The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2041 - Steve Strope

00:00:11.000 I just had a set of these on at band rehearsal on Sunday.

00:00:17.000 You look like you just had band rehearsal.

00:00:19.000 That's right.

00:00:20.000 I hate to make you feel old, but we've known each other for 20 years.

00:00:25.000 Okay.

00:00:26.000 Dude.

00:00:27.000 Thanks.

00:00:27.000 How wild is that?

00:00:30.000 Does time fly or what?

00:00:31.000 We've been friends for 20 years.

00:00:34.000 Really?

00:00:34.000 20 years.

00:00:35.000 You know what I did?

00:00:37.000 I also experienced the odd time continuum to brief myself for this.

00:00:44.000 I'm like, I should probably look back when I did this, this, and this, and this, that, and the other thing.

00:00:49.000 I'm going, holy crap, I forgot.

00:00:51.000 That was like 2004? 0.86

00:00:53.000 Are you kidding me?

00:00:54.000 2004 seems so long ago.

00:00:57.000 Yeah.

00:00:57.000 That was the fear factor days.

00:00:59.000 Yeah.

00:01:00.000 That's like round around when I met you, when I brought the Barracuda to you.

00:01:06.000 Fish.

00:01:06.000 Yeah.

00:01:07.000 Yeah.

00:01:08.000 Like, because you...

00:01:10.000 Yeah, because it was...

00:01:12.000 Well, I have my handy cheat sheet here.

00:01:15.000 You actually made a cheat sheet to prepare for this?

00:01:18.000 Dude, I got paid...

00:01:19.000 Dude, by the way, the shirt, it's exquisite.

00:01:22.000 I got it.

00:01:22.000 I know, but...

00:01:23.000 Can I officially gift you in front of the camera?

00:01:25.000 Sure, please.

00:01:25.000 Please do.

00:01:25.000 Okay, so...

00:01:26.000 So this is a shirt with the Nova that Steve built for me.

00:01:29.000 Steve built the greatest Nova the world has ever seen.

00:01:32.000 A 1969 Nova with...

00:01:35.000 Camaro.

00:01:36.000 Yeah, you have to see it.

00:01:37.000 We could talk about it all day, but people have to actually see it online.

00:01:41.000 Lots of fun.

00:01:42.000 I wanted to do the kind of... 0.99

00:01:43.000 That's a dope fucking shirt. 0.99

00:01:44.000 So there's a mixture of stuff. 0.99

00:01:45.000 Like those clouds and stuff are taken from those crazy Chrysler ads in the 70s.

00:01:51.000 Like the Roadrunner stuff with the smoke building up behind it.

00:01:53.000 We copied that.

00:01:55.000 And then the sun thing was just in like every other 70s artwork I could find, you know?

00:02:00.000 And then of course the prerequisite small UFO. And I wasn't going to take your Joe Rogan experience, and being that my other life was in rock and roll, of course, I leaned towards the Hendrix of R.U. experience.

00:02:13.000 So it came out pretty cool.

00:02:14.000 There it is.

00:02:14.000 There's the car.

00:02:15.000 The t-shirt's very cool.

00:02:16.000 Yeah, there it is.

00:02:17.000 There's the car.

00:02:18.000 The coolest Nova of all time.

00:02:19.000 I love that thing, man.

00:02:20.000 Thank you.

00:02:21.000 It drives so well.

00:02:23.000 It does.

00:02:24.000 I mean, it's not just so cool looking, like it drives so well.

00:02:28.000 The independent suspension, the way you set it up, was it Art Morrison?

00:02:33.000 Yeah, Morrison stuff.

00:02:34.000 I went a little softer on the spring in the front and believe it or not, a little stiffer on the rear and played with it quite a few times before I delivered it to you.

00:02:48.000 It's magnificent.

00:02:49.000 Yeah, I was very, because I set it up, I didn't set it up for track attack because that's not what you're going to Right.

00:02:54.000 No, I'm just going to cruise around.

00:02:55.000 Right.

00:02:55.000 So I set it up so when you go over those little joints in the road going onto a bridge, it doesn't...

00:03:01.000 Leave that up in the background, Jamie.

00:03:04.000 Just leave that there. 1.00

00:03:05.000 That was the amazing photography of Wes Allison. 1.00

00:03:09.000 Wes Allison, you're the shit. 1.00

00:03:11.000 He is the shit. 1.00

00:03:12.000 That's a great picture. 1.00

00:03:13.000 I think I need to get a steel version of the picture and put it up in our...

00:03:17.000 Yeah, let's do that.

00:03:18.000 How big do you want it?

00:03:19.000 I don't know.

00:03:20.000 Pretty big.

00:03:21.000 We need a big one, right?

00:03:22.000 It came out real nice and the funny thing is, or the...

00:03:25.000 I don't know about funny, but the point of it was is there's so much done and none of it looks like anything was done.

00:03:32.000 Yeah, it really does look like just a really cool 1969 car.

00:03:36.000 If you don't know the manipulation that you guys did to the sheet metal.

00:03:40.000 Not only that, the grille has changed.

00:03:43.000 The little headlight doors on the side, those are changed.

00:03:47.000 I used to, I would joke with different Nova people and go, give you a hundred bucks if you can tell me what I changed in the front.

00:03:53.000 Oh, wow.

00:03:54.000 And they're like, uh, uh, we added bars.

00:03:57.000 The grill is actually taller.

00:03:59.000 Those bars- What does it look like in real life?

00:04:01.000 Do they just have black spaces?

00:04:02.000 What they had was a piece of plastic that came from underneath the bumper and it went underneath that headlight and then came up.

00:04:11.000 So you see on the very outer edge how there's like, I can't count from here.

00:04:14.000 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

00:04:17.000 Yeah, those bars right there.

00:04:18.000 The bottom three are added.

00:04:21.000 Oh, wow.

00:04:22.000 Jamie, can you pull up a 1969 Nova grill?

00:04:27.000 Or a Nova front end.

00:04:31.000 But there's lots of little changes.

00:04:34.000 Let's see what it looks like.

00:04:36.000 Yeah, well, yeah.

00:04:38.000 There you go.

00:04:40.000 You can see how there's just a piece of plastic under it and it comes up.

00:04:43.000 The silver plastic comes up so those ribs aren't...

00:04:46.000 That's not the greatest photograph.

00:04:47.000 That's a better photo.

00:04:49.000 That looks custom.

00:04:51.000 No, he's got the plastic coming up.

00:04:53.000 Yeah, he's got something else.

00:04:54.000 You can see that piece of plastic come up.

00:04:55.000 That's a beautiful Nova, too.

00:04:57.000 So we extended the grille and extended those outer things to just fill up the space.

00:05:02.000 It just looks better.

00:05:03.000 It's just a unique looking car.

00:05:05.000 Yeah, there it is.

00:05:05.000 That car is just so unique.

00:05:08.000 And I think it's one of those muscle cars that really never got its due because it kind of started out as more of an economy kind of a car.

00:05:16.000 Oh, yeah.

00:05:16.000 Mm-hmm.

00:05:17.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:05:17.000 And Nova wasn't like, you know, if you had a Barracuda, you were the fucking man. 1.00

00:05:23.000 If you had a Nova, it's like, oh, you couldn't afford a Barracuda. 0.96

00:05:25.000 Unless you had the Nova SS with the 396. But those were few and far between.

00:05:31.000 There weren't a lot of people that ordered that.

00:05:32.000 When I was a kid, this kid in our high school had a Duster.

00:05:36.000 What was the other one?

00:05:37.000 There was a Duster, there was a Dodge.

00:05:39.000 Dart.

00:05:39.000 A Dart.

00:05:40.000 Yeah, he had a Duster.

00:05:41.000 Or Valiant.

00:05:42.000 Yeah, and nobody gave it any respect.

00:05:44.000 I was like, that's a cool car!

00:05:46.000 Like, what's wrong with you people?

00:05:48.000 But there was like this thing where like some of those older cars were less desirable.

00:05:54.000 So I'm in high school and so I graduated in 85. So we're talking about, I think, I think my friend had this car in like 84. So, you know, it really was only 14 years old, which is kind of crazy.

00:06:08.000 Yes, it is.

00:06:09.000 That's super crazy.

00:06:11.000 Like, 86 when we were driving around, a 68 was only, what, 18 years old.

00:06:18.000 Right.

00:06:18.000 Wasn't an old car.

00:06:20.000 Not super old. 0.99

00:06:21.000 Yeah, 18 years old ain't shit. 0.96

00:06:23.000 That's like 2005? 0.99

00:06:26.000 You and I are about to do math.

00:06:29.000 That's bonkers.

00:06:31.000 That's a 2005. Which is like kind of a new car.

00:06:35.000 Like if you have a 2005 car, you can't differentiate them at all from a 2020, unless you're like a car connoisseur.

00:06:42.000 Yeah, sure.

00:06:43.000 You know, if you have a 2005 Camry, it looks like a 2020 Camry, right?

00:06:47.000 It's interesting how time marches on, how perception of length of time, like you were saying when we sat down with our friendship, let alone everything else, it's like, how is that 20 minutes?

00:06:58.000 Oh, it's going very fast.

00:07:00.000 That's the one thing our older generation, when we were growing up, told us that was the one truth.

00:07:05.000 It goes so fast.

00:07:07.000 Yeah.

00:07:08.000 Enjoy it, because...

00:07:10.000 It's also because when you were a child, one year was literally like one-tenth of your life.

00:07:17.000 It was so long.

00:07:18.000 It was an eternity.

00:07:19.000 Because you had so few points of reference.

00:07:22.000 But then as you get older and you have more points of reference and more experience and more life...

00:07:28.000 Then you realize, like, oh my god, time is full.

00:07:32.000 I don't have much time at all.

00:07:33.000 No one does.

00:07:34.000 It's amazing how the boost kicks in and all of a sudden, 40, 50, 60, what the hell just happened?

00:07:43.000 And you're just like, let's hang in there as long as I can.

00:07:47.000 I got some stem cells today.

00:07:49.000 I did?

00:07:49.000 Yeah, I was reading this thing.

00:07:52.000 I'll send it to you, Jamie.

00:07:53.000 But they believe now that through stem cell technology, they're going to be able to extend lifespan far greater.

00:08:03.000 And the article said something about having people work until they're 120, which is not a good selling point.

00:08:10.000 Yeah.

00:08:11.000 Here, I'll send it to you, Jamie.

00:08:13.000 Hey, you can suffer longer.

00:08:14.000 Yeah.

00:08:14.000 Hey, you can hate what you do longer.

00:08:16.000 You got it already?

00:08:17.000 Oh, there it is.

00:08:17.000 We'll be living and working to 120, and it will start within a decade, says Doctor to the Star.

00:08:23.000 So they're not necessarily saying you'll be working until you're 120, but living and working.

00:08:28.000 So this guy is using stem cells.

00:08:32.000 I believe we can create prolongation of life.

00:08:36.000 Von Schwartz cells.

00:08:36.000 That sounds like the beginning of every horror movie.

00:08:40.000 We believe we can have prolonging of life.

00:08:43.000 We can do it.

00:08:44.000 Dun, dun, dun.

00:08:45.000 Oh, goody.

00:08:46.000 Probably within a couple years, people can live to be 120, 150 years old, if not longer than that.

00:08:52.000 It's not just bed-bound, non-communicating individuals, but really active individuals who participate in social life, professional life, and have a quality of life, because that's the goal.

00:09:01.000 Yeah.

00:09:03.000 I'm in.

00:09:04.000 Let's go.

00:09:05.000 I'm enjoying life.

00:09:06.000 You know, I'm enjoying doing stuff.

00:09:08.000 And my friends that are older, that are having, like, health problems, it really makes me realize, like, man, you've got to stay on top of everything.

00:09:18.000 Because if you don't, if it slides off and then you have to try to bring it back up, it's way harder than maintaining.

00:09:23.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:09:25.000 You know, the stem cell thing, if he could, if Von Doom there could get on...

00:09:31.000 On the eyeball stuff.

00:09:32.000 Fixing the eyeball.

00:09:32.000 I'd be very appreciative of that.

00:09:35.000 Let's tell everybody what happened to you because this is a crazy thing.

00:09:38.000 Oh.

00:09:40.000 It's a real bummer, right?

00:09:42.000 You just out of nowhere started seeing dark spots, right?

00:09:46.000 No.

00:09:46.000 What happened was...

00:09:47.000 Well, a little background.

00:09:49.000 I had already...

00:09:52.000 Stage one was going into your local doctor eye guy because you have metal in your eye.

00:09:57.000 Oh, wow.

00:09:58.000 Because that's some of the fun that happens even when you're wearing safety glasses.

00:10:02.000 All the haters calm down.

00:10:04.000 We wear safety glasses.

00:10:05.000 How does it get in?

00:10:06.000 Oh, it just bounces around.

00:10:07.000 You know, you're working with a carbide bit spinning that, you know...

00:10:10.000 15,000 RPM. Stuff bounces around.

00:10:13.000 But since then, I've been using...

00:10:16.000 I found this place in France that makes these antique motorcycle World War I aircraft goggles that seal...

00:10:23.000 Like the Nazis used to use for duels?

00:10:26.000 I don't know that one.

00:10:28.000 You don't know that one?

00:10:29.000 But it seals to your eyes, and it's got little vents in it so they don't fog up.

00:10:33.000 But anyway, I got metal in my eye, which is, for those of you who haven't done it, it's lots of fun.

00:10:39.000 You hold still.

00:10:40.000 You're wide awake.

00:10:42.000 And they come at you with a Dremel drill bit, and they drill it out.

00:10:45.000 Oh, Jesus.

00:10:46.000 And the instructions are, hold still.

00:10:49.000 Don't move.

00:10:50.000 Right.

00:10:50.000 Oh, my God.

00:10:51.000 I mean, they put a numbing drop in.

00:10:53.000 So what?

00:10:53.000 You still see the drill bit coming.

00:10:55.000 Oh, my God.

00:10:56.000 Easy, easy.

00:10:57.000 You can handle it.

00:10:58.000 Oh, my God.

00:10:59.000 The stuff you've been through, I'm sure you could handle it.

00:11:01.000 Yeah, that's wild.

00:11:02.000 So I've been drilled a couple of times.

00:11:05.000 That sounds wrong.

00:11:08.000 And if they came up with a photo of my eye, it'd look like a golf ball.

00:11:12.000 Little dimples when the drill comes in.

00:11:14.000 So anyway, that guy is like, you know, when they're in there, if they're experienced cats, they just happen to look around.

00:11:21.000 And he goes, hey...

00:11:24.000 I think you should come back and talk to our other doctor so-and-so and have him do some tests because I saw some stuff, don't know, but I think it'd be wise if you blah, blah, blah.

00:11:33.000 So I go in, we do the test, and the guy goes, and this is, wow, this is a while ago.

00:11:40.000 14, 15 years ago.

00:11:42.000 Here we are again with that time portal.

00:11:44.000 Right.

00:11:46.000 He goes, you have advanced glaucoma.

00:11:48.000 Then I go, what the hell is that?

00:11:51.000 And he goes, it's like creeping death.

00:11:54.000 It slowly takes your peripheral.

00:11:57.000 And most adults don't know that they're going blind until they're 80. And it moves so slow that That you don't notice the change, right?

00:12:08.000 Well, mine's trucking along.

00:12:10.000 And so we start with medication that lowers in your eye.

00:12:17.000 You basically got a faucet and a drain.

00:12:21.000 And if the drain's plugged up or if the faucet's on overload, it's acting not like a water balloon, but pressure builds.

00:12:28.000 That pressure is, think of your optic nerve, right?

00:12:33.000 Your brain is the cable TV company.

00:12:37.000 Your eye is the expensive flat screen TV and the cable connecting the two of them, right?

00:12:43.000 That pressure building up is like somebody with a heel of his boot digging on that cable.

00:12:48.000 And sooner or later, psst!

00:12:51.000 Nothing, right?

00:12:52.000 So you take medicine to reduce the pressure so it doesn't eat away at the optic nerve.

00:12:57.000 Okay, great.

00:12:58.000 We got that under control.

00:12:59.000 We're killer.

00:13:00.000 So then probably eight, nine years ago, I have cataract surgery in my right eye and put the cataract lens in and it's like, Oh my gosh!

00:13:15.000 It's crystal clear and beautiful and incredible.

00:13:19.000 Stoked on it.

00:13:20.000 About a year passes and I'm at PRI, which is the race, real serious race version of SEMA. It's in Indianapolis, so there's no fuzzy dice there.

00:13:31.000 It's all race car parts and stuff like that.

00:13:34.000 And I'm walking around, and I just, I don't know how to describe it, but it actually moved in stages, like a curtain coming down, just gray.

00:13:44.000 And then you just saw gray.

00:13:47.000 And it was my retina falling off, detaching. 0.99

00:13:51.000 So I'm in Indy, and I fly back and get together with the doctors, and they're like, you gotta put that shit up. 0.96

00:14:00.000 And instead of doing the long version, I'll give you the short version. 0.98

00:14:04.000 Seven surgeries later...

00:14:06.000 And every time you have the surgery, there's stitches in my eye.

00:14:10.000 And that's fun.

00:14:12.000 That's way more fun than the drilling.

00:14:14.000 And you're laying face down for a week.

00:14:16.000 Oh boy.

00:14:17.000 Can't move.

00:14:18.000 And it just kept falling off.

00:14:20.000 They couldn't go up, so I went to another surgeon.

00:14:23.000 I also have a buckle permanently sewn into my eye.

00:14:27.000 They try to change the shape of the eye to promote the retina staying up better.

00:14:32.000 Oh boy.

00:14:32.000 So anyway, got to new doctor, great guy, Dr. Asmali, back home in Cali.

00:14:39.000 And he's like, I got this, man. 0.99

00:14:42.000 These other guys, they were losers. 0.97

00:14:44.000 We're going to get it up there and we're going to stick it up. 0.95

00:14:47.000 That was surgery six, and it didn't hold, and I think he was more depressed than I was.

00:14:55.000 And so we scheduled seven, and he sat down with me, I remember, before we went into the operating room.

00:15:04.000 He goes, look, I don't think I can...

00:15:10.000 I'm going to go try to save your eye.

00:15:13.000 I'm not gonna save your sight because and he did it this way, which I thought was cool.

00:15:19.000 He went and did a little research to speak in my language and he goes when you're trying to weld metal If both the pieces are kind of rusty and beat up or whatever, it won't weld very good, right?

00:15:32.000 I'm going to go, true.

00:15:33.000 He goes, so you've got to have clean metal to clean metal to weld.

00:15:36.000 I go, yes, that's true. 0.90

00:15:38.000 He goes, well, all the attempts have just frayed the living shit out of the retina, so I'm going to cut away the yucky stuff. 0.93

00:15:51.000 And I'm going to have a new edge to... 0.94

00:15:54.000 They use a laser.

00:15:56.000 They basically...

00:15:57.000 The only thing they know how to do is tack weld it up.

00:15:59.000 That's what they do.

00:16:00.000 Right?

00:16:01.000 So he goes, I'm going to make new clean edges.

00:16:05.000 I'm going to weld it up.

00:16:07.000 You're going to lose some sight at least because I'm taking away part of the retina.

00:16:12.000 But I'm going to save your eye. 0.52

00:16:14.000 Because if we can't get something going on in there, then your body will kill off your eye. 0.99

00:16:20.000 It shrinks back.

00:16:20.000 It's painful.

00:16:21.000 Pop it out.

00:16:22.000 Put a glass eye in.

00:16:23.000 And I go, yeah, let's not.

00:16:25.000 So he did that.

00:16:27.000 And he goes, I cut away about a third of the retina.

00:16:30.000 And I had a visual, like a vertical rectangle of sight.

00:16:36.000 Right?

00:16:36.000 Not all the way over to here to here.

00:16:38.000 Here to here.

00:16:38.000 But fast-forwarding, scar tissue moved over and pretty much just eliminated.

00:16:43.000 And they're like, we can go in and...

00:16:44.000 I'm like, no, no.

00:16:45.000 Oh, Jesus.

00:16:46.000 We're not going to go in and do anything.

00:16:48.000 Oh, Jesus.

00:16:49.000 So this one's basically gone.

00:16:51.000 You know, that's that.

00:16:52.000 For now.

00:16:53.000 We'll see if science checks in.

00:16:55.000 Do you know who Michael Bisping is?

00:16:57.000 No, sir.

00:16:58.000 Michael Bisping's one of the toughest human beings that's ever walked the face of the earth.

00:17:02.000 Fair enough.

00:17:02.000 This is what I said.

00:17:02.000 And not just because he was a UFC middleweight champion...

00:17:05.000 But because Michael Bisping fought the last ten fights of his UFC career, including winning the title blind in one eye.

00:17:13.000 And he didn't tell them.

00:17:14.000 He hid it.

00:17:15.000 Oh, I heard about that.

00:17:17.000 Yeah, he hid it.

00:17:18.000 He didn't tell anybody.

00:17:20.000 Do you know, gangster, you have to want to be fighting the best fighters in the world.

00:17:24.000 Dan Henderson.

00:17:25.000 And not being able to see over here.

00:17:26.000 Anderson Silva.

00:17:27.000 And you can't see out of one eye.

00:17:29.000 Like, his one eye is gone, man.

00:17:32.000 Yeah, I understand.

00:17:33.000 Which is...

00:17:34.000 Fighting world-class fighters.

00:17:36.000 You can see his right eye is completely missing.

00:17:39.000 It's just foggy.

00:17:41.000 He wears a little thing that goes over it like a lens so it looks normal. 1.00

00:17:45.000 But he's a fucking stud. 0.99

00:17:48.000 That guy fought 10 fights with one eye. 1.00

00:17:51.000 Just think of a fight with two eyes is fucking terrifying. 0.95

00:17:54.000 And fighting against the best guys in the world. 0.98

00:17:56.000 And he wins the title.

00:17:57.000 Knocks out Luke Rockhold with one eye.

00:17:59.000 Yeah, well, it took a lot.

00:18:02.000 I would sit there and practice like basketball into garbage cans just to try to retain the depth perception.

00:18:11.000 That's the real issue, right?

00:18:12.000 Yeah, it's difficult.

00:18:13.000 And then also, it's frustrating when you're...

00:18:16.000 Anyway, I'll interrupt myself to continue with the fun.

00:18:23.000 So now I'm where I'm at, right?

00:18:25.000 And they're like, your other eye is going to need cataract surgery.

00:18:30.000 And I'm like, so I did ask when the retina fell off.

00:18:36.000 Hey, did the cataract surgery have anything to do with that?

00:18:39.000 Possibly.

00:18:40.000 And every doctor and every specialist and everybody I talked to all said the same thing.

00:18:46.000 I'm paraphrasing.

00:18:47.000 Well, any procedure on your eye may, could, might, possibly have the possibility of...

00:18:54.000 Like one of them commercials for a pharmaceutical drug.

00:18:57.000 Oh, hell.

00:18:57.000 So it's like, did the operation on your eye cause the retina to fall off?

00:19:05.000 Anything could...

00:19:06.000 Maybe.

00:19:07.000 Anything could maybe.

00:19:09.000 So, anyway, so now I've got to have cataract surgery on this one.

00:19:12.000 I got a great guy who's one of the best in the West Coast, etc., etc.

00:19:18.000 We do the surgery, and there is a mistake in...

00:19:26.000 Because they account for my pressures.

00:19:28.000 They try to keep the pressures low because of my glaucoma.

00:19:31.000 Well, they...

00:19:34.000 Went a little too far.

00:19:35.000 My pressures were down.

00:19:36.000 Your normal eyes run, like your eyes probably run at like 20, 22, you know, maybe even a little bit higher, but right around there for pressure inside.

00:19:45.000 We'll call it air pressure, you know.

00:19:47.000 It's not the right term, but...

00:19:49.000 So mine, with medication, we keep it down at like 13 and 12, right?

00:19:54.000 Okay.

00:19:55.000 So when, after the second cataract surgery, the one on the one working eye, They had dropped the pressure so low, I coughed, and it blew out blood vessels inside my eye.

00:20:11.000 Which, when you wake up and you look, it looks like it's snowing inside your...

00:20:14.000 It looks like it's snowing.

00:20:16.000 And I'm like, what the hell's going on?

00:20:19.000 And at the same time, we did a special little surgery to, like, drill out the drain tube.

00:20:24.000 Because in my eyes, the faucet's wide open and the drain tube's plugged.

00:20:27.000 Oh, boy.

00:20:28.000 That builds the pressure.

00:20:29.000 So the medicine turns the faucet down and clears away the drain tube, right?

00:20:33.000 Yeah.

00:20:33.000 So we drill out the drain tube.

00:20:35.000 I'm over...

00:20:36.000 I'm making this...

00:20:36.000 I'm sure there's eye guys listening.

00:20:38.000 That's not technically... 1.00

00:20:39.000 Look, they drilled the damn... 0.99

00:20:41.000 Like me describing MechaniQuark. 1.00

00:20:41.000 Right. 1.00

00:20:42.000 They drilled the damn tube open, so all the blood goes down and plugs that. 0.99

00:20:46.000 So that ruined that. 0.99

00:20:47.000 Yay.

00:20:48.000 And so they rush me, and they basically take a needle and insert fluid into my eye.

00:20:56.000 I'm wide awake.

00:20:57.000 Mind you.

00:20:59.000 Just two little...

00:21:00.000 You ever been with the two handles under the table?

00:21:03.000 Oh, yeah.

00:21:03.000 You grip on them?

00:21:04.000 Yeah.

00:21:05.000 Oh, my God. 1.00

00:21:05.000 Motherfucker. 1.00

00:21:06.000 Does he have your head secured or anything? 1.00

00:21:08.000 No, he just put it in the little foamy breeze.

00:21:10.000 Oh, boy.

00:21:11.000 So they do that, and that was miscalculated, and the pressures went to like 62. And I was...

00:21:18.000 What's the word?

00:21:21.000 Terrified.

00:21:22.000 No, I was throwing up.

00:21:24.000 I couldn't stand up.

00:21:25.000 I was so disoriented because it was, I mean, it was screwing with the deal.

00:21:30.000 And so the doc, who, again, great guy.

00:21:33.000 I'm still, I'm not slamming him.

00:21:35.000 And he actually met me at his office at like, I don't even know when it was, three in the morning or whatever.

00:21:43.000 And I'm throwing up in his bushes out front, right?

00:21:49.000 And he did this three times, head in the thing, hands on the handle, took a blade, lifted my eye and let the pressure out, let the fluid out.

00:22:04.000 So I'm like, taking that, right?

00:22:06.000 So now we get the pressures under control, right?

00:22:10.000 And so that was two to three years ago.

00:22:16.000 And believe me, every day when I wake up and I can see, I'm like, is this the day this retina falls off?

00:22:22.000 Am I going to have a repeat of the last one?

00:22:25.000 Oh, I've got to have clammy hands.

00:22:28.000 I really do.

00:22:29.000 I'm the one living through it.

00:22:30.000 You don't have to worry about it.

00:22:31.000 You're good.

00:22:31.000 Yeah, but still, it's for you.

00:22:33.000 Yeah, it's, you know, but it's like anything else.

00:22:37.000 When someone has something, when something is always over your shoulder, you can either focus on it and worry about it, or just go to the shop and build some cool cars, you know?

00:22:50.000 Well, I'm glad you chose the latter.

00:22:52.000 I guess that's the only choice to make.

00:22:54.000 Yeah, you know, I can't.

00:22:56.000 So I do go like every four to six weeks.

00:22:59.000 I have a lady I love, Dr. Tor.

00:23:02.000 I go into her office.

00:23:04.000 Luckily, it's like a mile and a half from my house.

00:23:07.000 So I go down and we check my pressures.

00:23:09.000 I don't have to.

00:23:11.000 She's like, you're fine.

00:23:12.000 Come in six months.

00:23:12.000 I'm like, no, no, no, no.

00:23:14.000 I'm coming in once a week.

00:23:15.000 But I come in four to six weeks.

00:23:17.000 We check the pressures.

00:23:18.000 We look at the retinas.

00:23:19.000 Have you looked into stem cells?

00:23:22.000 Is there anything with stem cells?

00:23:23.000 There's nothing as of now.

00:23:24.000 I have a meeting with the Dr. Asmali.

00:23:27.000 I'm getting together with him next month.

00:23:30.000 And he's down at, I think it's UCLA. He's real hip.

00:23:34.000 That stuff.

00:23:35.000 They're still hip?

00:23:36.000 People are still hip?

00:23:37.000 Yeah, he's hip.

00:23:37.000 Yeah.

00:23:39.000 The t-shirt you're wearing. 1.00

00:23:41.000 With your fucking band hair. 1.00

00:23:45.000 Still hip, man. 1.00

00:23:47.000 So he's hip to all the...

00:23:48.000 Yeah, I'm going to grill him again.

00:23:50.000 And I'm interested.

00:23:51.000 I'm going to talk with him because I don't know.

00:23:53.000 When they were saying, we'll go in and clean the scar tissue, I'm like, absolutely.

00:23:56.000 Let me connect you to my friend Brigham.

00:24:00.000 He owns Ways to Well, which is a stem cell clinic in Austin.

00:24:04.000 And he was one of the most amazing guests I ever had on the podcast, who explained how these things work.

00:24:10.000 But one of the things that he does is he's always up on the latest research in terms of like, he's the one who sent me that thing.

00:24:17.000 This latest article about people living to be 120 years old.

00:24:20.000 The beginning of the horror movie.

00:24:22.000 At least he'll make you forever soldiers.

00:24:24.000 Forever.

00:24:25.000 You will be connected to the big machine.

00:24:28.000 Oh, terrific.

00:24:30.000 I'm in.

00:24:30.000 But let me connect you to him.

00:24:32.000 He'll know what's going on in terms of if there's anything going on with eyeballs.

00:24:36.000 There's a lot of really good stuff with neurodegenerative issues.

00:24:40.000 People that have all sorts of neurological issues have gone down.

00:24:45.000 I know Dr. Reardon from Panama was talking about that.

00:24:47.000 He's the first guy I ever had come on and talk about stem cells.

00:24:51.000 He's the guy that came out with Mel Gibson.

00:24:53.000 I don't know if you ever saw that one.

00:24:54.000 Oh, yeah.

00:24:55.000 Oh, that guy.

00:24:56.000 Okay.

00:24:58.000 How it was described to me was, again, at least he was being honest.

00:25:03.000 He was like, the retina is like brain tissue.

00:25:06.000 We know what it is.

00:25:09.000 And that's about it.

00:25:11.000 We can't reproduce it.

00:25:13.000 We can't copy it.

00:25:14.000 We can't make it.

00:25:15.000 We can't...

00:25:16.000 Again, all they do is tack weld it up with lasers.

00:25:20.000 My hope is they're going to be able to make new ones.

00:25:22.000 Because one of the things they've been able to do with stem cells, they've actually made a woman's bladder, I believe.

00:25:30.000 I believe they reconstructed an actual bladder with stem cells, with her tissue, and then put it in her body.

00:25:38.000 Find out if that's true.

00:25:39.000 I think that's true.

00:25:40.000 Which is, obviously, it seems like that would be a less complicated thing than, you know, than an eyeball that has to like...

00:25:48.000 Yeah, and I've heard of them trying to, or somebody doing an eyeball.

00:25:53.000 Really?

00:25:53.000 Because it's easier to make the whole thing than try to replicate.

00:25:57.000 Right.

00:25:57.000 That's what I was thinking.

00:25:58.000 But I'm like, how are you going to connect it to all those optic nerves?

00:26:01.000 Yeah, what are you going to do there?

00:26:03.000 And what does that do?

00:26:04.000 What does that go south?

00:26:06.000 And all of a sudden you forget your childhood?

00:26:08.000 You know what I mean?

00:26:09.000 What's connected back there?

00:26:11.000 Yeah, I don't know.

00:26:11.000 I don't know how they're going to do it.

00:26:13.000 Weird dreams about hanging out with your brother that are going to be just gone forever.

00:26:17.000 You know what I mean?

00:26:18.000 Yeah, I don't know.

00:26:21.000 I'll be interested to talk with Asmali again when I'm back in and just see if there's any new...

00:26:28.000 Because I'm down for it.

00:26:30.000 Jamie, did you find anything about them making eyeballs?

00:26:35.000 Yeah, you were looking up the bladder.

00:26:36.000 Did you find that?

00:26:36.000 Is that real?

00:26:39.000 Is that real?

00:26:41.000 I think it's real.

00:26:42.000 But I never know.

00:26:43.000 I mean, I say things sometimes and I go, okay, let me check.

00:26:46.000 Fair enough.

00:26:47.000 I don't expect to be talking about people making bladders.

00:26:51.000 This wasn't part of the plan today.

00:26:53.000 Yeah.

00:26:54.000 It's just how it goes.

00:26:56.000 Oh, I'm the benefit.

00:26:57.000 No, we all have the benefit.

00:26:59.000 It's just a real conversation.

00:27:00.000 Yeah, the quick search shows that there's definitely studies on bladder regeneration, but there's a difference between them getting a functional urinary tract, kind of like functional bladder.

00:27:10.000 I see.

00:27:11.000 So I think it does, from what I've looked at it.

00:27:13.000 I partially see.

00:27:14.000 In an animal, in a small animal, I think is what it said.

00:27:18.000 They didn't do it to a woman? 1.00

00:27:20.000 That's what I was just looking into, and then you kind of cut me off.

00:27:22.000 Okay, go ahead.

00:27:22.000 Try to find it for a woman, because I'm pretty sure I read that.

00:27:26.000 I was very impressed.

00:27:27.000 They could've got me, though. 0.99

00:27:28.000 They could've got me some clickbait bullshit. 0.99

00:27:30.000 They get me. 1.00

00:27:31.000 So many times they get me these motherfuckers. 1.00

00:27:33.000 Ooh, look at that. 1.00

00:27:34.000 Woman's bladder. 1.00

00:27:35.000 But hey, that's their job. 0.65

00:27:36.000 You got me.

00:27:37.000 It's fair and square.

00:27:38.000 That's the job. 1.00

00:27:39.000 Their job is to fucking make some shit that you're gonna click on. 1.00

00:27:42.000 Right. 1.00

00:27:42.000 So if they can make the most outrageous version of what is kinda true... 1.00

00:27:46.000 Right.

00:27:47.000 Kinda true.

00:27:48.000 It's iffy at best.

00:27:50.000 It's a little iffy, but it's kinda true.

00:27:53.000 A new bladder made for my cells, gave my life back, bioprinting human tissue, especially, that's the same thing.

00:27:59.000 Is that it?

00:27:59.000 No, this is from 2018. It's not the same thing.

00:28:01.000 Yeah, that's it.

00:28:02.000 This was a little kid, though.

00:28:04.000 Is it a girl?

00:28:05.000 Luke Macella.

00:28:07.000 Does he identify as a girl?

00:28:09.000 Way to push...

00:28:10.000 Sorry, Luke.

00:28:11.000 Push that to the edge.

00:28:12.000 Trying to push gender ideology on Luke.

00:28:14.000 Does he identify as a girl?

00:28:15.000 Sure, why not?

00:28:16.000 I'm just trying to be right.

00:28:17.000 Maybe on Wednesday.

00:28:18.000 I'm just trying to be right, Jack.

00:28:20.000 I mean, there are stories that are shown.

00:28:21.000 I don't know if I... I might have to find something specific to find the one you're talking about, but...

00:28:25.000 How about that?

00:28:25.000 Find the eyeball.

00:28:26.000 Yeah, let's find the eyeball.

00:28:27.000 The eyeball's more important to Steve.

00:28:29.000 Yeah.

00:28:29.000 To all of us.

00:28:30.000 Yeah, a little closer for me there.

00:28:33.000 So anyway, I'm going to revisit and ask them if we have to go in like they did before to scrape off the scar tissue because I did have a vertical slot of sight because this eye has a new cataract lens,

00:28:49.000 which is still in there.

00:28:50.000 Right.

00:28:51.000 And I remember when I... But the scar tissue's covered over it.

00:28:54.000 Yeah, when I could walk around again and I was walking outside, you know, I'd cover this eye and there would be a...

00:29:02.000 Instead of this, it'd be like that.

00:29:03.000 A vertical, full height, but just not as wide, but clear site.

00:29:09.000 And I'm like, well, you know, it's been a while now.

00:29:12.000 If they can clear that off and I can get that, that'd be awesome.

00:29:16.000 Yeah, that'd be amazing.

00:29:17.000 I mean, yes.

00:29:18.000 So they think they can do that?

00:29:19.000 He suggested it back then.

00:29:22.000 So I was not ready to do it.

00:29:24.000 I was sick and tired of being on the table.

00:29:26.000 I literally knew how to put the IV. I prepped myself up.

00:29:30.000 You gave yourself an IV? No, I'm just saying I could.

00:29:35.000 When you go in the surgery center and they go, hi, Mr. Stroop, they recognize you.

00:29:41.000 Giving yourself an IV is next level, right?

00:29:43.000 It's like giving yourself a tattoo.

00:29:45.000 Yeah, I'm not doing that.

00:29:46.000 Guys who tattoo the inside of their own thighs are like, whoa.

00:29:49.000 Who the hell is doing that?

00:29:51.000 A lot of folks.

00:29:52.000 Okay.

00:29:53.000 Guys practice on themselves.

00:29:55.000 Hmm.

00:29:56.000 Yeah.

00:29:57.000 I'm gonna say no for that one.

00:29:59.000 Well, tattooists do it to themselves all the time.

00:30:01.000 If they want something and they maybe want to draw it, they're very skilled.

00:30:04.000 You know, maybe they want like a specific kind of flower somewhere.

00:30:07.000 Fair enough.

00:30:08.000 And they can reach it.

00:30:09.000 Okay.

00:30:10.000 Stem cells from one eye show promise in healing injuries in the other.

00:30:15.000 Interesting.

00:30:16.000 There's another story, too, where a kid had a very specific eye injury that was called a stem cell.

00:30:20.000 See, my problem, it's not my problem, well, it is my problem, but my situation is there's stuff they do on the outside, like cadaver stuff, but the inside, like the retina, what I've been told is like no man's land.

00:30:34.000 It's like, well, good luck, you know?

00:30:35.000 Mm.

00:30:36.000 It's like, oh, you can get that from a dead body.

00:30:38.000 No, you can't.

00:30:39.000 They can't replace a retina.

00:30:41.000 And if I'm wrong, great.

00:30:43.000 Bring it on.

00:30:44.000 Maybe they just can't do it now.

00:30:46.000 But then it's also someone else's organs, so you're going to have to take all these drugs to keep your body from rejecting it.

00:30:52.000 Yeah, I'm sure there's no...

00:30:54.000 My friend C.T. Fletcher had a heart transplant a few years back.

00:30:58.000 He's an amazing person.

00:31:00.000 He's a super, super inspirational person.

00:31:03.000 And had a heart transplant.

00:31:06.000 And now he has someone else's heart inside of him.

00:31:09.000 Now he has to take medication.

00:31:10.000 It's so trippy.

00:31:11.000 It's crazy.

00:31:12.000 So your body, when you have someone else's organ in your body, your body knows it's not yours.

00:31:17.000 So your body tries to reject it.

00:31:19.000 So I imagine that does...

00:31:20.000 Wreck havoc with your immune system, but it's keeping him alive, and it's amazing, man.

00:31:24.000 This guy's so full of love.

00:31:26.000 He was like this crazy, wild power lifter dude who was real motivational and aggressive, and now he's like this real peaceful, interesting, wise person who's enjoying his last moments alive.

00:31:45.000 But it's heavy.

00:31:47.000 It's heavy.

00:31:49.000 I mean, the heart is obviously the big one, right?

00:31:52.000 Yeah.

00:31:52.000 That's the big one.

00:31:53.000 Probably really important. 1.00

00:31:54.000 We're fucking 10 years, 20 years away, max, from them being able to suck your brain out of your head and put it in a robot. 1.00

00:32:00.000 Oh, good. 1.00

00:32:01.000 That'd be great.

00:32:02.000 They're going to give you a Steve Strope robot.

00:32:04.000 That'll be terrific.

00:32:05.000 You're going to look like Ken from the Barbie movie.

00:32:07.000 I hope not.

00:32:10.000 Yeah, and the first ones won't be able to feel real pleasure, and so you have to sign off on that, but then the next ones, the better ones will.

00:32:16.000 That's where this is going.

00:32:17.000 So you have to decide whether or not you're going to get another surgery.

00:32:20.000 They've never removed a brain from one robot and put it in another robot.

00:32:24.000 You know that, right?

00:32:25.000 Yeah, but they know how to do it.

00:32:27.000 They're pretty good at it.

00:32:29.000 Who's they?

00:32:30.000 These new people in the future, the robot brain scientists.

00:32:33.000 Oh, good, yeah.

00:32:34.000 Would you opt in for that, or would you rather just say, let's see what's next?

00:32:38.000 Let's let the lights go dim and see what's next.

00:32:42.000 Hey, good question.

00:32:43.000 It's a good question.

00:32:44.000 I don't know.

00:32:45.000 I don't know.

00:32:46.000 It's hard to say.

00:32:46.000 Because everybody's scared to die, but no one's scared to sleep.

00:32:51.000 Hmm.

00:32:52.000 That's a good statement.

00:32:53.000 Yeah, it's weird.

00:32:55.000 Because you're expecting.

00:32:56.000 The odds are you're waking up.

00:32:57.000 You should be expecting the other one, too.

00:33:00.000 You know?

00:33:01.000 True.

00:33:01.000 It comes for all of us.

00:33:02.000 Yeah, that's a great equalizer, is it not?

00:33:05.000 I wonder if that's like, you know, if Satan was real, that would be the ultimate temptation, to trick you into transferring your consciousness into something immortal so that you can never experience heaven.

00:33:19.000 Wouldn't that be wild?

00:33:21.000 If that's what's going on?

00:33:23.000 Because everybody wants to think that even people that believe in God, they don't necessarily talk too much about Satan.

00:33:29.000 It's very rare.

00:33:30.000 I have a very...

00:33:34.000 Your good old standard issue religious background with my parents.

00:33:37.000 What did you start off with?

00:33:39.000 Well, I'm from a...

00:33:43.000 We're going to get into Appalachian in a little while.

00:33:46.000 Appalachian?

00:33:48.000 Appalachian.

00:33:48.000 What's that?

00:33:49.000 Appalachian mountains, the yeehaw stuff down south.

00:33:52.000 What kind of stuff did you guys do?

00:33:56.000 What kind of stuff did you guys do?

00:33:59.000 Yeehaw stuff.

00:34:00.000 What did you guys do?

00:34:00.000 Appalachian, New York is a very small farm town in upstate New York.

00:34:05.000 Still has a red light at the end of it where it meets 434. Okay.

00:34:08.000 Has a post office and a fire station.

00:34:12.000 Okay.

00:34:13.000 And known for a very important large mafia bus in 1957. A mafia bus?

00:34:19.000 There's actually a paperback and a movie about Appalachian.

00:34:22.000 What's the movie or paperback?

00:34:25.000 Appalachian.

00:34:26.000 It's just called Appalachian?

00:34:27.000 Yes.

00:34:27.000 Yes, sir.

00:34:28.000 And it's all about the mob?

00:34:29.000 It's a huge bust.

00:34:32.000 Look at it.

00:34:32.000 On this day in 1957, the FBI finally had to admit that the mafia existed.

00:34:37.000 They were all gathered in a farmhouse.

00:34:39.000 The leaders of the main...

00:34:41.000 Mob families. 0.81

00:34:42.000 And they were basically working out jurisdictions, properties. 0.67

00:34:50.000 I think I was researching some stuff one time and I stumbled across this meeting happened after a failed meeting in Cleveland because the Cleveland family fucked up the meeting and they got mad. 0.99

00:34:59.000 It's like, fuck it, we're doing it in New York. 0.99

00:35:01.000 Yep, they did it. 1.00

00:35:02.000 And so the two sheriffs just saw these black Cadillacs and Lincolns going up to this farmhouse. 0.76

00:35:07.000 And I think, if memory serves me right, they kind of fucked up and all panicked and ran into the woods.

00:35:14.000 In fact, that guy, no, they did do that. 0.83

00:35:17.000 But if they just would have said, hey, we're just hanging out, what are you going to prove?

00:35:21.000 But they all bailed.

00:35:22.000 And they ran into it, if I remember right, they're coming out of the woods near where my grandma's house was.

00:35:28.000 That was a dirt road back then.

00:35:30.000 And I could take you there.

00:35:31.000 The house is on top of a little hill behind the area where we have our fireman's field days every year.

00:35:37.000 State troopers noticed all the fancy cars parked in Barbara's driveway.

00:35:41.000 And started taking down license plate numbers.

00:35:44.000 Some have suggested that one of the Genovese rivals tip the cops in hopes of spoiling Genovese's crown ceremony.

00:35:59.000 Oh, God.

00:36:09.000 Yes.

00:36:15.000 Who was recovering from a heart attack.

00:36:17.000 When all was said and done, the troopers had apprehended mafia leaders from New York, New Jersey, Tampa, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and other locations.

00:36:25.000 But isn't that funny?

00:36:26.000 Like, what did they bust them for?

00:36:27.000 Just being there?

00:36:28.000 What they all wanted already?

00:36:30.000 They just...

00:36:31.000 Well, I think the paperwork laying on the inside was showing dividing up territories.

00:36:38.000 Oh, boy.

00:36:39.000 And it was one of the first times that the FBI had proof.

00:36:42.000 Hold up.

00:36:43.000 Look at this.

00:36:43.000 The whole thing made national news and finally forced the FBI to acknowledge that organized crime was a matter worthy of notice.

00:36:50.000 Some believe that J. Edgar Hoover's reluctance to acknowledge the mob's existence can be ascribed to the mafia somehow acquiring photographs of Hoover in drag.

00:36:58.000 Oh! 0.60

00:36:58.000 Using those to blackmail him into leaving the Mafia alone. 0.60

00:37:01.000 There is no evidence to suggest that this is true.

00:37:04.000 That was always the rumor that he drew.

00:37:05.000 But that would be the rumor if there was a guy that ran the FBI, like what dark secrets does he have?

00:37:10.000 You know, if he's like holding the secrets of everyone.

00:37:13.000 What's his secret?

00:37:14.000 What's his secret?

00:37:15.000 Probably you'd have to have secrets.

00:37:17.000 You'd probably go crazy if you didn't.

00:37:19.000 You know, like you're the one who keeps the secrets. 1.00

00:37:21.000 You'd probably do the weirdest shit. 1.00

00:37:23.000 Possible. 1.00

00:37:24.000 So almost automatically you would think that he would wear drag.

00:37:28.000 Yeah, that's where my brain goes.

00:37:30.000 That's where my brain would go. 1.00

00:37:31.000 Like, he's doing some freak shit. 1.00

00:37:33.000 He's doing some, quote, freak shit. 1.00

00:37:35.000 Freak shit. 1.00

00:37:35.000 You know, if you are more, you know, dark-minded, you would think even horrible things. 1.00

00:37:40.000 They're doing horrible things.

00:37:42.000 That's always the worry that people have about, like, the elites.

00:37:46.000 Like, what are they doing? 0.99

00:37:46.000 Like, the skull and bones and, like, what kind of fucking rituals? 0.99

00:37:50.000 What kind of freak-ass shit are they doing? 1.00

00:37:52.000 What freak shit are you doing? 1.00

00:37:53.000 You know? 1.00

00:37:54.000 And getting away with.

00:37:55.000 Yeah, when you're on a $500 million yacht every weekend. 1.00

00:37:58.000 And you're just fucking balling all over the world, hanging out with your other balling all over the world buddies, doing freak shit. 1.00

00:38:05.000 Yep. 1.00

00:38:05.000 Staying in the club together. 1.00

00:38:07.000 Mm-hmm.

00:38:08.000 Hunting people.

00:38:10.000 Freaky.

00:38:10.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:38:11.000 Yeah.

00:38:12.000 Freaky.

00:38:13.000 Freaky.

00:38:13.000 Yeah.

00:38:14.000 So anyway, background.

00:38:15.000 Small South Appalachian Baptist Church.

00:38:17.000 My dad's a deacon at the church.

00:38:19.000 My sister is married to somebody who's a pastor, and she moved to France, Mont-Plair, and she's a missionary there.

00:38:28.000 So all the basic Christian education, I got it.

00:38:32.000 But no one you know has had conversations with the devil, right?

00:38:36.000 No, not really.

00:38:37.000 But people, I bet you've talked to people that said God has talked to them.

00:38:44.000 I don't know.

00:38:44.000 My dad would never say God talked with me directly.

00:38:47.000 He reads the Bible.

00:38:49.000 It's not an uncommon thing, though, right?

00:38:50.000 No.

00:38:50.000 But my background or the church I grew up in and my mom and dad are pretty strict.

00:38:57.000 Like, Pastor Walter growing up, that guy was a logger.

00:39:02.000 You know, this was a small little town.

00:39:05.000 That's a cool story.

00:39:06.000 And he had, I'm not kidding, he had a scar from here down through his jaw to here, a chainsaw, jumped back and went, cut him right through the face.

00:39:16.000 That's a manly man right there.

00:39:18.000 It's like a Teddy Atlas scar.

00:39:20.000 Took himself to the hospital with a towel on the side or a shirt on the side of his face.

00:39:26.000 Of course he did.

00:39:26.000 Yes, he did.

00:39:27.000 Probably would have fucking stapled it shut if he had a stapler in the car. 0.94

00:39:29.000 And he was the nicest, pleasant, like, Hi, good afternoon. 1.00

00:39:33.000 Yeah, I've seen some shit. 0.99

00:39:34.000 Oh my goodness. 1.00

00:39:35.000 He doesn't have to convince you.

00:39:36.000 So everything, it was real simple.

00:39:38.000 Here's a good book.

00:39:38.000 Read it.

00:39:39.000 If it says yes, do it.

00:39:40.000 If it says no, don't.

00:39:41.000 That's all.

00:39:42.000 There's no pomp and circumstance.

00:39:43.000 There's no robes.

00:39:44.000 Real simple.

00:39:45.000 Real straightforward.

00:39:47.000 But my dad would be interested, and he'll be listening to this.

00:39:50.000 So he would be interested in your thing if the end times doesn't come, and Satan can say, hey, guess what I can do?

00:40:00.000 But here's the thought.

00:40:01.000 Would somebody take that?

00:40:02.000 If Satan really was clever.

00:40:04.000 Oh, if he's real?

00:40:06.000 If he's real.

00:40:06.000 He is the prince and power of the air.

00:40:09.000 He is the great deceiver.

00:40:10.000 He's very clever.

00:40:12.000 Right. 0.81

00:40:13.000 But if Satan is a real thing, what a genius thing to make it ridiculous to believe in him.

00:40:20.000 What a genius thing to make it so that even saying you've communicated with Satan or saying... 0.99

00:40:28.000 You sound like a loon. 0.99

00:40:30.000 Because if you negate him... 0.96

00:40:32.000 We were just talking about this the other night.

00:40:33.000 I said that if the president said, God is with our troops, we would say, awesome. 0.99

00:40:38.000 But if the president said, we've located the devil, he's in Afghanistan, and we're beginning bombing, He'd be like, what the fuck did you just say? 0.99

00:40:47.000 And you're right about genius because if you're ridiculed or look like a loon for believing in Satan, then by default you're a loon for believing in God. 0.98

00:40:55.000 So he's done his job by negating everything.

00:40:58.000 Well, sort of.

00:40:59.000 Well, to a point.

00:41:00.000 Because a lot of people that believe in God...

00:41:02.000 They're both in the same book.

00:41:03.000 They believe in Satan as a concept, I think.

00:41:05.000 I think it's like a...

00:41:06.000 There's like a graph of people that...

00:41:08.000 Like if you had a pie chart of all the people that believe in God, right?

00:41:11.000 Sure.

00:41:12.000 Or the entity of God.

00:41:13.000 The ones that think that Satan's a real thing is probably like a quarter of the pie.

00:41:18.000 And if they read, again, not some weird crazy, but just the plain Jane Bible...

00:41:22.000 Right.

00:41:23.000 Satan was the number one angel.

00:41:24.000 He was number two in charge.

00:41:26.000 He was the big cheese and said, I want to have everything.

00:41:29.000 And God was like, not going to happen.

00:41:32.000 Yeah.

00:41:33.000 But isn't that always like even in the mob?

00:41:35.000 Yes.

00:41:35.000 That kind of thing happened?

00:41:36.000 Number two tries harder, doesn't he?

00:41:38.000 Number two tries to kill number one.

00:41:39.000 Yeah.

00:41:39.000 When they killed Paul Castellano in front of Sparks Steakhouse in New York City.

00:41:43.000 Is that the shot you have right there in the hall?

00:41:45.000 No.

00:41:45.000 What do we have in the hall?

00:41:46.000 What shot is that?

00:41:46.000 Oh, that's Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.

00:41:49.000 That's right.

00:41:50.000 That's it.

00:41:50.000 Yeah.

00:41:51.000 That's a different one.

00:41:52.000 Yeah.

00:41:53.000 So in my area around me, there's a lot of Italian, growing up lots of Italian.

00:41:58.000 Lots of Italian.

00:41:59.000 Right.

00:42:00.000 So I got good food.

00:42:01.000 There you go.

00:42:02.000 Really good food.

00:42:04.000 They know how to eat.

00:42:05.000 I'll tell you that.

00:42:06.000 If you want to eat for pleasure, the Italians got it nailed. 1.00

00:42:09.000 Yeah, they do.

00:42:09.000 They do.

00:42:11.000 What's crazy is the difference between their food here and their food in Italy.

00:42:16.000 It's gone on its own shoot.

00:42:18.000 Yeah, but that's not what I mean.

00:42:19.000 I mean in terms of like what it does to your body. 0.98

00:42:21.000 I would really like some fucking science to be done on it. 0.98

00:42:24.000 Like what is happening? 0.99

00:42:26.000 You go to Italy, you eat their pasta, you don't feel bad at all.

00:42:29.000 You come to America, you feel like you ate a bowl of glue.

00:42:34.000 I'm like, oh my god, I can't move.

00:42:36.000 A bowl of glue, sir.

00:42:37.000 I can't move.

00:42:38.000 There's something about their bread.

00:42:39.000 It's different.

00:42:40.000 Apparently they have heirloom wheat. 0.99

00:42:42.000 They have different wheat before we start fucking with it. 0.99

00:42:44.000 We should unfuck the wheat, kids. 0.99

00:42:46.000 Because I know it's like higher yield.

00:42:49.000 Joe Rogan's new unfuck the wheat program.

00:42:51.000 This is what I think.

00:42:52.000 But there's also some people that believe that one of the things that we're experiencing when people have gluten intolerance is an intolerance to wheat is actually...

00:43:00.000 You might be getting glyphosate from it.

00:43:03.000 This is a highly speculative theory, but they've tested people and they found that, what was it, Jamie, like 94% of people?

00:43:10.000 94% of people have glyphosate in their body, and glyphosate is toxic.

00:43:16.000 It's an herbicide?

00:43:18.000 Yeah, it's an herbicide.

00:43:19.000 Is it because what we do to plant and grow wheat?

00:43:22.000 Yes.

00:43:23.000 Well, we grow corn.

00:43:25.000 Monsanto created it, and they created a corn that is immune to it.

00:43:31.000 So you eat like this Monsanto corn and they can spray glyphosate on it and it kills everything else.

00:43:36.000 It kills all the bad weeds and you just get the nice corn.

00:43:40.000 Okay.

00:43:41.000 The problem is that stuff gets in everyone's body in some small amount.

00:43:45.000 And the question is, like, is your body able to filter out the amount that it has in it?

00:43:50.000 Like, what's the toxic level?

00:43:52.000 Are we below the fear?

00:43:54.000 Is it fear-mongering?

00:43:55.000 Because, like, there's a certain amount of metals that you're going to get just from eating sushi.

00:43:59.000 If you get some salmon or some tuna, rather, from the Pacific Ocean There's real high possibility that you could get mercury in it.

00:44:07.000 Some amount, right?

00:44:10.000 What's the prevalence of toxic metals in tuna?

00:44:15.000 Let's just guess.

00:44:17.000 I have a friend.

00:44:19.000 I don't want to mention his name, but he's brilliant.

00:44:21.000 And he won't eat fish from the Pacific anymore.

00:44:24.000 And I said, why?

00:44:25.000 And he said, Fukushima.

00:44:28.000 He said they're literally dumping this nuclear water into the ocean, and we don't know what's going to happen.

00:44:38.000 We don't know what effect this is going to have.

00:44:41.000 We don't know if the ocean's just going to easily absorb it or whether it's going to kill fish.

00:44:45.000 We don't know if it's going to contaminate them, if they're going to have levels of radiation.

00:44:48.000 He was freaking me out.

00:44:50.000 And he's a lot smarter than me.

00:44:53.000 So, you're an honest man. 0.98

00:44:54.000 And he doesn't fucking eat fish from the Pacific anymore. 0.96

00:44:57.000 I'm like, whoa, is that valid? 0.97

00:44:59.000 So what's the, first of all, first one is tuna.

00:45:03.000 Are there levels, high levels of mercury in tuna?

00:45:06.000 Yeah, so you could get mercury poisoning from one serving.

00:45:11.000 Sorry, let me rephrase that.

00:45:12.000 The amount of mercury you're allowed to have in a week, you could get in one serving of tuna.

00:45:18.000 Jesus.

00:45:19.000 So if you're eating sushi every day, Because I've heard of people actually getting sick from eating sushi every day.

00:45:26.000 Like they literally get mercury poisoning.

00:45:29.000 Yeah.

00:45:31.000 Oh.

00:45:33.000 Not good.

00:45:34.000 No. 1.00

00:45:36.000 What is that shit that I had? 1.00

00:45:38.000 Arsenic? 1.00

00:45:39.000 Yes.

00:45:40.000 I was eating sardines like every day.

00:45:44.000 I love sardines.

00:45:45.000 Okay.

00:45:45.000 I love them.

00:45:46.000 So I'd eat like three cans of sardines a day.

00:45:47.000 And I go to my doctor.

00:45:49.000 I get my blood work done.

00:45:49.000 He goes, um...

00:45:51.000 He goes, you have arsenic in your body.

00:45:54.000 Arsenic?

00:45:55.000 Arsenic.

00:45:55.000 Yeah.

00:45:56.000 Trace levels of arsenic.

00:45:57.000 And I said, how much?

00:45:58.000 Like someone's trying to poison me?

00:45:59.000 He goes, I don't think so.

00:46:01.000 He goes, are you eating a lot of seafood?

00:46:02.000 I go, eat three cans of sardines a day.

00:46:03.000 He goes, don't do that.

00:46:05.000 Don't do that.

00:46:06.000 And he explains to me that these are bottom feeders and that they live a lot of times in areas that are polluted by humans. 0.78

00:46:13.000 So we fucking polluted the ocean to the point where if you eat too much fish, you get sick. 0.73

00:46:19.000 You know, all these people that are worried about the weather warming up and climate change. 0.98

00:46:23.000 What are we doing to the ocean?

00:46:26.000 What are we doing?

00:46:27.000 I mean, what's the number in terms of depopulation?

00:46:32.000 How much fish are missing from the ocean than 50 years ago?

00:46:35.000 I think a large amount.

00:46:36.000 Let's ask, the fish population in the ocean now versus 50 years ago.

00:46:43.000 Let's find that out.

00:46:44.000 Let's guess.

00:46:46.000 Let's guess.

00:46:46.000 Before you give me the answer, let's guess.

00:46:50.000 How much of the ocean's fish has been depleted in the last 50 years?

00:46:57.000 I'm gonna say 50%.

00:46:58.000 No, I'm gonna say 70%.

00:47:00.000 Really?

00:47:02.000 Yeah, I'm gonna say 70%.

00:47:05.000 I was at like 45, maybe 50. That's probably reasonable. 0.99

00:47:08.000 I might be fear-mongering.

00:47:09.000 Let's find out.

00:47:10.000 Fear-mongering?

00:47:11.000 Yeah, I've done that before.

00:47:12.000 Oh, good.

00:47:13.000 Okay.

00:47:14.000 You know, I'm not a lot.

00:47:16.000 You're not massively mongering.

00:47:18.000 You know, like you play cornhole at the beach.

00:47:20.000 I'm not like a cornhole player, right?

00:47:23.000 I've played a few times at the beach with my kids.

00:47:26.000 It's on ESPN now.

00:47:27.000 I guess it's a legit sport.

00:47:29.000 Oh, dear.

00:47:29.000 So, Jamie, what was your guess?

00:47:31.000 Help us all. 0.87

00:47:31.000 I didn't, I was trying, there's too many questions I have before I could give you a good guess because it's already a strange, like how are they going to measure that in 1950 and even now how would you know how many fucking fish there are? 0.87

00:47:42.000 Very good question. 0.96

00:47:43.000 Very good question.

00:47:44.000 More than six.

00:47:46.000 Yeah, especially when you, there's more than six fish.

00:47:48.000 Yes.

00:47:49.000 Especially when you account for the fact that we haven't really explored most of the oceans.

00:47:53.000 So how they measure it is based off of how much they're pulling out.

00:47:57.000 Right.

00:47:57.000 So they measure how much they've taken in for this year.

00:47:59.000 How much they've murdered.

00:48:01.000 So what's the estimates in terms of the mass that's down?

00:48:05.000 It says in 1950, total catch of fish in the ocean was an estimated 18.5 million metric tons.

00:48:12.000 Now, a half century later, it says 73.5 million metric tons, a 400% increase.

00:48:19.000 That's an increase.

00:48:20.000 But another guy says that 90% of all large fish have been removed from the ocean since 1950. And I don't know, like, how would he know?

00:48:30.000 Click on his.

00:48:32.000 Put it up there.

00:48:33.000 Let's see what it says.

00:48:34.000 That sounds interesting, because that sounds crazy.

00:48:36.000 90%?

00:48:38.000 Clover populizes the work of fishery scientists such as Daniel Pauly, a marine biologist, University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who have pieced together a picture of imminent catastrophe in the global ocean.

00:48:49.000 Among the first to recognize that fisheries catch rates were in decline worldwide, Pauly discovered in 2001 that the phenomenon had previously gone unnoticed owing to systematic distortions in catch trends that were skewed by incorrect reports from countries of big fisheries.

00:49:06.000 In 2003, Boris Worm and Ransom Myers of Dalhoyse University in Halifax, Nova Scotia reported that 90% of all large fish, including tuna, swordfish, and marlin and cod,

00:49:22.000 had been removed from the ocean since 1950. Holy shit! 0.99

00:49:30.000 Holy shit! 1.00

00:49:34.000 The end of the line is informative. 0.99

00:49:38.000 Clover's reporting reveals that bluefin tuna, the endangered species with perhaps the most alarming plight in the ocean, is allegedly being bought and frozen in bulk by major corporations.

00:49:50.000 Once ocean supplies run dry, the frozen fish can be sold at sky-high prices.

00:49:55.000 So they're freezing tuna in bulk because they anticipate they're going to run dry?

00:50:00.000 That's wild.

00:50:02.000 They're stockpiling it like they do diamonds.

00:50:06.000 Clover's portrayal of the global fisheries problem falls down on two counts.

00:50:11.000 Oversimplification and polarization.

00:50:13.000 Although current fisheries policy is inadequate, much of it's based on science.

00:50:18.000 Clover suggests, for example, that the practice of discarding by which some seven million tons of caught fish are thrown back into the sea each year has arisen because fishermen Simply do not want the species they have caught, but wasteful discarding is more often the consequence of a fisheries policy that is designed to prevent fishermen targeting juveniles and species outside of their allotted quota.

00:50:42.000 Well, that makes sense, because they killed fish and then they have to throw some of them back in the water because they killed fish that were too small.

00:50:48.000 But that's because it's indiscriminate.

00:50:50.000 They're still killing them, if that's what they're saying.

00:50:53.000 Clover's quick to point out the culprits of the fisheries crisis, slippery politicians, greedy fishermen, and thoughtless consumers in big businesses while making activists and scientists the stars of this show.

00:51:03.000 But in adopting a tone of advocacy with its inherent moralism, Clover isolates viewers and misses an opportunity to place this problem in context.

00:51:11.000 Huh.

00:51:12.000 It still seems like there's a problem.

00:51:15.000 They're just kind of like making it look pretty.

00:51:17.000 Overexploitation of fisheries.

00:51:19.000 Is one part of the huge dilemma that humans face in an increasingly resource-limited world.

00:51:24.000 We can seek sustainability, but we will not be able to diversify our consumption indefinitely, and climate change will decrease marine resources further.

00:51:32.000 They always have to bring it back to climate change.

00:51:35.000 If you don't, people won't take you seriously.

00:51:36.000 Those most affected will be the fisherfolk of developing countries who...

00:51:40.000 Fisherfolk?

00:51:41.000 Fisherfolk.

00:51:42.000 Why do I hate that term?

00:51:43.000 Who make up 98% of people who are directly dependent on fisheries for their livelihood.

00:51:49.000 Because it's not fishermen.

00:51:51.000 Yeah, it's fisherfolk, bro.

00:51:53.000 It's fisherfolk.

00:51:53.000 How many non-binary fishermen are there out there?

00:51:56.000 That's what I want to know.

00:51:57.000 That might be the lowest population of non-binary humans in groups on Earth.

00:52:03.000 Fishermen.

00:52:04.000 No, fisherfolk.

00:52:05.000 Fisherfolk. 0.99

00:52:06.000 They don't want to fucking hear any of that. 0.99

00:52:08.000 Fisherfolk. 0.99

00:52:09.000 All those people that are risking their lives to get you crab.

00:52:12.000 Doesn't even sound like a real word.

00:52:14.000 Sounds like something on a cartoon.

00:52:16.000 Fisherfolk.

00:52:17.000 It sounds like something they say on The Hobbit.

00:52:20.000 Sure.

00:52:21.000 Fisherfolk.

00:52:21.000 We're going to visit the fisherfolk.

00:52:24.000 Oh, good.

00:52:25.000 That's what it is. 0.99

00:52:26.000 Those guys that fucking risked their lives to get you the crabs. 0.99

00:52:29.000 You ever watch that show? 0.99

00:52:30.000 Oh, The Deadliest Catch?

00:52:32.000 I mean, the crabs are great, but Jesus Christ, boys.

00:52:35.000 That's a lot of work. 0.99

00:52:36.000 Fucking scary job, but it must be thrilling as fuck. 0.99

00:52:39.000 Yeah, you know, I'm not into getting grabbed by a wave and thrown over the side in Arctic waters. 1.00

00:52:46.000 My friend Clay Guida did it for a little while.

00:52:48.000 I think he did it for the adventure, too. 0.92

00:52:49.000 But he's crazy. 1.00

00:52:50.000 He's out of his mind. 1.00

00:52:52.000 But he's crazy. 1.00

00:52:53.000 Yeah, he's a wild man. 0.97

00:52:55.000 But, you know, that's the kind of guy who would, you know...

00:52:58.000 Take a ride on one of them boats and go get some crabs.

00:53:01.000 They pay you a lot of money, though.

00:53:02.000 And they probably should.

00:53:04.000 I think they have to, because people die.

00:53:05.000 Because it's crazy. 1.00

00:53:06.000 You fall in that water, you're a fucks, Phil. 1.00

00:53:08.000 Yep. 1.00

00:53:08.000 That's not good. 1.00

00:53:09.000 Yep.

00:53:10.000 And that thing's sloshing all over the place.

00:53:12.000 I don't think I can handle that. 0.99

00:53:13.000 You have to sleep in that fucking thing? 1.00

00:53:15.000 Nope. 1.00

00:53:17.000 And they go out for a long time.

00:53:18.000 It's above my pay grade.

00:53:20.000 Yeah.

00:53:20.000 I'm not doing it.

00:53:21.000 Well, thank God you can fucking turn a wrench, sir. 0.99

00:53:24.000 So, I was going to springboard... 0.99

00:53:27.000 Off of Appalachian, because that's from whence I came. 0.92

00:53:31.000 You gotta stay on track.

00:53:31.000 I love it.

00:53:33.000 So, how I came to be here with you, backtracking to shop, backtracking from California, starting in New York, in our pre-mentioned Appalachian, By the way, 0.99

00:53:50.000 Appalachin, weird, stupid background. 0.99

00:53:53.000 Appalachin and Appalachin. 1.00

00:53:55.000 The only difference is the amount of P's in the name.

00:53:59.000 Oh, really?

00:54:00.000 Yeah.

00:54:00.000 Which one has more P's?

00:54:03.000 Appalachin. 0.98

00:54:05.000 Mine is A-P-A-L-A-C-H-I-N. That must be annoying that people confuse those two with you and you have to explain it every goddamn time. 0.98

00:54:12.000 I try to stay away from it. 0.98

00:54:13.000 Yeah.

00:54:14.000 Just say small town New York.

00:54:15.000 Yeah, right.

00:54:16.000 It's easier.

00:54:17.000 So I'm tinkering on cars in Appalachian.

00:54:21.000 I'm spending most of my time on stage playing.

00:54:27.000 Cars were my drop-dead hobby.

00:54:30.000 Loved it.

00:54:32.000 At night, backstage, I'd be reading my new issue of Hot Rod and my little glass of ice water.

00:54:38.000 You know, couldn't wait for my new issue, and I'd go to as many car shows as I could go to during the summer.

00:54:44.000 And the quick version is a real good friend of mine, Sean Davis from Canada, said, hey, we're going to go to the show up in Rhinebeck, New York, and there's going to be a guy there we're going to meet.

00:54:57.000 I met him at a big show in Indy, and he's going to make me a billet steering wheel to match my Boyd wheels.

00:55:02.000 This is where all the car guys can pay attention.

00:55:04.000 And so we went to the said show, met this guy, Jim, wound up going to dinner with him.

00:55:10.000 And the guy's like, you know, I'm a machinist.

00:55:13.000 I got a place in Riverside, California.

00:55:14.000 I should be back there making parts.

00:55:16.000 I need somebody to, like, go around the country and sell this stuff.

00:55:19.000 And Sean goes, slaps me on the back, goes, greatest salesman right here.

00:55:22.000 And I'm like, aw, what?

00:55:25.000 And that turned into a conversation.

00:55:27.000 And it turned into me, like, not letting go of it.

00:55:30.000 Sold everything I had.

00:55:32.000 Moved.

00:55:33.000 Got out here to Riverside.

00:55:35.000 Got there.

00:55:35.000 Guy had already been evicted out of his apartment.

00:55:39.000 So I've got nowhere to live.

00:55:40.000 I'm now living at one of his employees' houses.

00:55:45.000 Oh, boy.

00:55:46.000 And we're working along.

00:55:49.000 Been there about a month or so.

00:55:51.000 And the federal marshals show up.

00:55:56.000 They're not in a good mood.

00:55:58.000 At all.

00:55:59.000 What are they looking for?

00:56:00.000 I don't know, but I'm like, here's my driver's license.

00:56:02.000 I just got here.

00:56:04.000 What kind of questions are they asking you? 0.99

00:56:05.000 They are not asking me shit. 0.98

00:56:07.000 They're walking around with clipboards and looking at what I thought, because I stayed away from it, I thought they were checking serial numbers on the CNC machines. 0.99

00:56:15.000 Oh.

00:56:16.000 That's what I thought.

00:56:17.000 I have no proof.

00:56:18.000 I understand.

00:56:19.000 So they thought maybe there was some stolen machinery.

00:56:21.000 Something, because federal marshals don't come out for a party.

00:56:26.000 So anyway.

00:56:27.000 How's that turn out?

00:56:28.000 Well, I'm like, oh God, no, I'm not going to have any job.

00:56:33.000 Yeah.

00:56:54.000 So I know that guy.

00:56:55.000 So we're getting our parts ready.

00:56:57.000 We're going to go into the LA Roadster show, Father's Day show, in Pomona, and we're going to sell our stuff.

00:57:02.000 So I'm setting up on Thursday, and this guy, the only guy I know, besides the two other machinists, goes, hey man, you going to come to our annual open house tonight?

00:57:12.000 And I'm like, well, I got no money.

00:57:15.000 I live way down in Riverside, or Oceanside actually.

00:57:20.000 But I'd love to go.

00:57:21.000 I've read about it every year in Street Rider Magazine.

00:57:23.000 So I go to the party and I'm like, hey man, you know anybody hiring?

00:57:29.000 And he goes, hmm, kind of hard, man.

00:57:32.000 Somebody's got to know you or have some background, some history, something.

00:57:36.000 And I'm like, well, I'm just throwing it out there.

00:57:38.000 So I drive all the way to Oceanside, get a couple hours sleep, drive all the way back to Pomona.

00:57:43.000 And the next morning he goes, hey, come here.

00:57:46.000 You know what?

00:57:47.000 He was like, 10 minutes after you left last night, a guy named Gary Daigle said he was looking for someone, working his shop.

00:57:53.000 He's in Orange County.

00:57:55.000 And I go, I actually know the name from our list.

00:57:58.000 He sells our stuff.

00:58:00.000 And he goes, well, he's two aisles down.

00:58:01.000 Take a right, go up there, you'll see a sign Daigle's.

00:58:03.000 So I went and talked with Gary Daigle, and he goes, well, you're on Jim's dime right now.

00:58:07.000 Lunchtime.

00:58:08.000 Meet me outside, and we'll talk.

00:58:10.000 So we talked, set up for a job, uh, Talk about having a job on Monday.

00:58:16.000 So Sunday night we're back at shows over with.

00:58:19.000 I'm putting parts back on the shelf and I still remember because the place had like half the lights working dimly lit.

00:58:25.000 I see Jim come around the corner going, you might start looking for some work.

00:58:31.000 So now I don't have to ask off for Monday.

00:58:34.000 I went and had the meeting with Gary, got hired, and so I timed it.

00:58:39.000 I flew home, got my 67 El Camino that I built in my dad's barn in my aunt's garage, and timed it that I stopped at the Hot Rod Magazine Super Nationals in Ohio, and editor Jeff Smith And Rob Canan approached me and said,

00:58:54.000 we'd like to feature your car in Hot Rod Magazine.

00:58:56.000 And I went, well, okay.

00:58:58.000 But I got to go unload everything because every earthly possession I have is in it.

00:59:02.000 So I drove it back to the hotel, unloaded everything, and brought it back to- Do you have a picture of that car?

00:59:08.000 Yeah, I actually gave him- I came with a thumb drive of a whole bunch of stuff just in case we talked about it.

00:59:13.000 Oh, you prepared.

00:59:14.000 I did prepare, sir.

00:59:15.000 Let me see the 67. It's a bright orange El Camino.

00:59:19.000 So when I got here to California, then Custom Classic Truck and Custom Rider featured it also.

00:59:25.000 There it is.

00:59:26.000 There it is.

00:59:26.000 Yeah, New Street.

00:59:27.000 Oh, that's pretty.

00:59:27.000 Yeah, so I built that.

00:59:28.000 So what year is this we're looking at?

00:59:30.000 1995. Wow, that's a beautiful car, man.

00:59:33.000 Built it at home.

00:59:34.000 And then you drove it across the country?

00:59:37.000 Yeah, I drove it across the country.

00:59:38.000 Wow.

00:59:39.000 What was in that thing?

00:59:42.000 Stroker 355. Stroker small block, but it'd get going just fine.

00:59:47.000 It's beautiful, man.

00:59:48.000 Thank you.

00:59:48.000 I usually don't like El Caminos.

00:59:50.000 Yeah, I like them for some...

00:59:52.000 They're so weird.

00:59:53.000 They're so weird.

00:59:54.000 It's like, why is there this open spot in the back that just catches air?

00:59:58.000 Those El Caminos are station wagons with the top pulled off. 1.00

01:00:01.000 The floor pan, in the bed, at the very front of the bed where it kisses the back of the cab, they have a bolt-in piece of metal.

01:00:12.000 When you take that out, that's the floor pan for the rear seat in the station wagon.

01:00:17.000 So it's a station wagon with the back taken off.

01:00:20.000 It's just like, who was like, I want a car, but I also want a pickup truck.

01:00:22.000 I want a trar. 1.00

01:00:24.000 That kind of stopped happening.

01:00:25.000 They gave up on that.

01:00:26.000 Yeah, they did. 0.99

01:00:27.000 If they try to bring back the El Camino today, people are like, what the fuck? 1.00

01:00:29.000 What the fuck are you doing? 0.98

01:00:30.000 The GM still had one for a while down in Australia. 1.00

01:00:33.000 They did?

01:00:34.000 Yeah, they call it a Ute.

01:00:37.000 You base it off of the Mandara, which was like their GTO, the Chevelle.

01:00:41.000 They had it for a while.

01:00:42.000 Really?

01:00:42.000 Yeah.

01:00:43.000 They like different stuff down there, though.

01:00:45.000 They do.

01:00:46.000 They do.

01:00:46.000 Australia has different tastes.

01:00:47.000 They like a lot of utilities.

01:00:50.000 Yeah, there you go.

01:00:51.000 Oh, God.

01:00:52.000 That looks really recent.

01:00:53.000 I love his reaction.

01:00:54.000 Oh, God. 0.99

01:00:55.000 Well, a lot of those folks, they like to fucking crocodile dundee it up and go out in the backwoods. 0.99

01:01:00.000 You know? 1.00

01:01:00.000 They need something to throw a fucking tent. 1.00

01:01:02.000 Well, those things are built, though. 0.99

01:01:04.000 The motor and the drivetrain are basically Camaro.

01:01:07.000 That's crazy.

01:01:08.000 That's crazy.

01:01:09.000 Actually, now I'm changing my mind.

01:01:10.000 That might have made it in America.

01:01:12.000 People would have bought that.

01:01:13.000 There were some knuckleheads that would have bought that. 1.00

01:01:15.000 Some knuckleheads.

01:01:16.000 That's nice.

01:01:18.000 I'm being honest. 0.98

01:01:19.000 You'd have to be a knucklehead to choose that. 0.98

01:01:22.000 Not that that's a bad thing. 0.97

01:01:23.000 Some of my favorite people are knuckleheads. 1.00

01:01:25.000 Yeah, but if you're between that or a new Mustang, what the fuck are you doing? 0.99

01:01:31.000 Well, you can throw stuff in the bag. 0.94

01:01:32.000 So what?

01:01:34.000 Get a U-Haul.

01:01:35.000 Get the Mustang. 1.00

01:01:36.000 Shut the fuck up. 1.00

01:01:37.000 I don't know. 1.00

01:01:38.000 There's no if, ands, or buts.

01:01:40.000 We're bringing it back!

01:01:41.000 There's no if, ands, or buts.

01:01:42.000 Mustang's one of the few cars that kept it together.

01:01:45.000 Like, they lost it for a long time, but they got it back, and now they're better than ever. 0.95

01:01:49.000 Like, these new Mustangs they're putting out today, they're fucking amazing. 0.96

01:01:52.000 Oh, yeah. 0.98

01:01:53.000 They're great cars.

01:01:54.000 Brutal. 1.00

01:01:54.000 That new one, the Dark Horse, that's a fucking great car. 1.00

01:01:58.000 Mm-hmm. 0.99

01:01:58.000 Right from the factory, six-speed, 500 horsepower, reasonably priced, looks fucking great. 0.99

01:02:05.000 Yeah.

01:02:05.000 They're making, like, real muscle cars, but, like, modern muscle cars today.

01:02:09.000 Oh, heck yeah.

01:02:10.000 It's nice that that's still going on.

01:02:11.000 Yes, I agree.

01:02:13.000 I seem to be a proponent for that.

01:02:15.000 Yeah, it's just like people forgot the American muscle car is one of the most fun things to drive ever.

01:02:21.000 Sure.

01:02:21.000 It might not handle the best.

01:02:23.000 It might not be the fastest.

01:02:24.000 It might not this.

01:02:25.000 It might not that.

01:02:26.000 But it's what it does to you.

01:02:28.000 Like how it makes you feel when you drive it.

01:02:30.000 They're very visceral.

01:02:31.000 Yes.

01:02:32.000 It's very visceral.

01:02:32.000 It's very exciting.

01:02:34.000 It's like it stimulates you.

01:02:36.000 It's warm.

01:02:37.000 Yeah.

01:02:37.000 That's why I like driving them across country.

01:02:39.000 Yeah.

01:02:40.000 It's fun.

01:02:40.000 Window down, arm out.

01:02:41.000 Yeah, they're alive. 1.00

01:02:43.000 You're in a goddamn Matthew McConaughey movie. 1.00

01:02:45.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:02:45.000 You're alive! 1.00

01:02:46.000 So, I get here, and I wind up staying, working for Gary Daigle, and the car gets in a bunch of magazines.

01:02:53.000 I wind up moving from the Orange County area up to Studio City, join a new band, start recording an album, and I sell my El Camino to a kid in Japan, and I'm like, I gotta do a cool car.

01:03:09.000 So I went down.

01:03:10.000 It's still there on the corner of Ventura Boulevard.

01:03:13.000 Someone in Japan bought it?

01:03:15.000 Yeah.

01:03:15.000 That's awesome.

01:03:16.000 So now it's over in Tokyo?

01:03:18.000 Somewhere.

01:03:18.000 Do you ever keep an eye on it?

01:03:19.000 No, I don't know where it went.

01:03:20.000 That was a while ago.

01:03:21.000 Maybe someone will reach out.

01:03:22.000 Maybe.

01:03:23.000 So on the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura Boulevard down in Studio City, right now it's still a FedEx office, but it was at Kinko's.

01:03:33.000 The Kinko's was where Pure Vision begat.

01:03:37.000 I was there photocopying my magazine features, and I had my friend Matt Willoughby in Ohio draw this idea of the 66 Charger that was called Scully.

01:03:47.000 Because that's what the pros do.

01:03:49.000 They had artwork first.

01:03:50.000 And I went to Hot Rod and said, hey...

01:03:54.000 You guys thought I was cool before.

01:03:55.000 I built a car that you featured, and I'm gonna build this thing, and I'm gonna show up on your power tour, right?

01:04:01.000 And I'm gonna use these parts of all these people that sponsor your power tour.

01:04:04.000 Is that you as a young man?

01:04:06.000 Is that this voice?

01:04:06.000 Yeah, who knows?

01:04:07.000 Or an idiot, whatever I am. 1.00

01:04:09.000 So I go over to all the potential sponsors. 1.00

01:04:11.000 Alright, I'll sound more official.

01:04:12.000 No, just be yourself.

01:04:13.000 I go over all the sponsored potential guys and go, hey, I had to mail.

01:04:18.000 There was no email.

01:04:19.000 So I mailed these packets of color photocopies of my El Camino that's been in the prior magazines proving like, hey, I've done it once.

01:04:28.000 And going, hey, my proposal is I'm going to build this car and I'm going to take it on the power tour that you are sponsoring.

01:04:35.000 So basically, they sponsored me with some parts and they ran the artwork of my car.

01:04:41.000 And I built it in my shared tandem parking garage, underground parking garage at my apartment on Whitsitt Avenue, which is where Whitsitt crashes into Ventura Boulevard.

01:04:52.000 Built it there.

01:04:53.000 So you built it in a garage that you shared with other people?

01:04:57.000 Mm-hmm.

01:04:58.000 Wow.

01:04:58.000 Yeah, I would go to the junkyard, get the parts, like, example.

01:05:01.000 How big is it?

01:05:02.000 This is a two-car garage?

01:05:03.000 No, it's an underground parking garage.

01:05:05.000 Like, how many people are parked in that garage?

01:05:07.000 Well, it's 10 and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And you have just one spot.

01:05:12.000 Yeah.

01:05:13.000 And in that one spot, you're building a car.

01:05:15.000 Right, pretty much.

01:05:16.000 And so there's a car right next to you while you're building this car?

01:05:18.000 Right.

01:05:18.000 So you're pulling fenders off and there's a car right there?

01:05:21.000 Yeah.

01:05:21.000 A lot of stuff was done in that garage, yes.

01:05:24.000 That's crazy.

01:05:25.000 I would never park next to you.

01:05:26.000 Right.

01:05:27.000 Well, I am wonderfully respectful.

01:05:29.000 I'm sure. 0.97

01:05:30.000 But who the fuck is going to park next to the guy who's building a car? 0.98

01:05:33.000 They don't know. 0.99

01:05:34.000 They don't know.

01:05:34.000 It's covered all day.

01:05:35.000 I work at night.

01:05:36.000 So I'll give you an example of what I did.

01:05:38.000 Went to the junkyard for the front end swap pieces to convert it to disc brakes, right?

01:05:42.000 Because I know the swaps and all that stuff.

01:05:44.000 So I get all those parts.

01:05:46.000 And out the back...

01:05:48.000 Of the apartment building.

01:05:50.000 There's a concrete slab and that's it.

01:05:52.000 There was like a really bad table and a chair.

01:05:55.000 Nobody ever sits there.

01:05:56.000 So I found the one outside the building electric outlet.

01:06:02.000 Bought two extension cords to go because it's all the way on the other side of the building.

01:06:05.000 Wrap it around the building.

01:06:07.000 And I got a drill and a wire wheel on it and a screwdriver.

01:06:10.000 And I scraped all the old muck and then wire wheeled them to bare metal, all the parts.

01:06:15.000 And then I went to the...

01:06:17.000 Did you have goggles on back then?

01:06:18.000 Yeah.

01:06:19.000 So you're in the garage.

01:06:21.000 I'm not in the garage.

01:06:21.000 I'm out back of the building now, grinding everything clean.

01:06:25.000 Right.

01:06:25.000 And then wiped everything with acetone.

01:06:27.000 And then at night, about two in the morning, I went to the Home Depot.

01:06:32.000 And you know those pieces of plastic you can buy there for when you paint a room.

01:06:36.000 It's like 12 foot by 15 foot, whatever.

01:06:38.000 Covered everybody's cars.

01:06:39.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.

01:06:40.000 And then I hung all the parts on the water pipes.

01:06:43.000 Imagine coming out like you go to your friend's house at 3 in the morning. 1.00

01:06:47.000 You go downstairs, your car's covered with plastic and this fucking lunatic. 0.99

01:06:51.000 I covered all the cars so no one would get any paint on it. 0.99

01:06:55.000 And epoxy painted all the suspension parts.

01:06:57.000 I hung them from the water pipes.

01:06:59.000 Oh, my God.

01:07:00.000 And then I'd assemble the car.

01:07:02.000 So when did you get done?

01:07:04.000 When did you stop at like 6.30 in the morning?

01:07:07.000 Yeah, whenever.

01:07:08.000 Did anybody ever come out and see their car covered in plastic?

01:07:10.000 No, I always removed all the evidence.

01:07:12.000 No one ever knew nothing.

01:07:13.000 How many nights a week did you have people's cars covered in plastic?

01:07:15.000 All the time.

01:07:16.000 That is so wild.

01:07:18.000 All the time.

01:07:19.000 That's so wild.

01:07:20.000 And so I had another friend that I did exchange work.

01:07:22.000 He painted it for me and let me use his place for reassembly.

01:07:25.000 And I rebuilt the suspension and the engine in his 67 pickup truck for an exchange, right?

01:07:32.000 Yeah.

01:07:33.000 So I get the car ready, take it to the kickoff party for the power tour.

01:07:37.000 We're going to drive from California to Michigan.

01:07:41.000 And I haven't even changed the cam braking oil yet.

01:07:46.000 This car is fresh.

01:07:48.000 Fresh, and I'm going to drive it, which I did, by the way.

01:07:52.000 So, kickoff party.

01:07:53.000 What begat from that is Hot Rod Magazine featured it, Mopar Muscle featured it, put it on the cover, Daytona Magazine in Japan featured it.

01:08:01.000 There it is.

01:08:02.000 And at the end of the year, yeah, there's Skelly.

01:08:04.000 That's beautiful.

01:08:07.000 It's kind of an odd black and white, but it's a Jaguar color called Topaz.

01:08:11.000 Yeah, it's like a blue, right?

01:08:13.000 No, no, it's a light silvery gold.

01:08:15.000 It's on that thumb drive I gave you.

01:08:17.000 Oh, there it is right there.

01:08:18.000 Yeah, there it is.

01:08:18.000 Oh, I'm thinking of it.

01:08:20.000 So that's the car I built in the underground parking garage.

01:08:22.000 God, that's beautiful, man.

01:08:23.000 Yeah, it came out nice.

01:08:24.000 Oh my God, that's gorgeous.

01:08:25.000 At the end of the year, it also got top 10 car of the year. 0.99

01:08:28.000 And you built it in a fucking garage with a bunch of cars covered in plastic. 0.99

01:08:32.000 You know what? 1.00

01:08:33.000 Dude, that's beautiful.

01:08:33.000 It's when you want to bad enough.

01:08:35.000 Yeah.

01:08:36.000 Look how beautiful that car is.

01:08:38.000 Yep, pretty car.

01:08:39.000 God, that's so nice.

01:08:40.000 And so that started the ball.

01:08:42.000 Well, the El Camino technically did.

01:08:44.000 What a beautiful car that is, man.

01:08:46.000 You got other pictures of that?

01:08:47.000 Yeah, there's some other stuff up over there.

01:08:49.000 Click on that link that says Pure Vision Scully right under the big picture.

01:08:54.000 Oh, that's the graphic I designed. 1.00

01:08:56.000 Oh, that stupid skull right there has a story. 0.99

01:09:00.000 So I designed this pinstripe. 1.00

01:09:02.000 I wanted bone red bone. 1.00

01:09:04.000 And then at the very front, obviously, the bone turns into the skull with wraparound glasses.

01:09:08.000 With a cigarette in his mouth.

01:09:09.000 Every one of those dang stitches are hand-drawn.

01:09:12.000 In fact, that side's me.

01:09:14.000 You did that?

01:09:14.000 I did the driver's side.

01:09:15.000 No, my friend Matt Willoughby, here's the backstone.

01:09:18.000 So I told him, I go, here's the idea.

01:09:20.000 I gave this really horrible sketch of the skull with the wraparound sunglasses.

01:09:24.000 And he did this piece of artwork for me with the car and the skull.

01:09:28.000 And when he sent the artwork, I'm like, that's not the skull.

01:09:32.000 Well, he faxed it to me, the idea.

01:09:36.000 Like, his version of what I was telling him.

01:09:38.000 And the fax was like, that was, oh, it's that. 0.99

01:09:41.000 Stretched and cool as shit, right? 0.99

01:09:44.000 So anyway... 0.99

01:09:46.000 So the fax fucked it up better.

01:09:47.000 The fax pulled it.

01:09:49.000 That's amazing.

01:09:50.000 So when he flew out to put it on, I showed him the fax and he went...

01:09:54.000 My god the fax must have dragged cuz that looks almost like a wolf.

01:09:58.000 Yeah, kind of it was a mistake Like if that was a dude, I'd be terrified of him, right?

01:10:03.000 It was it was a mistake and I said well That's what we're using and he's like oh hell.

01:10:07.000 Yeah, we are.

01:10:07.000 Hell.

01:10:08.000 Yeah, that's awesome So we did that graph show me a photograph of what that looks like in perspective with the rest of the car.

01:10:14.000 Oh Click on that link where you're at?

01:10:17.000 Yeah, just the front three-quarter.

01:10:19.000 Not that one, just the one right next to it.

01:10:23.000 Nope, other.

01:10:24.000 To the right.

01:10:25.000 To the right.

01:10:27.000 You'll see it's up at the very front of the front fender.

01:10:30.000 It's right in the front corner.

01:10:31.000 It's right there.

01:10:32.000 Show me the close-up on it, Jamie, because there's a close-up in one of those other photos.

01:10:37.000 That right there.

01:10:38.000 Oh, that's so sick.

01:10:39.000 So all the way down the car, it's just a bone red bone pinstripe with all those hand stitches.

01:10:43.000 So that's Matt's stitches.

01:10:45.000 We only had so long.

01:10:47.000 We were doing the graphic overnight at a borrowed paint booth.

01:10:50.000 That car is so rock and roll.

01:10:52.000 Yeah, just carbureted 360 out of a Cordoba with a warmed up cam and stuff.

01:10:57.000 It's straightforward.

01:10:58.000 That car is like a 1974 ACDC song.

01:11:00.000 Yeah.

01:11:01.000 You know what I'm saying?

01:11:02.000 Like, look at that thing. 0.99

01:11:03.000 God damn, that's pretty. 0.99

01:11:04.000 Look how pretty that is. 0.99

01:11:06.000 And the interior is four bucket seats and a console that goes all the way from the beginning to the end.

01:11:09.000 Go back to the rear end view of it.

01:11:10.000 Look at that.

01:11:11.000 Yeah, cool car.

01:11:12.000 They only made them two years, 66 and 67. God, it's fucking gorgeous. 0.98

01:11:16.000 Yeah, it's neat. 0.96

01:11:17.000 It's gorgeous.

01:11:19.000 I don't think I've seen one.

01:11:20.000 I've definitely not seen one done like this.

01:11:21.000 Very few and far between.

01:11:22.000 That's why I did it.

01:11:23.000 It's a perfect car to do it with because it's so pretty, man.

01:11:26.000 Yeah. 0.81

01:11:26.000 The back end of that is just fucking heavenly. 0.81

01:11:29.000 Yeah, it's cool. 0.67

01:11:30.000 They're neat.

01:11:30.000 Look at it.

01:11:31.000 I enjoy them.

01:11:33.000 So that was a lot of fun.

01:11:35.000 And then on that power tour, I met a kid named Martin Weinreb who had a black...

01:11:40.000 Challenger and I go I got an idea for your car and then we built the car in his driveway and it was called Challenger X and that was that big I was the first guys doing any pro touring Mopars and this Challenger X was the first car to have that I knew of street driven carbon fiber drive shaft it was like the second set of Big 18-inch torque thrusts.

01:12:03.000 We worked with a guy named Craig Rails back at BDS for an 8-stack EFI injection on a small-block Chrysler.

01:12:10.000 And that'll be on that thumb drive I gave you.

01:12:13.000 It's called Challenger X. It's a black Challenger.

01:12:15.000 Yeah.

01:12:15.000 So that car...

01:12:18.000 We took that on a power tour from here to Florida and back, and there it is.

01:12:23.000 Yeah, pretty car.

01:12:24.000 That's another car, the Challenger.

01:12:26.000 Yep, that came out nice.

01:12:27.000 That's a 70, right?

01:12:29.000 72. 72, really?

01:12:30.000 I did the whole interior in a tan, and we built that in Martin's...

01:12:35.000 Driveway.

01:12:35.000 So 72 Challengers are still dope.

01:12:38.000 Yeah, they're the same as 70. It's just a different bumper.

01:12:40.000 But 72 Barracudas got goofy. 1.00

01:12:42.000 You know?

01:12:43.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:12:44.000 But the 72 Challengers still look sick.

01:12:46.000 Yeah, I did all the gauges and tan and did this whole thing in here.

01:12:49.000 So anyway, this car, we drive it, and it gets features, and it gets top 10 car of the year.

01:12:55.000 So I've got two top ten cars of the year and like nine or ten features and I don't even have a shop yet.

01:13:00.000 I've been building out of a barn, out of a tandem parking garage in somebody's driveway.

01:13:05.000 So my batting average is doing pretty good.

01:13:08.000 So you get a place.

01:13:10.000 I finally get a place and build a couple of other stuff, and I started on a duster, which we call Dustia, which I kept the duster lettering but made it Dustia.

01:13:19.000 Put that on the Power Tour, and that car exploded. 0.95

01:13:24.000 Let me see that, because we were talking about it earlier.

01:13:26.000 I like a duster.

01:13:27.000 Yeah, this is a really nice one.

01:13:29.000 It's an underappreciated car.

01:13:30.000 Yep.

01:13:30.000 What year was this duster?

01:13:31.000 That was a 72. Yeah, okay, so those are the years that were underappreciated.

01:13:36.000 And...

01:13:38.000 We built that, and I drove that, again, from California to Michigan.

01:13:42.000 Is that in your photo?

01:13:43.000 Yeah, no, it's on the thumb drive.

01:13:44.000 It's a bright old score.

01:13:45.000 There's the duster.

01:13:46.000 Yeah, underappreciated car.

01:13:48.000 So that thing had a lot of trick stuff that nobody had ever done yet on Mopar suspensions.

01:13:58.000 What did you do to it?

01:13:59.000 So that's a really lightweight car, right?

01:14:01.000 What does that weigh?

01:14:03.000 Probably 36 or 34. Wow.

01:14:06.000 So it's small.

01:14:07.000 Yep.

01:14:08.000 Smaller than like a 65 Mustang?

01:14:10.000 No, not smaller than a Mustang.

01:14:12.000 Nope, but light.

01:14:13.000 There's not a lot to them.

01:14:15.000 So, that car, like, again, I'm so fortunate.

01:14:24.000 Hot Rod, Mopar Muscle, all these books.

01:14:26.000 It's cover.

01:14:27.000 It's centerfold pullout poster.

01:14:29.000 It's a screensaver because that just started.

01:14:31.000 It's a die-cast car.

01:14:33.000 It's top ten car of the year, so now I've got three.

01:14:37.000 It's been amazing and, again, so unbelievably fortunate.

01:14:43.000 You're talented, man.

01:14:44.000 You keep saying fortunate.

01:14:45.000 I mean, it is certainly fortunate, but it's also hard work.

01:14:49.000 It is hard work.

01:14:51.000 So, at that point, I was living in the shop.

01:14:54.000 I didn't have money for an apartment, so my bed was next to my lift, and I had a piece of plastic that I threw over the bed so the rust and oil and everything else wouldn't get on my bed, and then I joined a 24-hour fitness so I had somewhere to shower.

01:15:09.000 Wow.

01:15:10.000 How many people have done that?

01:15:11.000 A lot.

01:15:12.000 A lot. 1.00

01:15:13.000 I don't know if they're as stupid as me, but I did it. 1.00

01:15:16.000 A lot of people do that when they're living out of their cars. 1.00

01:15:18.000 A lot of comedians did that.

01:15:19.000 Got a membership of 24 Hour Fitness, slept in their car.

01:15:21.000 Yeah.

01:15:22.000 I was sleeping in the shop.

01:15:24.000 So that car really launched stuff.

01:15:29.000 And I got a phone call.

01:15:32.000 That car, by the way, Reggie Jackson still owns it.

01:15:35.000 He bought it off the guy I built it from.

01:15:36.000 He still owns it.

01:15:37.000 Reggie Jackson might be like the biggest hot rod collector ever.

01:15:39.000 Yeah, he lost a lot in a fire about 20 years ago.

01:15:42.000 Oh, no.

01:15:43.000 Lost buildings worth.

01:15:44.000 Oh, no.

01:15:46.000 So, anyway, the guy that I built that car for, Romeo Furio, that's his real name, he wanted to do another car.

01:15:56.000 And I just came back from showering with 30 strangers at 24 Hour Fitness, and I'm having my bowl of Cheerios, and my phone rings, and it's this gentleman named David Hakeem and a couple of other bigwig gentlemen from Mopar Performance from Chrysler.

01:16:15.000 And they're like, we've been watching what you've been doing.

01:16:17.000 We want to be synonymous with Pure Vision.

01:16:20.000 Here's the catalog.

01:16:22.000 Next time you build something, whatever you want, let us know.

01:16:25.000 That's awesome.

01:16:25.000 And we built a car, or I built a car, I was still basically alone, called GTXR. I had a fantastic painter named Russ Stevenson that put up with me at that time.

01:16:38.000 Now I have Mick Jenkins, who is just beyond incredible.

01:16:42.000 We'll get to that in a second, but on GTXR... I wanted to use the big body satellite that nobody ever uses and nobody likes.

01:16:53.000 Can I see what that looks like?

01:16:53.000 And they're very swoopy like Ferraris.

01:16:55.000 They go like they're Coke bottled, but the way they sat stock is they look like an elephant on stilts.

01:17:00.000 There you go.

01:17:01.000 Oh, that's a cool car.

01:17:02.000 So this was my first time ever at SEMA. Is that an AMG? Is that what that is?

01:17:06.000 No, it's a Plymouth Satellite.

01:17:08.000 That's a Plymouth.

01:17:09.000 Yeah.

01:17:10.000 So I... God, that's a wild looking car.

01:17:13.000 Yeah, right?

01:17:13.000 You don't see very many of those either.

01:17:15.000 No, because no one cared.

01:17:16.000 And these things were so curvy.

01:17:17.000 I got a great story about that shot, the Mopar, the one with the blue sky behind it.

01:17:26.000 With the blue sky, Jamie.

01:17:27.000 You're right in the middle, almost.

01:17:28.000 The photo with the blue sky?

01:17:30.000 No, right there.

01:17:31.000 Yeah, that one.

01:17:31.000 So I'm getting ready.

01:17:34.000 I'm thrashing to get the thing done to go to SEMA. I've never been to SEMA before, and I'm unveiling the car in Chrysler's Berruth on a turntable.

01:17:42.000 Look how pretty that is.

01:17:43.000 First time there.

01:17:44.000 So this is like just cracking 6 in the morning.

01:17:48.000 We had already driven from, in the truck and trailer, driven from...

01:17:51.000 What year is this?

01:17:52.000 When did I do that?

01:17:54.000 Hold on, that's why I have my notes.

01:17:56.000 Just take a guess.

01:17:57.000 Oh God, why?

01:17:59.000 I like how you went with the fat tires in the rear.

01:18:01.000 2003. I get really sad when I see a muscle car with skinny rear tires.

01:18:05.000 Oh no.

01:18:05.000 Oh, big old tire.

01:18:07.000 Yeah.

01:18:07.000 So this is when you're coming down the grade into Vegas and before there was nothing over to the right.

01:18:16.000 Now it's all houses and everything, all the way to Henderson.

01:18:19.000 Before, there was nothing there.

01:18:21.000 This is when the roads were paved and there wasn't one building put up.

01:18:26.000 And the photographer is in a ditch that is like five feet deep for what will be the plumbing and all that stuff.

01:18:34.000 And he's sitting there.

01:18:36.000 His name was Randy Bulligan.

01:18:37.000 I remember him because, again, no digital cameras.

01:18:39.000 It was...

01:18:41.000 Right?

01:18:41.000 Hey, like how I did that?

01:18:43.000 It almost sounded like it.

01:18:44.000 No, it was horrible?

01:18:45.000 Okay.

01:18:45.000 Anyway, I hear him go, cover.

01:18:49.000 I'm like, oh, that's cool.

01:18:51.000 So that car was the world's first paddle-shifted muscle car.

01:18:55.000 I created the paddle shifts in it.

01:18:58.000 At that time, there's one shot that I put on the thumb drive.

01:19:03.000 Again, I don't know if you have that in, but there's an interior shot of the steering wheel.

01:19:07.000 So what kind of transmission?

01:19:09.000 At the time, there was the brand new truck 518 four-speed overdrive that was in the brand new pickup trucks for 2002, 2003. Overdrive was becoming a new thing.

01:19:21.000 So there you go.

01:19:23.000 So I had a really amazing billet guy.

01:19:26.000 He did the intakes on that.

01:19:28.000 We'll look at the motor in a second.

01:19:29.000 And those paddles, I made everything out of wood first, and those worked micro-switches inside the factory column.

01:19:38.000 And underneath, see how there's three horn buttons, the little pads?

01:19:42.000 Underneath the right one, up at 3 o'clock, there's a micro switch under that now.

01:19:47.000 And so I used a company called Deden Bear that made pneumatic shifters for drag racing.

01:19:54.000 Okay?

01:19:54.000 Okay.

01:19:55.000 It goes, it immediately shifts it.

01:19:57.000 It's hooked up to a computer.

01:19:58.000 So all I did, and it's air.

01:20:01.000 You know, like the CO2 guns, that air cartridge?

01:20:04.000 Yeah.

01:20:05.000 One of those are in the trunk.

01:20:06.000 Okay.

01:20:08.000 And it runs this cellenoid that is attached to a B&M ratchet shifter.

01:20:14.000 So you can never skip a gear, right?

01:20:16.000 Bam, bam, bam.

01:20:17.000 And they are hooked up.

01:20:19.000 So shift up, pulls back.

01:20:21.000 I call Dean Baron and I said, can you make me one that pushes and pulls?

01:20:25.000 They're like, sure.

01:20:27.000 So upshift, downshift, and then this button under the horn, I use the horn circuit, that turns the overdrive on and off.

01:20:35.000 So up highway, second, third, overdrive, or second, down the canyon.

01:20:38.000 So where's the horn now?

01:20:41.000 There's no horn. 1.00

01:20:43.000 Fuck the horn. 1.00

01:20:43.000 You gave up the horn? 1.00

01:20:44.000 Yeah, nobody cared.

01:20:45.000 So I had every executive, because the shifter moves while you're hitting the paddles, because the CO2's working it.

01:20:54.000 At the end of the first day, we had to go refill the bottle, which was at that point 75 cents.

01:21:01.000 It's good for about 200 shifts.

01:21:04.000 But it was fully functioning and working and worked fantastic, and it was actually foolproof because even if you ran out of CO2, you'd just grab a shifter, put it in drive, and drive it around.

01:21:13.000 Right.

01:21:14.000 So it only applied to when you wanted to use the power shifters.

01:21:16.000 Yeah, when you wanted to.

01:21:17.000 Yeah.

01:21:17.000 But it worked really good.

01:21:18.000 The problem was nobody had a shift kit, so the transmission couldn't shift as fast as...

01:21:22.000 Because I'd turn the wick up, turn the pressure up, and it would go bam, bam.

01:21:25.000 I mean, it'd shift right frickin' now.

01:21:27.000 And then the transmission would be like...

01:21:31.000 It just died?

01:21:31.000 Well, no, it'd catch up eventually, but then a place like Fairbanks and other companies started making ship kits.

01:21:38.000 Yeah, you don't make normal cars.

01:21:40.000 You really overcomplicate your life by doing things like that.

01:21:45.000 So you move forward from that car, and then I built a car called Hammer.

01:21:51.000 And that was a Roadrunner.

01:21:52.000 That was the first one I saw.

01:21:54.000 Yeah, and Hammer was in my...

01:21:56.000 Actually, it was in the same...

01:21:57.000 It was a season later on rides.

01:22:00.000 They followed me building my car like they followed Sickfish. 1.00

01:22:04.000 Because you were first season.

01:22:05.000 I think so.

01:22:06.000 I think it was the first episode of the first season.

01:22:08.000 I don't know.

01:22:08.000 Because you were fancy.

01:22:09.000 No, I don't think I was on the first season.

01:22:11.000 I thought you were.

01:22:12.000 I don't know.

01:22:13.000 I think there was other...

01:22:14.000 I don't know if I was in the...

01:22:15.000 I definitely don't think I was the first episode.

01:22:17.000 So...

01:22:17.000 Built Hammer, and that was, you know, I had an interior guy who didn't show up the night before SEMA, and a whole bunch of disaster, and showed up to SEMA a day late, which was also fantastic, because everybody, the rumor was around that this car being filmed was late,

01:22:35.000 and it may or may not show up, and we got there, and...

01:22:41.000 So that was my first Rides episode.

01:22:43.000 And then about a...

01:22:45.000 There she is.

01:22:45.000 Look at that.

01:22:46.000 There she is.

01:22:46.000 My God, that's beautiful.

01:22:47.000 So that thing still holds up.

01:22:48.000 That is owned by the gentleman who owns Traxxas, the radio-controlled empire.

01:22:53.000 When I went to your shop, that was there the first time I went to your shop.

01:22:56.000 It's a lovely car.

01:22:57.000 Oh, my God.

01:22:57.000 It still looks good.

01:22:59.000 Of course it looks good.

01:23:00.000 How could it not look good?

01:23:01.000 I don't know.

01:23:01.000 I'm just saying.

01:23:01.000 It still looks like that.

01:23:03.000 Yes, it does.

01:23:03.000 It does look like it.

01:23:04.000 That thing spawned a million copies.

01:23:08.000 God, it's so pretty.

01:23:10.000 That's even better.

01:23:12.000 That's even better than the other one.

01:23:13.000 The shape?

01:23:14.000 Yeah, the Roadrunner.

01:23:15.000 That's actually a sport satellite with borrowed trim pieces from GTX and Roadrunner.

01:23:22.000 Really?

01:23:22.000 Yeah, like cherry picking.

01:23:24.000 So what's a sport satellite?

01:23:26.000 Can you click on that link so we can see more pictures of that? 0.97

01:23:29.000 That thing's fucking pretty, man. 0.97

01:23:31.000 Oh, look at that. 1.00

01:23:32.000 Artwork.

01:23:34.000 Click on the interior.

01:23:37.000 Yeah, I handmade the dash out of metal on that car.

01:23:41.000 Wow.

01:23:42.000 And Shannon Hudson at Redline Gaugeworks did, I did a drop recess like a BMW and the red lights just washed down.

01:23:50.000 Thank God you made that a manual.

01:23:52.000 Oh yes.

01:23:55.000 And I copied across the back on those cars, they have the individual letters, Plymouth, P-L-Y-M. So I copied the font and had letters made that spelled hammer.

01:24:05.000 And then made a new set on the dash.

01:24:08.000 No, I saw that.

01:24:10.000 Click on that, Jamie, so you can see how it looks.

01:24:12.000 It looks amazing in the back.

01:24:14.000 Oh, the tail pin?

01:24:15.000 Oh, that was when we were...

01:24:16.000 There's Vin.

01:24:17.000 Did Vin Diesel drive it?

01:24:19.000 Well, he was in it.

01:24:20.000 The stuntmen did the burnouts.

01:24:22.000 And they were in the movie.

01:24:22.000 That's the end of Tokyo.

01:24:23.000 Well, that's where I was going.

01:24:25.000 I got a phone call from...

01:24:27.000 Do you know Dennis McCarthy?

01:24:28.000 No, I don't.

01:24:29.000 Okay, he's the guy that handles all the cars for all the Fast and Furious movies.

01:24:32.000 Can we see some more pictures of that?

01:24:33.000 So he...

01:24:35.000 And so they want to put it in Fast and Furious.

01:24:37.000 Well, I got a phone call from him.

01:24:39.000 He got my number from one of the editors at Hot Rod.

01:24:43.000 And he goes, hey, my name's Dennis McCarthy, and I'm doing Fast and Furious stuff, and we need a car for Vin Diesel.

01:24:53.000 We're going to bring his character back in this movie.

01:24:56.000 And I hear you have the most badass Mopar in Southern California.

01:25:01.000 Is that true?

01:25:01.000 And I go...

01:25:02.000 Fuck yeah. 1.00

01:25:02.000 Yeah, it is. 1.00

01:25:04.000 We have a bad son of a bitch. 0.99

01:25:06.000 So they rented it, but it's the car in the stunt scenes. 0.99

01:25:11.000 It's the car doing the burnouts.

01:25:12.000 Wow.

01:25:14.000 Who owns it now?

01:25:15.000 The guy that owns Traxxas, the radio control car company.

01:25:18.000 Oh.

01:25:19.000 He bought it off of Eric.

01:25:20.000 God, I hope he drives it.

01:25:22.000 I hope so, too.

01:25:23.000 The thing is wonderful.

01:25:25.000 So we actually unveiled it twice at SEMA. We brought it back a couple of years later with the new all-aluminum Hemi.

01:25:33.000 The color of it with the wheels, with the black wheels, the silver outline.

01:25:38.000 God, it's perfect.

01:25:39.000 Kinesis wheels, K19s, and the color is BMW sterling grays.

01:25:47.000 BMW sterling gray. 0.99

01:25:49.000 That's a fucking gorgeous color. 0.99

01:25:51.000 Yes, it is. 0.98

01:25:52.000 And that photography is from the man himself, Randy Lorenzo, another fantastic photographer.

01:25:57.000 Let me see some pictures in higher light, Jamie.

01:26:02.000 Yeah, but just go to that one that's outside with the red on the bottom of it, right above your cursor.

01:26:08.000 Oh, yeah, at the red carpet.

01:26:09.000 Look at that.

01:26:11.000 Sharp car.

01:26:12.000 God, it's gorgeous.

01:26:13.000 So that obviously did...

01:26:16.000 Wonders.

01:26:17.000 And that was like 2005, 2006. Had a bunch of other really cool stuff.

01:26:21.000 And then we built the Anvil Mustang.

01:26:26.000 We helped develop all the carbon fiber pieces for a company called Anvil.

01:26:30.000 And we unveiled the car at SEMA in 2010. And I knew we had a really good car.

01:26:39.000 It's all cantilever, push-ride, inboard suspension like an F1 car.

01:26:43.000 And we wide-bodied it, except you can't tell unless it's sitting next to a stock one.

01:26:48.000 We actually bowed the quarter panels.

01:26:49.000 So at the door and at the taillights, it's stock.

01:26:53.000 It actually curves up.

01:26:56.000 There it is.

01:26:58.000 So lots of work done to that thing.

01:27:01.000 The whole nose is all carbon fiber, and it's widened and changed.

01:27:06.000 Tail panels changed.

01:27:07.000 You can see the pushrod cantilever inboard suspension there.

01:27:11.000 The coilovers laid down. 1.00

01:27:13.000 I must handle like a motherfucker, huh? 1.00

01:27:14.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

01:27:15.000 It's a lovely car.

01:27:16.000 And that's the rear seat area.

01:27:18.000 That's the inboard.

01:27:19.000 That's a Myers rear.

01:27:20.000 And everything's on quick pins, so you can literally snap, take out the coilovers, put in a different set of shocks.

01:27:25.000 Do not stick your fingers in there, kids.

01:27:27.000 No, bad.

01:27:27.000 While the car is driving, do not stick your fingers in there.

01:27:29.000 It is fantastic to watch in the rearview mirror.

01:27:31.000 Oh, my God.

01:27:32.000 It must be amazing.

01:27:33.000 You're sitting there watching this stuff work, and you're like, oh, I've got to be driving.

01:27:36.000 Sorry.

01:27:36.000 Yeah, just don't have a gym bag back there.

01:27:38.000 Yeah, bad.

01:27:38.000 Oh, my God.

01:27:39.000 Look at that interior.

01:27:41.000 God, that's gorgeous.

01:27:43.000 That's a perfect interior for that car.

01:27:45.000 And a lot of the time, see that down bar going down through the roll bar?

01:27:49.000 Yes.

01:27:49.000 That does not touch you when you're in the passenger seat.

01:27:51.000 Really?

01:27:51.000 Touches nobody.

01:27:53.000 What if you're a big guy?

01:27:55.000 There's a lot of room.

01:27:57.000 But that comes out, too, that bolts and unbolts.

01:28:00.000 So, yeah, little switches and handles and whatnot. 1.00

01:28:05.000 Fuck yeah. 0.99

01:28:06.000 Does the guy who has this drive it? 1.00

01:28:07.000 Yeah, as far as I know.

01:28:09.000 He's got to drive this.

01:28:10.000 Please, sir.

01:28:11.000 Woo, look at that.

01:28:13.000 That is so gorgeous, man.

01:28:14.000 It won the Ford Design Award car of the show at SEMA, which was a...

01:28:18.000 That's a 69, right?

01:28:19.000 Yes, you're correct, sir.

01:28:21.000 It might be the most gorgeous 69 I've ever seen.

01:28:23.000 Yeah, lots done.

01:28:23.000 Again, nothing's stocked.

01:28:26.000 Nothing's stocked.

01:28:26.000 Everything's...

01:28:27.000 That fucking suspension setup in the backseat. 0.99

01:28:29.000 Yeah, that was cool. 1.00

01:28:30.000 Gives me a childhood boner.

01:28:32.000 Okay, good.

01:28:35.000 So that...

01:28:36.000 All this stuff comes back to when you're kids, right?

01:28:38.000 Heck yeah.

01:28:39.000 Heck yeah.

01:28:39.000 Hot Wheels.

01:28:40.000 Yeah, Hot Wheels and what the cool cars were in your neighborhood and your kids.

01:28:44.000 There's a miracle for me.

01:28:46.000 In 2005 or so, I'm in an airport...

01:28:52.000 And before, when I was building Scully, the silver car, 97-ish, I left the job I was working and went working for a gentleman named Bruce Schultz.

01:29:04.000 And he did sublet work for Mattel and Action Diecast.

01:29:09.000 And we did prototypes.

01:29:10.000 It was before there was rapid prototype anything.

01:29:12.000 So you'd get a drawing from the Mattel crazy Hot Wheel designer.

01:29:16.000 It's like, make this.

01:29:19.000 Or we'd get some and go, here we need these 25 stripped and painted a different color and different graphics for Toy Fair.

01:29:26.000 So when I worked for Bruce, I met a guy named Kelly Cox.

01:29:31.000 Mr. Kelly Cox, who as of right now is going on his 18th or 19th year as an employee for me.

01:29:38.000 We became really good friends working together.

01:29:40.000 We found out we loved the same music, we had the same sense of humor.

01:29:44.000 So I met Kelly working for Bruce, and I was building that.

01:29:49.000 When I built that Charger, I drove it over to Bruce's house because I'd met him like a year before and I said, hey, look what I did because he saw the car I started with.

01:29:57.000 And he goes, you did that?

01:29:59.000 And I'm like, yeah.

01:29:59.000 And he goes, can you build model cars?

01:30:00.000 I'm like, yeah.

01:30:02.000 He's like, want to work here?

01:30:04.000 I'm like, where?

01:30:05.000 He goes, here in my garage.

01:30:06.000 This is what we do.

01:30:07.000 And he goes, how much do you make?

01:30:10.000 Working for Chrysler.

01:30:11.000 I go, X. He goes, I'll promise you X and you can make Y. I'm like, I'm quitting tomorrow.

01:30:18.000 So I'm just in this guy's garage building model.

01:30:21.000 Basically, I'm oversimplifying, but building super cool one-off model stuff for Mattel and Hot Wheels.

01:30:27.000 That's 97, right?

01:30:29.000 98, going into 99. Fast forward 2005. My shop is now up and running.

01:30:35.000 I've had a bunch of magazine features.

01:30:37.000 I'm at an airport and one of the guys that worked at Mattel was in the airport too.

01:30:42.000 I recognize him because I used to be down there all the time bringing in prototypes.

01:30:46.000 And I'm joking with him and I'm like, hey man, how many super cool features do I got to have before I can get a Hot Wheels made of one of my cars?

01:30:53.000 And he goes, you know what, that's a good idea.

01:30:55.000 I'm like, uh...

01:30:56.000 Yeah, it's a good idea.

01:30:58.000 You know, I was joking with it.

01:31:00.000 So they had a new line of your normal Hot Wheels are 164th scale.

01:31:05.000 They were going to try this new thing with like 150th scale.

01:31:07.000 They're going to call them G machines.

01:31:09.000 And they're like, we'll do a 12 car line with you.

01:31:11.000 You create the paint scheme and then this and then that.

01:31:14.000 But we have X amount of little wheels you can use and X amount of this and that.

01:31:19.000 Well, that worked for both of us because I know working with them.

01:31:23.000 I understand the cost of extra stripes never cost money.

01:31:28.000 So I know how to make a car simple and that one a little more elaborate and then the budget balances out.

01:31:34.000 I understood all that already.

01:31:35.000 So I went down, had a designer group meeting.

01:31:38.000 I got a 12-car line that, in the back window of every car, it's got my Pure Vision logo.

01:31:44.000 And on the back of the box it says, Pure Vision, the premier hot rod shop in Southern California.

01:31:48.000 These went global.

01:31:50.000 And I mean, it's the hugest honor.

01:31:53.000 It's an unbelievable opportunity that I still am like, you know, pinching myself that that even happened.

01:31:59.000 And so that was an amazing opportunity working at Bruce's.

01:32:06.000 It begat me having a toy line later and having, you know, my guy that's been with me forever, Kelly, working for me.

01:32:14.000 So I was very fortunate, again, that the stars lined up that way.

01:32:19.000 That's great, man.

01:32:20.000 It's not fortune, though.

01:32:21.000 It's talent.

01:32:21.000 You have an eye for cars.

01:32:24.000 True, but...

01:32:25.000 It's an art form, you know, and you're an artist in other ways.

01:32:27.000 You know, you play music.

01:32:29.000 Your guy creates things.

01:32:30.000 That's what I think is so interesting about your cars is that you don't just, like, make a cool car.

01:32:35.000 You make a cool car with all these little Easter eggs in it.

01:32:37.000 There's all these little things in it that you have to kind of understand.

01:32:39.000 That's really cool that you say that because we've joked about it at car shows.

01:32:43.000 Our car is the Easter egg hut.

01:32:45.000 You keep coming back and finding, I didn't even see that.

01:32:47.000 Well, if you go to the video you did, oh my god, the one on YouTube.

01:32:57.000 Well, that narrows it down.

01:32:59.000 The one about my car.

01:33:00.000 Oh, your car.

01:33:01.000 Yeah.

01:33:02.000 Uh-huh. 0.97

01:33:02.000 Why am I fucking blanking on the... 0.97

01:33:03.000 Autotopia? 0.99

01:33:04.000 Autotopia.

01:33:05.000 Thank you.

01:33:05.000 Sean at Autotopia.

01:33:06.000 Sean at Autotopia.

01:33:07.000 That which is an amazing video where you go over in detail all the different weird things that you did.

01:33:13.000 Little things we changed.

01:33:14.000 Yeah.

01:33:15.000 Sean's fun.

01:33:15.000 Oh, God.

01:33:16.000 Sean's awesome.

01:33:16.000 Yeah, really fun.

01:33:18.000 He's a good guy.

01:33:19.000 He seems like a really good guy.

01:33:20.000 And these videos are awesome.

01:33:22.000 His videos are all awesome, but this one is particularly cool.

01:33:25.000 Yeah, and he loved being in the car.

01:33:27.000 And the thing is, is I'm friends with him, too, so off-camera, you know, he'll tell me, good, bad, ugly, you know, and he just loved being in the car.

01:33:36.000 Really appreciated all the work.

01:33:38.000 Actually, we're gonna...

01:33:39.000 What are you doing now?

01:33:39.000 What are you working on now?

01:33:40.000 Oh, my gosh.

01:33:41.000 I got...

01:33:42.000 We just finished up a really amazing Chevelle for a guy named Habib that, again, thankful.

01:33:49.000 Cover of Hemmings, and it's about to come out in Chevy Hub.

01:33:52.000 Is that a 67?

01:33:53.000 Yeah, the turquoise aqua one.

01:33:54.000 Oh, I've seen that.

01:33:55.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:33:56.000 Three magazines featuring that and a bunch of crap.

01:33:59.000 You and I had talked about doing an older Chevelle.

01:34:01.000 Yeah, well, I've still got all the notes.

01:34:04.000 Because I went hog wild.

01:34:06.000 I'm a 68. Your thing you handed me was a 68 Chevelle.

01:34:10.000 Is that what it was?

01:34:10.000 In that list.

01:34:11.000 Yeah.

01:34:12.000 I like these seven cars.

01:34:13.000 Which one do I do?

01:34:14.000 But I'm glad we went with the Nova.

01:34:15.000 I really am.

01:34:16.000 Well, I took you to Gary, and it's on the thumb drive, the Z28 Nova.

01:34:20.000 Yeah.

01:34:21.000 Something about that, I had this light bulb.

01:34:23.000 And that sounded gnarly.

01:34:24.000 That thing always sounds gnarly, too.

01:34:26.000 Well, it was really cool.

01:34:28.000 You did a Z28 version of a 1969?

01:34:31.000 Yeah, if you could have ordered a 69 Nova.

01:34:33.000 Yep, there it is.

01:34:34.000 And I saw that, and a light bulb went off in my head.

01:34:38.000 I was like, that's the car.

01:34:40.000 That's the car.

01:34:41.000 Yours and his are very, very, very, very, very, very different. 0.89

01:34:44.000 Yeah, very different, but still fucking super cool.

01:34:47.000 I remember thinking, wow, you don't see enough of these. 0.72

01:34:50.000 No, no, no.

01:34:52.000 That guy in Australia made a cool one.

01:34:54.000 Cam?

01:34:54.000 You know that one guy in Australia?

01:34:57.000 I think I know the car you're talking about.

01:34:59.000 Something by Cam?

01:35:01.000 I'm not super familiar, but I think I know what you're talking about.

01:35:04.000 He made this really wild black 68 or 69 Nova.

01:35:10.000 And did some really cool stuff to it.

01:35:13.000 And it was a few years back.

01:35:16.000 Hot Rods by Cam?

01:35:17.000 Hot Rods by Cam.

01:35:18.000 Yeah.

01:35:19.000 See if you can find his Nova.

01:35:20.000 No, there's a black one. 0.99

01:35:21.000 He made a black one.

01:35:23.000 That's a Nova also.

01:35:24.000 Yeah.

01:35:26.000 Let's see if you can see his black Nova.

01:35:30.000 Cam, black Nova.

01:35:34.000 Yeah, that's it.

01:35:35.000 That's it. 1.00

01:35:36.000 Look at this fucking thing. 1.00

01:35:38.000 This thing is sick. 1.00

01:35:39.000 Give me some volume.

01:35:41.000 Yeah, rock and roll.

01:35:43.000 Oh dear God.

01:35:45.000 Look at that thing. 0.92

01:35:49.000 Yeah.

01:35:56.000 That's what I'm talking about, Steve Stroke.

01:35:58.000 I can hear the turbos.

01:35:59.000 That's what I'm talking about.

01:36:01.000 Hear the waist skates.

01:36:04.000 What does that girl have to do with this? 1.00

01:36:05.000 What is going on here?

01:36:06.000 She's in her underwear.

01:36:07.000 What's happening here?

01:36:08.000 Photo shoot, probably.

01:36:11.000 Yeah.

01:36:11.000 Why are they showing me that?

01:36:12.000 Show me that goddamn car. 1.00

01:36:14.000 Stop trying to distract me. 1.00

01:36:15.000 They just want to keep you looking, you know?

01:36:17.000 They figure you're only going to look at that car for about 45 seconds, but you're throwing a hot lady in a bikini, and now we got you. 1.00

01:36:22.000 That'll do.

01:36:23.000 She's still on the screen.

01:36:24.000 She's still on the screen? 1.00

01:36:25.000 Where's the fucking car? 1.00

01:36:27.000 Where's the fucking car? 1.00

01:36:28.000 That left her. 1.00

01:36:29.000 There she is again.

01:36:30.000 That's it.

01:36:31.000 She's a wild one, too.

01:36:32.000 Tattooed up.

01:36:33.000 Oh, great.

01:36:34.000 That's what you want.

01:36:34.000 If you want a car like that, you want a lady like that.

01:36:36.000 Fair enough.

01:36:37.000 That's the dream.

01:36:38.000 Cam's selling the dream.

01:36:39.000 Oh, is that what he's doing?

01:36:40.000 He's selling the dream.

01:36:41.000 Okay, the dream.

01:36:42.000 Don't you see?

01:36:43.000 Yeah, I saw it.

01:36:44.000 That car's wild, though, huh?

01:36:45.000 Sounds healthy.

01:36:46.000 Show me some extra images of that car.

01:36:48.000 Yeah, so that car, too, influenced my decision.

01:36:51.000 Oh.

01:36:52.000 I don't know if that car was during the time we had already decided on a Nova, though, because this guy built that a few years back.

01:36:59.000 Yeah.

01:37:00.000 I'm unfamiliar with it.

01:37:02.000 That's pretty, man. 0.99

01:37:02.000 That's fucking pretty. 0.99

01:37:04.000 Look at that. 0.99

01:37:04.000 It's a little taller rear tire, but that's me. 0.99

01:37:07.000 Oh, yeah.

01:37:08.000 That's an older school.

01:37:09.000 A little rubber band.

01:37:11.000 I want to say older school.

01:37:11.000 Hey, man, everyone does their own thing.

01:37:12.000 But early 2000s, they were doing a lot of that.

01:37:15.000 Right.

01:37:15.000 Look at that thing, though.

01:37:16.000 Whoa.

01:37:17.000 Lord.

01:37:19.000 That's beautiful.

01:37:20.000 Big old hood.

01:37:21.000 Yeah, beautiful car.

01:37:22.000 I think it's a twin turbo, if I remember correctly.

01:37:23.000 Yeah, it sounded like I was hearing the wastegates pop when he was doing acceleration.

01:37:27.000 Yeah, click on that image of right there where your cursor is.

01:37:29.000 Right there. 1.00

01:37:30.000 Yeah, look at that fucking thing. 1.00

01:37:33.000 Woo! 1.00

01:37:34.000 God, that's gorgeous.

01:37:35.000 But it drives me nuts when people don't put side-view mirrors. 0.99

01:37:37.000 Like, it doesn't make the car look bad, but you should see where the fuck you're going. 0.98

01:37:41.000 Or where you were. 0.97

01:37:43.000 Yeah, or what's coming up if you're changing lanes.

01:37:46.000 Where the officers are? 1.00

01:37:47.000 Yeah, put a fucking side-view mirror on, kids. 0.99

01:37:50.000 It does not make the car look ugly. 0.99

01:37:52.000 That became a trend for a while where people would have completely shaved mirrors.

01:37:55.000 Yeah.

01:37:56.000 You know?

01:37:58.000 You had asked me what's new, and you know what?

01:38:03.000 I'll have to give you, because I have nothing up.

01:38:06.000 I'll give you...

01:38:08.000 So you guys can get it in post.

01:38:12.000 No, I've got three cars that are humdingers.

01:38:16.000 I got a Roadrunner coming out called Haraka, which is African for speed. 1.00

01:38:25.000 And it's quite the piece.

01:38:28.000 Is that done?

01:38:29.000 No, we're going to unveil it next year at SEMA. What stage is it in now?

01:38:35.000 Bare metal and heavy fab.

01:38:38.000 You got any images?

01:38:39.000 I will supply you images.

01:38:41.000 Is that it right there?

01:38:43.000 That is like a cell phone from the 60s.

01:38:45.000 What the hell is that?

01:38:46.000 How'd you even get that?

01:38:48.000 What is that?

01:38:49.000 Oh, I know what it is.

01:38:50.000 It might have been like an Instagram.

01:38:52.000 It's a TikTok video.

01:38:53.000 Yeah, or something.

01:38:53.000 Oh, that's hilarious.

01:38:54.000 Yeah, it's way beyond that stage.

01:38:56.000 And it's...

01:38:57.000 Roadrunner is another car that's a very cool car.

01:38:59.000 Yes.

01:38:59.000 This one is going to be something.

01:39:02.000 I promise you.

01:39:03.000 Someone should redo Blade's 69 Charger from the movie Blade.

01:39:11.000 Do you remember that?

01:39:13.000 I think it was a 69. It's definitely a late 60s Charger.

01:39:17.000 Blade, you know the vampire hunter?

01:39:18.000 Yeah!

01:39:19.000 He drove around in a Charger when he was killing people.

01:39:22.000 It's a 68. 68. Yeah, similar by style.

01:39:25.000 There it is right there.

01:39:25.000 Look at that car right there.

01:39:26.000 Somebody needs to redo that.

01:39:28.000 That's not hard.

01:39:30.000 Blade had a souped, but I mean a really good one.

01:39:32.000 Like a really well done one.

01:39:34.000 Blade had a souped up Charger.

01:39:36.000 Look at it.

01:39:38.000 That's what he drove around in.

01:39:40.000 Someone should make like a blade-themed...

01:39:42.000 Again, that's just a charger with auto-drags on it or center-lines it.

01:39:47.000 Yeah, but it doesn't have to look exactly like that, but a blade-themed 69 charger.

01:39:52.000 Like if he had one that went through your shop. 0.91

01:39:54.000 Like if blade came to your shop and said, I want to kill vampires. 0.99

01:39:58.000 Oh, good. 0.99

01:39:59.000 You know what I'm saying?

01:39:59.000 What would you build them?

01:40:00.000 I'll send you guys the artwork, but that's the Roadrunner right now.

01:40:06.000 Why are you trying to change the subject?

01:40:07.000 Because.

01:40:08.000 We're talking about Blade.

01:40:09.000 If Blade came to you right now and wanted to make a 68 Charger.

01:40:12.000 Fine, I'll do him with Charger.

01:40:14.000 I'll do him with Charger.

01:40:16.000 If he's trying to run from vampires.

01:40:17.000 How well could you get a 68, 69 Charger to handle?

01:40:23.000 There's a lot of front-end sheet metal.

01:40:25.000 There's stuff available now.

01:40:27.000 Yeah?

01:40:28.000 Yeah, there's plenty of stuff.

01:40:29.000 What could you do to balance it out?

01:40:31.000 In fact, on this...

01:40:36.000 Roadrunner, I have a brand new suspension from Heights.

01:40:39.000 That's an IFS and IRS from, well, I just said from Heights. 0.98

01:40:43.000 Let's explain to people that don't know what the fuck we're talking about.

01:40:45.000 Independent rear suspension, independent front suspension. 0.93

01:40:49.000 So it's really trick stuff and it's brand new for them.

01:40:54.000 What about like a rear transaxle to balance out the weight?

01:40:57.000 You could, even though the Roadrunners weren't super heavy.

01:41:02.000 They were about 3,600 pounds.

01:41:03.000 Right, but the Charger.

01:41:05.000 Oh, the same thing.

01:41:06.000 It's a B-body. 0.99

01:41:07.000 Basically the same body.

01:41:08.000 Yeah, it's the same thing.

01:41:09.000 So they weren't that heavy?

01:41:10.000 They were how heavy?

01:41:11.000 About 3,800.

01:41:12.000 3,800?

01:41:13.000 That's pretty heavy.

01:41:14.000 Or so.

01:41:15.000 Yeah.

01:41:15.000 What did you think of that one that someone built that they made all carbon?

01:41:18.000 Did you ever see that?

01:41:19.000 Yes, I'm familiar.

01:41:21.000 They've done quite a few of them.

01:41:22.000 Yeah.

01:41:22.000 Was it Speedcore?

01:41:23.000 Is that Speedcore?

01:41:24.000 Yeah.

01:41:24.000 Mm-hmm.

01:41:25.000 See if you can find that Speedcore carbon charger.

01:41:27.000 Yep, cool piece for sure.

01:41:29.000 That probably drives great because of the lightweight.

01:41:32.000 Oh, and it's on that brand new modern chassis.

01:41:34.000 Ooh, look at that thing. 0.92

01:41:36.000 Yep, billet, probably the grills billet or CN. Ooh, an all carbon fiber exterior.

01:41:43.000 Yeah, so the body sits down over the chassis and that's how it sits that low.

01:41:46.000 What do you think that thing weighs?

01:41:48.000 A lot less.

01:41:49.000 But probably not a lot less that you think, because parts still weigh.

01:41:53.000 Right, of course.

01:41:54.000 So, like, just removing the steel and replacing it with carbon.

01:41:58.000 You know what?

01:41:59.000 Save 500 pounds?

01:42:00.000 Yeah, it might be low three-thousands, like 31, 32, which is...

01:42:06.000 That's probably amazing, then.

01:42:08.000 Yeah.

01:42:09.000 Sure.

01:42:10.000 Look at that thing. 0.92

01:42:11.000 Where are you going to park that?

01:42:14.000 Somewhere.

01:42:15.000 You'd be terrified.

01:42:16.000 Somewhere safe.

01:42:17.000 You'd be terrified of someone dinging your doors.

01:42:19.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

01:42:19.000 You got a goddamn carbon fiber car. 1.00

01:42:21.000 Look at that thing. 1.00

01:42:22.000 Yeah, you're not pounding the dents out.

01:42:24.000 Yeah.

01:42:24.000 What do you do if you get in an accident in a carbon fiber car?

01:42:27.000 Do they have to refab completely new panels for you?

01:42:29.000 Well, you either put a new one on or probably...

01:42:31.000 Well, it depends.

01:42:32.000 If it's the quarter panel, that might be a problem.

01:42:34.000 Like, if you get hit in the rear...

01:42:36.000 Fender, you replace the fender.

01:42:37.000 If you get hit in the rear, they probably have to redo your whole car.

01:42:40.000 Yeah.

01:42:40.000 Well, it's kind of like...

01:42:42.000 What's that?

01:42:43.000 Expensive fiberglass surgery.

01:42:44.000 You can buy rear bumpers, at least.

01:42:46.000 So you can buy a carbon fiber charger bumper.

01:42:51.000 Yeah, but the bumper's not what I'm worried about.

01:42:53.000 I'm worried about the quarter panels, the roof.

01:42:56.000 Because if somebody rear-ends you or hits you from the side, it's going to fuck up all that stuff.

01:43:01.000 Right.

01:43:02.000 I guess he can't think about that.

01:43:04.000 No.

01:43:04.000 He just has to be cool.

01:43:04.000 Yep.

01:43:05.000 Driving around.

01:43:06.000 Yep.

01:43:06.000 They're doing that with quite a few hot rods now, right?

01:43:09.000 Like, I know there's a company that makes classic recreations.

01:43:13.000 They do a complete carbon fiber GT500. You've seen that, right?

01:43:17.000 Oh, someone doing the GT? Yeah.

01:43:19.000 The older one?

01:43:20.000 Yeah.

01:43:20.000 67 GT500. Carbon?

01:43:23.000 Classic recreations is doing it.

01:43:24.000 Ah, cool.

01:43:25.000 I know...

01:43:25.000 See if you can find that.

01:43:26.000 I know there's a guy that's doing the...

01:43:28.000 They do the charger.

01:43:30.000 That one.

01:43:32.000 And there's a 69 Camaro that's all carbon.

01:43:36.000 So, see what it looks like.

01:43:38.000 Yeah, look at that.

01:43:43.000 That's insane.

01:43:44.000 Yeah.

01:43:45.000 That's probably very light, right?

01:43:47.000 Well, again...

01:43:48.000 Because that's an even smaller car, right?

01:43:49.000 It's going to be lighter, yes.

01:43:50.000 Yeah, the Mustang is lighter and smaller.

01:43:53.000 That is correct.

01:43:54.000 67, right?

01:43:55.000 If you had to guess, what do you think that thing weighs?

01:43:57.000 I bet you it's still around 3,000 or so.

01:43:59.000 Again, I'm...

01:44:00.000 Right, but 3,000 pounds.

01:44:01.000 It depends what engine, it depends what suspension, it depends everything.

01:44:05.000 It says...

01:44:06.000 Scroll up a little bit.

01:44:07.000 It's interesting that all the carbon companies that are doing this don't talk about a weight.

01:44:11.000 Keep going, Jamie, for the top of the page so I can see what it said.

01:44:14.000 It was saying something about the horsepower.

01:44:19.000 Oh, do they do a turnkey car?

01:44:21.000 I mean, you might have been hovering over the engine part of it.

01:44:24.000 Is that what it is?

01:44:25.000 Oh, 545 horsepower.

01:44:26.000 So it's a 427 crate engine.

01:44:30.000 Which is probably all you need if it's that light.

01:44:33.000 Oh, it's more than fine for driving around the street.

01:44:36.000 That's got to be amazing.

01:44:38.000 Oh, you could do a Coyote Gen 3 with a supercharger that's 770 horsepower. 1.00

01:44:43.000 If you're a fucking psycho. 1.00

01:44:46.000 Right? 1.00

01:44:47.000 If you're a fucking psycho, unquote. 1.00

01:44:49.000 If you're a fucking psycho and you want a carbon fiber car that weighs nothing. 1.00

01:44:52.000 If you're just greedy, you know. 1.00

01:44:53.000 With 770 horsepower.

01:44:54.000 That'll probably get you to the store on time without much difficulty.

01:44:59.000 You ain't going to the store on that.

01:45:01.000 Oh, why not?

01:45:02.000 Putting groceries in the backseat of that thing.

01:45:03.000 Live dangerously.

01:45:04.000 Go to Ralph's.

01:45:05.000 Yeah.

01:45:06.000 I bet some people do with it.

01:45:07.000 Yeah.

01:45:08.000 You know, I'm sure there's people that take their hot rods around as daily drivers.

01:45:13.000 I met a guy once in- I drive mine.

01:45:15.000 Do you?

01:45:16.000 Every day?

01:45:17.000 Not every day.

01:45:18.000 I have to use my truck, too.

01:45:19.000 What are you driving?

01:45:20.000 Well, normally, I use my work truck.

01:45:22.000 Yeah, but when you're not driving to work?

01:45:24.000 Oh, I've got a really fun little, which again, I- Ooh, did I put on the thumb drive- I have a 64 Olds little Cutlass that I built for cross-country driving.

01:45:34.000 So it's got modern air conditioning, like vintage air and dynamite sound deadening.

01:45:39.000 And I have these really wonderful seats from a Porsche Panamera, cut seven inches off of it.

01:45:45.000 And it's got, they're like 18-way powered.

01:45:48.000 Show me pictures.

01:45:48.000 Heated and cooled.

01:45:49.000 Do I have anything?

01:45:51.000 I'm there.

01:45:54.000 Nope.

01:45:55.000 That's the brand new Fury.

01:45:57.000 We just finished that.

01:45:58.000 Do you have it on your website?

01:46:00.000 Nope.

01:46:01.000 That's not up yet either.

01:46:02.000 You don't have your own car on your website?

01:46:04.000 It was on my TV show.

01:46:06.000 Oh, okay.

01:46:06.000 How could we see that then?

01:46:08.000 I don't know.

01:46:09.000 Was it Rides?

01:46:10.000 Was it an episode of Rides?

01:46:11.000 No, no.

01:46:11.000 Your TV show.

01:46:12.000 Oh, that TV show.

01:46:13.000 Yeah.

01:46:13.000 The Hand-Built Hot Rods.

01:46:15.000 That's right.

01:46:16.000 I was on one of them episodes.

01:46:17.000 Yes, that's right.

01:46:19.000 Your car.

01:46:19.000 Yeah, there it is.

01:46:21.000 So, Mercedes quartz blue with basically a Ferrari saddle tan.

01:46:28.000 Pretty much your daily driver.

01:46:30.000 Yeah, that's the thing I put a round in. 1.00

01:46:32.000 Fuck yeah. 0.99

01:46:33.000 Yeah, it's a really nice car. 1.00

01:46:34.000 It's made to be comfy, driving anywhere.

01:46:39.000 It's beautiful.

01:46:40.000 And like all the other stuff, probably for the last 15 years or, no, let me see, 10, yeah, 13 years, same great cast of characters.

01:46:51.000 I definitely want to shout out because I am, as I've said before in other interviews and other things, no man is an island.

01:46:57.000 I am surrounded by talent.

01:46:59.000 Jamie's an island.

01:47:00.000 Okay.

01:47:00.000 Ask him.

01:47:01.000 Jamie's an island.

01:47:01.000 All right, well.

01:47:02.000 He says it all the time.

01:47:03.000 Hi there, Island Jamie.

01:47:04.000 I go, what are you doing, Jamie?

01:47:05.000 He goes, I'm an island.

01:47:06.000 He just walks away.

01:47:08.000 Are you a rock?

01:47:09.000 Are you a rock?

01:47:10.000 Do you know your old songs?

01:47:12.000 He's not an island boy.

01:47:13.000 You're a rock, you're an island, as Paul Simon would say.

01:47:16.000 Oh, yeah, that's right.

01:47:18.000 Painter, master, Mick Jenkins at Mick's Paint.

01:47:21.000 My interior guys, Gabe.

01:47:23.000 These are all the same people on Uranova.

01:47:26.000 Unbelievably wonderful family.

01:47:28.000 It's dad and the sons working.

01:47:30.000 So it's such a cool deal, the interior guys.

01:47:33.000 And then my guys, as I've already babbled, Kelly.

01:47:37.000 And then there's Troy Bray, who's just a fantastic all-around everything.

01:47:44.000 He can just do whatever I ask him.

01:47:47.000 And then a new kid named Tommy.

01:47:48.000 I do got to throw out all those big deal cars.

01:47:52.000 There was the Anvil that you looked at.

01:47:54.000 And then we didn't have a year off.

01:47:57.000 We had a couple others we finished.

01:47:58.000 And then we did a car called the Martini Mustang that we went to SEMA. And that took the Ford Design Award again, car of the show.

01:48:09.000 And then the next year we took the Twin Turbo Camaro.

01:48:13.000 And that won the GM Design Award, car of the show.

01:48:16.000 And then the next year we came with the Fairlane, the Black Ops Fairlane.

01:48:20.000 And that won the Ford Design Award, car of the show.

01:48:22.000 So we're the only shop I know of.

01:48:24.000 And again, I say thankful because I had such amazing employees and people around me putting up.

01:48:32.000 That's a heavy schedule to do three out-of-the-parked cars.

01:48:36.000 Three years in a row, that's nobody sleeping.

01:48:39.000 That's nobody sleeping.

01:48:40.000 For sure.

01:48:41.000 And don't know of another shop that's done that ever.

01:48:44.000 Congratulations.

01:48:45.000 So I'm very, again, very thankful to those guys.

01:48:48.000 And back then there was a guy who had worked for me for about 18 years named Pete.

01:48:52.000 And he just moved back to Washington to be near his folks and all.

01:48:56.000 So he's got a place called Muscle Car Beach.

01:48:58.000 I follow him on Instagram.

01:48:59.000 Yeah, that's Pete Hart School.

01:49:02.000 So just really...

01:49:06.000 I'm so lucky that I got all these people putting up with me because I literally wake up at 3 in the morning and come up with these ideas and start sketching the ideas and, oh my gosh, we've got to do this!

01:49:16.000 And then they're like, mm-hmm, okay!

01:49:18.000 And then they put up and do.

01:49:21.000 So really, really, really thankful for that.

01:49:26.000 And as you know, you've got a great team here with Island over there and Yeah, you need a team.

01:49:32.000 You need a team for great things. 0.98

01:49:33.000 Yeah, I couldn't do this fucking thing without Jamie. 0.99

01:49:35.000 I'd be lost. 0.99

01:49:36.000 First of all, you know how slow I Google?

01:49:37.000 He Googles faster than me with one hand.

01:49:41.000 Do you like it down here?

01:49:42.000 Yeah, I love it down here.

01:49:43.000 Yeah, I love it.

01:49:45.000 Three years ago?

01:49:46.000 Mm-hmm.

01:49:47.000 It's a different way of life.

01:49:49.000 Like, yeah, it gets really hot in the summer, but that doesn't seem to bother me.

01:49:53.000 What I really enjoy is how nice people are.

01:49:56.000 It's a different kind of nice.

01:49:58.000 They're like real regular nice people.

01:50:00.000 They're not Hollywood nice.

01:50:02.000 I really believe that everywhere in Southern California, just the overall vibration of the area I'm not criticizing the people that are doing it,

01:50:31.000 but I'm saying that it does affect...

01:50:33.000 The way people communicate with each other.

01:50:35.000 Especially because of acting.

01:50:37.000 Because acting is like the number one thing that people came to L.A. for back in the day.

01:50:41.000 It was the number one thing.

01:50:43.000 If you were a kid and you had a dream, you wanted to be a movie star, you came to L.A. And along the way, these people realized, like, the only way to get chosen for roles...

01:50:53.000 You have to have this Daniel Day-Lewis, like, super mysterious, ultra-talented person who everybody worships.

01:51:01.000 Or you had to play the game.

01:51:02.000 So you had to say all the things that the producers wanted you to say.

01:51:07.000 You had to support all the political causes.

01:51:09.000 You had to check all the boxes.

01:51:10.000 You couldn't think outside the box at all.

01:51:12.000 And there's a way of communicating that people have in L.A. that it's like signaling that they're a part of this tribe, signaling that they're a part of this very progressive, ultra-left-wing ideology, and everybody has to subscribe to it regardless of the conversation. 0.96

01:51:27.000 Consequences that it has on the city or the crime or chaos or all the other stuff and It's just I think it's tempered by this desire that people have that lived to fit in Because they want to be cast in things like you think about someone who's an actor you're probably already fucked up You're probably already insecure,

01:51:46.000 which is why you want this exorbitant amount of attention You probably had a bad childhood or whatever it was whatever whatever Whatever it was, you were not stable and you go so far that you desire this exorbitant amount of attention.

01:51:57.000 Then what you have to do is you have to get in front of casting agents.

01:52:01.000 So people get to pick you.

01:52:02.000 They have to choose whether or not you're good.

01:52:05.000 Choose whether or not you're worthy.

01:52:06.000 And your self-esteem is based on whether or not you get picked.

01:52:09.000 And so there's these people that are constantly in this cycle of rejection.

01:52:13.000 Constantly in this cycle seeking acceptance and rejection.

01:52:16.000 And then they see people that make it and they're furious.

01:52:18.000 Why isn't it me?

01:52:19.000 I am.

01:52:20.000 I had a friend, and he was dating this gal, and she was an actress too, and he got a role on a TV show.

01:52:25.000 He was so excited, and he told her about it.

01:52:26.000 And she started crying, saying, when is something going to happen for me?

01:52:30.000 It was the first thing she said.

01:52:32.000 I was like, dude...

01:52:35.000 That's not good.

01:52:36.000 But that is super, super common.

01:52:39.000 And that's a lot of what flavors the consciousness of Los Angeles.

01:52:45.000 It has an effect on it.

01:52:47.000 And out here, that doesn't exist.

01:52:50.000 It's different.

01:52:52.000 I agree.

01:52:53.000 And for me...

01:52:55.000 I was really happy to find, agreeing with you, to find Simi Valley, because I'm from...

01:53:02.000 Oh yeah, very different.

01:53:04.000 Let's go back at the beginning of the conversation, I'm from Appalachian, you know, that's a handshake is your word, you know, it's real simple, real simple background.

01:53:14.000 Mike sells moonshine. 0.91

01:53:17.000 So, Simi, again, not for a game of name-dropping, but I know, like my friend Ezio that has Bomb Hoagie, my favorite little place to get Philly cheesesteaks, which you can't find for shit out in California, does yummy stuff.

01:53:34.000 I know, like, Donish, the manager at my bank.

01:53:37.000 I know Neil, who has, well, of course, East Coast Pizza.

01:53:42.000 You know, I know their names.

01:53:44.000 I know these people, because It's got that small town feel to it.

01:53:49.000 It's not just in and out and you have no time to meet anybody or know anybody.

01:53:53.000 You know what I mean?

01:53:55.000 I've been out there because Terran Tactical, that's out in Simi Valley.

01:53:59.000 It's just a normal neighborhood.

01:54:01.000 It's a normal community that's sort of divorced from a lot of what ails L.A. And I know you had gone there from past times of just telling me.

01:54:09.000 Do you still go back?

01:54:11.000 Yeah, when I'm in L.A. Yeah, if I'm in L.A. and I have time, I go back there.

01:54:15.000 Shave in another five minutes since I'm around the corner.

01:54:18.000 Well, oftentimes I'm there on Sunday.

01:54:20.000 Well, let me know.

01:54:21.000 Let me know.

01:54:22.000 That's cool.

01:54:22.000 I didn't know if you went back.

01:54:24.000 I know you liked it.

01:54:25.000 Yeah, it's good to know.

01:54:26.000 I mean, if you have a gun, it's good to know how to really use it.

01:54:29.000 Yeah.

01:54:30.000 You know?

01:54:30.000 And he's the best.

01:54:32.000 That guy's awesome.

01:54:33.000 He's such a great instructor.

01:54:34.000 Does he give you instructions?

01:54:35.000 Oh, yeah.

01:54:36.000 It's instructions.

01:54:36.000 Oh, it's not just, here's a range and go shoot it.

01:54:39.000 No, no, no, no.

01:54:39.000 You're getting taught by a master.

01:54:42.000 I mean, Taron is like a multiple-time world champion in those shooting competitions.

01:54:47.000 I did not know it was an instructional thing.

01:54:49.000 Yeah, he trained Keanu Reeves there for John Wick.

01:54:53.000 Yeah, he trained Michael Jordan, Michael B. Jordan.

01:54:57.000 He trained him for a bunch of his movies.

01:54:58.000 He's trained just a host of people.

01:55:01.000 I was there with Rob Lowe.

01:55:02.000 I've been there with multiple comedians.

01:55:04.000 I took my friend Shane Gillis there.

01:55:06.000 It's like he trains people literally from the very beginning how to correctly hold the pistol, how to brace it correctly, what amount of pressure you put with your left hand versus your right hand, how to line the sights up.

01:55:19.000 He teaches you how to do everything correctly.

01:55:22.000 That's awesome that Keanu Reeves has that, so when he's filming it, he's looking like he actually is shooting a gun.

01:55:31.000 Super legit.

01:55:31.000 If you watch John Wick, he looks super legit.

01:55:34.000 He absolutely knows what he's doing.

01:55:36.000 Because Taren trained him.

01:55:37.000 I mean, everything he does is exactly how you would do it.

01:55:39.000 How long have you known Taren?

01:55:41.000 Taren?

01:55:42.000 Taren.

01:55:42.000 T-A-R-A-N. Years.

01:55:44.000 I don't know.

01:55:44.000 Many years.

01:55:45.000 I think I first went there...

01:55:47.000 I forget who brought me there, honestly.

01:55:50.000 Hmm.

01:55:51.000 I forget who brought me there.

01:55:52.000 But, you know, you go there for like an hour and he coaches you.

01:55:55.000 It's great.

01:55:55.000 A couple hours maybe.

01:55:57.000 And you'll always have new people there.

01:55:59.000 Chad Stileski, the guy who produced and directed.

01:56:03.000 He actually wrote.

01:56:03.000 Did he write John Wick?

01:56:05.000 Or did he...

01:56:06.000 He directed it and produced it.

01:56:08.000 If he didn't write it by himself, he definitely co-wrote it.

01:56:12.000 So I met him there.

01:56:13.000 I met a bunch of really cool people there.

01:56:18.000 The King of Jordan was just there training with him.

01:56:21.000 Yeah, it's wild.

01:56:22.000 He trains people.

01:56:23.000 He's that good.

01:56:24.000 He trains people from all over the world.

01:56:25.000 Does he do just firearms or does he do bow and arrow?

01:56:27.000 Just firearms.

01:56:29.000 They do throw hatchets too.

01:56:32.000 He shows you how to throw a hatchet.

01:56:33.000 Because there's a lot of stuff that people use in movies, in John Wick movies and things like that.

01:56:37.000 Skill sets.

01:56:38.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:56:39.000 But yeah, Halle Berry trained there. 1.00

01:56:41.000 There's all these videos of her learning how to shoot a pistol.

01:56:45.000 I don't know if I've ever spoke with you about it.

01:56:47.000 I always, growing up, I fiddled with archery, bow and arrows.

01:56:51.000 It fascinated me.

01:56:52.000 And you know Nuge.

01:56:55.000 Sure.

01:56:55.000 And he's whack master, as his brand is.

01:57:02.000 Yeah, you got into that too, right?

01:57:04.000 Bowhunting?

01:57:04.000 Yeah.

01:57:04.000 Weren't you doing that too?

01:57:05.000 Yeah, I still do it.

01:57:06.000 I just got back.

01:57:07.000 I just got back from an elk hunt in Utah.

01:57:09.000 Oh.

01:57:10.000 Yeah.

01:57:10.000 Bowhunting?

01:57:11.000 Bowhunting.

01:57:11.000 Yeah.

01:57:12.000 Yeah.

01:57:13.000 Practice every day.

01:57:13.000 I was out in my yard today practicing.

01:57:15.000 Oh, cool.

01:57:16.000 Yeah.

01:57:16.000 You have to.

01:57:17.000 For me, that's harder.

01:57:22.000 Then guns...

01:57:22.000 Of course.

01:57:23.000 I mean, guns take a skill set, for sure.

01:57:25.000 Oh, yeah.

01:57:26.000 No, guns aren't easy.

01:57:27.000 It's not easy to kill a deer with a rifle.

01:57:29.000 I mean, you could get lucky, and one can be close.

01:57:31.000 But if you're in the mountains, it's very difficult to get close to them.

01:57:34.000 You have to understand the wind and how to sneak up on them.

01:57:37.000 It's easier with a rifle, because you could take a 200-yard shot ethically.

01:57:41.000 Whereas with a bow, you really want to get inside of 60 yards if you can.

01:57:45.000 Right.

01:57:45.000 And then have the aim.

01:57:47.000 And you have to be really good.

01:57:47.000 Yeah.

01:57:48.000 And then the aim.

01:57:48.000 And you have to be able to keep your nerves together.

01:57:50.000 Yeah.

01:57:51.000 Yeah.

01:57:51.000 I was always fascinated with it.

01:57:54.000 My dad, because my area, again, a lot of hunting, fishing, that kind of stuff.

01:58:01.000 So that was promoted.

01:58:03.000 It's an amazing way to get food.

01:58:05.000 It really is.

01:58:07.000 It's a very realistic way to get your food.

01:58:10.000 You just have a very different connection with what your food is.

01:58:13.000 When I eat an elk steak, it's a very different connection than if I eat a steak that I got from H-E-B. Explain.

01:58:20.000 Well, you were there when this...

01:58:22.000 The last one I killed was my favorite because it was so old.

01:58:26.000 It was an 11-year-old elk and his teeth were all worn out.

01:58:30.000 Like when we opened his job, that's about as old as you get in the mountains.

01:58:33.000 Like you might live to be 13, but probably not.

01:58:36.000 And during the rut, when they're breeding, they don't eat a lot of the time.

01:58:40.000 So they lose a ton of weight because they're just running around chasing tail.

01:58:44.000 No pun intended.

01:58:45.000 Yeah, no pun intended.

01:58:46.000 And then during the winter, it's rough.

01:58:49.000 It's rough because they have to eat as much as they can after the rut.

01:58:52.000 And by that time, it might already be snowing.

01:58:54.000 So the grass might be getting covered up, but it's harder to get food.

01:58:57.000 If you're not lucky, you could freeze to death in the winter because you don't have enough fat, and it happens to them all the time.

01:59:03.000 That's generally how they go out, or a cat gets them.

01:59:06.000 One of the two is probably coming.

01:59:09.000 Or they can get injured, and a cat catches them limping, and then that's a wrap. 0.98

01:59:15.000 It's a fucking hard scrabble life. 0.97

01:59:17.000 So that was my favorite because we got them at the right time, 11 years old. 0.99

01:59:22.000 That's a really good time.

01:59:24.000 It's a real mature, wise old elk that you just caught slipping.

01:59:29.000 And so when I'm eating that, I'm eating something that I work really hard to get to.

01:59:33.000 I practice really hard.

01:59:34.000 I got in really good shape.

01:59:36.000 Did all these things to work on my aim, work on my precision with my shooting, and just work on all the things, the cardio, all the things that you have to do to do it.

01:59:46.000 So it's just a very different connection than just...

01:59:48.000 I'll still eat a steak at a restaurant.

01:59:50.000 I still love them.

01:59:51.000 They're so great.

01:59:52.000 It's just a different experience.

01:59:54.000 Right.

01:59:55.000 Well, sure.

01:59:56.000 It's definitely more personal.

01:59:58.000 It's definitely more personal, but it's also more honest.

02:00:03.000 It's a much more honest exchange. 0.99

02:00:06.000 Especially if you're getting some factory-farmed shit. 0.99

02:00:10.000 There's a lot of weird karma that comes with that. 1.00

02:00:14.000 It's so easy to get a chicken sandwich.

02:00:16.000 It's so easy to pull into a drive-thru and get a chicken sandwich. 0.98

02:00:19.000 If you had to see the life that chicken lived, you'd probably be pretty fucking horrified. 0.99

02:00:25.000 You know, there's a lot of the chickens we buy, I'm sure you've seen those chicken trucks that are driving down the street on the highway, and they're just stuffed with chickens, and you're like, yo, that's a fucked up life. 0.99

02:00:37.000 Did you ever see the one where the pigs... 0.99

02:00:39.000 There was a car accident, I think, and the pigs jumped out of the fucking truck and they were splattered all over the highway. 0.99

02:00:45.000 They tried to escape. 0.99

02:00:49.000 Yeah, not good.

02:00:53.000 So like I said, it's a very different thing.

02:00:55.000 Oh, sure.

02:00:56.000 No, agreed.

02:00:56.000 Understood.

02:00:57.000 So you're still hunting, obviously.

02:00:58.000 You just came back from one.

02:01:00.000 Yeah.

02:01:00.000 It's also a good reset for me because, you know, I do this weird thing where everybody listens to me talk.

02:01:07.000 It's very strange.

02:01:08.000 You know, the whole thing's very strange.

02:01:10.000 And you could get a very inflated sense of your worth and your perspective and your place on Earth.

02:01:16.000 But when you're in the mountains, that's literally impossible.

02:01:19.000 Oh, yes.

02:01:21.000 You know how tired you get when you go up the hill. 1.00

02:01:23.000 You know what a bitch you are. 1.00

02:01:25.000 In comparison to these other animals that are out there hunting these things, you're only an apex predator because you have a bow. 1.00

02:01:32.000 That's about it.

02:01:33.000 That's it.

02:01:34.000 In fact, that is it.

02:01:35.000 It's the only reason.

02:01:37.000 You're also encountering this unforgiving, uncaring, beautiful...

02:01:44.000 Landscape.

02:01:46.000 It's not just a landscape.

02:01:47.000 It's a realm.

02:01:49.000 Fair enough.

02:01:50.000 When you're there, it's like when you're in the actual wild, it's a realm.

02:01:55.000 It's a different realm than the realm we exist in.

02:01:57.000 I know you can just walk into it, but once you are in there, you are living inside this ancient system.

02:02:06.000 This ancient system of tooth and claw.

02:02:09.000 This ancient system of breeding and survival and predators.

02:02:14.000 And carnivores and these animals that are just there to pick up the mess.

02:02:20.000 The vultures that swoop in and the birds. 0.99

02:02:22.000 And it's just a fucking wild place to be, man. 0.98

02:02:25.000 And it just completely resets me. 0.99

02:02:29.000 Just that alone.

02:02:30.000 I understand and agree.

02:02:32.000 You have good reverence.

02:02:36.000 A long time ago I met a couple of Indians.

02:02:40.000 Native American that tried to follow basically their lineage and The discussion was that the same vein of the respect of That you described it.

02:02:53.000 Well that realm it is it is like a realm You know they were the real what that's why it's so disappointing when you find garbage It's the saddest thing when you're on some public trail and you see a water bottle that someone just discarded. 0.97

02:03:06.000 Like, oh no, you're bringing our bullshit into this incredible realm. 0.96

02:03:12.000 In that realm, there's no garbage. 1.00

02:03:13.000 It doesn't exist.

02:03:15.000 Everything gets eaten.

02:03:16.000 Everything that dies gets consumed by the earth.

02:03:19.000 It becomes fertilizer for the trees.

02:03:21.000 It becomes food for all these creatures that live there.

02:03:26.000 It's all a cycle.

02:03:27.000 It's an insanely perfect cycle.

02:03:29.000 And when you're there, it's just like, okay.

02:03:32.000 It just puts it all in perspective. 0.95

02:03:34.000 It's also fucking thrilling, man. 0.98

02:03:38.000 Like when you're around these animals, you see an eagle fly overhead. 0.98

02:03:41.000 It's like, wow.

02:03:43.000 Yeah.

02:03:43.000 It's thrilling.

02:03:44.000 Big bird.

02:03:45.000 In California a few years back, I watched a golden eagle grab a rabbit.

02:03:50.000 Real big bird.

02:03:51.000 Oh man, it was awesome.

02:03:53.000 He swooped in and we saw it just, we were driving in a truck and we saw it just at the very end.

02:03:59.000 There was like this rabbit that was like right underneath the branches of this tree and this eagle just swooped in and grabbed it.

02:04:06.000 And just grabbed it on the ground and started flapping its wings and going up this little hill with it. 0.99

02:04:11.000 And we were like, holy shit. 0.96

02:04:14.000 I, again, from the background where I'm from, a lot of farms. 0.99

02:04:19.000 A lot of mobsters, too.

02:04:20.000 Well, there was that.

02:04:22.000 But a lot of farms worked, you know, when I was younger, chucking hay bales.

02:04:27.000 And would, because of being around barns, see owls hound.

02:04:33.000 Oh, they're amazing.

02:04:34.000 They are.

02:04:36.000 Everyone's like, ours are so fascinating and cool and neat.

02:04:39.000 I'm like, they are a cold-blooded assassin.

02:04:43.000 Ruthless night stalkers.

02:04:44.000 Ruthless and absolutely silent.

02:04:48.000 Yeah, they're amazing.

02:04:48.000 They make no noise.

02:04:50.000 They are nature's hitman.

02:04:52.000 Have you ever seen the video?

02:04:53.000 It's a trail camera video that they set up on this nest of hawks.

02:04:58.000 So these hawks in this nest and they're sitting there at night just looking around.

02:05:01.000 This owl comes in from the background.

02:05:04.000 You see his eyes in the distance and just snatches them.

02:05:07.000 Watch this because it's amazing.

02:05:09.000 This is what an owl is.

02:05:11.000 It's not give a hoot, don't pollute.

02:05:13.000 This is the way you get to the library.

02:05:15.000 Watch this.

02:05:16.000 They are assassins.

02:05:18.000 So look in the distance and you'll see the eyes soon.

02:05:20.000 There they are.

02:05:21.000 Watch this.

02:05:22.000 Here they come.

02:05:25.000 No, no, no, no, no.

02:05:26.000 They'll just appear.

02:05:27.000 Well, I'm sure he'll make real quick work of it.

02:05:31.000 Here he comes.

02:05:32.000 Watch this.

02:05:32.000 Look at the eyes.

02:05:33.000 Oh! 0.60

02:05:34.000 Bam! 0.98

02:05:35.000 And that other one is like, what?

02:05:38.000 Where's my brother?

02:05:39.000 What just happened? 1.00

02:05:40.000 What the fuck? 1.00

02:05:41.000 Like I said, absolutely silent and unbelievably efficient. 1.00

02:05:45.000 Snatch! 0.95

02:05:46.000 Look at the eyes, man. 0.67

02:05:48.000 That's a demon. 0.90

02:05:50.000 Wham!

02:05:50.000 I mean, that is a demon.

02:05:51.000 It's just a fluffy demon. 0.57

02:05:52.000 Fluffy demon.

02:05:53.000 If that thing was doing that to people and it was covered in, like, lizard scales, we would say, oh, my God, it's a demon.

02:05:59.000 Yeah.

02:05:59.000 But because it's got feathers, for some reason, we like to think this thing is this wise, cute thing in the forest.

02:06:07.000 Now, I've watched them hunt, and I think the thing that was most fascinating to me is they're absolutely silent.

02:06:15.000 Yeah.

02:06:16.000 There's no noise.

02:06:17.000 The prey has no idea that thing's coming.

02:06:22.000 Wham!

02:06:23.000 When we were just leaving California, we found one that looked like it had been poisoned.

02:06:27.000 It's a real bummer, man.

02:06:29.000 An owl?

02:06:29.000 Yeah, because what happens is people poison rats.

02:06:33.000 If people have rats in their garbage, they'll put rat poison out. 0.98

02:06:38.000 The rats eat the poison, the owls eat the rats, and the owls die.

02:06:44.000 I'm not an expert in owls, but there was something really wrong, because it was sitting in the front door of our house.

02:06:51.000 And it was literally the day before we moved to Texas.

02:06:55.000 Just sitting there, dying.

02:06:57.000 Oh, at the old house back home.

02:06:59.000 Yeah, so it was like symbolic.

02:07:00.000 To me, it was almost like symbolic of the life I knew here dying.

02:07:05.000 That I had to leave it.

02:07:07.000 Was it a little guy, big guy?

02:07:10.000 Like, about that big?

02:07:11.000 A regular-sized owl?

02:07:12.000 It wasn't a mature owl. 1.00

02:07:14.000 It was a mature owl, but it was fucked up, man. 1.00

02:07:16.000 It was just, like, just fucked up. 1.00

02:07:18.000 Just trying to move a little and could move its wings. 0.99

02:07:21.000 It was very, very, very sad.

02:07:23.000 And I know where I lived was very hilly. 0.60

02:07:26.000 There's a lot of rats.

02:07:27.000 There's a lot of coyotes.

02:07:28.000 There's a lot of wildlife out there.

02:07:30.000 So I'm assuming that someone poisoned it.

02:07:32.000 Because it was a suburban community and people don't want rats in their garbage.

02:07:35.000 They don't understand the food chain.

02:07:37.000 But I think that was a real problem that was killing off a lot of owls.

02:07:41.000 See if that's documented.

02:07:44.000 Because I think that was a real problem in the Hollywood Hills as well.

02:07:48.000 That people were poisoning rats and the rat poison was killing owls.

02:07:54.000 It's a bummer, man.

02:07:55.000 But there's something about those I don't know how they got labeled the way they got labeled.

02:08:03.000 Like, I don't know how they got a monocle and a book.

02:08:06.000 Like, something happened.

02:08:07.000 Yeah, that would be the wise old owl.

02:08:11.000 Rat poison from marijuana farms is harming federally threatened northern spotted owls.

02:08:17.000 So, yeah, it's a thing.

02:08:18.000 I'm sure it's not just the marijuana farms.

02:08:21.000 I know people in my neighborhood are using rat poison.

02:08:24.000 Oh, sure.

02:08:25.000 Because people would ask you, how do you deal with the rats?

02:08:28.000 Well, it doesn't sound like it's a far-fetched theory, that's for sure.

02:08:31.000 No. 0.91

02:08:31.000 Do you know how smart rats are? 0.91

02:08:33.000 That if you leave some poison...

02:08:35.000 Yes, I had rats as pets.

02:08:36.000 Did you?

02:08:37.000 Yes.

02:08:37.000 Have you ever seen the Netflix show Rats?

02:08:39.000 No.

02:08:40.000 Oh my god.

02:08:41.000 There's an amazing documentary on Netflix called Rats.

02:08:45.000 And you watch it and you just go, what?

02:08:48.000 Like you don't understand the scope of the rat problem in this country.

02:08:51.000 Like you don't know that there's more, the same, I think they think it's the exact same biomass.

02:08:57.000 I know, the one in New York City.

02:08:57.000 I think in New York City, the biomass of rats surpasses the biomass of humans.

02:09:03.000 So if you weighed all the people in New York City, I think the rat biomass is actually either the same or larger.

02:09:11.000 That's how many rats there are in New York City. 0.66

02:09:13.000 Yay! 0.99

02:09:14.000 See if that's true.

02:09:16.000 I know that I've read multiple.

02:09:18.000 They don't have an accurate estimation of the rats.

02:09:20.000 It's like fish in the ocean, right?

02:09:22.000 It's a huge different number.

02:09:22.000 It's like 2 million or 50 million.

02:09:24.000 If it's 2 million, it's 25% of the human population there.

02:09:27.000 And if it's 50 million, it's what?

02:09:28.000 And it's way more.

02:09:29.000 That's what I mean.

02:09:30.000 It depends on how many there really are.

02:09:31.000 I bet it's 100 million. 1.00

02:09:32.000 Fucking rats in New York City. 1.00

02:09:34.000 It's insane how many they are. 1.00

02:09:35.000 Oh, I'm very familiar.

02:09:36.000 Yeah.

02:09:37.000 And this documentary shows how intelligent they are. 1.00

02:09:40.000 And one of the things they do, if you leave poison in, like, a rat tunnel where the rats go, the rats will get a young, stupid rat to go eat the poison. 0.99

02:09:49.000 It's like, hey, man, look at that food. 1.00

02:09:51.000 And they'll sit back and watch. 0.98

02:09:52.000 The old rats will sit back and watch. 0.94

02:09:54.000 And the young rat goes over and starts eating the poison.

02:09:56.000 And they go, yep, thought so.

02:09:58.000 And they take off.

02:09:59.000 Like they know.

02:10:00.000 There's videos of rats setting rat traps with sticks.

02:10:05.000 Have you seen this?

02:10:06.000 No.

02:10:07.000 Pull that video. 1.00

02:10:08.000 Totally believable.

02:10:09.000 They set up a rat trap and this rat walks over and picks up a stick and drops it on the rat trap so it can get the cheese. 0.99

02:10:19.000 Like, that's how fucking smart they are. 0.99

02:10:20.000 Sure. 0.99

02:10:21.000 Those little creeps.

02:10:22.000 Those little creeps.

02:10:23.000 Watch this. 0.97

02:10:24.000 So look at this rat. 0.92

02:10:25.000 Oh, yeah, that's a rat, right?

02:10:27.000 It's not a mouse.

02:10:28.000 It says mousetrap, but isn't that a rat?

02:10:31.000 Like the tail?

02:10:33.000 I don't know.

02:10:34.000 What is that?

02:10:34.000 That looks small enough to be a mouse, but it could be a rat.

02:10:37.000 Either way, whatever this fucking thing is, watch this. 1.00

02:10:39.000 Wow. 1.00

02:10:40.000 Snap. 1.00

02:10:41.000 With a fucking stick, man. 1.00

02:10:43.000 Like, it knows how to set that thing off, and it didn't even flinch. 1.00

02:10:47.000 Can you imagine you don't know that that's going to happen and you drop a stick on something and it explodes? 0.99

02:10:52.000 Watch that mouse or rat or whatever the fuck it is. 0.99

02:10:54.000 Oh, you're right. 1.00

02:10:55.000 It's a rat.

02:10:56.000 He didn't freak out because the thing went snap. 0.97

02:10:59.000 Yeah, world's smartest rat. 0.99

02:11:00.000 So it is a rat. 0.99

02:11:01.000 Watch this. 1.00

02:11:02.000 This motherfucker doesn't even flinch. 1.00

02:11:04.000 Watch. 1.00

02:11:05.000 Drops it on there.

02:11:07.000 Not a budge.

02:11:08.000 Not at all.

02:11:09.000 Just like cracking a safe.

02:11:11.000 If it's a rat, do you think maybe this kid trained it?

02:11:14.000 Yeah, probably.

02:11:15.000 It didn't just happen randomly?

02:11:17.000 Yeah, it's probably for the cliques.

02:11:19.000 I used to teach him to play basketball where I was from.

02:11:21.000 Maybe. 0.99

02:11:22.000 It might be for the cliques, or it might be a legit video of how fucking smart rats were. 1.00

02:11:27.000 Like he was trying to figure out how are these motherfuckers not dying? 0.99

02:11:30.000 Maybe he just kept a rat trap in the same spot over and over and over again, and eventually they realized, oh, every time it snaps, then a rat gets killed, but the food's still there. 0.99

02:11:38.000 Yeah, well, this account, he's got Mouse Trap Monday, so he must have...

02:11:42.000 Oh, so he's, like, running experiments.

02:11:44.000 See, that's a mouse in the picture.

02:11:46.000 That's a mouse.

02:11:47.000 If that's his buddy pal.

02:11:48.000 Was the other one a mouse or a rat, though? 0.97

02:11:51.000 Stunt mouse.

02:11:52.000 So this is the guy that did that little video?

02:11:54.000 Yeah, so I was noticing this account had, like, 2 million followers on it.

02:11:57.000 I was like, this might be...

02:11:58.000 It says mouse.

02:11:59.000 It says Mouse Trap Monday.

02:12:00.000 So they look like mice in that little thing that he's holding, right?

02:12:03.000 Right.

02:12:04.000 So he must have trained mice.

02:12:07.000 And he probably incentivizes them to snap the trap.

02:12:12.000 Yeah, the theory of what, Pavlov's dog or whatever.

02:12:16.000 Yeah.

02:12:16.000 Repeat, repeat, learn.

02:12:18.000 I wonder how he taught them how to set a trap with a fucking stick. 1.00

02:12:21.000 I wonder how many died trying to figure it out. 1.00

02:12:24.000 I know, right?

02:12:25.000 He probably sacrificed a lot of his little pets.

02:12:27.000 The dark side to Mousetrap Monday.

02:12:30.000 Yeah.

02:12:31.000 The very dark side to Mousetrap Monday.

02:12:33.000 What are you doing over there, man?

02:12:35.000 Yeah.

02:12:36.000 I know, right?

02:12:37.000 If you're running tests, you've got to have to use mice.

02:12:42.000 I bet he would have the video of him teaching it if he did do that, too, because that would get some views, you know?

02:12:49.000 Yeah.

02:12:50.000 It's a strange thing.

02:12:51.000 I mean, it's obviously that we have a distaste for rats and mice because they carry these bugs, they carry the plague, and they carry diseases, and they document that in the Netflix special, too.

02:13:03.000 The Netflix special shows, like, some of them have plague.

02:13:06.000 Hooray! 0.97

02:13:07.000 Yeah, they catch... 1.00

02:13:08.000 I mean, obviously, not a lot of people are getting bitten by rats, but if you were, you'd be fucked. 0.99

02:13:12.000 There's a lot of them that are just horrific. 0.99

02:13:15.000 Well, I have to congratulate you.

02:13:18.000 For what?

02:13:19.000 On something you may not know.

02:13:22.000 So... 1.00

02:13:23.000 Are you on the fucking... 1.00

02:13:24.000 I talk with my hands. 1.00

02:13:26.000 What do you want?

02:13:26.000 You may not know.

02:13:29.000 What is it?

02:13:30.000 So I got together with a guy named Drew Harden, who's been an editor at Hot Rod and Rod and Custom, a bunch of different books.

02:13:37.000 And he's written books, like books.

02:13:40.000 He had a book called Hot Rod Magazine, All the Covers, which covered up to, no pun, all the way up to 2009. Hot Rod started in 1947. So all the way up to 2009, every cover ever printed.

02:13:53.000 And then he just released a new book, like The History of Hot Rod Magazine, which begat every automotive magazine.

02:14:02.000 That was the first.

02:14:04.000 And Mr. Peterson, I mean, he had everything.

02:14:07.000 He had Hot Rod, he had Field and Stream, Better Homes and Gardens, like every popular science, every book you could think of was him, if I remember right.

02:14:15.000 Anyway, so I, because of your latest cover, asked Drew, hey man, how many cars...

02:14:28.000 Have ever been on the Hot Rod magazine twice.

02:14:31.000 And I have every issue of Hot Rod from 47 to now.

02:14:35.000 But it's easier to ask someone who's like written a book about the covers than go through every one of them.

02:14:41.000 And we found 14 cars that had been on the cover twice.

02:14:46.000 But I said, hey, how many cars have been on the cover?

02:14:53.000 Three times.

02:14:55.000 And there's five.

02:14:58.000 And one of them...

02:14:59.000 I mean, it made the criteria.

02:15:02.000 It was on the cover three times, but it was Hot Rod Magazine's Crusher Camaro.

02:15:07.000 So, I'm like, oh, that's insider trading.

02:15:10.000 The editors can put their own car on the cover.

02:15:12.000 But, nevertheless.

02:15:13.000 But your Nova...

02:15:16.000 Was on shared cover with my Buick funny car, Skylark.

02:15:21.000 It's clearly in the cover.

02:15:22.000 That was part of the criteria.

02:15:23.000 Is the vehicle, if there's more than one car on the cover, is it on purpose?

02:15:29.000 And yours was on purpose.

02:15:32.000 It's on the side.

02:15:33.000 It's not even back there.

02:15:34.000 It's here.

02:15:35.000 And then it was on the cover in bare metal, built, and then brand new, out right now in the newsstands for Hot Rod.

02:15:42.000 So you are one of five cars ever in the history of Hot Rod magazine to be on the cover three times. 0.80

02:15:49.000 That's pretty fucking cool. 0.79

02:15:50.000 And congratulations, sir. 0.93

02:15:52.000 Thank you very much.

02:15:52.000 What does it look like on the cover?

02:15:53.000 Show me the cover of the magazine.

02:15:55.000 Oh, I've got it in my briefcase.

02:15:56.000 I'll send one back to you.

02:15:58.000 I brought one for you.

02:15:59.000 Yeah, but you can just look it up right now.

02:15:59.000 Yes, you will.

02:16:00.000 Brand new issue of Hot Rod magazine.

02:16:04.000 I've got it on my phone, but he'll find it.

02:16:06.000 I'm sure Jamie will find it.

02:16:07.000 Well, he's an island, you know.

02:16:08.000 He's an island.

02:16:09.000 He'll find it.

02:16:09.000 He's a man.

02:16:10.000 He's a rock.

02:16:10.000 Wow.

02:16:11.000 Pretty cool.

02:16:13.000 So, but, now no pressure out to our editor on hand.

02:16:19.000 Are you trying to get on four times?

02:16:21.000 Is that what you're trying to do?

02:16:21.000 No.

02:16:22.000 No, we're all done with that card.

02:16:24.000 Okay, I was going, what's this pressure talk?

02:16:25.000 No, no.

02:16:26.000 John McGann, who's the curtain editor of Hot Rod Magazine, which we thank for the wonderful cover.

02:16:32.000 Did you find it?

02:16:33.000 Yeah, I thought you did.

02:16:36.000 I'm putting it out there, putting it out there to the car universe.

02:16:39.000 If he gets the opportunity or wishes to feature your...

02:16:44.000 There you go.

02:16:45.000 There it is.

02:16:46.000 Hot Rod Remixed.

02:16:47.000 Pretty dope.

02:16:50.000 Your Sickfish 2.0 that the Roadster Shop did a wonderful, beautiful job.

02:16:56.000 If they feature it again, and if the gods of Hot Rod deem it so...

02:17:12.000 To put it on the cover.

02:17:21.000 In history.

02:17:22.000 Someone can have that.

02:17:23.000 Someone else can have that.

02:17:24.000 I don't know.

02:17:24.000 I'm just saying.

02:17:25.000 It's okay.

02:17:26.000 What do I know?

02:17:27.000 Hey, I don't know if John's featuring it or if I put it on the cover.

02:17:30.000 I know it's a prestigious thing.

02:17:31.000 Well, it's a neat thing.

02:17:32.000 Yeah, it's cool.

02:17:33.000 The car's cool.

02:17:33.000 I just like them for what they are.

02:17:36.000 You know what?

02:17:37.000 And that's really true.

02:17:37.000 I've talked with a lot of people because they ask me because obviously you're well-known.

02:17:42.000 For this gig, and I think you're just rippingly funny.

02:17:46.000 We'll watch you tonight, by the way.

02:17:48.000 I'm going to go down and watch you.

02:17:50.000 And my car world guys are like, is he really like a gearhead?

02:17:56.000 And I'm like, you know what?

02:17:57.000 I don't think he's outwrenching on it, but I know he has a very deep, totally digs it, thinks it's wonderful, thinks it's cool.

02:18:05.000 Yeah, I don't wrench on him, but I do love him.

02:18:06.000 He's not on this to look cool owning one.

02:18:09.000 You actually really like them.

02:18:11.000 No, I love them.

02:18:12.000 Even when I'm not driving them, I go in my garage and I stare at them.

02:18:16.000 You know what?

02:18:17.000 There's a great thing that's been said, again, within my world.

02:18:22.000 You got the wrong car.

02:18:23.000 If you don't park it, walk away and turn around to look at it again.

02:18:27.000 If you do that, you got the right car for you, man.

02:18:30.000 You turn around, you look at it, and you go, that thing's badass, man!

02:18:33.000 Sometimes I don't even have to drive it.

02:18:34.000 I just sit and look at it.

02:18:36.000 It's art.

02:18:37.000 It really is.

02:18:38.000 These kind of old cars in particular, especially like that Nova that you made, is a piece of art.

02:18:44.000 To me, I get a much greater satisfaction out of that kind of art than I do a lot of art.

02:18:49.000 I love art.

02:18:49.000 Obviously, you see this studio.

02:18:51.000 It's filled with art out there.

02:18:52.000 I love art.

02:18:52.000 I love when people make things.

02:18:55.000 I love human expression.

02:18:57.000 I like custom-made pool cues.

02:19:01.000 I like when people make shoes.

02:19:02.000 I like stuff.

02:19:03.000 I like people to make knives.

02:19:05.000 Yes.

02:19:05.000 Cars.

02:19:06.000 That's what I like.

02:19:07.000 I like when I see a thing, I know that humans made it.

02:19:12.000 They worked on it.

02:19:13.000 Their mind, their creativity, their skill, their talent.

02:19:17.000 I love that.

02:19:18.000 And it's interesting because obviously you have a lot of dexterity from hunting, you know, learning and utilizing firearms and, say, bow like we were talking.

02:19:30.000 Do you have an outlet that is artistic?

02:19:33.000 Do you—woodwork?

02:19:34.000 Do you do stuff—anything like that?

02:19:36.000 Because you obviously have a high appreciation for it.

02:19:38.000 No, no, I don't really make anything.

02:19:40.000 No, I just—other than jokes and, you know, podcasts.

02:19:44.000 No, I— Did you ever want to?

02:19:47.000 No, it's like—to me, it's like music.

02:19:49.000 I don't have any music talent, but I really appreciate music. 0.86

02:19:52.000 I love that I can't play guitar, but I can go watch Gary Clark Jr. And I'm like, I just don't even know how the fuck is he doing that?

02:20:01.000 The sounds is just magic. 0.69

02:20:04.000 I love it.

02:20:04.000 I love that I have no connection to it.

02:20:07.000 I love that kind of stuff.

02:20:09.000 I love things that I don't have any skill in doing.

02:20:12.000 I love watching people execute things.

02:20:13.000 But you appreciate it.

02:20:14.000 Yeah, I appreciate it.

02:20:15.000 I appreciate human expression.

02:20:16.000 I think that we all do.

02:20:18.000 Yeah.

02:20:18.000 Oh, I definitely do.

02:20:19.000 There's human expression in a lot of forms.

02:20:22.000 And for me... 0.85

02:20:24.000 When I was a kid growing up, the fucking coolest thing in the world were hot rods.

02:20:29.000 When I was 15, 16, when I was getting my learner's permit and about to get a driver's license, all of us in the town that I grew up in, in Newton, Massachusetts, all my friends, everyone was obsessed with cars.

02:20:41.000 We were all obsessed with Camaros and Firebirds and everyone was obsessed with cars.

02:20:48.000 Mustangs and Chevelles.

02:20:49.000 And that is burned in my brain.

02:20:53.000 We used to go...

02:20:54.000 God, I wish I could remember his name because he was so cool.

02:20:57.000 There was an auto shop teacher, this old Irish guy. 0.98

02:21:00.000 He was fucking great. 0.97

02:21:01.000 He was hilarious. 0.98

02:21:01.000 And we always wanted to take auto shop class because he was just a regular guy. 0.98

02:21:05.000 You could hang out with him.

02:21:06.000 And he was only into Mustangs, like old Mustangs. 0.98

02:21:09.000 And he had these old Mustangs and we'd all work on these Mustangs and fucking bondo them and fix things. 0.98

02:21:15.000 Sure, yeah. 0.98

02:21:15.000 Learn this and that. 0.98

02:21:16.000 But it was just...

02:21:18.000 I developed this appreciation for what those things are and the magic that they instill in some people.

02:21:26.000 I mean, it's not everybody.

02:21:27.000 Some people see them, they're like, oh, it's noisy, it's loud, it stinks.

02:21:30.000 But other people see them, they go, oh.

02:21:32.000 Right.

02:21:33.000 And that was me.

02:21:34.000 And that's still me.

02:21:35.000 So to this day.

02:21:36.000 So that's why I like those cars.

02:21:38.000 Those cars to me are like how someone wants to buy a Van Gogh. 0.97

02:21:42.000 They want to put this, you know, this fucking Jackson Pollock painting in their wall and they'll sit there and I'll have a glass of wine and they'll stare at that. 0.99

02:21:49.000 And that's for them. 0.99

02:21:49.000 And I love painting too. 0.99

02:21:51.000 I love art too.

02:21:52.000 But there's the art that really fucking gets my juices going is functional art like a car. 0.72

02:22:00.000 Yeah. 0.92

02:22:00.000 Because that's what it is. 0.92

02:22:01.000 It's a piece of functional art.

02:22:02.000 It is a piece of fun.

02:22:03.000 I agree completely.

02:22:05.000 And that's what drives me is to create it and build it.

02:22:10.000 Yeah.

02:22:11.000 And then when I'm done with that, I'm like, really?

02:22:13.000 I'd love it.

02:22:14.000 And then I can't wait to do the next thing I'm going to create and do and build.

02:22:19.000 And that's the excitement for me is the design and then the make it.

02:22:23.000 Yeah.

02:22:24.000 So that's really what your good fortune is.

02:22:26.000 You found this thing that you're really good at.

02:22:28.000 Oh, unbelievably fortunate.

02:22:29.000 And that you love.

02:22:30.000 That's the good fortune.

02:22:31.000 And then also you've attracted like-minded great people to do these things with you.

02:22:35.000 Yes.

02:22:35.000 That's the really good fortune.

02:22:36.000 Yeah, unbelievably fortunate that I, or as a joke, they put up with me, you know, and help forge this stuff that I... No, they're cool people too.

02:22:46.000 It's a good vibe.

02:22:47.000 Like every time I've gone to your shop, it's a fun vibe.

02:22:49.000 Yeah, they're really, you know what they are, or the term I use is, because plenty of people say, you know, good people.

02:22:57.000 I say they're good humans.

02:22:59.000 They're just a good human being.

02:23:01.000 They're good fisher folk.

02:23:03.000 Nice fisher folk.

02:23:04.000 That's today's word.

02:23:06.000 Fisher folk.

02:23:09.000 Frightening word.

02:23:11.000 It's not really.

02:23:12.000 But yeah, I am really...

02:23:14.000 Yeah, that's the thing.

02:23:15.000 I'm really thankful for my...

02:23:17.000 I call it the shop family because I've got my guys, right?

02:23:22.000 The current crop of Troy and Kelly and then our new boy Tommy.

02:23:27.000 And then my sublet guys, as I've already said, Mick and Gabes, those guys I consider...

02:23:34.000 An arm off of my shop because they become involved with it.

02:23:38.000 Sure.

02:23:38.000 They treat my stuff like it's something, you know, they put the care into it and their talent into it.

02:23:45.000 And so it is a group of like-minded guys that, you know, and they care that their name's on it.

02:23:54.000 Yeah.

02:23:55.000 They actually want to do a good job.

02:23:57.000 That's why your story's cool is because your story, you know, building that first car in the garage like that.

02:24:02.000 Or the barn, yeah.

02:24:03.000 Yeah, but all that stuff.

02:24:04.000 That's what people need to hear.

02:24:06.000 There's a path to finding what it is you do.

02:24:10.000 And that path is going to be weird, and it's going to take a long time sometimes. 0.98

02:24:14.000 It's difficult, and it's not going to be easy, and you're going to fucking struggle. 0.88

02:24:18.000 But you can do it. 0.97

02:24:19.000 People can do it.

02:24:19.000 People have done it.

02:24:20.000 And maybe you didn't do it this time, so pick yourself up and try it again.

02:24:24.000 And keep doing it.

02:24:25.000 And keep trying to find that thing.

02:24:27.000 And if you can find that thing, you'll have a happier life.

02:24:30.000 Yeah, I am.

02:24:31.000 And thank you for recognizing that because I agree with that.

02:24:34.000 It's like, you know, you've actually got to work hard at this.

02:24:37.000 It's hard.

02:24:38.000 Whatever it is.

02:24:39.000 It doesn't have to be building a car.

02:24:41.000 How long did that Nova take to build? 0.99

02:24:42.000 That took a long fucking time. 0.99

02:24:44.000 Way too long. 0.99

02:24:44.000 Obviously, a lot of that was your eye issues. 0.99

02:24:46.000 But it took a long fucking time. 0.98

02:24:48.000 It takes a long time to make something. 0.99

02:24:50.000 Right.

02:24:50.000 Now, if I had nothing else to do and we just did that, it wouldn't be done much quicker.

02:24:53.000 Well, even Hammer, how many years did that take?

02:24:55.000 A couple of years.

02:24:56.000 Yeah, years.

02:24:57.000 Years of everyday working on that thing.

02:24:58.000 That's what people need to understand.

02:25:00.000 This is not something that gets made quick.

02:25:02.000 Oh, no.

02:25:02.000 It is a long time.

02:25:04.000 I remember going to visit you and seeing the process from the very beginning, the bare frame, and we sat in it to measure my height and make sure the windshield is the perfect size.

02:25:16.000 It's all fitted for you.

02:25:17.000 It's amazing. 0.96

02:25:18.000 It's really, really fucking cool. 0.65

02:25:20.000 It's fun. 0.94

02:25:21.000 It's great.

02:25:21.000 What you do, it's much appreciated.

02:25:24.000 And you've done a really cool thing with this, too, because this has evolved and grown and done things.

02:25:30.000 It's interesting to me because I watched...

02:25:35.000 There was the comedian thing, and then there was this thing, because this isn't funny.

02:25:42.000 Yeah.

02:25:42.000 You know what I mean?

02:25:43.000 Well, that's the thing the comedians are afraid of.

02:25:45.000 They're afraid of, like, you have to be funny always.

02:25:47.000 Oh.

02:25:48.000 Yeah, you've done a fantastic job of separating church and state, almost.

02:25:54.000 Well, the real separation is the UFC. That's my real separation, because I'm not even remotely funny on the UFC. True.

02:26:01.000 The UFC is just 100%.

02:26:03.000 See, and I don't swim in those waters, but I know of you being there, obviously.

02:26:07.000 But it's a completely different gig.

02:26:09.000 It's a martial arts expert gig.

02:26:10.000 That's what I'm doing.

02:26:11.000 I'm analyzing choices.

02:26:14.000 I'm looking at positions.

02:26:15.000 I'm looking at the trends in the fight.

02:26:18.000 Yeah, you're analyzing, like you said.

02:26:19.000 I'm trying to give justice to what these guys are doing.

02:26:22.000 Commentary.

02:26:23.000 Not to pretend to interview you, but did you...

02:26:26.000 I think it just naturally happened.

02:26:29.000 I don't think you on purpose set out to do these three things.

02:26:32.000 No.

02:26:32.000 The comedy, and then the Joe Rogan experience this show, and then the commentary for the fighting.

02:26:39.000 They just...

02:26:40.000 Those are just things I like.

02:26:41.000 Right.

02:26:42.000 And they just happened that way.

02:26:59.000 And I think all three of those things, in my life, they all feed off of each other and they all help each other.

02:27:06.000 They all work symbiotically.

02:27:09.000 Like being a person who talks to people all the time about different paths, different walks of life.

02:27:15.000 Sure, different stuff.

02:27:16.000 You know, that informs you on the way different people think and the way different people express themselves, the way different people, what they like and what they don't like.

02:27:24.000 And then, with MMA, it's like, what's possible?

02:27:27.000 Like, talking about Michael Bisping, fighting ten fights with one fucking eye and winning the world title.

02:27:33.000 As a huge underdog in a last-minute replacement fight, you see the human spirit in this very raw and just unfiltered form that I don't think very many people get to see. 0.67

02:27:46.000 It's a wild type of human being that participates in that.

02:27:51.000 And the risks they take and the rewards that they get, the highs that they get, this is an amazing speech.

02:27:57.000 Find Israel Adesanya's speech.

02:28:00.000 After he beat Alex Pajeda.

02:28:03.000 Israel Adesanya, who's one of my favorite fighters of all time, he loses his title to this guy, Alex Pajeda.

02:28:09.000 This guy, Alex Pajeda, has beat him twice in kickboxing.

02:28:12.000 One time he knocked him out.

02:28:13.000 And then they're fighting in the UFC for Israel Adesanya's world title.

02:28:18.000 Israel loses the title to him in a TKO. Then he comes back five months later and knocks him out. 0.56

02:28:24.000 And back it up.

02:28:25.000 And this is the speech that he gets.

02:28:27.000 And he said to me, can I have the microphone for a second?

02:28:29.000 I said, absolutely.

02:28:30.000 So watch this.

02:28:31.000 So...

02:28:32.000 Let me just hold the mic real quick.

02:28:33.000 Yes, sir.

02:28:35.000 Hey, shush, shush. 0.61

02:28:36.000 Listen up.

02:28:36.000 I want to say something.

02:28:38.000 People.

02:28:39.000 Earth.

02:28:40.000 I need to say something.

02:28:42.000 Listen to me.

02:28:43.000 I hope every one of you behind your screens or in this arena can feel this level of happiness just one time in your life.

02:28:52.000 I hope all of you can feel how f***ing happy I am just one time in your life.

02:28:58.000 But guess what?

02:29:00.000 You will never feel this level of happiness if you don't go for something in your own life when they knock you down, when they try and on you, when they talk about you, and they try and put their foot on your neck.

02:29:12.000 If you stay down, you will never ever get that resolve, fortify your mind, and feel this level of happiness as you rise one time in your life.

02:29:21.000 But I'm blessed to be able to feel this again and again and again and again and again.

02:29:28.000 Beautiful.

02:29:29.000 That's the end of the podcast.

02:29:30.000 That's life.

02:29:31.000 That's life right there, ladies and gentlemen.

02:29:34.000 Steve Stroop, I appreciate you, brother.

02:29:36.000 Thank you very much for being here.

02:29:37.000 Thank you very much for the opportunity.

02:29:38.000 It was a lot of fun, man.

02:29:39.000 I appreciate your friendship.

02:29:40.000 Thank you.

02:29:41.000 Same again.

02:29:42.000 We'll have to do it again.

02:29:43.000 A masterpiece.

02:29:43.000 You created a masterpiece.

02:29:45.000 You're a fucking awesome guy. 0.98

02:29:46.000 Thank you. 0.94

02:29:47.000 All right.

02:29:47.000 Bye, everybody.

02:29:48.000 See you.

The Joe Rogan Experience - September 28, 2023

Joe Rogan Experience #2041 - Steve Strope

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