Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. Hey. Oh. Little boat peep. She needed the money. Oh! Oh! Remember how great that was? Oh, yeah. When I first met him, it was like one of those weird things where, you know, you know, I mean, you've met a lot of famous people. Some of them, you meet them, you're like, oh, fucking really? Bummer. It's weird. Oh, there's Bummer, too. Yeah, the Bummer ones.
When you meet someone, they suck. You're like, oh, no, you suck. Some people just not talk. They should only do what they do.
act and sing but then you get to know them like i don't know like i'm pretty good at this now where you don't where you see people that you like looked up to like eddie vetter i had a pretty close relationship oh really yeah but i was drinking and then i would grab his balls and then it was like i don't want him around i don't want josh around yeah i don't like that anymore i don't want my you know
And I think Sean Penn appreciated shit like that. Like, wow, somebody has the balls. It's not even a little chaos. It's like somebody has the balls to call me on my shit. Not everybody's afraid of me. Oh, right. Yeah, he's probably used to people constantly being afraid of him. Yeah, like, oh, I can't fuck with him.
right well he does wild shit like when he went down to fucking mexico and met with el chapo like jesus christ dude that's a fucking wild and i do think that that's organic but i think that that's also You just have that thing where you just go, you know what? Shit's getting boring. Right. The weather's just too fucking nice here. Weather's too nice. I'm too famous. Let's go meet a mobster. Yeah. Let's go fuck some shit up. Let's do something. Let's do something. Let's do something.
Something that's going to resonate for at least a year. Yeah. That whole El Chapo thing was so crazy, though, because that kind of is one of the things that got him caught. It was, right? Yeah, because they track your cell phone data. They know where you go. And if you're bringing your fucking cell phone, you're basically bringing a tracking device to go find one of the most notorious gangsters alive today.
I mean, who was the guy with the football team back in the day? Pablo Escobar? Think about it. It's our days. This time is Pablo Escobar. Yeah. And Sean Penn. Goes and hangs out with him. Spicoli. Goes, you know what, man? Hey, who wants to come with me and find this motherfucker? Did he go solo? I think so. I think he went solo. Well, he knew that lady who was like a reporter.
You know, there was like this really hot Mexican reporter. Oh, yeah, the Mexican girl. Yeah. Yeah, he knew her. Was he dating her? I don't know. But I think she had a thing with El Chapo. After that? No. Did Sean introduce them properly? I don't know. I think he knew her and she knew him. She knew El Chapo. Oh, right. That's how he got. That was the connect. And El Chapo was like, I like the meat. Spicoli. Yeah. I like the meat.
I love you. Yeah, I really enjoyed you in colors. And then next thing you know. What's the most dangerous thing that you do now? What do you think? Dangerous thing? Yeah, like we're talking about Sean going out on a limb. Do you find it necessary to go out and do things that challenge you in a way? Yes. Challenge your psyche? Yes. In what way? Elk hunting is probably the most exciting. What is? Elk hunting. Elk hunting. Why? Because it puts you in danger?
Well, no, it's just really difficult. You know, you're bow hunting in the mountains. Right. And it's just you in the mountains and just fucking. Do you stay up there for days and days and days? And do you quarter your, your kill? Pack it out. Yeah. See, that's a different thing. You know, people say, I don't like hunting. Personally, I grew up in a very red part of California. Everybody hunts that I grew up with.
And I would shoot, and I would hunt with my dad, and I would, like, fucking think about it and dream about it for three weeks. Oh, yeah, I love it. I love it. I love eating it. No, no, no, I'm saying that I would, like, spiral. Oh, you get negative with it. Not even it was negative. Yeah, I guess it would be negative. But it would like made me think of like the kids that were going like, Mom, Mom, are you there? And I just killed the mother. It's like the Bambi kind of thing. Right. But.
I eat meat So that hypocritical thing of like, I don't want to kill anything, but I want you to kill it for me so I can eat it because I really like the way it tastes. Well, that's the anthropomorphization of animals that Disney has kind of done. a number on people with, you know, like Bambi and Yogi Bear and all that kind of shit, cartoons and teddy bears. And we have a very, you know, living in, when you live in urban areas and cities and people, you know, streets and.
concrete and people just get a very distorted idea of nature and our relationship with nature and when you're a kid and you're just these are sweet cute things and then all of a sudden you're supposed to go murder one like it's all fucked up But what's fucked up is the cartoons. I mean, they're cute and everything. Because they depict it in a way, how?
Well, it's just completely distorted. You have these animals that are talking to each other and the hunters are always assholes. If it wasn't for hunters, there would be no humans. We'd have never made it this far. If we were all just eating fucking tubers and grapes and shit. We would have never made it. Do you like garbanzo beans? They're not bad. I don't prefer that. Have you ever hunted one? No. It's fucking wild, man. How do you do that? You take a bunch of acid. You take a bunch of acid.
It's possible. What about the sexual connotations of Disney? Did you ever hear that thing that Walt Disney had the biggest porn collection of all time? Really? That's what I heard. I don't know how much of it is true. Have you ever seen how— There's like the Rod Stewart thing, and there's the— You know what I mean? I don't know if it's what— I don't know how much of it is true. Google it, Jamie. Did Walt Disney have a gigantic porn collection?
I wouldn't be surprised. A lot of people that are like really into kids stuff and like sweet, wholesome stuff, they need to flip. Have that other kind of slant? Yeah. Or eventually flip? Maybe. Maybe it's a cover.
Or maybe it's like they're so cutesy with the fucking completely wholesome stuff that they have to balance it out with some bonded shit fucked up some guys getting kicked in the nuts and ball why is it that people feel that people in hollywood and texans are like that like i know people that have moved to texas and they and they've called me there was one guy that i used to work out with in venice
And he started, he moved here and he called me and he'd be like, Hey man, you know, the list is coming out. And I'd go, what list? And he goes, you know, the list. The list. And I go, am I on the list? Oh no. And he goes, no, you're clean. You're good. But I know you know who's on the list. I'm glad I know I didn't do anything wrong, even though I didn't do anything wrong. And I said, but why are you like a twofold thing? Why are you under the impression that everybody in Hollywood lives?
to the same roof like we all live in the same apartment complex it's they it's they yeah they they they are out there they're out there doing that thing yeah and then How could you possibly think that a guy who's a trainer at Gold's in Venice... Would have the list. Why was he chosen? Well, he goes on Reddit. And that's how you get the list. That's how you get the list. I still am waiting for the list. Yeah. I think I'm going to see him when I'm here. We started communicating again.
Well, when you have things like the Epstein client list that doesn't get released, then it fuels these kind of conspiracy theories about there being a list. So why is that list not released? That's a very good question. Who has that list? Well, for sure someone has the list. Ghislaine Maxwell's in jail, right? So she must have talked. There must have been conversations. And there must be a bunch of very powerful people that are on that list. Are all the powerful people in cahoots?
Something that I learned, like when I played W, I played a senator, I played W. What is it like playing a guy who's still alive? Did you meet with him and hang out with him at all? Scary. I mean, I wanted to. Did you ever meet him? No. That's weird, right? I had the opportunity to meet him afterwards.
and and there was something about him that was more remember when he was like giving candy to michelle obama and all that and yeah it was like a really friendly kind of a mischievous thing and i was like i would like to meet him and then i saw his paintings of his dogs and i said i don't want to meet him I just don't like it was something attractive for a moment and then I was like I don't know and I love paintings I don't know what it was but you didn't like the paintings
No, it's not that I didn't like the paintings. There's something in the paintings. I don't know what it was, man. Something in the paintings is I killed a million people with fake weapons of mass destruction. We had a fake story, and I used that story to justify an invasion of a country. And now a million people are dead. So that's the question. And I'm haunted every night. Totally. I just paint dogs. That are staring like that.
Like your face right now is exactly how every eye is in his dog's paintings. It's so funny. That guy must be medicated. They must put him on some things so he could sleep. Is that that look? Does he put into his dog's eyes the look that he has always, or at least that he feels that he has? Like there's a haunted... It's his lens. His real look behind his eyes. Yeah.
How he sees the world, how he's experiencing the world. What is it like running around knowing that you did that? Not just that you did that, but that there's no... culpability like no one went to jail for that no one even got brought up on charges well that's what i was bringing up because when i would meet these people i would you know i went to the senate floor and i met a lot of these people and then i met a lot of rich people which is when i met
Trump actually, the 21 Club. Back when I knew a lot about him I was fascinated by the whole... What's the 21 Club? 21 Club is a place that he used to go a lot. And it was like, you know, yeah, you have a chance to meet this billionaire, this billionaire, and then Trump. Eyes wide shut type shit. Yeah. So he...
What was I going to say? Is he, oh, meeting these people, especially getting them drunk, you know, where people get super honest. Right. You know, where they go, you know what, man? I trust you. I trust you. And you're like, here it comes. Here it comes. Whereas before that, they were like, you know, I'm not sure. And I just did what I think is, you know, and then they finally go, I just fucked her. I fucked her.
Or they tell you what's going on. But the thing that I learned, and I'm really curious about, like what we were talking about Hollywood and the perception of them all being in it together, is don't you think the rivalries and all that... Not entirely, but that all politicians are basically under the same roof. They all know what each other's doing and that there's more of an agenda of power to keep the public thinking a certain way.
Well, there's not brainwash certainly a benefit to that. Of course there. Yeah, there's a benefit to that and then there's also The underlying factor is money, of course. There's so much money and influence. There's so many special interest groups. There's so many lobbyists. That's what I mean. There's so many massive corporations that are donating to campaigns. Yeah, so there's always...
going to be this desire to sort of color things in a certain life. Satiate. Pacify. Yeah, for sure. And then treat you like you're a baby so they can continue making insane amounts of money. That's exactly right. Like if you're someone like Nancy Pelosi.
You're worth hundreds of millions of dollars and you make a hundred seventy thousand dollars a year and there's no fucking explanation Yeah, like just that alone like you have to kind of keep people in the dark you have to kind of like keep dancing and Otherwise, you're going to jail. Someone's going to start investigating, and they've got to go, what you did is not legal, and you're going to be in real trouble. What's your relationship like with money?
In what way just in what you made a certain amount of money for a long time. I don't think about it You don't think about it. What I like about money is to not think about it. That's what I like. Do you like spending it? I like buying stuff. Me too. I have a nice car. Drove here. I drove a 69 Camaro. See, but that's different. Yeah, I like that. That's fucking different. That's character. I like fun stuff, but for the most part, I'm not...
interested in it like as a goal you know I just what I like about money is not having to think about it my friend Brian Cowan said this to me once he said he goes real freedom is when you can go to a restaurant and not worry about anything costs he's like everything else is bullshit it is
And it really is. Everything else is bullshit. When you can just go to a restaurant, get a nice steak, order a bottle of wine, have a good time, and not think about the bill. What I think happens is, and be grateful for it. And to remind yourself that that exists to be grateful for and not be taken advantage of. And I think that's one of the hardest things about money slash power is you start treating things as if they're underneath you.
Ooh. You know, where you go, God, I'm so glad I can go anywhere in the world right now and get a meal. And I don't have to think about how am I going to pay for this? Yeah. Am I going to be in debt on my credit card? But when you start saying, excuse me. I said 204 degrees, not 190.
Right. Read my lip, you know, and you're like, oh, man. That's just gross. It is gross, but it happens. That's just taking advantage of this relationship that everyone knows where service people have to be nicer than they really would be normally, like a regular person. Hoping for a tip. Hoping for one of your many hundreds of thousands or hundreds of millions of dollars. It's disgusting. It's a gross way to treat people. But some people want to get rich so they...
they could do that to people. Maybe someone did it to them when they were younger and they're like, I can't wait to do this to other people. I mean, when you said nice car and you were like, I thought you were going to say, I was like, Oh, please. No, like Lamborghini. No, I don't have any of those. And then.
No, I like muscle cars. I like old muscle cars. That's my favorite. That's like me at 37 Knucklehead. And people say, oh, is that an affectation? I know you're friends with Momoa or whatever. I go, no, man. I've been riding motorcycles since I was three and a half years old. They're fun.
They're not only fun. There's something on us. If you read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is the only book that's ever been written, that's kind of gets close to the kind of spiritual place. If you're a true motorcyclist, whether you're riding with yourself. or whether you're writing with a grid of guys or whatever, that beautiful, thunderous hum.
when you're in a group of guys who really know what they're doing and you're in absolute fucking sink. Yes, your arms are up here and your arms are pretty numb at that point, but you're fucking soaring. You're an eagle on a fucking jet stream. You ever heard of Hunter S.
Thompson, you know that documentary they did, Gonzo? Yeah. In the documentary, the very beginning, he talks about riding a motorcycle. Oh, I don't remember that. On the Pacific Coast Highway. I don't remember that. Oh, it's fucking great. See if you can find that. talks about riding a motorcycle how about like that the the lines begin to blur yeah yeah and you just you're just on the edge and how alive you are
It's a fucking fantastic speech. We don't have to get into this book right away, but I wrote. They came to me. It's the only story that I wrote that somebody asked me to write for the book. And they were like, well, you're really into motorcycles. Why don't you write a story about motorcycles? And I tried, and it was just.
bad and bad and everything I wrote was like so forced and bullshit and finally I said I can't do it I'm not going to write it and the minute I said I'm not going to do this I started writing it just kind of started to come out and it's good do you write by hand
I do. Yeah? Mostly. Do you feel more of a connection when you write by hand? No, that's not why I do it. Because I write any which way, whether it's on the phone, whether... you know i remember people saying like i write you know by hand i handwrite because it's it's the way it used to be and i was like yeah it also used to be under candlelight which your eyes also be used to be people had slaves yeah you can only get around
Paint on caves and shit. Why don't you go paint on a cave? Tell me a story. Try to get it published. Yeah, get a witch doctor. Take care of your broken leg. I don't care how it comes out. I think real writing is... anywhere, anytime, however you can get it out. I don't think there's a muse that's needed. I think it's work, man. It is work. I think the muse is like, it's a concept, right? Have you ever read Pressfield's The War of Art? Yeah, of course.
Great book. Great book. I think he's right, though, when he says you summon the muse when you sit down to work. But that's also just like an intention thing. Like you have so much time and effort put on a thing. And when you do that, your mind gets more in sync with creativity. Yeah.
But if you treat it like it's a muse, it actually does work. Like if you show up every day and like say – Click into that thing. Yeah, and pay respect to the muse. I'm sitting here and I'm ready to write and I'm a professional and I'm ready to go.
And treat it like you're summoning the muse. It actually works. There actually is an effect that happens. I don't know if there's an actual muse. But you can understand why someone would think that there's a muse. Why do people chant? Why do people meditate?
Why do people that? That's the muse. Whatever the muse is, it's like talking about God. What's God? I don't know. It depends on who you're talking to. God is a feeling. God is something that fucking thing that keeps you inspired, that keeps the gasoline at a high octane.
Well, it's something that gets you away from your ego, like with writing, something that gets you away from your ego and into your mind, into your consciousness, into like your perceptions of things and your ability to express it. And it's just a...
it's a focus thing and the more you focus on it the more that muscle grows the more you get adapted to it because your ego is worried about how people are going to perceive you right and that's not right yeah you want to look cool you want to look cool people like fuck I read that book that you wrote man. Holy shit.
I had no idea. You're amazing. That's the grossest conversation ever. Cocktail party in Hollywood. Some guy comes up to you and tells you you're amazing. You are a genius. And it's always with those eyes. You're so incredible. I had no idea. Meanwhile, that guy's trying to sell you on some multi-level.
marketing scheme or something. There's something he's trying to tap into you with. I want to buy that book. I want to option your book. I want to turn it into a fucking movie. I also have a script I'd love you to see. Yeah. Is it a Disney? Is it about animals talking? I really love about living in Texas is there's no Hollywood. There's no show business. I don't have to deal with any of these people with like alternative agendas.
We just moved to, I want to go back to that, but we just moved to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara's awesome. Santa Barbara, it's funny. I love it out there. Why does everybody fucking think that? It is awesome. Montecito, I love it out there. Why? So pretty. Because it's beautiful. Because it's beautiful. What about the people? They're a little elitist. There's a lot of elitist people out there. So that's a perfect place for me. So I grew up in Santa Barbara.
I was in Paso Robles, which is ranch country, about two hours above Santa Barbara. And then we moved to Santa Barbara when I was 11. And it was Montecito, but it was a very different Montecito. Like, yes, there were a couple of rich people. Yes, my dad was doing okay by then. He had done Marcus Welby. He did, at that time, he did Amityville Horror. So we had a little bit of money, but we bought.
what would now be a $35 million home in Montecito, he bought for $600,000. Same fucking house. Do you know what I mean? So it was a different Montecito. And then whatever... group I grew up with. The point is I went to jail there a lot. I just did. I just liked it. Instead of the museum, I went to jail. I was like, no, Mom, I'm going to go to jail today. And then... Hmm.
So in L.A., Venice Beach, I love Venice Beach, but Venice Beach has even changed. You know, you used to know everybody and everybody kind of coexisted beautifully. And then Venice Beach changed. It got totally randomly violent. Yeah, it became very dangerous. Very dangerous. Little kids. Okay, so we moved to Malibu. We were close to Laird. I know Laird and Gabby and all that thing. But it never landed.
So we were always talking about moving, even though we were kind of building a house and we're finalizing everything. We're always talking. We talk about Texas. My mom's from Texas. We were talking about East Coast. We were talking about Europe, all these places, but never.
Santa Barbara. I would never move back to Santa Barbara. Because by the way, honey, if we move to Santa Barbara, which you love so much and you think is so beautiful, our little girls will eventually for sure go to prison. That was in my mind. Why? Because in my mind... Because in your childhood? Totally. Huh. Most of my friends that grew up in Montecito are dead. Really? Like 36 out of 50. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they all died. From what?
Heroin epidemic, punk rock. Oh, God. Driving accidents. 36 out of 50. Out of 50. Wow. Best friend, Jason Sears, who was the lead singer of Rich Kids on LSD, RKL, which was a big punk band that influenced a bunch of people. Nirvana, you know. Pearl Jam, all these people. Rich Kids on LSD is a great name for a band. You should look it up. Can you look it up? Jason Sears, Rich Kids on LSD. We got a tattoo at the same time. I got a tattoo from Freddie Negretti that's gone now because I removed it.
But it was a big Jesus with blood coming out of the hands. And Jason, that same night, got the same night, got eat shit on his ass. See if you can find Jason's ass that says eat shit on it. You're going to put that in? Jason Sears, eat shit. Yeah. Where is it? Oh, you got to just keep looking. Yeah, it'll be there. So why was that? Oh, so eventually.
When we finally said, look, we're not moving. We should be grateful. We're not grateful enough. That's the problem. We're not grateful enough. But Malibu just didn't kind of sit. And then one day I'm lying on the bed. What didn't you like about Malibu? I love Malibu. It's just remote.
You know, we already are remote in Paso Robles. We have a place in Paso Robles, a place where I grew up, not the ranch I grew up. It's about three miles down the road. But that's remote and a remote that I love. I love remote. But I love extremes. I don't want to be sort of next to Santa Monica.
And it's 20 miles away and it takes two and a half hours to get there. Right. You and I were talking about that. I don't want to sit in traffic for half my life. Right. I just don't want to. Yeah. If I'm going to be somewhere, I want to be somewhere. So Santa Barbara.
represented a place where you kind of had your own piece of property but everything was 10 minutes away you got dance class for the girls you got soccer you got this right you know you know what i mean yeah yeah so that was the thing but
But never was I going to go back to Santa Barbara. I finally put on Zillow, Santa Barbara. One house came up, and that's the house that we bought. And it was Joe Walsh's old house. Oh, wow. Which is amazing. That's incredible. Incredible. That's incredible. Which I was stoked. And I asked him. Anyway, I have to finish the story. I was so freaked out about moving up to Santa Barbara. I still hadn't made the kind of transition that I contracted a mild case of Bell's palsy.
Really? Yeah. Like literally was stressing out. My wife was like, and I'm not a stress guy. And she was like, you got to mellow the fuck out. I'm like, yeah, but you don't know what's going to happen. When we move up here, it's like it's going to be... So your face started like sagging? So literally, I'm washing my face. I'm doing this. And it just started going... When was this?
Four months ago. Okay. That's a side effect of the vaccine, too. That's one of the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines. I've also heard that speech impediments. I've heard a lot of things. Kids taking vaccines and things happening. Yeah. Yeah. That vaccine in particular. That one. The mRNA one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know quite a few people that developed Bell's palsy from them. Well, whatever you want to call it. Are you serious? Yeah, facial paralysis. Yeah.
I know two people specifically that developed facial, like droopy face. Because when my older kids... It went away. When my older kids were young, there were, what, 17 vaccinations? And now that my younger kids... are young there's 50 72 yeah yeah it's a series of them but it's ultimately 72 shots yeah yeah and it's a scary prospect man
Well, the fucked up thing is if you talk about it, you're an anti-vaxxer and you're a conspiracy theorist. But that's a big one because they've done a really good job of demonizing anyone who questions. A medicine that might be correlated with a bunch of fucking serious diseases. Yeah, exactly. And for whatever reason. Profit.
They've just done a great job of gaslighting people and scaring the shit out of people by labeling anybody. Like, look what they did to Jenny McCarthy. Do you remember when Jenny McCarthy had a kid and her kid had autism and she thought that autism had possible? come from vaccines and they basically ran around of Hollywood. But why would they do that? What's the reason? Money. What do they benefit? Money. Well, the thing is... That's what I said before, money.
During the Reagan administration, the vaccine companies, pharmaceutical drug companies that are making vaccines, they said we are – unable to make these vaccines if we're liable. Because if we're liable, there's too many lawsuits are going to come our way because vaccines cannot be completely safe and effective just by virtue of the mechanism.
which they work. You know, you have an irritant, you have this virus, this dead virus, your body sees the aluminum or whatever it is, it reacts to that in a negative way and it finds the dead virus, it develops.
antibodies just by the way they work. When you vaccinate an enormous amount of people, you're going to have a certain amount of people that have a negative reaction. If we have lawsuits for every person that has a negative reaction, we're going to go out of business. So they made them immune.
know what happened immediately they're like well you need a vaccine for this and you need to get a vaccine and knowing that there was no drawback hepatitis b vaccines babies right when you're born right when you're born right when you're born you know there's also doctors that say
It doesn't even really work for babies. But what you're doing is you're conditioning the parents to accept the fact that your child is going to get regularly vaccinated. My doctor, fortunately, our pediatrician wanted to put the kids on a. a different schedule, a slower schedule. And he didn't want them to have any vaccines until they were two. Your doctor in California. Yes. And he, but it was not like a quack. He was like,
I think the way to do it, I mean, yeah, there's a schedule of vaccines your kids have to get unless you have religious exemption. But let's not assault. Your children with a potential poison because everybody is different. If I take a bong hit.
I might end up under the table. If you take a bong hit, you actually may feel smarter and clearer. I remember Dean Potter who was a climber and he was like, I stopped smoking pot for four months. But when I started smoking pot, I could feel the hold at 2000 feet. Oh, yeah. Sheer cliff, nothing underneath, no ropes, but I felt more confident. And for me, I go, if I took a bong head up there, I could be four feet up and be freaking out. Right.
It's different for everybody. Because everybody has different brains. It's like psychopharmaceuticals. Let's just give them all lithium or let's give them all that. You have to experiment. The idea of experimenting with that shit is super scary. It is. It is super scary. And it's also super scary. super scary when you're not liable for any of the repercussions.
And you're just pushing it on people because you're a corporation, and corporations just want to make money. Their thing is just unlimited growth. They just have an obligation to their shareholders. Every quarter they want to make more money, and they just keep.
ramping it up. Yeah. I remember Seinfeld talking about that. He was like, I remember back in the seventies and comedy, you know, green rooms and all that. And we'd all be fucking with each other. And it had never had anything to do with money. Cause nobody was really making money. Like money, money. like tons of money it was just about what set are you gonna do what are you trying out
Right. Are you going to fail? Are you not going to fail? But it was this community again. And I think that things have grown into not that I wanted to talk about this or they even thought about it before. But the money thing is a very interesting thing to me.
And if you want to take it back to the book, which we can talk about later, it's like the anti-celebrity. It's like, how do you stay grounded? How do you stay accountable? And why would you stay accountable? Because I actually give a fuck about people instead of...
just being in it for myself. And I think that's the difference. Well, I think one of the things that happens to people with money is you didn't have money when you were young. Now all of a sudden you have money and you get really scared about losing that money.
Yeah. You get scared it's going to go away because now you realize, oh, my God, it's so much better to not have to worry about your bills. It's so much better to have some money to buy things. Yeah, totally. And then you... start thinking only about money and start making decisions only for money and then you go down the weird road and it you know really distorts artists it it fucks a lot of people up yeah you know you see it in a lot of bands they start making like
poppy songs when they used to be like raw and gritty when they were younger. They used to be, it used to be like authentic. And then all of a sudden they're making like theme songs for films. It's like weird fucking romance songs. For rom-coms. Like Aerosmith went through a bunch of that shit.
shit totally where to me as an Aerosmith you know lover as a kid to see them you know go from like dream on to like the shit they were and I wonder with like drug addiction and all that I wonder if it's like if the parallel is I went
back to heroin at that point because i just couldn't fucking deal do you know what i mean i think it's when they get off heroin and they start wanting to make money and they're like how can i i need to make some money i spent all my fucking money but look at i wonder if there's any connection like with member Philip Seymour Hoffman, like one of the greatest actors that ever lived. And I've known his mother since I was doing theater in Rochester, New York.
It was like a 20-year-old, 21-year-old, and she would come up to me and she'd say, I think you're a fine actor. And I'd go, oh, thank you very much. And she goes, you know, my son just moved to New York. He wants to be an actor. And I said, oh, what's his name? Phil. Phil's his name. Oh, Phil, good luck. Good luck to Phil. It's like anybody who wants to be an actor, just the odds of it happening is just not going to happen. And then Phil became this guy.
22 years of sobriety who had... an inkling in the beginning and said you know what i don't want this to control like my thing so i'm not going to do it i'm going to give everything i am to acting and i'm going to try to make the best career theater career movie career whatever and then
you know and i again i have it in the book where i see him on the street and i'm crazy and i've gotten into a fight with my wife and i'm walking down columbus avenue and i have cords on i have no shoes i have no shirt on my women out of my fucking head and i look to my left and i see nick nolte at a cafe and we lock eyes and i've never met nick nolte i've never seen him and it will happen that i actually will have a relationship with him later on but we love
and the moment is he's seeing in me what he used to be or seeing in me what I'm to become. I'm seeing in him what I'm to become later, right? Then I see Philip Seymour Hoffman. who's standing there talking i go hey phil it's josh what's up you're doing so well man fuck good for you dude no shirt no shirt no shoes
And he's standing there with one foot pointed toward me and another foot pointed in the direction that he wants to go. You know how people stand there and they're like, could you see you, man? Get the fuck out of here. Yeah, good. Good. Oh, no. Now, how is that the guy? that died of a heroin overdose did he get injured no
No? He just got back on it? Because sometimes what happens is people get injured. I know, and they have surgery, and then they have back, and then they get on Oxycontin. I know a lot of people. That's kind of been the trajectory. No back pain, nothing?
To me, there's another parallel, and the parallel is I just want to make money. Finally, I'm sick of doing independence. I'm sick of doing this and not making any money. And then you start doing, you know, whatever he was, Hunger Games. And then you feel hollow.
And then you want to fill yourself up. That's what we were talking about before. Right. You want to numb yourself up because you feel like a whore. You feel like a whore. Yeah. It's like there's one thing about like actually finding solace and saying, hey, man, I'm older.
I'm going to do this movie. I get it. I would like, you know, I got college coming up for my kids and you justify it in a way that's okay. And then there's one thing about you've identified yourself so much as an artist that to release yourself from that identity and other people.
Again, going back to the ego, that it just fucks you up. Right. You just can't deal. And then you want to escape from your reality. Exactly. Yeah, you want to numb yourself. Yeah. Well, that is a real fucking thing, man. And if you've ever done a project.
where it's like really i did a really bad sitcom once and uh i remember you acted it oh yeah it was terrible and i remember while i was doing it i was just imagining like what if this is my life what if this stupid piece of shit sitcom goes for like 10 years
Ten years. Because there's sitcoms that inexplicably are very successful or were in the 90s. Yeah. And very successful. And they were terrible. Terrible. They were terrible. But people loved them. Well, people want to be numb. It's like eating ice cream. They just want to slack jaw, sit in front of the computer.
computer or whatever the tv and eat spaghettios just fucking numb themselves to some mundane bullshit and if you're doing that kind of a thing you live in hell and a lot of those people that do those things they wind up doing drugs because they just feel
very lost. But if you do that and you're doing it, you live in hell. Yeah, you live in hell. Which it is. To me. To you. It sounds crazy to a person listening. Oh, you're making $50,000 a week. How are you living? You're living in hell. Like, what are you talking about? No, no, no. That's not the point.
That would be great. That would be amazing. But if you want to do a thing, if you want to be a great comic or you want to be a great actor. You have to have incentive. Right. You have to want to create something really good. And when you can't create something really good and you're just doing it for money.
you feel trapped and you feel like shit. And then you have to reward yourself for this stupid fucking thing you do. So what do you do? You go out and buy a nice Mercedes. You get a fucking house in Malibu. Now you have a... Large monthly nut that you have to cover. But when you take people over your house, like, look how I'm living. Look at this ocean view. Come on. How much of this house do you use? Nothing. Almost nothing.
I always say to my friends, my young comic friends that are coming up, your house is just your house. I remember when I first got a nice apartment when I moved to North Hollywood in 1994. I got a loft apartment and a pool table in it and a nice stereo. And I was like, this is incredible. I have a nice apartment. This is amazing. And then after a while, it just became...
my house, games where I live. And I realized at that moment, I'm like, oh, this is, it's all the same feeling. Like all you need in a house is it to be comfortable. You need a TV and a kitchen and a couch and a bed. It's the place that you sleep. Yeah, it's a place where you relax. It's not the place where you live the entirety of your life. You can relax almost anywhere that's comfortable and safe. That's all you need. And then everything else is kind of bullshit. Yeah.
It's kind of the things that you get for your money. It's like there's a lot of things that people spend a lot of money on and they're not really worth it. You don't really get anything out of it. That's why it was interesting walking in here. And, you know, man cave, I hate that fucking term. Man cave. Man cave. You know, it's a gay cave. Well, it's man cave because no woman would ever let me...
decorate this place this way. But it's not that no woman wouldn't like it. Well, my wife likes it when she comes here. She just doesn't want to live in it. She doesn't want to live. Do you want to live in it?
No, I wouldn't want to live here. But I might if I was like a single guy, I might decorate my house like this. But it's things. The point is that there's things when I walked in here, it made me smile because I started seeing things that inspire. And you like to surround yourself like if somebody comes in. does an interior design of your office.
Yeah. And they go, we brought in this amazing fabric from Paris. And you go, but I don't like it. And I remember when we were doing our house, we were like, I said, look, man, you can get things from Target. I don't want to feel that. people have to take
I don't want anybody to feel that they have to take their shoes off. That's what I don't. I want them to feel that they can scuff up the floor because that's the mark that they made when they walked in my house. And maybe I don't even like the scuff. I don't like that they walked so heavy. Yeah.
But it's their mark. We are leaving our mark. That's how I feel about this table. That's why this table has all these stains on it. Seriously, it's good. It has character. Yeah, it's alive. And that's the thing. When we built the ranch, I said... There were shelves. I said, I want linoleum or what is it? Famica.
linoleum on the shelves and we have 150 year old barn wood but along with linoleum because linoleum reminds me of like trailer parks and shit just makes me fucking smile so I saw this thing when I walked in because I have one And that is Ralph Steadman's print that you have. Oh, okay. And here's the story. So Ralph Steadman, Johnny Depp gave me Ralph Steadman's number because he was close with Hunter.
And my son was graduating. My son's an artist. And he was obsessed with Stedman, right? And I called Ralph Stedman. He said, hello. And I said, hey, I said, listen, you don't know me. I'm a friend of Johnny's and this. I said, you know, my son's graduating. And like the greatest gift I could ever get him. And this is not just to throw Stedman under the bus because it comes full circle. But he says, I said, my son's graduating.
Can you do like a little thing? I'll pay you for it. Can you do just draw a little thing for him? For his graduation, there was a long, long pause. And he goes, why the fuck would I do that? And so that conversation went nowhere.
I was like, what the fuck? What an asshole. And then 20 years went past, and my book is... designed by one of his proteges oh wow and then so joey feldman he called me one day and he said he said ralph wants to send you a print and i said no way does he know or that we have.
like a history and he said no I don't think so so I sent him a voice memo of the history and I said I never held it against you I totally understand it especially with somebody so he sent me one for my son and one for me and I have it hanging up in my house that's cool I love having that He was an interesting artist.
He is an interesting artist. Yeah, I should say he is. But, I mean, the stuff that he did, that's also in that Gonzo documentary where it talks about how Hunter gave him acid and mushrooms and he just started fucking writing and drawing really crazy shit. And like the thing for – do you remember the thing he did for –
The Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved. Yeah, that was like the first thing, wasn't it? Yeah. I think that was how they got together. See, we can find that. The Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved. Yeah. It's a really good article, actually. Whoa, that was fast, dude. Yeah. But look at that. That article is fucking amazing. It's an amazing article. It's one of my favorite Hunter pieces. And I don't think that they spent a lot of time together, but I think... Hunter and him? No, I don't.
There's a lot of it in the documentary where they're hanging out together. Really? Yeah, he picks him up at the airport and his VW bug. No, I know it exists, but I don't think that they spent the amount of time that you would think given that they collaborated so much. I think Ralph was back in Britain and Hunter was... I know, look at that. Look at that.
See, that's the kind of shit. Do you miss that? Like, as part of driving your car and all that? That's the thing from the... Put your headphones on for a second. Yeah. Take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head. Ah, it's so good. A wavering alcoholic off the wagon.
But in a matter of minutes, I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, surf booming up on the seawall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz. There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit. I love seeing the sand in the road. Forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out, 35, 45. Then into third, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf looting. Now there's no sound except the wind.
The needle leans down on a hundred. The wind burned eyeballs strained to see down the center line. No room at all for mistakes. That's when the strange music starts. That's great. The edge. There is no honest way to explain it. Because the only people who really know where it is...
are the ones who have gone over. The others, the living, are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back or slowed down. But the edge... is still out there that guy was fucking amazing it's great it's great it's fucking amazing what do you love about his writing And what type? Like Fear and Loathing? Well, I was just reading Hell's Angels recently, actually. That's the book that I go back to most.
Well, that's really him when he was starting, right? That was the beginning of the sort of gonzo journalism stuff because he was kind of mixing in fiction. With reality. And that's one of the things that pissed off the Hells Angels is that he took a lot of liberties with the truth to try to like paint a picture. Right.
Which was his deal, which was his style later on, is like exaggerating and kind of romancing his own life. Well, he was out of his fucking mind. Out of his mind, but he was also one of the most brilliant technical writers that ever was. And that's what that's what's forgotten. Like even people talk about Kerouac and Kerouac was like, you know, he wrote on the road and he was on the road and it was Hunter S. Thompson type of thing. And you're like, you know, he edited on the road for seven years.
Oh, wow. And nobody knows that because Kerouac kind of like, you know, he put forth this thing of like first thought, best thought. Don't edit. Don't. It was again, it's total horseshit. Oh, wow. That's why I say it goes back to writers. It's a labor. Yeah. You sit down and you write all the fucking time. My friend Ari on his laptop, he's got a little piece of paper above the keyboard that says the first draft of everything is shit. And it's true.
It's Hemingway. Yeah, Hemingway wrote that. You know, his first book, Hemingway's first book was lost by his wife. What? Yeah. She lost it? Yeah. She grabbed it for him and was on a train. And then she went to the bathroom and actually left the satchel on the seat. And when she came out of the bathroom, it was gone.
Oh my God. Never to be found again. Oh my God. Yeah, I know. Can you imagine? Oh my God. All that work. Did that marriage work out? I don't think so. I bet you did it on purpose, that bitch. Maybe. She did it on purpose, that bitch. Yeah, man. I love... writing i love when someone's a really good writer because you just get these like moments where you're like yes oh yeah oh that's it yeah these moments hunter had a lot of those moments where you're like god damn it that's good you have so many
people who were great young and i know that there's a danger and a chaos within like the vortex within which they lived but it couldn't survive do you know what i mean when hunter got he was just too fucking alcoholic yeah And Dylan Thomas became too fucking alcoholic. And it's one of those things that you go, you were literally writing. things that aren't possible you were putting together like wordsmithing things that are that magic magic yeah
How he was describing it's that thing. Whatever it is you're doing, how do you get to that place which most people can't touch? Well, you can't neglect your physical health. That's the problem is that in this chase for the muse, in this dance you do with the drugs and the alcohol and the wild writing. And, you know, I'm sure you've seen Hunter S. Thompson's. There's a thing that a reporter he hung out with.
Hunter S. Thompson and detailed what a day in the life of Hunter S. Thompson is. Who was it? There's a band called Beardy Man, and Beardy Man took me and Greg Fitzsimmons reading off. Hunter S. Thompson's routine, his daily routine before he writes, and made a song out of it. It's fucking incredible. See if you can find that.
Because the routine was so insane. And this was like really what he would do. He would wake up. Like a discipline? Two in the afternoon. No. No. Chaos. Okay, great. Full on chaos. Here, let's put the headphones back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. beardy man. 3 p.m. Rise. Shivas Regal with morning papers. 3.45 cocaine. Another glass of Shivas. Another Dunhill. 4.05 p.m. By the way, first cup of coffee and a Dunhill. 4.15 cocaine.
Another Dunhill. 430. Cocaine. Cocaine. Cocaine. Coffee. Dunhill. Cocaine. 545. Six o'clock. Smoking grass. Take the edge off the day. 7 p.m. Today. Three hours into it. Three hours into it. Lit. 7 p.m. Lunch. Margaritas. Lunch. uh... 6 a.m. in the hot tub with champagne. 6 a.m. in the hot tub with champagne. 6 a.m. in the hot tub with champagne.
So this is like an electronic dance music song that plays in clubs sometimes. Super funny. When did you do that? Oh, it was a long time ago. Many years ago. Did you ever live like that? No, no. I've never even done coke. wow yeah i've never fucked around with coke i like psychedelics i like weed uh i like a little alcohol every now and then but i don't fuck around with anything that's gonna kill me i'm not interested
And I'm not interested in anything that helps my ego, that boosts it up, makes me fearless. That bloats it? I'm not interested in any of that. I like things that make me scared. I like things that make me nervous. That's what I was talking about early on. I like to feel vulnerable. I like it. You like to challenge yourself. Yeah. I think your perception and how you perceive certain things. I think.
I like voluntary adversity, physical voluntary adversity, but also I think mental voluntary adversity. And I think that's what I like about psychedelics. I think you have to go on a journey and you can't... control it it's you it takes you somewhere and then when you're back you realize like you ain't shit just get all that ego stuff out of your system relax and just be appreciative and enjoy life and try to spread as much positivity as you can
That's what you're here for. Do your best at everything you do. That's what you're here for. And how do you find yourself doing that once you're not on it? The incorporation of it into your life. Just remember.
You know, there's profound moments where I think it'll change you forever. And those, if you can hold on to them. Some people don't hold on to them. But it's a matter of intention, right? It's a matter of, like, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to be better at life? Well, if you're trying to be better at life,
life you can hold on to it if you're not if you're just trying to like be the man or you know exactly you know and get all the accolades or you know win a fucking grammy or whatever you're trying to do like if that's your real goal like you're gonna get lost because it's a shitty goal how old are you when you took a hallucinogen for the first time? 30. I was 13. Whoa, so that's a little too early. I wouldn't recommend that. I wouldn't recommend it either, but it changed my life.
And I had, by the way, I took it twice in a 24 hour period. Whoa. So I took it 13, had the greatest trip ever, like still affected by it. Wow. And then I took it again that night and went to hell. Oh no. I don't know. Yeah, cocky. No. Psychedelics want to bring you down a notch. It just did what it did. It did. It did. And I truly believe that psychedelics, I don't do psychedelics anymore, but I think I did. But I do breath work. I do shit like that. And you go.
can you get there? And I go, yeah, I've had some of the most amazing hallucinations I've ever had. Most profound hallucinations I've ever had. Holotropic breathing, breathwork with Laird going off. And if you do it long enough, you just reach a place. Or if you're in a sauna at 240 degrees for an hour doing breathwork, you're going to go places.
No doubt. Sensory deprivation tank, you don't need anything. You trip balls. If they could give you in a pill form what the experience you get from a sensory deprivation tank, it would be a very popular drug. Yeah. And it's completely safe. And a productive drug. Yes, very productive. So there's sensory, you say the sensory deprivation tank, but I just saw, you can see it online or whatever, where people literally put a thing, they go into a room and there's silence. It's not like a...
you know, where they don't talk, a meditation retreat or whatever, but they literally go into a room by themselves. They don't see anybody else. They put a thick mask on and they're in for four days, five days. Have you seen that?
I have heard of people doing stuff like that. Yeah. What about that? Well, I think being alone with your thoughts is uncomfortable for people. And I think a lot of people avoid that. They avoid really thinking. And you're forced to really think when you're in those sort of situations. Yeah. forced to be alone with your thoughts.
Scary. Well, we're always distracted. Especially now. We're distracted by people and devices and input and news and social media. There's constantly stuff coming in. And sometimes you don't... How do I feel about everything? Do I even know? Have I ever really considered things? You need time alone. You need time to think. That's what I really like about, that's why I work out by myself. That's why I like to- You work out by yourself? Yeah.
You don't like having a trainer. I mean, I've had a lot of trainers. I appreciate them for technical advice and stuff like that. But this is a meditative aspect of working out by myself that I think is very important. It's also... discipline like i don't it's easy to go somewhere and a guy tells you okay 10 reps but i write my own workouts out and based on that day
Yeah, well, I know what I want to do. I'm pretty good at it. It's funny. I haven't heard many people say that. And it's not just some bullshit, like, affectation, rebellious thing. when i'm with it and i appreciate trainers too and i've had i've worked with some great trainers but they make me want to do less why you know they go do 10 and i go but why oh no you're one of those guys i'm one of those assholes
I'm one of those assholes. Why? But I will actually push myself and say 12, just for a random word, a random number, 12 is my limit. I'm good at pushing myself to 15 or Jeff Cavallari. Do you know who that is? No. Athlean X. Oh, yeah. I've heard of that guy. Super smart guy. Yeah. And we would go back and forth and I'd be like, look, if I'm in, if I'm, you know, if I'm at my last three reps.
Why do we have to rest for two minutes? Like who said that? Who made that up? Is it really a recovery thing two minutes before you can go back into 12 more reps? What if we just rest 30 seconds and then you're right back into... that thing almost immediately and those are the things that are tearing the tissues and growing the muscle and all that kind of stuff so just experimenting with it all again this all goes back down to what we watched of like what are we doing to just live a little
more vividly how are we pushing ourselves how are we changing our perception how are we pushing our perception well it depends on what you're trying to do right if you're just trying to get like conditioned yeah give yourself the minimal amount of rest and do it for as long as possible and then take
Take time off afterwards for your body to heal and then get back after it. It's just a base. But it depends on what you're trying to do. If you're trying to get strong, I always recommend taking out long periods of time in between sets. I take like five minutes maybe.
even more in between sets. To come back in at your strongest. Yeah, but I have long workouts. My workout's like two hours sometimes, two and a half hours, because I have these long breaks in between. But because of that, you know who Pavel Tatsulini is? No. He's one of the... godfathers of kettlebells he's one of the first people that introduced kettlebells to america from russia and they're they're
His strong first philosophy is that strength is a skill, and you don't work on a skill when you're tired. So it's all about how many repetitions you do, and that's what builds strength. Right. It doesn't mean you have to do 10 in a row. Like, say if 10 is your max, say if you pick up a weight and you can do 10 cleans and presses and on the 10th one you're like...
His philosophy is do five. Do five, wait a long time, do another five. So you've got the 10 in, but you've got the 10 in with perfect form. Right. And then you're still getting the same amount of repetitions, but you're not. breaking yourself down to the point where you might get hurt or where you're doing it incorrectly or form. So that's how I work out. Me too. I talk to my wife a lot about that, my wife would say, because I'm all about form.
Yes. Because otherwise you just get hurt and what's the fucking point? Yeah. I rarely get hurt from lifting weights. Have you ever gotten hurt in jiu-jitsu? Oh, yeah. A lot. Everybody tears and pops. Yeah. I've had surgeries and fucking bulging discs and torn this and torn that. Yeah. You have to. It's a sport where you're trying to kill each other. You try to get really good killing people with your body. So other people are doing that to you. I had sciatica for a year and a half.
Bad sciatica. Nine millimeter slip between L5 and S1. How'd you get rid of it? And they wanted to do surgery. And I had had surgery when I was really young because I had a slipped disc between C5 and C6. And they took out part of my hip and they went in through my neck. They moved everything over and they replaced my...
my disc with part of my hip back when they used to do that. They used to replace your disc with part of your hip? Yeah, they would chisel out a part of your hip. Like a bone? Yeah. And that's what your disc was now? A piece of bone? It is now. That doesn't even make sense. Your disc is supposed to be spongy. I know. I don't understand why. They put a piece of bone in there? Yeah, and it worked. Really? It actually worked. Yeah. Dr. Della Martyr. I'll never forget his name. Jesus. Mm.
So, yeah. And then they used cadaver bone for a while, and now they use what? Well, it depends. There's artificial discs. I know a couple people that have artificial discs. And it worked. Yeah, my friend Eddie got it done in his lower back. He was basically bone on bone, constant inflammation. So he got a titanium articulating disc. What is this?
Surgeon may take a small piece of bone from the hip called an autograft to use in a neck surgery called interior cervical disectomy and fusion. The bone is placed between the space between the vertebrae to stimulate bone healing and promote fusion. Oh, so you got your neck fused. Yeah, they call it a Brolin graph.
Oh, really? No. Hey. Hey. Wow. So that's... different that's you got your hip your neck fused fused yeah which they probably don't even do fusion they do they still do fusions if it's a if it's a massive break or something like that maybe yeah i don't recommend it there's other ways you can heal bulging discs and And one of them is there's a process called Regenikine. And Regenikine is – I had that done in L.A., in Santa Monica.
They used to do it in Germany. You used to have to go to Germany to do it. And like Kobe Bryant went over there and Peyton Manning went over there. And what they do is they take your blood out. It's like platelet-rich plasma, but it's a more advanced. PRP. It's more advanced.
version of it and they spin your blood in the centrifuge and they add some stuff to it and it turns it into like one of the most potent anti-inflammatories and then what they do is you lie down there and they inject it in your back they have like these little needles i think there's an instagram post of me Getting it done on my lower back.
Did you have a slip disc in your lower back? Bulging. Bulging. You know, it's essentially a bulging disc, but it can go back. Bulging disc can go back. That was my experience. You also have to have traction, like decompression. Yeah. So there's a bunch of... There it is. So that's my back.
I had that done. So they take that and they stick all that shit. And they drill that, don't they? They just put holes. No, it's just needles. I know it's needles, but it's not like acupuncture. They actually drill that. Then they put that needle in, don't they? No. No, they just shove that needle in place. It's just like a syringe. On each side of your spinal column, right? Yeah, it's like a syringe. And then inside the syringe, they pump in the Regenicane stuff. Yeah. And then it...
It fills those areas up with this. platelet-rich plasma that's been enhanced, and it just heals everything. And did you feel like it helped? Oh, yeah, absolutely. It helped my neck so much. My neck was so fucked. Jacked. My neck was so fucked I was getting numb fingers and pain in my elbow. I had that.
now do you really yeah you should go go to that place yeah and when i ride motorcycles also yeah i have my hands up like i mean i have shoulder issues but i have a that slip disc was a nine millimeter slip why not do this
Why this? Because that looks cooler. Does it? Not to me. It looks super cool when you're doing it right now. This looks retarded. This looks retarded. This looks good. This looks like you can avoid things. Put it up super high. You can move around. Put it up super high. That looks retarded. When you have to turn. yeah like how you gonna turn like that you're not gonna do a good job you look like a gorilla this is better
This is better. What about that? This is better. What about this? Well, Ducati's. I mean, that's like you're down like that. That's when I finally crashed was a Ducati. Oh, really? You went crazy? No, I didn't go crazy. I didn't do anything differently. With Parley's, you go slower. Right. You ride. And it's loud, so people know you're there. Thank you. That's a big one. It's huge. They have electric bikes now. I'm like, do you want to die? They're fast. They're so fast, but do you want to die?
Nobody can hear you. If I'm riding in a grid of 16 guys, because everybody thinks Hell's Angels. I go, there's nothing about it that's trying to emulate Hell's Angels, Mongols, any of that 1%er thing. But when you hear that rumble come... down the road yeah can't wait to get the fuck out of the way yeah oh yeah yeah and that helps
That definitely helps you stay alive. Yeah, man. Yeah, loud pipes save lives. I've heard that many times. So to finish that thought, what I did was is I went to – I started – Instead of resting, which is what doctors normally say, they say, do surgery, do surgery, rest, sleep, see if that helps. If it doesn't help, do surgery.
And I did the opposite, which later, you know, Laird was like, anytime you get hurt, Laird will be like movement, movement, movement, movement. But this was before all that. But I started working out. And it got worse and it got worse and it got worse. But I continued to work out and I started running and I started doing pistol squats and all this kind of shit. And then one day it was gone. And I never came back. Really? Never came back.
So you just beat it out of you? I beat it out of me. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, movement is everything. You need circulation. You need blood in there, which is why they do PRP, which is why they do stem cell work or whatever. Yeah. And if you're just sitting there, the problem is you're also going to, your body's going to atrophy.
You're going to lose strength, and then it's going to make whatever injured that area in the first place is probably a lack of strength. But that was always promoted by doctors. Why would that always be promoted by doctors? Again, whether it's politicians or whether it's doctors or whether they're telling you this is –
You got to eat from the four food groups, man. You're going to die otherwise. Well, you know, there's a lot to that stuff. But the four food group shit is a lot of it. It's just people just not knowing what the fuck they're talking about. That's what I mean. And also—
There's a different perception back then of like what was healthy versus now. But it's also a lot of these doctors, they're not athletes. And they don't really understand like what's possible with the body. They just know how to fix things when they break. Right.
the average person they say just rest because the average person is not going to fucking do what you're doing anyway so it's like why why tell them like what you really need to do is movement constant movement and just beat that injury into submission that's right and no one's going to tell you that how do i feel better lose some weight
Yeah. Like, go do that uncomfortable thing. Start walking. Start slow. Maybe jog a little bit. Maybe lift a little something. That's why when you see those videos of these guys that just... For whatever is in their personality, they've had fucking enough. They're 400 pounds and they go, that's it. Buck stops here. Yep. I'm going to start doing my shit. Yeah, they hit rock bottom. They hit rock bottom. Yeah. And then you see this again, what we were talking about before, incentive.
where they just go, I don't give a shit. Well, isn't that the same with everything? Isn't that how you quit drinking? You just hit rock bottom? I was just about to say that. Yeah, but you don't. I hit rock bottom when I was 15. I was shooting coke at 15. Jeez. So, yeah, the thing that you didn't want to try. I did want to try. But that was that group. That's why so many of those guys died. You know what I mean? So...
When I look at Hunter S. Thompson, who I love as a writer, when I look at Dylan Thomas, who I love as a writer, and all these guys that had this kind of amazing life, and I feel too paralleled. I had an amazing life, except nobody cared about mine. People really cared about theirs. I was just Josh that you wanted to stay the fuck away from. That motherfucker is great to spend like an hour with. And then once it hits 10 o'clock and the moon comes out.
and the clouds part, you don't want to be anywhere around. But then you get to that point where you go, when did Hunter S. Thompson, when did these guys just become like... some kind of clown mask of themselves. Right. Do you know what I mean? Well, in the end, Hunter was definitely that. Did you ever see when Hunter was on Conan O'Brien's show? No. It was horrible. He could barely talk. He barely could understand him.
Everything was mumbling. It was real weird. He got in a gunfight with his fucking neighbors. He was shooting at his neighbors. That's what I mean. At what point does it turn? He was a full-on... drunk, but it wasn't just that. His body was rapidly deteriorating. He had hip replacement surgery. And he was only 60. That's not old, man. No.
Not that old. That's young. Not that old for what? How old are you? 57. I'm 56. Yeah. Like my mom died at 55. The whole thing this book became was my mom dying at 55 and me thinking back then. She lived a nice long life. Isn't that crazy? It's fucking crazy. And then it turned out that I was 55 when I wrote the book, which I'd never even, the book kind of dictated itself. And then I went, holy fuck, I'm 55. Wow. I'm super young.
Fucking super young. Like, yes, I have some joint issues, but I'm young for the most part. For the most part. Yeah, you're physically healthy. You're not falling apart. You just have a few issues. Yeah. which is just wear and tear of life. That's it. Yeah, but there's some people that—
If you don't take care of yourself and you don't eat well and there's also a lot of other factors, genetic factors, but you could fall apart pretty quick. But if you're a guy like Hunter that's doing coke and drinking every night. You can't do that. No, you can't. And the writing was bad. The only time he wrote anything good in later years was 2001, right after 9-11. Right after 9-11, he wrote this great piece.
I want to say it was like for Sports Illustrated. I forget who he wrote it for, but he wrote this really great piece talking about what happens next after the Twin Towers fall. It's like he wrote this thing about waking up in the morning, seeing the Twin Towers. fall and then realizing what's ahead for us. Right. It was very impressive. It was very good. Was it accurate? Yeah, it was dead on. And it was vintage Hunter. It's like he tapped back into it again. It's on ESPN. ESPN, that's it.
ESPN, this is the article? Yeah, this is the article. Would you send me this article if it's an article article? Yeah, I'll send it to you. I would love that. Yeah. This is the whole thing. I mean, what's so great is when you go, I mean, this is kind of popping all over the place, but when you go back and you look at all the politicians, whatever side, you know, whatever, whatever red, blue they lean toward, it didn't matter.
Because Hunter was there kind of looking for something different and it wasn't all about him. When it came down, they all describe Hunter as just like crazy. It was so much fun to hang out with him. But there was never a lack of he was super intelligent. Yes. And wanted the best. for everybody he was a real patriot he was a true patriot yeah
Did you ever read Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail? Yeah. That's one of the more interesting pieces because you got this guy who's following around the campaign trail and he knows he's only in it for this one time. So he's not like any of these other reporters. He's just writing a book. Yeah, what are you going to do? Fire him?
Yeah, exactly. And not only that, you can't, because he's going to write a book. Like, he's writing a book. You can't fire him. Whether you like it or not. Yeah, whether you like it or not, he's writing that book. But, you know, he's dropping acid. He's talking to these guys into drinking. Like, he's taking all these, like, fucking nerdy...
political reporters and he's introducing them to a perspective that they they're not aware of they don't know anybody like that and the book is fucking incredible but when you see Gonzo when you see it's funny how much we're talking about Hunter Thompson but when you see
Gonzo. I don't know if it was in Gonzo or another documentary. You see how they're affected by it. You see a humanity in them because of him that you don't normally get to see. Don't you agree? Yes. He made you question a lot of things.
And when people question things, they're like, what am I doing? Yeah, why am I here? What is my purpose? Or did I have a purpose when I was young and I just fell into this political status quo? And he even was questioning, like in the documentary, he was like, I don't even know what people want.
They want Hunter S. Thompson or they want Gonzo. It's not even me anymore. It's like I'm a prisoner of this thing that I've created. And that's the thing that happens to people where they develop this sort of image and persona. Yeah. And then you feel like you're –
trapped by it. People have expectations when they meet you. That's exactly right. Kennison talked about that. Did you know Kennison? No, unfortunately. I did. Did you? I did. No shit. Yeah. And not because of drugs. Just because I was around. What year was this? When did he die? A 90-ish to 92 maybe. I was in New York, so it had to be pre-94. Probably 90. Somewhere around then. I would say 90. I knew him.
It was through a friend that I met him and then he liked me Wow and sweet incredibly sweet guy He was a motherfucker dude mother. We just got a this guy does bottle cap art go to my Instagram Jamie and see that photo this guy just made this insane bottle cap art piece of kinnison for my comedy club and we put it up last night is he a hero of yours oh yeah he was one of the first there it is
That's all bottle caps. Oh, no shit. Yeah, those are bottle caps. Wow, man. Yeah. That's like in prison when they use cigarette packs and do... Patricia Arquette gave me a piece of art with a bunch of cigarette packs. Oh, really? Yeah, they make frames. That was it. Oh, wow.
Yeah, this guy, his name is Jam Bottle Cap Art, J-A-M Bottle Cap Art. He does a bunch of different pieces of bottle cap art. Yeah, he's really good. It's really, really cool stuff. You need my picture outside. I saw all your... Mug shots? Your mug shots. I would love to have a mug shot of you. I'll send you that. Is it good? How fucked up do you look? Pretty fucked up. I got a smile on my face. When somebody smiles during a mug shot, I always find that really funny.
So when you met Kenison, was it at a show? No. Oh, it might have been the comedy club. I'd only been a few times. Comedy store? Sorry, comedy store. He was out of there by then. He was out of there by 90. Well, what's the one down the road by where Greenblatt's used to be? Laugh Factory. Yeah.
Yeah, you like those? I do. I love those things. Very much. The Laugh Factory. The Laugh Factory. It might have been that. Yeah, he got kicked out of the comedy store, I think, in like 87 or 88. No, then it wasn't there.
Yeah, it was probably the Laugh Factory. But that's not where I met him. I met him at a house. Okay. I met him at a house, and I never went to a lot of those parties. I was just not part of that. I wasn't invited. But I met him, and he just... he was really sweet man he would like mellow out it wasn't like a thing it wasn't an act all the time right you know but he was a prisoner to that thing that he became for sure yeah his brother wrote a great book it's called brother sam
really really good book describing like the ascent of his career and how it fucked him up and what happened to him and what do you think it was I mean was drugs Drugs and partying and just... And stratospheric film. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wasn't it instantaneous for him? Pretty quick. So in 1986, he's on Roddy Dangerfield's Young Comedian Special, and then he does an insane... to this day holds up HBO Hour. And then those two things, and then an album that he made called Louder Than Hell.
And those things are the best things he ever does. Everything after that becomes like a significant drop off. And in the end, he was basically a caricature of who he used to be. Yeah, a caricature of himself. Exactly. And he just was captured.
But it's also – Imprisoned. There wasn't anybody to tell you how to do it back then. There was only a few like massively famous comedians back then. There wasn't a lot of us. It wasn't like today. Today there's like a – giant community of comedians we all talk to each other and figure it out together and everybody's just about making better stuff yeah it's not about like getting hugely famous the ones that just want to get hugely famous they're all mentally ill and usually they're
Their career drops off. Their comedy starts to suck. They're trying to do the wrong thing. So in Kinison, in the beginning, he just wanted to be... the best he could be he just wanted to be really fucking good at comedy and coming from this you know tent
preacher so he's like this revival tent preacher and then he gets into stand-up comedy and he has this charisma and this ability to deliver that's so different than everybody else and he's this short fat guy so when he talks about being married and living in hell Kind of like empathize like this fucking guy's amazing and revolutionized comedy changed comedy He was the first guy that I ever saw that made me think I could do comedy
Because before then, I loved comedy. I always loved stand-up. But I loved it because it was funny. I would just like to watch Jerry Seinfeld on TV. Oh, these guys are so funny. Isn't that funny because you're so different than he is, and yet he was the one that you paralleled with that liberated you? Yeah.
Well, he was wild. That was the thing. I never felt like I fit in. I always felt like I didn't want to be around polite people. I didn't want, like, you know, if a girl wanted me to go over to her house and have dinner with her parents, I was like, oh, Jesus. I'm fine.
fucking crazy but i was a kickboxer you know i was a kid who had i went from you know when i was 15 years old i got like deeply involved in martial arts my entire social life up until like 21 22 was just traveling around the country fighting and so my I was feral like my my mindset was just I would just didn't fit in I couldn't wear a suit jacket and pretend to be the guy did you ever notice I wasn't that guy
It's great to meet you. Things that I thought were funny, other people would think were fucked up. But my fucked up friends would think were funny. And those are the ones who talked me into doing stand-up. But they were equally fucked up. Did you start stand-up back then? In Boston, in 88. In 88? Yeah. Right on. And I went to see Kennison in 89. I got to see him live in 89. I got to see him.
Three times one time when I was working I was working at Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts and he was performing there Wow, and I got to see him live. I was a security guard It was this place in Mansfield. Yeah, this the whole taekwondo team That I was a part of. Is that what you did? Taekwondo? Yeah. That's what I used to compete in. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Where'd you compete out of? Jun Chong. Where was that? L.A. Okay. Taekwondo. Yeah.
Yeah, I fought in L.A. when I lived in Boston. I fought in Anaheim in the Nationals. Right on. I traveled all over the country competing. That's all I did. And one of the guys who worked with us, one of the guys who trained with us got a job as a security guard. And the guy was like, hey, do you know any more guys who know how to fight? We need more guys like that to work for us. They just hired a bunch of us. And so we got to see all these crazy concerts. I got to see Bon Jovi.
I got to see Bill Cosby, which was kind of crazy. No way. Yeah. I saw Rodney Dangerfield. And Rodney Dangerfield was, there was this backstage area. And Rodney Dangerfield was naked with a bathrobe on. And that's how he would go on stage. At the end of his career, Rodney would go, and by the way, murdered. I mean, I was fucking crying, laughing. He was probably, I don't know how old he was.
89 but he was old and this fucking guy was just on stage with a bathrobe on naked killing it giant hog like hanging out of his fucking pants and he was just uh just hanging out smoking pot and then he would go on stage with a bathrobe on yeah and just kill but he because he wanted
to be comfortable how did other how did other comedians feel about him oh they loved him they loved him everybody everybody loved him rodney was one of the most universally loved comedians because he helped other comedians yeah like ronnie dangerfield He did these things, the Rodney Dangerfield specials, like Rodney and Friends. And so he would have...
He introduced the world to Dice Clay, Sam Kinison, Robert Schimmel, Lenny Clark, Dom Irera, like some of the greats. And they all came out of his Rodney Dangerfield and Friends specials. They were some of the greatest.
specials ever. Because he would have all these guys that he thought were worth seeing. And he would put them out there to the world. And they all became superstars. I mean, that's how Sam Kinison launched. He launched from Rodney. And so Bill Hicks, a lot of people launched from Rodney.
so everybody loved Rodney he was just loved I know he's your buddy and I you know because comedians I used to listen I used to have six albums and one was a bloody red vinyl remember the red albums okay sure yeah yeah and it was sick and i don't know where i got them i think i got them from like a flea market or something but they were lenny bruce oh yeah and that was the beginning
He was the first. He was the first. He was the first real modern stand-up comedian. Everybody else just told jokes. Like, two guys walking to a bar. Like, that kind of shit. He was the first guy that was like, why do we do this? Why is that? What is this? Where he questioned. Yeah. Questioned authority. And people would come to see him because in the 60s, everybody was so confused at how to think. Like, what?
Yeah, what are we doing? And this guy was like this. And how do we treat each other? Yes, yes. And then he'd literally point people out and he'd go, Eve and Kike and there's a Mick. Yep, yep, yep. And people would go, what the fuck is he doing? At the most tense time. Yes.
Bring it around. And that's why it reminds me of Chappelle. Because Chappelle would get so seemingly or ostensibly inappropriate. And then somehow bring it around. And you go, fucking genius. Dave's a master. Master. And he's a real.
artist that's a guy like you know i talk about like people that only start thinking about money yeah that's not him that dude lives in fucking springfield ohio and just travels around and just does a lot of shows for no money he does a lot of shows shows up and performs one time i was in denver
And I get off stage. It's a second show Friday night. So it's 10 o'clock show. Show's over. I get off stage. I go into the green room. Dave's there. I go, Dave, what are you doing here, man? He goes, I thought I'd come out and visit you. Just hops on a fucking private jet and flies to Denver.
Because he knew I was there. Didn't even tell me. Just shows up. And then I go, do you want to go on stage? He goes, oh, should I? I go, fuck yeah. So I ran out while the people were leaving. The show was already over. I go, everybody. Tell everybody on the stairs. Come back. Dave Chappelle's here. So they all come. back in and sit down again and he does like 45 minutes and it was right around when trump was doing when he got
caught saying grab him by the pussy. So he had like 10 minutes about grab him by the pussy. It was fucking genius. It was so good. Off the top of his head though? Oh no, he, I mean... I don't know exactly how Dave creates material. I think what Dave does is spends a lot of time thinking and listening to music and coming up with ideas. And he writes some stuff down, but a lot of what he does is...
just performs constantly. He's constantly on stage working these things out. You said it earlier, artist. He's a real artist. That's the difference between somebody who's just good at what they do and somebody who is an innate artist. He's a real artist. He's a hero of mine.
he's a hero of mine too he's a good friend but he gets these giant deals with netflix where he makes a lot of money which is great but he doesn't do it for money yeah he's doing it no but what you can tell is he gets these like oh he turned down 50 million He went crazy. He moved to Ohio or whatever the fucking story is that you want to make up. But then he comes back. He makes these $20 million deals with Netflix. But it's never in place.
of his agenda no it's all about the art it's all about all about this wins this wins this is the priority that's why he left his show because they were twisting it of course i know why he left his show because i've been in that position where you go this is turning into some corporate version of what you like. You love what I do. Now you can't wait to put your fingerprint on it. Exactly. That's it. That's exactly what it was. So you can go, you know, that was me.
And he gave up $50 million when no one was giving up $50 million. Nobody would fucking do that, man. And then he quit doing comedy for 10 years. And you know what he would do? He would occasionally show up in a park with like a fucking speaker and just show up and do stand-up. No way, man. Yes, he did. He did in Seattle.
I know he did in Seattle because a friend of mine was at the show. He shows up. He goes, Dave Chappelle just shows up in this fucking park. He gets a speaker with a microphone and he just starts talking and people just gather around. Respect.
He was just doing these, like, shows, these impromptu shows. He would show up in a bar. Can I go on stage? And they would go, uh, okay. And he would just start talking. Knowing in his mind that he would eventually come back? No. That was just the present moment. I think he's just being an artist.
Just being an artist for the pure sake of being an artist. So he had the money that he did make off Chappelle's show and he decided to like live frugally and take that money and he didn't do anything for money for like 10 fucking years. He just raised his kids. And then he started coming back. And then when he started coming back, I remember I'm coming around the comedy store again and we had some conversations about it and he just
You know, he just decided to start doing comedy again. And then you see people getting canceled now and it's devastating to them. And yet that's what that was. He just did it himself. Right. He canceled himself. Yeah. He canceled the greatest sketch show. all time of all time yeah of all and it only did two seasons it's still the greatest that's not something that you see very often if somebody who just fucking can't help but beat to their own drum right but the art wins in the end
The art wins. Do you know what I mean? Well, it's obviously when you see him. He's so good. He's not malicious. No. There are moments where you think he's malicious. And again, he brings it around. Well, demolition is just to heighten the humor. It all just like brings it in. It also accentuates like some thoughts that you might have about whatever he's talking about. But it's what everybody's thinking. Yep.
and so fucking terrified to say that's why everybody's thinking even me yeah i'm watching it and i'm the inappropriate guy you know and my dad goes how the fuck do you say what you say and i don't understand i go you know i said honestly do you want to know because i'm not ultimately mean i don't want i don't want to fucking hurt i don't want people to feel less than i do right but i watch chappelle and even me i'm like oh
Wow. Yeah. He watched that line. He gets out there and walks that line, but he dances around it and he makes it beautiful comedy. I appreciate it so much because without him, we're all fucked. And he's the way to find out if a comedian's a cunt.
Like if a comedian doesn't like Chappelle, they start shitting on Chappelle like, oh, okay. Then you know he's a con. You're a piece of shit. You're a piece of shit. You're just a garbage human. Have you ever met anybody like that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of these. He's not a real comedian. There's a lot of. He's an asshole.
Yeah, there's a lot of like activist comedians. And what they are is really not talented. So they've glommed on to this idea of like being like socially conscious. And that's more important than the humor itself. But nobody wants to hear you preach. Nobody. Nobody thinks that your opinion is better than theirs. This is what I always say. Like, if you go on stage, you have an opinion. Like...
Other people have an opinion, too. Like if you go on stage and say, you know, I think Kamala Harris would be the greatest president of all time. A lot of people are like, well, I don't agree. But you have to have a way to make it funny so that they laugh. The people that disagree with you laugh. I don't even think this guy's correct. Well, goddamn, that's funny. And that's a way you can introduce an idea into someone's head that maybe would never accept that.
It was just opinions. So if someone's on stage and they're just saying opinions, like you could disagree with that opinion. It'll frustrate you and you can't talk. But if that guy can take that opinion and that perspective and make it funny. you're forced to acknowledge that he has a point yeah like there's something in there like i don't even agree with that but god damn that was good god damn that was good
It liberates, man. That's the real Chappelle art. I mean, not that we'll stay on this forever, but remember Eddie Murphy when he did, not the first, not Raw, but... Delirious. Delirious. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, he was a fucking powerhouse, man. To this day, that is the guy that I just wish I was friends with. I was friends with his brother, Charlie. Yeah. But I wish that guy, I wish he would come back.
You know, I know he got some weird stuff where he got arrested with transsexuals in his car. Whatever. So did other people. Whatever. They came back. He's just too good. He's too good. He's too good. Do you ever see when he gave a...
beach he got like i think it was like one of those mark twain awards or something like that and he did stand up like where he hasn't done stand up in forever but he was talking about bill cosby having to give his awards back and no yeah because you know he does an amazing bill cosby impression
I remember. And so he did stand up and it was as sharp as ever. I'm like, God damn it. This guy came back. And it was just off the cuff. It was something that. Oh, I'm sure he prepared. No, I'm sure he prepared. But nobody really knew he was going to do it. Well, they knew he was going to give a speech. Right. And his speech was.
essentially stand-up you know his acceptance speech like 20 minutes or 15 minutes yeah and it was fucking great and there was all these rumors that he was going to start doing it again I remember Charlie told me that Dave was thinking about doing it again or that Eddie was thinking about doing it again but he never did it He never did it.
I think it's just too heavy. We need comedians. I mean, that's like the theme of this whole thing. Whether you're talking about Hunter, whether you're talking about this, it's just too bad that they self-destruct, whether it be from drugs or fame or whatever. You know what I mean? It's hard, man. It's hard to maintain. And then once you make it, there's these weird pressures. But it breaks up the status quo.
of this contraction, especially that we're, I know that's why people move to Austin. It was just like, I'm fucking sick. of being told to think a certain way. Well, that's why comedy in Austin works so well, because we all moved here at the same time. We all moved here in 2020. I was here because, well, Ron White moved here first, and Ron White is a dear friend.
And he moved here before the pandemic. And Ron was like, I don't want to live in LA anymore. I fucking love it here. There's no traffic. Fucking food's great. Fucking people are nice. I can travel. I fly. I'm in the center of the country. I can fly anywhere real quick. And I was like, damn, could I live in Texas? I don't know about that. And then COVID came.
And my wife was kind of interested a little bit. But then when the riots started happening in L.A., then she got really scared. There was a lot of home invasions. There was a lot of crazy shit that was happening. Where is she from originally? She was from Colorado. Okay, so not an L.A. born. No, no, no. And so she lived in L.A. with me for a while, and we were happy. You know, we lived in Bell Canyon, which was like outside of L.A. It's nice, peaceful.
had a little land coyotes and hawks and shit yeah well for me it was okay because i had quiet where i lived and then i could drive into the comedy store yeah and i loved it but then when they shut the comedy store down they shut everything down and the rice and i was like baby they're not
let us go back this is like these fucking cocksuckers have control now and that's what they like that's why they became politicians in the first place they like telling people they can't work they have a grip on society and they're going to keep this grip we got to get the out of here Did you move sight unseen? Did you move just, did you just come?
Did you find a place? You came and you hung out for a while? I came looking to see if I could deal with it. We took a few days off, and we flew to Austin with some friends who were also thinking about doing it. None of them wound up moving here. A couple of them moved to Dallas. But we came here. and then...
One of the things that helped, my daughters were 10 and 12 at the time. They were real young, and they were real confused about what was going on in L.A. It was spooky. You had to wear a mask everywhere, and that freaks kids out. It was freaky. We came to Texas, no masks. You go to restaurants.
and we had this great real estate lady and this great she's a good friend now and she took us to see we wanted to see this house and she took us on a ride on a boat she had a friend to take us on the lake we go on the lake people are playing Leonard Skinner they're jumping in the water They're laughing and singing. And in L.A., everybody's thinking like the world's going to end. There's demons in the air. No, man, I was in New Mexico, and I was out on a 100,000-acre ranch. Whoa.
Right. And we were doing Outer Range. We were doing the first season of our show and we were tested every morning. And when I was out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, with like good 15 mile an hour winds, you'd have somebody come up. If I put my mask down to talk, you'd have somebody go. Yeah.
Yeah. And I'd be like, we're in the middle of nowhere. Also, it doesn't even work. It doesn't work. It's stupid. I'm not even saying that I have a certain belief system or anything. But in that moment. Yeah. Provable that they don't work. Provable. Yeah. People lost their fucking minds and it was a stress test and so we came out here I bought a house like quick and I was still the same house you have really
Yeah, cool. We we looked at the house in May. I was living in August and we were here and then my kids are going to school out here. They loved it. I loved it right away. We were performing and then We were doing shows inside where everybody's like, this is crazy. You guys are doing shows indoors? Because Texas didn't give a fuck. They're like, do shows. Like a couple months after COVID, they're like, eh, open it up. So what are the numbers of people who got... You know, I've never had COVID.
You never got it at all? No, dude. That's crazy. I never got it. I don't know if that's a blood type. I don't know. What is that? Maybe you're healthy. Maybe I have it right now. I have a bit of a cold right now. Maybe you have it. Sorry, dude. The new COVID is a joke. We used to test every day.
Everybody that came in because I wanted to be compliant. I wanted people to feel safe. People are flying out here to do podcasts. I wanted to make sure they're not a dick. And so we tested everybody before every show. And one time I came in and I had the sniffles and I was like, maybe it's COVID. Maybe it's COVID. And the nurse.
was like, actually, you have COVID. I was like, no way. I'm like, this is the new COVID? But I had it once and famously got in trouble for saying that I didn't get vaccinated, but I got healthy. And it was the CNN attacks and all that shit. And then the second time I got COVID.
It was literally sniffles and it was gone in like a day or two. So were the numbers different in Texas than anywhere else? I don't know. I'm curious. The numbers are all like the real people that got sick are the people with comorbidities. That was the real issue.
And it's not that it didn't exist, it did, because I have a brother-in-law who was in New Orleans in the epicenter of it, and it was the beginning of his residency and all that, and he was like, oh, bro. Oh, it fucking existed. I mean, it was fucking gnarly. Yeah, if you're really unhealthy, COVID fucked you up. Fucked you up. If you were really fat in particular, there was something about the way it reacted to fat people. African-Americans too, he said.
That's a vitamin D thing. That's a vitamin D thing. Yeah. Well, you know, African-Americans, the reason why they're so dark, the melanin is to protect them from the sun. And melanin in white people, the reason why they're so pale is because it acts as like a fucking solar panel.
Vitamin D. It's a sponge. The melanin actually protects them from the sun's damage, but it also makes it more difficult for them to get vitamin D. So my friend did his residency in New York, and he said during the wintertime, we would do blood.
panels on people, and they would have undetectable levels of vitamin D. And this is the reason why people get sick in the winter. You're covering up. You're indoors most of the time. You're not getting any vitamin D. You're not getting any sun. If you're not supplementing, and not just with vitamin D, by the way, you have to mix vitamin D with...
k2 and magnesium that's the most effective way for your body to process it if you're not doing that your immune system is shit it's not that you're giving you're not a living petri dish and you're giving each other the thing because you would do that in the summer too but the minute you go outside and you get that
vitamin D and you get that sun it's burning it away yeah well you're out in the sun you're healthier you're supposed to be outside we're not designed to be locked up in fucking cubicles and fluorescent lights all day it's not normal
Yeah. So it's not healthy. And if you don't do something to mitigate that and counteract that, your metabolic health is going to suffer. If you're not fit, if you're not healthy, if you're overweight, if you're not eating well, if you're not taking vitamins, all those things are a huge factor.
completely ignored and the narrative was like no you need this novel injection that we haven't tested on anybody we're gonna fucking shoot it in every baby every kid every pregnant woman did you ever take one no I almost did. I didn't think it was a bad thing. This whole pandemic is...
Through education and talking to doctors and also through my experiences, it completely changed my concept and my thought about the medical system. When the vaccine was first available, I was more than willing to get it. 150 vaccines for all their employees and we were doing these covid shows where there was no audience so we would do it at the apex in vegas where the ufc has their own small arena and we'd have the fights there and you'd go and get tested i would get tested in austin
I'd fly to Vegas. And then they'd test me again. And you weren't supposed to go anywhere. You just stayed in your hotel. And then you showed up and did the fights. And then they got the allocations to the vaccine. And I called up the doctor. And I said, hey, I'm here.
here for the fights. Can I get vaccinated? They said, sure. Come on in. And then when I got there, I called the doctor and said, actually, you have to go to the clinic. We have to do it at the clinic. Can you go on Monday? And I said, I can't. I have to go back to Austin, but I'll be back in two weeks for the next fights and we'll do it then. He said, great. In that two weeks, they pulled the vaccine because people were getting blood clots. And then also during that two weeks.
Two people that I knew had strokes. Like one guy was in his 50s and one guy was in his 40s. Immediately following the vaccination? Within days of the vaccine. Within days. Got strokes. And I had a bunch of friends that had complications. One friend who has a pacemaker.
I have a second friend now that has a pacemaker. And there was all these things that just kept happening. A pacemaker that they'll have for the rest of their lives? I don't know. It depends on whether or not your heart heals, like how bad the damage is. But his heart would stop beating for like...
nine seconds at a time. And he would just faint and he was falling down. And, you know, Dr. Drew's talked about this, about he believes that's what happened to a lot of people that got boosted. A lot of people like after the booster. Like there's something that would happen where your heart would just stop beating for a while and you'd black out and it would start up again. Because it wasn't proven. It wasn't a proven thing. But then again, how many of them are proven? Because you said what?
72, 73 shots? Yeah, well, that's a different kind of vaccine. No, but I understand that. But there's still vaccines. Yes. And you go, why so much more now? Is there that much more disease? It's money. I think it's money. It's all based on money. I mean, I'm not an anti-vaccine person.
I subscribe to Robert F. Kennedy's perspective. They should all be tested. They should be safety tested, and they're not. But it comes down to this thing, like we were talking about working out. It comes down to this thing where you go, listen, the medical community I can use for certain things.
things. The holistic community I can use for certain things. Why do I have to deny one just to be full in on the other? Right. Exactly. Well, it's just a narrative that they put out there that medicine and pharmaceutical drugs are the most important thing and everything. else is bullshit. Everybody should take Oxycontin.
Everybody should be on at least 10 Oxycontin days. Yeah, help you feel better. You'll feel better. Just like, oh, I feel better. Yeah, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to feel bad about it. So when we came here, That was the thing was like everybody who came here was kind of like, fuck this. And then there were so many of us that Ron. talked me into opening up a comedy club. You opened your own. Yeah, Ron went on stage for the first time in months. I think it was eight months.
And he grabbed me by the shoulders, like right after God. I mean, he fucking crushed. He goes on stage. There's this giant standing ovation. He crushes, and he comes off stage. He grabs me by my shoulder. He goes, whatever the fuck we have to do, we're going to keep doing this. He goes, you got to open up a club. I go, okay, I'm going to open up a club. Yes, sir. And then I just started looking at club spots. How often do you do it?
Almost, I mean, every week. Every week you're up there. I went on last night three times. I did three sets last night. Wow. Yeah. That's cool. Constantly working. Yeah. Do you know Robert Rodriguez? The director? Yeah. No, I don't know him personally. That surprises me. That's who I'm doing. I'm at the Paramount Theater tonight.
I love that guy. Yeah, I love him. Yeah. I've known him for 30 years. Oh, I'd love to meet him. Yeah. But no, I love his work, though. Yeah, super good guy. Yeah. And he plays at Antoine's a lot. Oh, yeah, Anton's. Anton's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is still there, right? That's Gary Clark Jr.'s place. Is it? Yeah, it's my friend Gary.
I didn't know. So my wife knows Gary's wife really well. Oh, my wife knows Gary's wife really well. Oh, shit, dude. I met somebody on the plane who sat next to me, so I flew from New York. They sent a picture to my wife. No. Yes. Yes. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Bentley?
I don't know the guy's name. I don't know the guy. No, no, no, no, no. The guy that I met on the plane today, he said, what are you here doing? I said, oh, I'm going to see Brogan this afternoon. I'm doing Paramount Theater tonight. And he said, oh, that's so funny. And he didn't talk to me the whole flight. And he said, my son. And Bentley went out with Rosie. Yes. For a year. Yes. That's what it is. So he sent a photograph to my wife.
Yeah. Because I took a photograph of him that he sent to his wife. Yeah, so I saw it today right when I was leaving. My wife shows her the photograph. That's fucking funny. It's crazy. That's crazy. Small world. Really small world. Super, super small world. Yeah. But yeah. That's cool. So yeah, Gary's wife and my wife are good friends. Yeah. I've never met Gary. Oh, he's the best. But man, I love him.
He's the best. That's another real artist. A true artist. That's an artist. I mean, he's an artist. Another true artist. I was just with him. I did his video. I was asked to do a lot of videos, and I've never done a video because I've never wanted to do a video. The idea of doing video seems weird to me. You're like, you know, singing somebody else's song or something like that. But Chris Stapleton, who's been a friend for a long time. So we were in Marford together. Has he? Yeah.
I love that guy. One of the greatest fucking guys. He and Morgan. One of the greatest people. So, yeah, we were together over the weekend in Marfa, Texas. Oh, that's fucking cool. Yeah, it was awesome. And Gary's another guy that I knew back in L.A. I met Gary at the comedy store. Doesn't he still live in L.A.? No, he lives here. Oh, he does? Yep.
Full time. Yep. And that's the same thing. Like when I talked to Gary about it, I go, why'd you move to Texas? And this was back when I was still living in LA. He goes, man, fuck that. Right. Fuck that place. Fuck everything about that place. I don't like it. I told you. We just moved out of, we haven't moved to Austin. I've spent a lot of time here I love it here my mom's from Corpus Christi I've spent a lot of time in Texas I'm going to eat Whataburger while I'm here and
But, you know, we moved to Santa Barbara recently and it's one of those things. It's just like there's the thing about L.A. when you don't need because you can do so many things remotely and you go, why am I here? Right.
Right. Why am I here? Like I embraced this staunch thing of I'm a Californian and I loved going to New York and seeing how proud people were in New York. And I'd go back to California and I'd say, I want to be the one proud person that's in California. There was proud people in L.A. for a while.
There were. We were all proud that we were LA Comics. Yeah. LA Comics were like a different thing than New York Comics. Right. Because New York Comics were all like for themselves. They were all kind of shitty and backstabby. And at the Comedy Store, we had a real community.
community where there was like and that's the best thing and what you've done is recreate it like even when i talk about a chopper community that's what it is it's a community that you can rely on yes regardless of belief system or anything like that you go but that guy has my yes that guy will walk through fire from yes that guy wants me to do well that's your people that's my people yeah and that's the same thing with all my people moved out here they moved out here with me
So we had like 16 top shelf comedians move out here in the first two years. That many? There's so many clubs out here. There's five clubs on the street where my club's on. That's crazy. I bought the old Ritz Theater. Yeah. So that's the comedy mothership now.
And down the street, there's a Sunset Club that my friend Brian owns. And that's a club that's like five doors down from me. So all these are new clubs that's happened in the last four years. The Vulcan was already there. That was the club that we started working at when we came here. That's down the street from me.
only like a block away and then there's the creek in the cave another comedy club that's only like two blocks away there's a bunch of them just on this one street what if i move here and open a club and just do monologues do you think people will come sure different probably Ladies and gentlemen, this one's from Sicario. If it's good, people would go. They might. They might. Look, man, you fucking really have a passion or something. This is the weird artsy city.
It's a great artsy city. It is. There's a lot of fake artists. I know, but there is everywhere. Yeah, there's a lot of posers. But that's all people that just like the idea of them being the one who decides what's real and what's not real. Just goofs. You're always going to have that. There's a lot of that. They hated us when we came here. But really what they did.
like is that you couldn't just fuck around anymore the real killers were here now the real top shelf like national headliners guys like Tom Segura and Tim Dillon and these Animals moved into town. So this is like a new hub. It's the hub of the world for comedy the comedy mothership is the hub of comedy in the world Yeah
And it just opened two years ago. That's cool. It's packed every night. It's awesome. Like Dave came down like opening week. It was incredible. And no one knew he was there. So I did a set. And then after I did a set, I introduced him. just went fucking apeshit. And we were like...
It's up. The club's rolling now. Now it's really happening. And then all these people were coming in from all over the country and a bunch of people moved here. And there's people moving here constantly. Shane Gillis moved here and all these guys moved here. So it's still happening. Oh, yeah. Still growing. Migrating in tropes. We're talking about opening up another club because we're so packed every night and we have so many comics. We almost have too many comics and not enough room.
Has the place grown a lot in the last four years? The city? Yeah, but do you see a gentrification of it or just like things that you go? No. You see a lot of tech bros have moved here because, you know, Google moved here and Facebook and Tesla. I remember when Jesse James moved here. Which was a while ago. He moved here a long time ago. A long time ago. Yeah. I remember when he moved from Long Beach. Yeah. And he called me and he was like, it's fucking great. It's fucking great.
It's better. Yeah. I just never will live in a place that has traffic ever again. I'll never live in a big city. Austin's like a million people. There's a million on the outside and a million in the city. It's nothing. It's easy. It's easy to get around. People are friendly. They're just like real people. There's no one here that's like connected to that machine.
that forced compliance. Why do you think that feeds into your, or like to me being in LA when everybody's talking about what's your status right now? The thing about here is all people care about is are you killing? Are you going on stage and fucking killing? Are you doing your best work? Are you doing it? Period. Are you doing your best work? Like, do you care?
Do you really care? Are you really working on it? Are you just another affectation? And if you're at that club, you have to be working on it because there's too many people that are working on it. There's too many killers. You can't just be lazy. You won't survive. There's too many killers. go to this club anytime go tonight cool if you want to come tonight well i got this thing what's your thing what time is it i don't know eight
7? We have a 7 o'clock show and a 10 o'clock show. Really? Maybe I'll come afterwards. Come after. Come hang out. Jelly Roll was there last night. Really? Was he really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. Jelly Roll's the man. He's here all the time. He's always hanging out here. Do you have my book? I do not.
You don't? No, I did not. No one sent it to me. They did. It probably went to a publicist or someone. I was going to bring a book for you. I'll buy it. Josh Brolin from Under the Truck. Why from Under the Truck? What do you think?
Because that's where you were drunk, passed out? That's where my mom's boyfriend was drunk and passed out. But it has this, to me, I chose it because it has a double entendre that when you're under a truck, you're either fixing it or getting run over by it. Hence my life. I'm either getting run over by it or fixing it. How did you sort it out? Because you're so together now. Am I? Yeah, I think you are. Thank you. You're fun.
Thanks man. Fun people are together. If you can be fun, you're together. I think I'm at that place. I found a place. that you have always been at that I didn't have. I had the opposite where you go, no, I didn't do cocaine because, and forget the drugs. It's the mentality. I didn't do cocaine because it would kill me. And I would go, oh, that stuff will kill you.
Yeah. Let's just walk that line. I always wanted to walk that line. And I had a mother that walked that line. The book is very mother heavy. Very, very mother heavy. And it wasn't intended to be. It just turned out that. That's why I wanted to. Fuck, I wish I had a book. No worries. I wanted to read you. A section of the LSD, 13-year-old LSD thing. Because it's fun. Yeah, it's juicy. You like juicy stuff. I do.
And I want to read you juicy stuff. 13 LSD is so wild. That's such a crazy, mind-blowing experience for a 13-year-old to have. Yeah. Can you imagine? Cause you look at, I mean, I had, I had kids when I had my first kid, I was 20 years old and I was looking at 14 years in prison. Oh my God. Yeah. Jesus Christ. So I.
That's why I missed my shot out there. I was surprised. It's Johnny Cash. We'll get it. There's Brolin. We're going to order it. Find Josh Brolin's. Oh, yeah. See if it's in there. I think there's a couple. Get a big mental print of it. A mental print. of it but
Well, it's part of your life and it's why you're you today because you've gone through shitty experiences. Yeah, but I don't know if they're shitty. That's what I haven't decided whether they're shitty or whether they're necessary for this person to get to this place. And not everybody gets.
to that place so we're talking about all these people like hunter s thompson hunter s thompson is my mother man just did she wasn't a good writer but everything that you the song right that was my mom my mom had a loaded nine millimeter at her bedside table all the time she was part of the what was the scam that went on in the 80s the pyramid scam Oh. Remember that? She was one of the top five winners of the Pyramid Scan. Oh, boy.
She could talk anybody into anything. So she would come home literally, man, with bags, with grocery bags full of cash. Wow. And she'd dump it out and she'd say, count. Jesus. So I would sit there and... Wow. You know what I mean? And she put them and I finally found, I think she had hidden some in her dresser and there was like a loose board that she took away and put money in there and I found it.
Bought some drums. When my grandmother died, we found stuff like that in her house because my grandmother went through the depression. Oh, yeah. That mentality. They all stockpiled money. So she had coffee cans filled with money that she had tucked away.
different areas of the house that we found after she died. Right, right. That's kind of great. Yeah. The mentality of like... Yeah, well, the mentality that you grow up or you literally might starve to death. There's no food. And there's no way that can affect you and that's the whole point. No way. There's no...
way that somebody can have that mentality of every cent means something right and we have to hide it unless somebody else takes it or whatever with my mother it was always looking for the most vivid experience and I don't know why that was her parents weren't like that It's just how she was. And then you either have my brother. I don't know if you have siblings or not, but my brother dealt with it totally different. My brother imploded. So he lives his life as simply as you can possibly live it.
hmm whereas me it was my reaction was the other way yeah yeah yeah so so how now and why i don't know i don't know 45 years old. It feels like a good age to go, okay, do I want to go Nick Nolte? Right, right, right, right. And I can do that. Easy. Nick used to date Vicki Lewis, who was on news radio with me. No way. I didn't know that. Yeah. I remember Vicky well. Super talented. Super talented. Yeah, could sing, could act. She was a firebrand. Yeah. And Nick.
We used to hang around the set, and it was always so weird to me to be talking to Nick Nolte. It was so strange. Yeah. I remember one time I went to Fry's Electronics because I was going to buy some computers. I used to make my own computers because I was really into it. computer games so I like build my own computers yeah and so I'm there like looking at motherships and I see this fucking old guy with his glasses on and I go
I go, Nick. He goes, oh, hey, Joe. How are you, man? Do you know anything about these things? I was talking to him about computer stuff, but I just couldn't believe he knows my name. He remembered me. He saved my life, man. He saved my life at 25. Bro, there's a terrible movie called Warrior. It's a terrible movie. You mean the UFC movie with Tom Hardy? That movie sucks. But he's fucking incredible in it. He's amazing.
This one scene where he breaks down, you know, he's the dad. It's so fucking good. It's so good. That one scene is worth sitting through the entire preposterous movie. Why do you hate that movie so much? Because it's fake. You can't fight like two days in a row. Wasn't the Tyson-Jake fight, wasn't that amazing? Yeah. It's amazing they got paid so much money for that. $25 million and $40 million? I think $20 and $40. Yeah, I think that's what I'd heard.
You know, which I'm happy Mike got the money and I'm happy that he didn't get hurt. That was my fear that it was going to be a real fight and he was going to get hurt. You've known him for a long time. I've known him for a long time. I love that dude. Me too. And he was like... Larger-than-life figure of my childhood truly when I was a kid when he was a champ It was like people don't understand what a champ. He was like he was a
He wasn't just the heavyweight champion of the world. He was an executioner. Every fight was just a matter of how long was it going to last. I don't remember which fight it was that I went to go see a couple of fights. And I actually went to go see Julio Cesar Chavez fight. And that's when I met Tom. Tyson in the green room. And I met at the same time Muhammad Ali in the green room. Oh, wow. That was a moment.
Wow. As a boxing fan, that was a real moment. But I remember, and I don't know who it was, and I think it was a 90-second fight, and I went to go see this fight, and Tyson was fighting, and this guy was doing this stuff before, and he had this cut. He had built himself into confidence. And Mike came out.
afterwards he was the first one obviously and mike came out afterwards and i watched his face i didn't watch mike you would normally watch mike because he's so charismatic and he's coming you want to see what he's going to do and i watched the guy's face and i watched that confidence bleed from his face instantaneously. He had absolutely lost the fight long before Mike had ever gotten in the ring.
Yeah, I maintain that in a time where he was champion, like the two or three years where he was at his best, he's the greatest fighter of all time. Of all time. Of all time. That's why it was so interesting to me as I was watching it, and I'm very verbal when it comes to that shit. Come on. What the fuck? And he was, he's still quick.
Oh, yeah. He's still quick. He's still very quick. And he would do these things. But, you know, Mike had, like, he was walking with a cane just like a year and a half ago. Yeah, but he was really out of shape. He had bad sciatica. Bad sciatica. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, real bad. It wasn't that long ago that he was, you know, I mean, when I first met him, he was very, very heavy. He was not working out at all. And I asked him, how come you don't work out? I don't want to ignite my ego.
I don't want to ignite the gods of war. The gods of war. Yeah. And then the second time he came in was when he was preparing for the Roy Jones Jr. fight. Came in here? Yeah. And he was a totally different human being. He was fucking jacked and in shape. And he looked super intense. And he was just like ready to go. and it was terrifying. Wait, when was this? A few years ago. Four years ago?
Four years ago. And so when he came in the second time, I was like, this is Jamie said it afterwards. He's like, that's a totally different human being than the first time we saw him. He was one of the first guys, like I said, with Nick Nolte. He was like, is that really Nick Nolte? This is crazy. I can't believe he's right there.
Mike Tyson was one of the first people that I met. I can't believe he's really here because he was so iconic. You had to be alive and be a kid during the time where he was the champion to understand. what he was because there was After Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes was a great fighter, but no one liked him because he beat up Muhammad Ali. So people always just wanted him to lose. Yeah, but is that the only reason? There's just a certain air of somebody, and they come along once in a great while.
Yes, but Larry Holmes never got his due. He was an amazing fighter. Amazing fighter, but still. But when he retired, then there was just like a series of boring champions. Like no one cared about the heavyweight division at all. No one cared. Yeah, I remember.
The cover of Sports Illustrated. I have it framed in my office at home. It said Kid Dynamite on it. And he was 19 years old. And I was like, who is this guy? And then I started watching him fight. And then he was fighting on like ABC Wide World of Sports. You're like, Jesus Christ.
Do you find yourself going back and watching highlights just to do it? Oh, yeah. I do it all the time. I watch Tyson fights all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I just watched this fight with Frank Bruno just a couple of days ago. Frank Bruno. Oh, my God. Tyson was something. I just don't think you can maintain that. You can only do that for a few years. The only fights that never worked out, do you remember the fight with him and Bone Crusher Smith? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Not a great fight. No, it wasn't the best fight. Because Bone Crusher Smith was not a great fighter. Well, he was a good fighter. But not a great fighter. Tough guy. Yeah. But, you know, brutal knockout puncher. It just wasn't at Mike's level. Yeah. Mike was at a level that... one was at it was just it was an insane combination of discipline
talent, incredible coaching, psychology. You know, when he was 13 years old, he was adopted by a guy who was a hypnotist. Cuss used to hypnotize him. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, he hypnotized him by the time he was 13. And he... Into being the greatest fighter? Into being the greatest fighter. Wow. And he told him, you don't exist. Only the task exists. And the task was just destruction. Did Mike tell you that? Yeah.
Yeah. I've never heard him say that. Did he say that to other people? Oh, yeah. He said it publicly. I've never said it. Yeah, he talked about the hypnosis. He started doing it when he was 13 years old. So what's the parallel between, and this is the last thing I'll interview you about, what's the thing? between Tyson and John Jones.
Who I met once, and I looked at him when I met him on a plane, and he didn't give me really the time of day. But I was like, I'm a huge fan. And I don't say that often to a lot of people. He probably gets out all day long. I'm sure he does. There's no doubt.
Special fighter it's conquerors. That's what it is. Like they're both conquerors like I had this thing that I put up on my Instagram the other day that somebody made it was a me talking about trying to explain why john exists that there's people that are just different they're wired different and they They are uncommon amongst uncommon men. They just, they rise to the top of the top and they just dominate. They just dominate. And that's John.
He's just the greatest of all time. It's exciting to watch. He's 37 years old, and he's still the greatest. I mean, watching that fight, watching Tyson or Jake Paul or whatever. Jake Paul. I wouldn't even want to say Tyson. And then going the next day and watching that fight. Watching those fights. It wasn't the only fight. The one before was...
What was his name? The fight before John Jones. Oh, Charles Oliveira and Michael Chandler. Great fight. Incredible fight. Amazing fight. Yeah. Yeah, John is a special dude. When he's gone, we're all going to miss him. He's a different kind of guy. I mean, he's been at the top for 14 fucking years. He won the title as the youngest guy to ever win a UFC title, 23. 23. And Mike was the youngest heavyweight champion of all time at 20, which is really crazy. Crazy.
But when Jon Jones won that title at 23, it's just been destruction of everyone ever since. Never ducked anybody, fought all the best, destroyed everybody, dominated his division. Went up to heavyweight, dominates at heavyweight. So why does somebody like that self-destruct?
Is that a self-destruction? Because he's a wild motherfucker. That's how you get to be that good. Isn't that what we're talking about the whole time? Whether it's Hunter S. Thompson and this, and how you walk that line. Mike Tyson spending whatever, $350, $400 million. Yeah.
Jail, whatever that is. Wild. Wild. But that's also what makes you so good, that wildness. Jon Jones, when he fought Mauricio Shogun Hua for the light heavyweight title when he was 23 years old, he opens up the fight with a flying knee. Nobody does that. You're fighting a legend.
Shogun, at that time, when he was the light heavyweight champion, he was a legend. And not just a legend from the UFC, but a legend from Pride. Pride was this gigantic organization in Japan that Shogun really became famous. So he was like... a mythical creature almost in, in MMA circles. He was, that was Shogun Hua. He was a Conor McGregor and John Jones. John's in a different category. It's a different thing. Yeah. Connor self-destructed, you know,
in a lot of ways because of money. You know, I mean, he took that fight with Floyd Mayweather. He made a ton of money off that. and then took a long time before he came back to MMA, and it's just not been the same guy since. And I think that's just... It's money. It's a lot of partying. But it's the same kind of thing. It's just a wild – but in his prime, when Conor was in his prime, he was a fucking assassin. Fucking amazing.
He was a fucking assassin. But it's that thing, that through line of not being able to let go. It's like what you were talking about, Chappelle. Chappelle leaves for 10 years, but then he goes to the park and he does a thing. There's a thing that's insatiable, that warrior mentality. Yeah, but there's a difference because...
Physically, you can only fight for so long. Yeah, that's true. Comedy, you get better every year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dave's better now than he was a year ago. He'd be better two years from now than he was down. You can still be Rodney Dangerfield eventually. When I saw him, I was probably 70 years old, and he was murdering in his fucking bathrobe, naked. With his schlong hanging out. Yeah, he was...
He was still amazing because it's not a physical thing You don't have like your body can only compete at the highest levels Which is one of the things that's so extraordinary about John. Yeah, because he's 37 He still competes at the highest level. It blew my mind the other night
It was exciting. It was nice to be excited about something. Steve A's passed his prime, unfortunately, and he's got a lot of wear on the tires, and it was kind of rough watching him get beat up like that. But that's the game they play. That's the sport. Yeah, and what's great about UFC that I never thought would last in the beginning, the great thing is anything can happen. Anything can happen.
Yeah. Frank Fertitta and Lorenzo Fertitta always said that every fight, every UFC, we sell holy shit moments. That's what he said. Like there's moments in the fight where you're like, holy shit. You look around at each other and everybody like- Dude, nobody does it better than you when you do this. You go back and you're thinking, you go, oh!
we always did that but then they started putting cameras on us right and i don't know why when they started yeah we always did that every time something would happen we would because it's or it's organic it's like you can't help it that's what i'm doing at home yeah Holy fuck.
Holy shit. Yeah. Holy shit. Holy shit. Yeah. There's moments where you just like, you can't believe it's really happening. Yeah. That's the sport. The sport is, it's the craziest sports, the highest consequences of any sport. It's just, it's so raw and dangerous.
And you can't look away. It's so crazy. And when someone can dominate it, like John Jones or George St. Pierre or Mighty Mouse or any of the greats. George St. Pierre, another great one. Greats. When they can do that, it's like that's a different kind of human.
being this is I mean to be the best of the best people the best people in the world at fighting and then he's the best of the best people yeah and when George was in his prime it was that same sort of thing you would see him stand there like this intense look in his eyes just couldn't wait
to get his fucking hands on that guy. You're like, God damn. I feel very, very, very, very fortunate that I've been able to witness personally so many of those moments and be there to watch greatness so many times. I think it's great that you've continued. It's surprising to me. I love it. I know you do, and that's why you continue to do it. Well, I did the first, like, 13 of them for free.
First 13 ever? Yeah, the first thing I did. No, it was like UFC 37. Oh, when you got into it. I started working at UFC 12. UFC 12 was the first event that I did in 1997. I was the post-fight interview guy. Wow. And so I did that for a couple of years, but...
It was banned from cable. It was basically like... That's why I said it was going... It kind of went like this and then it was going down. Boxing did it to them. Boxing in cahoots with Budweiser, which is funny because now Budweiser sponsors the UFC. But they all wanted...
the mma thing to go away because it was so exciting and crazy they thought of it as a threat yeah and uh they they essentially banished it it also just had this unsavory look to it you're fighting in a cage back in those days it was You know and then it was yeah, it was just crazy It was like they would call it human cockfighting, you know, which I was following this is disgusting But me as a martial artist the question was always what would happen if you got a Jew?
guy and he fought a wrestler? What would happen if you got a boxer and you fought a karate guy? And the UFC is like, let's find out. So Horry and Gracie came up with this concept. That's what I was going to say. Gracie was one of the first.
judo versus jujitsu right well hoist you know hoist was the first champion of the ufc and he was the first guy that introduced that like technique is more important than everything right technique is more important than being big more important than being strong because
was like 175 pounds he was very slight and long and remember the fight just a jujitsu wizard yeah and he would get guys on the ground strangle the fuck out of him we were like what happened this is crazy another holy shit moment yeah Big Jack guy's tapping. You're like, what? What happened? And Hoist just opened up the world to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and it made Brazilian jiu-jitsu the most popular martial art on earth. His appearances in the UFC changed the entire course of martial art.
His family, the Gracie family, particularly his father Elio, his brother Hickson, his brother Hoyler, and Horian, of course, because he created the UFC. They changed martial arts forever. Yeah. That, like, more... More development and evolution of martial arts has taken place over the last 30 years than over the last 30,000 years. Wow.
Like really, that's accurate. Like fighting is different. People really understand what works and what doesn't work now. And watching him was balletic. It was like a ballet. Yes. It was art. It was art. It's real martial arts. No. His dad told him, don't hurt these people. Don't hurt them.
You don't have to hurt them. Show them the art. Just submit them. Show them the art. Yeah. So, like, Hoist, when he got on top of people, he wasn't, like, elbowing them to eyeballs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was just strangling folks. Just arm-barring folks. Making them tap. Making them quit.
That's wild. And he did it to everybody. And they were all like, what the fuck just happened? And then everybody had to learn jiu-jitsu. It changed martial arts forever. Do your kids do jiu-jitsu? Yeah, my kids have done it. Have done it? Yeah, they don't do it anymore. They do other stuff. I don't push them. No. Whatever they're in. If they wanted to do it tomorrow.
They said, I'm thinking about doing some kickboxing. I'm like, let's go. Where do you want to go? But I don't believe in – everybody's different. I don't want them to – follow my footsteps or anything stupid like that i just want i want you to be your own human being what are you interested in they're both interested in different things my youngest is an artist you know my other one is a phenomenal athlete it's like i think that you should do what you
want to do and if you want to do that i'll bring you i'll show you i'll teach you i'll help you but if you don't want to do that i don't want to push you Let me be a good parent and celebrate what my kid is, not what I want. There's so many different kinds of things you could be interested in life. And everyone has a different psychology. So everyone has different things they gravitate towards. It's just like, what is the thing? Is it music? Is it...
Is it art? Is it your writing? What do you like to do? Find that thing, chase it down. How many kids do you have? I have three. I have a grown, she's 28, and I have a 16 and a 14. I feel like you've got to do what... What compels you? What drives you? Part of it as a parent is like there's so many stories of parents, particularly with like talented athletes, that were too hard on the kid and put too much discipline on the kid, and the kid's burned out. I've seen so many cases of that.
That Russian mentality or that Asian mentality. Not here, but there. He killed the joy. He killed the joy. You know what Hoyt Gracie's dad used to do? If he lost a competition, he would buy him a present. Because what was the psychology? Because they're always going to want to win. Meaning the effort? He bought the effort? He bought the present for the effort? No, it's like it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Like here, you have a toy. Here's a gift. Here's a thing.
This is just growth. This is just development. Hoyce's dad, Elio, felt like... you live the same life over and over and over again until you get it right. He subscribed to that ancient Eastern philosophy of reincarnation. He really believed you will live the same life over and over again. you get it right and so his philosophy is do one percent better a day
Just do 1%. It's not about going from here to here. It's not living at 100% all the time. It's the process. It's the process. It's the constant process of growth. And through that constant process, I mean, what they did was even more crazy because... Elio, along with Carlos Gracie, they revolutionized a martial art. Jiu-jitsu is brought over by these judokas from Japan, Maeda and Kimura, who came over to America.
came over to brazil rather and trained with the gracies and then they took those techniques and made them applicable to smaller people made them applicable to like because ilio was only 145 pounds but even have these no rules fights in brazil he's fucking huge that would go for like an hour and a half. Wow.
Yeah. And he would just beat these guys with technique. So they developed leverage and they figured out a way to highlight the submissions and make things super technical. And they would analyze moves and break them down. And it became the philosophy of the entire. family that one family created more fucking assassins than any other family in the history of martial arts they're the nicest people the nicest people yeah
Yeah, I hoisted here a couple months ago. He was awesome. He's so fun. Do you know Ceci? No. She's with Laird a lot. She's at Laird's place a lot. I mean, they have a clan, bro. It's a clan, but it's a close clan. Yes. And it's a friendly... familial clan. Yep.
Yeah, they're very nice people. But that's the thing about jiu-jitsu. It's like you get out all your aggression in the gym and it kills your ego. And you can go be kind. You can just be a nice person. Be a nice person. Jiu-jitsu people are some of the nicest people I've ever met. Me too. They're super friendly and warm.
Normal people, they just are obsessed with this one thing. And through that thing, it's like a vehicle for developing your human potential because it's so difficult. And when you do a difficult thing, it makes the rest of life a lot easier because there's no...
way whatever you're experiencing during the day is going to be as difficult as someone on your back trying to strangle the blood out of your brain like literally trying to fucking choke the blood out of your head like there's there's no way there's no way life could be harder but that's the thing is the wildness you have to have something to be a champion yeah to be a champion or to be a good person i think you have wildness which we've talked about throughout this whole thing
If you don't have wildness, you're going to be boring. Which if you bring it back, honestly, because I have to bring it back to the book, that's what the book is about. Yeah. Wildness unmitigated. Right. But you eventually figured out a way to get a grip on it. That eventually turns out on you. Yeah. Most people, it turns around and it bites you in the ass. Most people. It's a sad ending. But I think those sad endings are a valuable lesson for the other people. Power of example.
Yeah. You learn from a lot of – one of the reasons why I never did coke is when I was in high school, my friend's cousin became a coke head. He was a coke dealer and became a coke head. And him and his girlfriend would just do coke and hide. They were just like – they had an attic apartment. They were in this –
fucking apartment or just like doing coke and selling coke and watching tv and yeah and he like withered away he lost all this weight like he got bit by a vampire yeah and i remember thinking jesus christ stay the fuck away from coke it was terrifying why would you why would you want to do that
What would be attractive about that? Nothing. I guess it's the, I mean, you've done it. I haven't done it. I guess it's the euphoria when you get that hit, that feeling, that feeling of elevation, you know, that feeling of like, you know, you just know fear. You're excited. You want to start a business with people.
You got plans. We're going to fucking take over. I just love, like in the description of it, the eyes kind of get like this and the craziness. And you go, yeah, it's bad for everybody else. It may be good for you for like 15 minutes, but everybody else is fucking miserable around you. The worst thing.
to me was when i would be high like smoking weed and i'd be like just chilled and silly and i'd run into a coke head and you're like oh no he's trying to talk to you like this just get battered with like talk It's disgusting. Yeah, it's a weird drug. It's a weird drug, but it's obviously very popular. Yeah. And it causes a lot of problems. Yeah, no thanks anymore. Yeah. No thanks. I'm good. Not interested in that one.
You smoke your butt, I'll smoke my cigar. Yeah, I like cigars too. Cigars are conversational. They're tools for conversation. They relax you, light your brain up a little bit, get you a little fired up. Read this book when you can. I will. Seriously, I think you'll like it. I know I'll like it. I like talking to you. Yeah, you'll laugh. You'll laugh. Not everybody will laugh when they read the book. You will laugh. Because I think you understand absurdity.
How long did it take you to put it together? Three years. It's nonlinear. It goes all over the place in all these years. Did you have, when you sat down, did you have like a framework in mind of how you wanted to pursue it? No. No? No, because I've written probably 90 journals. My life.
90 full journals and I would go back and I kind of started to put some of those together and I'd go oh that happened in 88 or that happened in 76 and that you know that kind of stands out as being a milestone moment or whatever and I'd start to write those down they were really poorly written And then that started to instigate one thing and another thing, and it kind of wrote itself. I think it was 450 pages when I finished, and then I knocked it down to like 240.
What is that process like, the editing process? That's a good process. That's the hardest process I've ever gone through. But you become a better writer. Do you do it with an editor or do you do it by yourself? No, I did it with an editor because I didn't sell the book right away. First of all, most memoirs are...
not written by the people who they're about which makes no sense to me right because you're writing about yourself but you're hiring somebody else to do it but you're taking the money i don't get it so i wrote it i wrote the entire book then i sold it so i didn't sell it based on a I sold it based on the book because you could read the book. And some people hated it. Some people read it and they go, I don't get it. It's too wild. It's too whatever.
and well everything is not for everybody exactly and that's okay yeah that's not it's more than okay what's wild is when i when i when i was in the middle which i think you would like when i was in the middle of doing the audible for the book About halfway through stumbling through the audible, I go, what the fuck did I do? I should burn any evidence that this fucking was ever even thought about.
and then i spiraled for about a month and i don't spiral i just don't spiral about everything anything i just i'm pretty cool with anything that you know comes along and then people started reading the book And then I got this varied response that was always visceral. It was never like, I really liked your book a lot. I thought it was well written and all that. Somebody would go, fuck. Yeah. And that's nice. That means you nailed it. I don't know.
yeah i don't know but i do know that the responses are good well that's what's important yeah it's working It had a desired effect. You got out your thoughts. You got out your experiences. But that editing process is a good process because you refine and you clarify and you simplify. Yeah.
That's cool. You get to look at it with fresh eyes. With fresh eyes. Yeah. You know, it's the arm bar. You could just grab an arm and then try to bend it as much as you can. Or you can fucking figure out how to get in there every time. Did you? And tap the guy out. Did you always know that you were going to do this? You were going to write this book? No, I'd written two or three books and put them in a dark corner and let them accumulate dust.
you know i've never i never thought i would do it publicly because i was always into that thing of like oh you're an actor and like get over it you want you want to be a writer you want to be a writer you want to be a musician Every actor wants to be a rock star. And I was like, no. And then this lady read this book, this lit agent. She said, I said it the third time and she said, you need to fucking stop saying, referencing yourself as an actor.
who's a writer you're a fucking writer and a really good writer just right and she was tough on me so you feel like you had like almost like a disclaimer Like I'm an actor. Oh, yeah, I did. That's what you're doing, giving yourself like an escape. I did because there was something about that profession anyway that I always looked at and I always thought, why do I do this? This is dumb.
You know what I mean? And where does the self-importance come from? What happened to the wagon that just went down and people tried to shoot you? Doesn't the self-importance just come from attention? You get extraordinary amounts of attention and people develop self-importance because of that. Because I think they deserve that attention. Because it's a false thing. Yeah. And then you start seeing people manifest it like, excuse me, I said hot coffee.
I didn't say warm coffee. I said, you know, and you go, I don't understand the mentality. So for me, it's probably another attempt. which I think I've manifested in a bunch of different ways of right-sizing. There's nothing that will right-size you like a fucking book. puts you right back into why are you doing what you were doing? Where do you come from? How do you feel about your kids? Where's your sensitivity?
Where are things that have become concrete that you need to break in order to feel again? Where are you limiting yourself? And I don't like the idea of limiting myself. Like, did I love drinking? Fuck yeah. I had so much fun, dude. And so did a lot of other people. But I go, this is now limiting. Well, don't you want to go out and take a drink? I go, fuck no.
When you're out with a bunch of people having fun? No, because I'm having fun. Right. You don't need to drink to have fun, but there's a thing when you're drinking a lot and having fun, you think this is the reason why I'm having fun. This is the reason why I'm having fun. Yeah, it's a trap. That's the trap.
Yeah. That's the trap. Well, you know, you can have a drink or two and really enjoy yourself, or you could think that the only reason why you're enjoying yourself is because you're having a drink or two. And that's usually why you have more drinks, because you think, this is the reason people are liking me right now.
is the reason people think I'm funny. And you keep chasing that dragon. Imagine if you went on stage, and every time you went on stage, you had to have at least six drinks. Because you go, this is what they want. And then you'd wake up in the morning, and your kid goes and wakes you up, and you're like, ah. And you go, that's not worth it. What's the fucking dude's name from Knight Rider?
you know i'm talking about oh david yeah you ever see that video of course i did the kids the burger video yeah yeah it's the saddest fucking thing ever yeah it didn't look like a good burger uh well he's just hammered and his kid filmed it it's awful oh it's so awful it's so cringy
Yeah, that's what everybody's afraid of, becoming that pathetic example to your children. And you wonder how much that exists and the video's not going. That daughter... videoed that right like i want you to see what this looks like right and supposedly that kind of threw him into sobriety or whatever i don't know if he's sober or not did he if i don't know i will hope he is if anything will throw you into sobriety your children filming you
That's it. The lowest moment possible would do it for you. Yeah. I didn't want to be filmed, so I stopped early. You got off at the right time. I did get filmed the last time. Yeah? Yeah, it was super lame. I was at a, what do you call it? A Del Taco. and i tapped the cab in front of me accidentally when i was moving forward and he got out and like created a thing and somebody filmed it from the back of the cab oh wow yeah and i looked stupid
You can't fucking, you can't fucking drive. You don't fucking drive. You're like, oh, dude. Shh, quiet. Don't speak. Oh, no. Don't speak. There's nothing worse than being sober and seeing something. Oh, there's nothing. Oh, no, I'm so gross. Because your perception of it while you were like, no, man, this is an honorable moment. You're saying I did something that I didn't do. Right. And we need to hash this out. When the reality is you're just kind of regurgitating bullshit. Yeah.
also you know how to like affect people with your words yeah you know how to express yourself in a dramatic way and you think you're gonna fucking get through this on top I'm an actor motherfucker Watch this. I'm going Shakespeare on you. You know what my favorite movie of yours is? What? No Country for Old Men. Why? Because it's so fucked up.
Because it's so fucked up. It's such a fucked up movie. Even the end, the end when it ends, you're like, what happened? That's the end? Yeah. It's like that guy, what's his name? Javier? What's his name? God. Damn, that guy was a good psycho. He was so good. God damn. That movie was so, it was just so unusual and intense. And there was no feeling, and people ask this all the time, there was no feeling that it was a special movie. Really? Yeah.
I told you I went back to Marfa, Texas for the first time in 18 years with Stapleton. And the guy running the bank is the first guy that Javier kills in the movie. This is the guy running the bank right now, Chip.
Wow. And I talked to Chip. I have a picture of me and Chip. And I talked to Chip and I said, I said, fuck, you're the first guy. You know, did you think that? And he said, no, that was a friend of a friend who said that they were auditioning people. And the reason I did it is because I figured. Nobody would ever see it. It seemed like a small. No, that's the proprietor. It's the first guy that Javier killed outside.
That was a good scene, though. What is that dude like in person, Javier? The best. The sweetest human being. One of my best friends. That's crazy. Yeah. that's inside of him that he can well that's the thing that's what makes him an artist yes yes because he's one of these guys that literally he was so depressed during that thing really oh my god dude
Because he didn't like doing it? No, he was like, look at my hair. What the fuck? You know what I mean? That's what depressed him. Look at him. Oh, my God. He played such a good psychopath. He wore SPF 100. He had an umbrella all the time to keep the sun off him. You see how pale he looks? Yeah. But yeah, that's the guy. The guy to the left. That's Chip.
Can you stand there for a second, please? So he was really depressed because of his hair? Yeah, and me and Woody would take him out. We would take him out to the Cowgirl, what was it called? Cowgirl Cafe. And we would have drinks with him. We would make him, because he would stay in his apartment with the drapes drawn and all this kind of shit. He just didn't want to go out. He said, I don't like violence. I don't drive. I don't know why they hired me.
Fuck did they hire me like why am I here? How did he pull that out? And I'm from Spain like this guy's not from Spain I remember when we worked, we sat in a trailer and he said, in that proprietor scene, he has this great line. He goes, call it.
He takes the coin and goes like that, and he says, call it. And the guy says, I don't want to call it. And he says, you have to call it. It's destiny calling for you. And we were in his trailer, and Javier says, how do you say it? And I said, call it. And Javier kept saying, call it. And I said, no, dude, call it. Can you hear it? What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss? Sir? The most you ever lost on a coin toss? I don't know. I couldn't say. Call it. Call it, yes. For what? Just call it.
We need to know what we're calling it for here. You need to call it. I can't call it for you. It wouldn't be fair. I didn't put nothing up. Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life. You just didn't know it. You know what date is on this coin? No. 1958. It's been traveling 22 years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say, call it. Look, I need to know what I stand to win. Everything. How's that? You stand to win everything, call it.
Heads there. Well done. Don't put it in your pocket, sir. Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter. Where do you want me to put it? Anywhere not in your pocket. Or to get mixed in with the others and become just a kind. Which it is. I mean if you look at that from a different perspective, you say that scene could have been the worst scene ever. It's because of the simplicity of the scene.
Plus the consequences. It's the pause. Loom in the air. It just hangs. And you know that this guy has some sort of weird morals. It's so good, man. Yeah, he's got some code that he lives by. And he's about to impose this code on this guy. And it has no problem putting that bolt through his brain. No problem. And the guy knows it. And he doesn't even know why he knows it. It's just something. He just knows it.
Yeah, and you sit there and you just kind of see it's a great scene man Yeah, how did you not know that movie was great while you were doing it because it was so we were just The Coen brothers are fucking amazing. They're amazing, but you were just having, they had done two movies that were sort of bigger than what they normally do. One was with Clooney and one was with Tom Hanks and it didn't work. Old Brother Harato? No, the fucking Old Brother Harato was amazing. I love that movie.
was Lady Killers and what was the one with Clooney? Well, there you go. Yeah. So you just had this feeling... They just went back to this simple like... Burn After Reading was after No Country, which was also really good. Super good. But yeah, they just kind of went back to this very kind of feral, you know.
base place and just said let's just tell this simple story and let's let it happen let's maybe i don't know i don't think they're like how did you not know why you were doing it though like it just didn't have amazing scenes it didn't have that vibe it was so simple wild it was so simple and and But then when you saw it, though. Into the wild. Dude, when I saw it with my kid.
which was probably super irresponsible. How old was your kid at the time? He was 16. He was like, that's on the cost. But I saw it with him in an editing room on a big screen. And we left and we got in the car and we didn't talk for 15 minutes. And that's never happened. Wow. Like literally not one word. Wow. And then I said, what do you think? And he goes, fuck.
Which is a great response. That's that movie. That is that movie. That movie is fun. You know, you want to tie it together too in the end and like a typical Hollywood ending and Javier and my character go head to head at the end and that doesn't happen. So you do something, which is how it was written in the book.
Cormac and I got to know Cormac really well you know I was with Cormac the night before he died oh no kidding wow so and I asked that guy could fucking write fuck dude some of the greatest writing American writing Yeah.
in the history of this country. There was something about his writing. It was like, Jesus Christ. That's another one of those guys, artists, where you go, I would ask him about his writing. He didn't want to talk about it, ever. And then finally he got mad at me one day and he was like, I don't fucking know, man. I just... sit down with the typewriter and it comes. Like, what do you want me to tell you? Wow. I was like, all right, man. Fucking 87 years old. Relax. But he could write.
I mean, he had some, he was tapped into, and talk about a guy who just like, you were like the muse, and do you have a special place, and do you have this thing that, no. Just sits down and writes.
the bed that he was on it was me his ex-wife his son and Cormac that last night wow always at the edge of his bed was that typewriter that he used for 25 30 years to write all those novels and then he had one before that that was exactly the same but that typewriter was on an old piece of wood at the foot of his bed wow and even at the end he would just grab that thing and wow
Get it out. It's cool. Yeah, there's rare humans like that that have that thing. Yeah. Yeah. They just tap into something. And they tap into it and they just keep going. They get on that path and they just keep going. It just keeps getting better. They just get better at it. We've talked about a series of very special people. What's the difference of what makes somebody that special, that iconic? Are they crazy? They're definitely different. They're different.
Yeah, I mean, it's a resistance to the norm. It's the acceptance of reality. It's a poetic understanding of our place in the universe. There's so many different things that are all sort of coalescing into this expression. They see through a different lens, though. They're just made up of a different cellular makeup. That's probably why he didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to...
Fuck it up. He didn't want to fuck it up. Yeah. He didn't want to mitigate it. He didn't want to lessen it. He didn't want to, what's the word? Make it pedestrian. Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. He didn't want to try. You know, sometimes magic is just. magic you don't want to like figure out what's how it's happening yeah just know that you can do it and just keep doing it exactly you know just be be a craftsman be a person who's like dedicated to this thing yeah you know
Yeah. He has to know. He had to know it was really good. I mean, enough people told him it was really good. Yeah, but if you have even a guy like that who wrote the first up until All the Pretty Horses, none of his books sold. That's pretty crazy like a thousand people bought it 1500 people bought it and then it was made into a movie
And then you go back and you're like, all these banned books that we know back in the day, 1984, George Orwell, Henry Miller, all these fucking people. People are like, ew. And then... You know, Van Gogh painting a painting and all those paintings being outside getting rained on. And now they're selling for $100 million. Yeah, all after he's dead. All after he's dead. Yeah. He never knew.
He sold one painting in his lifetime, so he never got to, not even a little bit, experience what, look at what you did. Right. Wow, man. Well, maybe that's why they're so good. Because it's like a purity of expression. Whether people paid attention or not, it's who they were. And they gave themselves to it a thousand percent. He's an artist. An artist. A real artist. Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks, dude. Thank you. It was a lot of fun. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate it. I'm going to read your book immediately. I would like you to. I will definitely. You're one guy I would really like for you to read. I'll get on it. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye, everybody. Bye.