Transcript of #2468 - Luke Grimes

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night.

All day. This is surreal being here, dude. Is it?

Yeah, I've been listening to the show for years.

Well, I've been watching your show for years.

Yeah.

Are we rolling, Jamie? All right, beautiful. I love your fucking show. It's great.

Oh, thanks, man.

It's really awesome, man. Well, I haven't watched Marshalls yet. Is it out now?

It is.

When did it come out?

Uh, March 1st.

Oh, okay.

So they just had the second episode air.

I like to binge, man. I like to wait, wait a little bit, stay offline. I like to sit down and binge them for sure. Yeah, but Yellowstone's fucking awesome. It's such a great show. Did you have any idea it was going to be what it is?

Uh, not— no, I don't think anybody did. I thought it would find an audience for sure. I mean, Taylor was really, you know, hot at the time. He, he'd been nominated for Oscars and I was kind of like surprised he was even writing a television show. He was just like so hot in the film business.

How the fuck does that guy even sleep?

I don't know, man.

Where does he have the time? Every time I look in the news or there's a new show that he's doing, a new thing he's doing, it's like, how are you doing all this?

It's impressive, you know. I feel like there's a lot of people I've worked with where they do things that are impressive, but his is impossible.

Right.

You know, like, someone be like, could you direct a movie as good as Unforgiven? I'm like, right, maybe, maybe if I tried real hard. But like, could you write 10 television shows single-handedly? No, no way, not possible.

He directed Unforgiven?

No, I'm just saying, like, people that I look up to that I'm impressed by, it's like his is a different level, right? His is like, it's like impossible.

Who did direct Unforgiven?

Clint Eastwood.

That's the fucking greatest Western movie of all time.

It is.

It's the best. Yeah, it's like, you know what it was like to me? It was like he was making up for all the silly Westerns and was like, let me show you what it was probably really like. Yeah, what was really like when a man was about to get shot? What was really like when a dude was a stone-cold killer? Yeah, what was it really like? The hardships of living back then.

Yeah, and it's interesting too because he starts out kind of a loser. Yeah, those first, you know, like the first three-quarters of the movie, he's this sort of timid guy who's lost his power, you know. And then he takes that one sip of whiskey and it's all over for everybody else. It's a crazy premise.

It's such a good movie. It's such a good fucking movie, man. But yeah, Taylor is a— he's a real freak, and there's not a lot of humans like him. And it's his background story, so interesting, you know. Like, he was just kind of scrambling around till he was almost like 40.

Yeah, it's like a real-life Rocky. Yeah, or something like rags to riches, the whole, the whole thing.

I know, man. It's just, I just don't— I guess that's why he has so much ambition, because he knows what it's like to be poor, right? You know, he knows what it's like to like barely make it, right? Then all of a sudden he's got a kid on the way and he's like, oh shit, I gotta buckle down. Yeah, and really get moving. And he kept his foot on the gas.

Absolutely. Do you guys keep in touch? Yeah, as buddies?

Yeah, yeah, all the time. I love Taylor, man. I love him. He's an awesome dude. I I just worry about him. Like, you do so much. Like, don't have a fucking heart attack, man. Don't go crazy.

You know what's weird is he does, he does like have a good time too. It's not like he doesn't hang out with his family or friends or, you know, that's the craziest thing to me is like the guy has a really fun life and is able to do all that. I guess like the moral of the story is don't play golf. You know, that'll take up all your time.

No shit, man. Tell that to Jamie. If I can get out once a week, it's great. Yeah, he's an addict. Jamie's an addict. He's got a simulator back there. He's always whacking golf balls. Yeah, all my friends are trying to get me to play. I'm like, I'm not doing it, man. That's a 6-hour commitment. Fuck off, man.

The amount of time it takes to get good enough that it's not the worst thing ever, right, is too much time, right?

And my problem is I'm an addict. Like, when I start doing things, I just start like, okay, I need to play in the PGA. I start going crazy. I'll start getting lessons and fuck that.

Yeah, don't do it. We need your show, man. We did you.

It's. I. Well, I'm never doing it. We can do both. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Try it.

I mean, try it. Try it out. No, I know. All my friends who play love it. Ron White and Tony Hinchcliffe. They go out every day. It's like. It's too much, man. I can't do it.

Yeah, yeah.

It's. You can't play golf and do what Taylor's doing, that's for damn sure.

No way.

No. How is. How the. Is Trump doing it? Like, he's in the middle of everything. He's always playing golf.

But that's sort of the criticism, right? Is it like he's playing too much golf and not running the country enough?

But don't they say that about every president?

Yeah.

Like, I think it's almost like a prerequisite to be president. You have to play golf.

Yeah.

You know, don't they all do it?

I guess so.

It's like one of those weird businessmen things. Like, they make deals out there. They have a couple of cocktails, they talk a little shit.

Right.

Do a bump. Not my thing. Make some deals.

I just don't— I don't know. Something about being on like a manicured lawn. I don't know. I'd rather be out in the middle of nowhere.

I'm sure I'd love it. I'm sure, which is why I don't do it. But I play pool and I'm addicted to pool. Like, I play pool all the time. It's a real problem. When I lived in New York, I was playing like 8 hours a day. Yeah, I was playing tournaments. I was traveling around. I was like, I can't get another thing like that in my life.

Are you done playing pool?

No, I play all the time.

Okay.

Yeah. But you could play pool for like a couple hours and stop.

Maybe I'll try that.

Pool's fun. Yeah, yeah, like real pool, like tournament pool, you know, like competitive, like real tournament pool. It's legit, but it's like, it's another thing. It'll get in your blood and then you'll be thinking about it all the time and watching videos and taking lessons.

And I'm ready for something though. Yeah, yeah, not golf. Pool sounds like—

well, you have You have music and you have acting. Like you said, that's got to be kind of hard to manage.

Yeah, it's proving pretty difficult. And I have an 18-month-old.

Oh, that's it.

Yeah.

So no sleep?

Yeah, we're getting there. I, you know, the music thing is sort of— it's kind of nice because there's not a lot of pressure on it. You know, for me, I have a day job. You know, I have this thing that supports my family and the music I can do to like my passion level, you know, and I, and I wouldn't do it to the point where I'm like away from my family too much, you know. So I can— I like making the music. Touring is kind of hard and it's, and it's also new for me. So learning how to do that at 40 was kind of interesting. You know, I feel like in my 20s that would have been the most fun ever.

Yeah.

Sleeping on a bus with 12 dudes and just going from city to city and you know, drinking backstage and playing country music, that would have been a blast. But I'm, you know, too old for— to do that the right way.

Yeah. When you tour, do you go out or do you do like a weekend and then come back? Or do you—

when you're on a full-blown tour, the way that it financially works the best is to just stay kind of going. So you're doing like 3 shows, like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, because you've got the bus rented, you've got all the equipment rented, you got the guys, you know, on salary. So you just have to keep going. It's actually really hard to— for it to pencil out when you're just doing a show here and there.

Right. Yeah. That's— stand-up comedy is so much easier in that regard. I've only done one stand-up comedy tour tour. I did it with Charlie Murphy and John Heffron. We did this Bud Light Maxim tour back in 2007, and we did like 22 dates in a month. And so it was like I'd wake up and I wouldn't know where I was. I'd look at the ceiling. I'm like, where the fuck am I? I don't— I would have to think, uh, Columbus, you know? I'd have to like go through my head and figure out where I am when I woke up.

Was there ever like a period of stage fright when you started doing stand-up?

Oh yeah. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building a website that actually looks legit and helps you stand out online. And I should know, my site, jorogan.com, is powered is powered by Squarespace. They make it easy to lock down the right domain for your business or project, and they've got built-in privacy and security tools to keep everything protected. Head to squarespace.com/rogan to try it out for free. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Yeah, yeah, the first day I was more afraid the first time I got on stage than I was the first time I fought. It was nuts. Yeah. I was like, why am I so nervous? I was like, I was thinking about chickening out. I was thinking about not doing it.

I do that every time I play a music show. I'm like, can I just call it off?

Do you still get stage fright right now?

Really bad. Really? Well, that's the thing, man. I'd always played music, but when I was playing in bands and playing out, I was the drummer. Oh, so, but I always wrote songs and stuff, but I never thought— I had never had ambition around like, I want to be the guy in front of the microphone. That was never, you know, the plan. And then, you know, to be able to make an album, which I wanted to do, you have to go stand in front of the microphone. And that's the hard part for me. I love being in the studio. I love writing the songs. I love making the music, recording the music. But there's something about knowing that all these people have shown up and bought a ticket to see you and you're like, all of a sudden this thing starts happening in me where like they bought a ticket, imposter syndrome, you're not good enough for them to have spent their money. And you know, it's just this whole thing and it's like, dude, shut up. I know it's going to be okay, but it doesn't matter. Every time I still get a little bit of the, you know, I think everybody who's sane gets imposter syndrome.

Yeah. Yeah.

Everybody that I've talked to that's saying it's like the really kooky ones don't. I don't think Kanye's ever gotten imposter syndrome. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's like the— I'm going to be all also he's a genius. But it's like the ones who were saying it doesn't make any sense, like none of it makes any sense.

Yeah, well, I get it in droves and way more for the music than the acting. But it's again, I've been acting in film and TV for over 20 years now.

When did you first get on stage to sing? How old were you?

The very first show I played, I was 39.

Oh my God. Yeah.

Yeah. Like I had done karaoke before, right? But, you know, it kind of came about in the weirdest way. I literally was on set one day and get a call out of the blue from this manager, this music manager, Matt Graham, who's a great manager and a really good friend of mine. But he called and said, "Hey, I know you don't know who I am, but I know that you're a musician and, you know, I love Yellowstone. I love you in that show. Is that something that you would want to take seriously?" And I was like, "What does that mean?" He's like, I bet I could get you a record deal. And I was like, no, man, that's— no, no, I don't want to do that. And we talked for 2 years, and over the course of the 2 years, I really started to trust him. He sort of like explained to me what, you know, what would be required. And long story short, my father passed away somewhere in there, and sort of one of the last things he sort of conveyed to me was like, if there's anything you want to do while you're here, do it, you know.

And Something about that moment, I was like, I'm just gonna fucking do it, you know? I don't care. What's the worst thing that can happen? I'm another actor who made a goofy album, right? So what? I got to do it, you know? So I did, and then immediately it's like, well, now you have to go tour it. Otherwise, you know, they're not gonna put up the money for you to make these things if you don't go sell it, you know? So the tour is sort of to get the music out there and get people buying it, right? And so yeah, first show, it was in Billings, Montana for I think it was 1,200 people.

Whoa.

This place called, I think it was Pub Station.

What was that like first time doing it? Dude, dude, I blacked out.

Like not drinking, like I just blacked out on nerves, dude. Like it, you know, it started, my knees were shaking, my hands were shaking. This is before I knew about like beta blockers or anything like that. And I— the show was over and I was like, how was— was that okay? How did that go? And everyone was like, it was good, you know, it's good, it was fine. The fourth show I ever played was Stagecoach.

Whoa. Yeah, that's nuts.

It was crazy. I mean, it was earlier in the day. It's not like I had, you know, 100,000 people out there, but still, that's a big stage.

That's a big stage.

And yeah, so, but, you know, little by little it got somewhat better. I don't black out anymore. I kind of— I know where I'm at and I'm there, but it's still something I deal with.

Oliver Anthony, the first show he ever played live in front of people was like 20,000 people. It's so nuts. Wasn't it like that? It was huge, right? It was like— it was something— it was a gigantic crowd. I don't think I'm exaggerating because he got really famous before he ever went on tour. That one song, Richmond, North of Richmond, that song like instantly made him famous.

He rode a rocket, dude. That rarely happens. There's, you know, few people know that feeling. I can't imagine.

Well, he was freaking out. Like, I became friends with him like right when it was happening because he was like a little lost and he said a bunch of people— I go, let's talk. So we got on the phone like It was before he had, you know, he'd gotten a ton of record deals and all these different people were saying, you know, hey, sign with me, we'll give you X amount of money in advance. I go, don't sign nothing. And he was like, everybody's telling me that I got to act, strike while the iron's hot. I go, no, no, no, no, no. I go, dude, you got talent. I go, you got real talent. You're always going to have talent. It's just a matter of putting in the work and you're going to be huge. You don't need these people. These people are all vampires. They're all just trying to suck on your neck. Don't let them. Don't let them. Thank God. God, he listened because he was getting offers like $7 million and shit. And he, he was a fucking heavy equipment salesman, you know? And so then all of a sudden he's like, what the fuck is going on?

One song with him and a guitar just standing in a field. That's all it took.

That's amazing. I mean, it's how it should be, right? I have the complete opposite story. My story is not cool at all. I'm like, I'm a successful actor and I got a record deal for no reason.

Yeah, but you had a record deal because you wanted to do it because you're interested in that too. Like, you can do anything you want to do. Like, just because you're a successful actor doesn't mean you can't do it, right?

But I think, you know, a lot of the thing with music is the story of the person. So I knew going in, like, I don't have the best story. I do come from nothing, and I did work my ass off to become an actor and all that, but, you know, my way into the music was a little wonky.

But, well, sometimes that's good because it makes you work harder to prove to people that you're legit. 'Cause you have this thing over your head where they're like, fuck that pretty boy motherfucker. TV star motherfucker. Fuck that dude. Fuck Casey Dutton.

There we go. So the music's gonna have to be good enough. That's just sort of the thing.

That's all it is. It's just, it'll force you to work harder, but it's just, everybody's story's different. That's what makes it fun. If everybody had the same story, you know?

Yeah. I mean, you're kind of the king of following your passion, right? You've done that.

Yeah, I've been super lucky. You know, I just— lucky that there's a job for all these things I like.

You know, there wasn't.

Well, there was for this one. Yeah, this one. There was other people doing it already, but it wasn't a job for the longest time. It's kind of a fun story that me and my wife always joke around about because like one time she was taking the kids, we were all supposed to go to Disneyland, but I had to do this podcast. She was like, you don't have to do it. I go, but I do. I do it every week, but it wasn't really making any money back then. But it's like I promised people would be out, like, I got to do it now. She's like, thank God you didn't listen to me. It's just, I mean, I got lucky. I came in right at the right time. There was only a few people doing it back then, and I just did it for fun. I just thought that would be fun to do. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it became a job.

Yeah. And with the UFC stuff too.

Yeah, that too. That was fun too.

Did you think that would become what it became?

No. When I first started doing it was in 1997 and it was in a high school auditorium in Dothan, Alabama, and we had to take a propeller plane to get there and it was banned from cable so you could only watch it on DirecTV. This is UFC 12 and wow, there was no one in the audience and no one was watching it. And I was already on a TV show, was on NewsRadio. And the people on NewsRadio, like the actors and the producers, they're like, what are you doing? You're flying to go do cage fighting? It was almost like I was doing porn, you know, it's like fucking snuff films or something. It's like, dude, you're gonna ruin your life doing this. I was like, I don't know what you guys are talking about. This is what I've always wanted to see. I've always wanted to see all the best martial artists of different styles get together. Nobody ever did it. These guys are doing it. I'm gonna go. Yeah, like, this is—

I remember renting the, like, first few from Blockbuster. Yeah, it was like Bloodsport back.

Oh yeah. Oh, it changed my life. I got UFC 2, was the first one. The first one wasn't available. You had to get 2, was the only one, and it was on VHS tape. And I had a buddy of mine who told me about it. He's like, dude, you gotta see this thing, man. He goes, they got these guys, they're fighting in a cage, and this one dude's just choking everybody and he's wearing a gi. I was like, really? What is it? And then I watched it. I was like, holy shit. Yeah, I was hooked like right away. I was like, they fucking did it. They actually did it. Because like when I was a kid, everybody thought that what they were— if you did karate, you thought karate was the best. If you thought judo, you thought judo was the best. And nobody really knew what was the most effective martial art because nobody had ever put together anything like the UFC, right? So once it happened, I mean, it was just such a huge part of my life. I was like, I'm not gonna I can't not do this just because it's bad for my acting career.

I'm like, if my acting career goes away, I don't, you know, whatever. I'm only doing this for money anyway. So I was like, I'll just figure it out.

You were the only person in LA with that mentality, by the way. That really served you well.

Well, I wasn't supposed to be in LA, you know. I mean, I only came to LA for money. And I would have moved back. I was living in New York. And I did a show called Hardball, and that got canceled. And the only reason why I stayed is because I got a lease on an apartment. I was fully ready to get out of there. I was like, I gotta get the fuck out of this place. I hated it. I hated being around actors. I hated being around producers and casting agents. I was like, these people are so fake. I was used to being around fighters and comedians and pool players, like the rawest, funniest, like, outcasts of society. Like, those are my people. I was used to like cracking jokes with friends and everybody was like busting on each other and everybody had a great sense of humor, just silly weirdos. And then all of a sudden I'm around these people that like all have these like predetermined things that they thought they should say, so they would say them, you know. And everybody had like— it was all groupthink. It was like, oh, this is fucking horrible.

Yeah, I always say that felt like when I lived in LA. I lived in LA for 16 years and— you know, I don't want to complain about it. Obviously good to me. Like, it, you know, helped my life quite a bit. But it always felt like everybody was trying to become the same person.

Yeah.

But they don't know who that person is. I'm like, can we— can you just tell me who the person is so I can— Right. You know what I mean? There's like a memo that went out that I didn't get. Yeah.

So nobody got that memo. They were all playing it by ear, you know, and they were just— it was all dependent upon what the producers and the casting agents wanted you to be. So everybody would sort of adapt. Like, whenever you got a place where everybody has the same politics, that's not a good sign. Mm-hmm. Like, that something's gone wrong, and everybody has these progressive left-wing politics regardless of whether or not any of their positions make sense. They all just sort of spit it out.

Well, I think it's just that there is sort of a desperation that gets bred from— I mean, these people left their families, they moved away, they left everything they've ever known and gave up a lot of comfort and security and love to follow this dream. Yeah. And so that dream becomes more and more and more important. You need it more and more because now you have nothing else.

Yeah.

You've given everything else up. And so I think at that point you can sort of mold people into whatever you like them to be.

Oh, for sure. It ruins comics. Yeah. Because when comics start doing well, one of the first— as soon as they start getting on television, the first thing they start doing is tempering their material. They tone it down a little bit, take the edge off, don't say anything that can get you in trouble. And, you know, generally those are the funniest things. Funniest things are the things that could go terribly wrong, you know, and get you in trouble. So they do that. And then just, you know, they become like an— I always call it the velvet prison because you get locked into that velvet prison. You get on TV, you get money. But also you become just one of everybody else.

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard not to do. I mean, I'm— that's where I'm at, you know. I still have a boss. Yeah, you know, my checks are written by a very specific company that, you know, I have to be careful sometimes. I know, you know, even doing this today, I'm like, just a little bit. I don't want to do that to you and sit here and like police myself the whole time, but I gotta be like, just don't say this, right?

Oh yeah, no, I'm firmly aware of it. People come in here and I could You can see it in their face, like, please don't bring up anything crazy. No trans talk. For sure, dude.

Let's stay away from that today.

Yeah, people, I mean, it's, you know, it's a tricky situation. And the thing about LA too is everybody has to get picked for stuff. Yeah. It's not like, even like music, like especially look at Oliver Anthony. No music deal, no nothing, just put something on YouTube, blows up. Yeah. That's a real— in this day and age, that's a real thing. But in acting, it's still— you have to get chosen. You have to get cast for something. And just that weird thing alone where you're going into this thing and these people have to approve you. And most of the people that get involved in acting in the first place, a large percentage of them, they did it because they didn't get enough attention when they were younger. And this is like they just want to make up for it. Well, that's why I became a comedian, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, for sure. You know, it's all the same. Kind of mindset. Like, there's something about you that wants to be famous, right? Once you— unless you're like someone who's just in love with the craft of acting, you know, right?

Which, how could you be when, you know, I made the decision that I wanted to be an actor when I was like 5 years old. Really? I didn't know what the craft of acting was. My thing though, honestly, was I loved movies so much, I think I just— because I, I, I liked them more than my life. You know, I wanted to live in the movie. I didn't know what making them would actually be like. I didn't know what that career looked like. I didn't know what acting was, but I would go to the movie theater and want to be in it. And I'd also see the guy, and I don't know, whatever the skill set was, I was like, whatever they're doing, I think I can do that. I think I have whatever that is. And, you know, thank God I was at least somewhat right, or I'd be waiting tables in LA right now.

Well, It's an interesting thing, right? Because it's a craft that seems like you're just doing normal life, right? Like you're, you're pretending, but you're, you're acting and behaving in a way that people do act and behave. Like, that's the key to it. It has to be believable. Yeah. So most people watch it go, I can do that. Like, it's— this is normal life. They're just acting like they're in normal life, right?

But what you don't realize is that there's like a dude with a beard with a microphone in your face and 200 people standing around waiting for you to be done so they can do their job.

Sipping coffee, shaking their head, pointing at their watch. If you fuck up a line, like, oh Jesus, yeah, fucking guy, fucking unprofessional. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a weird gig, man. It's a weird gig, and it's not what most people think it is. And you could tell that by the, like, the masters, the real masters. You know, when you see like a Daniel Day-Lewis do it, you're like, okay, whatever he's doing, I'm not doing that. That's— yeah, that's a fucking totally different thing, right? This guy's in some weird place where it becomes Gary Oldman, becomes a different person every movie, and you believe it. Yeah, that's the real craft of it, right? We're like, I fucking know that's Gary Oldman, right? But he's different in every— now he's Dracula. And I believe it.

He's amazing. Both of those guys, amazing.

You ever watch that show Slow Horses? I love it. Fucking great show, right?

It's really good.

It's a great show. I can't wait for the new season. I've been hooked. Somebody told me about it and I was a little skeptical at first.

It's like, all right. And you never see like a lead, your number one, right? Like a total piece of shit.

Right? Total piece of shit. Yeah. Except Tony Soprano.

There you go.

Yeah. Yeah. That was a weird show, right? Like the guy was a murderer and a thief and you love him.

Loved him. He was so good.

Yeah, there's another guy. Gandolfini, man, you fucking believed him.

And there wasn't acting like that in television yet. No. That was like the first of its kind. Yeah. And even within that show, he was doing something no one else was doing. Right. And that's hard to— that's hard to keep up for, you know, you can— if you do it for a film, you're doing it for a couple months, you know, at that— at that level of intensity. But to do that for 7 years, for months and months at a time, is impossible.

Well, there was a danger in his eyes. Eyes, like a real danger. Like, there's something about that dude that— that dude's got— or while he was alive, he had demons in his brain. Like, you could tell, right? Like, there was moments, these menacing moments where he was like threatening someone or doing something, you're like, that's coming from a real place, right?

That guy ain't—

you know, there's some guys who play tough guys in movies, like, I'm not buying it. But with that guy, you're like, oh, okay, this guy could kill somebody.

You don't want to piss him off in real life.

Well, he's also out of fucking control. You know, have you ever seen the list of the things that he consumed before he died?

I have seen that.

It's bananas. Yeah. I mean, he was just off the rails. Crazy. He was out of his fucking mind.

Have you seen the Hunter S. Thompson one?

Oh, dude, we narrated it. We read it, and then this guy— what was the dude? What's the guy's name that turned it into a song? There's a dance song, like electric music dance song, with me and my friend Greg Fitzsimmons. We're reading off Hunter S. Thompson's, like, his daily routine. Beardyman. Yeah, shout out to Beardyman. It's pretty dope. Play it. Fuck it. Can we? I— we get in trouble? Can isn't the right word to ask. We can. What would happen? We lose, like, revenue changes and stuff like that. For sure. Yeah, 100%. All right, don't play it.

I'll listen to it after.

Sorry. Yeah, well, I'll send it to you, but it's a Bananas routine. And, you know, at the end of his life— I'm a giant Hunter S. Thompson fan, as you could tell, walking through all the artwork. But at the end of his life, like, he couldn't even talk. Like, he did an appearance once on Conan O'Brien, and it, to me, was like one of the saddest things. Like, you could barely understand what he was saying. He's just mumbling. And when he was young, he was so fucking smooth and articulate and interesting and fascinating. And it's just drugs, just drugs and booze just cooked his brain.

I'll have to do a deep dive on him. I've never read any of his stuff. Really?

No, I haven't. Oh, just read. Just start off with Fear and Loathing. Okay. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was a— he got an assignment to cover, I think it was a motorcycle race. That was the job. So I think it was for Sports Illustrated or something like that. He got a job to just cover a race, and he goes down there and just brings every kind of fucking drug known to man, drives through the desert in a convertible with his friend, and just writes this insane book It's completely insane. It's nothing to do with this motorcycle race. It's just all about the chaos of being out of your fucking mind in Vegas, and it's brilliant. It's so good.

Check it out. Do you like Vegas?

I mean, I'm there a lot for fights, and when I go, we go to a restaurant, I go play pool, I go to the fights. I don't do anything else. So it's like for me, it's like, yeah, there's great restaurants, you know, the fights are awesome. I love doing that. So it's like, but there's something about it where I ever— every time I go there, I'm like, could I live here? Like, I was actually talking to my friend Tony Hinchcliffe about it this past weekend. We were just there for the fights, and I was saying, like, what if I would— because, you know, Kill Tony is this gigantic show now. It's huge. He sells out arenas all over the country with it. It's on Netflix. And I was saying, like, what if a a Vegas casino offered you a fucking pile of money, would you— do you think you could ever live here? And we're just sitting there, he's like, I don't know, I don't want to do it. I don't think I could do it because I think it's like sleeping next to a vampire. Like, even if you know that the vampire's in the other room, he's not gonna bite your neck, it's like he's right there, you know?

Yeah, for sure. I don't think it's good for you.

Vegas to me is like, you know, when you, you have a big night out on a certain type of booze and you get sick, and then anytime you drink that booze after that, that's Vegas, right? Anytime I land in Vegas, I'm like, oh, I just feel gross because I remember the last time I was there, or the first time.

Yeah, it's— I think the people that live outside of Vegas, like people live in Henderson and places like that, they love it because it's really nice out there. Like, you go out to the outskirts of Vegas, there's beautiful neighborhoods and nice communities and like great stores and restaurants and stuff. It's nice, but you're still next to the Death Star, right? It's like this big neon fucking vacuum just sucking people's money out of them.

I've never been off the Strip. Maybe I should try that out.

Yeah, yeah, there's a— there's, there's great restaurants and great neighborhoods. Like, it's, it's fine outside, but the reason why they're there is because of the Death Star. Like, that's what brings everybody there. You know, everybody's there to just lose all their money.

Yeah, make really bad decisions.

Like, all my friends who gamble, when I would go there with them, I go, look at this place, see how big it is? How do you think they got that money?

Suckers like you.

This isn't like a fair exchange, like they're giving you goods and you're giving them money. No, this is like they're giving you this like crazy proposition where you think you're going to play blackjack and win a billion dollars. Yeah. And if you win too much money, they kick you out.

Did you ever gamble? Was that ever—

No, no, no, no, no, no, not really. I mean, I've bet some money on fights. I've played blackjack a few times, but I've never lost any real money. But my friend Dana White, he's a fucking degenerate, like a crazy degenerate. I went to visit him recently, so he was at Red Rocks Casino, and a couple of my other buddies were there. So we showed up and went into the blackjack room, and he was there. And when I got there, he was down $600,000. When I got there, and it was a normal night for him, and he wasn't even nervous. He was like, "Hey, what's up?" He's shaking my hand, giving me a hug. All these other people are there, and I got fucking massive anxiety. Yeah, I hate that. I was like, "This is crazy. How are you—" And then so him and— Jamie was there too. And him and Taylor Lewan, the football player, he coaches Taylor how to play blackjack. And so they got together. He tells him when to hit and when not to hit, and they did it right next to us. Within 5 minutes, Taylor was down. $125,000. Jesus. I was like, what are you doing?

Yeah, that makes me nervous just thinking about it. Got up and then they quit. So he quit ahead. I think he won like $100 grand and then he quit. You have to move on to baccarat because you can bet more per hand. That's what they're doing now? Yeah, it's like up to $500K per hand or something like that.

Which one's baccarat?

How do you play that? I've tried to watch it. I don't really quite understand. It's apparently not hard. You're betting on the dealer or the player. Is that the big long table with all the— I don't understand it. It's not like— it's not as long as, uh, like roulette. So Dana's on to that now, or Taylor? I think that room, they switched them all to, uh, baccarat. So you can gamble more? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh my God, he's mainlining the gamble now.

He told a story on, um, I think it was, uh, was it Flagrant? It was flagrant where he talked about losing like $6 million in one night. Yeah. What? Yeah, that's my theory about Slap Fight, why they're doing Slap Fight. I think it's Dana's gambling money. Yeah, that's what I think. I think it's like it needs some source of revenue outside of the UFC so it doesn't lose his UFC money.

That's tough to watch, man. I don't watch it.

Yeah, I've watched a couple of clips.

Sorry, Dana, I know. Yeah, but it's tough to watch. I don't like just people getting brain damage over and over again.

Yeah, it's not my thing. I don't get it. It's— and it's all like the saddest people getting whacked in the head. Yeah, it's not a good thing. Not good. Yeah, they call it fights too. Like, okay, okay, now I mean, I guess you should come up with another name. It's kind of insulting to an actual fight, right? But that's my theory, is that that's his, uh, gambling money, because that fucking dude gambles. Because I asked him once, I go, you like living here? He goes, I love the action. Okay. He's a good friend of mine, but he's a different person than me. That's awesome. I'm not— that's not me. Yeah, if I lived in Vegas, I'd live way outside of Vegas, and even then I don't think I could do it. Because we've talked about, you know, we have a comedy club in town, the Comedy Mothership, and we talked about doing another Mothership somewhere. And the two most likely places that we would be able to do it are New York and Vegas. So we talked about doing one in Vegas, but I was like, Man, the only way it would work is I'd have to be there a lot.

Like, we'd have to be there a lot, and we'd have to, you know, we'd have to make sure that it's run right, that it's like run with the same vibe that we run it here, where everybody's cool, there's no assholes, everybody's real friendly and real supportive of new comedians. And then I'd have to spend a lot of time there. I'm like, I don't want to do that, right? This is—

wouldn't New York be like returning to where you cut your teeth or something?

Is that where you started? Yeah, I mean, I started in Boston, but I did spend a lot of time in New York. New York would be a better option, really, because there's a lot more talent there. And in order to have a really good comedy club, you can't— you can't just start it out. Like, you can't just go, like, to Columbus, Ohio, or Cincinnati, or— I guess Columbus has, like, a little bit of a scene. But you would have to have a real scene with, like, real headliners and, like, top-level talent. And the way we were able to pull it off in Austin is everybody moved here during the pandemic. Like me and Tony moved— Ron White moved here first, and then me and Tony moved here. And then once we started doing shows, we were talking to all our friends in LA, and LA was shut down during the pandemic. And so everybody just kind of moved out here, at least temporarily, because comedians are junkies. Like, they want to go on stage, and it was taken away from them for a year and a half. And they couldn't perform in LA for a year and a half.

Made no fucking sense. And out here we were just doing shows like in November of 2020. Like it was indoor shows and super spreader shows. And so because of that, I forgot about that word. Tom Segura moved here. Christina Pazitski moved here. Tim Dillon moved here. It was just like Shane Gillis moved here. It was like we had so many like national headliners we could pull off a club. Yeah. But you have to have that kind of thing where it's not just the weekends, but you have to have like Tuesday shows, Wednesday shows. It has to be like a lot of people around that you could have a show with.

The infrastructure. Yeah. I randomly lived in Austin during COVID Oh, really? My wife and I, we got married in November 2019. She's from Brazil and I'm from Ohio. So we had no— there was nowhere we were going to live where it was going to feel like home. But we, you know, I'd lived in L.A. for 16 years. I was ready to get out. We wanted to start a family somewhere else, and we didn't know where to go. So we came here in December of 2019, and we had the best 2 months ever. And then everything shut down and we're stuck in an apartment, don't know anybody. And, you know, it didn't really get a fair shake. We loved it while it was going. And then, yeah, I did about 2 months of lockdown, couldn't do it anymore. And then we bought an Airstream and just started traveling around. And then I had to be in Montana for work for Yellowstone. And we parked the Airstream up there and never left.

Oh wow. Yeah, so we've lived in Montana. It's fucking awesome. It's the best. It's so great. It's so beautiful. Last time I was there was in the summer. Well, actually, last time I was there, I was hunting with Bourdain. We went pheasant hunting there. That was pretty cool. Oh yeah. Yeah, it was one of the last times I saw him. What part? Oh, I forgot. I forget where we were. I'm pretty sure I flew into Bozeman, but I think we were outside of Billings. Okay, I forget, but the— in the summer there is insane. Yeah, perfect. It's so beautiful. Everything's green, you see the mountains, and we heard wolves howling one night, and you see elk herds just chilling on the side of a hill. Like, God, this place is magical.

And it doesn't get dark till like 11 at night, right? Yeah, it's very confusing to know like when to eat dinner because you're just like, it's light for so long. But then in the wintertime, the You know, the exchange is it gets dark at 4:30 PM, right? But yeah, we love it, man. It's the best thing that's ever happened for me. I've just sort of like— all the LA stuff we were talking about, it's the opposite of that. The opposite. There's— I have no FOMO about anything anymore, you know. Oh, that's great. I can just think and sleep and read and watch films, and it's the best.

Yeah, well, your show made a lot of fucking people move out there though. That's true.

Yeah, and they're not happy about it. The valley that I live in, we had some people come visit us, our friends California, drove out, and we went on a hike. And, uh, we were in their car, and they had, you know, Cali plates. And we get off the hike, and someone had written 'Go back' in the dust on their car. Like, people are super weird about— so I don't tell anyone, like, exactly where I'm at because they would get really mad at me.

Dude, that happened in 2012. I was hunting in Montana. We went to the Missouri Breaks, and, um, we, we were going to this restaurant, and one of the guys in the restaurant had— he had his car parked outside and it was like a rental car and someone had wrote, 'Go back home,' you know, like, 'Montana is for Montanans' or something like that. They wrote it in the dirt, right?

Which is dumb because if they have the plates, they clearly aren't living there, you know? Right. Yeah, they're going back.

Yeah, but it's just retards. You're gonna get retards in every state. Like, if you have 100 people, one of them's a fucking idiot. Sure, right? And if you got a a town of, you know, X amount of 100,000 people, you're gonna have a good amount of fucking dumbasses. For sure. Those are the ones like, this is our place, we own it, this is our dirt.

Meanwhile, someone moved there at some point. Exactly. You know, like somewhere along the line someone moved there and all you did was stay. Exactly. You didn't do anything that cool.

Exactly. You know what I mean? Exactly, exactly.

And that one guy, I can't go to bars there anymore because whatever that one idiot is is at the bar. Of course. And he can't wait to start a fight with with me. Just like, can't wait to do it, because like, it's a win-win for him, you know. He gets to sue me or something, I don't know, you know. But it's a lose-lose for me.

So, well, it's just like his life is empty and it's like all of a sudden there's purpose, and it's like, you ruined Montana, fuck off, right? Yeah. Or my favorite is when they call people colonizers. That's my favorite. Like, bro, if you don't live in Ethiopia, someone in your ancestor was a colonizer.

Oh, 100%, period. Yeah, we all had to come from somewhere. Also, isn't it like The most American thing ever is that I can choose where I want to live. Yeah, that should be celebrated.

It should be. Yeah, the idea that, oh, we were here first— those are the same idiots that hate when a band becomes successful. It's like, oh, I knew them when they were underground, now they sold out. Yeah, it's just a moron mentality. Yeah, it's gonna have that no matter where you go. But Montanans are like fiercely proud of being from Montana.

Yeah, they'll always tell you what generation they are. Right, third generation Montana. That's so silly. Yeah, and I'm not Montana, but my son will be, you know. Yeah, he can say that he is, right?

Generation, right? It's like an anchor baby. Yeah, yeah, he can go fly fishing and no one's gonna give him a hard time.

That's right.

I was born here. Okay, yeah, you're good. You got a hall pass. Yeah, but like people that live in like that Yellowstone place, you know, that, um, Yellowstone Club. Yeah, that place. Like, those are like fake Montanans to Montanans. I have a buddy who lives up there, and he was saying, I don't know what the fuck anybody would live up there. Like, cuz it's awesome. Yeah, what's wrong with you? It's still Montana. Like, let it go, right?

They just had some problem with sewage being dumped into the river or something like that.

The Yellowstone Club?

The Yellowstone Club. Oh God. Yeah, the locals were very angry, and I don't know if that's locals like making some stuff up to sort of cause a problem, but they were saying that they were finding sewage from the Yellowstone Club in the local river there. Whoa. Yeah, you have to look that up.

Oh, whoa. Yeah, that's not good. That's the problem with rich people. Yeah. Rich people are like, fuck everybody else. I haven't been to that place, but I heard it's awesome. And the views, I've seen photographs of it. God, the fucking views there are insane. Yeah. I have multiple friends that live in Montana, and the thing about it is like, Everybody will tell you, like, when you're surrounded by those mountains and you look out at them every day, it like centers you and humbles you. That's exactly right. It's like the most spectacular natural art you're ever gonna see, and it's around you all the time.

And I drink my coffee every morning looking out the window, and it looks like a painting, and it never gets old. You know, if we need to go to the grocery store, I'll do it because it's so fun to drive there. You know, you get out, you put some tunes on, it's the best thing ever. Versus like living in LA, to go anywhere was the worst thing ever, right? Yeah, everything's a pleasure up there, man. It's really— it's something. But if you, if you, if you need any sort of like fast-paced or socialization, or if you're like trying to meet a babe or something, it's not gonna happen. There's no people, dude.

Yeah, I get that. There's a little of that in Austin. They're upset that the Californians moved here. Yeah, they're upset. They're A lot of people blamed me and Elon. Sure. They blamed us for moving here and ruining Austin. Like, sorry, we made it more awesome. Fucking pussies. Shut your mouth. It's all the same thing. It's like people that want credit for being here first, like, fuck off. Now you have more restaurants, way more comedy. There's like 7 comedy clubs on my street now. On the street where my club is, there's 7 comedy clubs now. That's amazing. It's like one of the big hubs of live comedy in the world now.

Did it have it at all before?

It had a couple places. There was a place called Cap City that actually went under before the pandemic, or actually like right at the beginning of the pandemic. When I got here, it was for sale. And so I was looking at that place to buy it, but it didn't work out. And then there was another— there's another place that's been around forever called the Velveeta Room. It's a real small room. I think it seats like 100 or so. And then, you know, I think there was maybe a couple other bars that maybe had comedy and there was like a small scene of some comedians. But nothing like what it is now. It's not even comparable. I mean, there's like 17, 18 world-class comics that live here now.

Wow. It's crazy. And talk about stage fright. I think that is— that would be the hardest art form. Just getting up, you have no help. There's nothing to hide behind, right? There's no music, right? There's like, you know, it's just silence and you and a microphone.

You can't just get into your tune and fucking just play and close your eyes.

No, there was a film actually one time that I was attached to to play a stand-up comedian, and I promised the director that if we got our funding and got the green light to go, that I'd go do it, that I'd actually go out and like work up 15 minutes and just, you know, do it until I understood what it was like. And that movie fell through, and I was very, very happy about that because I didn't want to do it.

It's hard. I bet, man. It's confusing because the people are just talking. You're like, why is that hard to do? Everybody talks, you know, like everybody could tell a story, everybody could. And it seems easy to do until you do it, and then you're like, oh, this is— but I was hooked right away because I sucked the first night. I bombed. But I was like, I got a couple of laughs on some things, and I was like, I think I can figure this out. But I was, like I said, I was more scared than when I was fighting. I was more scared before like a big fight. Like it was weird. I was like, why am I nervous? It didn't make any sense. My friend Whitney Cummings explained it to me. She said people have this fear of public speaking because in tribal societies back in the day, the only time you spoke in front of a large group of people was when you're being judged because they were going to kill you. Oh, interesting. Right. Yeah. Doesn't that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, so like if you're in front of people, they're all like, what did he do?

You know, so you have to like, guys, I didn't steal the tomatoes.

Yeah, I never thought about that.

Yeah, that's what it is.

Yeah, no place to hide, man. I don't know, that sounds scary. And especially if like it starts going bad, like if you start to bomb. Mm-hmm. Is there any way out of that, or is it—

people have recovered? Yeah, the people have started off bombing and then pulled themselves out of it. I've done it a couple of times. Most of the time when I'm bombing, I'm bombing forever. You're going down. But there's a good to that, all right? The good is you have to reexamine your material, and you— every time in my career, in the, like, the early days when I bombed, I always got way better afterwards because I was like, whatever the fuck that was, I don't want to experience that again. And I really focused and really, really wrote like crazy and went over recordings and buttoned down and trimmed things and changed things around. And you need losses. Losses are very important. They're important in fighting. They're important in— they're all important important in every— they're important in life. Like, uh, one of my kids just had a breakup recently, and I had a conversation with her. I go, I know this sucks, but this is actually important. Like, it has to happen. And I told her, like, about, like, the first time a girl broke up with me when I was 17. I was devastated. Oh, the worst.

Oh, it's the worst feeling. Couldn't believe my life was over. I'm only 17. I can— I'm never gonna recover. I'm like, it's so important because you realize like, as time passes, you understand that this is just a moment in time, and there's other people you're gonna meet. And it's just, you have to develop some resiliency, some emotional resiliency, right? And so you have to experience that. And you also have to realize that, you know, people, they don't know what they're doing either. Like, boys don't know what they're doing, girls don't know what they're doing. They're kind of figuring out as they go along. The people break up and they make up, and These are these lessons that you have to learn in life, and loss is important because it makes you understand, like, why'd this person get sick of me? Why am I annoying? Why? Yeah, what, you know, am I selfish? Like, what is it? Look, what is wrong with me? You know, why, you know, why am I picking these people that are gonna break my heart? Why don't I adjust? Why don't I, like, maybe I should spend some time alone and figure out what the fuck is wrong with me, or figure out who I am, and those moments where you have to kind of go through things and figure them out, they're so important for you in life.

And for a comic, bombing can oftentimes be one of the best, like, motivating factors to take you to another level in your career. Mm-hmm. Or wreck your confidence forever, right? Just like fighting.

Yeah, I was gonna say, it happens to fighters.

Oh yeah, some fighters lose and they're never the same again.. And some fighters lose, and then a new version of them emerges in the next fight. You're like, whoa, this dude dialed in.

Who would be a good example of that?

Charles Oliveira. Oh yeah, yeah, he's the best example of it. Because for the longest time, everybody thought he was a quitter, like he would just break. And now he's like one of the scariest motherfuckers alive. Yeah, you know, especially this last weekend, the fight with Max Holloway. Like, good Lord, like Max Holloway was a 2-to-1 favorite in that fight. He got shut out. Yeah, like literally every round was a dominant performance by Oliveira.

It was crazy. It's funny, people complaining about that fight too. It's like the—

because it was on the ground, right? Yeah, yeah. My daughter complained about it. She's like, the main event was so boring. You're a casual. My kid's a casual. People love a slugfest, don't they? Oh yeah, they do, they do, they do love a slugfest. Yeah, but you know, that's And that's the sport. The sport is like, sometimes it's gonna be exciting and sometimes it's just gonna be a ground battle. But for me, it was exciting because I was trying to figure out whether Max could get up, what he could do to prevent from getting taken down, and whether or not he could figure out a way to reverse the position and get on top. And, you know, when you're watching like a guy dominate a world champion like that, it's just— you're in Marvel. You're like, wow, this is crazy. I can't believe he's able to do this. This is nuts.

I wish I would have started jiu-jitsu when I was small, because I tried, like, you know, late 30s, and I was like— it was kind of like the golf thing where I was like, well, first of all, it's way cooler than golf, but I was like, the amount of time it's gonna take me until this doesn't feel like being smothered, yeah, it's gonna be a long time, and I don't know if I have— I don't know if I can start now, you know. I'm sure. Yeah, like, if— how long would it take for like grown person until it— until you actually know what's going on intuitively and it doesn't feel like chaos.

Well, there's layers of knowing intuitively. Like, there's guys— like, even as a black belt, there's guys that I could roll with and I would just get humiliated because they're just so much better than I am. Like my friend Gordon Ryan, that's his belt up there, Abu Dhabi champion. He's the greatest of all time. Like in his 30s. Yeah, the greatest grappler that's ever lived.

That looks like—

but man, he's just— he's a freak. He's amazing. But he trains 365 days a year. He does not take breaks off. Christmas, fuck you. It's your birthday, fuck you. Happy Easter, fuck you. Yeah, he trains every day, and he trains like twice a day, 3 times a day. It's like, that is the only way to be the greatest. And, you know, and he's obviously a lot bigger than me, but it's not the best example, but But he does that to heavyweight black belts, just humiliates them. They have no— he writes down on a piece of paper what he's gonna do to them and hands it to the judges before the fight. So he's like, I'm gonna triangle this guy. Like, that's crazy. He's doing it to world champions. It's amazing. Like, guys who have been like multiple-time world champions. Wow. And he's just predicting what he's gonna do, and then he passes on every submission until he can get him in that. Like, he's having fun, but he's like, he's playing with his food. You know, so there's levels to stuff. So to be competent in rolling, you can get there in a couple years depending on how often you train.

Like, Bourdain got really serious at 58.

Wow, at 58?

That's when he started? That's when he started, yeah. Oh, when I first met him, he wasn't training at all. When I first met him, he came to the UFC. His wife was really into the UFC, and she was— she had just started doing jiu-jitsu. And she was getting him into the sport. He really got interested in it, and then she took him to jiu-jitsu classes. Like, fuck, this is actually kind of fascinating. Yeah. And he had never done any kind of athletic things in his whole life. And then, like, when he was 60— there's a photo of him, like, in his 60s, and he's walking down the street with his— he'd gotten divorced and he was dating some new girl, and he's got the six-pack. He looks shredded. And when I, when I first met him, he's like doughy, and he had a thumb ring, and he was like, you know, a chef, and, you know, was into drinking. And he just became a jiu-jitsu addict, and he was training every fucking day, and sometimes twice a day. He would do a private lesson and then would take a class every day. Wow. Yeah, he got him.

And then he, he told me he was taking his— like, when we were hunting in Montana, he— we were on the ground in Montana. He wanted to like learn some stuff. So I was explaining him certain— but like, I'm like, when you go for a d'arce, there's a way to get— there's a thing called the Japanese necktie. And I was explaining to him on the dirt.

I was like, you guys all camoed out doing jiu-jitsu on the ground.

But he's like, he was so interested in it. He was like constantly asking questions. And he had guys that were in the crew that had also gotten interested in jiu-jitsu because of him. So like, while he was there filming his show, he also went down and was training. He found a local jiu-jitsu gym. Him, and he went down there and trained while he was there. He would train everywhere on the road. Yeah, he would go to like foreign countries and train. Like, he didn't even speak the language. And you know, he's this fucking famous guy from TV, and he's just rolling in there with like normal people and getting strangled.

58, man, that's incredible. I have no excuse. I'm gonna start. Yeah, yeah, do it. I want to put it in front of my kid for sure. Oh, definitely. I mean, as soon as he can do it, I want him to try, you know, if he likes it or not. But it's like, I feel like it's one of those things It's so good to connect with other people in that way from such a young age. Yeah, confidence. And then if you, if you love it, if he has a passion for it, you don't have to worry about him becoming a drug addict or something because you can't be both. Like, right, you know, there's a few things where like you can't be both. You've got to really give that everything.

Also, it becomes like a real source of confidence for kids if they know that they can fight, like they can avoid fights. People won't want to fight them because they'll have a reputation. They can It's very good to know. It's also like you can get out of things just by knowing how to fight, because you know like what people are doing, what they're not doing. You don't say anything stupid because you're trying to trick a person into thinking that you're a tough guy. This is a quiet confidence that comes with these guys. And also, if something does happen, most people have zero idea of how to fight. Zero. And they think they're just gonna swing and hit you in the face, and you see all this shit coming way before it happens. Like, you see them moving their right foot back, like, oh God, yeah, like, here we go. Like, it's, it's like they're playing a game, but they don't even know the rules. Like, they don't even know the skill, they don't know anything, but they've seen it on TV and they think they're gonna be able to pull it off, especially if they're drunk.

Oh yeah, there's a whole Instagram channel that's dedicated to fights on 6th Street here. Have you seen this? It's amazing, dude. It's incredible.

You can just watch it for hours. I've seen a bunch. A lot of them taking place right in front of my club. Fights on the street are so scary because guys fall and they hit their head. That's— it's— that's how people die. People die when they get punched in the jaw and they go out and they just bang their head off the ground.

Or there's a lot of people out there that'll, when you're already out, step on your head, kick your head. We see that a lot. Yeah, that's— I don't understand anyone who has the impulse to do that. Right, that's crazy to me. Like, if you've won the fight already, move on.

Yeah, that's, that's scary stuff. That's evil. Well, some people that get red with rage and they lose their mind, and then they wind up in jail for the rest of their life, and then just sitting in a cell going, what the fuck, one night drunk doing something stupid and now I'm here forever. Yeah, it's crazy. And there's— and someone's dead, and someone's dead, someone's parents are crying, and someone's missing their father.

Like, fuck, yeah, because he looked at my girlfriend.

Yeah, that's crazy. I know, people are retarded. Yeah, the best thing about fighting is it teaches you not to fight. Very few of my friends that know how to fight have ever been in street fights. It almost never happens. Mm-hmm.

Just like, it's such a stupid thing to do.

How many times in your life have you had to use it, like, practically in real life? Never. Really? Never. Not since I was in, like, high school. I've never been in a fight fight. Fight, like an actual fight, since high school. I avoid them. Yeah, I'm not like— if I know I can fuck you up and I could just get away, I'm like, I just get away. I don't need to prove, like, what's the point? Also, here's the thing, people always say, oh, if I could fight, I'd fuck people up. Great, and then they're gonna come back and kill you, you know? And then they're gonna run you over or shoot you. Or— don't be stupid. Like, it's pointless. It's pointless, you know? I've had situations where I thought I was gonna have to fuck somebody up and I didn't. But you have to have self-control. You have to, you know, you have to be able to know. And also, like, most people, like, if they want to fight you, all you have to do is kind of like put your hands up and move a little bit. Like, they're not gonna be able to do anything.

They'll be swinging and you're just like, come on, what are we doing here? Yeah, what are we doing? And it's, it's the only time people get hurt is when you engage, like you're both swinging at each other. If someone's swinging at you and they don't know what they're doing, they have almost almost no chance of hurting me. Like, zero. Unless I'm asleep, unless I'm really drunk, you have almost zero chance of hitting me, right? Unless you really know what to do. If you really know how to fight— most of those people really know how to fight aren't fighting people.

Street fighting.

Yeah. And I'm not going to provoke anybody. I'm not going to start a fight. So it's like, I mean, I know a few of my friends that have had to fuck people up. Gordon had to beat the fuck out of a homeless guy in Austin. What? Yeah. No way. Oh yeah, some homeless guy. He picked the wrong dude. Boy, did he. And Gordon tried to get out of it, but the guy wouldn't. He put him to sleep. Wow. Yeah, put him to sleep and then called the cops. The cops came and picked the guy up. Humiliated. Oh my God, it's the wrong guy. Yeah, but that shows you how fucking stupid people are, because Gordon's a gorilla. He's this big giant 240-pound jacked dude who's, you know, I don't know how many times jiu-jitsu world champion, and some fucking idiot Right now, probably high out of his mind. Yeah, drugs are bad. Fight with him. I think he picked a fight with his girlfriend first. I think he fucked with his girlfriend and fucked with another guy, and just a problem. Just some guys are just nuts, man. Yeah. And, you know, mental health issues.

And but fights are stupid. They're so pointless. You know, organized fights, it's a different thing. I mean, that's high-level problem-solving with dire physical consequences. That's what I call it. That's what a real fight is, like a like both agree we're gonna make a certain weight, we're gonna meet September 7th, here it is. That's a different thing.

It's a beautiful thing. It's like a chess match and you can't breathe, you know?

Yeah, crazy. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, but in chess the pieces can only move a certain way, right? In jiu-jitsu, what's nuts is there's like so many different variations, and then you add in striking and wrestling, and like, oh my god, it's so— I love it. I'll never get tired of watching MMA. It's the most exciting thing ever for me. I like other sports. Like, I've really grown to love football since I moved to Texas, and I can watch a good basketball game. Baseball's hard, but to me it's all just downtime unless fights are on, right? If fights are on, I'm not watching anything else. Like, I've been at football games, like at UT games, with the UFC on my phone sitting there while I'm watching the UFC.

And I wish I had football envy. I went to a Christian school in Ohio and we didn't have a football team. I feel like if you don't like grow up around it in high school, you just don't understand like the nuance. I understand the rules and I get it, but I just, I don't know, I don't love it like people do. And I wish I did. I wish that the stakes just— I don't understand it. I don't understand the team sport thing as much as I do. Like, I love MMA, I love watching UFC because it's like The stakes are so high. There's something about one-on-one, who's the better person today? You know, that's, you know, you can't— there's no one to blame it on, right?

It's just one person. It's a different thing. Like, I have grown to love it living here. My wife is a big football fan, and so she got me into it. And then I've gone to a bunch of UT games, and they're fucking fun, man. And it's like, when someone scores a touchdown, everybody wins. Like, the whole team cheers, like the whole audience, like 80,000 people. And there's something to that, right? Because like when fighters fight and someone gets knocked out, like people cheer and it's exciting. But like, you know, you never know who's— like if you're watching Justin Gaethje fight Max Holloway, I don't know who's for Justin Gaethje, who's for Max Holloway. You look out there like everybody's wearing UT colors, right? Or they're wearing, you know, Oklahoma colors. Like it's like you've got your colors, everybody, you got your outfits, everybody's pumped They cheer when this guy scores, they boo when that guy scores. It's like more of a team. Everybody wins together. Yeah. Whereas like with MMA, you know, you— there's— there's— it's like you're just watching an individual. You're appreciating an individual who's a rare human being. Type of human being that become— becomes a guy who could become an MMA world champion.

That is a truly special human. Like, the amount of dedication and drive and the amount of focus and discipline and the courage that you have to have to get in your fucking underwear and stand there with a cup on, with little tiny pads on your gloves in front of another savage, like another trained killer who's been training for 18 weeks for this one moment, and they bolt the door shut to the cage, and then the referee goes, "Fighter, are you ready? Fighter, are you ready? Let's go!" Crazy. And then the whole world is watching. You're surrounded by 20,000 people, lights and cheering, and you, you're trying to keep your shit together when you're getting kicked.

And how do you sleep the night before that? That would be my thing. I don't think I could. I wouldn't be able to sleep. It's hard.

I would always get sick. I would get sick before tournaments because I wasn't sleeping right. I was training really hard, and I didn't even take vitamins back then. I was a dumbass, but because I was young— I stopped fighting when I was 22. But for a lot of these guys, it is hard. It's really hard to just relax. And then they grow to learn how to relax. And then it's really scary. Then it's really hard to beat them because a lot of guys are terrified before they even get— like Anderson Silva in his prime, he would win fights at the weigh-ins because they would just like look at him and he'd be standing there staring at you and you're like, "Oh my God, I have to fight this guy tomorrow. Oh my— what have I done?

Why am I doing this with my life?" Imagine doing that stare down with Mike Tyson back in the day. Oh God.

That'd be the most terrifying. Terrifying. Oh dude, it was, it was. There would be guys that look like they were gonna faint when the referee was giving them instructions, you know. I remember he fought Bruce Seldon, and Bruce Seldon, who was a beast, man, he's a fucking tank of a man, and he looked like he was gonna faint during the staredown.

I can't imagine. Yeah, yeah, he was the scariest of all time.

He was, he was absolutely the scariest of all time, the scariest boxer that I've ever seen in my life. And there was a period of time between like 1986 and like probably like around 1990 where he was just fucking running through everybody. It was so— you would buy the pay-per-view knowing that the guy was gonna get knocked out and hoping that you get your money's worth. Because you look at pay-per-views like, whatever it was, $50 or something, you know, like if it's like 30 seconds, like, oh, it's bullshit. People would get upset that the The pay-per-view was so quick, but I mean, that's what you were— that's what you're signing up for. And those kind of guys, I mean, when you got a guy that's got every box checked— discipline, focus, training, genetics, everything all together, mindset, right? He would beat guys like long before they ever got in there because they knew that they were— they were fighting this demon. This guy that just was so much better than everybody else, and there's no way you could catch up to him.

No. Is it true about his— wasn't it like his trainer died and then kind of he lost the whole—

yeah, well, his trainer was Cus D'Amato, and Cus D'Amato was a legendary figure in boxing. He trained Floyd Patterson, Jose Torres. He trained like a lot of like legit world champions. And he was also a hypnotist. And he adopted— what? Yeah, he was a hypnotist. Yeah, well, he was really into the mental side of fighting. He was more almost like as much of a psychologist as he was a boxing trainer. Was all about tempering their mind and getting them ready. Like, he would tell Mike Tyson, you don't exist, only the task exists. He would say crazy shit to him, and he adopted him when he was 13. So, Mike was 13, and he came from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It was a horrible neighborhood, so his whole life was like crime and violence and no love and just terrible. And then all of a sudden, this man took him under his wing, who was also a legendary figure in boxing. Legendary. Like, he was like— he was the guru. And, you know, he basically— it was like the perfect storm. And then he was also— his manager was this guy Jim Jacobs. And Jim Jacobs was not just a manager, he was a historian of boxing.

And he had this incredible library of all the great fighters. So he would watch film, you know, like fucking those— he like have a projection screen, and he would watch film of like Jack Johnson and Stanley Ketchell and, you know, Sandy Saddler and all these great fighters from back in the day. Roberto Durán. He would to sit there and absorb all these amazing fights. And when you can watch— like, that's one of the great things about today, like, especially with MMA. Like, if you look at the fights from 1993 and the fights from 2026, the skill level is like magnitudes greater because all these guys have grown up watching all these fights now. Because from the time that MMA existed, it was on television. You could watch it on YouTube after that, and it was like there was always fights that you could see. So you could see what guys were doing, so you had an understanding of the level. So kids would grow up imitating their favorite fighters. You grow up, you know, imitating Jon Jones and imitating Cain Velasquez and all these guys, and you would— you, you, you could absorb a lot just by seeing the elite level of these guys.

And Mike Tyson was one of the only guys back back then that had that ability. Interesting. Because he had this immense library of the greatest fights of all time. And so he would be training with one of the greatest trainers that ever lived, who's probably the greatest psychological trainer that ever lived. Also, the guy was hypnotizing him at 13, programming him to be this destruction machine. And then he was watching fights. So he's watching all these guys— Jack Johnson and all these, like, great old-school champions. And Jack Dempsey and like, and he just absorbed it all. Incredible. And he would get in that ring with fucking no socks on and no robe and just like a throwback. He was like one of, he was like, he absorbed the energy of those old great fighters, the Sugar Ray Robinsons and the hardcore old school guys who'd fight like once a week, once every 2 weeks. Dude, is that how often they were doing it? Oh, they fought so many times. I think before, Sugar Ray Robinson ever lost a fight. He was 90-0, something crazy like that. Wow. Yeah, 90. Fucking crazy. Whoa. Just crazy. Yeah, that's wild.

Those— and to be able to watch that kind of stuff when you're young, you absorb it, you know?

Sure. It's like kids that play instruments now. Sure. I mean, you'll see an 8-year-old online who's better than any drummer in the '70s, right? It's crazy. They're just— how quick they can— how quickly they can get better now. Oh, Oh ja, weil sie Zugriff auf jeden haben. So cool. Sag mal, hast du bei der Steuer auch diesen Schul-Flashback? Einfach irgendwas raten und dann hoffen, dass es stimmt? Boah, nee, gar nicht. WISO Steuer ist so mein Safe Space. Du meinst, damit ist alles sicher? Ja, genau.

WISO Steuer ist so die Steuer-App, die dich einfach versteht.

Egal ob Studium, Job oder Umzug.

Stimmt. Krass. Fühlt sich gar nicht wie Steuern an. Steuern erledigt? Safe! Mit WISO Steuer. I would imagine that's like that with all sports now. But, you know, like, you can, like, you could go back and watch— if you're a basketball player, you could go back and watch Jordan, you can watch Larry Bird, you can watch, you know, LeBron, Kobe. You can watch all these great basketball players and see what they're doing. Whereas if you were young, you know, in the '60s or '70s, like, you only got to see the people you saw. Yeah, you were as good as the people you were around, which is why it was so important to be a part of like a great program in high school and college, because then you'd be around like— and then you go to the States and see how these guys are doing. All these guys are better than us. Like, I remember that from wrestling. Like, the only time when I was wrestling in high school, the only time you get to see like really good guys, you'd go somewhere else. Like, I was— I went to school in Newton, Newton South High School, and we had good wrestlers in our program, and I thought they were good until I would go to the States And you go, oh my God, these fucking guys, these kids are going to camps every year.

They were wrestling 365 days a year. They're like obsessed with it. And then if you go to like Iowa or somewhere like that, like, good Lord, it's a fucking religion there. I mean, they've been doing that since they were babies. They've been— yeah, you know, it's like you, you, you absorb what you see and you, your brain rises to the level of the competition that you see.

The last time I was really into a boxer was Loma. Oh, I love watching him. Oh, he's got a cool story too. Didn't his dad make him do ballet for a while?

Ukrainian dance for 2 years.

Pulled him out of boxing for 2 years. That guy moves like it doesn't look real, right?

Like people shouldn't be able to move like that. The Matrix, they call it. Beautiful. Yeah, yeah, he would do footwork that no one had even considered doing before. The movement, the slipping to the side and the angles and the His ability to change direction was crazy because he would be here and then he'd be here, and then you're swinging and he's here and he's hitting you. And he also was way smaller than everybody. He was way smaller than everybody. Like, he was supposed to be a 126-pound fighter and he went all the way up to the 140-pound division.

Are there like a lot of younger guys doing that sort of style now coming up, or is it— is that like a one-off?

It's kind of a one-off. Usyk does it, but Usyk was trained by Lomachenko's father. They were trained by the same guy. So Usyk is essentially like a heavyweight Lomachenko. That's why he moves so much. Dangerous. That guy's a freak. He's a freak. He's a, he's a pleasure to watch. Watching that guy, I mean, he's beating guys that are so much bigger than him. When, when he beat Tyson Fury, Tyson Fury was like 280 pounds, and he's like a cruiserweight. He was really a 200-pound guy that that blew up to compete against heavyweights. He's much smaller than those guys, but he was so fast and so— and just his under— his pattern recognition, his understanding of boxing, it was just elite, like so many levels above everybody else. And he's 38. Like, at 38, you're supposed to be done. Yeah, no, 38, he's in his fucking prime. Amazing. Also clean life, clean living, like serious Christian, like very, very religious. You know, doesn't, doesn't party, doesn't fuck around, you know, and just trains with like rigid discipline. Yeah, that Soviet-style discipline, the Ukrainian discipline, like those guys, like their program over there, like you can see it like in Dmitry Bivol and a lot of the other like Soviet-style boxers.

They have like a very comprehensive technical program that they put their fighters under. There's a style— like Bivol's the, the best example of that style. It's such a fucking difficult style because it's so movement-based. And a lot of like American fighters were kind of rigid in their footwork and moving forward, just trying to land the big shots. And like, Bival is just moving around you all the time, popping you, and like, oh yeah, sort of like the Dagestani guys in MMA, same thing.

Oh yeah, you're not gonna beat those guys because it's all they do, bro.

They eat and breathe it. They're in Muay Thai now. Now. There's this kid that I'm obsessed with. He's 22 years old. His name is Asadullah Iman Ghazalieff. I don't want to fuck it up. Asadullah Iman Ghazalieff. He's a fucking freak, man. He's 22 years old and he's destroying world champions in Muay Thai, just killing them.

He's Dagestani? Yeah.

Oh wow. So the Dagestanis are taking over striking too now. Good. Well, this guy's nuts. Man, he's so fluid too. It's, it's nuts to watch him, man. He's like, he moves like nobody else moves. He's real tall for the weight class, so you can't even get close to him. He's fucking you up from the outside. And just, this is the guy. That's this, this guy is a fucking freak, man. He's just doing things different than everybody else. Wow. And he's destroying people. Just destroying everyone, everyone he fights. He's so unusual, man. And again, he's from a hard part of the world, man. You know, you grow up in some fucking soft neighborhood and your dad takes you to karate classes. No chance you're gonna fight this fucking dude.

This guy's fighting for his dinner.

He's just murking people. It's also, he comes from a culture that like reveres combat sports. You know, they have their champions, guys like Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov. Like, they're legends over there. Yeah, you know, and everybody grows up wanting to be one of those guys. Where was Fedor from?

He's from Russia. Is he? Oh yeah, he was the first. I was watching him growing up, man. He was the first. So I used to watch him before auditions. Really? Yeah, there was just something about his, like, mindset where it's like, his— he was so even-keel.

Yeah, stoic.

Yeah, it's like his heart rate didn't change change or something. Even when he won, he'd just be like, and like, yeah, walk off like that.

Yeah, yeah, his expression never changed. Oh yeah, he was one of the all-time greats, if not the all-time great. He was different than everybody else, and he was a heavyweight that could submit you, he could knock you out, he was fast, he wasn't big.

I mean, he was like 5'11", very unassuming. Yeah, you wouldn't know he was the most dangerous guy in the world.

Belly fat, he didn't give a fuck what what he looked like. He was all about how he could perform, right? You know, and he was a part of like that era where MMA emerged. And in Japan, it was so much bigger than it was in America. During the Pride days when Fedor was running shit, there was 90,000 people in those arenas. Whoa. Yeah, they were doing like the Tokyo Superdome. They were doing these gigantic arenas, and like everyone was a fan in the country. And then it all went away because the, the Yakuza was involved and there was a big scandal. And, you know, like, MMA was bigger in Japan than it was anywhere in the world, and it just kind of like fizzled out.

Did you ever go to any of those in Japan?

I went to a UFC once in Japan. We did one UFC in Japan and I went there. It was really cool. It was just— I was just really happy to be in Japan for a fight because I, you know, I've been such a fan of Japanese martial artists. And Japanese martial arts, period. And look, I have a— I mean, I have Miyamoto Musashi tattooed on my arm. But being in there in Japan was like— it was interesting because they were so educated. Like, they were really quiet while the fights are going on, but then when something would happen, even something really technical like somebody passing the guard, they would go, oh, and they would all clap. Like, I was like, whoa, this is interesting. Yeah, like, it was like you could hear each corner yelling instructions. Like, you wouldn't— you didn't hear the crowd at all. Wow. There's 16,000 people in there. That's cool. It was wild. Yeah, it was a completely different kind of audience. Like, very respectful, very appreciative, and very knowledgeable. It was— it was cool.

Do you think if you didn't do what you did, would you rather watch like UFC in person, or would you watch it at home?

In person's the best. You want to be there. You want to feel the crowd. But I would want to be there where I sit. Like, I'm super spoiled. Yeah, you got the best seat. Yeah, I'm like, I could reach up and grab the cage. It's right there. Like, I'm so spoiled. But, you know, if you're in the bleachers, if you're in like the nosebleeds, you're probably better off watching it at home, honestly, because then you get the commentary, you get to see replays, you get to see, you know, like close-up if you got a big TV at home.

You get to see everything. I just sat close for the first time. I went to the Paddy Gaethje fight. Oh, did you? It was amazing. That was a good one. It was amazing, dude. But yeah, it's definitely different hearing the sound. Oh yeah, it's like a whole— when you hear like bone on bone, you're like, whoa.

Well, my favorite was during the pandemic. We had fights at the UFC Apex with no crowd. It was insane. It was so— because we had world championship fights with no crowd. That's crazy. There was maybe like 50, 100 people in the room. Wow. It was like mostly just staff of the UFC, the trainers of the fighters, and some, some of the other fighters in the audience, some friends in the audience, and that's it. And the UFC Apex has a smaller ring too, a smaller cage. So it's like, I think it's like, I want to say it's 40% smaller.

It's a lot smaller. Really? Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's small. How would that affect a fight?

A lot, practically. Can't move as much. Not as much distance to get away, you know. So a guy who likes to like move around a lot and get away from people— like, I saw Francis Ngannou versus Stipe Miocic when Francis won the title in the Apex with no crowd. That's crazy. And when Francis hits things, it's like, it's like hearing a baseball bat hitting a pumpkin. It's just whomp. Yeah, and you're right there. You hear them breathing, you hear the grunts when they get hit. It, you know, right? You hear the coaches yelling out, hands up, hands up, move, move, move, you know, hit him with the one, one-two. They're yelling out instructions and it's like there's no one else there. It's silent. Wow. It's amazing. So that's the way— oh, that's my favorite. Cool. But there's something about an amazing crowd, you know, like when you're watching a big world title fight in a, like, in Vegas or in the Madison Square Garden. It's an incredible place just because the history of the place. You feel it when you're in Madison Square Garden. But my favorite is the Apex.

How you feeling about this White House card? That's insane.

Makes me a little nervous. I don't know if it's the best idea.

Yeah, it seems like it would open some room for some tomfoolery.

It seems like it. Yeah. The card is not what they wanted it to be, for sure. They wanted it to be like all world title But, you know, matchmakers have a very difficult task. It's very hard to find people that aren't injured, that are like, like, that are ready at this particular time. Because the brutal aspect of this sport is that guys are always hurt. They're always training hurt. They're always getting hurt. They fight hurt. There's always— no one, very rarely, is anyone going into the octagon 100%. Sure, there's always something going on. Guys are dealing with staph infections in camp and they're taking antibiotics and it fucks with your endurance. And maybe they've got a muscle pull or a knee that's fucked up. And when Francis Ngannou fought Cyril Gane, he blew his ACL out, so he had to wrap his leg up and he had one leg and he beat him with one leg. Crazy. Guys have fought with broken hands, you know. Alex Pereira He's beaten guys with a broken foot. He fights with a broken foot, just stoic, standing there, knows his foot's broken, doesn't give a fuck. He fought with a bad knee.

His knee needed surgery. Like, like there's a fight that he fought Yuri Prochaska where he's on top of Yuri, they stopped the fight, and he does a forward roll to get off of him after he knocked him out because he couldn't stand on his left leg.

I didn't know that. Was that like a known thing while the fight was happening?

No. Oh, no.

He had surgery. I remember that fight. Yeah, that's crazy.

Yeah, he had surgery after the fight.

Pereira is really big in our house because Brazil, right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Those Brazilians, man, they love each other. It's crazy. My wife, she doesn't— she doesn't even care about MMA that much, but if there's a Brazilian fight and she's all about it.

Oh yeah, yeah, very, very proud people. Yeah, and it's also like Brazil's where it all started. They were having MMA fights in Brazil in the 1930s. Really? Oh yeah, Helio Gracie Gracie, who's really the founder of all this shit. He's the father of like the Gracie clan. The Gracie family is like the greatest story in the history of martial arts. That one family has changed martial arts forever, and it really changed it because of Carlos Gracie and Helio Gracie and Carlson Gracie. There's these three Gracies who competed in these no-rules fights. They didn't have time limits back then, no gloves. No nothing. Hmm. And they were fighting in giant crowds in Brazil in the 1930s, 1940s, and they were figuring things out that nobody had figured out before. They figured out— they took techniques from judo. Like, judo was mostly about throws, but there was some submissions. And so they concentrated only on the submissions, and they honed— and they created Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Like, jiu-jitsu, which was a Japanese martial art, right? But But Brazilian jiu-jitsu is far more technical than Japanese jiu-jitsu. And even Japanese guys now train Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

I was gonna say, is there any— are there purists that only do the Japanese style still, or not really?

You can't really compete. I mean, you— I mean, you could, because everybody kind of knows everything now, because Brazilian jiu-jitsu has made its way into every other sport. Brazilian jiu-jitsu has made its way into Russian sambo, and it was just another combat combat sport, which is also elite. But Brazilian jiu-jitsu changed the game, and the Gracie family changed everything forever. And, you know, and the guy who fought in the UFC, Royce, he wasn't even the best guy in the family. He told everybody, my brother Hickson kills me. Hickson was the man. Like, Hickson was above and beyond everyone back then. He was, he was a guy who did yoga, he was meditating, he did this crazy thing with his stomach where he would do this breathing where stomach would suck in. He was like a real freak, and he was undefeated. Like, nobody could touch him. He would, he would go and do these seminars. So he'd teach a seminar and teach it to all these black belts, and then he would roll with all of them nonstop and just tap out everybody. Everybody, world champions, they all like, ah, this is a bunch of hype, and they go there, get armbarred, and they all get leg locked.

Like, it was crazy. He was so much better than everybody else. And so they wanted Hoist to win because Hickson also was like pretty jacked, and he was like really fit. He was really into fit— he was really into strength and conditioning. And like I said, yoga. He was incredibly flexible. Like, he could stand there and do the splits and like hold his leg up in the air on a balance bar.

Is he the one that wrote that book? Yeah.

Yeah, I read that. Yeah. Yeah. And he had that documentary. It's a great documentary called Choke. Phenomenal documentary about his rise through Japan Valley judo. And then he was the guy— he was the guy they based the first Pride event on. Okay, he was the champion of the first Pride event. He was the guy that the whole thing was based on because he was huge in Japan. I mean, he was a superstar in Japan, but he was the champion of the family, and they wanted Hoist to do it because Hoist was like smaller and he would show jiu-jitsu was about technique. That makes sense. And the plan was, if Royce ever got beat, throw in Hickson. Okay, and everybody's fucked. But Hickson, like, his brother Horion started the UFC, and Horion and Hickson had friction, and Horion really couldn't control Hickson. And so they were like, let's put Royce in, and if we need to call on Hickson, we'll call the boogeyman. He was the boogeyman.

Remember the guy, I think it was UFC 1, who had the one glove, the one boxing glove?

Yeah, Art Jimmerson.

Yeah, what was that about?

Well, I think he decided he wanted to be able to hold on to people and he wanted to punch him with his right hand. Weird tactic. Well, no one knew what the fuck they were doing back then. Everybody had this idea of what fighting was and they didn't really know until they got taken down. There he is. Oh, it was his left hand. So that's interesting. So I guess he wanted to pop him with the jab. Was that hoisted? Just fucking put it to that guy. Amazing. But Royce was doing something that nobody had seen before. In that one event when he was doing that to people, it changed everything. It changed my opinion of martial arts. I immediately started taking jiu-jitsu.

I was like, oh my god, you were taekwondo?

I started in taekwondo, and then I did kickboxing for a while. And then when— as soon as I saw the UFC, I immediately started taking jiu-jitsu. Yeah, I was like, oh Oh God, I don't— and then when I started taking it, I was so cocky. I was like, I know how to fight. And then I took classes, was just getting manhandled and mauled and tapped left and right. I was like, oh my God, I'm a beginner. Yeah, this is so humiliating. And I was like, I gotta get good at this. Yeah, this is— I couldn't believe how helpless I was. I was running around thinking, thinking I was a badass, and I was just a fool.

Yeah, I'll humble you real quick. Oh, so I've gone through that. I, I did it for, you know, maybe a couple once, and I just— I never made it past the hump. I should probably try again.

But get a trainer. Get a guy who can do drills with you. That's really huge. If you can get someone to do drills with you and like just go over like, uh, like on a one-on-one basis the, the, the finer aspects of it, and just do drills and drills, drills over and over again, and then slowly start working your way into group classes. Yeah, that's the key.

I think the thing is with, you know, if you, if you go to a boxing class, Muay Thai class, you get to get some frustration out, right? Because you're hitting something and it kind of feels good on your drive home. You feel like, I just beat the shit out of that bag, you know? Yeah. But then you do, you roll with somebody who's really good and you go home and you're more frustrated.

But the first time you tap someone, it's like, it's such a revelation. Like, oh my god, I got an armbar. Oh my god, I got a triangle. Like, the first time you actually catch someone something and they tap I'll never forget that feeling. I was like, wow. And then you have to just trust the process, trust the process of showing up and, and realizing it is a tall mountain to climb. It's— you're not gonna get there quick. It is a— it's a weird thing to do with your body. Your body doesn't know what to do with it. That's why drilling is so important. When you're drilling, you're going over the motions without resistance, so your body sort of gets programmed how to shift to be able to switch, switch your hips and how to catch the arm and how to pull your body back and secure it with your legs and all the different things that you have to do. Where if you're doing just live sparring all the time, you, you're not going to learn because you're all panicking and tight. You got to be able to like train your body to move a certain way so it becomes automatic.

And is there a way to do it where you can stay relatively injury-free while you're learning, or is it like that's just part of the—

it's kind of part of it. Yeah, I was gonna say it's kind of part of it. Yeah, everybody just sort of assumes you're gonna eventually get hurt in one way or another. You're gonna fuck your knee up or fuck your ankle up or whatever, right? But the best way is to find good training partners. Don't train with any wild people because some people just yank on things and those are dangerous. The really dangerous people are like blue belts who are really strong, who are just like really spaz out on you. Like, sure, kind of avoid those folks because they could blow your knee out accidentally. Yeah, you know, I've seen that a lot. Like, I know people that are really good that won't roll with people that are spazzes.

They're like, I'm not. I definitely ran into a couple of the guys that are like— they just wanted to choke out Casey Dutton. Of course. Like, come on, man, I just started.

Of course. I used to get that when I was on Fear Factor. A lot of guys want to choke out the Fear Factor guy. Yeah, but you know, that's just part of the fun. Like, for Dane, like He was a 58-year-old white belt. Nuts. Wow. If that guy did it, fucking kind of anybody can do it.

What belt did he get to?

He might have got to purple. He definitely got to blue. I don't know if he got to purple, but he won tournaments. Wow. He competed in tournaments, you know. You know, I remember when he first started doing these, like, I'd really like to compete in some age-appropriate tournaments. I was trying to talk him out of it. I was like, don't get hurt, man. We need you out there. Yeah, he was obsessed. If he could do it— like, that just goes to show you, a guy with no athletic experience, not a worker, didn't train, didn't, didn't do any working out, wasn't a runner, didn't lift weights, nothing. And then at 58, he's like, all right, I'm gonna get good at this.

That's amazing.

Yeah, good for him, man. It's awesome. Well, he was a guy that had had substance abuse problems in his past, and the thing about being an addict is if you can focus whatever that thing is and get addicted to something really good, you can, you can really excel. Sure. For whatever weird reason. Also, there's a flip side. So people that are addicted to a sport or a thing and they get really good at a thing and then they become drug addicts, that same thing can kind of hijack your brain and then all you're doing is like chasing meth all day, right? I've seen that happen too, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, should get back into it.

It's a fun thing to do. Yeah, it's good for your head too, because it's the hardest thing you'll ever do. It's so hard because you're essentially— what you're— the game you're playing is I kill you or you kill me, right? So when a guy gets your back and gets your rear naked choke and you tap, you're essentially saying you just killed me. I thank you for not killing me. I give up. And then when you do it to him, he's saying that to you. Yeah, so it's so hard that the rest of your life is easy, right? Everything else becomes easy. Well, all the stress of fame and success and Hollywood and the bullshit, it's nothing compared to some dude mounting you, trying to get in your— you got— you're trapped in an arm triangle, like, trying to get your hand down to protect yourself. It's way harder. And that, that makes the rest of your life easier. If you can choose what's hard in your life, you'll be way better off. Yeah, find a thing that's way more difficult on your mind, way more difficult on your body, way more difficult on your spirit than this other thing that you do.

So it'll like make that other thing like easier to tolerate.

Yeah, and stay humble too.

Yeah, oh yeah, super humble.

Not gonna think you're cool for being able to say some lines.

Some people get Well, that's the other thing, right? You get really intoxicated with everybody kissing your ass. Oh yeah, easy, easy trap. We've all seen that. We've all seen actors are just like inflated.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a little blessed in the way that I've never thought I was very great at anything. I enjoy doing the things, but I've not, you know, like never really— I'm never good enough for myself, kind of hard on myself a little bit, but I've seen it for sure. If you're waiting for someone else to validate you, once they do, you're screwed. Right. Because you're gonna believe it. Right.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, there's the problem of being a star is that like all these people need you and the world, their world of the show revolves around you. Yeah. So they're all like, you know, kind of kissing your ass and reverent towards you. It's like, it's a little weird.

Yeah. Yeah, that, and that's new for me too. You know, I'd never been anything that was like a massive hit before Yellowstone and now with this new show So now it's a hit and I'm the number one on the call sheet, which is very new. And so I'm like a, you know, I'm an asset to them in a different way. So it'll be interesting navigating that.

They'll probably try to talk you out of doing jiu-jitsu.

Yeah, I probably have to sign something that I won't, you know, I'm not allowed to like ski. There's a lot of things because of the insurance. Like if I get hurt and production has to shut down, it's a lot of money for them.

So yeah. That makes sense.

Yeah, I don't know if that's one of them though, but it's like, yeah, skiing. Don't ask. It's funny because horseback riding usually is, and I have to do that for the show.

That's the most dangerous. Yeah, horseback riding scares the shit out of me, dude.

It's me too. It was not— it didn't come natural. That's not like a thing that I'm naturally good at or had done before Yellowstone.

My oldest daughter did it for a little bit in California, and she fell a couple of times, and one time she hurt her wrist really bad, and I was like, please stop. Stop. Don't do this. Because she was doing those things where you'd like jump over stuff.

Like, oh, that's so dangerous because they stop just shy of that thing and you go flying, right?

Yeah. Her friend, she had a good friend that was really into it, and they started doing it together. And I was like, please don't. And she fell a couple times and she was okay, but one time she really hurt her wrist. And I was like, please stop. Because your wrist, they can fix. Your neck, you get like Christopher Reeves, you know.

Oh. Oh, I think about Christopher Reeves every time. I believe—

I wish I didn't. That was what he did, right? He was doing the jumping thing, right? Was it? I believe so. Yeah, yeah, I just don't— I don't—

yeah, I don't get it. Do you ride motorcycles?

No, no, I don't. Almost did. Almost taking lessons. Me and a couple of the other guys that worked on the crew at Fear Factor, we all took motorcycle lessons together. We were all talking about it, and so we took took motorcycle safety courses. You know, you basically ride like— it's kind of like a dirt bike, and they teach you how to, you know, shift and all this stuff. And I kind of got into it. I was like, oh, this is really fun. And then 3 of my friends had motorcycle accidents, like, within a short time period. Um, one of them wiped out, fucked up his shoulder. The other one got hit by a car, broke his leg. And then the other one was actually— someone saw someone one. It wasn't an actual motorcycle accident. He was there when some guy got rear-ended by a car that wasn't paying attention, just plowed into him and sent him flying and fucked this guy up. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not doing that.

I had a bike for a couple months in LA, and, uh, I went on a ride. And, you know, it's one of those things, you, you have to have the bug. You like either have it or you don't. I was trying to get the bug because I wanted that to be a part of my identity, you know what I mean? I wanted to be a guy who rode motorcycles. Cycles. So I rode up the Pacific Coast Highway, and I was kind of riding up through like Ojai and going around this corner, you know, this sort of like cliffside. And it's that thing where if you stare at something, that's where you're gonna go. And I just kind of was like zoned out, and I almost ate shit right into the side of this cliff. And I was alone. Like, if I would have done it, it would have been forever until anyone figured out like what had happened to me, you know. And I kind of— it was a really, really close call. And I got off the bike, and I kind of sat there for a minute, and I was I was like, yeah, I don't love it enough to die this way, you know what I mean?

I don't need this in my life. And I never, never did it again.

I have friends that have never had a problem. I have friends that ride bikes and have never had a problem. I think if I lived in Montana, I might do it because there's just not that much traffic.

No, but my 70-year-old neighbor just hit a deer. Oh, 70 years old on his like, you know, one of the BMW like adventure bikes, and he was going 70 on the highway and hit a deer. Yeah, he's— and he's fine, dude. This guy's a tank. But how old was he? 70. Whoa. Killed the deer. He had road rash everywhere. He was kind of like, you know, on the couch for a few minutes.

He's fine, dude.

He is a tank, this guy. They make them different out there, dude. He's my next-door neighbor. He's amazing. Shout out Steve. Wow. He, uh, he's got a range in his backyard to 500 yards. Oh wow. And has every firearm imaginable and things you didn't even know they made. And so anytime I can just just, you know, right over there in the side-by-side. We grab a few and go down and shoot in the back.

Oh, that's nice. That's cool. Yes. Yeah, you find people like that in Montana.

Oh yeah. Yeah, he's the real deal.

Wow. But 70 years old, hitting a deer is crazy on a bike.

Yeah, killed the deer, and he, uh, about a month later he was all right. He was back on the bike.

Oh boy. Jeez, I've seen some videos of guys hitting deer, like you see, like from their camera You see this thing leap in front of the road, then bang! Yeah, yeah, deers, they're everywhere out here, man. When I'm driving home, I drive slow. There's like a certain road near my house where they just pop out, all the suicidal deer. Yeah, just pop out, especially like around the rut where the, the bucks are chasing. They're not thinking straight. They're not chasing straight. They just, they're just out there like fucking, yeah, pussy hungry, standing in the road.

Staring at you. I love explaining to people how the rut works because it works just like humans. I'm like, the only time they're dumb enough that you're gonna get one is when they're horny, right?

You know, but for them it's once a year, which is way crazier than us.

Can you imagine if it all came on at once, bro?

If humans had a rut, I would go on vacation during that time. I'm like, I'm hiding. I'm not— I want to be anywhere near— you'd probably like murders, car accidents.

Be in jail for that month or whatever.

Exactly. Like, get a bunker. Get a bunker and lock down with Netflix for a month. Fuck that. There is no way, man. That would be crazy. Imagine if the whole world had their rut at the same time. Oh man. Oh my God.

That's a good movie idea.

It is a good movie idea, right? That's actually a great movie idea. Just call it The Rut. Yeah, like human beings evolve, or maybe there's like genetic engineering because they decide that there's overpopulation. And the solution to it is only have people breed at a certain time and also like keep people from being distracted all the time because like how many people are on dating apps and how many people are like, you know, going to bars and trying to find someone? It's like it's a huge waste of your time.

Oh my God. My 20s and 30s were just blown because of it.

It's all I thought about. Massive, massive waste of your time. If there was like a solution to that, the solution would be like, well, everyone's only going to breed.

Only during November. Maybe it's the best thing ever. It'd be great if there was like a switch you could flip, you know, like a little boy, you like flip it and then go out and—

right, figure it out. The rest of the year, like, you don't even care about girls.

Like, it's so productive, man.

Bucks just walk by a female doe in like, you know, fucking June. They don't give a shit about it.

And they don't have their antlers, so they look the same, right? You know what I mean? They lose their masculinity.

Right, right, right. I get it back pretty quick. Those fucking things grow quick. It's like they fall off within a month or two, they start growing nubs.

Isn't it the fastest-growing bone material on the— on the—

yeah, I think elk is. We could— because that's nuts. I mean, like, you look at like a foreign and 400-inch elk, like some of those antlers that are out there. Imagine that that grows in a couple of months.

It's bone. It's crazy.

And they fight to the death with it. Crazy. Like, we find elk that have been killed by other elk. Happens all the time. Have you hunted in Montana? Yeah, not, not elk. I've hunted mule deer in Montana and pheasant the time I went with Bourdain.

Never done elk until I moved up there. I started hunting whitetail when I was like 10, like really young, because we have big whitetail in Ohio. And I thought hunting elk would be similar, and boy was I mistaken.

When you were bow hunting or rifle hunting?

I've done both, but my first was a bow hunt. And we went out there, we were camping out there, me and— I just made friends with this, the contractor that built my house in Montana. He took me, we went public land around Dillon, Montana, and we went for a week and I had to tap out day 4. Like, I couldn't— my legs stopped working. I didn't— I was like, I didn't know I had— it was like this. So the next year I went, I was like prepared for it, but I didn't know, man, you really got you got to go for it.

Oh, you got to get in shape. Yeah, I do a lot of shit before September. I do— I have this crazy routine that I do on an AirDyne bike. I do these Tabatas on an AirDyne bike where you sprint for 20 seconds. Oh yeah, you rest for 10, you sprint for 20. The worst. And all I'm doing is thinking about getting over a hill, getting over a hill to get a shot. I mean, and then I do like box step-ups. I do all these different things with weighted and farmer's carries with fucking heavy kettlebells. All I'm doing is just trying to condition my legs. Yeah, you have to— like, those mountains are brutal. There's no mountains here for me to practice on, right? But in California, I used to run hills with my dog.

Yeah, and you're at elevation, which makes it even harder. Oh yeah. And a weird thing people wouldn't expect is like, just, you know, makes it even worse. You get up in the morning, it's 0 degrees. Middle of the day, it's 50, 60, and you're hiking all day. So it's like, how do you dress for that?

You have to dress to be cold. Yeah, like once you start walking, you have to be cold. Yeah, like you got to get down to your base layer and walk cold. And then if you ever have to stop, then you put it on. And the other key: merino wool. Mm-hmm. That's the key, because wool is different than cotton. If your cotton gets wet and then you, you're sweaty and then you get cold, you're fucked, right? But wool's not like that. Merino wool is the best. Because like if you have especially a base layer, because when you're sweating it kind of keeps you a little cool, and then if you get cold it doesn't, it doesn't feel cold. Yeah, because it's, it's not synthetic, it's, it's organic. Makes sense.

Yeah, it's a weird fiber. Yeah, we used to walk to the deer stand kind of in half of our stuff, keep the other half in a pack, and then like once I got in the tree stand I put everything right on so that you wouldn't, you know, the sweat wouldn't freeze to you.

That's hard. Deer hunting in a tree stand is fucking hard.

It's like a silent retreat and you're freezing.

Yeah, freezing. And you're sitting up there waiting for a deer to walk by, and then you're so cold that when the deer walks by, you go to pull your bow back, you're like, oh Jesus, yeah, why am I so weak? Yeah, like you could barely pull your bow back when you're up in the tree.

Yeah, but nothing— I mean, no, no challenge whatsoever compared to elk hunting. That was— like, blew my mind how hard that was. And the guy I went with, you know, he grew up in Montana, he's like a mountain goat. I just like couldn't keep up with this guy, man. I'm like, this isn't— how do you do this? Just constant all day long.

You can't just get out of your— off your couch and go elk hunting in the mountains. You can't do it.

No, you gotta get in shape.

No, like my friend Cam Haynes, that's why he started running.

He became an ultra runner. Yeah, he's doing like 250-mile stuff, right? Yeah, he does like these 3-day runs. He tried to get you into that. Have you done any of that?

No chance. I have one knee that sucks. I have one knee that I fucked up in martial arts, it's missing meniscus. And I cracked it skiing too. I wiped out skiing, got a fracture at the top of my tibia. So it's like, it's— if I started running, it would get beat up real bad, right? But I do— there's plenty of conditioning you could do without running, you know. But it's that the pounding of running, it's not good for my knee.

There's something so amazing though about getting to that first thing in the morning when the sun's coming up and you're glassing. Mm-hmm. And you're just like, this is what I always wanted hunting to be like. Yeah, it's the real thing. Yeah, it's like, this is what it's supposed to feel like. You're so far out there, you know. I didn't get to go the last couple years. My wife was having our baby 2 years ago, so I wasn't allowed to be in the woods with no service. And then last year I was shooting the show, but this year I'm gonna be able to go. I got a good spot. And even if I'm shooting the show, it's like, it's right there.

Well, they have phones now that have satellite service. I think you get— is that— does T-Mobile have that now? We can get Starlink on your, on your phone. I know they're doing that soon. And you know, you can text message with iPhones. You can— I got that right in the middle of the woods. You know what the best thing is, man? When we were in Utah last year, the last 2 years, I've had a Starlink Mini. It is the shit. It's like the size of an iPad. You just lay it down on the ground. You use the app and the Starlink app will tell you which way to point it to and you get high-speed internet.

I have one for when we shoot. It's incredible. We're in the middle of nowhere.

It's so awesome. The best. It's so good. You get— you can— here it is, T-Satellite. Yeah, that's the shit, man. Yeah, so you can— can you make phone calls or is it just internet? It's phone calls too, right? Texting and select satellite-ready apps. Okay, just texting. Satellite service including text to 911 may be delayed, limited, or unavailable. So you can just text and some satellite-ready apps right now. So that's like everywhere. That's cool. Yeah, so eventually they'll have— it'll be like Starlink will be connected to your phone and you'll be able to get high-speed internet everywhere in the world if we don't have World War III. Yeah, bro, blow everybody up. But there's the elk hunting thing that— the thing that makes it all the more exciting is like they're moving around, you got to sneak up in on them, you're playing the wind, and then the sound they make when they're screaming, and you hear it, you're like, if you never knew what that was, you would think there's demons in the woods.

Yeah, demons are like T-Rex, right?

It's crazy. The sound is so incredible. It's so incredible, and it's so hard to do. It's like, that to me is one of the things that I love, like, every year, because everything goes away. It's so difficult. It's so difficult to get in shape for it, so difficult to manage your way into the mountains and, and to be in shape to be able to do it day after day, and then to be able to pull off a shot You know, like, you know, like you have this brief moment, the thing's 65 yards away, and you draw back. Yeah, trying to settle your pin.

And you could have done all of that just to like mess it up. Yeah, one little tiny—

yeah, it happens all the time. But when you're successful, oh my god, it's the greatest feeling of all time. And then when you're eating it and you're, you know, you're at home and you're on the barbecue grilling these elk steaks, like, I can't wait to do this again. Yeah. It's so exciting. Yeah, and it's just— but it's the being out there. It's like a vitamin. It's like a vitamin that you didn't know you needed. Yeah, like your whole body's like, oh, this is so much better than regular life.

You can't be mentally unwell.

No, it's like impossible, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. You just feel so much better. The air is better, you know, it's like— and you're more focused. You're not distracted, and you just, you feel alive. Yeah. And it's also the majesty of nature, just around these trees and mountains, and you catching all these animals that are out there. And you see eagles flying overhead, like, best.

Like, day 3, you're like, I think I'm just gonna move out here, just gonna do this.

And then you go back to real life and you're like, oh yeah, I think that all the time. I think that all the time, that I like to live in the mountains. My wife is not down with it, but I'd love it. Yeah, I might get a place somewhere one day in the mountains, just a retreat, just to be able to just disconnect, shut off for a while. I think that's probably a good idea.

I love it. I wonder though, now that I have a kid, like, we're gonna have to start thinking about, you know, school for him and stuff. And there's really not— I don't know if— I don't, you know, once we get there, we'll figure that out. But we're gonna probably have to get somewhere closer to some people.

Doesn't Bozeman have good schools?

Where are you? What are you near? I'm about an hour south of Missoula, so I fly to Missoula to go home.

Missoula has good schools, right? Yeah, university.

But I'd have to move closer to Missoula, and at that point I'm like, why don't I just, you know, move to a city, I guess, you know? Yeah, I know. I think the move might be getting somewhere, you know, a little more populated and then keeping like a cabin in Montana like you were talking about, you know, and then taking him out there. Whenever we can. That'd probably be the thing.

Do you have a place in your house where you record? Do you have like a little recording studio or anything?

Yeah, like a— just for me to record demos to send to people to actually record, just to be like, this is something I've been working on, or, you know, kind of a setup like one of these and a computer. But yeah, I do a lot of writing up there. It's a great place to write songs.

How do you write? Do you write on paper or do you just start strumming and singing?

Different every time. Sometimes I'll have like a It'll, it'll be a melody, it'll be a guitar riff, it could be like a lyrical idea, some sort of hook, you know. It comes in a lot of different ways. And then sometimes I'll finish something on my own, or sometimes I'll do a Nashville trip and sit with some other writers that I like, and, you know, we'll kind of like bang it out together. And that's the coolest part of the process, man. There's something about making something out of absolutely nothing. It's like addicting, you know.

Yeah, really cool. Yeah, jokes are similar in a way, I bet. I've never really been a songwriter, but I'm guessing so. It's like creating something out of, like, out of your mind. Yeah, all of a sudden it's a thing, and then you're performing it in front of people.

And it's like, I've heard you talk about this, and any good creative person talk about this, but like, it comes to you. Yeah, you can't really take credit for a good idea. Yeah, you know, exactly. They always just be driving and be like, whoa, Oh, that's— where'd that come from? Like, whatever that is, give me more of it. Yeah, I love it.

You know, I was talking to Michael Pollan about that yesterday. We were talking about consciousness, and we were talking about how it just seems like you're not doing it. It's just coming out of the ether, you know. It's just like— and you just have to show up and receive it. Hmm. And if you show up enough and you, you know, pay homage to the muse and sit there— you ever read War of Art? Stephen Pressfield book? I got a box of copies. I'll give you a copy out there. He always gets— well, I bought a box of copies. I bought a bunch of them, and I used to hand them out to comedians and artists when I was on the show. I was like, just listen to me, you got to read it. It's a really small book, it's easy, but it's one of the best books ever about creativity. And it essentially just— he tells you if you treat it like there is a muse, like there is a god, a goddess that will give you ideas as long as you pay respect to the muse. You have to show up on time every day, sit there and do it.

And some days you get nothing, but you just got to keep showing up, keep showing up, and trust in that process. And eventually, like, oh my God, this idea is so good.

Yeah, it come from— that makes sense. Where did it come from? Yeah, when I'm, when I'm, when I'm in a really good spot, sort of mentally, emotionally, spiritually, taking care of myself, sleeping, I get more of those. Yeah. And I know there's this, like, mysticism around, like, people who, like, you know, Hunter S. Thompson or someone like that, who just kind of spent a lot of time being fucked up and they still get it. That never worked out really well for me. I've tried it. Trust me, it's not great.

With those guys, they're trying to get out of their own head. You know, they're just trying to get blasted so they could just, like, just release themselves from their life and then just obliterated, just start writing. Yeah. And then the muse starts talking to them.

Interesting. Yeah. But Hemingway, or there's a lot of guys like— oh yeah, you know, had to be sort of a little messed up. Stephen King to do the thing. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. His book on writing is fantastic too. It's called On Writing. Stephen King. I read that one. Yeah, it's great, right? Really good. He was obliterated. Like, most of his great work, most of the great stuff, out of his fucking mind on drugs and alcohol.

And some of those guys, like, once they stop doing it, they lose the thing. And I don't name names, but like him, there's some— yeah, there's some artists I love that they kind of got clean. Yep. And you're like, where'd the thing go? Yeah, which is unfortunate, you know.

Yeah, it happens with comics too. Does it? Some of them though, they get better. Like Dave Attell got way better when he quit drinking. It's interesting. It doesn't always— it doesn't have to be that, but for a lot of them, like, that crutch whatever it is that connects them to the creativity, once they eliminate that part and try to keep— try to stay alive, essentially. Like Stephen King was like killing himself, but his later work is just not comparable.

What's your process like writing jokes? Like, how does that start for you?

Like, how do you— It is a— it's— there's some ideas that just come to me out of the middle of nowhere. Like, I'll be just hanging out out and then I have an idea or I'm driving in my car and I have an idea and I just have to write it down. And then a lot of it is just sitting down with a computer, just sitting down and like, what am I writing about? I'm writing about immigration. Okay, let me fucking— and I write in essay form, so I don't try to write like a stand-up comedy joke, which I've tried before, but that never works. But what does work is if I lose myself in just ruminating on an idea. And just explore it from every different angle. And then I'll find one paragraph. I might write 2,000 words and I'll find one paragraph. I'm like, that's it. And I'll take that out and I'll put it in there and I'll try to introduce it on stage. And then I try to figure out how to segue into it. And then I try to figure out how to expand on it. And then I'll take that one thing and then I'll stare at that one paragraph and go, what else?

Like, what else? What's the other angle? Like, what if I was not like that? Like that? What do— how do I feel about if I was on the other side of that? What if I'm the person that's going through this? And what if I'm this and that? And then I'll try to just try that. And it's, it's like I always describe as like you're trying to, you're trying to build a mountain one layer of paint at a time. Hmm. And it's a long and brutal— and then sometimes it's not. Some jokes just come to you in full form. Oh wow. Like the way I wrote it is the way I say it. It's perfect. Huh? But that's— you can't count on that either, right? And again, it's not— I don't think they're mine, you know, they're just coming from somewhere. Yeah, the key is just showing up. That's the key. The key is like sitting in front of that fucking computer. Or some guys don't like a computer, they want a notepad, they want pen and paper, they like— they like it better that way. And I get it. But for me, I can type, like I don't have to look at the keys, I can touch type.

So for me, I can write a word out as fast as I'm thinking it, which is way better for me than writing down, because I write slower than I type. And so I want to be able to get it all out. Hmm. I want to— to me, it's like it doesn't— and then I write it on paper eventually, but when I first write it, I want to write it down on a computer because I can capture it quicker. Yeah, and you can cut and paste and move things to another file and start start fresh and like explore it again.

This last album I did, we tried a really different process than I'd done before. Usually you go into a studio, you know, there's a lot of money behind it. You got a big producer who has, you know, you're taking up their time, you have everything ready to go. But on this new one, we did everything— there's only 2 songs I'd had already written, and 8 out of the 10 songs we wrote either the day of or the night before in the studio because I wanted to make something as personal as possible because, you know, the subject matter is stuff where I'm like, if this is gimmicky or overthought, it's not— then I'm sort of trying to like capitalize on grief or things I'm talking about. So I want to go in and just be as open as possible and just get what we get and just try to, you know, tell the truth, which is, you know, it's the goal of country really, or it used to be. And so yeah, we would, we would cut, and then in the night after we'd cut, we'd sit and try to write the song for the next day.

And if we didn't get it, we showed up early the next day and try to write the song for that day. It was an amazing process. We called it the pressure cooker because it was just like, you better get something because you're on the clock. Yeah, man, it was, it was— I doubt I'll ever do that again, but what a like cathartic, amazing process. Like there's— because usually you'll write a song, you'll have a demo for it, some— something where you just sit down and play guitar into your phone or something, so you'll remember the melody, remember the chords, and you listen to it so much that you get sick of it before you've ever even cut it. And with this, there was never a demo. There was never— it was straight from, you know, heart-brain tape.

Like, it was, it was pretty special. I think there's something to be said for pressure like that, where it forces you, it forces you to come up with something.

Yeah, the pressure cooker, man. We just, we had to, you know. Yeah, it was, it was amazing.

Yeah, Julie forces your synapses to fire. Yeah, there's something to be said for that. Like, there's, that's the thing about comedy too, when you, when you have a new bit, like, part of the thing is like, take that bit when it's not really done yet and just throw it out there in front of a crowd and find the beats, find where it is. And sometimes in front of a crowd as you're saying it, you'll have a new idea. Like, what the fuck is this? Like, why are we doing— and then that'll be the biggest part of the joke. Like, everybody will laugh harder at that part than anything else, and it just comes to you because you're under pressure. Yeah, yeah, there's something about— there's something about forcing your brain to do things. Like, forcing your— like, you just— like, you— like, you have to do it. Like, you can't just dilly-dally. No procrastination. It's right there, right now. Yeah, let's go.

Yeah, I mean, because you're directly connected to whatever the thing is. Yeah. It's like a flow state.

And then there's stuff that just comes to me, like John Mellencamp told me he wrote "Hurt So Good" in the shower. Really? He was just in the shower. Come on, baby, you make it hurt so good. And he's like, it was done. Best shower ever. Crazy. Sometimes love don't feel like it should. Washing his armpits. It was cool. He was an interesting guy to talk to, man. Fucking dude just chain smokes. He's in his 70s, just chain smoking. He was so happy he could smoke in here. And I'm like, you're not gonna quit that ever? He's like, this is what he said, he goes, find something you love and let it kill you.

Yeah. I don't know if I'll let that one kill me.

That's a rough death, dude. That's a rough death, man.

I'm— I've dealt with smoking for some time. Yeah, I always promised my wife that I would quit when we had our kid, and we're almost there. We're getting close.

You got the nicotine pouches? I got the Zyn. Those help?

They do help. Yeah, yeah, it's different when I have a drink though. It's— oh yeah, it's like I can't do one without the other. I'm— to quit smoking, I'm gonna have to quit drinking. Really? Have to. Wow. I just can't imagine one without the other. It's like a package deal. Deal for me, but I'm okay to quit drinking at some point. You've quit, right?

Yeah, I quit and then started again.

Oh really? Yeah, I'm back. Nice.

I quit for like 8 months. I didn't miss it, but then when I had a couple glasses of wine with dinner, I was like, oh, I like this, this is nice. Yeah, I kind of missed it.

How was that first sort of hangover? Have you—

I didn't get hungover. I haven't gotten drunk. Okay. I haven't gotten hungover since. Nice. And I've only been drinking again And even when I do, it's rare. Like, I don't drink every night I go on stage. I might have, like, a drink before I go on stage, or I'll have a drink with dinner, or maybe a second glass of wine, but that's it. I haven't been drunk. That's perfect. Yeah. The getting drunk is the problem. Yeah. And the real problem with me was, like, I was— I own this comedy club, and I was with my friends, And they're all animals, and they're all just like, let's do shots. And we'd go downstairs to Mitzi's bar, and we'd be doing shots together, and we'd have so much fucking fun. And then I'd wake up in the morning to work out, like, oh fuck. Yeah, and I was just hurting, so I'd be guzzling water and electrolytes, and I'd get in the cold plunge, and it's just— it was just this struggle to try to get back to normal. Yeah, and I'm like, I hate that. I don't like that. Yeah, but I don't feel that with a glass of wine.

I have a glass of wine or two and I feel great the next day. It does not— doesn't bother me at all. As long as I drink enough water, take electrolytes, get a good night's sleep, I feel totally normal in the morning. That's good. Getting drunk is the problem.

It is fun though. It's the best. Getting drunk is so much fun.

Getting drunk with buddies. Oh, the best.

It's the best. One of my favorite things is like going to a bar in the middle of the day and meeting everyone at the bar. And just drinking, you know, even if they're strangers, or at the airport bar or whatever, and just like getting to know people I would never have talked to to begin with because why would we talk, right? I love that. But again, I'm 42 now and the hangovers are starting to really smart, you know, so it's not, it's not really worth the price of admission anymore.

It's, it's not worth it when you get aware of your body, especially if you're a person like, you know, I work out all the time. And I'm 58 now, so as you get older, it's like most people at 58 are half dead. They're kind of falling apart. Yeah, and I've managed to stay healthy and fit, and I don't want to fuck that up just for booze. But you know, like I said, it's hard when you're with buddies and they want to do shots. Like Shane Gillis is the worst. He's the devil. He's the devil. He's the devil. He's like, come on, we're doing shots. Fuck.

How do you not get drunk with that guy?

He seems like the most fun ever. And you're having so much fun when you, when you're drinking with him. It is just like your face is red, you can't breathe, everyone's laughing, you're fucking crying, you're crying laughing. And it's just like you call each other the next day like, how you feeling? Oh my god, I'm dead. Like, there's a lot of times where we went out drinking and we have a gym here, and you know, we'd have these comedian workouts the next day, and he'd be like, dude, I can't make it. I'm like, come on, pussy, you made me drink last night. But he's just— he's the life of the fucking party, man. And it's just— it's fun, but it's— it just— it comes at a cost.

Yeah, that cost is rough, man, especially with the kid now and him being the age he is. It's just— nothing makes you feel like a bigger piece of shit than being hungover in front of your baby, right? And you're just like, sorry, dude, right? I'm your dad, I'm sorry, right?

Your kids want to play, you know, I'm gonna just sit here.

Yeah, it does.

All right, you know, you can mitigate a lot of that stuff though. Glutathione is a really good way to mitigate a lot of it. Glutathione actually helps your body process alcohol way quicker. Hmm. So there's a lot of strategies if you're a drunk. Yeah, liposomal glutathione in high doses is really good. Electrolytes are huge. Like, a little— a lot of the hangover feeling, there's two things that going on. One is your— that's why they say like, hair of the dog that bit you, because you're actually craving more alcohol. That's why people like Bloody Marys the day after they're hungover. That's not a great strategy, but it really does do a little something. But electrolytes are huge because another part of it is you're just dehydrated. Like, yeah, your brain is dried out. It's a dried-out sponge because you're out getting hammered the night before. Yeah. So you gotta drink a lot of water, drink a lot of— a buddy of mine drank with Jean-Claude Van Damme once, and he said it was nuts. He goes, he's so disciplined. He said the dude had a gallon of water with him, like a jug of water. People take it with every shot he would take, he would fucking chug water, and he just was just super concerned with keeping his body hydrated while he was boozing.

Gotta do what you got to do, man.

I was like, credit to him. Yeah, this way to go. He goes, I never saw anybody do that before. I'm like, well, look at the guy. Yeah, kind of makes sense.

Yeah, you know, it's like— have you interviewed him in here?

No. Oh no, that'd be a good one. That'd be fun. He's kind of crazy. He keeps talking about having a fight and coming back, and— oh damn, bro, you're like 70.

Yeah, don't do that.

I think he's just a little nuts. He's also— he's famously indulged in the Colombian marching powder, and I think, you know, sometimes Sometimes guys get ideas, sure, that aren't really tenable.

Thank God I never had the taste for that. I never even tried it. Have you never? Nope. Definitely done it, but it's just— yeah, I have friends that they can't have a drink without wanting to go get a bag, and I'm like, oh no. And that— those guys have to get sober, like stone-cold AA sober, like, because they'll disappear.

Well, they'll also die today because you can get a bad bag and it's got fentanyl in it, you know.

I don't get it. I just never— It's like 5 minutes of feeling good for like 3 days of feeling terrible. It's not—

it doesn't pencil out for me, man. I got lucky that when I was a kid in high school, I had a friend and his cousin got addicted to coke, and I watched what happened to him. He was selling it too, and I watched him completely fall apart. It was like— it was like he had been haunted, like something had taken over his body like a parasite. Right. He lost all his weight, he got super pale, he got real sketchy and weird, and you just hang out in his apartment and they would just watch TV and do coke all day. It was— no, yikes. It was horrible. It's dark. And I was always terrified of doing anything that would turn me into a loser. That was my number one fear when I was a kid. I don't want to be a loser. Yeah. And so like, I'm like, okay, stay away from drugs because that, that'll turn you into a loser.

Oh yeah, yeah. There's sort of like— there's some sort of gift in like having some ambition Oh yeah, like wanting to be somebody. Yeah, you know, they can come with— there's pros and cons to that. But one of the big pros is like anytime anything would get a little too dark and I realized I was losing my grasp on like what I was after, you know, professionally or whatever, I would, I would course-correct pretty quick.

Yeah, and if you don't have a thing, then it's just about whatever is fun. And what's fun is continuing to chase whatever high or whatever drunk or whatever, whatever it is that your demons are. Yeah, that's rough. I've seen a lot of people lose their life that way. I mean, they lose their direction, they lose everything, you know. Just substances can be fun, but they can take over. Yeah, and they could become your whole fucking life. Yeah, yeah, not good. No. Yeah, I'm so happy I avoided coke. I avoid it, but I am interested.

It's too late, dude.

When I heard Hunter Thompson— not Hunter Thompson, Hunter Biden, excuse me— talk about smoking crack, he did this interview, he was talking about how amazing smoking crack is. Like, wow, maybe I could try it once. I've never heard anybody like try it once though.

No, that's famous last words, man.

Right? No one's done it once. I mean, everybody who tries it gets hooked. It seems like that's a problem. Must be pretty awesome. It's gotta be, gotta be the best thing. And he said like it's way better than cocaine. Like you said, like the guy who's interviewing him— what's that guy's name again? Andrew Callahan. He, when he was interviewing him, he's like, what is the difference? And he explained like the delivery method, like how it affects you. It's so much different, like the difference between like a Zen pouch and a cigarette. Cigarette hits you way different than a Zen— cigarettes like instantly, like, oh yeah, apparently that's what coke's like, smoking it. It was Richard Pryor too. I mean, he was essentially smoking crack. They didn't call it crack back then, they called it freebasing, right?

It's the same thing. Heroin too is another one. It's like, those are the two big ones they tell you when you're like, you do this once, yeah, you're done, your whole life's over.

Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah, I've known people that have tried heroin once and be like, I can't do this again. Again. It was too awesome. Yeah, yeah.

I do that with like painkillers and stuff, you know. I've been prescribed, I'm like, oh yeah, I love it.

I had a knee operation. I do that. I have multiple knee operations, but one, the first one I had was in the '90s, and they gave me a morphine drip. And they give you a button and you can press the button to get more morphine when you needed it. Oh my God, I hammered that button. I was lying, lying in this bed and my knee had just been cut open like a fish and there's screws in there. My ACL had been reconstructed and I was on this perpetual motion machine. So the idea is to keep your knee from going stiff, you're on this thing that straightens your leg out and brings it back and straight. So I'm lying in this bed, my leg, and I'm hammering that button. I was so happy. I was like, I get it now, I get it. But that was only once, luckily. And they didn't give me— they gave me some painkillers afterwards. I think they gave me Percocets, but they were so— I took whatever the dose was, and it was— I only did it once. It was so bad. I felt so dumb and so dull and so stupid.

I'd like— I'd rather be in pain. So I sold all my pills to this dude at the pool hall. I gave him my pills. I'm like, here, you can buy these from me.

One of my buddies was telling me he's in the military, and they would carry these morphine lollipops. In case they ever got shot, and you just pull it out in the moment, you start sucking on it, it's just like a morphine high. I was like, I kind of want to get those to fly with. Wouldn't that be awesome? Like the plane's going down, you just start sucking on that thing.

Yeah, I just put on the headphones.

Amazing, dude. Anytime I fly over the ocean, I'm just like, I freak out. I don't like the—

I don't like the ocean. No, a fentanyl lollipop.

Oh, so maybe that's what it was. Gotta be strong either way though. Wouldn't that be— I mean, that's like biggest fear number one is plane going down. Yeah, cuz you have like 5 minutes to think about it and you're hearing like everyone screaming, everyone knows they're gonna die too, and you're stuck in this tube with a bunch of strangers knowing they're gonna die for 5 minutes. I mean, that is hell on earth to me. Yeah, imagine anything worse.

That's a rough one. I think getting eaten by a bear might be worse because there's no one around you.

I wonder though, for the bear thing, if you're in so much shock, like, are you feeling it? I, you know, I wonder.

I think so, especially if they start legs first. Yeah, because the thing about bears is they don't kill you, they just start eating you. Oh my god, like a salmon. They don't kill a salmon, they just hold it down, pull chunks off of it. Yikes. Apparently that movie Grizzly Man, the audio was so bad that Werner Herzog told the lady to delete it and burn it. Because they had a cop— the late— the guy's— Timothy Treadwell, his girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend, got a hold of the camera. So the camera, apparently the lens cover was on, but the camera was running.

Oh right, yeah, I've seen that. He listens to it in the documentary.

He's like, burn this, don't let anyone listen. Would you listen if given the chance? Oh yeah, yeah, I do.

Yeah, everybody listen. And then I'd hate myself for having—

there's a fake version of it online. I've heard that. Yeah, it's not real though. It's pretty obvious that it's fake, but people believe it's real. But it goes on for 5 minutes. 5 minutes is a long time. Like, think of a round, an MMA round, it's 5 minutes. Oh my god. And all that time you're just getting chunks pulled out of your body, bro.

Have you ever seen a grizzly while you're hunting?

Yeah. Time once. Really? Yeah, in Alberta. Yeah, it was, uh, very scary. And it wasn't a big one, it was like a 6-foot bear, but it looked at me so different than any other animal. Like, I've seen a lot of black bear, and black bear look at you like this, like, who are you? What are you doing? Right? They look at you sideways and they're like, I want to get out of here. Grizzly looks at you like this. Oh, like locks on you. Yeah, like, am I gonna eat you? And I was with my friend Jen. She's a guide up there. Jen and John, they run a hunting outfit up in Alberta. And they— as soon as, like, she saw it, she screamed. She screamed, like, get the fuck out of here! Racks her shotgun, cracks a stick against the tree to scare it off. And then we immediately bailed.

Like, let's get the fuck out of here. Yeah, I've never seen one. Don't want to.

They see big ones up there sometimes. And John, the— her husband, he sprayed— what, he was in a tree stand and he sprayed it with pepper spray and the thing didn't even react. He's like, like, you think you're gonna— oh, bear spray, I'm safe. And it was like, fuck you. Yeah, it's just like this fucking 9-foot bear, this huge wild dog. You know, this fucking immense super powerful thing that can run 45 miles an hour. Oh man, apex. Fuck that, man. There's— they're terrifying.

Montana's got a ton of them. Yeah, that's one thing I didn't have in Ohio is like the fear of getting eaten by something when you're out in the woods. It's dark and you're walking through. The first time that, that bow hunt I was telling you about, I, you know, you bring a sidearm when you all you have is a bow in case you do see some mountain mountain lion or something, grizzly bear. And my buddy was like, what do you got on you? And I was like, it's a 9mm. He goes, well, if you see one, shoot yourself.

Yeah, you got to bring a.45.

I guess there's a, there's a 10mm with a special round you can take, but yeah, 9mm bounce off.

Yeah, I mean, you're gonna hurt him. I mean, if you hit him in the face, maybe it'll do something, but you're not even gonna get through that skull, probably.

No, they say it won't. Oh, it'll literally bounce off its skull.

That's crazy. That's so crazy. And Cam hunts them with a bow. Hunts grizzly bears? Yeah, yeah, he's killed a few grizzlies.

Wow. Yeah. Does he hunt out of a tree? How do you do that? On the ground. No, dude, why? Spot and stalk. Yeah, I'm good on that.

Yeah, he's out of his fucking mind. And his attitude as well. If this is how I go, this is how I go. I go doing what I love. Okay, he's got some crazy pictures. See if you can find some pictures of Cam with a grizzly bear. He's got one where he killed this massive one and he's holding up its paw, and its paw is like as big as my torso. It's fucking huge. There's such a— some guy recently, I think he killed the biggest bear bear that's ever been killed. I sent it to Cam. Damn, dude. Yeah, look at that paw. Look at the claws. Look at the claws on that thing. No way. Yeah, and there's a photo of him with the bear on the ground. Click on that. Look at the size of that fucking thing, man.

Do you know what state he's hunting?

That was in Alaska. That's the only state you can hunt.

I was gonna say, it's probably illegal.

Yeah, it's illegal in the lower 48 for whatever reason. They— it probably shouldn't be. Like Wyoming and Montana. It's gotten to the place where they really probably shouldn't.

Maybe there's just not enough of them other than in Alaska, I would imagine.

I mean, I don't think so. I think the real problem is once they're not listed, it's very difficult to get them on, on a list, you know, to get tags allocated for them. There's a video him shooting it. Damn, look at the size of that fucking thing, man.

I'm saying, what if it just right there gets pissed off? It can.

And just— well, there's a guy right behind him with a gun. There's a guy right there with a rifle, which is also weird. Like, anytime you're bow hunting and a guy has to have a rifle, yeah, I think you should probably just use a rifle.

My perspective, just wait a few months.

Yeah, if I ever wanted to go grizzly hunting, I would definitely bring a rifle. I just don't see myself doing that, but I know a lot of my friends have, you know, and they have— you have to kill a certain number of them just to keep the populations of the moose and the elk and everything else in check, because otherwise there's nothing gonna stop them. And then you have a situation like, like you have in Montana, or like you have in Wyoming, where there's a lot of interactions with people, people wind up dying, and there's no fear. Because in Alaska, they're a little sketched out about people because people hunt them them, right? And that's the better relationship, right? The relationship where they have zero fear of people, that's not good. And that, that is Montana, and that is Wyoming, and that is Idaho. Look at that guy. So this is— is this the largest one? 1,600 pounds. The second biggest ever taken by a hunter. It's 1,600 pounds. Look at the fucking size of that thing, dude. That's terrifying. Yeah, good lord, that is immense. Makes me think, have you seen these reports of Bigfoot being seen in Ohio?

Yeah, a bunch. I kind of think it's someone fucking with people, obviously, but maybe not. I don't know what the— what are they seeing? What do you— there's bears. There's bears in Ohio, I guess. There are, and they're black bears in Ohio, and they do walk upright sometimes.

Probably a dude in a suit, man. It's probably meth.

They've been, I think, various sizes. I've seen up to like 11, down to 8 feet. Yeah, but they're just guessing. You don't know how big a thing is. You have a fucking tape measure. You're like, excuse me, Mr. Bigfoot, stand still for a moment here. Okay, stand up straight.

Put this under your heel. I used to wish so bad Bigfoot was real.

Oh, I wish so bad. I had a dude at a show last night who told me his dad was one of the people that filmed the famous Patterson-Gimlin footage. No way. Yeah. Yeah, he said his dad was that guy.

I feel like we know now that it can't be real because of how many trail cameras there are in the world. Like, yeah, we would have seen him a few times.

I've never met a hunter that's seen one. No, including guys that are in the Pacific Northwest all the time. Although I did, I did a show back in the day with my friend Duncan where we went looking for Bigfoot. We went to the places where Bigfoot's normally A person in a Sasquatch costume, obviously. I mean, no pictures please. I mean, if there's a whole bunch of them, it's probably someone fucking around. Look, it's all different sightings. March 6th, 7th, and 9th and 10th. Wow, all different people. Yeah. Huh. Boy, I hope it's real. It would be awesome. That's what I'd also be like. Maybe it's just a group of friends that are high. I'm like, you know, we're gonna do every night for the next Next fucking week, we're all gonna call this fucking number and see what happens. Or we're gonna run around the woods, but that's a good way to get shot. Like, some crazy dude is like, I'm gonna prove Bigfoot's real. Oh, for sure. And he just fucking blasts you.

Don't do it during hunting season. Yeah, big mistake.

I think it used to be a real thing.

That's what I think. Bigfoot? Yeah. You thought it— you think it was actually here at some point?

Yeah. Yeah, because there's too many Native American words for Native Americans, I think we looked this up, didn't they? They have dozens of names that different tribes have for the same thing, a big hairy wild man that lives in the woods. Hmm. I think it was a Gigantopithecus. I think at one point in time it was a real creature.

They found any bones or anything?

Yeah, the Gigantopithecus bones, but they've only found them in Asia. They never found them in North America. But when the Bering Land Bridge was attached, a lot of animals came across. From Asia and made their way into North America through Alaska and down through the Pacific Northwest. It's— and a lot of people have seen them in Alaska. Alaska is like a hotbed for sightings too, I think. But I think those people are cracked out. I think that's probably bears, right? But I think the Native American stories, I think it's a thousands and thousands of years old thing. I think way back in the day, like, I was watching this, um, this guy named Michael Button He's been on the podcast before and he's a historian who really focuses on ancient civilizations. And he was doing this whole video on YouTube about how little is left over, like how rare it is to make a fossil. I think about how the dinosaurs were around for literally like hundreds of millions of years and yet we only have like thousands of fossils. What are the What's the possibility of a fossil existing from a civilization, like fossilized human being from a civilization 200,000 years ago?

It's almost none. Most things never become a fossil. It has to be like the perfect conditions to create a fossil. And so we don't really know what animals did or didn't live here other than fossilized ones. And that's a tiny fraction of what you find. Okay. And so if there was some sort of big hairy thing that lived here, because we know there was humans that were living in North America. Now we know that they, they were here at least as far back as 22,000 years because of White Sands, New Mexico. They found footprints, and then they do carbon testing on the seeds and the different organic matter that's in those footprints, and they get a carbon date of like around 22,000 years, which is pretty crazy because they used to think it was like 13,000 years ago, and now they push that back at least another 9 years. And they think it's probably— these weren't the first. There's probably people there even further than that. So if humans were here, let's say they were here 50,000 years ago, that puts it in the timeline where Gigantopithecus could have been alive. Because I think the fossils that they found of Gigantopithecus are 100,000 years old, which is just fossils, right?

Like, you never know. And that— they didn't find that until the 19— 20s or 30s, they found teeth in an apothecary shop in China. And this guy was there, was an anthropologist, like, what, where'd you get this? Because they were primate teeth, but they were fucking huge. And so then they took him to the place and they found jawbones and a few other pieces. And this thing, they've determined because of the shape of the jawbone that it was bipedal, so it stood up on two legs, and it was like 8 to 10 feet tall. It was a giant, giant primate that was in the orangutan species. Wow. So that could be Bigfoot. Yeah, could be what these people saw. Yeah, absolutely. So probably existed in North America at one point in time, but around the time of the Younger Dryas impact theory, which is about 11,800 years ago, somewhere around 65% of all North American megafauna was eliminated. All the wooly mammoths, giant sloths, African— American lion. We had a lion that was bigger than the African lion that was in North America.

That, that Younger Dryas thing you're talking about, that's a comet hitting there?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's what ended the Ice Age, and that's what created the Great Lakes, and that's what melted all the ice that was— that covered most of North America back then during the Ice Age.

And are a lot of scientists agreeing that that's probably what happened?

Well, there's definitely debate, but there's a large group of legitimate scientists that are 100% convinced that we were hit. It's a matter of what impact did that have and was that responsible? Because there's a berserker theory. The berserker theory is that humans just killed off everything. We got so good at hunting. But the problem with that theory is back then, like, there's not even evidence that they had bow and arrow yet.

Like, they wouldn't be that good at it.

No, no. No, especially like that, the American lion and like mammoths and the giant sloths. And there's so much shit that we don't even know how many people were here back then. So it's— and it's— this is like Ice Age people, like with stone tip spears. Yeah, did they kill these things? All of them? They killed all of them, right? They weren't even riding horses. They were just on foot. Like, I don't know. Yeah, it's much more likely that they all were wiped out by this fucking comet. And if that's the case, maybe it wiped out Bigfoot too.

Well, that's my favorite one out of all of the— like, me too.

Bigfoot's the best one. It's just, it would be a crazy thing to see, you know. Have you ever heard the, um, the recordings that these guys made that they said were Sasquatch recordings? No. I think they call them Samurai recordings because it literally sounds like almost like they're speaking Japanese. It sounds so fake. This sounds so fake, but these people are— there's groups of people out there that you'll tell them this is fake and they want to fight you. Really? Oh, they're all in. They're so committed to Bigfoot. The guys that we met when Duncan and I went Bigfoot hunting, they're so possessed by it.

Where'd you go?

Where was that? Pacific Northwest. It was like right outside of Seattle up there. I met this lady that was really convincing. She said that she saw this thing. She's like, why is there a gorilla in the woods? Woods. And she's like, oh my God, it's Bigfoot. And like, she didn't seem kooky at all, but I think what she saw was a bear. And a bear standing— like, black bears stand up on their two legs and walk all the time, especially if they have a hurt paw. They'll walk on two legs. Huh. I think she probably saw it. But Pacific Northwest is so crazy because— I'm sure you've been up there, right? Yeah. The woods are so dense that it's like a box of Q-tips. That's how I describe it, right? Like, you can't hardly see anything. So if you're seeing some tall thing move between trees just for a few steps that might be the only thing you see, right? And your head just starts spinning and you start creating this— yeah, this imaginary narrative. Here's the recordings. Right there, right, right. So this guy's talking, oh my God, it's Bigfoot!

It sounds so fake.

I don't buy that for a second. Not a second. Yeah, but man, people, the Bigfoot dorks. Like that show Finding Bigfoot. I had that dude, what's his name, Bobo? Is that the dude's name? We had him on and, uh, I told him I thought the Patterson footage was bullshit. He's like, no! He's like so upset. It looks so fake. It looks like a guy in a fucking gorilla suit. And then the dude, um, that they think that was wearing the suit, what is his name again? I forgot the guy's name, but the dude who they think was wearing the suit, he looked like Bigfoot. Like, he walked like him. There's like—

he walked like that footage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, he was a big old cowboy, big old fucking tall-ass cowboy, and he had a walk like a fucking gorilla. Roger Patterson. Well, Roger Patterson was the guy that filmed it, right? That's right. Patterson-Gimlin footage. I don't know. One, right? I thought one of them was the one in the suit. The other one filmed it. Maybe I'm mistaken, but there's a side-by-side of the actual stupid video that they're proclaiming to be Bigfoot and then this guy walking. And I think it was a different guy. Yeah, it could be. I forget his name, but it looks—

I'm like, that's him. Have you ever had a flat earther on here?

No, sort of. I've had some people that like want to dabble in it and like, shut the fuck up.

That's the craziest one.

I don't want to have that conversation with people, and people, yeah, because you lose because the Earth is flat. Listen, everything else is round. Why would this place be flat? Yeah, why would we— why would everyone be lying? That's crazy. Why would— why would the people that get up in the fucking— the space station be lying? We know it circles. We've seen it spins around. Yeah, we have pictures of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have satellites. They think all the satellite images of Earth are fake. They think everything is fake. I think a lot of that's schizophrenia. Sure. And then a lot of it is like somehow or another it's biblical. It's— people believe that it's— that we're trying— they're trying to hide it from us because they don't want us to know that God is real.

Oh, like the firmament and all the stuff that the Bible says is above us.

Yeah, but you know what the Bible doesn't say? It doesn't say the earth is flat. Right. Never. Never talks about it being flat. You know, like they figured out the earth was round thousands of years ago. Like, snipers have to calculate the curvature of the Earth, right, when they're making shots.

Yeah, there's too many things. Yeah, against it. Like, the fact that we've seen it. Yeah, the biggest one, we know exactly what it looks like.

I had Roger Avery on the other day, the director. He's a really interesting guy, and he went down a bunch of, maybe too many, flat earth rabbit holes. And he was like, well, you know, pilots don't have to adjust for the curve of the Earth. And then I talked to a friend of mine who's a pilot. He goes, you know why? Autopilot. He was the fucking— it keeps you at an altitude.

Like, that makes sense because you always, you know, you're the same distance from the Earth, so that would make sense that you would go on the curve.

Yeah, yeah, fucking duh. It's just that being something that people would— what's really interesting is there's this one guy who takes people up to Antarctica to prove to them that the Earth is round. And like, like this idea that there's a— so he like takes— and there was There's one guy, and he flew him out there. He's like, I can't believe I believe this. It's amazing. He spends money, he spends his own money taking these guys up there for free, educating. How does he prove it? He flies them up there and shows them you actually can fly over Antarctica. Like, there's— you just don't— they don't want you flying over there because if you crash, no one's gonna come get you, right? You know, you're dead, right? It's like, but people do fly over it. The idea that you can't is stupid.

There's no secret World War II base.

There's no wall there. They're doing some weird experiments and shit up there though. I do think that's true. Like, there's, there's some people that have some pretty convincing stories of direct energy weapons and things that they're developing up there. And there's a neutrino detector that they have up there that a lot of people think does a lot more than that. They think it might actually be able to cause earthquakes and affect the weather. It's a, it's a weird rabbit hole to go down. Sure. But I'm sure the government's doing some slippery shit that we don't know about up there.

Yeah, man, it's so weird. Like in this time that we have all the information, or like nobody trusts the government anymore? Has it always been like that?

Like, it has been a little bit that nobody trusts the government, but now there's reason to not trust them because we've seen what they've done with real events, like, yeah, like the Epstein files and a lot of other stuff where you're like, JFK, where you're like, why don't you just fucking tell us tell us what you know. In the interest of national security, some things must be redacted. Right. Like, there's a reason to not trust them.

Yeah, I get— like, growing up, you see, like, older guys are always— they didn't trust the government, the world's going to shit, all this stuff. And I'm like, am I just getting old, or is this happening to everyone? Are we all doing this now?

I think as you get older, you also take in enough information that you know that they're not being straight with you about anything. Right. And this is— that was always been my argument about the moon landing. Like, you think that they're going to not lie about this one thing when they've lied about everything else, including how we got into Vietnam, Kennedy's assassination, fill in the blanks, everything in the 1960s they lied about?

Sure. Because they could. There was no— exactly.

You know, they controlled all the information. Yeah. Well, that's what's interesting about today. Like, that's why there's less trust in the government than ever, because we have more access to information. To not trust them. Yeah, you know, it's like it's a squirrely time, right?

Yeah, that's why I like living in Montana, and it all goes down. I'll be way far away.

Ever seen anything in the sky? Do you see like, what the fuck is that?

Um, see anything weird? Nothing crazy, no. When we did decide to move there, my wife and I had taken a little bit of mushrooms, and the sky put on a little performance for us. Well, that's— that was part of the— like, I think we're supposed to move here.

Oh really? Yeah. Oh wow.

Yeah, it was, you know, it was a little induced, but yeah, it was, and we both saw it, and we were with people who didn't see it that were also on mushrooms, so. Interesting.

So it was a show just for you guys.

It's what it felt like. Yeah, and we both were like, are you, we were making sure it was the same thing, and our friends were like, what are you talking about?

Did they take the same dose?

Yeah. Yeah, so I think that was a very— Maybe they weren't supposed to go there.

That's right.

Maybe it's a fate thing. Yeah, we felt very spiritually connected to it after that.

Mm-hmm. Well, it's a good place to be spiritually connected to. It feels like you're supposed to be spiritually connected to it because it's so— it's one of the last places— like, Wyoming's like that as well. It's one of the last places where it's not tainted, even though there's cities there, it's settled. It's like, it's so much more wild than it is tame that you still get this feeling of like humbleness. Yeah, you get, you get humbled by just the vast spectacular nature of it.

Yeah, it's almost like we feel like nature is the novelty these days. It's like, no, man, that everything that we messed up and put a bunch of concrete on should be the novelty. Nature is the actual thing. That's the way we're supposed to be. Yeah, you know, we've all kind of like flipped that in our head. And obviously I'm not— I have the luxury to be able to live out in a place like that, but the more I live there, the more I feel like like this is how I was meant to live. You know, me personally, I can't talk for anyone else, but I'm just in a way better place mentally and otherwise.

Yeah, there's this guy who lives in the Arctic, like, like above the Arctic Circle or near the Arctic Circle, and he— they filmed him, this Vice documentary called Heinmo's Great Adventure. And this guy's been living there since like the 1970s. He moved up there and he's got a log cabin and And he just lives up there. All he does is hunts caribou and goes fishing. And he's a really smart guy. And this nerdy reporter with glasses goes up and hangs out with this guy for a few days. And the guy was really compelling in the way he was describing, like, I think this is how people are supposed to live. Like, I'm so much more calm and at peace. It seems natural and normal. Like, this is how you're supposed to live. And all he does is just like hunt and fish, and he gets like some supplies dropped off to him, canned goods and shit, baking soda or whatever. But most of his life is just living off of the land.

The proof's in the pudding, man. When I'm— when I'm— when I'm in a city for a long time and I'm on my phone, I'm looking at Instagram and all that stuff, it takes a week before I feel insane, like completely crazy. And if I just put that stuff away and go outside even in a city, like if I just put that stuff down for a little bit and go outside and connect with the person, I feel, you know, infinitely better. Yeah. And if you just look at, you know, the stuff on your phone and you're so sucked into that, you would believe this is— this— the world is a shitty place. Mm-hmm. But then if you don't look at that and you go outside and you live your real life, it doesn't take long before everything feels good again. Yeah, like you have hope again. You you know, you're meeting your neighbors or going to the grocery store or going to the post office. Like everything feels pretty good out there. It's just your phone telling you that this place is terrible.

Yeah. That's the, this is the big bridge to crazy. Much more than cities is these fucking things. Oh yeah. They're the bridge to crazy.

And like, that's what AI is learning from. It's only learning from all this terrible information we're putting online. So. And it's accelerating. It can't learn from the real world. It can't go to the grocery store and see that everyone's pretty good for the most part, right? 99% of what you do out in your real life is fine, right? You know, but it's only gonna see the worst of all of us and then, and then show us that even more, show that back to us, because that's all it knows, right?

That's really scary to me, man. It is scary, and it's never gonna really appreciate a great song. It's never gonna really appreciate art. It's not gonna appreciate love or community or friendship or any of those things. No, it's not gonna appreciate the feeling that you have. You could just call your neighbor up and go over his house and shoot 500 yards and in his backyard. Exactly. I mean, it's not gonna get that, right? It's not gonna get how cool that is that that guy's 70 years old, he hits a deer, he's like, fucking 70. Yeah, 70 years old hitting a deer. You're supposed to be dead as fuck.

No, man, not him. He's made— looks like John Wayne. Yeah, that's crazy.

I and you, we can appreciate that. Yeah, you That fucking AI doesn't give a shit about that. They go, get off the motorcycle, you shouldn't be on the motorcycle, Dave.

Yeah, and dude, dude, talking about music, it can make good songs though. I've heard you play someone here and I— my friends will just, you know, whatever apps they have, I don't really know all the new apps, but they'll just give it a prompt and the song is incredible and it does it in 10 seconds. It's spooky, it's really weird, man.

But it's only doing it derivatively, like it's only taking taking the songs that other people have written and just making sort of a, some sort of a conglomeration of them and spitting it out. Or it's redoing like an old hip-hop song in like a blues style or, you know, something like that.

Unfortunately, that's 99% of what humans do too. Right. You know, it is all derivative anyway.

I know, but at least it's a person. Yeah. Like something to me about, even if it's derivative, if it's good, if it's catchy, at least I know a dude and his friends did that.

Yeah, you know. Yeah, and you can get behind a person as an artist. Yeah, like their stuff until they aren't underground anymore, you know.

Yeah, yeah, that's the silliness. That is so silly, isn't it? Like, if you really start to take off, someone's gonna eventually go, fuck that guy, I knew that guy when he was just fucking just starting out, he was pretty good, songs were good, and then he and then he made it.

It's gonna be controversial, but the first Coldplay album is still amazing, you know, but they got so huge that everyone hates Coldplay now, and you're like, but they are really good. I like Coldplay. I do too. But like, music nerds are like, they can't do Coldplay because they're doing stadiums and your mom likes them now.

I think that was one of the things that people didn't like about Nickelback, because Nickelback was almost like the first AI. You know what I mean? Like that Rockstar song, that was like, that was like an AI version of like a lot of like, like Cypress Hill had a Rockstar song that was like, but Cypress Hill sounds so much more general, like genuine. Whereas the Nickelback one is like almost like these guys are just too AI.

It's almost like they were AI. It was the beginning of sort of like Auto-Tune and all that stuff, but auto, like really good Auto-Tune that you couldn't tell. Not like the Auto-Tune that's in rap where you know they're Auto-Tuned on purpose. It was like everything's so perfect. Mm-hmm. And it almost doesn't sound like humans playing music.

Right. And the subject matter is like, I've heard all this stuff before.

Yeah. That's the problem.

Right down the middle. Yep. Yeah. It was AI. Nickelback was the first AI music. Yeah. I don't know. People are weird with their taste and they want you to like what they like. That's what's really weird. Like you have to like what they like. Yeah, I think they get mad at you. Yeah, for sure. What are you gonna do? Well, listen, man, I really enjoyed talking to you. It's a lot of fun. Thanks for having me. I love your fucking show. I can't wait to watch Marshall's because I love you on Yellowstone. It's a fucking great show. I'm really bummed out that your wife's dead now though.

That sucks. Yeah, it was, it was rough. I didn't, I didn't— I love Kelsey and we love working together, but you know, ultimately you don't want to just sit and watch a guy be happy. That wouldn't be a very good show, you know. You need— he needed a motor. That cool relationship though. I know, fun. But he had his dream life and they were happy together. So now you can't watch that for 50 hours or however long this ends up going.

Well, he knows how to mix it up, I'll tell you that. That dude knows— Taylor knows how to fucking throw a monkey wrench into things and make it crazy. Absolutely make it interesting.

So I can't wait to watch it. Thanks, brother.

Thank you. Thanks for being here. All right, bye everybody.