In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with stand-up comic, comedian, and animal charity worker, Jeff Perla. We talk about growing up with cleft palates, how he got into comedy, and how he became a better version of himself through his work with Operation Smile, a charity that helps disabled children. Jeff also talks about his recent trip to Vietnam and how it changed his perspective on life, and why it s important to be kinder to the people you care about. We also talk about how to deal with anxiety and depression, and what it s like to be a comedian in a corporate world where everyone else seems to have it figured out. And, of course, we talk about standup comedy. I hope you enjoy this episode and that it makes you think about how important it is to take care of those who are less fortunate than you, especially those who don t have it as easy as you do. Tweet me and Jeff if you have any thoughts or suggestions on how we can improve the show. Timestamps: 5:00 - How do you stay kinder? 6:30 - How can I help more people? 7:15 - Why do I get better at comedy? 8:20 - What do I do it? 9:00- How do I feel about my job? 10:00 11:40 - Why I got into standup? 12:20 13:30 15:15 16:00 | How I m not a comedian? 17:30 | What s I m sick of myself? 18:40 | What do you like? 19: What s my favorite thing to do? 21:40 22:15 | What is my favorite part of the day? 23:00 / 22:00 // What s your favorite thing? 26:00 + 27:30 What s the worst thing you ve ever done? 27:00 Do you like about me? 28:30 Do you think I m going to do more? 29: What are you looking for? 30:30 Can you tell me what you would you like to see me do in a movie? ? 35:30 + 32:00 & 35:00 Can you give me a movie or something like that? 36:30 Is there a movie I m working on?
00:00:43.000Yeah, so there's this charity called Operation Smile.
00:00:47.000And I usually work in animal charities because people, I think, are usually the problem.
00:00:53.000And helping people just seems to make more proliferate.
00:00:57.000And in terms of charity stuff, I think that just why I started wanting to get more involved is, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, I started not liking the person that I was.
00:01:08.000I started realizing I was the person who was like...
00:01:21.000What made you feel like you were going to a place that you didn't like or becoming a person you didn't like?
00:01:27.000I think it's like, you know, doing like working with animals and like, you know, going to sort of parts of town that I wouldn't normally go to, to rescue animals and dogs.
00:01:37.000You start going like, oh, there's a real world outside this Truman show that we live in of the fake sets and the fake this and the fake people and the fake, you know, makeup and the fake clothes and everything.
00:03:30.000I'm sick of like, and there's something about being around people that don't speak English that kind of strips you of your like persona.
00:03:39.000You know, of your, all the things that you just, because some, I mean, I just, I don't want to go through life like a sleepwalking zombie who's just like doing a bad impression of myself every day.
00:04:24.000Challenge my brain and throw some new shit at it.
00:04:27.000And being around people that don't speak English is really...
00:04:30.000And first of all, have no idea who you are, which is another experience when you're used to people knowing who you are and having expectations of you and thinking you're going to be funny or...
00:04:41.000You know, when you're known, all of a sudden you have the power, whether you want it or not, in a room.
00:04:46.000You know, you walk into a room and you have the power.
00:04:48.000Whether you're interested in having it or not, you just do, right?
00:04:51.000Joe Rogan walks in, everyone's like, oh, Joe Rogan, see everyone be cool and everyone's trying to impress you.
00:05:25.000You know, you can't rely on any of that shit that we've become used to relying on.
00:05:30.000And talking to people that don't speak English, all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can't use all my go-to strategies, charm, manipulation, jokes.
00:06:32.000So I was like, oh, if I just expose myself to a little bit more...
00:06:37.000Not tragedy, but maybe, you know, and stop hanging out with a bunch of people with fake problems and hang out and surround myself with real problems, then maybe I'll stop thinking I have a bunch of problems I don't really have.
00:06:48.000I always love talking to you because you're probably one of the most ruthlessly introspective people I know.
00:07:22.000And I actually want to talk about this in my next special because they were given to me because I was having trouble sleeping.
00:07:30.000I had insomnia, which I recently learned about how insomnia sort of came about, and it's actually really important.
00:07:36.000And I wish that there were doctors out there who studied shit like that.
00:07:39.000Like, insomnia, usually people are insomniacs.
00:07:41.000Fucking thousands of years ago, people in the tribes, My tribal life, before street lights and alarm systems, there were people who were responsible for staying up while everybody else slept.
00:07:51.000They were called the night watchers, basically.
00:07:54.000And night watchers would breed with night watchers.
00:09:04.000You've almost got too many points of focus where I imagine that your brain getting down to a neutral point, it probably has a very difficult time.
00:09:13.000Yeah, and I've also done a couple things, you know, but also our brains are not designed to see the amount of light that we see.
00:09:19.000Like, the screens in our phone, like, our brain produces cortisol when they see it.
00:10:44.000Yes, because I'm like, phone, phone, and a lot of it is just the colors.
00:10:47.000It's just like, oh, cortisol, adrenaline, red produces adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, and then I'm just like, now I'm just like, ugh, it's so...
00:13:02.000I had the same thing just happen with a manager who hadn't heard from me because I went to Vietnam and I got back and I was just like, I recently learned that when someone calls or texts, you don't have to respond.
00:13:11.000Like, I think we get in this obligatory sort of thing if we have to respond to everything.
00:13:16.000And it was actually interesting going to Japan because that culture is so...
00:13:22.000I'm using this word probably inappropriately, but for lack of a better word, codependent.
00:13:28.000It's so like having to take care of everybody's feelings.
00:14:18.000The pilot was wrong, but because of the inherent respect for your elders thing, he couldn't say, like, dude, we're going to crash if you fucking do that.
00:14:35.000I think I was a little bit saddened by this culture of shame over there.
00:14:43.000We have it in different ways, but if you disgrace your family, you just jump off a building.
00:14:51.000So many people were jumping in front of trains.
00:14:56.000That the only way they could get them to stop jumping in front of trains when they shamed their family was saying, if people jump in front of trains, we're gonna bill your family for the cleanup.
00:15:07.000So that got them to stop, because they were like, oh, I don't want my family to have to get this bill, because that will disgrace them even more.
00:15:14.000So they had to use their shame against them as a way to get them to stop committing suicide.
00:15:20.000I mean, in China, Apple had to put nets around the building.
00:15:25.000That's how many people were jumping off it.
00:15:26.000Well, that's a real issue in and unto itself, because Apple's paying these people, and they're living in this building, and they're paying them dog shit.
00:15:50.000Just in general, and I don't want to come from a judgy place because we obviously have our problems in the States, but it was just a really...
00:15:59.000I feel like when I went over there, everyone was like, God, you're just going to love it.
00:16:47.000What terrifies me is that that's probably an ancient way of thinking and behaving.
00:16:54.000So like we look at today and we look at this world that we live in today and obviously we have a lot of issues with equality and we have a lot of issues with racism.
00:17:03.000We have a lot of issues with homophobia.
00:17:05.000But whatever issues we have are nothing.
00:17:22.000I'm not endorsing hate crimes, but if, you know, someone beats up a gay guy, most people think it was bad that he did that, and they go to jail.
00:17:32.000But it's one person who's fucked up, not an entire country that's like, yeah, that was a good idea.
00:17:43.000I'm not saying you guys have to become America, but it was just a little bit like, oh, this is like...
00:17:48.000Well, I like the fact that they're not America.
00:17:50.000I like that there's all these different cultures because I think it's fascinating that there's different parts of the world where people have figured out a different way to behave and they follow this different pattern.
00:18:05.000I mean, when you look at different parts of the world and you experience their culture or you look at how they're behaving and how they dress and how they speak and how they live their lives and their traditions, it is absolutely fascinating, these patterns of repeatable behavior, repeating patterns that exist all over the world and that they're so different.
00:18:22.000They're different in Thailand than they are in Germany.
00:21:20.000A lot of more religious countries think you're the devil or you can't get a job, you're completely sequestered, you're thrown out of your family.
00:21:30.000And I think, and this is going to sound super corny, but I guess for me I connected so much to, maybe it's because we're comedians, I was like, look, It's one thing to grow up in a third world country.
00:21:45.000It's another thing to deal with poverty.
00:21:46.000But if you can't smile, like the basic, the only real medicine we have, you know, everybody has universal medicine of like laughing and smiling.
00:26:29.000It doesn't have to be their mom necessarily, but babies should always just be being held.
00:26:34.000Men and women kind of weren't supposed to live together.
00:26:37.000We're supposed to kind of fuck, and then you go off, and then all the women live together and help raise all the kids.
00:26:44.000So there was something interesting in that because in the first three years, a child's ability to believe in their own faculties, essentially, to trust other people and to feel like they are heard and seen depends on how much eye contact and physical touch they get.
00:27:02.000Yeah, because basically touching is going like, I see you, you're here.
00:27:06.000And the less touch and eye contact they get, the more invisible they feel and the more dangerous they feel the world is for them.
00:27:12.000Yeah, and there's this great, you'll love this, John Bowlby's theory of attachment, like when babies crawl, it's the same as...
00:27:19.000Venobo Apes is they'll crawl a foot and then they'll look back and see if dad's still looking at me.
00:29:58.000And literally he started the email with like, This probably isn't even you, so Whitney's assistant, like, you know, no problem, and I'm such a big fan, and da-da-da.
00:30:29.000It went from total awe and respect and adulation, you're probably not even going to check this, and I'm sure this will never happen, to I became his assistant.
00:32:48.000And he said something once, because he was on the road with me for a while, and, like...
00:32:51.00035-40 minutes into all my sets at the time a guy would just snap and start yelling at me and he's like I think what happens is like they're like loving it funny funny female comedian funny it's funny but like 40 minutes in you just become their wife or the girl that wouldn't fuck them or their mother or something and they just see you it's like all of a sudden you just become a woman who's yelling at them and they're not allowed to talk back One guy just will snap.
00:36:39.000I do think there is this thing, the same way women sometimes meet a man and they're like, I can fix him, when he's probably not broken and is happy and fine.
00:37:04.000And there was this comedian who sent me a message on, I guess it was when I was on Facebook, or it wasn't MySpace, it was one of those, who I would always see around.
00:37:50.000And I get this message that was like rage, like a rage, rage email that was like, you know, you don't know what your, like, you know, the basic gist of it, I don't remember how it started, but it ended in like, you don't know what makes you cum.
00:40:35.000Or should I use what I'm doing and just enjoy it and have a good time and then realize that I probably got here because of an unhealthy obsession or because of a bad childhood or whatever, but now that I'm kind of moving past that, maybe I could use this position to just have some fun.
00:40:55.000Exactly what you're saying like you just made it so clear to me what I was not being clear about in the beginning of like the You know if you bring unfunny people on the road you're really funny Comparatively and so all of a sudden you've created this little world for yourself where you become this king of the idiots Yes,
00:41:12.000but if you were to step outside that world You're all of a sudden at the bottom of the food chain like you create a world where at the top of the food chain Which is like why it was important to me to Go to other countries, be around people that have no idea who I am, that I don't pay, that don't think I'm funny,
00:41:28.000that can't even understand what I'm saying.
00:42:31.000What you're talking about is navigating all these landmines that success can set up for you, which are better landmines than failure, but still landmines.
00:42:42.000And the landmines of fame are particularly intoxicating because when someone has a bunch of fans that say, oh my god, Mike Fuckface is here.
00:43:01.000It becomes this thing where you get accustomed to that.
00:43:06.000It gets so myopic and you forget that there's six billion people that don't have any fucking idea who you are.
00:43:12.000And if Mike Fuckface is around Tony McDickface, and Tony McDickface is more famous, like Tony McDickface has a movie out now, then Mike Fuckface gets really mad.
00:43:22.000Like, Tony McDickface is stealing my shine.
00:43:39.000No, I literally found myself, because it's also, if you do achieve anything, it doesn't matter because you're just comparing yourself to someone with more achievements.
00:43:46.000So I'm recreating this feeling of failure at every level of success and recreating this unhappiness at every level where I have no real problems.
00:44:34.000The guys that fucking lost their limbs for our country?
00:44:37.000Like, this is where you're putting them?
00:44:38.000I mean, vets are dying in these fucking facilities.
00:44:41.000We had to do these, we did these benefits, these events called Fight for the Troops, and we did these for the Intrepid Center for Excellence.
00:44:51.000Which is an establishment that they've...
00:44:55.000These facilities, they're creating these state-of-the-art facilities to deal with people with traumatic brain injuries.
00:45:01.000And so they showed us all these guys and it's unbelievably heartbreaking.
00:45:06.000You see these people with their wives and their children and their families and they're trying to rehabilitate them and they're going through all these steps.
00:45:13.000But what was more disheartening than anything was to realize that all this stuff is privately funded because the United States government just...
00:45:21.000They don't allocate enough money to treatment of these troops when they get home.
00:45:26.000So we have to raise all this money for these people.
00:45:29.000So while we're doing this, they wanted us to talk about it at the beginning of it.
00:45:33.000And I have to measure myself because it's on television and what I want to say is this is fucking crazy that we have to do a fight to raise...
00:45:43.000We're going to give people brain damage so that we can raise money for brain damage.
00:45:48.000You'll raise the money for all the weapons.
00:46:44.000Chop a chunk of that shit out and send it to the Intrepid Center.
00:46:48.000I mean, there's got to be a way that there's got to be some fucking red tape and bureaucracy that you can cut and you could send some of that money to help take care of these people that you're forcing to go overseas and fight these battles.
00:47:55.000I've talked to too many guys and I've talked to too many people that, you know, the reality of it is so bleak.
00:48:01.000And also, from the little I know about it, and then the drone guys is a real nightmare because there's all this, you know, normally when you are in combat and you come back, you do a, is it called a neutralization period?
00:48:15.000Like you go to Germany for like five days and they chill you out before you go back to your family and kids after you've just been in combat.
00:48:23.000But these drone guys, not only is the technology so advanced that they're seeing all these women and children, they're not in the fog of war, right?
00:48:29.000They don't just see, like, threat, threat, threat.
00:48:31.000Because when you are getting shot at, a kid might as well be a guy with a gun.
00:48:36.000So these guys are seeing these people getting shot super close up.
00:48:41.000They're seeing their own guys get shot.
00:48:44.000They're seeing it, and then they go upstairs to their wife and kids, and there's just no...
00:49:16.000Well, from what I've talked to with guys that were in the SEALs or Rangers, special operatives guys, is that those guys have way less issues.
00:50:53.000It's like, we're actually supposed to be anxious, you know, just by the laws of survival of the fittest.
00:50:57.000The fittest were the ones that were anxious.
00:50:59.000You know, thousands of years ago, the anxious hypervigilant people were the ones that were like, oh, there's a fucking tiger, we should move.
00:51:04.000And the ones that didn't have anxiety just got eaten alive, right?
00:51:07.000Well, then you're definitely one of the watchers.
00:51:32.000Also, to your point just now, I never thought, of course I hadn't thought about it, I'm not smart enough to, but I have never known that humans are not designed to be at the top of the food chain.
00:51:43.000We're only at the top of the food chain because we have weapons.
00:51:46.000And the reason we have weapons is because we have really large brains.
00:51:49.000Which was actually not helpful at all.
00:51:51.000It's really inefficient and uneconomical for energy because I guess our brains burn like 25 or 30% of our calories or something.
00:51:57.000So chimpanzees and apes had smaller brains.
00:52:00.000They were able to climb trees and avoid threats.
00:52:02.000Like a big brain is like a disaster, except that we invented tools.
00:52:07.000So we sort of, not based on merit, we superficially, once we invented tools, jumped to the top of the food chain, but we don't deserve to be there because without weapons, A lot of species would kill us.
00:52:18.000Yeah, but we can figure out weapons, so of course we deserve to be there.
00:52:21.000Totally, but as soon as the weapons are gone, we're vulnerable.
00:53:08.000The second you run out of bullets, it's over.
00:53:10.000Well, you know, when you think about what made a human a human, it's really fascinating.
00:53:16.000Because it becomes like, what came first, the chicken or the egg?
00:53:19.000Like, what were we like when we were Australopithecus?
00:53:22.000You know, they have these depictions of us and what we looked like all hairy and with fucking sloped foreheads and shit.
00:53:28.000We were pretty close to people, but not really people.
00:53:31.000And when you really look at the fossil record, what they understand at least, we're only talking about this kind of person, like you and I, for a couple hundred thousand years.
00:54:27.000So I'm really afraid that if I admit this, although I'm going to lose my foot fetish demo, but I had this pain in my foot and I think we're probably a little bit similar, you much more so, but I have a pretty high tolerance for pain.
00:54:50.000So I had this pain in my foot, or my big toe and then my third toe, once every two weeks, real bad.
00:54:59.000And it would be just a stabbing, awful pain, but I just was like, oh, that's my foot.
00:55:03.000Like once every two weeks, my foot has like a spasm and it lasts for like, I don't know, like two minutes and then I get through it.
00:55:08.000And I was in a writer's room one day and my feet were up on the table and then I was like, had the pain came and I was like, and I'm like screaming.
00:55:17.000And two minutes later, I'm like, anyway, so act three, what should we?
00:55:20.000And everyone was like, what the fuck was that?
00:57:08.000But these Chumani people, Rinello was there, and he was walking through the woods with these people, and he was like, this is incredible, because they've never had shoes.
00:57:27.000But again, that's exactly like you keep saying, my goal, we acclimate to where we are, so I want to have the thick, thick soul in my personality.
00:58:41.000In Boulder, one of the things that I found, and I was only in Boulder for a few months, but one of the things that I found when I was there was people drive way more polite.
00:59:02.000So when you have a small community, first of all, there's less diffusion of responsibility because you and that person are probably going to see each other again.
00:59:30.000I mean, that's really like a tribe mentality.
00:59:33.000Like there was these people that were pushing their car the other day and they were on the side of the road and I was thinking, fuck, should I get out of the car and help them push the car?
01:00:10.000You'd pass each other and everybody...
01:00:12.000And I got used to doing it and we all did it.
01:00:13.000You know, as you were driving this way and that person was driving that way, you lift your hand up and you wave to them because there's not that many of you.
01:00:19.000See, in LA, I think there's so fucking many people that we lose the idea of value of our fellow humans because our fellow humans become a burden.
01:00:32.000And so there's a lot of benefit in that.
01:00:34.000For people like you and I, it's great because there's so many clubs we can work at.
01:00:38.000There's so much variety as far as restaurants we can eat at or places we can go and so much culture to see.
01:00:44.000But also, you're dealing with this massive volume of people and it's hard to keep your perspective.
01:00:50.000It's hard to keep your perspective just with the sheer numbers.
01:00:52.000And I think in a lot of ways it mirrors what we're talking about, even with celebrity or with fame or with wealth, that it's hard to keep perspective.
01:01:01.000People need adversity, difficult situations.
01:01:05.000We need things in order to keep our perspective.
01:01:15.000I mean, it's not as much of a car culture, but there's a weird—I wonder what part of its cultural and whether cars play it, because it's really—everything is Times Square.
01:01:44.000Yeah, maybe it is that cultural thing we were talking about earlier, but it's less of like, maybe it's because we live in a capitalist society where it's all like we're competing with everybody.
01:01:53.000Well, they compete too, but they compete in a very different way than we do.
01:01:56.000They have a lot of honor and behavior patterns that they're expected to follow.
01:02:03.000It's a very different world, but I was amazed how polite people were in Tokyo.
01:02:31.000It's like the service is like, you know, as you said, it's all about honor and dignity and taking pride in your work, which I'm all about fucking shortcuts.
01:02:38.000It's like, how do I... Well, they're all about doing something the most difficult way.
01:03:01.000This is a real samurai sword from the 1500s, like legitimately.
01:03:04.000And if you look at that blade, that blade was made by some guy who took steel, pounded it, folded it over, pounded it again, folded it over, pounded it again.
01:04:30.000I mean a weak person who stabs you in the wrong spot with a small knife is probably not going to get it in.
01:04:37.000But somebody who stabs you with that fucking thing, the odds of that not going through your ribs, pretty small.
01:04:44.000If you're a strong person, most likely you're going to penetrate their entire body.
01:04:48.000But it's also mirrored in archery, like in bow hunting.
01:04:52.000That's like one of the most important aspects of bow hunting is to have a heavy arrow, That has a sharp blade with a powerful bow, so it goes through bone.
01:05:10.000My nails, my hair, it's like, in that same book, it talks about how bone marrow, human brain growth, exponentially went up when humans started eating the bone marrow of animals.
01:05:23.000Because they couldn't hunt their own animals.
01:05:24.000They had to eat the leftover bone trash.
01:05:27.000But that's actually where all the vitamins and the good shit is.
01:05:29.000Well, there's so many questions and so many theories about what caused the doubling of the human brain size over a period of two million years.
01:05:35.000It's really a fascinating subject because they just don't know.
01:06:37.000It's very controversial, but the idea is that human beings come out of the womb with so much body fat, and we're so different than chimpanzees in that regard.
01:06:44.000Like, a chimpanzee baby is like a chimpanzee adult.
01:07:00.000And the idea is that we were in water and that we developed and we possibly evolved around water to the point where babies, like if you throw a chimpanzee baby in the water, they fucking drown.
01:07:13.000They just, they breathe water and they drown.
01:07:15.000You throw a human baby in the water, they instinctively hold their breath.
01:07:40.000And so the aquatic ape theory theorizes that at one point in our evolution, we were primarily water bound, and that maybe we went into the water to get away from predators, or that maybe we figured out a way to develop in the water as lower hominids.
01:07:55.000So no other animal holds their breath?
01:07:58.000I don't know about no other animal, but I know that other primates don't.
01:08:01.000Other primates just fucking drown like dummies.
01:08:04.000Well, and if we were webbed at some point, is that for swimming?
01:08:07.000Didn't we have webbed feet at some point?
01:08:09.000I don't know if that's true, because chimps don't.
01:09:01.000But there's something about our fingers, too.
01:09:03.000If you think about the dexterity and the control that we have over our hands...
01:09:08.000It's so unusual in comparison to any other animal.
01:09:11.000And our fingers, when our fingers get all wet and wrinkly, there was this interesting study about how fingers, after being in water for two hours, could pick up more marbles than dry hands,
01:09:28.000which kind of means that we must have needed to be in the water a lot.
01:10:05.000I just, I'm so, I'm such a klutzy, like, I'm afraid I'm just like, and just like, slice his fucking head just in half.
01:10:13.000Scientists think they have the answer why the skin on human fingers and toes shrivels up like an old prude when we soak in the bath.
01:10:17.000Laboratory tests confirmed the theory that wrinkly fingers improve our grip on wet or submerged objects, working to channel away the water like a rain treads in car tires.
01:11:54.000Because, and this is, he's far more qualified than I am to answer this, so I'm using his rationale.
01:12:00.000He thinks that powerlifting and bodybuilding movement, or powerlifting and weightlifting movements, like deadlifts or like cleans and presses, you shouldn't do them for like sets of 30 and 40 and 50 and having these competitions to see who can do the most.
01:12:18.000It's not, he's of the school of thought that you should like strength, Lifting exercises or strength producing exercises should be done with low repetitions and, you know, you should take breaks in between them and it's about building the physical strength of your body.
01:12:35.000It's not about performing them in a contest.
01:12:37.000Now the CrossFit people, I think if I could speak for them, I think they think of it as a healthy lifestyle and that this competition is It makes them work harder, and they all work out together.
01:12:51.000And if you follow CrossFit people, and it's one of the things about CrossFit people that they say, like, if someone's a CrossFit and they're a vegan, what do they talk about first?
01:13:12.000Well, it's one of those things when you get excited about it.
01:13:14.000Like vegans, the most proselytizing vegans when you talk to them.
01:13:17.000Like one of the things I've found, because a lot of vegans get really upset with me because I eat meat.
01:13:21.000But one of the things that I've found with a lot of them is that I'll go to their Instagram page after they shit on me and I say, I just found a bacon fucking sandwich that's four months old.
01:13:29.000So it means, how long have you been a vegan?
01:14:23.000These people are just procreating all day with other people.
01:14:27.000But they think all these people are in on it.
01:14:28.000And they think that if you look at the horizon, like there's videos, there's like a video that shows like the 200 reasons why they can prove that the earth is flat.
01:14:36.000And it's so fucking stupid, it hurts my feelings.
01:14:39.000It really, it makes me, so maybe it's my night watch or fight or flight thing, but like when I hear that I just feel like I'm in danger.
01:15:55.000Look, there's countless examples of people creating these behavior patterns that other folks are forced to follow.
01:16:03.000And these ideologies, you see the way people think.
01:16:08.000And I think, to a certain extent, there's a lot of what people call the regressive left.
01:16:14.000Like when people get mad at a white guy for wearing dreadlocks and they say this is cultural appropriation, you're taking black people's culture.
01:16:21.000Like that sort of same thing is akin to religious people that want to force women to dress a certain way or want to force gay people to act a certain way.
01:16:32.000There's parts of certain ideologies that literally exist because someone is trying to exert control over other people and they think they can because it's a rule.
01:16:57.000We only had dreadlocks until the 1600s.
01:16:59.000It's so stupid, but it's a new way that people can get upset at certain groups.
01:17:05.000And the left, especially a lot of people get upset at that term, the regressive left, but it's a good term.
01:17:11.000And the reason why it's a good term is because, first of all, they're attacking white gay men now for having privileges.
01:17:19.000I've read this whole article about white gay privilege as opposed to black men and people of color who are gay, who don't get to experience the same freedom that white gay people do that live in white neighborhoods and have, you know, adopt white babies.
01:17:57.000Because then they get to complain about it and be...
01:17:59.000They get to take the more They get to be sanctimonious, and they get to be, you know, right, and it's just like...
01:18:04.000I think that sort of thinking, I don't want to call it religion, because I think it's a pattern, and patterns in these ideologies, I think it's problematic when you label it, like, this is because of God, this is...
01:18:15.000But it's these patterns that people force their mind into.
01:18:17.000Well, some people force themselves into these patterns where everything is a fucking conspiracy.
01:18:23.000And this is how you get to this, like, delusional state of mind that would allow you to think that the earth is flat.
01:18:30.000Or that, you know, the government's run by reptilians.
01:18:34.000But to me, intelligence is kind of someone being able to go, I think this is how it is.
01:19:34.000It's obviously easy to be because it's so common.
01:19:37.000That someone's belief system is their home, you know?
01:19:38.000And if you think something and someone proves you wrong, you will be angry and you will defend that original idea as if it's a part of you that someone's trying to steal.
01:19:45.000It's like, yes, why are you insulting me?
01:20:43.000Every five years, there's a new fucking piece of information.
01:20:46.000Did you see the latest, this thing that I tweeted yesterday, that they've given approval to people to use stem cells to try to regenerate dead people's brains?
01:28:51.000You don't get money, you don't get endorsement.
01:28:53.000The thing I like about it, that attracted me to it, there's no endorsement deals, nothing's being promoted, it's just people that want to fucking fight each other.
01:29:03.000What I don't understand is, where's the leg kicks?
01:29:05.000Do you guys not understand about leg kicks?
01:30:44.000So I think the people at CrossFit, no, I mean, I'm not negative about CrossFit, but the kind of people who have to get that energy out, I worry where that energy would go if they weren't getting it out in competing or fighting or boxing or whatever.
01:31:55.000Kickboxing to me is, like, I feel like even boxing is more, as long as you're sparring with people who you know are not going to hit you hard, at least you've got a little bit more control of this situation.
01:32:28.000I just routinely abused it in so many ways.
01:32:31.000The people I surrounded myself with, the things I ate, the way that I lived, I didn't sleep, and it was like I needed to be proven the fragility of my body.
01:33:24.000So I was hypermobile, which I didn't know, which means I lift things, everything from a weight to a coffee cup with my joints, not my muscles.
01:33:51.000So when I pick something up, it's my knees and my hips and my lower back instead of my thigh muscles and my glutes.
01:33:58.000Well, that's one of the best things about kettlebell training, in my opinion, is that they're so awkward that it forces you to understand how to use your body as a unit.
01:34:05.000There's a lot of people that do bodybuilding-type workouts and the isolation exercises, although they make your muscles bigger, they don't allow your body to synchronize and use itself as one individual unit.
01:37:40.000Well, I wonder what allergies guys have.
01:37:43.000Are some guys allergic to eating pussy?
01:37:45.000Okay, sperm allergy, sometimes semen allergy, seminal plasma, hypersensitivity is a rare allergic reaction to proteins found in a man's semen.
01:39:41.000Okay, so it's going to be a lot of people on the set.
01:39:43.000Yeah, I mean, they'll probably minimize unnecessary people that day.
01:39:48.000I had a dude who I was friends with who did a sex scene with a girl, and they're making out, and she goes, if you want, you can go ahead and fuck me.
01:44:00.000Yeah, maybe Dr. Audrey PhD, but I just mean like some benign friend of your girl or whatever.
01:44:08.000And then, because it's also, that's something that I love about Like, if you're fixing something, I want you to only be focusing on that.
01:44:16.000Guys don't multitask in the same way, you know?
01:44:19.000I just think that calling guys dumb, it's just as glorifying, like, a neurotic, multitasking, you know, overworked or glorification of busy type that's the new thing.
01:44:29.000Guys that are just, like, simple, you know, I just...
01:45:01.000You know, it's like, it's easy to say she's a crazy bitch instead of say, well, I was raised kind of fucked up and I really don't have intimacy.
01:45:07.000Yes, and I get triggered by women like her and she wasn't heard as a child.
01:45:11.000And plus I'm insecure and she's a little stronger than I like.
01:45:13.000I was molested and it's just, it's, yeah.
01:47:24.000I think these fucking re-animate guys, these assholes that are shooting stem cells into dumb people's heads, those fuckers, they're gonna fix it all.
01:47:33.000I know, I'm like, I know a lot of alive people who need that, but, um, yeah, that is, uh, I mean, I imagine it's because it doesn't have a brain and blood.
01:47:43.000Humans, I guess, have to get a certain body temperature.
01:47:46.000I mean, that's like some Austin Powers shit.
01:47:48.000But even a cell, to me, I mean, if it was an individual cell, like if the egg had been fertilized and it created one cell, the idea that you could freeze that fucking cell before it divides and becomes a full-on human being, the idea that you could freeze that one cell and then regenerate it, that's crazy.
01:48:06.000Honestly, I don't know how people do like it's so I guess that's why I tried to read so much shit because I'm like I don't understand how I can't even understand what these people are doing and I'm not even doing it.
01:48:17.000I mean, which is so really fascinating because if you brought this concept to someone 200 years ago or even a hundred years ago, they think you're out of your fucking mind.
01:48:25.000Yeah, but it's it sounds fucking crazy.
01:52:29.000I mean, it's really a total chemical bonding thing.
01:52:33.000Well, also, there might have been some severe desperation in her life that made her take this position as being a surrogate mother in the first place.
01:52:40.000And the money that they gave her might have alleviated a lot of the problems that were causing her to be so desperate that she wanted to have a surrogate baby.
01:52:50.000For them, it was really heartbreaking, but it was also like, wow, this is her fucking baby.
01:52:57.000I mean, she grew it in her body, like biologically.
01:52:59.000I also have friends with surrogates, and it's very stressful because you want to micromanage what they're eating, if they're sleeping.
01:53:07.000But something that was helpful that I learned was that if a baby's not getting the nutrients it needs, it will take it from its mother's bones.
01:53:14.000So if your surrogate is eating McDonald's, your kid's going to be fine.
01:53:19.000The carrier is the one that's going to suffer.
01:54:15.000And the whole sort of theory is to not have an orgasm unless you're going to actually procreate because of the chemicals that are released.
01:54:53.000I remember reading it, and while I was reading it, I was like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
01:54:56.000I mean, I don't want to live like that, but it makes a lot of sense.
01:54:58.000Well, it's something about how if you want to stay in love with someone long term, because if you have too many orgasms, you produce dopamine, and then after—because essentially we're designed to procreate, like you said— And then the female starts producing oxytocin, but the male starts being less interested and the brain is like,
01:55:15.000okay, now you have to go procreate with someone else because our brain doesn't know that there's six billion people on the planet and we don't need to fucking procreate with a lot of different moms.
01:55:24.000So it's something about if you want to be in a relationship for a long time.
01:56:22.000So I think, and I mean that in the best way possible, but you're very smart and you're very ambitious and you're interested in a lot of different things and you have to have someone who's similar in some ways.
01:57:09.000I'm like the grandpa from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory getting out of bed.
01:57:13.000Well, there's a lot of benefits to your type of behavior.
01:57:16.000Obviously, that's why you're so successful.
01:57:18.000There's a lot of benefits to the way you think.
01:57:19.000But the negative, the side aspect of it, where I would say it's going to be problematic is someone has to, like for companionship, someone has to be able to keep up with you or understand you or accept you.
01:57:35.000And the way you think and the way you approach life is extremely different.
01:57:43.000It's not the way most people do it, and not the way most women do it, for sure.
01:57:48.000And if men are used to this certain type of patterns that some women follow, and then you have this pattern, they're going to be like, I just want to grow with complaints about Starbucks.
01:58:56.000Solve your own problems, and then, yeah, totally.
01:58:58.000Yeah, so they put on a fucking song and dance for the first couple weeks of the relationship until, like, a buddy of mine had this girl that he was dating for a while, and then his car broke down, And he needed her to help him.
01:59:36.000I had one day where I tried to put my phone aside and concentrate on my work and you're just blowing up my fucking phone and I didn't text you back and now you need therapy.
01:59:45.000There's certain people that you enter into any sort of an intimate relationship with them, and you're taking on the burden of all this psychological fucking...
01:59:55.000Which is, I think, exactly why all this self-aware shit, maybe it comes off super masturbatory and narcissistic, but I was like, I am done being crazy.
02:02:35.000You know, you gotta fucking scroll attached to this bird.
02:02:37.000Well, it's also worse now, because it's like, if I text you and you don't text me back, and then I see that you posted on Instagram, there's this whole new fucking thing.
02:02:49.000But I mean, there's this new thing of how I can see all the other things you're doing on your phone instantly, so I'm now all of a sudden like, well, you fucking responded to these tweets, you know, from fucking Rhonda, but you didn't text me back.
02:03:26.000But yeah, so now I think with all of these other things, it makes it harder to just solely focus on the purity of did he text me back or not.
02:03:35.000It's like he didn't text me back, but he did all these other things on his phone.
02:03:38.000Human beings enter into relationships, even friendships.
02:03:42.000When I say relationship, I don't mean sexual.
02:03:44.000Just like any time when you're relating to other people.
02:03:47.000The person that you're hanging around with, they change how you are.
02:04:29.000Or it's like the performance or the show or the costume I put on to avoid intimacy or to having to really connect to somebody.
02:04:35.000Do you think that like with every day and every hour and every time you obsess and all these things and all these different paths that you go down, like every day gets a little better?
02:04:48.000And if I haven't, I'm like, you know, but it depends on also what comes up because it's like, you know, sometimes you're like, I'm fucking nailing it.
02:04:55.000And then a trigger comes along that you're like, I didn't even know that was a trigger.
02:06:11.000I just think it's not going to happen to me.
02:06:12.000I don't know what magical fucking addict thinking I'm doing, but I literally will just look down at my phone and I rear-ended this guy and I was like, I'm so sorry.
02:06:44.000Everyone isn't running around trying to make sure I stay alive.
02:06:49.000And that brings it all back to you going to Vietnam and you experiencing another possibility that you or I, we're both really lucky they were born in America.
02:07:50.000Or do you just need to be sick because it gets you attention?
02:07:53.000And then you go to a place where people are actually sick and actually have problems.
02:08:00.000And it just really changes your perspective.
02:08:04.000Did you ever see that Louis C.K. bit about being white?
02:08:07.000Probably, but it makes me think of the one, because I was thinking, this isn't a bit I do, obviously, but I just remember after being in Vietnam, I was like, we should just walk around all the time and be like, that's awesome!
02:08:52.000But he also had that thing about everything's amazing and all we do is complain about the flying and people are like, my flight was 45 minutes late.
02:08:59.000I went on this hunting trip in Prince of Wales Island, which is in Alaska, and it's unbelievably rainy.
02:10:36.000I was in Vietnam, like I said, they wear masks.
02:10:39.000I went for a run with this motherfucker who, back to your point about flat feet, he's like the marathon guy who's like, you're supposed to run barefooted.
02:10:48.000And this was the first non-barefoot run he's done because it was in Vietnam and there's just like, you shouldn't have Yeah, just nightmares.
02:11:34.000There's a story that was written about Mark Zuckerberg, who was in China, and he went for a run during one of the worst days, one of the worst pollution days, and he's out there jogging around, and you look at the air behind him, it's like you're jogging into an exhaust pipe.
02:12:17.000I think that I also, like, once you see that kind of pollution, it's like, you know, because there's so many charities and there's so many fucking problems, you can't try to solve all of them or be, you know, such a small...
02:12:27.000But I was like, oh, this is the first time that I was like...
02:12:30.000I need to like only buy, you know, there's like carbon neutral companies and companies that, you know, put less emissions out and stuff.
02:12:37.000And you're like, yeah, I should start voting with things I buy.
02:12:40.000And, you know, it's the first time I got this app that tells you what companies don't emit as much pollution, you know, stuff like that.
02:12:47.000And I'm like, I never really thought about that before until I was breathing in like viscous toxic air.
02:12:51.000Well, it's interesting because just being a human being just by...
02:14:06.000There's all sorts of natural resources that the Soviets wanted out of Afghanistan.
02:14:11.000The natural gas pipeline, it's one of the main reasons why they believe that some of the neocons were very interested in protecting and invading Afghanistan.
02:14:21.000It's not just the poppy business, which is huge.
02:14:27.000And the idea that, well, we wouldn't have anything to do with that because it's not illegal, or because it's illegal, well, that's not true.
02:14:33.000Because if you look at what happened in Vietnam, Vietnam, a big part of the reason why people were in Vietnam, why some people supported being in Vietnam, It's because they were profiting off controlling the heroin trade.
02:14:45.000There was a fucking trillion dollars made during the Vietnam War from heroin sales and where it was made and why and who got the money and where the corruption took place and where the money was being handed out.
02:14:57.000That's all open to speculation and research and maybe someone will eventually have it all figured out one day.
02:15:02.000But the reality is there was a massive amount of fucking heroin that was being moved.
02:16:00.000And I think that the amount of minerals that are in these fucking car batteries is something we really need to look at, because I was reading this whole piece about conflict minerals and how non-green electric cars actually are.
02:16:14.000If you stop and look at it, like, yeah, as far as, like, our environment, yes.
02:18:46.000But, yeah, but when I was in, yeah, in Vietnam, the stuff that there was, like, jellyfish and squid, it was a lot of, I guess, what's available in that region is probably...
02:19:04.000Well, bugs to me are really a fascinating thing because one of the things that we found out when we were doing Fear Factor is that allergies, like if you have an allergy to certain shellfish, you also have an allergy to roaches.
02:24:00.000That guy, he was super depressed and was like suicidal, I guess, and was in his midlife and was like wondering what's the purpose of life and got fascinated by the concept of rewilding.
02:24:13.000So he got fascinated by this reintroduction of predators, keystone predators, into areas like Yellowstone, which they definitely have their purpose, and they're definitely important to the health of the environment.
02:24:28.000The problem with things like wolves is they can get overpopulated as well, and someone needs to manage them, and that's where things get weird.
02:24:36.000So wildlife biologists have established these guidelines.
02:25:38.000There's a guy named Dan Flores who has this amazing paper that he wrote called Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy.
02:25:49.000And really groundbreaking paper on bisons and livestock and wild animals, rather, that live in North America or lived in North America.
02:25:59.000But he wrote this new book on coyotes.
02:26:02.000Coyotes and just what the plains used to be like.
02:26:05.000This George guy, this Montabayat guy, however you say his name is, the Wolves Change River guys.
02:26:11.000He wants to reintroduce megafauna to Europe, like lions, because he's saying that at one point in time lions and hyenas used to live in Europe and that we could use these large segments of unused land and let these animals loose and reintroduce them to this area.
02:26:42.000They used to take a carcass, they would shoot a buffalo, and while the animal was still barely alive, They would inject strychnine into its arteries.
02:26:52.000That way the poison would get through all of the meat.
02:26:55.000Then they would take a wolf that they shot and they would rub its scent all over this carcass so that the wolves knew that other wolves had been there so it was safe.
02:28:43.000And my two encounters, one time they were drinking out of my pool, and I came outside, and I literally opened the door, and they just looked at me like, what?
02:29:09.000And, oh, they were explaining to me, I was like, well, look, if there's a coyote, I'm going to hear them, you know, killing my dog, I'll be able to hear it.
02:29:36.000So this happens a lot in Runyon Canyon.
02:29:39.000People's dogs, they'll just see them chasing a coyote and then the coyotes will just run and run and run until the dog is tired and then everyone will descend.
02:29:45.000And they're hungry and they're desperate and they do not give a fuck.
02:29:49.000A friend of mine up Doheny was walking his dog, like a small dog, and saw a coyote face to face and picked up his dog and had to flex on it to get it to run away.
02:30:00.000Started walking again back to his house.
02:32:18.000But the balance that this George Montabiot, I think that's how you say his name, like his take on Wolves' journey, like the people love that video because he's English and he's got a beautiful voice and it's a fascinating story and it's interesting.
02:32:35.000Well, there's a lot of truth to what he's saying.
02:32:37.000It's important to have keystone predators because they keep the populations of these game animals, like wild undulates, they keep them healthy because they control them.
02:32:47.000But when wolves get too populated, they get crazy and they do what they call surplus killing.
02:32:54.000They killed 19 elk recently in Wyoming and they didn't eat any of them.
02:32:58.000They just went on this butchering run and just killed.
02:33:00.000If they come over the top of a hill and they see a herd of elk, have you ever seen a herd of elk?
02:34:35.000The first time I saw one, we were hunting them in BC and we saw this female and it was like that scene in Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum sees the dinosaur for the first time.
02:38:33.000He talks about how when they eat dogs, they're not really eating dogs because they want to eat them for like a meal as much as they want to eliminate predators.
02:38:42.000Like competing predators, especially cats, because most of what they eat, like coyotes eat a lot of bugs, they eat a lot of grasshoppers, they eat a lot of rats, they eat a lot of rodents, rabbits, but the cats compete with them, because cats are a Fucking murderers.
02:41:14.000Look at him, pawing on the kid's head.
02:41:16.000They could, and they did, so they tried to make a movie out of it, and one of the cameramen got his face ripped off, and they were like, never mind.
02:41:23.000This is the anxiety just watching this.
02:41:25.000I know, because you know that they're sociopathic.
02:41:27.000Well, they're not sociopathic, they're just natural.
02:41:30.000Look, they have all of these reward mechanisms that are built into their DNA. They feel good when they chase after things and kill them.
02:43:36.000So is it better to go and get a steak from an animal that lived in captivity, or is it better to shoot an animal as it goes to get water?
02:43:47.000Well, it's not as good as going to the woods.
02:43:49.000Like, you go into the woods, you go shoot a wild elk, that elk might not even know what a fucking person is and hopefully doesn't even see you coming and you shoot it and kill it.
02:43:58.000That's like the ultimate goal is to instantaneously end this wild existence that if you didn't kill it, it would be killed by bears or wolves or something else.
02:44:46.000Because you have these people that are living over there that they have to risk their lives to try to poach these animals for meat, for food, and then there's the fucking, the horrible trade, like rhino horns and things along those lines.
02:44:57.000But it's also, it's like, you can't just say, I mean, it's like, you know, saying to a drug addict, stop doing heroin.
02:45:02.000It's like, we have to replace it with something.
02:45:03.000Either narcotics are anonymous or another drug or something.
02:45:06.000It's like, you can't say stop poaching without, like, okay, there's no other way to fucking make money.
02:45:12.000I have had friends that have gone over to Africa, and one of the things that they say is, like my friend Justin Wren, he goes to the Congo, he stays there for months at a time, and he's building wells over there.
02:46:58.000Moment where you realize the problem is not as simple as why do people want to go over there and hunt?
02:47:04.000The problem is this breakdown of what we call civilization in this area where you have people that are impossibly poor and they're surrounded by animals and the only value around them is those animals.
02:47:22.000So it's either you're involved in the tourism business that has people coming to look at these animals or you just have to fucking kill them for what they have.
02:47:29.000Right, and by the way, the tourism industry is not as fucking profitable as the honey industry.
02:48:28.000There was a beautiful article that was written by this woman who lived in Zimbabwe right after the Cecil the Lion thing.
02:48:37.000And it said, in Zimbabwe, we don't cry for lions.
02:48:40.000And it was explaining how they terrorized her village, how they killed her loved ones, and how people were, when they would go out into the bush, there would be a very real concern that they would be killed by a lion.
02:49:31.000It's all depending on what's the level of the threat.
02:49:34.000If a lion, since I have no ability to even understand how anxious it would make me to be in a room with a lion, a lion is probably faster than me picking up a gun and shooting it.
02:51:26.000In the Navy SEALs, one of their training is, you know, they put a bag over their head and take it off and disorient them so that they can quickly focus their eyes.
02:51:33.000Because when something's moving around, it's just like, it's a muscle to be able to...
02:51:38.000Well, just dealing with adversity, dealing with anxiety, dealing with the moment is here now.
02:51:44.000You've been training, you've been preparing, ready, go!
02:53:48.000Or that, or the worst is when they're like, great crowd.
02:53:51.000So if you go on and do well, it's not because you were good, it's just the crowd was good.
02:53:56.000Well, sometimes it's a good warning, though.
02:53:58.000Like, Delia came offstage at the Improv the other night, and he was getting offstage, and I was walking in the room, and he came up, he gave me a hug, and he goes, dude, worst fucking crowd ever.
02:55:01.000I mean, no, I used to do stand-up at Lucky Strike on Highland, and I'd have to time my jokes knowing a bowling ball was about to hit some pins.
02:55:15.000I did a road gig once at a restaurant in Massachusetts where the intercom that the restaurant used to call people's tables was the same system as the microphone that I used on stage.
02:55:27.000So I'd be in the middle of talking about something.
02:55:29.000Johnson, party of two, your table's ready.
02:55:56.000There was literally a fucking fountain between you and a bridge and like a koi garden, like a little Chinese garden, and then a bunch of people and then they always had MTV jams on television.
02:56:09.000There were televisions on every wall and people were just watching MTV jams and then you were just yelling.
02:56:15.000I remember one time Duncan Trussell got on there and we couldn't even, we didn't even know people could hear us and I was like, I don't think anyone could even, like, did we, are we bombing or can they just hear us?
02:56:25.000And then Duncan also got on stage and started basically yelling the most offensive things imaginable, and nobody responded, and we realized, like, oh, they just can't hear us.