On this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, I sit down with artist Mike Maxwell to talk about how he got his start in the art world. We talk about what it's like to be an artist and how to stay motivated to keep going no matter what you're doing.
00:00:17.000For anybody who doesn't know, Mike Maxwell is an amazing artist and did not just that painting with Quentin Tarantino in front of it, which is pretty fucking cool, but also the JRE logo.
00:00:45.000And for me, like, my whole like art experience has just been like, make the work, and whatever the fuck happens afterwards is just all bonus.
00:00:55.000Well, if the work is great, that works.
00:00:58.000You know, it's like, you got to have to be discovered.
00:01:11.000I mean, because that talent really doesn't come, like, artists so often are like, people are like, ah, I, like, I wish I could draw, like, you're so lucky, like, God-given talent.
00:01:20.000I'm like, bitch, I had to fucking, I work every day and have been grinding at this for 25, 26 years.
00:01:30.000There's some people have an openness or maybe an ability to see things differently than others.
00:01:37.000But when it comes to the actual technique and developing that fine hand eye coordination and the ability to draw exact or paint exactly what you're looking for, that's work.
00:03:05.000Like there'll be a moment where it's like I could feel something's not right.
00:03:08.000And then like I can't consciously think of, okay, well, I need to do A, B, and C. But it's kind of like I sit and wait and something tells me.
00:03:19.000It's so crazy that you say it that way because so many people, including authors in particular, they talk about the exact same kind of process.
00:03:27.000It's like something just comes to you.
00:03:31.000I've done a little bit of writing and I've recognized that in writing too, where like I'm telling a story and then all of a sudden it's like the characters come to life and they start to dictate what's actually going to happen.
00:03:46.000But you have to do all that beginning work, like the prep work.
00:03:50.000Like you have to get the idea going and then once you're a certain like path in, like it starts to, it starts to communicate with you.
00:03:59.000I always wondered why that's maybe that's why Stephen King wrote his best work when he was coked up and drunk because he was out of his head.
00:04:07.000Yeah, I think he could get away from his own head.
00:05:11.000And McCumber, so David McCumber, who is his editor, who also co-wrote a book with my friend Tony Anagoni that's one of the great pool books.
00:05:22.000It's a really, for anybody who's a fan of pool, the game, it's an amazing book about a guy whose name is Tony Anagoni, who's a world-class player who went on the road with a journalist and just gambled across the country.
00:05:37.000And did it like a real pool hustler would in the most dangerous, dingiest places playing against high-level guys for $10,000 sets and 24-hour joints in New York City.
00:06:13.000He famously would destroy the fax machine because he was supposed to fax his pages to Rolling Stone Max.
00:06:21.000I love that video when he's in the Rolling Stones office and Jan Wenner is like, looks like the whole building's going to fucking burn down.
00:07:14.000I had a friend who was a crack addict who was also friends with my friend who ran a pool haul, but also was involved in recovery and was involved in helping people with recovery.
00:07:55.000You know, I kind of feel like I fall into that little category a little bit to where it's like, I'm just below baseline normal.
00:08:02.000And like a couple, like, like, I don't get super excited for shit, but it'll be like something, something that I'm looking forward to will kind of just get me to baseline, like right around normal.
00:08:12.000And I sometimes wonder, like, I used to do a lot of LSD when I was a teenager.
00:08:17.000And I wonder if you could define a lot.
00:08:20.000I mean, we had, we had one summer that me and my boys, it was like every two days, like, you know, twice a week.
00:09:13.000It might not have done anything for my creativity, but, you know, it seems to have a profound effect on a lot of people that have experiences and just they'll talk about like this one.
00:09:24.000Like, didn't Steve Jobs talk about it?
00:09:26.000One LSD experience and just kind of shifted the way he thought about things.
00:11:25.000My mom, she worked in a computer lab at the community college in San Diego, and she was like one of the first to start using Apple products.
00:11:55.000And actually got into graphic design early.
00:11:58.000And that's kind of how I started doing some, because I made art my whole life, but started doing some design, like learning how to actually use the fucking computer.
00:12:06.000And now I learned how programs were available back then.
00:12:09.000Photoshop and Illustrator were out, but it was like one and two.
00:12:14.000And she was in there and taught me how to do it.
00:12:17.000And then like I still do graphic design, but it's like it's from like I still use the techniques from like 1999.
00:12:24.000Well, it kind of shows you that there's a lot of like untapped comedic talent in the tech industry because memes were one of the first forms of new comedy that hit the internet.
00:12:40.000And it had to be by someone who knew how to work the old school Photoshops.
00:16:17.000And they figured out, I guess, a long time ago that these animals, if you just keep running after them, eventually they just can't do it anymore.
00:16:25.000And then they lay down and then you fucking stab them.
00:23:09.000But for me, I just only, I feel like I only want to think about the process.
00:23:16.000I want to put all my energy into thinking about the process.
00:23:18.000Because that's the rewarding part for a creator, right?
00:23:21.000Like me in the studio by myself painting, I get that clear mind where it's like, I feel like I fucking meditate six hours a day, you know, just from work.
00:23:34.000Because at some point in the painting process, like the paintbrush turns into a mantra almost to where like everything in my mind, just like in jiu-jitsu, like everything shuts off because we're in a hyper-focused like mode of accomplishing a task.
00:24:43.000You know, I think, I think, and if you thought about martial arts, like if you, if you were a white belt and you thought about all the time that it's going to take before you become a black belt, you're like, oh my God.
00:32:06.000It's like, I always say that it's like the difference between going to see an acoustic concert and going to see a concert in a gigantic arena.
00:33:26.000I think there's certain people that have a talent, obviously hard work, obviously discipline, obviously intelligence, obviously great trainers.
00:33:35.000All those things are, you can't get past the technique that he has, but there's an understanding of what to do and how to do it and when to do it and an ability that's above and beyond.
00:33:47.000And I see this all the time where it's like two people who seem like they would be equal in skills or even just in knowledge, right?
00:33:55.000But one of them can completely outshine the other.
00:33:59.000Well, you learn early on in martial arts that it's all hard work, but there's certain dudes that have physical attributes that are just freakish.
00:36:00.000Long arms and thin arms are perfect for jiu-jitsu because it's all leverage, man.
00:36:04.000I think one of the best things, most inspirational things that can happen to you if you can handle it in jiu-jitsu is getting mauled by a smaller person.
00:37:40.000Really good for knee health and strengthening the knees and a lot of amazing exercises.
00:37:45.000But one of the things that he has that he recommends is a tib bar.
00:37:50.000And so what it is, is it's like a thing that attaches to your shoe and you lift weights by lifting your foot upward, by lifting your toes towards your knee, which is an exercise you very rarely get.
00:38:04.000And for Butterfly Cigar, that would be it, man, because you could get that motherfucker strong as shit with not just doing butterfly guard, but lifting, lifting for that.
00:39:47.000And it's just like, like what I was saying, like being that like slightly lower than baseline, like sugar gives you that little dopamine fix that is like, ah, okay, I feel good now.
00:39:58.000And so like, I had a little soda habit, which I mean, there could be fucking worse things, but a lot worse than that.
00:42:14.000If there was a fucking home-cooked meal, like mashed potatoes, green beans, a beautiful half-chicken that was cooked on a grill, or ice cream.
00:42:28.000You might take the ice cream if no one was around.
00:42:31.000You know, you might grab a Kit Kat bar.
00:42:34.000You know, for sure, if there was a bowl of chips, just an inviting bowl of like ruffles sitting there, like, I'm going to grab a couple of ruffles.
00:43:14.000It came from a time place where I was really poor and I tried to figure out like, what's the least amount of food I could eat in a day and still survive, right?
00:44:04.000This is like 24 hours in or how many hours in?
00:44:07.000No, it's like, so I would basically eat one meal at like 5.30.
00:44:13.000So no food all day except, you know, I'd have some coffee with a little bit of half and half in it, so some fat and drinking water, of course, or maybe like eat like a fucking banana or something.
00:44:24.000And like my body just felt great to where like before, you know, I was probably eating something shitty in the morning, feeling shitty until noon, eat some other fucking shitty thing.
00:44:36.000You know, as a young person, you just do whatever the fuck.
00:44:41.000I mean, that's why that whole intermittent fasting thing is interesting, right?
00:44:45.000Because you're making your body digest food all day long.
00:44:49.000Like if you're eating all day long, your body, your digestion system never gets break.
00:44:54.000Well, I started thinking like even like, you know, back to chasing the fucking deer, like our bodies used to have to go hunt to get something to eat.
00:45:04.000So this idea of like waiting, you know, eight hours, six hours before eating anything from waking up, like it all, it started to feel natural for me.
00:45:14.000Well, it is natural as long as you're eating natural food.
00:45:18.000So if you're eating processed foods and a lot of bread and a lot of pasta and a lot of stuff that human beings have made, especially like our American bread, your body's accustomed to a lot of Sugar.
00:45:30.000Your body's accustomed to those complex carbohydrates just pouring into your system all day long, and you're using those as a fuel source.
00:45:38.000If you're subsisting off of fat and protein and meat and like avocados and you're eating healthy food, your body is working off a lot of ketones.
00:45:48.000Your body is making its own glucose through gluconeogenesis from the meat.
00:45:55.000And it's also running off of ketones from the fat.
00:45:58.000It's a way more efficient way of doing it.
00:46:01.000And when you do that, you don't get nearly as hungry.
00:46:04.000You don't have that feeling, that awful feeling.
00:46:07.000When I was eating a lot of carbs, and if I would go like four or five hours without eating, I would start getting fucking famished.
00:47:01.000You get low blood sugar and you start feeling like shit.
00:47:04.000And like, you got to get something in you.
00:47:06.000Well, I noticed as soon as I started doing that, like the stored fat, like in my little love handles or whatever, like immediately just it was like the body's like, okay, I got to use this shit now.
00:47:20.000And like, and mentally, I felt so much better.
00:47:24.000Yeah, people that fast, and I've never fasted for more than 24 hours, but people that fast for like three days, they all talk about how great they feel at the end.
00:47:32.000You feel euphoric and incredible, and like you have so much energy.
00:47:55.000I don't have any like stringent routine of like, I'm not allowed to fucking eat something.
00:48:00.000It's just the routine that I've got into now to where it's like, I just sit down and work.
00:48:04.000But that kind of probably helps a little bit too because of that mind state of like, I don't really, if when I'm in the mode of painting, like, I don't have to go to the bathroom.
00:48:38.000But I think that what you're saying, the focus is probably the big thing, that you're just so locked into what you're doing that you're not even.
00:48:43.000Yeah, it's like I'm not even in my body anymore.
00:48:45.000Like the body is separated from the mind in some way.
00:48:49.000That thing that you were talking about earlier, that is such a weird thing, where it feels like whatever you're working on just sort of takes over.
00:48:57.000Because I look at jujitsu or painting or any real art form as creative problem solving.
00:49:08.000So for me, all of those things, like it tickles the same part of my brain to where the like I'll ask myself questions.
00:49:17.000And it tends to be like you have to ask yourself the right questions.
00:49:20.000Like I've had, like, I don't know how to use how to fix a car to save my life, but I've had to fix some shit to where I'm like, hmm, what should I do here?
00:49:29.000Or like, you know, you'll just try something.
00:49:33.000But it's almost like a subconscious voice.
00:49:36.000Like I was saying, how the painting will kind of tell me how to, how to, like, where to go next to where I'm, I don't know an answer, but somehow I come up with it, right?
00:49:45.000Just by kind of asking my brain, you know, what, what should we do here?
00:49:51.000And it's, it's, it's always like fascinated me that I'll, it's like my brain comes up with solutions to these problems by, you know, running some computation of like, well, if we did this, this will happen.
00:50:05.000And I'll come up with ideas that are like I don't have, that aren't conscious ideas or thoughts that seep in from some depth in my brain that it's like, it's not my control.
00:50:37.000I'd like to think of it as like some part of my subconscious or some part of the brain that I'm not accessing in conscious reality that is coming up with answers.
00:51:02.000Like you figure out these ways to accomplish a task or figuring out a solution to a problem.
00:51:11.000And for me, I feel like with painting and jiu-jitsu or now anything, like I remember I pinched a nerve in my neck like bad to where it's like I couldn't even sit up.
00:51:20.000And I was like, how the fuck am I going to get out of bed?
00:51:23.000And just ended up picking my leg up, hooking my arm behind my leg and doing like a jiu-jitsu thing to like sit myself up because I couldn't like actually set myself up.
00:51:32.000And I was like, I've never done that before.
00:51:45.000Yeah, but there's all kinds of like fixing a fucking car.
00:51:48.000Like, I don't know what I'm doing, but this seems to be like my brain telling me, maybe try this.
00:51:55.000You know, and with all of these processes of, you know, martial arts and painting, just some creative problem-solving aspect of the brain that's almost separated from and gets nurtured with use.
00:53:15.000You see, that's why I have a problem when people use that term ADHD.
00:53:20.000Because I think about myself as a boy, and I'm like, I know they would have fucking diagnosed me.
00:53:24.000If I had the wrong parents, I know they would have diagnosed me and they would have brought me to a doctor who would have put me on some fucking medication and it would have ruined whatever weird quality that I have that lets me focus on things intensely.
00:53:38.000You know, they want to pretend that everybody has to be the same thing.
00:53:41.000Like everybody can't be the same thing.
00:54:14.000And I think they're fucking kids up, man.
00:54:17.000And I think there's a lot of lazy parents that don't want to deal with this extraordinary child that has this weird thing that you haven't harnessed.
00:54:24.000And you're putting that kid on fucking speed.
00:54:26.000They're putting him on Riddling and shit.
00:54:28.000They were going to try to give me Riddling when I was a kid.
00:54:51.000How is that possible that you want everybody to fit into this fucking square peg?
00:54:57.000How is it possible that you're teaching and a kid comes along and he's bouncing off the wall, but that motherfucker could play video games like an assassin.
00:55:19.000If you take some little girl who just wants to talk to her friends and joke around in class and you fucking medicate her, she could have probably been an amazing artist.
00:55:28.000Maybe she would have found a subject that she just lost, like some kind of a science subject she locks onto.
00:55:34.000And now all of a sudden that thing doesn't exist anymore.
00:56:45.000There are kids out there in high school right now that are popping Adderall all the time so that they could do better on tests so they could do better in college.
00:56:54.000And then they're taking Xanax to come down off the fucking Adderall.
00:58:18.000I hung out with my buddy Roy yesterday, and I feel like I met like four or five comics just like standing around figuring out what we were going to do.
00:58:26.000It's the hub, and it's also, this is the most important thing.
00:58:30.000It's the hub for development of young people.
00:58:33.000It gives young people a real pathway, a real possibility.
01:00:07.000They're good and they're hungry and they're focused and they realize that there's a real pathway.
01:00:12.000So because we set it up so we have two nights of open mic nights, which is really important.
01:00:16.000Like you have to have chances for people to get on stage for the first time and just chances to just develop.
01:00:22.000You just got a few minutes, you go up there, you tell a couple of jokes, try it again next week, try it down the street, try it over here, try it over there.
01:00:28.000And if you want to do it, if you really want to do it, there's a bunch of people that are also doing it here.
01:00:32.000So there's like a great community and it's pretty fucking positive, man.
01:00:36.000Everybody's pretty, instead of being cutthroat and backstabby, everybody's real supportive.
01:01:02.000What we were dealing with in Los Angeles was some amazing people.
01:01:08.000There's a lot of amazing people in LA, but the overall vibe of the city was a vibe of you were trying to stand out from everybody else and get famous.
01:03:49.000It's very rare that someone's trying to get famous.
01:03:52.000And then if you can insert a comedy community there that really values the process and the results of the art, that's what we're really all about.
01:04:06.000The reason why Shane Gillis is the number one comic in the world is because he works hard and he's really fucking funny and the process yields an amazing result.
01:05:17.000It's a weird thing that has existed with royalty.
01:05:20.000You know, it's kind of the same thing.
01:05:22.000It's like this desire that people have to be exceptional and stand above everyone else for almost no reason.
01:05:29.000And the fame thing in Hollywood was the thing that was holding the art form of comedy back, too, because it was this velvet prison that existed.
01:05:38.000That if you were a good boy or a good girl and you drew between the lines and you didn't say anything too crazy, you could get a sitcom or you could get a TV show.
01:06:05.000Well, that's something that I noticed at the show of like having everybody's phones in the Faraday bags or whatever those are, like, allows people to be a little bit more honest and direct or like really say what they want to say.
01:06:21.000And more importantly, it allows the audience to totally lock in.
01:06:40.000It's a correct move because, of course, everyone is working on new material and you don't want to get released before it's done because new material takes forever.
01:06:55.000I got to figure out a way that people are not mad because that's not what I'm trying to say.
01:06:59.000And you could figure it out, but it just takes a bunch of different iterations.
01:07:02.000And if someone fucking videotapes it and puts it up, like they did with Louis C.K. when he first came back, it screws up the whole process.
01:07:10.000It's like you're ruining that for literally millions of people because it's eventually going to get on Netflix and people are going to see it.
01:07:56.000And those are the ones when I can really find humor in something, that's the ones that I dig into the most because I'm enjoying the shit out of the whole process of uncovering all the ridiculousness.
01:08:06.000But it has to be something where I'm like, what?
01:09:31.000The FBI investigated Ernest Hemingway for decades with surveillance beginning in the 1940s due to concerns about his activities in Cuba and his associations with individuals suspected of communist ties.
01:09:42.000While initially dismissed as paranoia, it was later revealed that Hemingway's fears were grounded in reality, and the FBI did monitor him, even tapping his phones and intercepting his mail.
01:09:52.000The surveillance continued throughout his later years, including his time in the hospital, and may have contributed to his mental anguish and suicide.
01:10:15.000There's that, like, there's a meme or like somebody saying that, like, you have to beware of the artist because they associate with everybody.
01:10:23.000You know, like, they're not just locked into like an upper class society.
01:10:28.000Like, they're like, even like where I was staying, like, I made friends with like three or four homeless guys just out on the street that I just kept seeing around town from being around, you know?
01:10:40.000Like, like, we associate with everybody.
01:10:54.000You know, if you really, like, if you, especially if you're a comic, because you want to, or a writer, if you want to understand people, you have to interact with them.
01:11:01.000Yeah, because especially as a writer, like, you only have your own experience.
01:11:39.000Yeah, you got to find some trenches somewhere.
01:11:41.000You better figure out the trenches because if you don't, and I think if you think about like my favorite comedians, they were all self-destructive too.
01:13:54.000And like, he was going to smoke a bong load out of this Bud Light beer bottle, dropped the bottle, broke it everywhere, like made a fucking scene.
01:14:03.000Everyone's like, what the fuck is this guy?
01:14:06.000Like, just the way that people will act so fucking strange when they feel almost like they have to perform, but their performance is horrible.
01:15:04.000Because if you're a person that like maybe has a drug issue and you're fighting that off and as long as you work all the time, like you're cool.
01:15:11.000But then if you wake up late that one day and you're like, if it's a fucking one hit, I'd be good with just one little fucking woo, just a little tipsy.
01:16:27.000The options that are possible, the things that the possible results, the variables, all the different things.
01:16:36.000Yeah, and that's going to handcuff plenty of people.
01:16:38.000But you got to learn how to handle that.
01:16:40.000You know, I used to, when I was teaching, when I was teaching martial arts, I taught a lot of kids, and I had a lot of kids compete in tournaments.
01:17:56.000The anxiety before when you're sitting in a locker room waiting for your time, you're like, fuck.
01:18:01.000And I would just tell them, I would go, just, you got to understand this sucks, but this is just something if you just can accept that this is here, accept that it's here, and recognize that this is a gift.
01:18:13.000And this is here because you're smart.
01:18:15.000And the reason why you're worried about all these possibilities is because you're intelligent enough to recognize that that's the thing.
01:18:20.000Yeah, you're looking for the outcomes and then figuring out ways.
01:18:22.000That's kind of what I was talking about before, like predicting outcomes and figuring out solutions to problems that have yet to occur.
01:18:30.000Like when you're thinking that far ahead, like that's it's a different chess game.
01:18:34.000Yeah, and you and the dull-minded nitwits out there that don't have any fear, there's a reason they don't have any fear because they don't have the capacity to comprehend all the possibilities.
01:18:45.000So if some guy doesn't know how to fight at all, you've seen this a hundred times on videos online, and he gets in someone's face and that guy's like, bang, just cracks him.
01:18:55.000Like that dull-minded shithead, he is not the fearful one.
01:19:54.000Like spent so much time with myself in a clear sort of frame of thought, knowing my limitations, knowing what I've accomplished when I was even more limited.
01:20:04.000Like, if anything, I think this whole process is the process between an artist and like, say, someone who wants to be famous or somebody who wants to be worshipped, someone who wants to be the head of a company or the president of the United States or somebody who wants to be beyond reproach.
01:20:19.000Nobody who wants to be president should ever be president.
01:20:50.000And anybody that's willing to go through that process, that brutal process, you know, like all the stuff that's in the news today, I mean, there's still, there's possible legal ramifications of things that happened in the 2016 election that we're hearing about today.
01:22:36.000Like we're at a stage where like we have enough information to see like that how much greed and money just corrupts the system.
01:22:45.000But I don't think we really got to see it until Trump ran.
01:22:49.000I think you got to see it unveiled in a way when Trump ran that you never got to see before.
01:22:53.000Because also you got the rise of independent journalism that happens at the same time.
01:22:59.000So you have people that report just on the facts, not like this CNN fucking lean or the Fox News lean, but just like just reports on exactly what's happening and how it happened.
01:23:15.000If you're paying attention and you follow those people and a lot more people are than ever before, you get a way different understanding of how gross this game is.
01:23:22.000And because the guy was so polarizing and because he was such an easy guy to turn into a Nazi, like you pointed to him, you're like, this is the, this is our fuck him.
01:23:58.000I wish us as humans were all like together enough to just self-govern.
01:24:05.000You would need people to enter into politics at the highest level that didn't need the money and really were good people that really wanted to just change the tone of how everything is governed.
01:24:19.000And that's going to be so hard to do because the money is so nuts.
01:24:49.000But watching the panic in her face, realizing that Trump is now president and they're talking about literally going after her for insider trading and the undeniable evidence that they have had better results on the stock market than literally anyone ever.
01:25:05.000And they have access to information about laws are going to be passed.
01:25:08.000If that's not insider trading, what the fuck is.
01:26:03.000Just the amount of backstabbing that's going on.
01:26:07.000Like when she got into office, first of all, you realize you're not really in control of everything because there's another person who's in control of each individual department.
01:26:16.000And they'll stop whatever you're trying to do every step of the way.
01:27:40.000And while he might make fun of us while somebody inspired by him breaks into our home and hits my husband in a deadly fashion, hits my husband over the head, and he thinks that's a riot.
01:27:51.000I'd rather not go into some of my other complaints about him right now.
01:27:55.000Rather to talk about the 60th anniversary of Medicaid.
01:30:14.000Yeah, I mean, as long as you could skirt the legalities, why would you not take information that you have gained and try to utilize it to your improvement?
01:30:26.000And you're hanging out with Harry, the senator from fucking South Dakota or whatever, and Harry's got a yacht.
01:31:42.000The Pelosi one, an almost cult-like following for her financial disclosures, saw the value of her household portfolio rise by 71% in recent years.
01:31:54.000Like that kind of trading is super unusual.
01:32:10.000And how do you explain those superstitions?
01:32:13.000When you look at the decisions, like she dumps stock, and then three months later, some big bill comes down the line that fucks that company.
01:32:19.000She buys stock and then three months later, some big bill that comes down that, you know, they're funding for this new project.
01:33:40.000But what's the weirdest thing to me is that we're in this complete shifting of the polls where the Republicans now are in favor of free speech.
01:34:00.000They don't want restrictions on people's behavior and thinking.
01:34:03.000And the Democrats have developed this sort of like cult-like idea of what everyone should accept and what's normal and what's not normal and what needs to be elevated in our population and what needs to be ignored.
01:34:20.000And it's just like, God damn, you guys are ruining it for everybody that thinks in a left way.
01:34:27.000Like anybody who's reasonable, like a reasonable left-thinking person, which is most artists, by the way.
01:34:34.000And then you get to this point where you're like, no, I can't go along with you on all these things.
01:34:39.000You guys are, you're just a bunch of fucking assholes who are using these subjects as a way where you can behave incredibly shitty, incredibly uncharitable, like vicious, mean, ostracizing people from society.
01:35:38.000If we motherfuckers could just figure out, like, we're so, we have so much in common, people just generally who would be considered more left or more right.
01:35:46.000And it's just a few things that really are the basis of our contention.
01:35:52.000Well, the real problem is the team aspect of it.
01:37:19.000And that just takes like avoiding greed.
01:37:22.000And it's also, it's like what you do when you paint is you focus on creating this thing.
01:37:29.000Like, this is what you're focused On what they're focused on is numbers in a bank account, and they're focused on getting those numbers in there.
01:37:35.000And they're fucking obsessed with getting those numbers in there.
01:37:38.000So, all those other steps that they do, like you're trying to figure out your painting, you're trying to like brush techniques and different things, and you're trying different angles, maybe shadowing it differently.
01:37:47.000What they're doing is trying to figure out how to push this and push that and get this politician to make this legal, and that way they can make more money.
01:37:54.000And then Nancy Pelosi's like, we're going to pass it, Paul.
01:37:59.000Put in the wager because it's basically wagering, right?
01:38:02.000You know, put in this to buy the stocks, it's going to roll.
01:38:06.000But if you have all the cards marked, yeah, it is.
01:38:09.000And it's, it's fucking a real unfortunate thing.
01:38:26.000How do you get people that are motivated to make the best products in the world and every year make them better and not have them think only about making money to the point where they're willing to bribe politicians so that they can pollute a river in India?
01:38:41.000And that's what's so different about artists.
01:40:36.000I haven't heard anybody say anything negative.
01:40:38.000So here's the thing: someone who is like super rich, which apparently this guy is, who trains with the best trainers in the world and actually puts the time in every day.
01:40:49.000It's super easy to dismiss someone because they're rich.
01:41:23.000And it's because he's actually put in the time.
01:41:26.000Now, he doesn't have the time that this Derek Moneyberg guy has.
01:41:30.000If this guy's got, if he's putting in like hours and hours every single day, which is what I heard, that he was like literally training multiple hours a day every fucking day at jiu-jitsu, you can get to black belt level.
01:41:43.000I don't know if he is, you know, but I know that if those guys say he is, I believe them.
01:41:48.000I told somebody, I was like, let me just see him do an arm bar from closed guard.
01:41:52.000Let me just see how sloppy that is, and then I'll know for sure.
01:43:12.000You have to actually be training really hard.
01:43:15.000It's not as simple as you know those guys, you talk to those guys, they give you the fucking secret handshake, and now you're good at jiu-jitsu.
01:43:21.000The only way to get good at jiu-jitsu is hard work.
01:43:54.000There's a bunch of those videos where a guy shows up at a school and he's got a black belt on and then he rolls at people and he gets tortured.
01:44:00.000That was like before YouTube existed or any social media existed.
01:45:42.000262 pilots in the country did not take the exam themselves and had paid someone else to sit in on their behalf.
01:45:48.000They don't have flying experience, he said.
01:45:50.000Pakistan has 860 active pilots serving in its domestic airlines, including the country's Pakistan International Airlines flagship, as well as a number of foreign carriers.
01:46:31.000I have this idea of like an altruistic anarchism where it's like everybody just treats everybody kindly and the way that you would want to be treated.
01:46:40.000Yeah, but it's so it's we're the our fucking ape mind is there's too many of us that are fucking nuts yeah and greedy and like just out for self and i get it like it makes sense like there's a lot of self-preservation that comes with that but if we could all just kind of pull collectively pull our shit together self-preservation makes sense when you're surrounded by a bunch of people that are also selfish right that's part of the problem is
01:47:11.000Like if you get lucky and you find a good crew like early on in your life of people who are down with you, they're your friends and they love you no matter what, life is way easier.
01:47:59.000Like you don't – it doesn't hurt you to make other people successful or to help other people get more successful or just to tell people they're awesome and give them their – as the kids call their flowers.
01:48:54.000I mean there's people that have talent that are in the middle of nowhere and some real small local scene and they could become a great comic one day.
01:49:02.000But they're not going to on their own.
01:49:55.000And it took I became an assistant for a really well-known artist who, you know, ran a design firm, did fine art, did like ran like was just like like at the top of his game.
01:50:12.000i saw what he was doing and a couple other artists like in the same same area was like okay you're you're making paintings you're you're working with these companies to do some design that design money is going back into your art uh practice like It was just being able to see how something exists and then knowing, like, okay, I could do that.
01:50:48.000But I mean, if you're, you know, in fucking Wyoming somewhere, you might not have these people that you see.
01:50:56.000You're so disconnected from a community, you might not know.
01:50:59.000And then you're like, well, I got to give this art thing up and get a job because I got to pay bills because you just don't actually have the awareness that there is a pathway.
01:51:10.000And this is the failure of the school system because it never teaches kids that are artists or people that have alternative ways of existing in society that there's ways to make a career.
01:51:21.000I got kicked out of the only art class I ever took.
01:54:14.000Because I know what that fear feels like when somebody really fucking, like, you know, in a gym scenario, somebody really grabs you and you're like, oh, fuck.
02:01:01.000Like, I owe a lot to you, I think, like, the way you spoke of it back then to like, even just to get into the gym, because that's the fucking hardest part.
02:01:10.000Like, like, crossing that door path and getting on the mat.
02:01:14.000Like, there's so many days you're going to be like, I don't want to do that.
02:02:15.000You could do tib bar raises where you just stand on your heels and lean against the wall and just lift your foot up over and over and over again.
02:07:47.000The way they have these, like, with farmer's dog and with the stuff that he's been eating, Maeve, it comes with, it's like frozen, like, green beans and blueberries and potatoes and food and meat.
02:09:22.000I sent it to, I sent it, I'll send it to Jamie because I sent it to Brian Callan because me and Brian Cowan are both retarded and we talk about dogs all day long.
02:09:28.000We talk about like, what's the coolest animal?
02:09:31.000But this video shows the difference between how a shepherd, a German shepherd, which is also a great dog, approaches something to the difference a Belgian Malamois does.
02:18:23.000I mean, that's why you got to find some joy in it.
02:18:27.000Find a little entertainment in how fucking bizarre everything is.
02:18:32.000We get so wrapped up in our day-to-day, in our just getting by, like just having the moment to be like, wasn't that a part of a problem with working really hard too?
02:18:42.000Like you don't see the forest for the trees.
02:20:10.000But what we're saying is that as you are listening to this, if you're going on your journey into life and you think you might be going in a safe direction that it's going to make money versus the direction that you really want to go to, ask yourself how bad you really want it.
02:20:29.000Like, what do you want to do with your life?
02:20:31.000Do you want your life to be really fun?
02:20:33.000Do you want your life to be really rewarding where you wake up and you're excited about what you do?
02:20:37.000Or do you want every day to be a grind?
02:20:40.000Do you want every day to be like, you can't wait to get off so you can get a cocktail so you can fucking calm down?
02:20:46.000Because you hated, you hate everybody in the office and everybody treats everybody like shit.
02:20:58.000And you're going to have to take some drastic steps and you're probably going to have a lot of doubt, especially if you're doing something weird.
02:21:05.000Like if you want to be an artist or you want to be a comedian, like it's a long road, man.
02:22:00.000And it could fuck with you for the rest of your life in terms of just literally the way you think, which was always the scariest thing for me.
02:22:08.000I remember when I was thinking about stopping fighting, it was like, because I was lying in bed at night with headaches from sparring days.
02:22:15.000And I was like, what am I doing to my brain?
02:22:18.000Like, this is the only thing that I have that's going to help me decide how to get through life.
02:22:34.000Like, I think people who have been fighters their whole life, you know, starting to see a lot of that, like, go to the CTE or whatever the football players were dealing with and like how big of an effect.
02:22:44.000I mean, head trauma is so, so fucking damaging.
02:24:06.000And then you have a family and you realize you don't have any savings.
02:24:10.000And so then to quit, what are you going to do?
02:24:12.000How are you going to generate, you know, if you're fighting and you're making $250,000, $300,000 a year fighting three or four times a year?
02:24:19.000Like, how are you going to replace that with a regular job?
02:25:01.000I was telling Zach, to me, Jiu-Jitsu is like a parasite and it got in me.
02:25:05.000And now it's trying to find other hosts.
02:25:08.000Like, I literally am just trying to share.
02:25:11.000But it's like jiu-jitsu's forcing me to share it, regurgitating it into some other host so that it can regurgitate itself and somebody else.
02:25:32.000And then I have to evolve the tricks or like create other little smoke screens and diversions to get to the spot that I need to get because they know.
02:25:40.000And I like to, I'll show stuff that I don't normally do, but a majority of my curriculum is stuff that I do, that I know works, that I know all the ins and outs of.
02:25:52.000I know every little detail of how you get to the spot, like what you do, what you do if they do A, B, or C. And that's what I share.
02:26:00.000And as I do that, like I notice little techniques not working anymore.
02:26:07.000Well, don't you think it's also as you explain the techniques to people, it tightens up your own understanding of the techniques and makes you better at it?
02:26:20.000We don't really consciously think too much about it because we've done it a thousand times where it's like, I do this, then I do this, then I do that.
02:26:29.000But when you have to show somebody, you have to think about all those things that you never think about, help explain it to somebody who doesn't know what the fuck you're talking about.
02:26:42.000I've seen that time and time again in jiu-jitsu where a guy's pretty good and he starts teaching, like coaching like beginners one-on-one private lessons and stuff to make some extra money.
02:26:51.000And next thing you know, he's a killer.
02:26:52.000It's like, wow, that's, it's, I think that's a missing part of the key to development is teaching.
02:26:59.000I think I'm honestly surprised when others don't want to do the same.
02:27:04.000Like I never, like, I never gatekeep techniques.
02:27:07.000Like, I, if I see something that I think will work, like, I honestly think I'm a much better coach than I am a jujitsu practitioner.
02:27:19.000Like, just sometimes I just be like, okay, I'm just going to stay here until I kind of have a room to get out and I don't have to try too fucking hard.
02:27:28.000But I can see the game much better in my students.