The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Who is Joe Rogan？ Part Two

00:00:00.940 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

00:00:06.480 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.

00:00:12.740 We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.

00:00:20.100 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.

00:00:27.420 He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.

00:00:35.360 If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.

00:00:41.780 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.

00:00:47.460 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.

00:00:57.420 Welcome to Season 2, Episode 12 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.

00:01:05.860 I'm Mikayla Peterson, Dr. Peterson's daughter, collaborator, and all-meat-diet conspiracy theorist.

00:01:12.360 Today we're presenting Dad's Conversation with Joe Rogan, Part 2.

00:01:16.060 Last week, Dad and Joe Rogan talked about Joe's Netflix specials, his parents' divorce, and his early life, drug experimentation, fame, and they ended up on the controversial subject of transgender children.

00:01:29.400 This week's episode will delve into Joe's humble beginnings in Boston, how he discovered martial arts, how many times he's had his nose broken, and how his martial arts career led him to becoming a stand-up comedian, and now the world's number one podcaster, which is crazy.

00:01:43.460 One of the things Joe and Dad discussed near the end of the episode is the platform ThinkSpot that Dad has backed.

00:01:50.240 It will be featuring many of today's leading thinkers, including Dad, obviously.

00:01:54.460 I've taken a peek at it, and it's actually pretty interesting.

00:01:57.480 It has features I haven't seen on any other social media platform that allow you to share, engage, and debate in a thoughtful and intelligent manner, including annotation on video, audio, and podcasts.

00:02:08.800 There's opportunities to engage directly with contributors through comments, Q&As, live streams, and annotations.

00:02:15.460 It's worth checking out. I think it might be big.

00:02:18.020 It focuses on actual intellectual discourse without the restrictions put in place by other social media platforms.

00:02:24.080 Go to ThinkSpot.com to pre-register for access during the current beta phase.

00:02:28.620 They're setting it up and making sure it runs smoothly with early users before ramping it up in August, I believe.

00:02:34.260 It should be pretty awesome.

00:02:35.640 We're in desperate need for a platform that doesn't arbitrarily decide to throw people off because of random crowd mentality. 1.00

00:02:42.080 We know crowds can be stupid. 1.00

00:02:44.420 So check it out. 1.00

00:02:45.460 ThinkSpot.com to pre-register for access.

00:02:49.060 When we come back, part two of my dad's interview with Joe Rogan.

00:02:52.760 Please welcome my father, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, as we go back to Boston with his special guest, Joe Rogan.

00:03:03.800 We're going to go back to Boston.

00:03:05.580 Okay.

00:03:06.700 Okay.

00:03:07.360 So you said that's really where things started for you.

00:03:10.060 So you moved there when you were 13.

00:03:11.820 Yes.

00:03:12.260 And so what did you get involved in?

00:03:14.840 First of all, like what kind of kid were you in school?

00:03:17.960 I barely paid attention.

00:03:19.380 I was, if ADD is real, I certainly had it.

00:03:24.020 And I was very, very interested in what I was interested in.

00:03:27.760 I was very uninterested in people telling me what to do.

00:03:30.900 And I essentially couldn't wait to get out of school.

00:03:33.680 But I would excel at things that I had interest in.

00:03:37.920 And the, initially it was art.

00:03:40.820 I was, I wanted to be a comic book illustrator until I really got into martial arts.

00:03:45.680 And martial arts became the focus of my life around 14, 15 years old.

00:03:50.120 That's when I really became massively obsessed.

00:03:54.480 And that was really the first thing that I ever did where I really didn't feel like a loser.

00:04:00.360 Like I really felt like, oh, I actually have some talent.

00:04:03.720 I actually can be exceptional.

00:04:05.480 There's like something, because I, you know, I grew up constantly moving.

00:04:09.540 Didn't really have a lot of friends.

00:04:11.120 I would be new in this town.

00:04:12.820 I'd get picked on.

00:04:13.740 I wasn't a big kid and there was a lot of, a lot of issues with that psychologically.

00:04:19.120 And I didn't like being afraid of other kids.

00:04:21.900 I didn't like not knowing what to do.

00:04:24.040 I ever ran into kids.

00:04:24.880 They were going to bully me and pick on me.

00:04:27.040 So I learned.

00:04:27.960 Yeah, well, that's an annoying thing not to know what to do about.

00:04:31.720 Yeah.

00:04:32.440 Yeah.

00:04:33.420 And, you know, martial arts changed that 180 degrees.

00:04:38.300 And then I became someone who I would be afraid of.

00:04:41.420 You know, I became the opposite of what I was.

00:04:44.460 So what I was was someone who was terrified of conflict, didn't know what to do.

00:04:48.320 And what I became was, you know, a Taekwondo champion.

00:04:51.800 I became a martial arts champion.

00:04:53.580 I knew how to fight.

00:04:54.940 I had done it so many times.

00:04:57.160 So, like, what did you do?

00:04:58.660 You just walked into a joint one day and decided that that's what you were going to do?

00:05:02.480 Like, how did it come about?

00:05:04.460 It was very fortunate.

00:05:05.780 Well, I'd done a little bit of martial arts training at a different place.

00:05:09.360 And then one day I was in Boston for a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

00:05:15.440 And as I was walking home to the train station with a friend of mine, there was a lot of people

00:05:22.720 that were leaving the baseball game.

00:05:24.200 So the lines for the train for the T, which in Boston, public transportation was very long.

00:05:30.640 So we decided to go check out the Jae Hun Kim Taekwondo Institute.

00:05:35.740 It was right there.

00:05:36.540 And I had been really into martial arts because of what I said, you know, the aforementioned

00:05:40.940 insecurities.

00:05:42.260 And so I went up the stairs.

00:05:44.640 And as I was walking up the stairs, just fortuitously, a guy named John Lee was training.

00:05:52.080 And John was a national Taekwondo champion who was in preparation for the World Cup, which

00:05:59.540 was this huge event that he was taking, the international event that he was about to travel

00:06:03.880 to go to.

00:06:04.980 And he was in the peak of his training.

00:06:07.060 And so I walked up to the top of the stairs and I heard this crazy sound of this, what

00:06:14.140 it turned out to be this man kicking this bag and slamming his heel into this bag and

00:06:19.260 having the chain snap and rattle and the thud of his heel slamming into this leather bag.

00:06:27.080 And I got up there and I watched this guy work out.

00:06:30.280 I couldn't believe a person could do that.

00:06:32.400 I'd never seen anybody kick something so hard in real life.

00:06:36.420 Anybody that had such incredible martial arts skill, like this guy did, John Lee, who became

00:06:42.780 a mentor of mine and taught me quite a bit.

00:06:45.960 But that changed everything.

00:06:48.300 I was there the next day.

00:06:49.440 I talked to them.

00:06:50.320 They gave me a brochure and a pamphlet.

00:06:51.980 And I was there the next day.

00:06:53.080 And I was probably there every day of my life, give or take a few days here or there if I was

00:06:59.980 injured or something came up until I was 22 years old.

00:07:03.600 So how many hours a day were you spending there?

00:07:07.600 All day.

00:07:08.380 I had keys pretty quickly.

00:07:10.460 They gave me keys.

00:07:12.420 They wanted me.

00:07:13.400 Well, right away, my instructor recognized that I was pretty obsessed and I was physically

00:07:20.200 pretty talented.

00:07:21.600 So he had me teaching classes instead of paying.

00:07:27.260 He was like, if it's difficult for you to pay, I would like to have you teach.

00:07:31.660 And there was some wisdom to that, too, because one of the best ways for someone to get good

00:07:35.740 at martial arts is actually to teach.

00:07:38.100 It actually refines your technique.

00:07:39.920 You think about it more.

00:07:41.480 You're explaining it to people that don't necessarily understand all the mechanics of it.

00:07:45.440 So I started teaching.

00:07:46.700 I would teach private lessons to beginners.

00:07:49.420 I would teach group classes.

00:07:50.800 And then eventually I went on to teach at Boston University.

00:07:53.640 I taught at Boston University when I was 19.

00:07:56.380 I was teaching an accredited class there.

00:07:58.540 But you actually counted towards your GPA.

00:08:01.400 And so I did that.

00:08:03.440 And I was already U.S. Open champion by then.

00:08:06.660 How long did it take?

00:08:08.560 So you went in there when you were 13 and you were a kid that had moved around a bunch and

00:08:14.000 got pushed.

00:08:14.720 I was 14 or 15 by the time I got to that school.

00:08:18.020 And then I had my black belt by the time I was 17.

00:08:21.660 And I was competing in the adult division by then.

00:08:26.380 Before I was ever 18, I was competing as an adult.

00:08:29.500 I mean, he might have even put me in when I was 16, if I remember correctly.

00:08:34.240 And then I won the state championship when I was 18.

00:08:38.160 And I won it every year from then until I stopped.

00:08:43.180 Right.

00:08:43.680 So you had a pretty successful run at it there.

00:08:47.020 How long did it take before?

00:08:48.620 Like, were you still, were you a thin, like you were your skinny kid when you started?

00:08:54.020 When did you start to bulk up and get big?

00:08:56.580 When did you start to get tough enough so that, you know, the problems with aggression stop,

00:09:01.300 you know, with other people's aggression stop being a trouble for you?

00:09:05.580 Well, luckily with high school, kids heard about it right away.

00:09:09.680 You know, it was one of those things where, you know, you find out that there's some,

00:09:14.840 one of you, one of the kids you go to school with is flying all over the country,

00:09:18.020 kicking people in the head. 0.97

00:09:19.860 Right. 0.99

00:09:20.420 They just avoided me.

00:09:21.940 Yeah.

00:09:22.380 Right.

00:09:22.540 It wasn't like, you know, I mean, I certainly never sought out trouble, but people avoided

00:09:29.700 me like, you know, junior and senior year.

00:09:33.220 I'd already become this weird kid that was obsessed with martial arts, you know, and I

00:09:39.260 spent, you know, most of my life from the time I was 15 till I was 21 training and competing.

00:09:46.160 I probably fought over a hundred times.

00:09:49.200 I traveled all over the country.

00:09:51.180 I fought in California.

00:09:52.600 I fought in Ohio.

00:09:53.760 I fought, I fought all over the place.

00:09:56.240 Right.

00:09:56.660 A lot of local tournaments in Connecticut and Massachusetts and New Hampshire is where I

00:10:02.340 won the U.S. Open.

00:10:03.520 And I, you know, just fought everywhere.

00:10:06.200 And that was, that was most of my life.

00:10:09.320 Yeah.

00:10:09.700 It was most of my life until I got into stand-up comedy.

00:10:12.960 Right.

00:10:13.280 So that was, so you had a very singular life like that's, that's a hundred percent

00:10:17.380 singular, uniquely singular, but I avoided most of the pitfalls of high school partying

00:10:23.560 and all that stuff.

00:10:24.880 I didn't do that because I was scared of getting hurt.

00:10:27.760 I was scared that if I showed up for training hungover that I'd get beat up and that I would

00:10:33.760 somehow, I was scared of anything that would take even a tiny bit away from my performance

00:10:38.960 as a fighter because I was obsessed with it.

00:10:41.760 Was that scared, scared of, was that actually fear of, of, of being hurt because you made

00:10:47.580 a mistake or fear of losing the competition or fear of being hurt, fear of losing the

00:10:53.260 competition, fear of hurt and being hurt and training, training alone was as scary as

00:10:58.740 any competition.

00:10:59.580 I just, just complete, completely by luck wandered into one of the best schools in the world

00:11:05.760 for Taekwondo that it, it, it, it, it, um, they had produced multiple national champions

00:11:11.740 and, uh, you know, real top of the food chain athletes in terms of Taekwondo.

00:11:18.420 And it was just, just dumb luck that I walked into that school and, you know, I could have

00:11:22.940 walked into another school that was a few blocks away.

00:11:26.220 That was terrible.

00:11:26.760 I mean, I just, I just got lucky.

00:11:28.860 I got really, really, really lucky.

00:11:31.220 So how useful, how useful are the technical martial arts like Taekwondo and like in an actual

00:11:37.420 street fight?

00:11:39.160 Not that useful.

00:11:40.760 I mean, more useful than knowing nothing, but, um, not as useful as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

00:11:46.900 or, uh, now I, a lot of people now are just learning mixed martial arts, which is essentially

00:11:53.300 what you see in the UFC where they're a Jack of all trades, master of none.

00:11:57.500 And the argument, there's two arguments.

00:11:59.400 Like there's our, there's an argument that that is a good thing to learn.

00:12:03.260 And then there's other arguments that being a specialist first is the best thing.

00:12:07.620 And then learning the other things later in life is the best way to go about it.

00:12:11.880 Like a specialist, particularly a striker or a grappler, like being an elite wrestler

00:12:17.560 or an elite Jiu Jitsu artist, and then learning all the other stuff later in life, because

00:12:22.900 you have such a significant advantage if you can bring the fight into your realm of

00:12:26.640 expertise.

00:12:27.700 So if you are a striker, every fight starts standing up.

00:12:31.600 And if you're an elite striker and you know how to avoid takedowns and you know how to

00:12:35.320 wrestle enough to keep a guy off you, you'll have such a significant advantage striking 0.88

00:12:39.740 that you can dominate the competition.

00:12:42.020 And we've seen that in the UFC.

00:12:43.460 We've seen that with both grappling and with, uh, with striking that it seems that if you

00:12:48.480 become a specialist in one particular area and then learn those other things, you'll

00:12:53.740 be better off.

00:12:54.620 But you can't really just be a specialist, whether it's in Muay Thai or Taekwondo or Jiu Jitsu.

00:13:01.080 You really kind of have to understand if you're a grappler, you really have kind of have to

00:13:05.420 understand striking.

00:13:06.840 And if you're a striker, you really kind of have to understand grappling in order to at

00:13:11.240 least avoid it.

00:13:12.020 So, and so during this time too, I mean, you, you got to be a pretty big guy.

00:13:20.020 So when did that start happening?

00:13:21.960 Were you working out like mad while you were training as well?

00:13:25.040 Like, yeah, but I was much thinner.

00:13:26.860 I was much thinner back then.

00:13:27.960 I didn't do much weightlifting because I was trying to compete in certain weight classes.

00:13:31.500 Like when I was 17 was one, it was the, I was cutting weight when I was 17 and 18.

00:13:37.320 I was trying to make the 140 pound weight class, but I was really probably about 10 pounds

00:13:42.160 plus heavier than that.

00:13:43.400 And I would dehydrate myself and it was really affecting my performance.

00:13:47.140 And then when I was 18, I moved up to the next weight class.

00:13:50.800 That was 154, I believe it was.

00:13:53.060 And when I moved up to that weight class, I got way better.

00:13:56.340 That was when I really excelled.

00:13:58.160 That's when I became like a real national class athlete was when I moved up.

00:14:04.640 And, um, I, but I still wasn't lifting weights much.

00:14:08.240 I was just doing Taekwondo training.

00:14:10.120 It was just a lot of heavy bag work, some calisthenics, but mostly it was martial arts work.

00:14:15.860 Then when I started getting into jujitsu, it was long after I stopped competing.

00:14:19.520 That's when I started really getting into weightlifting because jujitsu, uh, involves grappling.

00:14:25.700 And I think the, the advantage to being strong and grappling is pretty significant.

00:14:31.020 It's gigantic.

00:14:31.980 And so that's when, you know, I was like 29 or so like that.

00:14:37.160 That's when I really started heavily weightlifting and, and, and, and later, how long did your

00:14:44.140 initial martial arts career last?

00:14:47.040 I fought from the time I was 15 and I think I had my last fight.

00:14:51.100 It was either I was 21 or 22.

00:14:53.140 I don't really remember those, but the last three fights were kickboxing fights.

00:14:57.040 And I had those while I was doing standup comedy.

00:15:00.720 So I was, I was, I was spreading myself too thin.

00:15:03.840 I was working a bunch of different jobs.

00:15:06.620 I was working, delivering newspapers.

00:15:08.580 I was working as a private investigator's assistant.

00:15:11.660 I did some construction.

00:15:13.320 I did a bunch of different odd jobs to make a living.

00:15:15.880 And, uh, I had decided somewhere along newspaper, delivery boy, construction agent, jujitsu fighter,

00:15:23.760 standup comedian, you know, that's kind of your typical 19 year old situation.

00:15:28.600 Yeah.

00:15:29.180 Well, jujitsu came later.

00:15:30.440 Jujitsu didn't come until I was, I think I was 28 or 29 when I first started training jujitsu.

00:15:36.100 Um, those, that was mostly just taekwondo and kickboxing.

00:15:41.160 I really got into kickboxing and I was, I had three kickboxing fights and I was entertaining

00:15:46.240 the idea of fighting professionally, but I was also starting to get really worried about

00:15:49.940 brain damage.

00:15:51.060 Uh, I started to see some signs.

00:15:53.300 From kickboxing specifically?

00:15:55.280 Yeah.

00:15:55.640 Specifically because it was, I was getting hit a lot more.

00:15:58.520 Oh yeah.

00:15:59.260 The, the kickboxing sparring that I did, I did that over the course of about two years

00:16:04.000 where I really got heavily into kickboxing.

00:16:06.060 I did a lot of boxing sparring and a lot of what you would call gym wars where guys would

00:16:11.700 just, we would beat the shit out of each other and you'd get hurt and you'd come home with 0.93

00:16:15.620 headaches and you basically were fighting in the gym.

00:16:18.880 I mean, it's not a wise way to do it.

00:16:21.720 The smart gyms now and the best martial artists, they very rarely spar hard.

00:16:27.580 They, most of the time they spar technically.

00:16:29.340 So they're, they're hitting each other, but they hit each other like this.

00:16:32.240 They don't, they don't blast each other full blast.

00:16:35.120 They sort of touch each other.

00:16:36.400 They're working on timing and occasionally you go hard just to make sure that you, you

00:16:41.340 can survive with these techniques in a firefight that you know how to deal with it once you

00:16:46.760 get hit.

00:16:47.700 But, um, we didn't spar like that.

00:16:49.760 And is the, is the lower combat intensity still useful for training for the real thing?

00:16:55.720 Yes.

00:16:56.540 It's, it's, but you have to have some high intensity and some people that high intensity,

00:17:01.500 they actually have drills that they use to, to sort of, um, to simulate actual, uh, exchanges

00:17:09.500 that you would have.

00:17:10.260 There's a lot of science to it now that didn't exist back then.

00:17:13.640 The, the gyms that I came up in were real hard nose, really, you know, tough gyms.

00:17:20.920 And if you, if you weren't tough, you did not survive and they weren't interested in anybody

00:17:26.400 that couldn't take a shot or anybody that wasn't willing to go to war.

00:17:29.680 So you would put on a mouthpiece, you'd put on a cup, you put your shin pads on and you'd 0.96

00:17:34.260 beat the fuck out of each other.

00:17:35.560 And that was a big part of, uh, learning how to fight. 0.88

00:17:39.640 It was, these sparring sessions were brutal.

00:17:41.680 They were nerve wracking.

00:17:43.240 You'd be scared.

00:17:44.360 You'd be scared going into them.

00:17:45.720 They'd be, uh, you know, I'd be anxious the night before if I knew how to spar a particular

00:17:50.220 guy the next day, cause I knew it was dangerous.

00:17:52.640 You basically were having fights all the time.

00:17:55.000 So I'd have fights several days a week.

00:17:57.780 You would fight, you know, it wasn't really sparring.

00:18:00.580 You would hit, I'd hit guys as hard as I could.

00:18:02.380 Covering a lot too, man, all the time I think from that.

00:18:06.040 So, okay, now there's a big hole in this story too.

00:18:08.680 So like you're doing great at Taekwondo, you've got your national level athlete and you switch

00:18:14.680 to kickboxing.

00:18:15.560 You're worried about getting hurt and that seems reasonable because like, how about not being

00:18:20.200 brain damaged by the time you're 30?

00:18:22.280 But then, you know, I guess kind of what I'm wondering was like, how many shots in the head 0.66

00:18:27.700 did you have to take before you thought being a standup comedian was a good idea?

00:18:32.780 Well, um, one of my dear friends to this day is a guy named Steve Graham.

00:18:37.820 And, uh, Steve was, uh, when I met him, I was 15 and he was probably 30 and he was going

00:18:49.660 through his residency as an ophthalmologist.

00:18:52.580 And, um, he had been a flight surgeon in the U S air force and just, uh, he would, he had

00:18:59.680 been on the U S ski team.

00:19:01.300 He was a national skiing champion, just a wild man.

00:19:04.860 Just a guy who took chances and lived life to the fullest and was, uh, just one of the

00:19:09.880 most hardworking people I ever met in my life.

00:19:13.200 And, uh, I would make him laugh and I would make some of the people laugh and train him

00:19:19.400 because we were always nervous.

00:19:20.800 Every, when we would go to tournaments, we were nervous because, you know, I'd seen many

00:19:24.980 of my friends get knocked unconscious at these tournaments, get kicked in the head, taken

00:19:29.260 to hospitals.

00:19:30.020 And, you know, I'd seen it in the gym too.

00:19:32.200 A lot of guys getting beat up and knocked down in the gym.

00:19:34.860 It was constant and, you know, and, you know, and it happened to me a couple of times I'd

00:19:38.480 been hurt.

00:19:39.680 And so we had this gallows humor where, um, we would go to these events.

00:19:45.560 We'd travel to these tournaments and everybody would be, the tension would be so thick.

00:19:49.660 Everybody would just take a deep breaths and trying to relax and just stay loose before

00:19:55.020 you fight.

00:19:55.540 And I would be the, I would be the class clown in that environment.

00:20:00.200 And, you know, when you were in high school or junior high, like, would you know, I didn't

00:20:05.420 have that circumstances.

00:20:08.920 Yes.

00:20:09.380 I did have a sense of humor, but it would manifest itself in cartoons.

00:20:13.400 I would draw like cartoons of the teacher.

00:20:15.460 You know, I would like draw cartoons of like certain kids that would kiss the teacher's 1.00

00:20:20.240 ass. 1.00

00:20:20.720 I would draw them like kissing the teacher's ass and saying ridiculous things. 1.00

00:20:25.020 And if the teacher was late to a class and, you know, and I knew I had enough time, I 1.00

00:20:28.960 would put something on the chalkboard and then pull down the screen so that when they

00:20:33.640 would go to use the chalkboard, the chalkboard, they would pull the screen back up and see

00:20:37.500 this ridiculous cartoon that I had drawn.

00:20:39.680 The whole class would laugh. 0.51

00:20:40.820 And then the teacher would ask who did this and luckily nobody ratted me out.

00:20:45.560 But, uh, so I, that I enjoyed making people laugh, but, uh, that was, it wasn't, it wasn't

00:20:53.540 most, it mostly wasn't things I said was mostly cartoons.

00:20:57.340 Right.

00:20:57.820 Right.

00:20:57.980 That's very different.

00:20:59.060 Yeah.

00:20:59.760 Yeah.

00:21:00.260 But with comedy, with, with, with the, the fighting, when we were getting ready to compete,

00:21:06.000 I was just trying to add some levity.

00:21:08.860 I was just trying to lighten up the mood because everybody was, and it was also, it was a charged

00:21:14.480 environment.

00:21:15.100 So anything that I said that was actually funny would get a giant reaction and that became

00:21:20.780 addictive.

00:21:21.220 And I was pretty good at doing impressions. 0.75

00:21:22.980 So I do impressions of our friends, do impressions of our instructor, all these in ridiculous

00:21:29.280 situations.

00:21:29.980 And my friend, Steve Graham, and my other friend, Ed Shorter, who's another one encouraged

00:21:35.700 me, who I lost touch with, unfortunately.

00:21:38.900 Um, he, he said, you should be a comedian.

00:21:43.920 And my take on it was, you think I'm funny because you're my friend, but other people are 1.00

00:21:50.640 going to think I'm an asshole. 1.00

00:21:51.740 Like the things that I think are funny are fucked up. 1.00

00:21:54.020 Right. 0.99

00:21:54.120 Like I have a fucked up sense of humor. 0.98

00:21:55.600 I mean, here I am devoting most of my time to trying to get really good at knocking 0.99

00:22:00.020 people unconscious.

00:22:01.380 I mean, that's what I was, that was, that's what I was trying to do.

00:22:03.820 I was trying to separate people from their consciousness.

00:22:06.080 That was, I was doing my best every day to get good at that.

00:22:10.020 So my, it's like a really perverse psychedelic drug.

00:22:13.720 Yeah, it was the worst.

00:22:15.900 Yeah.

00:22:16.520 But it was, I was trying to hurt people.

00:22:18.380 That's what I was trying to get good at.

00:22:19.660 I was trying to get good at hurting human bodies.

00:22:21.620 And I just didn't think, I thought that I was such an, such a weirdo and such an outlier

00:22:27.700 in terms of like how society viewed combat, physical, hand-to-hand combat and interactions

00:22:34.440 with each other that no one would think that the things that I was making fun of were funny.

00:22:38.480 And this guy convinced me to go to an open mic night.

00:22:41.760 He's like, you should go to an open mic night.

00:22:43.480 Just go.

00:22:44.580 There's a lot of comedy clubs in Boston.

00:22:46.240 Go and watch.

00:22:46.940 And I went and watched and I realized, wow, one of the things about going to open mic night

00:22:51.680 is most open mic comedians are so terrible that it encourages you to try it because you're

00:22:59.520 like, well, I can't be that bad.

00:23:01.540 Like I might have something that's better than some of these people.

00:23:07.120 And then, you know, you'd see a real professional go up and it would be so discouraging because

00:23:12.040 you'd say that, God, my God, I'll never be that funny.

00:23:14.740 That guy's impossibly funny.

00:23:16.940 But I knew from martial arts that if I worked really hard at something, I could get good at it.

00:23:23.180 And I had this thought that maybe I could do that with comedy because I didn't want to fight anymore.

00:23:28.520 I was already on my way kind of out the door.

00:23:32.800 I was really worried about the brain damage.

00:23:34.360 I was on my way out the door from the time I was like 19.

00:23:38.640 From the time I was 19, I was starting to worry about brain damage.

00:23:41.980 And then, so you're like, you're 53?

00:23:47.140 I'm 51.

00:23:48.480 51.

00:23:49.120 51.

00:23:49.860 And so much, how much damage did you actually sustain?

00:23:53.520 You know, like lots of people.

00:23:54.480 I don't know.

00:23:55.960 I don't know.

00:23:57.160 I mean, I seem to be okay.

00:23:58.520 How about physically, muscularly and that sort of thing?

00:24:01.520 Oh, no, I'm fine.

00:24:02.660 I had a bunch of surgeries.

00:24:04.500 I've had my nose repaired.

00:24:05.860 My nose was destroyed.

00:24:07.360 I had no nose.

00:24:09.140 The inside of my nose just didn't work until I was 40.

00:24:12.900 And then I had a deviated septum operation.

00:24:15.160 They had to cut out giant calcified chunks of scar tissue and all sorts of – literally,

00:24:21.980 my nose was useless until I was 40 years old.

00:24:25.400 So that must have been kind of a relief to have your nose.

00:24:28.220 Oh, my God.

00:24:28.980 I tell everybody, get it done.

00:24:30.780 And if you have a deviated septum and you can't breathe out of your nose, my God, this –

00:24:35.700 I couldn't do that until I was 40.

00:24:38.320 Yeah.

00:24:38.620 It was just all – I had broke my nose who knows how many times.

00:24:41.920 At least a dozen.

00:24:43.860 And it just was always bloody.

00:24:46.480 I was always getting punched or kicked in the nose.

00:24:49.540 Yeah, it doesn't seem designed as a sense organ to be in the middle of your face where you get punched.

00:24:56.220 Well, it has this little tiny piece of cartilage too.

00:24:59.220 It should be on the top of your head.

00:25:00.780 It's delicate.

00:25:01.180 You know, it would be a lot safer out there.

00:25:03.640 Yeah.

00:25:04.000 Like a whale.

00:25:05.800 It also makes your eyes swell shut.

00:25:08.440 It makes your eyes water.

00:25:09.700 It makes it difficult to see when you get hit in the nose.

00:25:12.000 The hit in the nose is really annoying.

00:25:14.540 But other than that, I had both my knees reconstructed.

00:25:17.520 I had ACL tears in both knees.

00:25:19.740 I had to get them reconstructed and, you know, a bunch of other stuff.

00:25:24.260 Oh, yeah.

00:25:24.500 So you took your –

00:25:25.420 A bunch of other broken things.

00:25:27.320 You broke yourself up pretty good.

00:25:28.960 Feet, yeah, broken knuckles.

00:25:31.640 And I broke a lot of stuff.

00:25:33.600 But everything works great now.

00:25:36.040 I mean, after surgery.

00:25:37.600 And, I mean, for a person who's been through what I do, what I've done with my body, my body works remarkably well.

00:25:43.960 Yeah, it's amazing, actually.

00:25:45.420 You know, that's a lot.

00:25:46.240 You think you'd be arthritic, at least, in some of your joints and that sort of thing.

00:25:51.500 No, I'm pretty good.

00:25:53.060 I mean, I also am very proactive.

00:25:55.400 I do a lot of yoga.

00:25:56.380 I've had a bunch of stem cell therapies to deal with some significant tears and injuries that I've had.

00:26:03.220 But all that, you know, knock on wood, everything works pretty good.

00:26:06.040 But the brain damage thing is I don't know.

00:26:08.820 I really don't know.

00:26:09.920 I really sit back and think about some of those wars that I was in, the gym wars in particular, and some fights.

00:26:16.160 And my last fight, I got TKO'd.

00:26:18.120 I got stopped.

00:26:19.220 I got hit with a left hook and dropped.

00:26:21.340 And my legs went out from under me.

00:26:23.100 And then I got up and I got hit again and fell down again.

00:26:25.460 They stopped the fight.

00:26:26.980 And that was when I decided I'm going to stop.

00:26:30.440 I was like, I'm not giving this the same amount of dedication I gave when I was at my best.

00:26:35.400 I was spreading myself way too thin with comedy.

00:26:38.040 And I just didn't have this same hunger for it that I had when I was young or younger.

00:26:44.660 And I was also very aware of the consequences at that point in my life.

00:26:48.380 I was like, I know where this is going.

00:26:50.140 I saw guys at the gym that were punch drunk, you know, that were slurring their words and they would forget things.

00:26:58.380 And I had seen some people progress towards that.

00:27:02.020 And it was very, very disturbing to me.

00:27:04.520 You know, I'd be lying in bed at night after a hard sparring session.

00:27:07.340 My head would be pounding. 0.99

00:27:08.840 And I would think, what am I doing to my fucking brain? 0.99

00:27:11.400 Like, what am I doing to myself? 0.99

00:27:13.400 And I got real lucky that I found stand-up comedy.

00:27:17.340 I mean, if the UFC was around back then, I most certainly would have started fighting.

00:27:22.200 And, you know, to not be training intelligently, because I wasn't training intelligently.

00:27:27.980 I was training like a meathead.

00:27:29.540 And that was just all we knew back then.

00:27:31.780 I probably would have sustained some pretty significant damage before I ever even got into the octagon.

00:27:36.920 I probably would have already had massive brain damage before I ever had a fight.

00:27:42.400 Right, right.

00:27:43.180 So, well, that's good.

00:27:44.460 So, you stepped out at an intelligent time.

00:27:47.460 And so, then you started your comedy career.

00:27:49.900 And you started at Open Mics.

00:27:52.040 And so, tell me about how that developed.

00:27:54.760 Well, Open Mics Nights are very interesting.

00:27:58.200 You sign up on a list, and you may or may not get on.

00:28:01.060 They pick people out of a hat.

00:28:03.420 Like, say, if there's 50 people signing up, 30 people get on.

00:28:06.460 And, you know, you each do five minutes.

00:28:09.080 And, you know, the host is generally a professional comedian that brings people up.

00:28:14.880 And, you know, you have this weird culture of people that are struggling to try to figure out how to make a living in this sort of undefined art form.

00:28:24.760 There's no classes you can take in it that are really worth anything.

00:28:27.660 There's no books that you can buy that are going to teach you anything.

00:28:30.480 It's something that you kind of have to learn.

00:28:32.600 The only thing that I liken to is rap music.

00:28:35.680 Because rap music seems to be very similar in the fact that you have to learn from other practitioners.

00:28:40.540 You don't really learn from books.

00:28:42.920 You don't.

00:28:43.160 There's no, like, I mean, maybe there is now.

00:28:45.520 I don't know of any, like, real legitimate university courses on stand-up comedy.

00:28:50.420 I don't think they could teach it to you anyway because everyone does it differently.

00:28:54.560 But I think that's the case with rap music as well.

00:28:56.480 I think you kind of have to learn from the people that are already doing it.

00:28:59.000 And one good thing about stand-up comedy, particularly today, today it's much more open and inviting.

00:29:06.360 And comedians have a lot more camaraderie than they did in the beginning because they're not fighting over scraps anymore.

00:29:12.380 Now there's so many venues, so many different places to work.

00:29:15.300 And then there's YouTube and the internet.

00:29:18.620 And comedians, there's much more of a supportive community of people trying to help people.

00:29:23.980 And I try to really concentrate on that.

00:29:26.840 I spend a lot of time trying to help young comics.

00:29:29.660 I put a lot of young comics on my shows.

00:29:32.180 I have them host.

00:29:34.060 You know, I've got a show tonight, and a young comic's only been doing it for a few years.

00:29:38.720 Her name's Allie Makovsky.

00:29:40.280 She's the host of it. 0.79

00:29:41.060 She's really funny.

00:29:42.120 And I try to encourage them.

00:29:43.860 I try to help them.

00:29:44.600 I try to give them advice.

00:29:45.580 I try to give them pointers.

00:29:46.900 I try to, when they have great sets, I try to, you know, really thank them and say that was excellent and you got this.

00:29:53.220 Just keep doing what you're doing, and you can really make a career doing this.

00:29:56.900 Because it's such an insecure business.

00:29:59.240 It's just so, it's such a weird, undefined path that you have to take.

00:30:04.040 And I love the art form.

00:30:06.840 I love it as a consumer.

00:30:08.500 I love it as a person who's an audience member.

00:30:10.740 I really still, to this day, enjoy watching stand-up.

00:30:14.600 But back then, it wasn't that supportive.

00:30:16.840 You know, we would just support each other, but the professionals weren't that supportive.

00:30:21.440 Not like they are today.

00:30:23.320 A few people, there's a guy named Lenny Clark that I'm still good friends with to this day.

00:30:27.400 And I opened up for him.

00:30:28.700 He was a Boston legend.

00:30:30.080 And I was super fortunate to open up for him when I had been doing comedy for about a year.

00:30:35.780 And he gave me some great advice.

00:30:37.400 And that meant the world to me.

00:30:39.440 And he was actually on my podcast just last month.

00:30:41.900 I love that guy.

00:30:43.140 And, you know, he helped me out when I was really, really, I was 21.

00:30:46.960 I was really, really young in my comedy career.

00:30:48.920 And so you started putting the same amount of dedication into that that you had been putting into the martial arts.

00:30:55.040 Exactly.

00:30:55.700 Yeah, I just became obsessed with it.

00:30:57.780 And I just traveled all over the place doing open mic nights.

00:31:01.680 I mean, me and my good friend, Greg Fitzsimmons, we started out together.

00:31:05.000 We're good friends to this day.

00:31:06.420 We started out within a week of each other.

00:31:08.380 And we used to travel all the way to Rhode Island.

00:31:11.740 We would drive, you know, an hour plus drive to go down there just to do five minutes.

00:31:17.800 And then we were at an open mic night for free.

00:31:20.400 And then we'd drive all the way home and just dream about one day being a professional.

00:31:24.660 That was the dream.

00:31:25.780 The dream was to pay your bills by doing comedy.

00:31:29.920 Imagine if that you could do comedy for a living.

00:31:33.660 Like, that was the dream.

00:31:35.180 I would never imagine that I'm doing what I'm doing now or I'm doing these sold-out arenas.

00:31:39.980 Like, that wasn't even a hope.

00:31:43.220 It wasn't even like, maybe if it goes well, I could do this.

00:31:48.100 Maybe I could do that.

00:31:49.220 That was never on the menu.

00:31:51.740 And, you know, it's gotten to this really crazy astronomical place now that it's very hard for me to even imagine that that came out of those strange days in Boston.

00:32:05.000 And just traveling around all these different weird comedy clubs and writing constantly and not knowing how to write, not knowing how to formulate a joke, having, like, many more misses than hits.

00:32:16.480 You know, a lot of bombing.

00:32:17.660 I bombed all the time.

00:32:19.360 I was humiliated on stage.

00:32:21.160 Well, man, you know, you've got to have that ability to bomb and come back from it.

00:32:27.480 I mean, because you're going to have a lot more misses than hits, that's for sure.

00:32:33.660 A lot more.

00:32:35.240 Yeah.

00:32:35.760 Especially in the early days.

00:32:37.060 What do you think accounts for that obsessiveness that you described?

00:32:40.860 I mean, that's a negative way of putting it.

00:32:42.480 I mean, obviously, you said that, you know, when you were in school, if you weren't interested, you weren't listening at all.

00:32:47.620 But if you were interested in something, you were, like, laser focused.

00:32:51.160 And that really came up in the martial arts.

00:32:53.540 But it obviously manifested itself in the stand-up comedy, too.

00:32:57.680 So what is it about you that enables you?

00:33:01.020 What do you think it is about you that enables you to zero in on something like that to the exclusion of everything else?

00:33:08.260 I don't know.

00:33:09.260 I mean, I think some of it has to be attributed to the unhappiness in my childhood.

00:33:14.080 That when I would find something that I did get some joy out of, I would just concentrate all in on that.

00:33:21.900 I think some of it also was, like, I wasn't really raised with a lot of discipline.

00:33:27.040 And I wasn't really raised with a – my parents were both – my stepdad and my mom were both working all the time.

00:33:35.320 And so they didn't – they weren't really around to sort of tell me what to do or how to live.

00:33:40.460 And they weren't really around to let me know that everything was going to be okay.

00:33:44.440 They were always working.

00:33:46.220 So they would come home from work at, like, 6 o'clock or something like that.

00:33:49.520 And, you know, I'd been on my own all day.

00:33:53.040 Me and my sister had been on our own all day.

00:33:55.300 You know, we'd come home, we had a key, we got into the house.

00:33:58.320 And it was when I – there was a lot of real bad feelings, you know, like – and when I found something that made me feel good, I just did that exclusively.

00:34:11.940 That's all I did.

00:34:12.780 And I still have that problem to this day.

00:34:16.040 When I get obsessed with something, if I find something that means something to me, I think of it all day long.

00:34:26.080 If I get obsessed with something, it becomes like a mantra that's in the back of my head.

00:34:32.700 And I have to shut it off.

00:34:36.760 Like, I have to do my best to shut it off.

00:34:38.880 Otherwise, I can't listen to people.

00:34:40.180 I don't – like, when people are talking to me, I don't want to talk to them.

00:34:44.020 I want to go do that thing that I want to do.

00:34:45.760 Right, right.

00:34:46.340 You know, and it becomes like a compulsion.

00:34:49.440 And it could be socially negative, you know.

00:34:51.180 It could be detrimental to relationships and friendships.

00:34:54.620 Yeah.

00:34:55.280 Yeah, but it seems like that sort of thing is also absolutely necessary if you're going to develop high-level skill at something difficult and unlikely.

00:35:05.020 Because unless you're obsessive about it and practice it, like, all the time, the people you're competing with are going to take you out.

00:35:14.500 So, the funny thing –

00:35:15.820 Well, I would always be terrified that I would run into someone like me.

00:35:20.960 Well, I can understand that.

00:35:22.500 But that was the fear that I would run into someone who is 100% all-in.

00:35:29.340 And when I was fighting and when I lost my last kickboxing fight, I wasn't all-in.

00:35:34.540 And I knew I wasn't all-in.

00:35:36.140 And I knew I wasn't the same person I was when I was, like, 18, 19. 0.94

00:35:40.600 I was a psychopath.

00:35:43.220 I mean, I was 100% committed to doing nothing but that.

00:35:47.560 And then, as I was examining my future prospects in my life and I started to become more aware of the problems of what I was doing, I became less and less.

00:35:58.540 I had one fight that I had in California, in Anaheim, in the U.S. Nationals in 1980.

00:36:07.080 It must have been my –

00:36:09.600 It seems like it had to have been 86, 86 or 87, somewhere around there, 87, somewhere around 87.

00:36:21.140 I knocked this guy out with a head kick in front of his pants. 1.00

00:36:27.500 And it was –

00:36:29.200 Everybody was –

00:36:29.800 People were crying and he was unconscious for a long time.

00:36:33.040 He was unconscious for a solid half hour.

00:36:35.080 And they dragged him off of the mat.

00:36:40.220 They put him in a stretcher.

00:36:41.540 They took him to the hospital.

00:36:43.340 I never saw him regain consciousness.

00:36:45.780 And I remember thinking, that could have easily been me.

00:36:49.680 Like, I didn't have any illusions of me being some impervious, invulnerable person.

00:36:55.880 And I was really thinking about how –

00:36:57.820 I hit him so hard my heel was hurting the next day.

00:37:01.180 I was walking with a limp from his head because I wheel kicked him in the head.

00:37:06.260 It's a particularly brutal move where you spin and your whole leg comes around.

00:37:11.700 You're hitting someone in the head with your heel.

00:37:13.960 And he felt like he had gotten shot.

00:37:16.280 Just fell face first, out cold, snoring.

00:37:20.420 It wasn't the first time that I'd done that to someone.

00:37:22.840 But it was one of the most brutal because he kind of ran into it too.

00:37:27.580 He was trying to kick me as I was kicking him.

00:37:29.580 So it was the force of his body coming towards me and me hitting him.

00:37:33.140 And I was thinking, that guy's probably never going to be the same again.

00:37:36.460 Like, he's never going to get over it psychologically.

00:37:38.400 Or if he does, it's going to be very hard for him.

00:37:41.820 But he might be damaged for the rest of his life.

00:37:46.660 That's a real possibility.

00:37:48.320 And then I started thinking, am I willing to have that happen to me at 19?

00:37:53.280 I was 19 years old.

00:37:54.540 I was like, is this what you want to do?

00:37:56.120 Do you want to get hit in the head like that and never be the same again at 19?

00:37:59.860 Because it easily can happen.

00:38:01.600 You know?

00:38:02.040 Yeah, that's 60 years to live like that.

00:38:05.600 Yeah.

00:38:06.020 We were at a – this was a national championship tournament.

00:38:09.140 So he was a state championship, I think, from Illinois.

00:38:11.720 And I was a state champion from Massachusetts.

00:38:14.500 And, you know, it wasn't like – he was a black belt.

00:38:17.520 I mean, it wasn't like he was an unskilled guy.

00:38:20.320 So the fact that I was able to do that to him and I was able to do that to a bunch of other guys,

00:38:25.160 I knew that someone out there could do that to me.

00:38:27.780 Right.

00:38:28.020 I knew that I wasn't the best in the world.

00:38:30.940 And I knew that even though I was a top – I was, you know, I was a real national level competitor.

00:38:37.720 I wasn't world class.

00:38:39.200 I wasn't the best, especially at 19.

00:38:42.720 And so that doubt – that doubt stuck with me for the next couple of years.

00:38:48.500 And it was – it was probably the first seed of my new future was me hurting that guy

00:38:54.940 and thinking about what that was going to be like if that happened to me.

00:38:59.800 Yeah, well, that's a hell of a right turn you took there to go into comedy.

00:39:03.960 So, okay, so how – now, you became successful as a comedian.

00:39:07.740 So, you started playing in little clubs like stand-up comedians did.

00:39:13.760 And, like, how did you get your breaks?

00:39:16.620 How did your career develop?

00:39:19.020 Well, it took a few years for me to get competent.

00:39:23.920 You know, it took like two or three years for me to get competent.

00:39:26.320 And then three years in, I got extremely fortunate again where I met my manager,

00:39:33.180 my manager who's my manager to this day.

00:39:35.220 He basically picked me up when I was an open mic comedian.

00:39:38.440 I mean, I was getting a few paid gigs here and there, but I was really an amateur.

00:39:43.680 And he found me.

00:39:45.940 He was looking for new talent.

00:39:47.480 He came up from New York.

00:39:49.080 He is – he was, like, you know, a really well-respected and well-recognized manager.

00:39:54.360 Still is, of course.

00:39:56.000 His name is Jeff Sussman. 0.99

00:39:57.200 And we've been together for – shit, now it must be 28 years. 0.98

00:40:01.980 Yeah, we've been together since – really, since I was an amateur. 0.99

00:40:07.460 And he –

00:40:08.160 That's a successful collaboration to span that amount of time.

00:40:12.860 Not many changes.

00:40:15.680 Yeah.

00:40:17.040 Yeah, we've been together forever.

00:40:18.620 We've been together forever.

00:40:19.460 We don't even have a contract anymore.

00:40:21.340 Hmm.

00:40:22.200 We haven't had a contract, I think, for, like, 10 years.

00:40:24.640 So, during all this time – this is just, like, a bit of a side question here – but

00:40:29.440 do you ever have any time at all to pursue relationships with women?

00:40:34.200 Oh, yeah.

00:40:35.020 Well, you do comedy.

00:40:36.140 You know, you're in clubs at night.

00:40:37.920 Yeah, yeah.

00:40:38.120 You know, you have most of your day to do whatever you want.

00:40:40.260 But, you know, to just – when I was just a stand-up comedian, I had a lot of free time.

00:40:45.840 You know, I mean, you're writing jokes, but you can only do that a couple hours a day,

00:40:49.700 or you get bored, and then it's not effective.

00:40:52.440 And then you're just kind of living your life and hanging out.

00:40:54.500 And sometimes the best way to develop your comedy is to have good social interactions.

00:40:59.160 It's actually kind of important when you're an aspiring comedian to be in a lot of social

00:41:04.940 situations, because you are around people, you hear people say things, and then you think

00:41:11.340 what they say is silly, or what they say is, you know, you disagree or you agree.

00:41:16.100 You see perspectives and points of view, and you kind of – you develop, you know, an understanding

00:41:24.240 of how human beings behave.

00:41:26.080 It's kind of very important.

00:41:27.420 So, yeah, I was around a lot of different girls and a lot of guys and just being out.

00:41:34.940 And you're always at comedy clubs and nightclubs, but I didn't go out other than that.

00:41:42.220 You know, if I wasn't at a comedy club at night, I probably wasn't out.

00:41:46.980 You know, it was always – the same thing with, like, my obsession with fighting.

00:41:51.800 And fighting came way easier for me than stand-up did.

00:41:55.560 Stand-up was way harder for me.

00:41:58.260 It was way harder.

00:41:59.460 It was way harder to achieve confidence.

00:42:01.860 What was harder about it?

00:42:02.800 Well, you said it took you two or three years to get competent.

00:42:05.540 So, that was a lot of falling flat on your face, I presume.

00:42:08.380 Yeah.

00:42:09.260 And even then, even, like, three years in, I still could bomb at any moment.

00:42:14.380 I mean, I could have a bad set.

00:42:16.400 I didn't know how to do it.

00:42:17.420 But also, I was socially awkward.

00:42:19.960 I think it took me a while to not be so socially awkward.

00:42:25.960 You know, that was an issue.

00:42:28.180 And, you know, a lot of it was from my upbringing, but a lot of it was also – I kind of cultivated that when I was fighting.

00:42:37.240 I didn't want people to like me.

00:42:39.380 I didn't care.

00:42:40.740 Like, I didn't need them to like me.

00:42:43.300 All I needed them to do – I mean, I kind of wanted them to be scared of me.

00:42:47.280 You know?

00:42:47.840 So, when I was fighting, I wasn't trying to make friends out there at all. 0.96

00:42:52.060 I was just trying to fuck people up. 0.73

00:42:55.280 So, when you were fighting, when you were fighting, did you have any relationships with women? 0.98

00:43:00.340 Or were you pretty much –

00:43:01.540 Not good ones.

00:43:02.460 Not good ones?

00:43:03.860 No.

00:43:04.080 No.

00:43:04.640 I didn't – I wouldn't allow them to do – I wouldn't allow them to have much of my time.

00:43:10.560 You know, I didn't – I didn't – I think to have a successful relationship, you have to spend a lot of time together.

00:43:20.160 You have to communicate.

00:43:21.120 You have to – the person has to almost be first place in your life.

00:43:25.040 Yeah.

00:43:25.400 And that was never happening.

00:43:28.100 And so, that was – that would come up very often.

00:43:30.640 Like, I was a girl that I was dating in high school.

00:43:33.180 And, you know, I used to teach at the school, so I had keys to the school.

00:43:36.920 So, one time, I took her up there because I needed to get a workout in. 1.00

00:43:41.800 And she wanted to have sex at the gym. 0.98

00:43:44.780 And I was like, there's no way. 0.98

00:43:46.400 I wouldn't do it.

00:43:47.300 I was like, this place is sacred.

00:43:48.900 Like, there's no chance.

00:43:49.860 Like, she was trying to fool around.

00:43:51.480 And I was – and I was adamant.

00:43:53.060 I was like, this is never happening.

00:43:54.900 Like, this might as well be a church to me.

00:43:58.140 I was like, it's not happening.

00:43:59.160 And, you know, I was so horny when I was 17 years old.

00:44:02.380 For me, at 17 or 18, to say no to sex was crazy.

00:44:06.460 Right, right.

00:44:07.040 That's a crazy story.

00:44:08.400 I think we're going to clip that and put it in a little clip that says,

00:44:12.520 Joe Rogan tells a story that no sane man would believe.

00:44:16.820 Well, you know, I was – that was the first refuge that I had from my life of despair.

00:44:23.040 So, for me, I wasn't going to screw that up.

00:44:24.600 Right, right, right.

00:44:25.680 And I felt like disrespecting the academy like that.

00:44:29.940 Yeah, well, they had been treated you like an adult.

00:44:31.840 So, that's something –

00:44:32.900 Yes.

00:44:33.360 That's something when you're a teenager, you know, like to actually be treated that way.

00:44:37.060 It's a good thing not to mess with if you're fortunate enough to have it.

00:44:41.040 Well, I wouldn't even walk onto the training floor by myself with no one around without bowing.

00:44:47.820 Uh-huh.

00:44:49.100 I mean, there was no one there.

00:44:51.020 But I would never leave the common area and step onto the training floor without bowing first.

00:44:57.420 Right.

00:44:57.880 Never.

00:44:58.560 Never.

00:45:00.120 Never.

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00:47:45.180 Okay, so when you're in comedy now, you said you were all in as a fighter, and you figure you went all in as a comedian too, and did you do that right from the beginning?

00:47:58.040 Yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah, right away, as soon as I realized that I could actually do this.

00:48:03.760 And as soon as I realized, I decided, I mean, my first set that I ever did, I had a bunch of my friends come down and watch me, and I wasn't good.

00:48:09.820 The first time I ever got on stage, but I got a couple of little chuckles and laughs, and then I realized this might be possible.

00:48:17.880 I might be able to do this, and then I became obsessed with figuring out how to do it, because it was, I saw it as a path.

00:48:25.000 Like, okay, this is a thing.

00:48:26.480 Like, this is a thing you could do that you actually love.

00:48:29.460 Like, I was a huge fan of the art form.

00:48:31.820 I loved watching it.

00:48:33.460 Ever since my parents took me to the movies when I was like 14 or 15.

00:48:37.420 We saw it live on the Sunset Strip.

00:48:39.420 It was a Richard Pryor movie in the theater where he did stand-up, and I had never seen that before.

00:48:45.820 And I remember thinking, how crazy is it that this guy can just talk?

00:48:49.820 And it's so funny.

00:48:51.340 I was falling out of my chair laughing, and I was looking around.

00:48:54.060 I remember looking around while the movie was playing at all these people in their chairs just rocking back and forth and laughing so hard.

00:49:02.600 Yeah, it's really something to see.

00:49:04.720 I saw Bill Cosby.

00:49:05.560 Especially when you're a young teenager.

00:49:06.940 Like, 16?

00:49:09.800 I know you shouldn't talk about Bill Cosby, but I saw him live.

00:49:13.580 I saw him live, too, when I was a security guard.

00:49:16.320 Oh, yeah?

00:49:16.680 I saw him live.

00:49:17.460 Yeah, I was a security guard at Great Woods.

00:49:20.300 I saw Kinnison there when I was a security guard.

00:49:22.740 I saw Rodney Dangerfield there.

00:49:24.900 Yeah, I saw quite a few people there.

00:49:26.760 Yeah, well, it was something to see him sit on his stool with his cigar and get the whole audience, like, literally hysterical.

00:49:33.220 I mean, the guy in front of me was rocking back and forth so hard he could hardly breathe.

00:49:38.080 His wife kept elbowing him to get him to kind of turn back into something vaguely resembling a human being.

00:49:44.460 But it was really amazing to see someone with that much command of the audience and so consistently, unbelievably funny.

00:49:52.740 He's the most tragic story in all of show business.

00:49:58.020 Man, it's a catastrophe.

00:50:00.100 Next to Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson.

00:50:02.500 I mean, those are the three most tragic stories in show business, in my mind.

00:50:07.080 Yeah. 0.98

00:50:07.300 And, you know, he's a monster. 0.99

00:50:09.280 It's crazy. 0.99

00:50:10.160 Yeah.

00:50:10.400 This is a brilliant comedian. 0.98

00:50:11.920 What the hell? 0.70

00:50:12.820 You know, the thing that's so strange about Cosby, you'd think, well, like, was this really necessary? 0.82

00:50:18.300 Like, man, the guy was famous in 15 different directions and really well respected. 0.95

00:50:23.960 You wouldn't have think he would have had to date rape his women. 0.74

00:50:26.660 You know, it's just. 0.98

00:50:27.840 Well, yeah. 1.00

00:50:28.660 I mean, he could have just had prostitutes. 0.99

00:50:31.620 I mean, if he really just needed sex, I don't think that's what it was. 1.00

00:50:35.660 I think there was a sick perversion. 0.97

00:50:38.320 And I think he liked to do that to people.

00:50:40.760 He liked to trick them.

00:50:41.720 I mean, I'm just guessing.

00:50:42.900 Right.

00:50:43.160 It has to be something like that because it's so it's so counterproductive and so psychotic.

00:50:50.060 It's psychotic.

00:50:51.400 I mean, I don't understand it.

00:50:52.740 You know, I've tried to I've tried to sort of imagine what it must have been like to be around in the 50s and the 60s.

00:50:59.740 I think people did that to each other way more often than we'd like to admit.

00:51:04.920 And I think that it was more casual than we would think of today where people would slip someone a Mickey or, you know, I mean, he even had a bit that he did back in way back in the day about giving someone Spanish fly that you give someone something that would make them horny.

00:51:20.040 I think he I think he was probably a guy that had an incredibly inflated opinion of himself.

00:51:26.520 Didn't want anybody to ever reject him experience that a few times.

00:51:31.120 Again, this is pure speculation and just decided that he was better than people, that he could just drug them.

00:51:36.380 It's so strange, though, because his comedy was basically so like it was generally family oriented.

00:51:41.760 It was, you know, and he put himself forward as a role model and he was credible, like he was credible as an actor, as a role model.

00:51:49.380 And he seemed credible as a spokesperson is kind of kind of makes me think, you know, there's this idea that the psychoanalysts have this guy named Eric Neumann, who is a student of Carl Jung's.

00:52:01.620 And one of the things that Neumann said, he wrote a book called Depth Psychology and the New Ethic right after World War II.

00:52:07.780 And it's a it's a great book, a little thin book, but it's a great book.

00:52:11.920 One of the things he says in that book is don't be better than you are. 0.87

00:52:16.920 And what he meant was he didn't mean don't improve like that would be foolish.

00:52:23.080 He meant beware of adopting a persona that makes you a far better person than you actually are, because all of that part of you that you're not admitting to, that's going to go off and have its own life because you're not integrating it.

00:52:42.260 You know, you're suppressing it in some way and you're not. And so it's a living thing, you know, that.

00:52:48.900 Well, like the aggression you had when you were a fighter, that's a big, deep part of you.

00:52:52.800 You know, you can't just push something like that aside and pretend that it's not there and think that it's not going to go off and have some fun when you're not paying attention.

00:53:02.120 Yeah.

00:53:02.360 To me, like something like that must have got him is that he was he was split between this really good guy that he was trying to be, which was like too good.

00:53:11.200 And, and, and this, this like more monstrous side of his personality that he obviously never integrated or perhaps never even admitted to.

00:53:22.800 It's really a hell of a story, man. It's like, and it really is a catastrophe.

00:53:27.020 I think it was an absolute bloody catastrophe for his victims, obviously.

00:53:31.620 And, but just as a general cultural phenomenon is so awful.

00:53:36.160 Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And it, you, you know, they say you should separate the man from the art, but in his case, it's almost impossible to do because his art was his perception of life.

00:53:48.600 So like when you're watching him, it's not like a painter or even someone who makes a movie.

00:53:54.320 It's like when you're watching him, you're watching him now.

00:53:57.920 And all you can think of as he's talking about these different things and about, I told my children, well, he's like, he's doing this lovable dad voice.

00:54:07.640 Yeah. 0.98

00:54:08.020 All you can think of is that guy rapes people. 0.99

00:54:10.640 Yeah. 1.00

00:54:10.960 Drugs them and rapes them. 1.00

00:54:12.500 Yeah. 0.99

00:54:12.760 I can't enjoy it anymore. And he's unquestionably as, as far as like his skill, he was one of the greatest of all time.

00:54:21.920 Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you got, you got a manager and you got a good one and what happened?

00:54:27.920 Yeah. I moved to New York. And then once I moved to New York, I started doing a ton of standup comedy.

00:54:36.160 Uh, I was traveling all over the place and I got better and better and I kept working on it, working on it and just doing a lot of gigs and just going all over the place.

00:54:46.480 And, and then, um,

00:54:48.000 How old were you by the time you were like paying your bills?

00:54:54.020 Cause that was your first marker for success.

00:54:56.320 Probably like 26, 25, 26 was when it all started coming together.

00:55:03.320 Oh yeah. So that's not too bad.

00:55:04.620 Yeah. I mean, I wasn't making a lot of money. I was making enough money to eat and pay my rent. Um, and then, um, somewhere around then I did a thing called the MTV half hour comedy hour.

00:55:18.280 That was a, uh, uh, it was a television show they had on MTV and each comedian. I mean, I don't know how much time I did on the show.

00:55:26.020 I think you do like seven to 10 minutes or something like that. Wasn't a lot of time.

00:55:30.680 And I had a set and I did it on television. It went really well. And then, uh, next thing, you know, I got all these offers to do television shows.

00:55:41.080 I got development deal offers. And then before you know it, I'm living in California. It was like that. I mean, within a year I was living in California and I was on a sitcom and, uh, and then that sitcom got canceled.

00:55:55.020 And, uh, I thought I was going to move back to New York. It was called a hard ball. It was a baseball show on Fox. It was a sitcom about a baseball team.

00:56:04.820 Um, that show got canceled. And then, uh, I got a development deal with NBC. I was going to move back to New York, but I had signed a lease, uh, for my apartment. I hated LA. I hated actors. I didn't like it. I didn't. It was so, it was so disingenuous.

00:56:21.240 The worlds that I had come from were the worlds of standup comedy, which is about as real as you can get. Either you're funny or you're not. And then the world of fighting, which was even more real than that.

00:56:31.760 Um, and then all of a sudden I was around all these people that were just full of shit and weird. And it was the, they were put on these personas and they wanted the casting agents to like them and the producers to like them and everything was fake and everybody knew it was fake, but they all accepted it. 0.97

00:56:49.120 And they talked fake and they, and it was, it was very, very strange, very hard for me to deal with. I really didn't like actors. I didn't like being, and the only place that I sought refuge.

00:56:58.700 It's a funny thing that there'd be an automatic assumption that because you were a good standup comedian, that somehow you'd be an actor to be the same thing.

00:57:10.400 No, they're not. But the thing is that a lot of comedians had gone on to be super successful in the world of sitcoms, like Roseanne Barr, Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, those types of people.

00:57:23.800 They'd had these huge careers, Brett Butler. So because of that, all that was happening at the same time. This was like in 94 ish when I got on TV for the first time.

00:57:32.800 Um, and they, that was what they were pushing. And then agents and managers would push that too, because obviously you can make a tremendous amount of money.

00:57:40.060 So, uh, that show got canceled, but I had a lease for this apartment. So I was kind of stuck in LA. So I was like, all right, let me just stay out here and, uh, see what happens for a year.

00:57:51.080 That was my thought. And then, um, I got a development deal with NBC. They wanted to do a sitcom with me. And then I wound up auditioning for a show that they had already had called news radio.

00:58:01.940 And that was with Dave Foley and Phil Hartman and Maura Tierney and Candy Alexander and Steven Root and Andy Dick and, uh, Vicky Lewis. And we did that show for five years.

00:58:13.320 And then, um, you know, by that time, uh, I had done a lot of standup at the comedy store. When that show was canceled, Fear Factor came along and I was touring as a comedian.

00:58:25.000 Now that's a whole switch there. Okay. So now you go from sitcoms to Fear Factor. So how the hell did that happen?

00:58:33.140 NBC came up to me with the idea because I was on NBC previously and they liked me. And then part of the thing was that I didn't want to work with actors anymore. I was, I was happy that Fear Factor was no actors. And I was like, oh, good. This is easier to do. Um, it's just me talking to people.

00:58:51.260 And since I had a background in coaching, cause I had coached a lot of people at tournaments, uh, in competition. And I taught a lot at Boston university. I taught at my own school. Um, I, you know, with Taekwondo, I was used to teaching people and I was used to encouraging people and, and getting people motivated. And I knew how to, I knew how to get fired up for competition. I understood.

00:59:14.940 So you were actually, you were actually one of the rare people in the world who was actually trained to be the right host for Fear Factor.

00:59:23.280 Yeah. In a lot of ways. Luckily, fortuitously, because I, I, like I would, when someone was nervous and they're about to do something, I could grab them and go, look at me. You could do this.

00:59:33.580 This is going to define you. If you back off right now and you get scared and you give into your fears and your anxieties, this is going to define you. Or if you just press forward and realize you can do this and succeed, it will define you in a positive way. And you'll build momentum in that direction. You can do this.

00:59:51.640 And I would, I was really good at giving people pep talks. I was really good at firing people up. And it was part of the gig that it was like, it was a completely unexpected because I thought the gig was just going to be, these people do these crazy things. And, you know, I make fun of it, which is part of my job. And I, you know, we all cheer and, and it would all play itself out because it was a reality show.

01:00:14.600 It was sort of a game show slash reality show. It was like a hybrid, but somewhere along the line, especially when they became really nervous, it, it, it was very intense. And there was moments where I really, I wanted these people to win. You know, I wanted these people to do their best. I wanted these people to succeed, you know, and to be able to encourage someone.

01:00:39.680 Treating man. And, you know, from, yeah, that's the basis of psychotherapy. So, you know, it's really something to get people to face their fears. I mean, you were doing it in a very.

01:00:53.240 Idiosyncratic way. Very, very. What unique way. But yeah, imagine it was psychologically compelling very often. Got any particular, got any particular stories from that time. You got a good story from fear factor.

01:01:08.120 There was one time where there was this couple, not couple, a family. It was a father and a son competing against a mother and the daughter. And the father and the son were kind of jerks, which was part of the competition.

01:01:23.520 There was a lot of trash talking, but they were really cocky and they thought that they were going to win, you know, and it was, you know, they had this parent and child teams had gotten down to two. 0.99

01:01:38.260 And it was the man and his son versus the woman and her daughter. And everybody thought these jerks were going to win and we were kind of bummed out about it. 0.99

01:01:51.300 But the, the women, the woman and her child, you know, they just rose to the occasion. And I mean, I remember talking to them and firing them up, but I still, I didn't know if they could do it. 0.99

01:02:06.220 What was the challenge?

01:02:07.880 It was some crazy thing that they had to climb and do this thing. And the, the, I don't really remember all of it. Like they had to gather flags. It was all for time.

01:02:18.200 But the son, the kind of jerky son, the jerky dad, they kept screwing up and they, they, they fucked up because you know, they, they'd kind of taken it for granted that they were going to win. 0.99

01:02:29.900 And when the pressure hit them and they knew it was all on the line, a lot of times jerks are just insecure. 0.99

01:02:36.560 And when they're under pressure, when they're really faced with real pressure, like this is the real moment. Who are you really? Fuck all that talk. 0.96

01:02:44.380 Who are you really? They fall apart. And the mother and the daughter won. 1.00

01:02:54.100 And you're talking about a hardened crew of people that had watched people eat animal dicks and jump out of helicopters for season after season, episode after episode.

01:03:03.860 You know, we did a hundred and something shows, a hundred. I don't even remember how many shows, probably 140 episodes of that show.

01:03:15.660 Everybody cried.

01:03:18.420 The camera people, like I'll cry now if I'm thinking about it.

01:03:23.000 When the mother and the daughter was. 0.51

01:03:24.900 So what was it that was so affecting?

01:03:27.220 They were so happy.

01:03:27.900 I mean, there's a justice component to it, right?

01:03:31.060 There's a comeuppance.

01:03:32.020 It was a comeuppance.

01:03:34.140 It was an underdog.

01:03:35.980 It was just seeing their spirit, you know, when they were figuring out a way to win, watching them win to this day.

01:03:48.680 I'll tell you, one of the things that makes me really happy about this interview so far is that, like, I have a tendency to tear up in interviews, as you may have noticed.

01:03:58.820 But this time it was you, so I'm quite pleased about that.

01:04:04.380 It's a touching story, though, man.

01:04:06.640 You do, eh?

01:04:08.680 Yeah, yeah.

01:04:09.680 But particularly like that, I don't tear up for sad things.

01:04:13.360 I tear up for happy things.

01:04:16.060 You know?

01:04:16.380 That's an interesting thing to think about, too, because it's not exactly happy, right?

01:04:23.060 It's because, you know, when these people come up to me and they tell me their stories, that often makes me tear up because it's like this blast of dead, bloody seriousness with a happy ending.

01:04:35.240 You know, so it's a comedy because it's a happy ending, but it's rough and affecting, and that makes me tear up.

01:04:44.500 And I think my proclivity, I've always kind of had that ever since I was a kid, but it seems to have come back.

01:04:50.520 Well, you too, eh?

01:04:52.060 Yeah, yeah, always.

01:04:53.280 Always.

01:04:53.780 But it's always been happy things.

01:04:55.280 It's never been sad things.

01:04:56.700 It's very hard to get me to cry with sad things.

01:05:00.400 Sad things, I sort of just, yeah, triumph.

01:05:03.320 Success.

01:05:04.400 Yeah.

01:05:05.200 People pulling through.

01:05:06.440 Like, post-fight interviews, when I work for the UFC, when someone has, like, a particularly incredible performance, I have to fight off tearing up.

01:05:16.400 I feel so happy for them.

01:05:19.440 Isn't it strange that it's that same response to sorrow?

01:05:25.840 It's the same response to sorrow and triumph.

01:05:29.460 Yeah, it is.

01:05:30.700 You know, like, what the hell's up with that?

01:05:32.180 I don't understand that at all.

01:05:34.680 I mean, I guess it's kind of a sign of empathy.

01:05:38.260 Yes, it is definitely a sign of empathy.

01:05:40.500 But what's also odd is that with sad things, I can objectively analyze them.

01:05:50.220 And I cannot get sad.

01:05:52.560 I can understand that this is just life, and it is what it is.

01:05:55.880 And, I mean, I won't feel good, but I won't start weeping.

01:05:59.180 I don't weep for, like, sad things the way I weep for happy things.

01:06:03.180 So, you know, that's interesting.

01:06:04.640 So, in some sense, you've trained yourself to detach yourself from that kind of sorrow, but not to detach yourself from triumph.

01:06:12.820 I can rationalize and understand sorrow.

01:06:17.720 I can internalize it.

01:06:19.240 I get it.

01:06:20.040 I know what it is.

01:06:21.880 And, you know, I just get so happy for people sometimes when things go well.

01:06:29.040 Yeah, one of my guilty pleasures is I really like America's Got Talent and the BBC equivalent.

01:06:36.220 What the hell is the BBC equivalent?

01:06:37.780 Is it the X Factor?

01:06:39.580 Something like that.

01:06:40.620 Yeah.

01:06:40.860 Yeah.

01:06:41.400 And it does the same thing to me.

01:06:43.300 I'd see somebody schlub themselves out there on the stage looking pretty damn dreadful in about four different dimensions and then, like, knock it out of the park.

01:06:52.640 It really...

01:06:53.340 Yeah.

01:06:53.820 It's really something to...

01:06:56.900 Yeah, it's something amazing.

01:06:59.200 Well, because I think we, as a human being, you realize how hard it is to overcome competition or these difficult moments, or these moments when you're tested.

01:07:09.300 And you know there's fears and insecurities that these people have to battle, as well as the actual physical task in front of them.

01:07:15.520 There's so much going on.

01:07:16.980 And there's so much anticipation and nerves and anxiety involved in that, that to see someone triumph.

01:07:23.100 I mean, I am a student of human will.

01:07:27.500 I love stories of discipline and success.

01:07:31.380 I don't like bad stories.

01:07:32.500 I don't even like going to movies where they're sad.

01:07:34.980 When people tell me about sad movies, I'm like, stop.

01:07:37.160 I'm not going to that movie.

01:07:38.320 I don't like it.

01:07:38.980 I don't want to see it.

01:07:39.820 I'm not interested.

01:07:40.620 I know what sadness is.

01:07:42.200 I've been sad.

01:07:42.880 I get it.

01:07:43.420 I'm not interested in getting that in a form of entertainment.

01:07:46.080 I like success.

01:07:47.260 I like seeing people triumph.

01:07:48.840 I like seeing the human spirit manifest itself in spectacular ways.

01:07:54.620 Yeah, that's why I like my lectures.

01:07:56.780 That's why it's so fun to do them, you know, because I'm out there trying to tell people that they have the opportunity to do that.

01:08:02.340 And to point out to them, too, that if they watch themselves, they notice they love that.

01:08:06.820 Because, you know, that's one of the things.

01:08:08.020 You go to a basketball game or a hockey game or something like that, and somebody makes a spectacular play, and it's a little celebration of the human spirit.

01:08:16.940 Ability to do something impossible in the moment, and everybody's up on their feet, like, in one second.

01:08:22.300 Go, man, go.

01:08:24.000 Yeah.

01:08:24.320 And that's, like, that's, that's, the more of that, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

01:08:29.160 There's so much concentration on our, you know, the destruction we wreak on the planet, and our original sin, and our weakness, and, you know, the terrible things we do to each other.

01:08:42.560 It's really nice to see those situations where people are celebrating the triumph of an individual in a group like that.

01:08:51.520 And it really says something wonderful about human beings deep in their core for all of our problems.

01:08:57.540 It's really something to be part of that.

01:09:00.320 Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and I think we concentrate way too often and way too much on the negative aspects of people.

01:09:08.480 You know, it's almost like sports is about the only place that doesn't happen, you know?

01:09:12.740 It's kind of strange, because you do concentrate on the positive in sports.

01:09:17.300 You celebrate the winners, you know?

01:09:18.760 You know, the cameramen, don't go over and interview the losers.

01:09:22.440 You know, I mean, they'll talk about all that, but, and it's, I don't know why it is that in sports, it's okay to celebrate the triumphant and the victorious.

01:09:32.960 But it is okay, and no one questions it.

01:09:35.580 It's, it's, or well, that's not true, because now they have, like, non-competitive games for kids, and, you know, that's part of the politically correct curriculum.

01:09:43.420 But most of the time, most sane people will celebrate along with a victorious athlete, and that's really something.

01:09:51.140 All right, so fear factor.

01:09:52.500 How many years did that last?

01:09:54.580 Six years.

01:09:55.800 Were they good years?

01:09:57.340 It was good financially.

01:09:59.360 Yeah, well, that's something.

01:10:00.240 I mean, I made a ton of money, and it alleviated financial pressure.

01:10:05.320 But I enjoyed doing it somewhat, but it was not like the way I enjoy the other things that I do.

01:10:11.720 It's not like I enjoy stand-up comedy.

01:10:13.680 It's not like I enjoy working for the UFC.

01:10:15.960 It's not like I enjoy doing podcasts.

01:10:18.160 All those things that I just talked about, those three things, those things are labors of love.

01:10:22.820 They're passions.

01:10:23.800 They're things that I'm really genuinely fascinated by and interested in.

01:10:28.020 And, like, this conversation, I would have this conversation with you if it was just you and me, and there was no cameras.

01:10:32.940 I would love to have this conversation.

01:10:34.280 I love having conversations with interesting people.

01:10:37.620 I love stand-up comedy.

01:10:38.880 I love all those things.

01:10:39.580 I didn't love being there for fear factor, but it was a great job, and I knew it was a great job, and I knew I was really lucky to have it.

01:10:46.020 So it was great in that respect.

01:10:47.500 But when it was over, I kind of decided I was done with television.

01:10:51.540 When it was over, I was like, okay, I think I'm done with this.

01:10:54.320 No more of this.

01:10:54.980 From, like, from here on out, I'm just going to concentrate on my own stuff.

01:10:59.080 And so from then on out, I just really focused on stand-up comedy, and that's when my comedy career really took off, was post-fear factor.

01:11:08.320 I mean, I had a comedy career during Fear Factor, but it really took off post-fear factor because I really gave it all of my attention.

01:11:15.860 And so what happened after Fear Factor that boosted you on the comedy circuit?

01:11:20.880 Well, I did a special for Comedy Central and Spike TV called Talking Monkeys in Space in 2009.

01:11:30.320 That was, like, probably my best work up until then.

01:11:33.600 And then, you know, from then, I've been on a pretty steady pace of doing specials every two years or so ever since then.

01:11:41.740 Right, right, right.

01:11:42.760 And that's been successful nonstop.

01:11:44.940 Are you getting better?

01:11:45.520 Yeah, and it's – yeah, I think I am.

01:11:47.860 I think I'm getting better.

01:11:49.020 I think it's one of those things that as long as you keep concentrating on it and as long as you keep focusing on it, you're getting better.

01:11:54.320 I think my hour that I'm doing now is as good as anything I've ever done, and it's not even done yet.

01:11:58.900 It's only, you know, six months into this hour.

01:12:01.400 But I think it's some of my best work ever.

01:12:03.660 And I'm really excited to see where it comes.

01:12:05.400 Well, I mean, there's no rush because it's only six months since my last one.

01:12:10.320 I probably will work on this for another year before I even think about recording it.

01:12:16.180 Oh, yeah.

01:12:16.580 So, if it's good now, it should be really good by then.

01:12:19.580 Yeah.

01:12:20.080 It's like a samurai sword.

01:12:21.780 You're folding the metal and hammering the blade.

01:12:24.000 You're folding the metal and hammering the blade.

01:12:26.240 And you've got to know when it's ready.

01:12:27.960 And I'll start to get a sense of where it's ready in about a year.

01:12:31.540 In about one year, then I'll start going, all right, this seems pretty solid.

01:12:34.540 But maybe it's time to rock and roll.

01:12:36.700 And then I'll contact Netflix, and I'll say, hey, let's do it, you know.

01:12:43.320 Let's set it up in whatever city I decide.

01:12:47.900 And I'll just pick a city.

01:12:49.800 I'll just run it over in my head.

01:12:51.380 I'll pick a name for it, you know.

01:12:53.560 Well, maybe I'll try to stay posted on what you're doing and come down and see it.

01:12:57.980 That'd be fun.

01:12:59.320 I missed it the last time you were here in Toronto.

01:13:01.500 But I'd like to come and see one of your shows live.

01:13:03.400 I think that'd be a blast.

01:13:05.580 Yeah, it would be fun, man.

01:13:07.060 So the next was the UFC, eh?

01:13:09.820 Yeah.

01:13:10.400 That was TV, too.

01:13:11.460 Well, the UFC kind of – the UFC happened while I was on news radio, actually.

01:13:16.180 While I was on news radio, I started working for the UFC way back in 1997.

01:13:20.300 But it was – the UFC was more of a sideshow back then.

01:13:23.620 It was banned from cable.

01:13:26.220 You could only get it on satellite TV.

01:13:29.060 Right, right.

01:13:29.740 It was a freak show.

01:13:31.460 People didn't know about it.

01:13:32.660 I mean, I loved it because as a lifelong martial artist, to me, it was fascinating to watch all these different styles compete against each other.

01:13:39.120 But it didn't pay much money.

01:13:42.440 And even though it was enjoyable for me, it got in the way of other aspects of my life.

01:13:46.120 And so I quit around 1998.

01:13:50.440 And then somewhere along the line, in around 2001, the UFC was purchased by this new company.

01:13:59.120 And when they – my earphones are dying.

01:14:02.160 I'm going to have to take these off and unplug this here.

01:14:04.900 Can you hear me still?

01:14:05.580 Is that good?

01:14:06.360 Yeah.

01:14:07.040 Okay.

01:14:07.300 Once it started – once the new company took over, they were trying to get people to go to their events.

01:14:17.520 And they asked me to go to the event.

01:14:19.580 You know, it was when I was doing Fear Factor.

01:14:21.480 And so I went and watched it live.

01:14:23.900 And when I was watching it live, I was talking to Dana White, who is the president of the UFC, and just talking to him about the sport and all these different things I think about.

01:14:35.520 And are you interested in this guy?

01:14:37.300 I was asking about various obscure fighters who were competing in Japan.

01:14:41.480 Maybe he didn't know about it.

01:14:42.460 You should try to get these guys.

01:14:44.220 And then somewhere along the line, he said, hey, you want to do commentary?

01:14:48.020 And I kind of – I was like, I don't want to work, man.

01:14:50.960 I'm just here.

01:14:51.580 I just want to enjoy this.

01:14:52.660 And so he and I became friends, and he talked me into doing it.

01:14:56.540 And I first did it for free.

01:14:58.920 I did like 12 events or so for free, just for fun.

01:15:03.500 So I was like, just get tickets for my friends, and I'll go, and I'll do commentary for you.

01:15:07.560 But I didn't take it that seriously.

01:15:09.960 I didn't ever think it was going to be a career.

01:15:13.340 And I would be this well-known commentator in mixed martial arts.

01:15:19.540 I just thought I was doing it as a favor for them and for fun for me.

01:15:24.440 And, you know, lo and behold, here we are, 18 years later.

01:15:29.020 I'm still doing it.

01:15:30.780 I presume they're paying you now.

01:15:32.860 Oh, yeah.

01:15:33.200 They pay me a lot.

01:15:34.040 That's good.

01:15:34.580 That's good.

01:15:35.080 That's a better bargaining position, I would say.

01:15:37.360 Yeah.

01:15:37.840 Yeah.

01:15:38.140 They're very generous.

01:15:39.100 So that's kind of an understandable transition in some sense, because, you know, you got your social skills highly developed, and you got your ability to be witty on demand highly developed, and to pay attention to an audience.

01:15:53.720 And you had the martial arts background.

01:15:56.360 And so UFC commentator, that makes sense.

01:16:00.820 It's that, all right, so now where does the podcast come in?

01:16:04.840 How the hell does that happen next?

01:16:08.500 I guess it's next, isn't it?

01:16:10.660 Yeah, the podcast was 2009, I guess, when it first started.

01:16:15.660 And the podcast was basically, it was just for fun.

01:16:20.120 It was like something to do with my friends.

01:16:22.500 Me and my friend Brian, we just decided to set up a laptop, and people would ask questions, and we would just start just talking about things.

01:16:31.540 And then it became a weekly thing, and then we started uploading it to iTunes.

01:16:36.460 And then, you know, I started getting guests.

01:16:40.080 And then, I mean, it took years before it was profitable.

01:16:46.060 I mean, it was just for fun, forever.

01:16:49.480 Like a lot of things that I've done, it was originally just for fun.

01:16:53.080 Well, that's pretty early podcast, too, though, eh?

01:16:55.420 2009.

01:16:56.780 Very early, yeah.

01:16:57.960 Podcasts were, I mean, for lots of people, they're still not a thing, although that's really changed in the last three or four years.

01:17:05.780 I mean, you know, they're definitely a mainstream media phenomenon now.

01:17:11.920 But 2009, I mean, that was fringe stuff, fundamentally.

01:17:18.160 Yes, yeah, it was very fringe.

01:17:20.300 So there wouldn't have really been an advertising market at that point, I wouldn't have thought.

01:17:24.000 Not much of one.

01:17:24.780 No, there was no ads.

01:17:26.540 We didn't have ads for years.

01:17:28.660 And then slowly, ads started trickling in.

01:17:31.860 The first ad was the Fleshlight, which is a masturbation device.

01:17:36.920 So it was a funny story about Sam Harris.

01:17:39.400 Sam Harris, who was a guest really early on, when the Fleshlight was the only sponsor,

01:17:45.260 requested that we not have the Fleshlight as a sponsor on the episode that he was on.

01:17:51.900 And so I was like, okay.

01:17:53.940 So I took that week off.

01:17:56.540 I just decided no sponsor that week.

01:18:00.260 That's funny.

01:18:02.100 For very many reasons.

01:18:03.860 It's funny that that was your first, well, you know, pornography leads the way, right?

01:18:08.800 Yeah.

01:18:09.360 Well, you know, on the internet.

01:18:11.640 Yeah.

01:18:12.280 Yeah.

01:18:12.660 It is kind of funny.

01:18:13.860 Yeah.

01:18:14.100 And, you know, what's even also funnier is that the guy who was, I guess he was the CEO of the Fleshlight or marketing something or another of the Fleshlight, he went on to form Onnit with me.

01:18:29.100 So Onnit, which is my fitness and supplement company, he and I are partners in this.

01:18:35.320 And it came out of our, the thing with the Fleshlight, our business agreement, because it was really profitable for the Fleshlight.

01:18:43.200 And he realized early on, like, wow, like having a podcast sponsor something can be incredibly lucrative.

01:18:50.220 If the podcast is well-respected and well-received, like this is sort of an untapped advertising market.

01:18:58.120 Hey, let's start a business and just use the podcast as a method of launching this business and let's see how it goes.

01:19:06.660 Right, right, right.

01:19:07.620 Yeah, that's, and that became very successful too, but the podcast sort of took on a life of its own.

01:19:14.520 It went from being just me hanging out with comedians, talking to me, interviewing people like you, or having conversations, I should say, more than interviewing people like you and, you know, scientists and archaeologists and doctors and, I mean, everyone.

01:19:29.880 Yeah, right.

01:19:30.500 You started talking, you started talking to everyone.

01:19:33.980 Yeah, everyone, really everyone.

01:19:35.600 And it was mostly comedians to begin with?

01:19:39.000 Yes, it was almost all comedians in the beginning.

01:19:41.940 And the everyone part is interesting because that's something that people resist or resent more than anything now.

01:19:48.240 Like the thing about this that you see now, you see this expression, giving someone a platform.

01:19:55.400 Yeah.

01:19:55.600 Why would you give someone a platform with those ideas?

01:19:58.960 And it really comes down to this concept of silencing opinions that you don't agree with.

01:20:04.420 And my thought on it was, has always been, I want to talk to all kinds of different people.

01:20:10.340 And even if I don't agree with them, I want to find out why they think the way they think.

01:20:14.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20:15.500 Well, there's also an element of useful disagreeableness there.

01:20:18.700 It's like, I'm going to talk to whoever the hell I want to.

01:20:22.020 Yeah.

01:20:22.240 I don't care what you think about it.

01:20:23.760 I interviewed Milo, speaking of people that you're not supposed to be talking to.

01:20:27.600 Recently?

01:20:28.240 Yeah, like a week ago.

01:20:29.480 Yeah.

01:20:30.240 Did you take a lot of heat from that?

01:20:32.660 It hasn't been broadcast yet.

01:20:34.920 I don't think I'm going to take a lot of heat for it, you know, because we didn't have a political discussion.

01:20:42.500 What did you guys talk about?

01:20:43.480 We had a psychological discussion.

01:20:44.080 Well, I was really curious about how he got taken down, you know, when he was talking about his sexual abuse when he was a kid and defending it in some sense.

01:20:57.380 Like, I watched that interview and I knew he was in trouble as soon as he completed it.

01:21:03.800 I figured, no, you said things that you're not allowed to say.

01:21:08.420 And I think a part of it was that, see, I was split in two parts watching it, partly because I was also watching it as a clinician.

01:21:16.700 I thought that it was admirable of Milo to refuse to take the victim stance because he had been such an anti-victim, what would you call it, agitator or advocate, right?

01:21:29.780 And so he said, well, I was a full participant in this.

01:21:33.560 But then the clinical side of me thought, no, man, you haven't updated your memory since you were 14.

01:21:39.840 Like, you're still thinking of adult Milo as 14-year-old Milo and you're not thinking about 14-year-old Milo as a kid.

01:21:48.500 And so that was sad for me to see that because often when people are traumatized, in some sense, around the area of trauma, they don't mature.

01:22:00.140 Like, it's like they get stuck.

01:22:01.620 Well, look, imagine that you're on a path and you come towards an obstacle that's impenetrable.

01:22:08.460 But you really need to get through it to fully develop.

01:22:12.120 Like, it's part of what you need to grow up.

01:22:14.040 But you can't.

01:22:15.120 So you walk around it, you know?

01:22:16.940 But you leave the part of yourself that could have matured behind there.

01:22:21.020 And because it didn't deal with the challenge, like this is sort of what you were experiencing maybe on Fear Factor, maybe why you're such a, what you're so emotionally affected by triumph.

01:22:31.540 It's like you get defeated by something like that.

01:22:34.280 You can't overcome it.

01:22:35.220 But there's part of you that gets stuck there, in a sense.

01:22:38.280 And something Freud observed, like 100 and, my damn near must be 120 years ago, that people would fixate at a certain age because something had happened to them, or at least part of their personality would.

01:22:49.760 And I could see that happening with Milo.

01:22:52.080 And I thought that he was in a really tough spot because he'd been molested.

01:22:56.160 He didn't want to play the victim. 0.99

01:22:58.580 Yet he actually was a victim, which was the perverse damn thing. 0.91

01:23:02.880 And that, you know, the way he spoke about it could easily have been twisted, misinterpreted, partly because of his own doing, into a quasi-justification for pedophilia. 0.98

01:23:13.800 And then he also said, well, you know, that this was relatively common practice in the gay community.

01:23:18.360 And I figured he'd be cut to ribbons for bringing that up.

01:23:23.160 But he said, in the interview, it was really weird, you know.

01:23:26.340 He said that it wasn't the left-wingers that took him out.

01:23:30.300 It was the conservatives.

01:23:33.080 And they were bad because he was slated to speak at CPAC.

01:23:38.040 And the straight Republican types, not the Trump types, you know, but the more classically conservative Republicans,

01:23:45.500 didn't think that Milo Yiannopoulos was the right kind of guy to have speaking at CPAC.

01:23:51.620 And so his sense is that it was actually the moderate right that wiped him out.

01:23:57.600 And so that was interesting.

01:24:00.040 And I didn't expect that. 0.94

01:24:01.420 And we also talked a fair bit about, I can't tell you all of it because then nobody has to watch the damn podcast or listen to it. 0.71

01:24:10.780 But, you know, he's also shifted his viewpoint quite substantially on what happened to him when he was 14.

01:24:17.340 And he describes the process he went through to kind of rethink that, not least because of the controversy it caused.

01:24:25.640 So, you know, I think, well, that was our conversation.

01:24:29.220 It lasted a couple of hours.

01:24:30.540 It was, you know, I asked him how he was doing and what he was planning on doing.

01:24:35.280 And so that was kind of interesting to find out, too.

01:24:38.600 But we never got into anything that was remotely political.

01:24:43.020 And so I was happy to have had the conversation.

01:24:46.200 You know, the thing about people like Milo is I don't give a damn what you say about them.

01:24:50.160 Alex Jones is the same sort of person.

01:24:52.520 I think the same thing about Tommy Robinson, for that matter.

01:24:55.740 It's like these people are interesting.

01:24:59.100 Like they're strange people and they have an effect on the world.

01:25:02.700 And like, what are you supposed to do?

01:25:05.100 Are you supposed to, what, are you not supposed to be curious about that?

01:25:08.400 It's like, how can you not be curious about Milo?

01:25:11.520 It's the deplatforming thing.

01:25:13.260 Like they have this idea that you should not have a differing opinion.

01:25:18.020 If you have a differing opinion, it should never get a platform.

01:25:22.140 And I think.

01:25:23.280 Yeah, well, it's also more perverse than that, even.

01:25:26.280 It's the idea that if you give someone like that, quote, a platform, so now you're willing to talk to them, that you must agree with them merely because you're conversing with them.

01:25:36.900 And it's like.

01:25:37.640 Yeah.

01:25:38.160 And that's a, that's a, that's a.

01:25:40.760 Well, that guilt by association assumption is, it's a terrible assumption.

01:25:46.080 What does it mean?

01:25:46.860 You're only going to talk to people who hold exactly the same ethical views that you hold on anything, on everything.

01:25:53.520 Yeah.

01:25:54.160 It's nonsense.

01:25:54.900 It's like that data in society thing that came out connecting everybody is alt-right gateways because they've talked to people that are on the right.

01:26:02.560 You know, I, I tweeted that lady when she wrote that.

01:26:05.680 I said that Barbara Walters interviewed Castro.

01:26:08.920 Does that make her a communist?

01:26:10.220 And basically how I, my take on all this stuff is, there's nothing wrong with talking to people.

01:26:16.640 And I feel like Milo in a sense, well, Milo, you know, almost has been his own worst enemy because he's such a provocateur.

01:26:23.320 And now they've turned a lot of that stuff that he was saying as a provocateur and they've turned it against him.

01:26:30.320 Um, but I think that you and him have this one thing in common in that you get categorized by lazy people who are not good at nuance and they put you in this box that other people have created. 0.52

01:26:47.160 And this box is, oh, this is an alt-right this, this is a conservative that, this guy's a Nazi, this guy's a white supremacist, this guy's a that, whatever it is.

01:26:57.140 They put you in that box and then socially you have to, in order to fit into the ideology, in order to fit into this group think, you have to sort of accept these definitions that this person's bad.

01:27:13.140 You know, that that person, Gavin McGinnis is a Nazi, Milo Yiannopoulos is a Nazi, that these people are this, these are the problem without any real understanding of who those people really are, without any real grasp of.

01:27:25.080 Yeah, well, that happened to Sargon of the CAD, right?

01:27:27.660 Happened to Carl Benjamin.

01:27:28.740 Hey, by the way, we're launching our alternative social media platform soon.

01:27:35.940 We've got it going.

01:27:36.840 Yeah, it's going to be, well, we, we tried out the first of the technology.

01:27:40.580 I just debated Slavoj Žižek on Friday and last Friday, and he was hypothetically the world's foremost Marxist philosopher, although it turned out that he wasn't really a Marxist at all.

01:27:52.720 He called himself a Hegelian, which is actually way different than being a Marxist.

01:27:57.140 And so it wasn't really much of a debate.

01:27:59.160 It was more me attacking the communist manifesto for half an hour, which I found rather, rather straightforward thing to do.

01:28:07.620 And then us having a rather peculiar and productive discussion for about an hour and a half.

01:28:13.160 But anyways, ThinkSpot tested their technology, so live stream technology.

01:28:18.620 And we've got some cool features that no other platform has.

01:28:22.460 So it'll be a subscription service.

01:28:24.380 And so that's partly what makes it a replacement for Patreon to some degree, you know, because we want to be able to monetize creators.

01:28:30.700 But we've got new different terms of service.

01:28:34.200 And so the essential issue with the terms of service will be that once you're on our platform, we won't take you down unless we're ordered to by a U.S. court of law.

01:28:46.700 That's basically the idea.

01:28:49.240 So we're trying to make an anti-censorship platform.

01:28:51.660 And then we've got, there's other features too that are quite cool and unique.

01:28:55.200 So for example, you might be interested in this with regards to your podcast.

01:28:59.560 So if you listen to your podcast on our platform, people will be able to like pick a time in the podcast, like maybe a 30-second clip and just mark it out.

01:29:10.760 And then they'll be able to either make a written comment about it or an auditory comment and then send that to a friend or post it so that they're running, continual running conversations in audio and written form on podcast content constantly.

01:29:27.460 We want to do the same thing for YouTube videos so that people can append their own video to any part of a video and then distribute that to their network or also post it so that people can watch.

01:29:40.920 You know, so that we're hoping we can get a real dialogue.

01:29:44.880 We can really add dialogue to the podcast and YouTube world.

01:29:50.740 We're also going to do the same thing with books.

01:29:53.140 So if you buy an e-book on the platform, you'll be able to annotate publicly.

01:29:59.160 And so what that should mean is that every book that's sold on our platform that many people purchase will become the center of multiple conversations.

01:30:09.300 And we can do that with books that are in the public domain.

01:30:14.000 So for example, one of the books we're going to post right away is Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche.

01:30:18.680 And I'm going to start annotating it, you know.

01:30:20.980 And so what that should mean, you know, if you look at the Bible, it's a good example.

01:30:25.240 People have been annotating it for like 5,000 years, right?

01:30:28.280 Every verse has God books written on it.

01:30:31.680 So it's just this incredibly expanded document that's pulled in thousands and thousands of people to this collective conversation.

01:30:39.180 And this platform should be able to allow people to do that with great works of art and well, and then with also with current affairs and events and such as, well, YouTube videos and podcasts.

01:30:53.700 And so it's nice looking too.

01:30:56.540 It's got a fairly professional feel.

01:30:59.420 So we're hoping that we'll be able to pull people who are interested in intelligent conversation specifically into this platform, you know, and maybe start to pull them away from YouTube and some of the less specialized channels.

01:31:13.680 Hoping it's that plus, you know, our anti-censorship stance.

01:31:17.680 And it would be invitation only to begin with so that we can, well, so that we can beta test it and make sure the damn thing works and that we're not fooling ourselves about its appeal.

01:31:28.520 So that's come a long ways.

01:31:30.420 And hopefully, I think we've got four, five, six people who are interested, who are lined up.

01:31:36.940 Ruben is going to use it.

01:31:38.440 I'm going to use it.

01:31:39.380 James Altucher.

01:31:41.160 Jocko Willink.

01:31:42.600 Michael Shermer.

01:31:43.480 I think those are, oh, and Carl Benjamin, Sargon of the CAD.

01:31:49.360 They'll be our first beta testers fundamentally.

01:31:53.020 That sounds awesome.

01:31:54.240 Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, man.

01:31:55.860 If the bloody thing works, I'd like to have a conversation with you about it at some point.

01:32:00.340 Oh, for sure.

01:32:01.280 I'd love to try it.

01:32:02.080 Okay, okay, okay.

01:32:03.120 Well, I'll let the developer know.

01:32:05.860 But I think the annotation feature could be really cool.

01:32:09.200 And we're also setting it up so that if you do comment, all the comments will be up and downvoted.

01:32:17.580 And if your ratio of downvotes to upvotes falls below 50-50, then your comments will be hidden.

01:32:26.640 People will still be able to see them if they click, but you'll disappear, you know, from the mainstream.

01:32:31.960 We don't know if 50-50 is right. 0.99

01:32:34.300 We're going to have to play with that because we're also trying to control stupid trolling. 1.00

01:32:40.740 And I think we're going to put a minimum length requirement on for written comments so that you can't just say four words like this guy's a fucking idiot. 1.00

01:32:49.300 You know, like, no, we don't need that. 0.99

01:32:51.900 So that, you know, if minimum comment length is 50 words, you're going to have to put a little thought into it. 0.95

01:32:57.780 Even if you're being a troll, hopefully you'll be a quasi-witty troll. 0.91

01:33:02.940 So anyways. 0.87

01:33:05.100 Yeah, that's the ultimate battle, right?

01:33:06.720 It's trying to combat the trolls in some sort of a way or mitigate their impact.

01:33:10.740 Yeah, well, it's the ultimate battle is to do that without being censorious, right?

01:33:15.340 Because you want people to express their opinion, but there's a difference between, it's subtle, but there's a difference between productive dialogue and provocation without wit for the purpose of causing trouble.

01:33:31.920 There's so many people out there that are just bored, and that's what they use the internet for. 0.95

01:33:35.960 They're at work, they're in a cubicle all day, and they get their jollies out of just fucking with people online. 0.89

01:33:41.540 And my producer, Jamie, he has a friend who does that. 0.93

01:33:45.460 I mean, this is what this friend does.

01:33:46.820 He has a bunch of accounts, and he just trolls people.

01:33:49.900 He tries to troll celebrities, and he tries to get them to respond to him.

01:33:53.400 He says mean things to them, and, you know, that's how he entertains himself while he's at work.

01:33:59.760 See, that's that same dark side that was manifesting up to a much greater degree in Bill Cosby.

01:34:05.740 Yeah.

01:34:06.700 You know, it's like.

01:34:07.340 Yeah, right.

01:34:08.380 Well, the guy is also depressed.

01:34:10.500 He's also a depressed guy.

01:34:11.960 Yeah. 0.96

01:34:12.100 He's a failure in life, and, you know, he's everything you would expect. 0.89

01:34:15.100 Yeah, well.

01:34:15.680 As someone who uses that kind of time for recreation.

01:34:17.500 Right, so, you know, the issue with him is, like, he should take some of that, so if he would admit to himself his aggression, 0.96

01:34:23.880 if he'd come to terms with it, he could take that damn aggression, and he could integrate it into his personality, 0.93

01:34:31.160 and that would make him able to focus on his life. 0.98

01:34:34.880 You know, like you said, when, you know, you started your martial arts fighting, that you were obsessed, hey?

01:34:42.220 And you were also sick of being pushed around and all of that, and you were, like, willing to do something about it,

01:34:47.420 but obviously, and it's obvious just talking to you, that the aggressive part of your character is, like, deeply integrated inside of you. 0.93

01:34:55.640 It's not hiding out in some corner doing stupid things that, you know, you're not paying attention to. 0.98

01:35:00.620 It's right there at hand. 0.99

01:35:01.880 And you get a guy like the one you're talking about, he's split into meek and depressed and ineffectual, on the one hand,

01:35:09.340 and cruel and resentful and bitter, on the other.

01:35:13.280 If those two things would marry, you know, he'd get half his personality back, and maybe some of his dynamism.

01:35:20.880 Yeah.

01:35:21.260 So it's a real waste of time.

01:35:22.860 Well, I think a lot of people just feel just totally powerless, and they feel like this is the only way they can affect others,

01:35:32.020 is by reaching out and trolling or saying mean things.

01:35:35.480 And I think that many people take these terrible paths in their lives, which are not productive,

01:35:41.320 and they don't feel good about it.

01:35:43.920 They don't respond well to whatever they're doing with their life, and they have this constant state of anxiety.

01:35:51.180 It's like Thoreau's quote, most men live lives of quiet desperation. 0.95

01:35:56.200 Yes, except the trolls live lives of noisy desperation.

01:36:01.200 Yeah.

01:36:01.840 That's what the internet has allowed.

01:36:05.440 Yeah.

01:36:06.040 Jordan, I got to wrap this up.

01:36:07.520 I got to get out of here, unfortunately.

01:36:09.400 This is a long and wonderful conversation, though, like we always have.

01:36:13.460 I really appreciate you.

01:36:14.540 Hey, well, we damn near got caught up.

01:36:16.360 You got 30 seconds?

01:36:17.460 Yes.

01:36:17.840 Yeah, sure.

01:36:18.640 Okay.

01:36:18.940 Well, let's end it off.

01:36:20.440 I want to know what are you up to next, man?

01:36:23.780 Like, what do you want to have happen?

01:36:25.040 You've got this crazy reach.

01:36:26.720 You've got this crazy platform.

01:36:29.880 What's on your horizon?

01:36:32.340 Anything other than what you're doing?

01:36:34.400 No.

01:36:35.400 No, I just enjoy what I'm doing.

01:36:37.340 I'd like to continue doing what I'm doing.

01:36:39.040 I'm very happy that people enjoy the show.

01:36:41.240 I'm very, very happy that it's affecting people in a positive way,

01:36:45.100 that they're getting inspiration out of it,

01:36:46.780 and they're getting information and entertainment and education,

01:36:49.940 and it means the world to me.

01:36:52.640 I love it.

01:36:53.160 I love doing the podcast.

01:36:54.360 I love doing stand-up.

01:36:55.740 I love everything that I'm doing.

01:36:57.540 I mean, I'm very, very happy with my career and family life.

01:37:02.000 I couldn't be happier.

01:37:03.320 So I just like to keep doing what I'm doing.

01:37:05.440 I don't have any crazy aspirations other than continuing to get better

01:37:10.220 at everything that I try to work at.

01:37:12.520 Yeah, well, that's a crazy aspiration, man,

01:37:15.080 because you've got a lot of things going for you

01:37:17.900 that are very, very unlikely, you know,

01:37:19.680 and to hope, I don't mean to hope that they'll get better,

01:37:23.340 but to continue to work to get those better,

01:37:25.440 that seems like sufficient aspiration from my perspective.

01:37:28.420 Well, I think if you work at anything,

01:37:30.000 if you work at anything, you're trying to improve,

01:37:32.780 and there's always room.

01:37:35.880 There's always room for improvement in everything,

01:37:38.400 in your personality, in your work, in everything.

01:37:42.020 And that's what I strive for.

01:37:43.500 I strive for improvement.

01:37:44.780 Yeah, well, that edge of improvement's a good place to be.

01:37:47.260 Yeah.

01:37:47.680 Look, I wanted also to thank you.

01:37:49.860 My pleasure.

01:37:51.140 Just so you know it.

01:37:52.740 You know, especially that first interview you did with me.

01:37:55.960 My pleasure.

01:37:56.820 That was really helpful to me.

01:37:58.540 And, I mean, I've enjoyed all the talks that we've had,

01:38:00.660 and they've been really productive,

01:38:02.980 and they've had a, well, very big impact on my life,

01:38:06.400 but lots of people have watched them.

01:38:08.320 And so it seems to me that we've had a pretty productive series of interactions.

01:38:13.940 But I do owe you some thanks.

01:38:17.440 And also, thanks for coming on this podcast, man.

01:38:20.140 It was really good of you to do that.

01:38:21.800 And I will definitely talk to you about ThinkSpot once we get it going

01:38:27.100 and see that it works.

01:38:28.340 Because it's, look, I didn't have any hope for its success when it first,

01:38:32.420 you know, it was a little ugly baby thing.

01:38:35.320 Because, you know, it's too impossible.

01:38:37.840 But it's looking pretty damn good, and it's got some cool features.

01:38:41.360 So it'd be nice to have a censorship-free platform

01:38:43.920 if we could figure out how to do that.

01:38:45.600 That sounds very exciting.

01:38:46.900 I'm very interested.

01:38:48.020 I can't wait to try it.

01:38:49.320 All right, man.

01:38:50.220 Thank you, Jordan.

01:38:51.140 Hey, thanks a lot.

01:38:52.860 My pleasure.

01:38:53.680 Hey, good luck with your improvement.

01:38:55.180 And I'm looking forward to your comedy special.

01:38:57.160 Thank you.

01:38:58.200 Ciao, Joe.

01:38:59.020 Thank you, my brother.

01:38:59.860 Take care.

01:39:00.680 Bye-bye.

01:39:01.480 Bye.

01:39:01.840 If you found this conversation meaningful,

01:39:04.620 you might think about picking up Dad's books,

01:39:06.480 Maps of Meaning, The Architecture of Belief,

01:39:08.760 or his newer bestseller,

01:39:09.940 12 Rules for Life, An Antidote to Chaos.

01:39:12.500 Both of these works delve much deeper

01:39:14.260 into the topics covered in the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

01:39:17.200 See jordanbpeterson.com for audio, e-book, and text links,

01:39:21.060 or pick up the books at your favorite bookseller.

01:39:23.420 Next episode on the Jordan B. Peterson podcast

01:39:25.600 will be one of Dad's 12 Rules for Life lectures

01:39:28.540 recorded at the Centre in the Square in Kitchener, Ontario,

01:39:32.020 on July 21, 2018.

01:39:34.080 Should be a good listen, as usual.

01:39:36.760 Enjoy your week, people.

01:39:38.080 I'm stoked to be alive.

01:39:39.560 Hope you are, too.

01:39:40.740 It's an amazing world out there.

01:39:42.600 Talk to you next week.

01:39:44.240 Follow me on my YouTube channel,

01:39:46.460 Jordan B. Peterson,

01:39:47.900 on Twitter,

01:39:48.760 at Jordan B. Peterson,

01:39:50.480 on Facebook,

01:39:51.720 at Dr. Jordan B. Peterson,

01:39:53.760 and at Instagram,

01:39:54.720 at Jordan.B. Peterson.

01:39:57.260 Details on this show,

01:39:59.040 access to my blog,

01:40:00.300 information about my tour dates

01:40:02.420 and other events,

01:40:03.560 and my list of recommended books,

01:40:05.640 can be found on my website,

01:40:07.420 jordanbpeterson.com.

01:40:09.480 My online writing programs,

01:40:11.400 designed to help people

01:40:12.440 straighten out their pasts,

01:40:14.240 understand themselves in the present,

01:40:16.140 and develop a sophisticated vision

01:40:17.880 and strategy for the future,

01:40:19.520 can be found at

01:40:20.320 selfauthoring.com.

01:40:22.320 That's selfauthoring.com.

01:40:24.540 From the Westwood One Podcast Network.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - June 09, 2019

Who is Joe Rogan？ Part Two

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