Raccoon Wars, NFL Scammers & Past Crimes - Matt McCusker #1149

I’m getting absolutely worked over by raccoons in my backyard. They destroyed a lovely outdoor couch setup and stole one Croc, which may be a public service for my wardrobe. Still humiliating to lose a tactical battle to an animal whose whole business model is bins.

I love raccoons, even though one demolished the single decent watermelon I grew all summer. You can grow them around Austin if you start early enough, though the heat can wreck them too. I woke up, saw it torn apart, and thought, yeah, that’s my Croc.

I cannot believe watermelons grow in Austin. I picture them needing some mad tropical climate. Meanwhile I’m imagining a raccoon confrontation: one Croc on, broomstick in hand, like some World War One idiot sent into battle with the wrong equipment.

My old neighbor illegally kept raccoons in a cage and fed them Urkel cereal. As a kid, that box beside the cage was mind-blowing. These raccoons were apparently eating celebrity-branded breakfast cereal. It’s been my emergency raccoon fact ever since.

I wanted to introduce you to two very online British archetypes: Francis Bourgeois, the earnest train man, and Big John, doing takeaway reviews over food with roughly two colours. Different nations produce different varieties of white bloke.

Our train guys are quieter. They just stand there watching. But people passed out in a field waiting for Big Boy, that giant locomotive, and I laughed for ages. If my kid fainted before the train arrived, I’m sorry, man, I’m heading home.

No, it’s convenient: the child isn’t going anywhere. Cool pack on them, watch the train, come back, tell them they saw it. Missing your own nighttime fart is the same tragedy: you engineered the beans, but your partner gets the event.

I’ve woken someone by smell, not noise, which is catastrophic. She forgot for days, and I eventually forced the memory back because I needed to confess. I’d escaped consequences but wanted the punishment. Like voluntarily reporting a murder.

Then I went to professional bull riding, about as American as it gets: an arena cheering while people try not to be launched by an enormous animal. There are teams, strategies, proud bull owners, and matchups based on which way a bull turns.

Bull riding is easier for me to stomach than bullfighting. Learning bulls are injured before the fight was horrible, and the red cloth conceals blood rather than enraging them. I spent my life cautiously checking whether I wore red around bulls.

I tried Texas two-step lessons, and the elderly instructor was completely unfiltered—smacking people, insulting everybody, throwing in racial stuff like she had a lifetime exemption. Shocking, but dancing was fun. Basic steps are easy until the floor fills with people who know what they’re doing.

The mood changed with the Lindsay Clancy case. I spoke with a psychiatrist connected to the ward involved, about psychosis, medication, and overpowering compulsion. I came in thinking I knew exactly where I stood, then left deeply conflicted.

It’s just a fucking awful case. You can feel for the father, recognize psychosis and treatment may matter, and still ask what safely happens next. Compassion doesn’t mean pretending there’s no need for long-term containment and review.

We wondered whether modern isolation after birth makes everything worse. I heard about “laying in,” where a new mother spent a month being looked after by everybody around her. Against rushing back to work or being alone with a baby, it sounds absurdly humane.

Watching my wife through pregnancy and childbirth gave me deeper respect. It’s terrifying, and women keep going in a way that made my complaints look ridiculous. Children install another person in your brain; dropping plans because they need you strangely feels good.

Kids are objectively inconvenient—they wake you up, hit you directly in the nuts, derail the day—but then there’s an inflatable alien dressed as Princess Peach upstairs and you laugh until you’re done. That tiny nonsense pays you back.

That brought us to responsibility. Everybody begins as somebody’s child, so when do they become fully accountable? Sam Harris’s Uday Hussein thought experiment is uncomfortable: follow genes, upbringing, and reinforcement forward, and the exact line is hard to find.

I still think there’s a point where somebody causes permanent harm and you say, sorry, you’re done. Their history can explain something without making danger disappear. I’m not convinced every terrible person gets repaired with a pleasant Scandinavian prison and drum lessons.

Tolstoy’s diary was the palate cleanser: one day he resolves to love and work; the next, he’s exhausted and does neither. Russian writing makes your life feel blessed by comparison, then you’re back complaining about over-roasted coffee.

I fight the reflex to become shitty about tiny inconveniences. Reality is undefeated. I can inflate some trivial annoyance into an emergency and stew for hours. I’m trying to wake up and give myself one decent day instead of feeding that voice.

We make a fixed amount of problems. When real ones disappear, sand in a shoe or a wrong cocktail becomes enough. Your imagination always creates a holiday more perfect than the actual one, so demanding perfection from every day is a misery machine.

I used to be possessed by getting away from normal work. In my twenties I took ridiculous risks, sold weed, got robbed, had guns pulled on me, and stayed adrenalized because office life scared me. Now getting pulled over means saying hello, not assuming life is over.

You were, by your account, a remarkably conscientious dealer: punctual, quality-control minded, worried about customers doing too much coke. But freedom isn’t automatically better. Working for yourself can mean working continuously, and every path has a different flavour of shit.

I tried private-investigator work thinking it would be exciting. It was two freezing days in a car outside a warehouse, holding a blurry photo and failing to identify anyone. I read books, missed the changeover, and thought, bro, I cannot do this.

Kids made work less of an identity crisis. In a hospital, a guy replacing paper towels made me think I could happily do that if it supported the important stuff. Find something tolerable that helps somebody beyond your ego; the personal game burns out.

There’s a painful moment when you reject every cliché, then realize your mum was right. Chesterton: you sail off thinking you’ve found a new country, only to discover you’ve come back to England. The journey matters because it rules out the wrong options.

School teaches achievement and acquisition but barely asks what’s happening inside. I’m not saying meditate instead of doing anything. Reserve a little time to slow down, walk, write, and ask why you’re chasing what you’re chasing.

I caught myself trying to fix a friend’s happy, modest coaching business with funnels, lead magnets, upsells, sales calls, and ads. She was happier than ever, and I was trying to gift her the exact stress she escaped. Cursed entrepreneurial reflex.

I do the same thing—I’ll dump every piece of advice onto somebody. But yeah, appreciate you, man. Stand-up dates are at Matt McCusker dot com, along with Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast and the whole deal.