The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #337

00:00:31.000 Welcome to my show!

00:00:33.000 Cue the music.

00:00:34.000 Justin the Viking Ren is in the house to tell us about some amazing adventures.

00:00:40.000 It's going to be educational, enriching, good for the soul.

00:00:46.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:57.000 Justin Wren, first of all, thanks for doing this.

00:00:59.000 I'm so glad we could fit you in.

00:01:00.000 I was a little worried we weren't going to be able to get you before you got back to the Congo, because you're on this kind of a whirlwind thing.

00:01:07.000 You know, you're back in LA for only like a few days, right?

00:01:10.000 Actually, I head out to Vegas after this, and then I'm driving there and I fly out tomorrow.

00:01:15.000 For those who don't know, Justin was a contestant on The Ultimate Fighter.

00:01:21.000 He's a mixed martial arts fighter in the heavyweight division for the UFC. And then I started reading some stuff.

00:01:27.000 I think the first thing I read about it was on The Underground.

00:01:31.000 Which is mixedmartialarts.com.

00:01:32.000 It's a great website that we both belong to.

00:01:34.000 It's probably the best mixed martial arts message board in the country.

00:01:38.000 In the world, really.

00:01:40.000 And there was a thread where it was talking about you going over there and helping people in the Congo.

00:01:52.000 I saw a picture of you before that with a pig that you had killed with a knife over your shoulder.

00:02:02.000 I'm like, this guy's a fucking savage.

00:02:03.000 He's got a pig over his shoulder.

00:02:06.000 Yeah, there's a picture of you with this wild hog over your shoulder.

00:02:11.000 I'm like, I want to party with Justin Wren.

00:02:13.000 And the next thing you know, you go from there and you're a mixed martial arts fighter, hog killer, pygmy saver.

00:02:20.000 I mean, you're over there helping all these people in the Congo.

00:02:23.000 How did all this get started?

00:02:25.000 Man, I just heard about how much they were suffering.

00:02:28.000 And I had no clue.

00:02:33.000 Fighting, I wanted to fight against people.

00:02:35.000 And I wanted my dreams, my everything.

00:02:37.000 And then when I heard about the Pygmies, I just heard the suffering that they were going through.

00:02:41.000 I heard that they felt forgotten.

00:02:43.000 I heard that they were enslaved.

00:02:44.000 I heard that four out of ten is the small stat that you can find.

00:02:47.000 Four out of ten of their children died before age five.

00:02:50.000 And so for me, I was just like, man, that's brutal.

00:02:52.000 And I knew that they were not given citizenship in their own country.

00:02:55.000 And so I just went there to just learn and see and sit with them, live with them, sit around the campfire.

00:03:00.000 That's where I've learned most.

00:03:01.000 Whenever the slave masters aren't around, whenever those guys are asleep, then they'll really open up and tell you what everything's happening.

00:03:09.000 And so it was just a ton of suffering.

00:03:10.000 That's how I... I went over there, just went with a burden to find out what was going on.

00:03:14.000 Could you put that a little closer to you?

00:03:15.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:03:16.000 How did you find out about it at first?

00:03:19.000 What led you to this?

00:03:23.000 I had a buddy that was having a plan to go to the Congo, and he was going all by himself.

00:03:27.000 And I mean, just completely, utterly alone.

00:03:30.000 And it was like the worst conflict zone on the planet.

00:03:33.000 Heard about what he was doing.

00:03:35.000 Heard about what was happening with the Pygmies.

00:03:38.000 And heard his wife was a little worried that he was going.

00:03:41.000 And I just was looking for something with purpose and passion.

00:03:44.000 And I felt like I could be passionate about fighting for people.

00:03:47.000 And so I went with him.

00:03:48.000 And heard all the terrible stuff that was going on.

00:03:51.000 And we went there to see what we could do to help.

00:03:54.000 That's so inspiring.

00:03:55.000 And for folks who haven't seen it, there's a video that Justin did that's gone viral, and this has really brought a lot of attention to your cause and what you're doing.

00:04:04.000 There's a video of you with these young pygmy children.

00:04:08.000 Is this the first time they're seeing a white man?

00:04:11.000 To preface the video, this is actually not the pygmies, the video.

00:04:15.000 It's actually the bantu.

00:04:16.000 And the Bantu are the tribe that's actually enslaving the pygmies.

00:04:20.000 And so it was, yeah, it was around some of the pygmies, but this was the least remote location.

00:04:25.000 Like you'll see that there wasn't many trees.

00:04:27.000 Where I went was 85 kilometers deep in the jungle where you couldn't even see the sky because the canopy of the rainforest is so tall.

00:04:34.000 And so this was the Bantu people.

00:04:36.000 And the Bantu people are the ones that enslaved them.

00:04:38.000 It was actually a gift because that video to me is a real gift.

00:04:42.000 It shows me, even though I hated their parents, you can't even see that in the video, that I actually just had a hatred in my heart towards the parents of these kids.

00:04:53.000 But yeah, so that was brutal because on the UG also I posted a video or actually a thread about how I buried a one-and-a-half-year-old in the Congo.

00:05:04.000 And his name was Andybo.

00:05:06.000 And so this video that's playing right now, you can't even tell that their parents are responsible for the Grave that I dug, I think, two days before that video.

00:05:16.000 So these are the Bantu peoples?

00:05:19.000 Bantu.

00:05:19.000 B-A-N-T-U. And the Bantu people are enslaving the Pygmies, and this has been going on for how long?

00:05:28.000 It's actually rather recent.

00:05:30.000 I mean, there's been types of it for hundreds of years, but they have different kinds of slavery within the Pygmies.

00:05:36.000 There's ones that they're held to gunpoint.

00:05:38.000 There's by the rebels in the gold and coltan and diamond mines.

00:05:42.000 And then there's other ones where they're in shackles.

00:05:45.000 But then the ones that we've actually, I didn't get to say that yet, but we've actually set some slaves free.

00:05:49.000 Some pygmy slaves that were from the Bantu and we negotiated with the Bantu people who go up and they buy up the land from underneath the pygmies.

00:05:57.000 Pygmies don't have a way to make any monetary gain.

00:05:59.000 They don't get paid anything in money.

00:06:01.000 They get paid sometimes corn, sometimes bags of salt, sometimes bars of soap, like a bar of soap for two days of work.

00:06:07.000 They might get a bar of soap to bathe with.

00:06:10.000 And so, yeah, the Bantu people are the ones that are enslaving them that we're actually negotiating with them to free them.

00:06:17.000 Wow.

00:06:17.000 Yeah.

00:06:18.000 What a crazy environment that must be.

00:06:20.000 The Congo itself, not being able to see the sky and having all this insane conflict going on underneath the canopy of these trees.

00:06:27.000 All so primitive, dealing with things like slavery.

00:06:31.000 Yeah.

00:06:31.000 And forcing people, what's really crazy is forcing people to work in the mines to create the very things that we need to power our most technologically advanced pieces of electronics, like these laptops.

00:06:42.000 Yeah.

00:06:42.000 That Coltan, right?

00:06:43.000 Yeah.

00:06:43.000 Yeah, Coltan, I think 80-90% of it is found in the Congo.

00:06:48.000 So it's only found in two places in the world.

00:06:50.000 80-90% of it's the Congo.

00:06:51.000 100% of it's rebel-owned.

00:06:53.000 There's not a legit mine.

00:06:55.000 That's insane.

00:06:56.000 Most of it's pygmy slave-mined.

00:06:58.000 100% of it is rebel-owned.

00:07:01.000 From the Congo, yes.

00:07:02.000 The Democratic Republic of Congo, all of it is rebel-owned.

00:07:04.000 So there is no karma-free cell phones, electronics.

00:07:08.000 No, no, not smartphones, not Macs, not flat-screen TVs.

00:07:12.000 So, I mean, I support it even.

00:07:14.000 I have the Apple products, iPad, iPhone, everything.

00:07:18.000 What a bizarre, fascinating sort of statement on humanity, that is.

00:07:24.000 Yeah, it's actually pretty crazy, man, because...

00:07:26.000 I had some pygmies come one time and give me some coltan.

00:07:29.000 I didn't know what it was though at the time.

00:07:31.000 I knew that there was golden diamond mines there and that they were slaves in those.

00:07:35.000 But I had no clue what coltan was.

00:07:38.000 And that was after my first trip.

00:07:39.000 But they actually put some coltan in my hands and I was holding it.

00:07:42.000 And they were really excited to give it to me.

00:07:44.000 You know, this is why they're slaves.

00:07:46.000 And so they thought I'd be ecstatic.

00:07:48.000 And so I'm having to ask my translator, like, what is this stuff they're handing me?

00:07:53.000 I didn't know if it was like rough diamonds or if deep inside there was gold or what it was, but it was coltan.

00:07:59.000 What does it look like?

00:08:00.000 It's like this black, dark mineral.

00:08:04.000 Some of it almost looks like a crystal or...

00:08:06.000 I don't know if you can throw up a picture.

00:08:08.000 Almost like coal.

00:08:09.000 Yeah, almost like coal.

00:08:11.000 It's long and jaggedy.

00:08:13.000 It's kind of a...

00:08:14.000 I don't know.

00:08:14.000 You know those crystals that you used to be able to buy?

00:08:17.000 Oh, yeah.

00:08:18.000 Long like that.

00:08:19.000 It'd be a black one of those almost.

00:08:20.000 And sometimes it has more of a coal, like charcoal kind of feature to it.

00:08:24.000 And it's heavy.

00:08:26.000 But it's a great conduit for electricity.

00:08:28.000 And that's why we're using it in all our smartphones and everything.

00:08:30.000 And that's why they're slaves.

00:08:31.000 But I wasn't excited about it.

00:08:33.000 And I didn't know what it was.

00:08:34.000 But for them, think how crazy that is.

00:08:37.000 That's why they're slaves.

00:08:39.000 And I don't even know what it is.

00:08:40.000 And they're just ecstatic to give it to me.

00:08:43.000 Meanwhile, it's a huge source.

00:08:45.000 I mean, you need it all over the world.

00:08:47.000 And most people are completely ignorant as to what it is, especially where it comes from.

00:08:52.000 Yeah, it's very bizarre.

00:08:54.000 I had explained that to someone when they were talking about how much better it is to have an electric car.

00:09:00.000 And I'm like, do you understand that that car is filled with conflict minerals?

00:09:03.000 Yeah.

00:09:03.000 Like, it's not that simple.

00:09:05.000 It's not as simple as, like, you're good and the guy with the gas guzzler is bad.

00:09:08.000 Like, no, there's a lot of fuckery in creation of your car.

00:09:13.000 Batteries, like, lithium-ion, that's another reason why we're in Afghanistan.

00:09:17.000 There's lithium stores.

00:09:18.000 There's trillions of dollars of lithium in Afghanistan.

00:09:21.000 And that's what you need for lithium-ion batteries.

00:09:24.000 Yeah.

00:09:25.000 Man, it's insane.

00:09:27.000 I can't even...

00:09:28.000 I mean, I know we have two hours, but I don't even know if I could get into some of the stuff.

00:09:33.000 I know that Shane from Vice has been on here, and then someone was saying someone else from Vice.

00:09:37.000 He's on here again tomorrow.

00:09:37.000 Is he really?

00:09:38.000 Yeah.

00:09:38.000 Man.

00:09:39.000 I wish I could meet that dude.

00:09:40.000 He's a cool guy.

00:09:42.000 You want to meet him?

00:09:42.000 If you can stay until tomorrow, you can meet him.

00:09:44.000 All right, we'll have to see about my plane.

00:09:46.000 See if you can move it back.

00:09:47.000 He'd be happy to meet you, man.

00:09:49.000 He's the coolest motherfucker on earth.

00:09:50.000 Dude, I think he's awesome.

00:09:52.000 Yeah, he's a great guy.

00:09:52.000 He's super easy to talk to, too.

00:09:54.000 Just really down-to-earth.

00:09:56.000 Yeah, he goes to some of the craziest places.

00:09:58.000 Oh, yeah.

00:09:59.000 He's returning back and forth.

00:10:01.000 I wonder what he'd think about me going for a full year.

00:10:03.000 I know that he said...

00:10:05.000 It was a crazy time going there, and I just would want to pick his brain what part he went to.

00:10:10.000 Is that what you're doing now?

00:10:11.000 You're about to go for a year?

00:10:12.000 For a full year, yeah.

00:10:13.000 I'm going to go for a full year, and I'm partnering with the oldest university in the Congo.

00:10:18.000 And they have been working on this project for seven years.

00:10:21.000 And we kind of just linked up together to where our visions just are kind of the same.

00:10:25.000 We want to free these people and give them a sustainable ways of life.

00:10:28.000 So one of my best friends now was born and raised in the Congo, was educated, got his doctorates in Australia, but then he came back to the Congo.

00:10:36.000 And he's the Dean of the School of Community Development.

00:10:39.000 So he teaches them different ways of agriculture, water wells, all these kinds of things.

00:10:43.000 So he's actually setting them free That's what we did in September.

00:10:46.000 We saw 60 slaves be set free, put on 30 acres of land, and get a water well.

00:10:51.000 Now it's doubled.

00:10:52.000 Now, since I've been back here, it's been 120 slaves set free.

00:10:56.000 Men, women, and children put on 60 acres of land.

00:10:59.000 And then now, you know, we're wanting to find a way.

00:11:02.000 We think that me going there for a year, and if we were able to fundraise $50,000, so we could find 1,000 people at 50 bucks.

00:11:09.000 1,000 people at 50 bucks, that's 1,000 slaves freedom.

00:11:12.000 And it's a nuts amount of stuff that that would do.

00:11:16.000 How many people are slaves right now there?

00:11:18.000 Well, the Pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there's a few different...

00:11:21.000 It's hard for them to do a census, you know?

00:11:23.000 I mean, these are hunters and gatherers and nomads and then slaves and then in dangerous areas and then really remote areas.

00:11:29.000 There's a few different synthesis that they've tried to do.

00:11:32.000 The lowest I've seen is 300,000 pygmies, and then another I've seen is 600,000.

00:11:36.000 And pygmy actually literally translated means elbow height.

00:11:40.000 So, I mean, they're smaller than everybody else.

00:11:42.000 It's almost like they're just the worst bullying victims that have ever been.

00:11:46.000 So the average men's height is 4'7".

00:11:49.000 So are they in any way like...

00:11:51.000 Have you ever seen any of that stuff on the Hobbit people from this island of...

00:12:00.000 The remains they found?

00:12:02.000 Yeah, they found remains of people that lived tens of thousands of years ago with humans, and they were real tiny, almost people-like things.

00:12:11.000 It's really interesting when you see someone like the Pygmies, where you have a whole race of them that are really tiny like that.

00:12:17.000 It makes you wonder, like...

00:12:18.000 How did that separate strain branch off way, way, way back in the day in the evolutionary chain of these people being developed?

00:12:27.000 It's really odd.

00:12:28.000 Actually, one of the problems that they have is that they're called half-man, half-animal.

00:12:37.000 Yeah.

00:12:57.000 Gain superhuman strength.

00:12:58.000 I mean, from taking the genitals off of small bullies and putting them under businesses, it'll bring you wealth.

00:13:05.000 From eating their flesh.

00:13:06.000 Yeah, the rebels believe that if you eat their flesh, that you can, what is it?

00:13:11.000 It makes you, not bulletproof, but what is it whenever a bullet can just fly right through you?

00:13:15.000 So basically, not invisible.

00:13:17.000 Impervious.

00:13:18.000 Yeah.

00:13:18.000 So it just, that's what they believe.

00:13:20.000 They take children's genitals and they put them under a business?

00:13:23.000 Yeah, that's what they'll do to them.

00:13:25.000 And they'll think that that brings them many blessings.

00:13:27.000 Some of the witch doctors have done that in Uganda, but they do it in Congo.

00:13:31.000 The part of the Congo that I'm going to is it borders Rwanda and Uganda.

00:13:36.000 And so I'm right over the border and then in the jungle.

00:13:40.000 Bunia is where Shalom University is.

00:13:43.000 And then 85 kilometers from there, there's a part of the Congo called Commander.

00:13:48.000 They say it differently than that, but then we go from there, deep into the jungle.

00:13:52.000 And where that is, there's some different rebel groups that have done just brutal stuff there, and that's some of their beliefs.

00:14:00.000 Wow.

00:14:01.000 How the fuck does one place get so messed up?

00:14:05.000 What's so crazy, man, is they should be the richest country on the entire face of this planet.

00:14:10.000 They have every element on the periodic table.

00:14:12.000 Every single one.

00:14:13.000 And they have the most fertile soil.

00:14:15.000 They have gold, diamonds, now coal tan.

00:14:17.000 With all this taken off, they should really be the richest country there is.

00:14:20.000 And all the corruption and everything just ruins it.

00:14:23.000 It's so crazy.

00:14:25.000 The corruption is so nuts.

00:14:26.000 The warlords and the whole system that they've got going on down there.

00:14:30.000 It's so bizarre to look at, you know, United States of America here in 2013, how everything is, and then realize there's another part of the world that exists in the same time that is essentially living the way people lived thousands of years ago.

00:14:44.000 With guns, though.

00:14:45.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:14:46.000 And that's what's so crazy is the pygmies.

00:14:48.000 I actually have my grandpa's...

00:14:50.000 I've been accepted as family there now, and...

00:14:52.000 My grandpa, Jay Lua, is his name Jay Lua, and he gave me his bow.

00:14:57.000 So his pygmy bow and arrow that he's had for 30, 40 years.

00:14:59.000 Can you even hold it in your hands?

00:15:00.000 It's actually pretty tiny, man.

00:15:02.000 It's pretty tiny, but in it, it has all these things that are almost like a pygmy tally mark.

00:15:07.000 And it's all up and down the top of the bow and the bottom of the bow on the inside.

00:15:10.000 And it's all the kills that he has of certain types of antelope.

00:15:14.000 And he gave me the, I think I have like 10 arrows, 5 with like the metal on it, and then 4 that are just straight wood that are sharpened and they have this like circular thing around the tip of it.

00:15:23.000 And I thought the ones that are metal would be the ones for the antelope because they look like they do more damage.

00:15:28.000 But it's actually the ones that don't have the metal on it.

00:15:31.000 That are just carved out of the wood that are the ones that go after the antelope because they dip the tips of them in poison.

00:15:38.000 And so it's poison dipped arrows and those are the ones that go after the biggest ones.

00:15:42.000 And the metal ones are more for like monkeys and small little pigs and things like that.

00:15:47.000 Wow, so you're going to go there and live with these people in like a tent made out of leaves.

00:15:51.000 Yeah, it's a twig and leaf hut, man.

00:15:54.000 Do people see the picture?

00:15:56.000 Do you have it on your website or anything?

00:15:58.000 Do you send any of those pictures?

00:15:59.000 Yeah, I send some of the pictures over.

00:16:01.000 Yeah, it's a twig and leaf hut and they rebuild them basically every night.

00:16:05.000 Every night?

00:16:06.000 Well, it depends on if it was raining, the rainforest, and then if the wind is blowing.

00:16:12.000 I actually have pictures of, I think, like the widows and orphans that lived in one hut together where just in the middle of the night, it didn't even rain that night, but the wind blew and their whole roof came off.

00:16:21.000 And so they have to go get the leaves again and place them over, banana leaves and different, like those big elephant-looking ear leaves.

00:16:27.000 Right.

00:16:27.000 And so they just get those and they cover up.

00:16:29.000 In nine different villages I went to last time, I was there for a month, in nine different villages I went to, not one of them ever owned a blanket.

00:16:36.000 Wow.

00:16:36.000 So they're just sleeping straight on the dirt, man.

00:16:38.000 That's it.

00:16:38.000 No blankets?

00:16:39.000 No blankets?

00:16:40.000 No.

00:16:41.000 Just sleeping straight on the dirt.

00:16:52.000 And I mean, to them, that was the Ritz-Carlton.

00:16:54.000 So I let the chief have it.

00:16:55.000 You let the chief have it?

00:16:57.000 That's amazing!

00:16:58.000 Yeah, so I let him have that and I slept in his hut.

00:17:00.000 Wow.

00:17:01.000 Was he psyched?

00:17:03.000 Yeah, he was, man.

00:17:04.000 And they all passed around the Arup mattress and they were actually holding it up above them, almost like crowd surfing.

00:17:10.000 Like crowd surfing at a concert, but they were doing that with the Arup mattress so everyone could feel it.

00:17:15.000 Yeah.

00:17:16.000 So they've never had mattresses.

00:17:18.000 I mean, this isn't like a new thing to them.

00:17:19.000 They've slept on dirt forever.

00:17:21.000 Yeah.

00:17:21.000 I haven't come across one pygmy in the remote locations that I've been to.

00:17:26.000 Are there pygmies in other locations that have cities or anything like that?

00:17:29.000 No.

00:17:30.000 No, they're actually basically, if they come to a city at all, yeah, there we go.

00:17:33.000 That would be home sweet home for a full year.

00:17:36.000 That's the kind of villages that I'm staying in.

00:17:38.000 And if you look in there, I think on top of one of those huts, there's like a few clothes.

00:17:43.000 And if a pygmy's had clothes, they've been a slave.

00:17:46.000 So there's basically the only pygmy's that are there.

00:17:48.000 Yeah, so there's some of the clothes.

00:17:50.000 So obviously these ones have been slaves.

00:17:53.000 And most of the ones I've ever been to have been slaves.

00:17:55.000 There's only been like one village I've been to where they were so remote that they still...

00:17:59.000 Weren't enslaved and they could be hunters and gatherers.

00:18:01.000 But the deforestation with the trees falling that you could drive two Mack trucks through, those are scaring all the animals away to where they basically can no longer live like hunters and gatherers because the animals just flee from all the trees falling.

00:18:14.000 So is it loggers?

00:18:16.000 Is that what it is?

00:18:16.000 It's loggers, but it's also the guys that are like the Bantu, the slave masters.

00:18:20.000 They can get the pygmies, their slaves, to go cut these trees down.

00:18:25.000 And to pygmies, trees are holy.

00:18:27.000 They believe that the ancestors of their, yeah, their ancestors live inside the trees, become trees, and they bury their dead inside, holes inside of trees.

00:18:37.000 They find an opening in it, they'll put their dead there.

00:18:40.000 And so they're having to cut down what they've lived in for thousands of years.

00:18:44.000 And then the rainforest preservationists and wildlife conservationists, they push them out.

00:18:49.000 They'll buy up the land, and they'll say pygmies aren't good for this, and they'll kick them off the land.

00:18:53.000 And they'll buy up thousands and thousands of acres.

00:18:56.000 Actually, thousands of square kilometers.

00:18:57.000 The preservation people will do this?

00:18:58.000 Yeah, they'll kick the pygmies off.

00:19:00.000 So they're more interested in the trees than they are the pygmies?

00:19:02.000 Absolutely.

00:19:03.000 Wow.

00:19:04.000 Yeah, I've heard from my family members in the pygmy tribe.

00:19:08.000 And when I say this, like, literally, I have pygmy family that are more family to me than some of my family here in the U.S. Like that one crazy cousin who gets drunk and grabs your dick?

00:19:18.000 Yeah.

00:19:19.000 For sure, yeah.

00:19:20.000 There's some pygmies I just love, man, that I love.

00:19:23.000 Do you speak their language?

00:19:25.000 I don't speak the language yet.

00:19:26.000 I speak some of it, man, but not a lot.

00:19:28.000 And during that year there, for my birthday coming up, I'm going to get Rosetta Stone, I think.

00:19:32.000 And that's what I'm asking for.

00:19:33.000 How could you not?

00:19:34.000 You're going to live there for a year.

00:19:35.000 You say you love these people.

00:19:36.000 What have they been talking shit about you the whole time?

00:19:38.000 And you're going to learn Pygmy and find out.

00:19:40.000 Yeah, well, they don't have a Rosetta Stone in Pygmy.

00:19:44.000 That'd be funny, though.

00:19:46.000 I'm the crazy uncle.

00:19:47.000 What is the language that they have?

00:19:49.000 Like, what is it called?

00:19:50.000 Oh, it's not the clicking, but it's close.

00:19:53.000 It's actually a tonal language or a polyphonic.

00:19:57.000 Actually, there's some sweet videos.

00:19:59.000 I don't know if you guys want to pull any up, but on YouTube, they do a thing that I love called the water drum.

00:20:05.000 And that actually isn't going to be on my YouTube thing, but you could look up Pygmy's water drum on YouTube, and there's some sweet songs.

00:20:12.000 They'll have like seven to eight women inside the river, and then they We're good to go.

00:20:46.000 Yeah, there it is.

00:20:47.000 And you're not in it for just the boobs, right?

00:20:51.000 No, I'm sorry.

00:20:53.000 They sag after a while.

00:20:59.000 Is there a drum to that as well, or is that all just the water?

00:21:02.000 It's all the water.

00:21:03.000 That's awesome.

00:21:07.000 And yeah, this is just three.

00:21:08.000 Whenever they get like eight to ten in there, they get some intense songs.

00:21:13.000 This is hilarious.

00:21:17.000 Take a pause, wipe your eyes.

00:21:20.000 Wow.

00:21:21.000 They also have something called the tree drum.

00:21:23.000 They'll hollow out a tree, and they'll get some harder sticks, and they'll just beat the side of a tree, and it's sweet.

00:21:31.000 So what are you doing for food out there?

00:21:34.000 The last month I went, I took about 40 to 50 power bars with me.

00:21:40.000 That's so...

00:21:41.000 Man, my bag was so heavy because I took a supplement shop with me.

00:21:46.000 But, I mean, they eat caterpillars.

00:21:48.000 I've eaten, like, I normally don't ask the different parts of it.

00:21:52.000 But, like, whenever they do goat, which actually pygmies don't eat goat.

00:21:56.000 They believe that it has evil spirits inside it.

00:21:59.000 So even though goats are really easy to raise, they won't eat a goat.

00:22:02.000 The hunters say that goat makes you weak in the knees.

00:22:05.000 And then the women just don't like the flavor of it.

00:22:07.000 And they all think that they've seen evil spirits go inside of them.

00:22:11.000 And so they don't eat goats.

00:22:34.000 That's why that video was so unique about me, because I went over there.

00:22:37.000 And it wasn't just some guy from America that went there.

00:22:41.000 Big, giant, white, hairy dude.

00:22:42.000 Yeah.

00:22:42.000 What the fuck is all this?

00:22:44.000 Yeah, that's why my buddies started calling me the Great White Sasquatch.

00:22:47.000 What do they think about your tattoos?

00:22:48.000 Oh yeah, that is crazy.

00:22:50.000 Not to the pygmies.

00:22:51.000 The pygmies actually tattoo their faces sometimes.

00:22:54.000 The women, I've come across a few of them that are more traditional or remote.

00:22:58.000 Those women still carve their teeth.

00:23:00.000 I don't know if you can Google that, but they'll...

00:23:02.000 They actually carve their teeth, and it makes them almost look more like a piranha.

00:23:07.000 To me, it's not attractive, but to the pygmy men, it's attractive.

00:23:10.000 Really?

00:23:10.000 Yeah.

00:23:11.000 Maybe pygmy men hate blowjobs.

00:23:14.000 Like, I hate it.

00:23:15.000 No, man.

00:23:16.000 I don't even want to be...

00:23:17.000 Oh, those teeth.

00:23:18.000 Good.

00:23:19.000 Perfect.

00:23:20.000 You're my girl.

00:23:21.000 I don't know if you guys can find a picture of that, but it's pretty...

00:23:24.000 Pretty crazy looking whenever they smile.

00:23:26.000 There's a lot of strange things that, wow, oh my god, that African people do to customize their body.

00:23:33.000 The neck rings, that's very strange.

00:23:37.000 The stretching of the lower lip that the Suri women do.

00:23:42.000 They put a plate in their lower lip.

00:23:45.000 The Maasai, they do their big gauges in their ears.

00:23:49.000 Whenever they get so big that they start flopping around.

00:23:52.000 I've actually been...

00:23:54.000 So the Pygmy tribe brought me in as family.

00:23:56.000 The Maasai tribe had a ceremony and made me a warrior.

00:23:59.000 And they painted me red head to toe.

00:24:01.000 They gave me a spear that killed two lions.

00:24:04.000 Whoa!

00:24:04.000 I've actually seen the mane of the lion that it killed.

00:24:07.000 The head warrior, you know, gave me my name, which is Mzungu Simba Masai Maran, and that means the white lion, Masai warrior.

00:24:15.000 So I'm a part of the warrior class of the Masai, and whenever the wind blows with them in those big gauges, they'll just twist their earlobes and then wrap them around the top of their ear.

00:24:24.000 So it looks really funny, but that's just on a windy day.

00:24:27.000 So they kill lions with spears?

00:24:30.000 Is it because the lions are attacking them, or they just go out to be gangster?

00:24:34.000 A little bit of both.

00:24:36.000 Really?

00:24:36.000 I think the younger guys go out there to impress the girls, but...

00:24:38.000 To kill a fucking lion with a spear?

00:24:40.000 Yeah.

00:24:41.000 Isn't there a way to just show her your dick?

00:24:43.000 Aha!

00:24:44.000 The, uh, the...

00:24:46.000 What is it?

00:24:47.000 The guys, um...

00:24:48.000 Oh, the...

00:24:49.000 Those are shepherds.

00:24:51.000 So the pygmies are hunter and gatherers, but the Maasai are shepherds, and so they take care of different cattle and goats.

00:24:57.000 And so whenever they're doing that, they have to protect their herd, and that's against lions and cheetahs and leopards.

00:25:06.000 And so my spear, they actually showed me the skin of the leopard that it killed, the mane of the lion that it killed, Wow.

00:25:13.000 And he also said it killed a man, so I guess I have a murder weapon.

00:25:17.000 Holy shit.

00:25:18.000 Yeah, but he was protecting their cattle.

00:25:20.000 A thief came in there and actually came with a rungu, which is a club.

00:25:25.000 And so it was a rungu versus a spear, and it was a warrior.

00:25:28.000 So anyways, it's pretty crazy.

00:25:31.000 Wow.

00:25:31.000 What kind of a head is this thing, the spearhead?

00:25:34.000 The spearhead's about this long, and it's heavy.

00:25:38.000 Is it metal?

00:25:39.000 Yeah, actually.

00:25:40.000 They have this...

00:25:41.000 The wood part of it in the middle of a Maasai warrior spear is from like an olive tree of some sort.

00:25:48.000 Okay.

00:25:48.000 And then they put it through the fire and make it really, really strong.

00:25:51.000 That's a hard wood anyway.

00:25:52.000 Oh, it's a hard wood.

00:25:53.000 Yeah.

00:25:53.000 And they know how to treat it through the fire and make it like rock solid.

00:25:56.000 And then one end is almost like, looks like a javelin.

00:25:59.000 And so that's the end that they use for either target practice or just sticking it in the ground whenever they're walking around.

00:26:03.000 The other end they only use for whenever they come across a lion.

00:26:06.000 Wow.

00:26:07.000 Wow.

00:26:07.000 So one end, they throw it just to practice.

00:26:12.000 We took some balloons over there to see if the kids would like it.

00:26:16.000 And to be honest, the Warriors liked the balloons better than anything because we'd blow up those balloons and just tie them, throw them on the ground.

00:26:24.000 And then the different Warriors would stock the balloons almost on every time, almost the first throw every single time they nailed it.

00:26:32.000 How far away?

00:26:34.000 I mean, not too far because the wind's blowing and they're stalking it.

00:26:38.000 And whenever they're going after a lion, they normally wait until they're close because if they miss, they don't want to miss.

00:26:43.000 So they wait until it's close.

00:26:46.000 And so, I mean, probably here to the door, man, only like 20 feet.

00:26:50.000 Well, I guess some of them did it farther where some were getting it from all the way to the window.

00:26:55.000 So some of them could actually throw them pretty good and far.

00:26:57.000 Do sometimes they get jacked when they go after these lions?

00:26:59.000 Yeah.

00:26:59.000 Oh, yeah.

00:27:00.000 The spear that I have, the warrior that gave it to me, his name's almost like, it's like Most, is his name.

00:27:09.000 It's like Most.

00:27:10.000 And the other warrior, man, I'm slipping on his name.

00:27:13.000 But I took a picture of both of them.

00:27:14.000 And the one guy that I met...

00:27:16.000 He had these teeth marks out of his knee.

00:27:21.000 He had a big rungu, which is a club, but it was like a walking stick for him.

00:27:27.000 And his knee was really swollen, and it had these chunks out of it.

00:27:31.000 And then I asked him what happened to his knee.

00:27:35.000 And then he pulled over.

00:27:36.000 They always wear red because that way if they're ever wounded in battle or anything hits them, you don't know that they're bleeding.

00:27:42.000 And so he pulled down his shuka, which is like a robe of sort for the warrior class.

00:27:47.000 And he pulled it down.

00:27:49.000 And down his shoulder blade in the back of his shoulder, he had claw marks.

00:27:53.000 I mean, just wicked claw marks.

00:27:55.000 And so the lion had attached onto his shoulder.

00:27:58.000 Oh!

00:27:59.000 Onto his thigh and then bit into his knee.

00:28:01.000 And so he showed me those scars.

00:28:03.000 Yeah, man.

00:28:05.000 And the head warrior is the one that saved the other warrior.

00:28:09.000 And that's the spear that I have hanging up at my house.

00:28:12.000 Wow.

00:28:12.000 So as the lion was biting him, homeboy jacked him with the spear.

00:28:16.000 Yeah, came after him.

00:28:17.000 And this one wasn't even on a lion hunt.

00:28:19.000 This was just, they were going after, or they were...

00:28:23.000 Tending the fields, tending the flock, and a lion came after the guy.

00:28:26.000 Dude, fuck cats.

00:28:27.000 That's all I have to say.

00:28:29.000 Fuck all cats.

00:28:30.000 Yeah, I'm more of a dog guy.

00:28:31.000 Yeah, I'm way more of a dog guy.

00:28:32.000 I have chickens right now.

00:28:34.000 I just got little baby chicks.

00:28:36.000 That's awesome.

00:28:37.000 My little girls, they wanted to get chickens, so we decided to get a little chicken coop sort of situation.

00:28:43.000 But the fucking cat, I have two cats, and my one cat, this motherfucker just...

00:28:49.000 Paces in front of that door, left and right.

00:28:51.000 It doesn't matter if he's trained.

00:28:53.000 It doesn't matter if he's sweet and he purrs.

00:28:56.000 He can't wait to murder one of those birds.

00:28:58.000 He just can't get it out of his head.

00:29:00.000 In his head, he's got to get in there.

00:29:01.000 He hears them.

00:29:02.000 He sits out in front of the door and meows.

00:29:05.000 It's almost like you want to kick his ass.

00:29:07.000 You're like, come on, man.

00:29:09.000 Why don't you fucking leave them alone?

00:29:10.000 They're little chicks.

00:29:11.000 But in his DNA, there's just no stopping that.

00:29:13.000 That's what he wants to do.

00:29:15.000 Yep.

00:29:15.000 Have you ever seen a lion?

00:29:17.000 Yeah, I've seen two different times.

00:29:20.000 I've seen two.

00:29:21.000 And one time they were sitting over a...

00:29:24.000 It was either a Cape buffalo or a...

00:29:26.000 What is it?

00:29:27.000 A water...

00:29:28.000 Water buffalo?

00:29:29.000 Water buffalo.

00:29:29.000 I think it was a water buffalo.

00:29:31.000 And it was still chomping down on that, and so it wasn't paying attention to us.

00:29:36.000 I had my spear, though, but I wasn't going to test it out.

00:29:38.000 Like, some guys were trying to get me to go over there.

00:29:40.000 Have you practiced with it?

00:29:42.000 I have practiced with it, but I'm not going to use it, man.

00:29:44.000 Like, I'm not...

00:29:45.000 They already gave me the ceremony and gave me the spear and made me a warrior.

00:29:49.000 In fact, the other ones, they can't be a warrior until they kill a lion.

00:29:53.000 So they come back with the female tail, waving it, and if it's a male, they come back with the mane wrapped around them.

00:30:01.000 Yeah.

00:30:01.000 You have to be a lion killer to be a warrior.

00:30:06.000 Yeah.

00:30:06.000 Oh my goodness.

00:30:07.000 Until then, you're kind of a lesser class male.

00:30:11.000 You should bring a boom stick.

00:30:13.000 We're such pussies in this country!

00:30:15.000 Yeah, so I thought I was a warrior.

00:30:16.000 That's why I try to connect with them.

00:30:18.000 Hey, I fought.

00:30:19.000 They wrestle.

00:30:20.000 They just do takedowns, though.

00:30:22.000 They don't do any ground fighting or anything.

00:30:23.000 Did you show them some moves?

00:30:24.000 I did.

00:30:24.000 I wrestled two at the same time and picked them both up.

00:30:29.000 So that's how they thought I was a warrior, because they were like, oh wow, he's wrestling.

00:30:32.000 They had a lion of them.

00:30:34.000 Did you submit anybody?

00:30:36.000 Did you teach them how to tap?

00:30:37.000 Man, no.

00:30:38.000 For me, I would just pick them up and put them over my shoulder.

00:30:41.000 I did that with both of them at the same time.

00:30:43.000 You've got to remember, they're skinnier dudes.

00:30:46.000 But no, I did start to put one in a guillotine choke, but then I started thinking, man, this guy killed a lion.

00:30:51.000 He's not going to tap.

00:30:52.000 Right, right, right.

00:30:52.000 So I'm like, I'm not going to hurt this guy.

00:30:54.000 I'm just going to play around with him.

00:30:56.000 So is he trying to wrestle with you?

00:30:58.000 Oh, yeah.

00:30:58.000 Can't figure out your sprawl.

00:31:00.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:31:00.000 You get double underhooks.

00:31:01.000 He's like, what is he doing?

00:31:02.000 They're trying a couple different kinds of like collar ties and trips.

00:31:05.000 Yeah.

00:31:06.000 And then they do like a double, almost like a tie clinch.

00:31:09.000 Really?

00:31:09.000 And so they do that and they just kind of like circle each other and they just do that amongst the warrior class, just almost like a ranking system of sorts.

00:31:18.000 So you should be able to go in there and school those dudes.

00:31:22.000 Yeah, when it came to wrestling.

00:31:23.000 Create a whole elite team of Maasai warriors.

00:31:27.000 A Kenyan wrestling team?

00:31:28.000 That'd be pretty crazy.

00:31:29.000 That'd be pretty badass.

00:31:30.000 It's like, you could be like your own Sandra Bullock movie.

00:31:33.000 A white guy goes over there, teaches them how to wrestle, brings them to the state championship.

00:31:38.000 They got leaves for shoes.

00:31:41.000 It's Mzungu.

00:31:42.000 Teaching Masai how to fucking tap people.

00:31:45.000 They probably don't understand.

00:31:46.000 There's probably so many different techniques you can use on them they don't see coming, right?

00:31:49.000 Oh, yeah.

00:31:50.000 But the craziest thing is that they have all these cactuses and briar bushes all around them.

00:31:55.000 So inside the village, the wrestling was okay, but it would happen anywhere and anytime.

00:32:01.000 I remember I had those five-finger shoes on, and I stepped right on a briar bush, and it went straight through the sole of it and into my toe.

00:32:09.000 I'm like, come on guys.

00:32:11.000 You just said it.

00:32:13.000 We're used to the mats.

00:32:14.000 We're used to the sissy stuff.

00:32:17.000 So those guys are just warriors.

00:32:19.000 And they're probably barefoot too, right?

00:32:20.000 Yeah, they're barefoot.

00:32:21.000 I got shoes on.

00:32:22.000 I got hiking boots on.

00:32:24.000 I have everything.

00:32:25.000 So when they step on a briar bush and they're barefoot, they just walk it off?

00:32:29.000 I don't know.

00:32:30.000 I guess I'm the only one, even while wrestling, I'm not aware enough to know there's a briar bush around.

00:32:35.000 They must have ridiculously tough feet too, right?

00:32:39.000 Especially with the Pygmies.

00:32:40.000 The Maasai too, but a lot of the Maasai now are getting sandals made out of tires.

00:32:46.000 So like tires that blow out.

00:32:47.000 Really?

00:32:48.000 They'll make it out of the rubber from the tire.

00:32:51.000 But the Pygmies...

00:32:53.000 They don't have access to stuff like that, especially because they don't have anything to bargain or barter with.

00:32:57.000 They don't have goats, they don't have cows, and they're slaves.

00:33:00.000 So they are mostly barefoot all the time, and they're running through the jungle and stuff like that.

00:33:04.000 And so the soles of their feet actually almost look like the soles of shoes almost.

00:33:09.000 I mean, they don't have the gripping and stuff, but they're thick.

00:33:13.000 They're really thick.

00:33:14.000 Have you ever seen that show where there's two dudes, I think they call it Dual Survivor or something like that?

00:33:21.000 I don't remember.

00:33:22.000 Cody.

00:33:22.000 Cody Landon or Landau or I don't know.

00:33:25.000 Whatever homeboy's name is.

00:33:26.000 He walks everywhere barefoot.

00:33:27.000 Pigtails.

00:33:27.000 Yeah, he's got pigtails, big gorilla looking dude.

00:33:30.000 He does it in cold weather, snow, I mean crazy stuff.

00:33:34.000 Everywhere.

00:33:34.000 I saw the one and because I'm trying to learn from those guys some survival stuff, which the Pygmies know more than anybody, but...

00:33:40.000 While I'm here, you know, learning from that show, and they did like the swamps of like Louisiana or something, and there's all these water moccasins and all this stuff, and he's barefoot in there.

00:33:50.000 He's walking through.

00:33:51.000 Poison, spiders, and all kinds of shit.

00:33:53.000 First time I saw him scared.

00:33:54.000 Like, he was terrified walking through that.

00:33:57.000 Yeah, one bite from one of those crazy fucking animals that live down there, and you're done.

00:34:01.000 You got a lot of that in the Congo as well.

00:34:03.000 I've watched some documentaries of the Congo.

00:34:05.000 I mean, this is the only place in the world where they have spiders that move in packs.

00:34:08.000 Oh, yeah.

00:34:09.000 Yeah.

00:34:09.000 And then their ants, man, are pretty crazy.

00:34:12.000 My buddy I took with me, he went to take a dump behind a tree and he put his back against the tree.

00:34:19.000 And he had these ants crawl up and just start biting them.

00:34:24.000 These ants, though, make you bleed.

00:34:26.000 They're chompers on them.

00:34:28.000 And what's the most brutal part is they try to find the softest spot to bite or something with their sensors.

00:34:35.000 And so whenever they came up my leg, I didn't notice them because of how fast they are.

00:34:40.000 I didn't notice them until two were on my left nipple.

00:34:43.000 And I was like pulling this thing off.

00:34:45.000 And I mean, I'm having to pull the ant out.

00:34:48.000 And whenever I finally got it off, I literally was bleeding.

00:34:51.000 Like just...

00:34:52.000 From a fucking ant.

00:34:53.000 A ant.

00:34:53.000 Yeah.

00:34:54.000 And they travel in these things.

00:34:55.000 Like I'm talking about, they look like roads.

00:34:57.000 So sometimes the path that you're walking on, if it's a pygmy path, they're small.

00:35:01.000 Really, really small.

00:35:03.000 Sometimes the...

00:35:04.000 It's wider than the path of ants.

00:35:07.000 I mean like a road.

00:35:08.000 A road of ants like this thick.

00:35:10.000 I mean the ants are like this long.

00:35:12.000 About an inch long?

00:35:13.000 Yeah, but there's millions of them that they make these roads that are like wide.

00:35:18.000 Ants are goddamn terrifying.

00:35:20.000 They really are.

00:35:21.000 Brian Callen, a good buddy of mine, was working I think in Bornea, I think he said it was.

00:35:25.000 I forget where it was.

00:35:26.000 It was in some jungle.

00:35:27.000 But he said they would have to put...

00:35:29.000 Was it in Congo?

00:35:30.000 No, I don't believe so.

00:35:31.000 But they had to put turpentine over the posts.

00:35:34.000 They had to suspend their tents, put turpentine over the posts so the ants didn't climb up them.

00:35:39.000 He said, but when you were lying in bed at night, you would hear the ants walking through the forest.

00:35:43.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:35:45.000 You can hear them.

00:35:46.000 You can hear them, without a doubt.

00:35:47.000 Yeah, I mean, that's the part.

00:35:49.000 See, that's why I know I'm passionate about this and that I really feel like this is my life's purpose.

00:35:55.000 Wow.

00:35:55.000 Because I don't like creepy crawlies.

00:35:57.000 I don't like stuff like that, man.

00:35:59.000 And I think I sent a picture of a black mamba I almost stepped on.

00:36:02.000 And luckily the pygmies killed it.

00:36:04.000 It was in the middle of the night.

00:36:05.000 And it was pretty crazy because all of a sudden I heard the hut next to me, which this tribe was a chief, and I heard his wife going nuts.

00:36:15.000 And I would sleep with, I would actually sleep with, yep, there it is.

00:36:19.000 That's the black mamba.

00:36:21.000 That almost got you?

00:36:22.000 Yeah, it was like five or six feet long probably.

00:36:25.000 Did you guys eat that thing?

00:36:26.000 See, I thought about it and they believe trees and snakes are their ancestors.

00:36:34.000 And so even though they killed the snake, if it's a python, they won't kill it.

00:36:39.000 They won't kill a python.

00:36:40.000 They'll drag it to where it's safe.

00:36:42.000 The only python I've heard of them killing was whenever they Had gone fishing and then they had it almost on like a stringer of sorts and then a big python came by and took their fish and then the guy was so mad he killed that python.

00:36:54.000 But the pygmies were mad at him for killing a python.

00:36:57.000 Because they aren't poisonous, but the black mambas, they know how dangerous they are.

00:37:00.000 I think it's like 20-30 minutes and you're gone and those things can get up to like 8 or 10 feet long and they're the fastest snake in the world and they're one of the most venomous.

00:37:08.000 So the fastest, most aggressive, one of the longest and so it just seems like Congo, man, like everything, there's some of the most beautiful places in the world.

00:37:17.000 I mean the mountains covered...

00:37:18.000 On the equator, covered with, I mean, the most gorgeous trees, silverback gorillas.

00:37:24.000 I mean, just some beautiful stuff there, but there's some dangerous stuff.

00:37:26.000 You've run into silverback gorillas in the wild?

00:37:28.000 No, I haven't.

00:37:29.000 I haven't.

00:37:29.000 I think they said we've heard them, and we've heard definitely monkeys, but I haven't seen the gorillas.

00:37:35.000 Have you seen monkeys?

00:37:36.000 Oh, yeah.

00:37:37.000 Oh, yeah, a lot.

00:37:37.000 Like, yeah, it's the Maasai...

00:37:39.000 Not the pygmies, but the Maasai actually will target practice with their rungus, their clubs.

00:37:43.000 They'll throw those at the monkeys.

00:37:45.000 Poor monkeys.

00:37:47.000 The monkeys get no fucking slack.

00:37:49.000 It's just like the pygmies.

00:37:50.000 The pygmies, the monkeys, the little guys get picked on.

00:37:53.000 Yeah, and actually that Black Mamba that was up there, I heard them going nuts.

00:37:58.000 And so whenever I got up and I crawl out of my hut, which, I mean, those things for me to get inside sometimes have to be on my elbows.

00:38:05.000 And so I start getting out of it and I'm like, what's going on?

00:38:09.000 And I had a video of it and I actually cut it off right before I asked the question, but I didn't know what kind of snake it was.

00:38:16.000 I thought black mambas were black, like just black, but it's actually their mouths when they open their mouths.

00:38:21.000 It's like pitch black inside their mouth.

00:38:23.000 Even their teeth are black.

00:38:24.000 And so that's how they got their name, Black Mambas.

00:38:29.000 But they're gray on top and then white on their belly.

00:38:32.000 And so I didn't think it was a Black Mamba at all.

00:38:35.000 And so I was getting out of my hut and then I got slapped in the belly and stopped.

00:38:41.000 And I didn't know what was going on until I got my phone on because it's pitch black.

00:38:44.000 Look at that creepy picture.

00:38:45.000 Yeah, man.

00:38:46.000 That's the thing I almost stepped on.

00:38:47.000 And it's like 20 or 30 minutes and you're dead.

00:38:49.000 Oh, what a creepy-looking alien-like creature.

00:38:52.000 And they had only hit it in the back of the tail, and so it was still slithering around.

00:38:57.000 Actually, I'll pull up the video.

00:38:58.000 I don't think I uploaded it to anywhere, but maybe my phone.

00:39:02.000 So they won't eat these, even though it's a source of protein and they're probably hungry.

00:39:06.000 Nope, not at all.

00:39:07.000 Are they edible, though?

00:39:08.000 Black mambas?

00:39:09.000 I don't know about black mambas.

00:39:11.000 I know the pythons are.

00:39:13.000 Rattlesnakes are actually pretty tasty.

00:39:15.000 Yeah, I think if you cut it off far enough down from its head, then I bet it wouldn't be poisonous, but they weren't going to eat it at all.

00:39:24.000 Huh.

00:39:26.000 Right before this video cuts off, I asked if it's poisonous.

00:39:32.000 I don't know if I can email this to you guys.

00:39:35.000 Pretty much everybody there must know somebody who's been killed by something natural in that area.

00:39:41.000 Whether it's a crocodile or whether it's a lion or whatever the hell else is out there.

00:39:47.000 The rivers close to the pygmies are full of crocodiles and hippos.

00:39:51.000 So crocodiles and hippos live in the same thing.

00:39:53.000 Oh, hippos too, man.

00:39:55.000 That's another problem, right?

00:39:56.000 Don't hippos kill more people even than crocodiles?

00:39:58.000 Yeah, a lot more.

00:39:59.000 I got a video of hippos and crocodiles all in the same waterhole, and the hippos are like swimming right next to the crocodiles, and they don't give a fuck about the crocodiles.

00:40:08.000 They're remotely concerned.

00:40:10.000 I don't think hippos are concerned about anything.

00:40:12.000 And I don't know if you know, but they do like a bark.

00:40:15.000 I mean, it literally sounds like they're barking.

00:40:18.000 Like a softer bark, not so like It sounds like a bark.

00:40:22.000 That's how hippos communicate and stuff.

00:40:25.000 In the morning and in the afternoon, towards the sun setting and sun coming up, the hippos are barking.

00:40:32.000 So you hear that.

00:40:34.000 So you're in your little leaf house and you hear these murderous giant pigs.

00:40:40.000 Aren't they something like a pig or a cousin to a pig or some shit like that?

00:40:44.000 Probably.

00:40:45.000 Yeah.

00:40:46.000 Aren't they?

00:40:46.000 I think they are.

00:40:48.000 And I think there's even like pygmy hippos.

00:40:50.000 So there's like pygmy hippos, pygmy crocodiles, pygmy monkeys, which are like the size of your finger.

00:40:57.000 Wow.

00:40:58.000 Like actual monkeys that are like that.

00:41:00.000 Monkeys the size of your finger.

00:41:01.000 Yeah.

00:41:02.000 Are you anywhere near that area of the Congo?

00:41:05.000 I think it's called Bili.

00:41:07.000 Do you know where that is?

00:41:08.000 Bili?

00:41:08.000 B-I-L-I. Benny is really close.

00:41:13.000 B-E-N-I. No, I don't think that's it.

00:41:15.000 Have you ever heard of that chimpanzee that they found there?

00:41:18.000 Oh, the one that's supposed to be massive.

00:41:20.000 Yeah.

00:41:22.000 I've heard stories from the pygmies talking about a human-type...

00:41:27.000 Not human type.

00:41:28.000 They weren't talking about Bigfoot.

00:41:29.000 And if they were, I guess they were talking about me.

00:41:31.000 But no, they talk about different kinds of animals.

00:41:35.000 But they also talk about seeing spirits and stuff like that.

00:41:38.000 Right, right, right.

00:41:38.000 But I mean, I've asked them about, I forget what they call it.

00:41:42.000 There's an actual Swahili name that they call that potential dinosaur of sorts.

00:41:47.000 Yeah.

00:41:48.000 Our friend David Cho actually went out there looking for it a long time ago for Vice.

00:41:52.000 He went for vice.com and he went to look in the Congo for a brontosaurus.

00:41:57.000 Wow.

00:41:57.000 Well, it's so crazy.

00:41:59.000 There's a saying.

00:42:00.000 The Congo is called the heart of darkness on the dark continent.

00:42:05.000 And the pygmies, I think, are the ones that have the saying that it's...

00:42:08.000 I can't really say it eloquent like they do, but it's called...

00:42:11.000 They say it's basically hard for a fish to navigate through the rivers because of how thick everything is.

00:42:19.000 And it's just...

00:42:20.000 Hiking and everything is just...

00:42:23.000 It's actually, I guess, better to be a pygmy because it's hard to move around.

00:42:28.000 Especially whenever you have an 80-pound pack on your back.

00:42:31.000 I'm trying to figure out how...

00:42:33.000 How I'm going to go.

00:42:34.000 I haven't sent this picture in, but that's part of the ways that we get through like 85 kilometers hiking and stuff.

00:42:40.000 Wow.

00:42:40.000 It's just so thick.

00:42:42.000 Yeah, people tried.

00:42:43.000 Some European noblemen tried to live there.

00:42:46.000 They tried to settle into the Congo because there's such a vast amount of resources.

00:42:50.000 They just figured, look, we'll just carve out a little place and make a house.

00:42:55.000 And the forest just swallowed it all up.

00:42:57.000 They just couldn't keep off.

00:42:58.000 Yeah, I think in the 18...

00:43:01.000 Late 1800s or early 1900s, that was whenever they went there for all the rubber and really slaughtered a lot of the Congolese.

00:43:08.000 And then since then, they came in for the gold and diamonds, and now they're there for the coltan.

00:43:14.000 And you can go through whole colonial settlements that are from the...

00:43:26.000 Wow.

00:43:41.000 So these pygmies that you talked to, had they seen that big giant chimpanzee?

00:43:48.000 Had any of it?

00:43:49.000 No.

00:43:49.000 I don't know.

00:43:50.000 I heard lots of different stuff, and normally they open up around the campfire at night.

00:43:55.000 I would have to pretend sometimes to go to sleep for the Bantu slave masters or the kids to leave.

00:44:02.000 And so Shalom University calls it Campfire University for the Pygmies because they'll open up and they'll be real around the campfire.

00:44:09.000 And they'll actually, because if I ask them in front of I had a chief of the Bantu come to me and welcome me.

00:44:18.000 Well, first he was like, what do you want with my people?

00:44:19.000 What do you want with my property?

00:44:22.000 And then I told him I was just there to learn.

00:44:25.000 I was with the university.

00:44:26.000 We're there learning, doing research, and just here to help and benefit.

00:44:31.000 And then he gave me an egg and told me he had a gift for me.

00:44:34.000 And so he gave me just one single egg.

00:44:37.000 It wasn't until, and I was so grateful and thankful because, you know, he gave me a gift and I was going to be able to eat it and everything else.

00:44:45.000 And as I'm cooking it and the pygmies are helping me cook it, and after I eat it, they finally tell me around the campfire, after I had pretended to go to sleep and then got up to come back around the campfire to talk for hours until we fall asleep around the campfire.

00:45:00.000 They finally told me that the egg they gave me wasn't the Bantu chiefs.

00:45:05.000 It was the pygmy chiefs.

00:45:07.000 And the pygmy chief had saved that to give to me because he heard that a visitor was coming.

00:45:12.000 And so the Bantu chief like just, you know, took his gift, completely stole it and acted like it was his.

00:45:18.000 And really it was the pygmy chief.

00:45:19.000 And he was giving me everything that he had to give me because that's food for them.

00:45:24.000 Like food's their livelihood.

00:45:26.000 And that was a clean source of food.

00:45:28.000 And so, yeah, it's just it's pretty messed up how they treat them.

00:45:32.000 That's got to be so strange for you to be around both of them, to be around the Bantu people.

00:45:37.000 Yeah.

00:45:38.000 Do you try to communicate that there's something wrong with this?

00:45:41.000 Yeah, absolutely, man.

00:45:43.000 So in six of the places I went to, they referred to them as, these are my slaves, these are my people, these are my property, kind of, of sorts.

00:45:51.000 Three of the places I went that were even deeper in the jungle, they said, what do you want with my animals?

00:45:57.000 Because they believe them to be so low class.

00:46:00.000 I see them, man.

00:46:02.000 The tribes that surround me, most of it's Bantu.

00:46:05.000 Sometimes it's rebels, sometimes it's other tribes.

00:46:08.000 But they treat them worse than they treat their cattle.

00:46:13.000 Well, they don't have cattle, but they have goats.

00:46:14.000 And I don't know if that falls in the cattle category, but they treat their goats better than they treat pygmies.

00:46:20.000 That's insane, and they've always done this.

00:46:23.000 Well, the pygmies used to never have to depend on the Bantu.

00:46:26.000 So this is why, I mean, on the UG, some people have really been...

00:46:30.000 They're really interested and they've been trying to find out what kind of slavery there is.

00:46:34.000 And the slaves that we've been able to set free, they weren't in shackles and they weren't held to gunpoint.

00:46:39.000 Like, I don't know how to do that with the rebels yet.

00:46:41.000 Maybe in the year I'm there, I can befriend them.

00:46:45.000 Like, I had to befriend the slave masters so they would want to learn and stuff.

00:46:51.000 And so with the Bantu people, we just had to sit there and say like, hey, you know, these are people.

00:46:57.000 Like, I'm an educated guy from the United States.

00:46:59.000 I'm not really that educated, but the Shalom University guys, those four guys I'm with, two have master's degrees and two have doctorates.

00:47:07.000 So they're really educated and they're the ones leading the university.

00:47:10.000 So I'm like, these guys are knowledgeable and And I came from the US. These are actually people, like fully human beings.

00:47:18.000 And the Bantu eyes will get big, like, what?

00:47:20.000 And then they'll see us treating them like humans, treating them like they have value, treating them like they should be treated.

00:47:28.000 And so it starts to change some of the things.

00:47:31.000 And the pygmies are more slave to the Bantu through circumstance.

00:47:34.000 They used to not depend on them.

00:47:35.000 They used to be hunters and gatherers and not have to worry about it.

00:47:37.000 But whenever I can see the sun at times, And it sounds like this earth quaking thunder going on all throughout the day, thunder going on, but I see the sun.

00:47:46.000 It's not raining on me.

00:47:47.000 I'm like, why is there thunder?

00:47:49.000 And then we finally get close enough to where we see some of the deforestation going on.

00:47:53.000 And these are I think?

00:48:18.000 Oh my god.

00:48:39.000 Because like they've just, it's barren.

00:48:42.000 And no one does any or makes any attempt to replenish the forest.

00:48:46.000 No, not at all.

00:48:46.000 And see, that is why the rainforest conservationists, the wildlife preservationists are getting involved in ways that they're trying to buy up that land and protect it.

00:48:56.000 And I agree with that.

00:48:57.000 That's why I feel like what Shalom's wanting to do and what I'm wanting to partner with him, it's an all-encompassing thing where it's like human slave liberation and It's rainforest preservation and wildlife conservation.

00:49:09.000 It's attractive to all those people.

00:49:11.000 There must be a tremendous amount of money that they're making from those trees, though, no?

00:49:15.000 Oh, massive amounts.

00:49:17.000 I mean, some of those are very rare woods.

00:49:19.000 Other things that they're using it for is charcoal.

00:49:22.000 See, in the Congo, since they don't have electric plants and things like that, they have to cook.

00:49:29.000 For them to cook, if they burn up wood, it's not as long-lasting or as hot as charcoal.

00:49:36.000 So I have a picture of a woman that was a slave for charcoal and her slave master put this bag of maybe 120 pounds minimum.

00:49:45.000 I mean the bag of charcoal was taller than she was.

00:49:48.000 I mean a pygmy woman is small.

00:49:50.000 I don't know if you can pull up the one Chaibu Siku, the picture that says Chaibu Siku.

00:49:55.000 But I mean these are small people and they're carrying bags of charcoal where two slave masters put it on their back.

00:50:01.000 Tie a rope around their head and this woman having to walk four or five kilometers On these little paths carrying this charcoal, and they'll cut down the trees to make charcoal.

00:50:11.000 They'll cut them down, and they'll start a fire, but they'll put dirt over the fire, and it smolders.

00:50:18.000 I don't know if it's a week-long process or a few-day-long process, but it makes it just long-burning.

00:50:24.000 And so that's how most people cook in the Congo and in Rwanda and in Uganda and in Burundi.

00:50:30.000 And those places will get charcoal from the Congo jungle because there's so much wood, they don't even think about it.

00:50:35.000 Wow.

00:50:36.000 Yeah.

00:50:37.000 What a fucking trip.

00:50:39.000 So these poor people that are just recently slaved, these poor people, these poor pygmies, before that, they were able to hunt and gather, they were able to do everything.

00:50:55.000 Were they treated as people then?

00:50:59.000 Yeah.

00:51:27.000 What's bushmeat?

00:51:41.000 Whoa, that's a grown woman.

00:51:42.000 Yeah, she's in her mid-40s.

00:51:43.000 She's probably as old as my mom is.

00:51:45.000 My mom, I think, is 46. So that's Chaibu Siku, and she's awesome.

00:51:51.000 That was her first picture ever taken of her, so I have some other ones where she's smiling, but that's the one that shows her.

00:52:00.000 Oh, yeah, man.

00:52:21.000 I think?

00:52:38.000 The Bantu people for some corn or beans or rice or cassava leaves, which they can make ugali out of.

00:52:46.000 It's a kind of paste-like thing that takes on the flavor of the meat.

00:52:49.000 And they had a trading relationship.

00:52:51.000 Sometimes Bantu would go find the pygmies because they wanted some meat.

00:52:57.000 And they weren't the best shepherds.

00:52:59.000 And so they could grow the corn and beans, but they wanted some meat.

00:53:02.000 And so that's how the relationship started.

00:53:03.000 And then they started to get exploited.

00:53:05.000 Whenever they could no longer hunt like they really can, the animals started fleeing.

00:53:12.000 And the wildlife conservationists and rainforest preservationists are trying to push them towards the road.

00:53:19.000 They made a bunch of promises.

00:53:21.000 I mean, a lot of these NGOs...

00:53:24.000 That had their special interest would promise the pygmies, if you go off this deep forest, if you let us have this, we'll take care of you whenever you're closer to the road.

00:53:35.000 We'll make sure you're taken care of.

00:53:36.000 And then they just never took care of them.

00:53:38.000 And then the Bantu buy up the land from underneath them and then enslave them and say, you're on our land, you work it.

00:53:43.000 And so it's just kind of a whole crazy...

00:53:46.000 How do these people feel about you taking off going to America to let everybody know about them and then flying back again?

00:53:53.000 I mean, this must be so bizarre for them.

00:53:56.000 Yeah, well, that's what's crazy.

00:53:59.000 At first, all the nine...

00:54:01.000 Well, I've been to more than nine, but the last time I went, I went to nine different tribes of pygmies, nine villages.

00:54:08.000 Each one of them had never seen a white dude before, so that scares them.

00:54:13.000 I mean, there would be times that it would take an hour, maybe even sometimes a little over an hour, before someone in that tribe, most of the time it was always women or children, that would finally come up to me and touch me to make sure they don't go through me like I was a spirit or a ghost of some sort.

00:54:29.000 And then once one person felt me and I'd play a game with them or something like that, then more would I mean, literally come out from hiding behind trees, come out from the forest.

00:54:39.000 Whenever I come in, sometimes they would flee, run, cry.

00:54:42.000 Kids like flailing on the ground, like just freaked out by me.

00:54:46.000 But whenever I'd make friends with them, then they would ask me one thing.

00:54:50.000 Every place that I went in all nine tribes, they asked me, will I help them have a voice?

00:54:56.000 That was the thing.

00:54:57.000 They're like, we have no voice here.

00:54:58.000 They're the only tribe not allowed to have their citizenship.

00:55:01.000 In Congo.

00:55:03.000 So they have zero voice.

00:55:05.000 Wow.

00:55:07.000 What a strange turn your life has taken.

00:55:11.000 You've gone from being on the house in The Ultimate Fighter, competing in the heavyweight version of the show, to now living in a grass hut in the Congo.

00:55:21.000 That's a strange...

00:55:22.000 Or a leaf hut, rather.

00:55:23.000 What a strange journey you're on, man.

00:55:27.000 Yeah, to be honest...

00:55:29.000 I wouldn't change it.

00:55:30.000 I mean, especially with this video going viral and with yesterday, us talking about a book deal.

00:55:38.000 And today I went out to lunch with a publicist that really worked on the blind side.

00:55:45.000 The movie Invincible, and I forget some other big-time blockbusters that he worked on, but I mean, people are saying that this is a kind of crazy story, and the whole thing is that- It's a Sandra Bullock movie, man!

00:55:57.000 Yeah, there we go.

00:55:58.000 I'm going to have her play me.

00:56:00.000 That's what I'm saying.

00:56:02.000 Why is Justin a chick?

00:56:03.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:56:05.000 Well, we polled it, and people are more likely to believe that there's more vulnerable situations.

00:56:10.000 You get this giant MMA fighter going to the Congo, kicking people's asses, that ain't right.

00:56:14.000 Yeah.

00:56:15.000 Yeah, no, man, I just, the wild turn is, man, I just feel like it's something that I can be fully wholeheartedly passionate about.

00:56:24.000 And I'm fulfilled doing it.

00:56:26.000 And when I say they're my family, I mean it.

00:56:30.000 Oh, you seem very, very sincere.

00:56:32.000 How old are you, Justin?

00:56:33.000 25. So this is a good time.

00:56:35.000 You don't have kids.

00:56:36.000 You don't have responsibilities.

00:56:37.000 You can go and just follow your desire and your passion and your interest here.

00:56:43.000 Yeah, the only thing that really...

00:56:46.000 I mean, I have a future wife and...

00:56:48.000 Gotta find her.

00:56:49.000 What's that?

00:56:49.000 You gotta find her or she's here?

00:56:50.000 No, I have her.

00:56:51.000 I have her in Dallas.

00:56:51.000 Jesus Christ, she's in Dallas and you're going to the fucking Congo for a year?

00:56:55.000 Yeah.

00:56:55.000 How does she think about that?

00:56:57.000 At first...

00:56:58.000 Well, at first she was pumped.

00:57:01.000 Then she's done like some different trips around the world and has gone and helped orphanages in Mexico.

00:57:07.000 And she kind of has a heart to maybe one day start an orphanage.

00:57:10.000 And so she's got a great heart, man.

00:57:12.000 She's awesome.

00:57:13.000 She's gorgeous.

00:57:14.000 But the first time I went, I went one time before we started dating.

00:57:21.000 And then the second time I went.

00:57:23.000 It was hard.

00:57:24.000 It was hard for her because she started doing some research, started finding out that the Congolese people call it the African Holocaust.

00:57:32.000 That's what they call it.

00:57:33.000 Because depending on what stat you look at, they say it surpasses the death toll of the Jews in the Holocaust, which is pretty crazy.

00:57:42.000 But some stats say 6.8 million Congolese in the last 10 years.

00:57:46.000 Some say over 5 million, but it's between 5 million and 7 million, man.

00:57:51.000 And so it really is like one of the, if not the, it is the worst conflict zone.

00:57:55.000 Last year in 2012, because then she was saying, maybe I'll go with you.

00:57:59.000 And I was like, yeah, and then maybe we'll talk about that.

00:58:06.000 But the stat for 2012 was that over 400,000 women were raped in the Congo.

00:58:12.000 It's 58 women every 60 minutes.

00:58:14.000 Yeah.

00:58:15.000 You can't bring your woman to the Congo.

00:58:17.000 No, especially not.

00:58:19.000 The Congo is the most dangerous Walmart parking lot in the world.

00:58:23.000 And so it's been a crazy journey.

00:58:27.000 It's made us both grow a lot in our relationship too.

00:58:30.000 Me being gone for that month there and her, you know, sitting there and thinking about, am I okay?

00:58:36.000 Because I had no contact.

00:58:38.000 So all this different stuff.

00:58:39.000 We've really been on a journey.

00:58:40.000 And we were talking about even getting married before I went.

00:58:43.000 And then now we're talking about waiting until I get back from the year.

00:58:46.000 But it's just something I know I got to do.

00:58:48.000 Are you going to come back at all during that year?

00:58:51.000 So far, no.

00:58:53.000 Spring break?

00:58:54.000 Yeah, spring break.

00:58:55.000 Actually, my girlfriend's sister is getting married, and I might want to come back for that.

00:58:59.000 Wow.

00:59:00.000 But so far, no.

00:59:01.000 And it depends on my visa.

00:59:03.000 Luckily, with Shalom University, I might be able to get a student visa.

00:59:06.000 I might be able to do something with a school to get a year-long visa.

00:59:11.000 But if I can't get a year-long visa, I might have to come back.

00:59:13.000 And you have no income while you're doing all this.

00:59:16.000 No, man.

00:59:17.000 The last year and a half, man, I've honestly felt like I was just a nut.

00:59:20.000 Well, not a nut.

00:59:21.000 I knew it was right, but I felt like a lone nut.

00:59:24.000 Like everybody, people would be like, oh, that's really good, but why don't you go back to fighting?

00:59:27.000 I mean, I've won my last three fights, and then I took some time off to go see the world and see what people I could fight for.

00:59:34.000 And I couldn't find anyone better to fight for than the Pygmies, because they're the worst off-people group on the planet.

00:59:38.000 Yeah.

00:59:39.000 But yeah, man, it's been a crazy journey, you know, from people, family, from close friends, all saying I'm an idiot for giving up fighting and I could actually do it well.

00:59:48.000 And at Grudge Training Center, going from being invited there after the Ultimate Fighter to then being kicked off of it when I was a drug addict to then being invited back onto it.

00:59:59.000 Uh, and then, um, me saying, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave and go, go here.

01:00:04.000 And then them being like, what are you doing?

01:00:06.000 You know, uh, my coach Trevor Whitman, he's awesome.

01:00:08.000 I love that dude.

01:00:09.000 It's very, very good coach.

01:00:11.000 Bro, he's one of the best guys I know as a person too.

01:00:13.000 He's just incredible.

01:00:14.000 Him and his wife, a big giving hearts.

01:00:15.000 And we, uh, we set up three different hospital visits for the, for grudge fight team.

01:00:20.000 I was an official volunteer at the, uh, Denver Children's Hospital.

01:00:24.000 So we went there three different times as an official, like whole team, uh, And so that was great.

01:00:29.000 That was how I started showing them, hey, I've really made a life change here.

01:00:32.000 I'm no longer the drug addict that was coming in here.

01:00:35.000 And, I mean, actually a depressed drunk drug addict.

01:00:37.000 I tried to take my own life, all this different stuff.

01:00:39.000 What were you addicted to?

01:00:42.000 What was I addicted to?

01:00:43.000 A bunch of pills.

01:00:44.000 A bunch of pain pills.

01:00:44.000 I had three different doctors that would give me scripts, and I had one doctor that would give me a hundred at a time, and I could go to all three of them.

01:00:51.000 A hundred at a time, no joke.

01:00:53.000 Which pills?

01:00:54.000 Well, hydrocodone a lot, but then also I even got into harder stuff like Oxy.

01:00:58.000 Hydrocodone, is that Vicodin?

01:00:59.000 Yeah, and then Oxy.

01:01:02.000 Oxy's the hardest, right?

01:01:03.000 Yeah, bro.

01:01:04.000 I don't remember two to two and a half months of my life.

01:01:09.000 There's no memories, except for there's one hazy memory.

01:01:12.000 It was from my best friend at the time, and we're building that relationship back.

01:01:18.000 My best friend at the time, the guy that got me into fighting, my first fight was because he was in the hospital, and he couldn't make it to the fight.

01:01:25.000 He had a staph infection where they almost thought he was going to lose his leg.

01:01:27.000 It was that bad.

01:01:28.000 A lot of guys get that, huh?

01:01:29.000 Oh, man, yeah.

01:01:30.000 And he got put to the side.

01:01:32.000 They literally thought, we might have to take his leg.

01:01:34.000 It was deep into his leg.

01:01:36.000 They thought it might have been in his femur bone.

01:01:38.000 Oh, my God.

01:01:39.000 So he was laid up, man.

01:01:40.000 And then I went to the promoter, told him he's out.

01:01:44.000 Then the guy started talking trash.

01:01:45.000 He just ended up in the hospital one day early.

01:01:48.000 And the promoter had watched me wrestle.

01:01:50.000 It was in Oklahoma.

01:01:51.000 And so he knew my high school wrestling coaches, who were both two Olympic gold medalists, both wrestled at Oklahoma State, were national champions there, Kenny Monday and Kendall Cross.

01:02:00.000 Kenny Monday fought MMA for a while.

01:02:02.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:02:02.000 He was one of my training partners, too, and coaches whenever I was fighting.

01:02:07.000 He's been a coach of mine since I was 15 years old.

01:02:10.000 And then, yeah, anyways, the guy, his name's Justin McCorkle.

01:02:14.000 I think he's like a four-in-one pro MMA heavyweight.

01:02:18.000 And yeah, I missed his wedding, not just being there, but being the best man.

01:02:22.000 And I remember I had an eight-minute voicemail.

01:02:24.000 I made it like 10 seconds through because it said something like, you missed my wedding.

01:02:29.000 And then I'm like, oh, freak, you know?

01:02:31.000 And then it paused and he goes, you missed being my best man.

01:02:35.000 Yeah.

01:02:36.000 And then I just remember hanging up and going straight back to the drugs.

01:02:39.000 And so I had my medical marijuana license for three years, which I'm cool with people having that, but I went with...

01:02:44.000 I would always piggyback everything.

01:02:47.000 The reason Grudge voted me off the team was I started waking up and fixing my steel-cut oats, fixing my egg whites, getting my berries, putting in the steel-cut oats, fixing all that, but then starting on my vaporizer before practice and then hitting...

01:03:03.000 The pain pills and then starting with washing it down with hard liquor, man.

01:03:08.000 And so then I'd go train and they knew it.

01:03:10.000 They knew I was sweated out, out of my pore was coming liquor.

01:03:14.000 They knew that, I mean...

01:03:16.000 How would you train like that?

01:03:17.000 Bro, I don't know.

01:03:18.000 I mean, I was going through a literal, when I say depression, I mean like the darkest, deepest, most desperate time of my life.

01:03:26.000 And what was that being caused by?

01:03:31.000 Selfishness?

01:03:31.000 I don't know, man.

01:03:32.000 A lot of different things that didn't make sense to me.

01:03:37.000 I grew up at 13 years old.

01:03:39.000 I was heavily bullied.

01:03:40.000 That's when I found the UFC. 13, I sat at the lunch table by myself, had people throw stuff at me.

01:03:47.000 I was invited to my middle school crush's birthday party, and it was a costume party.

01:03:55.000 I got the invitation.

01:03:56.000 I'm like, no way.

01:03:56.000 Costume party wins a prize.

01:03:58.000 And I remember her dad worked for Dr. Pepper, and she loved Transformers, so I came to the party as a Dr. Pepper Transformer, like with the Dr. Pepper cardboard and made out of duct tape and Dr. Pepper boxes.

01:04:12.000 I got there, and I was 30 minutes late.

01:04:14.000 Everyone was pointing, laughing, calling me an idiot.

01:04:17.000 That was whenever I was probably, I guess, maybe in the first fight of my life, was suicidal thoughts because they were like, you're so worthless.

01:04:24.000 You should just kill yourself.

01:04:26.000 13. You're so fucking mean.

01:04:28.000 Yeah, I mean, I left there.

01:04:29.000 Why are kids so mean, man?

01:04:30.000 Oh, there's no cell phones, so I walked and I got to Dairy Queen.

01:04:34.000 I lived in the country, so they call that the Texas stop sign, Dairy Queen.

01:04:38.000 And so I went to Dairy Queen, and I think I remember one of the employees Coming out to throw away trash and I'm like sitting there behind the Dairy Queen right in between kind of the dumpster And then they're like, what's going on?

01:04:52.000 And I was just sobbing.

01:04:53.000 And then I went inside and called my mom.

01:04:54.000 She wasn't there for a little bit.

01:04:55.000 I had to sit in there.

01:04:56.000 They asked what was going on.

01:04:57.000 Anyways, that was a big left turn.

01:04:59.000 But that's when I found the UFC. And I thought, maybe a few weeks after that.

01:05:04.000 And I thought, these guys don't get bullied.

01:05:06.000 These guys are like modern day gladiators.

01:05:09.000 And I was mesmerized by the sport of it.

01:05:13.000 Because I love sports.

01:05:14.000 And I always played sports growing up.

01:05:16.000 But this was multiple sports put in one.

01:05:18.000 And I'm like, man, if I could just become one of those guys, I'll have all the passion, the purpose, the significance, the...

01:05:25.000 I'll never be this dude that I am right now.

01:05:28.000 And I'll be the exact opposite.

01:05:31.000 And so I set out for that and started at 15, started wrestling under two Olympic gold medalists, 17, won my first national championship.

01:05:38.000 18, was living back and forth with the Olympic Training Center.

01:05:40.000 19, started fighting professionally.

01:05:42.000 21, I was on the Ultimate Fighter.

01:05:44.000 22, fighting.

01:05:47.000 23, it was main event at the Hard Rock in another promotion.

01:05:50.000 And I think every time I got my hand raised, and it got worse as this drug problem got on, but...

01:05:56.000 I stopped looking forward to even the victories of fighting and started looking forward to the parties after the fight.

01:06:01.000 And then I started thinking like, I don't know, every time I get my hand raised, if you can find a picture of me or a video of me smiling after a fight, that would be the first for me because I don't think I smiled after any of them.

01:06:13.000 I was always looking towards the next one.

01:06:15.000 You know, most guys jumping up, smiling, screaming.

01:06:17.000 When was your issue with drugs?

01:06:20.000 Was it after the Ultimate Fighter?

01:06:21.000 It was before and after.

01:06:23.000 It got really bad after.

01:06:24.000 And I mean, it got brutal after.

01:06:28.000 Actually, the week of my...

01:06:30.000 I don't know if I've ever...

01:06:31.000 I told Loretta Hunt this a couple of days.

01:06:34.000 I did an interview for Sports Illustrated and...

01:06:38.000 The week of my John Madsen fight, I was taking handfuls of pills.

01:06:43.000 And some guys can function and fight and everything.

01:06:47.000 Me, though, I would piggyback everything.

01:06:50.000 If I got high and needed the pills or I needed a drink or anything, I never did one thing.

01:06:56.000 That was a huge problem of mine.

01:06:59.000 I always piggybacked it.

01:07:00.000 I had to have something else.

01:07:02.000 And so I was doing that the week of my John Mattson fight for the finale.

01:07:06.000 You were there.

01:07:06.000 And I was high that week.

01:07:08.000 And the pain pills, like lots of pain pills like the day before.

01:07:12.000 I didn't the day of.

01:07:14.000 How did you not test positive?

01:07:16.000 They didn't test me on that one.

01:07:17.000 They tested me when I fought at the Hard Rock, but at that one they didn't test.

01:07:20.000 They only tested the main events.

01:07:22.000 Wow.

01:07:23.000 I think that was the time that the commission...

01:07:25.000 I think the commission hit a time where they didn't test everybody on the card.

01:07:30.000 They were only going to do the main event fights or something like that.

01:07:33.000 And then I was kind of in that window.

01:07:35.000 Wow.

01:07:36.000 That's crazy, man.

01:07:37.000 What would happen if they did test you?

01:07:39.000 Oh, I would have failed big time.

01:07:41.000 Just like a lot of the other guys do, but I mean, not a lot of the other guys.

01:07:43.000 But you knew you weren't going to be tested.

01:07:45.000 Is that why you kept taking the pills?

01:07:47.000 I... Honestly, yeah.

01:07:48.000 Probably would have taken them anyway.

01:07:49.000 Yeah, I would have taken them anyway.

01:07:50.000 I didn't care.

01:07:51.000 I never did any sort of steroids.

01:07:53.000 Never.

01:07:53.000 I already felt empty enough, I guess, with some of the victories.

01:07:58.000 And I think whenever it got real bad was after that Roy Nelson fight on The Ultimate Fighter...

01:08:03.000 And Dana and Rampage and Rashad and Coach T and basically everybody except Roy was telling me that I won or that it should have gone to a third round at least.

01:08:13.000 Because I think one judge thought I won, two thought he won, and it was a split.

01:08:16.000 And we only went two rounds.

01:08:18.000 And for me, this was my dream.

01:08:20.000 And so whenever that was taken from me, I felt like it was taken in a wrong way.

01:08:25.000 Then what really got bad was after the Madsen fight, I lost a split decision again.

01:08:29.000 So two back-to-back.

01:08:31.000 I just, I lost it and I went straight.

01:08:33.000 I mean, I don't even remember that week in Vegas.

01:08:36.000 What started you off on pills in the first place?

01:08:39.000 Was it an injury?

01:08:40.000 Yeah, this right here.

01:08:42.000 Do you know how many times I've heard that, man?

01:08:44.000 A guy gets injured, his doctor puts him on pills, Carl Prizian, same story.

01:08:49.000 Went off the deep end.

01:08:50.000 How goddamn addictive are these pills?

01:08:53.000 And they're just...

01:08:55.000 I know.

01:08:55.000 Handing them out to people.

01:08:56.000 I remember, I bet my mom would confirm it, but whenever this happened, I was 18, and I was living at the Olympic Training Center, and I wrestled against a world champion.

01:09:08.000 I didn't give up a point.

01:09:09.000 It was kind of like I could have given up a point.

01:09:11.000 It would have been similar to, I could have tapped or let it snap, but I just didn't want to give up a point, so I let my arm snap.

01:09:19.000 Anyways, I probably took at least a month worth of the oxycodones in a week.

01:09:24.000 After that, I went back.

01:09:26.000 Probably took three weeks worth.

01:09:27.000 What happened to your arm?

01:09:28.000 What position was it in?

01:09:29.000 It was just wrestling, right?

01:09:31.000 Greco-Roman wrestling.

01:09:32.000 Have you ever seen a gut wrench?

01:09:34.000 Like Greco, how they go to turn somebody?

01:09:36.000 So I was fighting it.

01:09:37.000 Explain it to people who don't know anything about wrestling.

01:09:39.000 If you don't know it, I was on my belly.

01:09:42.000 A guy maybe took me down, and once he's on your back, he goes to...

01:09:46.000 Do a gut wrench.

01:09:47.000 He wraps around your ribs and he starts to crank down with his shoulder on the back of your shoulder blades.

01:09:51.000 You're trying to fight it so your back doesn't break 90. If it breaks 90 degrees and your back angles towards the mat, the guy gets two points or maybe one point sometimes.

01:10:02.000 But I didn't want to have my back break 90 to where he get any points.

01:10:07.000 So I just let it keep fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting.

01:10:09.000 And I tried to do this hop thing.

01:10:11.000 And whenever I went to do the hop, that's whenever all his weight came down on it.

01:10:15.000 Super experienced guy.

01:10:16.000 He was like 33, 34. And I was 18 at the Olympic Training Center.

01:10:19.000 He was a world champion, Olympic bronze or silver medalist.

01:10:22.000 And it just snapped.

01:10:23.000 And whenever it snapped, it went completely behind my back.

01:10:26.000 One of my buddies at the Olympic Training Center puked because of it.

01:10:29.000 So I was laying on it completely behind my back.

01:10:32.000 Like if I was on the mat right now, it was completely behind my back.

01:10:36.000 Except it was this way.

01:10:37.000 Oh my god.

01:10:39.000 This whole part of my arm, it was wicked, this whole part of my arm was under my back.

01:10:43.000 So it broke it, it dislocated it, and it tore the ulnar collateral ligament.

01:10:49.000 So they did a nerve transposition, so I have no more funny bone.

01:10:53.000 They moved it to where it's right here.

01:10:54.000 So if I talk on the phone too long, these three fingers go numb.

01:10:59.000 And then they took a They were going to do...

01:11:02.000 Is it a cadaver or a cadaver?

01:11:04.000 Cadaver.

01:11:05.000 Cadaver.

01:11:05.000 So they were going to use a cadaver.

01:11:07.000 Cadaver nerves?

01:11:08.000 That's zombie shit.

01:11:09.000 No, for the torn ligament, the UCL, the ulnar collateral ligament.

01:11:13.000 But then instead, they used the...

01:11:15.000 There's like three tendons in your hamstring that are kind of like this, and they took the center one out.

01:11:20.000 And they said a tendon is stronger than a ligament.

01:11:23.000 And we want to put something strong in there if you're wanting to be an Olympic caliber athlete.

01:11:27.000 And they said that that was actually maybe a harder chance for it to take.

01:11:31.000 Um, but it was the best chance to take instead of a cadaver, which might be weaker or smaller person than me.

01:11:36.000 Your body could reject it.

01:11:37.000 Right.

01:11:37.000 Like Dominic Cruz would have a cadaver graft nine months in, blows it out, has to do it all over again.

01:11:44.000 Yeah.

01:11:44.000 And so they, they wanted to use that tendon because it was stronger.

01:11:46.000 And he said, and it's going to be from your leg.

01:11:48.000 And he goes, and you want to fight someday?

01:11:49.000 And I go, yeah.

01:11:50.000 And he said, well, this will be like you're kicking someone in the face then.

01:11:53.000 And I'm like, okay, that sounds pretty sweet.

01:11:55.000 Uh, but yeah, so that's whenever the drug problem probably started.

01:11:59.000 I remember, uh, I was piggybacking even then.

01:12:02.000 I kind of started going into depression because I thought, man, did I just lose my Olympic dreams and my MMA dreams?

01:12:09.000 And I was doing all the oxycodones.

01:12:11.000 How old were you at this time when you hurt yourself?

01:12:13.000 18?

01:12:13.000 18, yeah.

01:12:14.000 So you're 18 years old, no drug problem before.

01:12:16.000 No.

01:12:17.000 Get on the pills and boom, you're off to the races.

01:12:18.000 I had smoked some weed before and I drank, but I was never...

01:12:21.000 Nothing serious.

01:12:21.000 No, nothing where I had to have anything.

01:12:23.000 I have people in my family that have had the same issue.

01:12:26.000 A guy got injured and all of a sudden...

01:12:28.000 Taking pills for his back, and he's a fucking loser now.

01:12:30.000 I mean, he's just gone.

01:12:31.000 He was a normal guy, and now he's a loser.

01:12:33.000 And I've met so many people that know somebody that has that same story, or that have that same story, and then, like you, pull themselves out of it.

01:12:40.000 It's so terrifying.

01:12:42.000 It's so terrifying how they're just handing out some of the most addictive medication that the world has ever known.

01:12:47.000 That really is what it is.

01:12:48.000 Oh, it's brutal, man.

01:12:50.000 Heroin.

01:12:50.000 It's heroin.

01:12:51.000 Yeah, and I would drive on it.

01:12:53.000 I would...

01:12:54.000 Man, and I know that's...

01:12:56.000 Hey, you should have that reaction.

01:12:58.000 I have that reaction to me now.

01:12:59.000 Looking back at my life and just...

01:13:02.000 I mean, I don't know.

01:13:03.000 Thank God that I didn't kill somebody or family.

01:13:06.000 But I remember the time that I really wanted to end it.

01:13:09.000 I just took a handful of the hydrocodones.

01:13:13.000 I was taking Adderall, too.

01:13:15.000 And then I was...

01:13:18.000 Actually, I didn't drink it straight, but I had it in a Sonic cup, but it was Everclear, mixed with like a strawberry slush.

01:13:25.000 Yeah, brutal.

01:13:26.000 Goddamn, Justin Reynolds had a party.

01:13:28.000 I told you, a motherfucker's got a dead pig on his shoulder.

01:13:30.000 That's the guy to hang out with.

01:13:32.000 And then I had my tinctures.

01:13:34.000 You know what tinctures are?

01:13:34.000 Sure.

01:13:35.000 Yeah, and so I had those, and so I just took it all.

01:13:38.000 I'm driving, and I blacked out.

01:13:40.000 That's a crazy combination.

01:13:41.000 Oh, yeah.

01:13:41.000 What a confusion in your mind.

01:13:43.000 You had a civil war going I did.

01:13:45.000 And I blacked out driving.

01:13:48.000 Dude, I've been so low that I've woke up in a drug house up in kind of outside on the outskirts of Summit County.

01:13:55.000 Did you live in Boulder?

01:13:57.000 Yeah.

01:13:58.000 Yeah, so you know where Summit County is then with like Breckenridge and Keystone.

01:14:02.000 It's beautiful up there.

01:14:03.000 Oh, man, I loved it.

01:14:04.000 God's country.

01:14:04.000 Yeah.

01:14:05.000 I wish...

01:14:06.000 I'm in Texas right now, so Congo is going to be beautiful too, but I miss Colorado.

01:14:10.000 Congo is another level.

01:14:11.000 Congo is a different level of life.

01:14:13.000 It's like so vibrant and green and rainy and everything like that.

01:14:17.000 I don't know if you know this.

01:14:18.000 This is a completely different subject, but in Uganda, right on the border of where I'm at, it's on the equator.

01:14:26.000 It is the jungle.

01:14:28.000 But there's mountains that are so high that they're, I think, the only glaciers that you can find on the equator.

01:14:36.000 So there's like actual glaciers in Uganda, in Africa.

01:14:39.000 On the equator?

01:14:40.000 On the equator, right outside the jungle.

01:14:42.000 What the fuck?

01:14:43.000 Yeah, so there's glaciers.

01:14:44.000 That's insane!

01:14:45.000 Yeah, so anyways, that's completely random.

01:14:48.000 What made you straighten up?

01:14:49.000 What made you sober up?

01:14:52.000 I knew I was gonna die.

01:14:53.000 Well, that was one thing.

01:14:55.000 How'd you do it?

01:14:56.000 How'd you clean up?

01:15:00.000 For me, personally, I had this guy that was just brutal, man.

01:15:06.000 He...

01:15:07.000 Brutal in a way like he was relentless.

01:15:10.000 He was just coming after me, man, saying that I had a purpose to live for.

01:15:14.000 Saying that, you know...

01:15:16.000 He told me this, and I remember...

01:15:17.000 I'll always remember this.

01:15:19.000 It's my buddy named Jeff Duncan.

01:15:20.000 He'll probably be watching this.

01:15:21.000 He's an awesome dude, man.

01:15:22.000 He's He has a great family, great wife, great kids.

01:15:25.000 And he told me, Justin, you're in the battle for your life.

01:15:28.000 This life is a battleground, not a playground.

01:15:32.000 If you treat it like a playground, you will lose the battle.

01:15:36.000 And then he started talking to me like, what's your game plan for victory here?

01:15:39.000 I'm like, man, I got a perfect game plan, right?

01:15:41.000 Thank God that guy didn't find Brian.

01:15:44.000 He'd be like, no, no, no battle.

01:15:49.000 I'm here to play.

01:15:51.000 That's right.

01:15:51.000 What the fuck?

01:15:52.000 What am I going to lose at, eating too much pussy?

01:15:57.000 So he told you that you have to find your purpose.

01:16:01.000 Yeah, he said I had to find a purpose and that I had a purpose.

01:16:03.000 And what does this gentleman do?

01:16:05.000 He's a roofer.

01:16:06.000 So he's a childhood friend.

01:16:09.000 Actually, he's even older.

01:16:11.000 I had some family friends and a guy that was like a second dad to me and his kids are some of my best friends.

01:16:17.000 And Jeff was kind of in that core group.

01:16:20.000 But he had heard through the grapevine that my mom had come and checked on me during that two and a half period period.

01:16:26.000 And I think my dad might have came, but she had broken into my house that was in Colorado.

01:16:32.000 Not broken in, but she just was able to get through the back door, saw the drugs, saw the pills, saw how I was living, and it looked like hoarders or just filthy.

01:16:41.000 And so she knew that he might be the one guy that could get to me and get through to me.

01:16:46.000 And so he called me every single day for two months.

01:16:48.000 I mean, called me, left me a voicemail, text me, and emailed me.

01:16:51.000 And was pissing me off, man.

01:16:53.000 I was getting livid with him.

01:16:55.000 Wow.

01:16:55.000 And then whenever I got kicked off a grudge, I got out to my phone and got out to my car.

01:17:00.000 I was like in angry tears.

01:17:01.000 I didn't know what to do.

01:17:03.000 Because I was living my dream, but it was a nightmare.

01:17:07.000 And my dream was reality, but it was literally a nightmare.

01:17:10.000 Right, you were living your dream as a competitive MMA fighter, but you were also a drug addict.

01:17:13.000 I had transformed successfully.

01:17:15.000 I guess we can go back to that.

01:17:16.000 I transformed successfully from that 13-year-old loser that was invited to the parties.

01:17:21.000 And now I was that...

01:17:23.000 Maybe quote-unquote modern-day gladiator, ultimate fighter, mixed martial artist.

01:17:26.000 And somehow I wasn't fulfilled.

01:17:29.000 Somehow I was a depressed drug addict.

01:17:34.000 And whenever I got to my car, I had a text message, voicemail, all this sort of stuff.

01:17:39.000 Didn't want to hear from them.

01:17:40.000 But the text message said, this was when your iPhone, it didn't just say text message on it.

01:17:44.000 It would say like the actual message.

01:17:45.000 And on the actual message on the screen, it said, check your email.

01:17:50.000 Checked my email.

01:17:51.000 The very first thing said, game plan for victory.

01:17:56.000 And then whenever I opened it up, it said, the best thing you'll ever do in your life.

01:18:00.000 And it was a trip that was paid for.

01:18:02.000 And I thought it was maybe like a detox kind of thing or a rehab or something like that.

01:18:08.000 So I was interested and I just got kicked off a grudge.

01:18:11.000 I think Trevor was the only guy, maybe Brendan, No, I think there was like 30 guys or something.

01:18:17.000 They got there early to vote on the day of sparring to vote if I stay a part of the team because some of the guys had had it with me.

01:18:24.000 And Coach T brought me into his office and he said, bro, we can't have our name attached to you anymore.

01:18:31.000 I'm the only guy that wants you still a part.

01:18:33.000 I could veto it maybe.

01:18:34.000 I'm the head coach.

01:18:36.000 I'm not going to go against the guys.

01:18:37.000 And grudge is unique, man, because grudge is a family.

01:18:43.000 I think for Elliot Marshall, we threw a surprise baby shower for him.

01:18:48.000 I mean, in fighters, throwing a baby shower for a fighter, that's just not normal.

01:18:53.000 And a lot of...

01:18:54.000 Fight gyms or they're a bunch of gym hoppers and a bunch of selfish dudes and they're never going to give the coach the money or they're never going to they're gonna try and knock out their training partners like we we just worked like a had cookouts together all this different stuff but I was the one guy that was the that was the problem and they voted me off and so man I was just I was empty I felt like man now my dream is Or my nightmare,

01:19:15.000 but my dream.

01:19:16.000 Now that's even ripped away from me.

01:19:17.000 So now I had nothing.

01:19:18.000 You know, I know that you've gone through some growth as a human, as a man, some spiritual development and character building and all that, but I can't help but be terrified at how smart you are and how together and passionate you are, but yet you still got hooked by these fucking pills.

01:19:35.000 Those goddamn things scare the shit out of me.

01:19:38.000 And I know you were a younger man at the time, and you didn't have the life experiences you have now, but you're not a loser.

01:19:45.000 So the fact that you got just sucked up into it like that, it's so terrifying to me.

01:19:50.000 Yeah, I mean, they're dangerous, man.

01:19:52.000 I think they should...

01:19:53.000 I don't know how they could watch it better, you know?

01:19:56.000 You can't!

01:19:57.000 I mean, I shouldn't be able to go to three different doctors and have one giving me a hundred at a time.

01:20:02.000 I mean, you know what I mean?

01:20:03.000 A hundred.

01:20:04.000 This is in Colorado, where at least they have databases.

01:20:07.000 Yeah, I mean, I literally just go to three different pharmacies, three different doctors.

01:20:10.000 Three different doctors, three different pharmacies.

01:20:11.000 That was the whole topic of a Vanguard show.

01:20:14.000 Called the OxyContin Express.

01:20:16.000 I was on it.

01:20:18.000 I was aboard it, man.

01:20:19.000 I was taking the train.

01:20:21.000 It's about Florida.

01:20:22.000 Oh, man.

01:20:23.000 Because Florida had these things called pain management centers where you would go to a doctor and the doctor would say, what's wrong?

01:20:29.000 I hurt my back.

01:20:30.000 Well, you need a prescription for pain pills.

01:20:31.000 So the doctor writes it.

01:20:33.000 In the same facility, right next to the doctor's door, the next door is the pharmacy that only sells OxyContin.

01:20:39.000 You go in there and you buy pain pills.

01:20:41.000 And they have these fucking...

01:20:42.000 Pain management centers, and they're all over the place.

01:20:45.000 So you essentially have these OxyContin addicts waiting in line at all these parking lots to get into these places, and the places were filled with poor people that were just hooked on these goddamn pills.

01:20:56.000 And I think for me, I appreciate you saying you're not a loser, a smart guy, or whatever.

01:21:02.000 Well, it's true.

01:21:03.000 I'm listening to you talk.

01:21:04.000 You're obviously a smart guy.

01:21:06.000 Well, I appreciate that.

01:21:07.000 I think that...

01:21:08.000 Worked in my advantage for my problem, if that makes sense.

01:21:12.000 Like, it fed it.

01:21:13.000 I was able to justify it.

01:21:15.000 Yeah, justify it.

01:21:16.000 And also, but to the doctors even.

01:21:18.000 Like, articulate it.

01:21:19.000 I wasn't the same kind of guy they would classify as, we gotta watch this guy.

01:21:23.000 Right.

01:21:24.000 He's a professional fighter.

01:21:25.000 He does have a bum elbow.

01:21:26.000 He's got a back problem.

01:21:28.000 He, yeah, we can trust this guy.

01:21:31.000 What was your back problem?

01:21:33.000 I've actually, in my last fight, I herniated one disc and I bulged another.

01:21:40.000 And so I have an x-ray that they have...

01:21:43.000 I messed up actually a bunch from the...

01:21:45.000 Mainly it was the thoracic.

01:21:47.000 The thoracic and then one or two of the lumbar.

01:21:50.000 But I have a...

01:21:52.000 X-ray from those pain management places.

01:21:55.000 I think I had six different discs where they put these injections into my spine of...

01:22:02.000 Cortisone?

01:22:03.000 Kind of like cortisone.

01:22:05.000 I'm trying to think of it.

01:22:05.000 Anti-inflammatory, some sort of steroidal anti-inflammatory.

01:22:08.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:22:08.000 That was brutal because I was supposed to be in a twilight kind of sleep and I woke up during it because he hit something.

01:22:13.000 Yeah.

01:22:13.000 And I just remember just, ah, ah, and then they put some more in me and I was out.

01:22:17.000 We had Boss Ruten in here yesterday, and his right arm, it's like shriveled away because of neck injuries, because of disc injuries.

01:22:26.000 Yeah, I used to get stingers all the time from wrestling.

01:22:28.000 It's so amazing how many guys, I have a bulging disc now in my neck, and it's amazing talking to how many guys, talking to people, asking, How many guys also have the same injury or similar injuries or in their lower back or in their middle back?

01:22:42.000 It's fucking everybody.

01:22:44.000 Yeah.

01:22:44.000 It's crazy.

01:22:45.000 Yeah.

01:22:46.000 And, man, it's easy.

01:22:48.000 If you want to get it, you know, fund your – or whatever, find your – Addiction and you want to find a way to feed that, you can.

01:22:58.000 If you want to find something to take a pill for, they'll get you.

01:23:01.000 Absolutely.

01:23:02.000 Even one of my doctors was in Iowa.

01:23:04.000 So two were in Colorado.

01:23:06.000 One was in Iowa.

01:23:07.000 Oh, my God.

01:23:09.000 Man, that's terrifying shit, but for a lot of people out there that might be struggling with that very problem right now listening to this, hearing you, that you were able to pull yourself out of it, I guarantee you, you can inspire people to do the same.

01:23:23.000 And they can realize, they can listen to you and go, I want to be that guy.

01:23:27.000 I don't want to be this guy that I'm now, a slave to this bottle of pills that I have to figure out how to get every week.

01:23:34.000 I feel like that's one of the reasons I have that connection to the Pygmies.

01:23:37.000 I wasn't a...

01:23:38.000 A slave to a Bantu, but I've definitely been a slave to something.

01:23:42.000 And so, yeah, if there is somebody that's watching, man, you can get out of it because there's definitely hope.

01:23:50.000 How did you do it?

01:23:51.000 Did you go cold turkey?

01:23:53.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:23:55.000 I ended up going on that kind of retreat of sorts with my buddy, and he just loved on me, man, in a way that...

01:24:03.000 It was genuine.

01:24:04.000 It was authentic.

01:24:05.000 Where was the retreat?

01:24:06.000 What did you guys do?

01:24:07.000 Have you ever heard of the Hallmark family or Hallmark cards?

01:24:10.000 Sure.

01:24:10.000 I know they're big in Texas.

01:24:11.000 I don't know if they're big here.

01:24:13.000 But it was actually their house or their ranch.

01:24:14.000 And it was, they kind of donated this ranch to be for all walks of life, kind of all beliefs and for people to come there.

01:24:23.000 And, uh, it was a vision of this one guy that, that wants to just, uh, have a place where people's lives can be changed and stuff.

01:24:29.000 And man, there's these, there's like 20, 30 guys that said that they are not that said, but they, they literally went to war for me and my, and my life and told me how to life worth living.

01:24:41.000 And it was, it was awkward, kind of not awkward, but just right at first, I was like, what's up here?

01:24:45.000 This is crazy.

01:24:46.000 Um, but for me, I had a, I had a radical change, man.

01:24:50.000 It wasn't a, it wasn't a, It wasn't a slow process.

01:24:54.000 It was like I finally realized I have a life worth living.

01:24:58.000 And my life can be for a bigger purpose than myself, than getting what I want when I want it.

01:25:04.000 I can make a contribution to this planet, to this world, to people.

01:25:09.000 I cannot just fight against people.

01:25:10.000 I can fight for people.

01:25:12.000 And that's what it was demonstrated in front of me at this retreat.

01:25:16.000 And I'm not, man, I have my own personal beliefs.

01:25:19.000 Everyone does, man.

01:25:20.000 But this was a Christian retreat.

01:25:23.000 And for me, it changed my life, man.

01:25:25.000 Because these men weren't like, because bro, if you want to go into some jacked up religious background, I got it.

01:25:31.000 I've got a jacked up religious background.

01:25:34.000 I have family that says, I mean, just crazy stuff.

01:25:38.000 Like you have instruments in your music, you go to hell.

01:25:40.000 If you have tattoos, you go to hell.

01:25:42.000 I'm the only tattooed guy in my family.

01:25:44.000 And I have a whole back piece and all this stuff.

01:25:47.000 And I had another one where...

01:25:49.000 So they're super legalistic and rules.

01:25:52.000 And this other one, when I'm 13 years old, I left a church camp, the only church camp I ever went to.

01:25:57.000 I left a church camp with bruises on my neck because they tried to cast demons out of me.

01:26:01.000 And then I went to Catholic school and had a background where the parents were throwing keg parties for us.

01:26:09.000 And then I went there in this place, in this retreat, and I told the guy, bro, I don't need...

01:26:15.000 Anything Christian.

01:26:16.000 Bro, I don't need it.

01:26:17.000 I don't want it.

01:26:18.000 I know your type.

01:26:20.000 If I sit around a campfire and I hold hands with a bunch of sissies, punks and sissies, and sing Kumbaya, what is that going to do for me?

01:26:29.000 I need a real answer.

01:26:30.000 I need some real hope.

01:26:32.000 And man, the guy gave me an answer where it was like, you know, real people with real problems could really use a real God.

01:26:40.000 And for me, that just kind of struck a chord.

01:26:43.000 He told me that if you...

01:26:44.000 And again, this is my beliefs and stuff, so I'm not throwing anything out there on anybody.

01:26:48.000 But he told me, and it made sense to me, you've experienced the counterfeit.

01:26:52.000 And for counterfeit to mean anything, there's got to be an authentic...

01:26:56.000 And he told me if there's going to be a Folex watch made, a fake Rolex, there's got to be a Rolex.

01:27:01.000 And you've been around the fake stuff.

01:27:03.000 You've been around the Folexes.

01:27:04.000 You felt the weight of them and they broke on you.

01:27:07.000 You've seen it and you sometimes got to get close enough to where it ticks or it has a smooth transition.

01:27:12.000 Other times, you've got to actually hold it because there's that smooth transition on the Rolex instead of ticking.

01:27:17.000 Other ones are so tricky, you've actually got to feel the weight of it.

01:27:19.000 So what you're making an analogy to is the fake religious people, the people that were fake Christians?

01:27:23.000 No, the people that abused me.

01:27:25.000 And there's a lot of religious people that abuse people, that judge people, that all this stuff, man.

01:27:30.000 And for me, and what this guy shared with me and what he did was he didn't look at the problems I was going through except for to help me out of them.

01:27:38.000 He didn't come down on me about any of them.

01:27:40.000 He didn't judge me.

01:27:41.000 He didn't say you're wrong.

01:27:43.000 He didn't say, God hates you.

01:27:46.000 He said, God loves you, bro.

01:27:47.000 And you got problems.

01:27:48.000 That's okay.

01:27:49.000 And love God, love people.

01:27:51.000 If you can do that thing, it would solve all the problems.

01:27:54.000 If you could love God and love people.

01:27:57.000 Then that would change things.

01:27:59.000 And so that's what changed my life was like, wow.

01:28:01.000 And what I had to happen first was see if God could actually love me.

01:28:06.000 And then I felt in me, my own personal experience and encounter, like I felt like, man, God doesn't hate me.

01:28:12.000 He might love me.

01:28:13.000 And then I feel like he does love me.

01:28:15.000 And then he wants me to love him back and love people.

01:28:18.000 And if I can do those two things, for me, that would change myself.

01:28:22.000 It has changed my life, and I believe it will change others' lives if I can do that.

01:28:27.000 I think for a lot of people who are atheists, they hear this kind of talk, one of the things that comes to mind is they're going, like, where is this God you're talking about?

01:28:35.000 Where is this evidence?

01:28:37.000 To put it into the way I kind of look at it, like, a lot of people have thought, for whatever reason, that I don't believe in God or that I'm anti-God or that I'm an atheist.

01:28:50.000 I would not classify myself in any way, shape, or form.

01:28:55.000 I definitely don't think that I'm an atheist, because I don't not believe in God.

01:29:00.000 But what I think is that when someone can tune into the genuine intentions of the best aspects of any religion, whether it's Christianity, whether it's Hinduism, whether it's...

01:29:19.000 And generosity and fellowship and moving towards good and bringing people together with happiness rather than moving towards bad.

01:29:30.000 And what you've done in your life, you can call it God, you can call it anything, but what you've done in your life is recognize the worst possible aspects, the chemical addiction, the depression, the sadness, the failure, all the self-sabotage,

01:29:46.000 And then realize, there's another way to do this.

01:29:49.000 I've hit the worst possible frequency, and I've also kind of barely been able to tune into this great frequency.

01:29:56.000 Well, what is this?

01:29:57.000 Well, knowing the lows and the lowest lows, sometimes you can really sort of We extrapolate that.

01:30:04.000 There's a counter to that.

01:30:06.000 There's 180 degrees to that, just like your friend was talking about, the Folex and the Rolex.

01:30:10.000 For a lot of people that have a problem with the word God, I had this guy Alex Gray on, who's this visionary artist.

01:30:18.000 Really fascinating, fascinating guy, and he's also this psychedelic adventurer.

01:30:23.000 And he throws around the word God all the time, and he's like, you know, we kind of have to take that word back because the word God sort of has this bad...

01:30:31.000 Heebie-jeebie to it.

01:30:32.000 Yeah, like, oh, you're talking about nonsense.

01:30:35.000 But no, you're not necessarily talking about nonsense.

01:30:38.000 And just because you can't prove it and just because, you know, the Bible was written thousands of years ago, it doesn't mean it's all bullshit.

01:30:45.000 And the true frequency of love, the true frequency of fellowship is really what leads to happiness.

01:30:53.000 You're experiencing that yourself.

01:30:55.000 Oh, man, I am.

01:30:56.000 And that's what this vision is for me with the pygmies in the Congo.

01:30:59.000 Like, a lot of people have misinterpreted it to where they've thought, oh, you're just going there to make a bunch of converts.

01:31:05.000 You should take them a sandwich instead of a bunch of converts.

01:31:08.000 If you actually looked at what I'm doing, I'm actually doing slave liberation, rainforest conservation, and wildlife preservation all wrapped into one.

01:31:17.000 Sustainable ways of life, this and that.

01:31:19.000 It does not hinge around And it does not hinge around if they become a Christian or not.

01:31:27.000 If they don't and they don't want to and they want to worship their God, do witchcraft, do all that, fine.

01:31:32.000 I'm going to love you the same way.

01:31:33.000 I feel like God has put on my heart a desire to love them.

01:31:38.000 And to love them well.

01:31:39.000 And to love them regardless of their choices that they make, just because my choice is to love them.

01:31:44.000 And it doesn't hinge around if they do what I want them to do or not.

01:31:49.000 They're my family, and so I want to see them be self-sustainable and all that other stuff.

01:31:54.000 So it's not about...

01:31:56.000 It's not about like, are they going to become converts or anything like that at all?

01:32:01.000 It's about, I'm going to love you guys and see you guys go from being slaves to being liberated, to being free, to being put on your own land, to being able to farm, to being able to produce your own corn and beans crops, which you're getting ready for their second harvest.

01:32:13.000 First time in history.

01:32:14.000 They're going to have their own school.

01:32:15.000 You're going to be educated.

01:32:16.000 Once they're educated, they can represent themselves at the Capitol.

01:32:18.000 They can be citizens of the country after that.

01:32:21.000 It goes on and on and on.

01:32:23.000 I don't think anybody who's reasonable who listens to you would think that you're just trying to convert people because you're a religious zealot.

01:32:30.000 It doesn't sound like that at all.

01:32:31.000 It sounds like you're doing everything absolutely perfect with the best intentions possible.

01:32:36.000 It's a beautiful story, man.

01:32:37.000 It really is.

01:32:38.000 It's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you in here and talk to you about it.

01:32:42.000 It's become more beautiful the more I hear about it, man.

01:32:44.000 It's really cool.

01:32:47.000 Please, come back again when you're back in town, when you're back a year from now.

01:32:51.000 You got my number.

01:32:52.000 Get in touch with me.

01:32:54.000 Let's do this again and tell me more things.

01:32:56.000 What's the end game?

01:32:57.000 Are you going to stay there forever?

01:32:59.000 Man, I honestly don't know.

01:33:00.000 We're talking about that with my future wife because I don't think we could live there forever.

01:33:06.000 No!

01:33:07.000 No!

01:33:08.000 But I do want to go back often.

01:33:10.000 And this one year is my way of committing to them.

01:33:12.000 And this is what's crazy, man.

01:33:14.000 I'm trying to find a way to turn this huge publicity...

01:33:18.000 Or they're going viral.

01:33:19.000 It was on Jimmy Kimmel and TMZ and the Today Show, and now there's going to be a book.

01:33:23.000 And I'm trying to find a way to go from 800,000 views to $50,000 or maybe even 200 to 250, which I know that sounds like a ton.

01:33:33.000 Start a Kickstarter.

01:33:34.000 Yeah.

01:33:35.000 We're on Indiegogo right now, and we're seeing how that goes.

01:33:38.000 It was before Kickstarter.

01:33:39.000 It's a crowdfunding site.

01:33:41.000 So it's indiegogo.com slash projects slash fight hyphen for...

01:33:47.000 It's fight for the forgotten, but hyphens in between it.

01:33:50.000 So indiegogo.com slash projects slash fight for the forgotten, but there's hyphens in between fight hyphen for...

01:33:57.000 Damn, you're making it difficult as fuck for someone to give you some money.

01:34:00.000 I know.

01:34:01.000 Or you can go to fightfortheforgotten.com.

01:34:04.000 And then you hit donate, and then it would take you to the Indiegogo page.

01:34:07.000 Alright, fightforthevergotten.com.

01:34:09.000 Go there, folks.

01:34:10.000 Please, go there and donate some cash.

01:34:13.000 That sounds amazing, man.

01:34:15.000 If we can help you, if we can help publicize things, if we can tweet things for you, just let me know.

01:34:21.000 Are you going to have any access to the internet while you're out there?

01:34:23.000 Yeah, actually, my buddy that I brought in with me, the filmmaker, he's got a buddy that is developing this military technology that's been picked up by him, but...

01:34:32.000 And they can fly like drones and stuff like that from a briefcase.

01:34:35.000 And you take this briefcase and you take it to remote places of the world and you set up these four squares or something like that.

01:34:42.000 And inside of that, you have perfect Wi-Fi, high speed stuff.

01:34:46.000 So they're trying to see if they could get that to me because I've had zero contact while I've been there.

01:34:50.000 So I'd love to be able to Skype with people, talk to people from the jungle of the Congo.

01:34:54.000 All I need was some power.

01:34:55.000 That would definitely help.

01:34:57.000 And when you do do that, please let us know and we'll tweet it and we'll get it out there to as many people as we can.

01:35:02.000 Man, that's great.

01:35:02.000 The whole main goal is getting potentially...

01:35:07.000 Well, that's actually what I would love to do, is if we could get Shalom University, and it shares it at the Indiegogo page, if we could get them a research center...

01:35:15.000 On the land, and I'm talking about 1,200 acres of land, if we could get them a research center, then that would mean they have year-round students on the pygmy land, and they'd be able to develop them in different self-sustainable ways of life, crops, water wells, all this stuff.

01:35:30.000 College students would get credit to develop the pygmies in sustainable ways of life.

01:35:35.000 And so the big goal would be 200 to 250,000.

01:35:39.000 I think it's right there, and it says what it does, and it's It's some crazy stuff where, I mean, I'll read it real quick, but it's...

01:35:49.000 Yeah.

01:35:49.000 So for $200,000 to $250,000, this is with the university.

01:35:52.000 This isn't something I made up.

01:35:54.000 This is what they've been able to say.

01:35:55.000 It would literally have 3,000 to 5,000 slaves put on five square kilometers of perfect rainforest, five square kilometers of land for the $200,000 price.

01:36:07.000 But then after that, it would preserve the culture of the pygmies.

01:36:11.000 It would get water wells.

01:36:13.000 It would get nutritious crops growing.

01:36:14.000 So not just...

01:36:16.000 Not just corn and beans, but good crops.

01:36:18.000 It would have a tilapia pond that's stocked, so the corn would feed the chickens, it would also feed the tilapia, and it would feed the pygmies.

01:36:26.000 And it just is a self-sustainable way of life.

01:36:28.000 It could have earthbag home technology.

01:36:31.000 Have you ever seen those, the earthbag homes or the eco-domes?

01:36:34.000 Those things are crazy.

01:36:35.000 So today one of my buddies was over there having a meeting with him.

01:36:39.000 And they might want to support this project where if we're in the U.S., three to five men, it would only take them three to five days to build a three to five room home.

01:36:48.000 And it's under $300 in the U.S. All it is is sandbags.

01:36:52.000 Sandbags, you fill it with dirt, and you make this like Adobe that you put on the outside of it.

01:36:56.000 And so we're trying to get that technology over there to them.

01:36:59.000 Shalom University is like all on board wanting to do that.

01:37:02.000 And so really, and then they would have that university research center there where they get, and that's the thing.

01:37:08.000 I don't want this project, I don't want the pygmies to be dependent on me.

01:37:14.000 Like, if I'm only there a year, and I can only do a year's worth of stuff, I want this thing to be a well-oiled machine that it lasts long after I'm gone.

01:37:22.000 And so that way, I don't know, I want this thing to outlive me, if that makes sense.

01:37:25.000 I want it to keep going on.

01:37:26.000 It does make sense.

01:37:27.000 It's a very noble idea, man.

01:37:29.000 And listen, you've done an amazing thing so far, and we're going to try to help you.

01:37:33.000 So fightfortheforgotten.com.

01:37:36.000 Go there, give some money to the, what is it, IndieGo?

01:37:40.000 Indiegogo.com.

01:37:41.000 Indiegogo.com.

01:37:42.000 Find it, folks.

01:37:43.000 You can find it.

01:37:43.000 You're smart, folks.

01:37:45.000 Fightfortheforgotten.com.

01:37:46.000 Fightfortheforgotten.com.

01:37:47.000 And you can follow Justin.

01:37:48.000 He is on Twitter.

01:37:50.000 It's JustinTheViking on Twitter, right?

01:37:53.000 Yes, sir.

01:37:53.000 All right.

01:37:54.000 Dude, thank you very much, man.

01:37:55.000 I'm so glad you did this.

01:37:56.000 This is one of the coolest things.

01:37:57.000 Thanks.

01:37:57.000 One of the coolest things for us, too.

01:37:59.000 Thank you very much, man.

01:38:00.000 All right, folks.

01:38:01.000 We'll be back most likely tomorrow with Shane Smith.

01:38:05.000 We've got to work out the dates and time, but tomorrow night we do have a show at the Ice House Comedy Club, and that is at 10 p.m.

01:38:15.000 with Ian Edwards and Ari Shafir.

01:38:18.000 Thanks to Hover.com.

01:38:19.000 Go to Hover.com forward slash Rogan, and you will get 10% off your domain name registrations.

01:38:25.000 They're a very cool company, and they help support this podcast.

01:38:29.000 Thanks also to Audible.com.

01:38:31.000 If you go to Audible.com forward slash Joe, you will get free 30 days service from Audible.com and a free audiobook.

01:38:39.000 And we would recommend Nocturnal from our buddy Scott Sigler, who's just in here today.

01:38:44.000 Really cool guy.

01:38:46.000 So audible.com forward slash Joe.

01:38:49.000 Thursday night, this Thursday night, at the American Comedy Company in San Diego, California, where they just got their liquor.

01:38:56.000 So if you want to fuck your life up and go down the hard path that Justin Wren just recovered from, go down to San Diego and take shots of Jack Daniels with Mexican narcotics!

01:39:05.000 Because they're right across the border in San Diego.

01:39:07.000 I'm not telling you you should do this, but if you're going to do that, that's the place to be.

01:39:12.000 San Diego, American Comedy Company, and lots of funny comics, and it's this Thursday night.

01:39:19.000 Alright, my friends, listen, the message of this podcast could not have been better served by Justin Renn today.

01:39:28.000 You stand for everything that is good in this world, my friend, and what you're doing, I think, is a beautiful thing, and I'm honored to have you on this podcast.

01:39:37.000 To tell the world about this.

01:39:38.000 I appreciate you so much.

01:39:39.000 We're going to have you on again, my friend.

01:39:40.000 All right.

01:39:41.000 After we send a thousand slaves free.

01:39:42.000 We're going to send slaves free.

01:39:44.000 We're going to put people on Mars.

01:39:47.000 Telepathy.

01:39:48.000 We're going to find the Bigfoots.

01:39:50.000 And all more.

01:39:52.000 And then some.

01:39:53.000 And then we're going to go to God.

01:39:55.000 All right, folks.

01:39:56.000 We love the shit out of you.

01:39:57.000 And we'll see you tomorrow.

01:39:58.000 Thanks.

01:39:58.000 Bye.

01:39:59.000 Appreciate it.

The Joe Rogan Experience - March 12, 2013

Joe Rogan Experience #337 - Justin Wren

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