The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1172 - Morgan Fallon

00:00:02.000 Four, three, two, one.

00:00:07.000 What's up, Mo?

00:00:08.000 What's up, man?

00:00:09.000 How you doing?

00:00:09.000 Good to see you, man.

00:00:10.000 It's good to see you.

00:00:11.000 I'm glad we decided to get together and do this, you know, and talk and, you know...

00:00:19.000 It's a crazy subject, right?

00:00:20.000 I mean, you and I have known each other since 2012 when I did Meat Eater.

00:00:26.000 You were there filming when I shot my first deer, which is a very important part of my life, man.

00:00:31.000 And then you went on to direct and produce Parts Unknown with our late friend Anthony Bourdain.

00:00:38.000 And we just thought it would probably be a good thing to come in here and just talk about him.

00:00:44.000 Yeah, man.

00:00:45.000 And I'm really grateful for it.

00:00:47.000 You know, it's actually, you know, a lot of people have been saying to me, like, oh, it must be really hard to talk about that.

00:00:54.000 I actually find it kind of the opposite.

00:00:56.000 Like, I want to talk about him.

00:00:58.000 I want to talk about who he was and what that experience was, you know.

00:01:02.000 So, thanks, man.

00:01:05.000 My pleasure, brother.

00:01:06.000 Did you know him before you guys started working together?

00:01:10.000 No, no.

00:01:11.000 I met Tony 10 years ago, and I was called in.

00:01:15.000 He had a DP on a show who, at the last minute, canceled.

00:01:20.000 Couldn't go to Egypt.

00:01:21.000 So I got a call like a week before, you know.

00:01:25.000 I was like, do you want to go to Egypt with Anthony Bourdain? 0.99

00:01:26.000 I was like, fuck, yeah, absolutely. 0.99

00:01:30.000 And so I met him in Cairo, man. 0.99

00:01:34.000 It was kind of like perfect, yeah. 1.00

00:01:36.000 Holy shit, that's like Indiana Jones type shit. 1.00

00:01:38.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:01:39.000 Exactly, man.

00:01:40.000 Is that the episode when you guys ate a camel?

00:01:42.000 No, no.

00:01:43.000 We didn't eat a camel.

00:01:44.000 No.

00:01:45.000 But, you know, I met him there.

00:01:49.000 You know, we started filming.

00:01:51.000 We were on the streets of Cairo.

00:01:53.000 And, like, you know, it's like all of a sudden it was thrown into these kitchens.

00:01:55.000 We're just like, we're eating pigeon.

00:01:57.000 You know, it's like, go and cover them cooking pigeon.

00:02:00.000 And, you know, I had seen the show, like, maybe once before.

00:02:03.000 But I knew who he was.

00:02:05.000 And I knew what that adventure was.

00:02:07.000 Right.

00:02:07.000 And I was so amped for it.

00:02:11.000 And then there was this seminal moment on that show where we go out and we go ripping across the desert with the Bedouin and go out and cook a goat in the ground. 0.99

00:02:25.000 And so as we're driving out over the desert, we're like, well, we need some shots from car to car, right?

00:02:30.000 And I was like, well, I'll get on the roof.

00:02:32.000 And for some reason, there's a four-post bed tied to the roof of this Land Rover.

00:02:39.000 And so I get up there and kind of latch my arm around it.

00:02:43.000 And these guys take off at, I swear, 80 miles an hour across the desert.

00:02:47.000 And you're on a bed?

00:02:49.000 Absolutely.

00:02:50.000 Absolutely.

00:02:52.000 Absolutely no regard for the fact that I'm on the roof, you know, shooting.

00:02:58.000 And...

00:03:00.000 And when we got there, we got to camp.

00:03:02.000 I survived it.

00:03:03.000 I had this big black and blue where I was holding on to the four-post bed.

00:03:07.000 And I go over and I show Tony.

00:03:09.000 And that was it, man.

00:03:11.000 From that moment on, he was like, I like this guy.

00:03:15.000 And I started going out with him.

00:03:17.000 I started getting invited to do more shows.

00:03:20.000 Wow.

00:03:20.000 So that was it, man.

00:03:22.000 How many years?

00:03:23.000 Ten years.

00:03:24.000 Wow.

00:03:25.000 Ten years, yeah.

00:03:26.000 That's crazy.

00:03:27.000 I didn't realize that Parts Unknown was even...

00:03:29.000 Were you doing No Reservations first?

00:03:31.000 Yeah, so that was a No Reservation show, and then we went to Parts Unknown five years ago.

00:03:36.000 Wow.

00:03:37.000 So Parts Unknown's been on for five years?

00:03:40.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:03:41.000 And that transition, No Reservation was great, and it really laid the foundation for what we do and what Tony did.

00:03:50.000 I think it really built an audience and a following for him.

00:03:54.000 That's what I found out about him.

00:03:55.000 Right, exactly.

00:03:56.000 It was a great show.

00:03:59.000 But that transition going on to CNN and going into Parts Unknown, that really changed things.

00:04:05.000 That really opened up a lot of locations and stuff that we didn't have access to before.

00:04:11.000 It opened up CNN's logistics, Rolodex, and things that...

00:04:18.000 We didn't have at the other network.

00:04:23.000 No Reservations was awesome.

00:04:26.000 We did some incredible shows.

00:04:28.000 Parts Unknown got really fun.

00:04:30.000 Yeah, it was on another level.

00:04:31.000 I remember watching the chains.

00:04:32.000 I was like, okay, this is more him.

00:04:38.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:04:54.000 You know, really climbing into Japanese subcultures, rope bondage, tentacle porn, you know, all this stuff that most network executives are probably a little bit leery of.

00:05:07.000 You know, CNN was kind of like, you know, go for it, man.

00:05:09.000 Be yourself, you know, and let's figure out what this is together.

00:05:12.000 That's amazing.

00:05:14.000 That really is amazing.

00:05:15.000 And one of the things that really made that show was Tony's narration.

00:05:19.000 Because the narration gave you a sense of the way his sort of passion and enthusiasm for the world and for various aspects of cooking and travel and food and culture.

00:05:30.000 Like you got it through his own words, you know?

00:05:33.000 Yeah, I think that's, I mean, it may be in some ways the most important aspect of the show.

00:05:39.000 You know, I mean, he is after all a writer, right?

00:05:43.000 And that is how he experienced the world.

00:05:48.000 But actually making the shows and the technical part of actually making the shows, you know, we'd...

00:05:54.000 Once you'd go through and kind of edit the show, none of that voiceover was in at the rough cut phase.

00:06:02.000 And he'd send it out to him and get his writing back and record that VO. And I keep describing it as like that kind of Dr. Frankenstein lightning bolt to the temples kind of moment where like the monster rises.

00:06:14.000 It would really just bring the show to life.

00:06:17.000 So this kind of Carcass that was laid out in rough cut form on the table all of a sudden just gasped and jumped up and you know it was really beautiful like to see that and to have you know as a director, as a producer, as a creative you know at any level you know to have that kind of power to have his voice and his writing and his introspection and thoughts and you know that would have like powerful you know powerful force to work with.

00:06:48.000 Well, it was a brilliant design, the way the show was put together.

00:06:51.000 That narration really did make it something special and different from all those other kinds of shows because just his articulate and insightful and poetic and artistic view of these things, that he had this infectious passion for things.

00:07:07.000 He completely changed the way I thought about cooking.

00:07:10.000 I'd always thought about cooking as, oh, this guy knows how to make delicious food.

00:07:14.000 Oh, this place has good ribs.

00:07:17.000 And then...

00:07:18.000 When I saw his show, when I saw Parts Unknown, I went, oh, it's an art form.

00:07:21.000 It's just an art form that you eat.

00:07:24.000 Absolutely.

00:07:25.000 It's just a temporary art form.

00:07:27.000 Yeah, and even beyond that, it's an art form that's taking and incorporating all of these greater kind of macro-social elements of where you are, the history of where you are, what people did for a living,

00:07:42.000 what people's ancestors did for a living.

00:07:46.000 It's rooted in so much more.

00:07:48.000 And what I think...

00:07:50.000 Ultimately, we kind of joke around a lot and say, yeah, it's a food show.

00:07:54.000 It's not a food show.

00:07:55.000 But the reason that worked, I think, is because of what you're saying.

00:08:00.000 Food is an art form that incorporates all of these other aspects.

00:08:06.000 And so it can be a jumping point off for exploration into anything you want to talk about.

00:08:12.000 I talked about the We're good to go.

00:08:33.000 High-dollar items.

00:08:35.000 He was into street food.

00:08:37.000 Definitely.

00:08:37.000 It wasn't just the finest French bistros where these celebrated world-famous chefs were cooking these bizarre small-plate dishes.

00:08:51.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:08:52.000 I mean, and again, I think that was kind of like a whole new kind of fresh take on looking at food, you know?

00:08:59.000 Yeah.

00:08:59.000 It's like, it's easy to, you know, to look at these kind of high-end French preparations, these highly talented, you know, highly trained French chefs.

00:09:10.000 And there's tremendous beauty in that and all of those other things we talked about.

00:09:15.000 To look at the woman on the corner that's making the best lingua tacos, that was revolutionary. 1.00

00:09:26.000 And then the realization that all of that greatness, all of that nuance, all of that flavor contained right within there.

00:09:37.000 That was an access point to it as well.

00:09:39.000 It's just an access point that everyone can afford, that everyone can go in.

00:09:44.000 And, you know, I mean, right place at the right time.

00:09:47.000 I think that people, like, it seems like the culture at large was ready for that, ready for that, like, experience in food and ready to kind of chase that.

00:09:56.000 Because now, I mean, that's all anyone wants now.

00:09:59.000 Well, I think it's because of him.

00:10:00.000 I really do.

00:10:01.000 I really do.

00:10:02.000 Because, I mean, I'm sure that he changed the way I look at things in terms of food.

00:10:06.000 And I think he had that effect on many people.

00:10:08.000 I mean, you think about...

00:10:10.000 How many years was Parts Unknown for five, and then No Reservations for nine?

00:10:15.000 No Reservations, yeah, for about ten, and then there was Cook's Tour before that, which was the original incarnation.

00:10:21.000 All told, a decade and a half of his influence...

00:10:29.000 We're good to go.

00:10:49.000 Something about street food, man.

00:10:51.000 Absolutely, man.

00:10:52.000 And, yeah, I kind of keep like a loose running list of my favorite meals, you know.

00:10:59.000 And some of them are on the show and some of them are not on the show.

00:11:03.000 And I'd say most of them are that.

00:11:07.000 You know, most of them are accidentally stumbling into some place where someone's doing something completely awesome that isn't, you know, some massive 26-course tasting menu, you know.

00:11:19.000 And I think it's also about, you know, it's about place, you know?

00:11:23.000 Yeah.

00:11:24.000 It's about where you are, the context of where you are, what it smells like, what it sounds like, what it looks like, you know, who you're with, you know?

00:11:33.000 Yeah.

00:11:34.000 And so, you know, that's kind of, I think, another reason the show kind of worked is we had an opportunity to articulate all of those things.

00:11:43.000 All of those elements, you know.

00:11:45.000 We're able to choose an incredibly interesting guest to sit down with at a really interesting restaurant with, you know, people cooking of a really interesting backstory in a beautiful place and then use the power of kind of the magic of TV to,

00:12:01.000 you know, to polish it up and present this version of travel and food in the world that...

00:12:07.000 Yeah, and really everywhere, too.

00:12:09.000 I mean, you guys covered Asia, you covered Europe, you covered some weird places in the South where people were cooking pigs in their backyard.

00:12:17.000 I mean, it was just, it gave people an understanding of the preparation of food and a view to chefs.

00:12:25.000 And this view of chefs as artists.

00:12:27.000 I mean, these chefs look like tattoo artists.

00:12:29.000 They look like, you know, guys who are painters or something, or women who are sculptors.

00:12:34.000 I mean, they're real similar in the way they appear to what we consider artists.

00:12:40.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:12:41.000 And I think, too, I mean, you know, what I kind of love about, like, you know, at this point spent a good amount of time in kitchens and a good amount of time around kitchen staff is there's kind of two elements coming together.

00:12:54.000 There's the artistic element that you're talking about, right?

00:12:59.000 But there's also this very, you know, very earnest working class kind of element to the way a kitchen works, you know?

00:13:07.000 This tough, hard, sweaty...

00:13:10.000 Work, you know, it's a rough environment, you know, and I think that's kind of part of what makes it so appealing to us.

00:13:19.000 He kind of pulled back the curtain on that, you know, and say, like, these guys are, you know...

00:13:26.000 These guys are not these inaccessible icons, the Paul Bocuse of the world.

00:13:30.000 They are, as much as Paul Bocuse is awesome, they are these kind of rough and tumble guys that are back there making something really awesome.

00:13:43.000 Tony also had this sort of punk rock sensibility to it all, too. 0.94

00:13:48.000 You know, I mean, that was part of the thing about him that people found appealing is that they had seen cooking shows before, but they never saw cooking shows where the host gets fucked up. 0.83

00:13:57.000 You know, like, dude, I was, first time I partied with him, I'm like, this guy goes so hard! 0.91

00:14:03.000 That was amazing!

00:14:04.000 Yeah, told me about it.

00:14:05.000 It was amazing.

00:14:06.000 I was like, I can't believe he can do this all the time.

00:14:08.000 Like, I think one of the first times we ever got hung out together was in Montreal.

00:14:15.000 We were there for UFC fights and we went out afterwards and we had some steaks and it was just amazing walking into this restaurant and people freaking out.

00:14:23.000 One guy actually had a copy of Kitchen Confidential in the actual kitchen itself and had Tony sign it.

00:14:28.000 It was pretty fucking badass.

00:14:30.000 Where'd you go? 0.92

00:14:30.000 I do not remember. 0.92

00:14:31.000 Was it Joe Beef?

00:14:32.000 No, it wasn't, but he turned me on to Joe Beef, and I've eaten there several times since then.

00:14:37.000 Those guys are coming on the podcast, too.

00:14:38.000 I love those guys.

00:14:39.000 Fred and Dave. 0.97

00:14:40.000 Yeah, no, they're fucking amazing. 0.98

00:14:41.000 That restaurant is one of my favorite restaurants on the planet. 0.99

00:14:44.000 No doubt, man, but they'll hurt you.

00:14:46.000 Yeah, they keep it coming.

00:14:48.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:14:49.000 Yeah, they'll give you an inch-thick slab of foie gras, you know?

00:14:53.000 Yes.

00:14:54.000 Well, their show, one of the ones that I really loved was the one where they did ice fishing.

00:15:01.000 They were on the water, and they had this ice fishing shack, but inside the ice fishing shack they had fine silverware and fine china, and they had bottles of really excellent wine, and they were cooking on a wood stove.

00:15:13.000 They had a wood stove, and they were cooking foie gras right there on the stove.

00:15:19.000 And then they were laying out what they think makes you a good dinner companion.

00:15:24.000 And, you know, Dave was like, I shut my phone off.

00:15:27.000 I turn it off.

00:15:28.000 I put it away.

00:15:29.000 He goes, I don't check it.

00:15:31.000 He goes, I don't put my elbows on the table.

00:15:33.000 You know, and he's like, and I come prepared with stories.

00:15:36.000 And Tony was like, you prepare?

00:15:38.000 You prepare stories?

00:15:39.000 He goes, I have stories to tell.

00:15:41.000 I come prepared.

00:15:42.000 Like, to him, it's like...

00:15:44.000 Not really a performance, but it's an agreement that you're gonna you're gonna go there and you're gonna share this enthusiasm for this experience together and you're gonna try to enhance it with your own anecdotes and personality and your own Appreciation for the food and the wine and and then afterwards they're smoking Cuban cigars It's like the whole thing is it made you want to go eat at a really good place Yeah,

00:16:07.000 or in a, you know, in a shack, you know, with people who understand that there's an elegance to all of these things, you know, that you can create an environment that has an elegance.

00:16:21.000 And that's You know, I'd say that's like a hallmark of a lot of the chefs that I've met through the show is like, you will see that, you know, no matter how big they get, no matter how successful, there is an inherent kind of desire to please on multiple levels,

00:16:36.000 you know?

00:16:37.000 You'll have like, I remember we were in...

00:16:39.000 Daniel Balloud's house in France, like at his parents' house, right?

00:16:44.000 And so here's Daniel Balloud, like the mega chef, you know?

00:16:48.000 But like running around to all of the crew members like, do you have something to eat?

00:16:52.000 Are you good?

00:16:53.000 Do you want another glass of wine?

00:16:54.000 Do you want to like, you know?

00:16:55.000 And it's just inherent to his nature is exactly what you're talking about.

00:16:59.000 This idea that, you know, they have this just...

00:17:06.000 Ongoing desire to please their guests, to entertain, to, you know, make sure that everyone's taken care of.

00:17:13.000 They're curators of an experience.

00:17:14.000 Absolutely.

00:17:15.000 Yeah.

00:17:16.000 Yeah.

00:17:16.000 You know, and so to be able to, you know, run around the world for 10 years and explore that.

00:17:22.000 Yeah.

00:17:23.000 It was nice, man.

00:17:24.000 God, man.

00:17:25.000 I can only imagine.

00:17:26.000 Yeah.

00:17:26.000 I could only imagine.

00:17:27.000 How many shows did you guys film together?

00:17:29.000 I don't, you know, I'm, I don't know, 57 or 60, something like that.

00:17:34.000 Somewhere in that area.

00:17:35.000 Wow.

00:17:35.000 Yeah.

00:17:36.000 Wow.

00:17:36.000 So, I mean, and listen, there are people, you know, at 10 years on the show, I was on the show for a long time.

00:17:42.000 There's people a lot longer.

00:17:43.000 There's people who did the whole 17 years.

00:17:45.000 People have done well over 100 episodes, you know.

00:17:49.000 No one left that show.

00:17:50.000 You don't leave that show if you get a spot on it.

00:17:52.000 Were you with him when it ended?

00:17:56.000 No.

00:17:57.000 No, I was with him about a week and a half before.

00:18:02.000 So I had good friends that were there.

00:18:06.000 I was in Chicago and I woke up and I checked my phone and I got a text from my friend Maynard, Maynard Keenan, from Tool.

00:18:21.000 And Maynard is a jiu-jitsu brown belt and really loves jiu-jitsu.

00:18:25.000 And he texted me and said, so much for the Maynard versus Anthony Bourdain celebrity jiu-jitsu match.

00:18:35.000 And that's the whole text.

00:18:39.000 And... 0.99

00:18:41.000 You know, just sunk, sunk a pit in my stomach, and I just, I just picked up my phone, I went into Google, and I looked it up, and I saw it, and I'm just like, oh, fuck. 0.99

00:18:56.000 I just couldn't believe it. 0.98

00:18:58.000 I couldn't believe it.

00:19:01.000 I started crying.

00:19:11.000 I think I called my wife.

00:19:12.000 I think I called Maynard.

00:19:14.000 I texted him.

00:19:15.000 I called my wife.

00:19:16.000 Called a few friends.

00:19:19.000 You know?

00:19:21.000 Just like...

00:19:22.000 You know, I just couldn't believe...

00:19:25.000 You know, when someone's just not there anymore...

00:19:28.000 I didn't get to see him a lot, but I was just a... 0.95

00:19:31.000 I just appreciated the fuck out of that dude. 0.96

00:19:34.000 You know? 0.83

00:19:36.000 Like, I don't want to do anybody's TV show. 0.99

00:19:38.000 But when I got a call from him, I was like, fuck yeah! 0.97

00:19:41.000 What are we going to do? 1.00

00:19:42.000 We're going to shoot pheasants?

00:19:43.000 And hunt?

00:19:44.000 And camp?

00:19:45.000 And we're going to cook by the campfire? 1.00

00:19:46.000 Fuck, I'm in, dude. 1.00

00:19:48.000 You know? 1.00

00:19:49.000 I'm in.

00:19:50.000 I just really appreciated him as a genuine, unique person.

00:19:57.000 Like, he's a genuine, rare person.

00:20:00.000 And, you know, that's what I got out of being...

00:20:06.000 Being able to spend some time with him and being able to talk to him and pick his brain.

00:20:10.000 He did my podcast once and we always planned on doing it again.

00:20:14.000 We never got around to it because we both have ridiculous schedules.

00:20:19.000 I would think about things differently because of him.

00:20:23.000 I would sometimes hold things to his standards.

00:20:30.000 Legitimately, his...

00:20:32.000 His appreciation for things and his enthusiasm for things changed the way I look at a lot of aspects of food and culture and even travel.

00:20:44.000 Yeah, I mean...

00:20:45.000 I'm sorry, man.

00:20:50.000 And I know he thought very highly of you.

00:20:52.000 And that experience in Montana was fantastic, man.

00:20:55.000 So fun.

00:20:58.000 You know, I... It's been.

00:21:02.000 It's been a rough three months, and it's still hard for me to really contextualize it and put it together.

00:21:08.000 It feels like, you know, upside-down world.

00:21:10.000 Like, there's no—and he was such a—I mean, he was a friend and a collaborator, you know, but also just such an icon to me, you know?

00:21:21.000 Yeah.

00:21:23.000 And, uh, that it's almost like, you know, it's almost like the sun disappears, you know, or something.

00:21:29.000 It's something that is so just inherently...

00:21:32.000 Part of life.

00:21:33.000 ...there and dependable and, you know.

00:21:38.000 Um...

00:21:38.000 So, yeah, I mean, it's been...

00:21:41.000 It's hard to describe how profound that's been.

00:21:46.000 Um...

00:21:48.000 Remember when he got into jiu-jitsu, I got psyched because I'm like, we got more to talk about now. 0.99

00:21:53.000 I could actually show him some shit. 0.93

00:21:57.000 You know, and he was always asking about things. 0.99

00:22:00.000 You know, he's really good at things.

00:22:02.000 Remember when we were in Montana, we were rolling around on the dirt.

00:22:04.000 I know, I remember.

00:22:05.000 I was showing him stuff, him and Josh.

00:22:06.000 I was like, when you're in here, like, here's what you can do.

00:22:09.000 You can get there.

00:22:09.000 And he's like, oh, yeah.

00:22:11.000 He was so wide-eyed, you know.

00:22:14.000 I think it was before he even got his blue belt or maybe it was like a round blue belt.

00:22:17.000 So he was super, super jacked about it, and he was doing it every day.

00:22:21.000 I remember when we were filming, we were outside of Billings?

00:22:26.000 Is that where we were?

00:22:27.000 Where were we?

00:22:27.000 Yeah, well, where the hunt was.

00:22:29.000 The hunt, we were up in central Montana.

00:22:32.000 So we kind of started in Billings, but we headed up towards central Montana.

00:22:37.000 He was training so often and even on the road that he traveled to a club.

00:22:42.000 There was just a jujitsu club in Bozeman.

00:22:44.000 Yeah.

00:22:45.000 And he found some guys and he was rolling with these guys in Bozeman.

00:22:47.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:48.000 Definitely. 0.99

00:22:48.000 And I was like, damn, are you doing it every day? 0.99

00:22:49.000 Every day. 0.99

00:22:50.000 For a long time on the show, that was a mandate.

00:22:52.000 We find the local clubs and make sure that he had a place to roll.

00:22:57.000 He texted me from some European block country. 0.56

00:23:00.000 He said he was shitting bone chips because he worked out with some old school Carlson Gracie guys that they don't I believe in rolling light and it's all top game and smashing you. 0.91

00:23:10.000 And he's like, I'm shitting bone chips.

00:23:12.000 But I admired that a guy could be 58 years old and decide, I'm going to learn jujitsu and I'm going to be obsessed with it.

00:23:20.000 And then he became addicted to it, which, you know, jujitsu is a very beneficial thing to be addicted to, but it is absolutely an addiction. 0.97

00:23:28.000 I've come back from injuries where I definitely shouldn't have been training yet, and I just wrap my arm up and just fucking get in there.

00:23:35.000 People get super, super addicted to it, and he got addicted to it, just like he's been addicted to many things.

00:23:40.000 He jumped right into the jujitsu experience.

00:23:43.000 Yeah, man.

00:23:47.000 I'm glad he did.

00:23:48.000 It was clearly, like, really good for him to us.

00:23:50.000 I mean, I know very little about jiu-jitsu.

00:23:53.000 I know what I know from Tony, you know.

00:23:56.000 He got so slim.

00:23:57.000 Yeah.

00:23:58.000 He lost all that weight.

00:23:58.000 All of a sudden, he had a six-pack.

00:24:00.000 Stopped smoking.

00:24:00.000 Yeah.

00:24:01.000 You know, those were big things, man.

00:24:04.000 And he looked great.

00:24:06.000 He got off statins.

00:24:08.000 He was no longer on any sort of medication.

00:24:11.000 He lost all that weight.

00:24:13.000 Yeah.

00:24:13.000 Cut all the carbs out.

00:24:15.000 He was just eating like, you know...

00:24:16.000 Yeah, just protein.

00:24:17.000 Crazy, man.

00:24:18.000 He looked so good. 0.91

00:24:20.000 He did look good.

00:24:21.000 He did look good.

00:24:22.000 And also just, you know, the whole thing was kind of indicative of the way he...

00:24:27.000 I mean, he did things so passionately, you know, whether it was travel and the world and soaking up all these experiences or jujitsu or whatever.

00:24:36.000 If he was into something, if something caught his attention, he was just so aggressive about...

00:24:43.000 Knowledge, learning what he could, pulling everything out of it that he could.

00:24:48.000 It's just crazy to see someone do something that's that physically demanding at 58 with no background in athletics at all.

00:24:55.000 You could see when he was doing things, like when he went to Kurt Osiander's place and was rolling around, he doesn't have a background in that, but he's just pushing himself to it.

00:25:04.000 Yeah, and again, I think that was true with everything.

00:25:08.000 If it was something that was interesting to him, he just went.

00:25:14.000 He loved it, man.

00:25:15.000 It was crazy.

00:25:16.000 And I remember texting him, going, like, how deep are you getting into it? 0.93

00:25:20.000 He goes, real fucking deep. 0.87

00:25:22.000 And he goes, I'm getting tapped out every day, but I'm giving guys half my age a real struggle. 0.98

00:25:29.000 And I'm loving it.

00:25:30.000 Yeah, and he talked about that a lot.

00:25:33.000 I mean, I think he talked about, like, the failure as much as anything else.

00:25:37.000 And he loved that.

00:25:38.000 Yeah.

00:25:39.000 Going in and, you know.

00:25:40.000 Getting smashed.

00:25:41.000 Yeah, but, you know, again, to his credit, you know.

00:25:45.000 Yeah.

00:25:45.000 We'd show up in these places, you know.

00:25:47.000 Bozeman, Montana, man.

00:25:49.000 Or Butte.

00:25:51.000 I think he rolled in Butte.

00:25:52.000 Butte's a hard-hitting town, man.

00:25:54.000 And listen, I love Butte.

00:25:56.000 I love Butte, too.

00:25:56.000 Much respect to anyone from Butte.

00:25:58.000 But man, that's a hard-hitting town. 1.00

00:26:00.000 And he'd roll into these places and get the shit kicked out of him. 0.99

00:26:07.000 Show up on set all sore and bruised and, oh man, oh, oh, you know? 0.99

00:26:13.000 And then just jump into that.

00:26:14.000 It's just different for a guy who's 58. I mean, a guy who does it at 20, I admire anybody who does jiu-jitsu because it's a real humbling, ego-dissolving experience in a lot of ways because it makes you realize, like, all your illusions of how well you can defend yourself, they go out the window when someone just chokes you easily.

00:26:30.000 And you're like, oh, great. 0.98

00:26:32.000 I'm just a bitch, wandered around. 1.00

00:26:34.000 Running around this life thinking I'm a man. 1.00

00:26:36.000 But the fact that he did it at 58 just showed what kind of an unusual dude he was.

00:26:41.000 Yeah, but what you just talked about there, I mean, what you were talking about with the ego-diminishing aspect of it, again, I think that that was something that he took great pleasure in.

00:26:50.000 And I think that if you look at the way he went through the world, one of the things that I appreciated right off the bat and one of the things that kept me around as long as I stayed around, you know, For Tony,

00:27:07.000 I think that he was constantly trying to dismantle that persona.

00:27:13.000 To say, I'm not the focal point of this scene.

00:27:18.000 What we're interested in here, what I'm interested in talking about is out there.

00:27:22.000 The camera's pointed away from me.

00:27:25.000 He was kind of a clearinghouse for all that information, and he was the root of the show, and it was his journey.

00:27:35.000 Ultimately, what was refreshing is he wasn't working with some celebrity or host that was completely consumed by their own ego and their own brand and how they were presented to the world.

00:27:47.000 That's so disgusting, right?

00:27:49.000 Yeah, dude, but it's everywhere. 0.83

00:27:50.000 It's everywhere.

00:27:51.000 Yeah, he was very self-deprecating.

00:27:53.000 And he had reverence for real artists and real masters.

00:27:57.000 Total reverence.

00:27:58.000 Yeah, it came across.

00:27:59.000 It came across.

00:28:00.000 I texted him about some guy.

00:28:02.000 There was a photo of a restaurant.

00:28:06.000 And I'm sure it's still on my phone.

00:28:09.000 Some dude who's like a real famous guy who's like some big-time chef character.

00:28:15.000 And I was eating in this restaurant. 0.99

00:28:16.000 And so I'm like, who the fuck is this guy? 0.99

00:28:19.000 It seems like it's a big deal. 0.99

00:28:21.000 And so I texted him the photo of this cat right here.

00:28:26.000 Do you know who that guy is?

00:28:27.000 What's that guy's name?

00:28:28.000 So I said, who is that guy?

00:28:29.000 He says, Marco Pierre White. 1.00

00:28:31.000 Made Ramsay cry like a bitch. 1.00

00:28:32.000 All-time original rock star chef. 1.00

00:28:35.000 Genius.

00:28:35.000 Madman.

00:28:36.000 The original punk.

00:28:37.000 But that kind of text, that's a Tony Bourdain text.

00:28:42.000 That text shows that reverence for the masters.

00:28:48.000 I mean, even the way he phrases it. 1.00

00:28:52.000 Made him cry like a bitch. 1.00

00:28:54.000 All-time original rock star chef. 1.00

00:28:55.000 Genius.

00:28:56.000 Madman.

00:28:58.000 You know, and that's the way... 0.99

00:29:01.000 I mean, what worked about that is he had, like, an instant ability to sniff through the bullshit, you know?

00:29:08.000 So, you know, listen, there's all kinds of famous people, celebrities, you know, well-accomplished people that he met that he didn't feel that way about, you know? 0.99

00:29:17.000 He would cut through that shit instantly. 0.98

00:29:21.000 But if you were on his radar in that way, you know... 1.00

00:29:25.000 It's like total commitment to what you do.

00:29:28.000 You were in or you're out of the Anthony Bourdain club.

00:29:31.000 Exactly.

00:29:31.000 Dude, you want to be in, man.

00:29:33.000 That list of people is like...

00:29:35.000 That's a cool list to be on.

00:29:37.000 Yeah.

00:29:38.000 Well, I just remember hanging out with him.

00:29:40.000 He was one of the ones that I met that I was pretty starstruck right away. 0.99

00:29:46.000 I said something really stupid. 0.99

00:29:47.000 Like, my wife says you're my boyfriend. 1.00

00:29:48.000 Yeah.

00:29:50.000 Because I'd watch his show all the time.

00:29:52.000 She would just joke around, oh, you watch your boyfriend on TV? I'm like, he's great.

00:29:56.000 This guy's great.

00:29:56.000 Stop.

00:29:57.000 Leave him alone.

00:29:59.000 But when we were in Montana, that's when I realized...

00:30:02.000 Well, I always knew how hard he went.

00:30:04.000 But when I was blasted out of my mind, and he was like, where's that bottle?

00:30:08.000 Where's those joints?

00:30:09.000 And I was like, Jesus, man.

00:30:11.000 I can't even...

00:30:12.000 I'm hanging on to the earth here.

00:30:14.000 Yeah.

00:30:14.000 Well, that was a late night, man.

00:30:16.000 Yeah.

00:30:16.000 That one, I mean, listen, like in all fairness, not every night was quite like that.

00:30:22.000 Yeah.

00:30:22.000 But we had a lot of fun that night for sure.

00:30:24.000 It was real fun.

00:30:25.000 And a really interesting, thoughtful dialogue around the campfire with Land Townie from Backwoods Country Hunters and Anglers and all these other guys that were with us.

00:30:35.000 You know, these guys who, it was good to get a different perspective on what going out and getting your own wild food is like.

00:30:43.000 Yeah.

00:30:44.000 You know, and then having him cook it there, it was delicious.

00:30:47.000 Yeah, it was awesome.

00:30:47.000 But also, being able to put those ideas on a major network and print time is pretty rare, man.

00:30:54.000 Yeah, kudos to CNN for having the cojones to put together that kind of a show and have it on.

00:31:01.000 Big time, man. 0.86

00:31:03.000 Again, what can I say?

00:31:05.000 Best creative partners you could ask for, in terms of that.

00:31:07.000 You really enjoyed it that much.

00:31:11.000 That was the dream job.

00:31:12.000 You do what I do.

00:31:14.000 You are interested in making documentary television.

00:31:19.000 That's it, man.

00:31:20.000 That's the show.

00:31:21.000 How did it wind up at CNN? Were there some other options?

00:31:24.000 Because I know he had a giant problem with the Travel Channel because I know he had told me that they fucked him over and did some Cadillac ad. 0.86

00:31:31.000 Yeah, I know he was really pissed about the Cadillac ad. 0.79

00:31:34.000 What was that about?

00:31:36.000 Honestly, I don't really know a lot of the details of the whole story.

00:31:40.000 I don't know what other deals were on the table besides CNN. But it's safe to say that I think the relationship with Travel Channel was toxic before that.

00:31:49.000 Travel Channel is a religious-owned place.

00:31:52.000 At least was.

00:31:54.000 I don't know if still is.

00:31:55.000 I think the original people that owned it, because my friend Bert Kreischer has a show over there, or had a show over there, a couple shows.

00:32:00.000 Bert the Conqueror, and what was his other show?

00:32:02.000 Hurt Bert? 1.00

00:32:03.000 Yeah, she's a crazy asshole. 1.00

00:32:06.000 But, you know, Bert had issues with that too. 1.00

00:32:08.000 Like, when he would be on the show, if we'd all be hanging out together, if he wanted to smoke pot, he had to make sure that Jamie turned the camera away from him.

00:32:15.000 Oh, yeah.

00:32:15.000 Because they couldn't see him smoke pot.

00:32:17.000 Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:32:18.000 And listen, I don't have any inside information, so this is purely my outside perspective.

00:32:23.000 I don't do the deals, and I don't deal in that stuff.

00:32:26.000 I make the shows.

00:32:28.000 But I saw a network that was more interested in making shows about sandcastles and ghosts.

00:32:38.000 That's why they had a bunch of ghost shows.

00:32:39.000 A lot of ghost shows. 0.99

00:32:40.000 Yeah, the ghost shows are fucking popular. 0.99

00:32:43.000 Yeah, they're really popular, man. 1.00

00:32:45.000 So stupid. 1.00

00:32:45.000 They're the dumbest fucking shows on television, and there's like a hundred of them. 1.00

00:32:50.000 But the thing is, if you're watching, everybody's scared of ghosts. 1.00

00:32:54.000 So if you're watching, and there's some people, and they're in the basement, and they have night vision on, and they pretend they see something, you're like, what are they seeing? 0.95

00:33:01.000 Is there a fucking real ghost?

00:33:02.000 Cuts to commercial, and then all of a sudden you're hooked, and you watch a Tide commercial. 0.99

00:33:05.000 It's a hook, man.

00:33:05.000 It's a hook after hook after hook.

00:33:07.000 Yeah.

00:33:08.000 It is the craziest, weirdest thing.

00:33:12.000 It's one of the weirder things on television.

00:33:13.000 I just can't imagine having to shoot those shows.

00:33:16.000 Oh, could you imagine?

00:33:17.000 Try to make them interesting, like you? 0.99

00:33:19.000 Stumbling around some fucking old house, like with night vision, you know, trying to... 0.99

00:33:24.000 Is that a fear now? 0.99

00:33:25.000 I mean, look, you went from Meat Eater, which is an amazing show, and Parts Unknown, and No Reservations.

00:33:34.000 So you've got these three amazing shows.

00:33:38.000 And they put you on a ghost show.

00:33:40.000 No, that's not a fear of mine.

00:33:42.000 Listen, that might be a nightmare.

00:33:44.000 That might be something I dream about and wake up sweating through my sheets.

00:33:50.000 No, man.

00:33:51.000 Listen, I still work for 0.0.

00:33:54.000 Hi, Morgan, Morgan Fallon.

00:33:55.000 It's Mike from Finding Bigfoot.

00:33:57.000 Listen, we're coming back for season 1000. We're going to find him this year.

00:34:03.000 Yeah.

00:34:04.000 Please, please come aboard.

00:34:05.000 We love what you did with Tony Bourdain, and we think you could do that with Bobo.

00:34:09.000 You know, but here's the thing, they don't.

00:34:10.000 They don't want that.

00:34:11.000 They don't want cinematography and art.

00:34:15.000 You know, they want, listen, man, they want some kid producer, director, slash cinematographer that they can, you know, they don't want what we do.

00:34:24.000 They want fake Bigfoot noises.

00:34:25.000 Yeah.

00:34:26.000 Yeah.

00:34:28.000 Like I said, I'm still with 0.0, Tony's long-time production company.

00:34:34.000 We do awesome work, a ton of awesome stuff lined up.

00:34:38.000 We'll be okay, man.

00:34:40.000 Are you going to do more stuff with Steve at MeatEater?

00:34:43.000 I'll go out with Steve anytime he calls.

00:34:45.000 I just need a little more advance warning these days.

00:34:48.000 I think they called me last week to see if I wanted to do an elk hunt.

00:34:51.000 Now, if you do that, would you try to get in shape first?

00:34:54.000 Like heavy duty?

00:34:55.000 Yeah, absolutely. 1.00

00:34:56.000 Because the last time I went out with him, I got my ass kicked. 1.00

00:34:58.000 It's fucking rough. 1.00

00:34:59.000 Are you kidding, man? 0.99

00:35:00.000 Dude, he's got...

00:35:01.000 I mean, talk about a guy with, like, you know...

00:35:04.000 He has no empathy whatsoever for the people he's with who maybe can't keep up with him, man, when you're in the...

00:35:12.000 It's like, if you can't make that hike, you're just not making that hike, you know?

00:35:16.000 Yeah.

00:35:17.000 And, you know, he weighs 110 pounds, and he can walk for days.

00:35:21.000 Yeah.

00:35:21.000 Yeah, and he's been doing this since he was a baby.

00:35:23.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:35:25.000 No, man.

00:35:27.000 The last time I went out with him was, I guess, two years ago.

00:35:30.000 I went up to Alaska and did the blacktail hunt.

00:35:33.000 But we actually had nice weather, which was kind of unbelievable.

00:35:35.000 Because I know you've been up there when it's like, you know, 10 days of rain coming in sideways.

00:35:40.000 Yeah, we had to leave early last time I was there because a storm was coming and we had to make a decision.

00:35:44.000 It's a storm coming every time we get up there.

00:35:46.000 We weren't going to be able to get out.

00:35:47.000 It was a possibility.

00:35:48.000 Right, exactly.

00:35:49.000 Yeah.

00:35:50.000 Part of me was like, even though we're rain-soaked, I want to hunt the last six hours.

00:35:56.000 Yeah.

00:35:56.000 Because if I stay the last day, never know.

00:35:59.000 That's so many times, that's when you hook up with an animal.

00:36:03.000 Absolutely.

00:36:04.000 I mean, in my experience up there- Hook up with an animal sounds like the wrong thing to say.

00:36:07.000 Really, really wrong.

00:36:09.000 You can hook up with an animal and catch can.

00:36:11.000 Yeah.

00:36:14.000 No, man, but, you know, like, that's exactly the way it was.

00:36:17.000 You go up there, and you'd be in, you know, six days of rain, but all of a sudden, you know, the fog would clear, and there's some, you know, blacktails standing right there looking at you, you know? 0.99

00:36:28.000 A lot of bear up there, too.

00:36:29.000 Yeah, tons of bear. 0.99

00:36:31.000 No, but he, you know, I got my ass whipped last time I went up there. 0.98

00:36:33.000 The first time I went up there, I was still in shape, you know? 0.99

00:36:36.000 I was younger.

00:36:36.000 Yeah.

00:36:37.000 And I did pretty well.

00:36:38.000 Well, you were doing it all the time.

00:36:39.000 You have to do it all the time.

00:36:41.000 You have to do it all the time.

00:36:41.000 The hiking thing is something, I mean, you're basically building up this endurance in your legs that you only get from hiking.

00:36:46.000 Yeah.

00:36:47.000 Absolutely.

00:36:48.000 Hiking endurance is no joke.

00:36:49.000 It seems like it's a joke, because if you hike for like five feet, it seems like nothing.

00:36:54.000 You climb a small hill, you're like, I could do this all day.

00:36:57.000 You'd think you could do it all day.

00:36:58.000 You'd do that for 20 minutes, you'd start heaving, you'd be drenched in sweat, you'd want to take your jacket off, and then you realize like, oh my god, I have to do this for eight more hours?

00:37:07.000 Eight more days. 1.00

00:37:08.000 Fuck, yeah. 1.00

00:37:08.000 And then the Yeah. 1.00

00:37:09.000 And if your immune system is at all taxed, it's going to crash hard.

00:37:13.000 You might get sick.

00:37:14.000 Yeah, man.

00:37:15.000 Like you said, you can't train for it.

00:37:17.000 You can't train for that kind of backcountry stuff.

00:37:19.000 You can go out and run up and down the Stairmaster or whatever, but it doesn't train all those little muscles that you use to constantly stabilize yourself.

00:37:30.000 Stairmaster will help a little.

00:37:31.000 What's that?

00:37:32.000 Stairmaster will help a little.

00:37:33.000 It'll help the major muscle groups, right?

00:37:35.000 Running hills helped me.

00:37:37.000 It helped me a lot.

00:37:38.000 Just because it's so much harder than hiking.

00:37:40.000 Just run them.

00:37:41.000 You could do it easier.

00:37:42.000 It makes hiking easier.

00:37:44.000 Hiking with weighted packs on, too.

00:37:46.000 Did you ever do that?

00:37:46.000 Oh, yeah.

00:37:47.000 And that's what we did.

00:37:48.000 But I mean, just like for training purposes?

00:37:50.000 Oh, just for training?

00:37:51.000 Yeah, I would.

00:37:52.000 On the Stairmaster, actually.

00:37:53.000 Here I am.

00:37:54.000 I'm dissing the Stairmaster with that.

00:37:56.000 Stairmasters are good.

00:37:57.000 Yeah.

00:37:58.000 No, I'd put weights in my pack and go in the Stairmaster.

00:38:00.000 Yeah.

00:38:01.000 Yeah.

00:38:01.000 And boots.

00:38:03.000 You know, weird boots on the Stairmaster.

00:38:05.000 Did they let you do that at the gym or did they look at you weird?

00:38:07.000 Everyone looks at you weird.

00:38:09.000 My God, if you even talk about hunting in Los Angeles, they'll look at you weird, man.

00:38:13.000 It's true.

00:38:16.000 What's wrong with you? 1.00

00:38:17.000 What the fuck? 1.00

00:38:18.000 That guy got camo on for me. 1.00

00:38:20.000 Jesus Christ, dude.

00:38:22.000 Did you wear camo at the gym?

00:38:23.000 I feel like I may have had some camo aspect to my pack.

00:38:28.000 Of course.

00:38:31.000 Bloodstains.

00:38:31.000 You know, it's interesting, though, because I think back on those times, like, you know, like, while we're talking about, like, all the shitty weather and all that stuff, and I just think back to that.

00:38:39.000 The first time I went out with Steve, him saying, like, yeah, dude, but you won't, you know, you never tell stories about the good days, you know?

00:38:47.000 And I gotta say, to his credit, that's been absolutely true.

00:38:50.000 It's like...

00:38:51.000 Those shitty days, freezing cold, getting out of your sleeping bag in the morning and putting on wet clothes, cold wet clothes to go out and hunt all day.

00:39:04.000 I look back on that with a great degree of fondness.

00:39:07.000 And I also have to say, it made me a lot more of a person than I was before.

00:39:12.000 It toughens you up.

00:39:14.000 It toughened me up.

00:39:15.000 It opened me up to the idea of...

00:39:18.000 It opened me up to...

00:39:21.000 Accepting, you know, possibilities for myself that I had never thought of before.

00:39:26.000 Your capabilities.

00:39:28.000 Your capabilities.

00:39:29.000 You know, that we, like...

00:39:32.000 We all have that somewhere back down in the brainstem, this idea, this ability to just go out in the woods and hunt something and eat it.

00:39:43.000 And up until that point, I had never done that.

00:39:45.000 I'd done some hiking and some camping.

00:39:47.000 It was always on trails, and they're all nicely marked and stuff like that.

00:39:50.000 The idea of stepping out of the back door of Steve's cabin and just into the woods, at that time for me when I first did it, that was completely new.

00:39:58.000 I was like, well, you can just walk into the woods?

00:40:00.000 What?

00:40:01.000 What do you mean, man?

00:40:02.000 Where are you going?

00:40:03.000 Where do we go?

00:40:05.000 And then to do it and to have it be successful and to bring that animal back and to sit around and eat it and all that stuff, that was a real huge aha moment for me, personally and professionally. 0.92

00:40:17.000 Like, oh, we can do shit that we used to do 10,000 years ago. 0.88

00:40:22.000 Well, it was big for me too. 0.96

00:40:23.000 I remember saying that on the show, like when Steve was asking me and Brian on the first hunt, which just by sheer luck, we were both successful on the first hunt.

00:40:32.000 And Steve was like, do you think you're going to do it again? 0.82

00:40:35.000 I said, fuck yeah, I'm doing this forever. 0.99

00:40:38.000 Like I knew it. 0.99

00:40:39.000 And he goes, when did you know?

00:40:40.000 I said, the moment that deer dropped.

00:40:41.000 The moment the deer dropped, I'm like, okay, I'm doing this forever.

00:40:44.000 This is how I'm getting my meat now.

00:40:46.000 I'm going to do this.

00:40:48.000 Yeah, man.

00:40:49.000 It's...

00:40:49.000 I don't know.

00:40:51.000 There's so many just, like, really glib interpretations of, like, the motivation behind hunting, you know?

00:40:57.000 Cruelty and bloodlust.

00:40:59.000 Because in its worst cases, that's true.

00:41:03.000 Yeah, and because I do think that hunting shows for years, that's a lot of what they put forward, was, like, kind of machismo and guys shooting, you know...

00:41:12.000 Black bears over, you know, donut barrels, you know, for all the wrong reasons, you know?

00:41:18.000 But at least we think of that as something that people, or at least I do, think of that as something that people eat for food. 0.98

00:41:23.000 When you think about Cecil, like Cecil the Lion, like that kind of shit really sours people on the idea of hunting because there's no justification for the average person for shooting a lion. 0.98

00:41:34.000 I mean, you have to... 0.99

00:41:35.000 You would have to do decades of education about conservation and the importance of the money that goes for the hunt.

00:41:42.000 And then they still don't get it because they're like, why would you want to shoot a lion?

00:41:45.000 And that's the good question.

00:41:46.000 The good question is, why would you want to shoot a lion?

00:41:48.000 And I would say it's a good question for me, too.

00:41:50.000 I definitely have limits.

00:41:51.000 As much as I went around with Steve, I have limits on what I would personally choose to do.

00:41:56.000 And I've got to say, the Africa stuff, for me, man, I just...

00:42:00.000 It's not interesting to me.

00:42:01.000 The only thing that's interesting to me in Africa would be to hunt something that I would eat.

00:42:06.000 So if they have antelope in Africa, I would love to hunt an antelope.

00:42:09.000 They've got a lot of those.

00:42:10.000 Yeah, hunt an antelope and cook it and eat it.

00:42:12.000 That to me makes sense.

00:42:15.000 There's no way I want to shoot a hippo or anything else.

00:42:19.000 Even if people do eat hippos, and I understand they do, that, okay, good luck.

00:42:24.000 Yeah.

00:42:25.000 I don't want to have nothing to do with any of that.

00:42:27.000 No, me neither.

00:42:28.000 But game animals that are delicious, Neil Guy, things like that, that people have eaten forever and that they hunt just like they hunt elk or deer here.

00:42:37.000 That, to me, makes sense.

00:42:38.000 It would be just an adventure to go to Africa. 0.99

00:42:40.000 But Africa's so fucking scary. 1.00

00:42:43.000 It's so sketchy. 0.99

00:42:44.000 I love...

00:42:44.000 I mean, see, I love Africa.

00:42:46.000 And I became like...

00:42:48.000 I kind of took all the Africa shows I could on Parts Unknown. 0.86

00:42:51.000 Really?

00:42:52.000 To me, it's like the most wonderful place.

00:42:56.000 Well...

00:42:58.000 First of all, I think there's a lot of misperception when it comes...

00:43:03.000 I've never had a negative experience there.

00:43:06.000 I've had maybe...

00:43:08.000 I had one experience that was kind of quasi-threatening.

00:43:12.000 Quasi?

00:43:13.000 Yeah.

00:43:14.000 We had a crowd kind of turn on us and throw rocks at us as we were driving away.

00:43:19.000 That's the one experience.

00:43:20.000 There were like hundreds of experiences.

00:43:21.000 What was that about?

00:43:22.000 Well, we were in...

00:43:24.000 We're in Goma in the DRC, you know?

00:43:27.000 And it's just a really, really chaotic place.

00:43:31.000 The place has been run over by civil wars for decades.

00:43:35.000 People are in serious desperation.

00:43:37.000 But I think worse than any of that, there's a huge culture of non-profit organizations and stuff there.

00:43:44.000 So I think they're used to kind of white folks coming in with this very patronizing kind of view.

00:43:50.000 And then we're down there with cameras filming them, and then all of a sudden they realize that we're not paying anyone for this, you know?

00:43:58.000 And I think, you know, there's a tendency for people to feel like, well, you're here taking something from us, you know? 0.91

00:44:05.000 You're clearly making more money than any of us will ever, you know, be able to make, and what the fuck do we get for it, you know?

00:44:12.000 And I can understand that point of view. 0.71

00:44:14.000 And how did it turn into them throwing rocks at you guys?

00:44:17.000 Again, they realized that we weren't going to be paying for any of this.

00:44:21.000 Our security team was like, hey guys, time to get in the car. 1.00

00:44:25.000 As soon as you get in the car and you're leaving, it's like, oh, these fucking assholes, man. 1.00

00:44:30.000 They just came down here, got all their footage, and they're going to pack up and go back to their nice hotel. 1.00

00:44:37.000 But that's the one experience.

00:44:39.000 A lot of experiences there.

00:44:42.000 For the most part, I found people there incredibly gracious.

00:44:46.000 I found it to be one of the most hopeful places, honestly.

00:44:50.000 My day-to-day experiences in Africa, I saw people who were Working their asses off on a grassroots level.

00:44:59.000 Some of the most dynamic grassroots capitalism that I've ever seen.

00:45:08.000 People who will literally find any way to scrape out an existence and a living.

00:45:15.000 This is not a lazy culture.

00:45:18.000 This is a culture that will fight through anything.

00:45:22.000 Go to Lagos, and Lagos is one of the most dynamic cities I've ever been in.

00:45:27.000 There's constantly moving, constantly people trying to make money, constantly people trying to find a niche in a city of 20 million people.

00:45:37.000 I find a lot of beauty in just raw human endeavor there.

00:45:41.000 And I think that if they can clear some of the obvious stumbling blocks that they have in terms of corruption, in terms of foreign pressure, in terms of manipulation of markets, there's tremendous promise there.

00:45:59.000 I mean, just in terms of the internet and technology sector in Africa is absolutely booming.

00:46:08.000 You have kids that come in from the villages on the streets of Legos who can take your computer apart and rebuild it by hand.

00:46:19.000 Self-taught.

00:46:21.000 And all of that potential is there to be tapped.

00:46:26.000 And they're starting to.

00:46:28.000 So I guess I just find it a hopeful place.

00:46:32.000 That's amazing that you only had one bad experience.

00:46:34.000 Only one.

00:46:35.000 Only one.

00:46:36.000 But I can say that about traveling the world kind of in general.

00:46:39.000 I mean, we've been in a number of relatively hot zones.

00:46:43.000 I mean, we never did active conflict because we don't make that kind of show.

00:46:48.000 But being in places like Gaza or the DRC or...

00:46:54.000 I can count on one hand in many, many years of doing this the number of times that I actually felt threatened by someone.

00:47:04.000 I've found that the most likely scenario is you're going to get accosted by a sandwich or someone trying to introduce you to their kids or take a selfie with you.

00:47:14.000 And that's the world that I know.

00:47:17.000 I don't really understand the world that we see on TV here, man, because that's not my experience.

00:47:24.000 A lot of good people.

00:47:26.000 And again, getting back to Tony, I think that's the legacy, right?

00:47:31.000 I think that he really showed people that.

00:47:34.000 That is a problem with our view of the world, is that if it doesn't look scary, they're not going to show it to you.

00:47:39.000 No.

00:47:39.000 Because if it's not dangerous, I mean, other than his show, what else are you seeing on CNN where they're in Africa where it's a good thing?

00:47:49.000 What else are you seeing where people are in Egypt where it's a good thing?

00:47:53.000 What else are you seeing where people are interacting with people on the street and there's not some sort of a murder story or a rape story or something awful?

00:48:02.000 Yeah, I mean, I think you're starting to see it a little bit, but mostly you're seeing it on CNN's Africa network.

00:48:14.000 There you're starting to see them covering stories about entrepreneurs.

00:48:18.000 Right.

00:48:18.000 You know, positive aspects, you know, building economies.

00:48:22.000 But it's a real problem in our view of the world for people that don't travel.

00:48:25.000 Well, listen, Africa just simply doesn't make news in the United States.

00:48:28.000 I mean, it takes a genocide, you know.

00:48:32.000 Well, all I've been hearing about Africa lately is what's going on with white farmers in South Africa. 0.92

00:48:37.000 It's very scary stuff where people are encouraging people to attack white farmers. 0.97

00:48:45.000 You know, and there's a whole lot of sociopolitical and economic shit that goes on with that that I'm not even going to pretend I understand. 0.98

00:48:51.000 But that's what you hear about. 0.90

00:48:53.000 You don't hear about good things.

00:48:54.000 You hear about how many farmers have been murdered in their homes.

00:48:57.000 Well, that's a shame, man, because, you know, you go there and most of what I find going on there is positive.

00:49:06.000 You know, listen, there's a lot of pain.

00:49:08.000 There's a lot of suffering. 0.99

00:49:09.000 There's a lot of bad shit that happens there, too, obviously. 0.99

00:49:12.000 I'm not going to deny that, you know. 0.99

00:49:16.000 We don't hear the good stuff.

00:49:18.000 Did you have a place where you enjoyed traveling to the most?

00:49:23.000 I don't think really.

00:49:27.000 To me, this is another real lesson of the show.

00:49:33.000 I think we got to a place where we were finding something everywhere.

00:49:39.000 There are some places that I didn't enjoy as much.

00:49:46.000 I think most places we found something that was like, oh, this is awesome.

00:49:51.000 What was the one place where you're like, eh, I'm not going back here again?

00:49:56.000 I don't want to say.

00:49:57.000 Okay.

00:49:59.000 Keep it positive, people.

00:50:00.000 Keep it positive.

00:50:01.000 Let's just say it's a highly militarized state with deep problems and deep divides on both sides.

00:50:11.000 And a lot of beautiful people on both sides.

00:50:17.000 But I think, you know, I mean, this was something we, like, would encounter a lot as we kind of progressed in the show.

00:50:24.000 I mean, my dad would say it to me all the time.

00:50:26.000 He's like, well, where are you guys going to go now?

00:50:28.000 You know, we've been everywhere.

00:50:29.000 It's just like, yeah, but I think we started to learn that you could, like, really point the camera kind of anywhere.

00:50:34.000 I think a big one for me was, like, doing this West Virginia show last year, which is a place that had always been, like, really close to my heart.

00:50:42.000 Like, I grew up there when I was a kid.

00:50:45.000 Um...

00:50:46.000 It's a place that has been, I think, deeply misrepresented.

00:50:49.000 Again, another place has been deeply misrepresented in the media.

00:50:57.000 I got into town on the scout there, and it's like, there's no restaurant.

00:51:02.000 It's not just that there's no restaurant in the town.

00:51:04.000 There's two restaurants in the county.

00:51:06.000 You know, and I remember having this moment of like, can we do this?

00:51:10.000 Does this work?

00:51:11.000 Like, will Tony respond to this when we make a show here?

00:51:14.000 And within two days, he was like, big, you know, very deeply heartfelt statements about the place, really loved it, you know, and it was kind of another aha moment where you're like, oh, yeah, of course.

00:51:27.000 Because there's something everywhere.

00:51:29.000 The human story is everywhere, and you can dig into it wherever you go.

00:51:34.000 The fundamentals of that don't change.

00:51:36.000 And I think that, you know, what he did was so cleanly and clearly and so free of bullshit cut to the core of those very fundamental kind of human stories, you know?

00:51:51.000 And...

00:51:53.000 Anyways, it worked well.

00:51:54.000 We won an Emmy two nights ago for it.

00:51:57.000 Yeah, posthumous Emmys are always odd, right?

00:52:01.000 Yeah, that was a rough night.

00:52:05.000 When he would get the rough cut, would it be the length of the actual show?

00:52:10.000 And then he would add narration to it?

00:52:12.000 Did he have any say in the editing process?

00:52:15.000 Huge.

00:52:16.000 I think that's something important, too, about who he was.

00:52:21.000 Everyone calls him a chef.

00:52:23.000 He wasn't a chef.

00:52:24.000 He was a producer.

00:52:25.000 He was a television producer.

00:52:28.000 He would pick the locations.

00:52:29.000 He would pick the subject matter for the most part.

00:52:32.000 There were a couple.

00:52:33.000 How did you guys work it out?

00:52:34.000 Say if you were going to go to Puerto Rico or something like that, how would you make the decisions?

00:52:39.000 How would you decide where to go and why?

00:52:42.000 I'll take you through the whole process.

00:52:44.000 So Tony would come up with a list of places that he was interested in going, and maybe we would throw a couple in, like I mentioned the West Virginia show, you know.

00:52:52.000 Be like, but this is my list, right?

00:52:54.000 And then he'd write like a brief on each one.

00:52:57.000 I'm interested in X, you know, like I'm interested in Singapore.

00:53:02.000 It's Disneyland with the death penalty, right?

00:53:05.000 And you're like, okay, so there's kind of a basic operating thesis, right?

00:53:09.000 We can kind of go in and look at this place from this perspective.

00:53:16.000 And some of them didn't.

00:53:18.000 The Lagos episode, for example, you'd just be like, we haven't been to Nigeria, let's go to Nigeria.

00:53:24.000 And so we would start doing research on what that was.

00:53:28.000 Just big kind of You know, 30,000 foot macro, you know, what is this environment like?

00:53:35.000 What are the interesting things?

00:53:36.000 What are the stories that have been told about this place?

00:53:38.000 And how can we look at it from a different angle?

00:53:41.000 So like the Nigeria one, we kind of focused in on, like I said, you know, Grassroots capitalism, DIY entrepreneurship, you know, street level, you know, the street level kind of dynamics of the economy, you know.

00:53:57.000 And that became, like, we could see ways to kind of make a beautiful, like, human story out of those elements.

00:54:05.000 So...

00:54:07.000 I'd end up putting down to him, probably in like a two or three page thing, like, here are my ideas.

00:54:13.000 You know, here's what I found based on what you were interested in.

00:54:17.000 Here's some other things I found.

00:54:18.000 This is the way we'd kind of like to go about it.

00:54:21.000 And he'd either be like, yeah or no.

00:54:23.000 You know, and from that point, we'd just get heavy into research, write a treatment, you know, and break that story into like six acts, right?

00:54:35.000 And then look for scenes to kind of fill and articulate that story.

00:54:40.000 So scenes like, you know, I have this great economist, I know we're going to need an economist at some point, but we got to put, you know, economists are kind of boring by nature, so we got to put him somewhere more dynamic or there's this really interesting story.

00:54:53.000 Computer market that has a lot of energy.

00:54:55.000 So let's put the economists there.

00:54:57.000 They can walk around.

00:54:58.000 There's a great restaurant in the corner there.

00:55:00.000 So, like, here's some elements we can put together.

00:55:02.000 That's a scene in an act of the show.

00:55:05.000 So you put all that stuff together in treatment form, send it to Tony.

00:55:11.000 Usually minimal notes from him, you know.

00:55:15.000 And then we'd go out, scout.

00:55:20.000 Shoot the show.

00:55:22.000 How weird is it shooting in a restaurant with camera people standing over the table?

00:55:26.000 I think we got really good at not taking over the environment.

00:55:31.000 I don't know how to answer that.

00:55:35.000 How do you do it?

00:55:36.000 Say if you and I are having a conversation at dinner and we're being filmed, would they be as close as Jamie is right there?

00:55:43.000 The cameras?

00:55:44.000 Yeah.

00:55:44.000 Closer than that.

00:55:45.000 Right on top of you.

00:55:46.000 Yeah, they're pretty close.

00:55:47.000 But, you know...

00:55:48.000 And they're standing.

00:55:48.000 Yeah.

00:55:49.000 But we wouldn't use, like...

00:55:51.000 There were rules to that, right?

00:55:53.000 Because, like, we're a documentary show. 0.79

00:55:55.000 We can't just go in and just, like, completely take over some place or take over some village or scare the shit out of local people or...

00:56:02.000 You know what I mean? 0.95

00:56:03.000 Like, we got to go in with some deafness, you know? 1.00

00:56:05.000 So we would go in early and we would light...

00:56:08.000 So that the characters, Tony, aren't really seeing us screw around with lighting, stuff like that.

00:56:13.000 That's all kind of in place.

00:56:15.000 Yeah.

00:56:17.000 Put the cameras in there.

00:56:18.000 No sound guy, no big booms.

00:56:21.000 Sit the rest of the crew down.

00:56:23.000 Are they wearing wireless mics?

00:56:24.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:56:25.000 And then fill in local people in the rest of the restaurant.

00:56:32.000 Make sure that there are people who actually go to that restaurant in the restaurant.

00:56:36.000 Make sure that it feels alive, not full of...

00:56:40.000 You know, extras, like, miming dialogue.

00:56:43.000 And are they carrying large cameras?

00:56:45.000 Like, how big are the cameras they're carrying?

00:56:46.000 They're big cameras.

00:56:47.000 Like, regular, big ol' production cameras, heavy on the shoulders?

00:56:50.000 Yeah.

00:56:51.000 Like, you guys would use a mediator?

00:56:52.000 Yeah.

00:56:53.000 Not so...

00:56:54.000 Yeah.

00:56:54.000 You know, but...

00:56:55.000 Again, it's two guys standing there with cameras that have been traveling, at least from Tony's perspective, been traveling with Tony for a long time.

00:57:04.000 It's just like having two more friends at the meal.

00:57:07.000 In terms of with the sidekicks, I think we learned early on that you've got to go up, you've got to introduce yourself, you've got to smile, you've got to laugh, you've got to be able to be self-deprecating, make them feel comfortable, like you're there to ask them questions, not to tell them who they are.

00:57:25.000 I don't know, man.

00:57:26.000 I have to say, we traveled all over the place.

00:57:29.000 A lot of people had never been on camera before.

00:57:31.000 It largely worked, you know?

00:57:33.000 So we must have been doing something right.

00:57:35.000 Was there ever a time you were in a restaurant and people were pissed off that there was people standing there with cameras filming a table?

00:57:40.000 Oh, yeah.

00:57:41.000 Yeah?

00:57:41.000 Yeah.

00:57:41.000 But, you know, that's pretty easy.

00:57:44.000 You know, someone gets pissed off and they wave you off.

00:57:47.000 Okay, cool.

00:57:48.000 Sorry.

00:57:48.000 You know?

00:57:49.000 No worries.

00:57:50.000 You know?

00:57:51.000 It never really escalated.

00:57:54.000 You know, at least with me.

00:57:55.000 It never escalated.

00:57:56.000 You had a view of the world by doing that show and traveling the way you did that is less than 1% of the population is ever going to experience.

00:58:04.000 Probably less than 1% of 1%.

00:58:06.000 Yeah, I would say for sure.

00:58:07.000 Yeah.

00:58:08.000 I mean, it's got to be an incredibly enriching journey for you.

00:58:12.000 Yeah, hugely.

00:58:14.000 I mean, hugely.

00:58:15.000 There's, I mean, it's, I don't know, it's very simple.

00:58:18.000 There's before and there's after.

00:58:19.000 And it's two different people, really.

00:58:22.000 Because just all the data you had to take in, the view of the world changes, it gets bigger, becomes a much bigger place.

00:58:29.000 It does.

00:58:30.000 That's exactly right.

00:58:32.000 And that's what's really interesting.

00:58:33.000 I tell people this too.

00:58:34.000 They'd be like, oh, well, you've been all these places.

00:58:37.000 Yeah, but the world doesn't work like that.

00:58:40.000 It's not like the more places you go, the smaller the world feels.

00:58:44.000 The more places you go, the bigger the world feels.

00:58:46.000 It just feels bigger and bigger and bigger because you realize there's this country, there's this county in this country, there's this town in this county, there's this street, there's all these other streets, there's all these other people.

00:58:57.000 Yeah.

00:58:59.000 Our shows were just a sliver of a place, a tiny little sliver.

00:59:04.000 You can go into Lagos.

00:59:05.000 We'd go back to Lagos and make 10 more shows, each one of them completely unique and individual. 0.99

00:59:11.000 The world's a big place, a lot of shit going on. 0.99

00:59:15.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:59:16.000 Now...

00:59:20.000 They're going to keep airing these shows, right?

00:59:22.000 I mean, how long are they going to do this for?

00:59:24.000 How many did they have, all told?

00:59:26.000 How many did they did five seasons?

00:59:29.000 Five seasons, 18. I guess we're getting near 100 shows.

00:59:33.000 I've never counted.

00:59:34.000 I don't really know.

00:59:35.000 A lot of shows, though.

00:59:37.000 Yeah, they'll keep airing.

00:59:37.000 I have it on my DVR, so they'll occasionally run these marathons, and I'll go to my DVR, and there's like 20 new shows.

00:59:44.000 Yeah.

00:59:45.000 I watched a few of them the other night.

00:59:48.000 The first time I watched it, In a while, I posted a thing on Instagram too about it because I was real reluctant to watch it after he died, but then I went on a bender.

01:00:00.000 I watched like, I binged, watched like three of them in a night. 0.97

01:00:04.000 I was like, God damn, what a good show it was. 0.99

01:00:06.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:00:07.000 Yeah, it was good, man.

01:00:09.000 You guys nailed it.

01:00:10.000 Yeah.

01:00:11.000 You should be really proud.

01:00:12.000 Thanks, man.

01:00:14.000 Yeah.

01:00:14.000 And I'm actually still working on one right now, which is maybe the weirdest experience.

01:00:21.000 You were asking about process before.

01:00:24.000 After we'd shoot it, that's when Tony really came in.

01:00:27.000 What do you do if he's not there for narration?

01:00:29.000 Well, that's the thing.

01:00:30.000 Who narrates it?

01:00:33.000 I'm not going to replace Tony.

01:00:34.000 So no narration?

01:00:35.000 No.

01:00:36.000 Yeah.

01:00:37.000 We have our sidekicks talking to him.

01:00:40.000 We have his dialogue in the field.

01:00:44.000 But who's going to step in and do that voice?

01:00:47.000 And how offensive would it be if we did that?

01:00:50.000 It would have to be someone who is so close to him that it didn't freak everybody out.

01:00:56.000 It would have to be someone who was on the show a thousand times and was just there with them always.

01:01:00.000 That person doesn't really exist.

01:01:01.000 It doesn't.

01:01:03.000 There's no voice there.

01:01:05.000 When you would give him a rough cut, say, like I said, a show on Puerto Rico or what have you, so he would take that, he would watch it, and then he would start writing?

01:01:14.000 Exactly.

01:01:14.000 So, yeah, getting back to process, I'd send him an act once it was in rough cut form, and then you get his notes back.

01:01:22.000 That was always kind of a terrifying moment, too, because you're like, dude, you've worked on this thing a lot.

01:01:27.000 You send it off to him, he can go one way or another, man.

01:01:30.000 I got gutted a few times, man. 0.94

01:01:34.000 But I got a couple that were like out fucking standing, you know, and that's all the notes he had. 0.97

01:01:39.000 But you would, you'd send him basically scratch writing. 0.82

01:01:42.000 So you'd say like, here's what we're thinking, you know, is this kind of idea goes here, this kind of idea goes here.

01:01:48.000 And then he would actually write it, you know, and you get that writing back.

01:01:53.000 How long would it take for him to do something like that? 1.00

01:01:54.000 Oh, he ripped that shit out, man. 1.00

01:01:56.000 Yeah? 1.00

01:01:56.000 He was fast. 1.00

01:01:57.000 And that's the thing too.

01:01:58.000 I never, you know, there was never an email or a text that he didn't get back to you.

01:02:02.000 He was no slouch, man.

01:02:05.000 He was sharp.

01:02:06.000 He was on it.

01:02:07.000 He'd get back to you.

01:02:08.000 He'd do the work.

01:02:11.000 He took pride in that.

01:02:12.000 He would talk about that, doing the work.

01:02:15.000 Yeah, and he did.

01:02:17.000 That's another thing that was so delightful about it.

01:02:22.000 It's not like you're having to drag some, you know, carcass along and, you know, prop him up in front of the camera.

01:02:29.000 And, you know, he was into it, man.

01:02:32.000 And, like, he had total ownership, total control.

01:02:36.000 Awesome.

01:02:36.000 Incredible creative ideas.

01:02:38.000 Incredible creative power.

01:02:40.000 Like, he was in, you know. 1.00

01:02:42.000 And no show was like, nah, fuck it. 1.00

01:02:45.000 You know, we can just, like, kind of slip by on this one. 0.99

01:02:48.000 You know, every show is important.

01:02:50.000 And when they, you know, when they weren't working, he was pissed, you know, and great.

01:02:56.000 You know, I think the biggest thing that I miss in this process of cutting this Texas show that I'm doing now is not having the pressure of him looking at it and being like, dude, you know, no, man, this ain't working.

01:03:11.000 You know, that was a real benefit to us.

01:03:16.000 When did he start smoking again?

01:03:19.000 You know, it's the weirdest thing, man.

01:03:21.000 I didn't really know he was smoking again, and then the Puglia show came out, and I just saw him light up on camera. 0.97

01:03:29.000 You know, I was like, oh shit, I guess we're doing this again.

01:03:32.000 And then a couple of my shows at the end, he'd start just lighting up on camera, and that was always no-go territory. 0.98

01:03:42.000 In the past, when he was smoking, we would stop shooting, you know? 0.95

01:03:49.000 All of a sudden he was just lighting up right on camera and I don't know it shocked the shit out of me you know I kind of looked around the crew like what do we do like I was shocked because he said that when his daughter was born is when he decided to stop smoking because he realized that you know he had something else to live for and that he you know he didn't want to be on some cancer bed yeah fucking iron lung having his daughter visit him yeah so he quit yeah It 0.87

01:04:20.000 was a bummer when he started again. 0.80

01:04:22.000 Did he stop going to jujitsu?

01:04:26.000 I don't know.

01:04:30.000 I guess it wasn't as frequent during the end, you know, during the last few episodes.

01:04:36.000 You know, we stopped kind of having to find gyms.

01:04:41.000 And we'd offer, you know, and be like, no, I'm, you know, cool.

01:04:45.000 So I think the last couple of shows were probably like that for me.

01:04:48.000 I was like, you want us to find a local gym?

01:04:51.000 And be like, no, you know, I'm good, man.

01:04:54.000 So was it within the last year or so or less, less than a year?

01:04:58.000 I'd say the last year or so, yeah.

01:05:00.000 So that's when the smoking started?

01:05:04.000 I guess, maybe a little earlier than that, yeah.

01:05:07.000 Whew.

01:05:08.000 It's a bummer when you see someone quit and then go back on.

01:05:11.000 That is one of the weirder things of our culture.

01:05:15.000 Because he got through the really hard part.

01:05:19.000 He had a couple years under his belt.

01:05:21.000 And he looked great, man.

01:05:25.000 He was doing really well with that.

01:05:29.000 Where do you go from here, Mo?

01:05:31.000 Where do I go from here? 1.00

01:05:32.000 Oh, shit. 1.00

01:05:33.000 You know... 1.00

01:05:35.000 Um, you know, Tony, I think, gave us, like, tremendous tools to, you know, for how we look at the world and, like, how we will continue to go on looking at the world.

01:05:48.000 And, um, I don't know exactly what show I'll do, but I know it will continue that kind of ethos, you know?

01:05:57.000 And, um, I get, you know, I feel like I have this very powerful kind of, um, I don't know, like I said, a set of tools now that he kind of handed us to go on and keep doing,

01:06:15.000 I guess, this work.

01:06:18.000 Isn't the problem with this work that you need someone like him?

01:06:23.000 You kind of need either a Rinella, who's a very unique person, and in many ways similar.

01:06:30.000 Not self-destructive at all, but really meticulous about his work, and a very good writer as well, and his narration.

01:06:40.000 One of the things that separates Meat Eater from any other show is that Steve has this eloquent narration that goes through it, and it makes you realize our perception of what it means to be a hunter Is based on stereotypes, negative stereotypes.

01:06:55.000 This is the best example.

01:06:57.000 This is a really well-read, brilliant man who has a great passion for the outdoors and for public lands and for wildlife and for consuming wildlife and this adventure of pursuing it and eating it and cooking it and showing you the art of cooking it.

01:07:18.000 You know, you wouldn't be able to make Meat Eater with Pig Man. 0.99

01:07:26.000 Dude, I can't even talk about Pig Man.

01:07:31.000 A porkalypse? 0.59

01:07:32.000 Yeah.

01:07:33.000 I mean, come on, dude.

01:07:34.000 Well, unfortunately, I enjoyed that.

01:07:38.000 For all the wrong reasons.

01:07:41.000 You see, there's justification in enjoying a pork lips.

01:07:44.000 First of all, because you've got Ted Nugent with a machine gun and a helicopter.

01:07:48.000 And then two, you have this real wild pig epidemic.

01:07:52.000 It's a legitimate epidemic in Texas and they don't know how to eradicate them.

01:07:56.000 I get all that.

01:07:58.000 But putting it on television on a hunting show, it's not really hunting.

01:08:03.000 It's assassinating out of a helicopter and they're laughing.

01:08:07.000 It's that part.

01:08:08.000 It's the mentality behind it.

01:08:10.000 Listen, I'm not saying don't have fun on a hunt.

01:08:12.000 I've had a lot of fun on hunts.

01:08:14.000 I have a great time on a hunt.

01:08:17.000 I don't know.

01:08:17.000 There's something about...

01:08:19.000 I know what you're saying.

01:08:20.000 I know exactly what you're saying.

01:08:21.000 Firing off a thousand rounds, cackling on the side of a helicopter. 0.98

01:08:25.000 Laughing when you see pigs do somersaults because you head shot at them from a sideways helicopter.

01:08:30.000 I think that's one of the things I really loved about Steve.

01:08:36.000 Or love, still.

01:08:38.000 That I still love about Steve.

01:08:41.000 Yeah.

01:08:43.000 You know, a really poignant episode on that show for me was when we went up to Alaska and we're hunting black bear and he decided not to take a shot.

01:08:54.000 You know, I mean, here's a guy that loves animals as much as he loves hunting animals, as much as he loves conservation of animals, as much as he loves the knowledge and the science behind animals in the natural world, you know.

01:09:09.000 That, to me, was appealing.

01:09:10.000 Like, that's something I can sink my teeth into and dedicate my efforts towards, you know, furthering and working on...

01:09:17.000 That was a crazy show.

01:09:17.000 Yeah, it was a crazy show, man.

01:09:18.000 I mean, I talked to him about it, and his sort of idea of why he didn't do it was so interesting.

01:09:24.000 Yeah.

01:09:24.000 He just kind of went with his feelings.

01:09:26.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:09:27.000 Yeah.

01:09:28.000 To have a hunting show where you have a bear, which is what you're looking for, lined up in your scope and go...

01:09:34.000 I don't want to do it.

01:09:35.000 I'm not feeling it.

01:09:36.000 And I loved what he said too at the time.

01:09:38.000 He was like, I'm not saying I'm never going to shoot a bear again.

01:09:41.000 I just don't want to shoot a bear today.

01:09:43.000 And I'm not going to.

01:09:44.000 And that was a big moment, man.

01:09:47.000 Well, that's the words coming out of his mouth.

01:09:49.000 How conflicted.

01:09:51.000 Must his perception be to realize that, okay, I'm filming a show where I'm actively hunting bears.

01:09:56.000 There's camera people there.

01:09:57.000 There's a budget behind it.

01:09:58.000 Now I have to make a show about my decision to not hunt a bear.

01:10:01.000 And then next week, I'm going to go hunt something else.

01:10:04.000 And then the next week, I'm going to go hunt something else.

01:10:07.000 Yeah, but I mean, his ability to admit and kind of understand that the human being is a complex animal with complex emotions.

01:10:15.000 Right.

01:10:16.000 That, you know, this idea of just kind of uniform direction of the human mind is like a total fallacy, man. 0.98

01:10:24.000 We're all over the fucking place, you know? 0.93

01:10:27.000 And like, I don't know. 0.98

01:10:29.000 I really bought in at that moment.

01:10:31.000 If I hadn't before, which I completely kind of had, but I really bought in at that moment.

01:10:36.000 I was like, this is a guy I can always stand behind, you know?

01:10:39.000 One of my favorite episodes...

01:10:41.000 It was brave.

01:10:41.000 It was brave because you realize this is on the Sportsman's Network.

01:10:45.000 Yeah.

01:10:46.000 So the Sportsman's Channel, and they have only hunting shows.

01:10:49.000 Oh, man.

01:10:50.000 And then he's on a hunting show with, you've got all these people that are watching that would kill to be on a hunt like that.

01:10:55.000 Yeah.

01:10:56.000 And to have a big old bear in their sights, what they want.

01:10:59.000 Yeah.

01:10:59.000 And they're thinking, we're going to see Steve shoot this, then we're going to see him cook up a bear roast, and we're going to see stewed carrots and onions and potatoes, and this is going to be amazing.

01:11:09.000 And he's going, no, I don't want to do it.

01:11:10.000 Yeah.

01:11:11.000 And everybody's like, what?

01:11:12.000 What?

01:11:12.000 Yeah, and we were really nervous, I remember, when the episode came out.

01:11:18.000 We had done a few things before, like we had failed at a hunt.

01:11:22.000 We had taken shots that missed and the hunt failed.

01:11:26.000 We had gone on a mountain lion hunt where we never even saw a mountain lion.

01:11:29.000 Those were all kind of moments where, like, will this work?

01:11:31.000 Can we put this out in the hunting community?

01:11:33.000 Will they respond to it?

01:11:34.000 And every one of those had kind of like hit or worked.

01:11:37.000 And I think people actually appreciate it because of the realism of it, you know?

01:11:41.000 That one was like, can you...

01:11:44.000 Can you put out a show where there's a perfectly legitimate shot at, again, I mean a very high percentage shot at exactly the animal we're going after and the choice to not take the shot?

01:11:57.000 You know, how are people going to respond?

01:12:00.000 Overwhelmingly, people were like, hey man, I know exactly how you feel.

01:12:05.000 It was incredible.

01:12:07.000 It was like this moment, and I don't mean to bag on anyone else, man, and I don't know that much about hunting shows before. 0.99

01:12:16.000 I know that a lot of what I saw I found to be really either uninteresting or just fucking stupid. 0.99

01:12:23.000 But... 0.99

01:12:26.000 You know, I think that it was like this moment where like, oh my god, like all these, you know, this industry has like missed a big, big part of who the people, you know, that are paying attention here are, you know.

01:12:41.000 You don't have to just go like sell arrowheads, you know, and, you know, cackle hanging out of a helicopter.

01:12:52.000 Yeah, well that's worst case example.

01:12:56.000 But for some hunting people that are like...

01:12:59.000 Sort of deeply indoctrinated into the world of hunting.

01:13:02.000 They don't mind that show.

01:13:04.000 No.

01:13:04.000 They don't mind any of the show.

01:13:05.000 Listen, man.

01:13:05.000 More power to them.

01:13:07.000 I'm not trying to tell anyone how to be or what to like or what to appreciate.

01:13:11.000 There's just not a lot of guys like Steve.

01:13:12.000 I mean, do you know Donnie Vincent?

01:13:14.000 No.

01:13:15.000 Similar guy.

01:13:15.000 Yeah.

01:13:16.000 Similar guy.

01:13:16.000 Really, really smart guy.

01:13:18.000 Yeah.

01:13:18.000 And just great reverence for the outdoors and for wildlife.

01:13:22.000 Yeah.

01:13:23.000 You know, he does everything self-filmed and sells the films online.

01:13:27.000 He's smart.

01:13:28.000 You know, he knows what he's doing.

01:13:30.000 Yeah, cool, man.

01:13:31.000 But he, you know, Steve, he sort of changed the perception of hunting for a lot of people that have become fans of his show the same way that Tony sort of changed the perceptions of food and of cooking.

01:13:44.000 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

01:13:46.000 I mean, you know...

01:13:50.000 I mean, I'm not like Terrence Malick or something, but I got a lot to offer and I got a career.

01:13:56.000 I'm not going to dedicate my career to these people unless I really, really believe in what they're doing.

01:14:02.000 And those are two cases of people that I like.

01:14:07.000 Really believe in, man, because they were willing to look at an industry or look at something that they loved and say, like, well, I have a completely different take on it, you know, and I'm willing to put that out there at whatever cost.

01:14:20.000 And in both cases at work, because they're both super smart, you know, really capable people, you know.

01:14:28.000 I don't think I've ever met really anyone more capable than Steve in a lot of ways.

01:14:32.000 That guy is...

01:14:35.000 He's kind of a force of nature, you know?

01:14:37.000 He's a very unique person, you know?

01:14:39.000 And the amount of stuff that he's able to get done as well, you know?

01:14:43.000 Written a bunch of books and constantly doing these shows.

01:14:48.000 And I don't just...

01:14:48.000 The enthusiasm to...

01:14:50.000 I mean, he's not just going to these places and staying in hotels. 0.99

01:14:53.000 He's sleeping on the ground outside in these, you know, really fucked up places. 0.97

01:14:59.000 And you know about a Fognac, what happened with the bear attack. 0.98

01:15:03.000 I do, yeah.

01:15:03.000 Yeah.

01:15:04.000 Yeah, which is just, if anybody doesn't know, there's a two-part series on the Meat Eater podcast about a Fognac, which is an island in Alaska where they have enormous brown bears and they got charged and attacked by a fucking 11-foot bear.

01:15:22.000 Which is just so crazy to think of.

01:15:26.000 And the description of it.

01:15:27.000 And they made this podcast right after the fact.

01:15:31.000 So it's fresh in everyone's mind.

01:15:33.000 It is amazing.

01:15:34.000 It's amazing.

01:15:35.000 It's an amazing story.

01:15:36.000 It's also amazing.

01:15:37.000 It's not the first time he's been charged by a number of different animals.

01:15:43.000 He was run over by a moose.

01:15:45.000 Yeah.

01:15:46.000 But I will say that, I mean, Steve also is like physically one of the toughest people I've ever met.

01:15:51.000 I mean, I watched him set beaver traps one time in, I mean, breaking ice with his bare fist to set beaver traps for hours.

01:16:01.000 Put your hand in that water for two minutes.

01:16:07.000 That's someone who does not have trouble enduring a lot of physical discomfort.

01:16:13.000 That was what was kind of exciting about the show, too.

01:16:16.000 He was really willing to integrate that stuff into the experience.

01:16:21.000 It wasn't like...

01:16:24.000 It wasn't like we need to go out, we need the perfect kill shot, we need to set this up, we need to set that up.

01:16:29.000 It was kind of like, well, we're just going to go out and we're going to see what happens.

01:16:33.000 We're going to kind of grit our teeth and bear it no matter what, you know, where the journey takes us and we're just going to document that.

01:16:43.000 That was like super exciting television to make at that time too.

01:16:47.000 I've done five episodes of this show and we struck out on two of them.

01:16:54.000 You know, that's...

01:16:55.000 It used to be they would never air shows like that.

01:17:00.000 No.

01:17:01.000 I don't know that they aired...

01:17:03.000 I mean, I'll probably...

01:17:03.000 I'm sure a lot of people will be like, yeah, dude, you don't know what you're talking about.

01:17:07.000 But I'm not sure that they aired a lot of failed hunts before we started doing it.

01:17:11.000 I don't think they did.

01:17:13.000 I don't think it was a popular thing.

01:17:15.000 It might have been done before, but not to the extent the way Steve did.

01:17:18.000 One of my favorite episodes, he never...

01:17:20.000 Never shot a deer.

01:17:22.000 It was talking about his dad.

01:17:23.000 Oh, that's brilliant.

01:17:25.000 It's a beautiful episode.

01:17:26.000 I think that was Alaska as well.

01:17:29.000 Wasn't it?

01:17:30.000 I don't think it was.

01:17:31.000 Wasn't it a blacktail hunt?

01:17:33.000 Maybe it was in Alaska.

01:17:35.000 No, I feel like it was a coos deer hunt.

01:17:36.000 I think you're right.

01:17:38.000 In Arizona.

01:17:39.000 And most of the show was him using a spotting scope and binoculars looking for deer and talking about his relationship with his father.

01:17:50.000 Yeah.

01:17:50.000 And there was no music.

01:17:52.000 Yeah.

01:17:52.000 And whoever edited it and put it together was brilliant.

01:17:54.000 Yeah.

01:17:54.000 It was perfect.

01:17:55.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:17:55.000 Because it was, you know, some heavy, heavy-duty shit. 1.00

01:18:00.000 And it sort of makes you realize, like, oh, this is where you came from. 1.00

01:18:03.000 You came from a hard man.

01:18:05.000 Yeah.

01:18:05.000 Victim.

01:18:06.000 Taskmaster.

01:18:07.000 Yeah.

01:18:07.000 You know.

01:18:10.000 That was a brilliant episode.

01:18:12.000 It was also, like, I think, you know, one of the things I like so much about that episode, too, is it feels so much like the process of hunting.

01:18:20.000 You know?

01:18:21.000 It's long hours with people really kind of getting deep into stuff.

01:18:27.000 Right.

01:18:28.000 I did an episode with him, too.

01:18:30.000 It hasn't aired yet, but it was a lot of that.

01:18:33.000 A lot of just talking about life.

01:18:36.000 I really enjoyed that part of being out with him, too.

01:18:41.000 Spending those long hours just sitting glassing hills talking about our families and plans for the future.

01:18:48.000 Yeah.

01:18:48.000 That was nice, man.

01:18:52.000 Listen, I can't tell you how lucky I feel in my career to land it with these folks.

01:18:58.000 Yeah, that's a great one, too, right there, those two guys.

01:19:02.000 But like we were saying, it's real hard to find those kind of guys.

01:19:07.000 There's not a lot of those kind of guys out there.

01:19:10.000 There's not.

01:19:13.000 It feels like there's more of what they call premium content now on TV. There's more people looking for things that have more substance to it.

01:19:26.000 Why do you think that is?

01:19:27.000 What do you think has happened?

01:19:28.000 What's the shift?

01:19:29.000 I guess I don't really know.

01:19:32.000 I'm not in development, so I'm not really in a place to say, but I get the feeling that outlets like Netflix have really shaken up the paradigm.

01:19:46.000 I think the internet in general has changed people's expectations.

01:19:49.000 And uncensored content is so prevalent and so much more attractive.

01:19:56.000 It's just changed the way people absorb things.

01:20:00.000 Yeah.

01:20:01.000 I think that, you know...

01:20:04.000 I think, you know, listen, Netflix, they've spent a lot of money.

01:20:09.000 They've taken a lot of swings.

01:20:10.000 Not all of those swings have hit, but they've been pretty brave in terms of, like, how much and what a wide range of content they've been willing to take on.

01:20:20.000 Yeah.

01:20:22.000 And so, you know, again, maybe that's, you know, part of what's driving it.

01:20:27.000 I know I've been lucky enough to land at, like I said before, like 0.0 with Chris and Lydia there and their ethos of, you know, making content that like has a purpose, you know, that works towards bettering,

01:20:43.000 you know, the world or showing people something about the world or...

01:20:47.000 You know, connecting people.

01:20:48.000 And that's probably been, you know, the greatest gift.

01:20:51.000 That's what brought me to Tony.

01:20:53.000 That's what brought me to Steve, you know.

01:20:55.000 This is a connection with them.

01:20:56.000 So there are people out there that want to use the medium to, you know. 0.95

01:21:03.000 There are idealistic suckers out there. 0.81

01:21:08.000 I'm one of them. 0.92

01:21:09.000 Well, that's what creates that satisfying art.

01:21:11.000 I mean, the stuff that we're talking about.

01:21:13.000 You're not going to get that any other way.

01:21:15.000 You have to have those people with that deep reverence for the subject that they're discussing and the subject that's being portrayed.

01:21:21.000 Yeah.

01:21:22.000 Yeah.

01:21:22.000 And now, again, more and more we have the outlets to put that on the air.

01:21:27.000 Yeah.

01:21:28.000 You think back to the days when those three networks, you know.

01:21:31.000 Tony's never getting on the air.

01:21:32.000 Never.

01:21:33.000 We're never going to find out about him.

01:21:34.000 I mean, he'll have to stick with being an author.

01:21:37.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:21:39.000 In a lot of ways, it's the Wild West now, but in a lot of ways, that's a good thing.

01:21:44.000 Oh, it's a good thing.

01:21:45.000 I mean, it's a great thing for me.

01:21:46.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:21:48.000 Nobody would ever give me a fucking show. 0.99

01:21:51.000 It wouldn't have been that crazy. 1.00

01:21:52.000 Totally, man.

01:21:53.000 This kind of show?

01:21:54.000 Where I go, oh, so what do you want to do?

01:21:56.000 I just want to talk to whoever I want to.

01:21:58.000 Who's going to schedule it?

01:21:59.000 Me.

01:22:00.000 What are you going to do on the show?

01:22:01.000 Whatever.

01:22:02.000 Are you going to have a format of discussion?

01:22:04.000 Nope.

01:22:05.000 But in a lot of ways, that's what Meat Eater was in the hunting version.

01:22:09.000 It was like, what's the concept of the show? 0.99

01:22:12.000 Well, I'm going to hunt the shit that I want to hunt. 0.99

01:22:13.000 We're going to go to places I want to go and hang out with the people I want to hang out with. 1.00

01:22:17.000 Well, are you going to shoot animals?

01:22:20.000 I don't know. 0.81

01:22:20.000 Maybe, maybe not. 0.81

01:22:21.000 It's hunting.

01:22:22.000 I can't tell you.

01:22:23.000 We're going to try.

01:22:24.000 Yeah.

01:22:25.000 And it was, man, again, it was great to be able to do that and, like, have that freedom.

01:22:30.000 And I think CNN in a lot of ways, like, you know, and Tony, that, you know, to have the freedom to be like, well, here's a, you know, 60-year-old, you know, ex-heroin addict.

01:22:41.000 We're going to do whatever he wants to do, you know?

01:22:44.000 We're going to go wherever in the world he wants to go, and we're just going to kind of let him talk, you know?

01:22:50.000 Well, the Seattle one, I mean, they let him get blasted. 0.99

01:22:54.000 I mean, he was smoking weed on camera, smoking weed through the show, visiting growers, and then going to restaurants high as fuck. 0.98

01:23:02.000 Like, you could tell he was high, and he was talking about how he'd been smoking all day. 0.98

01:23:07.000 He's on camera talking about being baked with two people who are growers, the brother and sister who are hilarious.

01:23:13.000 They're awesome.

01:23:14.000 They were hilarious.

01:23:15.000 Yeah, I know.

01:23:15.000 And they were laughing with them, and it's like the whole family's involved.

01:23:19.000 It's really...

01:23:19.000 That was a great episode, man.

01:23:21.000 And it also... 1.00

01:23:22.000 Fuck, goddamn, that episode got me hungry. 1.00

01:23:24.000 Because you see all the seafood in Seattle and all the delicious food. 1.00

01:23:29.000 Insane, man.

01:23:29.000 God, I want to get up to Seattle again.

01:23:32.000 I haven't been up there.

01:23:33.000 No, that was a good episode.

01:23:35.000 And those folks were awesome.

01:23:37.000 You know, I went out to that place and I filmed that and it's like, they were like, it was like dream scenario.

01:23:45.000 I mean, that kid, like, he put together...

01:23:47.000 Do you remember their names?

01:23:48.000 I'm trying to remember their names.

01:23:50.000 See if you can find it, Jamie, just to give them a shout out.

01:23:53.000 Seattle episode, growers, African American family.

01:24:01.000 They were awesome.

01:24:02.000 They were awesome.

01:24:03.000 And like, you know, that was all that kid.

01:24:05.000 He had like put together a PDF and like showed his family and they were like, cool, let's sink everything into it.

01:24:11.000 And they did.

01:24:11.000 And I went out to their place and they were just sitting back laughing.

01:24:16.000 You know, like counting stacks of money, you know, and all smoking big joints, you know.

01:24:22.000 Like the grandmas there smoking a huge doobie. 0.95

01:24:25.000 And she was like quality control tester. 0.55

01:24:28.000 Absolutely.

01:24:29.000 Hilarious.

01:24:29.000 All these kids working for them and stuff like, you know, rolling joints and making oil.

01:24:34.000 And it was just like, man, good for you guys.

01:24:39.000 You know, like, way to go.

01:24:41.000 Isn't that the way, like, kind of American entrepreneurship is supposed to work?

01:24:46.000 Well, it's just rare that something comes along that's this controversial but yet also lucrative as marijuana sales.

01:24:52.000 And then all of a sudden it's legal in the state.

01:24:54.000 Totally.

01:24:54.000 And you're like, oh, okay.

01:24:56.000 Well, so we could just do this?

01:24:58.000 Yeah.

01:24:59.000 I'll tell you what's funny, the controversial part of that episode was not Tony smoking, because that's legal and it's perfectly, you know, it's fine for him to smoke.

01:25:07.000 It was when he handed the joint to me over the camera.

01:25:11.000 That one was a little, I think that was a little tough for some folks to swallow.

01:25:16.000 Why?

01:25:16.000 Well, because I'm working, you know?

01:25:20.000 Oh, but he's working too.

01:25:20.000 Yeah, well, geez, you know, I never thought of it that way.

01:25:24.000 I guess he was working.

01:25:25.000 Yeah, he's working too.

01:25:28.000 I guess it's the idea that you're holding machinery.

01:25:31.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:25:32.000 The Hollingsworths.

01:25:33.000 That's right.

01:25:34.000 Shout out to the Hollingsworths.

01:25:36.000 Hollingsworth Farm.

01:25:37.000 Hollingsworth Farm.

01:25:38.000 There they are.

01:25:40.000 Yeah, why was it?

01:25:41.000 I guess because maybe they're thinking you're holding a machine that's like real expensive?

01:25:45.000 I guess, man.

01:25:47.000 I think they didn't want the perception that we were just partying and out of control in the field.

01:25:52.000 And we weren't, man.

01:25:54.000 We're professionals.

01:25:55.000 So did CNN have a problem with it?

01:25:59.000 I think maybe there were elements at CNN that might have had a problem.

01:26:03.000 Someone must have chimed in.

01:26:04.000 But in the end, again, to their credit, in the end, you know, they left us alone.

01:26:09.000 That is the only way to make a good show. 0.99

01:26:11.000 As soon as those fucking cooks start coming into the kitchen and pointing at the stew and wanting to add ingredients. 1.00

01:26:16.000 Yeah, but that's the whole industry, man. 1.00

01:26:18.000 I know.

01:26:19.000 That's the problem.

01:26:20.000 It's unbelievable.

01:26:20.000 Again, that's why this was so refreshing, you know?

01:26:23.000 It's like, how rare is it not to have people just breathing down your neck all the time?

01:26:28.000 And the same thing with Meat Eater, you know, because Steve Rinella came from The Wild Within, which was a show that's where I met him.

01:26:36.000 Yeah. 0.95

01:26:36.000 I met him from that show and I had him on my podcast, but that show was a fucking goat rope. 0.95

01:26:42.000 He was telling me that they were trying to let animals loose out of cages and then he would shoot them. 0.98

01:26:46.000 Those were the early days when there were line items in for Animal Wrangler.

01:26:51.000 But to everyone's credit, very quickly at 0.0 and very quickly with Steve, they were like, dude, we don't do that.

01:26:58.000 We're not doing that.

01:26:59.000 But it's hilarious that a producer actually came up with that idea.

01:27:02.000 They're like, oh, I know how to do that.

01:27:05.000 It's not like a producer came up with that idea.

01:27:07.000 That was just a playbook on how you make TV. They're just pulling from the playbook.

01:27:11.000 For sure.

01:27:12.000 Reality air quotes TV. Yeah, exactly.

01:27:17.000 Listen, there's a lot of huge mistakes in that show and a lot of bullshit. 0.57

01:27:24.000 I thought it was a pretty revolutionary and pretty interesting show in a lot of ways. 0.96

01:27:30.000 There's a lot of truth in there, too.

01:27:32.000 We did end up going out and just going on hunts.

01:27:36.000 This is a very high-pressure situation.

01:27:40.000 But also, this is very typical of the way that television works.

01:27:46.000 As we're out in the field, there's still, at the network, a lot of infighting and jostling about what the show actually was.

01:27:55.000 Is this history?

01:27:57.000 Is this...

01:27:59.000 Reality is this, you know.

01:28:01.000 Subsistence.

01:28:02.000 Yeah, you know.

01:28:03.000 I remember at one point someone saying something like, well, it's not a hunting show, you know. 0.96

01:28:07.000 And we're like, I'm like in the field covered in fucking moose blood, you know. 0.93

01:28:11.000 And I'm like, well, it looks like a hunting show from where I'm standing, you know. 0.98

01:28:15.000 Like, I don't know what to say.

01:28:17.000 What does that mean?

01:28:17.000 They were saying it's not a hunting show.

01:28:19.000 Yeah, I think that there's, you know, I don't remember who that was.

01:28:23.000 But I think that they're very leery of this idea of like a hunting show and what a hunting show was.

01:28:29.000 Well, meanwhile, those subsistence shows that they have, they're all hunting and gathering.

01:28:34.000 I mean, that is like one of the more popular shows on all of these cable channels where these people that live in Alaska and they're trapping.

01:28:41.000 Now it is.

01:28:42.000 Yeah, it's crazy.

01:28:43.000 It wasn't then.

01:28:44.000 I know, it's crazy.

01:28:45.000 I mean, that genre really exploded after that.

01:28:47.000 Yeah.

01:28:47.000 And I think there's something very different, you know, when you take like, you know, when you take like, I don't know, for some reason, when you take Steve, like New York City intellectual, and you put him in that environment, I think there was a different reaction than like, oh, these people live in Alaska.

01:29:02.000 It's like watching pygmies hunt, you know?

01:29:04.000 These are, this is the natural environment of, you know, and that's what they do.

01:29:09.000 And so hunting is acceptable under those conditions, you know?

01:29:12.000 Right.

01:29:12.000 It's like, why isn't it acceptable for someone who, like, lives it as, like, a base philosophy in their life, give them a chance to explain why, you know?

01:29:22.000 But he lives in Brooklyn.

01:29:23.000 Why would you ever hunt?

01:29:24.000 You know, you live in Brooklyn, you know?

01:29:26.000 You just go to the shopping center, you know?

01:29:28.000 Yeah, well, you must be, there must be something wrong with you if you enjoy it.

01:29:32.000 Right, exactly.

01:29:33.000 I think that's, like, I think that's part of the mentality.

01:29:35.000 Well, Tony addressed that on the show, too.

01:29:37.000 I remember one of the first times Tony shot a deer on the show, and then they cooked it at that same guy's restaurant.

01:29:42.000 Yep, exactly.

01:29:43.000 Marco Pierre White.

01:29:44.000 Yeah, at his restaurant, and they shot a deer, and Marco put the blood on Tony's head, which is what you're supposed to do when you get your first kill.

01:29:53.000 And then they went and cooked it.

01:29:55.000 There was a lot of that.

01:29:58.000 There was one time where he shot a pig at point-blank range with a pistol.

01:30:03.000 And I was like, wow, they put that on TV. That was a big moment for him.

01:30:07.000 You talked about that a lot.

01:30:10.000 Well, I mean, uh, he, um, that was Cajun country, right?

01:30:15.000 Yeah. 0.95

01:30:15.000 And, um, I think that he, I think he, I think the story goes that he like, he goes, they asked him to kill the pig and he goes up and like, just very, very coldly double taps the pig in the head. 0.95

01:30:30.000 And I think that he says there's just this moment of silence amongst the crowd.

01:30:35.000 Like, Ooh, geez, man.

01:30:38.000 Why is that?

01:30:39.000 Like, that was cold, dude.

01:30:41.000 Well, what did they expect?

01:30:42.000 I don't know.

01:30:43.000 But he was like, he would talk about it as if like a gasp came up from the crowd.

01:30:49.000 It was like, jeez, wow.

01:30:51.000 You know?

01:30:51.000 Right.

01:30:52.000 The double tap, you know?

01:30:54.000 Like it was like a mob hit or something. 0.99

01:30:56.000 Yeah, I think one's enough for a pig. 1.00

01:30:58.000 I don't know, man. 0.98

01:30:59.000 Point blank range.

01:31:00.000 I've seen an animal shot in the head, though, that could have used another one.

01:31:05.000 Really?

01:31:05.000 Yeah.

01:31:06.000 Well, I think especially... 0.95

01:31:07.000 I've seen a couple pigs go real ugly. 0.97

01:31:12.000 Double tap is totally acceptable to me because when a pig goes bad, it's really... 0.98

01:31:18.000 It's not pleasant for anyone, man. 0.85

01:31:20.000 Yeah.

01:31:21.000 Well, it's also...

01:31:22.000 You don't want an animal ever to suffer.

01:31:25.000 Exactly.

01:31:25.000 If you see it still alive, put another one in it.

01:31:28.000 Absolutely.

01:31:28.000 That's always bow hunting, rifle hunting.

01:31:31.000 If it's still standing, put another one in it.

01:31:33.000 Yeah.

01:31:34.000 Yeah, or suffering in any way.

01:31:36.000 Yeah.

01:31:36.000 I mean, I think that's, you know, that's like kind of a responsibility you take onto yourself when you decide to hunt.

01:31:44.000 Right.

01:31:48.000 When I made that decision, I've been on two hunts now with Steve.

01:31:51.000 I've shot two deer.

01:31:52.000 That was like a very clear kind of aspect of it.

01:31:56.000 You know, I was like, well, I'm taking responsibility now, not only for like this animal's life, but for this animal's pain and suffering and the consequences of my actions, you know?

01:32:07.000 So I'm not going to be lobbing off any 750-yard, you know, rifle shots because I'm not qualified to do that.

01:32:15.000 And it's irresponsible to the animal and the potential suffering that you can cause, you know, or losing the animal or, you know.

01:32:25.000 So, you know, and I don't know.

01:32:28.000 I guess that all comes from Steve, really.

01:32:31.000 Yeah, he's got such strong ethics.

01:32:34.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:32:36.000 Yeah, I mean, it became really clear with me, just knowing him, that this guy's got a very powerful moral compass and core set of beliefs that are just non-negotiable.

01:32:49.000 Again, both of them.

01:32:50.000 Tony and Steve.

01:32:52.000 Tony's moral compass is rock solid as well.

01:32:58.000 Any mistakes that he may have made in his life, I can honestly say he made them with his heart.

01:33:04.000 He made them with his moral compass in mind and making his best attempt to follow that.

01:33:12.000 And again, that was something that was really nice to be around and refreshing to be around.

01:33:19.000 Right.

01:33:20.000 Especially in this world of people with gimmicks trying to become more popular and more well-known.

01:33:27.000 And he had put zero effort into that.

01:33:30.000 Yeah.

01:33:30.000 I mean, just the base philosophy of the show.

01:33:32.000 We're not going to fake anything.

01:33:33.000 We're not going to do second takes.

01:33:35.000 We're not going to...

01:33:36.000 How about the one where they were throwing frozen octopus in the water?

01:33:39.000 Yeah.

01:33:39.000 So this is like a really famous story, right?

01:33:41.000 The Sicily episode, yeah.

01:33:43.000 He describes that as like maybe the darkest existential moment of his life, you know?

01:33:48.000 Who was throwing the frozen octopus?

01:33:51.000 The sidekicks.

01:33:51.000 So they set up these sidekicks who were like...

01:33:54.000 Sidekicks of the guy who was running the fishing operation.

01:33:56.000 Well, I guess they were the sidekicks in the scene that were going to work with Tony, right?

01:34:02.000 So, I mean, the way you'd set a scene up normally like that is you'd have, like, a sidekick.

01:34:06.000 Someone who's going to talk to Tony and be like, hey, what are we going to do?

01:34:08.000 We're going to go out and...

01:34:09.000 And the sidekick would be a local...

01:34:11.000 Yeah, usually like a local or an expert in something or, you know, a fisherman probably in this case.

01:34:17.000 I wasn't on that show, so I don't know exactly.

01:34:18.000 But...

01:34:20.000 And you'd be like, oh, we're going to go octopus.

01:34:23.000 Do you know someone who fishes octopus?

01:34:24.000 Oh, yeah, I know so-and-so.

01:34:26.000 We'll go out with them.

01:34:27.000 But it turned out that they went to this very crowded beach.

01:34:33.000 And I think even in the scene, Tony is like, Can we really catch an octopus?

01:34:37.000 There's, like, people swimming.

01:34:39.000 There's, like, kids with, like, snorkel masks, you know?

01:34:42.000 And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:34:43.000 Everything's going to be fine.

01:34:44.000 And he got in the water and he just starts hearing these plops and looks above him.

01:34:49.000 And there's these dead octopus, like, floating, you know, drifting down to the bottom of the ocean.

01:34:54.000 They're lobbing them in off the boat and then picking them up as if, like, I got an octopus!

01:34:59.000 I got one, you know?

01:35:01.000 But I think, again, like...

01:35:03.000 Most TV shows would do exactly that, you know?

01:35:07.000 Like, where's the octopus wrangler?

01:35:09.000 And for Tony, that was always a completely unacceptable way to make TV. So he had no idea it was going to happen before it started happening?

01:35:17.000 No.

01:35:18.000 Once it started happening, what did he say?

01:35:20.000 He left and went to the beach and hit like seven Negronis in a row. 1.00

01:35:25.000 He was really bummed out about it.

01:35:27.000 I saw him two weeks later in Tokyo, and he was still talking about it.

01:35:31.000 He's like, I just had the worst experience of my life.

01:35:33.000 Worst thing that ever happened to me.

01:35:35.000 The darkest moment of my life, you know?

01:35:37.000 Wow, the darkest moment of his life was someone throwing frozen octopus into the water.

01:35:41.000 Yeah, because it completely went against the whole ethos of the show, you know?

01:35:46.000 But he made fun of it on the show.

01:35:49.000 Listen, honestly, it's a great scene.

01:35:51.000 It's a great scene.

01:35:52.000 It's a great scene, largely because Sally Freeman, the producer of that, is absolutely brilliant and one of the best directors that's ever come through that show.

01:36:02.000 Yeah, it was funny, too.

01:36:04.000 His take on realizing that they were throwing frozen octopus into the water.

01:36:08.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:36:09.000 And how mortified he was by it all.

01:36:12.000 Yeah, totally.

01:36:13.000 But again, that's the way it was.

01:36:17.000 We didn't go in and be like, okay, action, and now cut.

01:36:21.000 Okay, and now we're going to move the cameras and say that again.

01:36:24.000 There's none of that, man.

01:36:26.000 Part of the hustle of the show was like...

01:36:28.000 Being there with the camera.

01:36:29.000 Yeah, you set up the scene and then you press play and you let it go.

01:36:32.000 And what happens, happens.

01:36:34.000 And I'm sorry if you don't get exactly what you hoped out of it, you know, but we're not going to interrupt the world.

01:36:40.000 We're not going to manipulate and control things.

01:36:42.000 That is the difference between really good reality TV. The word reality TV is so weird.

01:36:48.000 Like, what does that even mean?

01:36:49.000 Because a lot of these shows, they're scripted.

01:36:52.000 Yeah.

01:36:53.000 They have these loose scenarios, and then they go in, they script them, and they redo things, they reshoot things.

01:36:59.000 It's not reality.

01:37:00.000 It's like shitty acting with people that are not trained, and they're edited with people talking in front of the camera like, I didn't know what Mo was thinking. 0.97

01:37:10.000 I thought he was crazy. 0.97

01:37:12.000 And they cut to you and was like, I told Joe what we were going to do.

01:37:16.000 I knew in advance. 0.99

01:37:17.000 I didn't know shit. 0.98

01:37:18.000 And then it's like it plays this conflict. 0.99

01:37:20.000 Like the Kardashians. 0.99

01:37:21.000 I mean, they've got it down to a fucking science. 1.00

01:37:23.000 A science of moronic television viewing. 1.00

01:37:26.000 I agree. 0.99

01:37:27.000 If you could just sit there slack-jawed, they'll keep you locked in.

01:37:31.000 They'll keep you locked in.

01:37:32.000 They'll be enough edits. 0.99

01:37:34.000 They'll show you their tits. 1.00

01:37:34.000 And then, boom, you cut to commercial and they're richer. 1.00

01:37:37.000 Right.

01:37:38.000 That's reality TV. What you guys were doing is more documentary television.

01:37:43.000 Yeah, it is.

01:37:44.000 And it's not saying that there's no affect of the convention of television there.

01:37:50.000 Of course there is.

01:37:51.000 But we used to say, like, you know, like...

01:37:54.000 Vietnam doesn't look like that.

01:37:55.000 But Vietnam doesn't not look like that.

01:37:57.000 You know?

01:37:58.000 There is a refinement and a manipulation in what we're doing because we're choosing these locations.

01:38:04.000 We're choosing to talk to this person.

01:38:05.000 We're choosing to shoot it in a certain way that's beautiful.

01:38:08.000 We're adding light.

01:38:09.000 You know, it's not exactly the way reality is, but there's a threshold.

01:38:13.000 There's a line which you don't cross.

01:38:15.000 And that line is a morally and ethically established line by Tony and by the crew that says, like, there's a place at which it becomes unfair.

01:38:26.000 The manipulation of reality becomes a manipulation that has now become unfair to the people who are viewing this, the people who are there.

01:38:35.000 You know, we've become self-serving.

01:38:38.000 And that's the line that we chose never to cross.

01:38:42.000 We can make it beautiful.

01:38:44.000 We can refine it down.

01:38:45.000 We can edit it.

01:38:47.000 We can make a compelling show.

01:38:49.000 But it has to exist within this certain threshold. 0.98

01:38:55.000 Or else, you know, what the fuck are we doing? 0.89

01:38:58.000 But it must be a small percentage of people in the business that have that ethic. 0.98

01:39:03.000 Incredibly small.

01:39:04.000 And it's incredibly powerful to have people backing you that believe in that.

01:39:10.000 And super rare.

01:39:12.000 I mean, you know, we talk about in, like, the film industry today how rare it is to have true auteur final cut directors, you know.

01:39:19.000 There's only a handful of them, you know, largely the studios have taken over that control.

01:39:25.000 Well, equally in the television industry, it's that rare to have people that have the kind of power and control to have the luxury of saying, you know, hey, listen, I have guidelines here, and we're not going to cross them, you know, and then have people,

01:39:40.000 you know, be like, great, go, go, go make it, you know, and we were able to do that, you know.

01:39:47.000 It seems like Netflix would be a really good place for something like that.

01:39:50.000 Yeah, it seems like Netflix would be a really good place for a lot of things.

01:39:53.000 Yeah.

01:39:54.000 It seems like that's the best place for real freedom.

01:39:59.000 Yeah.

01:39:59.000 You don't know how much is real freedom.

01:40:01.000 They're giving you money.

01:40:03.000 Anytime someone's giving you money, it's always like, you've got to give up.

01:40:06.000 The real way to do it would be to produce it yourself.

01:40:09.000 But in the end, CNN was the best place to do that.

01:40:12.000 And they really did back us up.

01:40:14.000 And they really backed up Tony and that philosophy.

01:40:17.000 And they completely, implicitly understood what we were talking about.

01:40:21.000 And we said, we can't do that.

01:40:23.000 Now, was Jeff Zucker, was it his idea?

01:40:25.000 Again, I don't know how the deal came about.

01:40:28.000 I assume so, because I think it came in just after that transfer of power.

01:40:33.000 Did he have other places where he was thinking about taking it besides CNN? Again, I don't know, man.

01:40:39.000 I don't know.

01:40:39.000 I mean, you know, it was a really successful show in its own right at that point, so I'm sure it would have gone somewhere.

01:40:44.000 But that was, I assume it was Jeff Zucker who brought it in, and that was, like, just such a brilliant move.

01:40:52.000 It was, like, perfect marriage, you know?

01:40:54.000 Perfect marriage.

01:40:55.000 Like, perfect move for CNN. Like, perfect move for us.

01:40:58.000 Yeah, I thought it was interesting when they were taking a chance on these unscripted television shows, these non-news shows.

01:41:05.000 Have you seen United Shades of America?

01:41:07.000 Yeah, I've had W. Kamal Bell a couple of times.

01:41:10.000 He's a great guy.

01:41:11.000 He's the best, man.

01:41:12.000 He's a super, super nice guy.

01:41:13.000 Yeah, I did an episode with him in Kenya with Tony, which will be the premiere of this upcoming season.

01:41:19.000 Oh, okay.

01:41:20.000 How many episodes have you guys done that haven't aired yet?

01:41:23.000 Well, I think we'll have seven in this next season.

01:41:29.000 That's the only one of those seven that was actually completed with Tony's narration.

01:41:37.000 The rest of them are incomplete in that respect.

01:41:42.000 Again, we've been kind of fighting through editing those over the last few months and trying to figure out ways to You know, to do this without completely gutting, you know, the method of making this show.

01:41:58.000 Wow.

01:41:59.000 And then there's a couple specials in there, like, you know, talking to the crew and stuff like that, you know.

01:42:05.000 So it's going to be a pretty profound season.

01:42:12.000 So, once you're done with that, you just start looking at new projects and different things to do?

01:42:17.000 I have a couple, like, assignments already.

01:42:20.000 Some projects I'm, like, pretty excited about, you know.

01:42:23.000 I just don't know that they've officially been announced yet, so, you know.

01:42:28.000 But there's good stuff out there, and there's, you know, one nice thing in all of this incredibly difficult time is a lot of people have come to us and said, like, listen, we always believed in what you guys did,

01:42:44.000 and we'd like you to continue doing it, and here's a project we have that we think, you know, so hopefully we can continue to make things with the same kind of, you know, it looks like we can.

01:42:56.000 Well, it seems like the success of the show and then the infectious enthusiasm that Tony had and that so many people who are fans of the show had for that style of television, it's just going to lead to more people taking more chances and doing things like that.

01:43:14.000 I hope so.

01:43:15.000 I think so.

01:43:17.000 I think it's getting better.

01:43:20.000 There will never be another Tony who won't find that.

01:43:25.000 And I think that's something that people will have to be aware of going forward.

01:43:30.000 You're not going to copy that.

01:43:33.000 He's Tony and that's it.

01:43:34.000 Well, you saw Gordon Ramsay. 0.94

01:43:35.000 They announced some show with him traveling and people immediately just started shitting all over him.

01:43:40.000 Yeah, but he's like, from everything I understand, he's just like a really good guy.

01:43:46.000 Well, the problem is the way he portrays himself on the show, the Kitchen Nightmare show. 1.00

01:43:50.000 He just comes in like an asshole and yells at people that are intimidated by him. 1.00

01:43:54.000 That's his shtick. 1.00

01:43:56.000 That's his TV shtick.

01:43:58.000 As far as I know, I don't know Gordon Ramsay.

01:44:01.000 Seemed like a real nice guy.

01:44:02.000 I met Guy Fieri, too.

01:44:04.000 He was nice.

01:44:05.000 He's a nice guy.

01:44:07.000 He's got crazy hair.

01:44:08.000 I don't know Guy Fieri, man. 1.00

01:44:09.000 Tony would relentlessly shit on him. 0.99

01:44:12.000 Constantly, man. 1.00

01:44:13.000 Constantly. 1.00

01:44:15.000 But he shits on everybody. 1.00

01:44:16.000 Did he shit on Martha Ray, too? 1.00

01:44:19.000 I don't know. 1.00

01:44:20.000 Yeah, maybe.

01:44:21.000 I think so.

01:44:21.000 Maybe.

01:44:22.000 Yeah.

01:44:23.000 Right.

01:44:23.000 He would pull that trigger.

01:44:26.000 All the time.

01:44:27.000 Dude, he'd always make fun of his Lamborghini.

01:44:29.000 And I'm kind of like, dude, I want a Lamborghini.

01:44:32.000 What are you talking about?

01:44:33.000 It's one of those things you're not supposed to have, right?

01:44:35.000 You could have some cool cars.

01:44:37.000 I remember when he did the show with the Queens of the Stone Age, Josh Holm, and one of the guys had a 69 Camaro.

01:44:43.000 Yeah, I shot that.

01:44:44.000 That's a badass car.

01:44:45.000 That was a bad car.

01:44:46.000 But that's an okay to have badass car because it's a classic, because it's got just style points.

01:44:53.000 Totally.

01:44:53.000 But I would suggest to Tony that he might want to pick up the Lamborghini because of the traction control.

01:44:59.000 I think Tony would get in big problems.

01:45:02.000 He'd have big problems in the Camaro.

01:45:03.000 Yeah, no, I'm sure.

01:45:05.000 Yeah, as most people would. 1.00

01:45:06.000 You've got to learn how to drive one of those fucking things. 1.00

01:45:08.000 That was a hot rod, man. 1.00

01:45:10.000 That thing was sick. 1.00

01:45:11.000 I love that car.

01:45:12.000 Well, listen, brother, I'm glad we did this.

01:45:15.000 Yeah, me too.

01:45:15.000 I'm glad you reached out.

01:45:16.000 Thank you.

01:45:16.000 We decided to get together and talk, you know, give a lot of people insight to what it was like to work with one of my heroes.

01:45:23.000 Yeah, me too.

01:45:24.000 I mean, definitely my hero.

01:45:27.000 All right.

01:45:28.000 Thanks, brother.

01:45:28.000 Appreciate it, man.

01:45:29.000 Thank you.

01:45:35.000 Thanks, dude.

The Joe Rogan Experience - September 12, 2018

Joe Rogan Experience #1172 - Morgan Fallon

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