Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin Rick Rubin

This interview with John Sinclair was recorded a few months before he passed away on April 4, 2024. 
John was an icon of the counterculture movement. In the late 1960s, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for marijuana possession, sparking protests and rallies like the John Sinclair Freedom Rally, which featured performances by John Lennon and Stevie Wonder, among others. After a high-profile legal battle that challenged and ultimately reformed harsh marijuana laws, Sinclair was released after two years in prison. Before and after his protested prison sentence, John was a renowned poet, writer, and political activist. He founded the White Panther Party in support of the Black Panthers, produced music festivals, managed the influential rock band MC5, and published and recorded prolifically, including John Sinclair: The Collected Poems and the music-in-verse collection Thelonious: a Book of Monk.

------
Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team:

Squarespace
https://squarespace.com/tetra
------
Lucy
https://lucy.co/tetra
------
LMNT Electrolytes
https://drinklmnt.com/tetra
------
House of Macadamias
https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University, where he is also the director of Stanford's Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. After dedicating much of his career to studying the economics of health care, when the COVID-19 crisis began, Dr. Bhattacharya shifted his research focus to the epidemiology of COVID-19, the lethality of COVID-19 infection, and the effectiveness and effects of lockdown policies. This led him to co-author an open letter, The Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a lift of restrictions on lower-risk groups to develop herd immunity. He is also the co-author of the widely acclaimed textbook Health Economics, a staple in undergraduate and graduate curricula worldwide. He holds four degrees from Stanford: a BA, an AM, an MD, and a PhD in economics.

------
Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team:

Lucy
https://lucy.co/tetra
------
LMNT Electrolytes
https://drinklmnt.com/tetra
------
Squarespace
https://squarespace.com/tetra
------
House of Macadamias
https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra

Julie Greenwald is a prominent music industry executive. She got her start at Def Jam Recordings in 1992, became president of Atlantic Records in 2004, and was elevated to chairperson and CEO of the Atlantic Music Group in 2022. Throughout her career, she has played a crucial role in the success of artists like Coldplay, Cardi B, Coldplay, Lizzo, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Jack Harlow, Wiz Khalifa, Twenty One Pilots, and countless others. Her leadership has helped establish Atlantic as one of the most consistently successful labels in the business. Greenwald has received multiple accolades, including being named Billboard's Women in Music Executive of the Year a record five times and appearing on various lists of powerful and influential people in entertainment and business.

------
Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team:

LMNT Electrolytes
https://drinklmnt.com/tetra
------
Squarespace
https://squarespace.com/tetra
------
Lucy
https://lucy.co/tetra
------
House of Macadamias
https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra

Michael Richards is a multiple Emmy and SAG Award-winning actor best known for playing the iconic character Cosmo Kramer on the classic sitcom Seinfeld. After cutting his teeth on the Los Angeles comedy circuit alongside legends like Robin Williams, Sam Kinison, and Andy Kaufman, Richards landed minor film and TV roles throughout the 1980s, including the cultish late-night sketch comedy show Fridays and Weird Al Yankovic’s oddball comedy UHF, before exploding into pop cultural consciousness as Seinfeld’s Kramer. Richards’ latest project, his newly published book Entrances and Exits, provides an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the highs and lows of his career, from his unconventional upbringing by his schizophrenic grandmother and single mother to his training as a theater actor and honing comedic instincts on stage, his time in the army during Vietnam, and his big break. With candor and humor, Richards chronicles how his private life and curiosity shaped his comedic talents, culminating in his Kramer fame before a health scare intensified a spiritual quest informing and inspiring his insightful memoir.

------
Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team:

Squarespace
https://squarespace.com/tetra
------
Lucy
https://lucy.co/tetra
------
LMNT Electrolytes
https://drinklmnt.com/tetra
------
House of Macadamias
https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra

Robert Downey Jr. is an actor and producer whose critically acclaimed performance as Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer earned him an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA Award. His newest project, The Sympathizer, an HBO miniseries based on the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, has Downey Jr. taking on multiple roles simultaneously.

Born into a family of filmmakers, Downey Jr. began acting as a child actor in his father's independent films, then entered mainstream Hollywood in the 1980s. His portrayal of the legendary Charlie Chaplin in the 1992 biopic Chaplin earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. After a period of personal struggles with substance abuse, Downey conquered his addiction, dedicated himself to sobriety, and made a remarkable professional resurgence. His starring roles as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in the action-adventure Sherlock Holmes, and in the action comedy Tropic Thunder catapulted him to global stardom. To date, Downey has appeared in over 70 movies, which have grossed over $14 billion, making Downey one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. 

------
Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team:

Lucy
https://lucy.co/tetra
------
LMNT Electrolytes
https://drinklmnt.com/tetra
------
Squarespace
https://squarespace.com/tetra
------
House of Macadamias
https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra

Tom O'Neill is an award-winning investigative journalist and entertainment reporter. His book, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, is the culmination of a 20-year investigation, which unearthed information about the murders, the murderers, the prosecutors who tried them, and the complex web of connections between Charles Manson, the CIA's MKUltra program, the counterculture movement, and other powerful individuals during the 1960s. His investigative stories, such as the cut-throat battles among daytime talk-show producers (“Welcome to the Jungle”), the stalking and murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer (“Dangerous Minds”), and the unsolved slaying of a Hollywood starlet (“The Life and Death of Miss Hollywood”) have appeared in national publications like Us, Premiere, New York, The Village Voice, and Details. His exposé on sexism at Saturday Night Live (“The Incredible Shrinking Women of Saturday Night Live”) earned him an Exceptional Merit Media Award from the National Women's Political Caucus and Radcliffe College in 1995.
------
Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team:

LMNT Electrolytes
https://drinklmnt.com/tetra
------
Squarespace
https://squarespace.com/tetra
------
Lucy
https://lucy.co/tetra
------
House of Macadamias
https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra