In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian and podcaster talks about his fear of aging, and how he thinks about going back in time to when he was a kid. He also talks about what it would be like to be back in junior high or high school, and what he would do if he could go back.
00:01:05.000I fantasize about being able to, like I imagine, you know, like my version of heaven, it would be like, if I could go back to when I'm 12 years old, live through junior high and high school again.
00:02:18.000Have you seen that South Park episode where they it was about that type of thing, but it was about how they have all these apps that you can make yourself look better in?
00:07:17.000When we were seniors, he was probably already 25, 26, something like that.
00:07:22.000And you never really, because cruising was a thing, and you'd cruise through Sonic or whatever it was, and see who was there and all that crap.
00:07:29.000And everybody parked on the bank parking lot and you'd drink beer and then the cops would come by and you'd hide all your shit.
00:07:37.000And I mean, it was literally like the American graffiti days, you know.
00:07:43.000And so this guy, Mike, he had a 65 candy apple red vet and he had a mustache.
00:07:51.000Remember Chuck Negron, singer in the Three Dog Night, the one with the mustache?
00:11:55.000From a different timeline or something.
00:11:58.000There was a movie called, it had Raquel Welch was in it, and Donald Pleasant, some of these people called Fantastic Voyage, where some politician or scientist or something, I guess it was an assassination attempt, but there was a brain thing.
00:12:47.000And so they go through the guy all through his veins and arteries and stuff and get to the place where they need to fix it and all this kind of stuff.
00:13:08.000What's wild is how many ideas were burned up in movies by the time like the 90s rolled around.
00:13:16.000If you just stop and think about the fact that movies really were only like, well, movies, I think, are the absolute best mirror into the culture.
00:14:11.000Well, my wife, who was raised in the Bay Area, you know, around San Francisco, Marin County there, when I first told her what my dad did to me, she was like, oh, my God, that's like—and honestly, that's what everybody's dad did.
00:14:27.000It was like, you know, if he was working graveyard shift and you started making a bunch of damn noise at noon, you got your ass beat with a belt.
00:14:36.000And she was just, she couldn't believe it.
00:17:43.000And so they took me to the Dairy Queen and we were going to get a hamburger or whatever it was.
00:17:54.000Well, they ended up hanging me out the window, just puking all over the Dairy Queen parking lot, you know, because I drank an entire bottle of this and never been drunk in my life.
00:18:32.000So the other guys who were, you know, pricks or whatever, you know, if one of them messed with me, there was a guy named Calvin, a guy named Billy Bob, actually, who was probably 10 years older than me, and a guy named Harry, and whose family came over from somewhere.
00:18:52.000They were like, you know, from the Czech Republic or somewhere, but they'd grew up, they grew up here, you know, so they didn't sound like they were from someplace else.
00:19:02.000Harry was about five, six and stocky, you know.
00:19:07.000And there was this dude who was just mean to everybody.
00:19:14.000But somewhere in between our age, you know, when we were teenagers, 17, 18, and Harry and Billy Bob and Calvin and those guys, they were like 30.
00:19:30.000And there are these other guys who were the mean guys in town who were in between those ages.
00:19:36.000And they were the real problem because they were just assholes.
00:19:39.000The other guys were cool as long as you didn't mess with them.
00:19:43.000One night, this guy, Two of them were both named Steve, who are the real pricks.
00:19:52.000And one of the Steves got me by my hair and drugged me around, beat me up a little bit, you know, and I was a fighter.
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00:22:37.000You know, Malcolm McDowell, he wrote a book about like where he was talking about why certain populations, like certain parts of the world, are rougher.
00:22:48.000And he was talking about certain parts of America where they were settled initially by people that came from a herding community.
00:22:58.000So they were like sheepherders in other countries.
00:23:01.000And when they came over to America, when you have a flock of sheep, someone could steal all your food in the middle of the night.
00:23:58.000Yeah, but that's, you know, we still, to this day, we talk about, oh, yeah, those Irish cats and the Scottish guys, the English guys, if you're in the, you know, like, say, South London or whatever, some rough guys over there.
00:24:12.000I mean, you know, I did one of those tests about my genealogy and all that kind of stuff.
00:24:16.000And, you know, you hear stuff from your family growing up that I grew up thinking I was part Italian and Native American and all these different things, right?
00:24:47.000So all those people come over here and North Carolina or Tennessee, Arkansas, all these places.
00:24:57.000There are words that we use, which we call the hillbilly language, which actually wasn't considered a hillbilly language in England, but that language was left over.
00:25:11.000Like we say, reckon you want to go do something?
00:26:41.000The phrase hookworm, southern draw refers to historical connection between hookworm infections in the American South and certain stereotypes about southerners, including the way they spoke and behaved.
00:26:51.000In the late 19th and early 20th century, hookworm infestations were rampant with estimates suggesting that up to 40% of the people in the region were infected.
00:27:01.000So hookworm causes symptoms like severe fatigue, anemia, and mental fog, which led to slowness in speech and thought.
00:27:08.000This contributed to the stereotype of southerners being lazy or slow-witted, often associated with the southern draw.
00:27:46.000Mobile dispensaries traveled throughout the region, free deworming medications, and educating local doctors.
00:27:51.000Okay, so they use some sort of an anti-parasitic.
00:27:54.000All measures including latrines to improve sanitation, educating communities about the risk of soil contamination, and encouraging the routine of wearing shoes.
00:28:03.000Isn't that nuts that shoes probably fixed it more than anything?
00:28:15.000Because when I was a kid, I mean, to this day, when someone talks, like, if someone wants to make a stereotype about someone being stupid, they use a southern accent.
00:30:17.000There are a lot of performances over the years where people who are not from the South played the part that actually use that accent and they win Academy Awards and stuff.
00:32:36.000And country guys, you know, back in those days when country was actual country music, they would hear some of these songs by those kind of guys like the Allman Brothers or Marshall Tucker, whoever it was, and cut them, you know, for country albums like Wayland Jennings did Midnight Rider.
00:33:35.000Literally would call it the flyover states.
00:33:37.000And when you're in control of casting all the great films and all the great television shows and you decide what the great albums are, you dismiss like this people that are, it takes like a Stevie Ray Von, who was like an undeniable talent.
00:34:01.000Like that guy's got voodoo in his hands.
00:34:03.000Like whatever he's doing, I don't care where he's from.
00:34:05.000But other than that, they would look at these places like they were less than, you know, or that the people were not as bright.
00:34:14.000And that stereotype still exists today.
00:34:18.000I remember one of the good things about traveling and doing the road a lot as a stand-up is you get to perform all over the country and meet all these different people.
00:34:26.000And you know, when I would talk to people about Texas in particular, I'd be like, dude, I fucking love it there.
00:34:36.000They're not Hollywood people angling to try to get some sort of a social relationship with you so they can progress their career.
00:34:43.000They're just cool people, just regular fucking people.
00:34:47.000And the problem is that these people in these coastal cities are the ones who don't know that, and they're dictating the narrative for the entire country based on some very weird prejudices.
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00:37:15.000And she kind of took a liking to me and said, hey, I want to invite you because, you know, you're from the South and we always have the Southern food at our parties and stuff.
00:37:23.000So I go out there and there were a lot of big people there.
00:37:27.000And I found myself outside having a smoke.
00:37:31.000And I was standing there in a little group of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mel Gibson.
00:37:37.000And I think maybe Dan Aykroyd was there.
00:37:40.000And I remember Lionel Ritchie was in there playing piano in the living room.
00:37:44.000And I'm just like, wow, wait, this is crazy.
00:37:47.000And but I felt it's like that poor kid from the South Syndrome.
00:40:13.000I mean, I believe artists, whether they're musicians, novelists, actors, whatever they are, I truly believe that you're born with most of it.
00:40:23.000I'm not saying that you can't learn and that you can't progress.
00:41:07.000And, you know, start, you know, gobbling like a turkey and, you know, yelling and screaming and punching the wall and stuff like that and trying to get all this sense memory.
00:41:15.000My sense memory is here on the edge of my skin every fucking minute.
00:41:22.000And I mean, if you were raised where I was, it was like, you know, I don't forget any of that stuff.
00:41:35.000It sounds like you're smarter if you say, well, here's how I learn lines.
00:41:41.000I take this and then I have this mathematical formula and I imagine these letters as numbers and stuff like that.
00:41:49.000And it's like, because the press loves that because it's like, what a genius.
00:41:53.000You know, they don't respect, hell, I don't know.
00:41:57.000I just go out there and do it as much because people want to believe that anyone can do this if you get in the right school, if you get the right teaching from someone, if you go study Shakespeare or whatever it is.
00:42:32.000You can get better at playing drums, but if you're not born a drummer, you're not going to be able to do it.
00:42:37.000My brother, God rest his soul, passed away at 30, Jimmy.
00:42:40.000He was a brilliant musician, played every instrument in the world, except when he got on my drums, and he looked like he had some muscular disorder.
00:42:50.000It was like, he was just like, he goes, how do you do this?
00:43:23.000It's going to sound different just because of their feel.
00:43:25.000Yeah, this has like that Miles Davis quote about hitting notes so that everybody can hit the same notes, but it's the attitude of the motherfucker that's the important thing.
00:43:38.000The attitude of the person singing the notes is everything.
00:44:18.000And then there are these other drummers in these sort of, you know, I call them science bands, you know, where the drummer has like 75 drums.
00:44:28.000And they can do shit that seems humanly impossible.
00:44:33.000But what happens after the song's over?
00:45:09.000But it's when musicians start thinking that they have to make their part cut through and be noticed, the best drummers, you don't really notice them.
00:46:13.000The most amazing thing is that people get together and they stay friends for that long and with all the conflicts and all the ego and all the bullshit.
00:46:25.000That to me, when someone makes great music, the most impressive thing is not just that you make great music, but you make great music with people that all get along together with all these different creative minds and egos and weirdness.
00:47:00.000And with our band in particular, I mean, before that, I'd played in a million bands and had a solo band that did four major label solo records.
00:47:08.000And that's where I met some of the guys that were rolled over into the Boxmasters.
00:47:14.000J.D. Andrew specifically, who's still, he and I are the longest running members.
00:47:20.000We started the band together and he and I still run it.
00:47:23.000And, You know, we're the opposite of what normally happens.
00:47:30.000Normally, a band, when they're younger, they hit it for a while, three or four years, maybe have a couple of hits or at least some things that people know about.
00:47:41.000And then as the years go on, you start to dwindle a bit, you know.
00:47:46.000I mean, unless you're the Rolling Stones or the Who.
00:47:49.000We just opened for the Who on our last tour, which is awesome.
00:47:53.000And so this band has started as, you know, it's like, you know, I got this crap about it's always an actor who wants to be a musician, just like this guy and that guy.
00:48:06.000And it's like, no, no, I was a musician who came to LA to play music, accidentally became an actor.
00:48:11.000Next thing you know, I made $381 on an episode of Matlock with five lines.
00:48:51.000I mean, to stick around that long, especially when it took us a while to get success, to make any money at it, and to get the fan base we have now.
00:49:02.000Is there a weird thing, too, about people like critics or people that are paying attention to the music that don't just listen to the music and see you guys perform?
00:49:12.000Instead, they think, oh, that's Billy Bob, the movie star who's trying to be a musician.
00:50:25.000And if musicians, you know, famous musicians are at one of our shows, unless it's, you know, ones who are friends of ours, if they want to come back and meet us after the show and say hello, they'll come back there and most people wouldn't take this as an insult, but it is.
00:50:42.000They'll come back and they'll say, hey, it looks like you're really having fun up there.
00:51:09.000And he said, you know, get to go out on the road and stuff and, you know, get this part out of you and get to have fun up there and stuff like that.
00:51:17.000I said, well, you know, I have some songs about suicide.
00:51:31.000We write original music and perform it, and people love this band.
00:51:35.000I said, so don't ever fucking come near me again.
00:51:39.000Don't ever come to one of our shows again if all you want to do is come back here because you're pissed that we just had a record on the radio.
00:52:30.000And fans think you're so dumb and you have no memory that some of the people who come to your shows to get stuff signed, which, you know, a lot of them, they're not even, well, they're selling them, you know, right.
00:52:44.000And in certain cities, like in Kansas City, we're like the Beatles.
00:52:47.000I mean, there are just certain cities where we sell out the second it goes unsale.
00:52:51.000So you got good places and places that aren't as good, you know.
00:54:38.000And however they can get you, they want to get you.
00:54:41.000And nobody likes to see people succeed.
00:54:44.000Like when I was playing Carl and Slingblade, every critic in the world loved me.
00:54:52.000And then all the other ones, a simple plan, I'm playing this poor pathetic wretch and all this kind of stuff.
00:54:58.000The second I got to have a love scene with somebody and I was a leading man, all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute, you're not one of us.
00:55:08.000Where'd the hump on your back go and all that shit?
00:55:12.000And it's like, you actually look better in this movie than you did now.
00:55:15.000What did you have plastic surgery or whatever?
00:58:09.000And we do like more than ever to see people fail, I think.
00:58:12.000I mean, there was a time when we rooted for people.
00:58:15.000I think there's also too much exposure now.
00:58:19.000I think, for instance, when we were growing up, especially in my era, if we were going to see Jimmy Stewart, we were only going to see him in the movie.
00:58:33.000And it was on film and it had literally a film over it that made it look like you were watching something magical.
00:58:41.000Now you've got digital where you can see every fucking mole on your face and shit, you know, and everything is a behind the scenes.
00:58:49.000Oh, and the studio is doing this and now this group wants to come over and they're going to do a whole thing and they want to see you on the set.
00:58:58.000But if I see Mel Gibson sitting in a director's chair dressed up like he was in Braveheart talking about the movie, it's like it takes away something from that.
00:59:09.000It's like we've had too much of a peek behind the curtain, I believe.
00:59:18.000When I was growing up in this business, I wouldn't have dared.
00:59:23.000If I'd seen Bob Dylan or Jack Lemon or whoever it was on the sidewalk, I wouldn't walk up to him to say Jack Lemon, punch him in the shoulder and say, hey, dude, let's get a picture.
00:59:34.000I mean, in a million years, I wouldn't have done that.
00:59:42.000And I probably wouldn't have approached them at all.
00:59:44.000But if I did, I would be, you know, very apologetic and say, I'm so sorry, but I'm such a huge fan of yours.
00:59:51.000And you still get that every now and then from decent people.
00:59:53.000But now, cats will come up to me literally and just, you know, just come up and like grab me by the arm and say, dude, let's get a picture.
01:00:02.000The worst ones are, and this is usually guys, usually more guys than women.
01:00:06.000They come up and they'll say, hey, man, you're supposed to be famous or some shit.
01:00:11.000And my wife said, you know, you're like some famous dude.
01:00:15.000So I don't really give a shit about that stuff, but can we get a picture?
01:00:17.000And it's like, I put up with it for 30 years.
01:00:22.000In the last couple of years, I started saying, how about when you do give a shit, come back and we'll get a picture?
01:00:29.000You know, because, you know, after a while, you just can't take it.
01:00:33.000And I'm kind of a codependent guy, so I'm nice to everybody I can be, you know.
01:00:38.000And it's just every now and then you get a ringer and you get drunk people, men and women, who just come over.
01:00:47.000They'll come to the bus and we're on tour and just start banging on the door and saying, hey, you know, come out here.
01:01:25.000I donate to a lot of charities, mainly children's stuff, but nobody knows it.
01:01:30.000I don't go to the award show and talk about it when I'm getting my award.
01:01:34.000It's like Ricky Gervais said in that skit of his.
01:01:38.000He said, look, come up here, accept your little award, and fuck off.
01:01:47.000I think, first of all, unless you have really studied stuff and really know about a subject fully, who the hell would want to listen to an actor or a musician talk about politics?
01:02:45.000You know, like you're seeing this a lot right now because Mom Donnie won in New York City and people are screaming, we're winning now, we're winning.
01:03:16.000It's an election to see who governs your city.
01:03:19.000And once someone wins, everybody else should be like, okay, well, let's hope this guy's got some good fucking plans and it works out great for everybody.
01:03:27.000And if you don't think like that, you're part of the problem.
01:03:31.000I mean, people are pitted against each other so much these days that it's gotten kind of ridiculous.
01:03:53.000I mean, you could pick any, you know, 20 people, put them in a room, and let's all hang out together for a week and all live in the same house.
01:04:02.000You're not going to get along with everybody.
01:04:04.000But at the end of the day, our basic principles as humans, those should all be the same with all those people.
01:04:18.000And I think that we, like, even somebody that maybe you don't agree with their principles, if it's just two of you sitting at a bus stop talking, it's hard to not, just on a one-on-one basis with people, it's hard to dislike someone that you're stuck with for a couple hours.
01:05:08.000Because the division when I was a kid, you know, I remember like the Reagan days, like, there was a lot of people who didn't like Reagan, but it was never evil.
01:05:18.000It was never like this vile hatred of someone that you see today for different political parties and different politicians and just the way we looked at one side of the country versus the other side of the country.
01:05:47.000And I think that sort of insanity is just accentuated by these weird little echo chambers that people exist in that are also infiltrated by bots.
01:05:57.000So they're not even real people, half of them.
01:06:00.000So this one FBI analyst, he estimated that it might be as high as 80% of the people that are communicating online are bots on Twitter.
01:06:29.000I mean, now people get jobs in the entertainment business because they're in charge of, I mean, at studios and things, you know, some 22-year-old who's in charge of seeing who has the most followers.
01:07:30.000Once you start opening it up to well, it's like, it's like, well, now everyone has an opportunity.
01:07:39.000They look at that as equality, as an opportunity for everyone, that everyone can get on the internet, and now everyone can do something.
01:07:48.000That's great for the people that actually had something to say or do.
01:07:53.000But then you got another 80% who have an opportunity, and all of a sudden there's someone because they decided to take pictures of themselves in the bathroom or something, you know.
01:08:07.000But I swear to God, I saw it all coming.
01:08:11.000And it was, I mean, it gets out of control.
01:08:16.000And then AI, for Christ's sakes, yeah, it's fun to watch me in Slingblade talking like Carl, but it's a little baby trying to order french fries.
01:08:56.000Yeah, and it's going to be interesting to see how we navigate that.
01:08:58.000But I just, I'm shocked that you picked that out early on because I looked at it the other way.
01:09:03.000I said, this is going to give people that were outside the system, sort of like you were when you created Slingblade.
01:09:08.000This is going to give people an opportunity to show their talent that maybe would have never gotten an opportunity to be hired by somebody.
01:09:16.000That they'll be able to create something completely on their own.
01:09:19.000And I read all these blogs by people that were really interesting.
01:09:23.000I was like, okay, I would have never read this guy's book if I just saw it in a bookstore.
01:12:14.000But then the blueberries turns into, oh, and he's also weird because he's afraid of antiques.
01:12:19.000And then it's this and that and the other.
01:12:21.000Next thing you know, I'm on a list of the top 10 actors, and I've seen this a couple of times, who are the most difficult to work with on set.
01:12:30.000And I'm like, how the hell did this even happen?
01:12:33.000I mean, that's not true, but somehow somebody said something that then became widespread.
01:12:42.000And then all of a sudden I end up one of these lists and the people I work with would say, God, it couldn't be further from the truth.
01:12:49.000Once again, people love to find out that someone's secretly an asshole.
01:14:09.000And if I want something taken down off the internet, I have to prove it's me, but the person who put it up there doesn't have to prove who they are.
01:14:23.000But, yeah, that whole thing with Richard Gere, they want it to be true so badly that everybody you talk to who's got the news, you know, who said, hey, guess what happened with Richard Gere?
01:14:39.000You know, and then he went to so-and-so hospital and, you know, whatever it was.
01:16:41.000And I don't, it's, I mean, it's emotionally exhausting sometimes, you know, because, you know, everybody wants to talk to you for a half hour apiece and you can't do it.
01:19:19.000But these days I just look at it as like, oh, okay, we're going to go over here and, you know, have some, you know, dry chicken breast and green beans.
01:19:33.000And we'll listen to people get up there and pontificate about how awesome they are.
01:19:37.000And, you know, but see, those are the ones that get me.
01:19:41.000It's like, how about if you're going to get one of these things and you truly are honored by it, well, you honor the people who gave it to you.
01:20:01.000It's like, you know, there's a time and place for that, I believe.
01:20:04.000And, you know, you should just stick to what it is.
01:20:09.000And people would argue and say, well, no, because I have a voice and because everybody knows me, this is a great platform for me to put this out there.
01:23:17.000Now, maybe if there's an organization that gives out an award, maybe it's political, maybe I don't get it because they don't like me or whatever it is.
01:23:27.000All the actors at a SAG thing will come up to me or any other actor-based or entertainer-based award where it's actually your peers voting for you.
01:23:40.000If you go to the cocktail party after the Q ⁇ A, they couldn't be further up your ass.
01:23:48.000Then, guess how many SAG awards I have in all these years?
01:24:28.000When I do these Q ⁇ As now, I do it because I like talking to actors and kind of giving them some information about what we do, hearing what their questions are, what they want to know about.
01:26:02.000People have been given awards that didn't actually win because they fucked something up, you know, and they can't go back and say, well, actually, you know, and, you know, it was on the show.
01:26:14.000It's got a stick, you know, and that kind of thing.
01:26:17.000But you reminded me of something that I thought was hilarious with the woman being a nut on this thing.
01:26:24.000Remember when there was a cat who was, I think it's happened more than once now, but the original guy I saw, I think, I don't remember exactly.
01:26:33.000It might have been somewhere in Africa, but some politician or somebody was giving a speech, and there was a cat acting like the sign language guy.
01:27:23.000He could do anything, but it's American sign language.
01:27:25.000So if he went and tried to talk to someone in some other country, even if they speak English, they have a totally different kind of sign language.
01:27:32.000So it's just like actual language, where if you and I go to China, we're not going to know what the fuck to say.
01:27:39.000And sign language is an important thing.
01:27:42.000That's a good thing that's happened over the last couple of decades is they actually do when there's important information, they always have a signer there.
01:27:53.000I think there's a lawsuit right now to make the Trump administration bring sign language people back to those White House press briefings.
01:28:10.000I've had them on comedy shows sometimes.
01:28:12.000Like if you perform at some theater and there's some sort of a mandatory requirement for a sign language person, and so there's someone that has to keep up with the jokes and explain sarcasm while you're in the middle.
01:29:08.000So can I ask you a comedy question or because it's always fascinated me.
01:29:13.000I mean, people have said to me before, like, especially if I get on a roll and I've had a few beers, they say, you ought to do it, just, you know, just for one night, just do a stand-up in LA or New York or somewhere or Texas, wherever.
01:29:27.000And I'm like, it's the scariest thing in the world to me.
01:29:32.000Like, if you and I are just hanging out, you know, all of us, you know, having a beer, you know, maybe I can be kind of funny sometimes.
01:29:40.000But to get on a stage, and here's the reason I'm afraid of it is because if you're doing a play, if you're doing, you know, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or whatever the hell it is, you don't really know the reaction from the audience.
01:29:57.000I mean, it's like they either love the shit out of this or they don't get it or whatever, but you don't know in the moment.
01:30:04.000If you're a stand-up comic, you have one reason to be up there, and that's to make them laugh.
01:30:10.000So if you don't make them laugh pretty soon, you're fucked.
01:30:15.000And I mean, I can't imagine bombing as a comic.
01:30:20.000And I think about different people over the years that had a very different type of comedy, you know.
01:30:29.000And like Stephen Wright, for instance, perfect.
01:30:33.000Stephen Wright, who walks out there, doesn't say shit to the audience for a minute, takes a drink of water, and then he goes, So last night I accidentally put my car key into my door at my house and started my house up.
01:31:06.000So, this is very sort of like, nobody ever did that before until he did that.
01:31:11.000And I'm like, what was it like in the beginning for that guy where people just going, the fuck are you talking about?
01:31:17.000Well, you know, it's interesting with him.
01:31:18.000He existed in, there's a great documentary on comedy in Boston called When Stand-Up Stood Out.
01:31:25.000This guy, Fran Salamito, who was a comic in Boston, created it.
01:31:28.000And it's all about there's a very Boston was a very unique environment in stand-up where all these comedians were just doing stand-up for Boston audiences.
01:32:53.000And they got mad because Stephen Wright had this very bizarre, absurdist act that translated perfectly to like a seven-minute late night, you know, Johnny Carson set.
01:33:29.000And he created like a lot of resentment where these guys were upset that this guy who didn't do as good as them on stage was on the tonight show.
01:34:48.000And he did the arrow through the head, the whole thing.
01:34:51.000But he had kind of longer, curly hair, and he wore buckskin clothes and played a banjo.
01:34:57.000And there was a front-of-house guy named Danny Smith who I worked for, you know, with this sound company.
01:35:03.000And I was back there at the front of the house console with him, and I see this guy come out, and I lost my mind.
01:35:13.000I was screaming, crying, laughing, you know, with some of the shit he did because he just came out and just said, I'm going to do the stupidest shit you've ever seen in your life, and people are going to laugh.
01:35:25.000And it's like, you know, and what he would just do, the whole excuse me, or whatever, you know.
01:35:30.000And so here's a guy coming out being over the top and putting arrows to his head and shit.
01:35:43.000And all of a sudden, here you got a guy that, you know, is doing it.
01:35:47.000And that became more the norm for a while.
01:35:50.000You know, it's like it spawned a lot of other people.
01:35:54.000You know, it's like when we did Bad Santa, there hadn't been anything like that.
01:35:59.000And the next thing you know, after Bad Santa, there's bad moms, bad teachers, bad grandpas, bad next door neighbors, you know, bad guy who works at the dry cleaners, you know.
01:36:09.000And so, and those will last for several years, you know, where you, where people are kind of getting that in their heads, and naturally they're influenced by it, and that brand lasts for a while.
01:36:47.000Because if you really think about it, like this the thing that he loved and he was at the time like one of the only acts that was doing arenas.
01:36:55.000I mean, he was probably one of the first comedians of all time to do these huge places.
01:37:00.000And people would come to see him as this variety act.
01:37:12.000And he just decided to step away from it and just do movies.
01:37:16.000And it's so wild because when you mentioned that thing about the big arenas and stuff, another thing that's scary to me about comedy is like if you're not in a room where everybody gets every nuance, that would scare me.
01:37:31.000I mean, to be, you know, of course, he was that big.
01:37:34.000And it was a big thing where people could see the big movements and stuff.
01:38:15.000So aside from the main giant stage where the concerts are going on, they have one of those blow-up tents, the ones where the sound's never good in there.
01:38:27.000And it looks like the Dallas Cowboys training facility tent or whatever it is like that.
01:38:33.000So Lewis comes by the bus to say, hey, we talked for a few minutes.
01:38:37.000And I knew him from the Sunset Marquee.
01:38:40.000He would be in the bar there sometimes in L.A.
01:38:43.000And so we're talking and I said, yeah, man, there's a huge crowd out there.
01:40:12.000It feels like as an audience member, it's much easier to get locked in if there's only 100 other people in the room with you or 200 other people in the room.
01:40:20.000But as soon as you get to like 16,000, it starts getting weird.
01:41:04.000We've played shows with the band like that in certain theaters where, of course, for a loud ass band like we are, sometimes we're a little big for the room.
01:41:15.000But that's an interesting point, especially the thing about people being able to see each other because then you don't want to be the dick that everybody's going, I wish that guy would shut the fuck up.
01:43:05.000Because they didn't really, like you said, before him, that wasn't, I mean, he made comedy performers, stand-up comedians, like rock stars, you know.
01:43:16.000And it was before that, I had all the controversy and all that kind of thing.
01:43:21.000Because before then, it was like variety shows.
01:43:23.000If you have Bob Hope and those guys, they're always on some TV show, and it was usually them and someone else.
01:44:43.000But I've got to think that it was like the ultimate not caring, the ultimate relaxing.
01:44:49.000When are you ever more relaxed than when you get out of the shower?
01:44:52.000You just put on a fucking bathrobe, your dick swinging out there in the wind, and he just walked out in front of the whole crowd like that.
01:47:17.000The beauty of a good song is like, man, it's one of the most misunderstood things that we love.
01:47:27.000Because I think it's an art form that creates a response in people that's just like a drug.
01:47:35.000Like, if there's a drug that you could take that made you feel like when Midnight Rider comes on the radio and it's just the right time to hear it, like maybe you just had a shot, you know, and your buddy tells you something, you're like, oh, yeah, man, that was fucking great.
01:47:52.000And then all of a sudden, doodle doom doom doom.
01:49:14.000Then I'm going to die young and everyone's going to miss me.
01:49:18.000It was like in the John Lennon documentary where that cat, that homeless hippie cat, comes up to his door, you know, and he's kind of starving and stuff.
01:49:25.000And he says, I don't know if you ever saw it, but he's obviously been living in the bushes, you know, and he thinks that one of Lennon's songs was about him.
01:49:37.000I think he probably had a little schizophrenia or something, you know.
01:49:40.000And he was, and Lennon answered the door, you know, and talking to him.
01:51:41.000And the fact that not only did I get to meet them, but work with them several times a piece.
01:51:49.000And once you know everybody, you start to sometimes you hate to hear yourself talk because I'll be talking to some younger actor, you know, like 25 or 30.
01:52:02.000And they'll say, oh, yeah, I really love that movie So-and-so with Robert Duvall.
01:54:26.000And that translates when people are watching a film or watching a television show with that, which television shows aren't even really television shows anymore.
01:54:36.000Like, I don't think Landman's a television show.
01:55:58.000But I know you're Billy Bob Thornton, but in that scene, you're that fucking dude who works for an oil company who's like, shut the fuck up.
01:56:23.000And I mean, when I run into an oil guy, wherever it is, I mean, you know, mainly Texas, but wherever I am, they always bring that scene up and thank me.
01:56:35.000And, you know, thanks for showing people what this is.
01:56:39.000And, you know, I do get questions, you know, obviously because of the nature of the show.
01:56:59.000And it's about how are the people who work in that industry, whether you're on the suit side or you're out there in the fields, and if you're the family of, like I have the family in the show, it's just, this is how it works, and this is how it affects the people who work in it.
01:57:30.000And it's when I did that scene, I was committed to it, you know, because when I read it, and Taylor's very good about writing gigantic monologues for me.
01:57:44.000And when something makes sense to you dialogue-wise, it's easy to do a long monologue.
01:57:54.000If you don't know what it means, it's harder to learn the dialogue.
01:57:59.000If you understand what the person has written, I'm not saying if you agree with it or disagree with it, but if you understand what they're saying, it's actually easier to do a monologue than it is to do a back-and-forth scene with people sometimes.
01:58:13.000I bone more lines on a back and forth conversation than I do when I'm just sitting there telling somebody something.
01:58:24.000I mean, it wasn't, Taylor wrote something there for him, you know, because he'd heard the story before from Jerry.
01:58:31.000But if it had been written and Taylor said, you got to write, you know, you got to say these words, Jerry probably wouldn't have done it, been able to do it.
01:58:42.000But the fact that Taylor said, just tell that story you told me.
01:59:08.000In Slingblade, the guy, Rick Dial, who played the guy that ran the Fix-It shop, the kind of big guy, I went to school with him since the third grade.
01:59:17.000And I always thought, this guy could be an actor, you know.
01:59:19.000And when we did the first scene with him there in his shop, when Jimmy Hampton brought me over there and said, this is Carl, he's going to work here, all that stuff, you know.
01:59:30.000I just went to Rick and I said, dude, and Brent Briscoe, who played Scooter, the guy could never fix anything.
01:59:36.000And I said, look, Rick, the camera crew, they don't have their shit together.
01:59:41.000I said, they're going to have to get some marks and do a bunch of stuff.
02:00:36.000I mean, Clint Eastwood has been known to say, you know, jokingly, but instead of cut, sometimes an actor I know worked with Clint, and he said, when Clint was satisfied with the scene, he just goes, okay, that's enough of that shit.
02:00:55.000What was the process of deciding to do Slingblade?
02:00:59.000Like, how did, like, you know, you're obviously trying to find a vehicle for yourself, and they're not offering it to you, so you create it yourself.
02:01:40.000And I was playing a railroad conductor in the 1920s.
02:01:44.000It was based on an old movie with Paul Muni called I'm a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, old movie from, I guess, the 30s.
02:01:55.000And they remade it and called it The Man Who Broke a Thousand Chains.
02:01:59.000I played a railroad conductor who had like a wool fucking thing on for the 20s, and they had the, you know, the whole 20s haircut with the sides pretty much shaved off, you know, and that kind of stuff.
02:02:13.000And we're shooting in Riverside, California at this old railroad museum.
02:02:18.000And an old director named Daniel Mann, who directed Tea House, the August Moon with Brando and some other movies, he'd come out of retirement to do this.
02:02:29.000As a matter of fact, he was so old school that when I went to read for him, there was a casting director named Kathy Henderson who was always good to me.
02:02:37.000So she'd always get me in to see the director.
02:02:39.000And he was sitting there behind the desk.
02:02:41.000He had a little gray goatee and glasses.
02:02:45.000And I just talked to him for a few minutes, and then I read a couple of lines with him.
02:04:06.000Made the face and I started talking in that voice because I was so in a moment of self-loathing that I literally started going at myself in the mirror.
02:04:21.000I did that monologue to the girl that's the college student who comes to interview me in the beginning of the movie.
02:05:15.000And then I realized that I was talking about certain things that were actually in my life.
02:05:20.000The idea of him living out back in this shed, just sleeping in a hole back there, and the family would bring him his food and stuff like he was a creature and stuff like that.
02:05:31.000That was based on a guy in Alpine, Arkansas that lived there.
02:05:37.000The story was that his mother was scared by a snake when she was pregnant.
02:05:42.000You know, old, you know, southern lore shit.
02:05:47.000Or the father was drunk when he was conceived.
02:05:50.000But actually, he had polio and was what the real deal was.
02:05:57.000He walked funny, he talked funny, and everything.
02:05:59.000So Carl is largely based on a combination of this guy, Ed, in our town, and Frankenstein.
02:06:11.000You know, Frankenstein and the kid and the, you know, the sort of not knowing any better, you know.
02:06:17.000And, you know, it's like the, well, I was told by the parents in the Bible that says, you know, if you see some, you know, like sex is bad or whatever it was, he sees his mother with his cat, Jesse Dixon, and he kills her.
02:07:08.000So when you went to do a one-man show, did you ever think do you want to make it into a film, or was it just like, I want to put this on its legs and just whatever this idea I have in my head, I want to make something out of it.
02:07:20.000At that time, when I was doing it in the theater, I didn't think much beyond that.
02:07:28.000A couple of years later, I started thinking about it.
02:08:13.000And I directed a documentary on Widespread Panic, the band, out of Athens, Georgia, and Colonel Bruce Hampton.
02:08:21.000But that's the only directing experience I'd had, and I didn't know shit about it.
02:08:27.000But I knew the story, you know, and I got Barry Markowitz, my DP, and got some guys and asked John Ritter, who I was working with at the time, you want to play a gay guy from St. Louis who moves to a little town in Millsburg?
02:09:56.000And I don't think you could get that movie made now.
02:10:00.000I think a lot of movies that I've done, you couldn't get them made now.
02:10:04.000I don't think there's an audience that would either tolerate it or be interested in it, you know, because most of my writing is based on novelists and not screenwriters.
02:10:15.000I've stayed out of Hollywood my whole career pretty much, you know, other than the high-profile relationships maybe.
02:10:22.000You know, other than that, I haven't associated with Hollywood much.
02:10:27.000And it was just thinking back and going, how did I become a movie star?
02:11:31.000It's just, you'll get a lot more pushback now because people think that they can and that they can stop things and cancel you and all that jazz.
02:11:39.000But the reality is, if it's entertaining, if it resonates with people, they want to see it.
02:12:09.000actually think that critics maybe should only do reviews on things they like I mean because right what good right What are you trying to do?
02:12:23.000What are you trying to do with the terrible review?
02:12:26.000So they claim that they're trying to protect the public from this atrocity.
02:12:34.000And I don't understand why they think that they are the savior of everybody's 15 bucks or whatever.
02:12:42.000That it's like, you know, I can't believe I, you know, saw this movie, like, wasted two hours of my life.
02:13:14.000As opposed to this vile piece of shit, blah, blah, blah.
02:13:19.000It's like to have that type of arrogance to think that you are informing them that they should stay away from something, like you know shit.
02:14:51.000I want the audience, you know, because critics, like I said earlier, there are so many critics now that, I mean, critics to begin with are generally not.
02:15:03.000No human is qualified to judge any piece of art.
02:15:09.000I mean, it's like if you don't like something or it doesn't strike you or you see some write really silly shit that's kind of not made well or whatever, that's fine.
02:15:20.000But how can you have a profession where individuals can tell everybody in the world what they should think about something is a bizarre world to me.
02:15:31.000And like you said earlier, like with awards, it's not like sports.
02:15:38.000You know, how can you win an award that is an intangible thing?
02:18:29.000I mean, I don't particularly give a shit if the actor guys I've run across in my lifetime like my shit or not.
02:18:39.000I mean, it's like, you know, I'm not really doing it for them unless you love movies, unless you love good work, you know, then, you know, those cats are, you know, viable.
02:18:50.000But I just don't, I'm in a good place right now.
02:18:58.000And so I think because, you know, my daughter Bella is going to Cal Poly up there and she's doing great.
02:20:06.000I was nominated for a Golden Globe for the first season of Landman.
02:20:10.000We went over there, and I knew instantly it wasn't going to happen because they had us, if you were in a stadium at a concert hall and your seat was, here's the stage.
02:21:16.000Like, let's say the three of us are nominated for something and it shows you and it shows me and it shows you and you're trying to act nonchalant like you don't give a fuck.
02:21:25.000One day I want to see somebody just go, fuck.
02:23:25.000Because there's TikTok celebrities and reality TV celebrities, and it's just, there's so many famous people.
02:23:34.000It's like an unprecedented number of people clamoring for attention.
02:23:39.000So to be a Billy Bob Thornton when Slingblade came out was a crazy spot in life because there's only like 20 of you motherfuckers out there.
02:23:49.000There's like 20 famous actors, like maybe 50 that you could get people to name.
02:25:19.000I mean, when I would work on sets early on with people that I grew up watching, you know, and I'm just like, wow, you know, I'm standing next to Andy Griffith or whoever that was, Robert Redford, you know.
02:25:35.000And now you start to realize that you're in a group and an age group of actors who are looked at by 20-year-olds or 30-year-olds like I looked at those guys because they say this stuff to me.
02:25:55.000I've been watching you since I was a little kid, you know, and all this kind of stuff.
02:26:04.000The only thing is, and maybe I'm off base here, but I think because, and once again, social media has a lot to do with it, I believe.
02:26:14.000I don't think that because of our lack of younger generations' lack of history, you know, their knowledge, how far history goes back to them.
02:26:29.000I don't think 100 years from now, generations will look at us the way we looked at Humphrey Bogart and Frederick March and all these different people, Spencer Tracy, Betty Davis, whoever it was.
02:26:48.000It goes back to the acts, too much access, too much exposure.
02:26:52.000And I just don't believe that in the history books, 30 years from now, let's say, they'll look at me or Quaid or Costner or whoever it is as the Bogarts and the Tracy's that we revere only because society's changed so much.
02:28:57.000And she was like a hip girl with like orange hair and fucking nose rings and cheek rings and everything else.
02:29:04.000But it just seems to me that people's history is, it's kind of, it's become different.
02:29:09.000Like our history, when I was, you know, listening to, you know, whoever, Cream or Jimi Hendrix or Traffic or whatever, I still knew who Billie Holliday and Jimmy Rogers, the singing brakeman, were, you know.
02:29:23.000Now, a lot of people think Ozzy Osbourne is just a guy on reality show.
02:29:27.000It's like, no, he was in a band called Black Sabbath way back in the late 60s.
02:29:33.000And I think history is important for us.
02:29:38.000I think if you don't know where shit comes from, I think it's part of what you put into your art or your influences and also to see what they went through to get where they were.
02:29:56.000How many people know that Benjamin Franklin, you know, Benjamin Franklin, oh, he's a guy who flew a kite and discovered how to make electricity come to some other place or whatever.
02:30:06.000But, you know, they were fighting over states when there weren't that many states.
02:30:33.000He comes in and he says, tell you what, how about you have more state representatives than they do because you've got more people in your state, but how about in terms of the Senate, everybody gets two, and then you get more representatives.
02:30:56.000Well, history is important, but I think one of the problems with people today is like there's so much information coming at you that everybody has TikTok brain.
02:31:07.000Like it's very difficult for them to get a sense of history when they're being inundated by very short attention span content all day long.
02:31:17.000It's hard for them to actually read something or sit down and have the attention to get into something and really get fascinated by watch a good documentary on somebody or read a book on somebody.
02:31:30.000They're just checking their phone all the time.
02:31:32.000They're always checking their goddamn phone.
02:31:34.000They're addicted to these fucking things.
02:31:37.000And growing up that way, like you and I grew up without it.
02:31:42.000So you get to see it and how it's affecting the way people view the world.
02:31:49.000It's certainly not good for creating future versions of Ringo Stars and John Lennon's because it's like, what do you have to say if you don't have any understanding of what's going on and what's ever gone on?
02:32:01.000And it's addictive, like you said earlier, because, you know, I put these things down and yet I've got the fucking thing with me all the time.
02:32:10.000You know, and if I get out in the middle of, you know, the desert in California someplace and know where the fuck I am, you know, I'm like trying to call home and shit, you know, whatever.
02:32:21.000But I mean, I lived most of my life without that.
02:32:27.000And having to see if you had any fucking change left because you had to call somebody at a payphone.
02:32:34.000We had a thing in L.A. called the Thomas Guide.
02:32:47.000And you had to look on these maps, which are confusing and shit.
02:32:51.000And if you took a GPS away now from people, nobody would ever get to work on time.
02:32:57.000Nobody would find the fucking place they were supposed to have a meeting because you also can't stop at a gas station anymore.
02:33:04.000I mean, you know, remember when you didn't know where the fuck you were and you would stop over at the gas station and you'd go, yeah, I'm trying to get to 1625 Wilson Street.
02:34:06.000And if you took away the ability to just press someone's name on your phone to call them, if you had to remember their number, we had to remember numbers.
02:34:21.000I mean, I still, to this day, I rarely, In other words, I can take my phone and I can type in the people that I call on a regular basis, I can type in their numbers.
02:34:35.000But it is true that if like my wife, she'll say, well, I don't have so-and-so in my contacts or whatever, you know, and be somebody we know really well.
02:35:31.000But if you had to still go to the casino every day and gamble a little, but you were a gambling addict, that's a crazy fucking problem to have.
02:35:40.000And that's a problem that every young person has with their phone.
02:36:51.000They don't want to see your picture on stage.
02:36:53.000You know, they want to see that you're just this regular dude with your ass crack showing, taking the garbage down the hill to the normal shit, eating chicken-fried steak.
02:37:49.000Jonathan Haight wrote about that where you see as the in the beginning of social media, you see automatic, almost instantly rather, a giant amount of young ladies that experience self-harm, cutting, depression, suicidal ideation, actual suicide.
02:38:07.000It all ramps up at the same time that social media does because you're comparing yourself to someone's life that's a very distorted version of reality.
02:38:39.000You know, when you're feeding a baby, there's something, I guess it's from our, you know, it's in our DNA or something, but you feed a baby and you go.
02:40:31.000And I grew up with three fucking channels.
02:40:35.000And so you had to watch everything all the way through.
02:40:40.000And I'm convinced that that's the reason that trivia is easier for people that grew up with very little because you remember every fucking bit of it.
02:41:50.000I'm just locked in on what is happening for six hours.
02:41:55.000And so if you could find a thing where you can have a break, escape from the clutches of all the information that's in the rest of the world coming at you all, all the fucking bad news and all the guns and tits and everything that's coming at you from all over the world.
02:43:17.000It's like, how important is this to you that it's more important to let Mitzi know that you'd rather have spaghetti than, you know, fucking hell.
02:43:26.000Well, it's also you're completely breaking whatever bond that you have in the conversation.
02:43:31.000It's not a, it's, it's two people exchanging information, talking to each other, and you have to look at each other in the eye.
02:44:39.000You know, just like I was saying that when you were a movie star the first time you became a movie star through Slingblade, that's a new experience, just period in human civilization.
02:44:55.000And this thing of everything being online, this thing of everybody having access to all this fucking information coming at you, all this media, all these opinions and all this stuff to watch and car accidents and animal attacks.
02:48:51.000And so if I hadn't done all that stuff, if all I had known was the entertainment business, I think that would drive any fucking body crazy.
02:49:06.000You know, I don't think I would have made it through that.
02:49:09.000If, you know, like looking at the real world out there from a place where you never experienced the real world.
02:49:18.000Like you're talking about Ricky and all that stuff.
02:49:20.000It's like, if your only experience has been people getting your fucking juice box for you, you know, or whatever it is, then, and you get used to that shit too.
02:49:32.000I'm telling you, these days, my wife thinks I'm the most helpless son of a bitch in the world.
02:50:39.000I mean, I can do shit whatever I want to.
02:50:41.000If I got to run and a singing or whatever, I'm fine.
02:50:45.000Something psychological happens to you when you get like 68 or 69.
02:50:51.000And Tom Mayhew, our tour manager for the band, he and I were talking about it.
02:50:56.000We were talking about how now when we get in a shower, you know, like we're in a hotel and you get in a shower, you grab the fucking handicap rail and you go really slow.
02:51:07.000I don't have to, but I do because something up here tells me, here's my age now.
02:51:14.000If I fall, I'll be dead in six weeks because I'll break my hip and then I'll get pneumonia and I'm done.
02:51:21.000And I'm like, I feel 19, but for some reason, going downstairs now, I don't just hop down the stairs anymore.
02:51:41.000And yet something happened to me where I think now I'm just this helpless fucking old man who, you know, is going to have to have my caretaker fucking get me to the gig.
02:51:54.000And then I go on stage and I'm just like, you know, it's like, wait a fucking minute.
02:51:59.000You know, walking up the steps to the stage, I'm just like, you know, and I get up there and fucking go out to the edge of the stage and slap hands and shit.
02:52:07.000If I fell off that fucking thing, it'd kill me instantly, but I do it.
02:54:03.000Aside from the ones who died, age has changed a little bit.
02:54:09.000I mean, like, you know, if you look at my dad's high school yearbook, these motherfuckers look, when they were 17, they looked like they were 55.
02:55:50.000But I think people are, and especially if you're in the entertainment business, you kind of keep a younger mind and also eating healthy.
02:56:01.000But this holistic doctor I was talking about, I was talking about the, and this is really unpopular to say, but not my words.
02:56:13.000I was actually told this, and I was saying, look, you know, I don't smoke a pack of cigarettes a day.
02:56:18.000I smoke probably three quarters of a pack, you know, unless, you know, we're on the road and I'm on the bus with the guys, you know, and I smoke like an old Buick sometimes.
02:56:26.000But, you know, and I drink light beer.
02:56:30.000I don't drink hard alcohol and stuff like this.
02:56:33.000And this holistic doctor said, you know, stress is one of the worst things in the world for you.
02:56:39.000If smoking a few cigarettes a day that don't have chemicals in them and you're drinking light beer, which like I said in Landman, you know, has less alcohol than fucking orange juice, you know, you have a few of those a day and have a few smokes.
02:56:56.000And if that alleviates your stress, especially me being high anxiety, he says probably healthier for you to just keep doing that.
02:57:05.000Yeah, they say that's one of the worst things ever.