like [ __ ] but when I have to pull back out of the garage now I got to get out and move all the basketballs cuz I can't drive over them cuz if I could I'd just flatten them.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
I take those balls like once a week and kick them all into the field. So, then when they need them they got to go find them. I've hidden them in the basement and let them use one then I slowly get but they will they just will not pick them up when they're done.
Mishka Shubaly
Kids are like the huge gas guzzling SUVs of like of people. They're
Ken Rideout
Total wastefulness.
Mishka Shubaly
It's It's funny though cuz like when I was a kid, you know, my mom would always sort of like, you know, there would be, you know, four peaches and she would pick the one that was like a little too soft, you know, a little too ripe and then I was like, "That's it. Why don't you take the good one? You know, the and now my wife jokes that like my favorite genre of food is it's about to go bad."
Ken Rideout
Like you know what's funny is one of my kids, I don't want to say which one, but one of them if there were three apples and one was like super star fresh and one was like almost bad, one of my one of my sons if left to his own devices would always take the best one and one of my sons would go in and take the shittiest one.
Mishka Shubaly
Tell me which kid is the shitty apple kid tonight and I will high five them.
Ken Rideout
You know what? You can probably figure it out just talking to them, but it just drives me crazy, but it's just innate. It's like not learned cuz they all come from the same exact background, the same exposure to the same nutty parent.
Mishka Shubaly
Well, that's the thing too is that I you know, you and I both grew up in houses with that sense of like deprivation that there wasn't enough to go around or you know, the and you went one way with it and I went the other way, you know?
Ken Rideout
Yeah, but you've been successful. You've had you [ __ ] make money.
Mishka Shubaly
That's another part of the the question too, which is like and I wonder if this happens to you where every morning when I wake up, I'm like, you [ __ ] dirt bag, you [ __ ] loser. Like when when are you going to do something with your life? And I've done all kinds of [ __ ] you know? But it just um it's like an Etch A Sketch, you know, it it like every night I go to sleep and like all the good things that I cool things I've done in my life just sort of wash away and then I wake up and I'm like, oh, [ __ ] how am I going to pay my rent?
And I'm like, I don't pay rent. I haven't paid rent forever, you know?
Ken Rideout
I definitely have those feelings, but I also feel like I wonder if some people wake up and they're just super happy with everything. Like I wake up and I'm like, okay, what do I have to do today? Like there's a level of anxiety that I can never shake that I'm always like, okay, what do I have to do? If I have nothing to do and just sit aimlessly like and just sit like mindlessly like scrolling the internet or watching the news or just doing nothing, I feel terribly guilty.
I'm like, oh, I'm being I'm not being productive. Should I go work out again? Meanwhile, I'm like running on fumes. But but I never I have a hard time just enjoying alone time and quiet time and like meditating. Like I I have a hard time sitting still and and just being alive.
Mishka Shubaly
So, my mom came to visit recently. So, I was in our little cabin. It's it's me, my wife, who is of the everything is amazing school of thought, my mom who's like the most optimistic person I've ever met in my life and my dog who just loves everything. And like after a week I was like [ __ ] all y'all. Cuz I just have that like gray cloud over my head all the time man. And I I don't know if it's if it's just like the years long hangover of being an addict, you know, that you always walk around with that like sense of dread that like oh maybe today I'll drink and all this will go away.
You know, or that you know, I was I was talking to somebody about um Anthony Bourdain. Yeah. Um and how hard it is for us as sober people to to see him succeed and get clean and have all the success in his life and then still go out by suicide.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
Same thing with David Foster Wallace. When I was talking to my friend I tried to like put a positive spin on it to say but like look at the lives that those guys had before the darkness claimed them. Like the if they had kept using probably would have never done anything and they they did incredible things with their lives but the you know, that is definitely something that like um that bothers me. Your life as a sober addict that it's there's always like you know, it's like a poisonous snake is following you somewhere very slowly.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
So like as long as you keep moving it's not going to catch you. But if you like if you sleep too late one day or something, you know, or you you don't do your workout or whatever then the snake's going to catch up.
Ken Rideout
In late one day I wouldn't know what to I would be racked with guilt.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
It's it's irrational but I get that like Bourdain situation. Like I I get that like I can see where someone would get that because there's like there's a part of like we were talking earlier there's a part of addiction that I have figured out recently that's just like a control thing. I do it with my kids. I do it with my wife and what I've come to realize is like I want to control how I feel. And I know one thing when I take Percocet, Oxycontin, Fentanyl, whatever I had my whatever I could get my everything but heroin.
If I have that, I know for sure I can control how I feel. I feel like [ __ ] guess what? At least for the next half an hour I'm going to feel good. Okay, the next hour and a half after that I'm going to start to feel shitty and feel like complete dog [ __ ] But then in few hours later I know I can get high again. And I need to control how I feel. So if I'm not feeling something if I'm not feeling good necessarily, I like will look for scrolling the internet, looking at [ __ ] online like that I want but don't really buy like fancy cars or watches or just mindless [ __ ] to give me any kind of dopamine spike.
And I realized that the addiction was my way of controlling my feelings. So I could be euphoric whenever I wanted. The problem is when you [ __ ] abuse that system, now you're walking on the beach with your wife in Bora Bora sitting in a house over the over the water in in a Tahitian like resort and I'm like, "Hmm, I'd rather get high."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And when and and once your brain has been like effed up like that, I haven't figured out a way to get back to that default setting like before I was an addict, which is why I was telling you like next step is like the Ibogaine journey because I got to figure out how to like get back to this like my my my factory settings.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. I I I really do think that like intense addiction rewires your brain.
Ken Rideout
100% it does.
Mishka Shubaly
And you and I have like, you know, determined to live our lives sober, but all the determ- all the determination in the world isn't going to [ __ ] rewire your brain. You know, you're still sort of like um existing in a state of sort of constant withdrawal. Um that's why I'm excited about the Ibogaine. It it's going to freak me out if I come here and you're like like got a beard and like a long flowing robe. Like, "What's up, brother?" You know?
Ken Rideout
And happy.
Mishka Shubaly
That would that would freak me out.
Ken Rideout
Now you're yelling at people in traffic.
Yeah,
Mishka Shubaly
But I'm but I'm excited for you. I hope it I hope it works. I hope you can feel like a lasting transformation from that and the and I might have to uh I might have to follow you on that journey.
Ken Rideout
Let's go. I hope it works, too. Well, listen, we're getting all ahead of ourselves. Let's talk about where where did you Where did you grow up?
Mishka Shubaly
Um I mean, I'm still doing it, but the I was born in Canada, grew up in a small town called uh Deep River, lived there until I was eight, and then we moved to New Mexico, and I so I lived in New Mexico from uh whatever 8 to 13, then New Hampshire for 3 years, Massachusetts for a couple of years, Colorado, New York, Virgin Islands, California, lived in Atlanta for a year and a half.
Ken Rideout
But how were you going like Canada, New Mexico, New Hampshire? What were your parents doing for work that you were moving like that?
Mishka Shubaly
Uh so my dad was a rocket scientist, you know, the um literally a rocket scientist. Who did he work for? So in in Canada, there was a um uh an atomic lab at Chalk River, and then um he got a job working for the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Ken Rideout
Oh, in New Mexico?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah.
Ken Rideout
Is that like Area 51?
Mishka Shubaly
Uh it's it um I mean, Los Alamos is a beautiful town. We we drove through there on our our way out to Ohio, um and it was also I got recognized there in front of my wife, and I was like "Kind stranger, thank you so much for making me look like a" They were a fan of like the music and stuff, and I I was like just hanging out with Ali, and like we're talking, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, we went you know, my foster brother and I used to go here." And it was sort of like going down memory lane, you know, in in Los Alamos.
And finally, this a who was sitting right next to us sort of turned to me and was like, "Are you Mishka Shubaly?" And I was like, "Oh, [ __ ] Did we go to school together or something?" And fortunately, it wasn't like a classmate I'd forgotten, but it was somebody who was a fan of like the the music and stuff.
But, um it's definitely weird. And Los Alamos is a weird culture um because the there's all the the like super smart scientists, and then there were sort of privileged families and privileged kids. Uh a lot of lonely wives cuz the the guys like live at the lab, and um and then like everybody else, the people who work at the gas station, convenience store. So, there's like a there was a huge divide. And but also like I was a kid when I was there, so it was just normal, but it was known that like you can't go into that can uh canyon cuz there's still landmines in there.
Ken Rideout
Oh, wow.
Mishka Shubaly
And you know, you can't go here and you can't go there, and you know, the and your dad can't talk about what he does at work. But, um but one of the things that my dad did, the he um w- uh project that he worked on was called uh BEAR, which is um Beam Experiments Aboard Rockets. And basically, they sent targets up into outer space and blew them up with lasers.
Ken Rideout
No way.
Mishka Shubaly
For you know, for a kid, I was like, "DAD, YOU'RE [ __ ] AWESOME." LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? It's it it was just the coolest thing.
Ken Rideout
Did you get that engineering mindset? Like did you do well in math and science and [ __ ]
Mishka Shubaly
Nope.
Ken Rideout
Cuz you're like much more of a creative. Like you teach creative writing at Yale. By the way, as we're talking about how poor Mishka is, he went to Columbia, he's a professor at Yale. Like he does these T- again, he's uh an enigma. I'm like, "This guy has everything he needs, but he's living like a [ __ ] struggling artist." It drives me crazy.
Mishka Shubaly
It drives me crazy, too. I need to like print up a copy of my resume and [ __ ] stick it next to the you know, the bathroom.
Ken Rideout
Doesn't even need to have a resume. Just like sell one of your houses and relax, enjoy yourself, buy a new car, kick back, get a [ __ ] water pump, buy you a good air conditioner.
Mishka Shubaly
When you get the long flowing robe
I will do the I'll do the
Ken Rideout
It's coming.
Mishka Shubaly
I'll get the new AC unit.
Ken Rideout
So when he left Los Alamos to go to New Hampshire, where did he go in New Hampshire? What was he going to do there? And your mom I assume wasn't working while he's doing the work.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, she was she was just a stay-at-home mom.
Ken Rideout
You got how many siblings?
Mishka Shubaly
Uh two sisters.
Ken Rideout
Okay.
Mishka Shubaly
And a foster brother who lived with us for a couple years. Um but when we went to when we moved to New Hampshire, my dad worked in Beverly, Mass.
Ken Rideout
Yep.
Mishka Shubaly
Um the and he he started working in the private sector doing semiconductor stuff.
Ken Rideout
Okay.
Mishka Shubaly
And the and he'd been like retreating from our family for years. You know, the like the earliest memory I have of being around my dad is just like I think the first time I felt disappointment was from him. The like that he was disappointed in me and that also I was disappointed in him for not [ __ ] loving me. Like I I didn't ask to be here, man. You know, like
Ken Rideout
Um
How was he showing you he didn't love you?
Mishka Shubaly
Dude, he was the opposite of you. You're so involved in your kids' lives. You're so invested. I mean, that was one of the things that like, you know, [ __ ] me up the whole time we're working on that book is that like your your kids literally mean the world to you. And [ __ ] I I wish I'd had a dad like that, you know?
Ken Rideout
Well, I just want to say that like I make a lot of mistakes. Like I am hard on those kids at times and I yell at them sometimes in an irrational manner. Like taking the basketballs and booting them into the back field. I'm like, "I've asked you 25 times to pick these effing balls up every single day." And then I kick them in the field and then I'm like, "What a dick." But I'm like, "I don't know how to get you guys to listen unless I get aggressive." But so believe me like I again just like the running advice like I'm guessing I don't know like I didn't have I didn't grow up with my mom and dad.
It was just my mom and my like stepfather and my dad lived in the next town. So I only saw him you know, it should have been just good times when I saw him. He didn't have to do anything difficult with me. All he had to do is drive me to hockey which was as much for him as it was for me. You know what I mean?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Rideout
So with my kids like I don't have a role model that shows me how to do this and it [ __ ] me up sometimes with my wife because she'd be like why are you doing that? I'm like I don't know. Like just you know, and I can be I can be a little bit too much of a disciplinarian on them but at the same time I'm like I give them everything and sometimes spoil them and my wife be like why did you bought them more sneakers?
And I'm like I was a kid I loved sneakers and it was my way of showing them that I love them. So to me you know, I'm lucky that $150 isn't going to like make much of a difference even though I don't want to put that mentality on them cuz they don't have money. I do. They don't. And I always have to make sure to tell them is like no or if they really want something I'm like how much is it? We want this huge Lego set.
I'm like how much is it? $300. I'm like okay guys come up with 150 amongst yourselves and I'll pay the other half.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
But so for what it's worth like a lot of the stuff I'm figuring out but I know that I definitely love the kids and tell them that I love them all the time. Even when they like are embarrassed and don't want to hear it like on the sidelines of a football game when I'm like come on Cam you're the best.
Mishka Shubaly
You know I mean honestly though like you know, some of my favorite memories of my dad are hearing him yelling on the sidelines. You know, the few soccer games of mine that he you know, that he came to. That shit's so important and I and I will say two things, you know, one you're kind of set up to look like a bad parent because your wife's so amazing with kids. You know, it's like you're no matter what you do you're always going to be second place there.
You know, as as would anyone. Um and the other thing is you have good kids. You know, like when I when I met your kids, like they're all there ready to shake my hand, learn my name, and make eye contact.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. That's funny.
Mishka Shubaly
It's it's I mean in this world it's like, you know, it's where are these kids from 100 years ago? You know, the cuz they
Yeah. No, they're they're great kids and like and I mean the other thing like parenting, you know, I
Um
You know, I've been hard on my dad and and my parents for the ways in which they've sort of disappointed me and let me down. And and then, you know, I had an epiphany one Sunday. I was living in Brooklyn. I was still getting plastered all the time. Sunday I would go and like sit in the park and like feed the squirrels and try to [ __ ] feel human again before I had to go back to my construction job on Monday. And I remember like for some reason I recalled a picture of my mom in the she was wearing bell bottoms that were like orange with yellow polka dots.
Yeah. You know, and the and I think my dad had like a little ponytail or a goatee. It was something like and I was like, you [ __ ] dorks. You know, like what what the [ __ ] is wrong with you? And then I would had this epiphany where I was like, oh my god, they were like they weren't the same age that I am in that picture. They were like five years younger, seven years younger. They were kids and they had us.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And if I had a kid, I would forget them in a hot car. Like, you know, the I would totally blow it. So, the you know, I think I got to I got to sort of try and be easier on my parents and just sort of say they did the best they could with the tools that they had. And the situation my dad, it wasn't enough, you know, but also like you got to accept that there are no perfect parents. That everybody does [ __ ] that every time I yell at my dog, I feel horrible about it for 36 hours.
You know, she forgets about it quickly. I don't.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
So, he would go to New Hampshire, private sector, and then what happens? How old were you when your parents got divorced?
Mishka Shubaly
Uh I was 15.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god. It's like that's probably the worst age, right?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, that was that was 1992 was a bad year. I uh
It um my dad had been and you know, he's one of those guys where he was like miserable at every job that he was at. And like even as a kid, I was like, "Dad, if you're surrounded by [ __ ] all day every day, you're the asshole."
Ken Rideout
That's it.
Mishka Shubaly
You know, so he had already sort of fled New Hampshire at that time to go and work a job in Vancouver. And it was the understanding that we were going to go out there to like to be with
Ken Rideout
Couldn't have get further away from
Mishka Shubaly
Right? I was like, I was like, "Jesus, continent, you know, between
Ken Rideout
Maybe [ __ ] Tijuana, but talking [snorts] about [ __ ] moving across the country.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah. And the idea was that we would join him there later. Um I got uh I for some reason I think I signed up for like the PSAT when I was a freshman and I I scored well and then I got a a flyer in the mail of like, you know, uh leave high school early and start a college program. And I remember like looking at it, reading it. I was probably like 14 when I went to my mom and I was like, "Yo, Mom, can I borrow $23,000, you know, so that I can go to this school?" And I applied, I got in.
Um that year I left home, you know, and went to to move into this um to a dormitory at this college that specialized in early education for At the time it was for kids with like promising test scores and bright behavioral issues. And I'd been in a couple of fights, so I I sort of check mark in both of
Ken Rideout
Even imagine you getting into a fight. I assume it was someone was picking on you and you were defending yourself cuz I can't imagine you being a bully or looking for a fight.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah. A kid uh we were like playing basketball and he like, you know, was sort of like bullying me. Um [snorts] and then we were like setting up and he took the ball and just like threw it right in my face.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god.
Mishka Shubaly
And so I clocked him.
Ken Rideout
Well, at least you fought back.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. And I I don't regret that. And the other fight that I got in it was to like I was defending a friend of mine that it is what it is. So I left home, I went away to school in Massachusetts. Uh December 14th, 1992, one of my my schoolmates got an assault rifle and shot up the campus.
Ken Rideout
What?
Mishka Shubaly
He shot six people, killed a friend of ours and one of our teachers.
Ken Rideout
Dude, I never heard of like that was like before school shootings were a thing.
Mishka Shubaly
I Yeah, that's what we do, you know, we were we were ahead of our time, you know.
Know. So wait, what happened? You were on the camp You were there?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean I was on the basketball team with this kid and like I Yeah, yeah. It was I mean, it was probably like between 3 and 500 students there. So, everybody knew everybody. You know.
Ken Rideout
All right. So, what happened on the like how did the whole thing play out?
Mishka Shubaly
I ran into His name was Wayne Lowe. I ran into him that night and he I was on the basketball team with him and he was like a hard ass. So, he was always trying to like And and because he was a hard ass, I went out of my way to say hi to him every time cuz I was like, "I'm not going to act like I'm scared of you. I'm just going to be Hey, Wayne." You know, the And that was the first night that he uh he responded to me.
And it cuz I was like, "How you doing, Wayne?" And he was like, "Good." And it's because he had a plan, you know. And but yeah, we heard the gunshots and like
Ken Rideout
So, thank God you weren't like one of his targets and then maybe he was like, "Oh, Mishka said hi to him. Maybe I'll leave him off the list."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. It was It was a [ __ ] up time, you know. And so then
Ken Rideout
Was this supposed to be national news, right? Cuz that was I was in college when that happened. I don't And I was in college near you in Massachusetts. I don't know if that was great.
Mishka Shubaly
Massachusetts. At the time, it was a big deal. Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Beautiful part of the country.
Mishka Shubaly
Oh, God. Yeah, I went back there for The school's closing. So, I went back there last year with my roommate from 1992. And that was a [ __ ] DMT trip right there. And just like so many emotions, good and bad, you know.
Ken Rideout
I can't believe you went to college at 14.
Mishka Shubaly
I was 15 when I started, yeah. The um Don't worry.
As a kid, I was really smart and also really dumb.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
So, you know, like they sort of they balanced each other out. But after the shooting, we all just like stayed up all night. We're [ __ ] crazy, and the next morning my mom like drove from New Hampshire to come and pick me up. Um, brought me home, and then every year she would write a Christmas letter to the friends and family just saying like what we'd been up to and stuff, and I was
Ken Rideout
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
I was like in the computer room um, the and I saw I was like, "Oh, that's mom's Christmas letter." And I read it, and in the letter she revealed that she and my dad were getting a divorce. So, that like
Ken Rideout
Okay, we're going to tell the whole family before they told you?
Mishka Shubaly
They my it was my dad's decision, so my mom said, "You tell the kids. I'm not telling the kids." And he was out in Vancouver, and the idea was that like we would I get together as a family that Christmas, and he was going to tell us that he was leaving.
Ken Rideout
That's got to be a hard thing for obviously for the family, but for I always think about this for one spouse or another when one spouse is like, "I've had enough of this." And the there's not like turmoil where it's like this isn't working out, and this comes like I always just think it must be how hard it would be if your
Mishka Shubaly
[clears throat]
Ken Rideout
Partner and I don't know, maybe they maybe they weren't getting along at all, but the partner comes in and is just like, "You know what? I've had enough of this. See you later." How blindsided one partner could be.
Mishka Shubaly
Blindsided is exactly you know how it was for her. I mean, you know, they'd always um, sort [clears throat] of like you know, bickered and disagreed and fought and stuff, um, but there was no like we have an issue here, we need to go to couples therapy, you know, that to try and work it out. He just he went across the country for this other job. While he was there, started sleeping with his secretary, saw what his life could be like, not just without my mom, but without all of us.
Ken Rideout
God.
Mishka Shubaly
And that's what he chose.
Ken Rideout
[ __ ]
Mishka Shubaly
And uh, and that's why I became an alcoholic.
Ken Rideout
That's a sucky story, dude. I'm sorry that that happened to you. It sucks. So, okay, so that you find out they're getting divorced. What did you think? Were you angry at him?
Mishka Shubaly
Man, um it was just it was one of those [ __ ] things because like you know 6:00 p.m. on December 14th, I was a kid. I was 15 years old. Less than 24 hours later, I was a man.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
With with a man's problems, you know?
And uh you know, I was furious. I I um I got a roll of quarters uh the bank. Um I think I walked like 3 miles to the bank to just like take out a roll of quarters cuz I was going to [ __ ] break his jaw when I saw him. And the And then when I saw him at the airport I I couldn't do it, you know, it was my dad.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
I I loved my dad.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
You know? So, yeah, that you know, that kicked off like a period of darkness that lasted until I [clears throat] [ __ ] got sober, you know? I mean, the you know, those you know, to have the shooting happen and then to have you know, to get news that my parents were divorcing and then we lost the house to the bank and like to have all that happen like one after another, it it changed me, you know? The um and there were lots of bad decisions that followed that of like [ __ ] drinking cough syrup and like just being a drunk and being a nihilist and um anxiety and you know, panic attacks and all just all kinds of taking too much ephedrine.
I mean, when I was a kid, we'd [ __ ] get high off anything, you know?
Ken Rideout
Especially those private school kids like they were at the school you went to. They're all always so [ __ ] deviant.
Mishka Shubaly
Yes. Yes. That I mean, that was It was kind of like not the Stanford prison experiment, but it was just like something like that. And like let's take a bunch of smart [ __ ] up kids, put them in a like a remote location with very little parental supervision and see what happens.
Ken Rideout
Yes.
Mishka Shubaly
And the
Ken Rideout
That's how I envision it, too.
Mishka Shubaly
And we all got super high I super drunk and [ __ ] each other and like just like animals, you know, like that. And also, I made some of the best friends of my entire life there. And I I had an experience there that was profound that, you know, still in my dreams like every once in a while I'll have like a Simon's Rock dream and dream that I'm back in the dorm living with my best friends and like there's a there's a subterranean tunnel that leads to another world and like and and the [clears throat] reason I keep having those dreams is because Simon's Rock did open up another world for me.
You know, the before I went there I was sort of like I guess I'll be a, you know, drive a [ __ ] forklift or you know, the um and then when I went to Simon's Rock I was like, "No, I can have a big life and like do crazy shit." And um and so I'm grateful for that. You know, I I've I feel like I could have had the big life and done the crazy [ __ ] a little bit earlier if I hadn't been so [ __ ] up for such a long time, but um but I'm here now and I'm like
Ken Rideout
Better to have it eventually than to never have it. So it took you a little it took you a you know, you took the roundabout way to get there, but at least you arrived doing it whether you like want to accept it or not. You've got multiple like published works, series of short stories, uh an autobiography, book publishing deals, a literary agent.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
A wife. Yeah. Houses plural. Like you've got everything. You're just like stuck in this mindset that you're like a [ __ ] poor struggling musician.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. And it's uh you know, from time to time like I'll shake it a little bit.
Ken Rideout
Like a security blanket for you. I don't want my friends in the I don't want my friends that are poor musicians and comedians to know that I'm actually a very successful creative writer.
Mishka Shubaly
That's absolutely true. That is my dirty little secret. I'm appalled that you outed me for having more than one house. God damn it. I'll never recover. But you know, I was Oh God, we hate all the [ __ ] inspirational [ __ ] that you see on Instagram day in and day out. But I saw something this morning. Um the woman said that you've been a million different people in your life and you had to be all of those different people to be who you are now.
Ken Rideout
Yep.
Mishka Shubaly
And I think about it and you know, when I was like 14, I think I was like some kind of [ __ ] social Darwinist. You know, they'll like to see a homeless person, I'd be like, oh, well, you know, the if they can't work, then they should just die. That kind of And but I I do feel some gratitude to like addiction because that pointed out to me that like this is what powerlessness is like, you know, and that a couple of [ __ ] I could have a a couple of bad weeks and I'd be out there with, you know, with with those guys under the [ __ ] bridge or sleeping in the park or whatever, you know, that I was really just like hanging on by a thread.
And to be confronted again and again with your own weakness, you know, it it destroys any illusion that you have that you're better than somebody else, you know.
Ken Rideout
Well, that's one of the things that you and I couldn't possibly disagree more on is our like views on the world and politics and and all of the social issues that are pertaining to this country in particular, but it's one of the things that I love about you is that we can agree to disagree and still be friends. Like I have friends that I have other friends like that that we agree to disagree and other friends that they get so passionate and I'm like, you're never going to change my mind with this argument and I'm never going to change yours and I accept that.
But one of the things I say I always say about this country is the greatest country on earth cuz look at both of us. Like where we came from, what we did to ourselves. Like when you're wallowing in addiction, like most people, like successful people will look down and be like, get out of here, piece of [ __ ] Clean yourself up.
Mishka Shubaly
Yep.
Ken Rideout
But when you actually do, you realize that like everything that you want and need in this country is available to you if you just go and take it. You can be anything you want to be and you don't need anyone's help to get it. You just have to look within and go and get it. And that's one of the things that I think people like you Well, that I hope is that demonstrates to others like I really hope people look at me and go, if that idiot can do all the things that he's done and have this platform from where he was.
Like I was just hiding from reality with my addiction and like avoiding like real conversations and avoiding like a conversation with myself.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
With my addiction and then I got my [ __ ] together and look at what I've done and look at what you've done and it's like this is the best place on earth.
Mishka Shubaly
The voyage that I've had you know, like in my life in America has been exactly what was promised.
Ken Rideout
Yes.
Mishka Shubaly
As you know, that you know, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. That kind of [ __ ] you know. And like when I moved to New York, I was like that I'm I'm going to [ __ ] do it. I'm going to leave on top. And I kind of did, you know. And so And so did you, you know. And And And that's you know, you always say anybody could do what I've done, you know, that just had to work hard and I love you for saying that and I think you're wrong.
I I do think that you're like not giving yourself enough credit that you are a super smart guy. The not just like computing power of like the [ __ ] horsepower in your brain, but you're also a very It's It's ironic that you would hide from your emotions for most of your life because you are a very emotionally intuitive person. I And the drive that you have is pathological. I don't think that someone else could work as hard as you have and have the results that that you've had.
But I That's exactly the same way I feel about myself. Is that anybody could have done what I've done if they they worked hard, you know? That And that's you know, that's one of the reasons why like the last couple years getting to be friends and doing this project together has been so rewarding for me is because like, you know, we'd be hanging out talking about something and you would say something and I would be like, man, he's full of [ __ ] I know that's not true.
Because I say the same thing all the time, you know? And like that like it's you know, as different as we are, we have a ton in common. And the we have this like doppelganger thing of like, you know, two different sides of the same coin. And dude, it's been so helpful for me.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. I like hearing people like that don't agree with me. I like I think it's interesting and if you so in love with your own opinions and ideas, you're like destined to fail at everything because no one has all the answers. And it's like going to New York, you could make the argument like, oh yeah, I went to New York and I was successful. But then I could point out like, you know, a hundred head fund guys that have a hundred million dollars and have every [clears throat] like but I would ask but I would I always say to people like I have what a lot of those guys don't have and that's enough.
I'd love to have more money, but I have enough money that I can like get up and not uh stress about the mortgage or or bills or you know, what I mean? I can take my family on vacation. That's To me, that's when I feel at ease when I'm like, okay, I have plenty of money. I can take them on a couple vacations a year. It's not going to like move It's not going to like make me like financially like insecure to think like, oh, Jesus, spending on twenty grand to go on vacation.
And remember, I also have [ __ ] six people. So when people are like, oh, friend of mine recently was like, oh, yeah, I told him the book came out when the kids had spring break. So I was telling a buddy of mine, um Alex Mather who was founded The Athletic and sold it to The New York Times. So I was telling Alex, I was like, yeah, so the kids they missed spring break because my book came out. And I was like, but I want to take them someplace nice where they haven't been but they're dying to go to Hawaii.
To the kids it was the most exotic place on earth. I was like, okay, we'll go to Hawaii. And he said, take them to the Four Seasons in Kona, which is one of the nicest hotels in the world. And I'm like, dude, I've got six people. One room is like 2,000 a night. That's four grand a night for two hotel rooms and then it's going to be like packed in there. Either one kid with us or four kids in one room, me and my So he's like, nah, dude, I've got a condo there.
You can have it. You can use it for free. And I was like, are you serious? And he's like, yeah, let me look at the availability. I said, if you tell me it's available right now, I'm booking these six plane tickets right now. And he's like, it's yours. And I was like, I booked the plane tickets right there. And but that's like one of those things where when you work hard, you put yourself in the right circles and you have friends like that. Like that was incredibly generous and it was just like
Mishka Shubaly
Well, this is the difference between you and I is is be that it's me, my dog, my wife, and my mom.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
Right? You know, the my mom still works, you know, the I have it in my head that like she's 79. Maybe 10 years from now she'll slow down enough that she needs help from me. You know, I mean, she's still in incredible shape. And um my wife is from a third world country. I take her to Waffle House and she's like, oh, this is so romantic, you know. Um so I I need so much less. But you are the like life support system for all these other people.
Ken Rideout
Dude, it's stressful.
Mishka Shubaly
And I think you and I are both sort of questing to that point to to be like, okay, this is enough. You know, the my time was fast enough. The race was long enough. I have enough money. I you know, the like to check all those boxes. But you may never get there because those kids are [ __ ] throwing the eggs away.
Ken Rideout
Dude.
Mishka Shubaly
They like they'll always need help.
Ken Rideout
How um it's a lot of pressure because like my oldest daughter just started driving. Like it's you know, it's it's in my best interest for her to have access to a car because I've got four kids and I don't want to drive them everywhere. So having her have a license, she's got a self-driving Tesla which thank God it's self-driving cuz she's you know, not the best driver you've ever seen. But um they all have to go to college, you know, back to school, they all need shoes and this and that.
It's just like it's crazy how how slowly you get eased into that. All right, having a baby, some baby clothes, diapers. Okay, now they're big kids. Now, okay, now they're in adult-size shoes, no more kid shoes and it's like you know, like I said, when I was a kid, shoes were like the ultimate status symbol. So whether it's like subconscious or subliminal, like I just always feel like they have to have like nice shoes for is as much for me as it is for them in a weird way.
Same for Shelby, too. So like everyone's got to have everything nice. Like I've got to keep up these appearances. So I still catch myself falling into those like traps of keeping up with the Joneses. And you know, the kids live in a nice area. I don't want them to feel like they're the kids that like, you know, like the youngest one, he shouldn't have to always have the [ __ ] hand-me-downs, but he does. And he doesn't complain. And thank God like nature created the kids the way they did cuz like my oldest son would never be comfortable wearing hand-me-downs.
The little one's like, what do I care? He's literally like totally comfortable with everything. It's just a weird it's weird how nature worked like that. But yeah, man, it's a lot of pressure having four children and it's great, but it's you know, my wife I'm like, I'm responsible for six people here.
Mishka Shubaly
When they start going to college, it's going to [ __ ] ruin you.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god. Just the thought of them being there and like you know, I don't mind when they need things, I don't mind taking care of things. It's like when they're being wasteful with things that it drives me crazy. But they're I will say to be honest with you, my wife has done a great job. They are they're not really like wasteful kids. They they don't just ask for [ __ ]
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
They like no, like they want an electric bike like they want to live. And I'm like dude, I'm not getting you an electric motorcycle. It goes 40 miles an hour. You will you will like us you're a spaz. You don't even know how they don't even ride bikes regular bikes.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
I'm like so you have zero experience on a bicycle and you think I'm going to get you an electric motorcycle which is what it is.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And the kid died in the town here last year.
Mishka Shubaly
Oh.
Ken Rideout
Lost control hit a fire hydrant and died. I'm like you think that I'm going to let you knuckleheads drive 40 miles an hour. I don't even like you riding those freaking motorized scooters around the neighborhood. I'm like I'm like too way too protective of them but there's certain they and I have other friends that are like oh let them get a dirt bike. Let them get this. I'm like I I get it but I it my own anxiety won't let me do it. I I couldn't handle the fact of like the thought of them getting hurt or head injury or something.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. You know I think I really tried to build a life where I was isolated from everyone and everything. You know
Ken Rideout
You definitely have like are you living off the grid now in [ __ ] Ohio?
Mishka Shubaly
That well I mean before that like you know maybe Jesus 2018 I didn't have I didn't have a cat. I I didn't have a girlfriend. I didn't have a cat. I didn't have a dog. I didn't have a [ __ ] house plant. And I wanted it I wanted to just have no connection so that like when when the road called and oh I have a chance to do three weeks out on the road with I could just [ __ ] lock up my house and go away and you know and do whatever.
And the and that was wildly uh unrewarding and wildly unhealthy and just to be and it it felt at times like you know in every outer space movie there's always a a time when the astronaut becomes unhooked from the the ship and you see him like you know the
Ken Rideout
Like the feeling you get when you smoke DMT.
Mishka Shubaly
Yes.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god they unhooked me. I'm dead.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Soon as you accept your death you're like oh I can fly.
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
But I I would just feel like I was like spinning out in space cuz I wasn't connected to anything. You know, and now like I have a cat, I have a dog, I'm married to the [ __ ] love of my life. We have house plants, you know, the and with that comes all the anxiety of like
Ken Rideout
Responsibility.
Mishka Shubaly
All the I did the math one day where I was like oh how old is the cat when I got the cat? How old is the dog? I was like oh my dog, my cat, and my mom could all die the same year.
Ken Rideout
Or they could not, dude.
Mishka Shubaly
I know, that's and that's that [ __ ] addict brain. Like why is that going to make your day being like the worst day of your life could happen where you lose like you
Ken Rideout
And let me tell you this, if they did all die the same day, you could view it as like oh my god what a loss or you could be like how old is your mom?
Mishka Shubaly
Uh she's 79.
Ken Rideout
[ __ ] eight if she died tomorrow, God forbid, I hope she doesn't, but 80's a good run.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah. And the life that she's had, you know, the you know, if I if I had to like um if I had to design her headstone it would say I had a great time.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
Because she did. She has like all the hard [ __ ] she's been through, she's you know, she's like grinning through all of it.
Ken Rideout
No one wants to die, no one wants to see anyone else die. I mean, for the most part, but
This is some days I'm like
Mishka Shubaly
You and I could both name 10 people.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, including ourselves.
Mishka Shubaly
I know.
Ken Rideout
People are like aren't you worried you're going to get hit by a car on that road where you run? I'm like most of the days I hope someone does hit me.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah. That and and that's that is that [ __ ] addict brain that like the you know, if one of your kids get a gets a splinter, you're like oh my god, let's you know, we're going to the ER, you know, but for ourselves we're like it's not that much blood.
Ken Rideout
No, exactly.
Mishka Shubaly
But we are on the right track. We are doing the hard things that I think are getting us closer to that sensation of having enough, of being enough.
Ken Rideout
Definitely closer than probably we both have ever been.
Mishka Shubaly
Yes, absolutely true.
Ken Rideout
So, back to your childhood. So, your dad gets divorced. You Did you graduate from Simon's Rock with a college degree?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, I got I got my two-year degree. I got my associate's degree there. Um I I went You you know, I thought I would be like a scientist like my dad. So, I took like math and physics and stuff and I [ __ ] sucked.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, of course it did.
Mishka Shubaly
And then um and then I got into acting and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to be an actor." And then I started to get good at acting and when you're good, the then in a love scene you fall in love with that person and then it goes away, you know? And for a for a kid still trying to figure out like those real feelings to be able to gen to generate them artificially was too confusing for me. And I was like, "I'm I'm just going to write stuff and be behind the scenes, you know?
So, not everybody's watching me sort of go through this stuff." So, I went to um got in the University of Colorado, the film school there. And then I um went to sign up for I got a job working at [ __ ] Sonic Burger flipping burgers. And um and I worked [clears throat] at night and all the film school classes took place at night. Um or would go into whatever 6:00 or 7:00. So, I I couldn't sign up for those classes because I had to work my job flipping burgers.
So, so all the writing classes happened during the day. So, then I fell into taking all the writing classes and then took me 7 years to get my [ __ ] undergrad because I like bounced around so much and like that
Ken Rideout
That's so on brand.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, the um
Ken Rideout
And by the way, when you're going to college and this is your dad helping you at all? Like is he in the picture whatsoever?
Mishka Shubaly
He sent me $300 one time and he sent me and he uh
Ken Rideout
A simple no would do.
But it's worse than I can though. I know. Did you have a calm like, "Dude, what the fuck?"
Mishka Shubaly
Oh, yeah. We've had that conversation.
Ken Rideout
Oh, how did he react?
Mishka Shubaly
Not great.
Ken Rideout
Like, what was his defense? You're like, "Dude, you're a [ __ ] dad. Like, get it together, man."
Mishka Shubaly
He was like, "You left home when you were 15. The you know, you were telling me you were a man since you were 13. The when you're 18 like my obligation to you ceases and and that's that, you know." And
Ken Rideout
As a kid thinking like, "Why the [ __ ] did you guys have me?" And I've always said, "When you have children, it's up to you to educate them to the highest degree that you can." So, at a minimum, it's your responsibility to get those kids through college if that's where they want to go. Even if it's co-signing the loan if you don't have the money. Like, it's just that's your obligation. And I feel that my and and my parents like, you know, they helped where they could and when they could.
But I mean, I thought they could have done more. But they it is what it is. But with my own kids, I'm like, "If I had to sell my house and live in a [ __ ] rental and live like a rental trailer." Like, if if it meant that the kids could get the life that they deserve, then that's what I would do.
Mishka Shubaly
Mhm.
Ken Rideout
That's why I'm like that's why I wake up with anxiety of like, "Okay, what more can I do?" Cuz like, I don't have enough to like just give to everyone everything and never work again.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. My dad came to being a parent from a different place that than you did. That you know, you knew from the drop that you were going to be a dad and that that was going to be the most important job in your life. And when I was like 10 or 11, I was like had been out fishing all day cuz I was obsessed with fishing in Colorado and I hadn't caught anything cuz I sucked at it. And the my dad came to pick me up.
And [snorts] he I was like, you know, "Three more casts. You know, now I now I'm going to hook the big one." And and at one point, he was like, he just said, "You know, I never wanted to have kids." And I was just like What the [ __ ] Like did you you know like do I just throw the fishing rod into the the lake now?
Ken Rideout
That's a crazy thing to say to a kid.
Mishka Shubaly
And he tried to catch it after that to say you know the but of course you know the I I love having you kid but he he waited too long.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
You know and the and I was like no no no you spoke the truth there and now you're trying to cover it up. And it was it was horrible. I mean like I I I can't think of anybody ever you know saying anything worse to me than that. But also he finally in that moment confirmed something that I'd known my entire life which is that he would be happier if I wasn't around. You know.
Ken Rideout
That sucks.
Mishka Shubaly
It did suck and it does suck you know the that's definitely a big reason why I chose not to have children is because I was like what if I have a kid and then I don't like him the way that my dad didn't like me.
Ken Rideout
Yeah but you're not that kind of person. If you had a kid tomorrow you would have the right mentality from what I know of you.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah. But I also think that like being an uncle is an important job you know that the there's a lot of kids there's there's not I've never been at at a place in my life where I was like oh I wish there were more kids around that would make this place better.
Ken Rideout
I tell everyone no one likes your kids except you. When you want to bring your kids to an event just know no one likes them.
Mishka Shubaly
The yeah.
Ken Rideout
Even you don't like them sometimes so no one else is going to like them.
Mishka Shubaly
But there have been so many times in my life when I when I was younger and like even now you know that I wish there had been like an uncle around to like pull me aside and be like you want to [ __ ] knock it off? Or you know or we need a guy I'm I have a concrete business we need a guy for Monday. Be here at at 8:00 a.m. You know. Like a mentor or a role model or some sort.
Exactly, exactly. Like, you know, nobody put me in check, you know, once I left home because nobody could. You know, I was I was like [ __ ] 6 and 1/2 ft tall when I was 15, you know.
It was And And I was just like running riot, you know, the whole time. But I think that that would have been helpful. So that's one of the things I try and do is like be be a involved uncle, you know.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. So, when you you graduated Simon's Rock and then you went to you Colorado, University of Colorado, and then from there you moved to New York City?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah. I um my [clears throat] drinking was like already out of control. I was like uh I think I'd turned 21 when I was graduating from Colorado and I was like throwing up blood and I graduated summa [ __ ] laude.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god.
Mishka Shubaly
And then I went to New York and I was like, "Well, I graduated summa [ __ ] laude. I'll get a job at like a newspaper or something like that." Holy [ __ ] dude. I moved there with like 300 bucks and uh like sharing a room with my uh with my stepbrother and it and I just could not get a [ __ ] job anywhere. And um and I was like "I know my drink is out of control. I'm going to apply um I'm going to apply to the best writing program in the world, which is at Columbia University.
I'm going to apply there and if I don't get in, I'm going to go to rehab." And I And I got in and I should have gone to rehab.
Ken Rideout
Oh, man. How was that How was the program at Columbia?
Mishka Shubaly
I mean, it was phenomenal. You know, looking back, thinking about just how many books I was like crushing a week, you know, the And it was before smartphones. So everybody like, you know, riding the subway to band practice or whatever, you everybody had their nose in a book, you know. So I was I was reading like two or three books a week. And um the the instructors were sort of just the best, the greatest, the smartest. I was disappointed in my classmates cuz I thought I was just going to say, "How were the students?
Were they nerds?
The Well, I mean, a lot of them came from privileged backgrounds, cuz you know, they're going to be creative writers. Yeah, cuz the cuz that I mean, the being an artist is a great occupation for a rich kid, you know? Um and uh I wish I'd known that when I made up my mind that that's how I was going to, you know, do it. But um so there were a lot of kids, you know, from from privileged backgrounds and and also I thought that, you know, my favorite writers at the time were like, you know, Charles Bukowski and um Jesus, why am I uh Hunter S.
Thompson? And cuz they had these crazy lives and then they wrote William Burroughs, you know? And the and a lot of my classmates I found that they just wanted to like have the house in the suburbs and write and grow tomatoes. And that was just the like terrifyingly boring to
Ken Rideout
They weren't like authentic like bad boy journalists. They were just like slipping through the cracks like I just want to be safe.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah. And
Ken Rideout
Write a profile for Vanity Fair.
Mishka Shubaly
And and looking back on it, some I mean, some of those people did end up being very serious students and I ended up being kind of a blowhard, you know?
Ken Rideout
Did any of the students that you went to school with become like big-time literary figures?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah. Scott Snyder writes Batman.
Ken Rideout
Really?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Holy [ __ ]
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, dude, I almost got a gate He I ran into him 15 years ago. And he was like, "Yeah, you should come and write for us." And like and I was like and I like texted him, called him, you know, like it every desperate thing and he never responded because he could smell the desperation, you know?
Ken Rideout
Yeah, yeah. You got to be [ __ ] play it cool.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah. The But um
Ken Rideout
[clears throat]
Mishka Shubaly
Um Ben Conkol wrote a best-seller called Indecision um that was incredible and then he uh he has a magazine called M+1. You know, I've seen a lot of my classmates like in the New Yorker, New York Times, stuff like that.
Ken Rideout
You know, when you were saying um that he wrote Batman, I I one time was working out with at Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece's house.
Mishka Shubaly
Uh-huh.
Ken Rideout
And I was sitting in the sauna. I don't know if Did I ever tell you this story?
Mishka Shubaly
No.
Ken Rideout
Sitting in the sauna and there was an older guy in there and there's a group of people and every time you go to Laird and Gabby's house it's like a who's who. I mean, Christian McCaffrey, uh Robert Downey Jr., Rick Rubin. I mean, [ __ ] who's who. Neil Strauss,
Mishka Shubaly
Wow.
Who's a great writer.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, yeah.
Um this is like every day. Like every day some of these people are there and it's just an awesome and they're just awesome. They're like, "Yeah, Ken, open invite and if you ever want to bring anyone just know you're responsible for anyone you bring here." So, as I'm seriously as a result I never brought anyone.
Mishka Shubaly
Yep.
Yep.
Ken Rideout
Cuz they were like
Mishka Shubaly
You?
Ken Rideout
They were [ __ ] awesome people, but they would be like, "Yeah, no can do. Like bad energy."
Mishka Shubaly
Yep.
Ken Rideout
Um but anyway, I was sitting in the sauna with these uh with a bunch of people. The who's who. I said we leave. This is a different time we're in the sauna, some young kids in the younger than us and I'm with my buddy Rob Moore who's one of the producers on this show, produces Andrew Huberman show. And we're leaving and I go, "Dude, that girl Brie was [ __ ] beautiful, huh? The girl in the sauna." I mean, she was there with her boyfriend who worked with Laird and Gabby, but I was just like just making all this up.
I was like, "Wow, she's pretty." He goes, "Dude, that's [ __ ] Brie Larson. I think she won an Oscar or something." I'm like, "What?"
I'm like, "OH MY GOD, I KNOW THE NAME." I don't couldn't tell you what she was in. So, that that's one story. The se- another the the the the different story is I'm sitting there and this older guy is like asking me where I grew up. Somehow it came up that I worked in a prison. I maybe Laird said, "Oh, Ken worked in a prison." And the guy was in He's like, "Oh, I'm a writer." And I was like, "Oh, like uh novels? What what kind of writing?" He's like, "Oh, I'm a I'm a uh movie writer, like a screenplay writer." And I'm like, "Oh, cool.
You write anything I might I know or anything I might know of?" He's like, "Uh I don't know. Have you ever heard of Braveheart?"
Dude, I was like, "What?" I was like, I love it. But, that's why I think that those guys get a kick out of it cuz like, number one, I didn't know who it was, but number two, I was just as shocked as I just expressed. I was like, "What? Holy [ __ ] what a movie." You know what I mean? Like, I don't try to feign my enthusiasm or excitement. Like, I It's like, uh, seeing someone who you find attractive being like, "Oh my god, you're so pretty." And And someone would be like, "Dude, it's so inappropriate." I'm like, "It's inappropriate to compliment someone for looking good?
If someone told me I was handsome, I'd be so happy."
Mishka Shubaly
One of the things that I I I should mention when I talk about Columbia is that there were many people there who went out of their way to encourage me, you know, to, um, you know, teachers who pulled me aside. You I mean, I I I first signed up there like taking one to try and take one class. And the And they were like, "Oh, it's this this much money." And I was like, "Well, nice to meet you guys." And they called me back.
Ken Rideout
The program.
Mishka Shubaly
This was before I'd gotten into the program.
Ken Rideout
Okay.
Mishka Shubaly
The, um, and I was like, "Well, nice to meet you guys." And turn around to walk out. And they were like, "Wait. We'll give you a scholarship." And so, they gave me a scholarship.
Ken Rideout
A minute. Had they seen your application or something?
Mishka Shubaly
I'd applied and submitted my writing and stuff like that.
Ken Rideout
And they said you're in?
Mishka Shubaly
And they said you're in. And they were like, "This is how much it costs." And it was probably like a thousand dollars or something for a semester.
Ken Rideout
No way.
Mishka Shubaly
And I was like, "Yeah." The I I mean, I don't know. The I But, it was more than I could handle. Yeah. And I was like, "Well, nice meeting you guys." You know, and they they literally they were like waved me down. They were like, "No, no, stop. Come back. The What if we gave you a scholarship?" And I was like, "Fuck yeah, then I'll totally do it." And So, then they they did that. And then they I think they I think they gave me another scholarship so I could come the next semester to take one class, like a night class or something.
And both of those professors like went out of their way like pulled me aside like you need to read this book and you need to get your [ __ ] together because you can do this, you know? And the between the encouragement that I got from like the you know the head of the department there and then those teachers like that made all the difference to me in the world, you know? And I'll tell you what man when when my [ __ ] was like top of the charts on Amazon and I was just had my picture in the New York Times and all that [ __ ] I I tracked down Alan Ziegler, the guy who got me and I was like, "Did you see?" And he was like, "We saw it." I was like, "Are you proud?" And he was like, "We're proud." And you know I was so awesome.
Yeah, it was great.
Ken Rideout
To get to all your successes believe me. So that's the one thing that's interesting about Ivy League is like they're they're it's crazy expensive but the minute that you qualify for financial aid everything's free. But in as a result you have the massive haves and have nots. There's nowhere in between. Like a blue collar working class family cannot go there. Cuz if you have I forget what the number is I'm going to [ __ ] it up and someone's going to troll me but at one point my a good friend of mine is the fencing coach at Columbia and they're like the best in the world.
Best in the country. And he was telling me that I think this is what he said like at the time and this is like 20 years ago. If you had 250,000 in assets including your house you don't qualify for financial aid. If you have less than that everything's free. The endowment pays everything. And it's just like what happens when you have a system like that is you have either poor people or rich people. Cuz a guy who's you know working as a firefighter he he he has maybe he has more than the you know the cut off assets but he can't afford 50 grand a year or whatever it is now.
I mean now it's like a hundred but you know what I'm saying? So it's like this weird dynamic where I mean and with the size of of endowments that those schools have everyone could go there for free.
Yeah, I mean
Mishka Shubaly
If you can get in.
I think college should be free across the board, and then it should just be performance based, you know?
Ken Rideout
Disagree with that. I think there should be a free option, just like just like health care in the UK. There's free National Health Service, but if you want private insurance, you can have that too. You can pay to go to a top end doctor on like whatever it is, Harley Street or whatever the freaking street is where all the top doctors are. Cuz I lived in London, and that's what you would do. If you need an appointment and you wanted to be preferential treatment over NHS, you just go to the private doctor.
And that's how college should be. There should be a state school system that if you can get in and you want to go, go for it. It's only in our best interest to educate everyone. I'm with you on that.
Mishka Shubaly
I'm a little sour grapes about like how much money I still owe on my [ __ ] student loans.
Ken Rideout
I don't blame you. That's [ __ ] infuriating. That's another thing is like at 18 years old, you can't get you they're not going to get a [ __ ] mortgage, they're not going to get approved for a much of a credit card. Stu- 200 grand in student debt to go to like [ __ ] university and study sociology. You got it. Here's the [ __ ] 200 grand you'll pay back for the rest of your life.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
It's a [ __ ] scam.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Absolutely. The But I have to balance my sort of like powerless frustration with my student loans with the fact that like I did get a great education, yeah.
Yeah. You know, and Simon's Rock really like opened up the world for me, and then I you know, I had an incredible teachers at the University of Colorado, incredible experience at Columbia. Would I be here now without all that? I don't know.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
You know, that that made a huge difference for me as a writer. But but also like I burned out,
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
You know? The I was a precocious kid, and I was always like the youngest one, you know, and then when I got out of um I graduated Columbia in 2001, and then uh um close friend of mine in the in the program overdosed that spring and died. Then I got shipwrecked, then 9/11. And it was just you know it was one of those things again of like the I was like I'm done. I I've like completed this thing like what I'm ready for the job offers and like nothing came in and then all this horrible [ __ ] happened [clears throat] and then I didn't write for 7 years.
Ken Rideout
Oh, really?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Oh, I didn't know that. What were you doing during those years? Drinking and drugging?
Mishka Shubaly
Working on my drug my my my alcohol addiction.
Ken Rideout
Bartending.
Mishka Shubaly
And playing music.
Ken Rideout
Oh, that's right.
Mishka Shubaly
Um and and that was the thing that I really wanted to do. Um and I did it, you know, I mean I when I was a little kid I was like oh I'm just going to like you know get a little pick up truck and sleep in the back and go and you know travel town to town like playing music and I I fulfilled that dream and hope to never live that life again.
It's like it's one thing when you're 25, you know, when you're 49 the you know, the couches and floors are not quite as comfortable.
Ken Rideout
If I see one more [ __ ] busted amp or guitar, piece of a guitar in the background of your Zoom thing, I was going to [ __ ] snap. I'm like how much [ __ ] junk are you going to collect, dude?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. It
Ken Rideout
You got to take all the amps, all the guitars and trade them in and get one or two really high-end guitars and amps.
Mishka Shubaly
You know, I I I do have to say that our cabin in the woods in Ohio, I every day I love it there. And one of the things that I love is that I'm like Ken would be so [ __ ] miserable here. And
Just the like we got to find a way to have you come out and visit for a minute cuz you'll be like walk around the house for 20 minutes and then be like I'm out of here.
Ken Rideout
I saw the I saw the video you posted the other day. It looks like nice. Looks like a
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Rideout
It looks like a cabin.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah. I actually spent some money on the deck and you know what? It was [ __ ] worth it. It was
Ken Rideout
You decks away, so that was the only way it was getting done To be fair.
Mishka Shubaly
The but one of the ways that I made that purchase happen is I went in my [ __ ] hoard of way too much [ __ ] and I was like, you got to you got to sell $20,000 worth a year. And I did. And and I could and I can do that again, you know, but I the I mean maybe this is another [clears throat] podcast, but I I have had those moments of inflection looking at like the heap of old guitars and amps and stuff and to say that this is not a collection.
This is this is a hoard. This is a this is mental illness. This is not cool. It's
Ken Rideout
I mean listen, I like stuff too, but one thing that I find super liberating is getting rid of stuff. Even if it's like good stuff, I'm like if put it on Facebook marketplace, if no one gets it in the next 2 days, it's going in the trash.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
But my wife, she's resourceful. She'll put [ __ ] up there and people will come and pay for it and buy it. Like a couch and they come and get it and I'm like, that wait a minute, they're going to come and get it. I don't I'm not carrying this couch out. They're like, Nope, they'll come with two guys are going to carry it out. I'm like, jackpot, let's go. Then the people get there and inevitably I'm like, it's a guy and a wife and I'm like, oh for [ __ ] sake, I got it.
And then I'm like and then and then I'm helping the guy and I'm like, she'll be I told you I didn't want to [ __ ] move furniture today. Like I'm I'm too busy.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
But my wife is always has the best intentions for me.
But I have I literally have no man skills, no handy skills whatsoever. We hire people to do everything.
Mishka Shubaly
As you should. You know, the you do the things that you're good at.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, and I don't I don't like certain stuff. Like I don't like painting and [ __ ] moving furniture. I just
Mishka Shubaly
I'm so [ __ ] glad I paid my friends to do the deck cuz it's awesome.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, it is awesome.
Mishka Shubaly
It's beautiful, it's solid. The if I had been out there doing it, man, I would have been like, well, we don't need that. Structural support? That's I could save six bucks by
Ken Rideout
I don't need the [ __ ] aluminum hangers on the wood. Just use an extra nail. So, let's talk about the shipwreck cuz it's one of like And And for everyone listening, Mishka has like a shitload of different books and stories on Amazon, but your main autobiography is called
Mishka Shubaly
I wrote a full-length memoir called
Ken Rideout
Memoir
Mishka Shubaly
Called uh I swear I'll make it up to you. And then I also have a book out called The Long Run and other stories that captures all the short pieces that I'd written that I published through Amazon where I got my start where talking about getting shipwrecked, having a crazy stalker, The Long Run, which that story bought my mom a [ __ ] house, you know, like
Ken Rideout
Dating show, a reality show So, let's talk about some of the um the short stories and starting with the uh the shipwreck. I like that I like that story because you know, when when you were first telling me you were shipwrecked, I'm imagining you like shipwrecked in the [ __ ] South Pacific and this is like not going to like they're not going to get saved for [ __ ] months. And then it was like, "No, no, we got shipwrecked on a like small Bahamian island now."
I mean, it is harrowing, but the build-up to it I was like, "Oh, this [ __ ] got He He He was like on an uncharted island Gilligan Gilligan's Island style." I'm like, "Oh, no, he broke down like 30 miles from a [ __ ] village."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Rideout
But it was uh it must have been intimidating cuz the guy who was the captain of the ship was what? 89 years old?
Mishka Shubaly
The The captain's father was 89. So, we were always sort of like keeping an eye on him, like making sure that he was okay. And then Peter, the captain, was um I think he was like 55, which at the time I was like, "Oh, what an old guy." You know.
Ken Rideout
That's how old I am right now.
Mishka Shubaly
And but he had Parkinson's.
Ken Rideout
Oh, okay.
Mishka Shubaly
So, it was harder for him to sort of get around physically, but still, you know, incredibly sharp and seasoned sailor. And um
Ken Rideout
And where [clears throat] were you guys taking the boat to and from?
Mishka Shubaly
I was meeting He was taking the boat from the Virgin Islands up to dry dock and this was to be like his last big sail with his dad in the dry dock is in Florida.
Ken Rideout
Okay.
Mishka Shubaly
So, I met up with them in the Dominican Republic.
Ken Rideout
And uh so how many days was it it was supposed to be?
Mishka Shubaly
What It was supposed to be like 6 weeks. Like the whole summer or something. You know, it was going to be this incredible Yeah, an incredible adventure and I had turned down this internship at Harper's Magazine just so I could do this trip. I was supposed to pull or something at McSweeney's that fell through and it was all around this trip and the whole [ __ ] adventure ended up being like 5 days and then I was like back in New York like sunburnt, I lost half my [ __ ] totally [ __ ] shell-shocked from like confronting my own mortality.
Ken Rideout
Realize it was a 6-week adventure. [ __ ] cut short. So, go ahead and give us the worst. Give us the short version.
Mishka Shubaly
Well, the
So, people are like shipwrecked, how do you get shipwrecked? And the answer is you make a series of tiny miscalculations and that's all it takes.
Ken Rideout
Well, they tell you in like different recovery places where I've been like when I went to Onsite that we wrote about extensively is like if you're a ship on the ocean and you make a half a degree change in the direction you're going, what's that going to look like in 6 months, 6 hours, 6 days? Like you're going to be way the [ __ ] off course. So, tiny tiny changes. So, to your point when you're in a sailboat, if you're off even slightly, especially in open ocean, not that you guys were that vast of ocean.
You were in the [ __ ] Caribbean. There's islands every few miles, but So, okay. So, just to set the stage.
Mishka Shubaly
So, the first mate Steve Baranowsky was steering and I was trying to sleep in the front of the in the front compartment and then I just heard this horrible tearing, incredibly loud, sustained crash and the whole boat flopped over on its side.
Ken Rideout
It's kind of funny.
Mishka Shubaly
And I was like, we're all going to die. And the we managed to And what had happened was that we were um we had gotten a little bit off course, and then there was like a thin layer of clouds with a bright moon behind it. So, it was this weird sort of diffuse light.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And where we ran aground, it was all this like navy blue volcanic rock with white bands of sand after it. And it just looked like a breaking wave.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And um
Ken Rideout
[clears throat]
Mishka Shubaly
So, we we got everybody evacuated from the boat, and then
Ken Rideout
How deep was the water that the I mean, it couldn't have been that deep if you hit the keel hit, but it's all coral and rocks.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, it was the And I definitely I like cut the [ __ ] out of one of my hands getting off the boat. And we'd been fishing off the back of the boat and losing fish to sharks, you know, for the last like 3 or 4 days. So, I was like you you know, the I got to stick this landing, you know, the
Ken Rideout
So, how far would you say that the boat was from like physical land, not like rocks and coral?
Mishka Shubaly
We we were right up on the volcanic rock. So, you just had We like
Ken Rideout
Volcanic rock is like jagged, like [ __ ] broken glass.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, it was all like all switchblades, you know. So, the I had the thought, too, that like if I slip and fall
Ken Rideout
Oh, you're going to get [ __ ]
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, the But we got everybody safely off. Um and then we just like sat and got ham like we had, you know, whatever, 10 bottles of red wine. Everybody [ __ ] grabbed one of them, you know, the And just cuz what else do you do, you know? So, we just got like
Ken Rideout
Panic, cry.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, um
The you know, Peter was radioing for help, and nobody was responding. So, we just got drunk and like covered ourselves up with sails and like slept on the beach. And then the next morning, Peter was like There's Matthewtown, 25 mi this way. I'm going to go for help. And I was like No, I'm going to go. And he was like, Mishka, you know, it's my responsibility. I'm the captain of the boat. I was like, your your responsibility is here with the the And he was like, you know, the No, I you know, it's it's on me.
I can't let you do this. And I looked at him and I said, Peter, I'm younger, I'm faster, and I'm expendable. Like, you have a wife, you have a family, you have a life. I'm a [ __ ] 24-year-old dirtbag. Like, I'm I I've done nothing with my life and I will do nothing. Let me do this. Let me go out and if I'm not back by this time tomorrow, then you can go. And so we'd like gotten a little bit of fresh water off the boat, so we each had a gallon of water.
So I took my gallon and put it in a backpack. I think I had like not flip-flops, but like socks and sandals.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
It's just a horror show, you know, the And then I want to protect myself from the sun, so I had a white button-down. I was wearing that with like cutoffs. And then early on I found a construction helmet that I like ripped the webbing out of and just wore it on my head and I
Ken Rideout
Have a hat?
Mishka Shubaly
No, I didn't. And the the construction helmet probably saved my life cuz it like my brain didn't get cold then, you know. But and then I just just walked. And you have to In a situation like that, you got to stay on the shoreline, otherwise you'll If you
Ken Rideout
Lose your bearings.
Mishka Shubaly
Exactly. And um and I just walked and walked and walked and the And it's funny, you know, as being a drunk, I was like, Oh, I wouldn't you know, I wish I could just die. And then And then the world serves up to you, here is your opportunity to just die. And I was like, I want to [ __ ] live, man. I I want to live so bad, you know, the I remember, you know, this one moment just like thinking about my mom and how I was never going to see her again and this this is where it was going to end.
And I'd fell down on my hands and knees and I just cried and cried and cried and cried. And then I got up and I kept going, because
Ken Rideout
You had to.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. And then
Ken Rideout
It's funny when you're in those life and death situations when you feel like, holy [ __ ] I could die here.
Mishka Shubaly
It puts everything in focus. Yeah.
Ken Rideout
That's what DMT does for you without having to be on a [ __ ] island. You're like, oh my god, I'm going to die. Why did I do this? Oh, I'm not dead?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Jackpot. Thank you, God. And I get a chance to do this all again?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
I went skiing one time in um in I think it was in Austria with a guy in when I lived in London, a guy just a coworker. And there were a bunch of people going and we together got like an Airbnb cuz it was like, you know, some of those villages there's not a lot of accommodations. So, it's just a random dude who I was friends with from the office. So, we're skiing and dude, there was a whiteout in the middle. Like, we go up the lift and I'm like, wow, there's no one on this lift and it's snowing pretty heavy.
And I'm like, wow, this is great. No one's here. Dude, we got to the top and it started snowing and I I swear to you, if you stuck your hand in front of your face, you couldn't see it. And we're in a a [ __ ] whiteout conditions. It was the clo It was one of the scariest thing that's ever happened to me cuz I'm like, where do you go? Obviously, you go down. But like, you know, on a if you're not going with a little momentum in on a ski run, if you hit a little like divot or something and you come to a standstill, like, which way do you go?
It's there's almost like knee {slash} ankle deep snow powder. But like, blinded. Completely blind. And and eventually I saw a flag on the side and we just followed the flag. And the the other guy is like panicking. He's like, thank you. Where are you? Where I'm like, dude, I'm right here. I'm like, trying to keep my composure, but anyway, it was [ __ ] terrifying.
Mishka Shubaly
And and you're pointing to something universal in like the human condition, which is that like, you don't need to be out there for 6 months to get lost and panic.
Ken Rideout
Exactly.
Mishka Shubaly
That like, we're so tied to our modern world and so connected and you just have to have your cell phone go dead and your [ __ ] car die in West Texas or New Mexico and you're like, I'm I'm a I'm an astronaut spinning through space, you know? And when I was walking, I didn't have I didn't have a cell phone, I didn't have a GPS, I didn't have a map, I didn't have a a wrist watch. So, I had no bearings whatsoever. The all I knew was that the ocean was on my right and land was on my left, you know?
And um I'd read all those like macho survival books about how like in a desperate situation, you can survive by drinking your own pee.
So, I'd been holding it all [ __ ] day.
Ken Rideout
Uh-huh.
Mishka Shubaly
And then I got to this point of like I'd been having like auditory hallucinations. I started seeing stuff that wasn't there. And I got down to like, you know, half an inch of water. And I like couldn't hold my piss anymore.
And I was like, "This is the moment of truth, dude. Like, the you can you can pee in the sand and lose all this moisture or drink your pee."
Ken Rideout
Can you even do that? Is that a scientific thing?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah. In a survival situation, you can survive by drinking your own urine.
Ken Rideout
Really?
Mishka Shubaly
Yes. The
Ken Rideout
Good lord.
Mishka Shubaly
I do not recommend it.
Ken Rideout
Oh, yikes.
Mishka Shubaly
But um but I was like
Ken Rideout
Especially if you're all dehydrated and completely gross.
Mishka Shubaly
So, I walked out into the water a little bit and I took off my the construction helmet that I'd been wearing.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And the and I filled it with like God, it looked like [ __ ] Red Bull. It was just like hot, brown, dehydrated, salty urine. And moment of truth, right? You know, the So, I like [ __ ] raised it to my lips and and I don't know if you've ever drank out of a punch bowl,
But it's not designed. So, it's like dribbling out of the corners of my mouth and like it's just uh it's the can it's the um so horrible. And and then I had like a couple sips of water, so I was like just to wash the taste out of my mouth, you know? And I had this wave of nausea where I was like I can't throw this up. Like I I need to keep this moisture in me. And then when the nausea passed, I was like, if it's another 15 mi, 20 mi, 50 mi, I don't give a [ __ ] you know?
Like I'm a survivor. I drank my own
Piss. I have what it takes to get through this. 5 minutes later, I got rescued.
Ken Rideout
How did you get rescued?
Mishka Shubaly
The So, I'd been hearing boats for a while, and the the boats that weren't there. And then I came around like this little cove, and um and I heard what I thought was a boat, and then I looked up, and there was this, you know, 6 and 1/2 ft tall, you know, big, burly, black dude in a little white boat coming around the corner. And I hadn't said a word to anyone all day, and I just screamed at the top of my lungs, "Help! Help! Help!"
Ken Rideout
He must have been like, "Who's this lunatic?"
Mishka Shubaly
He was like, "Bro, I hear you." Like, "I'm coming, you know?"
Ken Rideout
And he was like, "Calm down, you lunatic."
Mishka Shubaly
His name was Casper. Uh I'll I'll remember his name for the rest of my life. The um and he was working with some biologists who were out banding turtles. He's a local Bahamian dude. So, he came and like picked me up, and the brought me back to the biologists, the and uh and I was like, "You got to get me the Coast Guard station as quickly as you can, cuz I got five shipwrecked American sailors on the northernmost point of the island. Uh two of them require medication, and one of them is 89 years old."
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And so, they were like, "Yeah." So, we we we like beeline it to the uh to the Coast Guard station, and the and I you know, gave them the spiel and they took me seriously and and immediately like the they were like the guys with the chisel jaw with a sprinting towards the helicopter is like whoop whoop whoop.
Ken Rideout
This is US Coast Guard?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
In the Bahamas?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
They have Coast Guard in other countries?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. The they were based out of Clearwater, Florida but they had a base in
Ken Rideout
Okay.
Mishka Shubaly
Like a joint venture with the
Ken Rideout
What's the assignment?
Mishka Shubaly
The yeah. And the and I was like this is [ __ ] awesome. My whole life I wanted to be a hero. I'm the [ __ ] hero. I saved the day. The chopper's about to take off and just then the Coast Guard gets a a call from the Bahamian Defense Patrol and they're like um we just picked up five shipwrecked sailors. They send one of their crew off like you guys got to got to get a chopper out to pick up this guy and the dispatcher like looked at me and he was like I think we got him.
So after all that I didn't [ __ ] save anybody. I mean I saved myself.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god, dude. What a crazy story.
Mishka Shubaly
But they I was I stunk when I came in.
Ken Rideout
Oh, I can I can imagine.
Mishka Shubaly
A shower. They got me a sandwich, two pieces of white wonder bread, one piece of bologna, one piece of American cheese.
Ken Rideout
They had at the [ __ ] Coast Guard station?
Mishka Shubaly
It it yeah, it was like [ __ ] army food, you know.
Ken Rideout
But if dudes live there you'd be like hey, we live here. Let's make sure we bring in some good we got a chopper. We'll go wherever we want.
Mishka Shubaly
I'll tell you what, that was the best sandwich I've ever eaten.
Ken Rideout
Oh, that's always the way it goes.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. But then they gave me a uh they gave me a Coast Guard t-shirt to wear
I still have it. I hope you still have it.
Do.
Ken Rideout
A guy I worked with he has kids who are in their early 20s. And I just worked with this guy randomly and as I started to get some attention on social media was running one of the the kid with the guy, my friend, Victor Lugo told me oh my son Gabe is like a big fan of all your work. He's and so he was at uh Florida State. So every time I go we go down to 30A for fall break with the kids, which is the panhandle of Florida, which I used to call the Redneck Riviera cuz I've never been there.
I'm like, I'm not going to the Redneck Riviera. I want to go to like Miami or something. We went down there. I was like, this is the best place ever cuz you can drive all the people from here are there. The water is gorgeous. It's It's awesome. I was so out of line to think it was like the Redneck Riviera. Parts of it are probably are, but nevertheless um So when I would go there, I would call Gabe, this young guy who was like my friend, but you know, like he could be my son, and he would drive from Florida State to come and run with me.
He was like just the nicest, politest kid, graduated from Florida State, joins the Navy. He's like, I'm going to be a Navy SEAL. And I'm like, really? And he's like, you know, soft-spoken kid, mild-mannered, but tough, you know, willed himself to like a 2:35 marathon. Something crazy. Like when he's when he started running with me and just started training like crazy and got really fast. So he's going to I think today is his last day of of Buds prep and he goes to Buds in like couple of weeks.
But yesterday, this is so crazy, they gave him like I forget what it's called, like a UDT, like a basically like a life jacket type thing that they wear when they swim that can blow up. I think it's like the thing that they, you know, if you if you're in a plane crash, you put this on and pull the thing. It's like one of those things I think. But stenciled on his thing is the last name Rideout. Stenciled on his, you know, so he put a line through it and put his own name on it, but he's like, dude, look at the vest that they gave me.
And I was like And he's like the nicest kid. Like my wife was like, do you believe in this you believe in like higher powers now? This is like cuz we're really close. Like he's like my nephew, you know what I mean? But I was like, dude, now you have to make it. You can't you you're representing both of us now.
But one more I want to talk to you about is the dating game and the reality show cuz I I didn't get to the end of that one but like I've read all the other ones all the other short stories but so just anyone who knows you the thought of you being on a dating show a reality show in general is shocking but a dating show is even better so I got to the part where they're casting and you're like they're never going to pick me and you showed up and you get picked but tell us what happens with the dating game.
Mishka Shubaly
Well, you know so I had all the this internal conflict about doing it because the I don't I don't love reality TV. I don't love TV in general
Ken Rideout
[clears throat]
Mishka Shubaly
Or I didn't at the time. I do now. Um You know and I just gotten sober and my life was still kind of a [ __ ] show and the I consulted with one of my oldest closest friends about it and I was like should I do this and he was like yeah. I was like really? And he was like oh yeah, it's going to be a huge disaster but then it'll be perfect. You know like they'll love it. They yeah, it's going to be horrible.
And so So I was really conflicted going through it and also you know the um it was it was a dating show. It's about like love and romance and being open and being
Ken Rideout
That you're super comfortable with.
Mishka Shubaly
Oh god, it was it was it was the [ __ ] worst. You know like you know and I'm just I'm like filling out this questionnaire of like oh what you know what would you do with a woman on the first date and I was like [ __ ] dinner and like maybe a couple drinks for her and like then back to my place cuz this is obviously going nowhere so like let's have a good night and then you know vaya con Dios you know and the So I was just bullshitting you know and it was it was just it was one of those things of like the You know probably when you started running tries you were like I don't think I can do this but I'm going to do it until somebody tells me I can.
You know and it that was the thing and I just kept like advancing and going forward with it and going forward with it and the whole time feeling like this is getting out of control. You know,
Ken Rideout
Where is this becoming a reality?
Mishka Shubaly
Yes. Yes. And um and [clears throat] while I was doing that I did I researched up you know, sort of about the history of reality TV and stuff. I think they had already offered me the position on this show. They were like, "You're perfect. We love you. You're going to be amazing. You're going to be a huge star. Sign here. Sign your entire life away. Your name, your likeness, everything, you know." And I was like, "I've never I've I've never wanted something I didn't want so badly.
Ken Rideout
Such a great description.
Mishka Shubaly
But also then when you have that opportunity, I was like, "Oh, well, maybe I should do it." So, that's when I was researching That's when I researched like the history of reality TV. The first contestant vote or the first contestant The the One of the contestants on the first reality show ever, which was like Survivor in [ __ ] Denmark or something like that, killed himself.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god.
Mishka Shubaly
And then when you see that when that suicide popped up, I was like, "Oh, what Have other reality TV There's tons of suicides.
Ken Rideout
Well, dude, think about it. Like if you get vilified on that show, like the opposite of like Spencer Pratt. Spencer Pratt was like universally hated and he turned it into like universally loved. Like where I know it probably doesn't speak to your politics, but like that guy like
Mishka Shubaly
Anyway.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, he like rallied the troops. I mean, he had some powerhouse players behind him trying to like upset the apple cart in LA, but like that guy turned But he had the personality. You have to have some kind of personality to be the villain and still have a good life cuz I don't want to be hated universally hated.
Mishka Shubaly
Well, the other thing is it's like signing up to have a documentary crew follow you around and capture like
Ken Rideout
But you have no creative control they can [ __ ] make you look like a [ __ ]
Exactly. They're going
Mishka Shubaly
Record every fart, every every mistake you make, every bad haircut you get.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like the the lowlights reel, you
Ken Rideout
And they can edit that [ __ ] to like it's the opposite of Instagram which is a highlight reel of your life. Hey, we're going to make this guy look like a [ __ ] jerk.
Mishka Shubaly
Exactly. Exactly.
Ken Rideout
No, thank you. I can do I'm good at doing that all by myself. I don't need any help.
Mishka Shubaly
And I was like this will send me back to drinking. You know, I I can't do this. And um you know, I was talking to my my friend Paul Sommerstein, rock and roll lawyer in New York and uh and I was like Paul, what do you think of the contract? And he was like, what do you want me to say, dude? This is reality TV. This is the bottom of the bottom of the barrel. This is a horrible contract, you know, the and I was like, all right, I'm going to tell them no.
And he was like, no, no, no, I didn't say that. Make them tell you no. Yeah, let's ask for a crazy amount of money.
Ken Rideout
Ooh.
Mishka Shubaly
And then make them tell you no.
Ken Rideout
Yes.
Mishka Shubaly
And it paid like 600 bucks a week and that was it.
Ken Rideout
Here.
Mishka Shubaly
And and one of the stipulations was that you couldn't write about it. And um and so Paul was like, let's schedule a conference call with you know, their people and um and we got on the call with them and you know, Paul was like, well, you know, Misha is a professional writer that this is how he makes his living, you know, if you want him to to do have this experience and not write about it, um you know, the we'd need $100,000. And
Ken Rideout
Those shows make so much money if they're successful. Get the [ __ ] out of here. It's a drop in the bucket.
Mishka Shubaly
And that number still blows my mind but at the time it was like Uncle Scrooge's money bin, you know, the and he said it without batting an eye and the woman was like, I'm I'm pretty sure that that's going to be a non-starter but like I'll bring it back to them but I you know, I think they're going to say no, you know, the
Ken Rideout
You're not in a position to say no. Bring the [ __ ] offer back. I can't stand when people try to negotiate for others. I didn't ask for your opinion. I gave you a number. Go tell the buyer this is what I want.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. And then she she was like, you know, the um I don't think that they're going to pay this much just to have him not write about it. And Paul doubled down and he was like, no, no, no, that's just for him not to not write about it while it's going on. If you want him to not write about it in perpetuity, we need $200,000.
Ken Rideout
Good. I like this guy already.
Mishka Shubaly
And I was just like I was sweating. Money makes me nervous, you know, I was like, wait like the what if they [ __ ] come back and they do it, you know, the um but they didn't. And I felt really conflicted about it that I'd maybe like lost missed out on some opportunity. And then maybe a week after we turned them down, one of the assistants there called me to try to like win me over, you know, the and they were like, you know, we we really think you should do this, you know, the like um let's just get together and like have a couple drinks and talk it over.
And I was like, you [ __ ] you're telling me how great I am, how much you love me. The crux of my story is that I'm a sober alcoholic. And you want to get together for drinks? You don't give a [ __ ] about me.
Ken Rideout
Know that they must not have known they wouldn't have
Mishka Shubaly
They knew. I I I said that out of the gate. I'm a sober alcoholic, you know, the and I I was like really clear about that. I had to make an application video that's still online.
And [clears throat] I talk about being a sober alcohol alcoholic and how I became an ultra runner after that, you know, and so that was like a very key part of my story. And then this guy was like, oh, you know, let's get together for some drinks. I was like, you I'm just another [ __ ] sheep passing through the machine. You don't give a [ __ ] about me. Go [ __ ] yourself. And like but it was man, it I mean, we keep talking about DMT.
It was cuz I didn't do the show, you know, And
Ken Rideout
What was the show called?
Mishka Shubaly
Well, this is another thing. It It was a huge hit overseas. It was like a you know, international phenomenon. It was called Three.
Ken Rideout
Okay.
Mishka Shubaly
And then when the show debuted, they ran it in the summer against the summer Olympics.
Ken Rideout
Oh, Jesus.
Mishka Shubaly
And it flopped. It They ran like two or three episodes and then just gave up on it. So, I like I made the right call. But before I made the right call, my brain went down every [ __ ] different dark alley, you know? But it's Most of my stories don't involve this, but the shipwreck story and the you know, the reality TV show, those are two instances where I actually did the right thing.
Ken Rideout
Well, you mentioned that when you got sober, you became an ultra runner. And again, because I know you so well, those are the parts of the stories that I know really well. But for the audience, when you decided to get sober and start running, like what were the chain of events that led to the sobriety journey? And then how did you start running and why?
Mishka Shubaly
You know, people have all these stories about getting sober. I mean, one of the things that I latched onto immediately about your story was that you didn't like kill anybody or wreck a car or something. You You were like, "We're going to have a kid and I need to make a change." And the And for me, it was I didn't have a realization that alcohol was going to kill me. I had the realization that it wasn't going to kill me. And that I'd been trying and trying and trying to kill myself with alcohol and failing.
And I realized this it's never going to kill me. What it's going to just keep doing is like leeching anything meaningful out of my life and I'm just going to get smaller and hunched over and more defeated until I'm like a 58-year-old barback, you know? The And And then when I finally die, it'll feel like a release.
Ken Rideout
But it wasn't just drinking though. You would like did all kinds of drugs. You were big on the coke, painkillers. Did you ever shoot heroin?
Mishka Shubaly
That's the we're on the same wavelength there. The anything but heroin. You know.
Ken Rideout
It's funny cuz you know, in the story in in one of your stories, the long run, you talk about your friend who overdosed and he said something to you that stuck with me. He said, you know, the the average life expectancy of anyone who starts mainlining heroin is 2 years. That to me like [ __ ] was like shocking. I've never even contemplated shooting any kind of drug ever. But just the thought of someone telling you like, you know, you're going to the if you're average, you'll die in 2 years from the minute you shoot this heroin, which is why I love people who have been able to come back from that strong of an addiction cuz anyone who hasn't experienced opioid addiction, it's [ __ ] it's hellacious.
And alcohol too, but like serious
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Alcohol addiction. And then, you know, they have this drug. I forget what they call it. It's kind of like a bath salt, but it gets you whacked out and high. But one of the things that it does is almost becomes like a backed a skin-eating bacteria. Like you get gross sores and a
Mishka Shubaly
Crocodile.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. And I'm thinking like, dude, who the [ __ ] would do a drug that you know is going to turn your skin into crocodile skin? And they still can't stop doing it.
Mishka Shubaly
But you know the answer to that. You and I both know.
Ken Rideout
I know, but I'm too vain. Like the minute that that drug started to make me look uglier than I already was, I was like, get the [ __ ] out of here. It's like my shoes have always fit right. It's like with people always like if I'm at the beach, they're like, wow, your feet aren't really jacked up. I go, oh, no, no, no. I'm way too vain. If my if my toenails fell off and got all bruised, I'd stop running. I'm way too vain to have [ __ ] up feet and
Mishka Shubaly
Oh, wow.
Ken Rideout
My wife always laughs cuz she's like, thank god your feet aren't like mangled.
But anyway, back to your uh
Mishka Shubaly
Oh, so I um Yeah, I I did have a drug problem as well and like the thing is like I'd quit drinking so many times by that point. Like I knew what was in store. Like quitting um Opana, which is I think hydromorphone, it was like being possessed. And like a [ __ ] exorcism.
Ken Rideout
Like heroin withdrawal.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, that was that was that was a rough ride. Um but I yeah, I just had this epiphany that my life would I was more scared of life as an alcoholic than I was of death.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And I was like it's over.
Ken Rideout
It sucks being a prisoner to addiction. It [ __ ] sucks.
Mishka Shubaly
I was just like I just can't [ __ ] do this anymore. So I I came home from a tour with my band like basically locked myself up for like [ __ ] four or five days of hell and um and then I emerged and I was like all the freshly sober people you know, I was a [ __ ] terror. I was I was crying. I was raging. I was like incredibly depressed and anxious and would snap at the [ __ ] slightest thing, you know, and I I just was like barely holding it together.
And then after a couple of months of the you know, like just doing push-ups until you can't so that like to try and [ __ ]
Ken Rideout
That's what I did with running, I know.
Mishka Shubaly
The voices. And then I was working in a bar at the time cuz that was the only job that I could get. And um a buddy of mine was doing the door and he got sucker [clears throat] punched by somebody and got knocked out and we had to like call [ __ ] EMS for him and stuff. And uh and that rattled me enough that I was like ah I'm not going to ride my bike home tonight. I'm just going to like I'm just going to take a car.
And then the next morning I just woke up furious. I was like I love New York and I love the people who live and work in New York and this [ __ ] tourist came here and sucker punched my friend on my watch. Like [ __ ] this guy to death. You know, and I I was like I got to get my bike back and I walked outside and it was like August, you know, and um and it was like 2:00 p.m.
Ken Rideout
[clears throat]
Mishka Shubaly
So and the and I walked out there was a bus stop right in front of my house and like and it was hot and wet and sticky and I was like I'm not waiting for the [ __ ] bus. I got to get my bike back. Like
Ken Rideout
[snorts]
Mishka Shubaly
And I just ran in a fury um to uh to the bar where I worked and crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, dude, I was like this is it. I'm going to die. Like I just feel like I was like too hot and too cold and I couldn't catch my breath and like pins and needles going through me and like the I you know, every bad thing that can happen to you, you know, in a race like that first run it was happening, you know, I was like I'm going to [ __ ] I'm going to [ __ ] my pants, you know,
And then I got there and but I ran the whole way. I forced myself to run the whole way and I got there and I was like oh my god, like I I ran here, you know, and then I um like bought a bottle of water and chugged it and then rode my bike home and then I looked it up on Google Maps and it was four and a half four and a half miles.
Ken Rideout
Nice.
Mishka Shubaly
And I was like I then I rode my bike home after that. If I ran four and a half so that was probably like five miles. I should do a race. And then I like I was like well a 10K is only six miles. Like if I could just bust out four and a half miles, I I know I could do six. So I signed up for a half marathon.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And then started training and hated it. And I and Ken I had no idea what I was doing. I was like running in cutoffs like just dying from chafing and like in a cotton shirt just like aw. And um but then I did the marathon in like or the half marathon in like 143 or something.
Ken Rideout
First time?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah and and I was sprinting at the end and I was like if I can do that and still have gas in the tank at the end I can run further, you know, and it was like um the [snorts] same way you become a drug addict of like I'm just going to do a little more. That didn't kill me. Let me do a little more, you know? And then I signed up to do this like off-road marathon like through the through the woods of Jersey and I got lost and deaft
And the and then I had signed up for a 50K in Long Island and uh um just drove out there one morning and um
Ken Rideout
[clears throat]
Mishka Shubaly
I I was a novice runner so I didn't get that like if you're running uh you know, an off-road race the the soonest you have to [ __ ] go [ __ ]
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
The and I was like I'm not going to poop in the woods, you know, the so I was just like I ran like 32 miles like holding it in and I was like listening to like CCR on my you know, my iPod or something and I so I was like trying to sneak out farts and I thought I was getting away with it. And then like one song ended before and there was a like silence and it sounded like ducks just like quack quack quack. But I did I ran it in like 6:35 and I was still running at the end and um it was just one of those moments that like we you know, you and I have had in our lives sometimes of just the world [ __ ] opens up and I was like I can I can do this?
Yeah. Like this is bananas, you know?
Ken Rideout
That's the magic of doing physical challenges is like, holy [ __ ] I can do that. In a weird way, it's like my experience with DMT is like, oh, I can do that. I can do the most potent psychedelic on earth. Well, I can do anything.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And even though like the other voice in my head is like, you can't do anything. You a [ __ ]
Mishka Shubaly
Fraud.
Yeah, it's we got to find a way to like integrate those two voices to something that's, you know, settled and rational. But the But I mean, part of being an addict is the peaks and the valleys. You know, you get hooked on not just the like I I sort of treasure some of the hangovers that I had cuz I was like, I've never felt that bad in my life. You know, that I didn't know a human being could feel this bad. You know, I even sort of like almost enjoyed that experience cuz it was something novel, you know?
And then um you know, with when when I discovered running, it was like, you know, all this this new stuff. And then And now like I'm running out of I mean, that's one of the reasons I went in so hard on hunting is it was a new thing, you know? And I feel now like I'm sort of running out of new stuff to try. So, I have to recalibrate the hole in me that my dog and my beautiful wife, my cabin, that needs to be enough, you know?
That's got to do it without God, when you invited me to do that race in Kenya you were doing with
Ken Rideout
For the for rangers.
Mishka Shubaly
Oh, the cuz my first impulse was [ __ ] yeah, you know? The Ken's my Ken's my boy. This is bananas.
It would be a disaster, dude.
And I got to like not do stuff like that.
Ken Rideout
Oh, it's [ __ ] awesome. I saw giraffes, elephants, I saw all kinds of crazy [ __ ] while I was running.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And it wasn't my best race. I came in third overall, but it was uh it was an adventure, that's for sure. I [ __ ] hate sleeping in a tent, and I was in like a 50-person tent. But, one of the nice things about finishing first every day or like in the top three is you could go and grab whichever cot you wanted. So, I would always get the one like if it was angled it was a long army tent. If it was angled like so one entrance was closer to like the camp area where they were cooking and stuff, I'd get the further one the first um cot inside the door.
So, if I had to get up to pee, I didn't have to navigate through down the whole you know, it's like
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah.
Ken Rideout
100 yd long. And the first night I got there, I got there late cuz everyone had gone there. I I was such a [ __ ] I fly into Nairobi, and then they're like, "Okay, now we're going to take these buses to this Louis L E W I game reserve." And I was like, "Fuck that." I had already known from Mongolia I've taken a van like out into the desert how much that sucked. That was the worst part. So, me trying to be creative, I was like, "Fuck that.
I don't want to be in the van. Can I get a private plane to take me to this Louis game preserve?" And sure enough, there was like a shuttle service that lands on a grass airstrip, and I was like, "Fucking jackpot." Now I just have to hope that there's no weather and that I make it before the So, they get there in the morning of like Saturday. The race starts on Sunday. So, they all get there, get set up. They all know each other. I take a plane because like I had some cockamamie story landed late, blah blah blah.
I just didn't want to get in the bus.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And I land at the airstrip, and um a a jeep they send the jeep over for me, and the jeep brings but now everyone's set up. So, like the last tent the last cot is ready, and it's like in the middle of the tent. And I'm like, "Oh." [groaning] So, that was my motivation to finish first every single day is to get like set up. So, I had it all dialed in so I could clean my stuff. I'm like super anal, and uh
Mishka Shubaly
It's so funny that you'll like fly across the world to to for this [ __ ] epic suffer fest that might end your life, but I'm not going to [ __ ] ride a bus.
Ken Rideout
I want to control all the variables.
Mishka Shubaly
[gasps]
I I [snorts] do have to say this, you know, talking about like the peaks and the valleys and trying to find a new thing and like trying to to find something else that that makes you feel pleasure or makes you feel alive or some some something novel. I will say that the the last biggest new thing in my life was meeting my wife and falling in love with her and asking her to marry me and marrying her and not being a complete [ __ ] up and failure as a husband.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, you have a good relationship.
Mishka Shubaly
The that has just been like um just a fountain of [clears throat] like positivity and good fee good feelings. I I feel you know, people say like, "Oh, I felt seen." Like for me, I don't want to feel seen. Like I I've been like trying to cover my ass my whole life. The but she she sees me. She knows who I am in you know, in intimate detail and she loves that guy.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And the and it's it's also you know, I I told you you know, that I had to like explain addiction to her and explain the [ __ ] brain damage that was sustained by living the way that we did. And the um just this look of shock on her face.
Ken Rideout
Exactly.
Mishka Shubaly
The and I was like, how [ __ ] lucky am I to to be with someone and to have someone love me who has no idea what we're talking about.
You know?
Ken Rideout
I'm often jealous of people that don't know what we're talking about. And when you were describing a hangover, I'm like, that is one thing that I do not miss. I cannot stand waking up and feeling like I have [ __ ] ruined the day of my life. My whole day is shot because I'm an idiot. I didn't even have fun last night.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And that was just drinking. God forbid I was up all night doing coke trying to go to sleep at 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning and like I've never been closer to suicide in my life.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Nothing, and I mean nothing is worse than that feeling to me. Of all the things that have happened in my life, sometimes I'll wake up now, I see the sun coming up, and I've overwhelmed with happiness cuz when I would see the sun come up when I was out partying, I'd be like, "Oh, no. This is happening. Oh my god." Like the rush of anxiety. It got to the point where I couldn't even buy coke unless the guy had Xanax, too, cuz I couldn't handle the comedown and trying to go to sleep.
It was hell on earth, 10 times worse than It might even have been That feeling might even have been worse than the than the withdrawals from opioids, but the only the only silver lining for the cocaine hangover was I know I'm eventually going to fall asleep, so I only have about an hour or two unless I take enough Benadryl and Xanax to knock myself out. The opioid withdrawal, you know it's not going anywhere for 10 days no matter what you do, unless you take more drugs.
Mishka Shubaly
That's the thing is that there's there's always an escape hatch, and what it is is more of the [ __ ] that got you into that [ __ ] hellhole.
Ken Rideout
That's why I respect people that are able to get off those cuz you can get off that [ __ ] pain train anytime you want. You just got to get back on the other pain train, which is much more painful in the long run.
Mishka Shubaly
When I quit drinking, I'd been I've been taking a bunch of benzos, too.
Ken Rideout
Oh, so it's a hard one to get off of.
Mishka Shubaly
And I just God, that was horrible. That was really I mean, because like
Ken Rideout
That's like Xanax and [ __ ] right?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, yeah. And um
Ken Rideout
They say that that's one of the worst withdrawals.
Mishka Shubaly
Oh, it was Dude, it was awful. You know
Ken Rideout
You just can't sleep?
Mishka Shubaly
No, no. It just I mean, the Think about what benzos do for you. You know, the You have anxiety, it makes the anxiety go away.
Ken Rideout
Definitely does do that.
Mishka Shubaly
So the withdrawal
Ken Rideout
Is just crazy anxiety.
Mishka Shubaly
You feel poisoned A physically poisoned with anxiety where it's like bad adrenaline is just running through your veins and like the what if my teeth fall out? What if my house catches on fire? You know, just just insane [ __ ] and the Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Horrible. Anxiety is a horrible feeling and when you know that there's something that can alleviate the anxiety, it's almost worse than the anxiety.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
You're better off just figuring out a way to process it cuz once you feel the relief of anxiety in reducing Xanax or something along those lines, you're like, oh, thank God.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And that's what opioids did for me. It was like quieted my brain and I was like, oh, cool. I'm in I'm in a great spot here.
Mishka Shubaly
And those medications work too well.
Ken Rideout
Exactly.
Mishka Shubaly
Like, well, this worked on Monday. Will this work again on Tuesday?
Ken Rideout
[ __ ] work again Monday morning? Will it work at lunchtime?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
You know, that's where I got to that point, but I feel like I could talk to you all day. I don't want to keep torturing the producers on a Friday afternoon, but maybe we'll have to do a part two. What are you working on now? What's what's next on the writing front?
Mishka Shubaly
I I have one more song to finish and then I'm going to be putting out a record this year. I I'm working with the comedian Mark Normand to tell his story. His story is bananas and he's God, he's such a good comic. And I think I started writing another book.
Ken Rideout
Oh, nice.
Mishka Shubaly
It's about an aging Neanderthal who moves to property in the wilds with caves and waterfalls so that he can try to make his final evolution to be a calm, settled husband. And it's going to be called Caveman.
Ken Rideout
That's a good one. Well, I look forward to reading it. Well, like I said, I could talk to you all day. I appreciate you coming here. I love you. You're a good man and uh I'm rooting for you to um what's the what's the best prize a writer could win? A Nobel a Nobel uh laureate?
Mishka Shubaly
Honestly, sobriety. That [ __ ] that beats anything anything else, man.
Ken Rideout
Without it, nothing else is going to happen.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, it's it is the hard thing that makes everything else, you know, doable.
Ken Rideout
What's the top prize a writer can win?
Mishka Shubaly
The you know, the Pulitzer the
Pulitzer, that's what I was thinking.
The yeah, I'll take one of those. The I I do have to say okay, like your presence in my life these last few years you know, the um nobody would think if they were choosing their angel, they would they would be like, oh, do you know a like gruff um you know, let me see the Somerville section of your
Your guardian angel catalog. I feel like I've grown so much these last few years just from the dialogue that we've had together and and knowing that you exist knowing that no matter how how far I'm running or how fast I'm running I'm like that [ __ ] Ken Wright out is running more than I am right now and like and that that inspires me. It keeps me going. So
Thank you, bro.
Thank you for being my friend.
Ken Rideout
I appreciate you, dude. And thanks for being with us. Hope you enjoyed the conversation. You can follow Mishka on Instagram at Mishka Shubaly.
Mishka Shubaly
Yep, I'm the only one.
Ken Rideout
The only one. That's the only Mishka Shubaly you'll ever know. And all his books are available on Amazon. Just search Mishka Mishka Shubaly, you'll see all of his short stories, his Promise I'll make it up to you.
Mishka Shubaly
I swear I'll make it up to you.
Ken Rideout
I'll make it up to you memoir, awesome stuff. Who wrote the forward to uh I swear I'll make it up to you?
Mishka Shubaly
Uh oh, the the forward for the long run our our dear friend Rich Roll and also a guy named Jeff Bezos.
Ken Rideout
That's that's my favorite thing is I yeah, you were like when I met you were like, yeah, and Jeff Bezos wrote the forward to my book. I'm like, wait a minute, what? That's like the afterthought. Quickly very quickly, how did that happen?
Mishka Shubaly
You you miss all the shots you don't take.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
You know, the I was um I was talking to my editor David Blum who was a you know, tremendous champion of mine, you know, the responsible for my entire writing career. We were running together one day and I was like, I want to do a collection of all my, you know, my short pieces. And um I want you to write the forward and he was like, that's very sweet, but nobody knows who I am or gives a [ __ ] You know what you should do?
You should write to Jeff Bezos and ask him to do it. And I was like, how would I ever get in touch with him? And he's like, dude, it's jeff@amazon.com.
And the So I like I went out for a run and um I got perked up from that and I was like, [ __ ] it. I'm going to I'm going to email this guy. So I I came in and I was like uh Hey, long time listener, first time caller.
You have no idea who I am, but I know who you are and like the, you know, the Kindle Singles program that Amazon, you know, came out with changed my life and the and I sent it off and it was one of those things where I was like, well, I did it.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
You know, the like nothing's going to happen. And he wrote back within the hour and he was like, hey, big fan. I'd love to do it. And I was like,
Ken Rideout
Oh, he read all the short stories?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, he'd been he'd been like reading the stuff that I um that I'd been like selling through Amazon. He knew exactly who I was and he responded within the hour. And and the thing that he wrote was so beautiful, too.
Ken Rideout
I know, it's incredible. It's so great. Well, great example of like you said, you miss all the shots you don't take. You have to But there are I will say to the people who are about to send like a hundred DMs asking me asking me for [ __ ] cuz this is how it goes. Like there is a very fine line between persistence and harassment. If you send them a request though they ask and you don't get a response, do not [ __ ] slay.
Bump this to the top of your [ __ ] inbox like don't think everyone sees everything. You don't have to You don't have to do any bumping.
Mishka Shubaly
I sent that one email and I wasn't going to send anything else. I said, "Thank god it got to him, you know."
Ken Rideout
Exactly. Well, thanks again for doing it, guys.
Ken Rideout
Thanks a lot for being with us and we'll see you next week.
Key takeaways
- Advice can help without pretending to be a universal answer.
- Addiction once gave Mishka a way to control his feelings, but it left him unable to enjoy ordinary calm.
- A first run fueled by anger became the start of a serious running life.
- Scarcity in childhood can shape how someone spends even after their finances change.
- Mishka says love and family can become anchors when ambition stops being enough.
Nowhere to Hide
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It starts with 3 Days, 3 Hard Things: one short story from Ken and one hard thing to do, every day for three days. Then one letter a week.
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