Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with joe
rogan
his second time on this podcast
he has inspired me for many years with
his conversations to be a better and
kinder person and has now been doing so
as a friend
there's no one i would rather talk to on
this
300th episode of this podcast
on the 4th of july
both the anniversary of this country's
declaration of independence and the
anniversary of my immigrating here to
the united states
a silly kid who couldn't speak english i
could never imagine that he would be
so damn lucky as to live the life i've
lived
and to feel the love i felt
from the amazing people along the way
from the bottom of my heart
thank you
i love you all
this is the lex friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's joe
rogan
charles bukowski said something in a
poem called style about
art he defined art saying
style is the answer to everything a
fresh way to approach a dull or
dangerous thing
to do a dull thing with style is
preferable to doing a dangerous thing
without it
to do a dangerous thing with style is
what i call art
what do you think you meant by that do
you agree with this a dangerous thing
with style is art he said bullfighting
can be art boxing can be art loving can
be art
uh have you ever made love and it was
art now okay i'm not asking
every time bro
opening a can of sardines can be art
i think there's something to that
yeah i think i think i i call the way
people live life art like i wrote a
forward to my friend cameron haynes's
book and uh which is right now the
number one selling audio book in the
world uh i and i s one of the things
that i said was that
practice is an art that very few people
appreciate and it's the art of the
maximized life
and that
the discipline that he displays in his
life and through his practices and all
the things that he does
it's so difficult to live the way he
lives
that for someone like me who understands
it and knows what he's doing and
appreciates it and appreciates how
insanely difficult it is to have a
full-time job and run ultra marathons
get up at four o'clock in the morning
run a full marathon before work
like that's the kind of shit that he he
does when he when he's training for
these
240 mile runs all
the the
main at the same time being like a
father
um a husband uh having this full-time
job
also being the best bow hunter on earth
lifting weights it's like how is he how
does a person do this so in a way
discipline is art too yes it discipline
is art yeah i think it is because it's
beautiful for me to see when i see
someone who's really truly disciplined
who like a david goggin someone who just
like truly maximizes the grind i feel
like there's an art to that and there's
a there's an art to kindness like
there's people that are really kind and
really sweet and when i'm around them
it's beautiful it's like there's a art
to them no matter what yeah they still
they got you know the world can throw a
bunch of shit at you but through all
that
some people are just great at it yeah
and it's a
thing that you learn how to do and it's
pleasing for other people to see and and
that i think is where the art is
well i think mukasky also said
um
and i'm just a bukowski quote generator
today i love him i love him very much
too
uh he's a dark and troubled and
fascinating and a weird person like
hunter s thompson yeah he said what
matters most is how you walk through the
fire i think
so there's a bit of the can hands in
that too david goggins and that too
what do you think he meant by that
well how you walk through the fire i
mean you can walk through the fire
complaining along the way or you can
walk through the fire
and
create an example for everyone else so
that the the
trials and tribulations of their own
life seem trivial
because they're comparing themselves to
the way you handle things or the way you
handle things with grace and dignity and
discipline
can show other people
that
they can handle their own life this way
and there's there's beauty in that there
really is and there's so there's so much
so much inspiration to be gathered from
other people if you're a charitable
person if you're charitable and and and
compassionate and you you you can look
at people
even even people
that i don't like i try to look at the
best aspects of how they live their life
and and
and recognize those aspects admire them
give them credit for it
there's something that we can all get
out of watching the way other people
live their lives so i got a chance to
see you walk the fire a little bit
uh privately and publicly
uh this year in january i gotta ask you
about that
so there's like generic conversations
about sort of cancel culture and all
those kinds of things but as a human
being this to me is fascinating sort of
there's the uh n-word highlight video
there's the
criticism of the different guests
whatever the side is on the covid
pandemic
and you
i mean there's a mass amount of attack
on you
outside of being a public persona
outside of being a
comedian podcaster you're you're also a
human being so how did you survive that
how did you sort of uh
walk through that fire because you seem
to do it with grace
i used mushrooms
[Laughter]
that was one way i did it yeah yeah
really what's your as andrew huberman
would say what was your protocol uh i
took
it was probably less than a gram every
day every day yeah
and uh
[Laughter]
i did a lot of like really hard working
out
but also
i mean
there's a great benefit to going through
anything difficult
and if you're aware
like in advance and why
enduring like anything that's going to
happen that's very difficult
and troubling the the great benefit is
it gives you an opportunity to grow
gives you an opportunity to express
yourself under pressure
to show your character to show you truly
are
and
it gives you an opportunity to see how
you handle a very difficult situation
it also
was
fascinating as a person
that's involved in media
right because what we're doing right now
is media even though
you know it seems like podcasts seem
like we're just having a conversation
right and they are we in in that sense
it's kind of the purest form of media
because what you're doing is you're
you're you're doing it without any
fanfare you're doing it without any
there's no
executives looming over your head or
network or big meetings about ratings or
any of that stuff but it is media but
what i got to see is the wiring under
the machine
of how the rest of media
would try to take me out and you know
like when cnn would be just be playing
things over and over and back and forth
it was wild to watch what was also wild
to watch was people's responses
because
i gained 2 million subscribers during
that time like the podcast never got
bigger it just kept kept growing and
growing it had never been bigger than it
had been like at the end of all of it
it just made it bigger
and you know
ultimately
when
if you've fucked up in the past or made
mistakes or done something wrong
that gives you an opportunity to discuss
those things and to say to apologize if
you feel the need to apologize and also
to just address it and so people
under that kind of pressure they get
it's an opportunity for them to
understand how you think about things
honestly how you actually honestly think
about things and there's no more honesty
that you get out of a person than when
that person is under extreme duress
you know so i think in that sense
i mean it's horrible to say that it's a
benefit that it's a good thing that it
happened but it was a benefit can you
see how it can break a person yes i've
gotten a chance to experience small
small attacks here and there yeah ones
that get to the core of things like even
just talking to uh
about russia and ukraine
to stephen kawkin or oliver stones
looking at different perspectives you
gain
a relative for me feeling like a sizable
number of people who really don't like
you
yeah and say things about you
that
are um
that may be cut deep for a reason i
don't understand why it's just
my own psychology what's also because
you can't defend yourself because
they're saying it and you're not there
and you you don't have any opportunity
for a rebuttal and if you do have a
rebuttal you're doing it publicly and
you're opening it up to the whole world
to chime in and there's a general
tendency that people have towards
negativity when they're interacting with
strangers online especially about
controversial subjects and even if it's
only ten percent of the people it's one
out of ten that's a lot that's a lot of
negativity when you're dealing with
thousands and thousands of tweets yeah
and i think maybe i'm just a very
self-critical person but i hear their
words and that probably somewhere deep
inside
see the truth and the criticism in some
aspect of the criticism and that's why
it hurts
well it's but it's in
one aspect of you
right you know but when you're reading
it it's so
it it's boiled down to this one thing as
if that one thing defines you totally
like if you've made a mistake if you've
said something that you shouldn't have
said or if you said something and you
know maybe you should have considered it
more carefully giving the gravity of the
situation
you know that that's just a part of
being a person and it's also part of
being a person where you're
communicating with things publicly in
real time thinking out loud which is
what we do
you know it's complex and most people
don't do it and you're to have these
you're going to have genuine
hot takes where people just
see what you said and go why did he say
that fuck him you know he doesn't know
anything about he doesn't live in
ukraine he you know there's like there's
there's people that are going to have
takes on that in that way
and then there's also going to be these
disingenuous people who just use any
kind of controversial topic or subject
as an opportunity for them to get clicks
or views but that the number of those
people can be quite large quite large
and
so
going back to do you think it can
destroy a person because i kind of worry
about this and you're in many ways but
in this way an inspiration
that it didn't seem to have destroyed
you but i kept doing shows i kept doing
stand-up i ignored everything i didn't
read any of it it's so it is possible to
just think a hundred percent yes
yeah
i ignored it all well you have i knew it
was there like your family didn't bring
it up my family was
very aware of it my wife was aware of it
what was the conversation like if if
your wife is aware of it
is there like a rule don't break it
pretend it's not happening no just like
well i don't i tell her don't ever read
past the green beans
i don't
ever let her like read negative articles
to me you know i don't want him i don't
he care i go that's a person's opinion
you take a person's opinion you write it
down it doesn't give it any more
relevance like that person
you know could have had that opinion in
silence they could have had it with some
friends at dinner they don't like me
whatever i don't want to read it i don't
want to absorb it i don't even know them
especially if i'm not there and
especially if it's some
biased and uh
it's it's not an objective opinion of me
it's uh this
you know they have a narrative and they
want to stick to that narrative and they
want to write an article and they piece
it all together make you look a piece of
shit
and that's their prerogative they're
completely out to do that but i don't i
shouldn't absorb that i shouldn't take
that in you're not supposed to be taking
in the opinion of the world
yeah you're supposed to be taking in the
opinion of small groups of people that
you encounter so that you get an
understanding of how you
make them feel and then maybe you say to
yourself maybe i come across too rude or
maybe i come across uh too insensitive
or maybe maybe i could do better in this
way or that way that's how we sort of
shape our personalities and that's how
we
we develop our social skills but
when the people don't know you and they
have this like distorted narrative of
you and you know there's fucking
millions of people there's so many
people you can't i think these are
billions no actually i mean millions of
people that are like communicating about
something like during the height of the
you know the
attempt to cancel me or whatever that is
i don't know how many people were
involved in that people take this kind
of stuff seriously but the problem is
the uh false narratives take hold and
then you you have meetings you have
groups you have it builds on top of each
other and there's this outrage and then
it reaches you at some point
and
it can just have these destructive
effects it does can
but it also
sometimes doesn't and in my case it
didn't
it didn't work
uh what lessons did you draw from that
mushrooms exercise my mushroom's an
exercise exercise is critical so i don't
think the mushrooms by themselves would
have worked but that's the thing that i
use for everything is the brutal
exercise like my exercise routines are
horrible and because of that everything
else is easier i create my own bullshit
and my own bullshit is so much harder
and it's not just that it's also sauna
and cold plunge and these torture
sessions they in enduring those
when you endure those it makes enduring
other things much easier and it's also
an understanding of what's happening
like you have to know like media you
have to understand like what the hot
take you know youtube social media
podcast ecosphere
is doing like if they're talking about
you know lex friedman said this and we
have to comment on that and you know lex
gets cancelled in all capital letters on
a youtube clip and if you you watch that
you're fucking crazy what are you doing
absorbing all this negativity it's not
good for you you are you you know you
and you know generally if you've made a
mistake and you know generally if people
are upset with you you posted this
awesome video on your instagram of a
woman
who was being interviewed in the 19th
late 1920s maybe yes yeah yeah
and she's close to 100 years old
so she's lived through the civil war
through world war one she was at the
time living through the early days of
the great depression
so i was just looking back you know what
have we as a human civilization in
recent times survived especially in the
united states
you're talking about the two world wars
in the 20th century the great depression
the spanish food the pandemic at the
beginning of the 20th century yeah
what do we do in the united states uh
if you think of what are the traumatic
events that shook our world
it's 9 11
it made us rethink our place in the
world
the pandemic pandemic is a huge one
i mean one of the bigger ones because it
also accelerated and exacerbated our
anxiety which people have a certain
level of anxiety already especially
sedentary people they have a very high
level of anxiety already because i don't
think they're they're giving their body
what it
what it needs
i don't think they're you know your body
has certain requirements in terms of
movement and when you deny your body
those requirements i think there's like
a general level of anxiety that exists
in almost everyone and then you have
people obviously that have mental health
issues
and that also exacerbates the anxiety
the lockdown exacerbated the anxiety
losing loved ones to the pandemic
exacerbated anxiety and then
there was the the division that the
different schools of thought the people
that were never going to get vaccinated
no matter what i ain't trusting it
people who thought there was microchips
in there people that thought that you
know fauci's the demon and there's there
was a lot
and there's also like political
leanings the right-wing people tended to
not want to be vaccinated whereas the
left-wing people
for whatever reason all of a sudden are
trusting pharmaceutical companies
like explicitly it was weird
it's a it was a weird time and i think
uh
over time as it's gonna as it gets
analyzed
and we we break it down it's gonna be
one of the weirder moments for shaping
human culture and unfortunately for
throwing gasoline on this already
burning fire of
you know
of
conflict between
the various factions of of of thought in
this country it's just a
it's already a weird time you know
post-trump like the trump era is also
going to be one of the weirder times
when when people look back historically
about the division in this country
he's such a polarizing figure that so
many people felt like they could abandon
their own ethics and morals and
principles
just to
attack
him and anybody who supports him
because he is an existential threat to
democracy itself but don't you think
it's not a cause but maybe like a
symptom like it's going to get you said
it got real weird maybe it's going to
get weirder yeah i think it's going to
get weirder he's going to run again
well he's running against a dead man you
know i mean biden
shakes hands with people that aren't
even there when he gets off stage yeah i
think he's seeing ghosts yeah you see
him on jimmy kimmel the other day no
well he was just rambling i mean he's if
he was
anyone else
if he was a republican if that was
donald trump doing that
every
fucking talk show would be screaming for
him to be off the air and by the way i'm
not a trump supporter in any way shape
or form i've had the opportunity to have
him on my show more than once i've said
no every time i don't want to help him
i'm not interested in helping him the
the the night is still young we'll see
if i have month tonight is still young
yeah i think i'll have them on i think
you'll have them on really why do you
think that because you'll have putin on
[Laughter]
and you're competitive as fuck no
[Laughter]
i i think ultimately
um i mean you had you've had a lot of
people that i think you might you may
otherwise be skeptical would i have a
good conversation which i think is your
metric you don't care about politics so
can i have a good conversation and i
think you had
uh like people people like kanye on for
example and i had a great conversation
with him i think you
i think uh yeah but kanye is an artist
like but kanye doing well or not doing
well doesn't change the course of our
country
yeah but you know
do you really
bear the responsibility of the course of
our country based on a conversation i
think you can
revitalize and rehabilitate someone's
image
in a way
that is pretty shocking look at the way
people look at alex jones now because
alex jones has been on my podcast a few
times yeah how do they which direction
the people that have watched those
podcasts think he's hilarious
and they think that he definitely fucked
up with that whole sandy hook thing
um but
he's right more than he's wrong
and
he's not an evil guy he's just a guy
who's
had some psychotic breaks in his life
he's had some genuine mental health
issues that he's addressed he's had some
serious bouts of alcoholism some serious
bouts of you know substance abuse and
they've contributed to some very poor
thinking
but if you know the guy if you get to
know him like i have i've known him for
more than 20 years and if you know him
on podcasts you realize like
he is genuinely trying to unearth some
things that are genuinely disturbing for
most people like is the guy that was
telling me about
epstein's uh island
fucking decade ago at least he was
telling me about i was like what
you're telling me there's a place
where they bring elites
to compromise them with underage girls
and they film them really like what cut
the fuck out of here like no president
clinton's been there everyone's been
there like but it sounds like nonsense
and not only is it true but people keep
getting fucking murdered for it did you
see that latest clinton advisor that got
murdered about it yep yeah hung with an
extension cord shot himself in the chest
30 miles from his house and they're
calling it a suicide and now even elon
musk is asking where's the clientele
list yeah we should we should probably
see who's been to that island yeah we
should probably see who's been to that
island
and there's probably more of those kind
of things out there that haven't been
exposed
yeah but sort of
uh to push back
in you you had those conversations with
alex jones wouldn't you be able to have
the same kind of conversation with
donald trump what's the problem reveal
no it's not the problem you revealed
that alex jones is a human being he's
fucked up he has demons in his head he's
obviously chaotic all over the place but
there's some uh
wisdom to the perspective he takes on
the world even if though he is often
full of shit he is able to predict
certain things and very few people are
willing to bring up so isn't trump the
same way fucked up person egomaniac
uh whatever personality things you can
talk about isn't it worthwhile to lay it
out like who's going to if you listen to
interviews of trump
who has the balls to call him out on
this bullshit chris wallace did
uh no calling out somebody on their
bullshit is easy when you're just being
adversarial but as a person who is
genuinely empathetically trying to
understand yeah i think you're really
good at that like you pulled up i don't
know if he would genuinely be there you
know what i'm saying like i think he
would be putting on a performance and
that's because i think he can break
through that in like 30 minutes i'd need
more time than that
and he doesn't do any drugs that's the
thing about alex you can get alex high
yeah get him drunk and he'll start
talking about interdimensional child
molesters yeah you know and then you you
get the real alex or maybe maybe you
have somebody else on as well to
introduce chaos like alex
no no no no no
i would have to be just me and him i
would have to that would be a focused
thing i would have to like really
take time with with trump but also i'm
not um well versed enough politically to
know
all of the corruption that's been
alleged and to understand
what the the whole russia gate stuff
what what's real like how much of it
it's clear
that there is more than one organization
that's involved in communicating with
russia
before the 2016 election so it's pretty
clear that the clinton administration
was involved
it's pretty clear that the trump
administration had some communication
with some people in russia it's pretty
clear that hunter biden had some very
suspicious dealings in ukraine and
there's a lot going on there man and
it's it's hard for anybody to parse
it's really hard for anybody and
especially to have an objective
assessment of
exactly what's going on and then to be
able to do that and broadcast it
publicly that's quite a project and i
think
if you really want to do that correctly
it's something that i would have to
research for a long time and to really
really and i don't have that kind of
time not not for maybe for certain
for certain people that you're really
curious about like you have that kind of
time for bob lazar yes
yes but maybe not for donald trump no
that's different because bob lazar
what what you know what he's talking
about like i wanted to know with the bob
lazar thing i wanted to know first i
want to be around him and see if i could
smell bullshit did you like
did okay no i didn't man that was what's
weird about it not only did i not smell
bullshit i went over all of his
interviews i went he hasn't done a lot
but he's done enough
and he's done them over the course of
30 plus years and
it's alarming how consistent his story
is which is really weird when you think
about you're talking about back
engineering alien crafts and working on
a
you know a top secret government test
site that's carved into the side of a
mountain and to camouflage it from
satellites
it's a it's such a wacky story
but the guy really did work at los
alamos labs he really is a propulsions
expert he really is a scientist um
did he really work on back engineering
ufos i don't know but the way he
described their motion is exactly like
what's been observed by some of these
pilots that have these videos that
they've captured and i just love that
like nasa i've been hearing from a bunch
of folks who they're legitimately
like funding research and
there's people really
taking this seriously of um ufo
sightings investigating them yeah like
adding more and more sensors to collect
data from just observing
higher higher definitions it's cool to
finally see that he was one of the early
people whether he's full of shit or not
that kind of
forced people to start taking this kind
of
these topics seriously or at least
force people to have conversations about
them and maybe attempt to debunk them
because it seems so preposterous but
then get sucked down the rabbit hole and
start going hmm maybe well fucking it's
the thing is like the fermi paradox like
where are they right
and when you take into account just the
sheer raw numbers the vast majority of
people objectively assume that there is
life out there
the vast majority well if if you really
take into account what we understand
about the universe itself what we
understand about the concept of of
infinity and the way neil degrasse tyson
has explained it to me is that
not only
are there life forms out there but
there's you you are out there infinity
is so large that lex friedman exists and
doesn't just exist but exists an
infinite number of times like the amount
of interactions that cells and molecules
the same exact interactions that have
happened here on earth have happened in
the exact same order an infinite number
of times in the cosmos well first of all
it's not certain that that's true it's
it's possible possible uh like sean
carroll you know uh
especially with quantum mechanics
based on certain interpretation of
quantum mechanics that's that's very
possible but the question is can you
access
those
universes right and so how far away are
they the more the more sort of specific
practical question is this local pocket
of the universe our galaxy or our
neighboring galaxies are there aliens
there what do they look like are they so
you can have this panspermia idea where
a much larger like
uh like daddy civilization
uh like uh rolled by and just planted a
few aliens at a similar time like
prometheus yes yeah
a different you know throughout the
galaxy and those are the ones we might
be interacting with they're all
kind of dumb
as we are relatively you know maybe um a
few million years apart
and then those are the ones we're
interacting with and then we have a
chance to actually connect with them and
communicate with them or it could be
like
much more wide open and you have these
gigantic alien civilizations that are
expanding very very quickly and the
interesting thing is when you look up at
the sky and you see the stars that's
light
from those stars
we might not be seeing the alien
civilizations until they're already here
meaning
right like you start expanding once you
get really good at expanding you're
going to be expanding very close to the
speed of light so right now we don't see
much in the in the sky but there could
be one one day we wake up and it's just
like everywhere and they're here right
right because the amount of time the
light takes to reach us yeah and then
the the thing that i've been really
fascinated by is these
alternative forms of transportation that
they're discussing like
the the ability to harness wormholes and
the the ability to
to do things that what
a type three civilization is capable of
i had michio kaku on my podcast recently
fantastic love that guy he's so
he's so good at taking extremely complex
concepts and boiling them down for
digestion and and you know and saying
them in a way that other people can
appreciate and not being hesitant about
saying wild crazy shit that's out there
but grounded in what's actually possible
yeah he's all in on this ufo phenomenon
now he's now he's like now the burden of
proof is to people for people to come up
with some sort of a conventional
explanation for these things he goes
because these things are defying all the
concepts of physics that that we're we
currently know in terms of what our
capabilities are and and propulsion
systems and and so many other things
that you know what we know about what
current science is capable of
reproducing as far as what we know the
problem is like
these um military
projects that are
top secret
like how much money do they have they
have a lot of money like but
is it possible and maybe you could speak
to this is it possible that there could
be
some propulsion systems that have been
developed and implemented that are far
beyond just the simple burning of rocket
fuel pushing the fire out the back which
forces the rocket at extreme speeds
forward that's something that does
harness gravity something that can
distort space and time and can make
travel from one point to another uh like
preposterously fast
well not only is it possible i think
it's likely that that kind of stuff
would be
kept a secret yeah it's just everything
you see about these um
about the way
either if it's contractors like lockheed
martin or if it's dodea the the the
actual departments of defense they
operate in complete secrecy just even
looking at the
the history of the stealth fighter just
even stealth technology was kept a
secret for a very very long time
and
not until you're ready to use it
and need to use it
does it become public and not officially
public it just is being detected out in
the wild so
there's going to be a process where
you're secretly testing it and that
might creep up which is maybe what we're
seeing and then it's waiting for the
next big war
the next big
reason to use the thing yeah
and so yeah this there's definitely
technologies now there might not be
propulsion technologies there could be
ai surveillance technologies there could
be
different kinds of
uh stealth drones
there could be uh it could be also in
cyberspace like cyber war weapons
all that kind of stuff they're obviously
going to be kept secret
i'm i'm very skeptical lately and the
reason why i'm skeptical is the
government keeps talking about it the
pentagon keeps talking about it nasa
keeps talking about it in which
direction you're skeptical i'm skeptical
that it's their aliens i think most
likely it's a smoke screen and most
likely these are some sort of like
incredibly advanced drones that they've
developed that they
want to pretend don't exist
that seems the more likely scenario
because otherwise
my take is like what's the benefit of
them discussing these things like what's
the benefit of them discussing these
things openly these are you know
what the way they described it off-world
crafts
not made from this earth
like
why why would they why would they tell
us that i mean unless there's an
imminent
danger of us being invaded and they want
to prepare people so they don't freak
out as much you know like maybe freak
them out a little bit say that publicly
the new york times article the pentagon
discussing it all these different things
that's the waters
yeah well let people know that this is a
thing yeah or
my take is like that i don't think they
do that i don't think they tell us
i think they i think
i think the government has a lot of
contempt for for the citizens i really
do i think they have contempt for our
intelligence they have contempt for our
need to know things and i also think
they think that they are running us it's
not we're all in this together and the
government works for the people and the
government is of the people i don't
think they think that way yeah the the
basic idea is you can't trust the
populace to govern itself because we're
a bunch of idiots
i think that's accurate
well
they're not wrong but they're all
they're also idiots power hunger idiots
yeah i don't think they're i don't think
everyone's an idiot but i think there
are enough idiots that it becomes a real
problem if you're completely honest
about everything you do and you know you
don't want to
let everybody weigh in about things that
are incredibly complex and that most
people are ignorant of and on top of
that there's this machine of
intelligence
now i've recently been reading a lot
about the kgb about the fsb so i've
several things sparked my curiosity so
one i'm traveling to ukraine and to
moscow
and because of that i started to sort of
ask practical questions of myself just
travel and all those kinds of things so
started reading a lot about the kgb jack
barski has a book on this i talked to
him
and you start to realize you probably
looked into some of this but you just
start to realize
the scale
of surveillance and manipulation now a
lot of them also talk about the
incompetence of those organizations the
usual bureaucracy creeps in but the
point is
it seems like
there's no
line they're not willing to cross
for the purpose of gathering
intelligence
for the purpose of controlling people in
order to gather intelligence now this is
mi6
fsb
there's not much information about the
fsb or the gru but the kgb so we're
always like 20 years behind or more
on the actual information and so i
started to
wonder
so i have not officially been contacted
by any intelligence agency
but i started to wonder well
did i is there somebody i know that's
doing that
undercover
cia or undercover
fsb undercover anything
you probably do
have you asked yourself this question
yeah for sure yeah people that have been
on my podcast
yeah for sure do you think there was
actually a guest that may have been 100
oh man i would imagine would you know
i have suspicions do you care is this
i mean
it depends on what they're attempting to
do right like if i felt like there was
some deception involved and they were
trying to use the podcast to manipulate
uh a narrative in a deceptive way to
trick people into things
yeah i would care but this is exactly
what those are the kind of things they
do they do plant narratives yeah
i mean i would imagine
if you have the number one podcast in
the world
that people would want to infiltrate
that
yeah there's probably meetings in all
major intelligence agencies about okay
what are the large platforms
how do we just
how do we spread the message yeah well i
mean that's the the thing that really
emerged when we were talking about
during my cancellation that there's a
clear
there's no objective analysis of this in
mainstream media there's clear
narratives that they're trying to push
forward
to uh whether it's to
[Music]
promote certain ideas or to diminish the
power and reach of people who are
mavericks or people who
who are
you know who aren't connected to a
system that you can't compromise that's
where it gets dangerous right where it
gets dangerous is when someone has the
largest reach but is also completely
detached and
clearly
is independent
in the sense of um
independent thinking
has on whoever he wants but your mind
can still be manipulated i guess i can i
mean i guess everybody can be
manipulated a certain way i manipulate
my own mind i'm sure too but i also
spent a lot of time thinking about what
i think
you know i don't just accept things like
like the ufo thing like i was all in for
a while and now i'm like man
something smells fishy
i'm in
like why here's my problem with the ufo
thing i want it to be real so bad yeah
that's my problem with it i'm such a
sucker
i want it to be real so bad
you know and that's that's a problem for
me because i'm aware of it and so then i
stop and think about like what is
what what is my desire
uh for uh
ufo truth to be exposed what's because
it's fun
you know
that's what it is so i have a desire to
for it to be real and i mean i've talked
to uh i talked to
a bunch of folks about this so those
with connection with
dod
and they do draw lines between people
that are full of shit and people who are
not
there's a lot of people in the public
sphere that they say are full of shit
yeah for sure and you have to kind of
tell the difference yeah cnn watch them
talk well i mean even
you know
everyone is on the ufo topic though
there's certain individuals that are
like okay they're just like using this
um in fact like people who are not full
of shit are often very quiet
right which is why you know even bob
lazar is an interesting story because he
was trying to be quiet for the longest
time
well he was worried about his own life
according to bob and that's why he went
public with it and initially the first
videos he did with george knapp they hit
his identity yeah
yeah and then he felt like that wasn't
enough and he really needed to expose
his own identity just to protect his
life
which is a great story you know so you
got to go well that seems so juicy i
want to buy into it and that's where i
get nervous you don't know you don't
know who to trust right exactly how how
do you figure that out how do you figure
out who to trust in your life you're joe
rogan a lot of people want to be close
to cia agents fsb agents
people that want i'm friends with a
former cia agent yeah mike baker who's
been on my podcast a bunch of times
allegedly former former i think about
that he's air quotes former yeah yeah i
don't believe he's former i'm sure he
has some connection to him i also
believe he's a good guy
but i gain a lot of very intelligent and
well-informed insights from him as to
how things work and you know
i think uh
yeah i'm sure he doesn't tell me
everything about everything but he's
told me enough where i i think i can
understand things better
from talking to him about how the way
you know
the elves
work under the machine
what about friends how do you know if
you can trust well most of my friends
are old friends
time so time is the thing yeah like uh
just going through shit together yeah
and so much people that
you know
first of all comics like
you can trust comics yeah comments are
pretty trustworthy the good ones they're
really good ones there's not that many
of us
if there's a thousand professional
comics on earth i'd be stunned
i'd be stunned i don't even think
there's a thousand like real
professionals who you get booked all the
time headline weekends at clubs and
theaters and arenas
and then there's levels to that right
there's like the guys who are middle
acts who kind of like barely scrape by
and then like how many headliners are
there how many like really funny
headliners that i would say you know if
you lex you tell me you're gonna be in
cincinnati hey this person's playing at
this club should i go see them i'd be
like ah you know like how many people
would i give the recommendation to
and then how many people
sell out theaters
how many people sell out arenas how many
there's not that fucking many so those
people like at the uh the levels of
comedy where you do you know you've been
doing stand-up for 20 years
you there's a certain amount of honesty
and a certain amount of understanding of
each other that we all have oh so that
that process of becoming a great comic
is like humbling in the way like yeah
jiu jitsu is humbling very similar like
there's you've take you've eaten so much
shit that yeah that that somehow even if
you're insane if you even if you're
chaotic even in the way
even if you're full of shit you lie a
lot all those kinds of things
underneath it there's a good human yeah
you could be surface bullshitter but on
important things you're trustworthy
hopefully i mean if you're not then
people shy away from you and there are
people like that too that are really
successful but that are that are what i
call islands
um i've talked to other comics about
that like you don't want to be an island
because there's these people that aren't
attached to the rest of the community
and they're doing well on their own and
usually they have like one opening act
they bring with them on the road they've
worked with forever and they don't have
comedy friends
and they're those people are miserable
because they can't relate sometimes fame
in itself is isolating so you have to
actually do a lot of work and make sure
you don't it doesn't isolate you yes if
you become successful
people start wanting stuff from you yes
and then sometimes you want to push them
away because of that as opposed to uh
connect with them yeah i don't enjoy it
when people want things from me
it's not fun you just ignore it yeah
it's fucking too heavy they want too
much it's it's too much of a
disproportionate relationship
you know it's too unbalanced
because uh there are people where you
could tell that they're working towards
something they're working towards an
angle and they want to be close to you
because you'll you will benefit them and
then there's other people that are just
there's not that many of us and so we
all want to hang out together like when
i one of the podcasts i love the most is
this podcast i do called protect our
parks it's a thing i do with uh ari
shafir shane gillis and mark north
that's great it's so fun because we just
get obliterated and we talk so much shit
yeah like there's conversations after
that podcast where i go hey man we got
to cut that part out yeah because like
shane will go too far and go too crazy
but we're just making each other laugh
and it's just fun and it's like that
kind of camaraderie between real comics
is very precious to me my favorite part
of that is like the non-sequitur stuff
from mark norman
you guys get so trashed that you don't
even understand what the hell he's
talking about but it's funny to the
listener because he's still on point
that is as sharp he's so good mitch
hedberg quality yes
well he's such a such a dedicated comic
you know he loves comedy so much that's
one of the things i love about him he's
like comedy he gets excited like he
loves it as to shane and as does ari
yeah you know they really love it and
it's um that's so so there's that like i
have friends in that way and i have
martial arts friends who are some of the
uh also the thing about being humbled
how things like jiu jitsu will humble
you martial arts friends are they're
also
i they know
they know who's been through it you know
they know who's who really has gone
through the gauntlet and emerged on the
other end uh a better person well you
said there's very few of us
let's have the goat discussion you're
not gonna pick anybody but
who are the greats of comedy who's who's
the who's the who's the greatest comic
of all time well i don't think there is
a greatest comic of all time
it's like mcdonald
nor macdonald was one of the greats for
sure but by the way actually on that
topic what what do you think about his i
think as a person who is fascinated by
the fear of death and death i think it
was
a truly
genius thing to release a special after
you're dead
i don't know how that works i haven't
seen it special have you it's not yeah
it's it's um
it's called i think nothing special
which sounds like something normal to
say and it's basically him in front of i
mean i imagine he wouldn't would have
wanted it edited that way because it's
made to look nicer than i think he
probably would have preferred it
uh but it's him in front of the
screen like in a zoom call
doing jokes
without lap cold really yeah and
somehow given his
like dry dark humor it works
because it's almost making fun of itself
almost making fun of that hole that we
were stuck
stuck alone
inside and because he's still acting as
if he's in front of the audience
and he's almost making fun of the fact
that this is what we're forced to do i
mean it's quite genius it's really well
and the jokes are really good but it
also makes you realize how important
laughter is from the audience the energy
from the audience
because uh but there's also an intimacy
because it's just you and him
because you're listening to it you know
there's no audience yeah so that's i
don't know it's i think it's quite
genius and he's of course there's
there's certain comics that are like
not only are they funny
but they're truly unique
and
like they're they're they're
not in terms of uh friendship and all
that kind of stuff but in terms of
comedy they're an island yeah it's like
they you know mitch hedberg probably is
that of course a lot of people then
start to imitate them and so on but
steven wright stephen wright
i mean there's like people who are like
you know dave chappelle who's
like probably one of the greats but he's
just like raw funny yeah i don't know if
he's an island
he's just raw uh yeah i know what you're
saying an outlier a unique
individual yeah he's just great
um norm is definitely unique in his
greatness like like there's only one
norm you know who's got a very specific
style is there a reason you guys weren't
he doesn't seem like he was you guys
were close
i mean i loved him he was great i always
enjoyed talking to him
um
we just didn't work together that often
we weren't around each other that often
that's all it was but it wasn't like uh
it was i loved him though
he was a great guy i had a funny story
about it norm uh twice just randomly i
was on airplanes next to him
seated right next to him just totally
random yeah and uh one time
we're on this airplane and we're having
this talk and i was like yeah i quit
smoking i was smoking a lot and i just
yeah it's terrible terrible smoke it's
terrible for you
and we have this great conversation we
get off the plane and he sprints towards
a store and buys cigarettes like in the
airport and is lighting it on the way
out the door
and i go i thought you quit smoking it
was yeah i did but all that talking
about smoking made me wanted to smoke
again
so
before he's getting through the door of
the airport he's lighting it up i can't
wait
he can't wait to get that cigarette at
him it was he was just so crazy and
impulsive and
loved to gamble he loved gambling and in
that way he embodied the joke like you
can't even tell that certain people just
like live
in a non-sequitur
ridiculous absurd
funny way yeah that was him i mean
non-stop just there was nothing
artificial about norm you know that that
was who he was
his brilliance was
his essence that was who he was
you know but it's in terms of like the
greats
the godfather of it all is lenny bruce i
mean i have a bunch of lenny bruce uh
concert posters at my house and photos
that i have framed and whitney cummings
actually gave me this brilliant photo of
him uh when he got arrested for one of
the times when he got arrested for
saying obscene jokes
he was the
most important figure in the early days
of comedy because he essentially gave
birth to the modern art form of stand-up
comedy before that it was a bunch of
guys that were like hosting shows and
they would tell jokes they were just
like you know
you know two guys walking to a bar that
kind of stuff yeah and
he would talk about
social issues you know he would talk
about life he would talk about language
he would talk about
laws
and it was just he was
the very first guy who did modern stand
up and what's fascinating is if you go
and you try to watch it
if you try to watch lenny bruce today it
doesn't work
because society has evolved like in many
ways art is a window especially like pop
culture art or modern
uh
you know at the time culture uh
art
art that discusses culture is a window
into that time period it's a little bit
of a time machine so you get to like you
have to put yourself like what was it
like to be in 1963 like what was he say
in 1963 what was this like to hear him
say this
and
the
the civilization that existed in 1963
although it looked pretty similar
they're all driving cars and they're all
wearing suits and they're all it seems
normal that's a it's a different world
and the things that he was saying that
are so taboo are so normal today yeah
that they're not shocking and it's not
not that good it's not that funny yeah
you have to do the same kind of
stuff for um
like there's d.h lawrence has a book
called lady shadowlay's lover
and i know it sounds ridiculous but it
was one of the early books i believe at
the
uh
over a century ago that was very
controversial for its sexual content
it's sort of one of the great books
because it dared to actually talk about
a woman cheating on her husband
and like and do so
in the highest form and the same thing
with gulag archipelago talking about
talking about some of the darkest
aspects of human history
right when all of that stuff is
forbidden
when it's banned because now it's like
not you know
yes we all know this history but when in
the middle of it when you're risking
your own life when you're risking your
book being banned or burned or
you being imprisoned that's when it
matters like taking that risk
yeah and no one took that risk more than
lenny bruce lenny bruce was arrested
many many times and uh
ultimately it wound up costing him his
life i mean died on the bathroom floor
shooting heroin and trying to cope with
all the lawsuits that he was going
through i mean this guy was constantly
being arrested and constantly going
through lawsuits and then his comedy
deteriorated horribly there's some
footage of him
towards the end of his career where he
essentially would go on stage with legal
papers and read from the legal papers
about his case
from then it's richard pryor from him
then the next great is richard pryor and
he had the most profound impact on me
when i was a kid when i was 15 years old
my parents took me to see live at the
sunset strip which is a richard pryor's
concert film and i
remember very distinctly being in that
audience
and
laughing and looking around at all the
people in the audience who were like
falling out of their chairs just
dying laughing just swaying back and
forth and i was laughing hard too and i
was like my god this guy is doing this
just by talking
i thought of all the great movies that
i'd seen that i loved that were
hilarious comedy movies and i was like
nothing that i've ever seen is as funny
as this and all he's doing is talking
and that planted a seed in my head for
my love of stand up comedy and my
curiosity about the art form and that's
what got me interested in you