On this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, we catch up with old friend and former bandmate, Draven. We talk about Draven's new song, "Fire," and how he came up with the idea for the song.
00:02:43.000Luckily, there's a Lowe's not terribly far away, and they had a Honda inverter generator that was safe to plug everything into, where the waves aren't going to mess everything up.
00:02:55.000So yeah, we recorded the song on a generator.
00:02:59.000So you have to worry about the waves of the generator, like the sound of the generator?
00:03:33.000Yeah, see, I hadn't put a lot of new music out because...
00:03:35.000Well, I think back to even when I was here last time and before we did the episode and all, walking around on the sidewalk out in front of the hotel with Draven and a couple other people arguing that I needed to just cash out from Richmond and roll and not make this into a long-term thing because I just...
00:04:28.000it was like the streams kept continuing and people were still messaging me and emailing and the shows were still selling out.
00:04:34.000And I just realized like, I don't know, you know, I believed everybody that said, And I would have been, when Richmond blew up, I would have been one of those guys who would have been like, oh, that stupid guy.
00:06:29.000I remember we had that conversation on the phone, and I was like, "If you can do that, you can do that again." They don't need anybody else.
00:06:36.000You don't need these motherfuckers who want you to cash out.
00:06:40.000They're doing that because they think that you're gullible.
00:06:43.000They think that you're naive in the ways of the entertainment and music business.
00:06:48.000The first fucking live show you ever performed was a giant sold-out show at a state fair.
00:07:04.000It wasn't even, there weren't even any tickets.
00:07:07.000It was just like, so it's crazy how it all, it just, it goes back to when I still believe just as much now as I did the last time I was here about it.
00:07:45.000So I already had that date picked, and yeah, it was just at a farm market, kind of near the beach in Outer Banks, and they say 12,000 people showed up, and that was the very first one.
00:07:56.000Yeah, and I remember even then, I just expected everybody to sing Richmond, and that was going to be it, and it'd be cool, and I'd go back to work the next week, but it was like, even in that crowd at that very first show, all the other songs, they knew the words to, too.
00:08:09.000And I was like, this is like something.
00:08:13.000The important thing, too, is that the important thing to take away from this, and I said this during Richmond, but it was like, take me out of it.
00:08:22.000The fact that people can now choose what they want and push it to the top, even in a system that's rigged, where there is bots and there's mass marketing money going into songs and labels spend a million dollars on their own song to get it up the label, the fact that people can just decide they like something and just...
00:09:11.000It's like reading your analytics so it can learn how to drive better.
00:09:14.000That's the only reason why they let everybody use AI.
00:09:17.000It's the user input that's what makes it.
00:09:21.000For a very short period in time, it's like the stars are aligned.
00:09:26.000While they're sucking all the humanity out of us to put into this AI, we also have full access to it.
00:09:33.000Even in the music business, everything that the label used to hold exclusive control over, like the publicity and the marketing and the digital streaming service relationships, all that stuff is now just a la carte to anybody.
00:09:49.000You can just go and hire a really good social media person, and you can work with a good music distributor without having to sign anything or give any of your rights up.
00:09:58.000Right now the people have the power is what I mean for like a very short period of time, but this should be a This should just be a reminder of that, this song being able to go up into the iTunes charts, even with stuff with way bigger audiences, with all kinds of marketing reach.
00:10:11.000The fact that this can just organically go into the iTunes charts like that, and people...
00:10:21.000If we could just get organized, even for like two or three years, we could just fix everything.
00:10:27.000The people really do have the power, at least right now, for a short window of time, but we really do.
00:10:32.000But people have to understand that we are all in this together and that there's organizations that want to drive us apart.
00:10:39.000And the way to work out our differences is having conversations and negotiations and figuring out how to work it out.
00:11:32.000Well, it goes back to what you said about mass manipulation and also, like, we've all sort of lost our identity.
00:11:38.000That's why politics has become so prevalent in the way people represent themselves to other people.
00:11:43.000As our culture and our tradition and the knowledge of where our families and all of that stuff comes from, we're just little boats out in the big ocean and we're looking for somewhere to...
00:12:02.000And politics, they make politics so easy to reach out and grab.
00:12:05.000Just like in the same way that people just absorb themselves into sports.
00:12:45.000Yeah, all the punches you took from him.
00:12:47.000It's so crazy, but if there's a group of guys, you can say, we.
00:12:50.000But that's, I see that, like, I just see that becoming more and more prevalent where there's not like, I don't know.
00:12:58.000It's sort of just like, it's kind of even to expand on the thought of it, it's even like the way that now we've all just sort of, we're all in these subcategories the way we would be if we were in prison.
00:13:09.000We're all like, you know, like in the same way that when we use the word black and white to describe like...
00:13:19.000It creates this maybe group identity that's a lot easier to control.
00:13:53.000But it's easy now in big public narrative and stuff to...
00:13:58.000It's a lot easier to accuse you and 30 other different nationalities of people who are all very culturally different and unique and just call all of you white people and then But it happens with that with every ethnicity, every identity.
00:14:15.000The goal is to put everyone in the world in one of three or four buckets and then hopefully figure out how to just put all of them into one bucket eventually.
00:14:23.000It's so much easier to control two or three different types of people than it is 30 or 40 or 100 or 1,000.
00:14:30.000Which is also, I think, why they never fix the problems that ail our inner cities.
00:15:24.000But then it's also like keeping a certain amount of crime in certain areas ensures that you're always going to have debates over law enforcement.
00:15:33.000You're always going to have conversations over disenfranchised.
00:15:40.000We need to hire more people of this or of that, ignoring the fact that a lot of these things, especially with universities, are the most racist, especially towards Asians.
00:15:52.000They're racist as fuck towards Asians.
00:15:56.000Is that still going on, the Harvard lawsuit?
00:16:00.000Where they specifically made their application process, like the whole acceptance process, more difficult for Asians because they were kicking too much ass.
00:16:09.000They had too many Asian people that were willing to fucking work their ass off, study 12 hours a day, get straight A's.
00:16:16.000They're like, man, there's too many of these folks.
00:17:07.000And the problem with meritocracy is that some motherfuckers will go for it.
00:17:12.000And if you get a whole country of people going for it, that gets scary for the people that just want to take naps.
00:17:16.000It's the same psychology that goes in, like in...
00:17:25.000But if you look at like, even if you look at Bramwell, West Virginia and their recent political history, like the last mayor they had, she embezzled money from the town.
00:17:35.000You know, and this is in a very small tent.
00:17:37.000So government corruption exists like...
00:17:41.000And it almost is like maybe in those big cities.
00:17:44.000I understand definitely that I think things are intentionally neglected, like to create chaos and to create this, like you said, this need for more resources and more.
00:17:53.000But it's also just that maybe a lot of those people that are in positions are just very spineless and self-centered and like they don't even care that people are dying in their streets.
00:18:00.000They're worried about the money that can be made and the ego and the power of it.
00:18:04.000It goes back to kind of what I said in that ARC speech about lack of leadership.
00:18:08.000I just see that like, if we had people in big cities or in small Appalachian towns that had like a real backbone to them and like...
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00:21:11.000I smoked half a Black and Mild with Chris Davison from the Davison Brothers while we were on tour one time, so I guess that counts as a cigar.
00:23:00.000And I got to meet all these really cool people that night.
00:23:01.000And so Tom was like, man, you ought to get up at the end of our set and do a couple songs.
00:23:06.000And we only had one guitar, and I really wanted my guitar, Joey, you know, the guy from, he's in the Scornful video, Joey Davis.
00:23:12.000I wanted him to get up there and get to do it with me.
00:23:14.000And Ron's like, well, I got a guitar in my house.
00:23:17.000And, dude, he's supposed to be getting on stage to do a set in, like, less than an hour, you know, 45 minutes.
00:23:24.000So him and Joey get in his car, and they run every red light from his house to the back and go and get Ron White's guitar, and that's what we used for our second.
00:30:21.000Yeah, it's kind of depressing, but that's why, at least in their short life, I try to let them get us some sunshine and run around and read stories to them at night and all that, and that way it's not so bad.
00:30:31.000That way it doesn't feel like I'm just a horrible dictator, like a chicken dictator or something.
00:30:35.000The amount of chickens that get whacked in this country every year is crazy.
00:30:39.000Yeah, and honestly, raising birds in your yard is so much better than buying them from Tyson or something like that.
00:30:45.000Oh, so that's a regular chicken on the left from 1957, and then by the time 1978 rolled around, we got them pretty fat.
00:30:53.000It kind of looks like, it just looks kind of like what happened with all of us from back then until now.
00:30:59.000And, you know, probably no coincidence.
00:31:58.000It's like a vibration more than a noise, but the males, they have this crazy, I don't even know how to describe it, but it's a noise they make internally that you can hear.
00:32:37.000That played a key role came in 2010 with a study of the genomes of eight different populations of present-day chickens from around the world.
00:32:44.000Researchers found they all carry two copies of one version of a gene called the thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor, which apparently set in motion changes that plumped up the birds.
00:32:54.000This dominant version of the gene, or allele, had swept through all the domesticated chickens regardless of whether they were born.
00:33:01.000Broilers, rather, bred for size, or strains bred for laying many eggs, although the precise function of the gene is not known.
00:33:08.000It regulates metabolism, reproduction, so probably stimulated chickens to lay more eggs year-round.
00:33:14.000It's the big-ass chickens that lay more eggs.
00:33:16.000Let's start off from a decree from a pope a thousand years ago.
00:35:33.000They've been endorsed by leading health and nutrition experts like Ben Greenfield and Gary Brecco, Yeah, Ultimately, what is the motive?
00:35:50.000It's all control, obviously, but it's crazy to think about all the things that, you know, the church, at one point in time, the church was almost like the power structure.
00:35:59.000They were like the government for a long time.
00:37:10.000Like I was talking, you know, most of the people on my team, I say most, there's only really four of us now, like in my music business, but two of them are from Ireland.
00:37:18.000And my tour manager was telling me about like growing up in Dublin when he was younger, I guess like back in the 70s or 80s and the like just the stigma within the church and all the like.
00:37:38.000And it's really crazy when you read into all that, like how much corruption existed back then.
00:37:45.000Now it's easy to point to corruption in government and in society and everything else, but it's not like the church is more dead now than it is corrupt, I'd say.
00:37:53.000But back then it was just like this power-hungry thing.
00:37:55.000And that, to me, that's not real church.
00:37:57.000That's just, like I said, that's just government or a regime using church as a, you know, For sure.
00:38:08.000I mean, that's just a function of human beings when they get in power.
00:38:12.000Human beings, when they get in power, they want more power.
00:38:14.000Like, if you're in the automobile business, and you're making cars, you want to make more cars.
00:39:01.000But I remember watching a bit of this video where this is like a Romanian dictator who had been in power for like 20 years and had done a lot of oppressive stuff, but overall was like maintaining power.
00:39:12.000And then at some point, a police officer or a military official or something shot, I think like a preacher or a pope or something.
00:39:20.000And the dictator dude took the side of the police and it sort of was like a cultural shift.
00:39:25.000And basically like he went to give this big speech and all these people showed up and they had applause playing over loudspeakers.
00:39:31.000But really the crowd was there to like, I think it was Romania, I believe.
00:39:45.000It was like he went from being in this position of power and, like, ruling over everything and having just extreme wealth and the whole military at his disposal to everyone turning on him.
00:39:54.000And he was publicly executed, I think, the day after that speech.
00:39:58.000But that was just something I watched.
00:41:26.000Yeah, they were like, I don't know what buried is the right word, but they were like secretly in the trucks and then like they all came out at once or something.
00:43:02.000I've heard, you know, this is all just generalization stuff, but I've definitely, I've heard people make pretty compelling arguments about like, you know, all these sort of like prophetic visions of the end of times, all the stuff in the sky and all the imagery and all that, that a lot of that could be.
00:44:55.000There was also a period of time that I used a management company in Nashville.
00:44:59.000And both of those girls I worked with at both of those companies who were helping me with social media stuff, they even had AI, like, trying to write my captions and stuff.
00:45:06.000And I would always just, like – it was always the most dumb sounding stuff, but it was like – It was, I'll never forget it.
00:45:20.000And it was just like this little, they had like a little thing, but it.
00:45:22.000It pre-wrote all these based off of like how I wrote in the past and stuff and it's weird how I But I think in music, AI is much more prevalent than we realize.
00:45:55.000I just, I don't see how people aren't.
00:45:57.000It's almost, people use AI in almost every job now.
00:46:00.000I know, like, people who are in sales who use it to, like, help them manage their customer bases and who they're going to call on and what they're going to say.
00:46:18.000Even when I had periods of time where I knew I had months off, and I would always at least, I got to the point where I weaned myself down to like this, But that's what I'd carry, and two or three people knew mine.
00:46:34.000But even then, I always felt like I at least had to have a flip phone on me in case, like, what happens if you're out in the woods and break your leg?
00:46:49.000Like, if you go for a quick walk without a phone, you're like, oh, my God.
00:46:52.000So when the time comes, if there even is a definitive time, but it's like when we have to choose between integrating with AI or not, most people are going to do it.
00:47:01.000Most people will just immediately submit and be a part of it and be maybe even excited to be a part of it.
00:47:06.000It probably won't be a decision that you're allowed to make.
00:47:09.000So it's probably something that's going to be, if you want to function in society, you have to integrate.
00:47:14.000Like we talked about in that text about how it feels like we're in an alternate dimension and it seems like there's these, like, things coming.
00:47:19.000You know, it's like it does, it does, and also it is just because things happen so fast and chaotic that we can't really keep up with anything.
00:47:26.000One day the submarine collapses and the next day this other crazy thing happens and then, you know, I don't know, it's just like it's so hard to keep up with anything of what's really going on.
00:47:34.000I think the problem is that we have to start.
00:47:37.000Having people gather together again and hang out and not just make all of our hangouts digital because the systems, like you said, there's bots and algorithms and marketing approaches and psychology that's just deeply rooted that goes into just the way we fundamentally communicate now as societies and just globally.
00:47:55.000I mean, gosh, I've used this example before somewhere talking, but it's like I think about back when I was in high school, like my high school girlfriend.
00:48:02.000We would have some trivial argument about something.
00:48:16.000I don't think we can fix all this shit on X and Facebook and all that.
00:48:21.000I think people just have people are We're almost to the point now where we prefer socializing on the internet because it's it's almost like our minds have become more adapted to think that way But it's but it's we're here.
00:48:33.000We're in this digital world chasing I don't know.
00:48:43.000It makes it very complicated to fix anything.
00:48:46.000We have this amazing, intricate English language where all these words can mean all these different things, and it's so easy to put everybody together in a digital space with AI and bots and manipulation and algorithms and big companies.
00:48:59.000How do you fix all that in that space?
00:49:01.000It's like we're just in a house of mirrors.
00:50:57.000Boy, if we thought about the data part and they set up different regulations back in the 1990s when AOL first burst onto the scene, if they realized data is going to be one of the most valuable things and tech companies that do nothing but offer you Free email and a free search engine are going to be the biggest fucking companies in the world.
00:51:19.000And they're going to be, like, siphoning off your data without telling you about it.
00:51:22.000And they're even going to be lying about it.
00:51:23.000They're even going to be running, like, little secret things where they're snatching up your contact list and snatching up your email and all your friends and trying to get them to buy shit.
00:52:42.000That's I just couldn't find a way to be on there and still The only time I'm ever on my profiles is if I'm with Draven or somebody and we're looking through comments together and replying to stuff or doing things.
00:52:54.000But I haven't had anything logged in on any of my devices since last November.
00:52:59.000Yeah, just keep doing what you're doing.
00:53:02.000That's the thing that I was saying about what AI can't recreate in music.
00:53:42.000Like what I've been working on since – I guess, you know, the one important thing to – It goes back to that first conversation we had, but you remember I was arguing that I really wanted to put all the money from Richmond into a non-profit and not ever even touch it, because I didn't want all that.
00:54:02.000I felt like all those people went out of the way and supported me and blew all these other huge songs off the chart.
00:54:09.000I wanted to, so, and then you said, well, no, don't do that because non-profits are sketchy and people are corrupt and, like, just keep the money yourself and then figure out how to do good with it.
00:54:17.000And that was the biggest thing I walked away from that first conversation we had.
00:54:21.000And so, you know, now it's like, that's the one thing I do want people to know, too, though, is, like, that Richmond money and everything, it's, um, it's went to good, it's went to do a lot of what I think will be in the long run a lot of important things I've been buying.
00:54:37.000Most of it went towards buying land and stuff, but I've got this whole kind of crazy thing.
00:54:41.000I'm like just a way for people to unscrew their minds, to get reconnected into nature.
00:55:29.000Yeah, he says he's going to take everyone's guns away, but he'll give you ones that are better.
00:55:34.000Says he runs on gingivitis and zombie power.
00:55:38.000Yeah, he has a mandatory toothbrushing policy, and he'll say things like, well, no, you know, it doesn't have anything to do with the toothbrushing control camps and the dental hygiene authoritarian center, or I don't know.
00:56:37.000As we cross over to the bridge work, into the 23rd century, let us bite the bullet and together make America a sea of shining smiles from sea to shiny sea.
00:56:51.000Now, friends, some people will tell you that this mandatory toothbrushing law is about the secret dental police kicking down your door at 3 a.m. to make sure you've brushed.
01:00:36.000Yeah, but you're also able to, you're channeling it out through all these other, I mean, think about all the things that you've influenced and been a part of and done, even just through this podcast and all the conversations had and the information shared.
01:00:46.000Like, it's not like you're just posting a bunch of pictures with your shirt off, like, hey, look at me.
01:02:25.000I remember the moment, and I've talked about this before, but I didn't understand what was happening until one day I was on stage in Chicago.
01:03:38.000My goal was, like, if somebody has to pay me and you have to go to this app to get it, all the people that are getting it, the other apps will probably stop listening.
01:03:45.000I'll get all the money, and I'll just fucking drift into this place where it's only, like, the hardcore fans that make the trek over to Spotify.
01:03:52.000And then this fucking COVID thing happened.
01:03:55.000I remember the beginning of the podcast, we lost 50% of our views, and Jamie was in a hot panic.
01:04:03.000Yeah, that's exactly what I meant earlier about not putting a lot of songs out.
01:04:07.000There's some cool place where you can be where you have your real fans and you're having fun, but you're not into all the sensationalism, all the crap.
01:04:19.000And I think one of the ways that the world has prepared you for this.
01:04:22.000Is that you've lived a normal life for a long time.
01:04:27.000You know a normal life with no live performances no notoriety no fame no nothing you developed like a re like when people want to hear You fucking know Bruce Springsteen isn't a working man.
01:07:30.000It's the only call-out on here that's negative that I'll say at all.
01:07:36.000Just to show how stuck in the mud the industry is and how much I think it's going to change in the near future is leading up to the scornful release, me and Draven had went back and found about 30 or 40 people who just...
01:07:59.000People on TikTok and stuff that had made these videos.
01:08:07.000I have my own label, technically, that collects the money, but you have to use a publishing administration deal in order to collect money overseas.
01:08:13.000I don't know if you're familiar, if it's the same in comedy.
01:08:17.000Yeah, most any musician, whether you're independent or you're with somebody, you have to have some kind of pub admin.
01:08:22.000And it's basically somebody that goes and helps you collect publishing money basically mostly from overseas is the way I understand.
01:08:28.000Like all these obscure places that money exists.
01:08:31.000So Warner Chapel does it for me for 9%, right?
01:09:23.000But I tried to explain to them, well, no, like...
01:09:32.000This little bit of money that you're not going to collect off these reaction videos will generate who knows how much traffic to the music, which is worth the money you really want, and it shouldn't matter anyway.
01:10:08.000They don't care at all about the little guy or the people who are doing all the work.
01:10:14.000I just picture all these stinky librarian-type old people sitting around a table like, and they can make all this money and make all these horrible decisions and pour all these millions of dollars into songs that don't work, and it doesn't matter because it's not there.
01:10:30.000yeah so so yeah it's just even even in the even in the most minuscule relationships I've had in Nashville I get resistance and pushback Why wouldn't they want me to whitelist those 30 people?
01:10:43.000It's just little stupid stuff like that that I've constantly dealt with.
01:10:46.000So I've just decided now I just don't want to do anything in the music.
01:10:49.000I don't even need to be in the music business in that sense.
01:11:14.000But those people were like real fans who went and did it not because they were trying to get traffic or money or whatever.
01:11:21.000They just liked it and wanted to push it.
01:11:23.000And so the least I can do is not take 50% of their stuff.
01:11:28.000But isn't that crazy that nobody's ever done that, I guess, before.
01:11:33.000They were just acting like that was just the craziest thing in the world.
01:11:37.000I ended up releasing this scornful song through a company called SoundOn, which is like the music distribution side of TikTok, which seems like something I would never want to do, but they give me the flexibility to go and do all that.
01:11:52.000They don't care because they're not music industry people.
01:11:55.000So I uploaded it through them basically so I'm still I own all 100% of the rights It's all my stuff I don't have any deals or records or labels or anything, but they push it to the streaming services for me and they do all the stuff so that way I'm not even having to use a music company to push my music I can kind of just like not even be there at all you know like not even be in Nashville at all that's the goal is just to get and so now that I've got data from you know since Richmond basically and have
01:12:22.000learned a lot my goal long term is to I want I'm going to always put new music out and write stuff, but it's going to come in spurts, and there'll be times where people won't see a lot of me, but I'm going to be in the background with other people.
01:12:34.000I want to find these people on TikTok that have 100 followers, but I know that they've got what it takes and get with Draven and some of these other people I've met and help them write some really good songs and record them and put them out and push them.
01:12:46.000I would love to plant 10 or 15 people into music.
01:12:52.000To push them forward and make like, that way it doesn't feel like I'm the guy in the spotlight trying to like, I feel like I'm just in a, I feel like I'm like the most, I don't know, these companies have got like all these employees and all this money and all this backing and it's literally like four or five of us taking them.
01:13:07.000To me, I just think, I think there's strength in numbers.
01:13:10.000If I could help more artists push forward and like help them break that cycle too, that it would just, it would be like a multiplication factor on this whole thing.
01:13:20.000That's going to be kind of my next thing I get into, is helping produce music and doing festivals and starting a label, basically, kind of, sort of.
01:13:52.000But I just decided that I didn't care about it.
01:13:56.000I remember being very adamant at the beginning that every decision Because I'd rather go back to my old job and be me than go to Republic, but just be Republic's little bitch.
01:14:09.000And have to do everything they want and say everything.
01:14:12.000Also seeing where all your profits go and realizing that you got hoodwinked into these deals.
01:14:18.000Because these deals, when they give you a big chunk of money, you've got to pay that money back.
01:14:40.000a little smaller, but yeah, collecting 100% of my money, and then also just knowing that I don't have a boss anymore, other than the man upstairs.
01:14:50.000I mean like imagine how you know I've heard stories from bands and stuff now that have told me that they've went and had to record music like under a label contract and really didn't like the way the album turned out but still had to release it anyway like oh my gosh that would just make me to have to put music out that I didn't think was good and then they're gonna get behind it.
01:15:09.000You don't want other people especially financial people to ever be involved in your art.
01:15:34.000The first thing they do when they sign somebody is try to rip their identity away.
01:15:38.000And it's like the labels don't understand that it's the identity of the person that put them in the position they're in in the first place.
01:15:44.000It's like you said, the relatability of it, you know?
01:15:47.000Well, there's also people have this instinct to try to influence people.
01:15:51.000So it's one of the things that executives do in the beginning when someone's just starting.
01:16:25.000They were my management company for three weeks, so that kind of tells you how well things worked.
01:16:30.000But he was super nice, loved everything I was doing, and then as soon as I started with him, he was telling other people that I know, like, yeah, we've got to figure out how to make him cool, and he needs to put 40 or 50 songs out this year, and they were wanting me to make this social media post complimenting Beyonce's country album because he thought it was going to get me in a position.
01:16:48.000Like, it's exactly what you're saying.
01:19:21.000He's right most of the time, except that one big one.
01:19:23.000But other than that, Like the kids say, you get that with those big jobs.
01:19:28.000You know what also I think happens, and I think this is 100% real, is that there are a bunch of fake stories that get propagated to people that are really invested in conspiracy theories, hoping that those people promote those fake conspiracy theories and then get outed as being wrong.
01:19:45.000You know, I think you can get caught up in that.
01:19:48.000And then I also think if you're real quick You know, that's one of the vital roles that Jamie plays.
01:19:58.000Like, Jamie's like, maybe that's not real.
01:20:26.000You know, and he'll be the first to say that, too.
01:20:30.000It's like when your whole business is uncovering insane conspiracies that everybody thinks you're out of your fucking mind, and then 20 years later, they're like, holy shit, he was right about every step of the way.
01:20:43.000He was telling me about central bank digital currency connected to a social credit score system that it's game over Because they'll lock you in just like they've done with China and he's like saying this like I I was like, what?
01:20:58.000Like, the guy before him that I think, I think the two of them actually didn't get along, but I always, if I ever do meet Alex, I was going to ask him about that, is Bill Cooper, but he was a guy who kind of came before Alex.
01:21:12.000But yeah, even back then, most of it seemed like total madness back then, and now it's like, but it's just sort of like, I laugh about when I was a kid, everyone thought that Michael Jackson was the big, Like, sexually perverted guy.
01:21:26.000But, you know, now I look at Michael as like this just kid that was put in this terrible position from a child up.
01:21:31.000And now all these other musicians that you wouldn't even think are the sex predators are.
01:21:35.000It's just kind of like you just don't really know much of anything anyway.
01:21:38.000But yeah, like with the Michael Jackson thing, too, is his doctor said that he was chemically castrated when he was young to maintain his voice.
01:22:31.000Let's listen to some of it,'cause it's fucking creepy.
01:22:34.000I just have heard stories about like, They would castrate children so that they never had testosterone, so that their body never really developed, and then they would have them maintain that young voice, that high pitch that's only possible if you don't develop the deepness that comes with it.
01:22:53.000That's why when trans men, when women start taking testosterone, their voice starts getting deeper.
01:25:08.000Well, it turns out it's funded by an oligarch.
01:25:10.000It's funded by a lady worth $20 billion who is the heiress to Walmart, a company that employs cheap labor and sells a lot of stuff from China that would be affected by tariffs.
01:25:22.000It's like that with all of them, though.
01:26:03.000Both of them will lead towards God, but one with a completely different outcome.
01:26:06.000It's going to take me like four or five times listening to it to be able to talk about it.
01:26:10.000But I've went back and listened to the to the maps, maps of meaning on Audible.
01:26:14.000And it's one of Jordan's earlier works, you know, and he's talking about society and how it's structured and basically talks about like the motivations and the origins of why people always resort to evil, you know.
01:26:31.000But even talking about with Russia, just think about the Soviet Union and what happened there and how easily people were turned against.
01:26:38.000This little moment in time we're in, we should just be so thankful for it, even though it is mass chaos right now.
01:26:44.000The fact that people are allowed to speak freely and do things and have the influence and power they do is just nuts when you think about it.
01:27:12.000When you're paying people to protest, you're leaving pallets of bricks around, and you're organizing the whole thing, and you're shipping people in on buses, and you're making sure that all the people show up at a certain amount of time, and they're all compensated, and you give them water and snacks.
01:27:26.000We've got to realize what's going on here.
01:27:35.000One thing that I heard from Trump today that I thought was very promising.
01:27:39.000Is that he wants to make an executive order where people that are here for a long time, that have been working on farms, that are undocumented, that they won't be targeted and that they'll be exempt from all this stuff.
01:29:29.000It's also so complicated because it goes back for so long.
01:29:31.000And the thing now is that there's two very polarizing opinions of what America even is or represents or what job it's supposed to serve to the world.
01:29:41.000For any country to exist, it has to have...
01:29:48.000yeah, like it just seems like without citizenship or without some definitive thing of who's a citizen or not, it's like, then it's not even a country.
01:29:55.000It's like, and most every country The idea of there being no immigration laws for a country means that it's no longer a country.
01:30:03.000But I also think it's like the opposite side of that, too, is like America's always – In theory, you know, America was was started as sort of this thing that was like that can maybe be like.
01:30:21.000Like a sanctuary that like that like doesn't allow the doesn't allow monarchies and dictators and horrible things, you know, like as bad as America maybe has been in certain cases, like the fact that when.
01:30:42.000In theory, America is supposed to be this vein that exists of, you know, its origination is from people who wanted to get away from monarchies and dictators.
01:30:53.000And of course, like, it's so easy to pick on the Founding Fathers and all their faults and the crazy things they did, but it was centuries ago in a different culture, and they probably were all maniacs.
01:31:01.000You'd have to be a maniac to go up against the world's biggest empire and take it on.
01:31:37.000Even the best of us, even the ones who act like we're the best and the most, like we're all Religious freedom, it's like they didn't want religious freedom because they were not even necessarily because they wanted to go to church.
01:32:01.000I always thought it was so weird that they were fighting for religion, but it wasn't they were fighting for religion.
01:32:06.000They were fighting for the mandate of religion.
01:32:10.000And, like, I know it's not considered the church anymore, but there is still a church that dominates us and tries to control us now.
01:32:18.000And, unfortunately, now the church is just sort of this weird thing.
01:32:21.000But it's the zebra mentality, you know, among politicians.
01:32:24.000It's like, it goes back to that, I think it's Jordan Peterson that talks about the zebras and how they'll do a study on zebras.
01:32:29.000It's in the Maps of Meaning book, I believe, and they'll mark one red to study it.
01:32:33.000And then the predators take that zebra down because the zebra's stripes aren't camouflaged to their surroundings.
01:32:39.000They're camouflaged to each other, so they're not easily identifiable.
01:32:42.000And so four or five lions can't take one zebra down if they all look the same.
01:32:45.000And in politics, I believe that's what's happened, especially on the left.
01:32:49.000You know, I had people in Nashville quit working with me because I talked about this when I was at the Ryman, but we had this dancing.
01:33:00.000This chick that plays the fiddle, and she does flat dancing and stuff, named Hilary Klug, who lives in Nashville, and we had her come to the Ryman to do this show with us, and it was on a last-minute thing, and I'm about to introduce her, and I tell the crowd, I'm like, hey, you know, I said, I got Hilary about to come out, and I was like, but don't worry, it's not that Hilary, and just made a joke about it.
01:33:21.000Somebody said something in the crowd, and I don't know, I just interact, and I just say what comes to mind, and I don't care, I don't worry about all that stuff.
01:33:31.000But I was like, you know, isn't it crazy that somebody like Hillary, who not that long ago I can remember vividly as a child or in a teenage years, like, being completely against the idea of even having two people of the same gender be married.
01:33:42.000Like, she was as against gay marriage as, like, any person on the far right is now.
01:33:49.000And that was in my childhood or early teens.
01:33:51.000And I said, and now that it's okay for kids to become transgender and go through, like, what Michael did.
01:33:57.000That, to me, it just shows that it's all theatrics and that none of those people really have any real opinions about any of this stuff.
01:34:21.000Which tells you how far off the deep end.
01:34:26.000But you're exactly right with all that.
01:34:30.000It's difficult to convey that to people because there's so many emotions involved.
01:34:34.000But at the end of the day, it's like...
01:34:40.000I think we're all just like, like you said, we all are trying to just effectively accomplish the same thing, just in different ways.
01:34:47.000And it's really easy to get angry at somebody that's on the same level as you than somebody that you don't even know exists, which is like with these private equity companies and these people in the background that do all this.
01:34:58.000So what's happened is, going back to the zebra thing, what I think has happened is, especially in politics, the reason why Hillary Clinton can be a That's a great analogy.
01:35:22.000Like Tulsi Gabbard or whatever, I don't know, name.
01:35:27.000That's just the first one that comes to mind that's like trying to be a Democrat and And upholding most of what the Democratic Party would have wanted her to uphold up until very recently, but because she didn't rearrange her stripes, it's like, you're dead.
01:35:40.000But there's a whole bunch more like her, too, that aren't even in politics anymore.
01:35:44.000But that's the way I see it now is it's like all these people.
01:35:48.000And so, like, even with Big Donnie, you know, I wonder – I just wonder, even, I just don't trust, it's kind of my Alex Jones syndrome, but it's like, no matter how cool somebody seems like that, I think like, man, does him and Hillary really still chill?
01:36:03.000Like, they're probably smoking a fat joint right now, this laugh, I don't know, like, you just don't really know, you don't really know, you're just, you have to see what you see, and you have to take it in, and just hope that you have, that somehow you have the discernment to know what's true or not, but you really just don't, I mean, even with me, man, so much crazy stuff that gets said and done, and I just don't even, When things come out about me that aren't true, I just don't even reply or acknowledge them anymore.
01:36:27.000I just let them exist in their own little space and be part of it.
01:36:29.000And I've just decided that, again, we're just in this crazy thing where all this stuff happens.
01:38:26.000It's all what the country wants to hear and what the party agrees upon, what the zebras all agree on.
01:38:31.000When you just said that, that's it perfectly.
01:38:33.000And as it morphs, as it gets into trans kids, you've got to support trans people in the military, whatever it is, they just all fucking hop in line.
01:38:40.000What flag am I putting in my Twitter bar?
01:38:42.000And to go back to what you said at the beginning about those kids that are riding, and they don't really even know what they're riding.
01:38:49.000they got the mask on but they're doing this and it's like I guess what I mean is is there's a bunch of human beings on earth especially now like in our But there's all these people who are really angry.
01:39:07.000It's the reason why there's so many of these videos where they interview the Antifa dudes, and they don't really even know why.
01:39:15.000They're not really able to articulate why they're there or what they believe.
01:39:22.000There's this general anger that I think has But it's just too complex, at least individually, and through the means of the internet for us to identify who our enemies really are.
01:39:37.000And so instead, it's like, let's just go catch some shit on fire, because at least it feels like we're doing something.
01:39:44.000But I think there's a lot more in common between the patriotic cosplaying type people who talk all the time about that and the people who are like Antifa.
01:39:58.000I actually think that they're two of the same cloth.
01:40:01.000They both just don't really realize it.
01:40:24.000When I was younger, I'd go to some of these protests in D.C. and stuff, and I would always stay at George Washington University with these kids.
01:40:34.000We were all in our early 20s, probably, and we're all very, like, at that point, there wasn't any, like, real political identity to it.
01:40:41.000I don't think those people would have called themselves left back then.
01:40:44.000But you better believe most of them ended up going to all the Black Bloc and the Antifa and the Black Lives Matter and every other protest there was just because they wanted to go protest.
01:40:52.000They just are like, you know, like it's like it's like, yeah, it's like it's a thing of of of like rebelling against the system.
01:41:16.000I do think I do think through I think music is I think that's why I want to focus mostly on music.
01:41:21.000Music and like trying to influence in a way to where the rich don't control it and the rich don't choose what songs we listen to and what songs make it on the charts like we do.
01:41:49.000We've just been mass distracted and misled is all.
01:41:53.000Also when you get these kind of organized protests, they're all organized with this one thought in mind like there there's unlawful And we got to stop this.
01:42:08.000These are all, you know, oligarchs are involved and this is a dictatorship.
01:42:13.000And they feel like they're fighting against something bad.
01:42:16.000And if they're uninformed, and who the fuck who's 21 is informed?
01:42:20.000You know, most people who are young, especially if you're going to college, you're around a bunch of other like-minded people in an echo chamber, and you're all trying to, like, And then there's also the thing of being on the ground with a bunch of other people that are moving in a certain direction.
01:44:59.000And they've used it as a political tool.
01:45:01.000I would think maybe that that's happened a lot, though, even in the past with civil rights and everything else.
01:45:07.000A lot of that was much more organized than it was made...
01:45:10.000Like I didn't know until just a couple years ago like I've learned the story all through school and heard it a million times about Rosa Parks But I didn't realize until a couple years ago that she was part of some I don't even know what she was part of, but she was part of some organization, and it was like a planned thing.
01:45:26.000I was always taught it like she just spontaneously did it.
01:45:38.000Most things have been manipulated if they can be manipulated.
01:45:41.000Once they realize they can manipulate people, they started, and they probably started that a long time ago.
01:45:46.000I mean, we've talked about it a million times, so that's why Smedley Butler wrote War is a Racket in 1933.
01:45:53.000You know, Major General Smedley Butler, who was, they tried to get him to overthrow the fucking government with a coup, and he wouldn't do it.
01:46:00.000And then he writes this book about how every single Operation he was involved with.
01:46:04.000He thought they were doing this, but really they were just making it safe for bankers.
01:46:08.000They're really just overthrowing a government, installing a friendly one.
01:46:12.000It's like it's been going on since they could.
01:46:15.000And back then it was way easier to pull off because there was no internet where you could pull off a Hillary Clinton video from more than a decade ago and go, look at her.
01:46:45.000She would have been like queen mom of Trump land.
01:46:48.000There would be people with Hillary Clinton flags flying behind their pickup trucks with her, with like two fists in the air, with a MAGA hat on.
01:46:57.000But I remember even back then, like, well, you know, the one, But even, you know, back then I remember they were trying to, like, I guess he got kicked off of Saturday Night Live because of that, right?
01:47:15.000Was it because of the Clinton specific?
01:48:46.000When I was at the ARC where we spoke at that thing in London, there was a talk we went to, I think, the next night that was about freedom of speech.
01:48:55.000And I can't remember who all was speaking there.
01:48:58.000It was some people that I should probably remember, but I yeah, but they they were talking about They're arresting people for political things that they put online in Europe.
01:49:18.000Not even giving them very obscure reasoning as to why whatever this is.
01:49:23.000In some cases, they won't even tell them what they're arresting them for.
01:49:26.000And so like the cause of what these people are doing is very important.
01:49:28.000But the whole time they're just they're referring to it as the woke mind virus, which is, yeah, sure.
01:49:34.000But God, like, no, what it is, is it's like the government using this one specific thing out of a list of things that they could as part of this moral high ground to arrest people for speaking out against.
01:49:46.000Not because it has nothing to do with anything on the left or the right.
01:49:49.000It's the fact that the state would love for people to not be allowed to criticize anything because then that means they can't criticize them.
01:50:45.000I mean, someone should do it that's like you.
01:50:47.000I just remember my whole life, like since I was a kid, people were like, man, what would happen if just we got some regular dude in there and like all this?
01:50:55.000You'd probably get immediately disillusioned.
01:50:57.000You'd realize the entanglements that exist, and I think it's impossible to navigate.
01:51:02.000I think once you get in there, you're like, holy shit.
01:51:06.000And when I talk to people that are in this administration now that weren't before, And you're dealing with a machine that's been operating pretty much unchecked for decades.
01:51:45.000this is like, this is actually something I wanted to ask you about at one point or another.
01:51:48.000Anyway, it was your take on like the Elon Trump situation.
01:51:51.000But you know, Do you think things are cool now?
01:51:56.000Supposedly they had a long conversation on the phone.
01:51:58.000But the argument behind it was that they felt like Trump wasn't letting Elon...
01:52:09.000It really fascinated me that it seemed like they were both using Doge for different reasons, maybe, or they had different motivations behind it.
01:52:18.000But what if it was like a genuine— What if there was genuine audits done on everything?
01:52:24.000And what if all that stuff did get uncovered?
01:52:26.000And what if somebody wasn't scared to just release all that stuff and the consequences of it?
01:53:12.000And they're all in a position where they have influence.
01:53:16.000Thousands of different points of influence.
01:53:18.000And if you're the president or the vice president or, you know, any of these fucking people, it's a very difficult road.
01:53:26.000One of the things that I felt like was the most important was Bobby Kennedy.
01:53:29.000Because Bobby Kennedy getting in there, he was determined to find out what is the root cause of America's massive health crisis that we're all facing.
01:53:40.000Why do we have Different toxins that are in our foods that are banned in Europe.
01:53:45.000Why are we allowing the use of these different things that we know are terrible for the body?
01:53:50.000Why is there not greater scrutiny on these pharmaceutical drug corporations?
01:53:54.000Why are they able to lie and get away with it and prescribe things for people that don't need them and not be responsible for the health consequences of these things?
01:54:23.000Robert Malone, the guy that everybody said was a kook that I got in trouble for initially for having on my podcast when they were trying to – This is over Robert Malone.
01:55:30.000He came out to the property where we filmed Richmond and all, and I met him.
01:55:34.000This was before he got linked up with Trump.
01:55:36.000This was during all that, and he was still running for himself.
01:55:39.000But we had a long conversation about this concept for a healing center, which is like this thing that he's been kind of like, as a part of all this, which is kind of the idea of people going out into nature.
01:55:50.000Like, learning how to grow food and learning how to, like, because in this never-ending abyss of chaos where everything's changing so fast and nothing, you know, nature is, nature has been affected by that through, like, some, you know, through chemicals and technology and other things, but for the most part, it's all the systems in nature, all the organization there and all that stuff.
01:56:14.000is sort of like the last thing that's untouched by man.
01:56:17.000You know, when you go out on two or 300 acres and you just sit there and you're watching the water go by, it's like you just sort of, you take everything that we've talked about, But meanwhile, nature just sort of exists and does its thing.
01:56:52.000Like, gosh, dude, that's the only thing that saves me, especially being a little bit, probably a little bit too introverted for this job position.
01:57:00.000You know, going out on tour even for a weekend or two, we're like, dude, by the time Sunday comes and we get through this and these two mothership shows, We got West Virginia next weekend, but I'll spend this whole week.
01:57:10.000I probably won't talk to anybody except for immediate family.
01:57:14.000I'll just go sit out in the woods with the dogs and just watch the birds chirp and all that.
01:57:48.000You're not going to go to a mental institution.
01:57:50.000And I'm not even suggesting for people who should be in a mental institution.
01:57:52.000I just mean like, you know, people who, like a guy I know who...
01:58:00.000How do you get him into a spot where he can just go out and roll?
01:58:04.000It's hard to fix that part of your brain living in a city or living in a suburb.
01:58:12.000So yeah, it's just like this crazy dream I have where it's a way to rebel against all of this without rebelling.
01:58:19.000It's just creating a better way to do it.
01:58:20.000But imagine if he's like, this is like the pilot program for this thing where it's this sort of outdoor amphitheater and it's like very immersive and in nature and you can like re-unlock these parts of your brain you talked about that are sort of very primitive to us and then just emulate it over a period of time.
01:58:36.000So I'm doing these shows where they're,
01:58:54.000how to sell the show, where to put the stage, how to set everything up, here's all the vendors to use, and then give them this blueprint where they can do it over and over and over again and just build these sort of sanctuaries that exist all over the country that can't be molested and preyed upon by all those big companies and all their companies.
01:59:08.000And I think inherently by doing that through like music and public speaking and other things those spaces will almost serve as like Like the way that communities thrive again and the way people reconnect and I joke and say that like I everyone
01:59:51.000That's why psychedelics are still illegal.
01:59:52.000And there's so much misunderstanding and misconception and just confusion even there.
01:59:57.000Our brains are just so infinitely complex even.
02:00:03.000Nature's definitely a part of your health.
02:00:05.000Without nature, I don't think you really get totally healthy.
02:00:09.000like we're a natural thing existing in a world that we've created that isn't natural and so like this is all you know We sort of get isolated inside of it, especially when we're on our phone all the time.
02:04:14.000This is the music catalog that we're giving people a middle finger with, but I wouldn't for a second want to ever think that, like, I don't want to feel...
02:04:28.000This is just something where I'm just so excited to see where this can go in the sense of like, And like I said, it's just exciting that some just full-blown idiot like me with a couple of his buddies can figure out how to do this and rally enough support up behind it.
02:04:42.000I'm just like, what could really happen if things were like...
02:05:01.000You know, you don't have to become better than people You don't have to think you're better than people just because you're famous.
02:05:11.000You are yeah I've been doing it the same and that's one of the reasons why I do the podcast the exact same way I do it the same way I don't think, oh, this is going to be a big one.
02:05:19.000Everybody asks, that's the first thing a lot of people ask is, how is Joe Rogan?
02:06:56.000And people, by doing something that we know is difficult and they get through it and they create something, like, wow!
02:07:02.000And you go to see, you know, fucking U2 with the Sphere, like, wow!
02:07:06.000You know, that's what it's all about, man.
02:07:08.000You know, that's the beautiful thing that is this kind of artistic connection that you have with the community, with the people that enjoy your work.
02:07:19.000As long as you respect that and as long as you understand what it is.
02:07:35.000Now that you've said what you said about AI being able to replace music and stuff, I do agree that there is a part of it that AI will never understand the human experience enough to be able to write music about it.
02:07:47.000That captivates people in a way that music can, that's been written by people.
02:07:51.000They can make it sound better and cooler and catchier, but I do think the people that are really writing it are the ones that really write.
02:08:01.000Just to talk about the songwriting process with Scornful.
02:08:09.000We had just gotten done with the touring over the summer for the most part in 2024.
02:08:15.000Well, obviously things are what they are, but there was just multiple different negative things happening at once, and I kind of got in a spot where I did my thing where I sort of spiraled and just was isolating myself, and so I spent a month and a half or two months in that house, pretty much.
02:08:31.000I didn't do Thanksgiving or Christmas last year.
02:08:35.000I just really didn't hardly talk to anybody or anything.
02:08:45.000And there's a few things I do want to clarify, too, talking about all this.
02:08:50.000So anyway, me, Draven from Radio WV, and Joey are all sitting in the kitchen of this house where we recorded the song, and it's probably in the fall sometime.
02:09:05.000I can think about Joey talking about really wanting to write a song and so him and Draven were asking me about my songwriting process and what I do and so like I just went and got the guitar and I said we were sitting there around the table and I can remember it was me and Joey sitting here and Draven leaning up against the counter and we were just talking about it and I said well I said if you're going to write a song I was like the first thing you got to do is figure out what you're going to write about and it's got to be something that you feel not something that you can just articulate about it's got to be something that's like in there that needs to come out you know and so we sat there for like 10 seconds and
02:09:34.000Scornful woman was the word that was used.
02:09:37.000It was specific relationships, but also it was a collection of the experiences that we'd all had.
02:09:45.000We'd all had horrible relationships, too.
02:10:37.000Well, she got a side to her I want to run from.
02:10:43.000She'll turn a warm afternoon into a cold, cold one.
02:10:50.000Well, he grabbed the apple and Adam took a bite.
02:10:56.000And now all these years later And the mass still ain't right With a scornful woman Scornful woman I used to sleep so good Didn't have a night
02:11:21.000I was busy dreaming, believing he's always gonna be right there.
02:11:28.000And now the middle of the day is like the middle of the night.
02:17:34.000Some sense of accomplishment about long time is like just how do you get all these people together who have been disenfranchised by the music industry and just rally them together in a way that like it's not to take anyone down or to do anything bad at all towards anybody but it's just to like imagine what society would be with real music again without a bunch of label propped up shit stuck in everybody's head.
02:17:55.000Like what if people really listened to what they loved and like it was real it was like the organic side of things is what drove music through the roof.
02:18:02.000Like, imagine what that would imagine what because think about what music can do to you, like not even in the moment, but just what it means to you over time.
02:18:09.000Like going back and I go back all the time, like and I listen to like a 1999 live song.
02:19:46.000So there's a lot of people that are moving to Austin from all across the country, you know, that like, hey, I think if I get there, that's a place where you could really launch from.
02:19:55.000What's powerful about your platforms here, like you and all the other people, like you said, that are in that network, is that this is all stuff that you've built that you have control over.
02:20:25.000I just don't know what, who knows what will even come of what you got going on here in, um, and Austin.
02:20:30.000But this has, has shaped a lot, like in a, in a world where everything is so, is so predicted.
02:20:37.000Like there's less and less people able to sit around in a boardroom and a skyscraper somewhere and decide what the next big thing is going to be.
02:20:46.000just it's exciting to be a part of that despite all the there's so many ways that you can you can look negatively about everything going on but there is this sort of transfer of power that i just hope Pretty soon we'll all have a Neuralink and we'll be talking to each other.
02:21:08.000But we've got a little bit of time maybe before that.
02:21:30.000Everyone in its AI, the whole narrative is, and it'll have like a million, and like probably half the people commenting on it are bots too, but I just mean, it's not even like we're going to be deceived that way.
02:21:38.000I think at some point it'll almost somehow...
02:21:48.000And it's not that we won't even be able to tell the difference, but we won't even care to tell the difference.
02:21:53.000The fake world will feel more real than the real world in a short period of time somehow.
02:22:05.000Like it'll it'll it'll influence that more than real life will like it'll become just like everything will just feel That's why we're so drawn.
02:22:12.000But as it all becomes more realistic and more creative and more tailored to draw us in, it will be just mass deception.
02:22:34.000He thinks the chances of it not being a simulation are in the billions.
02:22:37.000He thinks that this whole thing is probably our consciousness interacting with a program, which is very bizarre to think.
02:22:48.000But if you keep going with what we're doing right now, that is inevitable.
02:22:53.000If you look at the way technology is recreating things with AI and making things look completely realistic, and then you extrapolate, you look into the future, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, yeah, they're going to be able to give you an experience that you're not going to know.
02:23:09.000So how do you know if that's already happened?
02:23:11.000And maybe that's how the world actually works.
02:23:13.000Maybe this idea of the material world is an illusion, and that everything is your consciousness interacting.
02:23:23.000through limited means I mean right sight sound smell etc like there's there could be components of reality here that we're not able to see I mean and that's where like I definitely lean into recognizing that there is this whole likes I do believe there is this whole spiritual element at play too and I see yeah it's just it's hard to it's just
02:23:45.000It's funny, though, because the same mentality that you could use to think about the world being a simulation, you could also think about it being so organized and so perfect that, yeah, I agree that it's operating on some program.
02:23:55.000I just think that that program is being mandated and created by what is represented in my mind as God or Jesus Christ.
02:24:03.000Other people may just be considered like a...
02:24:08.000Obviously there is some, like life is a thing that we don't quite understand that finds itself in the midst of so many different parts of reality.
02:24:16.000Like life, like just in the soil, there's so many different millions of bacteria that just make it possible for stuff to even be able to grow.
02:24:22.000And all those things are arguably intelligent and have these organized systems.
02:24:26.000And then you see the way birds fly in the sky and just the way that, like the way that even we have these sort of inherent parts programmed into us.
02:24:37.000There's really no way to tell but what's so funny is that in just a short period of time we'll all be forgotten about anyway and we'll never really know and maybe even this even though.
02:24:48.000I think at the end of the day, to your point, I think humanity and the truth within it is all that really exists and everything else just sort of swirls about and we're always wanting to expand upon what already exists.
02:25:01.000We're not creatures that like repetition or we like to just always figure out what the next big thing is, even if it is our demise.
02:27:49.000They don't like that this, Hey, the FBI contacted Facebook and was telling them to remove factual information because it might affect the election.
02:28:17.000Because, yeah, we know all that about Facebook, but we all still use Facebook.
02:28:23.000I think that now our ability to communicate has become so contingent upon these platforms that we know they're no good for us.
02:28:32.000We know they harvest our data and all the terrible things that are associated with them.
02:28:37.000But we still was like, where else but Facebook Marketplace can you find all these sweet – The more you're aware they're influencing you, the less effect it has on you.
02:28:48.000The more you're aware of the magic trick, you're like, oh, that rabbit's up his sleeve.
02:28:52.000There's just a connectivity that we can't find elsewhere, so there's this void that we have to use it to fill the void, I guess is what I mean.
02:29:00.000Maybe through, like, that's why I really want to try doing, I've had two or three people really pushing me heavy to try to do jiu-jitsu, but that's something where, like, it's the, I don't know.
02:30:06.000Like, you know, Eddie Bravo, He goes, the more you teach people to catch you in the stuff that you do, the more people, you'll be able to get it in people that even know it's coming.
02:30:17.000You'll be able, it'll sharpen that technique up even more.
02:30:19.000If you can get people that know what you're doing, and you tell them what you're doing, you can still do it.
02:30:23.000Like Hicks and Grace used to tell people, I'm going to get you in an arm bar on your right arm.
02:30:41.000Also, the other beautiful thing about jujitsu in terms of your mental health is that it's so difficult to do that it makes regular life easy.
02:30:50.000And regular conflict seems to be silly.
02:30:53.000Like, sometimes people get, like, super nervous if two people are just yelling at each other and you think a fight might break up.
02:30:57.000If you're, like, so used to strangling people, that's, like, totally normal.
02:31:37.000You could fuck with the wrong dude and that happens that there's a there's a lot of those wrong dudes out there now There's so many people that are training in martial arts now You never know like you're picking a fight with someone you don't know how to fight you are rolling Those dudes are a lot scarier in real life than on TV like I oh hell yeah I've just ran into him randomly.
02:31:57.000And just like the size of his hands, you're just like, God, where did this guy come from?
02:36:16.000You know, this is an amazing time for the sport, man.
02:36:19.000It's a it's a crazy time because these guys that are coming in with like one fight in the UFC They look like world-class contenders like right away Well, it's cool because it seems like it's it's like a really it's a really good way to get like obscure people into the spotlight like I I guess it does take some fights.
02:36:47.000The guys that are in the top at the UFC now, how many fights do you think it takes them before they wreck it?
02:36:53.000Is it really just a win or two, I guess, if they're big enough and they're like...
02:37:02.000Like, the best example of a quick rise to the top is Alex Pereira.
02:37:06.000But Alex Pereira is one of the greatest kickboxers of all time.
02:37:10.000And Alex Pereira, when he entered into the UFC, like, a lot of people were completely unaware of him.
02:37:15.000And me, as a giant kickboxing fan, he was the guy.
02:37:19.000That I was like, when this motherfucker comes over here, bodies are gonna drop, man.
02:37:24.000I'm telling you, you ain't never seen nothing.
02:37:25.000And I remember Daniel Cormier saying to me, like, "Really?" I'm like, "Dude, I'm telling you." I was pointing to him in his debut, I go, "That's the motherfucker!
02:37:34.000That's the boogeyman of boogeymen!" I go, "He knocks people into orbit." And I was showing him some videos of kickboxing fights, and he was like, "Holy shit!" I go, dude, everybody he touches, he's got the touch of death.
02:37:46.000And then we start steamrolling people in the UFC, and he knocked out Strickland in one round.
02:37:50.000And the opening fight that he had when he hit that dude with a flying knee and just I'm like, "Yeah, dude, this guy is scary!" So that guy was, within three years, was a two-division world champion.
02:38:29.000So the thing about specialists is if you're a specialist kickboxer, what you really need is someone to teach you how to fight on the ground.
02:38:36.000And he had Glover Teixeira, who was also a former UFC light heavyweight champion, one of the greatest, and an amazing technician.
02:38:44.000And Glover helped him, along with all his other training partners, avoid the takedowns, learn how to fight off, learn how to fight on the ground, learn how to get back up to your feet.
02:38:52.000When you've got a guy who's the best of the best kickboxers, every fight starts standing up.
02:38:57.000So while you're standing there with him, it's just, you gotta get that guy to the ground!
02:39:55.000Like, what do they, where do they direct all of that energy to?
02:39:58.000Or does it, or does it, is it difficult when you're, does it, Oh, it's so difficult.
02:40:06.000Your whole identity is wrapped up in it.
02:40:08.000I just messaged Sean Strickland the other day because I saw that he was talking about his investments and that he's got $4 million in investments and he's doing really well.
02:41:16.000Well, I just wonder too, like the, it seems like some of those people are, well, you know, this is totally different than MMA fighters, Like you said, dude, man.
02:41:28.000Like, you fight and the next day you're able to go run.
02:41:31.000It's just like, what happens when all that slows down?
02:41:35.000Like if you don't have somewhere to dis, you know, you found this really effective way to displace all of this.
02:41:40.000'Cause obviously those people have got something in them that like drives their spirit to be able to And George still comes to Austin to train with the Donahers and Gordon Ryan and all these elite jiu-jitsu guys.
02:41:58.000And he'll still go to Thailand and train Muay Thai.
02:42:23.000That's a whole other can of worms, and I'm not articulate enough in this space to give my opinions on things, but I would have liked to have seen Mike Tyson just – I don't know.
02:42:32.000It just seemed like that just wasn't...
02:42:36.000I bet he enjoyed the 20 million bucks.
02:42:46.000But you're not supposed to be getting hit really hard in the head when you're 57 or 58 years old.
02:42:51.000It's probably not the best thing for your health.
02:42:55.000And at a certain point in time, I kind of stopped kickboxing.
02:42:59.000For the most part, when I was like 30, I was like, this is just not good for you.
02:43:05.000I was still sparring, and I was acting at the time.
02:43:08.000So I was doing news radio, and I was still going to the gym and kickboxing.
02:43:12.000And, you know, sometimes I'd have, like, a little black eye that I'd have to get touched up with makeup and shit before I go out to the set.
02:43:17.000And I kept doing jiu-jitsu, but jiu-jitsu – I would get black eyes in jiu-jitsu sometimes, too.
02:43:23.000But jiu-jitsu didn't – You still accidentally catch a knee sometimes, or you headbutt each other sometimes.
02:44:56.000You've got to be training with guys that are trying to take your head off.
02:44:58.000When they're in the middle of those fights, is it a lot of muscle memory or are they consciously thinking – Like, I feel like a lot of it is they've trained so much that it's more automatic, right?
02:45:08.000When they get in that fight, like, like.
02:45:11.000Like the way you see these slow motion replays of fights and they're able to almost predict their opponent's move and react in real time with it and just use it to their advantage.
02:45:39.000so good the way they're able to like use their opponents movements and to their own advantage and stuff that's what's so so crazy to me watching the just watching how like a human being can When someone's at the elite level, like the highest of high levels, it's an amazing thing to watch.
02:45:58.000Like there's a guy who's defending his flyweight title at the end of June, Alexandre Pantoja.
02:46:04.000He's one of the best fighters of all time.
02:46:06.000I mean, he's so fucking good, but he's 125 pounds So people you know, they don't appreciate him as much as he He's so good.
02:46:30.000I mean, it's like when a guy reaches the pinnacle of his career, like when he's at the height of his powers, when he's at the peak of his performance and career as an elite MMA fighter, it's something to behold, man.
02:47:27.000When they really hit that flow state, everything is just perfect.
02:47:30.000It's like, oh man, that's so hard to get there.
02:47:33.000It's like an art form that you If you could do a little bit of it, you can do it somewhat.
02:47:43.000You have to be able to do some martial arts to really appreciate what they're doing.
02:47:48.000You can see someone kick somebody in the head like, wow, that's crazy.
02:47:51.000But to really know how hard it is to pull off what he did, it's just like, ah, damn.
02:47:57.000It's easy to watch world star hip hop where they're just like sucker punching each other but to watch a guy exhibit that kind of skill on somebody else knowing that like and not even knowing like I said just meeting like the few UFC fighters that I've met and stuff just looking at him and being like gosh dude like these dudes are just animals you know like a star and then to watch somebody else be able to exhibit that kind of just to kind of like unleash that kind of skill on him is just you're right it's such a raw it unlocks such a it unlocks that sort of monkey part of our brain that's just like yeah!
02:49:04.000I was just telling a story the other day about this guy that was my landscaper that took me to this Mexican neighborhood that he lived in, and his buddy had all these chickens in cages all over the place.
02:49:15.000So these roosters, and they had a big pit where they would roast goats, and they would just get the chickens out, put'em in the box, and gamble.
02:49:25.000This was a completely Mexican neighborhood in LA.
02:49:27.000Like, none of the signs are in English.
02:51:29.000I have, I have, dogs and humans are like at the same level of importance to me almost, you know, like, I finally replaced, I didn't, it's not a, not in any way to say replace, but just like, for me, I've always, I'm used to having three or four dogs around, because once you train, if you train a couple dogs real good and you get a couple more, nine times out of ten, they'll just learn everything from, you kind of get this pack mentality, and so I've had four for forever, and then I had gotten down to two when I lost Hooch, the white shepherd, so I finally just got this black German shepherd off this lady who was real, really.
02:52:00.000She didn't necessarily neglect the dog, but the dog was just a breeder's dog.
02:52:03.000So all she did was just have puppies with it.
02:52:05.000So here I am, I'm taking this five-year-old black German Shepherd down to go swimming in the creek with us and stuff.
02:52:12.000It was like her first time stepping on a stick.
02:52:14.000She stepped on a stick and jumped completely in the air.
02:52:17.000you know, now within two weeks, now she's like swimming in the creek with them and running all around and she acts like she's a farm dog, but like this dog had just kind of been in this lady's front yard for years, I guess, and just hadn't even gotten to...
02:52:33.000I can't separate a dog and a human in level of importance.
02:52:37.000It's like that theoretical scenario where the train's coming and you've got to figure out which way to switch the tracks and it's like elderly people are dogs and you're like, I don't know.
02:54:07.000This has been, like, through all the stress and chaos of the last however many months of things going on and stuff being rearranged and all, this has been, like, my beacon that I've held on to of, like, we just got to get to the mothership and then everything will work out, you know?
02:54:20.000Well, we've been really looking forward to having you.
02:54:22.000Everyone and the staff, all the comics are real pumped.
02:54:34.000Well, also, a lot of people don't even know who I am because all they've seen of me is just the internet stuff and all the political stuff.
02:54:40.000So it was really surprising the first time, even when we went to that mothership, how Everybody there just was very respectful and just kind of welcomed me with open arms.
02:54:52.000I thought I was going in there really like kind of an outsider.
02:54:55.000It was way more receptive than I've ever been.
02:55:33.000Some of those people were telling me stories about how tough it is to go out.
02:55:37.000Trying to make a career out of comedy.
02:55:39.000Like, I guess unless you get a big Netflix special or you get a big break, like it's paycheck to paycheck for a long time, maybe for some of those guys.
02:55:45.000Like until they get or until they get to where they're like a regular at a big club like that, you're just you're just off.
02:55:57.000But you have to do that to get good at it, too.
02:56:00.000But I think they have some appreciation for it that maybe other people don't.
02:56:41.000Yeah, that's why most people don't do it.
02:56:42.000But if you could do it, the people that are doing it and have been doing it for like 10 plus years, like all those people hanging out in the green room, they're all so cool.
02:56:50.000It's a lot like jiu-jitsu in that regard.
02:56:52.000It's like people that appreciate the difficulty of something and are really obsessed with getting better at it.
02:56:57.000And obsessed with helping other people get better at it, too.
02:58:43.000It was so many pitfalls and so many things.
02:58:46.000But it's a contribution of, I'd say, you know, like at the very beginning, you, Jamie Johnson, David Kushner, and just a couple people who were like, had been in it for a while and were able to.
02:58:57.000Well, with David, you know, he was fairly recent, but we were both.
02:59:03.000The first six months was when I could have really slipped up hard.
02:59:07.000I just was so thankful that I got through all that without being married to anybody or any company.
02:59:16.000So I appreciate the confidence there because it's a terrifying – Man, you've been going to work every day for some guy that you hate and some job you hate?
02:59:25.000For so long, for like 50 grand a year, and then some dude is showing you, and they have a really convincing way of doing it.
02:59:34.000Just think about how easy you can get prayed into buying some shit used car on a lot.
02:59:37.000These people are like that, but they're like the professional UFC fighters of psychological warfare.
02:59:44.000They're going to make you feel like you're so stupid, and you've just tricked everybody for five minutes, and you better do it while it lasts.
02:59:50.000And if you don't come with us, it's never going to make it.
02:59:56.000And I don't care if nothing, like I said, if nothing else ever comes of this, this has been just such a blessing to be able to just meet all the people I have and experienced it.