Matt McCusker

Matt McCusker, comedian and co-host of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, sat down with Theo Von for a conversation that ranged from gardening and rat extermination to the psychological toll of social media, the rise of "looksmaxing" culture, and the brutal history of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. The throughline of the episode is a meditation on control—what you can control, what you can't, and how to find purpose in a world that feels increasingly designed to distract, addict, and manipulate you.

Gardening, Rats, and the Struggle for Small Victories

McCusker opened with his current obsession: gardening. He described a ruthless, almost Stalinist approach to his plants. "If you can't pull your own, you die," he said, contrasting his "stern father" style with more doting gardeners. His garden is small—about 50 to 60 square feet—but it has become a microcosm of life and death. He grew one blueberry, which his family cut into fourths. A hailstorm destroyed his blueberry bushes. He battled "cotton rats" that ate his greens and shat in his grill, leading him to call an exterminator who used poison laced with fiberglass that cuts the rats' lungs so they drown in their own blood. McCusker described finding a dead rat with its face eaten away, a moment that genuinely disturbed him. The garden, he said, connects you to "a real life or death thing." He runs it like a totalita