On this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian and podcaster joins me to discuss his recent victory in a lawsuit against CBS Viacom. We talk about how he beat the system and got his money back, why it s important to let go of grudges, and why you should never hold a grudge against someone you care deeply about. We also talk about the importance of forgiveness, and how important it is to be able to forgive people who have done you wrong in your life. I hope you enjoy this episode, and if you like it, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and I'll read out your comments on the next episode. Thank you so much for being a part of this amazing community, and thank you to everyone who has been with me through it all. Cheers! -Joe Rogan and David Dobrik Joe Rogans Podcast by Day, by Night, All Day, All Night, by Nights, All Weekend, by Day and All Day by Night. - Check it out! - The Podcast by Night - All Day All Day - All Weekend - All Night - By Night, By Day, All Weekend by Night - - By Weekend - By Day - By Nights, - What's Good For You Podcast? - by Night? , All Weekend? , By Night! , By Night (By Night, By Day? by Day all day, ? And by Night?! Have a question or would you like to ask me a question about anything else? or a suggestion? &/suggestions? / Suggestions/ Suggestions? / Suggestion? ? / Think of a song or suggestion? / Think about something else? / Say something/ Suggest a song/ Quote/ Suggestion/ etc. / Comment/ Suggest an Idea? / Comment? / Share it? / Send me a song / Suggest a Review? / Review/ etc.. / Say a Review/ Suggest me/ Say Something/ Suggest Me/ Share it/ Say something / Say Something? / etc. / Share a Review / Review Me/ Say a Song or Review Me / Share It? / Thanks! / - Thank Me / Say It Out? -- Thank Me/ - I'll See It Out! --
00:01:00.000Bro, bro, I still can't wrap my mind around it, but I do have to shout out Chris McCarthy over at CBS Viacom, that guy, when we were working this out, his approach was someone who was actually trying to resolve something.
00:01:28.000They got fucked over and someone else is a producer and they're making millions of dollars off of your work and they continue to sell it and make money off of it and...
00:01:36.000Well, I could say with a high degree of honesty.
00:01:40.000Not to say I was never angry about it, but I don't think I was ever, like, bitter.
00:01:45.000By this point in my life, I wasn't bitter.
00:05:51.000I started seeing the places where I was performing.
00:05:54.000Normally when you're successful in comedy, You know, you get off the plane or the bus, you do the hit, you go back to the hotel, you get back on the bus, you don't really see anything.
00:06:05.000Even now, like this last run we did here in Austin.
00:06:45.000Can't take that away from if I reminisce on a nice day, then, you know, it feeds you.
00:06:50.000Remembering something is neurologically almost identical, I've read, to experiencing it.
00:06:57.000Yeah, I think that there's a real value in having experiences where you do it on purpose.
00:07:04.000Like you go someplace to have experiences and think about having those experiences.
00:07:10.000Because most of the time, like you were saying, if we do shows, you just kind of show up, you do the show, and then you go home.
00:07:17.000But if you set aside some days, To do things like that's very valuable for your perspective, which is ultimately valuable for your act.
00:07:24.000It's valuable for everything because you're choosing to take in more information and data specifically to enhance your perspective on life.
00:07:34.000You gain perspective, which is very valuable for a comedian and a person.
00:07:40.000And it's humbling and it's empowering at the same time.
00:07:44.000Yeah because we know comics like that was a big theme during like the 90s right where comics would all tell the same stories about being on the road there were all the jokes were about airplane travel airline jokes hotel food and that kind of shit and the maid do not disturb knocking on your door because that's what they related to right the road warriors yeah that was what that's that was their life's perspective and it's it kind of shows That experiences,
00:08:08.000interesting experiences, are very valuable.
00:08:11.000But you don't think of them as valuable.
00:09:46.000Right, they would definitely edit that part out.
00:09:49.000Be like, why is Dave's section only four minutes long?
00:09:51.000Yeah, edit it, spin it, whatever it is they do.
00:09:56.000But again, you know, all parties involved, I thought...
00:10:01.000In repairing that situation, and I don't want to go all into what those conversations were like other than to say, and this is not like I'm just happy because they paid me.
00:10:26.000I think there's more accountability now because of the internet, because of, you know, people's ability to express themselves is so much different than it used to be.
00:10:36.000So you can't just be some ruthless, evil executives fucking over the artists like they did during the, you know, in the music business.
00:10:48.000First of all, we gotta get into this music business thing in a second, but I was looking on the internet It was a bunch of waitresses talking about what celebrities did or didn't tip them.
00:11:21.000The thing is, if you talk to enough people, you're gonna have disagreements with people.
00:11:25.000And if someone cumulates, if they curate only those disagreements and only take it from the perspective of those people that you had problems with, they could paint you out to be a piece of shit.
00:11:35.000Even if you're a really nice person who just doesn't take any nonsense from people.
00:11:39.000If you talk to enough nonsense people, you're gonna have enough conflicts.
00:11:42.000And if they only curate those conflicts and make like a compilation, like, Dave talked to this guy and told him to eat shit.
00:11:49.000Well, that's why I usually don't do interviews.
00:11:53.000Because I feel like this is about fame in general.
00:11:56.000And I see you go through similar shit.
00:11:57.000It's like they blow you up like a balloon and twisting all these wild shapes like a balloon animal.
00:14:31.000It goes so far as to suggest that the draconian practices instituted by this iconic figure in the ashrams he founded prompted the perverted 20th century cults of Jim Jones and Jonestown.
00:15:58.000It's one of those things where you shouldn't revere what they did.
00:16:03.000But what a statue is supposed to represent is here's an image of some person who's historically significant and established in the country.
00:16:42.000It's interesting how peaceful protest, like, peaceful protest resonates for years and years and years.
00:16:48.000And when someone does something, like, remember that image, I'm sure you do, of that, there's a video of it, of a monk in Vietnam lighting himself on fire to protest against the war.
00:16:59.000It's on the cover of one of the Rage Against the Machine albums.
00:18:32.000It's testing the foundations of our culture.
00:18:35.000The foundations of our civilizations testing how well we can be peaceful with each other and make sense and get along and how much we value getting along with each other and How much there's just so much divisiveness because we've never been there's never been a time in history where the whole Economy and the whole society basically just got frozen for a year and stuck in some weird weird sort of side patch We had to figure things out fresh.
00:20:05.000In the beginning, when Fauci was saying you don't have to wear a mask, and then eventually they were saying you got to wear one, you should wear two.
00:20:11.000Yeah, if you give people information that may not be true, even if you have the intention of having them behave in a way that's beneficial for everybody, the misinformation, the way you achieve these things, the separation from ends and means, We're good to go.
00:20:48.000I think people had faith in the government in the sense that, worst case scenario, even if they're incompetent, everything will stay together.
00:21:39.000I go to New York, I was telling you, maybe a couple weeks ago when they opened all the comedy clubs back up, you know, just to show support for the clubs that nurtured my career early on, and it was a tough one.
00:21:51.000I had been there before, like, the Saturday Night Live week.
00:21:57.000That week was, you know, unseasonably warm.
00:21:59.000Biden had just won that weekend, so people were celebratory.
00:22:03.000This time around, I got a sense of the emotional carnage that happened in that city.
00:25:07.000What is the mechanics of your day like?
00:25:12.000Is your day mechanically the same as LA? Minus the comedy, obviously, it's COVID. But I would imagine you work out a few hours a day, no matter where you are.
00:25:22.000You do your show a few hours a day if you're here or there.
00:25:27.000You kick it with your wife a few hours a day and the kids.
00:25:30.000What else do you do here that you don't do there?
00:26:39.000I mean, you were social with all the comedians, but you weren't like the hangout kind of guy.
00:26:44.000You were always off doing your own thing.
00:26:45.000And even this podcast, even though it grew to be a big thing when it started, I don't even think it started with the intention, I'm going to blow this motherfucker up.
00:26:58.000There's a funny video that was in the Comedy Store documentary of Tom Segura talking about leaving my house and talking to Red Band saying, what is he doing?
00:36:05.000And I knew this dude was just a little slow, and he was doing some things, and I was seeing some openings, and I hit him harder than I've ever hit anybody in my life.
00:36:58.000A lot of MMA fighters, they're good friends.
00:37:00.000A lot of them train together, and then they go and they fight.
00:37:04.000But I went back to my instructor, and my instructor was a hard man.
00:37:09.000He was a Korean dude who had been taught by General Choi Young-yi, who's the original founder of Taekwondo, who used to train troops in Vietnam.
00:40:28.000He was such a smart guy, too, such a good writer.
00:40:31.000But, you know, success and the demons, I mean, that's why one of the things that's very impressive to me about people like you that manage the success, it doesn't change your personality.
00:40:42.000Whatever anxiety comes out of all the pressure and all the people paying attention to what you're doing, You roll.
00:41:37.000Yeah, I mean, the more things that I do that are humiliating or humbling, humbling is probably a better word.
00:41:43.000The more things I do that are humbling, the better it is for me.
00:41:45.000Well, the thing I like about your comedy origin story, like, I was fighting, I was teaching, he said, and I was doing stand-up, but I didn't commit to all of them.
00:41:53.000But now, that sounds like the recipe for everything you do.
00:41:57.000Well, the things I do now, they enhance the other things.
00:42:00.000It's like, if I'm doing a podcast, I think it enhances my stand-up.
00:44:44.000And then the UFC was purchased by the Fertittas and Dana White and I became friends because I was on Fear Factor and he gave me free tickets to come to the fights.
00:44:53.000That's when no celebrities really knew what it was and so if you could get a celebrity to sit up in front row and Then they would interview me, and I knew so much about fighting.
00:45:03.000I started asking him questions about guys that are fighting in Japan.
00:45:05.000And then Dana and I went out to dinner, and he was like, why don't you do commentary?
00:45:10.000And I said, man, I don't want to do commentary.
00:49:27.000I was doing the Schaumburg Improv, and you do radio in the city, and then you got to go back out to Schaumburg, and you're like, holy shit, this is far.
00:51:15.000Like, look, you get out in that world, Joe, you're famous everywhere.
00:51:20.000You've never been to these places, but when you get there, they're going to know you.
00:51:24.000Or, there's a thing that happened to me years ago in London where I was in a restaurant and I was kind of waiting for the table and when the lady, she asked me my name.
00:54:15.000And I saw the DJ packing up, and I said, can I use your microphone?
00:54:18.000And he recognized me, so he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:54:21.000And I went up there, and I just started talking shit.
00:54:25.000You know, but it was just like, you know, teasing the bar staff as they're cleaning up, talking to patrons, you know, get home fast, buddy, and all that shit.
00:55:07.000Sometime around when I turned 40, I just decided that I'm gonna have fun.
00:55:14.000You know, like right now, you know, this is a weird thing to talk about, but after DMX passed and Black Rob, you know, now far more often people from my peer group pass away.
00:55:24.000And it just makes me feel like, it's not a midlife crisis, it's almost the opposite of that.
00:55:29.000It's like, look, I know I don't get to stay here forever.
00:55:32.000My time is limited and precious and I don't take any of these things for granted.
00:55:37.000I don't take this money for granted, this platform, and I'm not talking about the fame platform, I'm talking about comedy.
00:55:44.000This genre, like, this genre It's been so good for me, my social life, the people that I've met, the friendships that I've had, some that I've lost along the way, these memories we make,
00:56:01.000you know, As the years go on, I'm like, what a special, special way to live your life and to see the world.
00:56:08.000It's like when we did those dates, where were we?
00:56:57.000And the best part of that experience was being with comedians.
00:57:02.000If anything bad ever happens comedians are who you want to be with.
00:57:08.000You know, 9-11, I was in a room full of comedians because I had to, you know, I was staying on West Broadway and Canal Street, which is not far from the Trade Center, but Canal Street, I'm on the north side of the street.
00:57:21.000From the south down, the city was evacuated, so I got to stay in my hotel.
00:57:26.000But during the day, we didn't know that.
00:57:28.000I had a new baby, and I ended up going to a comedian's house.
00:58:39.000It becomes a hobby like if, you know, if you see a window and you got a rock, You feel like throwing that rock.
00:58:46.000And so a lot of times these targets aren't justified, but you can find a justification.
00:58:50.000You can say, oh, they put these words together in this order, and if you look at it in quotes written down on paper, you go, oh, well, this is ableist, or this is this, or this is that.
01:01:20.000I'm optimistic about the future, but I think because I've never seen these things before, I can't quite call where it's going.
01:01:28.000It's a challenging time, but human beings have always done better than the previous generation.
01:01:32.000Every single generation, if you follow like Steven Pinker's work, From the beginning of time, from recorded history to now, it's the safest time to be alive ever.
01:03:16.000People had to be made aware of how people are struggling.
01:03:20.000One of the great things of that movement was when everyone started coming out of the closet and everyone realized, oh, like five of my best friends are gay and were embarrassed when we were saying this, that, and the other.
01:03:39.000And as more information gets out about what's avoidable and unavoidable, and the more we get to understand each other, the more we realize we have way more in common than we don't.
01:03:51.000As time goes on, I think we're gonna get better.
01:03:54.000I think our culture, our civilization will be improved upon.
01:03:58.000What we have now is a very unique struggle that's never existed before because it's a combination struggle, right?
01:04:06.000It's a virus, a disease, it's fear, it's anxiety, and then economic depression all thrown in together and it scares the fuck out of people.
01:04:31.000Fortunately, podcasts were, for whatever weird reason, an essential business.
01:04:34.000So were liquor stores, which is kind of crazy.
01:04:37.000Well, because your podcast was like a beacon of some semblance of normalcy.
01:04:41.000I didn't look something like Joey, you look good, and the world's going on.
01:04:45.000But there's also something illusory about it.
01:04:49.000Because if they see us on yachts popping bottles while they're going through this thing, they're going to feel like, well, is something wrong with me?
01:09:07.000That character, it was so many things.
01:09:10.000He was a murderer, he was evil, he was kind, he was ambitious, he was a victim of circumstance, a victim of his environment, and also, you know, kind of a tyrant.
01:09:22.000Yeah, I picture myself as an actor reading that script and just being like, I don't get it.
01:09:28.000Let alone untangling an emotional life for this guy and a rationale for behaving this way.
01:10:14.000After I left the shows, I got into boxing.
01:10:16.000I don't know, I used to just go to the fights.
01:10:19.000And part of it was because that era was like Manny Pacquiao was fighting, Mayweather was fighting, Marquez was fighting, all these guys were great fighters.
01:10:27.000And I got this notion that anytime I can be a witness to greatness, I should see it.
01:12:16.000When a great fighter fights another great fighter, they learn something.
01:12:21.000You learn something from the higher levels.
01:12:22.000Like when you get beat by a guy, you get that rub.
01:12:25.000You see a lot of times a guy will come out of a fight with a great fight.
01:12:28.000He might have lost, but then the next fight you see like, oh, he recognizes the higher frequencies, the higher RPMs of the real true great ones.
01:12:36.000I think that was a problem in boxing, this idea that people were addicted to undefeated fighters, but there's something to be said in greatness for getting beat up sometimes.
01:12:47.000If you can come back from it with your wits intact and learn the lessons that the ass whooping taught you, you might see something even more special from a guy that got a loss or two on his record.
01:14:31.000You know, I think about how much I enjoy watching these fights and then coming face to face with the price that so many paid.
01:14:39.000I saw Terry Norris at a fight once and he was talking to a fan and I was moving on my way to the seat and I heard Terry talking to this guy and I was like, oh no.
01:14:56.000And it happens to all of them eventually.
01:14:58.000If they keep going, it happens to all of them.
01:15:01.000Yeah, you gotta hang them gloves up at some point.
01:15:05.000That's what makes Andre Ward so special.
01:15:07.000Andre Ward wins a gold medal in the Olympics, wins two world championships in two different weight classes, retires undefeated, They offer him money to come back.
01:15:18.000He goes, I think I'm better served as a commentator.
01:17:01.000I can remember, too, all the comedians who were there crowding around the monitor because it was the first time he did anything that looked like stand-up.
01:19:16.000There's a new way that they're doing where one of the things that showed a lot of people's ability to improvise and to change was during COVID, a lot of people started doing things online.
01:19:30.000And like Andrew Schultz is the best example, I think.
01:19:33.000He started doing those things like turn your phone sideways and those long rants like 10-15 minute rants with photographs and punchline after punchline after punchline and then they did a whole Netflix special about it like he did a series of Netflix pieces on it And what he did was,
01:19:49.000he said, okay, I can't do stand-up, but this isn't stand-up, so I shouldn't do stand-up like this because there's no audience.
01:22:40.000Everyone who bought a ticket got a COVID test, free mask.
01:22:44.000And as a comedian, it was a new experience.
01:22:48.000Being in a room full of people, or whatever that venue was, full of people that just realized that they don't have the dreaded coronavirus.
01:23:06.000No matter what we said, at a certain point, we were all happy to be there.
01:23:11.000Comedians didn't take You do a million sets, you start thinking it's just another night at the office.
01:23:16.000But every night at the office could have been the last night at the office.
01:23:19.000Yeah, that was the thing about it, too.
01:23:21.000It's like you're never going to have another day like that or another series of nights like that where there's a first real pandemic of our lifetime where things are shut down, but yet we do have this weird opportunity to do shows.
01:23:50.000And also, man, no gas to nothing, but the fact that you're as successful as you are at all these things, you're wildly famous, you're also very unaffected, but you got nervous before your first set.
01:26:49.000They can't appreciate the fact that you're dealing with literally one of the most brilliant men that's ever lived, who's gonna come do your show.
01:26:56.000You're talking about a guy who simultaneously runs multiple World-changing businesses, whether it's Tesla, whether it's SpaceX, whether it's the boring companies making tunnels underneath the fucking Earth.
01:27:10.000He's putting satellites into space to put high-speed Internet around the world.
01:27:15.000He's doing all these things simultaneously.
01:27:17.000But can he write a monologue is what we're going to find out.
01:27:23.000He could probably do anything if he set his mind to it, but the fact that they've decided somehow that he's problematic, like, it doesn't make any sense.
01:27:30.000I mean, yeah, but no one's really saying what.
01:27:53.000But he did it just because he's intelligent.
01:27:55.000Because his perspective was, he's a reductionist, or I should say, like, his perspective on it was like looking at the numbers and looking at what it is, instead of looking at the emotional impact of people losing loved ones.
01:28:10.000So sometimes someone who's like a genius might say something that appears to be...
01:29:02.000And what's funny is I had hung out with him years ago after I quit Chappelle's show.
01:29:07.000When I was on that tour that I was telling you about that was a tough one, we hung out on a tour bus, and he says to me that night when we was all together here in Austin, he goes, I met you before.
01:29:28.000I just thought it was funny that he was the richest man in the world.
01:29:31.000I think these, whether the people that are complaining that he's going to be on Saturday Night Live, I think what's going on now is they want someone to be 100% compliant to whatever ideology they're a part of.
01:29:43.000And any deviation of that is problematic.
01:29:46.000Whether it's because they think, like I saw an article that said Elon Musk donated $150 million to some charity and they called him a cheapskate.
01:31:32.000You could see it while he's sitting there.
01:31:35.000He's trying to sit here and just have a conversation with you.
01:31:37.000He's probably going over fucking equations and thinking about concepts and new ideas and plotting things.
01:31:46.000I remember talking to somebody once, I'm not going to say who, but they go, more than half the people on earth live on a dollar a day, and at least half of them are happy.
01:32:00.000He says, I know 20 billionaires, and all of them are miserable.
01:32:31.000The money gives you a certain amount of freedom to do whatever you want to do, but it also comes with so much pressure, so much responsibility, and so much scrutiny.
01:32:40.000Think about how many people are looking at every single thing that Elon does.
01:32:44.000Like, this Saturday Night Live thing is a perfect example.
01:32:46.000They've just decided that it's not good that he's on Saturday Night Live.
01:36:19.000Like a hatchback, you know, the car thing was up, and she was pulling something out of the car and didn't realize that the corner of the thing, she miscalculated, and it stood up, and it dug right into her head, and blood was pouring down her forehead.
01:37:25.000If there was, like, a chart of all the people throughout history who've seen people get fucked up, like, just the fuck beating out of them, I'm right up there.
01:38:09.000Okay, see that's some next level shit.
01:38:12.000Yeah, you get used to things like that.
01:38:16.000People get desensitized, like doctors talk about that, like trauma room surgeons, stuff like that, they talk about that.
01:38:22.000They get very desensitized to injuries.
01:38:24.000I remember talking to a doctor once about just that, but this conversation was more about, from their work, realizing the fragility of life.
01:39:11.000The emotional impact of, like, online interactions and harassment and people just fighting with each other online, how much different the emotional content of, like, online interactions, how much of an impact that's had on human beings,
01:39:28.000if that could be measured, if, like, there was a number that you could attach to it.
01:39:34.000I tell you what, I tell you what, it's a weird thing, but with comedy...
01:39:41.000Most comedians that I know, and a matter of fact, this even goes with proficiency to a degree, the more proficient they are, usually somewhere you can see that they're wildly sensitive or empathetic.
01:40:37.000Him and his buddies were laughing so fucking hard because it was one of those things where you're like, I don't know if I should talk about it, but when you, yeah, let me just, and then this guy was dying to talk about it.
01:40:48.000He had a real interesting story, like, you know, met the president many times and was like, you know, he sacrificed everything for the country, but His sense of humor was paramount.
01:41:01.000He survived this thing, and I can tell that his sense of humor was very instrumental in doing it.
01:41:06.000And the laugh that we had together, that was one of those special nights where it was like, people are dope.
01:41:21.000You look in each other's eyes, being around each other.
01:41:24.000I think it's part of the problem that we're dealing with with the online shit is that all the normal cues of looking at someone and talking to them, being right there, it's not there.
01:41:35.000So you have this ability to write things in text and say mean shit to people and you think it's okay.
01:43:08.000And I'm telling you, in this season, when we keep losing people that are important to our culture and important to our community, it was almost like an emergency.
01:43:36.000Most quality, I could talk to them forever, they're well-read, they're well-traveled, and they're hilarious dudes, and they got an interesting perspective.
01:43:47.000Some friends you have, you know, you go around the world and you don't see each other often.
01:43:52.000But when you see each other, it's like you'd seen each other just a moment ago.
01:43:56.000And you can download all these obscure and wild experiences and it's safe and it's comfortable and there's no judgment in it because you're friends.
01:44:40.000I mean, they don't see us if they're driving, but maybe they're watching it on a video.
01:44:46.000It's not much different than sitting in the room.
01:44:47.000There's a missing element because you're not physically here, but it's pretty damn good in terms of the ability to be a part of a conversation, and it changes the way you look at things.
01:44:57.000Because the more people that I can talk to and get their take on how they think and how they do, it enhances my own way of looking at things and talking to people.
01:45:09.000Yeah, and that's, again, the big problem with all the lip-buttoning now.
01:45:13.000I kind of like hearing all these different perspectives, whether I agree with them or not.
01:50:16.000I'm not going to throw a whole person away because they have four ideas I don't like.
01:50:21.000I just hope that if the economy can bounce back, people will start to relax again.
01:50:25.000And if not just vaccines, but also some form of effective therapy, so that even if someone's not vaccinated and they get COVID, there's a very effective way to treat it if that does happen.
01:51:11.000The real problem is if it becomes not even COVID, but something else that's worse, like some really bad one, like a Spanish flu, like something that kills a large percentage of the people that get it.
01:51:32.000I mean, those have existed throughout history.
01:51:34.000This one, when we say it's pretty bad, it's pretty bad, but it's pretty bad because of the sheer numbers of human beings.
01:51:42.000We got lucky in the sense that, I mean obviously not lucky for anybody who died and nothing but love and respect to all those people that lost loved ones.
01:51:51.000But we're talking about just raw numbers and I think this is also what got Elon in trouble.
01:51:56.000When you look at the 99 point whatever it is percentage of people who survive when they get it, especially when they're young, especially people with no comorbidities, that is a relatively mild pandemic in comparison to what's happened in history.
01:52:10.000If you look at any sort of real plague, like horrific ones, again, like the Spanish flu.
01:52:16.000I mean, this last one, New York City, for a month straight lost 2,000 people a day.
01:52:21.000It's hard to wrap my mind around that.
01:52:22.000It's hard to wrap your mind around that.
01:52:23.000I met some woman who was an ER nurse in New York, you know, who had a witness.
01:52:46.000But that's the thing with COVID. It's like getting COVID. When I got COVID, the first few days, you just sit around and wait to see what it'll do to you.
01:54:03.000And that's what, I guess, vitamins are everything.
01:54:07.000And that's one of the things that made me furious during this time, that there was no emphasis on taking vitamins.
01:54:13.000They didn't make it seem like it was a big deal, and there was no emphasis on getting healthy and losing weight.
01:54:17.000Not in the media, but every healthcare professional I talk to, because I have access to decent healthcare, did bring up the importance of vitamins.
01:54:28.000And when you said that, it wasn't completely foreign to my ears.
01:55:19.000The motivation is he takes a pose, looks terrible, looks like shit, tells everybody, hey, this is the worst shape I've ever been in my life.
01:55:26.000And then he's like, all right, now it's go time.
01:57:15.000COVID. Well, before COVID. I stopped working out in COVID. Last time I can remember being in a gym was like February 2020. You know what I mean?
01:57:28.000And then after that, it was just like, you know, I was on the road.
01:57:38.000Yeah, I think, you know, honestly, what I think one of the catalysts was, not the catalyst, but one of them was the fact that they kept saying I smoked crack and I was a skinny dude and felt like I can't defend myself in this.
01:57:53.000Like, I'm so skinny that this thing is believable.
01:58:54.000I've had him on the podcast a couple times, but was researching the effects of drugs and started realizing The depictions of drugs and drug use are all fucked up.
01:59:06.000People have this distorted idea of what these drugs do to you.
01:59:30.000And it's tough to argue with him because he knows so much about drugs from the perspective of an actual researcher and plus a guy who actually uses them, but goes out of his way to tell him he has dreads.
01:59:45.000He doesn't look like a typical professor in that sense.
02:00:22.000He's actually, in fact, purposely does whatever drugs he wants.
02:00:27.000Let me guess, he can quit anytime he wants.
02:00:33.000He's actually put himself through withdrawals on purpose to document it.
02:00:37.000So he's put himself into a situation where he did heroin multiple days in a row to a point where his body became physically addicted and then got off of it just to document what the withdrawal process is actually like.
02:03:20.000I can't think of one thing that everyone will agree on that much ever again in this context.
02:03:28.000I remember Michael Jackson, I've told this before, but Michael Jackson, I was listening to WBCN, The Rock of Boston, and they were going, look, I know this isn't rock, but it's so fucking good, we're going to play it anyway.
02:05:14.000But there was a thing going on in the press where everyone was saying that the specials were dated, because there were jokes in there that they considered transphobic.
02:05:24.000And I still don't think those jokes are transphobic.
02:05:26.000I'm not going to have that discussion, but if I ever have to, boy, I'm ready.
02:05:31.000But the point is that the thing I said to Kimmel was, I don't get mad at a photograph because it wasn't taken today.
02:05:41.000In other words, whatever was going on in 87 when he laid that set down, it was working in 87. That's where people were at.
02:05:50.000And a good comedian It's an indicator of the time or their context.
02:05:56.000And I look at Eddie's shit like that, like, I wouldn't look at any of his old material as embarrassing.
02:06:01.000Sometimes I'm starting, like, wow, I could never do that now.
02:10:33.000I just try to walk softly on the earth and have some fun.
02:10:39.000But I just know that investing celebrity into getting more celebrity is a treadmill I don't feel interested in running on in the twilight of my life.
02:11:23.000You're not tethered to endorsements and this, that, and the other.
02:11:27.000You're tethered to yourself, to your journey, to your life, which makes it meaningful.
02:11:35.000You know, for you to talk the shit that you talk, even in this context, there's a courageousness that you have to, you know, your subject is so much outside scrutiny, you know.
02:13:25.000She always put me on after, I was, you know, 27, 26 years old, whatever I was, she would put me on after Martin Lawrence all the time, and I would just bomb.
02:16:43.000I saw what they were doing and even though they were great comedians I saw that they couldn't do the road and I was like if you want to get on HBO or if you want to you know you have a special you gotta you gotta get out of town and the young guys coming up kind of saw the old guard these some of the best headliners I've ever seen in my life I've seen Don Gavin have sets Steve Sweeney have sets that I mean I would put those sets up against any comic I've ever seen ever you know it was funny the first night I saw Dane Cook They go
02:18:10.000Barry Crimmins was like the godfather of Boston comedy in a lot of ways because he was this really brilliant guy very politically savvy and He kept everybody from being a hack because everybody was scared of him He was like this fucking both boys like loud bold guy who he would go on stage and Right.
02:20:11.000But then it produced so many great, you know, sources of comedy.
02:20:16.000Even people who aren't from Boston, a guy like Howard Stern that went to BU, A guy like Patrice O'Neal came out of the hood, moved down to New York and cleaned shit up out there.
02:23:50.000They would give you a half a million dollars or a quarter million dollars, and you would get this development deal, and they'd attach you to a bunch of writers.
02:23:58.000They'd put together a script, and it may or may not go.
02:24:00.000And if it didn't go, you just got a free quarter million dollars, and you worked on a script, and maybe it went to pilot, maybe it didn't.
02:24:07.000Yeah, but if it didn't go, you were a bad investment.
02:27:03.000People would show up with an assistant and someone would take notes while they're on stage and they'd have their coffee ready for them and they drove a Mercedes.
02:28:46.000I was like, as soon as I... You know, what was happening, so many people in live entertainment were furloughed that I started finding out from the production world who had gotten furloughed and I'd stop picking them up.
02:30:02.000Everything you do is going to be risky, but we had to figure out how to do it as safe as possible within the parameters or guidelines that the government saw fit.
02:30:49.000And the best part, like I said, is we all got to be together.
02:30:53.000So, you know, people would fly in from L.A. and New York and we'd work three nights a week and some people would stay and we, you know, we could chill because eventually we got access to testing.
02:33:44.000Yeah, you know, it's a weird thing being a comedian, because there's a thing about Trump that if the circumstances weren't so dire and the consequences so high, that would have been hilarious to watch.
02:38:26.000I'm telling you, I'm on my kindness conspiracy.
02:38:29.000As long as I'm kind to people, like, if we live by an ethic of kindness, if we foster trust amongst each other, it will matter less what corporations and politicians say because we'll be able to trust our society's cohesiveness.
02:38:52.000And I think it's just, it's so difficult when people get attached to whatever political party they're in.
02:39:01.000It's very difficult for them to disagree with that party, and so easy for them to go along with it, and then so easy for them to hate the people that are opposed to it, the people that are on the other party.
02:39:59.000And there's trans people in my tribe, and there's white and black and Asian and all kinds of people, and all of them are committed to this culture.
02:40:07.000Concept of levity and we all get there different and interesting and unique ways.
02:43:12.000The belly room, one of my favorite rooms on earth is the belly room at the Comedy Store.
02:43:16.000That's like 70 seats soaking wet, right?
02:43:21.000I would make this club 120. This club is not for people who are trying to count the gate.
02:43:28.000This club is for people who want to rock, like really get into some shit, like try some shit out.
02:43:34.000It's like when that alternative scene, in the 90s, for people at home, Joe, I'm not saying this, I know you know, but in the 90s it was an alternative, what they called an alternative comedy scene.
02:43:45.000This was Patton Oswalt and Janine Garofalo and Dave Cross, Bob Odenkirk, these type of people.
02:47:03.000And just, he and I just geeking out over lines.
02:47:05.000And Steve Stroop, the guy who built my car, he came with me.
02:47:09.000And, you know, we talked about all the various aspects of the car and all the improvements, all the different things that he had done to it.
02:47:15.000And you can see Jay Leno going over it.
02:47:17.000He knows the details of the 1965, the original motor.
02:47:21.000He starts talking about all the different things, and then he drove it.
02:47:24.000He's the only one other than me that's ever driven that car.
02:50:37.000He's going over all the art pieces and who designed this chair and who made all these things and showing this video of this place in Brazil.
02:51:45.000None of these people that I know are contest winners.
02:51:49.000They all work very hard to be great at what they do.
02:51:52.000Everyone is gifted, but these people spend time refining their gift and getting rejection and taking all those shots that you take in life.
02:52:31.000It gets abused and misused sometimes by the wrong people and bad actors.
02:52:35.000But at the end of the day, what they're trying to do, at least what they think they're trying to do, is eliminate bad aspects of our culture and our society.
02:56:13.000Not these fake woketivists, but the woman that works at the shelter for the abused women or helps women get out of relationships that are abusive with their lives.
02:56:22.000Or helps veterans cope with PTSD or get counseling.
02:56:26.000This guy I met that lost both his legs and was cracking up laughing with me when he was talking about it.
02:58:31.000So I was thinking if I was any closer to Mike, so instead of like here, if I was like this, and he was that amped up, it would probably affect the way I was communicating with him.
03:02:24.000But it's also awe-inspiring because I can't believe this guy with no resources solved a complicated filmmaking problem with this type of ingenuity because they had to.
03:02:34.000What if somebody had a reputable American star to apply these tricks to?
03:03:38.000They kept catching him when he was trying to get into Morocco, or from Morocco to Spain, and they kept sending him back to the Sahara Desert to die.
03:09:00.000And I'll go, what is interesting about that to you?
03:09:02.000And then we'll have these weird conversations where he'll explain his thought process about what's intriguing about something or what made him interested in pursuing something.
03:09:11.000And he doesn't mind explaining these things.
03:13:15.000I mean, the thing is, Elon Musk is not Einstein in the sense that he's not creating equations.
03:13:24.000That are going to shape the way our universe is thought of and perceived.
03:13:28.000But what he is doing is creating these businesses and these Articles of technology, whether it's Tesla or whether it's SpaceX, these rockets that they're designing.
03:13:42.000He's changing the potential of our future.
03:14:42.000Yeah, and it's just an amazing piece of technology, and then people set it up in the house, in the room by themselves, and twerk in front of it.
03:15:07.000It's not going to be one clear ascension to enlightenment and peace and love, but we're going to get better.
03:15:15.000We're going to get through this rocky era that we're in right now.
03:15:18.000It'll take time, but I think we're going to get through it with the lessons of the pain and suffering that's been caused by bad decisions and the way we live right now.
03:15:28.000Well, let's minimize the pain and try to expand the upside to all this bullshit.
03:15:33.000Let's make these motherfuckers laugh, David Chappelle.