#2280 - Peter Berg

25:58Right? Yeah. But that was one of the issues, the polygamy that people that were non -mormons back in 1850s were using to attack the religion. And that was something that was, the polygamy has obviously been since outlawed and the church has cut itself off from that policy. But the Mormons were, the whole idea that this kid, Joseph Smith, I believe he was a young teenager, 14. Yeah. When he and his buddy walked into these woods, I mean like 18, late 1830s, right? Like it was 1820. Okay. When did he find, when did Joseph Smith supposedly find these gold tablets? I believe it was, but either way, early 56 wives.

26:49Bring him, you know, I had 56. There's, there's a photo of you. This is 16, he forgot about. See, I didn't want to, I didn't want to oversell it, so I understood it. I kind of knew what was in the 50s. He had 56 wives. 46 kids, only, only 40, 46 kids made it to adulthood. What part of why? Oh wow, only 46. He's basically ging as calm, Utah. But 1823, he was visited by an angel who directed him on what he would bury book of 1823. And how old was he like 14? So, but so this kid at 14, it comes out of the woods and says the angel came and told me that the Bible's almost right, but it's not quite right.

27:31So, I'm going to re -write it, which he did, the Book of Mormon. And look at where we are, Tidia, it was not that long ago, right? And, and the course of that journey from Joseph Smith coming out of the woods to where we are today with Brigham Young University and, you know, beautiful city of Salt Lake City, Utah. There was a lot of bloodshed. And Joseph Smith was murdered. Brigham Young fought another interesting theory that isn't proven, but it's, I believe it, it holds. It was what saved the Mormons. Because in 1857, when you had the Mormon wars, you know, Brigham Young was fighting the present Buchanan and when the military was coming after him in 1857, and he was holed up and prepared to fight in Salt Lake City.

28:21And Buchanan wanted him out. And then right around 1858, 1859, little thing called the Civil War popped off. And the entire focus of the US military was not on Brigham Young and Utah, but it was on fighting the Civil War. The Utah Church was able, and Brigham Young was able to grow the Mormon Church and survive and thrive. And he was able to politically negotiate, you know, a place in the government so that by the time the Civil War ended, Brigham Young was deeply entrenched and was, you know, able to lead the Mormon Church to the great power that it is today. I think if the Civil War hadn't occurred, there would be no Mormonism in the United States.

29:06Wow. That's crazy. What if for two it is turn of events? And I'm gonna probably get ripped on for that one, but I believe it's supportable. Yeah, you're gonna get ripped for everything. That's okay. That's just how it is. Mormons are the nicest people. My next door neighbors used to be Mormons. They're the nicest fuckers. I agree. I completely agree. There's so, I know a ton of Mormons because I know a bunch of people in Utah. And Salt Lake City is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful state. Salt Lake City is a cool city, and like I'm down with the Sundance Film Festival, so I'm down with the whole state.

29:42Yeah, no, I love Utah, but it is a fascinating story. It's a, and it's, you know, look, they have a great sense of humor because the Book of Mormon when Matt Stone and Tray Parker did that musical, they took out a full page ad in the playbook. So they're like, if you wanna know more about Mormonism, come visit find out the real thing. So instead of protesting and suing and attacking them, and they just took out a fucking ad. So when I was doing, I think that shows an incredible character. Yeah, for sure. Cause that fucking, you've seen the Book of Mormon, right? I guess I have. Oh, hilarious. And pretty brutal.

30:24And they're like, well, if you like, you like to find out more about Mormonism? Yeah, I can't figure out. Like I, when I was doing my research for American Prime Evil, I went to Salt Lake City and the Mormon church gave me a tour. And, you know, I told them what the film was about. And that the Mount Metta's massacre was in the book. I was gonna be in our show. And they took me to the theater. Have you ever been to the theater, the Mormon theater in Salt Lake City? No. It holds like 20 ,000 people. It is the most beautiful, incredible theater where they have, you know, weekly, you know, events and meetings.

31:01And they took me in there. And there's a huge pipe organ. And I had a private, you know, concert with their organist. Yeah, it's that. Whoa, look at that, please. And I sat by myself in the center of that theater, and you see the pipe organs. Yeah. And they gave me a private, you know, concert. And then they took me into the museum and showed me, you know, the history of the Mormon church. And I told them about the Meadows Massacre, which, you know, I've taken heat for in the show. And at the end of the tour, there's a bookstore in the museum, the Mormon museum in Salt Lake. And the book, Mountain Metta's Massacre, by this guy, Turley, was there.

31:44And I'm like, I want to buy this book. I read the book, and I'm like, oh, for sure, we're putting this story in our film. And it was for sale in the Mormon bookstore. Oh. And I met with the author, Turley, who then took me to the site of the Mountain Metta's Massacre. And he had written the book with the support of the Mormon church to get their side of the story out. Did you film at the actual site? No, we didn't. That was in, the actual site was in Utah. But I went and toured it. He filmed in New Mexico. Yeah, we filmed everything in different reservations around Santa Fe. But if you go to the site of the Mormon Meadows Massacre in Utah, the Mormons have built a big memorial there, honoring 130 pioneers from Arkansas who were killed there.

32:34And the Mormons have owned this event. And they were very willing to talk about it, which is kind of like them buying a full -page ad in Book of Mormon. Right, right. They're like, you know, we know you're going to make a film about the Meadows Massacre. It's probably going to be inflammatory in some ways. However, come visit us. We want to meet you. We want to show you. We want to play music for you. And I had an incredible time with the Mormons that were involved with us doing the research for primeval. This episode is brought to you by the Farmers Dog. I've been asking dog -owning friends what they feed their dogs and most of them are surprised by the question.

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34:00So try the Farmers Dog today and get 50 % off your first box of healthy, freshly made food plus free shipping. Just go to the Farmers Dog .com slash Rogan. Tap the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more. The offer is for new customers only. So what is the backlash, though? If they've admitted that this massacre took place, and it's a historical, it's part of the historical record, the book is for sale in this Mormon theater. What is the backlash? The biggest, the biggest single issue if you get into the weeds. And I think it's an interesting point of debate is whether or not bring them young, new, and authorize this massacre.

34:41And the way the massacre played out in real life was different how we did it in the film. And the film we did it in one swell move, like it just happens. And we filmed it in one shot and it's pretty intense, visceral, very fast events. And then it's over. And reality, this wagon train was surrounded by the Mormon militia, the Navaleegean, and some of these Native Americans. And it went on for about four or five days. And the Mormons dressed up as Native Americans. This is where it gets kind of... Some Mormons aren't thrilled that we pointed out the fact that they were trying to put the blame on the Native Americans.

35:20So they literally, Mormons dressed up as Indians to confuse the pioneers in case there were survivors to say, well, it wasn't Mormons, it was the Native Americans that did this. So they don't love that. But what the Mormons claim or some of the Mormon church claim is that during the three or four days the deceased took place before the actual massacre. And the details of the massacre are really fucked up because the Mormons pretended they were accepting a surrender. So they went in with white flags and they said, okay, the men walked this way, the women and children were going to walk you to safety because the Indians are going to kill you.

35:55Mormons said, we're here to save you. So they started walking them out and then on a someone's signal, they just killed everyone. Really bad. But the issue of whether Brigham Young knew about it or didn't know about it, we imply that he knew about it. We never say that he authorized it, but we imply that he did know about it. And what many of the defenders of Brigham Young will say is that there was a letter written where Brigham Young said, do not harm these pioneers. Don't kill them. But the letter was sent by horse while the massacre, while the event was already occurring. So I've had people say he knew that that letter wasn't going to make it there in time.

36:39He was covering himself. Oh, hey, I wrote a letter. I knew it couldn't get there in time. I wrote a letter so there's plausible den to denibility. No one knows. It's hard to believe if you really start getting into this and obviously I did. It knows not on the top of everyone's list of things to give a fuck about. But it's really hard for me to believe that in 1857, a group of Brigham Young soldiers would act unilaterally on their own and commit a crime that's horrible without somebody approving it. It's hard for me to imagine. But so that's the single issue that tends to, you know, if I do, and I really try not to, my girlfriends turn me on to read it.

37:23I never even really knew what it was. Oh my God. Like, I don't like what like Reddit is fucking crazy. Yeah. I was talking to, you know, Jack Carr, right? Mm -hmm. And he's, he's getting into, you know, making movies and he's doing all this cool stuff at the terminal list and I think he's a great guy. And he was talking to me about reviews because it was the first time he was ever getting reviewed. And, you know, any filmmaker who says they don't read the reviews is lying, okay? They're just fucking lying. And they, we do read reviews. And we care. And they hurt, you know, and he's like, I guess he's gotten, you know, read something he didn't like on the terminal list and he's just called me and he's like, how do you handle this shit?

38:12I want to kill this, I can't, I mean, he's freaking out. And I'm, I mean, I'm not, he wasn't really freaking out that bad. But he was pissed. And I'm like, Jack, you know, welcome to the world of, you know, what we do. You, people are gonna, are gonna talk. And like, I'm like, you don't understand what, like before Reddit and, and comments and all the things. Back when we first put movies out, man, there were three critics that mattered. Like, when I first started making movies, there was this guy Kenneth Taran and, uh, in the LA Times. There was Janet Maslin in the New York Times. And then there was Siskel and Ebert, right?

38:50And like, they had so much power, right? So you, you'd make a movie and you'd spend, you know, tens of millions of dollars and you'd put your heart and soul and, you know, like, we never try to make bad movies, right? Like, that's, that's never the goal. We're always like, you know, we want to win something. It's hard to make a good movie. But you put all your, your heart and soul into these movies and then it's fucking three critics that control your fate, right? And I was telling Kar about, um, you know, my first movie was called Very Bad Things. It was about this bachelor party that goes, Hey, why are you?

39:26That's a great movie. Appreciate it. Thank you. I love them. So that movie got hands down the worst review ever given to a movie in the history of film reviews. Please don't pull it up right now. But feel free. Anyone listening Kenneth Taran's review of my film, Very Bad Things in Los Angeles Times. Okay. I read this review. I literally vomit. Like people talk about vomiting. Like if you've ever vomited when something bad happens, I puked. I went into like shock. I'm like, he tried to destroy my career. And he like, it was, and so I'm telling Jack that I'm going, pull it up right now, pull it up.

40:07And he starts reading it and he's like, oh my god. Oh my god. I don't fucking tell me about bad reviews. Okay, because I got the worst. And Kenneth Taran, who like after I got that review, I was in a bar at the four seasons hotel in Los Angeles, getting drunk with a couple of my friends. And Kenneth Taran was in the bar. And I got up and started moving towards him. Like I was in a blackout rage. And my friend Joe and my Mendelssohn held me back because I was going to get him, you know. And for three thumbs after that Kenneth Taran, he just had it out for me. This guy hated me. And finally on, I believe it was either Friday night lights or loan survivor.

40:57He reluctantly gave me a good review. But it was a more like a broken clock. It's right twice a day. But like nowadays, like, as I said, did Jack, it's like, okay. If you, the crazy thing about if you were focusing on how your work is being perceived, and it matters, and it does matter. And I could say anyone who says it does and I think is kind of lying. Don't you think it matters more about the audience than about the critics? 100%. My perspective on critics is that no one wants to be a critic. Generally, they wanted to be creative, but they're not good enough for sure to contribute. For sure.

41:36They don't have anything to contribute. And they're using a different standard that doesn't really apply to just like the working human being and just wants to be entertained. And this way, he said to Jack, I go, dude, like, we have rotten tomatoes, right? Which is a way of critics. If you get 61 % good, you get a fresh tomato. If not, you're got a rotten tomato. And that sucks. Okay, I've got a rotten tomato. That sucks. Oh, I got a fresh tomato. Oh, that's great. But now they have the audience score right next to the critics score. Yeah. And that's the one that I said, Jack, don't look at the critics.

42:14Look at what your audience has said. And that's one, you know, I learned about Reddit and all that stuff. And I'm like, fuck the critics. I'm down with this Reddit shit because you get such interesting conversations. Yeah. And they're much more thoughtful, I think. And they've taken away the power, you know, and I'm not shitting on critics. I get it. You want to be a critic, whatever, you know, I do like the quote, the quote about critics and life doesn't go to the critic. It's the man in the arena. I like that quote and I believe in that. And I've used that to justify my mood when I get a bad review.

42:53I'll just read the man in the arena over and over until I feel good. Is that theater Roosevelt? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great quote. Great quote. And it's true. Yeah. It is absolutely true that, you know, to do, to do, people that do, you know, I was just talking to Dana White and about something that I actually want to mention to you. But and the my love of a guy like Dana is the the doer of it all. The guy who just says, I don't care what the critic says, I'm going this way. I am fucking going this way. And if I win and you're with me on the ride, you're part of me. If if I lose and you're still with me, you're my friend.

43:42If not, I don't give a fuck. I'm going to do it again. And I have I have so much respect for that. And and I'll tell you another interesting thing about my business that never. It never, it never, I, it always surprises me how real it is. But when you make something a movie or you do something, whether it's American, I'm having almost anything I've done. And I don't know if you've ever experienced this. You know, you put yourself on the line so intensely and and you'll believe in it with your heart and your soul and you go for it. And as it's getting ready to come out, there's this weird thing that happens where everybody separates from you.

44:23And you're the one that's kind of now you're about to be judged. It's going to be determined to be successful or a failure. It's going to get reviewed and everyone's kind of like, good luck Pete. Good luck. And I could like like the day or two before it comes out. All the people like and this is when you know who's got your back. Okay. Because there's a few you look around and like, well, all these people were with me for this journey. And I'm off on my fucking word. Where did the money go? And it's, you know, like my sister, my best friend, Ari, my dog, my son. There's a few people who are really right there.

45:07And then and then when it comes out and it works, man, you have a lot of friends. And and and that's, you know, just one of the things you have to do in this business. And it's why the critics fuck them and it's why Dana and people like that. You who do, you know, create it and build it and make it and it's real. You definitely need feedback because you definitely need to know if you're on the right track. But you can get lost in feedback. You can get lost in positive feedback too. You get lost. You can get lost in people approving you and and you can get drunk in it. I don't read anything. I'm reading anything about me.

45:54No red at Trevor. Nothing. I don't read anything. I just, I get it. Like sometimes I'm good. Sometimes I'm not as good. That's, I get it. I do my best. That's all I can do. And I feel like if you're really self critical, which I am and you're, you're objective and you analyze yourself and you're brutally honest. If you're brutally honest about what you've done and how it is, like, could you've done it better? Is there anything? Did you cut corners? Yeah. And if you don't, if you don't cut corners and if you do your best and you really prepare, that's all you can do. You just do your very best.

46:30And if you haven't done your best, that's when the critics really sting. If you know that you kind of slacked off or you weren't focused or there's something that was wrong with what you did for the money. Yeah. That can happen. Yeah. I agree with that. To do it for the money is a real, real one. You know, I mean, that's the downfall of Robert Jinerro. Yeah. Right. He needs money for divorces. You know, he's got marital problems and so I spend a lot of money and he starts doing these fantasy movies with Michelle Fifre and it's like, bizarre shit. Or he's like, what is Robert Jinerro, one of the greatest actors of all time doing these fucking goofy ass movies?

47:06You get extended. I agree with you that, like, what I always say is I do a lot of research from my films and, you know, have went to Iraq when Navy SEAL platoon and lived on an oil rig and went back to high school for Friday night lights. And I found that if I, whenever I put that work in and I put that research in, I was really, really with the exception of very bad things, which was a fantasy about a bachelor party going, hey, why are you, which Kenneth Raine didn't like? It did hurt me. It did. That review, but I was younger. But if I do stay true to my instincts and my passion and I follow it, a.

47:47The work seems to connect much, much better and I don't, I don't feel if somebody doesn't like it or wants to talk about it or debate it. Okay. It doesn't hurt me. Yeah, that's experience, right? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And any time I've done a job for the money and there have been a couple, it's backfired horrifically. And the money was never worth it.

48:13The reviews did sting worse. Because you agreed with them. Yeah. They were right. Yeah. I was lazy. I didn't give a fuck. I was, you know, I cared. I still, I didn't phone it in, but I wasn't locked in. Right. And that's the difference. Yeah. And I think one of the reasons that you don't have to read your shit is because you know you're locked in. You just are. And that's why you're, you're connecting. And, and, and locking in, and I say it to filmmakers now because so kids are so confused. Young kids that want to become filmmakers, you know, that they, they think they're, you know, they're going to work hard and they're going to make these movies and they're going to put their heart and soul into them and people are going to watch them.

48:58And then they go and they see TikTok videos that are getting, you know, 400 million likes. And someone's just, you know, live streaming them like making toast. Like, they're like, wait a minute. What the fuck is happening? Yeah. And I say, look, all you can do is control your passion, your work, your, your discipline. Yeah. And, and believe in something and put the work in and I believe that the results, you know, will, will take care of themselves. But it's, it's weird, you know, for, for filmmakers today and to try and figure out how, how to, what's going to penetrate and what's not going to penetrate and yeah.

49:38I remember when, when, I did that, that series about opioids, pink killer. And, you know, that pretty heavy issue and we worked really hard on that and I was very, very proud of it. And, you know, we came out number one on Netflix and we were number one for like six, seven days around the world. And on the eighth day, we were number two. And the number one show was a documentary made on cell phone footage about the Johnny Depp, Amber Herd, the divorce trial where people were just in the parking lots. And that was the number one show on Netflix in the world. And I'm like, whoa, wow, like, you know, they probably made that for $25 ,000 if that.

50:23And it, everything is sort of, there's this great parody now. And I'm like, and it's confusing. But I'm like, dude, you just have to work harder. Yeah. And if you're not telling the truth, you're going to have a harder time. You can't be in the business of getting the most attention because human beings are easily distracted, easily amused. We like a lot of things that have zero quality. And just because we're watching, it doesn't mean it resonates with us. Just because you're watching the Amber Herd trial doesn't mean it's changing the way you feel about things, really entertaining you. And not just entertaining you, but stimulating you in a way like, wow, like that was a fucking masterful piece of cinema.

51:06Yeah. You know, there's a difference. You know, and yeah, there's going to be a bunch of people that just watch people unbox cell phones or eat octopus. You know, there's like, there's weird videos that get a lot of likes, but you're not in the business of attention. You're in the business of art. And I feel like when it comes to paying attention to comments and critics, I feel like if you're locked in and if you're doing your best, if you don't, if you're one of those people that don't need to be checked on, some people need to be checked on. Some people get off the rails, they get a little full of themselves and they need a little something to just like set them back.

51:42You need someone to say that one sucked like God damn it. And then you work harder, but if you're working as hard as you can, this is my advice that I give comedians when it comes to comments and things like that and negativity. You only have so much attention and think of your attention as if it was a number like you have 100 units of attention. Now, if you're spending 30 units paying attention to comments and negative articles and criticism, that's 30 units you can't use for something that you love. That's there. And then also it probably bleeds into your thoughts when you're doing those things that you do love, particularly like devastating negative reviews and comments and things that are like really hurt you, that hurt your feelings.

52:33Take a lot of numbers. Yeah, it takes a lot of numbers. It's just bandwidth. You're robbing yourself of your ability to do the things that you love. You're robbing yourself of your ability to pay attention to your family, your ability to contact your friends and reach out and to be present because you're thinking, oh my God, I can't believe you hated my movie. Oh my God, I can't believe you know, I bombed. Oh my God, I can't believe this podcast sucked. Whatever it is, you're robbing yourself. You can only do your best. And if you're doing, if you're not doing your best, you probably need those comments.

53:07You need something to wake you the fuck up and get locked in. But if you're locked in, you don't want it. You should know. I know if I talk too much, I know if I interrupt too much, I know and I drive home. I hate you don't need to be. I don't need it. I'm fucking hate me. I'm my number one critic. So I don't pay attention and this is something that I had to figure out over the years. But when I knocked it down to a formula of attention bandwidth, that's not really understood it because I'm like, okay, the times, even distractions, like the times that I'm spending just scrolling through Instagram and looking at nonsense, like that hour is a valuable hour to me.

53:53Right. I could have been doing like real good things with that hour where I feel good about it or I get nothing, just distraction, just nothing, which is fine sometimes if you're on a fucking airplane or something, they're not gonna do. Who cares? Is it really ever fine, do you think? I think it's okay sometimes because it's barely as a comedian, I think there's a value in having your thumb on the pulse of culture. And even the chaotic fucking unboxing videos and food and stupid shit and people just sticking their ass out and insta hose. There's a value in keeping your thumb on it. You just have to know when your thumb's getting burnt.

54:31I don't think there's a value in insta hose. I don't, I don't, I actually don't and I've gotten pretty... This episode is brought to you by Buffalo Trace Distillery. Actually, I have some Buffalo Trace cigars here they just sent me. One of the world's most award -winning distilleries that's been making whiskey the same way for more than 200 years, made as a tribute to the rugged free spirited pioneers who blaze their own trail to new frontiers. It embodies the perfectly untamed spirit of independence. It defines what an award -winning bourbon should be. Age nearly twice as long as competitors in new charred white oak barrels and bottled at 90 proof, Buffalo Trace is the perfect bourbon to be enjoyed in any way, anywhere.

55:24And the taste, it's damn good. It's bold and sophisticated yet incredibly smooth, finishing long and deep. It's authentically American representing uncompromising quality for the rugged, the powerful and the passionate. Tap the banner to learn more or visit buffalotracedistillery .com. That's buffalotracedistillery .com. Distilled, aged and bottled by Buffalo Trace Distillery, 90 proof, Franklin County, Kentucky, Buffalo Trace, American, family -owned, independent and perfectly untamed. I get it, like just removing that from my life, but I was challenging. The boxing, okay, people put in shan boxes, maybe eating asparagus, I guess.

56:14I do enjoy cooking videos. I think there's value in that. I love watching chefs prepare food. Where do you stand on? And this is something I talk to a lot of writers and filmmakers about. Just being quiet is really important. For me, the most creative experiences I've ever had have come far away from any stimulation, for many controlled thinking, from allowing ideas to come, to have like the divine spirit, the angels that are creativity that require a certain amount of quiet in space for those to emerge, at least for me they do. And I try to make space because I so agree with the bandwidth and you're right.

57:06But more than anything, just turning it all off can be so inspiring for me creatively. Yeah, one of the most disappointing things that I've ever done, some of the most disappointing things, is when I sit down from my computer to write and I wind up looking at my phone, and I just scroll and bullshit. And then I start writing, but I'm distracted, and then I get an email or a text message, comes through and I'm like, oh yeah, I'll text him. And I'm just distracting myself. And then I realize like after an hour and a half, I just fucking wasted an hour and a half that I could have written something that could have been a new brilliant bit.

57:42It could have been a new thing that I'm really excited about. Instead, I just fucked off. Yeah, so my creative process, like I just wrote a script that'll be my next film. And I wrote it in a very locked -in zone. I try to find a way of locking myself into a pattern when I'm writing, but it involves the key for me is getting up about 445 at the latest, but usually right around. I'm crazy about it, so I'll set my alarm for 545 to the same song every morning that wakes me up. This script was then Morrison, and from I will go, I'll take a piss, and then I'll get a cup of coffee, and then I'll go right to my writing room with no phone, no stimulation, nothing until I put in, usually about 2 and a half to 3 hours.

58:34I've just pure mental focus on no distraction, no conversation, no news, no phone, no nothing. Why do you like to do it in the morning? Because I think when you actually like studying writers and the writing habits, I believe that if you've had a good sleep, a sober sleep, and an intention sleep, meaning you go to bed with some plan of what you want to write tomorrow. So I want to make an film about Marines, I want to write the landing at Okinawa in World War 2, which is part of the story. I know I'm going to write the actual landing scene. I go to bed with that intention, I might even write that intention down.

59:16You wake up, your mind is like at its most fertile. It's like a calm pond, like a mountain pond that's absolutely flat and like glass and reflective and beautiful, and in the morning it's at its most calm your mind. And then I believe that every bit of stimulation you put into it is like a pebble or a rock being dropped into that water until the water starts getting all churned, and that's what happens to my mind. By 11 o 'clock in the morning, if you've been plugged in and communicating, your mind is just a fucking feral boiling cauldron of acid. So I like early morning, super calm, I can find the ideas.

1:00:04And I tend to, if I lock in like that, I write at a high level and kind of to your point about like critic proof, I know it's good because I know it came from the deepest place I have. And it's like, well, okay, if you don't like that then you don't like me. Right. Which is fine. Yeah, I can handle that. But like I know that versus writing a little bit here, working a little bit there and then going out to lunch and then sitting in a cafe and you know, coffee shop and kind of writing, but being on the phone, I just don't think that's deep work. Yeah. And I have noticed though that like rappers and a lot of people in the hip hop community, I've been working on a documentary about Rihanna for quite a while and spent a lot of time with her in the studio.

1:00:56And it's amazing the hours that hip hop performers, you know, musicians and rappers keep because they're going into the studio at two o 'clock in the morning and working till, you know, one in the afternoon and then sleeping all day. And that that work, that night time and I've talked to her about it, she's just extremely creative late at night, almost for me the exact opposite. But like, do you like to work creatively at night? Yeah. Can you write comedy at night? Yeah, I write when I get home. Wow. Yeah. So what I do is I do shows and then I come home and everyone's asleep. My whole house is asleep so it's quiet.

1:01:35And you can access. Yeah, because my mind is really stimulated because I just performed, you know, and, you know, I just maybe have had a drink or two and I sit in front of the computer and I just start thinking. Really? Yeah, I just start thinking and I just try to freestyle with thoughts. And the way I write is I just, I have a topic and I just start with just essentially an essay. And not an essay that I think anybody's going to read. An essay is just like my thoughts just rambling thoughts and then maybe I'll rewrite a paragraph. But I'll keep the same paragraph above it, the reference, and then I'll rewrite it again.

1:02:08But like what kind of subject like anything, whatever it is, technology, how it's affecting our lives and what our future is going to be like. And then I'll sit down with that and think about the pros and cons and like what do I really, what hasn't every society faced this? Like, would you want to go back and live in the caveman days again? No, definitely not. Would you want, do you want to live in a time with no penicillin? No, no, no, no, no. Like so how much technology is too much technology? And I'll just start writing and out of that, I'll get a bit out of that. I mean, not always maybe one out of 10 times something is useful.

1:02:47Like there's a lot of times I'm just throwing shit against the wall. But the key is to throw a lot of shit. You have to throw a lot of things. You know, Hemingway famously said my friend, Aris Shafiri has this on his laptop. It says the first draft of everything is shit. Yeah, yeah, I heard it. It just sits on his laptop and I love it. I love that. It's so true. And I just write, I just write. But when you're writing, like, because I was just watching you as you were speaking, you were looking up at the sky, like for an idea, do you think about your writing intellectually? Okay, I'm thinking this thought, okay, I'm going to write it down.

1:03:27Or are your hands on the keyboard and you're just channeling? It's both. You know, sometimes if you sit in there thinking about it before I write or in the middle of writing, like, is this right? Am I correct? Is this how I'm looking at this? I'm trying to force this. And then I also write on a computer that is not connected to any apps. It doesn't have anything on it. The only thing it has on it is it has, it's a, it's a think pad. So it has a... So you can't just track yourself. Right. I can, I am allowed to Google things to find out if something's correct. That's it. There's, I've never, I don't go to websites.

1:04:01I don't look at it. This laptop is just for writing. It's connected to the internet, which is a tricky thing, but there's a rule. So my home computer is there's no rules. I might watch YouTube videos, I might fucking watch a little Netflix. It's, you know, I'm X, so it's big screen. I might do all kinds of stuff on that computer. But when I'm writing, my laptop is only for writing. And so there's, there's, I don't allow myself. There's no TikTok. There's no Instagram. There's no nothing. I don't ever look at anything else. I just write. And I use the browser. I use fucking Bing, which is like, who searches shit on Bing?

1:04:40Are you good? You know, it's good enough to find out what's real and what's not real. That's the only time I use it. That's it. And do you experience euphoria when you're writing on occasion? Do you blow your mind? Well, you know these ideas are not, they're coming from fucking the ether. They're coming from somewhere. I know that creativity is an individual thing and it varies. But for me, my best ideas seem to come out of nowhere. It's like, I don't even know if they're my ideas. They're, they're coming from some place. And this is the concept of the muse, right? Like the muse is bestowing upon you these beautiful gifts of creativity.

1:05:20Stephen Pressfield. Yes. Yes. The War of Art. Amazing book. I've got stack of them out there. Yeah, I love him. He's a big inspiration. He's incredible. And he's just a brilliant guy. But that's where it's at. It's just like, setting this table, showing up and then trying to pull these things from this other dimension, this wherever the fuck they're coming from. And then I get these little nuggets and then the nuggets I transfer to my phone. I feel bad for people who never get to experience that. Yeah. You know, I keep a necklace with a dog tag and a quote from a William Blake poem. And he said with that that is always just helped me quite a bit.

1:06:10And it's the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things. And I remember the first time I got to experience the power of writing and something, it was like literally a religious experience. I don't know what happened. I kind of blacked out. I lost track of time and I wrote eight pages. And I looked at it. I'm like, I don't know where this came from. And I read it and I blew my mind and I felt like I was having almost a religious experience. And that quote, when I read it, the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful things, the creation being creative and being able to please God through creativity or have a religious and mystical experience that's not drug -induced through your power of your creativity.

1:07:05I think it's the greatest thing in the world and it kind of saved my life because if I hadn't found writing and filmmaking, I don't know what I would have done. I wouldn't have been, I mean, I don't know. Well, that's why it's for you because it feels so real and so powerful that without it, you feel like your life would be lost. Yeah, man. Yeah. And that amazing. That's an amazing thing to find as a human being. If you can find something that you love so much, that you can't imagine life without it, that you would be lost. Can I tell you about it's sort of a non -sequitur, but I did want to mention, and it sort of related to something I love because I love boxing and I own a boxing gym in Los Angeles, which was hands down the stupidest thing I ever decided to do in my life was, oh, it would be cool to have a boxing gym and manage boxers and you know, no, don't, don't.

1:08:02It's awful. I mean, I love the fighters and I'm so much empathy, but one of my fighters, Chris Van Hearden, his girlfriend is a grown name, Cassena Carolina, who I think I told you a little bit about earlier when we're working out. And this is just a fucked up story. She's a 28 year old American Russian citizen who made a $51 donation to Ukrainian charity. She went home a year ago to visit her family in Russia and Putin got her and she's in prison now for 12 years and her name's. What was the charity? The charity was a Ukrainian charity based in America for Ukraine that she thought was going to give money to children that had been hurt by the war in Ukraine.

1:08:52It's all very research able. So she got put on a list. She got somehow they, she's a dual citizen. She's an American citizen in Russian. She went to visit her parents a year ago in Russia and on her, somehow the Russians were able to figure out like if anyone with any Russian citizenship, even if it's dual, makes donations to certain charities that get flagged. So she came in, got to her parents' house, was called to the police station the next day, came in and they arrested her and said you don't need a $51. This is treason. And she's now almost a year into a 12 year sentence. President Trump has been super cool.

1:09:40Dana White has been helping just trying to get like, it's so, it's such a crazy chess game that, that someone like, and I hope things go really well between us and Putin and I think Trump's doing some great things and I'm glad we're talking. But the way they do business is different and they will grab somebody and they've done it to Brittany Griner and they just released this guy, Fogel, who they had gotten for Smokinweed, if they can get you and hold you and use you as a bargaining chip, they will. And we don't do that, you know, it's one of the things that the US doesn't do. But you end up having to make these kind of crazy swaps.

1:10:25It's all about swapping, right? So they get Kiseña and well, who do we have that that's gonna, you know, get Putin to say, all right, yeah, I'm gonna let her out. Release that arm's deal. Yeah, but the people that we have are like, pretty serious, criminal. The merchant of death. The merchant of death for a basketball player, Smokinweed. It's crazy, but you know, if you love Brittany Griner, like, or know, like, I know Kiseña, and my, you know, good friend is engaged to her and he's in hell and it's like, we need someone to trade, you know, and so it's not gonna feel right for, you know, people, we're gonna have to trade someone that's done some pretty bad things to get this girl out of prison and that's the game that these guys are playing.

1:11:11And it's not a game that you ever, ever want to get involved in. And I wish I hadn't, but I have, and you know, Kiseña is a beautiful girl and she's in a really bad way and she doesn't deserve it. So, and it's, it's so true that we don't do that in America, because there's a lot of Russians that fight in the UFC and they don't even get booed. No one even cares. They love them, especially when they're really good. People get excited. Kabebe is sure. I mean, we don't, we don't do it. And that's, you know, we take, our America takes a lot of shit and I know maybe, you know, what we deserve and what we don't, but we don't do that.

1:11:49We don't detain 28 -year -old, you know, ballerinas for smoking weed and throw them in prison for 15 years, 20 years. We don't take people and say, well, you donated $50 to a charity that we're not aligned with. We're throwing you in prison for sure. Wow. Yeah, so it's, but yeah, owning a boxing gym and I mean, you tell me about how when you met Canelo and Canelo came to Jim to train. I thought that was almost worth owning a boxing gym. Yeah, for Canelo, Canelo saved my gym. Canelo, I sparred with Canelo. Did I ever tell you that? Oh Jesus. On my birthday, I hope it was nice to you. I was flying.

1:12:32I landed in LA from, and I had a few drinks on the plane. I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't sober. Walked into the gym. Canelo was training for, he was in camp. I don't remember for which fight. I walked in. I announced it was my birthday and I wanted rounds. Okay. And I wanted rounds and it even chipped on your self. You talked it on yourself. I called my god. It's my birthday and I want some fucking rounds. And he just kind of stared at me. And I ran up, didn't warm up, got my stuff on. Pedro wrapped me up. I put my gloves on. I waited till one sparring partner was out. I go, me and two Canelo's credit.

1:13:12He's only through one punch. Okay. I went two rounds with him. He threw one punch at the end of the second round, but it was a jab in the way it landed. I've never been hit like this. He locked my jaw and my whole neck cracked. He locked my jaw down. It was a perfect jab. And he threw it. Maybe 20%. It was just this one perfectly placed jab. But I did spar two rounds with Canelo. And I can say that honestly. He went extremely easy on me. That's very nice of him. But yeah, I'm a, I mean, it was cool because we got, I got to see his whole journey when he came into our gym and he was just starting and I think he was fighting a guy named Lopez and he was just this little red head skinny kid and to see his progression.

1:14:05You know, he, he's one of like the only good stories in boxing. If you ask me, like name two good boxing stories. I'd be like, well, I think Alvarez is a pretty good story. He's, you know, stayed with his trainers. He's a, you know, family man. He's, you know, he carries himself well. He's made a lot of money. Okay, that's one. And two is there is no two. Well Floyd Maywell is a pretty good story. Yeah, all right. All right. I'll give you a flight. No matter. You're right. You're right. 15 oh, your faculties still making millions. You're just by all the real estate in New York. Yeah. Okay. You're right.

1:14:43I'll give you Floyd. For some reason it's always hard for me to put you right. Floyd is, I got another one. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. Current. Yeah. Sugar Ray. Sugar Ray Leonard. No, Andre Ward. Andre Ward, Olympic gold medalist to two division world champion, retirees undefeated, brilliant analyst has, they offer him millions of dollars to go and fight Canelo after he's retired. He says, I think I can serve boxing more as a commentator. I will give you Andre Ward, but I would, I would submit that nobody knows who he is. Boxing fans, of course. Yeah. But I mean, he never, right, he didn't achieve.

1:15:24He never, he never crossed over. Yeah. But, but yes, and he's a great sugar Ray Leonard is necessarily the great example either because he saved his money, though. He took a lot of fights that he shouldn't have taken later in his career. Like against Terry Norris, and those kind of fights. Like I just put him in, I put him in a slight, like, like a positive story just because I've, I've been to his house. He's rich. He's still, you know, short. That's good. He's handsome. And he's well spoken and he didn't take his brain. Right. He didn't take his brain. The stories of, you know, like working class boxing gyms, like Churchill boxing, my gym in LA, which I technically don't own anymore because it just was turning into such a headache.

1:16:11If you could see the day and day, day out trials and tribulations that these fighters go through, and you know it from UFC, I think that boxers have it like harder, I think. I can't prove this, but boxing is a more dysfunctional state than UFC mainly because of Dana.

1:16:33And, that there's a system that you're a huge part of that makes sense. And there's good people involved at the top and on the, I'm broadcasting and all of it. Boxing has none of that. Right. And so it's just broken dysfunctional mess that is just what begging for someone hopefully Dana to come in and, and organize. Yeah. They are talking about doing that. And Turkey, Alashik, who is running ryancies and has done a phenomenal job of putting together these incredible fights. He's basically just said, there's a lot of resistance getting these top fighters to fight each other. What's the resistance they want to maximize their earning potential by staying undefeated and avoiding the really tough challenge?

1:17:18Just give them the money now. Yeah. And he's having all these fighters fight these dangerous fights. And it's incredible for Box. Do you think that there's a way for Dana and UFC to work with him? Yes. I mean, they're talking about doing that. How would that go? Do you think? What would it look like? Well, I mean, he obviously has an excellent relationship with them because, you know, ryancies and helped promote the big event at the sphere, which was an insane thing. So cool, right? Have you fucking been through it? I have experienced that I watched UFC fight. Is the greatest, you weren't there.

1:17:55I wasn't there. It's the greatest venue in the history of anything. But it doesn't overpower the experience. I don't know, man. It didn't overpower the fights. The fights were insane. They were so good. But it was like the arena itself is so spectacular. I would say go to see any band there you possibly can go to see anyone there. It's so good. Yeah. The graphics are so mind -boggling. It's like you're on a drug. Yeah. It's like you're having a psychedelic experience. I mean, the moment I walked into it, I was like, you got to be fucking kidding me. It's so incredible. Actually, there's a video of me.

1:18:28I made a video. I wanted to film the very first reaction, the very first time I walked into it. It blew me away. What kind of drug would you compare it to? It's like you're in a different dimension. It's like a mushroom, like a DMT. Well, it's like it's so, oh, this is this is actually me walking. Give me some volume.

1:18:52This is my first time with a very dumb answer. Ever being inside this fear.

1:19:02And this is just, they're just practicing and doing rehearsals of all the graphics packages. This isn't even the audience is even in yet. This is insane. Oh wow. And this is nothing compared to when they had the graphic packages running and I mean, it was unbelievable. It's just the amount of money that it cost to put on a show there though. Do you think that like, is it going to be profitable? Like, like, like, how do you make that money back? I don't know. How much did it cost? I think the UFC spent something like $25 million over a normal budget for an event. For an event. But I was just like, if you pay, I think it was Dolan.

1:19:52It was the Madison Square Garden folks that they put that deal together. And I just am like, well, okay, it holds how many 35 ,000? I don't think it's even that big. And I just like, they someone spent a lot of money on that screen, right? That's a lot of technology. Yeah. But so you thought you thought that Turkey, he did a great job. But was Turkey involved in the UFC fight at he was involved in Reaud season was a part of this fear event. It was co -promoted by Reaud season. So in theory, Dana could work with him in some way and start that's the plan. And they own Ring Magazine now. So the reason why that's significant is the Ring Magazine belt is one of the only belts that has kind of been, it's, there's a bunch of different organizations that are sanctioning bodies.

1:20:42Is the WBO, the WBC, the IBF. There's all these different, it's very fractured, right? But Ring Magazine, as always been like Roy Jones Jr. was the Ring Magazine middleweight champion of the world. The Ring Magazine, Superman of the World. Like that's the gold standard is Ring Magazine. So there would be one belt in this right. If they can do that and then overpower everything else with money and then really put the compelling fights, like did you watch this past weekend, Arthur Bitterbyve and Dimitri Bivoules? What a fucking fight. Yes. Yes. Probably the greatest slide, heavyweight fight of all time.

1:21:19They're incredible. They're incredible. They're all trains in our gym, by the way. Does he really? So boxing, the hardest punch I've ever seen anyone throw in my life was in our gym. David Benavite as was sparring Bivoules. And Bivoules and Dave Benavite as a great fighter, but Bivoules caught him and dropped him with a jab. And in sparring. In sparring. Bivoules, incredible fighter. Amazing. So example. So they're both are, those are actually two guys that I feel like could do it right. But just having so much trouble get in a recognition that they deserve. I mean, Benavite has been chasing Canelo forever.

1:21:59Yeah. For a good reason. That's a hard fight. That's a hard fight. And you want that fight? Well, you got to, you got to get paid. You got to get paid. But so I'm hoping that with Riyadh season Turkey would make that fight. Right. Because he signed a multi -fight deal with Canelo for $400 million. I think it's a five -fight deal for $400 million. I think that's what's been reported. I don't know if that's accurate. But, but Terence Crawford's the first one, which is really, is that really happening? Is it proper? Canelo fight happening? Yes, it's happening. So what was going to happen was Terence was Canelo apparently had made a deal with Jake Paul to fight Jake Paul.

1:22:37Ridiculous. Ridiculous. But I bet it was for a significant amount of money. Storydiculous. Yeah. But fun. I'd watch it. Look, Jake Paul once in test himself against actual not just world champion, but one of the greatest of all time. He would be if Canelo really fought and it was in fixed, Jake Paul would not survive 45 seconds. Man, I know about that. I think it would take a few rounds. Really? Yeah. Jake is a lot bigger. Jake's a lot bigger. What way would they? What way would they fight? Well, I don't think Jake is getting anywhere lower than 205 pounds. He's a huge guy. But so Canelo would let him fight it 205.

1:23:15I think that would be the case. I think Canelo when he got to 175 when he was fighting Light Heavyweight and he know he still fluctuates, she's 6875. I feel like it probably weighs 190 when he's walking around. So he would probably weigh 190 and Jake would weigh over 200. They would probably fight either at Cruiserweight or they would fight at Heavyweight. But didn't Tommy Fury like take Jake Paul? No, he beat him, but it was a very good fight. But that's what I'm saying. But yeah, I mean, Fury versus compared to Canelo. Right. Different levels. Different levels. Yeah. No doubt. Look, who's favored for sure the greatest of all time.

1:23:51I mean, one of the greatest boxers of all time in Canelo, offers. He's the favorite. But I'd like to see what happens. It'll be crazy. I like a little freak show every now and then. I would. I'd do this like would you like to see Jake a lot of freak show. Look, if Jake Paul wants to fight for the title, I would like to see him beat top contenders in the Light Heavyweight division or whatever division he chooses to compete at. And then eventually fight for a title. Yeah. But are those are the fights even real like the Tyson fight? Like I saw video breakdowns of Tyson not throwing punches early on in that fight.

1:24:27I don't hook is 100 % available Tyson on, you know, in training 90 % of time releases that punch and he held that like, do you think that that was a real was that a real fight? It looked like sparring to me. That's what it looks like. But like within arrangement before him. I wouldn't want to speculate because I haven't talked to anybody about it. But my educated assessment. Agreed. Yes. Agreed. It looked like sparring. It didn't look like a fight. And you think of Canelo and Jake Paul agreed to do it. I don't think that would be that. I think that would be a fight. That would be a fight. Like a sanctioned real.

1:25:03Not it would have to be a fight. Yeah. I don't think Canelo Alvarez is making any agreements where he's not going to knock you out. Well, he's not taking the fight though, right? Well, this is what happened. So they had this agreement. And Jake Paul actually told me about the agreement when I met him at the inauguration. We were talking about it. And I was like, holy shit. It hadn't been announced yet. I was like, that's crazy. And then Turkey came along and said, fuck all that. Let me throw some money at you and said, stop it on this bullshit. You need to be fighting the greatest fighters in the world right now.

1:25:34You need to be fighting Benavitez. You need to be fighting Terrence Crawford. So Terrence Crawford is first on the list. And a lot of second on the list, according to. Right. I thought that police didn't list now. It's supposed to fight Crawford in September. And they're going to have him fight. Just go to my weekend. I guess like a no name, right? Go William Skoll SCG LL. That's why I was asking it. I don't from strip canelo last year or unnamed to that. Do they have a date for canelo Crawford? There's just a 10th or 13th supposedly. But yes, he does kind of crazy that they're going to have another fight beforehand.

1:26:05But it does give Crawford time to bulk up. So Crawford got on scale the other day. He was 185 pounds. Really? Yes. And he's doing deadlifts. He was doing deadlifts with 450 pounds. Crawford is a strong dude. I'm going to put Crawford in another success story of boxing. I'm totally just contradicting myself. No, no, no, no, you're right. He's the I love the guy. He's fantastic. I know you've had a mind, right? He's so couple times. He's so good. And he's the best switch hitter in the game. Maybe the best switch hitter since Marvin Haggler. Yeah. He's phenomenal. Yeah. And he's so intelligent. Like his his boxing is so clever.

1:26:39He sets traps. How old is he? 36 I believe. And canelo's like 30. 37. So Crawford is 37. Yeah, yeah. I'm looking at a thing right now. How old is Canelo? I think he's 35. 34, 35. He's still on his front. What's crazy is fucking better be of his 40 and went 12 hard rounds where they never slowed down once. Yeah, that's because people like you are getting a song and crazy shape. Like these guys are living forever. You're like teaching us the way to do that. Very likely turns Crawford faces fighter with 90 % KO rate after Canelo says Delohojo. Who would that be? What weight class would that be after?

1:27:24So he must have fought a. Oh, that's such a boxing headline, isn't it? Like 90 % chance. Virgil Ortiz Jr. Okay, Virgil Ortiz Jr. is a savage. That would be a phenomenal fight. That would be an absolutely phenomenal fight. Yeah. Yeah. After that though. Well, I saw his fight with Magimov who's very difficult. Who Crawford struggled a little bit with two, but beat and Virgil walked him down. He was battering him towards the last rounds. Why is Oscar Delohojo offered an opinion on who Crawford would fight? Oscar Delohojo is not Crawford's manager, is he? I don't believe so. No, I don't think he has anything to do with him.

1:28:04Do you watch Oscar seems like he's a little off the rails? Do you watch? Okay, for sure. And God love him. And I think he's having a good time. Do you watch his clap? Like, okay, I know social media. I said don't scroll and certainly like InstaHosorBad. My favorite Instagram account is Oscar Delohojo on his clap back Thursdays. Wow. And then he rips into Eddie Herndt basically. And it's arranged. It's absolutely arranged, but it's funny. And Oscar clearly doesn't care. He does like to your point earlier. Yeah. He does not give a fuck. And he just rips apart anyone and everyone. And he does this thing every Thursday called clap.

1:28:52I think it's called clap back Thursdays. And that's my secret guilty pleasure. My secret guilty pleasure is watching him dance around with a thong on. Oh, that was fucking mine. The best. That was the best. With fake abs. It's a hell of a drug cocaine. It's a hell of a drug cocaine. No, no, no, no. Yeah, but I mean, he's, I mean, I like to say we've all been there. I haven't been there. I haven't been there. I haven't been here. I haven't been there. And, you know, like I do respect him. I asked. It was a great fighter phenomenal fighter, phenomenal fighter. But I mean, come on now. It's like Oscar De La Jolla and all that's coming with him and Eddie Herndt who I also like quite a bit.

1:29:42And then you've got Al Hamon and Bob Arram, you know, is and as well into his 90s and it's just going, it's chaos. Yeah. And that's the problem. Is it they're represented by different promoters? And it's very difficult for people to co -promote. Very difficult for people to decide like who's the A side, who's the B side, you get ridiculous deals where, you know, this fighter wants 75 % the other fighter wants 25 % they have to figure out whether or not they can make this happen. And the fighters like, fuck that. I want it 50 50. And then the promoters get involved and they don't want you to fight that guy fight the number one mandatory contender.

1:30:16And then these some great fights never take place or they take place too late like Floyd Mayweather and Maddie Pacquiao. They fought too late. I mean, if that fight could have been arranged by Riyadh season, they probably would have caught both in their prime and it would have been chaos. Yeah, yeah, Manning was he was done before that. Yeah, and he also had a blown shoulder going into the fight. Yeah. It was he needed shoulder surgery before the fight even started. Yeah. Have you, I have a little regret that I never had a professional fight. And I was just in Mexico. And my driver, so time by boxing and my driver told me his son was a profiter and that if I wanted to and he told me how much it would cost, I could come have a professional fight and his son would would let me win the fight.

1:31:06No. And then and then pretend I could have bought well, but it would be a sanctioned fight and it would go I would have a box or X score of one and all or only one. I mean, I could have not paid the money and I'd take it in the last, but at least I would have had it. And I did think about it for like about, I don't know, maybe a minute, I decided not to do it, but like you and I were talking like I just can't take it and hitting the head anymore. And you know, when I was younger and I had the gym, I would I would spar more. You know, in Canelo, I sparred and that was controlled, but I sparred Cam Cam Newton once.

1:31:43You know, the football player who's six foot five and he was in the gym and he wanted to work and I'm like, well, let's spar and we'll just, you know, spar light and he wasn't a boxer and I have, you know, basic defensive boxing skills, but I'm like, well, just let's work Cam. And he's like, okay, and we started, you know, kind of sparring a bet and he didn't really know what he was doing, but he's a very, very physical specimen and I lightly kind of jobbed at his face and maybe hit the gloves if he just went insane. I started punching me across the ring and I'm just like flashes of white and I lost off filling in my hands.

1:32:25And then I didn't, I didn't spar any other athletes until Steve Nash came into our gym, the basketball player and he wasn't as big as Cam Newton. So I'm like, well, all right, I'll spar with Steve Nash and he doesn't know how to box. So we'll just hit him and I'm, I underestimate how fucking athletic he is. He just fucking cracks me hard with a solid right and it's my hands going numb. I see nothing. And then that I'm like, that's what I'm done. And then, uh, Sequan Barkley comes in origin. You know, Sequan Barkley was a profiter, his uncle had an incredible career as a profiter. Is that I ran Barkley?

1:33:09I'm sorry. My bet I ran Barkley. Thank you. Wow. That was a political slip. Is really horrible. Oh, shit. Sorry. Everybody. Thank you, Joe. I ran Barkley. Do you know who I ran Barkley? Yes. Sure. Okay. Good. So that was, say, Quam Barkley's uncle, right? Did you know that? No, I did not. Yeah. That was his uncle. So, say, Quam comes into our gym and I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm going to spar. I was in a, no, I'm not. I'm not going to fuck with this guy. After Cam Newton Steve Nash and Sequan Barkley is a fucking stud, right? Like this guy's like, might tie some but bigger just his body type. So I'm like, well, I'll hold Mitch for him.

1:33:48I just want to see. And that guy could fight like his uncle. I ran Barkley legend legend taught him and he started throwing punches and Sequan Barkley could move and counter and had balance and folk, you know, head movement. I'm like, dude, if you had instead of playing football, gotten into this at, at, you know, 12, 13, I'm assuming that your brain stayed on. You would have been one of the great heavyweights of all time. He could say, Quam could box. Wow. And so, but I learned, I thought about taking the fight in Mexico and I decided, I'm not, would you ever? Hell no, right? No, no, not now.

1:34:30I'm 57. There's no way I'm fighting anybody now. Did you're in shape? I did agree to fight Wesley Snipes like 20 years ago. Yeah, there was that happen. Well, he, well, you remember what happened with him with taxes? Yeah, of course, we went to jail, right? Yeah. So I think they were trying to figure out a way to make money to try to pay the government off. And the UFC, they contacted, well, this guy, Camel McClearing, who is one of the original producers of the first UFC before Zufa bought it. He knew me because I worked for him at the time. I was the post -fight interviewer in 1997 and 1998.

1:35:08And that's, that was when I first started working for the UFC. I remember I started again as a commentator in 2001. So in 1997, when I knew him, he knew that I did martial arts, he knew I was obsessed with this. And then, so he contacts me, like, I guess it was like 2004 or five or something like that somewhere around then. And he says, this is going to sound crazy. But Wesley Snipes wants to have a UFC fight. And he wanted to fight Jean -Claude Van Damme. And we didn't think that that would be compelling. And so we offered some other names. And we said, what about Joe Rogan? And he said, yes.

1:35:46And I said, well, what do you mean, like when are we talking about? Like, how, because I've been training, I was brown belt in Jiu -Jitsu. And I had been training kickboxing still. I was regularly training. And so I would have to really ramp everything up. And he was kind of a martial arts guy. Yeah. He's a martial artist. But I don't think he's ever had a fight. And I don't think he has any ground game. And that's a giant problem. And you were gotten a hold of it. Well, also, I was a national, I mean, I competed nationally in Taekwondo for five, six years, traveled around the country. Like, and I had three kickboxing fights.

1:36:17I was a good stand -up fighter. Like, and I can kick very hard. I'm very good. And even that, and then I was even better because I was in my 30s. So what happened? He didn't want to do it. He just said, as you would have killed him, as time went on, I think he kind of understood that there was a bad idea. I think initially he thought he made, well, who knows? It could have been fucking chemically fueled these conversations with that. The desire to have it was chemically folded. He could have been, and he sobered up. But I trained every day. I trained for six months. I was kickboxing with Rob came in in the morning, and I was doing jujitsu, and I was fucking.

1:36:52I was strapping for the Wesley Schroeder. Just didn't go. We were in negotiation. So the first negotiation was 50 -50. We were going to split a 50 -50. This night, blah, blah, blah. And I said, okay, great. And then a couple of weeks went by. I had lawyers involved the whole thing. And then it was like Wesley wants 60 -40. But this time I'd already invested so much time training. I go, okay, I'll just give it to him. I'm like, I'm going to fuck this guy up. I go, just give it to him. Just give it to him. And then it got to point where, just give me a half a million dollars. I don't care what you give Wesley.

1:37:24I go, I'll give me a half a million dollars. And we agreed on that. I said, I don't care what you give him. Just give it to him. I'm going, I'm going to fucking strangle this guy. I'm going to get a hold of him, and there's not going to be a goddamn thing he can do about it. I was convinced. And I was like, it was so, I knew that. But it was so engrossing. It took up all my energy and my time. My mind shifted into what it was when I was younger and I was fighting. It was wild. It was weird. I became like a different person for almost a year. So when you hear the name Wesley, Snipes Now, well, I have no animals.

1:37:59There's not a little part of your brain that still flips. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think he did a smart thing. I think he did a smart thing by not doing it. It's just so interesting. And the idea that you got to experience a version of what it feels like to prepare to fight someone because people just don't get it, right? Well, I'd fought a bunch of times, you know, and I know when I was younger. I mean, it had been more than 10 years since my last fight. But I knew what it was like. I knew the experience. I knew what training and preparing was right. Like, and I also knew that like I was a like legitimate brown belt in Jiu Jitsu.

1:38:38I've been training Jiu Jitsu for a long time. But it was like, I think he had had this idea that he was going to be able to hit me when I was trying to take him down. I was like, do you know, I'm fucking happily stand up. Do you think that Zuckerberg musk was ever real? Was it ever even slightly real? I don't know. That that to me is the most. Could you ask him please? Zuckerberg is legit. He trains hard. He trains with legit guys. He trains all the time. He's very smart and very obsessed by it. And he's like legitimately training. He's significantly smaller than Elon. Elon's a big guy. But that only goes so far, especially if you don't have any endurance.

1:39:16But does Elon, what do you think Elon's fighting skill strategy would be like? But he took karate when he was younger. So when he come karate, I don't know. I don't think it was ever going to happen. I mean, I was entertaining it because I think it would be fun if it did happen. And Elon said he would do it. And Zuckerberg said he would do it. But like, how can I don't know how the guy tweets as much as he does? How the fuck did you train for a fight? I mean, how do you, how do you run SpaceX and Tesla and the Department of Government Efficiency and Starlink? Joe, he's your friend. You know him better than we do.

1:39:48How the fuck does he do it? I don't know how he does it and I'm his friend. I don't know how he does it. I don't understand it. He's, he's, I've never seen anybody who knows how to manage time better than that guy. Yeah. But he, and he's also has like 100 kids. Like, I don't fucking I just a different type of human. I just love the idea of people that don't ever fight having to suddenly have a fight. Right? Just like, like, you know, because people have never fought, but suddenly get them. And yeah, okay, here's another secret. Don't like moment I do scroll. I look for street fights with people who don't know how to fight or or drunk people fighting.

1:40:29It's funny too. But like, like, you know, okay, Elon and Zucker, Mark, you know, are going to fight. Okay, let's say it's going to really happen. They both train, but they're not fighters. So however much they train, they're still running or their businesses. Now their fight starts. And for about 20 seconds, they're going to have some tactics that their trainers have been. And then it's all going to go out to fucking window. It will go into it with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg is a real martial art, but he's ever really fast. Yes, he's have Giu -Jitsu matches. He's not as a father kickboxing match because he has a black bar.

1:41:02Yeah. Oh, yeah. He could do a two minute or a three minute. 100%. No doubt. Yeah. No doubt. And also he's very disciplined and stay true to his, yeah, what style of fighting? Well, he trains in Jiu -Jitsu, but he also trains in mixed martial arts. So he does Muay Thai. He does everything. He's really obsessed with it. Yeah. And it has been for years. Okay. So he's a legitimate martial artist. You are going to come out. Muay Thai is running SpaceX and he's got to dodge and he's going to take some time and focus on the fight. It's not going to do it. No. No, you don't have to, there's no way as the time.

1:41:34Look, if you want to really prepare properly, you train twice a day and you have to have recovery in between. So you have to get massages, you have to do red light therapies. Do you have to do everything, especially if you're at his age, and you have to take hormones, you have to be on the ball, you have to take peptides, you have to, you have to really watch your nutrition, you have to really make sure you get enough sleep. All those things are out the window. He's not doing any of those things. He doesn't have the time to do any of those things. No, so it would have to be a, like a demonstration where they agree to how it's going to go.

1:42:02But even then, there's no way he could be in condition for it. There's no way. And so he did train with some of my friends. He trained with Lex, Lex Friedman. I think he trained early on. His cardio wasn't getting him there. His cardio is nonexistent. What is, what is harder on cardio than boxing slash UFC? Do you think? Like I always say boxing, people don't understand how exhausting 40 seconds of sparring is. Like, and I'm never fought UFC. I've always felt the boxing for some reason is actually harder on the cardio. I'm sure I'm wrong. I'm sure. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Wrestling is the hardest.

1:42:42Okay. But, but the, what else compares in terms of cardio and physical demanding to wrestling UFC boxing? What? Maybe ultra running. Maybe really crazy things where guys have to run like 300 miles. But they don't have the anaerobic kind of exhaustion and the soccer. Soccer takes incredible conditioning. Incredible conditioning. Those guys are unbelievably fit. Have you ever followed Asi Roles football? Yes. So, you know, I'm doing my next film is about a football game that some Marines played in World War II. And we're filming it in Australia. It's called the mosquito ball. And in the middle of the true story about this football game that was played on Guadalcanal before the Battle of Okinawa, but these Marines all played it.

1:43:28These Marines were good for college football stars. And then they all died in the Battle of Okinawa. It's an intense story. But we need to film this tackle football game. There was supposed to be a touch game and the Marines ended up playing tackle. And legend has it that it was the most violent football game ever played. And so we got a film, a tackle football game in Australia, which is we're going to make the film. And like stuntmen are tough, but like playing tackle football, you know, is a fucking painful thing to do, right? Imagine, you know, even like turkey bowl touch football games on Thanksgiving, like people in the hospital.

1:44:07So I was just in Australia. And I had the idea that well, like Asi Roles football, it's perfect. We'll just take a bunch of these guys and teach them how to play tackle football. And they'll really do it. So I just went to an Asi Roles football practice in Brisbane, Australia. And those fucking dudes are tough. They are tough. If you ever just watch the highlight Reels of Asi, I mean, no pads, full smash. And I put that. Yeah, it is. I mean, yeah, these are the guys we're going to use to play collisions. Oh, Jesus. I think these are the toughest athletes. I think this is how they play, should play regular football.

1:44:56I do too. I feel like feel like the pads are bullshit. But there's only way, the only way you compare American style football is with pads. Because like the collisions that these guys have, like your career, you cut your work. Look at this guy. Look at how alcohol is done. Stiff. Look at this. Look at the hitting is just fucking nuts. And I'm sure a lot of head to head collisions, too. So I went to this practice of one of these teams just got back and they were, and I brought in American football. And I'm like, are do you guys have any idea? And they're like, zero. I'm like, come on. You sort of have to know something.

1:45:34And they're like, zero. So I really, they just know nothing like how much of cricket do you know? Zero. Okay. If I had a gun to your head and said one rule of cricket, could you do it? No. Could you do it? No, you couldn't. Cricket. Do you know what I'm gonna stay in? I think I've seen them try to throw back in. Stay in the what? The ball has to stay in the what? No, the pitch. We don't know shit. Do you understand how fucking popular cricket is? Gigantic. Like bigger than football. Huge. Go to India or Sri Lanka. I mean, like these people go nuts. So in Australia, they have 100 ,000 people, stadiums for as you will football.

1:46:14So I go and I'm like, you know, I'm meeting these guys and these guys I think are big stars. I don't know them. But you know, this is a major Aussie rules football team. And I got the football and they don't until I line them up 11 against 11. And I'm teething up. They're really kind of starting to get into it. And they're lined up center guards tackles and court. And I'm like, all right. So what do you think? They're like, yeah, we don't like it. They go, let me, let me help tell me what this does for you. All right. You're the center. And you're if you were doing this in American football, you'd be making six to seven million dollars a year.

1:46:46You're the tackle on blind side. You're making 40 million dollars a year protecting Patrick Mahomes. Okay, your Patrick Mahomes and I'm telling them how much money they would make because you guys make no money. Right. There's no money in it, which is crazy. Crazy. And then they have, do you know, I'm tall poppy syndrome. You heard of this? Like, yes. There's no ego like these guys. They're huge. You know, they're members of these super successful teams, but they don't have the ego of American athletes. And they don't get the attention in its tall poppy syndrome. They're culturally, you know, conditioned to not brag and to not boast and to be humble.

1:47:28And I don't know. I'm they like to see people get knocked down and they get too big. Yeah, for sure. That's tall poppy. They cut the tall poppy gets a Ted cut off. So they stay humble, which I kind of thought was kind of cool, you know, just realizing that I was hanging out with like the captain of an Azure rules team. And I had dinner with the captain of the the New Zealand All Blacks, the rugby team. And this guy, this was a little while ago, a couple of years ago, this guy in America, I mean, you know, the All Blacks, like the most popular rugby team. And in the most humble dude ever, and you go to a restaurant and nobody bothers him, he, you know, no security, no nothing.

1:48:14We don't that that would never exist here. But seeing how hard these dudes hit and trained made me think, well, maybe they're working at the level of athleticism that fighters are working at. I mean, that's a hard fucking sport. It seems like it, especially if you watch that video, like that's that's unbelievably cruel. The difference between fighting and anything else is there's no one there to assist you. There's no other teammates. There's no rules. There's no timeouts. You know, you have round breaks, but fighting is very individual. And if you didn't prepare properly and your opponent did, you're fucked.

1:48:50If he's better than you and he's more skilled and he's got better genetics and better training and he comes from a better background and he's more he's more technical. You're fucked. You know, it's it's it's a crazy sport where you're literally putting your health on the line. Let me ask you this question and this this is something I don't talk about. But it's another secret theory that I have. Okay. Trust between you and me. I feel like and I've seen a lot of boxers train and I've seen a lot of great trainers. Eddie and Chepo are great trainers. Abel Sanchez is a great trainer. Pedro name up from my gym.

1:49:27Lots of great trainers out there and I've watched entire camps where trainers that can find your trainer. What I figure out. Okay, this is our opponent. These these are going to be our tactics. We're going to do a lot of jabbing with overhead and rights. And we're going to take our head offline consistently. We're going to counter this way. We're going to and every and I've really watched this and paid a lot of attention to it. And this is I'm not in any way, shitting on trainers, but I'm kind of at making your point about how alone fighters are. I see all this training and I watch it and I understand the strategies and the tactics and the second to fight starts.

1:50:07None of it has any relationship to how the fight goes down. It all this strategy is rarely employed and it becomes this moment where a fighter has to adjust and adapt and improvise incredibly. And yeah, the conditioning matters a lot, but I often think that like the training doesn't do shit. The trainers are they can help you get your head right and get yourself in a warrior's mindset. And I do respect that, but tactics. Sometimes I think that they're like, am I wrong? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, definitely wrong. Yeah, at the highest level, it's the most important thing. Okay, but do not at the highest level, I get a Terrence Crawford level, tactics or everything, but he just does it.

1:50:56Yeah, he does does it, but it's also because he spent so much time working on the fundamentals and the technique and the movements and counters and positioning and he understands boxing so comprehensively. He knows where the punches are coming from. He knows where he's going to be vulnerable to get hit. He knows when he's not. He knows when he has to take a risk and to give one, he has to take one. But how much of that like his, his trainer, Bo, Boheim, Bohem, I might be saying, I know him, I know his trainer, just like Eddie and Chepo, and they've gotten who's got to have Canelo. They have lots of other fighters, but like Eddie and Chepo have never had another Canelo and including all of his brothers.

1:51:42And I'm like, okay, how much of it is just God -given talent like Terrence Crawford has that's then trained by trainers versus how much credit does a trainer get? Train to get some credit, but a trainer with a bad fighter is never going to create a world champion. Like you have to be an extraordinary individual to be a championship level fighter, no doubt. And then there are some championship level fighters that have, they have emerged from gyms that don't have any championship like Marvin Hacker, one of the greatest of all time. He came out of the Petronelli Brothers gym. They weren't known for having like a giant stable of multiple world champions.

1:52:20Who is the, who are the top, who are in your opinion the best UFC trainers? Well, there's quite a few. There's quite a few. There's some really elite trainers out there and I don't want to miss anybody. Right. Pharasa Hobby is probably one of my favorite. He's, because he's very, very intelligent and very analytical. And he does a fantastic job also of breaking down fights, both before the fight and after the fight and telling you like what tactics didn't work and why they didn't work and what went wrong in the fight and what was very effective. He's just a brilliant human being and also just so intelligent about the way he makes his fighters prepare.

1:53:02And he trained George St. Pierre, who's one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time. So there's him. There's Greg Jackson and Mike Winkle -John from Jackson Winkle -John and Albuquerque, just phenomenal gym. That's where John Jones came from, multiple world champions have come from that gym. Those guys are phenomenal. John Crouch in Arizona. He's phenomenal. There's just so many fucking like top of the food chain. And how much of that skill is, and if it's all equal, I get it. But how much of that skill that makes a great UFC trainer is, okay, if I'm your trainer and I'm getting you ready for a fight, well, I'm going to study your opponent.

1:53:46I'm going to study your opponent's strengths, his weaknesses, his tendencies, his tells. And I'm going to train you in relationship to that and be right. So you can anticipate where there's going to be an opportunity and take it. How much of it is that and how effective is that versus how much of it is Joe, I got to keep you fucking ready for anything. I got to keep you in shape. I got to keep you mentally like good. I got to remove distractions. And I got to be like your father, your uncle, your brother, and everything else in between. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think there's both. But I think for some fighter, every fighter is a different approach.

1:54:28John Jones is famous for studying tape and and and devising game plans and strategies that are based on what he sees about his opponent's tendencies. Yeah, yeah. And that's how he caught Daniel Kormier with that left high kick. Like he knew what would be their dips to the right. Yeah. And you know, and Daniel even called it out before that. You think you're going to hit me with that head kick and he actually did hit him with it in the fight. Yeah. His Daniel had a tendency. And John exploited the tendency. And he does that with everybody. He's famous for not just doing that, but also not taking fights on last minute notice.

1:55:03Like he's had some opponents fall out and the UFC offers him an alternative alternative opponent in a short period of time. And he says, no, I didn't train for that fighter. He goes, I'm the greatest of all time for a reason. And that reason is I'm fully prepared for every fight. I'm not going to take a fight against someone who I'm not fully prepared. And is he had the same coaches entire career? Yes. Yes. So that's a real that's Jackson, Winkle John. He's been with them forever. And that's an incredible pairing. Well, it's incredible. Jackson in particular is fantastic at devising strategies to deal with opponents.

1:55:36And you know, he trained Holly home when she knocked out Ronda Rousey. They are, you were in Australia for that? That was in Australia. No, I wasn't there. I watched it. I was. I felt like I was there because I watched it. I mean, it was shocking. That was crazy. Yeah. That was a crazy fight. But they trained her for yes. Yeah. Shocked right? Oh, it was incredible. Yeah. But Holly was good, man. She's a multiple time world champion in boxing and in kickboxing. She was very, very legit striker. But you were surprised. Yeah. It was shocking. But it was also like Holly was good. She was really fucking good.

1:56:08And when she landed that head kick. Yeah. Yeah. I remember Ronda's face just the shock in her face. Yeah. And she just, it was, yeah, that was, I literally felt like I was there because so I was a piercing moment. But they knew that Ronda had a very specific entry that she used to try to take people down. And they avoided that every single time. Capture how? They circled away. They fought off. Ronda's takedown attempts and kept the fight standing that flustered her. Yeah. Well, it just, it was just more effective. And so it really depends on the athlete. Like I said, if you get a person that falls apart in the heat of the moment and just throws it all at the window and starts brawling, yeah, well, then you're training has kind of gone to waste.

1:56:49And then they're relying on instincts and hopefully skill. But if you have a really good fighter and a really good trainer, then you get a Mike Tyson. What was her trainer Edmund or Ronda's trainer? I can't remember his name.

1:57:08But I wonder whether he under prepared her for that, right? I don't know. I mean, she was very stretched then when that was going on because she was doing movies and she was a superstar and she was like constantly being courted. But you know, you know, she did a movie for me. I'm part of that problem. Oh, really? What was that? I was mild 22, but she had kind of retired by then. This was after her. This is after the fight. Yeah, I think that the distractions when you're a superstar are huge. And if you give in to all those distractions, you say yes to everything. Yeah, yeah. And you have agents that want you to be and you think like you're so confident you could do anything.

1:57:44Anyway, you could I don't give a fuck. I'll beat everybody. And that's how every champion feels. Sometimes I think about like what I've seen with with coaches and and you know, I do appreciate a coach and I've just seen different success stories in different ways that coaches have really impacted fighters. But I think about like, why don't life coaches work better? And like, like, I wouldn't mind having a coach that would be like, Pete, here's our enemy, here's our opponents. And like I actually had a therapist for a while who asked for when I first started seeing him, he's very and he's a great guy.

1:58:21And I love him. And he's but you know, so much of my relationship with him was unpacking my shit, you know, my parents and my trauma and my fears and all this stuff. And and for years, Barry would, you know, talk to me about my dreams and all this stuff and like the dreams that I had that night, not my goals. And then I started realizing, okay, I feel like I've talked about my mom and my grandma and my grandparents and every fucking thing the bad that's ever happened to me. And and like, Barry, what if we'd start talking strategy? Like, could you coach me? And he started coaching me a bit. And I found that like with my business decisions, my creativity decisions, like, like you're so disciplined, you know, like, I don't know, do you ever think like, why don't life coaches work better?

1:59:12And if you had someone like John Jones coach in your life every fucking day, would would it be better? I think for a lot of people, yes. Yeah, if you could find someone who could devise a strategy that you could follow and you could help because it's a collaboration, you know, you could collaborate with this person and go, yeah, there's definitely value in that. But you could also be your own coach. Yeah, but you can. So many people can't, right? Like, don't people ask you, or I don't know, they ask me for advice and how do you do it? And I'm like, well, you know, you gotta go to bed, you gotta get up early, you've gotta have self -motivation, you have to not make stupid mistakes.

1:59:56And you know, sometimes what you don't do that helps more than what you do. And I'm aware of people struggling to figure out like more than ever, especially with, you know, this perceived success through social media and the glorification and billionaires and all this stuff. Everyone's like, I'm not happy where I am and I want, and I'm like, well, you know, are you following these basic rules? Like the basic rules that I believe you follow, you Joe follow. And people seem to have so much trouble getting on a program. Well, you got to pay attention to the people that are successful. Like, what are they doing?

2:00:36And without doubt, everyone who is really successful and has longevity has disciplined. And discipline is maybe number one. Discipline is showing up with a desire to improve and work hard every day. What do you think the source of your discipline is? Marshall Arts. For sure. One hundred percent. Learning when I was young that focus and drive and attention to detail and obsession leads you to get excellent at something. And there's no ifans or butts about it that the more time I put in, the more I trained, the better I got, the more I was really locked in and focused, the better I performed. And I learned that at a young age.

2:01:18I learned that as a kid. And so I developed discipline when I was very young. But so thousands of young people what age did you start, Marshall Arts? I started fighting when I was 15. Okay, but you started fighting when you started training. I was like 14. Okay, but it took my first karate class. That's absolutely. I'm older than I was. But like so so many, you know, thousands of kids take boxing classes or you're less in for mixed mixed martial arts or whatever. And they don't find the level of discipline that you were able to find, right? Yeah, it's not for everybody. So, but what made you able, what made you like was it your parents?

2:01:57Was it insecurity? Yeah, something that gave you shit when you were eight that made you like, fuck it. I'm going to learn this shit and I'm going to master it. Well, when I first started doing it, I just wanted to figure out how to fight. And I wanted, and I was very lucky that I found a gym that was filled with incredible fighters. They were very high level. One of the guys, my friend John Lee was a national champion and he was like a mentor to me. And you know, I was a white belt. And he was a black belt and competing in the World Cup at the time. That's when I met him. And, you know, he just took a liking to me and helped me out a lot.

2:02:33So white belts, you're just not complete beginner. But I got a black belt in two years. I was obsessed. Yes. I trained every day of the week. I had a key to the gym and I could work out any time I wanted because my instructor, at some point in time, realized that I had potential and made a deal with me and offered me, I could teach classes. And if I taught classes and I taught private lessons, like teaching beginners, like when they first come into, you have to take a certain amount of beginner classes, private lessons before you're allowed to enter into the group class. So I would teach people from the very beginning.

2:03:06And so because of that, I was able to be at the gym all day long. And whenever I wanted to be there, I could be there. And I also from teaching really broke down technique, which is the most important thing to like, if you have bad technique, even if you're like a good fighter, you have flaws in your, you can get pretty far with bad technique if you're just taught eventually you get caught. It's just not, you're not going to be the best. The best have excellent technique, like without doubt, especially when it comes to martial arts.

2:03:40It's everything in technique and drive and training and focus. And I realized early on, like, I thought I was a loser. And then till I started doing martial arts and getting really good at martial arts, I'm like, Oh, I'm not a loser. Like, I'm really good at this. Like, I have a propensity to it. I have a genetic propensity. I have like very good, I'm fast, I hit really hard. And I really loved it. I love getting better. I love the fear of it too. I love being terrified. I love the overcoming the fear of competition. It was so fucking scary. It was like, it was like religious for you that wasn't it?

2:04:14Oh, yeah. I'm much a massive experience. It was so religious that my girlfriend at the time wanted to fuck in the gym because I had the keys and I wouldn't have such a little there. I'm like, new. Well, it's a sacred space. You can't fucking the church. Even when no one was there, I'd bow. That might have been a mistake. You should have fucked up. You should have fucked up. All right. So we're keeping it. But like, like, okay. So I think that's so interesting that to trace the origin story of your fuse being ignited because people look at you and they're like, okay, that dude is fucking on. He's in it.

2:04:52I've had people tell me that I'm in it. Some of my friends, mutual friends are in it. You know when you're in it. You know when you're in it because it's, you can't find that. Well, they don't have the thing, whatever. Like, not everybody's going to be great at everything. They're just not. Some people just don't have the discipline, the desire. They don't have the willpower to push through when they're tired. They don't have the willpower to show up when they're feeling tired and lazy or when they're uninspired. I just, yeah, I should, you have to learn that. And you have to learn that through.

2:05:25Like, if you want to get great, there's only one pathway. There's only one pathway. It's hard work and discipline. There's no other way. And you might get there still because if you're hard work and you have discipline, but you're, you're competing against Mike Tyson. He also has hard time. Yeah, he also has hard work and discipline, but superior genetics and superior training hypnotized from the time he was 13. You're fucked. Yeah, you're fucked. Yeah, I, I, um, I can remember when Kennello Avarez first came into my gym and he was young. He was just starting to, you know, have a rep. Everything about that guy, weak to exceptionalism, the way he put his bag down, the way he took his shoes out, right?

2:06:10The way he drank his water, every rep, every, you know, when he started to stretch, every single stretch in tension, intentional as fuck. Yeah, I'm starting to just lightly warm up on a heavy bag felt he was absolutely exceptional. And I try to tell other fighters in our gym and other people in general that like, you don't understand, it's, it's not something, you know, you see other profiters that I've seen a lot of them come to our gym and they're talking to people and they're joking around and they're sort of, you know, taking a moment or two off. And then you look at all of them and these are good fighters.

2:06:48I mean, these are profiters, but they're not exceptional and they don't have that intention. And when I would see Kennello Avarez or certain elite Crawfords done media days at our gym, they, from the moment they walk in, everything about them, the way they take their sweatshirt off and fold it up and put it down. I'm like, that dude's a world fucking champion. Has nothing to do with the fighting. The way their hands, they hold their hands out when they're getting taped. It's almost like every breath from the moment they walk in to walk out is so fucking exceptional. And I look at all these other fighters, they're going, you don't understand, you don't, he's got something you don't have.

2:07:30And you can still lose with all that because you are quite people. You might be, yeah, you might be competing against a guy who has a slightly better strategy and maybe he's better at one thing that sets you off. Yeah. And you want to beat that guy? Well, you got to work even harder. You got to go back and figure out what you did wrong. You got to figure out what your flaws are and improve upon them, whether it's an endurance issue, whether it's a technique and strategy issue, whether it's pacing, whatever it is. Floyd never lost, right? And I do, I have, I totally agree with you what you said earlier that Floyd deserves.

2:08:06That's a great story. I just for some reason have in my life over the years sometimes hated item a little bit for a variety of reasons mainly because of how defensive he was. Now I know how great he is, but I do sometimes look for inspiration in random places. And if I'm feeling like I need a reminder of what excellence is, I'll watch training videos from Vegas with Floyd, just him and his uncle or his dad just doing the doing is like 15 minute rounds, just so smooth and effortless. And what does he say? Hard work, easy work, hard work, or I can't remember this phrase is, but the beauty of like may weather training in a gym and I just find that so interesting to look for people who are exceptional.

2:08:57And it's a long road, man. It's a long road. You're making a mountain one layer of pain at a time and you're competing against other people that are doing the exact same thing. And if less you set yourself apart from the pack, unless you're a guy like Marvin Hagg or that goes to Cape Cod and trains in the winter, runs on the fucking sand, unless you're that guy that like pushes it past everybody else, you're not going to be exceptional. And it's a, it's a fucking struggle. That's why some fighters they reach a certain level of success and they sort of slack off. And a lot of people thought Canelo was doing that when he started playing golf all the time.

2:09:33Like they're like, oh, he's not completely focused anymore. And maybe this is why he doesn't want to fight Benavitas. Might be, might be a little, true. It also might be a money thing. It might be like, look, I'll fight that guy, but I know what that fight is. And I want $200 million to that fight. How about just like how hard it is to stay hungry when your refrigerator is that fucking full? Oh yeah. Like your Canelo average, you're a good looking dude. You have a beautiful wife. You've got this Hussienda in Mexico that like Pablo Escobar would have killed for the stallions and the cars and and and and you got to go fucking deal with David Benavitas.

2:10:08Right. Like, like, that's like when, you know, Rocky, when you had to go fight, I can't remember who and he's already. Club of Lang. Yeah. You go fight club of Lang rich. Yeah. Like, okay, Canelo average, I fight you poor, but not going to fight you rich. Right. And I got to wake up for like, ah, yeah. Hagelow is to say it's very difficult to wake up in the morning when you're sleeping in silk sheets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like and and I do think about that also. Like, I have people asking me like, like, you know, we started talking about making American print people that that was 145 days up on a mountain, you know, in standing and ice with clampons, your shoes, because we're on ski mountains and there's fucking wind and it's fucking miserable.

2:10:52I'm like, people like, why are you why are you doing this shit? I'm like, because I fucking love it. You fucking love it. I love it. But they're like, but we could like, you know, I got a boat. We're going to go into the Mediterranean. I'm like, now I'm going to be up on the mountain. Yeah. And I stay in Hungary is a, I don't know, but it all depends on what your motivation is. If your motivation is just get wealthy and then once you reach that point, now you're fucked, because now you don't have this motivation anymore. If your motivation is the big house and the big car is and all that bullshit.

2:11:27But if your motivation is excellence, you can maintain that motivation no matter what your financial status. Forever. It's an unlimited source. When that's in necklace, I wear the pleasing to God as a creation of beautiful thing. That's what it says in necklace. Yeah, the only thing pleasing to God is the creation of beautiful and exalted things. That's perfect. That's perfect. It reminds me dude. Like, okay, I don't, I'll enjoy, like you want to take me to a fancy Michelin restaurant here in Austin. Okay. You want to take me to Guarro's and fucking have some ribs. Okay. Like I don't care. And I mean, I appreciate it.

2:12:04But it's not your primary motivation. No fucking no. Your primary motivation is not to show, but the big party and have everybody kiss your ass. No, it's creation. The creation of great art. Correct. And if you're a fighter, it's the same thing. It's like to to be excellent, to be unstoppable, to be the best of the best. And if you have that motivation, you can maintain that with wealth. You can still get hungry to be canelo and come out and fight David Bettenview. But it's obviously very hard to do, which is why most fighters don't maintain it once they achieve wealth. Who's the best? Who's the best?

2:12:38Like, I think Tom Brady is a great example of like someone that was able to just like reignite the fucking beast. Yes. Kobe Bryant, I guess, you know, yes. But like fighters or people that you know that I just think it's interesting to think about. It's a different thing though. Sports and fighting are a different thing because you don't play boxing. Yeah, you don't play it. It's like you could decide that you're going to still maintain a very high level of basketball and you enjoy. You want to just be excellent. But no one's kicking you in the legs. You know, no one's taking you down, strangling you.

2:13:13Who's the is George St. Pierre that's been able to like who is it? John Jones that in your mind is like curious in that they were able to with a full fridge and comfortable sheets. Just keep fucking. Well, John Jones is exceptional because John Jones beat a lot of guys when he wasn't training. There was times in his life where he was fucking off and partying all the time and still beating the best guys in the world. That was like the the when he had that press conference with Daniel Cormin and he goes, I beat you when I was doing coke. Yeah. That's such an insult. What's the worst in something that I was doing?

2:13:49I was high on fucking it balls and I beat your ass. Well, John talked to me about it. He said I used to when I was younger, I used to give myself an excuse. So I would party really hard like a week before the fight, which you should never do. And it's like, well, if I lose, you know, maybe it's because I partied. But he doesn't he doesn't do that now. Now he thoroughly prepares. And he went through a time when he was the light heavyweight champion when he was kind of like playing with his food because he was just so much better than everybody else. He wasn't he wasn't threatened by people. So he wasn't putting on the performances that he did when he was younger like when he won the title against show gun.

2:14:24He lost some of that motivation, but then gained it later in life when he went through a bunch of legal struggles, a lot of problems and realized like this could all be taken away from me. I got to get back to what made me great. And then, you know, won the heavyweight title defended against the greatest and steeped me Oh, chitchin. You know, now he's the heavyweight champion of the UFC. What do you think? He's been fight. He's how many are on the title and what like 2008? When did what year to John Jones win the title? Which is just that's insane. Fucking crazy. And he's 40 now he's in now 30s.

2:14:59He's 30s. He's the youngest ever champion in the UFC won the title at 22 years old. 2011. 2011. Okay. So he has been a world champion for 14 years. That is unheard. But so he has to be the greatest fighter in the history of the UFC greater than George Tampa. I mean, right? Like I think on paper for sure. I think the problem with that is like who did he fight versus who did George Tampa? Yeah. Heer fight. Who did Kabebe fight versus who did George Tampa? Like it's like who did mighty mouse fight versus okay, but so according to that and so do you put number one best on those metrics? Well, out of just the sheer longevity and the accomplishments, I say John Jones, but I could see the argument for mighty mouse being the best martial artist I've ever seen.

2:15:44I think he's the best expression of martial arts talent and technique that I've ever seen. But then George St. Pierre is right up there too. And George St. Pierre was, you know, multiple division world champion. He won the Walter Way title, then he won the middleweight title. And then he came back after four years off and beat Michael Bisping for the middleweight title. Like he's he's in the argument too. I just think there's a real problem with saying the number one of all time, the greatest of all time. But if you were going to give it to somebody, I would say give it to John. When you think about John and like like what how he's been able to do it for this long and go through these highs and lows and get I mean fighting and doing blow like that's fucking like what is that talented?

2:16:26I mean, that's that good. He's an intelligent psychopath. Like like but what what's in there? You know, like to what we're talking about what's the like yeah, what's driving that you can't you can't you can't manufacture that you either are that guy or you are not that guy. So that's pure nature. That's like it's a lot of things. It's how he grew up. He has two savage brothers, both of them are NFL players, superior athletes, they will beat each other up all the time. I'm sure yeah, you know, it's like you're in a competitive environment from the time of your young you have incredible genetics on top of that.

2:17:00Then you go to a place like Jackson Winkle John that is superior training with world class barring partners, world class coaches, world class recovery, training facilities, technique, strategy, all the above. It's like you need a perfect storm to be a real true all -time great. Do you think that because sometimes I think we that having a being fucked up can work to your advantage and having addictive tendencies and being like being able to harness addictive tennis tendencies into something as violent as in to to be able to apply those to a sport versus just being well, I'm a well -adjusted human being with no addictive tendencies.

2:17:43Not a lot of trauma. I'm going to I'm going to fight you. Oh no, I'm a fucking beast. The grew up in a fight in like Mike Tyson the grew up like I don't you know understand if you grew up inside or outside dealt with fucking ignited torment drug addiction violence and I will kill and and I guess that's always interesting to look at how well -adjusted people do versus people that have real trauma when it gets fucking brutal. I think there's some real value to being out of your fucking mind. I really do and I think some of the greatest artists, some of the greatest athletes, some of the greatest accomplishments were achieved by people that were out of their fucking mind and just had pushed it to a level to a level and into an area that other people weren't willing to go and that's how they became the best of the best and you don't get to be a Michael Jordan unless you're out of your fucking mind.

2:18:41I don't know maybe an Eli Mosh guy. I don't know. Yeah similar similar in that regard it's not a normal person that chooses to take on four or five jobs like that and then runs the Department of Government efficiency like who is that? Now very few people are willing to put in that kind of work or have that desire to do anything like that. You have it has to be real you can't be forcing it because if you're forcing it and it's like oh god this is like I don't really want to do this. Well there's someone out there that wants to do that and they're going to get better. They're going to be better at it.

2:19:11They're obsessed. They're all in. You have to be all in and when fighters aren't all in anymore that's the worst age of their career. It's horrifying and and I say that about people asking about me my job or how do I get a job working in Hollywood I want to make movies I'm like well are you sure? Do you want to do this? Because like you're not going to have an office you're not going to have a boss you're not going to have someone saying hey Joe get up time to get up and you're going to have to be totally self motivated you're going to have to deal with and yeah like reviews I feel what you're saying there but you're going to be judged you're going to be only as good as your last job you have no fucking job security and you know you're going to be up before in the morning and some mountain filming someone cutting someone's fucking head off having no idea whether you're like on the right path of the romp you gotta be a little fucking crazy.

2:20:06Yeah you have to be crazy to think that you can do it right because most people don't get a chance to do that. Delusional thinking you have to be able to be delusional. Well I don't even think it's delusional. My business a little bit. You have to be willing to go through everything that it takes to get there and that is not an easy road and it's not an easy road to be a great filmmaker it's not an easy road to be a great athlete no matter what you're doing to be a great author you have to be willing to go down that road and it is a long road with trials and tribulations and errors and successes and you have to learn from your successes and learn from your failures and not everybody has their shit together enough to pursue a path consistently for a long enough period of time that you achieve greatness.

2:20:52Yeah or in having a determination of having your shit together and being fucked up because it's gotta be you gotta be crazy but you gotta be able to functionally crazy. Yeah but I always say delusional thinking because I made the point to people asking me about my job. I'm like well okay think about it this way. You have to have the ability to look someone in the eye so if I'm a young filmmaker and you're the head of a studio I have to look you in the eye and say hey Joe here's the deal. I need $135 million. I'm gonna make up a story about a bunch of cowboys and Indians fighting at a mountain.

2:21:31I'm gonna bring all these people up there. I'm gonna film it and move people around and I'm gonna edit it all together and I'm gonna for your $130 million I'm gonna build this thing. I'm gonna make it all put music on and edit it and make it all I'm gonna put it out into the world and people are gonna stop doing what they're doing and they're gonna watch it and they're gonna love it and it's gonna bring you value. But why is it to lose know if other people have done it? This is the thing. Everyone that's done it is a little delusional. Because it just doesn't like you you're right okay it's not totally delusional but it's a little bit of magical thinking.

2:22:08Maybe take the word delusional out of it and be like you know like the idea of magical thinking that like oh no I can do something that that's very doesn't quite make sense. It's not like oh I'm gonna make this table I'm gonna measure it and cut it and nail it and attach it to a frame and no it's like I'm gonna I've got this abstract vision that I'm gonna attempt to put together in a way that costs somebody a lot of money and yet I'm gonna aspire to touch people's hearts and souls with this. It's just a weird way to think. It is but I love it but it obviously works like it can't be dilute like it's a lot of bad movies out there.

2:22:51Yeah that's true. There's a lot of bad everything's not a bad book. But is it delusional to want to write a book? No it's been done forever. You know it's just like filmmaking is fairly recent. You know what my dad told me when I told him I was going to Hollywood to learn how to make movies. What? So my dad was a business guy and I love my dad very much but he right when I was getting ready to come to Hollywood he said Pete I've secured you a job at Lehman Brothers you're gonna work on a desk and you're gonna learn about finance. It's done and I studied theater in college which was making my dad very anxious because I was starting to get into making his little movies and all the stuff and I'm like I'm in LA and I'm getting ready to move to LA and he stopped me because I were not moving to LA I've got you a job.

2:23:38This guy Barry Frank who's a friend of my dad who knew someone at Lehman Brothers and I think they're out of business now by the way big money company and I'm like that I'm not doing it. It's like what do you mean I go dad I'm not he's like you're really gonna go know it's fucking bullshit Hollywood I go I am because you're not I go I am he said okay I'll tell you what good luck out there you know what's gonna happen you're gonna end up making them gay pornos.

2:24:08Imagine like that's the only one that was the only thing that gonna happen if it goes wrong you make gay pornos. Gay pornos. That is a miracle and he stirred me in the eye and he's not fucking kidding and I'm like I'm like oh my god. Dad I'm not and I fucking left and in the back of my mind for the last 30 fucking years has been that warning. Don't do gay pornos. Be careful like you better fucking work but it's not magical thinking but to my dad the idea that you were his you know because I had no artists in my family my dad was a business guy it was like madman advertising work for gray advertising like gif peanut butter and shit like the account guy you you had to go get the gif peanut butter guy's drunk twice a week and that was his job you know but the idea that why you can make a career in the arts yeah people do it but most people don't fuck with that.

2:25:09Most people don't make it yeah they don't fuck with it but that's just because it's hard yeah if it was easy everybody would do it it was easy everybody to have their own fucking movie everybody be making movies everybody had their own fucking podcast if it was easy to have a podcast my favorite everybody does I think everything what Gavin Newsom just started one yeah well you're right you're right but so like well like so this is the other thing right that I think is so interesting and it's true with podcasts what I tell people who like come to Hollywood and they're like I don't understand this business I'm what do I do what do I do I'm like fuck off let me tell you something there's no barrier of entry for my business or podcasting meaning anybody in the world can move to LA you don't have to be in LA and be an Austin and be like I'm an actor I'm an actress I'm a writer I'm director I'm a producer I'm a podcaster any motherfucker don't you agree get on an airplane and look to the left when you're getting on like do you can anyone fly a fucking plane if your toilet is fucking backed up and you need it fixed as could just pull anyone off the street or there's a plumber have to have a fucking degree right right like but we want to exist this is where I say magical thinking you want to thrive in a job or all you're doing is talking Joe you're just talking anyone can fuck everyone as a mountain two years but you're doing a different fucking level that's magical thinking in a way if you a little bit I know well if I set out and said I one day want to be the biggest podcaster on earth not that's magical thinking but I didn't you just followed your instincts and who's your first one the one who's the guy you were telling me brown red bin my buddy Brian I know yeah we just started out with snowflakes falling from the screen and we did it on a webcam we were just being silly and we just did it all for fun but people move to LA or get into my business thinking I'm gonna smash it yes like they're not that's a little bit delusional thinking delusional yeah like I was sort of people or aspirational because it's delusional the aspiration yes like because I'm like dude if if like you come you want to work and still call it Hollywood even though it's not really Hollywood anymore which could so decentralized but it's fucking show business motherfucker yeah it's money and art smashing together and it's very big in our way and you gotta get so good at art that the money people trust you yeah and you gotta know how to play the money game mm -hmm even when they trust you you still have to know how to play it even if you're you know um uh Tarantino or um Christopher Nolan or you still have to understand you know for the most part that there's there's financial parameters and you have to to be able to accept that and play that because you're playing in a serious game like our bosses they don't give a fuck they're all publicly held now and they're looking at stock prices and I say to people bro if you just want to be like an artist and just pure and think about like oh I just you know like you actually were when you were doing your podcast like I kind of was when I was in Minnesota making little movies and doing all this idiotic shit that got my dad to say oh you're gonna make gay porn you fucking idiot like this little phase of oh isn't I was in Minnesota and St.

2:28:38Paul in this small school and I'm like I just fucking love this shit just like your first podcast I just loved it but I'm like I tell people if you just want to be an artist go right plays in Oklahoma City and just stay over out there but if you want to like step into this arena like it's tricky you know what you have to be all in and you have to realize that this is a very high failure rate and yeah even all in just like fighting you still might not make you might not make it yeah I mean the acting's the best example that there's I mean we talked about Tim McGraw being amazing how many amazing actors out there that don't act there's a lot there's a lot of people that can act you can take them and they can figure out how to do it it's a weird skill that some people either have or don't have some people have the ability you can definitely get better at it there's definitely like people that that trained very hard and there's method acting and there's all sorts of different strategies but the reality is there are a small number of roles and a large number of people and they're auditioning for these things and if you don't get into one you probably won't get another and it might be five 10 15 years and you've had no success and you don't know what the fuck to do and you can quit or you can do with Billy Bob Thornton as and he makes sling blade right and then all of a sudden boom he takes off well that that's what the reason I got into directing was I was trying to act and I was having mixed success and I was getting very scared that you know you could like prepare for an audition for five days and I know everything and I ready and I'm all in and I go in and I let I get 30 seconds of the director's time and you find out like oh you look like the dude that the director's girlfriend Cheetah on him and he's like you were dead before it started then I was I was on this TV show Chicago Hope it was a hospital drama and I was kind of getting a little famous I played a TV doctor Billy Cronk and people would keep calling me Billy whenever I walked down the street like hey Billy what's up Billy Billy Billy and I'm like oh my fucking god this is gonna be my legacy as being this TV fucking doctor Billy and I was on an airplane going from LA to New York and I'm sitting there and this guy walks by me and he stops he was hey Billy and I'm like my name's not Billy my wife has this rash show him the rash and she pulls up her shirt and it's got this fucking rash and she's sticking it my face he's like Billy what's the rash and the other people in the plane like what's the rash and I'm like fuck this shit I'm like I've been busted in my ass I'm barely making it as an actor and people are showing me their rash I'm like I gotta fucking do my own sling blade and I did very bad things and still got the worst review ever in the history of reviews but it started my career they was good movie man you know what's that you know it's that credit but you know it saved me so I get the horrible review I throw up and I'm literally in on that fucking door like I'm done I have no career I get a phone call at night from a woman named her name's Kelly Chapman Myers she was married to Ron Meyer who used to run universal and she's like he was a huge fucking guy Ron Meyer was a big big muggle in our business and I could hear these guys laughing and she's like Pete Pete I'm on the boat with Ron and Stephen and David Spielberg and David Geffen oh wow and I know we're watching your movie and they're laughing like little fucking frat boys and the fucking Ron Meyer gets the phone and he's like this is fucking great and I'm holding the review of Kenneth Rand like I just got it and I'm like what pull that Spielberg this movie is fucking great it's great and I'm like let's go that's awesome yeah so they said well they were right and the critic was wrong I appreciate but I think a lot of those critics probably wanted to beat you and they didn't didn't get the chance and they failed and they got this job and then they shit on everything and you gotta be able to take the hits yeah I took the hit you know like it's strengthens you it's strengthens you resolve go as it get knocked down seven get up eight like I believe in that like like if it's just all good all the time I think you get knocked down seven you get up seven think you have to get knocked down seven you get up for the eight time no seven times you get knocked down the seven times it's a phrase is the phrase says get knocked down seven get up seven or get knocked down seven whatever made the phrase the wrong because you'll get knocked down you get up right but that's one time if you start up and get knocked down One one yep, you're one ahead of getting up cuz you started up no no you get knocked down one You get up one you get knocked down to fall down seven get up eight.

2:33:31Yeah, they're retarded So you're you're saying the tensile watching yeah, I'm sure it's happening to pro prover. Yeah, that's great That's great, but your success is wrong. Yeah, every time you get knocked down you get up You can't get up if you haven't been knocked down. That's stupid if you get knocked down seven times you get up seven times Period It's like math man. You're making well. It's just they're just delusion. This is just like so this is just like pump you up Talk that doesn't make any sense so this has been missed you climb any mountain. No, you can't there's certain mountains You're not gonna climb this is stupid.

2:34:00I believe I can fly will you fucking can't? Arkelly jump off a building see what happens you can't fly Okay, you get knocked down seven you get up seven times Because otherwise there's no way to get up when you're already up. Did you hear that right? Am I right I want you saying but I also like you have to get up the first time to be that's what I'm saying No, no, no, you don't get credit for fuck it up You don't get credit for not getting neck knocked down and getting up. That's stupid But you don't start up. Yes you do you start standing up you get knocked down now You're up you get knocked down once you get up once.

2:34:36Yeah, but then you get knocked down to get up You have to start but you start on sense you don't get you don't get extra credit for fucking standing up But getting in the ring you have to have courage you get knocked down You get that's the the challenge is getting knocked down you you fight you don't you don't get credit for thinking You're gonna fight you have to actually do it when you actually do it and you get knocked down you get up You get knocked down once you get up once I I don't knock down seven times you get up seven fucking times What can't get up eight times what I what I like about what you're saying is it just like oh I can climb any mountain No, you fucking can yeah, like get knocked down get up who fucking gives you shit just get up get up like that's the kind of advice I'm a fan of It's like life is not fair.

2:35:28You're gonna you're gonna come into the whatever if you want really to have it success You're gonna see people that work less that have luck or you know connections or who fucking saw past you and it won't be fair Deal with it. Yeah, fucking deal with it. Well, you can't compare yourself. You know, that's the great quote comparison is the thief of joy You can't compare yourself you can look to other people for inspiration Have you always felt that have you always been that way like back in the day when fear factor days and before you were Joe Like you are now. Were you competitive? Were you? I wasn't a competitive with other TV shows just playing your own game Well fear factor wasn't an exam because that was just a job The fear factor was I didn't want to work with actors, but about to extend up you're doing you're doing stand up Yeah, but stand up was just a thing that I love to do and I did it I mean certainly compared myself to other people that were doing better than me like wow Why are they doing better than me?

2:36:22Why are they more successful? Why do they sell out everywhere? And I don't yeah, but then eventually I caught up, you know, it's just you just keep working That's all it is all it is is like keep keep improving and working and if you don't have the desire to keep improving and working You should get out because you're in the wrong business because there's gonna be a bunch of people to do have that desire and If you want to live a life of mediocrity and half -astidness and just fucking Kind of show it up and doing the bare minimum like what kind of a fucking life is that that's not fun That's not exciting.

2:36:54That's not stimulating. We're not running but some people don't have drive They don't have this desire you can't you can't like you can't make a championship fighter at a someone who doesn't like working out Like you can't it's not gonna happen like you have to have something inside you a calling to whatever you're doing for you It is filmmaking you have a calling to this thing. It's a passion project. It's love. It's art It's intensity. It's to discipline and focus and you're trying to make the best fucking thing you can make and if you're not doing that You shouldn't be doing what you're doing or you need to come to Jesus moment You need a refocusing you need something that real that like press field had where he realized he was kind of like 40 years old and like half -assing his life He turned it around and he talks about how he turned it around by deciding that he's a professional and Amazing career since then right which is kind of spectacular Press anyone that doesn't know Steve in press field and they're like they want to do anything like writing sports podcast that motherfucker is laid it out and I'm not a big fan of like self -help tell me shit like The war of art that that dude in my opinion and I think yours That's the real deal.

2:38:06Yeah, it's a guide book It's a guide book for creativity and discipline and becoming a professional You know and he he really laid it out and he laid it out also with his own personal examples of failure Which I think are very important like you need to know like that this struggle that you're experiencing when you feel like you're Fucking up Everybody has that Nobody is just like Gungho the best of the best right out of the gate you learn you improve. It's a Long slow journey You know it takes a lot of fucking work And if you're not interested in doing that well, you better find something else And there's a lot of people that aren't interested in that a lot of people just want to do a job where they make some money And then at the end of the day they go play video games hang out with their kids That's great.

2:38:48There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that But if you want to do something that's extraordinary. That's very hard. It's gonna take extraordinary effort It's gonna take extraordinary discipline and willpower and it's gonna take objectivity You're gonna have to have introspection. It's gonna be a lot of things you're gonna have to a lot of soul searching And yes, don't my fucking get your ass cake. You're asking. Yeah, right? Yeah But that's why when people do succeed and someone can put together something like American prime evil It's so fantastic because we know how hard it is to do It's not easy.

2:39:20Are you gonna apologize to your wife from here? Do I have to? She's new used to watching she put it freaked out a Nosferado too. She hated that Did you have to watch that movie at the climax that I was doing? I'm gonna watch I was hurt but no no no definitely don't watch it So the climax tell everybody you were telling me about it in the journal last night. I watched this film Called the climax It's made by this French director who's made something really fucked up Gas Gasper know his name is he's up from My son made me watch this film And he's he's this guy's made some really fucked up films and I don't recommend them if you if you have like any sensitivity because This guy is the hardest filmmaker out there right now in my opinion like these are fucking intense movies Did one called your reversible did one called enter the void and they're about Drugs and death and sex and they're very experiential So you feel like your Yeah, so this is it.

2:40:22This is the climax and it's about these dancers who accidentally drink a bunch of fucking LSD and This is the hardest film I think I've ever seen in my life And you feel like you are on a very very very bad LSD trip is this in subtitles? Yeah, it's French. It's French, but it's languages almost irrelevant, but if you want to I Don't I don't recommend LSD for because I'm not a doctor and I think it's very dangerous and I've done LSD And I've had some pretty intense experiences on it But this is a brilliantly deranged Trip into you know if you ever had a bad trip like a really bad trip not really so I haven't either and I've done You know something the DMT and the five MEO and you know mushrooms I've had powerful experiences, but I did have one bad experience on LSD the first time I ever took it and None of us had ever taken it before so we didn't feel it so we took another hit thinking that so we all basically were a bunch of high school kids in New York City Trying to go to a Santana concert and I was just started fucking tripping out and It was scary.

2:41:39It was actually really really scary this movie Is a experientially it becomes and this is something that is one of my strategies when I make in movies is I don't want my movie to be a part a spectator sport. I don't want you watching it I want you participating. I want to try and grab you by the throat and make you watch and be like come on bro Watch put the fucking phone down I want to own your heart and your mind and your pulse while you're watching my films That's just a goal Sometimes I do better than others, but that's always the goal. I don't want you kind of sitting back watching this motherfucker Gaspar no He takes you into it in a way that I'm just a lot of people will hate it.

2:42:27I mean people see the guy that is like speaks to you the most right now No, I don't I mean there's a part of me like so I'm getting ready to make a film called mosquito ball this war movie and And these young kids went through I don't if you know the Pacific theater campaign and what the battles of Tarawa and Guadalcanal and Okinawa these were Holacious Awful fucking violent fights and the Japanese would surrender and they believed in Emperor Hohito So they would fight to the death you know bonsai charges and Sepico they would kill themselves before they would Be taken prisoner and in World War two you had these young American kids who in our movie were were college football players Who Pearl Harbor hits and they immediately joined the military and they have to go fight these fucking horrific battles like just people's throat's getting blown out and Torturing and killing and Suicides from the locals Suicide and and so to me one of my goals with this next film is I want to try because it's been a lot of good war films And just like there've been a lot of good Westerns and I always said well I never got to make one so I want to try make a Western now as American pray me Well, I've been a lot of great war films great war films But I never got to make one so my take is to try and bring people into the experience of which you have made war films I'm a World War two.

2:43:51Oh, okay. So you're right I made I made loan survivor. I never made a World War two film And there've been a lot of great ones, you know from private Ryan to Hexel Ridge Private Ryan was probably the first one that was realistic though, right? That opening scene. Yeah, yeah Which is which is like why Steve for anyone like you asked me who I look up to Steven Spober He is so far in ahead the goat of my business to think that the guy who did fucking Jurassic Park and E .T. God loves us close encounters Then is like oh, you know the in spillbroker's always like the good boy of the of the because I was like he was growing up But like Coppola and Scorsese and Michael Mann and these guys were like fuck ready.

2:44:33Yeah, they were just fucking hard party and mother fucker You know hard drink and hard drug and hard fucking filmmakers and Steven was like the good goody good kid, right? Like a little Stephen he's got to go home soon Put that wait let go keep the girls in the garage Steven still here and then Steven's like oh really and then he makes You know saving private Ryan or Shindler's list, right and these move like you guys oh really you don't think that I know how to do war saving private Ryan was like Another fucking level So to answer questions billbrook so I look up to still the most and I think he's on a whole nother level based on The scope of his work, but gasp or no if I'm thinking about the thing I got out of watching this film that I would try and use In my own way for for mosquito ball for a warm movie is the idea that you want to try and take the audience into what it would have been like to try and get on that fucking beach and in the case of my film There was a battle of Taroa and they were trying to get a shore But they fucked up the tides so they came in and the tides were too low so those landing craft I got stuck on the tides on the coral reef and they started getting bombed by the Japanese who were hiding in the caves And they brought their big guns out so these kids We're getting blown up before they even got to the fucking beach they were getting killed and they're you know best friends or body parts are floating in the fucking oceans and their sharks and there's giant surf waves And they're getting rocked before they've ever using guys so I'm like, okay, well How do I want to show that what like and I look at a movie like climax and I'm like all right Different horror you bad acid bad LSD, but my god You're like I had to stop watching it and I knew I was coming in here today And I'm starting to have an anxiety attack because I want to get sleep to do you know to talk to you And I'm fucking watching this movie and I'm all worked up because he's taken me Into the fucking experience and he does his movie into the void is about DMT and he takes you into the experience of DMT so for anyone Who doesn't ever want to experience and you know things that you've touched and I've touched Watch you can watch these movies and you can be like whoa I'm getting that feeling and that's a that's a real accomplishment for a filmmaker and I it's immersive So watch it, but don't let your wife.

2:47:15I'll definitely watch it. Don't not like I don't want to shit She won't I don't want to worry. She's not going to it is not for everyone I can't talk her into watching anything that it just doesn't want to watch she only watched American Prime Evil because I told her it was gonna Be really awesome and she loves Yellowstone in 1883, but there was like We're violent it's we're violent. Well, it's also it's that time period. I think we do have We do have a bit of a problem Culturally because a lot of the films that were created in the early days about the Wild West were very glossy They were very white washed It wasn't an accurate representation of what actually went down You know film in the 1960s and 70s in particular when it covered that subject like spaghetti westerns You know great films, but it just never really quite captured the reality I don't think filmmaking was really ready for that experience because I think the the settling of the West and Making their way across the planes in particular and dealing with the Comanche and the planes Indians like it is One of the most brutal experiences in human history.

2:48:26They couldn't look at it and film back then There's no way right People have asked like well, you know when I was making it is there gonna be sex in the film like Isaac and Sarah Are they gonna fall in love or they gonna have sex? I'm like are you fuck it? Can you imagine what they would have smelled like? Just think about just odor yeah from head to toe There's no way these people were gonna have sex There's no way they were gonna smell each other or taste each other in any fucking way and And and that was like You know when we were talking when we were putting it together and we're writing it and you know Mark and we're like well should they have sex and we're like there's no fucking way just that alone Right would have been it's amazing to me that people did have sex Like that world wanted to fuck each other like get the fuck away from me.

2:49:20Yeah, they barely washed back then Barely never and they never bus your teeth and making the way across the country. There's you mean you're Months on end same clothes no Sanitation women didn't know no tampons right like there's no toilet paper They didn't have Japanese toilets a blow water up your ass and you can fucking dry yourself like This was a messy fucking world and they were not gonna make and I Wanted to do a scene where we're Taylor sir Taylor sir Taylor Kitches character has to shit and he's constipated And and he's got to use Sticks to help him get it out because that weird read about that about that was how you had to shit Because we're constipated all the time.

2:50:07She would have to stick wood up your ass and break it up and Force it out and we we had that scene written And I I called that one off By the way Taylor Kitch is fucking He's a great. He's a that scene in the first episode when they first meet him and he has to take off his clothes And he's changing and you see the scars all over his body like holy shit It's he's really good in that move at that show Yeah, he's really tell her tell her such a great great guy and a great actor and you know like Really proven because he had some big fucking misses one of them was my film battleship, which I'm proud of I love all my movies, but I kind of made him do that film and he was didn't quite work And he kind of had some other misses, but he stayed true to himself and his Built an incredible career and his that's a guy who truly does like he still have here And now this city got too big for him so now he's up and up a way up and the crazy mount the crazy hills of Montana I'm just tracking wolves with cameras all day long Yeah, like I looked at some of your pictures on the lobby of the wolves like he he sends me pictures all the time He's just so true to himself in that way.

2:51:29That's awesome. Yeah, he plays a bad man He he plays it so well. I think this is his best work ever I mean, he's been in a bunch of phenomenal projects, but this is this is his best It's so good dude. I appreciate you really be proud of it. Thank you, man It's because it's it's not just really good. It's really good about a very unique time when you have this convergence of of American You know this this emergence of these settlers trying to make their way across this country and dealing with the Indians and it's just Is this phenomenal? I mean, it's it's a crazy time in human history and a very brief time If you really think about the impact that the West has had on American culture We think about wild west every kid grew up playing cowboys and Indians like this is a time that was a very short Window it was only a couple hundred years and it really changed the entire World because the the successful settling of this country by the Europeans changed everything of the establishment of America changed everything and the only way it was going to happen Was you got to get through the the Indians So we're doing the next one on This is a this is um Announcement.

2:52:50Yeah, the next American primeval is going to be on general custer Yeah, man, and we're gonna focus on a period short period of time leading up to little big horn and how went you know because he is a very misunderstood character from the American history and I'm sure you know a bit Uh, are you a cusp? Yeah, yeah, I mean he was a fucking Beast and he was you know warrior in the civil war who was leading and the front of the cavalry and he started cavalry charges And I'm like to imagine being in a cavalry charge fucking like fucking 500 guys on your side 500 of mine and we're just galloping full fucking speed at each other and Just fucking smashing and he would just and he just kept doing it all through the civil war And was just a badass the war ends and he's a warrior with like he starts losing his mind Because there's no what to do with himself So they send him out west to do with the Indian problem So if you thought about multiple versions of American primeval with different characters throughout history?

2:53:57Yeah, so the goal would be to do um Like what one things was cool about American primeval and reaction is people like whoa I didn't know that about brigam young I didn't know this about Jim Bridger. I didn't understand right and so you get something it works Hopefully is you know entertaining cool fucking show that's just Fucking awesome, but you're also like oh wow I'm gonna fucking learn about the country, right? So you I like the idea of taking moments in American history not necessarily all about the west Although custer something at Mark Elsmith and I are both kind of obsessed with and there's so much Cool shit around the story of general custer and crazy horse and Building a fictional story around those characters and having some great actor play custer's exciting But I could see doing the third one on something like the Attica prison riot which has always obsessed me And if you followed that there's an incredible book by Tom Wicker who's a journalist called a time to die that dissect That event because I like events, you know like I'm good with events If you give me a contained event over short period of time and I can tell that story and it's emotional and visceral that that's an Attica was Fucking wild and how it started and how it escalated and the players involved and the negotiating to try and calm it down and the corrupt governor Rockefeller who wouldn't negotiate because they want to be a pair of weak and then finally the it just goes off and everyone's dead And it was you know a great look at the American prison system racism negotiations religion Black Panthers were in there and the the Muslim brotherhood was it just so I like the idea of taking moments in American history that are probably pretty fucking violent and sort of presenting them and being like Wow, this is thrilling and deeply entertaining But I never knew that and this is like in with Attica.

2:56:04Oh, this might get me to think a little bit about prison reform and this state of you know incarcerated American men in today in America and because that story of Attica is deeply rooted in like abusive prisoners all over America Have you done by anything on that no you just I mean incarceration well I have done some shows with Josh Dubin who used to work with the innocent project Yeah, yeah, I pro modest and you know because of the show We've got a lot of people actually that were free wrongfully accused released. It's it's a prison systems of fucking it's Fuck the fucking disaster. I mean look you got Going back to Kassanya.

2:56:49This girl who's now in a fucking Working prison camp in Siberia for like you like we have fucked up prisons um Russia South America you imagine being in a Venezuelan prison right now um, and so I like the idea in America has its own unique flavor of fucking hell within prisons um Not to make light of prison right and I'm not but I actually had an idea While I go for a show that I wanted to do Like survivor or or fear factor It take take three guys Three like take the three of us in this room right now three fucking tough badass American men All right and put three yeah, there's three of us in here In my mind you are You're a fucking legend you're a legend you're a fucking legend.

2:57:44Uh, but you put each Man in a maximum security prison somewhere in the world like the worst So you're in Thailand james and Venezuela and I'm in Russia, okay? And you go in by yourself, right? And you just are putting the general population And the deal is you can get out anytime you want you just have to say the code word Blue Vays and awarding knows and the prison knows but nobody's telling the nobody knows that you Everything sure a prisoner whoever stays in the longest Gets 10 million dollars And you have no idea when the other guys have gotten out right so like right you could stay in for five fucking years And me and Jamie got out in three minutes.

2:58:32Oh, yeah, but just like how you would survive Prison and what a horror prison is today and so that took me down a rabbit hole of I say maybe doing it as a film But um, it'd be a good squid games movie. Yeah, like squid games You've ever seen the movie brew baker with Robert Woodford. Yeah, we're here with true story about awarding of a new prison who went in undercover as a prisoner to you know to see what was going on Um, but I think to do something like Attica something like we're doing we're gonna do custer next But if you have any good ones man send them over. I will all right, buddy Well hey brother.

2:59:10Thank you very much for being here. I appreciate you very much. You work is amazing Thanks for the workout this morning my pleasure. It was fun I was I was so pumped when you wanted to do it. I was like yeah, let's go. I appreciate it. It was fun Thank you Jamie marathon prime evil right now in Netflix. Can't recommend it enough. Absolutely fantastic Peter Berger is fucking mad All right, goodbye everybody