The Joe Rogan Experience - November 27, 2024


Joe Rogan Experience #2235 - Mike Rowe

Topics
Morphic Resonance toxo and motorcycle safety safety protocols Baltimore Opera chorus QVC audition and TV infomercials driving newspapers newspapers in Maryland martial arts enthusiast podcast negotiations food is art mountain elk hunting discipline Sean Strickland fighting style football tradesman debt education making tools and furniture fat-shaming rucking new information nutrition Sugar Creek truck auction
Hosted by
Joe Rogan
Guests
Mike Rowe
Mentioned
Dirty Jobs Mike Gellert Dana Crazy Horse Tony Floyd Mayweather Jamie Carl Craig Peligian Anthony Bourdain Phil Hartman Donald Trump Mike Easter Doris Ken Burns Emmanuel Augustus Sean Strickland Andrew Huberman Herman Melville Barrett Jackson and 125 more
Joe Rogan Experience #2234 - Marc Andreessen Joe Rogan Experience #2237 - Mike Benz

Episode Stats


Length

3 hours and 5 minutes

Words per minute

170.16

Word count

31,610

Sentence count

3,464

Harmful content

Misogyny

36

sentences flagged

Toxicity

307

sentences flagged

Hate speech

32

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, the boys talk about a bunch of weird stuff, including Carl's new dog, the cat lady, and how the brain works. Also, a lot of other stuff that's not important. Also, we talk about the movie "Frankenstein" and the fact that Carl can't remember lines from movies, which is pretty cool. And, of course, there's a new segment called "Dr. Seuss's Last Podcast of the Week" where we discuss the weirdest things science has ever told us about the past and present, and we try to make sense of it. It's a good one, and it's a fun one, so you don't want to miss it! Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. Art: Mackenzie Moore. Music: Hayden Coplen. Editor: Patrick Muldowney. Cover art by Ian Dorsch. We'd like to learn a little more about you, the listeners. Please take a few minutes to fill out this brief survey. We'll see if we can figure out what questions you have about the show and we'll get back to you in the next episode with more questions and suggestions. Thanks to everyone who submitted them. If you have a question or would like us to answer them, we'll answer them on the next week's mailbag. Thank you, Joe Rocha, Mike Eichler, and the rest of the boys at the podcasters at The Joe Rogan Experience Train. Thank you so much appreciated your questions and support the Joe Rogans Experience Podcast. by the guys at the Joe Rgan Experience Podcast by the JoeRgan Podcast, and all of your support is appreciated. Joe Rogan Experience Train by the Rochao Podcast, by the crew at The Rochans and the R&D Project by the Crew at Joe Ragan Experience Podcasts at and The R&B Project at . Thanks also to the Rookwoodwood. The Rookies at R&Reedy Crew at the Roods Project at G&S at The G&R Project. and the folks at , the Ryders at Tuxedo Project, and , and at the VFW at the New York Public House, and at The New York Museum of American History.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Joe Rogan Experience" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day we got stars we got coffee we got mike roe we got carl's over there snoring i So what were you doing on QVC? What are you selling?
00:00:24.000 That was the greatest line from Blazing Saddles, by the way.
00:00:26.000 When Gene Hackman...
00:00:27.000 Which line?
00:00:29.000 He says, cigars.
00:00:31.000 Remember?
00:00:32.000 Peter Boyle has come.
00:00:33.000 He had just left.
00:00:34.000 And Gene Hackman is there after getting the soup spilled in his lap.
00:00:39.000 And he's basically saying, I had cigars.
00:00:42.000 The creature stomps off in Frankenstein.
00:00:45.000 I don't remember that.
00:00:48.000 It's been too long since I've seen that movie.
00:00:53.000 Best... 0.99
00:00:53.000 He's a little bit of a fucking distraction. 0.99
00:00:55.000 Can he calm down? 0.99
00:00:57.000 I don't hear him on the audio.
00:00:58.000 Trank him.
00:00:59.000 I don't hear him at all.
00:01:00.000 Oh, we hear him.
00:01:00.000 We don't have our headphones on.
00:01:02.000 Maybe we should put our headphones on.
00:01:03.000 I thought you were talking about me.
00:01:04.000 No, Carl.
00:01:05.000 For an awful moment.
00:01:06.000 We wore him out.
00:01:08.000 Jamie was throwing the toy for Carl.
00:01:11.000 And now he's...
00:01:12.000 He's such a great dog.
00:01:14.000 He's got...
00:01:14.000 I mean...
00:01:15.000 He's adorable.
00:01:16.000 I mean, it's such a personality thing at that...
00:01:19.000 For me, with dogs and pets in general, you know?
00:01:22.000 Like, you know right away if this thing has a personality.
00:01:25.000 Oh, he's got a lot of...
00:01:26.000 Carl's got a lot of personality.
00:01:27.000 Yeah.
00:01:28.000 There's no doubt about that.
00:01:30.000 Yeah, and...
00:01:30.000 He's like a little kid.
00:01:31.000 And a person name, which I think is super interesting.
00:01:34.000 Mine's Freddy.
00:01:35.000 He's a terrier.
00:01:36.000 I like a dog with a person name.
00:01:37.000 Yeah, me too.
00:01:38.000 Like Fido? 1.00
00:01:39.000 What the fuck is a Fido? 0.99
00:01:40.000 No one knows. 0.99
00:01:41.000 Well, actually, oh no, that's Philo.
00:01:44.000 I was thinking of Clint Eastwood in Every Which Way But Loose.
00:01:47.000 He was Philo Beto.
00:01:48.000 Could also be Philo Farnsworth, who created the television.
00:01:52.000 For real?
00:01:53.000 Yeah.
00:01:54.000 Did only one guy do it?
00:01:55.000 Or was it one of those light bulb type deals where a bunch of people were scrambling for it?
00:01:59.000 What do they call that?
00:02:01.000 Like a hive mentality. 0.97
00:02:03.000 Yeah, right, right.
00:02:05.000 Like that happened with the integrated circuit, right?
00:02:08.000 When Kilby at Radio Shack was doing the same basic work, I think, that Robert Noyce was doing for Intel.
00:02:18.000 And one was here in Texas and the other was in California.
00:02:23.000 And they had never met and they had never compared notes, but the work on the circuitry was so close that they wound up sharing the Nobel Prize.
00:02:31.000 Oh, that's interesting.
00:02:33.000 Super strange.
00:02:35.000 That's a common thing with human beings.
00:02:39.000 It's this concept of morphic resonance.
00:02:42.000 Have you ever heard of that concept?
00:02:45.000 Rupert Sheldrake, he wrote about this.
00:02:49.000 It's based on some actual facts, too, about...
00:02:53.000 There's some real statistics about rats.
00:02:56.000 Like if you teach a rat how to run a maze on the East Coast, a rat on the West Coast will run it faster.
00:03:04.000 It's like they learn the pattern somehow or another.
00:03:07.000 It's very bizarre.
00:03:09.000 There's like information that's apparently shared across species.
00:03:13.000 And the idea is that somehow or another they're quantumly entangled.
00:03:18.000 Like that the entire group of these specific types of animals are quantumly entangled or entangled in some way that we don't understand.
00:03:27.000 So it's a kind of, I mean, I would think biological evolution might flirt with that.
00:03:32.000 I read a paper.
00:03:34.000 A guy wrote, name was Patrick House, this was his PhD, and he was talking about Toxoplasma gandii, and histoplasmosis, and it was a crazy paper.
00:03:45.000 His real premise was trying to understand the phenomenon of the cat lady, and why every culture, like this isn't unique to America, in every culture you can find a woman Who, you know, two cats, three cats maybe, but like went all the way to 38, right?
00:04:05.000 And just was like, this is perfectly normal.
00:04:07.000 So his paper was what happens to a person's brain to tell it it's normal to have 38 cats.
00:04:14.000 And then it gets super complicated because he identifies a gandhii that lives in the cat's gut and basically breeds there.
00:04:25.000 And what he learned was when the cats were crapping, the gandhii would come out.
00:04:33.000 And then the rats and the mice that ate the cat crap, something was happening to their brains on a neurological level.
00:04:43.000 This gandhii basically disabled the part of the brain that would tell an otherwise sentient rat to run from the cat. 0.99
00:04:52.000 But suddenly they weren't running. 0.99
00:04:54.000 They became prey and they became docile and the cats started obliterating the mice and rat population because this thing that was breeding in its ass... 0.99
00:05:05.000 Was effectively making its prey easier to catch. 0.84
00:05:10.000 So Dr. House thought, well, you know, we've all heard about why pregnant women should stay away from cats, because that can have an effect.
00:05:19.000 And a rat's brain and a human brain have a surprising number of parallels. 0.94
00:05:24.000 So he basically postulated that, you know, Doris the cat lady was living a fairly normal life until she God, just a little bit of cat shit on her fingers and ate it. 0.84
00:05:35.000 And the Gandhi eye disabled the part of her brain that said, hey, maybe two cats is enough. 0.99
00:05:42.000 It's worse than that.
00:05:43.000 It actually makes the rats sexually attracted to the smell of cat urine.
00:05:47.000 Exactly.
00:05:48.000 Right.
00:05:48.000 Yeah.
00:05:49.000 It actually makes them aroused.
00:05:50.000 Yeah.
00:05:51.000 Yeah.
00:05:51.000 Now, I don't know if Doris went that far with her feelings.
00:05:54.000 Have you ever seen them run up to cats?
00:05:56.000 Yeah.
00:05:56.000 The toxo-infected rats?
00:05:58.000 It's bizarre.
00:05:59.000 Yep.
00:05:59.000 They run right up to them.
00:06:00.000 And the cat's like, what the fuck is going on? 0.98
00:06:02.000 The cats bounce away from the rats. 0.99
00:06:03.000 It's like watching the Beatles at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
00:06:07.000 People are like, what's wrong with you people?
00:06:10.000 Why?
00:06:10.000 What's happening?
00:06:12.000 Mass psychosis.
00:06:13.000 Yeah, that's super interesting.
00:06:14.000 Do you know there's also a disproportionate number of motorcycle victims that test positive for toxo?
00:06:18.000 Did not.
00:06:19.000 Yeah, it makes people more impulsive.
00:06:21.000 It makes them more reckless and impulsive.
00:06:24.000 And countries that have high rates of toxoplasma have more successful soccer teams.
00:06:31.000 I read, and I think this- I got more of these, too.
00:06:34.000 I'm Jack.
00:06:35.000 I don't want to compete.
00:06:36.000 I'm going to lose.
00:06:37.000 But you'll love this.
00:06:38.000 You probably already know it.
00:06:41.000 Homeostatic risk and risk equilibrium and the unintended consequences, especially with motorcycle riders that emanate from safety protocols gone too far.
00:06:51.000 Really?
00:06:51.000 Yeah.
00:06:52.000 So like if you study the way you drive your motorcycle, like you measure every decision that you make in terms of cornering and speed and braking and all that stuff...
00:07:06.000 And then you measure the same things with all the safety gear employed, including a helmet, especially a helmet.
00:07:14.000 You drive faster.
00:07:16.000 You corner tighter.
00:07:17.000 You take more chances because the risk equilibrium that we all have in our brain is different from one person to the next.
00:07:27.000 But what's the same is our desire to compensate for the environment around us.
00:07:33.000 So compensatory risk and the subconscious decisions that we might make behind the wheel when we're buckled up versus not buckled up when we have ABS breaks as opposed to not having them.
00:07:48.000 They did a big survey in Berlin years ago where they took half of the taxis and they put in state-of-the-art braking systems and half of them and left the others the same.
00:07:58.000 And then they hooked up the cars to monitor every driver decision and in virtually every case.
00:08:06.000 The drivers with the better safety gear took more chances because their brain is subconsciously compensating.
00:08:13.000 Ah.
00:08:14.000 Right?
00:08:15.000 Makes sense.
00:08:17.000 Yeah, I mean, it's controversial, but I understand it.
00:08:22.000 It's why the most dangerous intersections have signs that tell you when to walk and when not to walk.
00:08:29.000 Because the little man is walking, it says go, so you step off and there's the big blue bus and then you're spattered.
00:08:38.000 Yeah.
00:08:38.000 So yeah, the unintended consequences of following traditional safety protocols, you know, has always really been interesting.
00:08:45.000 This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.
00:08:48.000 It takes a lot of hard work to put this show together, which is why I'm grateful for the small circle of people that work behind the scenes.
00:08:54.000 A team effort is what makes this show successful, just like it takes a solid team to make any business successful.
00:09:01.000 If you're hiring...
00:09:03.000 And you want to know, how do you find the best person for your team?
00:09:06.000 I think the answer is ZipRecruiter.
00:09:09.000 And right now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan.
00:09:14.000 ZipRecruiter is the hiring site that employers prefer the most based on G2. You'll immediately get your job posting in front of qualified candidates.
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00:09:27.000 See why so many business owners and hiring managers are thankful for ZipRecruiter.
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00:09:45.000 ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan.
00:09:47.000 Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash R-O-G-A-N. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. 1.00
00:09:54.000 Well, it completely makes sense if you have a vehicle that's more able and capable, you're going to probably drive it faster.
00:10:02.000 And you're probably going to take more risks.
00:10:04.000 Because it can do stuff.
00:10:05.000 I used to have a Lexus SUV. This big boat.
00:10:10.000 And you know what I loved about it?
00:10:11.000 I drove slow in it.
00:10:13.000 Because it doesn't stop that good.
00:10:15.000 It's not that fast.
00:10:17.000 But it's just big and comfortable.
00:10:19.000 And it just chilled me out.
00:10:21.000 And then I had an M3. I had two cars at the time.
00:10:23.000 And my M3 was this zippy little thing.
00:10:25.000 And I was flying around that thing. 0.99
00:10:26.000 I was like, why do I drive different in this fucking car than I do in the big car? 0.98
00:10:29.000 The big car would just chill me out. 0.98
00:10:31.000 I just get in that big old boat and I just...
00:10:34.000 Sure.
00:10:35.000 The world was quiet out there.
00:10:37.000 It was nice and relaxed.
00:10:39.000 I think it's a slightly different analysis.
00:10:43.000 If you're going to adjust your behavior consciously to adapt to the externality, you're going to drive faster if you have a fast car because you know...
00:10:58.000 That's why the guy built the thing.
00:11:00.000 Right.
00:11:00.000 And it would almost be rude, right?
00:11:02.000 It would be rude to drive a hot rod like a boat.
00:11:06.000 Right.
00:11:06.000 You know, it's the unconscious things that you do when you assume or mitigate risk as a result of employing an externality that I think is just super interesting.
00:11:21.000 It is interesting.
00:11:22.000 Well, because if it's right, Joe, if it's right, what it does is it turns all the safety-first protocols, not necessarily on their head, but this happened in Dirty Jobs.
00:11:35.000 I did a whole special called Safety Third because safety isn't really first, not really, ever.
00:11:42.000 Because if it was, you would never get a lot of things done.
00:11:45.000 Well, you'd never get out of the studio.
00:11:47.000 You would definitely never do construction.
00:11:48.000 Heck no.
00:11:49.000 No, you wouldn't do anything.
00:11:50.000 Yeah.
00:11:50.000 You wouldn't do anything.
00:11:53.000 How are you going to move steel girders if safety's first? 0.99
00:11:56.000 You'd be like, first thing we should do is not move this fucking girder. 1.00
00:11:59.000 That's right. 0.99
00:11:59.000 This thing's too big. 0.99
00:12:00.000 That's right.
00:12:01.000 Look, I mean, for me, it took two years to kind of puzzle it through because on dirty jobs for the first two years, nobody got hurt.
00:12:11.000 And we sat through probably 50 mandatory safety briefings, whether it's mines or confined spaces or high spaces or lockout, tagout.
00:12:26.000 All those protocols and procedures were super intense.
00:12:30.000 And we were really, really focused on coming home alive and in one piece, so we really paid attention.
00:12:38.000 But after two years of these mandatory compulsory meetings and all of these procedures, We all started getting hurt.
00:12:47.000 I mean, nothing serious, but broken fingers and a cracked rib and singed off my eyebrows and my eyelashes and mild concussions and things like that.
00:12:58.000 I was like, what the hell's happening?
00:12:59.000 What was happening is the safety experts in all of these mandatory meetings started to sound like Remember Charlie Brown's teacher?
00:13:09.000 Yeah.
00:13:10.000 Mrs. Othmar.
00:13:12.000 We were just falling asleep.
00:13:13.000 Right. 0.72
00:13:14.000 So it was like, holy crap, we're in compliance, but we are not out of danger. 0.85
00:13:20.000 Got it.
00:13:20.000 And so that begs the question, what...
00:13:24.000 What happens to a normal person who actually comes to believe, either on the job site or just in life, that somebody else cares more about their well-being than they do?
00:13:38.000 And it's like, that's when complacency rears its ugly head.
00:13:43.000 So on Dirty Jobs, it was just shorthand among the crew, but it was always safety third, which meant heads up, man.
00:13:52.000 Keep your head on a swivel.
00:13:53.000 You can be as compliant as you want, but in the end, if you don't want to fall off the bridge, it's kind of on you.
00:14:01.000 Is there also a factor when you have a person who's the safety officer who's kind of annoying and they're like really like super interested and maybe you kind of like pawn off the safety aspect to them and then you don't think about it as much because someone's supposedly looking out for you?
00:14:19.000 How much do you think about proper driving technique when you're sitting in the back on your laptop or even up front next to it?
00:14:27.000 Depends on who's driving.
00:14:28.000 For sure.
00:14:29.000 If I was driving and my wife was in the back seat, she'd be paying attention a lot. 1.00
00:14:33.000 Shout out to your guy, what was his name, Ashton, who picked me up this morning.
00:14:37.000 Excellent driver, man.
00:14:38.000 Oh, I'm glad you're happy with it.
00:14:40.000 Just so you know.
00:14:41.000 I mean, I know he drives a lot of your guests, and this is a feedback I want to pass along.
00:14:45.000 He was, you know, very frosty.
00:14:47.000 But yeah, look, I think any time that we abdicate...
00:14:52.000 Responsibility.
00:14:54.000 Yeah.
00:14:55.000 There's going to be...
00:14:55.000 It's like whack-a-mole.
00:14:56.000 It's going to pop up someplace else, and it's probably not going to be in your interest.
00:15:01.000 Well, your show, like, sort of illuminated a lot of really crazy jobs that people probably weren't aware of. 0.96
00:15:10.000 That you go, oh yeah, if this guy didn't do this, we'd kind of be fucked. 0.99
00:15:13.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:15:14.000 And you don't even think about it.
00:15:15.000 Yeah.
00:15:16.000 It's just a thing that's going on behind the scenes or, you know, out of your radar.
00:15:20.000 Yeah.
00:15:21.000 That was it, man.
00:15:22.000 It was...
00:15:22.000 How did you get started in that?
00:15:24.000 Like, who came up with the concept?
00:15:27.000 Well, I mean, technically, I guess I did.
00:15:30.000 But, I mean, honestly, there are no new ideas.
00:15:34.000 I stole this from George Plimpton, Studs Terkel a little bit, Charles Kuralt, some, Paul Harvey a little bit.
00:15:45.000 You know, that kind of storytelling was always kind of interesting to me.
00:15:49.000 And...
00:15:50.000 I freelanced for years, probably 20 years in the entertainment business working Pretty much whenever I wanted on shows that I didn't care about at all.
00:16:03.000 And I was taking my retirement in early installments and really happy with the model, you know?
00:16:11.000 I'd been fired a few times from QVC and hired back and it was 1993 when I finally left and I had a decent toolbox.
00:16:20.000 I was great in auditions so I could get cast.
00:16:24.000 But I didn't really much care about the nature of the work.
00:16:28.000 And I had a pretty good balanced life, really.
00:16:32.000 And then I was in San Francisco working for CBS on a show called Evening Magazine.
00:16:39.000 You know the show.
00:16:40.000 It comes on after the local news.
00:16:43.000 And I was a host, and I would go every day.
00:16:47.000 This is a cushy gig.
00:16:48.000 Nobody watched the show, but it was fun to work on.
00:16:51.000 You'd go to museums, you'd go to wineries, and then you'd throw to these wrapped packages.
00:16:57.000 If there's a three-legged dog in Marin overcoming a heart-tugging case of canine kidney failure, that was like an Evening Magazine story.
00:17:09.000 We did these all the time.
00:17:13.000 And my mom called me, and I was in my cubicle at CBS, and she says, Michael, your grandfather will be 90 years old tomorrow.
00:17:23.000 And my granddad, by the way, 7th grade education, electrical contractor by trade, but also a plumber and a steam fitter, pipe fitter.
00:17:32.000 He could fabricate, fix anything.
00:17:34.000 He had that chip.
00:17:37.000 I grew up next to him on this little farmstead north of Baltimore.
00:17:40.000 I knew I was going to follow in his footsteps.
00:17:43.000 I knew it.
00:17:44.000 But the handy gene is recessive, right?
00:17:47.000 I didn't get that.
00:17:48.000 And it was my pop who got me.
00:17:50.000 He basically said, dude, just get a different...
00:17:52.000 You can be a tradesman.
00:17:53.000 I know you're enamored of being a tradesman.
00:17:57.000 Just get a different toolbox.
00:17:59.000 So that's what got me into entertainment.
00:18:01.000 And 20 years later, I had completely run amok.
00:18:04.000 I had sung in the opera.
00:18:06.000 I had sold stuff on QVC. You sung in the opera?
00:18:08.000 Eight years, man.
00:18:09.000 Were you classically trained?
00:18:11.000 Not really.
00:18:12.000 How did you get involved in the opera scene?
00:18:15.000 Well, it's a weird...
00:18:16.000 Sidebar, you go to the Rosedale Public Library and you ask the librarian for the shortest aria.
00:18:25.000 They have, like, ever written, which happened to be by Giacomo Puccini.
00:18:30.000 Is an aria a song?
00:18:32.000 An aria is a song.
00:18:34.000 In an opera, most of the big moments are arias, right?
00:18:41.000 And most of the arias are, you know, I mean, they're sung by the main characters, and there are lots of ones that you would recognize.
00:18:49.000 In German, they're in Italian for the most part.
00:18:53.000 This one was Italian.
00:18:54.000 It was from La Boheme, which is just another version of Rent, essentially, but it was called the Cote Aria, and it was only two minutes long, and it was in Italian, so I walked around Baltimore with, you remember, the Sony Walkman?
00:19:12.000 Yeah, I remember.
00:19:12.000 I had one of those.
00:19:13.000 I had one too, and I listened to a guy named Samuel Ramey singing the Coat Aria, about two minutes and 40 seconds.
00:19:21.000 And the words didn't mean anything to me, but the sounds did, and I can carry a tune, so I just memorized the sounds.
00:19:29.000 And then I crashed an audition for the Baltimore Opera in 1983. So no classic training at all, just a Walkman and a cassette?
00:19:40.000 No.
00:19:41.000 Yeah, I'd had a music teacher prior to that, like a Mr. Holland type of guy, who actually changed my life.
00:19:48.000 He kind of fixed a stammer that I had, and then he forced me to audition for plays that I didn't really want to be in.
00:19:57.000 And then, the craziest thing ever, this guy, his name was Fred King.
00:20:02.000 He was known as King of the Barbershoppers.
00:20:05.000 He was like a legend in this weird world of acapella singing.
00:20:11.000 And he put me in a barbershop quartet when I was in high school and opened up like this very weird world of music written long before I was born that I found super interesting.
00:20:24.000 And so my best friends and I We just started learning these ancient songs and singing for people, usually unsolicited, from nursing. 0.96
00:20:36.000 What kind of fucking dudes are you hanging out with that were interested in doing this with you? 0.94
00:20:39.000 Well, one of them is basically my producer, a guy called Chuck Klausmeier, who I went to high school with, produces my podcast. 0.99
00:20:47.000 And we'll write unauthorized jingles for our sponsors and sing them in four-part harmony.
00:20:53.000 I'm not saying it's cool.
00:20:55.000 I'm just saying it's a thing that I did when I was young and I never really shook it.
00:21:00.000 Because way leads on to way.
00:21:02.000 Right.
00:21:02.000 So you knew how to sing.
00:21:04.000 I could carry it too.
00:21:05.000 So you had some experience singing, kind of.
00:21:08.000 Yeah.
00:21:08.000 And then you decided you were going to learn how to sing opera.
00:21:12.000 Well, what really happened was I decided that my toolbox wasn't going to let me work in the construction trades or do anything my pop could do.
00:21:22.000 And he really was a magician, and I really took his advice seriously.
00:21:26.000 So I wanted to be in entertainment.
00:21:28.000 I didn't want to be in the opera.
00:21:30.000 I wanted to be on TV. But I needed an agent.
00:21:33.000 And I couldn't get an agent unless I had my Screen Actors Guild card.
00:21:36.000 And I couldn't get my SAG card unless I had an agent.
00:21:39.000 So I couldn't audition for things that I wanted to do unless I found a way around this weird tautology.
00:21:46.000 And a friend of mine, a guy called Mike Gellert, told me, he said, hey, so there's the Screen Actors Guild.
00:21:53.000 At the time, there was AFTRA, and I'm sure you were part of both.
00:21:58.000 The thing you didn't know about was AGMA. The American Guild of Musical Artists is a sister union to the Screen Actors Guild and to AFTRA, who have since combined.
00:22:12.000 And the rule back then was, if you could get into any of them, you could simply pay your dues to the other, and then you were in.
00:22:22.000 So for me...
00:22:24.000 It was easier to kind of fake my way into the opera than it was onto a sitcom.
00:22:30.000 So my plan...
00:22:32.000 This is all diabolical.
00:22:35.000 It's a great plan.
00:22:37.000 That kind of strategic thinking is very valuable.
00:22:40.000 You should be in the Navy or something.
00:22:41.000 Well, look, I was just trying to get a job.
00:22:45.000 I know, but it's clever.
00:22:47.000 Well, there's always a stage door, right?
00:22:49.000 I mean, there's always a back way in.
00:22:52.000 Right.
00:22:53.000 And so I thought, you know, I memorized the aria.
00:22:56.000 I auditioned.
00:22:58.000 I was stopped halfway through it by the musical director, a guy named Bill Yannutzi, who's like, Mr. Rowe, you have no idea what you're saying at all, do you?
00:23:09.000 Because you're saying the words wrong.
00:23:10.000 You're just repeating the sounds.
00:23:11.000 I was singing it loud, and I was singing it like I understood what I was saying.
00:23:16.000 Right.
00:23:17.000 All I really understood was the repertory company was desperate for young men with low voices.
00:23:24.000 Ah.
00:23:24.000 I knew that.
00:23:25.000 And so I kind of looked the part.
00:23:27.000 Ah.
00:23:28.000 So, whatever.
00:23:29.000 I got into it, and my plan was to do one production or one season.
00:23:36.000 Like, they would do three shows in a season.
00:23:37.000 And I had some friends who were in the chorus, and I was just a chorus member.
00:23:42.000 I'm just holding a spear and just singing along with the rest of the chorus.
00:23:46.000 And my plan was to do one or two of those, get my card, and then buy my SAG card, and then go about the business of being a famous TV star, right?
00:23:54.000 Simple.
00:23:55.000 Well, the music, man.
00:23:58.000 The music was so much better than I imagined it might be.
00:24:03.000 And, like, when you get up in the catwalks of, like, a real theater, you know, I mean, you've done shows in these theaters.
00:24:10.000 There's nothing magically different about them.
00:24:12.000 But when there's a full orchestra...
00:24:15.000 Playing the hell out of Verdi or Rachmaninoff.
00:24:19.000 And you're looking down on this scene and you're looking out at the audience and the sound is just amazing.
00:24:25.000 And the girls.
00:24:27.000 So like there were 80 people, I guess, in the rep company, more or less.
00:24:35.000 45 women, 35 guys.
00:24:38.000 Thirty of the guys had zero interest in 100% of the women.
00:24:43.000 And of the remaining five straight dudes, three were married.
00:24:48.000 And the only other single guy had a mole the size of your thumb on his eyelid with thick black hair growing out of it.
00:24:58.000 I was really the only straight dude.
00:25:01.000 You were the belle of the ball.
00:25:02.000 And I'm dressed like a Viking.
00:25:05.000 Or a pirate.
00:25:09.000 And I'm going on stage, and I'm a fake.
00:25:12.000 I mean, I admit it.
00:25:14.000 I barely learned the language enough to kind of keep up.
00:25:18.000 And people in the chorus took pity on me, you know.
00:25:22.000 And it was a world, really.
00:25:24.000 It was a world that I didn't know existed.
00:25:27.000 And once I saw it, I didn't fall in love with it, but I fell in love with the idea that there were worlds out there.
00:25:37.000 That I didn't know anything about and that were maybe more interesting than I thought.
00:25:42.000 And so I stayed for eight years.
00:25:45.000 Wow.
00:25:46.000 Yeah.
00:25:46.000 I mean, I never got out of the chorus.
00:25:48.000 I never had like a, you know, a featured role.
00:25:50.000 I had a couple lines here and there.
00:25:53.000 But the Baltimore Opera was a big deal, looking back at it.
00:25:57.000 And that was, for me, 83 to 90. Wow.
00:26:04.000 Yeah.
00:26:05.000 And then, right since we're talking...
00:26:08.000 It was a Sunday, and during the intermission of something, I think it was during this Nibelungin, this giant Wagner epic, torturous thing.
00:26:20.000 And the chorus didn't have to be—this is the one—you saw it on Bugs Bunny.
00:26:26.000 Killed a wabbit, killed a wabbit.
00:26:28.000 It's that one, right? 0.95
00:26:29.000 Right.
00:26:30.000 So there's an intermission, and I'm not needed on stage for like 40 minutes after the intermission.
00:26:39.000 So I go across the street to the Mount Royal Tavern to drink a beer and watch the football game, dressed as a Viking, which I recommend, by the way.
00:26:49.000 When you walk in a bar with the horns and the spear...
00:26:53.000 The bartender knew me, everybody laughed, and I sat down, but the game wasn't on.
00:26:57.000 The bartender was watching a fat guy in a shiny suit selling pots and pans.
00:27:03.000 And it was the early days of the QVC cable shopping channel.
00:27:08.000 I'm like, Rick, why are we watching this?
00:27:11.000 And he says, because I'm auditioning for that guy's job tomorrow morning.
00:27:14.000 The QVC was doing a national talent search.
00:27:18.000 Anyway...
00:27:19.000 We had a conversation about the end of Western civilization and what it meant for polite society to have a 24-hour infomercial that just never went away and whether or not there was any honor at all in auditioning for such a thing.
00:27:34.000 And at that point, I thought it'd be great to have some...
00:27:38.000 Money, you know, I hadn't had any before.
00:27:41.000 And I'm sitting there drinking this beer dressed as a Viking thinking, I could probably do that job if I had to. 0.82
00:27:49.000 So I went with him the next day and auditioned and got hired.
00:27:54.000 Wow.
00:27:55.000 Was he mad?
00:27:56.000 The bartender?
00:27:57.000 Yeah.
00:27:57.000 That you got the gig?
00:27:58.000 You know.
00:27:59.000 Because you didn't even know about it.
00:28:01.000 Well...
00:28:01.000 It's a good question.
00:28:03.000 I don't know what became of him.
00:28:05.000 We had a friendly... 0.99
00:28:06.000 It's probably got a fucking voodoo doll of Mike Rowe. 0.99
00:28:08.000 Got a bunch of pins in it. 1.00
00:28:09.000 We had a wager.
00:28:11.000 I said, look, I don't know if I'll get the job, but I bet I'll get a call back.
00:28:15.000 He was like, you're not going to get a call back for this thing.
00:28:17.000 We were just actors at the time.
00:28:19.000 We're like people pretending to be actors.
00:28:21.000 He sounds like a hater.
00:28:23.000 You know, he was nice enough.
00:28:24.000 He sang in the opera with me, too.
00:28:25.000 Actually, he also attended bar.
00:28:27.000 He just wasn't in that one.
00:28:30.000 But, yeah, it was a very strange thing, man.
00:28:35.000 That was my first job in TV. Look, I've done some minor local commercial stuff, but I talked about a pencil for eight minutes.
00:28:47.000 That was the audition.
00:28:48.000 It was so strange in those days.
00:28:51.000 They didn't have a...
00:28:53.000 Like, there's no playbook to see who can sell stuff on TV, you know?
00:28:58.000 Do you have a script, or are you kind of like, you have this fax about the pencil?
00:29:02.000 No, nothing.
00:29:04.000 Here's what happens.
00:29:05.000 Again, it's probably changed today.
00:29:08.000 I think QVC did $8 billion last year.
00:29:10.000 Back in 1989, 1990, it was nothing like that.
00:29:14.000 And if they hired...
00:29:16.000 A salesman, that didn't mean you had anybody who understood really how to behave on TV. And if you hired a TV person, that didn't really mean you...
00:29:27.000 Look at you.
00:29:27.000 Oh, Jesus.
00:29:28.000 That's the cat sack right there, dude.
00:29:31.000 That's a sack for your cat. 0.97
00:29:32.000 What are you selling?
00:29:33.000 Let me hear this.
00:29:34.000 A sack for your cat? 1.00
00:29:35.000 What the fuck? 1.00
00:29:37.000 It's just crazy. 1.00
00:29:38.000 They just love it.
00:29:39.000 That's why this is a cat toy.
00:29:42.000 So the cats play with it?
00:29:43.000 Yeah, they crawl inside it.
00:29:45.000 And they just go nutty because it makes a lot of noise?
00:29:47.000 That's 25 bucks.
00:29:49.000 That's 25 bucks? 0.98
00:29:52.000 So this is like sort of just personality, fucking around, having fun with the toy, and selling it. 0.98
00:30:06.000 Well, that's what I did. 0.99
00:30:07.000 Look, remember...
00:30:09.000 That's what you did.
00:30:09.000 Was that novel that you were doing it that way?
00:30:12.000 Yeah.
00:30:13.000 In relative terms, that was actually one of the true great life lessons.
00:30:20.000 You don't have to be...
00:30:24.000 Outrageous to stand out.
00:30:26.000 You just have to be relatively outrageous.
00:30:29.000 So QVC was a steady diet of men and women doing the same exact thing all the time.
00:30:37.000 And then at midnight or 3 a.m., I showed up and put a cat bag over my head or busted open a lava lamp.
00:30:44.000 So you were like a morning DJ? Kind of, except...
00:30:48.000 Right, because they're kind of fun, and that was different than the regular radio guy.
00:30:53.000 You know, I would...
00:30:54.000 I mean, for me, I thought of it more like...
00:31:00.000 Like my favorite comedians, and by the way, I saw one last night.
00:31:04.000 Thank you.
00:31:05.000 Ron White was over at the mothership.
00:31:07.000 He's there tonight, too.
00:31:08.000 I stopped by last night.
00:31:09.000 Are you around tonight?
00:31:10.000 No, I gotta get back tonight.
00:31:12.000 Something about Thanksgiving.
00:31:13.000 But I watched his set last night.
00:31:14.000 He's awesome.
00:31:15.000 He was great.
00:31:17.000 He's never been funnier.
00:31:19.000 He's in top form right now.
00:31:20.000 And he's gone.
00:31:21.000 He's gone full Messiah, dude.
00:31:23.000 I mean, I didn't recognize him.
00:31:24.000 Oh, with the look?
00:31:25.000 Yeah.
00:31:25.000 He said hello, and I'm like, hey, how are you?
00:31:27.000 I mean...
00:31:28.000 You're back.
00:31:29.000 Jesus, good to see you.
00:31:31.000 He was great.
00:31:32.000 And as I watched him do his thing, it reminded me, like, my favorite comedians, I never get the sense that they're trying to make me laugh.
00:31:43.000 I get the sense that they're trying to amuse themselves.
00:31:47.000 Right.
00:31:48.000 And that's what makes it comfortable for me to be in the audience, to see somebody who, you know, hey, if I laugh, that's just a happy symptom of whatever it is you're going to do anyway.
00:31:59.000 It makes me comfortable.
00:32:00.000 And that's why he's fun to watch.
00:32:03.000 That's why this podcast is fun to listen to.
00:32:05.000 Same reason.
00:32:06.000 I couldn't have articulated that 35 years ago, sitting there selling a cat sack.
00:32:13.000 But you intuitively knew something.
00:32:15.000 I knew in the middle of the—like, everything that it turned out that I needed to know about this crazy business, I learned in the middle of the night on the QVC Cable Shopping Channel over a three-year period, trying to make sense.
00:32:33.000 What were the shifts?
00:32:34.000 So three hours at a time, usually, over the course of 24 hours.
00:32:39.000 So you would be on three hours at a time?
00:32:42.000 Yeah.
00:32:42.000 Would you come back again, or would you only do three hours?
00:32:45.000 I do three hours, and I go home, and, I mean, have you done overnights before?
00:32:51.000 No.
00:32:52.000 So, I guarantee you there are a lot of people listening who have worked an overnight shift in their trade, in their vocation.
00:33:00.000 It changes you, just as surely as Doris the Cat Lady's brain was scrambled by the gondii and the toxo.
00:33:08.000 It does something...
00:33:09.000 Your circadian rhythm?
00:33:10.000 Yeah.
00:33:11.000 It's not just that.
00:33:12.000 It is that, but it's something primal, even more primal than that.
00:33:19.000 It just messes with you, and it forces you...
00:33:22.000 For me, it changed colors.
00:33:24.000 It changed taste.
00:33:26.000 It changed...
00:33:27.000 Yeah, because I had never...
00:33:29.000 I mean, I was upside down.
00:33:31.000 After I talked about a pencil for eight minutes, I was on the air 48 hours later at 3 in the morning trying to make sense of the health team infrared pain reliever and the Amcor negative ion generator.
00:33:46.000 Like, what the hell?
00:33:49.000 Did they give you a rundown of what these products were at all?
00:33:52.000 It was up to you.
00:33:53.000 If you came in a couple hours early and you took the time to look through, like there was a table like this with all of the stuff on it that you were going to be selling and you could take the time to prepare.
00:34:04.000 But there was no Google back then.
00:34:06.000 It's not like you could just watch a YouTube video that would explain what this thing did.
00:34:09.000 No, what you got was a blue card, usually from the manufacturer, that said a couple of sentences about what the thing was.
00:34:17.000 You had an item number, you had the price, the retail price, the QVC price, and maybe some easy payment terms.
00:34:25.000 All the stuff, right?
00:34:26.000 But it was just a blue card.
00:34:28.000 And then you would kind of go off and...
00:34:32.000 Think about how you would make sense out of this skull and where it came from and why it's interesting.
00:34:40.000 It's feature-benefit selling.
00:34:42.000 And if you understand that, you can talk about anything for as long as you need to.
00:34:46.000 You never talk about a feature without talking about its benefit.
00:34:51.000 And so that's kind of how that world worked.
00:34:54.000 So you don't say it's a pencil for 99 cents.
00:34:57.000 you say it's a yellow number two pencil with an eraser that is of the exact proportion necessary to last for the life of the pencil so when this thing is down to a nub you'll still have enough eraser left it's really a monument to efficiency and ingenuity and it's not just yellow it's yellow because you're a busy professional and when you need a pencil Joe when you open up your drawer you don't have time to root around for some vaguely beige colored writing implement you
00:35:27.000 You want that canary yellow to pop and you can pick it up, right?
00:35:30.000 And it's a number two pencil.
00:35:32.000 It's not three with that thin, wispy line that you can't read or that thick, disappointing skid mark of a number one, right?
00:35:41.000 So you just train yourself to fill dead air with nonsense. 0.92
00:35:48.000 While you're fucking up your circadian rhythm. 0.98
00:35:50.000 Yeah. 0.66
00:35:51.000 While you're wondering, like, When your next meal is and who you're going to have it with.
00:35:57.000 And you wind up making friends and essentially hanging with other people who live in that same weird shadow land.
00:36:08.000 Yeah, shadow land.
00:36:10.000 That's a good way to put it.
00:36:11.000 I have kind of an experience with overnight, but it's not the same.
00:36:14.000 I delivered newspapers.
00:36:15.000 And so at least one day a week on Sunday, I would basically show up Saturday night at 3 in the morning.
00:36:22.000 Right.
00:36:22.000 Because I would deliver Sunday papers, and the Sunday papers were...
00:36:26.000 It was a huge under...
00:36:28.000 You'd flip the top.
00:36:29.000 Oh, I forgot to flip the top.
00:36:30.000 Flip the top, and then hit the button.
00:36:32.000 There you go. 0.98
00:36:33.000 And so I was all fucked up from that. 0.97
00:36:38.000 I would get up every day at 5 o'clock in the morning. 0.98
00:36:41.000 Normally to deliver papers because I had a large route.
00:36:44.000 It was my way to make money without having to do a job where I had to listen to anybody.
00:36:50.000 It's also a perfect example of a kind of job where you always know how you're doing while you're doing it.
00:36:58.000 Like lots and lots of little visual undeniable cues, right?
00:37:03.000 You got your bags or your baskets full of paper or your car or whatever you were doing.
00:37:07.000 I was in the car.
00:37:08.000 You're tossing them out one at a time.
00:37:10.000 Yep.
00:37:10.000 You know, you're making progress.
00:37:12.000 You know the progress you're making.
00:37:15.000 As you make it.
00:37:16.000 Right.
00:37:16.000 You know, you only have 120 houses to go.
00:37:20.000 That's right.
00:37:21.000 And then it's 110. And then it's like...
00:37:24.000 And then it's go to Dunkin' Donuts, get yourself a nice donut and a coffee, reward yourself, day's over.
00:37:30.000 Yeah.
00:37:31.000 My day would be done work-wise by, you know, 8 a.m., 9 a.m.
00:37:36.000 on a Sunday.
00:37:37.000 Nine was rough.
00:37:38.000 Occasionally, they would make enormous Sunday papers, and that would be a real problem, because you'd have to make multiple trips.
00:37:45.000 Then I bought a van, so I had a big cargo van, and I drove that around to deliver newspapers for a while.
00:37:51.000 That made it a lot easier, because I could stack 350 Sunday papers in the back of that van.
00:37:56.000 But see, you remember and you knew.
00:38:00.000 350, that's an interesting number.
00:38:02.000 I had bigger routes, but 350 was manageable.
00:38:06.000 How old were you?
00:38:07.000 I started when I was just driving.
00:38:10.000 So I was in high school still, so I think I started delivering papers when I was 17 or 18. Whatever legal age they allow you to do it.
00:38:19.000 So it was probably 17 or 18. I started driving and I drove until I was...
00:38:27.000 22?
00:38:28.000 I just started doing stand-up comedy.
00:38:31.000 I drove all throughout my competitive martial arts career.
00:38:34.000 I drove in the morning.
00:38:35.000 It was good because it gave me discipline.
00:38:37.000 Because I had to do it seven days a week, 365 days a year.
00:38:40.000 You did not take any days off. 0.98
00:38:42.000 It didn't matter if it snowed or rained or fucking frozen rain on the streets, black ice. 0.99
00:38:46.000 Didn't matter. 0.98
00:38:47.000 You got to deliver newspapers.
00:38:49.000 And if they did delay it, it would delay your delivery of the paper.
00:38:54.000 So you'd have to call the depot, you know, hey, are we delivering yet?
00:38:57.000 Because they didn't want to be responsible if it was a blizzard for people dying and get lawsuits.
00:39:02.000 So they didn't make you deliver papers if it was unbelievably bad out.
00:39:07.000 But for the most part, you drove every day.
00:39:09.000 So you had a sense of consequence too?
00:39:12.000 Yes.
00:39:14.000 Discipline, consequence.
00:39:15.000 You didn't deliver the papers.
00:39:16.000 You didn't get paid.
00:39:17.000 It was very simple.
00:39:18.000 It was a very simple job.
00:39:20.000 I don't even remember how they trained us.
00:39:22.000 I think that maybe they trained us for like one day.
00:39:25.000 You were taught how to fold the paper.
00:39:27.000 One, two, stuff it in the bag.
00:39:29.000 You had plastic bags were great because you could chuck them out the window and it never damaged the paper. 0.99
00:39:33.000 Robber bands were a real pain in the ass because you could hit a corner on the concrete, it would rip the corner of the paper, and then the customer would complain because they're trying to read about what's going on in Syria, and then there's this fucking broken piece of paper. 0.98
00:39:44.000 I delivered the New York Times only because it was cool. 0.99
00:39:49.000 I delivered the Boston Globe because that was the biggest distribution.
00:39:52.000 I could get the biggest route.
00:39:54.000 And then the Boston Herald because I wanted more papers to deliver, so I would do two papers.
00:39:59.000 And then the New York Times. 0.99
00:40:01.000 The New York Times is a pain in the ass because it would be like one every 10 blocks. 0.99
00:40:05.000 You'd have an enormous route. 0.99
00:40:07.000 If you had 150 New York Times, that's an all-day excursion.
00:40:12.000 Did you start to equate the type of home you were delivering the type of paper to?
00:40:17.000 Oh yes.
00:40:17.000 The New York Times people took themselves very seriously.
00:40:20.000 They were very serious people.
00:40:22.000 They would ask me what I'm doing with my life.
00:40:24.000 I remember this lady, I was taking courses at Boston University just so people wouldn't think I was a loser. 0.95
00:40:31.000 It was literally the only reason why I was going to college.
00:40:34.000 And she's asking me, what are you planning on doing with your career?
00:40:38.000 I'm like, I have no idea.
00:40:39.000 And she didn't like it.
00:40:40.000 She didn't like that I had no idea.
00:40:43.000 Yeah, it makes people uncomfortable.
00:40:44.000 She liked me, but she didn't like that I had no idea.
00:40:46.000 She was very motherly to me, I guess.
00:40:49.000 It's funny.
00:40:49.000 We had the Baltimore Sun, which was the paper of record, and then we had the News American, which was sort of like the upstart.
00:40:58.000 And I never thought too much about the difference between the two until Summertime and Crabs.
00:41:04.000 Like, Maryland blue crabs are a big thing.
00:41:07.000 They're a big thing in my family, big thing where I grew up.
00:41:10.000 And everybody who eats crabs in the summer eats them outside on a picnic table.
00:41:15.000 And you lay the newspaper out.
00:41:17.000 But which one, Joe?
00:41:18.000 Oh.
00:41:19.000 Which one?
00:41:20.000 It matters.
00:41:21.000 I don't know why it does.
00:41:23.000 So, is it disrespectful to use the paper of note?
00:41:26.000 No.
00:41:26.000 No, it's better.
00:41:28.000 No, I think it's a mark of respect.
00:41:31.000 It's like, oh, we're having crabs?
00:41:33.000 Get the News American. 0.99
00:41:34.000 Oh, that's so silly. 0.94
00:41:36.000 Get the news, America. 0.93
00:41:37.000 Because, you know, it's all spread out in front of you, and you've got the crab guts and the Old Bay and the J-O No.
00:41:43.000 2 and the National Bohemian Beer, and maybe you can glance down and get informed as you go.
00:41:48.000 Isn't it interesting that there are newspapers like that, right?
00:41:51.000 Like, there's the New York Post.
00:41:52.000 You want a fun headline. 0.99
00:41:54.000 You know, you want all the crazy shit like, what happened? 0.99
00:41:56.000 Who got pregnant? 1.00
00:41:57.000 You know, what's going on with this?
00:41:59.000 What's going on with that?
00:42:00.000 And then you have the New York Times where it's important to put tampons in the boys room. 0.78
00:42:05.000 It's like, what is happening?
00:42:08.000 Have you ever walked through the offices of the Post?
00:42:12.000 No.
00:42:12.000 Any chance?
00:42:13.000 No.
00:42:14.000 Dude, it's amazing.
00:42:15.000 It's amazing.
00:42:17.000 I had an old girlfriend whose sister worked there. 0.67
00:42:20.000 Worked for Page Six.
00:42:23.000 Oh boy.
00:42:24.000 Yeah.
00:42:24.000 That's the fun one.
00:42:25.000 Yeah.
00:42:26.000 So much fun.
00:42:27.000 So that's like all the gossip and the craziness and this person's getting arrested.
00:42:31.000 Right, right.
00:42:32.000 Drunk driving and bookers.
00:42:34.000 They have a hallway.
00:42:36.000 It's like this place in the center.
00:42:38.000 There's so much on the walls, but it's all front pages and it's the best headlines.
00:42:43.000 Ah, so it's the best ones they've ever come up with?
00:42:45.000 The best ones ever.
00:42:46.000 Starting with the classic headless body found in topless bar.
00:42:51.000 There!
00:42:51.000 Which is still tough to beat.
00:42:53.000 That's great.
00:42:54.000 But so many of them.
00:42:55.000 I love The Post.
00:42:56.000 I've always loved The Post.
00:42:57.000 I love just the fun nature of the news.
00:43:00.000 That was like the working person's newspaper. 0.80
00:43:03.000 This is the point I was trying to make about the comedian who entertains himself first and the schmuck on QVC who tries to keep himself awake before he sells the thing. 0.87
00:43:17.000 That's how I felt reading the post. 0.56
00:43:19.000 It was like, these guys, somehow, I'm imagining a meeting.
00:43:23.000 They're laughing.
00:43:24.000 They're laughing, they're cigars, and they're all in on the joke.
00:43:27.000 And they're like, yeah, we're going to report the news, but... 0.99
00:43:31.000 It's a lot of sharp elbows out there, and it's a very competitive world, so what can we do to maybe get the stick a little out of our ass? 0.99
00:43:40.000 Just a little bit. 0.99
00:43:41.000 How can we be different?
00:43:43.000 That's what fascinates me.
00:43:45.000 Whether you're publishing a paper, or eating a blue crab, or writing a book or a song, How can you, in relative terms, distinguish yourself, not from these other worlds and other categories, but from your friends?
00:44:03.000 Right.
00:44:03.000 That's the trick, man.
00:44:06.000 Yeah, that is the trick.
00:44:08.000 And then there's people that want to be that person that is taken seriously, that's reading the New York Times.
00:44:14.000 You want to be that person with their legs crossed, reading the New York Times.
00:44:18.000 Like, very serious.
00:44:19.000 Very serious people.
00:44:20.000 Very smart people.
00:44:21.000 Keep up to date.
00:44:22.000 Yeah.
00:44:23.000 I said to Ashton, your very excellent driver, who brought me here, I said, you know, it's been fun watching Joe do this thing over the last five or six years.
00:44:37.000 And then I kind of stopped myself in the middle and I said, actually, you know, I take it back.
00:44:40.000 What's been fun is watching Joe.
00:44:44.000 Watching the world catch up to it, like watching the headlines catch up to you or whoever, you really haven't changed.
00:44:56.000 Man, it's so interesting to watch people realize, oh, we're going to do it this way now.
00:45:06.000 We're going to do it this way now.
00:45:09.000 Whether it's comedy or whether it's music, When culture changes, it feels like there's some instigator, some jagged little pill who's pushing it forward.
00:45:21.000 And I guess maybe that's true.
00:45:23.000 But I also think there's this larger hive mentality in the audience.
00:45:28.000 And they start to realize, oh, there's another way to deliver a paper.
00:45:34.000 There's another way to do a thing.
00:45:36.000 And it feels new, but it's probably what you've been doing for the last 12 years.
00:45:41.000 Yeah, it's definitely the same way.
00:45:43.000 I've always done it.
00:45:44.000 It's just having conversations with people.
00:45:46.000 I like talking to people.
00:45:47.000 It's fun.
00:45:48.000 I enjoy it.
00:45:50.000 I'm a curious person, and I like talking to people.
00:45:54.000 It's real simple.
00:45:55.000 Yeah, but just because it's simple, you make it sound like a parenthetical.
00:46:00.000 Oh, it's just a conversation.
00:46:02.000 That's only just the hardest thing there is to do.
00:46:05.000 But it's not really.
00:46:07.000 Then why don't more people do it?
00:46:08.000 Because they don't enjoy it.
00:46:10.000 They don't enjoy it like I enjoy it.
00:46:12.000 Some people genuinely don't like talking to people.
00:46:15.000 You know why?
00:46:16.000 Because they're interested in themselves.
00:46:18.000 You have to be interested in other people.
00:46:20.000 I think we're all connected.
00:46:22.000 I really firmly believe this in a non-hippie way.
00:46:25.000 I think it's like a scientific concept.
00:46:28.000 I mean, I think if we could figure out a way to study it, we would recognize that we're psychically all connected in some strange way.
00:46:35.000 And I am curious as to how someone with a different biology, different life experiences, different geographic location in which they were raised, like, how are they navigating the world and why are they interested in opera?
00:46:54.000 What is it?
00:46:55.000 What got you to be a beekeeper?
00:46:58.000 Why are you so fascinated with painting?
00:47:00.000 What made you start writing music?
00:47:03.000 I'm interested.
00:47:05.000 I like talking to people.
00:47:07.000 So for me, it is easy.
00:47:08.000 It really is.
00:47:09.000 It's just talking to people like I would talk to people.
00:47:13.000 You and I could have the same exact conversation if we were having dinner somewhere.
00:47:16.000 For sure.
00:47:17.000 Same conversation.
00:47:18.000 Yeah.
00:47:19.000 But, again, it makes perfect sense, and it's not that it's difficult.
00:47:23.000 It's just that very few people do it.
00:47:26.000 And if your explanation is because very few people genuinely enjoy it, I can't disprove it.
00:47:33.000 You're probably right.
00:47:34.000 I think that's what it is.
00:47:35.000 You're probably right.
00:47:36.000 I think I just got lucky.
00:47:36.000 I think I just got lucky and I found a job that I would be doing anyway.
00:47:40.000 Well, here's what I don't understand.
00:47:43.000 And maybe this is not even relevant, but we did 350 dirty jobs.
00:47:49.000 Probably 60-some of this thing called Somebody's Gotta Do It.
00:47:53.000 I don't even know.
00:47:54.000 Returning the favor, I think we did 100 episodes of that.
00:47:57.000 I couldn't tell you how many things I've narrated.
00:48:00.000 Hundreds.
00:48:00.000 If there's a wildebeest trying to get across the vast reaches of the barren Serengeti, right?
00:48:06.000 If I could remember every episode of How the Universe Works, 10 years of this stuff, if I could remember half of what I narrated, that would be something.
00:48:18.000 I can remember a chunk.
00:48:21.000 But my sense is that I can't even remember the last 20 guests I had on my podcast.
00:48:26.000 And the reason isn't because I'm not curious.
00:48:30.000 And it's not because I lack the requisite intelligence to remember.
00:48:36.000 For me, it's just so much.
00:48:38.000 There's been no time.
00:48:40.000 To think about what I'm going to do next, and even less time to think about what I just did.
00:48:46.000 Right.
00:48:47.000 So you just talk to Josh Brolin, and then you talk to the musician guy, Storch?
00:48:52.000 Yep.
00:48:53.000 Yeah, right?
00:48:53.000 Scott.
00:48:54.000 Yeah, Scott.
00:48:54.000 Storch.
00:48:55.000 And then before that, our friend Evan was in, right?
00:48:59.000 So, like, I have a better...
00:49:02.000 It's easier for me to remember what you've done in the last two months than it is for me.
00:49:07.000 And that freaks me out.
00:49:09.000 And I wonder if sometimes you get over your skis to the point where you've started to forget what you've done yourself.
00:49:18.000 Oh yeah, there's no way to keep it all.
00:49:21.000 I have a bucket that's overflowing with information.
00:49:26.000 It's overflowing.
00:49:27.000 My hard drive is not capable of retaining all of it.
00:49:31.000 It's not possible.
00:49:32.000 I retain a lot, though.
00:49:34.000 A lot more than I ever would know.
00:49:37.000 I got an unexpected education doing this show, for sure.
00:49:41.000 Like, I never anticipated it.
00:49:43.000 Is it conscious?
00:49:44.000 Like, can you choose to be interested in a thing enough to know that you're not going to forget it?
00:49:52.000 Or does the interest just kind of bubble up and certain things stick to you?
00:49:58.000 The interest bubbles up and they stick.
00:50:00.000 Yeah, totally.
00:50:02.000 Yeah, like my daughter asked me a question the other day.
00:50:04.000 I don't even remember what the question is about, but it's a very technical thing.
00:50:07.000 And I said, no, that's not exactly it.
00:50:09.000 It seems like that, but this is the reason why.
00:50:11.000 And they figured this out because of this, and I started rattling off. 0.99
00:50:13.000 And she's like, how the fuck do you know this? 0.98
00:50:15.000 She was laughing. 0.99
00:50:17.000 And I was like, I don't know everything.
00:50:19.000 I forget things.
00:50:20.000 I forget my own birthday.
00:50:21.000 But I do remember things that are fascinating.
00:50:25.000 I remember most things that are fascinating to me.
00:50:28.000 I have an unusual recall.
00:50:30.000 But I've always had an unusual recall.
00:50:32.000 It's like I think it's a genetic thing.
00:50:33.000 Yeah.
00:50:34.000 I think it let me get really good at things, too, because I can remember like technical – like it was really good for martial arts because I can remember technical details.
00:50:42.000 Like really – like I don't forget things.
00:50:44.000 See, you, to me, are the deeper end of the pool.
00:50:50.000 I'm more the shallow end.
00:50:53.000 I don't mean for that to sound comparative so much, but like with martial arts.
00:50:58.000 I'm interested in martial arts.
00:51:00.000 I'm interested in ultimate fighting.
00:51:02.000 I narrated the ultimate fighter.
00:51:05.000 I did 10 seasons of it.
00:51:08.000 But that's sort of the extent.
00:51:11.000 I don't go very deep.
00:51:13.000 I've seen a couple, but it's like— Well, there's a big, giant difference between being a former competitor.
00:51:21.000 And also like dedicated decades of my life to martial arts.
00:51:25.000 It's not as simple as like I go and I do commentary.
00:51:29.000 Like I started doing martial arts when I was 15 and it changed my life.
00:51:33.000 It gave me discipline and a will to overcome uncomfort, discomfort and to push myself and to overcome fears and to do something that's very scary and to compete and that was like it formulated me as a teenager. 0.61
00:51:47.000 So I started competing competitively like Serious shit when I was like 15 years old and so we were traveling all over the country and And so my social life from like 15 to 21 was completely retarded. 1.00
00:52:02.000 Retarded as in slowed down, like the real term. 0.96
00:52:05.000 And it was mostly just training and competing.
00:52:10.000 That's all I did.
00:52:11.000 And the downtime, I was tired.
00:52:13.000 So I would just sleep a lot.
00:52:14.000 I was like eating, sleeping, working, and competing.
00:52:17.000 And then I started teaching.
00:52:18.000 So then I was making my living off of teaching, but not enough money, so I was still delivering newspapers.
00:52:24.000 I delivered newspapers in the morning and then I would teach and I was teaching at Boston University.
00:52:29.000 I was teaching, I had my own school by the time I was 20. Taekwondo?
00:52:34.000 Yeah.
00:52:35.000 So this is my point.
00:52:36.000 You take a deep dive.
00:52:37.000 When you get interested in a thing, you go into the thing.
00:52:41.000 Comedy wasn't a hobby.
00:52:43.000 It became, I think, as important- It becomes everything.
00:52:47.000 It becomes everything.
00:52:49.000 Almost nothing I do becomes everything.
00:52:51.000 Nothing?
00:52:52.000 Almost nothing.
00:52:53.000 But what are the things?
00:52:54.000 What becomes everything?
00:52:55.000 I'm not sure yet.
00:52:56.000 Let me think about it.
00:52:57.000 Is there one thing that if you have free time you super look forward to doing?
00:53:03.000 Do you have a hobby?
00:53:04.000 Do you play golf?
00:53:05.000 No.
00:53:06.000 Nothing?
00:53:06.000 I don't have hobbies and I don't collect things.
00:53:08.000 No hobbies?
00:53:09.000 Nothing?
00:53:09.000 I don't collect things.
00:53:10.000 Wow.
00:53:10.000 I own very little.
00:53:12.000 I never have owned much.
00:53:13.000 I wish I had a hundred lives to live simultaneously.
00:53:17.000 I would do a hundred different things.
00:53:19.000 This is the difference.
00:53:20.000 You're insatiable in that way.
00:53:23.000 You get a thing, and you're going to nail it to the wall, man.
00:53:28.000 My late great friend Anthony Bourdain, his bio on Twitter, it said, Enthusiast.
00:53:35.000 I really wish that I'd come up with that because that's what I am.
00:53:38.000 I'm an enthusiast.
00:53:39.000 I wouldn't say it now because I'd rip him off.
00:53:43.000 And also now my bio says Dragon Believer.
00:53:45.000 Congratulations on that.
00:53:47.000 Thank you.
00:53:47.000 Thank you very much.
00:53:48.000 They said I believe in dragons.
00:53:50.000 She triple checked.
00:53:52.000 She triple checked, Mike.
00:53:53.000 Got to be true. 0.58
00:53:54.000 But I'm an enthusiast.
00:53:56.000 That's what I am.
00:53:56.000 I am a person who is very fortunate in that I have a love of a lot of things.
00:54:02.000 Well, you and Tony were similar, obviously, in that way.
00:54:08.000 He took big bites.
00:54:09.000 He took big swings.
00:54:10.000 We became good friends when he really got into jiu-jitsu.
00:54:13.000 Yeah.
00:54:14.000 Because I kind of got him into it, and then his wife really got him into it.
00:54:17.000 But he started going to the UFC. His wife was training in jiu-jitsu, and she got really into it.
00:54:23.000 She was really loving it.
00:54:24.000 And then she was like, let's go to the UFC. He's like, this is fucking great. 0.98
00:54:26.000 And then he came to one of my comedy shows. 0.98
00:54:29.000 We became friends.
00:54:33.000 It's got to be.
00:54:33.000 Because you go to dinner with him and all the chefs freak out.
00:54:36.000 And so they just want to feed you.
00:54:38.000 They just want to like, don't touch the menu.
00:54:39.000 We got you.
00:54:40.000 And they come over and bring food.
00:54:43.000 I wrote a eulogy for him that crashed my website.
00:54:48.000 Oh, wow.
00:54:51.000 It's really funny.
00:54:53.000 I met him twice.
00:54:55.000 And each time it was fairly brief.
00:54:59.000 But there was a time when he was doing No Reservations, Dirty Jobs was early on.
00:55:04.000 I bet you Fear Factor was still in production then, too.
00:55:07.000 Yeah, Fear Factor was maybe.
00:55:11.000 Fear Factor stopped in 2007, and No Reservations, I think, was around that time.
00:55:18.000 Yeah, he was on in 6. For sure, Dirty Jobs went on in 03. Yeah, and then the CNN show, which was, I think, like CNN's highlight of their time.
00:55:30.000 And I think he really changed that network.
00:55:33.000 Because all of a sudden, that network was this fucking cool show where this guy had this brilliant narration, and he had this wanderlust... 0.74
00:55:42.000 But also with this like real fascination with people and cultures and just really loved it. 0.98
00:55:52.000 He just loved going to Vietnam.
00:55:54.000 He loved going wherever he could go.
00:55:56.000 He loved to eat their street food.
00:55:57.000 He loved to talk to them.
00:55:58.000 He really wanted to know what these people were all about, you know?
00:56:01.000 I've never, this will sound vainglorious, and I don't mean it to, but with the possible exception of me on Discovery in 2010, narrating half their shows and hosting Dirty Jobs, which was a thing, you know, I felt...
00:56:21.000 Really triangulated then.
00:56:23.000 But then when I met Tony, and I had a show on CNN at the same time.
00:56:28.000 Actually, it was a companion show.
00:56:30.000 What was your show?
00:56:30.000 It was called Somebody's Gotta Do It.
00:56:32.000 Oh, that's right.
00:56:33.000 That's right.
00:56:33.000 It followed Dirty Jobs.
00:56:36.000 Yeah.
00:56:36.000 And Jeff Zucker wanted something with Tony.
00:56:39.000 So he was like, well, let's kind of do a version of this.
00:56:42.000 And I said, yeah, okay.
00:56:44.000 But all the trouble in the world, man.
00:56:47.000 Every crisis, whether it's Haiti or whether it's a riot, you know, the show got preempted constantly.
00:56:53.000 They didn't preempt Tony, but they preempted me a lot.
00:56:56.000 And I was commiserating with Tony about this once.
00:57:00.000 And that's when we had the conversation where I said, look, I just got to tell you, man...
00:57:05.000 I've never in my life seen anybody doing the right show for them at the right time on the right network for them.
00:57:16.000 I've never seen that like that before.
00:57:19.000 And never mind the award.
00:57:21.000 It was the Peabody's that got me, actually.
00:57:24.000 Who cares about the Emmys?
00:57:26.000 They're easy.
00:57:26.000 But geez, he was just one Peabody award after the next.
00:57:30.000 Yeah.
00:57:30.000 And the audience wasn't as big as people think, but they were engaged.
00:57:36.000 Well, that's what's important.
00:57:37.000 I mean, the audience, if they're really there for you rather than if they're just flipping channels.
00:57:44.000 Because there's a lot of shows that just get people that are flipping channels.
00:57:46.000 Sure.
00:57:47.000 But we used to, when I was on news radio, everybody wanted the spot after Seinfeld.
00:57:52.000 Because there was Seinfeld and Friends were on the same night, and it was just this murderous Thursday night lineup.
00:57:57.000 I see.
00:57:58.000 It was an unbelievable lineup.
00:57:59.000 And if you got lucky, you were Sex and the City or the Single Guy. 0.99
00:58:02.000 And what Paul Sims, the producer of News Radio, would call a shit sandwich. 0.99
00:58:07.000 Because you had your brilliant show, and then your terrible show, and then another brilliant show, and another terrible show. 0.99
00:58:12.000 But if you got in those time spots, oh boy, you got a good spot.
00:58:16.000 Because people are going to just keep tuning in.
00:58:18.000 They didn't tune in for News Radio.
00:58:20.000 News Radio wasn't really successful after it was off the air.
00:58:23.000 You were in the slipstream.
00:58:24.000 Yeah.
00:58:24.000 You were in the orbit.
00:58:25.000 Well, we weren't owned by NBC. So it was a different production company.
00:58:30.000 It was Pearlstein Gray.
00:58:31.000 So they didn't have a vested interest in us being successful.
00:58:35.000 So the writers would show up.
00:58:39.000 My friend Lou would wear a T-shirt, and he would write the number that we were when we would do the table reads.
00:58:45.000 And one day it was 88. And I was like, for real?
00:58:48.000 He's like, yeah.
00:58:49.000 I was like, oh, no.
00:58:50.000 88. With a bullet. 0.94
00:58:52.000 We thought we were going to get cancelled literally every year except the year we got cancelled.
00:58:56.000 The year we got cancelled I was shocked because that was like the year after Phil died and then John Lovitz took his place for a season and then they cancelled it after that.
00:59:06.000 And, like, the perfect thing for our show, we never even hit the 100 episodes for syndication.
00:59:12.000 They had to sell it at, like, 98 episodes.
00:59:14.000 That was, like, our show.
00:59:15.000 It's like we were always, like, barely hanging on.
00:59:17.000 You know, it was just—it was a funny show.
00:59:20.000 It was a really good show with talented people.
00:59:21.000 I love that show.
00:59:22.000 The people I was super lucky to work on, and it ruined me because I could never work on another show after that.
00:59:27.000 What was the big lesson from news radio, if there was one for you?
00:59:34.000 Well, it was just fortune.
00:59:36.000 The lesson is that you could just be fortunate, you know, because I was not a trained actor at all.
00:59:42.000 I did a set on MTV, Half Hour Comedy Hour.
00:59:47.000 They had this comedy show.
00:59:49.000 I did a set, and then MTV offered me a development deal, and then my manager said...
00:59:55.000 This is terrible money.
00:59:56.000 They're going to lock you up for like three years for like $500. 0.66
00:59:59.000 It was crazy, ridiculous bad money.
01:00:02.000 He said, I'm going to take your tape and tell all these other production companies that MTV wants to sign a deal with you and it'll start a bidding war.
01:00:10.000 And he was brilliant and he did it and that's exactly what happened.
01:00:13.000 And the next thing you know, I couldn't answer my phone because my phone was just calling agents and people would just call me.
01:00:19.000 Like some guy called me from Universal.
01:00:21.000 I was like, what? 0.99
01:00:21.000 What the fuck is going on in this shitty apartment on my way out the door to play pool and this guy is telling me he wants me to get on a flight that night. 0.99
01:00:28.000 We have a flight at 10 p.m. 0.99
01:00:30.000 leaving out of LaGuardia.
01:00:31.000 I was like, what are you talking about?
01:00:32.000 And so then I call my manager. 0.99
01:00:34.000 This guy just fucking called me for me. 0.99
01:00:35.000 He goes, hey, don't answer your phone. 0.99
01:00:36.000 He's like, go play pool.
01:00:37.000 Get out of here.
01:00:38.000 I'll take care of it.
01:00:39.000 Next thing you know, I was in Hollywood.
01:00:40.000 It was like that quick.
01:00:42.000 And I was on a show called Hardball.
01:00:44.000 It went six episodes.
01:00:45.000 And the only reason why I stayed in California, I wanted to go back to New York.
01:00:48.000 I hated it.
01:00:49.000 I hated actors. 0.98
01:00:51.000 I just couldn't deal with being around these weirdos. 0.98
01:00:54.000 There were these weird, phony people.
01:00:55.000 They would say, good to see you, because they couldn't remember if they met you. 0.99
01:00:59.000 So instead of saying, nice to meet you and fucking up, I go, I'm sorry I met you, I'm sorry I fucked up. 0.97
01:01:03.000 They didn't want to be real, so everyone said, good to see you. 0.99
01:01:06.000 Good to see you.
01:01:06.000 Everyone was good, and it was super unsincere.
01:01:09.000 I was like, this is so weird.
01:01:10.000 It was a super uncomfortable experience.
01:01:12.000 And it was the worst experience on a show because the people that ran the show, Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran, super funny, talented guys who'd worked on Married with Children and The Simpsons.
01:01:21.000 Brilliant.
01:01:22.000 But the studio didn't think that they were good enough to run a show, so they brought in this hack.
01:01:26.000 And this guy comes in and just butchers all the scripts.
01:01:30.000 It was horrible.
01:01:31.000 So that gets canceled.
01:01:32.000 The only reason why I stayed is because I had a lease.
01:01:34.000 So I got a nice apartment.
01:01:36.000 I'm like, the first apartment I ever had.
01:01:37.000 I was like, I thought I was going to be on TV forever.
01:01:39.000 I was like, this is going to be easy. 1.00
01:01:40.000 And now, fuck! 1.00
01:01:41.000 I've got to get out of here. 1.00
01:01:42.000 I wanted to go back to New York.
01:01:43.000 I thought about breaking my lease.
01:01:45.000 But then NBC contacted me.
01:01:47.000 And they said, we have this show.
01:01:49.000 It's called News Radio.
01:01:51.000 And we're recasting one of the roles.
01:01:54.000 Do you want to come in?
01:01:54.000 So I came in and auditioned for it, and the next thing you know, I'm working with Phil Hartman.
01:01:58.000 It was bizarre.
01:01:59.000 No aspirations whatsoever to be an actor.
01:02:02.000 Never wanted to be on TV. And then I'm working with Andy Dick, and Phil Hartman, and Maura Tierney, and Candy Alexander, Vicki Lewis, and Dave Foley?
01:02:11.000 Like, this is crazy!
01:02:12.000 From Second City.
01:02:14.000 Yeah, he was brilliant.
01:02:15.000 Dave Foley, by the way, was the secret producer of news radio because they would give him full autonomy.
01:02:21.000 So he would completely rewrite scenes, like on the spot, come up with punchlines for everybody.
01:02:25.000 We all did that for everybody.
01:02:27.000 Like we would all come up like, maybe you should say this, maybe you should say that.
01:02:30.000 It was like super collaborative.
01:02:31.000 So just fortune, complete Utter good fortune.
01:02:35.000 Because I had friends that were on terrible sitcoms, and they were living in hell.
01:02:39.000 And we'd hang out at the comedy store, and they were living in hell. 0.99
01:02:43.000 And I was like, look, I'm on a show that nobody watches, but it's fun as shit, and I can't believe I'm on TV. This is nuts. 0.99
01:02:49.000 Yeah, you're in on the joke.
01:02:50.000 Yeah, it was fun.
01:02:52.000 It was really fun, but it was just fortunate.
01:02:54.000 I could have easily never, never done any of those things.
01:03:00.000 Easily.
01:03:00.000 I thought for years that really a sitcom had to be the best gig in the world.
01:03:10.000 Basically to do a play every week.
01:03:13.000 If it's a good sitcom.
01:03:14.000 If it's a good sitcom.
01:03:14.000 But if it's a bad sitcom, it's hell.
01:03:17.000 Sure.
01:03:17.000 Those guys who do a lot of coke and buy nice cars, they're on bad shows.
01:03:21.000 They just want to give themselves something to reward themselves for this fucking slave... 1.00
01:03:26.000 I wouldn't say slave work. 1.00
01:03:30.000 You're a slave to money.
01:03:33.000 You're compromising who you are for money.
01:03:36.000 You don't really want to do that show. 0.98
01:03:38.000 But you're on it, and it sucks, and you have to repeat these terrible lines. 0.94
01:03:42.000 That's what I'm getting at. 0.98
01:03:45.000 For me, it came down to that.
01:03:46.000 I finally got a chance to do one.
01:03:49.000 I played Tim Allen's younger brother on Last Man Standing for a turn.
01:03:54.000 I never saw that show.
01:03:56.000 That was a weird one, right?
01:03:56.000 Because they got mad at him because he was right-wing.
01:03:58.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:03:59.000 That's so crazy.
01:04:00.000 Didn't they cancel it?
01:04:01.000 It was their number one show and they canceled it.
01:04:02.000 Then Fox picked it up.
01:04:03.000 That's so nuts.
01:04:04.000 They canceled it because they didn't like his politics.
01:04:08.000 Yeah.
01:04:09.000 Wow.
01:04:10.000 I mean, that basically happened to Dirty Jobs, too.
01:04:13.000 Really?
01:04:14.000 Oh, yeah.
01:04:14.000 Yeah, it was mind-boggling.
01:04:16.000 But the point was, I finally got a chance to- I don't want to gloss over that.
01:04:21.000 I want to come back to that.
01:04:21.000 Okay.
01:04:21.000 I want to hear that.
01:04:22.000 All right.
01:04:22.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:04:23.000 Now, that's a great one.
01:04:24.000 You'll love this.
01:04:25.000 But Tim is great, by the way.
01:04:27.000 And we became friends and chemistry on camera.
01:04:32.000 Everybody loved it.
01:04:34.000 And when it was over, I was like, well, you know, do an honest inventory, Mike.
01:04:38.000 Like, what did you love?
01:04:40.000 What didn't you love?
01:04:42.000 And really, the only thing I loved was...
01:04:45.000 Was seeing people who loved each other and being welcomed into their little world.
01:04:50.000 Yeah, the clan.
01:04:50.000 That's it.
01:04:51.000 Yeah.
01:04:51.000 Everything, like the idea that somebody else is writing lines for me, I know that sounds impossibly arrogant, but I was so used to, nobody writes for me.
01:05:02.000 Dirty Jobs is truly unscripted.
01:05:04.000 Everything I ever did, there were never any lines.
01:05:08.000 Also, that's an alien experience for you.
01:05:10.000 Yeah, I mean, I had done plenty of plays as a kid and stuff, but that's different.
01:05:14.000 You know, that's different.
01:05:16.000 Once you're in Hollywood and once you're sort of in the machine, it still lingers.
01:05:21.000 I mean, that's the whole reason I crashed the audition for the opera.
01:05:24.000 I was just trying to find a sitcom at some point somewhere.
01:05:27.000 And then when I finally got it, you know, I realized just how lucky I'd been prior to that.
01:05:33.000 And how...
01:05:34.000 Here, you want this.
01:05:35.000 And how... 1.00
01:05:38.000 Crap, man. 1.00
01:05:39.000 You know, a thing can live in your mind so much bigger than it is in reality. 0.99
01:05:45.000 And so while I loved doing it for that week, I said to my business partner over it, this thing that I used to think of as the single most efficient way to make a living was so wildly inefficient.
01:05:57.000 Right.
01:05:57.000 It takes four days to rehearse for a half-hour thing?
01:06:01.000 You've got to be kidding me.
01:06:02.000 I could do five one-hour shows in the same period of time.
01:06:06.000 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:06:07.000 Completely different experience in that way.
01:06:09.000 It's a collaborative, fun time, and you do become a little bit of a strange family.
01:06:15.000 We all hung out together and drunk together.
01:06:18.000 And that's important.
01:06:19.000 Oh yeah, it is important.
01:06:21.000 It was a lot of fun, man.
01:06:25.000 And meeting people like Steven Root, who went on to do a million different things.
01:06:31.000 Brilliant, brilliant guy.
01:06:32.000 You get to see people that are really good at it.
01:06:34.000 He was a character.
01:06:36.000 He was the only one of us that wasn't really himself.
01:06:38.000 He was this one guy who was a super sweet guy when you meet him in real life.
01:06:42.000 And then he was Jimmy James.
01:06:43.000 My stapler.
01:06:44.000 Yeah, he becomes...
01:06:46.000 Did you see, what was that one?
01:06:47.000 Coen Brothers had some Netflix thing, a Wild West Netflix thing.
01:06:52.000 He played on that. 1.00
01:06:53.000 He was a fucking genius. 1.00
01:06:54.000 Wasn't he in O Brother? 1.00
01:06:55.000 Yeah, I think he was in O Brother.
01:06:57.000 He's been in everything.
01:06:58.000 He's in a million different things.
01:06:59.000 But just being with these people that, you know, like I said, I had no aspirations to act.
01:07:05.000 I was just a comic.
01:07:07.000 I just wanted to make a living doing comedy, and then somebody offered me more money than I made in a year for a week, and I was like, this is crazy, and then all of a sudden I'm on a show.
01:07:15.000 It was like, just fortune.
01:07:17.000 I auditioned for two shows ever, and I got both of them.
01:07:21.000 Those are the only two shows I ever auditioned for.
01:07:23.000 What was the other one?
01:07:24.000 Hardball.
01:07:25.000 The first one that I went for.
01:07:26.000 That was terrible.
01:07:27.000 Yeah.
01:07:28.000 That was the baseball show.
01:07:29.000 That got canceled.
01:07:30.000 And then I auditioned for NewsRadio.
01:07:31.000 So it was nuts.
01:07:32.000 It was just... 1.00
01:07:33.000 I was just stepping in shit every step of the way. 0.99
01:07:35.000 That's hysterical. 0.99
01:07:36.000 Didn't make any sense.
01:07:37.000 So I never had an agent except for a very brief period when I did.
01:07:41.000 And it was, you know Sean Perry over at Endeavor?
01:07:44.000 You guys ever cross paths?
01:07:46.000 I know.
01:07:47.000 His former assistant turned out to be his wife later.
01:07:51.000 How's that work?
01:07:52.000 Nicole Taylor.
01:07:53.000 Man, they're living great.
01:07:55.000 They live up in the hills somewhere.
01:07:56.000 I mean, how's it work with your former assistant?
01:07:58.000 How's that work?
01:08:00.000 That's none of my business.
01:08:01.000 That's a dangerous undertaking.
01:08:03.000 She called me one day, and I was in my full-on freelance world.
01:08:07.000 I hadn't had a job since QVC, so this is like 1999. And she says, I just want to send you out for something, because I know you're going to book it.
01:08:17.000 And I said, well, actually, yeah, I could use a gig.
01:08:19.000 So she sends me out.
01:08:22.000 In the same week, she says, you should read for Craig Peligian over at Pilgrim Films.
01:08:29.000 He's doing something called Worst Case Scenario, and he's looking for a host.
01:08:33.000 And so I auditioned for that.
01:08:34.000 And then later that week, she says, this guy from Nashville, Michael Orkin was his name, who I had worked with years earlier, not Nashville, Memphis, He was hosting the EP on that Evening Magazine thing that I mentioned.
01:08:51.000 And he's ready to hire you based off your blooper tape.
01:08:54.000 I never had a tape either.
01:08:57.000 My whole audition reel in those days was a compilation of every moment that went off the rails at QVC. All the things that led to my eventual firings as well as the cat sack and all the other crap.
01:09:10.000 I dare you to hire me.
01:09:12.000 I got hired for both jobs that week.
01:09:16.000 Both jobs.
01:09:17.000 And so suddenly I'm working for TBS hosting Worst Case Scenario, which lived up to its name.
01:09:22.000 And then I'm up in San Francisco hosting Evening Magazine.
01:09:26.000 And there was no conflict of interest?
01:09:28.000 Oh, no.
01:09:28.000 Like you totally negotiated both of them at the same time?
01:09:31.000 Yeah.
01:09:31.000 Wow, that's cool.
01:09:32.000 Yeah.
01:09:33.000 And then Nicole switched agencies and I never really had an agent.
01:09:38.000 You know, prior to that.
01:09:40.000 That's fortunate.
01:09:41.000 Or since.
01:09:41.000 Super fortunate.
01:09:43.000 Financially, it's great.
01:09:44.000 You know what's fortunate, man?
01:09:46.000 Remember?
01:09:47.000 Okay, so my mother calls me.
01:09:49.000 I'm at Evening Magazine sitting in my cubicle.
01:09:51.000 My granddad's 90 years old.
01:09:53.000 Remember this?
01:09:54.000 I didn't close the loop on this.
01:09:57.000 But to answer your first question, what happened was my mom called me and said, your grandfather's going to be 90 tomorrow.
01:10:05.000 And before he dies, wouldn't it be great if he could turn on the TV and see you doing something that looked like work?
01:10:13.000 Whoa.
01:10:14.000 Yeah. 0.99
01:10:15.000 My mother's a savage. 1.00
01:10:17.000 Jeez. 0.78
01:10:17.000 She just finished her fourth book, by the way. 0.78
01:10:20.000 Wow.
01:10:21.000 Yeah.
01:10:21.000 She's written three bestsellers after 80. That's incredible.
01:10:25.000 She's out of control. 0.98
01:10:26.000 That's incredible.
01:10:27.000 So she was like, she wanted you to do something impressive.
01:10:30.000 My mother wrote every day for 60 years.
01:10:34.000 Wow.
01:10:35.000 No agent, got published in like the News American and the Baltimore Sun, you know, local stuff, some horse magazines. 0.90
01:10:42.000 We were horse people kind of growing up.
01:10:44.000 And her dream was to write.
01:10:47.000 She finally got a book deal when she was 80. Went to a number four bestseller.
01:10:53.000 Wow.
01:10:54.000 And everything she's written so far.
01:10:56.000 So, that's recently. 1.00
01:10:58.000 Back in whatever it was, 2001, she was just a pain in my ass. 1.00
01:11:01.000 And she called me to say, you know, wouldn't it be great if your granddad, this guy whose shadow I grew up in, you know, could see you doing something? 0.99
01:11:10.000 Because like my pop, he'd seen the opera.
01:11:12.000 He'd seen QVC. He'd seen every godforsaken infomercial.
01:11:16.000 He'd seen...
01:11:18.000 I've done a lot of things, probably 200 jobs in the whole freelance world.
01:11:23.000 And so I was 42, and I took my cameraman from Evening Magazine into the sewer of San Francisco the next day to host the show from a sewer.
01:11:35.000 And what happened in the sewer joke was...
01:11:37.000 I mean, it changed...
01:11:38.000 I wrote a book about it.
01:11:40.000 It changed my whole life.
01:11:42.000 The roaches are the size of your thumbs.
01:11:44.000 There are millions of them, and they crawl all over you. 1.00
01:11:48.000 The shit comes at you in a chocolate... 1.00
01:11:52.000 Tide of unending disappointment. 1.00
01:11:55.000 And it's filled not just with all the stuff that comes out of your body.
01:11:58.000 It's filled with stuff that comes out of your medicine cabinet.
01:12:02.000 Plastic products and rubber private condoms stuck to your rubber suit.
01:12:07.000 You know, it's unspeakably vile.
01:12:10.000 You can barely breathe.
01:12:12.000 And what happened to me down there is I completely failed to host the show.
01:12:21.000 All the stand-ups went wrong.
01:12:23.000 Laterals exploded.
01:12:25.000 We were all getting hit in the head.
01:12:27.000 It's like a shooting gallery. 0.60
01:12:29.000 There was a rat the size of a loaf of bread that crawled up my...
01:12:33.000 I lost my footing, fell into...
01:12:36.000 I was baptized.
01:12:38.000 Oh! 1.00
01:12:39.000 I was baptized in a river of crap. 0.99
01:12:42.000 And at the end, my cameraman threw up at one point. 0.99
01:12:49.000 An enormous puke.
01:12:51.000 And I'm squatting in the filth, you know, looking at the camera trying to open the show.
01:12:57.000 And when you see your cameraman's vomit float past you, As you're trying to articulate a thought.
01:13:08.000 And meanwhile, the guy who was like my minder was an actual sewer inspector.
01:13:14.000 And he's in the background trying to do his job, which is to hammer out the old bricks that are rotting and replace them with new ones.
01:13:24.000 Now it's 105 degrees.
01:13:27.000 It's the seventh level of hell.
01:13:30.000 It's clear I can't do my job.
01:13:32.000 So I go over to this guy, his name was Gene Cruz, and I say, hey, what are you doing?
01:13:39.000 He's like, I'm putting bricks in.
01:13:41.000 I said, you need a hand.
01:13:43.000 So I start mixing the mortar, and we start talking, just like people, you know, not like a host-y thing, but like what you were saying.
01:13:51.000 What would happen if you had an honest conversation, totally unscripted, with a guy who didn't really know he was going to be on camera?
01:13:58.000 But what if you film it and put it on TV anyway?
01:14:01.000 What would happen? 0.98
01:14:03.000 Well, what happened a week later when this thing finally aired was I was fired because people sitting down to hear their heart-tugging story of the three-legged dog up in Marin overcoming canine kidney failure, and it's me, a smart-ass 42-year-old crawling through a river of crap. 0.94
01:14:22.000 I mean, they're trying to eat their meatloaf.
01:14:25.000 It was the wrong segment for that show, but Talk about fortunate.
01:14:32.000 The mail that came in as a result, some people said it was funny and they liked it.
01:14:38.000 Some people were repulsed.
01:14:39.000 But the letters that changed my life were the ones that said, you think that was dirty?
01:14:47.000 Wait till you see what my brother does.
01:14:49.000 Wait till you see what my cousin does. 1.00
01:14:51.000 My mom, my sister, my uncle, right?
01:14:54.000 And I'm like, oh my God.
01:14:56.000 I mean, if the Bay Area is any kind of a microcosm for the country, and I'm not saying it is, but from a TV standpoint, I was like...
01:15:07.000 This is new.
01:15:09.000 I've never seen feedback like this.
01:15:13.000 I've never seen curiosity among the viewership like this.
01:15:17.000 And so that's where the idea came from.
01:15:21.000 Ah.
01:15:22.000 I was like, what if the viewer programs the show, A, and what if B, the host of the show, is the person that I meet who welcomes me into their shithole, or wherever they work?
01:15:38.000 And what if I'm not a host, after all?
01:15:41.000 After 20 years of impersonating a host, What if I'm a guest or an apprentice or an avatar or a cipher, right?
01:15:53.000 What if I just think of myself differently than this guy who hits the mark and looks at the camera and tells you the cat sack is 29. I mean, what if you just let all that go?
01:16:05.000 And, you know, I don't know that I would have thought of it like that at 22, certainly not, not even at 32, but at 42, I was entering a more introspective kind of phase.
01:16:20.000 Mm-hmm.
01:16:21.000 And so I was really just curious to see what would happen if I thought of myself as something different.
01:16:27.000 Well, if we think about the history of just media, it's very recent, right?
01:16:35.000 You have radio, which is like, when did people start listening to radio?
01:16:39.000 Was it the 1800s?
01:16:41.000 Okay, and then you have television, which kicks on in the 50s.
01:16:45.000 And everyone's a presenter!
01:16:47.000 Ladies and gentlemen...
01:16:49.000 The Beatles, right?
01:16:50.000 Everyone's Ed Sullivan, everyone's Jack Parr, like there's these type of people that do this job.
01:16:59.000 It's like, you ever do a morning radio show?
01:17:02.000 I'm sure you have.
01:17:03.000 Morning DJ voice, hey, five o'clock on the hour, let's go with Bon Jovi.
01:17:08.000 There's a voice that they have, a strip club DJ similar.
01:17:11.000 There's a voice.
01:17:12.000 Anchorman.
01:17:13.000 Anchorman.
01:17:14.000 And now?
01:17:14.000 Yes.
01:17:15.000 The news.
01:17:15.000 Especially local news.
01:17:17.000 They have a very specific thing that they're doing.
01:17:20.000 It's a cadence.
01:17:21.000 Yeah.
01:17:21.000 Well, it's fake.
01:17:22.000 It's not a person.
01:17:24.000 No people act like that. 0.99
01:17:25.000 If you had a guy like that over your house for dinner, you'd be like, what the fuck is wrong with Bob? 1.00
01:17:29.000 Bob's a psycho. 1.00
01:17:30.000 The guy's got people buried in his fucking basement. 1.00
01:17:33.000 Who talks like that, right? 1.00
01:17:35.000 And so I think...
01:17:38.000 The internet opened up a lot of room for unprofessional people to thrive.
01:17:43.000 That's me.
01:17:45.000 So, like, I can't do the hosting, but that's what it is.
01:17:48.000 You're not unprofessional.
01:17:50.000 But it's, like, I mean, in that regard.
01:17:53.000 Like, I'm not...
01:17:53.000 So, I wasn't trying to do something that had already existed.
01:17:57.000 I was just doing, like...
01:17:59.000 I was doing, like, a guest on Opie and Anthony's show.
01:18:03.000 That's what it was like.
01:18:04.000 Like, when you're a guest on Opie and Anthony, that's how you talk.
01:18:06.000 Everybody would just hang out and talk.
01:18:08.000 That's a fun show.
01:18:08.000 It was anyway.
01:18:09.000 That opened my eyes up to podcasting. 0.99
01:18:12.000 And then, you know, Anthony Cumia had his own show that he did in his basement, live at the compound, where he'd sing karaoke, holding a machine gun, that fucking maniac. 0.72
01:18:21.000 And then the other big one was doing the Tom Green show, because Tom Green had his own sort of internet talk show that he did out of his house. 0.90
01:18:31.000 Sure.
01:18:31.000 I remember that.
01:18:32.000 Yeah.
01:18:33.000 That was huge.
01:18:33.000 So that also helped, too.
01:18:35.000 And I actually was in negotiation with the people that were doing his show, and I was thinking about doing something on my own, but then I was like, I can't work with anybody.
01:18:41.000 I gotta do this on my own.
01:18:43.000 Quick sidebar.
01:18:44.000 I don't know if this is of interest, and Jamie, forgive me, because I don't know if I'm supposed to ask you to do things, but I sold the first karaoke machine.
01:18:52.000 Ever?
01:18:52.000 In this country.
01:18:53.000 On QVC? Yeah.
01:18:55.000 Oh, let's see that.
01:18:56.000 It's out there.
01:18:58.000 I'm not proud of it.
01:18:59.000 You should be proud of that.
01:19:00.000 That's a statistic.
01:19:01.000 It was like 12.15 in the morning, you know, and they sent me one of these things to my apartment, and I'm like, what?
01:19:10.000 Is this even...
01:19:12.000 Like, look, they're everywhere now, obviously.
01:19:14.000 We've gone through the whole...
01:19:15.000 It's kind of crazy, though, that you're like the godfather of karaoke.
01:19:18.000 Well, I'm among them.
01:19:19.000 So what year is this?
01:19:20.000 What are we talking...
01:19:21.000 Look at you.
01:19:21.000 91. This is 91, 92. Wow. 99, 95.
01:19:32.000 99.95, yeah.
01:19:34.000 It's hard to see.
01:19:35.000 It's so blurry.
01:19:36.000 Isn't it interesting how bad television looked back then in comparison to now?
01:19:42.000 Like just the resolution?
01:19:44.000 Yeah, but you know what?
01:19:46.000 There's something more trustworthy about rudimentary production value.
01:19:53.000 Right.
01:19:54.000 You can't, like, yeah.
01:19:56.000 I was talking to a guy, Bruce, about this earlier.
01:19:58.000 He was saying how much he loves, like, Antique Roadshow and This Old House.
01:20:05.000 You know, and I said, why?
01:20:06.000 I love This Old House.
01:20:07.000 I still, I was on This Old House.
01:20:10.000 Were you?
01:20:11.000 Yeah, man.
01:20:11.000 They invited me on.
01:20:13.000 They wanted to raise money to reinvigorate the trades.
01:20:18.000 They had a very similar cause as I do today.
01:20:22.000 And they got all these advertisers lined up, and then the guy in charge said, well, Mike's doing the same basic thing.
01:20:30.000 Let's call him, and maybe we should just give him the money and let his foundation give it away.
01:20:34.000 It'll be simpler than starting a new thing.
01:20:37.000 And they called and I said, yeah, I'll do that, sure.
01:20:40.000 But I'd like to be on your show.
01:20:41.000 And they're like, that'd be great.
01:20:42.000 So they invited me on and it was awesome.
01:20:44.000 But my point is...
01:20:46.000 Part of the charm of those shows is the almost remedial simplicity of the production.
01:20:56.000 It's old.
01:20:57.000 It's like there's an entrance.
01:20:59.000 There's an exit.
01:21:00.000 Right.
01:21:00.000 When's the last time you saw it dissolve?
01:21:02.000 Right.
01:21:03.000 Right?
01:21:03.000 Like all that stuff.
01:21:05.000 And I used to make fun of it.
01:21:08.000 I used to make fun of QVC. I still do.
01:21:10.000 But in reality, man, there was something strangely comforting about that kind of production value.
01:21:17.000 And everything I learned that turned out to be useful, you know, I learned in the middle of the night.
01:21:23.000 Yeah, there's a thing about something that's overproduced that kind of dissolves some of its authenticity because there's too much thought.
01:21:31.000 Put into each and every shot, everything.
01:21:35.000 There's too much coordination.
01:21:37.000 It's almost like you lose a comfort.
01:21:40.000 I might be entertained by it.
01:21:41.000 It might be fascinating.
01:21:43.000 Keeping up with the Kardashians, you ever notice they change scenes every five seconds?
01:21:47.000 Just keep you tuned in?
01:21:50.000 There's something smart about that because it does keep you engaged, but it doesn't feel as authentic as if it was just like one person following them around in real time with no edits at all, just one camera on them.
01:22:05.000 Here's a thesis.
01:22:08.000 At least in the world of nonfiction, this doesn't apply to scripted.
01:22:13.000 But production is by definition the enemy of authenticity, right?
01:22:19.000 It's the enemy of it.
01:22:20.000 You need it in order to have a finished product, but when you get in your own way, then you get in the viewer's way.
01:22:27.000 And one of the things that kept Dirty Jobs on the air for 20 years, early on, I kind of realized that, and I wasn't sure what to do about it, but I thought, Maybe we need to think of the show like a documentary.
01:22:44.000 So we got a behind-the-scenes camera.
01:22:46.000 That never stopped rolling.
01:22:48.000 And so if my mic pack went out, or if a plane flew over, or if somebody screwed something up, or if we had to stop for whatever reason, I always knew there was a truth cam.
01:23:00.000 That's what I called it.
01:23:01.000 And I could always look to it, and I could say, all right, well, what happened here?
01:23:05.000 Blah, blah, blah.
01:23:05.000 And so it was those moments where I think the viewer realized, oh, oh, he's not He's not trying to sell me anything, at least not here.
01:23:18.000 He's letting us see the sausage.
01:23:20.000 And that was new in nonfiction.
01:23:24.000 That was a whole new way to think about authenticity.
01:23:28.000 Vivek Ramaswamy was the only candidate I invited onto my podcast because I read somewhere that he said if he was nominated, he vowed to never use a teleprompter.
01:23:44.000 Well, he can pull it off.
01:23:47.000 Whether you can pull it off or not, I just thought that was so interesting.
01:23:51.000 And I wanted to talk to him about that specifically.
01:23:54.000 And then it's funny, a year later, you know, I think the teleprompter is probably the best example of one forced error after the next.
01:24:07.000 Like when you think about the anchor who just wants to be believed, the spokesman who just wants to be seen as credible, the politician who just wants to be – just wants it justified.
01:24:18.000 just so.
01:24:19.000 It's like they want to be authentic and yet they do the single most inauthentic thing you can possibly do which is pretend to not read a thing that everyone can see you're reading.
01:24:32.000 Right.
01:24:33.000 And so like the cognitive dissonance is rich, you know, And I just think we've entered into this world where, like, the least persuasive thing you can do is say, trust me, or take it from me.
01:24:50.000 You know, people have just been burned so much that they're going to need...
01:24:56.000 We need a truth cam.
01:24:58.000 We need it in the newsroom, not just in a sewer.
01:25:01.000 I mean, it worked there, but we need it everywhere. 1.00
01:25:04.000 Fuck it, we'll do it live. 1.00
01:25:06.000 Bill O'Reilly, of all people. 1.00
01:25:08.000 I'll do it live!
01:25:09.000 That's the real Bill.
01:25:11.000 Yeah.
01:25:11.000 That's it.
01:25:12.000 That's the real bill.
01:25:12.000 That's it.
01:25:13.000 Yeah.
01:25:14.000 That's what's interesting about social media and social media – like, there's this giant resistance right now to the idea that X is the new source of the world.
01:25:25.000 It is.
01:25:26.000 They're the mainstream.
01:25:27.000 It is.
01:25:27.000 They're the mainstream.
01:25:28.000 It's the new source of the world.
01:25:30.000 You – and these people that want to cling to authority and say, no, you're not. 0.99
01:25:35.000 You're – goddammit, you're not the fucking – you're not a journalist. 1.00
01:25:38.000 You're not this – You guys fucked us too many times and we don't believe you anymore. 0.99
01:25:45.000 And so the only way for us to find out what's real and what's not real is someone posts it online and then everybody looks at it and then you get the community notes. 0.99
01:25:55.000 And that's way better than the New York Times telling me that the Froot Loops in Canada are exactly the same as the Froot Loops in America, except for a bunch of shit that's banned, and that's the whole point of the whole fucking thing.
01:26:07.000 But meanwhile, they're fact-checking RFK Jr., so now I don't trust you anymore, either. 0.91
01:26:12.000 You can't, um...
01:26:13.000 So it's like, that's what's going on.
01:26:15.000 You can't gloss over the community notes.
01:26:17.000 You can't.
01:26:18.000 That's it.
01:26:18.000 That's it.
01:26:19.000 That's the truth cam on Twitter.
01:26:22.000 It's a solution to this thing that we're trying to figure out, how do we know what's true and what's not true?
01:26:25.000 You get a consensus.
01:26:26.000 There's enough people that actually can read scientific papers.
01:26:30.000 There's enough people that know the field that's being discussed.
01:26:34.000 Out of the hundreds of millions of people on X, you're going to get an expert.
01:26:40.000 Who's going to say, this is why, this is incorrect, and this is how you're supposed to read it.
01:26:43.000 And then everybody goes, oh, okay, this is wrong.
01:26:46.000 And now you know.
01:26:47.000 And if you can just do a little research and go through that paper or go through that thread, if you're an objective person, you'll probably get a good sense of who's right and who's wrong.
01:26:58.000 It's a weird dichotomy, though, right?
01:26:59.000 Like, skepticism.
01:27:01.000 Like, we have to be skeptical.
01:27:03.000 Yes.
01:27:04.000 But part of the reason we have to be as skeptical as we are is because so much of the media has abdicated on skepticism.
01:27:12.000 And they've become something else.
01:27:16.000 You know, something else.
01:27:17.000 And so, you know, you can't really blame people for, you know, considering what we used to dismiss as a conspiracy theory.
01:27:28.000 When the theories start to get borne out and when there's such a level of eroded trust in once credible institutions.
01:27:37.000 Well, that's also the whole reason for the disdain for conspiracy theorists in the first place is that, no, you're not an expert.
01:27:44.000 I'm the expert and you're wrong.
01:27:45.000 But then when they're wrong, there's no repercussions.
01:27:48.000 They never want to say, you know, we were wrong about all this.
01:27:51.000 Yeah.
01:27:51.000 We're sorry.
01:27:52.000 We were wrong about masking.
01:27:53.000 We were wrong about social distancing.
01:27:56.000 We were wrong about all of it. 1.00
01:27:56.000 It's all bullshit. 1.00
01:27:57.000 Where's the humility, man? 1.00
01:27:58.000 Yeah.
01:27:59.000 No humility.
01:28:00.000 Because they're not humans.
01:28:01.000 And that's why you don't believe them. 1.00
01:28:03.000 Because you know they're just people reading off bullshit off a teleprompter. 1.00
01:28:06.000 That's it. 1.00
01:28:06.000 That's it. 1.00
01:28:07.000 That's all it is.
01:28:08.000 And nobody wants that anymore.
01:28:09.000 You don't have to have that anymore.
01:28:11.000 And that's why X has emerged and Substack and all these different things as the place where people go to get actual information.
01:28:18.000 And that's why they like podcasts, because it's just the three of us in this room.
01:28:22.000 That's it.
01:28:24.000 And Carl.
01:28:25.000 And Carl's out cold now.
01:28:28.000 But the numbers of people that are listening, it's this crazy number that are all just listening to three people.
01:28:35.000 So there's no producer. 0.95
01:28:36.000 All that shit that gets in the way of things has been removed. 0.98
01:28:41.000 It's actually four people when you think about it that way. 0.99
01:28:44.000 Like if the audience becomes its own amalgam.
01:28:49.000 I think of it like that.
01:28:50.000 You know, I think the audience gets short-shrifted a lot.
01:28:55.000 You know, I thought of it last night in your club.
01:28:57.000 It's like the audience is...
01:28:59.000 I mean, without the audience, what are you doing?
01:29:02.000 You know, you're just building...
01:29:03.000 Certainly at a club.
01:29:04.000 Yeah, at a club, it's everything.
01:29:05.000 It's everything, but why is it different than here?
01:29:08.000 Well, because you can't think about it that way.
01:29:10.000 Because the best way to do it, in my opinion, for me, the best way I've found to do it is to never think about the audience.
01:29:19.000 All I'm interested in...
01:29:20.000 I think about it in terms of like, if I'm bored, they must be bored.
01:29:23.000 Like, let me pick this up a little bit.
01:29:24.000 Let me move this around a little bit.
01:29:26.000 Let me figure out a way to...
01:29:26.000 You got to move a conversation.
01:29:28.000 It's like sometimes I've talked to like very old scholars, like very old...
01:29:32.000 And it's like sometimes it's like, okay, we got to focus you here.
01:29:35.000 We got to get you on this.
01:29:36.000 We're going to land this plane, baby.
01:29:38.000 With Trump a little bit in the beginning when he was telling me the story with Lincoln's bedroom.
01:29:41.000 I was at...
01:29:41.000 The bed was...
01:29:42.000 He was a long man.
01:29:43.000 He was at...
01:29:44.000 Very tall!
01:29:45.000 Very tall. 1.00
01:29:45.000 So I was like, okay, we gotta figure out a way to, what's it like to be the fucking president? 1.00
01:29:50.000 What is that feeling? 0.99
01:29:51.000 Like, how crazy is it on the first day?
01:29:53.000 That's what I really wanted to know.
01:29:54.000 So it's like you gotta kind of move people around.
01:29:56.000 But that is, for me, like, as an audience member, I'm not thinking about the audience.
01:30:02.000 Because I feel like the best way to do it is for me to actually 100% be engaged and interested in what this person's talking about.
01:30:10.000 But don't you think...
01:30:14.000 You are the proxy for the audience.
01:30:16.000 When you're at your best, in my view, when I'm listening to you, when I high-five you virtually, it's when you asked the question I was thinking...
01:30:27.000 Yeah.
01:30:28.000 And I really tried to do that in the sewer.
01:30:30.000 I really tried to do that on dirty jobs.
01:30:33.000 I really tried...
01:30:34.000 I think you did.
01:30:35.000 I think that's why it resonated so much with people.
01:30:36.000 Well, I hope so.
01:30:37.000 No, for sure, because you didn't ever seem like a fake guy doing a thing.
01:30:41.000 You seemed like a fun guy, like a regular guy who's doing this thing where you're interacting with people.
01:30:46.000 You're like, how do you do this?
01:30:47.000 Like, what is this?
01:30:48.000 So, yes, thanks.
01:30:49.000 But then all of a sudden, I look up and Donald Trump's in the sewer with me. 1.00
01:30:53.000 Oh, shit. 1.00
01:30:55.000 And there's an election in a week. 1.00
01:30:57.000 Oh, the stakes around me, right, all of a sudden have changed.
01:31:03.000 So it's so interesting that he was sitting right where I'm sitting, and you feel the need to kind of put some sides on this thing because you understand, first and foremost, that as an audience member, Right?
01:31:19.000 As somebody who's just listening to this as a fly on the wall, I'm getting a little lost.
01:31:23.000 Yeah, I'm a little bored.
01:31:24.000 Let's move it along.
01:31:25.000 Right, right, right.
01:31:27.000 So, I mean, you can say that, hey, that's Joe being a good host, or that's Joe being super honest in a conversation where he's starting to drift a little bit.
01:31:37.000 I'm most certainly aware that people are going to listen to it.
01:31:40.000 Don't get me wrong.
01:31:41.000 But I don't think, like, the questions, like, maybe the audience would want to know this.
01:31:46.000 I do do this one thing, even if I know how a thing works, I will ask a person how a thing works so that the audience can hear it from them rather than from me.
01:31:58.000 I don't want to be Mr. Smarty Pants, but I don't have to be.
01:32:00.000 But that's one thing that I do where I'm aware that people probably don't know what we're talking about.
01:32:05.000 Could you explain where this came from or why this?
01:32:09.000 Because sometimes people, especially if they have an area of expertise, they just assume that people know what they're talking about when they're talking about specific techniques or Ways they do things.
01:32:17.000 So in that way, I do think about the audience.
01:32:19.000 But most of the time, that's just like I'm just doing my job.
01:32:22.000 But mostly all I'm trying to do is be 100% locked in.
01:32:27.000 And I feel like if I'm locked in and I'm just real honest and just try to be really curious and really just try to get the most out of this person, that's going to be good for the audience.
01:32:39.000 What was more consequential?
01:32:41.000 Him coming on or her not coming on?
01:32:45.000 Him coming on.
01:32:47.000 Why do you say that?
01:32:48.000 Well, because realistically, like, okay, my thought about her coming on was I was going to be very nice.
01:32:56.000 I wanted to have fun with her.
01:32:58.000 I wanted to just be able to talk to her and ask her a question.
01:33:00.000 I want to get a sense of her as a human being.
01:33:03.000 And if it's policy talk that bothered them, like there was a few things they didn't want to talk, marijuana legalization, they initially didn't want to talk about internet censorship, and then they changed their tune, and then they wanted to talk about internet censorship.
01:33:14.000 Great.
01:33:14.000 Internet censorship is important.
01:33:16.000 Let's talk about it.
01:33:17.000 But whatever. 1.00
01:33:18.000 She wanted to talk about fucking riding bikes. 1.00
01:33:20.000 I don't give a shit. 1.00
01:33:21.000 I don't give a fuck what you want to talk about. 1.00
01:33:23.000 I want to talk about cooking, rock climbing. 0.99
01:33:27.000 I just want to just get a sense of her as a human being.
01:33:30.000 Just as a human being.
01:33:32.000 What is it like?
01:33:33.000 Does it freak you out when people get mad at you? 0.86
01:33:34.000 Does it freak you out when you fuck up a sentence and you ramble? 0.98
01:33:38.000 I know what it's like when you know the people are listening and you're like, I gotta fucking bring this home and I don't know how to. 0.98
01:33:46.000 And you just sort of repeat these key lines or maybe some new word you become enamored with.
01:33:51.000 When you realize you're in the middle of a sentence with no obvious ending, that's QVC in a nutshell.
01:33:59.000 Okay, that's what it is, right?
01:34:01.000 And when the teleprompter breaks, that's when you get to know the person.
01:34:05.000 And so that's why I'm asking.
01:34:09.000 I wonder.
01:34:10.000 I mean, I listen to the interview, and I ask myself, well, is anybody going to vote differently as a result?
01:34:17.000 I don't think so.
01:34:19.000 Are some people going to vote who otherwise might not have voted?
01:34:23.000 Maybe.
01:34:23.000 But for me, when you started to talk very casually about the fact that her campaign had stipulations, they had demands.
01:34:35.000 I think there was a lot of people that were...
01:34:37.000 She had made a bunch of... 0.86
01:34:38.000 Blunders, and there was a lot of concern that she was going to make blunders here.
01:34:42.000 This is what I was going to get to.
01:34:43.000 She might have. 0.60
01:34:44.000 It might have been a mess.
01:34:46.000 I might have asked her about immigration.
01:34:48.000 We might have had a conversation about, like, what is the goal?
01:34:51.000 Why hasn't this been...
01:34:53.000 If we can launch rockets and land them at the same time as we can't control a border, that seems not real.
01:35:01.000 That doesn't seem real.
01:35:02.000 One seems way harder.
01:35:04.000 And that's happening. 0.98
01:35:05.000 He's fucking catching rockets with robot arms. 0.98
01:35:07.000 Okay, if that's happening, how come this can't be fixed? 0.95
01:35:11.000 Because this didn't used to be like this, so why is it like this now?
01:35:13.000 Why does the Red Cross have these stations set up where they're giving people maps and instructions?
01:35:18.000 Why does China have these places in Mexico where they only have Chinese menus, Chinese writing, Chinese everything, and these people are coming from China specifically to the spot and then making it across the country? 0.74
01:35:30.000 What's the purpose of this?
01:35:31.000 Has anybody ever examined what these people are up to?
01:35:33.000 Why they're doing this?
01:35:34.000 How is it so organized?
01:35:36.000 Like, what is that about?
01:35:37.000 Maybe that would have been a disaster.
01:35:39.000 Because that's something that I felt like if she didn't want to talk about marijuana and didn't want to talk about internet censorship, Immigration is an interesting one, right? 0.71
01:35:49.000 It's very interesting, because, like, first of all, I am pro-immigration.
01:35:53.000 I am the grandson of immigrants.
01:35:55.000 My grandparents came over here during the Depression.
01:35:58.000 If they didn't do it, I wouldn't be here.
01:36:00.000 The entire country, other than the Native Americans, are immigrants. 0.99
01:36:05.000 That's all of us.
01:36:06.000 We are a country of immigrants.
01:36:08.000 So we should have some stipulations, though, about who gets in, and how you get in, and where are you coming from, and what is your past like?
01:36:16.000 Are you a murderer?
01:36:18.000 Are you a gangbanger? 1.00
01:36:20.000 Have you been selling fentanyl for the last 20 years? 0.95
01:36:22.000 Like, what are you doing with your life, Bob?
01:36:25.000 Inquiring minds want to know.
01:36:26.000 Yeah, we want to know.
01:36:27.000 And I think that's reasonable.
01:36:29.000 Do you see a difference between an immigrant and a settler?
01:36:35.000 Well, it all is the timeline, right?
01:36:37.000 It's a timeline thing.
01:36:39.000 Not only that, you're an invader. 1.00
01:36:41.000 If you're one of those people that comes over in 1820 and you're making your way across the plains and you encounter the Comanche, you're the piece of shit. 1.00
01:36:49.000 You're not supposed to be there. 1.00
01:36:50.000 That's where they live.
01:36:51.000 You're in their yard. 1.00
01:36:53.000 You're some fucking weird, scruffy American looking for gold. 1.00
01:36:57.000 What are you doing here, bro? 1.00
01:36:59.000 You're the problem.
01:37:00.000 And now, all of a sudden, that's Texas.
01:37:02.000 That's where we are.
01:37:03.000 We live here now. 1.00
01:37:03.000 This is my land, bitch. 1.00
01:37:04.000 This is where I live. 1.00
01:37:05.000 Shut the fuck up. 1.00
01:37:06.000 I got this now. 1.00
01:37:08.000 It's weird.
01:37:08.000 We're all invaders.
01:37:09.000 At one point in time, every human being that's a nomadic person that's made their way across the country, you've probably entered a place where people were before.
01:37:18.000 Every freedom fighter is a terrorist.
01:37:20.000 Yes.
01:37:21.000 Right.
01:37:21.000 It depends on who wins.
01:37:23.000 History gets to decide all that.
01:37:24.000 Sure. 0.97
01:37:25.000 If we didn't actually, if the founding fathers didn't pull it off, you know, we would be these wild renegade English people that decided to come over here and just fucking create havoc. 0.98
01:37:35.000 So, yeah, man, there are a lot of ways to go with all this, but I'll just come back to the teleprompter and say, if that's an essential part of how you communicate, and if that's part of your image, then you can't be on this show.
01:37:57.000 Right, right, right.
01:37:58.000 You can't.
01:37:59.000 You can't join me in the sewer.
01:38:01.000 Right, right.
01:38:02.000 There's no room for the contrivance.
01:38:05.000 There's just no room.
01:38:06.000 There's just no time.
01:38:07.000 I just wonder if that's what they make them do. 0.99
01:38:10.000 Like, if you make me do that, I'll suck too. 0.98
01:38:13.000 You know, I can't read off a teleprompter. 0.99
01:38:15.000 I'm not interested in doing that.
01:38:16.000 It's not my thing.
01:38:17.000 But if you make a person do that, like if you're going to be a politician, right, okay, and you were a senator, which is, you know, you don't get that kind of exposure that you get if you're a vice president or you're running for president initially.
01:38:30.000 Right?
01:38:31.000 Like that's a totally different scene and there's probably a bunch of people that coach you how to do it right and you don't know what the fuck you're doing and if you're not a powerful person like a big personality like Donald Trump who could just do it but also coming from a world of entertainment for most of his life he's been the public eye and hosting The Apprentice for 14 years like he's used to being in front of the camera it's a normal experience for him he has a massive advantage That's what I meant by production becomes
01:39:01.000 the enemy of authenticity.
01:39:02.000 When you rely upon it to the point where you can't function in the midst or in the wake of a glitch, well, in a world of glitches, you're in trouble.
01:39:12.000 And I think the audience, not just yours, but the country, I just think they're just exhausted by people who have been managed and focus grouped and weighed and measured and tested and then put out there.
01:39:27.000 I think it's also the evolution of culture in general, because if you just go back to, we were talking about media, you go back and watch a film from 1950 versus a film from 2024, the way people communicate now is much more realistic.
01:39:43.000 There was a way of talking, like, Hannah, what did you do?
01:39:48.000 There was a weird performative aspect to it because they didn't know how to do it right.
01:39:52.000 In sitcoms too.
01:39:53.000 In everything.
01:39:54.000 Father Knows Best, all that stuff.
01:39:55.000 Yes, all that stuff.
01:39:56.000 And then as time moved on, it changed.
01:39:59.000 Like All in the Family was all of a sudden this realistic portrayal of a family where you've got a racist dad and the son is, you know, the meathead, the son-in-law, and the daughter's a hippie, and the mom just came from, what are you doing? 0.99
01:40:14.000 It was a fucking amazing show. 0.99
01:40:16.000 I'm watching. 1.00
01:40:17.000 It was an amazing show.
01:40:18.000 You had Sanford and Son.
01:40:20.000 Sanford and Son is another one.
01:40:21.000 You know, it was a comedy, but people talked like people would talk in real life.
01:40:26.000 And then as culture moves on, songs change.
01:40:30.000 Books change.
01:40:32.000 Everything sort of, like, moves into the...
01:40:34.000 There's a much greater understanding.
01:40:36.000 If you had a show and you tried to do a father known as best today, it would almost be like you were putting on, like, a parody.
01:40:43.000 Mm-hmm.
01:40:43.000 It would be weird.
01:40:45.000 It would be like a weird Tim and Eric type thing.
01:40:48.000 Like you're doing something weird on purpose.
01:40:50.000 Right.
01:40:50.000 And that's not acceptable anymore.
01:40:53.000 So the culture's moved on.
01:40:55.000 So for sure.
01:40:56.000 But it moves on and fits and starts.
01:40:58.000 And it's not a line.
01:41:00.000 Right.
01:41:01.000 No, no.
01:41:02.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:41:02.000 Just like the climate.
01:41:04.000 Right.
01:41:05.000 Right.
01:41:05.000 So like the...
01:41:07.000 Look, the changes in podcasting.
01:41:09.000 It's happening right now, right in front of us.
01:41:11.000 You can see so many different types of podcasts.
01:41:14.000 You can see so many different kinds of scripted dramas.
01:41:17.000 I mean, oh my God.
01:41:18.000 Can you imagine Breaking Bad 30 years ago?
01:41:22.000 Right, right, right.
01:41:22.000 It's impossible.
01:41:24.000 A whole lot of things had to happen in front of that for that thing to...
01:41:28.000 The Sopranos had to happen. 1.00
01:41:29.000 That's right.
01:41:30.000 And something had to happen before that.
01:41:31.000 Yeah.
01:41:32.000 Well, in my world, and in the world you're describing, that was the age of authority.
01:41:38.000 That's when Eric Severide could talk to you like this.
01:41:43.000 Discovery is a good example.
01:41:45.000 You asked about it, and I'll tell you, first of all, John Hendricks, a friend of mine who created that channel...
01:41:52.000 You would love.
01:41:53.000 He did this in his garage, basically.
01:41:55.000 I mean, the story's incredible.
01:41:57.000 How he talked Malone into getting some transponder space for maybe his Westinghouse and mortgage his house to buy some documentaries from Australia and started beaming all that stuff down.
01:42:11.000 I asked him years ago, I'm like, what was the...
01:42:15.000 What was the guiding principle behind this business model?
01:42:20.000 And of course, you know, Discovery has since purchased Warner Brothers.
01:42:25.000 You know, they're the biggest entertainment company in the world today.
01:42:28.000 And it started with John Hendricks saying, one goal, to satisfy curiosity.
01:42:37.000 That's it.
01:42:39.000 Discovery.
01:42:40.000 Everything I do must line up with a traditional definition of what a discovery is.
01:42:47.000 It's the satisfying of curiosity.
01:42:51.000 Yeah.
01:42:52.000 And so, when I pitched Dirty Jobs...
01:42:55.000 I was coming in on the heels of what you're talking about.
01:43:00.000 There was still in nonfiction, it was Richard Attenborough, it was Jacques Cousteau, it was Jane Goodall.
01:43:07.000 The Discovery brand was very much a reflection of some of the greatest naturalists and historians and astrophysicists in the world.
01:43:19.000 They deferred I think?
01:43:38.000 Dirty Jobs was not that.
01:43:40.000 Dirty Jobs was, what if the expert is a septic tank technician or a welder?
01:43:45.000 What if the expert is a skull cleaner or a golf ball retrievist?
01:43:51.000 It's a job.
01:43:52.000 Or a sheep castrator, an oral sheep castrator, which we can get into if you want.
01:43:58.000 What if they become...
01:44:01.000 What if the host somehow morphs from this authoritarian expert into a guest with a bunch of questions?
01:44:12.000 So this conversation happened between me and some of the guys over there in 2003. And they bought it.
01:44:21.000 They didn't like Dirty Jobs.
01:44:24.000 They took it, really, to shut me up.
01:44:26.000 They wanted three episodes and out.
01:44:28.000 The deal I made with these guys was rooted in this paradigm of me saying, Send me out into the world to go on adventures.
01:44:38.000 And don't ask me to know more than I know, but just let me look under the rock and let's learn together.
01:44:44.000 And so they said, okay, you'll go to the Titanic with James Cameron.
01:44:50.000 You'll climb Kilimanjaro.
01:44:52.000 You went to the Titanic?
01:44:53.000 No.
01:44:54.000 Very nearly.
01:44:55.000 It was canceled a month before.
01:44:58.000 Because dirty jobs finally hit.
01:45:00.000 But prior to that, I went to Egypt.
01:45:02.000 I was exploring tombs with Zahi Hawass.
01:45:06.000 I was at the pyramids.
01:45:07.000 I was in some of the greatest, the largest undiscovered graveyard in Bawiti, the Sands of the Dead, where they found the mummies with the golden masks.
01:45:19.000 And nobody knew who the hell they were because it wasn't attached to any dynasty.
01:45:23.000 And Who are all these people with golden masks on their faces?
01:45:26.000 And so Discovery would send me to do these shows, and they were great.
01:45:31.000 Meanwhile, this hot mess that looked like a German porno called Dirty Jobs winds up on the air, and it rates like through the roof. 0.86
01:45:44.000 But the problem in 2004 was that And this is a kind of cognitive dissonance that always is super interesting, right?
01:45:55.000 When a big company or a brand or a political party or really anybody realizes that the thing their audience wants is not the thing they want them to want.
01:46:08.000 That's amazing.
01:46:09.000 Right.
01:46:10.000 And it happens all the time.
01:46:12.000 Sure.
01:46:13.000 And most of the time when it happens, you just walk up behind the barn and shoot it, and you never hear about it.
01:46:22.000 But Dirty Jobs actually got on the air before it was shelved for a year.
01:46:27.000 And it was during that year that I went on a series of adventures for the network, doing this other thing.
01:46:34.000 Why was it shelved?
01:46:36.000 It was shelved because it was deemed off-brand. 0.94
01:46:38.000 It was shelved because I was biting the testicles off of lambs with ranchers, and that's how they castrate their lambs, and they have for hundreds of years.
01:46:47.000 It was not that specific episode.
01:46:50.000 That got me in trouble later, but it was shelved because it was an unscripted Random romp.
01:46:58.000 We never did a second take on the show.
01:47:01.000 It didn't look...
01:47:02.000 Like everything else on the network?
01:47:04.000 It didn't look like anything else on the network.
01:47:06.000 It was just a jagged little pill.
01:47:07.000 But they liked me, and they liked this idea of a more unscripted look at the world.
01:47:15.000 And so we reached this kind of detente, and I started narrating all their tentpole shows, and then I went to Alaska to host Deadliest Catch.
01:47:24.000 Which is a whole other story, that crab fishing show.
01:47:27.000 Yeah.
01:47:27.000 That's 21 years now, right?
01:47:30.000 And up there, people died.
01:47:34.000 That's a crazy job.
01:47:36.000 People died.
01:47:37.000 And I went to six funerals in six weeks.
01:47:40.000 And when we looked at the footage of that, and somebody up the food chain eventually decided, okay, this is a world we have to get into, but Mike, you're not hosting two shows at the same time, so pick one.
01:47:56.000 So Dirty Jobs came back, went into full production late in 2004, and Deadliest Catch went into full production about the same time, but I just narrated.
01:48:06.000 Moral of the story is, everything that happened After that and around that, I'm not saying because of it, but right around that same time, I think the media world, in nonfiction anyhow, began this migration from the age of authority into the age of authenticity.
01:48:27.000 And ever since, nonfiction has been grappling with that just as surely as every other vertical.
01:48:35.000 Because People want to see something that feels like the truth, and that's a sliding scale.
01:48:44.000 Yeah.
01:48:45.000 That's interesting.
01:48:47.000 And that is what people are gravitating towards more today.
01:48:54.000 I mean, I think that's the whole thing we were talking about, why mainstream news is failing.
01:48:59.000 You know it when you see it.
01:49:01.000 Yeah.
01:49:01.000 You know it when you see it.
01:49:02.000 Yeah.
01:49:04.000 You can tell the difference.
01:49:05.000 Oh.
01:49:07.000 Bourdain.
01:49:07.000 Yeah.
01:49:08.000 Okay.
01:49:09.000 Okay.
01:49:12.000 I think, for me, the moment that crystallizes all of this, and he and I were on parallel paths, I think.
01:49:21.000 He was dealing with his network, the Travel Channel at the time, the same way I was dealing with Discovery.
01:49:26.000 We were constantly at each other's throats trying to navigate this weird line of reality and authenticity.
01:49:37.000 And there's a scene in Parts Unknown.
01:49:39.000 I think he's in, it might be Sardinia.
01:49:43.000 He's diving.
01:49:44.000 Oh yeah, when they're throwing the fake octopuses in?
01:49:47.000 It's one of the single greatest moments in the history of nonfiction.
01:49:52.000 It's amazing.
01:49:52.000 He shows you exactly how the sausage is being made, but it's also like now you can trust him because you know he's kind of sabotaging the narrative that they've created for his own show for his authenticity.
01:50:01.000 I would do that for a scene, maybe even for an act, maybe even for a whole segment.
01:50:07.000 Maybe.
01:50:08.000 If I got like a bee in my bonnet and I really just couldn't, you know.
01:50:14.000 Right.
01:50:14.000 I got angry every now and then and I, you know.
01:50:18.000 But Tony, dude, he went out and got drunk.
01:50:23.000 I mean, drunk drunk and shot the whole show smashed.
01:50:28.000 Yeah.
01:50:28.000 And he made them cut it in.
01:50:30.000 And you can see him.
01:50:32.000 He's so disgusted, just so the audience understands.
01:50:37.000 They're supposed to be spearfishing for octopi.
01:50:41.000 And the local handler wasn't sure that they were going to find any.
01:50:46.000 So he bought some at the market.
01:50:50.000 But they were frozen and dead.
01:50:52.000 And so Tony's down there with his spear gun with some other diver and these frozen squid just start to come by him.
01:51:04.000 And in narration, this is where he really owned it because he owned that show.
01:51:11.000 Nobody's going to tell him what to say.
01:51:12.000 So his real rant...
01:51:15.000 Happens months later in the VO booth when he's just describing the heartbreaking insincerity.
01:51:22.000 Don't they know who I am?
01:51:24.000 What did they think I was going to do?
01:51:26.000 So it's like he says something like, in the face of this kind of wanton deception, a reasonable man can turn to nothing but the elixir of distilled alcohol.
01:51:39.000 And he just drinks for the rest of the show.
01:51:43.000 And it airs.
01:51:44.000 It airs on CNN. And I think it won a Peabody.
01:51:49.000 Was that the CNN one or was that No Reservations?
01:51:52.000 That was CNN. Was it?
01:51:53.000 It was Parts Unknown?
01:51:55.000 Look, I'm pretty sure it was Parts Unknown.
01:51:58.000 I'm pretty sure.
01:51:59.000 I could be wrong.
01:52:01.000 I think you might be right.
01:52:03.000 Yeah, and God, I just, I mean, that's what I wrote about when he died.
01:52:09.000 It was that.
01:52:10.000 Yeah, Parts Unknown.
01:52:11.000 Yeah.
01:52:13.000 Because, man, I've been sitting on a Zodiac.
01:52:15.000 I've done that.
01:52:16.000 I've been in this world where you're nervous, you've got a lot of stuff to worry about, and then somebody just comes along and tries to produce a moment.
01:52:27.000 Yeah.
01:52:28.000 You try to produce a moment.
01:52:30.000 Well, also these guys, they probably didn't know. 1.00
01:52:32.000 These Italian guys, like, these fucking guys aren't gonna find the octopus. 1.00
01:52:35.000 We've killed them all. 1.00
01:52:36.000 Probably right, but I gotta think there's somebody there in his crew. 0.98
01:52:39.000 Somebody over from 0.0, the production company.
01:52:42.000 Somebody must have, you know...
01:52:44.000 Who knows?
01:52:45.000 Who knows, man.
01:52:46.000 Who knows?
01:52:46.000 But, look, the fact that that happened is wonderful.
01:52:50.000 The fact that he was able to insist that it air, that was important.
01:52:57.000 Yeah.
01:52:58.000 That was important.
01:52:59.000 Yeah.
01:53:01.000 Well, it's certainly important for how you trust him.
01:53:03.000 You had to trust him.
01:53:05.000 I mean, that was his whole thing.
01:53:06.000 You know, you're coming with me.
01:53:07.000 This is actually me.
01:53:09.000 Here we go.
01:53:10.000 Fly on the wall.
01:53:11.000 Yeah.
01:53:11.000 Yeah.
01:53:13.000 That was a very unique show, too, because it taught me that food is art.
01:53:17.000 Hmm.
01:53:17.000 I really learned that from No Reservations, but it followed over through Parts Unknown.
01:53:22.000 Food is art.
01:53:23.000 I didn't think of it as art until I saw his show.
01:53:25.000 And then I was like, oh, okay, that's right.
01:53:28.000 Because I just thought of art as being like a thing that people make that you look at or touch.
01:53:33.000 I never thought it would be a thing you make or you hear, right?
01:53:36.000 I never thought it would be a thing you make where you eat.
01:53:39.000 And then I saw, I'm like, oh, these are artists.
01:53:42.000 These are artists.
01:53:43.000 All these people, they've discovered these different ways to make things delicious.
01:53:47.000 Their medium's different.
01:53:49.000 Yeah, it's just different.
01:53:50.000 It's a different kind.
01:53:51.000 But then hanging out with them, it's like, yeah, they're all artists.
01:53:54.000 They talk like artists.
01:53:55.000 They're covered in tattoos. 1.00
01:53:57.000 They're fucking weirdos. 1.00
01:53:58.000 They like to do drugs. 1.00
01:53:59.000 They're all listening to crazy music, you know?
01:54:02.000 They're also craftsmen.
01:54:03.000 Mm-hmm.
01:54:04.000 Like, I mean, to me, yeah, food is art.
01:54:10.000 It sure can be.
01:54:11.000 And it can also be fuel.
01:54:12.000 Yeah.
01:54:14.000 You know, it's actually both.
01:54:16.000 It's kind of perfect.
01:54:18.000 Yeah, you could have both.
01:54:19.000 It could be art and fuel.
01:54:20.000 You just got to pick what you eat.
01:54:23.000 Is hunting art?
01:54:27.000 Um...
01:54:28.000 Hmm...
01:54:32.000 It's a discipline.
01:54:35.000 It's a primal discipline.
01:54:37.000 It's a discipline that connects you with life and death in a very unique way that I don't think anything else does.
01:54:45.000 If you do it correctly, I'm talking about mountain hunting, mountain elk hunting in particular, which is my favorite.
01:54:52.000 It's very hard to do.
01:54:54.000 I train for it.
01:54:55.000 I have to get in really good shape.
01:54:57.000 I practice. 0.99
01:54:59.000 I practice so much I fuck my back up. 0.99
01:55:01.000 Because I was developing like tendinitis in my lower back and I just ignored it. 1.00
01:55:06.000 Shut up. 0.98
01:55:07.000 We got work to do. 0.99
01:55:09.000 And so it's a discipline more than it is anything.
01:55:12.000 But it's like...
01:55:16.000 I don't know.
01:55:16.000 Some people call it a sport.
01:55:17.000 I find that wrong.
01:55:19.000 It does take physical energy.
01:55:22.000 You have to be in shape to do it.
01:55:23.000 You have to be in great fitness.
01:55:25.000 But it's not a sport.
01:55:27.000 It's a discipline.
01:55:29.000 It's a discipline that's very, very, very primal.
01:55:32.000 It taps into something you didn't even know was there.
01:55:35.000 It's like people who've ever gone fishing, there's a thing that happens when you catch a fish.
01:55:41.000 There's an excitement that you're not prepared for.
01:55:44.000 It's a weird excitement.
01:55:45.000 That excitement is you're going to feed your family and stay alive.
01:55:47.000 That's what that excitement is.
01:55:48.000 Because that excitement is like hardwired in your human reward systems.
01:55:52.000 And you don't know it's there until you go fishing.
01:55:54.000 And then you're like, whoa!
01:55:56.000 Oh, here he is!
01:55:57.000 Get him!
01:55:57.000 Get him in the net!
01:55:58.000 Get him in the net! 0.73
01:55:58.000 Oh, we got him! 0.73
01:56:00.000 And hunting is that times a hundred.
01:56:03.000 Hunting is that.
01:56:04.000 Hunting is way different because you're defying their protective senses.
01:56:10.000 You have to make sure the wind is going in the right direction.
01:56:12.000 You have to go all the way around if it's not.
01:56:15.000 You've got to figure out a way to move through the trees.
01:56:17.000 You've got to move very slowly, only moving their heads down.
01:56:21.000 I think that's art.
01:56:22.000 I don't know, man.
01:56:23.000 I mean, a shot is art.
01:56:25.000 I'll tell you that.
01:56:26.000 Archery is art.
01:56:26.000 A good archery shot on an animal, I watch it like it's art because it's hard to do.
01:56:32.000 It's very hard to do.
01:56:33.000 When I see someone just hit a perfect 50-yard shot in the vitals and that broadhead sinks in, I know that animal's going to die very quickly.
01:56:40.000 It's a quick, humane death, and that's what you practice for.
01:56:44.000 You know Josh Smith over at Montana Knife, by any chance?
01:56:47.000 Sure.
01:56:48.000 Very well.
01:56:49.000 He sent me a video the other day.
01:56:50.000 He went on a big hunt with his boy.
01:56:53.000 The moose hunt?
01:56:53.000 Yeah.
01:56:54.000 Yeah.
01:56:54.000 His boy got one at about a few hundred yards.
01:56:57.000 Huge moose.
01:56:57.000 Big moose, man.
01:56:58.000 Fucking huge. 0.99
01:57:00.000 For a first moose, that's so crazy. 0.99
01:57:02.000 That kid hit the jackpot.
01:57:03.000 But the excitement on the video that he sent me.
01:57:07.000 It's primal.
01:57:08.000 Yeah.
01:57:09.000 And bow hunting is even more primal than that.
01:57:12.000 Bowhunting is that times 100. So it's regular hunting is fishing times 100, then bowhunting is regular hunting times 100. I just think, you know, if you're – whatever canvas you're in front of, whether you're painting or whether you're cooking or whether you're stalking, like you can – the muse, like does the muse come to you when you're stalking?
01:57:35.000 Does it come to you, you know – I don't have an answer for it, but I know that people talk about it like some people say, well you're in the zone.
01:57:45.000 Sometimes when I write, I'm surprised.
01:57:49.000 Just the other day, I started writing something on the tarmac of SFO, and when I looked up, I was at JFK. It was like that.
01:57:58.000 Yeah, you got into it.
01:58:00.000 Airplanes are great for that.
01:58:01.000 They're the best.
01:58:01.000 They force you into that seat.
01:58:03.000 They're the best.
01:58:04.000 You can't get up because there's a guy next to you.
01:58:06.000 You get that laptop open, and it just comes out of you.
01:58:09.000 And I like a little distraction.
01:58:11.000 Look, let's go.
01:58:12.000 I wrote a book on a plane.
01:58:14.000 I believe it.
01:58:15.000 I really did.
01:58:16.000 And I did it mostly in moments that I don't really remember when time gets compressed.
01:58:25.000 And I think that can happen when you're fabricating something, when you're hunting something, when you're painting something, maybe in the middle of a set, maybe in the middle of a fight.
01:58:34.000 You know, I talk to boxers who say that it's so odd the way Things will sometimes almost feel like they're in slow motion, even though they're happening so fast.
01:58:44.000 Some fighters, it's art.
01:58:46.000 Well, I think martial arts are art for people that understand it.
01:58:49.000 If you watch it, it's beautiful.
01:58:51.000 But there's some fighters that are just so artistic.
01:58:53.000 You know who Emmanuel Augustus is?
01:58:55.000 Yeah.
01:58:56.000 Okay.
01:58:56.000 That guy is an artist.
01:58:58.000 That guy's an artist.
01:58:59.000 What makes him an artist?
01:59:00.000 Because he's, first of all, completely unique, okay?
01:59:04.000 Doing a thing in this beautiful, deceptive way.
01:59:08.000 He's dancing, but he's also, he has an understanding of distance that's fantastic, so he's really good at avoiding punches.
01:59:15.000 His head movement, even with this unorthodox dancing style, is fantastic.
01:59:20.000 He's stalking.
01:59:21.000 He's doing something.
01:59:22.000 Like, here's Emmanuel.
01:59:23.000 Like, look at how he moves.
01:59:25.000 I mean, imagine you're fighting a guy who's moving like this.
01:59:28.000 It's so crazy.
01:59:29.000 He was so hard.
01:59:30.000 Floyd Mayweather said he was the most...
01:59:31.000 Look, he just punched him with two hands at the same time.
01:59:33.000 Floyd Mayweather said he was the most skilled opponent he ever fought.
01:59:37.000 Wow.
01:59:37.000 And his record didn't indicate his actual physical ability.
01:59:42.000 His abilities were incredible.
01:59:43.000 But it's just like, it was such a wild style.
01:59:47.000 So unusual.
01:59:48.000 It's like boxing a bobblehead. 0.93
01:59:50.000 Right.
01:59:50.000 Like, Prince Nassim Hamed had a kind of a similar thing going on when he was in his prime.
01:59:55.000 Nassim Hamed was very, very unorthodox.
01:59:59.000 See, here he's fighting Floyd. 0.97
02:00:00.000 He gave Floyd a hard fucking time because he's so difficult to fight. 0.98
02:00:05.000 Like, look, how do you deal with that? 0.98
02:00:07.000 And when you're a guy like Floyd and you're getting clowned, here he's fighting Mickey Ward. 0.99
02:00:12.000 When you're a guy like Floyd and you're, you know, the cream of the crap, Olympian, I mean, a fucking phenomenal boxer, just a fantastic boxer, and then you're fighting this guy who's dancing in front of you, like, what the fuck? 0.99
02:00:24.000 But also really good. 0.99
02:00:26.000 It wasn't just that.
02:00:28.000 Like, you rarely get a guy who's clowning like that, but also, like, that kind of head movement skill. 0.88
02:00:34.000 Phenomenal movement, but also can dance in front of you and land shit that you don't see coming, because it's coming at those weird angles. 0.86
02:00:42.000 Who was his trainer? 0.93
02:00:43.000 Oh man, I don't think anybody trains you to do that.
02:00:46.000 I don't either.
02:00:46.000 Do you remember, like, what does Custamato say to that?
02:00:49.000 He would never.
02:00:50.000 He wouldn't allow it.
02:00:50.000 No, he, you know, he was, but maybe, maybe if the guy started winning like that, he would change his tune.
02:00:55.000 So maybe.
02:00:56.000 People change their tune when they see something extraordinary.
02:00:59.000 They see something weird.
02:01:00.000 You know, they change their tune.
02:01:02.000 They go, well, maybe. 1.00
02:01:03.000 Fuck. 1.00
02:01:04.000 I don't know. 1.00
02:01:05.000 Because you don't know sometimes.
02:01:07.000 There's guys that come along in fighting in particular that have styles that are so weird and so unique.
02:01:12.000 You go, wait a minute.
02:01:13.000 How come nobody else is doing it like this?
02:01:14.000 Is this going to work?
02:01:15.000 Do you know who Sean Strickland is?
02:01:18.000 He was UFC middleweight champion.
02:01:20.000 Stands straight up. 0.98
02:01:21.000 Puts one hand like this, one hand down here, and beats the fuck out of everybody. 0.97
02:01:26.000 Stands straight up. 0.98
02:01:27.000 Everybody else is down.
02:01:28.000 Everybody else is moving.
02:01:29.000 Sean's straight up, moving towards you.
02:01:32.000 Phenomenal head movement.
02:01:33.000 Awesome timing.
02:01:35.000 And walks people down in a weird style.
02:01:37.000 There's a bunch of guys that fight weird, but they're really good at it.
02:01:41.000 Well, think baseball, too.
02:01:42.000 I mean, it's everything.
02:01:43.000 Louis Teant.
02:01:44.000 Remember the pitcher?
02:01:45.000 I don't really follow baseball.
02:01:47.000 You'll love this, Jamie.
02:01:49.000 I know almost nothing about sports, believe it or not.
02:01:52.000 You know, I mean, you will.
02:01:55.000 One day, you're going to look at a baseball game and go, hey, you know what I need to do?
02:01:59.000 I need to play professional baseball.
02:02:00.000 And then five years later, we're going to be reading about it, because you're going to go crazy with it, the same way you do everything.
02:02:05.000 I'm too old for that.
02:02:06.000 But this Louis Tian, what did he do differently?
02:02:08.000 Louis Tian was a pitcher, and his wind-up was such that it looked sort of traditional, but But then he'd turn his back to the batter without leaving the rubber, right?
02:02:21.000 So this guy would spin all the way around before he threw.
02:02:29.000 And he'd go further than that sometimes.
02:02:31.000 Is that really unusual?
02:02:33.000 Yeah.
02:02:33.000 Yeah, it's unusual.
02:02:37.000 That's unusual.
02:02:38.000 Oh, so it freaks people out a little bit?
02:02:40.000 Well, yeah.
02:02:41.000 Yeah, because he just breaks.
02:02:43.000 He stops looking at you.
02:02:45.000 Look, his back.
02:02:47.000 Look at his ankle.
02:02:47.000 That's crazy.
02:02:49.000 That's exactly it.
02:02:50.000 So it's like, oh, you know, if you're a batter, you're like, all right, there are a lot of different pitchers, and I'll get used to this, and I'll get used to that, and then this guy comes along.
02:02:57.000 That dude has flexible knees.
02:02:59.000 Flexible everything.
02:03:00.000 Because look at the angle his knee is in before he turns.
02:03:04.000 That's crazy.
02:03:05.000 Yeah.
02:03:06.000 Yeah, you would actually...
02:03:08.000 I'm surprised you're not into baseball because...
02:03:10.000 I can't.
02:03:11.000 I don't have any room.
02:03:13.000 I know the bucket's overflowing.
02:03:15.000 Yeah, it 100% is.
02:03:17.000 I watch football now.
02:03:20.000 My wife's into football. 0.99
02:03:21.000 But I can only pay attention so much.
02:03:24.000 My head is filled with combat sports.
02:03:28.000 I have to follow jujitsu, Muay Thai, MMA in the UFC, MMA in the PFL, Bellator, 1FC. I have to keep track of a thousand fighters, like literally a thousand fighters.
02:03:45.000 Maybe casually, some of them, like some of the glory kickboxers, casually I'm watching, you know, oh, Badr Hari's fighting, oh, you know, this guy's fighting, that guy's fighting.
02:03:54.000 I know who these people are.
02:03:55.000 I watch them fight.
02:03:56.000 I'm watching fights.
02:03:59.000 Just hours and hours in a day.
02:04:02.000 I might watch fights two hours every day.
02:04:05.000 Is it work or fun?
02:04:06.000 It's fun.
02:04:08.000 Yeah, it's only fun.
02:04:09.000 But I do feel obligated to pay attention.
02:04:12.000 Like there's guys that are coming up in other organizations.
02:04:15.000 I see guys have like a specific skill set that's unique.
02:04:19.000 Like I contacted Conor McGregor in like 2013. He was fighting in Cage Warriors and I reached out and I said, dude, you're fucking super talented. 0.98
02:04:28.000 I hope I get to see you in the UFC someday. 0.52
02:04:31.000 And it was like...
02:04:32.000 You know, kickboxers like Alex Pereira, I follow him in glory, and then finally he comes over to the UFC and I was like, you gotta see this guy. 0.98
02:04:39.000 This guy is fucking insane. 0.83
02:04:41.000 It's like, you have to have some sort of an understanding of what's coming, you know? 1.00
02:04:47.000 And also, you have to like kind of be tuned in to the state of the art.
02:04:50.000 Because the state of the art is very different in 2024 than it was in 97 when I first started working for the UFC. The state of the art is elite now.
02:04:59.000 You're getting these 18-year-old kids that can do everything at like a super high level.
02:05:05.000 And they're like these phenomenal athletes that instead of going into baseball or instead of going into football, now they're only focused on becoming a UFC champion.
02:05:15.000 And this is their goal in life.
02:05:16.000 And they're 18. And you get to see them in amateur organizations.
02:05:21.000 You get to see them in foreign organizations.
02:05:23.000 You get to see them travel overseas, compete in Japan.
02:05:27.000 So to me, it's like I don't have any room.
02:05:29.000 I don't have any room for baseball.
02:05:30.000 It's interesting, man.
02:05:31.000 You've had a front row seat to watching that sport become as dominant as it is at the same time you're watching the podcast world blow up in a really similar way.
02:05:46.000 Well, the UFC blew up first.
02:05:47.000 See, I was a fan of the UFC in the very, very beginning, and it got me into jiu-jitsu.
02:05:52.000 So in 96, I started taking jiu-jitsu.
02:05:54.000 In 94, I found out about the UFC. I kept it in my head for a little bit.
02:05:59.000 I was still kickboxing at the time, just not fighting anymore, but just training.
02:06:03.000 I was training at a bunch of different places in North Hollywood, this place called the Jet Center in Van Nuys before that went under.
02:06:08.000 So I was just interested in martial arts always.
02:06:11.000 And then the UFC came along and I was super interested in it, but I didn't really have a lot.
02:06:16.000 I was on news radio at the time.
02:06:17.000 It was very difficult to have the time to start training.
02:06:20.000 And then in 96 I started training.
02:06:22.000 And so I started working for the UFC in 97. And that was when it was banned from cable.
02:06:28.000 You could only get it on DirecTV.
02:06:30.000 And we had to do these shows in like Dothan, Alabama, where you took a propeller plane. 0.99
02:06:35.000 It was fucking hell. 0.97
02:06:36.000 It was no money either. 0.99
02:06:37.000 This is 97?
02:06:38.000 And is Dana?
02:06:40.000 Bare knuckled and Dana was not involved yet. 0.99
02:06:42.000 When did Dana get involved? 0.95
02:06:43.000 2001. So I'm on Fear Factor at the time, and one of the things, me and my friend Eddie Bravo, who was also a big fan from back in the day, and he taught me Jiu Jitsu, when we were first really into it, when we would go to like Louisiana, they were the only places that would sanction these fights.
02:07:01.000 They were bare knuckle, people wore shoes, you could grab their shorts.
02:07:05.000 It was like crazy rules.
02:07:07.000 Yeah.
02:07:09.000 And we said, you know what it would take?
02:07:11.000 These billionaires who love the sport and dump a ton of money into it.
02:07:15.000 That's what it would take.
02:07:16.000 Like someone would have to dump a ton of money into it.
02:07:18.000 And then along comes Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta in 2001, these billionaires that happened to get in love with the sport.
02:07:25.000 And so they buy the UFC. And then they start putting these shows together and then I meet Dana.
02:07:30.000 And then I start asking Dana, like, have you ever heard about this guy?
02:07:34.000 Did you ever see this guy fight in Japan?
02:07:36.000 Have you ever heard of this Russian dude?
02:07:38.000 And I started asking him about fighters.
02:07:40.000 I'm like, you should try to get these guys.
02:07:41.000 And he's like, do you want to do commentary?
02:07:43.000 And then next thing you know, I'm a commentator for the UFC. Okay.
02:07:49.000 This is just a very weird triangulating.
02:07:52.000 They didn't even have any money at the time because they were hemorrhaging money.
02:07:55.000 So I did the first 13 shows for free.
02:07:57.000 And back to the art thing, you must be willing to give it away.
02:08:02.000 Whatever it is you love, you must be willing to give it away for a time at least.
02:08:06.000 Well, for me, money has always been fun coupons.
02:08:09.000 And so I was on Fear Factor, so I had plenty of fun coupons.
02:08:12.000 So my thought was like, oh, I have money.
02:08:15.000 I don't have to worry about money right now.
02:08:16.000 Like, I'll just do this.
02:08:18.000 Yeah, this would be fun to do.
02:08:20.000 Nevertheless, you know, I mean, it was the same thing with Dirty Jobs.
02:08:23.000 Once that thing lit up, I had to be willing to sign a contract.
02:08:27.000 It was probably illegal. 0.84
02:08:28.000 I mean, it was such a ridiculous contract, the way they own you. 0.96
02:08:32.000 Yeah, isn't it crazy? 0.95
02:08:33.000 It's like no money, but if it's a hit, if it sticks...
02:08:37.000 We have you for 10 years.
02:08:39.000 Or you renegotiate.
02:08:41.000 My ace in the hole with Dirty Jobs was...
02:08:44.000 Technically, I was the host.
02:08:45.000 And I can host that show without doing the thing in the show that made people watch, which was actually do the work. 0.98
02:08:53.000 There's no contract that can force you to bite the balls off a sheet. 0.91
02:08:57.000 You have to be willing to do that. 0.98
02:09:00.000 And so I was able to fix that.
02:09:03.000 But Dana, I'm trying to remember what year this would have been.
02:09:07.000 When did The Ultimate Fighter...
02:09:09.000 2005. Okay, so in 2004...
02:09:13.000 Dirty Jobs was on the air.
02:09:15.000 It was in that weird space where we didn't know if it was going to be a hit or what.
02:09:20.000 But I was narrating all kinds of stuff for this guy.
02:09:23.000 Craig, Polygian. 0.93
02:09:25.000 And I walked into Craig's office in Hollywood, and Dana was sitting in there.
02:09:31.000 I had no idea who he was.
02:09:32.000 I just walked in to say hi, and Dana kind of knew me or recognized me.
02:09:38.000 And Craig said, hey, this guy, Mike, he's narrating American Chopper, American Hot Rod.
02:09:45.000 He just goes down the list, and Dana says, say something.
02:09:49.000 And I... And I said, previously on The Ultimate Fighter.
02:09:56.000 And he said, fine.
02:09:57.000 You'll be great.
02:09:59.000 I did 10 seasons.
02:10:01.000 That sounds like Dana. 0.82
02:10:02.000 He said, say something.
02:10:03.000 Yeah, that's hilarious.
02:10:05.000 It was great.
02:10:05.000 Yeah.
02:10:06.000 That's hilarious.
02:10:07.000 Yeah.
02:10:09.000 It's interesting how things happen like that.
02:10:11.000 Well, you wouldn't be sitting here now if your lease wasn't up or whatever.
02:10:17.000 Yeah, I probably wouldn't.
02:10:18.000 I would have gone back to New York.
02:10:20.000 I think the art thing, we should not be done with that yet.
02:10:25.000 There's something...
02:10:26.000 I'm thinking about the clips you were playing.
02:10:29.000 What do they call boxing?
02:10:30.000 The sweet science.
02:10:32.000 So, like, art and science.
02:10:35.000 I think anybody who's passionate about what they do can approach what they do like a scientist or like an artist.
02:10:46.000 Or maybe both.
02:10:48.000 Or maybe both.
02:10:48.000 I think both.
02:10:50.000 So, you know, I've got this foundation that evolved out of Dirty Jobs.
02:10:57.000 It's called Microworks, and we award these scholarships to people who don't want to go to a four-year school, but who want to learn a trade, right?
02:11:05.000 We've been doing it for 16 years.
02:11:08.000 And I started doing it In part for my granddad, but mostly because there are, what, 8 million jobs now that don't require a four-year degree, and there's $1.7 trillion in student loans on the books, right, that is just bananas, and we've got these huge shortages in the skilled trades.
02:11:35.000 So I spent a lot of time talking about Sure.
02:11:48.000 metal shop and sure you know before it was shop it was it wasn't just votech It turned into VoTech.
02:11:57.000 But before it was VoTech, it was the vocational arts.
02:12:01.000 That's what they called it.
02:12:03.000 And so we didn't just get rid of the vocational arts.
02:12:08.000 We started with the language, and we took art out of it.
02:12:13.000 And that's when it became VOTEC. And then there were a bunch of other acronyms and abbreviations and hyphenations and so forth.
02:12:19.000 Well, there's also a weird distortion in our society where we have decided that we place a higher value on someone spending an enormous amount on education for a job that doesn't pay nearly as much as the education cost, where you're burdened with debt doing a job where you have to work your way up a corporate ladder that might be hell over becoming a carpenter.
02:12:41.000 Over building a house. 0.99
02:12:43.000 Everybody needs a fucking house. 1.00
02:12:44.000 Over being a plumber. 0.99
02:12:46.000 And if you're a guy who can figure out how to do good carpentry, if you understand how to use tools, you're taught properly, you have a good apprenticeship, you can make an incredible living, it's very satisfying, it's skilled, it's a job that is creative, it's skillful, and When you're done, you bring satisfaction to other people that live in that house.
02:13:09.000 There's a great benefit to it.
02:13:12.000 But our society has got this distorted view of tradesmen. 0.99
02:13:15.000 And it's a really dumb thing. 1.00
02:13:18.000 Because it fucks you up. 0.99
02:13:20.000 Because if you're a kid... 0.67
02:13:22.000 And you go through the university system, you get a degree that's kind of useless, but then you get a job and you're making $60,000 a year and you're like, oh my god, I have $200,000 in student loans and I'm doing a job that's not very satisfying and I'm kind of stuck.
02:13:36.000 I'm working my way up, but it's going to take a long time before I make enough money where I'm not burdened by this.
02:13:42.000 Yeah.
02:13:42.000 Or you could have a successful construction company by then.
02:13:46.000 I mean, you could get a small business loan and you could start, like, hiring other people.
02:13:53.000 You could have trucks with your name on it.
02:13:55.000 Like, I know people who've done that.
02:13:57.000 They live very well. 0.90
02:13:59.000 And, you know, it doesn't mean you're dumb.
02:14:01.000 Like, a lot of these people that live very well are very self-educated. 0.50
02:14:05.000 They read books.
02:14:06.000 They watch documentaries.
02:14:07.000 They're interesting people.
02:14:08.000 And they're entrepreneurial in many cases. 1.00
02:14:09.000 But we've got this bizarre thing in our head that if you didn't go to a school and get a degree, you must be a dumb person. 0.99
02:14:17.000 It's weird. 1.00
02:14:18.000 And it's not smart.
02:14:20.000 It's not good for anybody to think that way.
02:14:23.000 Well, you know, I very rarely play the devil's advocate in this argument, but I do think I know why it happened, or at least how.
02:14:33.000 And I was in high school in the late 70s, and there was a very concerted push for what we call higher ed, which, by the way, already sets the table, right?
02:14:44.000 Yeah.
02:14:45.000 If it's higher ed over here, I guess we have lower ed over here.
02:14:47.000 Right. 1.00
02:14:47.000 You guys are stupid. 1.00
02:14:48.000 The language is awful, but the... 1.00
02:14:51.000 But the PR, and to be fair, in the 50s, 60s, 70s, we needed more doctors, we needed more engineers, we needed more people matriculating through four-year schools.
02:15:03.000 But what happens with PR, at least from what I've seen, is that it always goes too far.
02:15:09.000 And it wasn't enough just to make a persuasive case for that path.
02:15:13.000 We had to do it at the expense of the jobs you're talking about.
02:15:17.000 So if you don't go this way... 0.95
02:15:19.000 You're going to wind up turning a wrench with a giant plumber's butt crack and some other ridiculous trope.
02:15:26.000 So it's a lot of stereotypes and stigmas and myths and misperceptions that started to swirl around the trades.
02:15:32.000 And that, you know, I don't know when it happened, but I... Especially where you grow up.
02:15:38.000 Like, you know, if you grow up in a place that's highly educated, like Massachusetts, where I was, Boston, very, very educated place.
02:15:45.000 So if you were a person that pursued the trades, you were, you know, probably a failure.
02:15:51.000 This is like all you could do because you couldn't make it in school.
02:15:54.000 And yet, you loved this old house.
02:15:56.000 Yeah.
02:15:57.000 Which is a love letter to the trades.
02:15:59.000 It really is.
02:15:59.000 Every single one.
02:16:00.000 I love watching people make things.
02:16:03.000 Yeah. 0.98
02:16:03.000 Even dumb things. 0.98
02:16:04.000 Like, there was a guy, I think it was a PBS show, where he would make tools and, like, do, like, stuff the way people did, like, way back in the day. 0.96
02:16:13.000 Like, he'd make his own planer and all, you know?
02:16:15.000 Yeah, yeah.
02:16:15.000 Oh, yeah.
02:16:16.000 And he would make furniture and shit. 0.99
02:16:18.000 Yeah. 0.96
02:16:18.000 I didn't have any desire to make furniture, but I loved watching this guy because he was really into making furniture. 0.96
02:16:24.000 It was his art.
02:16:26.000 Yeah, he was an artist.
02:16:27.000 And he was authentic.
02:16:29.000 He actually loved it.
02:16:30.000 You could tell.
02:16:31.000 It wasn't like this is like a scam.
02:16:33.000 Like, I know what I'll do.
02:16:35.000 I'll take ancient tools and figure it out.
02:16:37.000 No, this guy really was into it.
02:16:40.000 Well, what's happened there, for me anyway, is that I, I mean, after 16 years of it, I can tell a pretty good story anecdotally, but now I'm able to go back and talk to people who we helped, what, five, six years ago with, like, maybe a welding certification.
02:16:58.000 And it's amazing when you say, hey, how's it going?
02:17:01.000 And they say, how's it going?
02:17:03.000 I'll tell you how it's going.
02:17:04.000 210 grand a year.
02:17:06.000 I bought a van.
02:17:07.000 I hired my buddy who's a welder.
02:17:09.000 Then I hired a plumber.
02:17:10.000 Then I got two HVAC guys and an electrician.
02:17:13.000 We're doing three and a half million a year.
02:17:16.000 Got no debt.
02:17:18.000 And so, like, my job is to talk to that guy.
02:17:22.000 And I do that a lot on my podcast.
02:17:25.000 It's just like, I just want to hear your...
02:17:27.000 I want to hear stories of people who prospered as a result of mastering a skill that's in demand...
02:17:33.000 And then maybe applied some level of either artistry or entrepreneurship or the willingness to move.
02:17:40.000 That's a big one, too.
02:17:41.000 Will you go where the work is?
02:17:43.000 And so it's really become...
02:17:46.000 It's why Bobby Kennedy called me.
02:17:48.000 And back in February, you know, he was like, hey man, this micro works thing, you want to make it macro works?
02:17:55.000 And I said, yeah, sure.
02:17:57.000 What do you have in mind?
02:17:58.000 And that's, I don't know how, I don't know if you knew this, but we had this whole conversation about like running together, you know?
02:18:07.000 Oh yeah.
02:18:08.000 No, he, he asked if I wanted to be vice president.
02:18:12.000 Oh geez Louise.
02:18:13.000 What'd you say?
02:18:14.000 Dude, I was in Munich.
02:18:18.000 I was in Munich in January, and he had called me earlier just to talk really generally about the middle class.
02:18:28.000 Because he's like, look, what you've done with the foundation, my campaign is a lot about that, and I'd love to talk to you more about it.
02:18:35.000 So I kind of put him in the category of elected officials, politicians who might be useful.
02:18:43.000 You know, I'm not that guy.
02:18:45.000 But I said, yeah, look, man, I'd be happy to chat.
02:18:48.000 Well, he called back and, you know, Gavin.
02:18:52.000 Sure.
02:18:54.000 Yeah.
02:18:56.000 They did a dive.
02:18:58.000 This was very strange for me.
02:19:00.000 They did a deep dive.
02:19:02.000 And when I got back to the Bay Area, he invited me down to his home to meet, you know, the cats.
02:19:11.000 They were all there.
02:19:13.000 And we talked for like three hours.
02:19:15.000 And I'm looking over my shoulder, honestly, like I'm being punked.
02:19:20.000 Like, which one of my crazy friends put you up to this?
02:19:26.000 But he was serious.
02:19:27.000 And I was weirdly flattered, maybe?
02:19:33.000 Like, I knew I couldn't say yes, but I was so interested in what his thinking was.
02:19:40.000 Right.
02:19:41.000 And we spoke for a few hours, and then we stayed in touch for, like, the better part of the next month.
02:19:46.000 And I actually really, for the first time ever, just tried to try it on.
02:19:53.000 And it didn't fit.
02:19:55.000 I would never do well in an office or in a bureaucracy.
02:19:59.000 He called me up once to ask me who I thought would be good vice president.
02:20:04.000 I was terrified he was going to ask me.
02:20:06.000 I was terrified.
02:20:07.000 I was like, please don't ask that.
02:20:10.000 Because I know he asked Aaron Rodgers, which is crazy.
02:20:16.000 I literally heard the sound of my sphincter slamming shut. 1.00
02:20:20.000 Like, what the fuck, man? 0.99
02:20:21.000 Like, I just tensed up and I was like, oh. 1.00
02:20:23.000 Who wants that job? 1.00
02:20:24.000 Like, whoa, whoa. 1.00
02:20:25.000 Who wants that fucking job? 1.00
02:20:27.000 That job's insanity. 1.00
02:20:28.000 But, man, I'll tell you, man, he...
02:20:31.000 It was a really, um...
02:20:35.000 He was very gracious and very direct, and I tried to be too.
02:20:39.000 And I told him, I'm like, look, the infectious disease thing, I get that.
02:20:44.000 The middle class thing, I totally get that.
02:20:47.000 The forever wars, I get all that.
02:20:50.000 And then he's like, Mike, do you understand 77% of the youth today wouldn't qualify to get into the armed forces?
02:20:59.000 Do you understand that?
02:21:02.000 What the crisis is we face right now, never mind health.
02:21:06.000 Health is its own thing, and I've got lots of things to say about it, but fitness, just basic fitness.
02:21:14.000 His uncle was starring in commercials 45 years ago that were literally, we'd call it fat-shaming today, challenging.
02:21:23.000 I just talked to him the day before yesterday.
02:21:27.000 And he said, you know, Google any photo of Yankee Stadium sold out from the 60s or even the 70s and try and find the fat people.
02:21:40.000 They're not there.
02:21:41.000 And if they are, they're hard to find.
02:21:44.000 Do it today.
02:21:44.000 They're impossible to miss.
02:21:46.000 Something colossally horrible has happened.
02:21:51.000 Anyway, he was very passionate about all that.
02:21:54.000 Yeah.
02:21:55.000 It's an important message.
02:21:56.000 It is an important message.
02:21:57.000 And it gets lost in this idea of being a compassionate person that allows people to just be their authentic self.
02:22:04.000 And there's nothing wrong with being fat.
02:22:06.000 There's nothing wrong with being big.
02:22:07.000 You're being lied to.
02:22:09.000 You're robbing your life of vitality.
02:22:12.000 That's just the way it is.
02:22:13.000 And I'm sorry if you're already there.
02:22:16.000 But it doesn't help anybody to pretend that you're not there.
02:22:20.000 And the only way we get out of this is we try to figure out what happened between 1960 and 2024. Well, we can figure it out.
02:22:29.000 It's not Columbo.
02:22:31.000 The evidence is all there.
02:22:33.000 We know what the ingredients are that are bad for you.
02:22:35.000 We know what we've done to the food supply.
02:22:37.000 We know what we've done.
02:22:39.000 It's readily available.
02:22:41.000 It's what you eat.
02:22:42.000 When you say we, though, I mean...
02:22:44.000 Human beings.
02:22:45.000 Collective.
02:22:46.000 The collective intelligence.
02:22:47.000 What percentage of this country do you think understands?
02:22:49.000 What percentage has been informed?
02:22:51.000 This is part of the problem.
02:22:52.000 And this is why it benefits to have someone like that in office.
02:22:54.000 Most people aren't aware of it.
02:22:56.000 I've had a lot of conversations with people that have this really distorted idea of nutrition.
02:23:01.000 What's important and what you need, but what's good to thrive, what's optimum versus what is just going to keep you alive.
02:23:10.000 These people think, oh, you just need a balanced diet.
02:23:12.000 No, you need to take vitamins.
02:23:13.000 If you do not take vitamins, you will not have full optimization of your body.
02:23:19.000 What do I want to take with D, by the way?
02:23:20.000 Is it magnesium?
02:23:21.000 You want to take magnesium, and you want to take K2. You want to take vitamin K, magnesium, and, you know, there's some arguments from other stuff, too, that would also enhance it.
02:23:31.000 But you definitely need vitamin D. Almost everybody does.
02:23:34.000 And if you live in a cold climate in the wintertime, you know, a buddy of mine did his residency in, I think it was Boston, And he was saying people would come in and they'd have undetectable levels of vitamin D because they were just never in the sun and they didn't supplement at all.
02:23:50.000 And, you know, there's some vitamin D in milk when they enrich it with vitamin D. But the reality is you need vitamin D and you need quite a bit of it.
02:23:59.000 And if you want an optimal immune system that's really healthy, it's imperative.
02:24:03.000 It's really important.
02:24:04.000 And there's a lot of other things that are really important.
02:24:06.000 Vitamin C is really important.
02:24:08.000 You know, vitamin B is very important.
02:24:10.000 A bunch of different Bs.
02:24:11.000 You need essential fatty acids.
02:24:14.000 They're very important.
02:24:14.000 You need all these things.
02:24:15.000 If you don't have these things, your body won't function right.
02:24:17.000 Do you think that the basic fear and conversation around skin cancer and the lotions and the coverings and the sunscreens and, I mean, to what extent do you think people are not getting vitamin D because they've been scared out of the sun?
02:24:37.000 There's a lot of that, for sure.
02:24:38.000 I mean, the best way to get vitamin D, most certainly, is from the sun.
02:24:42.000 That's the way your body's naturally designed to get vitamin D. You're supposed to be outside all the time, and it'll make you healthier.
02:24:49.000 Physically, it's good for you.
02:24:51.000 It's actually a hormone that your body produces.
02:24:54.000 Vitamin D is a hormone.
02:24:56.000 Or a precursor to a hormone, I guess if you take it orally.
02:25:00.000 But what it's doing to your body, like, George St. Pierre when he was fighting would tan.
02:25:05.000 And he would tan specifically not to look good because it's actually better for your health and fitness.
02:25:11.000 You get more vitamin D that way.
02:25:13.000 Yeah.
02:25:13.000 And there's a reality to that.
02:25:16.000 That's why people are really fucking depressed when they live in the Pacific Northwest because it's raining all the time. 0.90
02:25:20.000 You're not getting enough vitamin D. It's actually bad for your psyche. 0.98
02:25:24.000 It's bad for your mind.
02:25:25.000 It's bad for your health.
02:25:27.000 Again, overall vitality.
02:25:29.000 If you want to have strong vitality, you need to eat nutritious food and take vitamins, and you need to exercise.
02:25:36.000 There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
02:25:38.000 You need those three things, 100%.
02:25:41.000 No shortcuts.
02:25:42.000 No shortcuts.
02:25:43.000 I don't know that, probably not many silver linings to the lockdown, but I did.
02:25:47.000 I started walking.
02:25:49.000 I've always been active, but I kind of backed off of the gym as I got older and started walking every morning for eight miles.
02:25:58.000 And then, you know Mike Easter, he became a friend, the comfort crisis, and I started rucking.
02:26:07.000 Yeah.
02:26:08.000 Oh, that's great.
02:26:09.000 Mike's a big proponent of that.
02:26:11.000 Big time.
02:26:11.000 Yeah.
02:26:12.000 In fact, when Bobby called, it was fun.
02:26:14.000 He's hard to understand sometimes, and I was impossible to understand because I was gasping for breath.
02:26:18.000 I got 65 pounds on my back, walking eight miles every morning.
02:26:23.000 He was like, what are you doing?
02:26:24.000 I'm like, dude, I'm dying there.
02:26:26.000 I'm rucking.
02:26:28.000 I'm rucking.
02:26:28.000 But, yeah, I just, I think it, I think there's really something important in that book that Easter wrote.
02:26:37.000 And I think our, it's not the specifics of what we can do, this idea of, what do the Japanese call it, a misogy.
02:26:49.000 A quest or a challenge of sorts that you should challenge yourself to do every so often.
02:26:57.000 And one of the criterion is you should have a 50% chance of failure.
02:27:04.000 So it's a real push into uncertainty and discomfort.
02:27:13.000 And that's why I rock.
02:27:15.000 It's uncomfortable.
02:27:16.000 Voluntary discomfort.
02:27:17.000 Yes.
02:27:18.000 I think that is an exercise for that part of your mind the same way cardiovascular exercise works for your cardiovascular system.
02:27:26.000 I think the discomfort exercise is a real thing.
02:27:29.000 And, you know, Andrew Huberman has talked about this.
02:27:31.000 There's actually a specific area of the brain when you enact voluntary discomfort and do things you don't want to do all the time.
02:27:38.000 It actually grows.
02:27:40.000 Remember what that is?
02:27:41.000 Remember what he called that?
02:27:42.000 Part of the brain?
02:27:43.000 But, you know, he speaks about it, of course.
02:27:45.000 He's a neuroscientist, so much more eloquently.
02:27:47.000 But I think that's real.
02:27:49.000 And I think it also makes regular life a lot easier.
02:27:54.000 That was one of my favorite things of jujitsu when I found out.
02:27:57.000 It makes regular life easy because regular life is not...
02:27:59.000 Anterior mid-cingulate cortex.
02:28:02.000 That's what it is.
02:28:04.000 Engaging in challenging activities can stimulate and grow this region, which is crucial for leaning into and overcoming difficulties.
02:28:11.000 Yeah.
02:28:12.000 And if your life is super easy and anything that comes up is a nightmare, it's probably because you lack enough voluntary adversity to overcome uncomfortable moments.
02:28:25.000 So uncomfortable moments are rare, and when you encounter rare things, generally people kind of have anxious moments encountering rare things.
02:28:33.000 Well, anxiety is a form of discomfort.
02:28:35.000 Yes.
02:28:36.000 And it's not just pain.
02:28:37.000 I think most people equate discomfort or uncomfortableness with physical pain.
02:28:44.000 But the way Easter talks about it, it's also boredom.
02:28:48.000 Being bored makes people super uncomfortable because we're so not used to...
02:28:55.000 Especially today.
02:28:55.000 Especially today.
02:28:56.000 You can pick this damn thing up and instant access to 99% of the information. 0.99
02:29:00.000 But you're robbing yourself of a lot of possible ideas. 0.99
02:29:03.000 Sure.
02:29:03.000 Yeah, because the best ideas come...
02:29:05.000 When you're bored.
02:29:06.000 When you're bored.
02:29:07.000 I used to have some of my best ideas when I had no radio in my car because I would just be driving and my best ideas would come while I was driving.
02:29:15.000 So instead of being entertained, I would just be like thinking.
02:29:18.000 Like you're constantly thinking.
02:29:20.000 And when you're involved in...
02:29:24.000 Ordinary activity like driving where you're just so sort of like plugged in like hit your blinkers change lanes You're so plugged in so you're in like this weird mindset and then if there's no nothing entertaining you your mind just starts thinking about things right because sometimes you come up with great ideas your your mind Your brain will find whatever you send it out to look for.
02:29:46.000 Yeah.
02:29:47.000 It'll just search and search until it finds it.
02:29:49.000 And if you don't give it anything, then it'll look inward.
02:29:52.000 Right.
02:29:53.000 It'll find something.
02:29:54.000 You know, cold plunges.
02:29:56.000 Not comfortable.
02:29:57.000 Yeah.
02:29:58.000 But, you know, if you can find a way to like it.
02:30:03.000 I don't like it.
02:30:04.000 I don't like it at all.
02:30:05.000 I do it every day.
02:30:06.000 I hate it.
02:30:07.000 But I love it when I get out.
02:30:10.000 The moment before I get in, I'm always like, can I talk myself out of doing this?
02:30:14.000 I don't want to do this. 0.98
02:30:15.000 It's fucking cold outside. 0.98
02:30:17.000 It's 40 degrees outside. 0.99
02:30:18.000 I'm climbing this 34 degree water.
02:30:20.000 But because I do it, I know that I've already done something way more difficult than most of my day.
02:30:27.000 I think there's a difference in knowing what the benefits are of a cold plunge, which would require you to do some research and do some reading and do some thinking and so forth, versus just saying, okay, I know there's some benefit.
02:30:41.000 I don't actually need to know specifically what it is. 0.74
02:30:43.000 I just need to know that there's an overarching benefit in embracing the suck. 0.97
02:30:50.000 Yeah. 0.90
02:30:51.000 I need, you know, and if I do that a couple of times a day, I think I'm going to be better for it.
02:30:57.000 And that's useful.
02:30:59.000 That's been useful to me.
02:31:00.000 That's useful, but it also is beneficial physically.
02:31:03.000 So it's both things.
02:31:05.000 And I think that's the case with exercise too.
02:31:07.000 That's also the case with sauna. 0.99
02:31:09.000 Difficult things that are also very beneficial physically.
02:31:11.000 They seem to go hand in hand because it's the hormetic effect.
02:31:15.000 Your body's freaking out because of the cold and that's why it produces all these cold shock proteins and that's why it produces all these anti-inflammatories.
02:31:25.000 Your body just feels better when you get out, the endorphin rush you get.
02:31:28.000 You know, the norepinephrine, this flood of these chemicals that last for hours, ramps up your dopamine by like 200%, and it lasts for hours.
02:31:40.000 Like, you genuinely feel better.
02:31:43.000 So there's all that.
02:31:44.000 It's also good for recovery, muscle soreness, and just general inflammation.
02:31:48.000 There's a lot of, like, benefits.
02:31:50.000 But that's the same with exercise, right?
02:31:52.000 It's difficult to do.
02:31:53.000 It's hard to do.
02:31:54.000 But if you can do it, man, you'll be stronger, healthier, you'll feel better. 0.91
02:31:57.000 It's like you've got to go through that suck to get those benefits. 0.81
02:32:01.000 And people don't like that.
02:32:02.000 And so they come up with a bunch of reasons why you don't need that.
02:32:06.000 That's just a fad.
02:32:07.000 That's just this. 1.00
02:32:08.000 They all look like shit. 1.00
02:32:09.000 Everybody who says that, they all look like shit. 1.00
02:32:11.000 They all talk like pussies. 1.00
02:32:13.000 They're cowards. 1.00
02:32:14.000 They're afraid to get in there. 1.00
02:32:15.000 They don't like getting in there.
02:32:16.000 They don't like that other people get in there every day, and they don't get in there every day.
02:32:19.000 So they come up with a reason why getting in there is not really worth it.
02:32:22.000 It's all a bunch of hogwash.
02:32:24.000 It's the latest fad. 0.74
02:32:25.000 It's this, it's that.
02:32:27.000 And yet, look at the stadium 50 years ago and look at it today.
02:32:30.000 The evidence demands a verdict.
02:32:33.000 Something awful has happened.
02:32:36.000 It's like the difference between being hungry and feeling hungry.
02:32:43.000 You know, that's something else I think about a lot.
02:32:45.000 I mean, how often do we say, maybe you don't, but how often do you hear, God, I'm starving.
02:32:51.000 I'm famished.
02:32:53.000 No, you're not.
02:32:54.000 You're really not.
02:32:55.000 You can't possibly be.
02:32:57.000 Yeah.
02:32:57.000 Talk to a fighter that's trying to make weight.
02:32:59.000 Those guys are famished.
02:33:00.000 Those guys are, they have no water in their body.
02:33:03.000 Yeah.
02:33:03.000 For the week before, they're living in hell.
02:33:07.000 They live in hell.
02:33:08.000 Some of those guys, they start their cut like four or five days out. 0.99
02:33:11.000 Crazy.
02:33:12.000 That's starving.
02:33:13.000 You've got to really love it, man.
02:33:14.000 That's only your voluntary, voluntarily starving.
02:33:17.000 You know, it's not real starving.
02:33:18.000 Real starving is like you might not be able to eat.
02:33:20.000 You might not be able to feed your kids.
02:33:22.000 You're just using willpower to starve.
02:33:24.000 That's so different than at any other time in history.
02:33:27.000 It's a different feeling.
02:33:28.000 You know, like if you're a person that's making your way across the country and the wagon breaks.
02:33:34.000 Donner party, table for two.
02:33:36.000 Oh, yeah.
02:33:37.000 That's real starving.
02:33:38.000 Real starving.
02:33:39.000 Did you ever read a book by Nathaniel Philbrick?
02:33:42.000 It's called In the Heart of the Sea?
02:33:44.000 No.
02:33:44.000 Oh, man.
02:33:46.000 This is the true story of the sinking of a whale ship called the Essex, right?
02:33:55.000 And the sinking of this ship inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick.
02:34:02.000 And what happened was in, I think it was 1821, the whaling industry in Nantucket.
02:34:08.000 It's so fascinating.
02:34:10.000 Nantucket back then was basically run by women because the men would go out for two, sometimes three years at a time hunting right whales, which are just sperm whales.
02:34:21.000 Years?
02:34:22.000 Years, yeah.
02:34:23.000 They were called right whales because they were the right whales to kill, right?
02:34:26.000 And in that time...
02:34:29.000 It was a great source of energy for the country.
02:34:32.000 All the lamplights burned on whale oil.
02:34:35.000 Imagine how many whales there were before they started doing this. 0.74
02:34:38.000 They were like schools.
02:34:40.000 There were so many.
02:34:43.000 This book will...
02:34:46.000 I mean, it's rich in a lot of different ways.
02:34:48.000 It's where they got the expression Steely Dan, actually.
02:34:53.000 Because it was just the women, and it was a device used for pleasuring themselves. 1.00
02:34:59.000 Because the men were all out to see.
02:35:03.000 So they'd use a Steely Dan.
02:35:05.000 You want to talk about hard lives.
02:35:08.000 The business, whatever it takes to shoot the elk and get it down from the mountain, I get it.
02:35:15.000 That's a thing.
02:35:15.000 But when you read through the real process of getting a sperm whale out of the ocean alongside the ship and then onto the ship and the cutting of the blubber and the cauldrons that burn 24-7 on the deck and the blubber that's put into the cauldrons.
02:35:38.000 So they're just making this rendered fat.
02:35:40.000 They're rendering the fat in the oil in real time.
02:35:43.000 Oh, wow.
02:35:44.000 Because they have to or it'll rot.
02:35:46.000 That's right.
02:35:47.000 And so they just load up the boats.
02:35:49.000 Whoa.
02:35:50.000 So what happens, and this is not really a- Are they eating the whales too?
02:35:54.000 No.
02:35:54.000 No?
02:35:55.000 No.
02:35:56.000 What are they eating?
02:35:57.000 Well, they've got their hardtack, mostly.
02:36:01.000 Ugh.
02:36:02.000 Hardtack is just kind of like crackers, biscuits with no real taste at all.
02:36:08.000 It was the currency.
02:36:11.000 You're used to anything.
02:36:12.000 Probably got scurvy.
02:36:13.000 But these guys would go all around the world.
02:36:17.000 And this boat, the Essex, was a couple thousand miles off the coast of Venezuela.
02:36:23.000 And what happens is that it's the ship, is the main ship with the guys on it.
02:36:29.000 And then when you see a whale, right, you basically put the whale boats in the water.
02:36:34.000 And these are smaller, maybe 22 feet long, and men row them, right?
02:36:40.000 And so you harpoon the whale, and then you hang on and go for what they called a Nantucket sleigh ride.
02:36:48.000 Jesus Christ.
02:36:49.000 So the whale would just drag the...
02:36:51.000 What if the whale goes under?
02:36:53.000 It can't go under much further.
02:36:54.000 It can't pull two boats down.
02:36:56.000 And it doesn't.
02:36:56.000 They tend to swim in a straight line after they've been harpooned.
02:37:00.000 So you just hang on.
02:37:01.000 And then when it tires itself out, you row it and you back to the whale ship. 0.65
02:37:07.000 Do they kill it first?
02:37:09.000 Well, no. 0.91
02:37:10.000 No, it's killed back at the ship, typically.
02:37:13.000 You don't want to kill it when you're a mile from the ship because you've got to drag it back.
02:37:18.000 They didn't know how smart whales were back then either.
02:37:20.000 We didn't know anything.
02:37:22.000 Isn't that crazy that that's only a couple hundred years ago?
02:37:25.000 1821. Isn't that nuts?
02:37:27.000 Well...
02:37:28.000 A couple hundred years ago, the ocean was filled with whales.
02:37:30.000 Filled with them.
02:37:31.000 And like that.
02:37:32.000 Because if you look now, they're hard to find.
02:37:35.000 And nothing hunts them.
02:37:37.000 No, sperm whales.
02:37:39.000 I never even really thought about it.
02:37:40.000 They were everywhere.
02:37:41.000 I mean, I knew about it, but I never thought about it.
02:37:43.000 I mean, we've talked a lot about the decimation of the fish population in the ocean.
02:37:49.000 About like 90 plus percent of all the big fish are gone, which is really nuts.
02:37:55.000 But I never really thought about it that way when it comes to whales.
02:37:58.000 Well, you can make a really good and really controversial case.
02:38:01.000 They made a movie.
02:38:01.000 Ron Howard made a movie.
02:38:02.000 Yeah, yeah, Ron Howard made a movie on this.
02:38:04.000 Yeah.
02:38:05.000 It's amazing.
02:38:06.000 Look, I mean, they were everywhere.
02:38:08.000 Wow.
02:38:09.000 So these guys harpoon one from the whale boat.
02:38:15.000 Then they get tugged along.
02:38:16.000 Look at all these whales.
02:38:18.000 And then, while they're out, maybe a mile from the ship, the mate of the whale that was harpooned Starts ramming the ship.
02:38:34.000 Rams it three times.
02:38:35.000 Oh no.
02:38:36.000 Sinks it.
02:38:37.000 Oh no.
02:38:38.000 Now, you got a couple dozen guys in whale boats 2,000 miles off the coast of South America.
02:38:47.000 With no supplies.
02:38:50.000 Oh, man.
02:38:51.000 So what happens, and this is all in the preface, but the story basically starts when one of the whale boats is discovered not far from, I think it was Venezuela, and the guys look over the gunwale of their boat, and in the whale boat, it's just like a giant carcass.
02:39:14.000 It's just bleached bones.
02:39:16.000 All in it, except for two quasi-humans, one in the stern and one in the bow.
02:39:23.000 Each skeletons huddled up, staring each other with wild eyes, just waiting to see who would die next.
02:39:31.000 So they could eat them.
02:39:32.000 Yeah.
02:39:33.000 And there were rules.
02:39:34.000 They were almost like cookbooks that were very common.
02:39:40.000 How many people were on these boats?
02:39:42.000 Double check me, Jamie, but I think there were probably a dozen on each one.
02:39:47.000 Many family members.
02:39:48.000 It was a cabin boy named John Coffin, I remember, and there were...
02:39:52.000 I mean, a lot of these guys were related, you know, and they were dear friends and family.
02:39:58.000 They lived together on Nantucket.
02:40:00.000 And they ate each other.
02:40:01.000 They ate each other, man.
02:40:03.000 How long was it before they discovered them?
02:40:05.000 They were at sea adrift, I think, for the better part of three months.
02:40:14.000 That's him, Nate Philbrook.
02:40:17.000 In 1820, the Whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale, leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than 90 days in three tiny boats.
02:40:26.000 When did this movie come out?
02:40:27.000 2015 for the movie.
02:40:29.000 The manuscript was found in 1960, verified in 1980, released in 1984. You want to take a deep dive.
02:40:38.000 Go to the whaling museum up in New England.
02:40:41.000 This stuff is...
02:40:43.000 This...
02:40:43.000 I mean, in the day, there were strict protocols on how to eat your friend.
02:40:50.000 How to prepare your friend for consumption.
02:40:53.000 Did they devise them on the spot?
02:40:54.000 Or did they have them prepared...
02:40:56.000 They devised them on the spot?
02:40:57.000 There was...
02:40:58.000 What, the rules?
02:40:59.000 No, they were written.
02:41:00.000 It was like a maritime code.
02:41:03.000 So they kind of knew that this was a possibility.
02:41:06.000 They knew it was a certainty, they just didn't know for whom.
02:41:10.000 This was common.
02:41:13.000 To find yourself with a group of people, hopelessly marooned, whether you're on a boat or an island with nothing to eat at all, there were protocols, pretty strict protocols, on how to draw lots to decide who would go first.
02:41:31.000 How to kill the person who would go first.
02:41:34.000 Oh, boy. 0.99
02:41:34.000 Who not to eat based on the degree of your relation. 0.99
02:41:40.000 Oh, boy.
02:41:41.000 So, like, brothers are definitely off.
02:41:43.000 But cousins, not optimal.
02:41:47.000 So, like, people were being prepared for consumption.
02:41:51.000 I mean, I can't imagine how you would make a fire out there.
02:41:56.000 Oh, my God.
02:41:58.000 Un-speakable.
02:42:00.000 Oh, my God.
02:42:01.000 That's interesting.
02:42:03.000 Owen Chase, right?
02:42:05.000 The men spent over three months at sea and had to resort to cannibalism in order to survive.
02:42:08.000 Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdell were discovered gnawing on the bones of their shipmates in one boat.
02:42:14.000 Owen Chase, Lawrence, and Nickerson also survived to tell the tale, and all seven sailors were consumed.
02:42:22.000 Whoa! 0.71
02:42:23.000 Boy.
02:42:24.000 See, this is why nonfiction is the best.
02:42:29.000 I know it's nauseating, but I mean, that book...
02:42:32.000 At a point in time, you gotta go, I might wind up in hell before I starve to death, because I've eaten everyone else.
02:42:41.000 Right?
02:42:42.000 Well, you're knowing you're starving to death, and you've already eaten everyone else.
02:42:46.000 Oh, my God.
02:42:48.000 Because there's going to be one last person.
02:42:50.000 And then there was one.
02:42:52.000 Oh, God.
02:42:54.000 I know.
02:42:56.000 I know.
02:42:57.000 Reality is so terrifying in that regard that we're so fortunate that there's so much food available.
02:43:05.000 The poorest amongst us are fat.
02:43:08.000 But the reality is, if that cut off, it would be real desperate, real quick.
02:43:14.000 Most people get really hungry after five hours, you know?
02:43:18.000 They feel really hungry.
02:43:19.000 I found a description if you'd like to read it.
02:43:21.000 No!
02:43:21.000 No?
02:43:22.000 Okay.
02:43:22.000 It's not that bad.
02:43:23.000 Okay.
02:43:23.000 The crew, according to Chase, separated limbs from his body and cut all the flesh from the bones, after which we opened the body, took out the heart, and then closed it again, sewed it up as decently as we could, and committed it to the sea.
02:43:36.000 They then ate the man's organs.
02:43:39.000 Soon they began to draw lots to see who would be shot and eaten next, a custom of maroon sailors dating back to the 17th century. 0.99
02:43:48.000 Three men in one boat survived, and two in another.
02:43:51.000 The three men who remained behind on Henderson Island were also rescued after surviving on eggs and crabs for nearly four months.
02:43:58.000 Boy.
02:44:00.000 And this is why we have Moby Dick.
02:44:03.000 This is why the greatest American novel, arguably of all time, was written, because Melville came from that part of the world, and he understood the stakes of hunting whales, and he understood the absolute imperative need to get energy.
02:44:21.000 You can make a really interesting and controversial case around how the fossil fuel industry saved the whales.
02:44:31.000 Yeah, I've heard this before.
02:44:32.000 Because had that not happened in Pennsylvania, in Titusville, not long after this, we'd have hunted them into absolute oblivion.
02:44:41.000 Well, we almost did that to mammals in North America.
02:44:43.000 Market hunting.
02:44:45.000 There used to be elk in every state in the country.
02:44:49.000 There used to be deer everywhere.
02:44:51.000 And we basically hunted them into oblivion.
02:44:54.000 The buffalo is the best example of that, of course.
02:44:56.000 What the hell does it matter with us, man? 1.00
02:44:58.000 Oh, we're fucked up. 1.00
02:44:59.000 We don't see consequences. 1.00
02:45:01.000 We see what's in front of us right now and what we need to do.
02:45:04.000 And back then, they didn't really have a real understanding of what would happen.
02:45:08.000 That had never been done before.
02:45:10.000 No one had just showed up at a continent filled with mammals and just started decimating them.
02:45:14.000 There wasn't like a history of that.
02:45:15.000 It was also the invent of the firearm was fairly recent.
02:45:19.000 So it was a lot easier to get these animals.
02:45:21.000 You know, and then they had the Henry rifle.
02:45:23.000 So they had long-range rifles.
02:45:24.000 So they were able to shoot buffalo from a distance.
02:45:27.000 And then they, you know, for a lot of them, they only used their tongues.
02:45:30.000 They pickled their tongues and sent them back east. 0.99
02:45:32.000 Bananas.
02:45:33.000 I was in Custer a couple of weeks ago for a buffalo roundup.
02:45:37.000 Oh, wow.
02:45:39.000 Man, this was a kick.
02:45:41.000 So this is western South Dakota, not far from Crazy Horse, and Rushmore.
02:45:49.000 We worked on Crazy Horse for Dirty Jobs. 0.77
02:45:53.000 We did an episode.
02:45:54.000 You mean the sculpture?
02:45:55.000 Yeah.
02:45:56.000 Sculpture's weird because there's no real drawing or painting or anything, no photographs of Crazy Horse.
02:46:02.000 No.
02:46:02.000 Nobody knows really what he looked like.
02:46:04.000 Well, they're working from a model that seems to have been blessed by all the appropriate parties, but they started working on this thing 50 years ago, and it's going to take another 40 before they're done.
02:46:17.000 I worked on the fingernail of Crazy Horse with a whole crew.
02:46:21.000 What does it look like now?
02:46:21.000 I haven't seen it in a long time.
02:46:23.000 Oh, you'll love this, James.
02:46:24.000 It's so mine, but you can take all of Rushmore, all four heads, and put it on the forehead.
02:46:32.000 Of Crazy Horse.
02:46:34.000 Wow.
02:46:34.000 That's how big this thing is.
02:46:37.000 Wasn't it like one family's undertaking?
02:46:39.000 Yeah.
02:46:40.000 Go to that last picture that you just had.
02:46:43.000 That one right there.
02:46:44.000 So that shows before and after.
02:46:46.000 That shows where it was a while back and where it is now.
02:46:49.000 Look at his finger in the lower right.
02:46:51.000 That's what you worked on?
02:46:52.000 Yeah.
02:46:52.000 And I scaled down his forehead to do basically some tidying up of his nostrils and whatnot when we were there.
02:47:01.000 Wow.
02:47:01.000 That's crazy how big that is.
02:47:03.000 It's massive.
02:47:04.000 It's absolutely massive.
02:47:06.000 And yeah, there was one guy, Korchak was his name, and he was an immigrant and he loved the Indian people.
02:47:15.000 And that's the model there.
02:47:18.000 That's what it's going to look like?
02:47:20.000 That's what we're shooting for.
02:47:21.000 Wow.
02:47:22.000 And it's going to take another half a century probably.
02:47:25.000 Wow.
02:47:26.000 That's incredible.
02:47:27.000 Wow.
02:47:28.000 You know, it's funny, man.
02:47:29.000 It's very controversial amongst Native American communities, though, right?
02:47:33.000 I don't know.
02:47:34.000 It is, you know, some.
02:47:35.000 I think there's a part of it is the thing that Crazy Horse didn't want to be photographed.
02:47:39.000 Yeah.
02:47:40.000 You know, he really believed that cameras were, like, stealing.
02:47:43.000 Stole your soul.
02:47:44.000 Yeah.
02:47:45.000 That was a belief back then.
02:47:47.000 Sure.
02:47:48.000 I mean...
02:47:49.000 Might be on to something.
02:47:50.000 Well, you have this novel thing where no one's ever seen it before, and you take an image of someone.
02:47:55.000 Like, that...
02:47:56.000 Like it diminishes you.
02:47:58.000 Yeah.
02:47:58.000 Also, human beings at that point in time were so horrible to each other, and these settlers had done essentially demonic things to the population, just with diseases, just bringing diseases.
02:48:10.000 So, of course, they would say, what are they doing now? 0.98
02:48:13.000 This is the fucking coup de grace. 1.00
02:48:15.000 They're going to steal our soul with this fucking box. 1.00
02:48:18.000 Big thing goes off. 1.00
02:48:20.000 You got to stand still.
02:48:21.000 This guy, Korchak, he was so brilliant on so many levels.
02:48:27.000 Yeah, I think he had 13 kids.
02:48:29.000 And they were basically his workforce.
02:48:32.000 He built into the rock the staircases.
02:48:35.000 That they needed to take to get to this space.
02:48:39.000 The work ethic is mind-boggling what they did.
02:48:43.000 And he was a real friend to the Native Americans.
02:48:47.000 And this was a love letter for them and to them.
02:48:50.000 And who was Crazy Horse's...
02:48:53.000 Was it Sitting Bear, maybe?
02:48:55.000 I forget.
02:48:56.000 But he had all of the...
02:48:58.000 He had enough blessings of the requisite players to embark on this thing.
02:49:04.000 Well, I think anytime you have some enormous thing, you're going to have controversy.
02:49:09.000 You're going to have people that don't like it, that do like it.
02:49:13.000 For sure.
02:49:14.000 No matter what you do.
02:49:15.000 But the difference...
02:49:16.000 I mean, for me, I called...
02:49:17.000 When we brought...
02:49:19.000 We brought Dirty Jobs back during the lockdowns because I just felt like I wanted to be the first show back on the TV that was shooting.
02:49:29.000 And this was one of the first things that we did.
02:49:32.000 But I started by calling Rushmore.
02:49:35.000 And I'm not telling you this story to make anybody sound bad, but it really just was kind of appalling.
02:49:41.000 I said, look, I want to bring my crew, and I want to tend to this statue, this statuary, this monument.
02:49:53.000 At the time, you know, the headlines were filled with statues being pulled down and being disrespected for any number of reasons, right?
02:50:02.000 I'm like, look, I think the Park Service does an amazing duty, and I want to meet the caretakers of our statuary, and I would love, you know, to...
02:50:13.000 Work on this with the people who work on it.
02:50:16.000 And they not only said no, they were like, are you crazy?
02:50:21.000 We would never, we would never permit anything like that.
02:50:26.000 Like, I think they thought it was exploitative somehow.
02:50:30.000 And I'm like, I want America to...
02:50:33.000 To learn the story of Rushmore.
02:50:35.000 I want them to learn something about the people memorialized on it.
02:50:38.000 I want them to meet the people who care for it.
02:50:40.000 It's just a love letter to one of our monuments.
02:50:42.000 But it was a hard no.
02:50:44.000 And I really wanted to go to that part of the country.
02:50:47.000 And so I knew Crazy Horse was nearby.
02:50:51.000 And the answer was, oh, yeah, come on out anytime.
02:50:54.000 And the difference, of course, was Crazy Horse isn't being built with a penny of federal money.
02:50:59.000 Mm-hmm.
02:51:00.000 It has no federal oversight.
02:51:02.000 Mm-hmm.
02:51:03.000 It's very personal to this family and the people who are still in charge of it are true custodians of it.
02:51:11.000 It's really interesting when you talk to people who are in charge of a thing that means a lot to other people.
02:51:21.000 Monumental in reality.
02:51:23.000 Monumental monuments.
02:51:24.000 Yeah.
02:51:24.000 Yeah.
02:51:25.000 I mean, some people, I think, see it as a burden, some as a challenge, some as an obligation.
02:51:31.000 But for me, the vast majority of Americans are never going to see either one of those monuments in person.
02:51:37.000 So to show them.
02:51:40.000 More people will have just seen what Jamie put up here as a result of this, probably, than will visit in person.
02:51:49.000 And that's amazing, dude.
02:51:51.000 Yeah, that is amazing.
02:51:52.000 When you think about a couple of guys smoking cigars and sipping a coffee and just passing the time, and all of a sudden you're able to learn about the way they drew lots and where we got our energy from just a little while ago.
02:52:07.000 Mm-hmm.
02:52:07.000 This Buffalo Roundup I was telling you about, I mean, there were only a couple thousand of them.
02:52:15.000 And when you think about the accounts of the day, where the Buffalo Rome was as far as you could see, Just thick. 0.89
02:52:25.000 Do you know Dan Flores?
02:52:27.000 Do you know who he is?
02:52:29.000 Tell me.
02:52:29.000 He wrote American Coyote and he wrote, what is it, Buffalo Diplomacy, Buffalo Ecology?
02:52:36.000 Is that what it was?
02:52:36.000 I forget, but the Buffalo premise is very fascinating because the numbers of Buffalo, he believes, they were in such large numbers because so many Native Americans died out because of diseases.
02:52:51.000 So the Native Americans would follow the buffalo, hunt them, and kill them. 1.00
02:52:54.000 It takes a long time for gestation for a buffalo.
02:52:57.000 So when the buffalo have new buffalo, it's a long time to repopulate.
02:53:02.000 But if the Native Americans, 90% of them were wiped out by disease when the settlers came here.
02:53:06.000 So there's no one hunting them for a long time.
02:53:10.000 And so the populations grew immense.
02:53:13.000 And so this was not something that was reported when the first settlers got here.
02:53:17.000 When the first Europeans came to North America and made their way across the country, never did they describe massive herds of buffalo.
02:53:26.000 It wasn't a thing.
02:53:27.000 It wasn't a thing until after the Native American population had been decimated by disease.
02:53:33.000 And then the buffalo flourished and became overpopulated, in a sense, an unnatural population.
02:53:40.000 Because they didn't have to worry about wolves.
02:53:41.000 They didn't have to worry.
02:53:42.000 So when they first were here, right, buffalo existed far back before the – there was a mass extinction of like 65 percent of North American mammals.
02:53:55.000 That coincided with the end of the Ice Age and probably had to do with the Younger Dryas impact.
02:54:00.000 which is a theory about – The Cambrian thing?
02:54:03.000 It's 11 – well – There's two different time periods that they attribute to...
02:54:08.000 There's a shower, an asteroid shower that we go...
02:54:11.000 If you really want to get into this, you should really look up Younger Dryas Impact Theory online.
02:54:17.000 And then there's a guy named Randall Carlson who's kind of dedicated his life to...
02:54:22.000 Showing that this is probably what ended the ice age.
02:54:26.000 There's a bunch of science behind it in terms of like core samples and stuff they do that shows that there's asteroid impacts that happened all over the world during this particular time period.
02:54:35.000 And he thinks that coincided with the extinction of the woolly mammal, the American lion, a lot of different animals that just died off.
02:54:43.000 65% of North American mammals died off during this time period.
02:54:47.000 And you got to think like when the buffalo existed back then, they existed with the North American lion, which was bigger than the African lion.
02:54:58.000 It's the biggest lion ever.
02:54:59.000 So they're getting jacked by these massive predators.
02:55:03.000 And then you have this extinction event and then you have humans start hunting them.
02:55:08.000 And so, humans, now, horses have been reintroduced to North America by Europeans.
02:55:13.000 Humans are on these horses, and then they're hunting these animals.
02:55:16.000 Reintroduced, by the way, because horses originated in North America, including zebras.
02:55:20.000 All horse species came from here, but that was the Bering Land Bridge, and things moved around, and when the mass extinction event happened, it killed off all the horses here.
02:55:31.000 But then there was horses over there that they had kind of extirpated from America, brought them back in.
02:55:37.000 And now Native Americans have horses. 0.99
02:55:39.000 And so they are really effective at hunting buffalo.
02:55:42.000 They get the numbers down to a number where when people are making their way across the country, they're not seeing them everywhere.
02:55:49.000 And then you have this mass event where 90% of Native Americans die.
02:55:56.000 Then you have millions of buffalo.
02:55:58.000 This is what Dan Flores writes about.
02:56:00.000 It's really interesting.
02:56:02.000 1830?
02:56:03.000 40?
02:56:04.000 You'd have to go to whatever his paper.
02:56:06.000 1800, 1850 is what it's like.
02:56:07.000 Yeah.
02:56:08.000 Here's the tragedy for me.
02:56:12.000 I narrated a special about all that.
02:56:15.000 I can't remember it, man.
02:56:16.000 Really?
02:56:17.000 I mean, I remember enough of it to know that I narrated it.
02:56:20.000 That's what I told you three hours ago.
02:56:23.000 Is that the Ken Burns one?
02:56:24.000 Is that what you...
02:56:25.000 Could have been.
02:56:27.000 Could have been.
02:56:27.000 No, if it was Ken Burns, he always hires Peter Coyote.
02:56:31.000 Oh, Peter Coyote's great.
02:56:34.000 But that's what I meant earlier when I'm like, I feel...
02:56:44.000 it's full too.
02:56:45.000 And it's so annoying.
02:56:47.000 Like I was talking to a friend of mine just yesterday about how the universe works, which is a show I've been narrating for the science channel literally for 10 years.
02:56:57.000 And, um, you know, he, he, he, he knows all of the information in the show, but he thinks because he heard me tell it to him that I know it too, but I don't.
02:57:09.000 I'm just adjacent to it.
02:57:11.000 I know just enough to keep a conversation on its feet, but it's like, it's this constant thing, man. 0.97
02:57:19.000 I'm older than I've ever been, and it's just nagging at me now, because it's like, God damn it, I should know. 0.89
02:57:26.000 I should have remembered more about Philbrick.
02:57:32.000 I should have remembered more about...
02:57:34.000 I don't think it was designed for it.
02:57:37.000 And I think humans like yourself, this is kind of a new thing.
02:57:42.000 In terms of human history, people that are exposed to so many different things, so many different topics, so many different experts, so many different timelines and stories that you're dealing with.
02:57:52.000 It's essentially a new thing with human beings.
02:57:56.000 You know what Dunbar's number is?
02:57:58.000 No.
02:57:59.000 Dunbar's number is the number of people that you can keep like in your mind, in your memory, right?
02:58:04.000 That's essentially born out of necessity and tribal life, right?
02:58:09.000 So we essentially have the same brains and the same capacity, same hard drive as people who lived in tribes 10,000 years ago. 0.93
02:58:16.000 Yeah.
02:58:17.000 But we're still stuck with this hard drive, with this world that has an endless supply of information and it's consistently bombarding you with new facts.
02:58:27.000 I read that like Bill Clinton's number is...
02:58:29.000 Way high.
02:58:31.000 Like certain people's numbers.
02:58:33.000 Oh, who they can keep in their head?
02:58:35.000 Like the number of people you can keep in a meaningful way.
02:58:37.000 It probably expands just like the part of your brain expands when you do difficult things.
02:58:41.000 It probably expands.
02:58:42.000 There's a podcast, as you know, dedicated to what happened on your podcast.
02:58:48.000 I didn't know that.
02:58:49.000 Yeah.
02:58:49.000 There's a podcast out there basically called, I don't know what it's called, Experiencing the Joe Rogan Experience or something, because there's too much information on your show.
02:58:58.000 Right.
02:58:59.000 Right?
02:58:59.000 There's just too much.
02:59:00.000 And people who love it get anxious because they can't process all of it.
02:59:04.000 And so, like, there's an ecosystem.
02:59:08.000 In other words, there's a docent to bring it back to art.
02:59:11.000 Right.
02:59:12.000 This is what we need, I think, more than anything today.
02:59:16.000 We need somebody, like if you're going to go to an art museum, you need somebody to lead you through.
02:59:22.000 I do, anyway.
02:59:23.000 Somebody who can...
02:59:24.000 It helps.
02:59:25.000 It helps, man.
02:59:26.000 If you're going to go see...
02:59:28.000 If you're gonna go see a martial arts fight for the first time, if you're gonna go to the octagon, it'd be better to sit next to you than me.
02:59:38.000 Right?
02:59:39.000 Sure.
02:59:39.000 But you'd be annoying.
02:59:41.000 I'd have to say, you don't...
02:59:42.000 Okay.
02:59:44.000 How much do you know why that hurts?
02:59:47.000 Here, let me show you.
02:59:49.000 Can you feel that?
02:59:51.000 I'm just saying that I think more than ever before, people need a guide.
02:59:58.000 They need somebody to make sense out of all the information.
03:00:02.000 Because I don't think there's any...
03:00:03.000 There's not much new information.
03:00:05.000 It's just accessible in ways we've never seen.
03:00:07.000 There's new information, too.
03:00:09.000 How can there be?
03:00:10.000 Because it's...
03:00:10.000 Information is...
03:00:13.000 Acquired upon the consumption of all the other information like it's all Exponential piles on top of each other.
03:00:20.000 It's it's not just Now we know because of the new information because of the information that we've acquired now we have a new understanding so that's new information You know, nutrition.
03:00:31.000 There's constantly new information on nutrition.
03:00:34.000 How's that possible?
03:00:35.000 People have been eating forever because now we know more about it.
03:00:38.000 So it is new information.
03:00:40.000 Well, there's no such thing as an old joke if you hear it for the first time.
03:00:44.000 Right.
03:00:45.000 So if I just learn that vitamin D is important but better assimilated with magnesium and K2, I might say that's some new information.
03:00:55.000 But you would go, no, dude, that's old information.
03:00:57.000 You're just learning it.
03:00:59.000 Right, but it's fairly new anyway, because nutritional science has really only been around for, what, 100 plus years?
03:01:05.000 And the understanding of it today is far greater than at any other time in our life.
03:01:10.000 Because of guys like Huberman, because of these different scientists that have dedicated themselves to educating people about nutrition, the process that your body goes through and it absorbs nutrients, and what enhances that, what enzymes, different things that you eat.
03:01:27.000 a body of information that exists that I don't know.
03:01:29.000 And then there's a body of new information that I also don't know because it's new.
03:01:35.000 And the body of the stuff that I don't know yet that's been around forever is...
03:01:41.000 Is massive.
03:01:42.000 Massive.
03:01:42.000 The new stuff is new.
03:01:44.000 And I don't know how big it is, but it's not as big as this incredible repository of stuff.
03:01:50.000 Like when I walk in a library and look, just look at all that stuff, man.
03:01:54.000 Look at this cursed thing here in my hand.
03:01:56.000 It's like, oh my God, if I have an internet connection, I have access to 98% of everything that we've ever known.
03:02:02.000 Yeah.
03:02:03.000 Now, that either makes you intensely curious or intensely uneasy.
03:02:09.000 Because now you know.
03:02:10.000 Maybe both.
03:02:11.000 Maybe.
03:02:11.000 But you have it now.
03:02:13.000 Like, if you're not, like, what are you doing?
03:02:16.000 Like, you're sitting on the toilet.
03:02:17.000 Are you reeling?
03:02:19.000 Are you TikTok-ing?
03:02:19.000 Like, how are you spending the one truly finite resource you have for your time?
03:02:24.000 What are you doing with it, man?
03:02:25.000 A lot of us are getting distracted.
03:02:27.000 Jesus.
03:02:28.000 Yeah.
03:02:29.000 But they're stories.
03:02:30.000 They're buffalo stories and whale stories that are out there, man.
03:02:33.000 I think that's why people like your shows, you know?
03:02:35.000 I think that's why people like podcasts.
03:02:37.000 I think that's why people are interested in documentaries.
03:02:40.000 There's still people out there that are interested in being curious.
03:02:43.000 For sure.
03:02:44.000 Yeah.
03:02:44.000 For sure.
03:02:45.000 That's how we make a living, Mike.
03:02:46.000 Yes.
03:02:47.000 Yes, Joe, it is.
03:02:48.000 That's what we've done.
03:02:49.000 It's a pleasant living.
03:02:50.000 Listen, man, it's been awesome talking to you.
03:02:52.000 I really appreciate it.
03:02:53.000 It was a lot of fun.
03:02:54.000 You know what, man? 0.95
03:02:55.000 Three hours just fucking flew by. 0.97
03:02:57.000 I'm just, I mean, full disclosure, I'm kind of relieved. 0.95
03:03:00.000 I mean, I was getting so annoyed with friends of mine who were like, hey man, why haven't you been on the show?
03:03:06.000 I'm like, maybe, my mother said maybe he's not that into you.
03:03:11.000 It's just a time thing.
03:03:13.000 He'll call you one day.
03:03:14.000 There's a lot of people out there, but I really did want to talk to you.
03:03:18.000 Can I show you a truck before we go?
03:03:20.000 Sure, sure.
03:03:21.000 Because I know you're a car guy.
03:03:22.000 Yeah.
03:03:23.000 So, this company called Sugar Creek up in Ohio made me a truck.
03:03:29.000 Ooh.
03:03:29.000 What kind?
03:03:30.000 Well, it started as a 1964 Dodge Power Wagon.
03:03:35.000 Oh! 0.60
03:03:36.000 It ended up as this.
03:03:38.000 Dude, I've seen that online.
03:03:39.000 That's yours.
03:03:40.000 That's mine.
03:03:41.000 Oh, that's crazy.
03:03:43.000 I love those old power wagons.
03:03:45.000 Dude, that thing looks incredible.
03:03:47.000 What a great job they did on that.
03:03:49.000 It's unbelievable.
03:03:50.000 It's about 9,000 man-hours.
03:03:53.000 Oh, my God. 0.97
03:03:54.000 That thing looks fucking incredible. 0.96
03:03:56.000 Oh, you got a helifant engine in it. 0.98
03:03:58.000 1,100 horsepower.
03:03:59.000 Oh, my goodness.
03:04:00.000 Look at that.
03:04:01.000 So it's got a TRX hood.
03:04:04.000 Wow! 0.99
03:04:05.000 That's fucking great! 0.99
03:04:08.000 I know! 0.99
03:04:09.000 Do you drive that?
03:04:12.000 Barrett Jackson is going to auction it off in January.
03:04:17.000 Why?
03:04:18.000 Why don't you keep it?
03:04:19.000 Because my foundation needs money.
03:04:22.000 So it's going to get a...
03:04:24.000 I don't know what it'll go for.
03:04:26.000 He says a bunch, but...
03:04:28.000 Oh, that'll go for a lot of money, man.
03:04:29.000 Yeah.
03:04:30.000 That's probably going to go for half a million dollars at least.
03:04:32.000 No, he says two.
03:04:34.000 Two million?
03:04:35.000 Two million dollars?
03:04:36.000 Probably cost half a million to make.
03:04:38.000 Wow.
03:04:38.000 Beats me.
03:04:39.000 You know, this is another one of those worlds.
03:04:41.000 Maybe.
03:04:42.000 Auctions are crazy because a bunch of rich guys get in there and go, I want it.
03:04:45.000 And then they start feeding off each other. 1.00
03:04:47.000 Look at this fucking thing. 1.00
03:04:48.000 That's incredible. 1.00
03:04:49.000 Two million dollars?
03:04:50.000 Jesus Christ.
03:04:51.000 Well, who knows?
03:04:51.000 But I went up to Columbus to see the garage where they make this thing.
03:04:56.000 And you need to put this on your list of stuff to do when your bucket's not overflowing.
03:05:02.000 Because a guy called John Richardson, who owns the biggest bacon factory in the country, Sugar Creek, is crazy automotive freak.
03:05:11.000 He built this giant garage.
03:05:13.000 He hired 27 savants. 0.99
03:05:15.000 And all they do is take classic cars from his sort of quasi-junkyard and turn them into these gems.
03:05:22.000 Oh, wow.
03:05:23.000 So he built this for me, and Barrett Jackson said, yeah, we'll auction it off.
03:05:27.000 So I went up there with my crew just to look at it.
03:05:30.000 Dude, these guys, man.
03:05:33.000 I would never be able to let that thing go.
03:05:35.000 It's the art we were talking about.
03:05:38.000 That's art.
03:05:38.000 That's art.
03:05:39.000 Oh, 100%.
03:05:40.000 That's art.
03:05:41.000 Mike, I appreciate you very much, man.
03:05:43.000 Thanks for having me.
03:05:44.000 Thank you for being here.
03:05:45.000 It was a lot of fun.
03:05:46.000 All right.
03:05:46.000 Bye, everybody.