Joe Rogan is back on The Joe Rogan Experience! And he's back with a vengeance. Joe talks about his recent trip to the ER, how he feels about being canceled, and what it's like to be a member of the cult "The Pylon." Also, he talks about how he got caught up in the Pylon, and why he doesn't get nervous when he's on the pod. Joe also talks about the time he almost puked on the job and how he almost got into a car accident on the way home from work. And how he's not worried about getting canceled any more, because he's been canceled so many times over the years that he's almost used it as fuel for his Pylon. The Pylon is a group of people who are dedicated to bringing awareness to the problem. They're here to help people who need it, and are willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE on Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and review on iTunes. We'll be looking out for your favorite podcasters on the next episode of the pod, so we can keep bringing you the best podcasters in the podcast world. Thank you so much for listening and supporting the pod! -Jon Sorrentino and Sarah Abdurrahil - and is a podcast about comedy and stand-up comedy. Please don't forget to rate, review, review and subscribe to our podcast, and tell us what you think of our podcasters are doing right now. and what we're listening to you think we should do in the next pod, and we can do more of what we recommend to you in the future. We're looking out there and what kind of podcasters should be listening to us and what they're doing in the pod we should be doing more of this week's pod? in the coming episodes we should listen to and what you're getting in the most important thing we're doing next week. Thank you, and much more! and thank you for all the love you're doing the most of what you've been listening to this week, and more of your feedback we're getting on this week! --Jon and Sarah is looking forward to hearing from you, so much love and support us on the podcast. -RATE 5 stars and a shout out to you!
00:04:01.000And I sit here and I go, every fucking horrible thing that's happened in my life.
00:04:06.000Physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, spiritual abuse, prison, getting my career taken away or this or, you know, anything has always led to bigger and better.
00:04:16.000So I'm like, kind of like it, you know?
00:04:18.000That's, yeah, but that's just because you're a real person.
00:04:22.000Like, you're not full of shit in any way, shape or form.
00:04:29.000And when people know who you actually are, it's like you have these moments where things are uncomfortable and you're confronted with a bad scene, but then you rise above.
00:08:05.000So I had this sculpture that I made and it was in my car and I just brought it out and I sat next to it and I said, I'm just going to prepare a little bit.
00:08:15.000So I started preparing for the Joe Rogan experience and I started talking to this sculpture and I'm like looking, I'm like, you know, it's three o'clock.
00:10:32.000And you have all these scientists that are brilliant, you have comedians, and everyone's like quick-witted, and they're fast, and they're...
00:10:54.000Yeah, your abstract way of thinking, like the way you are as a person, you're so freely yourself, that's what allows you to create such amazing art.
00:11:27.000So the reason why I kind of did that was...
00:11:31.000I wake up every morning wracked with anxiety and nerves, and it starts immediately.
00:11:36.000You're a piece of shit, you're no good, people don't like you, this and that.
00:11:40.000And then, like, what did I say when you showed me my painting from 2018?
00:11:43.000I immediately have to self-dep, that's not that good, I could do a better one.
00:11:47.000So, I talk to my therapist about it, I say, I don't have a self, I don't have a high self-opinion of myself, and they go, well, An average human living in society today,
00:12:04.000from morning till night, will say thousands of horrible things about themselves.
00:12:10.000Like, I'm not good enough, I'm fat, I'm ugly, this and that.
00:13:43.000And I said, I can do it, but I don't believe it.
00:13:49.000Because I can sit here and tell you the amount of times in my life that I wasn't enough.
00:13:55.000Like, I can sit here and go through many, many stories of women dumping me for richer, better looking, more famous, better this, better that.
00:16:20.000And they go, Dave, for someone who's rebelled and like made your own rules and done everything your own way, it's so weird that you just kind of accept this.
00:16:29.000They go, can, like what you just said, can great transcendent next level art be created without that thing, without that edge, without, with you pursuing joy and peace and love in your life?
00:18:28.000Even the way you describe your own anxiety and self-hatred, it's like there's a freedom to your expression that you would talk about on the podcast.
00:18:37.000You would say the most embarrassing, humiliating shit, and you would say it freely and openly and then discuss why it's embarrassing and why it's humiliating.
00:18:46.000And what you did wrong and what was fucked up about it and what you were thinking while you were doing, how you knew it was fucked up.
00:18:54.000I remember I was parked in my car once and you and us, I forget what you guys were talking about, but I was like, Jesus Christ, I have to see how this plays out.
00:19:58.000There's a bunch of people out there that are terrified to be free.
00:20:01.000They're terrified to express themselves because they're so worried about being attacked.
00:20:05.000And that self-limiting and self-censoring is one of the real problems with social media censorship.
00:20:11.000It's not just that you're censoring people for opinions you don't agree with, but it causes other people to self-censor because they're afraid of being cancelled.
00:22:54.000I've been podcasting for fucking one year and I'm gonna be on the Howard net like my head was like exploding I'm like so they offered you a show on their channel that we were talking about it And I was like getting pumped up and I was like I fucking knew I was awesome at talking I fucking knew this shit and and I go but what am I what are we doing talking about relationships I'm talking to a porn star.
00:23:15.000I'm talking to this How do I take it to the next level?
00:23:20.000How do I, like, when I close my eyes and I hear a podcast, oh, I'm going to interview this interesting person, and can you believe this person, and this shit, and it's facts, interesting things, story, weird anecdote, and I go, talking, talking, fuck!
00:23:32.000Enough with the fucking talking, like, I'm a fucking artist.
00:23:36.000I'm a fucking artist, like, I want to bring some shit to this.
00:24:46.000I gag myself and then I become the person who just kidnapped me.
00:24:52.000And I start screaming, Dave, you're a fucking piece of shit, because you fucking do this, and you steal, and you rip off people, and you're a fucking...
00:26:31.000And so I'm listening to this stuff and my friends are like, at this point, there's no difference between you and the homeless guy on the street that's talking to himself, that's having a fight with his boss that fired him 20 years ago.
00:26:45.000And I go, were you raised religious at all?
00:26:51.000From the time I was like five till I was around seven, I kicked it.
00:28:47.000Something in his brain is tapped into something that I'm not tapped into, and now some words are coming out of his mouth that sound like that fucking tongues kind of stuff.
00:28:56.000You ever see that Jay-Z documentary where they show him like he never writes anything down?
00:29:12.000So I go, I need to do a podcast about that.
00:29:16.000So I go in the room and I go, right now, as someone who's never spoken in tongues or not hooked into whatever Jay-Z's hooked into and whatever my friend Steven, I'm going to talk.
00:29:29.000Six hours of me creating an alien fucking language trying to talk directly to God, and that one 100% my friends go, you cannot put this out!
00:29:39.000You have a fucking butt plug in your mouth, you're talking in tongues to God, you're kidnapping yourself, and...
00:29:44.000Hold on, these aren't all the same episode, right?
00:32:29.000What I was saying, I think that aliens would be so good at language, they would be able to talk to us in a language, and we would understand it.
00:32:38.000That they would be able to figure out sound to the point where sound could embed information in sound with their super complicated language to the point where they could talk to you and you don't have to understand their language.
00:33:21.000You become this person and you use the human voice to connect with sports, science, comedy, and then you amass an audience of hundreds of millions of people and I go,
00:34:13.000Like, some people just have extra speed, they have extra power, they have things that their body can do that's not warranted by the amount of effort they put into it.
00:37:07.000It would be too indulgent to do it in front of them without any practice.
00:37:10.000If I knew that there was a way that I could do it, that I could distill it down to an entertaining form, I would definitely do it.
00:37:16.000So you've done like thousands of these now.
00:37:19.000You've had every single different kind of profession and weird personality sitting here.
00:37:26.000And I was getting to the point in my podcast where I was getting pretty big guests, and I was finding myself dissatisfied, but unlike you, hating myself, and becoming very bored.
00:37:38.000And I said, I'm not good at speaking because I have blind spots.
00:37:43.000I stutter, I say like a lot, I say um, and I talk over people, and I'm trying to sort of wedge my agenda and try to get my point across.
00:37:52.000And I go, if my consciousness, my soul...
00:37:57.000Who's talking in this mic right now is...
00:38:20.000There's a short bus in my brain, and the person driving right now, today right now, is a confident, sober, mentally stable.
00:38:28.000But on that bus, there's a racist Dave, there's a sexist Dave, there's a werewolf Dave, there's a trans Dave, there's a experimental butt plug Dave, there's many Dave's, and it's whatever attention I want to give them.
00:38:50.000It's like a therapy tool where you're in a room like this with like five other patients and I don't know it could be like up to ten I guess and you identify one of the most traumatic moments of your life and that you can't you're stuck you can't you can't get past I can't get past My parents are divorcing.
00:39:16.000I can't get past failing at the, you know, national, you know, whatever that moment is.
00:39:37.00016. Okay, so you're Joe Rogan, 16. Who was there?
00:39:41.000My dad was there, my mom was there, my coach, you know, and then so all the other people play the roles of those things and then you just go through and then what happened?
00:43:16.000Okay, I told you the other day, this is pre-quarantine, pre-panda.
00:43:23.000I'm in the car with my dad, and we were going to our favorite Chinese restaurant in San Gabriel Valley, which by where we live should take 15-20 minutes tops.
00:48:15.000We need to, we can't do anything that, like, upsets them, because we might get sent back on the boat.
00:48:20.000You know, it's like, you need to act in a certain way, you have to dress a certain way, you have to comb your hair, you have to get a certain kind of job, doctor, lawyer, doctor, lawyer, and you need to act that fucking way, because we don't want to get sent back.
00:48:33.000And so, yes, yes, Father, yes, Honorable Father.
00:48:37.000So I'm sitting there and I'm feeling myself.
00:49:29.000Sitting in the car, and you remember when the quarantine first started?
00:49:34.000You saw families walking down, like entire families walking the dog, everything was closed, like there was no smog in LA. We fucking drive to the beach.
00:49:45.000We're almost there, at a red light, and there's a guy walking his dog with his kid, and I get a kind of mad dog kind of vibe, like he's staring at me and our windows are down and I'm, I don't know, I'm always talking really loud to my dad because he's hard of hearing.
00:49:59.000And the light turns green and he just...
00:50:01.000With disdain and disgust, he just goes like this.
00:50:52.000If you go over and engage some guy in a physical confrontation and he beats you to death, there's no comfort in the fact that his kid was there to watch.
00:51:20.000Maybe if I was by myself, maybe I would have been more quick-witted and had a snappy comeback, but...
00:51:26.000Someone hasn't done that to me the last time someone did this to me.
00:51:30.000I was probably in a third-world country 15 20 years ago and before that maybe I was a in in grade school and as a 44 year old man who's in a lot of pain that's been working on himself to heal it like hurt me.
00:51:58.000A guy who would do that to you for no reason at all, just sees you and wants to hurt you and make you feel bad, that kind of guy is hurting, man.
00:52:05.000He's probably been abused his whole life.
00:52:08.000There's probably something real wrong with him.
00:52:10.000He's probably had a fucked up alcoholic dad or something.
00:52:29.000But that's an intelligent thing to do nothing because you're paused.
00:52:35.000Your pause is wise, because you can call it freezing, but you're stuck in an unwinnable situation.
00:52:40.000If you go over and beat that guy's ass, like that is violence, it's dangerous, you never know how it's gonna turn out, you never know if he has a gun or a knife or...
00:55:47.000Well, there's been a lot of viruses named after other places like the Spanish flu, which killed a fucking shitload of people.
00:55:52.000But if someone shows you the stats and they're like, look, you choosing the words you want right now is causing violence towards Asian people in this country.
00:56:01.000And he's like, yeah, fuck them, you know?
00:56:02.000I don't think he's that insightful, right?
00:56:10.000No, but I'm saying like that maybe someone needs to say it that way because you saying it that way and I didn't know that There was a stat that showed that violence against Asian people went up every time he said it then it makes That first of all,
00:56:48.000Now, the other thing is when you're a leader, that's when things get slippery because then you can't just be a regular person.
00:56:54.000Because if you're a leader, you literally can help other people.
00:56:59.000Maybe he doesn't even realize it, but you really can change the way people think and behave.
00:57:04.000When a really powerful person like him, the most powerful in the country, arguably, when he says something That prescribes unity, that promotes the idea of companionship and of friendship and of love and of support and camaraderie,
00:57:21.000literally can change the way people feel.
00:57:24.000And also if he says something hateful, it'll change the way people feel.
00:57:28.000Like we move, whether we like it or not, there's so many of us, there's 300 million in this country plus, and we move to inspirational words or angry words.
00:57:44.000We were joking right now, but if you did start a cult, there'd be fucking millions of people signing up tomorrow, and they would listen to you.
00:57:50.000And if you said, this is a fucking, fuck these Chinese people, then they'd say, we're with Joe, you know?
01:00:08.000First of all, if you just sat there and you weren't busy and just stared at your phone and let it ring three times, you'd be a fucking idiot.
01:00:20.000Everyone should have like a secret video of your friends staring at the phone, deciding whether or not to talk to you or whether or not to let it ring three times.
01:00:28.000You see the phone ring and you pick it up right away.
01:04:00.000Everybody has a different environment.
01:04:02.000Everyone has different family life, genetics, influences, abuse, assaults, different things that have happened to you that have been horrible that you've had to get through, the loss of loved ones, all these different things.
01:04:16.000They vary so much from person to person.
01:04:18.000We have a rough idea of what it means if your mom dies when you're five.
01:04:28.000But we don't know it until we experience it.
01:04:30.000And everybody experiences a different fucking hand of cards.
01:04:32.000And then here you find yourself, you know, whatever age you are in life, just still battling demons from your childhood and all fucked up from things that have been happening to you.
01:05:42.000Like if someone's mad at you, and it's all about how much tolerance you have to that drug of other people's aggression and anger and resentment and jealousy and all the various toxic emotions that people have.
01:06:28.000Maybe your dad beats your mom, and your mom beats you, and you beat your brother, and your brother beats your sister, and it's just fucking madness.
01:06:34.000And then you have neighbors that suck too, and everybody sucks.
01:06:38.000Man, that's as much of a virus as the flu.
01:06:42.000It's a mind virus that gets out into the other people that are around you.
01:07:00.000You grew up in a wonderful community with fantastic parents and great neighbors and your aunt...
01:07:05.000Your aunt, your uncle come over, and everybody has good times, and, oh sure, there's a little bit of hardship here and there, but for the most part, people love each other.
01:07:24.000I go, I become jealous of comedians because when I'm at a comedy show and I see hecklers and I'm like, that guy was so quick with that comeback.
01:09:15.000You might find this hard to believe, but I never talked growing up.
01:09:18.000I was the kid in the corner, and girls would form groups and talk about which guy they want to fuck, and I wouldn't even be- They're like, Dave's sitting right there, and they're like, yeah, he's not even on the fucking roster.
01:10:01.000Like, I've been to every fucking state.
01:10:03.000I've hitchhiked from the time I was 15 to every fucking state, every country, and I've talked and because Would a black guy be able to do that?
01:10:16.000When people see, oh, that guy's Chinese.
01:10:18.000He's like Jackie Chan or he's whatever they think.
01:10:21.000They don't think that I'm going to do anything or say anything or I'm going to pose any threat.
01:10:27.000So they just open up and they say the most...
01:10:30.000I don't know like when I started hitchhiking people said no one's gonna pick you up right like 60s 70s everyone hitchhiked and then something weird happened in the 80s.
01:10:39.000We're like you're gonna get raped kidnapped murdered, you know, but I go I don't think so I think if I put my thumb out and ask for help someone's gonna give it to me and with that I got to see the world for free I got to go everywhere and Much like What happened was I would sit shotgun and I'm getting these free rides and two things would happen either the driver has a long drive and they want someone to talk to or they want me to talk to them and Something would happen and like I'm in the car right now with
01:11:09.000a complete stranger anything could happen and the first hour is always Small talk.
01:11:16.000You know, it's all that kind of stuff Something switches when they know the rides about like I'm about to get out or whatever and I'm never going to see this guy again.
01:11:26.000I'm never going to see this guy again.
01:11:28.000So now we've been talking about new sports and weather for an hour.
01:11:31.000Last 10 minutes, I fucked my sister when I was 12. Whoa!
01:16:38.000Okay, I'm just going to stay up the whole night.
01:16:40.000So I'm up, eyes are closing, bring him back up again, gripping the knife, and then sometime around 5.30 in the morning or something, my eyes are closed, but you know when you feel someone?
01:16:55.000So he comes out of his room, and he's standing there, and I could see, and then I go, oh shit, and then I grip the knife, and I go, this is it.
01:18:29.000And then he just, like all the other times I've been picked up, he starts opening up about how he was married, he has a bunch of children, and then he figured out he was gay.
01:19:26.000Yeah, so I said, yeah, we're gonna leave now.
01:19:29.000So we just fucking booked it, and then all of his neighbors were black.
01:19:34.000Like, he lived, like, in a black neighborhood, and, like, the houses are on stilts because of the swampland and whatever.
01:19:40.000And I don't know if he's done this before, but as we ran out, I heard the kids laughing and they're like, oh, Tom, they're trying to do it again.
01:19:48.000And I'm like, oh, fuck, this isn't the first time?
01:23:36.000I'm making like, you know, under the table And there's a library on the farm of books that have been left behind by past travelers.
01:23:45.000And of course, there's an old, from the 70s or 80s, National Geographic catalog.
01:23:51.000And I start reading about Mokele Membe.
01:23:54.000I don't know if that's how you say it, but it's...
01:23:58.000Scientists, National Geographic people have spotted this fucking brontosaur-like thing in the Congo, and it's still there, and the Congo is still...
01:24:46.000And I'm in Israel, which is close to Africa, but because it's this Russian airline, I get on this flight, it goes to Moscow, and then Malta, and then like six other African countries, and then it lands in Brazzaville.
01:26:44.000Once again that same kind of oh, I think I'm accepted in this country I think people like me for me and it's like no, we don't want you get the fuck go back to where you come from so I think You know and I could go on and on about all the traumas I've experienced in my life,
01:27:00.000but I hurt people hurt people I was in a lot of pain.
01:27:02.000I was like I Didn't like Korean people.
01:27:59.000And so I could go and tell a million stories about the Congo, but at some point— You were looking for this brontosaurus for real, or you just wanted to go to the Congo as well?
01:31:05.000You thought there was a real dinosaur in there, and when you got there and you saw the big frogs and the big snakes, you're like, maybe it is.
01:31:13.000Yeah, maybe it is, and what happens is...
01:31:17.000We go to the last spotting of it, right?
01:33:37.000What we told people, he was here to fuck as many women as possible, but we went with the story of he is the toothpaste executive and I'm his bodyguard.
01:34:31.000And now like Have you ever been in that kind of situation where you're like I'm gonna die here like I'm never gonna like hope is gone like I'm in a thick thick Congolese jungle like I don't know how to get out and we've been lost for days like I don't know how to survive I don't fucking know how to like This is it,
01:35:46.000The few times in my life where I've been in this kind of hopeless situation, the only thing that's going to get me out of it is if I can control my mind.
01:36:32.000And he has a more, like, dissociated, like, checked out, like, we'll get out of here somehow.
01:36:39.000And part of I don't know his coping thing was to like talk down to me or whatever and so that night and We're lost at this point a week and a half.
01:36:48.000Maybe we haven't you know, I'm fucking 90 pounds.
01:36:51.000I've lost all this weight I'm gonna kill this guy.
01:43:00.000There's a disease called bilharzia, where there's snails under still moving waters, and the second a mammal steps in the water, little fucking parasites shoot off the snail, like heat-seeking missiles, and they go in your dickhole,
01:43:15.000and then you piss and shit blood till you die.
01:50:08.000Bantu wives there's all these like half black half white babies crawling around and he has a ham radio and he's like what's going on I'm like Chuck is fucking dying can he said to come contact you he's like okay I'll contact the aircraft carrier and they'll send a chopper in for him I was like oh shit,
01:50:26.000but yeah, that's that's the one time I saw a French Victorian I don't even know how to describe the architecture It was like a beautiful French home in the middle of the fucking Congo jungle Yeah, there was a website dedicated to those people that tried to do that.
01:50:41.000And it just detailed how it all went terrible for them.
01:51:06.000When you just said too much, like, I just thought right now, every time I hit a rock bottom and my life gets too much, I go back to Africa.
01:51:16.000So when someone says, go back to where you come from, maybe it's Africa.
01:54:03.000Is, you know, when he starts talking, it's like, I'm in like Lion King, or he's like, when I was young and all, you know, I have a translator with me.
01:54:11.000He's translating Hadzabe to Swahili, to English.
01:54:15.000He's like, elephants, lions, hippos, like everywhere.
01:57:18.000I mean, think about just getting by as a hunter-gatherer with the crazy bow that you have to pull back and you're running through the woods all the time.
01:57:39.000Dude, these motherfuckers are so in tune with nature that they'll make a bird sound and they're talking to the bird and the bird will show you where the honey is.
01:58:43.000So, if I walk with one of the kids, and it's like him giving me a tour of his house, like, oh, come to Joe's Warehouse, and he's showing me.
01:58:50.000He's like, grabbing a snake, biting his head off.
01:58:57.000He just grabbed a snake and bit its head off?
01:58:59.000He takes out a slingshot, a pebble this big, bam, hits a fucking bush baby out of the tree, breaks his leg, breaks his legs, puts it here, and he's like, snack for later.
01:59:13.000It looks like they're just goofing off and playing, but they have some, what do you call it, microbes and gut biome kind of things in their stomach that no one else on the planet has.
01:59:25.000So the translator's explaining to me, Canadian scientists come and literally steal their shit.
01:59:32.000They find them and they steal their shit, and I'm like- Their actual poop.
02:00:17.000My fucking hand inflates to like a Mickey Mouse like it's just I'm like you've been getting stung since you were a kid so you're like immune to it and They're just doesn't bother them.
02:00:36.000They're biting that honeycomb like it's a snack and all those bees were on his head his hands and And the thing you never see in all the National Geographics and all the nature documentaries is that.
02:07:40.000And these dogs are so hardcore that there's a dog that had one leg missing, there's a dog that you could see his ribs, and they're still down to hunt.
02:14:15.000When you give kids art supplies like and I'm just watching them like this is fucking amazing and the day just went by I just gave art lessons and like Just someone who's never seen art supplies that must be fucking insane and I'm yeah And I'm asking them like what you know and they're drawing like the hunt they're drawing because they've never seen TV They've never they don't have any of the visual like stuff that we grew up on so everything is pure from that perspective and in my head I'm like I cannot wait to get home and show this to people.
02:14:44.000And maybe we can do prints and books and sell it and help you guys.
02:16:42.000Malaria medication is not so good for them.
02:16:44.000I met a Spanish-German couple there that has a nice bed and breakfast kind of thing.
02:16:50.000Not in that area, but a little bit away.
02:16:54.000And the guy raises his kid like at nice private schools in Germany and then on the summer times he comes and the kids in their underwear run around and they hunt with the tribe.
02:18:01.000Well, obviously neither one of us is a biologist, but if you think about it, if you're living in a completely natural way in the middle of I mean, what a crazy biosphere.
02:19:09.000And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking with my western brain, dude, if I take you back, you guys are gonna be the toast of the town fashion models.
02:19:16.000If someone trains your both thing, like you could be in the Olympics or maybe you could be a fucking baseball player or Well, how about runners from there?
02:19:25.000There's one part of Africa in particular that's responsible for a tremendous amount of long-distance runners, and they had a Radiolab podcast about it, and they said that it was because of their ability to endure pain that they had a ritual, a coming-of-age ritual,
02:19:42.000where they would circumcise the men with a dull knife and have them crawl naked through thorns.
02:19:50.000They did some hardcore shit to these guys when they were young to get them to just be able to endure pain in a way that most people are just incapable of.
02:20:00.000They've developed a tolerance to pain because some of their rituals...
02:21:59.000And then he said, well, first of all, the reason why they do it in the first place is because some of these elephants will make their way into towns and start eating in the village and eating all their crops.
02:22:08.000So they want someone to come and shoot it.
02:22:49.000The mismanagement of the animals there is like the – they were already gone by the time I got there, but where he used to keep the elephants, the bars are like this thick.
02:22:59.000And the elephants were so like depressed and just from – like they didn't have an actual zookeeper that knew how to handle them, so they would just keep them locked up and like not – The elephants would fucking headbang the bars.
02:23:13.000These bars are like this thick and they'd be bent like this.
02:23:16.000I'm like, man, these fucking things are dinosaurs.
02:23:38.000We actually talked about this, Jamie, didn't we?
02:23:40.000Like, do you think they actually taught him to make that shape, or do you think they taught him to paint himself, right?
02:23:48.000Like, if you could show an elephant, like, this is the shape I want you to make, and it's the shape of an elephant, if you drew it for him, and you said, recreate that, I'll give you fruit.
02:23:57.000He recreates that, you give him fruit.
02:25:36.000You develop like a little bond with them.
02:25:39.000It's interesting, man, because like you're hanging out with this elephant, and you're feeding him, and he goes to you to try to eat, and then you're petting him, and then you could wash him, and he's enjoying it.
02:25:49.000He's enjoying that you're doing this, and then Then, after all that, then you ride them.
02:26:43.000Yeah, people who, if you didn't know what an elephant was, and someone was describing, if it didn't exist, and someone was describing it to you, and they said it was off in the jungle somewhere, you'd be like, what?
02:33:55.000I had that moment of clarity and all the chaos of I need another thing in my life to show people that the gambling wasn't a fluke, the art wasn't a fluke, that I'm not just lucky, that I'm talented, that I am enough.
02:34:09.000The anger is like, oh, I'm gonna be on fucking TV now and I'm gonna fucking kill it.
02:34:13.000And I was like, My life's pretty dope right now.
02:34:38.000What the repercussions of the fame part.
02:34:40.000Well, isn't it a Bill Murray quote, I want to be rich and famous, and he goes, why don't you just try the rich first and see if you want to add the famous to it or something like that?
02:34:48.000It's like, you deal with that now, right?
02:40:15.000I'm not going to go into UFC fighting, but...
02:40:18.000I go, I, when I think of myself as a person, I remember myself being relatively athletic, in shape, and when I go, oh, my hair's going, I'm being fat, I can't run as fast as I can, I go, I need a trainer.
02:42:13.000Can I tell you how I feel when I listen to the Joe Rogan Experience?
02:42:15.000Because I leave you on all the time when I'm painting.
02:42:17.000I was listening to you when I painted the thing of you.
02:42:20.000I do feel extreme gratitude because I'm like, Even though I've listened to Joe for hundreds of hours now and there's tons of stuff I do disagree with him, thank God he exists.
02:42:52.000This is what I'm talking about with the memory and shit.
02:42:54.000We're talking about the tribes, and then we're talking about how soft we are, and we're talking about how they have awesome poop, and people are trying to steal that poop.
02:44:29.000But the strange thing about you is you actually have friends and people like you and you have a lot of people that love you and you love a lot of people so we can't diagnose you with the actual disorder but you fucking have a lot of So you would see people and just say, fuck you immediately?
02:44:46.000I have such insane abandonment issues.
02:44:49.000My parents sent me away since I was a kid, so I have a really weird thing with authority or even anyone saying, hey, David, are you open to a suggestion?
02:45:52.000Like you're little peasants and paladins and you're moving them around where Warcraft 3 is more 3D. What the fuck am I explaining video games?
02:45:59.000And I got on there and because the entire world was waiting for Warcraft 3, no one was playing Warcraft 2. So I was the god of Warcraft 2. You know when you go on online games, you get a game really quick?
02:48:21.000And if I go to an AA room and I'm talking and there's a guy speaking about how he got clean from alcohol, I just listen to him and every time he says alcohol, I replace it with porn, video game.
02:48:42.000And so I'm sitting on Warcraft 2 and something's missing from my life and my rage and my anger and all my addictions and my mental illnesses are coming out in this Warcraft game.
02:49:15.000I killed every- And within five minutes, you know, like the way it goes, you bring down a blizzard storm and you build a cannon tower or whatever, and you know if you're gonna win.
02:49:25.000And this is before- Within five minutes?
02:50:00.000And then one day, I was the king of this map.
02:50:03.000Like, in this one area in my life where my art career is kind of going good, but not really, and I don't know how to be in a relationship, and I'm just sort of lost in my mid-twenties, I don't know who the fuck I am, I don't...
02:52:17.000Couldn't believe you could see it's crazy because you had never seen anybody fuck before then like you kind of knew what vaginas looked like because of Playboy and breasts look like but there's something about watching people actually have sex you like your whole body take it when you're a 14 year old kid and you see that it's like a drug right like a drug that it's not it's not like a drug it is a drug drug I mean,
02:54:47.000I saw a package, and I remember it perfectly.
02:54:50.000Up-and-comers, Raylene's first, you know, and I'm touching the box, and it's taped up, and there's a metal detector, and there's cameras, and I go...
02:55:25.000We have VHS and a beta machine because my dad chose wrong and then we had to eventually get the VHS. And my grandmother is watching WWF wrestling.
02:55:35.000So you got to understand the dynamics of a tiny home.
02:55:40.000So my grandma, my two brothers, and my parents, and someone is always home.
02:56:24.000I run to the fucking living room, and you can, it's not that far.
02:56:27.000I don't live in a huge house, so you can still hear the silverware clinking like they're eating.
02:56:33.000I pull out the, there's like a Disney movie in there, I pull out the VHS, I put in my thing, there's the FBI warning, I'm fast-forwarding, I'm like looking, I'm looking, I'm fast-forwarding, and you hit play and fast-forward, and then I see tits, and it's, and she's wearing jeans, and then, oh my god!
02:59:33.000She left the YouTube video, Baby Shark or some shit up, and she went to the bathroom, and I clicked Pokemon, and then it was Pokemon cosplay triple anal gangbang.
02:59:45.000And that's the first thing I've ever seen at age four.
03:00:04.000Is this also like back in the day when YouTube used to have it set up?
03:00:11.000Did they have restrictions back in the day?
03:00:14.000Because when things first started going up, there was a lot of people sneaking things in that weren't supposed to be on there, and then they would catch them.
03:01:56.000I lost that girlfriend, not just because of that, because of other issues too, but...
03:02:02.000I didn't get up for one weekend from Friday to Sunday without pissing, drinking water, and at some point, I had found this guy, this arch enemy on this Warcraft game.
03:02:12.000He'd win one, I'd win one, one more, one more, one more.
03:02:59.000The addiction that most people, if you play whack-a-mole, you're like, yeah, I used to be addicted to sex, gambling, da-da-da-da-da, and I jump and I jump and I'm addicted to this.
03:03:11.000The one where you can hide in plain sight where everyone pats you on the back is workaholism, right?
03:03:16.000I could work all day and night, and in this culture, you get pat on the back.
03:03:21.000Asian culture is the same, except if you fail, You either kill yourself and you're an absolute disgrace.
03:03:28.000In Japan, the suicide rate was really high.
03:03:52.000I saw this in some documentary that They would keep going to the internet room to play this video game like where you virtually raise like The Sims or something like that that they forgot to feed their own kid and their kid died and they went to jail for it and then when they went out it's like this is a fucking problem.
03:04:08.000This is like a real problem and We live in a culture where there's things that are accepted addictions, right?
03:04:16.000If you fucking do opioids and heroin and like...
03:04:31.000If you look at the amount of people that kill themselves now, like it's almost normalized and how many of my friends have done that, how many people that you know that, and especially during this pandemic, the suicide rate's gone up like crazy.
03:04:46.000And people, when I think of Bourdain and I think of myself and even starting the show off giving you compliments, we live in a culture that doesn't know how to...
03:04:57.000When people go, don't shoot the messenger.
03:04:59.000The messenger, people say that because the messenger gets shot.
03:05:50.000Like physical stuff like you get angry and get anxiety because like you don't you let yourself get overweight like How much does that fuck with you and how much would you give to not have that anymore?
03:06:05.000Like isn't that wouldn't I mean if there's one major thing that keeps fucking with you over and over again that you could fix I have That's a fixed one.
03:06:16.000So I have a disease of more, like I was saying.
03:06:18.000I have a chasm, a black hole, that it doesn't matter how many women I have sex with, how many porn I've jerked off to, how much money I've gambled and lost and won small fortunes, huge fortunes.
03:06:32.000I have had an eating disorder, which is like, I thought that was...
03:06:38.000That's what I thought like I got to When I went to rehab for gambling addiction This is the first rehab I've went to I've been to every fucking rehab mental health wellness center in America now.
03:06:51.000I Said hey, do you guys deal with process addiction?
03:06:53.000And the other guy sure come over and when I went there There was only meth heads there.
03:06:58.000They didn't even know they just wanted my money.
03:07:00.000Yeah, just come over here and I learned they're like serious gambling addiction Like, one out of four kills themselves.
03:07:09.000Yeah, it's the reason why there's no balconies in Las Vegas.
03:07:14.000The only place that has balconies is the Cosmo, I think.
03:07:17.000And they had, like, two suicides the first month they opened, I think.
03:07:33.000Just fucking got an Emmy working for Vice and I got my podcast and I got this and I got this next project and my next art show is going to make a million dollars.
03:12:45.000Why are you choosing to look at it in a negative way?
03:12:48.000In the way you're describing it right there, but something must be fucked up with me.
03:12:51.000I go to the jungle, I'm doing all this crazy shit.
03:12:54.000That's one of the things that makes you interesting, is this extreme real curiosity.
03:13:00.000You have a real curiosity and a willingness to do wild shit like go to the Congo and look for a fucking dinosaur and sleep in a tent where all this shit's crawling around.
03:13:11.000I'm telling you this story now because I'm alive.
03:17:10.000So, I... I can't like you meet people and you're like you're wired this way and You can't teach an old dog new tricks and that's just Joe Rogan that you see today in his 30s and his 40s and 50s It's gonna still be that but a little different version of that when he's 56 and I meet these guys I mean most of these places are very expensive and the people that end up there are It's like everyone has cut them out so they have to be there
03:21:20.000What did you do when you got to Korea?
03:21:22.000It was just to live with my uncles and my aunts and just to have other families support me because my parents weren't doing too well financially.
03:21:30.000So then the whole concept of nice guys finish last, right?
03:21:35.000So I'm this quiet Asian guy and you could just say whatever you- he's a pushover.
03:22:12.000Acting right, acting like the model minority, acting like the good little Asian boy got me nowhere.
03:22:18.000When I talk a fool, when I do whatever the fuck I want, when I fuck, when I fight, when I gamble, when I act crazy, I get television deals, I get on Howard Stern, I get on fucking Joe Rogan, I get fucking sold-out art shows, women...
03:22:32.000Do you think that you are the victim of the attention that you were getting?
03:22:37.000Do you think you leaned into it and it became who you decided you were because that was giving you the most love and people got a kick out of the fact that you genuinely didn't give a fuck.
03:23:34.000Because the shit that happened to you was titanic.
03:23:37.000For that to happen to you at four years of age, as you're growing up and developing, to hit a horrible situation like that at four, Through no fault of your own.
03:23:55.000And it's what makes, unfortunately, it's what makes people so goddamn interesting sometimes too.
03:24:01.000Whether it's Joey Diaz, or whether it's you, or most of my friends that are really interesting had these fucked up lives that you would never want to wish upon your kids.
03:24:09.000But see, when you say that, I hear that and I love and respect you.
03:25:02.000If the goal is to be happy, The problem is a lot of people are doing things to be successful because they think becoming successful is what makes you happy.
03:25:13.000Sometimes you feel empty and you feel angry that you spend all your time working for something that you don't even appreciate when it's over.
03:25:20.000But you're on paper, you're successful.
03:25:54.000Concentrate on what it is, first of all, that makes you happy.
03:25:58.000And I guarantee you, for a big part of it, for a lot of people, is their physical health.
03:26:01.000Improve your physical health, you'll improve your enthusiasm, you'll improve your energy, and you'll improve your ability to do other things.
03:26:51.000And so when I tell you that I've been to every fucking mental health institution and like there's sick people all over the country and the world...
03:27:00.000I never saw one fucking Asian guy until I saw one.
03:27:04.000For fucking five years, I'm going to all these places, and I'm thinking...
03:28:58.000I did ayahuasca when I was 35 years old, so almost nine years ago.
03:29:03.000It fucking the the trip I had in the jungle in Colombia and they told me this isn't gonna change your life But it'll kick the doors open for you to begin to become a different person and We're sitting here.
03:29:17.000There's this and this there's other dimensions.
03:29:19.000There's shit and it's like I can't I'm I'm telling you I agree with everything you said I when I exercise I feel great when but I there's something I I'm an addict.
03:29:30.000I can't But teach me I need something besides and this is why I said when I listen to all the motivational stuff and I and I get fired up I go yeah if I just fucking got up and push myself and I go but that's not me I Need something more and I'm gonna fucking be curious.
03:29:48.000I'm gonna search and so I get to a place where they go Dave you turn everything into a joke you lie a lot right starting with What's an every guy answer to how are you doing?
03:30:04.000I don't care if your dad just died or you just got a divorce.
03:30:23.000I don't know if there's like lawsuit shit, but I went there and it's a mandatory place For crooked judges, Congress, doctors, lawyers, and they have to be there, and they have to relearn,
03:30:40.000rewire, or else they don't get their licenses back to practice.
03:30:45.000And I was the only one there by choice.
03:31:31.000They go, we know that this place that you're at right now is not how the real world exists, but while you're here, and by the way, you can leave at any time, we're gonna ask you to change your behavior.
03:31:44.000So, what was the problem they had with you joking?
03:31:47.000That was your defense mechanism for handling anything?
03:33:40.000I formed the band Mongchi with Bobby Lee's brother Steve Lee as the singer and Money Mark.
03:33:46.000We fucking tour the US and we sell out like two small like two, three hundred seater clubs and every fucking high school like rock band fantasy is fulfilled and at our last show I think Bill Burr was there.
03:34:01.000I'm like we're playing here in Los Globos in Silver Lake And I'm playing to this sold out 200, it's all my friends, my family, there's comedians, there's porn stars, and there's like a super famous, you know, one of the most famous rock band lead singers in the audience,
03:34:16.000and he's like, can I talk to you after the show?
03:34:19.000And he's like, I play to like 20, 30,000 seat stadium people now, and what you just took me back to was our first days when we started, I would do anything for that.
03:35:28.000Do you want to keep doing that and the torture of coming up with new material and the bands if you don't...
03:35:34.000I'm like, I know myself well enough now that I'm going to stick to one thing at a time.
03:35:43.000I'm gonna tell you this story, and I could tell you jail stories, porn stories, I have all these stories, but the fucking weirdest shit that I've ever done in my life was to go to this place, and it's like an intensive outpatient place, so I have an apartment with a roommate.
03:35:57.000I haven't been a fucking roommate in years.
03:35:59.000And they go, in the time that you're here, once again, voluntarily, you can leave at any time.
03:36:04.000We're going to ask you to fucking do everything you say.
03:36:07.000It's counterintuitive to who you are and the way you're wired.
03:36:10.000But we're going to ask you to tell the truth.
03:36:13.000And just fucking, and I go, yeah, sure, I can do that.
03:36:17.000I don't even, I haven't even checked into my apartment.
03:36:22.000There is a man that's obesely overweight sitting on a couch in his fucking tidy- He looks like he's naked because his gut is covering his white underwear.
03:39:46.000And so I've never been to a place like this where every person there, no matter what you say, they put you on a lie detector at the end of the week.
03:40:05.000So I'm like and then so I become friends with this guy over the week and like I'm like okay cool I hope he still likes me and he goes Dave you're not like anyone else here Everyone else here is like some kind of professional and like you got the weird hair you dress like a homeless guy like Are you famous or something?
03:40:22.000I feel like I've seen you somewhere and I'm like no and I had just taken a class on how to Hold a boundary and stand up for myself.
03:40:29.000I said Walter While we're here together, I'm going to ask you, just know me as David, your roommate.
03:40:38.000And if you want to Google me when we leave here, and the thing is, everyone has different privileges.
03:40:43.000One of his is he doesn't have a phone, so he couldn't look me up or whatever.
03:40:47.000I'm going to ask you, this is my boundary.
03:42:42.000And when you're on bad behavior, stay longer.
03:42:44.000Oh my God, we're going to close the bars down again.
03:42:48.000So he goes, he starts getting really physically threatening.
03:42:52.000And part of what I love about wearing masks now is, I don't know what your interaction with your fans and public have been since you've become famous, is people try to break my hand when they shake my hand.
03:43:20.000And so, and then people do the close face talking, and I hate, so this guy's like, you know, he's using his girth to just like, intimidate you.
03:43:29.000And I'm like, and I'm like, this is during Corona or no?
03:44:22.000Hey, Walter fucking, I asked him not to Google me, and the therapists are like, that's a complete violation of the anonymity rights here, and da-da-da-da.
03:46:05.000If I could learn how to speak like this to strangers, maybe I can come home and finally talk to my mom and have a boundary with my parents.
03:46:15.000Asian parents are fucking boundaryless, you know?
03:46:18.000So that night, I'm like, fuck, I could get my toothbrush.
03:47:33.000I'm going to do anything right now to fucking get better.
03:47:36.000So if it means I got a tell on you for Googling me, if I got a tell on you for watching Breaking Bad because you like to do meth and suck Mexican guys' dicks and vice versa.
03:48:02.000That maybe instead of like hiding who you are, finally divorcing your wife and like, you can go to like the gay parade and wear crazy shit and just be out.
03:48:11.000You don't have to, because his whole thing is I only do it when I'm on meth.
03:48:14.000You don't have to use, hide behind meth anymore.
03:48:17.000And he chuckled a little bit and like in my head I'm like, oh cool, I'm like maybe making, maybe some of these words are getting in.
03:48:25.000And so I felt good, like it felt like, so I leave and then I stayed at this place for six more months.
03:48:31.000And during this time I got to like learn and become like a better version of myself and learn new tools and like even these people forgot how to have fun.
03:48:45.000They're like lawyers and doctors and it's like entitlement out the roof.
03:48:49.000They're all the super best at their job.
03:48:52.000The best lawyer, the best doctor, the best...
03:48:54.000So they're used to like playing God and saving people's lives and people just catering to them.