The following is a conversation with Joe Rogan, his second time on the
podcast. He has inspired me for many years with his conversations to be a
better and kinder person and has now been doing so as a friend. There's no one
I would rather talk to on this 300th episode of this podcast on the 4th
of July, both the anniversary of this country's Declaration of Independence
and the anniversary of my immigrating here to the United States. A silly kid
who couldn't speak English, who could never imagine that he would be so damn
lucky as to live the life I've lived, and to feel the love I've felt from the
amazing people along the way. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I love you
all. This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Joe Rogan.
Charles Bukowski said something in a poem called Style About Art. He defined
art, saying, style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach adult
or dangerous thing. To do adult thing with style is preferable to doing a
dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I
call art. What do you think he meant by that? Do you agree with this? A dangerous
thing with style is art. He said both fighting can be art, boxing can be art,
loving can be art. Have you ever made love and it was art? No, okay, I'm not asking.
Every time, bro. Opening a can of sardines can be art. I think there's something to that.
Yeah, I think I think I call the way people live life art. Like I wrote a
forward to my friend Cameron Haynes's book and which is right now the number
one selling audio book in the world. And one of the things that I said was
that practice is an art that very few people appreciate and it's the art of
the maximized life and that the discipline that he displays in his
life and through his practices and all the things that he does, it's so difficult
to live the way he lives. That for someone like me who understands it and knows
what he's doing and appreciates it and appreciates how insanely difficult it
is to have a full-time job and run ultra marathons, get up at four o'clock in
the morning, run a full marathon before work. Like that's the kind of shit that
he does when he's training for these 240 mile runs all at the same
time being like a father, a husband, having this full-time job, also being the
best bow hunter on earth, lifting weights. It's like how does a person do
this? In a way discipline is art too. Yes, it
discipline is art. Yeah, I think it is because it's beautiful for me to see. When
I see someone who's really truly disciplined who like a David Goggins,
someone who just like truly maximizes the grind, I feel like there's an art to
that and there's an art to kindness. Like there's people that are
really kind and really sweet and when I'm around them it's beautiful. It's like
there's an art to them. No matter what. Yeah. They still, they got, you know, the
world can throw a bunch of shit at you but through all that. Some people are
just great at it. Yeah. And it's a thing that you learn how to do and it's
pleasing for other people to see and that I think is where the art is. Well, I
think Bukowski also said, and I'm just a Bukowski quote generator today. I love
him. I love him very much too. He's a dark and troubled and fascinating and a
weird person, like Hunter S. Thompson. Yeah. He said what matters most is how you
walk through the fire, I think. So there's a bit of the canhains in that too,
David Goggins in that too. What do you think he meant by that? Well, how you walk
through the fire, I mean you can walk through the fire complaining along the
way or you can walk through the fire and create an example for everyone else so
that the trials and tribulations of their own life seem trivial because
they're comparing themselves to the way you handle things or the way you handle
things with grace and dignity and discipline can show other people that
they can handle their own life this way. And there's beauty in that. There
really is. And there's so much inspiration to be gathered from other
people. If you're a charitable person, if you're charitable and compassionate
and you can look at people, even people that I don't like, I try to look at the
best aspects of how they live their life and recognize those aspects,
admire them, give them credit for it. There's something that we can all get
out of watching the way other people live their lives. So I got a chance to see you
walk through the fire a little bit privately and publicly this year in
January. I got to ask you about that. So there's like generic conversations about
sort of cancel culture and all those kinds of things. But as a human being,
this to me is fascinating. There's the N-word highlight video, there's
the criticism of the different guests, whatever the side is on the COVID pandemic.
And you... I mean, there's a mass amount of attack on you. Outside of being a
public persona, outside of being a comedian, podcast, you're also a human
being. So how did you survive that? How did you sort of walk through that fire?
Because you seemed to do it with grace. I used mushrooms. That was one way I did it.
Yeah, yeah. Really? What's your, as Andrew Huberman would say, what was your
protocol? I took, it was probably less than a gram every day. Every day. Yeah. And I
did a lot of like really hard working out. But also, I mean, there's a great
benefit to going through anything difficult. And if you're aware, like in
advance and during, like anything that's going to happen that's very
difficult and troubling, the great benefit is it gives you an opportunity to
grow. It gives you an opportunity to express yourself under pressure, to show
your character, to show who you truly are. And it gives you an opportunity to see
how you handle a very difficult situation. It also was fascinating as a person
that's involved in media, right? Because what we're doing right now is media, even
though, you know, it seems like podcasts seem like we're just having a conversation,
right? And they are. In that sense, it's kind of the purest form of media. Because
what you're doing is you're doing it without any fanfare. You're doing it
without any, there's no executives looming over your head or network or big
meetings about ratings or any of that stuff. But it is media. But what I got to
see is the wiring under the machine of how the rest of media would try to take
me out. And, you know, like when CNN would be just be playing things over and
over and back and forth. It was wild to watch. What was also wild to watch was
people's responses. Because I gained two million subscribers during that time.
Like the podcast never got bigger. It just kept growing. It had never been
bigger than it had been like at the end of all of it. It just made it bigger. And,
you know, ultimately, when, if you've fucked up in the past or made mistakes or
done something wrong, that gives you an opportunity to discuss those things and
to say, to apologize if you feel the need to apologize. And also to just address
it. And so people under that kind of pressure, they get it, it's an opportunity
for them to understand how you think about things. Honestly, how you actually
honestly think about things. And there's no more honesty that you get out of a
person than when that person is under extreme duress. You know, so I think in
that sense, I mean, it's horrible to say that it's a benefit, that it's a good
thing that it happened. But it was a benefit.
Can you see how it can break a person?
Yes.
I've gotten a chance to experience small, small attacks here and there.
Ones that get to the core of things, like even just talking to, about Russia and
Ukraine, to Stephen Cawkin or Oliver Stone, looking at different perspectives,
you gain a relative, for me, feeling like a sizable number of people who really
don't like you. And say things about you that are, that may be cut deep for a
reason I don't understand why. It's just my own psychology.
Well, it's also because you can't defend yourself, because they're saying it and
you're not there. And you, you don't have any opportunity for a rebuttal. And if
you do have a rebuttal, you're doing it publicly and you're opening it up to the
whole world to chime in. And there's a general tendency that people have towards
negativity when they're interacting with strangers online, especially about
controversial subjects. And even if it's only 10% of the people, it's one out of
10. That's a lot. That's a lot of negativity when you're dealing with
thousands and thousands of tweets. Yeah. And I think maybe I'm just a very
self-critical person, but I hear their words and I probably, somewhere deep
inside, see the truth and the criticism in some aspect of the criticism. And
that's why it hurts. Well, it's, but it's one aspect of you. Right. You know, but
when you're reading it, it's so, it's boiled down to this one thing, as if
that one thing defines you totally. Like if you've made a mistake, if you've said
something that you shouldn't have said, or if you said something and, you know,
maybe you should have considered it more carefully, giving the gravity of the
situation, you know, that's just a part of being a person. And it's also part of
being a person where you're communicating with things publicly in real time,
thinking out loud, which is what we do. You know, it's complex and most people
don't do it. And you're gonna have these, you're gonna have genuine hot takes
where people just see what you said and go, why did he say that? Fuck him. You
know, he doesn't know anything about, he doesn't live in Ukraine. He, you know,
it's like there's, there's people that are gonna have takes on that, that way. And
then there's also gonna be these disingenuous people who just use any
kind of controversial topic or subject as an opportunity for them to get clicks
or views. But that, the number of those people can be quite large. Quite large.
And so, going back to, do you think it can destroy a person? Because I kind of
worry about this, and you're, in many ways, but in this way, an inspiration, that
it didn't seem to have destroyed you. But is it? I kept doing shows. I kept doing
stand-up. I'd ignored everything. I didn't read any of it. It's, so it is possible
to just 100%. Yes. Yeah. I ignored it all. But you have, I knew it was there. Like
your family didn't bring it up. My family was very aware of it. My wife was
aware of it. It was a conversation like, if, if your wife is aware of it, is there
like a rule? Don't pretend it's not happening. No. Just like, well, I don't, I
tell her, don't ever read. Pass the green beans. Yeah. I don't ever let her like
read negative articles to me. You know, I don't want them. I don't care. I go,
that's a person's opinion. You take a person's opinion, you write it down. It
doesn't give it any more relevance. Like, that person, you know, could have had that
opinion in silence. They could have had it with some friends at dinner. They don't
like me, whatever. I don't want to read it. I don't want to absorb it. I don't even
know them, especially if I'm not there. And especially if it's some biased and
it's, it's not an objective opinion of me. It's this, you know, they have a
narrative and they want to stick to that narrative and they want to write an
article and they piece it all together, make you a piece of shit. And that's
their prerogative. They're completely out to do that. But I know, I shouldn't
absorb that. I shouldn't take that in. You're not supposed to be taking in the
opinion of the world. Yeah. You're supposed to be taking in the opinion of
small groups of people that you encounter so that you get an understanding of how
you make them feel. And then maybe you say to yourself, maybe I come across too
rude, or maybe I come across too insensitive, or maybe, maybe I could do
better in this way or that way. That's how we sort of shape our personalities. And
that's how we, we develop our social skills. But when the people don't know
you, and they have this like distorted narrative of you, and you know, there's
fucking millions of people. There's so many people. You can't be saying. I think there's
billions now actually. I mean, millions of people that are like communicating
about something. Like during the height of the, you know, the attempt to cancel me
or whatever that is. I don't know how many people were involved in that. People
take this kind of stuff seriously, but the problem is the false narratives take
hold and then you have meetings, you have groups, you have, it builds on top of
each other. And there's this outrage. And then it reaches you at some point. And it
can just have these destructive effects. It does.
It can. But it also sometimes doesn't. And in my case, it didn't. It didn't work.
What lessons did you draw from that? Mushrooms, exercise?
Mushrooms and exercise. Exercise is critical. I don't think the mushrooms by
themselves would have worked. But that's the thing that I use for everything is
the brutal exercise. Like my exercise routines are horrible. And because of
that, everything else is easier. I create my own bullshit and my own bullshit is
so much harder. And it's not just that. It's also sauna and cold plunge and
these torture sessions. They, in enduring those, when you endure those, it makes
enduring other things much easier. And it's also an understanding of what's
happening. Like you have to know media. You have to understand what the
hot take, YouTube, social media, podcast, ecosphere is doing. If they're
talking about, Lex Friedman said this, and we have to comment on that. And Lex
gets canceled in all capital letters on a YouTube clip. And if you watch that,
you're fucking crazy. What are you doing? Absorbing all this negativity? It's not
good for you. You are you. You know you. And you know, generally, if you've made a
mistake and you know, generally, if people are upset with you.
You posted this awesome video on your Instagram of a woman who was being
interviewed in late 1920s, maybe. Yes, yeah.
And she's close to 100 years old. So she's lived through the Civil War,
through World War I. She was at the time living through the early days of the
Great Depression. So I was just looking back, you know, what have we as a human
civilization in recent times survived, especially in the United States?
You're talking about the two world wars in the 20th century, the Great
Depression, the Spanish food, the pandemic at the beginning of the 20th
century. Yeah. What do we do in the United States?
9-11, if you think of what are the traumatic events that shook our world?
It's 9-11. It made us rethink our place in the world.
The pandemic? Pandemic is a huge one.
It's one of the bigger ones because it also accelerated and exacerbated our
anxiety, which people have a certain level of anxiety already,
especially sedentary people. They have a very high level of anxiety already
because I don't think they're giving their body what it needs. I don't
think their, you know, your body has certain requirements in terms of
movement. And when you deny your body those requirements, I think there's like
a general level of anxiety that exists in almost everyone.
And then you have people, obviously, that have mental health issues.
And that also exacerbates the anxiety. The lockdown exacerbated the anxiety.
Losing loved ones to the pandemic exacerbated anxiety. And then there was
the division, the different schools of thought, the people that were never
going to get vaccinated, no matter what. I ain't trusting it.
People that thought there was microchips in there, people that thought that,
you know, Fauci's the daemon. And there's also like political
leanings. The right-wing people tended to not want to be vaccinated.
Whereas the left-wing people, for whatever reason, all of a sudden are trusting
pharmaceutical companies like explicitly. It was weird. It was a weird time.
And I think over time, as it gets analyzed and we break it down, it's
going to be one of the weirder moments for shaping human culture.
And unfortunately, for throwing gasoline on this already burning fire of, you know,
of conflict between the various factions of thought in this country.
It's already a weird time post-Trump. The Trump era is also going to be
one of the weirder times when people look back historically about the division
in this country. He's such a polarizing figure that so many people felt like
they could abandon their own ethics and morals and principles just to attack
him and anybody who supports him because he is an existential threat to democracy itself.
But don't you think it's not a cause, but maybe like a symptom? Like it's going to get,
you said it got real weird. Maybe it's going to get weirder.
Yeah, I think it's going to get weirder. He's going to run again.
You think he wins?
Well, he's running against a dead man. You know, I mean,
Biden shakes hands with people that aren't even there when he gets off stage.
I think he's seeing ghosts. You see him on Jimmy Kimmel the other day?
No.
Well, he was just rambling. I mean, if he was anyone else, if he was a Republican,
if that was Donald Trump doing that, every fucking talk show would be screaming for him
to be off the air. And by the way, I'm not a Trump supporter in any way, shape, or form.
I've had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once. I've said no every time.
I don't want to help him. I'm not interested in helping.
The night is still young. We'll see.
If I have him on, the night is still young. You think I'll have him on?
I think you'll have him on.
Really? Why do you think that? Because you'll have Putin on?
And you're competitive as fuck. No.
I think ultimately, I mean, you've had a lot of people that I think you may otherwise be
skeptical, would I have a good conversation, which I think is your metric. You don't care
about politics. So can I have a good conversation? And I think you had people like Kanye on,
for example, and you had a great conversation with them. I think you, I think...
Yeah, but Kanye is an artist. But Kanye doing well or not doing well doesn't change the course
of our country. Yeah, but do you really bear the responsibility of the course of our country
based on a conversation? I think you can revitalize and rehabilitate someone's
image in a way that is pretty shocking. Look at the way people look at Alex Jones now,
because Alex Jones has been on my podcast a few times.
Yeah, which direction?
The people that have watched those podcasts think he's hilarious. And they think that he
definitely fucked up with that whole Sandy Hook thing. But he's right more than he's wrong.
And he's not an evil guy. He's just a guy who's had some psychotic breaks in his life.
He's had some genuine mental health issues that he's addressed. He's had some serious
bouts of alcoholism, some serious bouts of substance abuse, and they've contributed
to some very poor thinking. But if you know the guy, if you get to know him like I have,
I've known him for more than 20 years. And if you know him on podcasts, you realize he is
genuinely trying to unearth some things that are genuinely disturbing for most people.
Like, this is a guy that was telling me about Epstein's Island fucking decade ago, at least.
He was telling me about it. I was like, what? You're telling me there's a place where they
bring elites to compromise them with underage girls and they film them. Really? Like, what?
Cut the fuck out here. Like, no, President Clinton's been there. Everyone's been there.
Like, what? It sounds like nonsense. And not only is it true, but people keep getting fucking
murdered for it. Did you see that latest Clinton advisor that got murdered about it?
Yep. Yeah. Hung with an extension cord, shot himself in the chest, 30 miles from his house,
and they're calling it a suicide. And now even Elon Musk is asking, where's the clientele list?
Yeah. We should probably see who's been to that island.
Yeah, we should probably see who's been to that island. And there's probably more of those kind
of things out there that haven't been exposed. Yeah, but sort of to push back,
you had those conversations with Alex Jones. Wouldn't you be able to have the same kind of
conversation with Donald Trump? That's the problem.
No, it's not the problem. You revealed that Alex Jones is a human being. He's fucked up.
He has demons in his head. He's obviously chaotic all over the place, but there's some
wisdom to the perspective he takes on the world, even though he is often full of shit.
He is able to predict certain things and very few people are willing to bring up.
So isn't Trump the same way? Fucked up person, ego maniac, whatever personality things you can
talk about. Isn't it worthwhile to lay it out? Like who's going to, if you listen to interviews
of Trump, who has the balls to call him out on his bullshit? Chris Walls did. No, calling out
somebody on their bullshit is easy when you're just being adversarial. But as a person who is
genuinely empathetically trying to understand, I think you're really good at that. Like you pulled
him in. I don't know if he would genuinely be there. You know what I'm saying? Like I think
he would be putting on a performance and that's... You don't think he can break through that in
like 30 minutes? I'd need more time than that. And he doesn't do any drugs. That's the thing about
Alex. You can get Alex high, get him drunk and he'll start talking about interdimensional child
molesters. And then you get to real Alex. Maybe you have somebody else on as well to
introduce chaos like Alex. No, no, no, no. They have to be one of them. I would have to be just
me and him. That would be a focused thing. I would have to really take time with Trump.
But also, I'm not well-versed enough politically to know all of the corruption that's been alleged
and to understand what the whole Russiagate stuff, what's real. Like how much of it,
it's clear that there is more than one organization that's involved in communicating with Russia
before the 2016 election. So it's pretty clear that the Clinton administration was involved.
It's pretty clear that the Trump administration had some communication with some people in Russia.
It's pretty clear that Hunter Biden had some very suspicious dealings in Ukraine. And
there's a lot going on there, man. And it's hard for anybody to parse. It's really hard for anybody
and especially to have an objective assessment of exactly what's going on and then to be able to
and then to be able to do that and broadcast it publicly. That's quite a project. And I think
if you really want to do that correctly, it's something that I would have to research for a
long time and to really, really, and I don't have that kind of time.
Not for, maybe for certain people that you're really curious about. Like you have that kind
of time for Bob Lazar. Yes, yes. But maybe not for Donald Trump. No, that's different. Because
Bob Lazar, what he's talking about, I wanted to know, with the Bob Lazar thing,
I wanted to know, first of all, I want to be around him and see if I could smell bullshit.
Did you? Okay. No, I didn't, man. That was what's weird about it.
Not only did I not smell bullshit, I went over all of his interviews. He hasn't done a lot,
but he's done enough. And he's done them over the course of 30 plus years. And
it's alarming how consistent his story is, which is really weird when you think about,
you're talking about back-engineering alien crafts and working on a top-secret government test site
that's carved into the side of a mountain to camouflage it from satellites. It's such a
wacky story. But the guy really did work at Los Alamos Labs. He really is a propulsion expert.
He really is a scientist. Did he really work on back-engineering UFOs? I don't know. But the
way he described their motion is exactly like what's been observed by some of these pilots
that have these videos that they've captured. And I just love that, like, NASA, I've been
hearing from a bunch of folks who are legitimately funding research and there's people really
taking the seriously of UFO sightings, investigating them, adding more and more sensors to collect data
from just observing higher definitions. It's cool to finally see that. And he was one of the early
people, whether he's full of shit or not, that forced people to start taking these topics seriously.
Or at least forced people to have conversations about them and maybe attempt to debunk them
because it seems so preposterous, but then get sucked down the rabbit hole and start going,
hmm, maybe. We'll fucking... It's the thing is like the Fermi paradox, like where are they, right?
And when you take into account just the sheer raw numbers, the vast majority of people objectively
assume that there is life out there. The vast majority. Well, if you're really taking into account
what we understand about the universe itself, what we understand about the concept of infinity,
and the way Neil deGrasse Tyson has explained it to me, is that not only are there life forms
out there, but there's you. You are out there. Infinity is so large that Lex Friedman exists
and doesn't just exist, but exists an infinite number of times, like the amount of interactions
that cells and molecules, the same exact interactions that have happened here on Earth
have happened in the exact same order, an infinite number of times in the cosmos.
Well, first of all, it's not certain that that's true. It's possible.
It's possible.
Like Sean Carroll, especially with quantum mechanics, based on certain interpretation
of quantum mechanics, that's very possible. But the question is, can you access those universes?
Right. How far away are they?
The more sort of specific practical question is, this local pocket of the universe, our galaxy,
or our neighboring galaxies, are there aliens there? What do they look like?
So you can have this panspermia idea where a much larger, like daddy civilization,
like rolled by and just planted a few aliens at a similar time.
Like Prometheus.
Yes. Different throughout the galaxy. And those are the ones we might be interacting with.
They're all kind of dumb as we are, relatively, maybe a few million years apart.
And then those are the ones we're interacting with. And then we have a chance to actually
connect with them and communicate with them. Or it could be like much more wide open and you have
these gigantic alien civilizations that are expanding very, very quickly. And the interesting
thing is when you look up at the sky and you see the stars, that's light from those stars.
We might not be seeing the alien civilizations until they're already here. Meaning like you
start expanding, once you get really good at expanding, you're going to be expanding very
close to the speed of light. So right now we don't see much in the sky, but there could be one
day we wake up and it's just like everywhere and they're here.
Right. Because the amount of time the light takes to reach us.
Yeah. And then the thing that I've been really fascinated by is these
alternative forms of transportation that they're discussing. Like the ability to
harness wormholes and the ability to do things that a type three civilization is capable of.
I had Michio Kaku on my podcast recently. Fantastic. Love that guy. He's so good at taking
extremely complex concepts and boiling them down for digestion and saying them in a way
that other people can appreciate. And not being hesitant about saying wild, crazy shit that's
out there, but grounded in what's actually possible. Yeah. He's all in on this UFO phenomenon now.
He's like, now the burden of proof is for people to come up with some sort of a conventional
explanation for these things. He goes, because these things are defying all the concepts of
physics that we currently know in terms of what our capabilities are and propulsion systems and
so many other things that what we know about, what current science is capable of reproducing,
as far as what we know. The problem is like these military projects that are top secret.
How much money do they have? They have a lot of money. But is it possible, and maybe you
could speak to this, is it possible that there could be some propulsion systems that have been
developed and implemented that are far beyond just the simple burning of rocket fuel, pushing the
fire out the back, which forces the rocket at extreme speeds forward, that's something that does
harness gravity, something that can distort space and time and can make travel from one
point to another preposterously fast? Well, not only is it possible, I think
it's likely that that kind of stuff would be kept a secret. Yeah. It's just everything you see
about the way either if it's contractors like Lockheed Martin or if it's DoD, the actual
departments of defense, they operate in complete secrecy. Just even looking at the history of the
stealth fighter, just even stealth technology was kept a secret for a very, very long time.
Not until you're ready to use it and need to use it, does it become public? Not officially public,
it just is being detected out in the wild. So there's going to be a process where you're secretly
testing it, and that might creep up, which is maybe what we're seeing. And then it's waiting for the
next big war, the next big reason to use the thing. Yeah. And so yeah, there's definitely
technologies now. There might not be propulsion technologies, there could be AI surveillance
technologies, there could be different kinds of stealth drones, there could be, it could be also
in cyberspace like cyber war weapons, all that kind of stuff that they're obviously going to
become a secret. I'm very skeptical lately. And the reason why I'm skeptical is the government
keeps talking about it. The Pentagon keeps talking about it, NASA keeps talking about it.
In which direction are you skeptical? I'm skeptical that it's their aliens. I think
most likely it's a smoke screen. And most likely these are some sort of like incredibly advanced
drones that they've developed that they want to pretend don't exist. That seems the more likely
scenario because otherwise, what it might take is like, what's the benefit of them discussing
these things? What's the benefit of them discussing these things openly? The way they
described it, off world crafts, not made from this earth. Why? Why would they tell us that?
I mean, unless there's an imminent danger of us being invaded and they want to prepare people
so they don't freak out as much, like maybe freak them out a little bit, say that publicly,
the New York Times article, the Pentagon discussing it, all these different things.
Test the waters. Yeah. Well, let people know that this is a thing. Or my take is like that. I
don't think they do that. I don't think they tell us. I think the government has a lot of
contempt for the citizens. I really do. I think they have contempt for our intelligence. They
have contempt for our need to know things. And I also think they think that they are running us.
It's not we're all in this together and the government works for the people and the government
is of the people. I don't think they think that way. Yeah. The basic idea is you can't trust
the populace, the government itself, because we're a bunch of idiots. I think that's accurate.
Well, they're not wrong, but they're also idiots, power hungry idiots. Yeah. I don't think
everyone's an idiot, but I think there are enough idiots that it becomes a real problem
if you're completely honest about everything you do. And you don't want to let everybody
weigh in about things that are incredibly complex and that most people are ignorant of.
And on top of that, there's this machine of intelligence that I've recently been reading
a lot about the KGB, about the FSB. So several things sparked my curiosity. So one, I'm traveling
to Ukraine and to Moscow. And because of that, I started to sort of ask practical questions
of myself, just traveling, all those kinds of things. So I started reading a lot about the KGB,
Jack Barsky as a book on this, I talked to him. And you start to realize, you probably looked
into some of this, but you just start to realize the scale of surveillance and manipulation.
Now, a lot of them also talk about the incompetence of those organizations,
the usual bureaucracy creeps in. But the point is, it seems like there's no
line they're not willing to cross for the purpose of gathering intelligence,
for the purpose of controlling people in order to gather intelligence. Now, this is MI6,
FSB, there's not much information about the FSB or the GRU, but the KGB. So we're always like 20
years behind or more on the actual information. And so I started to wonder, so I have not
officially been contacted by any intelligence agency. But I started to wonder, well,
is there somebody I know that's doing that undercover CIA or undercover FSB undercover
anything? You probably do. Have you asked yourself this question? Yeah, for sure. Yeah,
people that have been on my podcast. Yeah, for sure. Do you think there was actually
a guess that may have been 100%? I would imagine. Would you know? I have suspicions.
Do you care? Is this... I mean, it depends on what they're attempting to do, right? Like,
if I felt like there was some deception involved, and they were trying to use the podcast to
manipulate a narrative in a deceptive way to trick people into things, yeah, I would care.
But this is exactly what... Those are the kind of things they do. They do plant narratives.
Yeah. I mean, I would imagine if you have the number one podcast in the world that people
would want to infiltrate that. Yeah, there's probably meetings in all major intelligence
agencies about, okay, what are the large platforms? How do we spread the message?
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing that really emerged when we're talking about
during my cancellation that there's a clear... There's no objective analysis of this in mainstream
media. There's clear narratives that they're trying to push forward to, whether it's to
promote certain ideas or to diminish the power and reach of people who are mavericks
or people who are connected to a system that you can't compromise. That's where it gets
dangerous, right? Where it gets dangerous is when someone has the largest reach,
but is also completely detached and clearly is independent in the sense of independent thinking
has on whoever he wants. But your mind can still be manipulated.
I guess I can. I mean, I guess everybody can be manipulated a certain way,
but I manipulate my own mind, I'm sure too. But I also spend a lot of time thinking about what I
think. I don't just accept things. Like the UFO thing, I was all in for a while and now I'm like,
man, something smells fishy. And then I'm thinking, here's my problem with the UFO thing. I want it
to be real so bad. That's my problem with it. I'm such a sucker. I want it to be real so bad.
And that's a problem for me because I'm aware of it. And so then I stop and think about,
like what is my desire for UFO truth to be exposed? Well, it's because it's fun.
That's what it is. So I have a desire for it to be real.
And I mean, I've talked to a bunch of folks about this. So those with connection with DOD, and
they do draw lines between people that are full of shit and people who are not.
There's a lot of people in the public sphere that they say are full of shit.
Yeah, for sure.
And then you have to kind of tell the difference.
Yeah, CNN. Watch them talk.
Well, I mean, you know what I mean. Everybody knows.
It's on the UFO topic. There's certain individuals that are like, okay, they're just like using this.
In fact, people who are not full of shit are often very quiet,
which is why even Bob Lazar is an interesting story because he was trying to be quiet for the
longest time. Well, he was worried about his own life according to Bob. And that's why he went
public with it. And initially, the first videos he did with George Knapp, they hit his identity.
Yeah. And then he felt like that wasn't enough. And he really needed to expose his own identity
just to protect his life, which is a great story. So you got to go, well, that seems so juicy.
I want to buy into it. And that's where I get nervous.
You don't know. You don't know who to trust in this world.
Exactly.
How do you figure that out? How do you figure out who to trust in your life?
You're Joe Rogan. A lot of people want to be close to you. CIA agents, FSB agents,
people that want it. I'm friends with a former CIA agent,
Mike Baker, who's been on my podcast a bunch of times.
Allegedly former.
Former.
Think about that.
He's air quotes, former. Yeah.
Yeah, I don't believe he's former. His problem sure has some connection to him.
I also believe he's a good guy. But I gain a lot of very intelligent and well-informed insights
from him as to how things work. And I think, yeah, I'm sure he doesn't tell me everything
about everything, but he's told me enough where I think I can understand things better
from talking to him about how the way the elves work under the machine.
What about friends? How do you know if you can trust?
Well, most of my friends are old friends.
Time. So time is the thing. Yeah.
Like just going through shit together.
Yeah. And also people that, first of all, comics.
You can trust comics?
Yeah. Comics are pretty trustworthy. The good ones, the really good ones.
There's not that many of us.
If there's a thousand professional comics on earth, I'd be stunned. I'd be stunned.
I don't even think there's a thousand, like real professionals who you get booked all the time,
headline weekends at clubs and theaters and arenas. And then there's levels to that, right?
There's like the guys who are middle acts who kind of like barely scrape by,
and then like how many headliners are there? How many like really funny headliners that I would
say, you know, if you lex, you tell me you're going to be in Cincinnati.
Hey, this person's playing at this club. Should I go see them?
I'd be like, ah, you know, like how many people would I give the recommendation to?
And then how many people sell out theaters? How many people sell out arenas?
How many people? There's not that fucking many.
So those people at the levels of comedy where you've been doing stand-up for 20 years,
there's a certain amount of honesty and a certain amount of understanding of each other that we
all have. Oh, so that process of becoming a great comic is like humbling in a way like
Jiu Jitsu is humbling. Very similar.
Like you've taken so much shit that somehow, even if you're insane, even if you're chaotic,
even in the way, even if you're full of shit, you lie a lot, all those kinds of things,
underneath it, there's a good human. You could be surface bullshitter,
but on important things, you're trustworthy.
Hopefully. I mean, if you're not, then people shy away from you. And there are people like that,
too, that are really successful, but that are, that are what I call islands.
I've talked to other comics about that, like you don't want to be an island,
because there's these people that aren't attached to the rest of the community,
and they're doing well on their own. And usually they have like one opening act,
they bring with them on the road, they've worked with forever, and they don't have comedy friends.
And they're, those people are miserable because they can't relate.
Sometimes fame in itself is isolating.
Very. So you have to actually do a lot of work and make sure you don't, it doesn't isolate you.
Yes. Because if you become successful, people start wanting stuff from you.
Yes.
And then sometimes you want to push them away because of that,
as opposed to connect with them.
Yeah. I don't enjoy it when people want things from me. It's not fun.
Do you just ignore it?
Yeah. It's fucking too heavy. They want too much. And it's too much of a disproportionate
relationship. You know, it's too unbalanced because there are people where you could tell
that they're working towards something. They're working towards an angle.
And they want to be close to you because you will benefit them.
And then there's other people that are just, there's not that many of us.
And so we all want to hang out together.
Like when I, one of the podcasts I love the most is this podcast I do called Protect Our Parks.
It's a thing I do with Ari Shafir, Shane Gillis, and Mark Northern.
That's great.
It's so fun because we just get obliterated and we talk so much shit.
Like there's conversations after that podcast where I go,
hey man, we got to cut that part out.
Yeah.
Because like Shane will go too far or go too crazy,
but we're just making each other laugh and it's just fun.
And it's like that kind of camaraderie between real comics is very precious to me.
My favorite part of that is like the non sequitur stuff from Mark Norman.
And you guys get so trashed that you don't even understand what the hell he's talking about.
But it's funny to the listener because he's still on point.
That guy is sharp.
He's so good.
He's got that Mitch Hedberg quality.
Yes.
Well, he's such a dedicated comic.
You know, he loves comedy so much.
That's one of the things I love about him.
He's like comedy.
He gets excited.
Like he loves it.
It's as does Shane and as does Ari.
Yeah.
You know, they really love it.
And it's, that's so, so there's that.
Like I have friends in that way and I have martial arts friends who are some of the,
also the thing about being humbled, how things like Jiu Jitsu will humble you.
Martial arts friends are, they're also, they know, they know who's been through it.
You know, they know who's, who really has gone through the gauntlet and emerged on
the other end a better person.
Well, you said there's very few of us.
Let's have the goat discussion.
You're not going to pick anybody, but who are the greats of comedy?
Who's, who's the, who's the, who's the greatest comic of all time?
Well, I don't think there is a greatest comic of all time.
Is it Norm MacDonald?
Norm MacDonald was one of the greats for sure.
Well, by the way, actually on that topic, what, what do you think about is,
I think as a person who was fascinated by the fear of death and death,
I think it was a truly genius thing to release a special after you're dead.
I don't know how that worked.
I haven't seen the special of you.
It's not, yeah, it's, it's, um, it's called, I think nothing special.
Which sounds like something Norm would say.
And it's basically him in front of, I mean, I, I imagine he wouldn't want to have
wanted it edited that way because it's made to look nicer than I think he probably would have
preferred it.
But it's him in front of the screen, like on a zoom call, doing jokes without that cold.
Really?
Yeah.
And somehow given his like dry, dark humor, it works because it's almost making fun of itself.
Almost making fun of that whole that we were stuck, stuck alone inside and because he's
still acting as if he's in front of the audience.
And it's almost making fun of the fact that this is what we're forced to do.
I mean, it's quite genius.
It's really well done.
The jokes are really good, but it also makes you realize how important laughter is from
the audience, the energy from the audience because, uh, but there's also an intimacy
because it's just you and him because you're listening into it.
You know, there's no audience.
So that's, I don't know.
It's, I think it's quite genius and he's, of course, there's, there's certain comics
that are like, not only are they funny, but they're truly unique.
And like they're, they're, they're not in terms of friendship and all that kind of
stuff, but in terms of comedy, they're an island.
Yeah.
It's like they, you know, Mitch Hedberg probably is that, of course, a lot of people
then start to imitate them and so on, but Stephen Wright.
Stephen Wright.
Yeah.
I mean, there's like people who are like, you know, Dave Chappelle, who's like probably
one of the greats, but he's just like raw funny.
Yeah.
I don't know if he's an island.
He's just raw.
Yeah.
I know what you're saying.
An outlier, a unique individual.
Yeah.
He's just great.
Um, Norm was definitely unique in his greatness.
Like, like there's only one Norm, you know, who's got a very specific style.
Is there a reason you guys weren't, it doesn't seem like he was, you guys were close.
I mean, I loved him.
He was great.
I always enjoyed talking to him.
Um, we just didn't work together that often.
We weren't around each other that often.
That's all it was, but it wasn't like, uh, it was, I loved him though.
He was a great guy.
I had a funny story about it.
Norm, uh, twice, just randomly, I was on airplanes next to him seated right next to him.
Just totally random.
Yeah.
And, uh, one time we're on this, uh, airplane and we're having this talk and I was like,
yeah, I quit smoking.
Uh, it was a smoking a lot and they're just terrible, terrible smokers, terrible for you.
And we have this great conversation.
We get off the plane and he sprints towards a store and buys cigarettes like in the airport
and is lighting it on the way out the door and I go, I thought you quit smoking.
I was, yeah, I did, but all that talking about smoking made me want to smoke again.
So before he's getting through the door of the airport, he's lighting it up.
I can't wait.
He can't wait to get that cigarette at him.
It was, he was just so crazy and impulsive and loved to gamble, loved gambling.
And in that way, he embodied the joke.
Like you can't even tell that certain people just like live in a non sequitur,
ridiculous, absurd, funny way.
Yeah, that was him.
Non-stop.
There was nothing artificial about Norm.
That was who he was.
His brilliance was his essence.
That was who he was.
But in terms of like the greats, the godfather of it all is Lenny Bruce.
I mean, I have a bunch of Lenny Bruce concert posters at my house and photos that I have framed
and Whitney Cummings actually gave me this brilliant photo of him when he got arrested
for one of the times when he got arrested for saying obscene jokes.
He was the most important figure in the early days of comedy because he essentially gave birth
through the modern art form of stand-up comedy.
Before that, it was a bunch of guys that were like hosting shows and they would tell jokes.
They would just like, you know, two guys walking to a bar, that kind of stuff.
And he would talk about social issues.
You know, he would talk about life.
He would talk about language.
He would talk about laws.
And it was just, he was the very first guy who did modern stand-up.
And what's fascinating is if you go and you try to watch it,
if you try to watch Lenny Bruce today, it doesn't work because society has evolved.
Like in many ways, art is a window, especially like pop culture art or modern,
you know, at the time, culture art, art that discusses culture is a window into that time period.
It's a little bit of a time machine.
So you get to like, you have to put yourself like, what was it like to be in 1963?
Like, in 1963, what was this like to hear him say this? And the civilization that existed
in 1963, although it looked pretty similar, they're all driving cars and they're all wearing suits
and they're all, the old team's normal, it's a different world.
And the things that he was saying that are so taboo are so normal today that they're not
shocking and it's not that good.
It's not that funny.
Yeah, you have to do the same kind of stuff for like, there's a DH Lawrence,
there's a book called Lady, Shadowy's Lover, and I know it sounds ridiculous,
but it was one of the early books, I believe it over a century ago,
that was very controversial for its sexual content.
It's sort of one of the great books because it dared to actually talk about a woman cheating on
her husband and like, and do so in the highest form.
And the same thing with Gulag Archipelago, talking about some of the darkest aspects
of human history right when all of that stuff is forbidden, when it's banned.
Because now it's like, yes, we all know this history, but in the middle of it,
when you're risking your own life, when you're risking your book being banned or burned or
you being imprisoned, that's what it matters, like taking that risk.
Yeah, and no one took that risk more than Lenny Bruce.
Lenny Bruce was arrested many, many times, and ultimately, he wound up costing him his life.
I mean, he died on the bathroom floor shooting heroin and trying to cope with all the lawsuits
that he was going through. I mean, this guy was constantly being arrested and constantly
going through lawsuits, and then his comedy deteriorated horribly.
There's some footage of him towards the end of his career,
where he essentially would go on stage with legal papers and read from the legal papers about his case.
From then, it's Richard Pryor. From him, then the next great is Richard Pryor,
and he had the most profound impact on me when I was a kid.
When I was 15 years old, my parents took me to see Live at the Sunset Strip,
which is Richard Pryor's concert film. And I remember very distinctly being in that audience
and laughing and looking around at all the people in the audience who were falling out of their chairs,
just dying, laughing, just swaying back and forth. And I was laughing hard, too.
And I was like, my God, this guy's doing this just by talking.
And I thought of all the great movies that I'd seen that I love that were hilarious comedy movies.
And I was like, nothing that I've ever seen is as funny as this.
And all he's doing is talking. And that planted a seed in my head for my love of stand-up comedy
and my curiosity about the art form. And that's what got me interested in watching on television
and then ultimately going to open mic nights and then eventually doing it.
I've actually been going to open mics a lot recently, just listening.
For psychological examinations of people.
No, it's actually really inspiring to me to see people that some are funny, some are not so funny,
unapologetically trying, putting it all out there night after night, eating shit.
My favorite is when you're talking about five people in the audience
and the jokes are just not landing. And they still, I don't know,
it feels like even just empathetically, there's few things as difficult as that.
It's hard. I still remember those days. Many comics will say this, and I think
Dan Cook was the first person I heard say it publicly, that if he ever had to go back and
do it again, like from scratch, doesn't think he could do it, doesn't think he could endure the
struggle of open mic to ultimately to success. And the numbers of people that try it and fail
versus try and succeed are off the charts. I don't know if there's any other art form that
has such a low rate of success. Because it's psychological, it's torture.
It is torture, and it's also not something you can learn.
Like here's the thing, if you play guitar, you can learn to play guitar.
Someone can teach you the chords, and if you do it, you could do all along the watch tower,
you could play it. You can't teach someone how to do comedy.
You think it's your funny or not? Or can you still figure it out? Like can you still learn?
You can figure it out, yeah. Can you start being unfunny and become funny?
Yes, it's possible. It's not easy though.
You're going to have to eat a lot of shit.
You're going to have to eat a lot of shit, and you're going to have to examine why you're not
funny, and you're going to have to spend a lot of time with uncomfortable thoughts and try to
figure out what it is. Like what's missing? Like could you edit your stuff and make it better?
Maybe you need to do drugs. Maybe you need to get involved in psychedelic drugs and rethink
the way you interface with reality itself. Maybe you need your heart broken.
Maybe you need to be in love. Maybe there's a lot of maybe's there.
Like maybe you just need more life experience. But you know, when I started comedy, I was 21
and I was a moron. I had no information. I could do impressions of people and I could talk about
sex. Those are the things that I was interested in back then. I mean, if I was talking philosophically,
I didn't have a philosophy. I didn't have a unique perspective on life. I hadn't experienced much.
So every time you bomb, it forces you to introspect, to ask questions to yourself,
and then that's how you actually develop a philosophy of what you actually believe.
You learn through doing. And I think you could say that about podcasting too.
You know, I'm certainly way better at having conversations than I ever was when I first started
doing comedy or excuse me, when I first started doing podcasts. You should stick with a kid because
one day you'll be able to interview Donald Trump. You'd be mad enough to handle that conversation.
How hard is it to do? Because I've been really curious that it's been on my bucket list because
I'm terrified. I want to do everything I'm terrified of. Do you guys just stand up?
No, but I do want to do like one five minute like open mic.
Why don't you do Kill Tony? How hard is it to do five minutes, would you say?
It's hard. Well, it depends on, you know, how long you've been thinking about doing comedy.
It depends on how you look at things. And also depends on your style of comedy,
like the most difficult style of comedy. It's like, I think like Stephen Wright's style is
probably the most difficult style of comedy, complete non sequiturs. One subject doesn't
lead into the next. There's no flow to it. It's just, I noticed this, I noticed that.
And then there's this, and then there's that. And that's hard to memorize. And it's really hard
to piece together an hour of non sequiturs. But it's easier because you can rely on the joke.
It sits more with the joke. Like, whether you're funny or not is on the actual material versus
like the timing and the energy to dance with the audience, right? Because like, if you don't have
the raw jokes like Stephen Wright does or Mitch Hedberg, then you have to, it's all about the
delivery. Yeah. And yeah, they either kill or they bomb. Is it random? Like, whether they kill
or bomb? Yeah. Well, I mean, you're essentially a different person every day of your life.
You know, you're similar, but you're more tired. You're more rested. You're exhausted.
You're refreshed. You have vitamins and food nourishment in your system. You just get your
heart broken. You haven't slept in days. You're a different person all the time. And you go onto
that stage. You're in the neighborhood of who Lex Friedman is. You're in the Lex Friedman
neighborhood. Which Lex Friedman am I going to get? Yeah. You know, energy levels. Yeah.
It depends. It all depends. But oh, the other thing with Kill Tony is it's videotaped.
So you eating shit is on there forever. Forever. The world can see it. But it's one of the most
important shows in comedy. It's the most important show in comedy. Because first of all,
it establishes stand up in a sense that like for the open micers, for the people that are starting
it out, it establishes that the most important thing is to be funny. Like this is what the art
form is all about. And there's a lot of insecurity attached to that and a lot of fears. And so to
alleviate some of those insecurities and fears, people will decide that the message is more
important. And they'll pretend that you have to be socially aware that you have to promote
things that are positive in your comedy, which is bullshit. The people that say that,
they're all bad. They're all bad at comedy. And that's where the insecurity is. It's like,
they can't just kill. So they have to pretend that they're supposed to be socially aware.
And that being socially aware is an important part into society. Like,
let me explain something really clearly. It's not a fucking person on earth
who's ever changed their life because of a joke. That's not what they're there for.
They're there for jokes. The people that say that, they say that socially important comedy is
the only comedy that's necessary. The only comedy that you have to do. That is just because they
suck. That is it. It's like the cop out is that they can't do the real comedy. They can't crush.
It's not like someone goes from being, you know, take a like Shane Gillis, one of the best comics
up and coming right now. He's fucking fantastic. I can't recommend enough seeing that guy live.
I work with him in Irvine. And I hadn't seen like his whole set. I was crying. I mean, he's so good.
I heard he's a racist. So I haven't listened to any of his material. No.
He's so good. And his comedy is just all just trying to be as funny as possible.
Yeah. There's not a chance in hell that guy's just going to go woke and he's just going to start
promoting some sort of, you know, socially conscious agenda that's, you know, facetious and
just a bunch of nonsense that he's trying to elevate his own personal brand and virtue signal.
That's not going to happen. The thing about Kill Tony is in that because you only have one minute
and because it's live and because you don't want Tony shitting on you, everybody else shitting on
everybody's just gearing up to try to be as funny as possible. And no one cares if you are gay or
straight or Asian or black or trans or non binary. Nobody gives a fuck. Are you funny? If you're
funny, you're in and everybody loves you. You could be 80. You could be 20. Nobody gives a shit.
You could be a woman or a man or ambiguous. Nobody fucking cares. Are you funny? And that's the most
important thing for a community of comedy to really promote comedy. Just funny. Just be funny.
And so in that sense, Kill Tony is a real cornerstone of comedy. It's a reminder of what comedy is
supposed to be. Yeah. That said, even the funniest stuff has underneath it some wisdom
that comes out of it, but that's not the primary goal of it. Yeah. I mean, it might be inspiring
and fun. Oh, Tim Dillon's a great example of that. Yeah. He's got some amazing insights in his comedy,
but it's still... It's all about... It's fucking comedy. It's all about the funny.
Yeah. It's all about the funny. He's the best at doing that, especially in a podcast form,
about weaving really important points in with hilarious, obviously just jokes.
Let me ask you, speaking of Tim Dillon, a chaotic fucked up individual,
can we go to your childhood real quick? A brief stroll. So your mom and dad split up when you were
five from a from a young perspective. If you look at your subconscious, what impact do you think
that had on you in forming who you are as a man as a human being? Well, at the time,
I thought that my father was like a hero. He was my dad. I think every kid thinks like that
about his dad. His dad is like, your dad's your protector. Your dad is like the coolest guy in
the world. That's what you like. Yeah. Everybody wants to be like their dad, especially if your dad
is like an imposing figure. I remember one time me and my cousin got in a fight over nothing. It was
like over who's tougher, King Kong or Godzilla. Yeah, over nothing. That's an important, but yeah.
And he said actual fight. Oh, I punched him in the face. And this is when you were like five?
Yeah. Yeah. And so which side were you on? King Kong. Okay. I was wrong. Godzilla's like way
bigger. Godzilla's 500 feet tall and he shoots fire out of his mouth. Yeah. Are you sure? I mean,
there's, there's an argument to be made. It's not all about size, right? No, there's no argument
to be made. 500 feet tall versus 50 feet tall. One's a gigantic dinosaur. One is a stupid monkey
who gets shot down by a plane. You can't kill Godzilla. Godzilla, like take it back. No. You
can't kill Godzilla with a plane. Like that shit when working Godzilla, killed King Kong.
All right. King Kong and the new movies kept growing. He's getting bigger and bigger. Yeah.
Got to the point where he's as big as Godzilla. It just feels like King Kong is stronger.
Don't stop. Backtake. Backtake. Immediate backtake. You don't think there's a backtake?
There's a different. If he's the same size. Human weapons and two animals going at it of
a different size. You don't think there's in the jungle, a smaller animal could take on a bigger
animal. You got monkey versus a, let's see, a lion. Monkey versus a bear. What? Who wins?
A monkey versus a bear? Not a monkey. Not a monkey. What's the strongest ape?
No, but gorilla seat. Okay. Gorilla can't do backtakes. I'm thinking of like a smaller,
you know what I'm saying? Because in Jiu Jitsu, you see this all the time.
Do you remember that scene in Talladega Nights? Do you know Talladega Nights
where the little boy's talking to his grandpa, I'll be all over you like a spider monkey? Exactly.
Spider monkey. I was thinking, all right. There's some animals. Like here's a better example,
a wolverine. Wolverines chase wolves and bears off of their kills. And they're not very big at all.
They're just so ferocious. And they're so durable. Like it's very hard to kill a wolverine.
Yeah. And there's videos of like cats, like not actual, like domestic cats or domestic dogs starting
shit with much larger animals. Yeah. And if they're ferocious enough.
Well, pit bulls are a great example of that. Pit bulls are small, like real game bread pit bulls
are like 35, 45 pounds. And they'll kill much larger dogs. Anyway, you were on King Kong's side.
Yeah. So,
Shit out of your cousin. I remember he said to me, like, I thought it was in,
like real trouble. Because I remember my cousin's mom was yelling at me and was like,
you monster, all this crazy shit. So my dad got me alone. And he said, tell me what happened.
And I told him, you know, we got in a fight. We're arguing over King Kong Godzilla. And I punched
him in the face. And he goes, did you cry? I go, no, he goes, good, don't ever cry.
And I remember that, like, whoa, okay. And I remember thinking, all right,
I'm just going to start punching people. Because like, obviously, my dad thinks it's a good idea
if I go running around punching people, as long as I don't cry. Like, I remember certain things
about, you know, and also, like this is it again, like we're talking about
watching Lenny Bruce and getting a timeline of what the world was like back then. This is a
different world. You know, in 1970, this would have been 1972. It's a different world back then,
man, like a really different world.
It's some of that. So Carl Jung talked about the shadow. It's the unconscious,
where you have dark stuff and oftentimes you use a projector stuff that you're very self-critical
about yourself. But because it's in your unconscious, you use it to project on to others.
You see it as flaws in others. And that's a good way to like whatever, because I quote,
like everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
So that's, that's a nice way to investigate yourself, like something that pisses you off.
You start asking questions of your own mind. And that's how you bring it to the surface.
But anyway, from that, those are formative years. From that time, is there still stuff
in your unconscious you think you haven't examined from dark shit?
I don't think so. I don't, I'm not aware if it is, because I've looked, you know, like if someone
get, you know, someone says, you know, I left something over your house, like, where'd you
leave it? I don't know. Like, I'll go look. I get a real thorough looking.
But I'm pretty sure.
Pretty sure it's not there. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know. I think I've looked. I mean, it certainly had an effect. I think
the positive effect also was compounded by the fact that when my mother married my stepdad,
who's a great guy, who was a hippie, very different, we moved around a lot. And so
the bad thing about that was I didn't really develop long term friends. The good thing about
that was that I was forced to develop my own opinions about things, instead of adopting
an opinion of the neighborhood and the group about anything. I was forced to form my own
thoughts and opinions about almost everything. And so it made me much more of an independent
thinker. So that on top of the fact that, you know, losing, you know, my quote unquote hero
very early on, and then having to form my own opinions about things, it left me with a very,
a very independent streak, you know, in terms of, and if I hadn't done the things that I got
interested in, martial arts and then comedy, if I hadn't gotten interested in those things,
I would have been fucked because I was just too independent for normal jobs. I was too
independent for school. I just didn't want to listen to people. I was too feral. I just didn't
want to, didn't want to sit still. If I was with the wrong parents, especially today,
I most certainly would have been medicated. Yeah, there's so many possible trajectories
you can imagine where you would have not been the person you are today. Oh yeah. This is probably
one of the best possible trajectories you're living. This particular storyline you're living
through is one of the better ones. This timeline is as good as it gets for someone like me.
Is there advice you can give to people, to young kids that are living through a shitty
situation of any sort, a tough life? Find a thing you like. Try to find a thing that you really
enjoy. Try to find a thing that you're passionate about. Like an activity. Yes. For me, early on,
it was drawing. It was illustrations. It was comic books. I wanted to be a comic book illustrator,
and then it went from comic book drawing and illustrations to martial arts. But it was just
another thing that I was very, very passionate about. That was my vehicle out of my dilemma.
That was my vehicle out of my own anxiety and trauma and my own issues and insecurities.
Find something. Find a thing that you genuinely enjoy because getting good at things you genuinely
enjoy is extremely beneficial for young people because it lets you know that everybody thinks
they're a loser. Every young person thinks they're a loser, at least a young person in the situation
I was at. I didn't know I wasn't a loser until I started winning, until I started doing martial
arts. Martial arts taught me that I could get better at stuff, that I wasn't really a loser.
I just was someone who was in a fucked up situation, but you could channel all that energy
that you have as a young person into something and get better at it. Then all of a sudden,
people admired me. I was like, this is crazy. I went from being someone who was incredibly insecure
and basically a failure to someone who was really successful at this one thing that was
very dangerous that other people were scared of. That gave me immense confidence and also
a real understanding of the direct correlation between hard work and success.
And a kind of understanding that you're not a loser.
That there is some diamond in the rough.
Yeah, and also an understanding that you can't listen to people because even my parents didn't
want me to do martial arts. They didn't want me to fight. They didn't want me to just stand up.
There's like, you have to understand who you are and then in the face of other peoples,
either criticism or lack of faith in your ability to succeed, you push through and there's great
benefit in that. And then you realize that you can kind of apply that to other things in life.
You can apply that to critics. You can apply that to social media commentators.
You can apply that to a lot of things. Okay, what about young people in their 50s?
Can you give advice to like, imagine you're sitting back probably still here in Texas
in your 90s looking back, what advice would that guy give to you today? Or like people
people that have done some shit in their 50s, you've gone through a hell of a life,
there's potentially some incentive to settle down. You got a great family to relax.
But maybe there's some incentive to still do epic shit, still be David Goggins running in
the middle of the desert screaming shit into a camera. If you're David Goggins, you have to be
David Goggins. I don't think there's a path for that guy that exists at this stage of his life
other than that. Do you think he'll be 70 and still screaming? Yes, 100%. 100%. If David and I
are alive, we're both 70, he's going to call me up and say, stay hard, motherfucker. Guaranteed.
So lean into whatever the fuck you are at this point. Well, if you're enjoying it,
but if you're not enjoying it, rethink your life. Try to figure out why you're not enjoying it.
You still think it's possible to shift things in your 50s?
Yeah. If you're alive, you can get better. No matter what?
Yeah, no matter what. If you're alive, you can shift things. I mean, if you're 90 years old
and you have a month to live, you can apologize for the things you think you did wrong and maybe
sort of reconcile and shape relationships that you have with the people that are around you better
so that they feel differently about you after you're gone.
Yeah. I always love people in their 70s who are like getting back into dating or something like that.
Yeah. I was watching a video about a woman who's in her 60s who just started powerlifting.
Nice. Yeah.
And same with Jiu Jitsu, you see people get into Jiu Jitsu, like a white belt that's like 70.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of, if you're alive, you can get better at stuff.
And I don't think people are happy if they don't have puzzles and complex tasks and things that
are interesting to them, whether it's an art project or whether it's learning something
completely new like stand-up comedy. Like doing things that are difficult is, it's as much of
a nourishment of the mind as food is a nourishment of the body. I think you need things that
that, that are puzzling to you where you have to find your own human potential in the difficulty
of the task and work your way through things, at least for me. For me, I mean, I can only speak
for me because I'm the only life that I've ever lived that I'm aware of. And in my life, that has
been 100% constant. I am a very happy person and I have never had a moment where I'm not doing
difficult shit ever. What matters most is how well you walk through the fires. You just keep
starting fires for yourself to walk through. Well, they don't necessarily have to be fires,
right? Because fires are like kind of out of control. Lukewarm tasks. The surfaces. Tasks.
Give yourself something, an arduous, difficult task where you're challenged,
challenged mentally and challenged physically. One of the great things about being challenged
physically is it's also mental. The people that don't understand that have never really been
challenged physically. People that think that physical challenges are just physical. It's just
brute grunt work. It's not. It's emotional intelligence. It's understanding your desired
quit and conquering your inner bitch. All that stuff is, it's mental. It's playing out inside
your head. And there's a mental strength that you acquire from that, that you can apply to
intellectual pursuits. And the people that don't think that or the people that haven't attempted
them. And there's an arrogance to people that only pursue intellectual exercises, only pursue
intellectual things. And don't pursue anything physical. That the physical stuff is base,
it's grunt work. It's primal. It's not necessary. I don't think that's accurate. I don't think that
they're, I mean, obviously there's people like Stephen Hawking's who have no opportunity to do
anything physical, right? His physical dilemmas, keeping us or was keeping his heart beating.
But for most people, I think you can really benefit from physical struggle and you benefit
from it in a mental way. And I think that is overlooked. That's unfortunately overlooked by
academics and intellectuals who, they make excuses for why they're fat and lazy or scrawny.
What they don't need to be, it's not even about the fat or all of that. It's like literally,
there's something about the physical challenge that's really good for you, especially if you're
academic, especially if you do intellectual types though. There's this great roboticist at MIT,
Russ Tedrick. He runs barefoot to and from MIT every day. I love it. Like seven to 10 miles
each way. Barefoot. Barefoot. Well, he studies legged locomotion, legged robots. But for him,
it's also interesting how the human body moves. He sees the beauty in all movement.
What do his feet look like? You know, calloused. Destroyed, right? No, just calloused. They're
nice. They form a nice, it's not like I gave them a foot massage. But I mean, they look,
and I don't have a foot fetish. So I don't, I'm not able to correctly evaluate another man's feet.
I apologize for this. But they don't look fucked up. Does he run on concrete?
Yeah. He runs all surfaces. And he does everything completely barefoot?
The running part at work. So one of the things he has to do is fit into society,
which means he has to change clothes and appear normal. Right. So does he wear like
zero shoes? You know, those barefoot type shoes? No, because that's like very
hippie-wokie type of thing. No, like he doesn't, he's barefoot when he's running,
and then he wears like normal looking stuff, like dress shoes. How did he work
his way up to running barefoot? So he was significantly overweight. And his advisor,
this other famous person at MIT, who was a roboticist, took his own life.
And that made him, that made Russ face his own mortality, I think. I mean,
you start to ask big questions about your well-being, like, holy shit, this rock can end
at any moment. And so he started taking his sort of physical well-being seriously. But as a result
of that, not that he become like shredded, but he's also discovered the intellectual value,
the humbling value of physical exercise. He's not preachy about it all. I don't think I actually
rarely hear him advise it to anyone. He just does it as a, almost like meditation or something
like that. It's definitely a form of meditation. And you can attest to that, right? You do quite
a bit of running. There's a thing about a, you kind of almost like a mantra gets formed and you
get into it. It was great here in the Austin heat, 100 degree weather. That tests you. You know what
I love to do outside? Pull sleds. That's my thing. I love to pull sleds outside. In the heat. Yeah,
did it today. Yeah, I love it. So you're also, your wife is incredible. You're in a relationship.
What, you're married. You have a great family. What advice would you give to me until there's like me
who are dumb fucks and have not found a relationship? Well, you're a great guy.
So this definitely doesn't necessarily apply to you, but be someone who someone would want
to be in a relationship with. There's a lot of people out there that want a great partner. They
want someone in a relationship, but why would someone want to be in a relationship with you?
You know, maybe you bicker a lot. Maybe you're jealous. Maybe you lie. Maybe you,
you know, maybe you're cruel. Maybe you're, you don't have a sense of humor. Maybe you're,
you know, you're not kind. Like what is it about you that people would not enjoy being around
or that people avoid? Fix that. Well, this applies to me as well. Like you said something with
Cam Haynes, one of the things you admire is the, the discipline takes to sort of juggle so many
things and do it successfully. I'm not sure I'm very good at that. So juggling all this hard
work and then also a relationship. Also relationship, also family, all these kinds of priorities.
I mean, that requires having your shit together. It does. It's a different thing,
but it's also, you got to find the right person. There's a lot of people who sell for, they settle
for sexy. They settle for hot. They settle for the wrong person. Like you can get hot and nice.
They're out there, but don't get hot and mean. Hot and mean is not fun. Then you get amber
hurt. Yeah. And then you get hot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can be deceived by perfect symmetry.
So you don't think it's a good idea to record your partner? I think you should record all
conversations. The CIA is doing it no matter what. I assume that every conversation I have is
recorded because I'm pretty sure it is. Even when we had dinner with Alex Jones, he was recording.
Yeah. I still remember that. Oh, I didn't know that was recording.
He might, you know what would be funny if he is the CIA player. He could be.
He could be. But that's my advice about relationships is be somebody and then also
find someone who you can grow with. You don't want to be with someone who doesn't share your
value. You don't want to be with someone who makes excuses. You don't want to be with someone who's
lazy or who's spiteful. You want to be with someone who's genuinely kind. That's one of
the things that I really love about my wife and she's very smart and she works hard. She's a
dedicated, disciplined person. She's also really nice. That's one of the things I like the most
about her. She's so nice. She's always smiling. And that energy is great. Yeah. I mean, you've seen
us together. Yeah. You've hung around with us. She's fun. Yeah. She's a lot of fun. Yeah. She
makes you just feel great to be alive. It's good to have people like that around you. She's happy.
She's a happy person. She's happy to be around. That's the kind of people that you can have in
your life as friends and as coworkers and as lovers and wives and husbands. You can find those
people. They're real. And when you find those people, your life is better. To have a good tribe
is very important. To have a good tribe of people. And I think if there's anything that I'm very,
very fortunate about, it's the people that I'm around. I have very good friends and one of
which is you. It's so valuable to have quality people around you because it makes you want to
do better because you admire the hard work that these people put in, like Cam Haines or Goggins
or many of my friends. And people that are generous and people that are curious and people that are
honest, they inspire you to do the same. And it's extremely valuable. It's one of the most
valuable things is to surround yourself with positive, healthy, friendly, generous people.
That's why I cut out Tim Dillon for my life. I broke up with him.
I thought you guys were getting married.
No, it's over. It's none of those things. The nonstop conspiracy theories,
the nonstop mocking of my Eastern European origins is just not healthy for me.
Okay. Plus, he's physically abusive and towering figure, both emotionally and physically.
No, no, I love him. Okay.
If he worked out, he would be a house. He's got a large frame, you know?
So if I interview Putin, what should I ask him?
How's the cancer? How's it doing, buddy? That's question number one in Russian.
Do you think he has cancer?
I don't think so.
The narrative is terrifying, right? Dictator of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world who
also has cancer and he just invaded a sovereign country. That's a terrifying narrative,
because that's what we're all afraid of. Someone who has nothing to lose,
who just decides to let loose a nuke.
Well, I do think maybe it's projecting, but if I had cancer, or if you think about leaders that
have cancer, you're facing your own mortality, I would think he would be more focused on his legacy
and the dropping nuclear bomb is not good for legacy.
I do believe he wants to be remembered as a great leader, as a lot of leaders do,
as a lot of even dictators do, and I think he wants to figure out a way to pull out a win
so he can say that whatever this thing was, whatever this invasion was,
was good for Russia, was good for the nation.
He ultimately made it a greater nation than it was before.
And perhaps you could justify an escalation of war to be that.
And it's just the cancer thing concerns me so much because it's been
so often part of this propaganda that's been told about Putin that he's sick.
I don't know why. People kind of wonder that a lot about, especially dictators,
but you had that even with Hillary Clinton and obviously with Biden.
And that narrative is stickier. So for some people.
Well, that narrative is transparent and obvious.
But the degree of it is a question with Biden as it does with everyone.
Like how healthy is this leader? That's a question people often ask.
Sure, always. They were doing that about Trump too.
The thing about Putin though is his appearance is altered, where he looks very bloated.
His body doesn't look much bigger, but his face looks like puffy and swollen.
I had a friend who had sarcoidosis and they prescribed prednisone,
which is a type of a steroid. And one of the things that would happen
when he was on it is his face would get really big.
It was like he would blow up like a swell up and maintain a lot of water and inflammation.
And that's what it looks like when I'm looking at Putin.
So actually, like if you're sitting with him, one question is about health.
Has Biden been asked that kind of question?
No, like without mockery.
You'd have to go on Fox News.
Like the mainstream media treats him with kid gloves in a way that I've never seen.
It's so obvious there's something horribly wrong with his cognitive function.
Well, to push back, I don't know if it's horribly wrong.
You don't think it's horribly wrong?
I think it's no, I think there's uncertainty to which degree is wrong.
I would love to there to be a serious conversation about it with him.
In fact, I actually have to now look, because of course Fox News will mock
his declining mental health.
And then I would love sort of an objective discussion.
Are you aware of this?
Like what are you putting in place?
Are you yourself?
Because if I was a person with a declining mental abilities,
like you have to start thinking about that kind of stuff.
Like who is around you?
Who are the advisors?
What if you start being able to see the world clearly?
I would be transparent about that kind of stuff.
Well, you would be.
But you also would never be a politician because you're too fucking honest.
Well, yeah, but actually from a conversation perspective,
it would be nice if that kind of discussion was that.
It would be, but all jokes aside with Putin,
I would ask questions about democracy versus what they have.
I mean, without any disparaging descriptions of what is going on over in Russia,
it's clearly not a democracy.
I mean, the way he has it set up, the elections are a joke.
So he would push back.
That's not clearly not a democracy.
He is still very popular.
So a majority of people are huge supporters of Putin inside Russia.
The people that push back against that would say that that's because
any serious opposition is pushed out of the country.
Yeah.
So in a case of competition.
And arrested and murdered.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But yes, that's a really, really good question.
The value of dictatorships.
One of the things about the United States that's fascinating to me
is that every four years, unless it's four to eight years, right?
Someone does two terms.
But every four years, there's an opportunity for someone to be new
and completely inexperienced at the most difficult job in the world,
which is ridiculous.
So the interesting thing is it actually makes sense after eight years,
you've gained the wisdom.
You would actually be a pretty good leader to keep going.
But there is some problem where the power gets started getting to your head.
And so from Putin's perspective, I think he genuinely wants the best for Russia.
I don't think he's lost his mind in terms of like it's all about greed and so on.
Same as Stalin.
I think Stalin, until the end of his days, wanted the best for the Soviet Union.
So it's not like Hitler, I think, lost his mind during the war,
like where it was like he wasn't seeing clearly at all.
What Putin believes is that he is actually the best person to bring out the best for his country.
Now, the problem is maybe refreshing the leader is in fact, in the long term,
the best thing versus every leader believes they know what's best for the country.
What point is to keep refreshing it?
Well, and that's the case for democracy.
That's the case for the system we have that creates natural, maybe emergent balance of power.
I think it makes it evident that there is no clear cut, real right way to do it.
And that if you had the perfect person in, having them for 12, 20 years would be amazing.
If you had a perfect benevolent leader who clearly only cared about the people,
was doing their best and striving hard and got great satisfaction knowing that he is
a dedicated civil servant that only wants to lead the country in a way that's going to benefit
the most people in the most profound way.
But we have a dirty political system that's completely corrupted by money, completely
corrupted by influence, the fact that the lobbyists, I mean, there's an area outside of
Washington DC, it's one of the richest areas in the country and it's where the lobbyists live.
There's so much money involved in being a lobbyist.
There's so much money involved in special interest groups and how much of an impact they have on
who gets elected and what decisions get made once that person gets elected.
We know this, right? We know it's not for the people, by the people.
It's just not what it is. I mean, this country is an experiment in self-government and
if we could do it all over again, I would say the most important thing is to have laws in place
to keep money out of politics and to make it a heinous crime for someone to influence laws
and policy based entirely on the amount of profit it could generate for a party or for
a company that is investing in a candidate. That's fucking incredibly dangerous and it's
corrupt and that corruption has been accepted. We've just accepted that this corruption exists.
You know? Last question. If Putin asks to see this watch, what do I tell him?
Should I let him see it? Because we know what happens with the Super Bowl ring.
I think a Super Bowl ring is unique. He could buy a watch like that pretty easy.
But this particular, isn't that a power move? This is a watch you gave me. There's a story.
I'll probably share it with him, the story.
And then maybe you go, can I see this watch? Yeah.
And then he puts it on and says thank you. Do you say no?
You go like this. Yeah, there it is, bro.
Bro. So many words I'm going to have to find translation. Buddy, bro.
I guess bro is brother. I mean, if he takes your watch, I'll buy you another one.
Keep him going. I'll just give you the same exact watch.
Well, first of all, thank you for this. My pleasure, bro.
I really wanted to talk to you because in a couple of days I'm leaving to Ukraine and Russia.
And I hope I'll be back in one piece and drink whiskey with you once again.
Yeah, I hope so too. I'm nervous about you going over there.
I know journalists have been killed now.
But they don't know Jiu-Jitsu.
No, I think you'll be okay. And I think there's certain things you do in life
that just kind of your heart pulls towards that so much.
What's your objective over there?
I'm not somebody who thinks about objectives clearly.
It's just something about me says I need to go there.
But to put in loose words is to try to understand what that world is now.
So I remember what it was years ago when I was there.
I know my family. I know the generations of family that was there.
On that land in Ukraine and in Russia and the soul of the people.
The love that's there, the beauty of the culture.
And I want to see what it is today and what this war has created.
Both the anger and the love in the people and just hear them out and just talk to them.
No recordings, none of that.
Maybe a little here and there, but mostly just for me and to see.
I don't know. This sometimes is just something pulls you to a place.
And I also, because I'm able to speak Russian and some Ukrainian,
I do want to try to have these a couple of the political leaders involved talk to them.
And I have all the right connections.
Everybody has said yes.
Of course, you don't know the likelihood it finally happens,
but I want to at least have that possibility there.
Sometimes you have to go to a place to really understand it.
You can't just read about it.
You can't just talk to the people that are living there.
You have to be there.
And I've never been in a war zone.
I've never been in a land that's been damaged and wiped by the weapons of war.
And I just want to feel that because so much of that land is, I remember,
you know, I remember when everything was flourishing.
Yes, corruption, all those kinds of things, but people were there
and the culture was flourishing and people were happy.
There was lots of struggle, but they were happy.
And now people are extremely angry.
There's hate in the air on all sides.
I want to see that.
I want to understand.
Sometimes it just pulls you and you have to go.
So it doesn't make any sense perhaps, but you just got to do it.
What's the timeline of when I'm going?
How long?
No, one way.
I don't really have a plan.
Wow.
Yeah.
So I'm hoping back in a month.
But also not just to clarify, I'm not somebody who seeks risk.
And like you're somebody who seems to be terrified of bears and sharks.
So you don't, like, so why go swim out?
Why go surfing?
Why go swim out in the ocean?
So I'm somebody that's the same, probably with sharks too.
I'm not taking unnecessary risk, but certain things that just mean a lot to you,
you take the risk.
And so a little bit of risk willing to take to discover something about myself.
Honestly, it's probably what all bull is down to try to understand myself.
Because so much of me is from that place.
Well, this is the beautiful thing about America,
is it's like stitches together all these different cultures.
Everybody came from somewhere else.
Yeah.
And you try to understand, in order for me to be a good American,
I need to understand who I was, where I came from.
And that's nothing reveals the spirit of a people better than war.
It's like there's something about this conflict that's really cuts all the bullshit.
This is who we are.
This is who we are as a people.
So I want to see it.
I want to understand.
And like I said, when I come back, drink some whiskey with you.
All right.
Well, I hope that happens.
And I really do.
And I hope you're safe over there.
And I hope you come back with whatever insight you're trying to achieve.
Thank you for doing this conversation.
My pleasure, brother.
Thank you for everything you've done for me, for the support, for the love,
and everybody around you.
Thank you for everything you're doing for everybody around you,
for giving back, but for just giving and being kind to everybody.
I love you, brother.
I love you too.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Joe Rogan.
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now let me leave you with one of Joe's and one of my favorite quotes from Miyamoto Musashi.
Once you know the way broadly, you will see it in everything.
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.