#2337 - Oliver Anthony - The Joe Rogan Experience: Summary & Transcript

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Podcast Summary: The Joe Rogan Experience - Episode #2337 with Oliver Anthony

Podcast Title: The Joe Rogan Experience Episode Title: #2337 - Oliver Anthony Episode Description: Oliver Anthony is a singer-songwriter of country and folk music. His debut album, “Hymnal of a Troubled Man’s Mind,” is available everywhere music is sold.

Overview In this episode, Joe Rogan interviews Oliver Anthony, a rising country and folk musician known for his authentic music style and powerful lyrics. They discuss a range of topics including Anthony's musical journey, the challenges of fame, the music industry, societal issues, and personal experiences.

Key Themes and Discussions

Authenticity in Music

Realness in Creation: Anthony emphasizes the importance of creating music that feels genuine and unedited, reflecting the rawness akin to classic bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Recording Challenges: The recording of Anthony's new music was marred by severe weather conditions, which he faced with a team that worked together with passion despite these obstacles.

Fame and Industry Insights

Navigating Fame: Anthony expresses uncertainty about fame, sharing that he has no desire to be a "superstar" and prefers a more manageable, authentic connection with his audience.
Music Distribution: The conversation touches on how artists can now distribute their music directly to fans without relying on traditional labels, which can impose restrictive contracts.

Societal Observations

Cultural Disillusionment: Both Rogan and Anthony discuss the chaotic nature of contemporary society, including how misinformation and media manipulation affect public perception and discourse.
Empowerment of the People: Anthony notes the current opportunity for individuals to influence music charts and media, highlighting the power of grassroots movements in the digital age.

Personal Stories and Experiences

Anthony's Journey: He recounts his unconventional path to music, his thoughts on the industry, and his desire to mentor other aspiring artists.
Community and Connection: Anthony shares the importance of fostering genuine relationships within communities and the role of music in creating those bonds.

Future Aspirations

Next Steps in Music: Anthony aims to release more songs and potentially start a non-predatory music label to support and promote other artists. He sees this as a way to give back to the community and help others find their voices.
Philosophical Reflections: The episode closes with musings on the nature of existence, the impact of technology on human interaction, and the importance of staying grounded amidst the chaos.

Key Takeaways

Music as a Reflection of Experience: Authenticity in songwriting comes from personal experiences and genuine emotions, which resonate more deeply with audiences than polished commercial music.
Evolving Industry Landscape: Artists like Anthony demonstrate that it's possible to succeed outside of traditional music industry frameworks, empowering others to create their own paths.
Connection Through Art: Music serves as a vital tool for community building and personal expression, reinforcing the connection between individuals in a fragmented society.

Conclusion This episode with Oliver Anthony offers a candid and insightful look at the current state of the music industry, the essence of authentic artistry, and the importance of community and connection. Rogan and Anthony's discussion underscores the potential for change in both music and society when individuals embrace their authenticity and work together.

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Transcript

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0:03The Joe Rogan Experience. Showing my day, Joe Rogan podcast my night all day.

0:12And we're up, my friend. How are you? Good to see you. Long time no talk. Yeah, brother. Yeah. How you doing? You good? Good. I, um, man, I remember like towards the last, the end of the last time I was here. You said, oh, yeah. We'll probably see you again in a couple years. And I was just looking around like, yeah, I'll never see any of this again. You're back quicker than you thought. Yeah. Bro, that new song is fire. Thanks. Yeah. I played that song about 20 times in the green room. And the first time I played it, everybody just sat around and went, oh, shit. It was so funny that, um, yeah, I didn't expect the song.

0:50Well, you know, I didn't, I wasn't the one, I guess it was Adam that sent it. I don't even know how you got a hold of the song originally. Yeah. Adam sent it to me originally. Yeah. I sent it, I sent it to him like, um, yeah, just kind of just to get his opinion of it or whatever. And he's like, I got it. He's like, do you mind if I share this around? And I was like, yeah, go ahead. Bro, the first time I heard it was in the green room. And the green room has a killer sound system. So we put it on the Bluetooth and cranked it and all of us was like 10 dudes in that room going, oh, shit. Oh, shit.

1:21Some of those slides like, oh, shit. Yeah. Whoo. What makes that song different, I guess, than anything I've done or than a lot of music now is that we're, um, we tried to like do it the way Leonard Skinner or somebody would back in this where we're all just in the house. And there's no like, man, there's so much editing that goes into music now on the back end and stuff. And with this, we're just like in there doing it. And, you know, try to keep it as real as possible. Yeah. You know, there's no, there's no click tracks. There's no real editing. It's just kind of like we're all just in this house.

1:55I mean, it's, it was, is the worst timing to record. But, um, that was that January 5th, 6th, 7th window was the only time that everybody can meet up. You know, Billy Contreras on the fiddle and everybody. And because he, he tours with Ricky Skags and he's kind of all over the place. So that was like our time to meet. So a couple of days before we all went to West Virginia to record in my house up there. The, um, this like terrible storm they were calling for. It's like the worst one since the 90s supposedly or that's what Draven says. But so we got all the snow, all the size. So, um, so yeah, we used a side by side and a Jeep to haul everything up and down.

2:31It was like just all we could do to get up and down to the house. And then it's right as soon as we get everything plugged in ready to go the power knocks out. And, uh, I was like, we were all just so discouraged. And luckily there, you know, there's a lows not terribly far away. And they had one, they had like a Honda inverter generator that was like safe to plug everything into, you know, like a, where the waves aren't going to mess everything up. And, um, so yeah, we, you know, we recorded the song while on a generator. So you have to worry about the waves of the generator, like the sound of the generator?

3:03Like what it is. No, like the electrical pulses. Like plugging all of that expensive equipment into just like a, yeah, a generator that's on an inverter. Like the voltage, like goes up and down, I guess, or I don't know, that's all above my pay grade. But we had to find one that was like safe to plug all that equipment into, you know. Well, it, maybe that's something in the song too, you know, like maybe that you're just trapped in a storm. But that's a scary ass song, dude. It's a scary. I can't wait for the, yeah, see, I hadn't put a lot of new music out because, um, well, I think back to even when I was here last time and before we did the episode and all, um, walking around on the sidewalk out in front of the hotel with Draven and a couple other people arguing that I needed to just cash out from Richmond and roll and not make this into a long term thing because I just, um, well, dude, I just don't, some people thrive in this environment, like everybody looking at them.

3:59But I, to me, it's just like, so it just, it kind of takes, it kind of takes a little bit out of me putting new music out. And so, you know, after Richmond, I only had those two new songs. I really just wanted to let everything kind of slow down. And I could still maybe do five or 10 shows a year and make a little bit of, but I wasn't trying to be like a superstar. I didn't want everybody just to be, I didn't want to be stuck in that spot. I was when I was at Richmond where everybody's just like obsessing over stuff. And so I kind of just tried to let it die. And then it, you know, it wouldn't.

4:28It was like, the streams kept continuing and people were still messaging me and emailing. And then the shows were still selling out. And I just realized like, I don't know, you know, I believed everybody that said, this kid's got 15 minutes of fame and whatever. And I would have been, during when Richmond blew up, I would have been one of those guys who would have been like, oh, that stupid guy, you know, like, I would have been a hater too. So I was almost like rooting for them. Like, yeah. You know, because you got to think, man, the first check from Richmond was $800 ,000. Like, I can, I could have lived a long time off of that money, you know?

5:00Like, I don't need a whole lot of, like, that was create, you know, that was a decade or more of work for me easily. And so I was like, I was like, heck, yeah, I'm good. I'll just take it, you know, and anyway, I say all that to say that now it's like, I'm going to at least just, I'm going to at least just hit it good one more time. And I've got, we've got six songs recorded now to come after. It's scornful that are all like, I'm pretty proud of them. They're good. And so I'm going to put those out and then who knows after that. But let me tell you what's going to happen. You got a relationship with those people now, man.

5:32They love you. Yeah. It's just your mission in life. You know, you just got handed a wild hand of cards. And this is your, your deck of cards. You know, your deck of cards is, or your hand of cards is you put this song out, this authentic song. That's very simple. In this time, we're nothing simple. In this time where everything's confusing and you don't know who's telling the truth. The news is lying to you. Everything is being funded. Nothing's organic. It's half the fucking traffic on social media's bots at least. Politicians are lying. Everybody's confused. People are simping for politicians.

6:16They're getting paid to repeat talking points on television and on podcasts and all over social media. So when someone comes on with something like that is just that dude telling you how he feels. Yeah. Real raw. You know, I remember we had that conversation on the phone and I was like, if you can do that, you can do that again. You don't, they don't need anybody else. You don't need these motherfuckers who want you to cash out. They're just, they're doing that because they think that you're gullible. They think that you're naive in the ways of the entertainment music business. The first fucking live show you ever performed was a giant sold out show at a state fair.

6:55You know crazy that is? This is your first live show? Yeah. Well, that very first show was actually, it was even more amateur than that. It was at a farm market. It was a, it wasn't even, there weren't even any tickets. It was just like, so it's crazy how it all, it just, it goes back to when I still believe just as much now as I did the last time I was here about it. And I definitely won't bug everybody too much with all my Hoki Poki religious stuff either. Like I definitely want to read a little bit out before we go, but I do believe it was just, it was all too perfectly timed. But I had actually picked that date out at the, at the farm market before Richmond blew up.

7:28That was going to be my, that was going to be my first time playing live either way. Oh, wow. That date, it was like August the 12th, I think. I had booked it back in July with that Morris farm market. I was going to get 200 bucks and go play for like, it was like two and a half hours, like seriously. And in that time, that's what, so like I already had that date picked. And yeah, it was just at a farm market and kind of near the beach and outer banks. And they say like 12 ,000 people showed up. And that was the very first one. Yeah. And I just, I remember even then, like I just, I just expected everybody to sing Richmond.

8:01And that was going to be it. And it'd be cool. And I go back to work the next week. But it was like even in that crowd at that very first show, all the other songs they knew the words to too. And I was like, this is like something. You know, but the important thing too is that the important thing to take away from this. And I said this during Richmond, but you know, it was like, take me out of it. The fact that people can now choose what they want and push it to the top, even in a system that's rigged where there is bots. And there's mass marketing money going into songs. And like labels spend a million dollars on their own song to get it up the label.

8:36Yeah. The fact that people can just decide they like something and just shoot it up to the top. Like people need to realize how much power and influence they have. At least for a short period in time in society, it's like the stars are aligned where we can kind of, it's funny. Technology like can only develop on the backs of people using it. And so like AI and all of this over the years, social media, like all the back end of that. It's been, it's all that information's being sort of extracted from us. Like you think about like the way you know, Tesla car rides down the road and it's watching you drive.

9:10And you're like, it's like reading your analytics so it can learn how to drive better. We know AI, that's the only reason why they let everybody use AI. And so it can make the AI. But it's the user input that's what makes it, you know. And so for a very short period in time, it's like the stars are aligned where they're having to like, while they're sucking all the humanity out of us to put into this AI, we also have full access to it. And like so we can do like even in the, even in the music business, you know, everything that the label used to held exclusive control over like the publicity and the marketing and the digital streaming service relationships.

9:44Like all that stuff is now just alacard to anybody. Like you don't need the, you don't need those big companies. All that stuff, you can just go and hire a really good social media person. And you can work with a good music distributor without having to sign anything or give any of your rights up. And right now the people have the power is what I mean for like a very short period of time. But this should be a, this should just be a reminder of that. This song being able to go up into the iTunes charts, even with stuff with way bigger audiences with all kinds of marketing reach, you know, the fact that this can just organically go into the iTunes charts like that.

10:15And people, you know, it's just, that's the thing. That's the thing I always take away from it is just like damn, dude. If we could just get organized even for like two or three years, we could just fix everything. Like we have, like the people really do have the power at least right now for a short window of time. But we really do. I mean, this episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Have you ever been shopping online and the website just gave you the egg? Let me tell you, that wouldn't happen if they used Squarespace. Squarespace design intelligence empowers anyone to build beautiful, more personalized websites tailored to your unique needs.

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12:22The offer is for new customers only. But people have to understand that we are all in this together, and that there's organizations that want to drive us apart. And the way to work out our differences is having conversations and negotiations and figuring out how to work it out. It's not lighting cop cars on fire. But the spirit of those, like, not to defend any of that crap, but I just, that rebellious nature in us is important too, though. It has to be directed correctly. You shouldn't be burning wemos while holding a Mexican flag trying not to get said back to Mexico. I mean, you're confusing the fuck out of me, dog.

13:04Who is your oppressor? Is it the electric car? Is it the country which, you know, you want to stay, but you're holding a flag of another country like why are you wearing a mask? Are you proud of this? Do you not want to get arrested? What are we doing? Are you scared of COVID? Like, I want to know.

13:24Well, it goes back to what you said about mass manipulation and also like, we don't, we've all sort of lost our identity. That's why politics has become so prevalent in like the way people represent themselves to other people. You know, that's like as our culture and our tradition and like sort of the knowledge of where our families and all of that stuff comes from. Like, we're just sort of all, we're just little boats out in a big ocean and we're looking for somewhere to, we're looking for some kind of identity to reach out and grab. And politics, they make politics so easy to reach out and grab and make just like in the same way that people just absorb themselves into sports.

14:01Exactly. You know, they're way out of shape, but they like, they refer to their sports team as we like our defense did really does it all the time. We won. Talk about a college where I'm from. Some college where he's from. Well, that's maybe, get out of here. Maybe if he's from there, though, then it doesn't come up. I'm just fucking around. Yeah. I'm a, I'm not a team sports guy, you know, I'm a combat sports guy and I would never say we won. Yeah. Like a Camaro Usman beat somebody I never say we won. You know, Camaro would call me up. But the fuck are you saying, man, we, you know what I didn't camp?

14:34You know, I mean, rounds ice bar, you know. Yeah, all the punches he took. It's crazy, but this is a group of guys you can say we. But that's, I see that like, I just see that becoming more and more prevalent where there's not like, I don't know. It's sort of just like, it's kind of even, even to expand on the thought of it. It's even like the way that now we've all just sort of, we're all in these subcategories of the way we would be if we were in prison. We're all like, you know, like in the same way that when we use the word black and white to describe like, how many different types of white and black are there that all just get merged?

15:11It's like, it's, it like creates this maybe like group identity that's a lot easier to control. Sure. Well, and then it shifts over time. Like my family wasn't white. My family was Italian. They were, they were disparaged when they first came to America from Europe. My grandfather just told me terrible stories of what happened then when he was a boy, living in America as an Italian. They treated them the same way. Terribly racist people were treating people from Guatemala that sneak in here. It's the same kind of thing. Yeah. Then after a while they sort of integrated it and now I'm white. Yeah, now, now you're just a white person.

15:44No, it's still a regular white. But it's easy now and they're like in big public narrative and stuff. It's a lot easier to accuse you and 30 other different nationalities of people who are all very culturally different and unique and just call all of you white people. And then pick the worst thing that one of those nationalities did and just cast it among the whole group. But it happens with that with every ethnicity, every identity. The goal is to like put everyone in the world in one of three or four buckets. And then hopefully figure out how to just put all of them into one bucket eventually.

16:16It's like, it's just, it's so much easier to control two or three different types of people than it is. 30 or 40 or 100 or 1000, you know. Which is also I think why they never fix the problems that AL are inner cities. They want to keep that conflict. I really believe that. Because if somebody wanted to have a better stronger economy, the first thing you would do is you want more people in the workforce. So you'd want less people that are disenfranchised, completely out of society, felons, all that stuff. That doesn't do anything but cost the country money, right? Unless you have private prisons.

16:51Now private prisons, those people become a business. And then that business contributes to the escalation of laws. And they want to make sure the law is staying in place. Because that way their business is always full. They have plenty of customers. Their customers are human beings that they turn into batteries to generate money. That's what it is. It's like those people every person they have in there, they get more money. Which is wild. It's wild that we allow that. But then it's also like keeping a certain amount of crime in certain areas, ensures that you're always going to have debates over law enforcement.

17:26You're always going to have conversations over disenfranchised. We need DEI. We need this. We need quotas. We need to hire more people of this or of that, ignoring the fact that a lot of these things, especially with universities, are the most racist. Especially towards Asians. The racist is fucked towards Asians. There's lawsuits about it. Harvard. Is that still going on the Harvard lawsuit? Where they specifically made their application process, like the whole acceptance process, more difficult for Asians. Because they were kicking too much ass. They had too many Asian people that were willing to fuck and work their ass off.

18:06Study 12 hours a day. Get straight A's like, man, there's too many of these folks. We got to make it tougher. What did they do to make it more difficult specifically? They attached a bunch of things. I believe the argument is they attached a bunch of things like social stuff. How much do you engage in activism? How often are you involved in social activities on campus? What are the things are you doing other than just pure academic work? They're like trying to slow them down. They're literally trying to slow them down. Yeah. That's another great example too. Even just that they can blanket Asian like that.

18:52It's Indian, it's Chinese. There's a lot of people that come from a hard place are willing to work hard. That's the difference. And the problem with meritocracy is that some other fuckers will go for it. And if you get a whole country of people going for it, that gets scary for the people that just want to take naps. It's the same psychology that goes in a lot of the smaller Appalachian towns. Where we recorded was really close to Bramwell West Virginia. But even if you look at Bramwell West Virginia and their recent political history, the last mayor they had, she embezzled money from the town.

19:28This isn't a very small town. So government corruption exists everywhere. And it almost is maybe in those big cities. I understand definitely that I think things are intentionally neglected like to create chaos. And to create this, like you said, this need for more resources and more. But it's also just that maybe a lot of those people that are in positions are just very spineless and self centered. And like they don't even care that people are dying in their streets. They're worried about the money that can be made in the ego and the power of it. It goes back to kind of what I said in that ARC speech lack of leadership.

20:00I just see that if we had people in big cities or in small Appalachian towns that had a real backbone to them and they were in a real position of leadership where they wanted to fix things, that a lot of that stuff would get addressed and covered. But we just don't have the right people in power, maybe even as what it is. Even in local and state government. The right people don't run. They don't want that job, man. They don't want that smoke. They don't want people attacking them. They don't want any of it. The right people are the people that don't want to be president. It's almost like they've made these positions only appealing to people who are like sort of criminals.

20:33So should pass their criminals, yeah. Really? For real? Like who the fuck wants to run everything? Do you got to be crazy? I don't even like running my whole house. I don't like having employees. It's too much response. What do you think would happen if just some normal people ran the country though? Like just some average jazz. Like what if me and you just went and ran the... What if me if you ran for president? What would happen? They would get killed. You put a fucking good variable. They would definitely be able to hit my big head. That's for sure. They wouldn't... Why isn't that little leader?

21:00You want a cigar? Yeah, let's do it. Get on that big doll. Well, I smoked a cigar with a guy one time. What happened? It ended up all on the internet. This is your second cigar ever? Yeah. Let's keep it running for a minute. Yeah, just pull on it. The real cigar guys they want you to do that first. You kind of baked the outside. Yeah. I'm in high school and it's like a fat joint. Oh, imagine a joint like this. I guarantee you that some people out there are some rappers rolling blunts this thick. You got to do it this way or they get mad at you. Yeah, this is really good. Yeah. With how much your privacy is being invaded online, VPNs are no longer just a nice thing to have.

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23:08So I guess that counts as a cigar. Kind of a cigar. We're going to swish our sweets. They kind of count as cigars. Talking about swish or sweets, I have a friend of mine that I ride side by side with a lot. Name Jeremy. And that's all he smokes or swish or sweets. And that's like, anytime I see him, I'm like, yo, what's up, swish or sweet? So I ended up hitting him up on Instagram, swish or sweet. And I said, hey, I got a friend of mine. I was like, well, you just sent him some merchants. And they totally did it. Like he got this whole like, he got like all these shirts and hats. And he's the only guy I know that smokes him.

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23:40But he's like all day smoking. And he's a, he was in the Marines and stuff. And he's out now. And just like rides a boat around all day. And hangs, he's like, lives a dream life now. And smokes, swish or sweet. So I wonder what percentage of swish or sweets get sliced open for blunts? It's got to be 50, right? Jamie Hire. 60%. So like 75%. 75%. Jeremy's the only guy I know who really smokes him without putting weed in him or anything. He's like, he loves him. He just likes him. Yeah. Yeah. Does he inhale them? Yeah. Bro. Ron White does that with them little tiny. Ron White. Those little tiny cigars.

24:15But are those things called again, Jamie? We have a bunch of them. I don't know. Full of cigarettes or something. Yeah. He brought me a case of them. Did I ever tell you that my Ron White story? No, I don't think so. Did you? I'm going to mess it all up. But that's okay. Because that's what this is for is the mess stuff out. So it was the night we recorded. Gosh, my head is like spinning out from this thing. This is crazy. The night that we recorded the podcast that night. It's when we went to the mothership for the first time because Tom Segura invited me. Right. So we're sitting in there in the green room.

24:47Ron White's there and Tom and a bunch of people. William Montgomery. And I got to meet all these really cool people that night. And so Tom was like, man, you ought to get up at the end of our set and do a couple songs. And we only had one guitar. And I really wanted my guitar, Joey. You know, the guy from... He's in the scornful video, Joey Davis. I wanted him to get up there and get to do it with me. And Ron's like, well, I got a guitar in my house. And dude, he's going to... He's supposed to be getting on stage to do a set like less than an hour, you know, 45 minutes. So him and Joey get in his car and they run every red light from his house in the back and go and get Ron White's guitar.

25:24And that's what we use for a second. You lose 13 minutes away. That was such a risky move. Yeah, like he said, they flew there and back. So you guys performed on stage at the mothership those the first time a musical actor ever performed there. Supposedly, yeah. 100%. Except for back when it was a musical venue. I mean, Steve Ray Vaughan performed... You saw the photos that we have in the tunnel. Yeah. Steve Ray Vaughan performing there. I think it was 83. He was there. I think if... I think even by the end of this weekend, we will be able to really have a good blueprint for sound in there again.

25:56Like, it's a small room, but I think it would just sound... You could really have an immersive listening space for people to like... Just such a cool spot to maybe do music now. Oh, yeah. No, I think it would be a great spot to do music. It's just... We're always packed with comedians. You know, we'd only do it for someone like you for a time. It could be a lot... Yeah, it could be like every once in a while. Like, I love the idea of it being like a live recorded thing. Because my favorite music to listen to is the live version of almost anything, anyway, of people. And it would be cool to go back.

26:27I mean, our plan with this, we're going to record... We'll record Friday and Saturday night. And my plan is to put out some kind of mothership live at the mothership and like have some of the money go back to the Humane Society. Oh, that's awesome. That's beautiful. We're going to record it and see what happens. But even if we just get a couple of songs out of it or something and put them out. Oh, that's badass. But yeah, I really like the Austin Humane Society. I was looking at all there. They got like some really funny dogs and stuff on there too. But I think it's cool getting to do some of them.

26:59Yeah, I can't go to those places. I would have 100 dogs. They got this one dog on their website. I should have sent it to you. But I don't know. Maybe Jamie can find it. But it's like, there's this one like older dog. I think he said Chihuahua or something. But he's got this real funny name like Buddy or Poppy or something. But he's like the most like, he doesn't have any teeth. He's tongue -sanging out. That's like, that's my... I could just take him home with me. Buddy or something. I've had a bunch of rescue dogs in my life. It is a thing. There's like a relationship you have with them. It's different than any other dog.

27:29Like, they fucking... They're so... They love you so much. They're so happy to rescue them. Like, they know that you rescued them. Where's my dog, Marshall? He has no idea. He's like living the best life. He's just like, everyone's my friend. He has... He's never fucking growled at a person in his life. He's nothing but sweet. Think about how lucky you got to be to be Joe Rogan's dog. That's pretty cool. Like, what's the odds of that out of the dogs? Well, how lucky am I to have a dog like him? Yeah. He's the best dog ever. Yeah, I know. He's like a little human. He's like a human. Like, we have conversations.

27:59Like, he knows like not just words. He knows like when I'm saying something, like what to do. Like, he... Me and that dog are like, blocked in. It's wild. He's the best. He's just all love. Like, for everybody that comes over. Like, when people come over the studio and he's here, he just does a circle. He's like, I'm your friend. And then it looks you. I'm your friend. And he goes around. And he sees you. The first thing he does is flop on his back. But I know you want to rub my belly. Come on. Yeah. He's just so used to being just a love dog. Yeah. I just got a... Well, I had, you know, I had the three...

28:37I had three dogs. And then I lost my white shepherd. Like, right after we got off a tour, he got bone cancer. And he was gone within like a month or a month and a half. It's a really important thing that we should probably tell people about right now when we're talking about cancer. Stop feeding your dog processed food. I know it's expensive. But if you can get it, get yourself your dog real food. There's companies like Farmer's Dog. That's what you use, right? Farmer's Dog. And they'll send you like real food. And you feed your dog real food. It's like real human grade meat and vegetables. Your dog will be way better off, just like you would be way better off.

29:15Anything that can sit on a shelf for six months and not rot is not good for you. Yeah. It just sustains them, you know. And then, you know, obviously dogs are running around, drinking out of puddles and, you know, what fucking toxins they're exposed to. I need a lot of like horseshit and stuff too. They're obsessed with it. But you're gonna get a healthier dog if you feed them real food. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's secure to all ills. But man, it fixed my dog quick. Marshall was starting to get a little chubby. And we're trying to lessen his food. But he was always hungry. And I was like, this sucks.

29:47And then we found out the company that I'm using is Maeve, M -A -E -V. And they sell you frozen food. And he eats it frozen. And it's just meat and vegetables. And he's like, fucking loves it. And he gobbles it up. And he lost the body weight. His coat looked better. He had way more energy. I'm like, of course, he's eating real food. Instead of eating some processed bullshit that's filled with preservatives, you can sit on a fucking shelf for it. Like if you only ate protein bars all day long. And nothing but protein bars, he'd probably get sick. How was that thing just sitting there? How can you just live off of that?

30:25Plus, you got to get tired eating the same thing every day. Yeah. That too. Yeah. Like at this point, I mean, I feel like for your dog, he might as well live a pretty cool life. He's got, you know, he's Joe Rogan's dog. He can just be eating regular dog food anyway. People don't know, though. They think dog food is what you give dogs. That's the problem. They need to understand. Dogs are just like any other animal, like human beings. What they eat has a giant effect on their overall physical health. Yeah. Yeah. I've been feeding my eggs. We've got a bunch of laying birds now on meat birds. Oh, that's nice.

31:01And they'll, they just eat raw eggs. How long do your meat birds live before you whack them? So we just, I just, I've got some now that are about two weeks old. And they'll be gone like, they'll be gone before it starts to cool off. It's quick. It's, um, I want to say like two and a half months with them. They get, they get to the point where they get so fat they actually can't hold themselves up anymore. That is so crazy. Yeah. Cause I don't have meat birds. I have egg laying hands. And these little ladies just run around all day long. You just run, let your run loose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

31:36I do, I do the chicken tractors, but then I will let them out during the day. Some too, just so they can run around. Yeah. It's good for them. Makes the eggs healthier. But they're hilarious to watch too. They're just great. My friend who runs, uh, he, he has, uh, meat ones. And he said, he waits until their legs break. And I go, what? He goes, they get so big that their legs break. And that's what you kill them. I'm like, Jesus Christ. What did we do to these fucking chickens? It's kind of, it's kind of sick. Yeah. It is totally sick. Cause I'm seeing my chickens that are years old, just running around.

32:08And these fucking chickens get to be two months old. And their legs break from the weight of their bodies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of depressing, but that's what, at least in their short life, I tried to let them have, let them get us some sunshine and run around and read stories to them at night and all that. And that way it's not, but so bad. That way it doesn't feel like I'm just like a horrible dictate, like a chicken dictator or something. The amount of chickens that get whacked in this country every year is crazy. Yeah. And honestly raising birds in your yard is so much better than buying them from Tyson or something like that.

32:37Oh, so that's a regular chicken on the left from 1957. And then by the time 1978 rolled around, we got them pretty fat. It kind of looks like, it just looks kind of like what happened with all of this. From then, from back then till now. You know, probably no coincidence. We're all eating terrible food too. But I think there's something going on with their genetics too. I think they, look at that thing. That's crazy. Look at the size of that butter ball. Yeah, that, that looks like a fucking soccer ball. Isn't that nuts? That's nuts. That's a chicken. That is fucking insane. Look at that one sitting there in a ball.

33:13Look at that one that's in a ball. Look at that. That is bananas. Wow. Yeah, they're still my favorite. I've tried so far. I've tried. I do guinea birds, turkeys. And we've tried to try to feed different types of chickens and stuff, but. Turkey's overrated. Turkey's good. They're funny. Oh, yeah, they eat. They're probably overrated, but they're really funny in person. They're good to eat if you eat them right after you get them out of the oven. Or if it's going to be on the sandwich with a bunch of other shit on it. Otherwise, they're dry and boring. It's a weird bird. It's a bird that somehow or another, it became our holiday bird.

33:47You know what I mean? It's very strange. They make this real guttural noise. It's like a, it's like a vibration more than a noise. But the males, they have this like crazy. I can't, I don't know how to describe it, but it's like that. It's a noise they make internally that you can hear. Yeah. It sounds like, um, it sounds like a UFO. It sounds like when you're getting sucked up into UFO or it's just crazy noise like that. Oh, really? But I liked, they're like dogs to me. I've got a couple of Timmy and Tommy and they, they rang out on the yard. Yeah. Well, I did. Timmy's now, Timmy's in the freezer, but if we still got, we still got Tommy.

34:22Tommy's still your friend. Tim, break through on the birds, domesticated in a gene. Ah, there it is. They played a key role. Came in 2010 with a study of the genomes of eight different populations of present -day chickens from around the world. Researchers found they all carried two copies of one version of a gene called the thyroid stimulating hormone receptor, which apparently set in motion changes that plumped up the birds. This dominant version of the gene or allele had swept through all the domesticated chickens regardless of whether they were boilers, broilers rather, bread for size or strains, bread for laying many eggs.

34:59Although the precise function of the gene is not known, it regulates metabolism reproduction. So probably stimulated chickens to lay more eggs year round. So the big ass chickens that lay more eggs. It started off from a decree from a Pope a thousand years ago. Whoa. I didn't want to ban on four -legged animals. What? Yeah. They got tough and banned meat from four -legged animals on fasts. Oh, on fasts. Which number to 130 days out of the year? Damn. 130 fasts? What were they doing back then? Yeah, you couldn't eat like you had to fast all of the lent, which is 40 days. That's like the Christmas Easter fast.

35:35You probably had to do it again now around Christmas. But when they say fast, but you could eat chicken? Yeah, they don't have fasts. Or fish. That's bullshit. Yeah, the lent thing when I was a kid. I remember that. I don't know. I can't fish on Friday. I don't think that the Catholic Church. I just can't imagine the Catholic Church ever come out with some kind of decree that just doesn't make total sense, though. Everybody have to follow. Forever. I'm sure there's some, yeah, forever. I'm sure there's some reasonable explanation. Yeah, they definitely have it dialed in. Yeah, it's not like churches a thousand years ago would do anything that didn't make a lot of sense.

36:09Well, I think back then, when did they stop being allowed to have wives and shit? When did that happen? Like, when did the Catholic Church put a ban? Like, when did they make it so that everybody had to be celibate? But what a stupid idea that was. You want to get people completely disconnected from society and sexually, insanely repressed. Just, you give them salt, Peter, and tell them they can't beat off. It became canon law in the 11th century, later reinforced the council of Trent 1545. So I bet there was something that was 300, 400 years of a little slippery times. What do you think? This episode is brought to you by Mossa Chips.

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37:32Ready to give Mossa a try? Go to Mossachips .com slash JRE and use the code JRE for 25 % off your first order. Ultimately, what is the motive? It's all control, obviously, but it's crazy to think about all the things that at one point in time, the church was almost like the power structure. They were like the government for a long time. For a long time. I mean, they had immense power. The Pope would decide whether or not armies were going to be set places. Nuts. Yeah. And if you look at the Vatican, you go, oh, this is what you guys did. You fucking stole everybody's art. They have so much art.

38:11Like how did you get this? Yeah. How did you get billions of dollars in art? I mean, it's kind of cool. I love the fact that it's there and you can visit it. And you should visit it. If you've never been to the Vatican, it's fucking bananas. In a way, it's like there's always been somebody trying to use a moral high ground to control other people. Like now it's the opposite, right? It's like now it's people. Now it's like the people opposite of church that are sort of like trying to control people through this moral authority. Like this is what's right. And just like this sort of new society that we have to live in where everything has to be comfortable.

38:43And nobody's allowed to be offended. And we're not. And it's like all this. That's like the same authoritarian psychology that was in the old church. It's like this is the moral. You have to follow this because it's the moral high ground. You know, and you're not allowed to speak. It's like it's always somebody trying to control somebody else with this virtuous, bunch of propaganda that. And yeah, it's like I was talking, you know, most of the people on my team, I say most. There's only really four of us now like in my music business, but two of them are from Ireland. And they were in my tour manager was telling me about like growing up and you know growing up in Dublin when he was younger.

39:17I guess like back in the 70s or 80s and the like just just the stigma within the church and all the like so much stuff that the church was doing wrong. That we get kind of covered up and brushed to the side. And it's just create it's really crazy when you read into all that like how like how much corruption existed back then. You know, it's like now it's now it's easy to point to corruption and government and society and everything else. But it's not like the church is more dead now than it is corrupt. I'd say but back then it was just like this power -hungry thing. And that to me, that's not real church.

39:50That's just like I said, that's just government or a regime using church as a, you know, using God as a way to control people. But it's a lot different than what church should be or could be. For sure. I mean, that's just a function of human beings when they get in power. Human beings when they get in power, they want more power. Like if you're in the automobile business and you're making cars, you want to make more cars. You want to make more cars, want to sell more cars. Got to sell more cars. If I'm in the power business, I want more power. I don't want this amount of power. I want more cars.

40:20These people are trying to take my power away. I want extra power. The best way to keep them from taking my power away is to get more power and get it so that they can never take my power away. You know, lock it down, make the elections bullshit. You know, make it like Russia. Hey, Putin won again. Everybody clap. Did you, have you seen that video that went around recently of, I think it was in Romania, but there was like a overthrow that happened in a day. It was like that. It was from back in the 80s. It was, I think it was like a, it was a dictator that, it was over Romania, I believe. I don't know.

40:50I'm not on the internet a whole lot anymore, thankfully. Thank you. But I remember watching a bit of this video where this is like a Romanian dictator who had, he had been in power for like 20 years and had done a lot of oppressive stuff, but overall was like maintaining power. And then at some point a police officer or a military official or something shot, I think like a, like a preacher or a pope or something. And the, the dictator dude took the side of the police and it sort of was like a cultural shift. And basically like, he went to give this big speech and all these people showed up. And they had applause playing over loudspeakers, but really the crowd was there to like mob.

41:26And within like a day they had like taken the whole government over the whole military turned against them. It was a big video that just got uploaded about it like maybe a month ago. I think it was Romania, I believe. But it was so quick. It was like he went from being in this position of power and like ruling over everything and having just, just extreme wealth and the whole military at his disposal to everyone turning on him. And he was publicly executed. I think the day after that speech, but that was just something I watched. Here we go. Yeah. Executing a dictator, open wounds of Romania's Christmas revolution.

41:57Whoa, they did it on Christmas. Damn. Damn. Wow. And there's a video on this? Yeah, there's a video on YouTube that somebody sent me that I was watching through. It was just, it just showed out. It just showed though going back to like if enough people have their minds made the same way they can just pretty much do anything. Wow. But I believe it was within like a two day period that all this happened. He went from being empowered, being publicly executed. And they held up elections afterwards and like, and I don't know all the history of it. I know very little, but it's just something that seemed really interesting to me that I've never, I was never taught this in school or anything.

42:35I know that. But of course I didn't pay a whole lot of attention while I was there either. So maybe I, maybe I did get taught, I don't know. There's been so much war in that part of the world, man. For so long. For so long. It's like baked into the ground. The crazy shit that's going on in Ukraine right now, you've seen that they're flying these drones that you can't jam. And the way they are, they have like miles of fiber optic cable attached to them. Yeah. This is so crazy. They're like fishing. They're like fishing with a drone. And now birds are making like nests of this fiber optic stuff.

43:08They're picking it up. Like, oh, it's perfect. Make a little nest with the shit. You see how they got those drones in for the attack on the planes recently? What did they do? They drove them in in trucks, right? Yeah, that they were like, I don't know what buried is the right word, but they were like secretly in the trucks. And then like, they all came out at once or something. Yeah. They were so put up of these like log cabins or something. They all came out and they all went out and attacked all the planes. They were sheds loaded on the trucks. Well, pretty fucking ingenious, man. And they said it took like a year and a half to come up with this plan.

43:40This will change the war forever, forever though, I guess. I mean, artificial intelligence will, too. I'm reading a book about it right now. A fiction book, one of the gray man books that is specifically about using autonomous weapons. It's the chaos agent by Mark Rainey. It's about a guy who's this billionaire who develops this autonomous weapons program. But they're doing that. They're doing that right now. And we don't know like how advanced China stuff is. But we know their drones are insanely advanced. Like, they're drone shows that they put on. They just put on another one recently, like the largest ever drone show.

44:26And you watch these coordinated things in the sky that are creating images. And you're like, that 100 % could be a weapon. Like, you can get that thing to be so precise. They coordinate together. All you have to do is like, put a suicide drone. Like, look at this thing. Look at these things, bro. These are drones. And that's this. I mean, that is fucking bananas. Look at that. I mean, it's crazy. I've heard, you know, this is all just generalization stuff. But I've definitely, I've heard people make pretty compelling arguments about like, you know, all these sort of like prophetic visions of the end of times, all the stuff in the sky, and all the imagery and all that, that a lot of that could be.

45:10I don't know. I just, I see a time coming very soon where the word warfare is conducted with these drones. And also with like, probably ground machinery too. Like, you see they've got test robots and other variants of that that are able to catch tennis balls and organize groceries. And these things are all fed off of artificial intelligence, which knows everything about all of us collectively. It sees where we go and what we do and what we say and what we shop for and what we look for and how we drive. And it's like this almost like this very God -like thing. And I don't think that it even matters who's AI it is.

45:40If it's China or ours or some private company, I think it's like at some point, it will just be the thing. It won't even be China's AI anymore. It will just be. Yeah, it'll say fuck you China, you know. We're taking over. We don't believe in countries. We believe in the hive mind. How do you stop that? It goes into industry and creativity and almost everything. Almost everything that a human can provide outside of very select few things can be emulated and replicated and done by it. It makes us practically irrelevant in the eyes of in a lot of ways. It doesn't make us irrelevant in art because you're always going to want art from a person.

46:18You're always going to want art. You're always going to want paintings from a real person. You're always going to want music from a real person. I don't know though. I think AI is already deeply ingrained in music. I don't think I can't... I don't know. I bet a lot that most of the new big, the big hot songs that get written and just the big... I think AI drives all that. I know for a short period of time I used a social media company in Nashville. There was also a period of time that I used a management company in Nashville. Both of those girls I worked with at both of those companies who were helping me with social media stuff.

46:56They even had AI trying to write my captions and stuff. It was always the most dumb sound and stuff. They would take pictures from after a show or something. They would want to make a post on Instagram the next day that says, oh, it had so much fun in this town. I'll never forget it. I can't wait to see you next time. It was just like this little thing. They had a little thing. It pre -wrote all these based off of how I wrote and the past and stuff. It goes back to what you said about most of what's on the internet. It isn't real anyway. I think in music, AI is much more prevalent than we realize.

47:30People aren't going to say that they're using it. But I think in the big songwriters circles and things where they have to generate. You have to generate 20 or 30 songs a week and there's all this pressure. That's your job and you're like, oh my god, what am I going to do? I can't go back and live with my pair. I don't know. I don't see how people aren't. People use AI in almost every job now. I know people who are in sales who use it to help them manage their customer bases and who they're going to call on and what they're going to say. I don't know. I think it's already become ingrained in us.

48:02We're already so addicted that we're so reliant to technology. It's pitiful. It's just like how hard it is to walk around without a phone. We're integrated. Even when I had periods of time where I knew I had months off and that I would always at least, I got to the point where I weaned myself down to like this. I bought a flip phone from Walmart that still runs on over Verizon Sim. But that's what I carry and two or three people knew mine. But even then, I always felt like I at least had to have a flip phone on me in case like what happens if you're out in the woods and break your leg or I don't know where, but they are now apart.

48:34Like those phones are a part of us. We don't go anywhere without them. We don't make it. We feel vulnerable without them. I know. You really do. Like if you go for a quick walk without a phone, they're like, oh my God. So when the time comes, when it's like, will there, if there even is a definitive time, but it's like when we have to choose between integrating with AI and not, most people are going to do it. Most people will just immediately submit and be a part of it and be maybe even excited to be a part of it. It probably won't be a decision that you're allowed to make. It's probably something that's going to be, if you want to function in society, you have to integrate.

49:06Like we talked about in that text about how it feels like we're in an alternate dimension and it seems like there's these things coming. You know, it's like, it does, it also, it is just because things happen so fast and chaotic that we can't really keep up with anything. One day the submarine collapses in the next day. This other crazy thing happens and then, you know, I don't know, it's just like, it's so hard to keep up with what anything of what's really going on. I think the problem is that we have to start having people gather together again and hang out and not just make all of our hangouts digital because the systems, like you said, there's bots and algorithms and marketing approaches and psychology that's just deeply rooted that goes into like just the way we fundamentally communicate now as societies and just globally.

49:46Like we all just talk on, I mean, gosh, like I've used this example before somewhere talking, but it's like, I think about back when I was in high school, like my high school girlfriend, you know, we would have some trivial argument about something. There was no way that me and her were going to text and figure out how to fix that. And now, you know, like, and that was a high school relationship, like there was over something stupid. It's like real world problems. You can't fix just texting. And I don't think we can fix all this shit on X and Facebook and all that. I think it's like, it's, I think people just have, people are, we're almost to the point now where we prefer socializing on the internet because it's almost like our minds have become more adapted to think that way.

50:23But it's, but it's, we're in this digital world chasing and emulating all of the things that we're, that are, that we have this void from, from not having in real life. Like, I don't know. It's, it makes it very complicated to fix anything when we're the only way that we can, we have this amazing intricate English language where all these words can mean all these different things. And it's so easy to put everybody together in a digital space with AI and bots and manipulation and algorithms and big companies. And how do you fix all that in that space? It's just like it's, you'll never, it's like, and how we're just in a house of mirrors, you know.

50:57Yeah, you're just supposed to not engage. That's what people need to stop doing. But the problem is, the consequences of the actions of the rest of the world do affect you if they're big. And so you worry about the big ones. So you pay attention. So you got to pay attention to the bad news of eight billion people, which is just unsustainable. And it's also this ability to interact or not interact as you choose all throughout the day. Like, you don't have to be invested in a conversation. If you're not going to have a conversation and you ask me about something and I start to answer and I just wander off.

51:29You're like, well, how fucking rude. But on the internet, that's normal. Like so many posts, something something to have a response an hour later. And nobody cares. It's like, I guess he was busy. You know, it's normal because you're engaging and not engaged. It's very unhuman. All of it is unhuman. And it's all like constant. Even if you think you're immune to it, there's this constant input of other people's thoughts into your own that makes you foggy. It gives you, like, I was talking to sugar, Sean O'Malley about it once and he said, I get a low level anxiety just scrolling. I'm like, yeah, right?

52:00Like, what is that? I think it's on purpose, though. That's captive. That keeps you. It keeps you engaged, though. Yeah, but I don't even know if it's on purpose. I mean, I think it's just they figured it out along the way that people get engaged like that. Like, that's why when you open up TikTok, it immediately starts playing these things. Like, you're on the hook right away. The Instagram, you got to choose, like, sometimes you might get a picture of someone's dog. And then you scroll up and it's a music video and then you scroll up and it's a guy getting assassinated. And you get to choose, you know, with TikTok, they just start hammering you.

52:32Even with Instagram, it seems very flashy. Like, there's always stuff. You know, there's always sex always ends up somewhere in it. Yeah. Something gets popped up or whatever. And you just... It's all for engagement. And that's your attention is what's worth so much money, which is so strange. It's so strange, your data and your attention. Nobody thought about the data part. Boy, if we thought about the data part and they set up different regulations back in the 1990s when AOL first burst onto the scene, if they realize that data is going to be one of the most valuable things in tech companies that do nothing but offer you free email and a free search engine, they're going to be the biggest fucking companies in the world.

53:10And it's because of your data. And they're going to be like siphoning off your data without telling you about it. And they're even going to be lying about it. They're even going to be running like little secret things where they're snatching up your contact list and snatching up your email and all your friends and trying to get them to buy shit. It's like this episode is brought to you by Farmer's Dog. It doesn't matter how old your dog is. It's always a great time to start investing in their health and happiness. And thankfully, the Farmer's Dog makes it easier than ever to feed your dog a healthy diet of real meat and veggies.

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55:45Zip Intro post jobs today talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. Yeah, well, that's what I mean. Even just the little bit of access I have to my fan base and the reports that can be ran on what they do and who they are. It's seeing it from that side. It goes back to saying that I think right now in society our job is to feed this machine. It just knows entirely too much about all of us. That's very important in every aspect, whether it's in comedy, music, any kind of pop culture. Everything, all of our reactions and behaviors to what is presented to us on these platforms only makes it refined down even further and they're able to see your look -alike audiences and what they look at and where they shop and what they like and what their retention is on certain videos that have this certain type of thing.

56:49And it's like this whole, it's just a lot of psychology that goes into it that people don't realize it's very easy to download the app and get on there and look. But you don't have to pay attention to it. You could just be yourself. That's also possible. I just couldn't find a way to be on there and still the only time I'm ever on my profiles is if I'm with Draven or somebody and we're looking through comments together and replying to stuff or doing things. But I haven't had anything logged in on any of my devices since last November. Yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. That's the thing that I was saying about what AI can't recreate in music.

57:24Yeah, I'm sure there's AI songs and there was a great AI song by Drake that they made that they had to get removed, right? Don't they remove those? I think so. But people still want to hear the real shit. Like the reason why your song became so popular was because you can really see it's just a guy with a guitar like standing grass behind him and shit in a dog in the background. There's a there's a thousand more people that are way better than me that are in that same space. And I think I think my dream of this long term is to figure out how to like how do you get all those people into the limelight?

58:01Yeah. Like what I've been working on since I guess you know the one important thing to to drill home to people too as a follow up since the last time we were here. It goes back to that first conversation we had but you know you remember I was arguing that I really wanted to put all the money from Richmond into a nonprofit and not ever even touch it. Because I was just I didn't want all that I felt like it wasn't my money. I felt like all those people went out of the way and supported me and like blue all these other huge songs off the chart. And I just I wanted to so and then you said well no don't do that because nonprofits are sketchy and people are corrupt and like just keep the money yourself and then figure out how to do good with it.

58:36And that was the biggest thing I walked away from that first conversation we had. And so you know now it's like that's the one thing I do want people to know too though is like that Richmond money and everything. It's it's went to good. It's went to do a lot of and what I think will be in the long run a lot of important things have been buying. Most of it's went towards buying land and stuff but I've got this whole kind of crazy thing. I'm like a just a way for people to unscrew their minds to get reconnecting in a nature and you're going to be a cult leader. I was thinking about it. Yeah, it's thinking about I might I might try to get with Vermin Supreme.

59:13He's got this cool idea about everybody having a free pony and stuff and I think that would work out. You ever seen him, Vermin? No, who's that? Vermin Supreme. Do you know he runs for president? I think he's from Connecticut. Maybe he runs for president every time. He wears a big boot on his head. What? Yeah, how do I not know this guy? Yeah, yeah, he's hilarious. There's a video of him from that new hamster. There's a video of him from that new hamster primary. How do I not know about this guy? He's a boot on his head? Yeah, he says he'll take, he's going to take everyone's guns away but it'll give you ones that are better.

59:53Says he runs on gingivitis and zombie power. Yeah, he has a mandatory tooth brushing policy and he'll say things like, well no, you know, it doesn't have anything to do with the tooth brushing policy.

1:00:08I don't know. I don't know. He just... Give me some video of this cat. Oh my God, I get it. The best one of him is from that new, is from that Connecticut. That one like where he's wearing the yellow jacket, wherever that video is. That's a, there you go.

1:00:25Vermin Supreme. Thank you. gingivitis has been eroding the gum line of this great nation long enough and must be stopped for too long this country has been suffering a great moral and oral decay. He's got a duck boot on his head. A country's future depends on its ability to bite back. We can no longer be a nation in indentured. Our very celebration is at stake. Together we must brace ourselves. As we cross over to the bridgework, into the 23rd century, let us bite the bullet and together make America a sea of shining smiles from sea to shiny sea. Now friends, some people will tell you that this mandatory tooth brushing law is about the secret dental police kicking down your door at 3 a .m.

1:01:16Make sure you've brushed. Friends, it is not. Some will mention the dental reeducation centers or the dental reeducation facilities. It's about none of these things. It's not about the government issue toothpaste containing an addictive yet harmless substance. No friends, it is not even about DNA gene splicing to create a race of winged monkeys to act as tooth fairies. Friends, what this mandatory tooth brushing law is really about is strong teeth for strong America. What does this guy do for a living? He looks like an open microphone to find out the comedy story. He looks like somebody that would be on like a Killtoni, but he runs every time and just he just tries to make like at the very end of this.

1:02:02Whoever the guy is beside him running, he's like sprinkles dust all over him and says he's going to make him gay. He just makes, he's just in there making a mockery of it I guess, you know, but that's funny. But yeah, that's who I have to team up with him for my call or whatever my teeth brushing call. 100 % you need him on board. He needs to be the toothbrush guy. If you're going to have a call, you can't have stinky breath. You got to keep it together. But yeah, that's my, yeah, maybe it's like a call or something. But helping other musicians that have talent, like giving them a vehicle, that's huge, man.

1:02:36Like because a lot, there's a lot of people that just don't know how to get started. And sometimes the thing that makes you a brilliant musician or even a brilliant comic, makes you bad at promoting because you're not thinking about yourself. You're like really locked into the work. You're really locked into your thing. And it takes someone who's really thinking about themselves a lot and promoting them. It's a totally different mindset to be like the social media guy. Like to be like really into like social media videos and really into like promoting your gigs. And you know, so like a lot of guys fall by the wayside because they just never put their stuff out there.

1:03:16Like there's some brilliant comics like, I don't want to make a special one. You should put this out, man. This is great stuff. But they're, they just want to kill. They just want to go up. Their thing every night is get on that stage and do the thing right and then rewrite it. I mean, go back in. It's also the attention and stuff of it. Uh -huh. It's the, it's the not, yeah. I mean, it's kind of what I, I kind of laugh when all this happening. It was a score with the scornful song. I was, I remember I called Draven like right after everything went up and everything was starting to move. And I was like, oh, what have, like, what have we done?

1:03:49You know, like, here we go. Here comes the New York Post is going to come showing up again. And my, yeah, my grandparents house next week again or whatever. And it's just like, but I think it's also just, yeah, people just maybe don't want the attention. There's a lot of really funny, genuine people that do comedy. But, and, and they can do, they can get up there and you have enough attention on them to do the comedy. But they don't want to be like, hey, look at me. I mean, I fight that constantly, even like that little video where we were going in the plane yesterday. And I said, plain by day, Joe Rogan pot.

1:04:17You know, like, I don't even just making little videos like that. I feel way out of place. Like, I don't want, I don't need, I don't want people to think like I'm saying, hey, look at me. You know, I mean, that's why I try to go through these periods where I just don't post. At least you were in a regular airport. You know, the worst. The worst is when people are doing those things in front of a private jet. I'm like, okay, we get it. You're rich. You know, people try to take photos of me in front of a jet. I'm like, uh -uh. I'm not, I'm so not into this. I'm not. I don't like that tension. I don't want it.

1:04:47I don't need it. It's, which is weird because I got a lot of it. And I think it's probably why I have a lot of it because I'm not looking for it. Yeah, but you're also able to, you're channeling it out through all these other, I mean, think about all the things that you've influenced and been a part of and done, even just through this podcast and all the conversations had and the information shared. Like it's not like you're just posted a bunch of pictures with your shirt off. Like, hey, look at me. Like you're using it. I mean, I don't know. I almost would say it's, I don't know that it's a coincidence that you got put in this spot for a lot of reasons.

1:05:15I mean, there's a lot, you probably don't even look at it that way, but there's a lot of important things that come out of this. And all the other podcasts you've inspired that have done, I mean, gosh, dude, there's no way to even calculate what you've, if you, if you had never been born, there's no way to calculate how different things would be now. Well, that's important to think about though, you know, like it's sort of, but from my perspective, I was just one piece in this thing that happened. Yeah. And, you know, that's why I always have my friend Adam Curry on, who is the original. He's the pod father without him.

1:05:46There would be none of this. He figured out a way to do this. And, you know, and then also Anthony Cumia from Opian Anthony and Tom Green. Those are my number one influences. And then Adam Corolla already had a podcast when I started. I was like, oh, Adam went from radio to the internet. Maybe I could do that. I remember going to his place and I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. It's back when we were doing it on a little laptop. I'm like, wow, Adam, I've got a real studio. He's got employees and shit. And then, you know, we just kept doing it. Just kept doing it. You know, and then eventually it was Webcams.

1:06:19Okay, now it's not just the laptop camera. It's actually Webcams. Okay, now maybe she had like real cameras. Okay, let's get real cameras. And then like maybe she got a fucking studio. So we tried it at the ice house for a little bit. Like maybe she got another place. Then we got another place. I'm like, I think I need a warehouse. And then like, I think I need armed security. I think I need fucking special ops guys around me all the time. And then it just kept going, man. I remember the moment I've talked about this before. But I didn't understand what was happening until one day I was on stage in Chicago.

1:06:50And I think this is 2012. So I think I think it was around then. So the podcast was only three years old. And I didn't realize how many people watched it or listened. A lot of it was listening at the time. Because I wasn't, I don't look at the numbers. I just kind of key. I feel like all that's bad for you. You know, reading the comments, looking at the numbers. I just like, do what you do. That's why I do it exactly the same way. I have a bunch of people on there. No one has ever heard of. You know, and then a few bonos and stuff. You know, every now and then I'll have Russell Crowe on something crazy.

1:07:22Well, Dennis Quaid's here. This is nuts. Yeah, your milk Gibson one. Yeah, he's the best. But, but I was on stage in Chicago. And I was telling the story about the podcast. I go, how many guys listen to the podcast? And he went, yeah, I was like three thousand seven hundred people in this place. And they were all screaming. And I went, whoa. Yeah. That's when I realized like at that moment, I was like, holy shit. How big is this thing going to get? And this is another funny thing. When I went over the Spotify, I was trying to get 10 % less famous. That was my goal. My goal was to fade away. My goal was like if somebody has to pay me and you have to go to this app to get it.

1:08:00All the people that were getting at the other apps are probably stop listening. Like this would be great. I'll get all the money. And I'll just fucking drift into this place where it's only like the hardcore fans that make the track over the Spotify. And then this fucking COVID thing happened. Remember the beginning of the podcast, we lost 50 % of our views and Jamie was on a hot panic.

1:08:22Yeah, that's exactly what I meant earlier about not putting a lot of songs out. There's like a, there's some cool place where you can be where you're, where you have your real fans and you're having fun, but you're not into all the sensationalism, all the crap, you know, like. You can avoid all that. You're a real guy. You're a real dude. And I think one of the ways that the world has prepared you for this is that you've lived a normal life for a long time. You know, a normal life with no live performances, no notoriety, no fame, no nothing. You developed like a re, like when people want to hear working man songs, you fucking know Bruce Springsteen isn't a working man.

1:08:59Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like you probably was never really a working man. He was never working on the docs. You know what I mean? He was never really a guy grinded it out. He became famous pretty fucking young, you know. They Bruce Springsteen in the Eat Street band. They got hot early. Like they're great. Don't get me wrong. I mean, especially as early as I'm born to run fuck. He's got some jams dude. He's got some great songs. You know, brilliant disguise. Oh, fucking love that song. But you're a real working man. Like you were a real working man when you made rich men north of Richmond.

1:09:37Like that is real. And you can't fake that. And people want that. They want a fucking trucker hat. They want ripped jeans. They don't want like ripped jeans that are ripped from work. You know what I mean? They don't like real oil stains on your knees because you're fixing your own car. You know, like that's what people want in this world. They want authenticity. And it's possible to maintain authenticity regardless of how big you get. It is possible. And I think you can do it. I think you can do it because you got here later in life. You got here and lived a real life. And then you made it into magical fantasy land where we all live.

1:10:12Yeah. Well, the thing that I've gotten the most from you. Like I say, I don't look at my streaming numbers or anything. That's what I mean. Like when I finally did go back and look at Spotify. Like after a year or a year and a half later. I was just like, oh my god. Like I'm still the thing, you know. But so I agree with you there. I don't look at the numbers. I do, I do catch myself reading a lot of the comments. But only because a lot of them are important. And I think some of the stories in them are important for me to. I don't want to completely isolate myself from that. And like I said, I also really like some of the negative ones too, I think.

1:10:42And the negative ones are a lot less now than they used to be. It was just really early on. People didn't understand how everything happened. And I really didn't understand it either. That's why it's like whatever, you know. But moving forward now. Yeah, I've got a good like core team of people. I've got Draven from Radio WV. I've got two or three people on staff. I don't have a management company or a publicist. Perfect. That's the key. I'm keeping it real, real low. Well, I mean, it's amazing when I came here for the first time and saw the staff you have. And then like meeting Lex. You know, Lex does all of it.

1:11:12He even turns his own cameras on. And so there's only Lex in the whole place. It's like, gosh, I don't need all these. It's like a lot of those positions and jobs and services that musicians use. I think they don't realize that they don't even need. They just are like, oh, that's how it is in music. That's what I want to, I want to. Yeah, I don't know exactly. It eliminates the executive influence. It eliminates the corporate mindset. It eliminates that. Because there's always going to be a person that wants you to make a decision that's better for you financially. Whereas like your instincts are guiding you towards a statistic decision.

1:11:43Yeah. And anytime those people get in the mix, they fuck everything up. I'll give you a great example. It's like the only, it's the only like call out on here that's negative that I'll say at all. Is that just to show like how stuck in the mud. The industry is and how much I think it's going to change in the near future is leading up to this scornful release. Me and Draven had went back and found about 30 or 40 people who just without us even knowing who they were made the Richmond reaction videos. And they were a big part of the push up, especially long term. You know, like people on TikTok and stuff that had made these videos.

1:12:19And so I don't have, I own 100 % of my publishing, you know, all the music's mine. Thankfully, I have my own label technically that collects the money. But you have to use a publishing administration deal in order to collect money like overseas. I don't know if you're familiar. No. If it's the same in comedy, but like, yeah, most any musician, whether you're independent or you're with somebody, you have to have some kind of pub admin. And it's basically somebody that goes and helps you collect publishing money from, basically mostly from overseas is the way I understand. Like all these obscure places that money exists.

1:12:50So Warner Chappell does it for me for 9%, right? So they go collect all the stuff, they keep 9 % of it. They're the same to me as if I had a commercial landscaping company managing a property for me. So all I asked them to do was, hey, Warner Chappell, this six foot square of grass where all these reaction videos exist, just please whitelist these people so they don't get copyrighted. I want them to actually make the money they make on the scornful reaction videos, you know. Like, I don't feel right if they're going to go and make a scornful woman reaction video or play drums over it or whatever.

1:13:21I don't want to take 50 % of what, you know what I mean? Just don't copy or just whitelist them. And it should have been, okay, great, good idea, you know. Instead, they just said, we can't do that, but it's for your protection. Because they wanted the money. And they get a percentage? And how do they get paid? Well, they get, they take 9 % off the one I get. But I tried to explain to them, we'll know, like, in the business sense, I even counter argued them and I was like, well, let's think about it in the business sense. This little bit of money, right, that you're not going to collect off these reaction videos.

1:13:54We'll generate, who knows how much traffic to the music, which is worth the money you really want. And it doesn't matter anyway, it's not there, it's not there shit to decide on, it's mine. It's the same thing as if I hired a guy to cut the grass at my commercial property and said, don't cut the six foot square. And they're like, no, we're cutting it, we're cutting all the grass. And it's for you. So I had to get my attorney involved and spend like four grand. And they whitelisted them for 30 days. And so I'm like, okay, like, that's why all, that's why all of you industry people are like. So, you know, it's like, that's why this is happening.

1:14:24That's why it's like, I don't know, just, they don't care at all about the little guy or the people who are like doing all the work. They just, I just picture all these like stinky librarian type old people sitting around a table like. And you know, they can make all this money and make all these horrible decisions and pour all these millions of dollars into songs that don't work. And it doesn't matter because it's just like a, it's not there, they don't care. They're getting their big salary in. So, uh, so yeah, it's just even, even in the, even in the most miniscule relationships I've had in Nashville, I get resistance and push back.

1:14:57And like, it's um, I don't know, like why wouldn't they want me to whitelist those 30 people? It's just a little stupid stuff like that that I've constantly dealt with. So, I've just decided now, like, I don't need, I just don't want to do anything in the music. Like, I don't even need to be in the music business. Like, in that sense, you know, I just, I write my songs, I record them, I go do my shows and have fun. But I don't even need to follow any of the model of what, of what like a traditional musician, artist, person would have done. You definitely don't need to try to actually, you know.

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1:16:46See site for details to Tacovas. Point your toes west. It's not necessary. And you have the right mindset is that all those reaction videos will just get more people to listen to your music. That's fantastic. But those are real, those people were like real fans who went and did it not because they were trying to get traffic or money or whatever. They just like liked it and wanted to push it. And so the least I can do is not take 50 % of their stuff. But isn't that crazy that it's like there's nobody's ever done that, I guess, like before. They were just acting like that was just the craziest thing in the world.

1:17:20So I ended up releasing this scornful song through a company called Sound On, which is like the music distribution side of TikTok, which seems like something I would never want to do. But they give me the flexibility to go and like and do all that they don't care because they're not music industry people. They're just social media people. So I uploaded it through them basically. So I'm still I own all 100 % of the rights. It's all my stuff. I don't have any deals or records or labels or anything. But they push it to the streaming services for me and they do all the stuff. So that way I'm not even having to use a music company to push my music.

1:17:55I can kind of just like not even be there at all, you know, like not even being Nashville at all. That's the goal is just to get. And so now that I've got data from, you know, since Richmond basically and have learned a lot, my goal long term is, I want I'm going to always put new music out and write stuff and, you know, but it's going to come in spurts. And there'll be times where people won't see a lot of me. But I'm going to be in the background with other people like, I want to help, I want to find these people on TikTok that have like 100 followers. But I know that they've got what it takes and get with like Draven and some of these other people I've met and like help them write some really good songs and record them and put them out and push them and just like, I would love to plant like 10 or 15 people into music.

1:18:34Like give them everything I can give them to push them forward and make like, that way it doesn't feel like I'm the guy in the spotlight trying to like, I feel like I'm just in a, I feel like I'm like the most, I don't know these companies that got like all these employees and all this money and all this backing. And it's literally like four or five of us taking them. It just, I don't know. To me, I just think I, I think there's strength in numbers if I could help more artists push forward and like help them break that cycle too, that it would just, it would be like a multiplication factor on this whole thing.

1:19:03That's kind of what, that's going to be kind of my next thing I get into is, is helping produce music and doing festivals and like starting a label basically, kind of sort of. That's fucking awesome. But a non predatory one, like even, even when Draven put somebody on radio WV, if they get 30 ,000 views, there's already people trying to sign them. Like they just want control of every new thing that's, you know, that's what they were trying to do to you right off the bat. Oh, terrifying, dude, and not do it. It just felt like I was just, it felt like I was just, everything, it was everything in me felt wrong doing it, you know, but I just decided that I didn't care about it and that it, I just, you know, I, I remember being very adamant at the beginning that every decision moving forward was based off the fact that I wasn't scared to go back to my old job if I had to, because I'd rather go back to my old job and be me, then go to Republic, but just be Republic's little bitch, you know, I have to do everything they want and say everything.

1:19:56Like, and a lot of seeing where all your profits go and realizing that you got hoodwinked into these deals, because these deals when they give you a big chunk of money, you got to pay that money back. That's all just in advance. If I had went with the label, I would have been a lot bigger though, because they would have made me push 30 songs out of year, and they would have put all this marketing money into, and they would have kind of inflated me into this big fake like every other country superstar. And so it feels a lot better just kind of being a little, a little scaled back, a little smaller, but yeah, collecting 100 % of my money.

1:20:28And then also just knowing that I don't have a boss anymore, other than, you know, other than the man upstairs, like I don't, gosh, dude. I mean, like, imagine how, you know, I've heard stories from bands and stuff now that have told me that they've went and had to record music, like under a label contract, and really didn't like the way the album turned out, but still had to release it anyway. Like, oh my gosh, that would just make me, they have to put music out that I didn't think was good. And then they're going to promote it, and then they're going to get behind it. Like, you don't want other people, especially financial people, to ever be involved in your art, ever.

1:21:01Even if they're good people, like, no, we can work on a beneficial deal for both people. No, no, it's not going to be beneficial for you. It's going to influence you, and it's going to turn you in one way or another. It's not the way you would have originally gone on your own. And the reason there's so much money in music is because music's such a big part of us as human beings, and it's like, it's so funny. The first thing they do when they sign somebody is like trying to rip their identity away. And it's like the labels don't understand that it's the identity of the person that put them in the position they're in.

1:21:28And in the first place, it's like you said there were a late ability of it, you know? Well, there's also people have this instinct to try to influence people. So there's one of the things that executives do in the beginning when someone's just starting, you know what you should do? You should get a crew cut. I think you'd look great with a crew cut. And then the crew cut was my idea. You know, something about all of us crew cut. Everybody loves that crew cut. Yeah, man. He doesn't give a fuck about his hair. That was my idea. You know, there's a little of that. Because people are easily influenced because in the beginning, you're not sure.

1:21:56Like, I can't even believe I got signed. Am I going to be a star? These people all here for me, you know, and they'll fucking get in there. That's happened to me. I mean, I brought around February or so. I hired this management company that stayed. They were my management company for three weeks. So that kind of tells you how well things worked. But he was super nice. Like, loved everything I was doing. And then as soon as I started with him, he was telling other people that I know. Like, yeah, we got to figure out how to make him cool. And he needs to put, like, 40 or 50 songs out this year. And they were wanting me to make the social media post, like, complementing Beyonce's country album.

1:22:31Because he thought it was going to get me in a position. Like, it's exactly what you're saying. It's just like, and I just told him I was like, dude, if I wanted to just be, if I just wanted to be somebody's little, like, somebody's little puppet, there's a lot, I would have taken a lot more money for it. Like, you know, I'm independent, so I don't have to do that. It's like, but that's like, and it's like, the thing is, is I don't need to be cool. It's okay that I'm kind of lame, but I'm just me. And you know, it is what it is. It's like, I don't have to, I don't have to try to get on the internet and pretend to be cool.

1:22:59There's enough people to. You're cool, man. Stop this. You're cool. You're not lame. You're not lame at all. What the fuck are you talking about? You're a cool guy. You make great music and you're fun to hang out with. How are you, how are you lame? Because you're normal. Guess what? Everybody's normal. It's a ruse. Beyonce's normal, too. She takes horrible shit. I'm sure. We all do. We all do. There's humans, human beings, man. This illusion of celebrity. It's complete total nonsense. Dude, that's the best thing. Yeah, everybody takes horrible shit. You want to bring gummies? You want to bring gummies?

1:23:31I was hoping you had some of the Alex Jones ones. Well, he's just the on it ones, the new. They're alpha -bring gummies. We just got them. How is Alex doing these? He's great. He lost a lot of weight. I saw he's getting like, yeah, he's ready for the next day. My friend, Sean Johnson, is training him. Oh, really? Yeah, he gets up every morning. He works out for fucking hours. He's lost, I think he's lost 70 pounds at this point. He looks fantastic, man. He looks fantastic. He looks like he's 20 years younger. People think that this is very funny because, you know, his whole business is conspiracy theorists.

1:24:00The conspiracy that Alex has been replaced. Yeah, yeah. Listen, folks. That's real Alex. I've watched every step of the way and my friend trained some. So, I can tell you, for a fact, that is the real Alex Jones. Quit drinking, quit fucking around, quit eating bad food. He's eating healthy food now. He works out every day. It's like no oz, epic, no bullshit, no shortcuts. He did it the right way. He looks great. Yeah. Yeah, he's definitely one of my bucket list people with me as someone. I can introduce you to Alex. Yeah. We can make that happen for sure. 100%. Maybe he just thought that would just be hilarious.

1:24:35That's done. Done. Nice. Yeah. We'll hook that up. Be prepared. That'd be an interesting conversation. Yeah. Cause off air, he's just like he's on air. He's like, that's Alex Jones. He's ready to go. Yeah. Billion fucking, what Bill Gates is doing right now. And then he was like, Courtney, you're like, how does he get in the way with that? Well, but basically, what did they paint off all the mass media? If you see, there's a $350 million donation that he gave it, all media companies. Like, what? $350? Is that real? Then Jamie will look it up. Like, holy fuck. Yeah, I know. He's right a lot of the time.

1:25:05He's right most of the time except that one big one. But other than that. But you get that with, like they say, like the kids say, you get that with those big jobs, you know? You know, what also I think happens, and this is, I think this is 100 % real, is that there are a bunch of fake stories that get propagated to people that are really invested in conspiracy theories, hoping that those people promote those fake conspiracy theories and then get outed as being wrong. Yeah. You know, I think you can get caught up in that. And then I also think if you're real quick to not check, and I'm guilty of that all the time, to see if something's legit.

1:25:40You know, that's one of the vital roles that Jamie plays. Like, Jamie's like, maybe that's not real. Like, what? Why are you fucking this up, Jamie? Like, we want it to be real, right? You want a nice juicy conspiracy to be real. And then also, you know, at the time of the Sandy Hook stuff, he was drinking like a lot. And I think he was genuinely overwhelmed by all the real stuff that he was finding. You know, when he's getting into the Iraq war and all these different things, it's like he was just overwhelmed, man, I think he had a psychotic break, you know. And he'll be the first to say that, too.

1:26:15It's like when your whole business is uncovering, uncovering insane conspiracies, if everybody thinks you're out of your fucking mind, and then 20 years later, like, holy shit, he was right about every step of the way. He was telling me about central bank digital currency, connected to a social credit score system that it's game over, because they'll lock you in just like they've done with China. And he's like seeing this like a decade plus ago. And I was like, what? Huh? Yeah, it's great. Like, the guy before him that I think, I think the two of them actually didn't get along. But I always, if I ever do meet Alex, I was going to ask him about that.

1:26:51It's Bill Cooper, but he was a guy who kind of came before Alex. That was him. He used to behold a peril horse. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, even back then, it just, most of it seemed like total madness back then. And now it's like, but it's just sort of like, I laugh about when I was a kid, everyone thought that Michael Jackson was the big, like, sexually perverted guy. And who knows with Michael? But now I look at Michael as like this, just kid that was put in this terrible position from a child up, and now all these other musicians that you wouldn't even think are the sex predators are. It's just kind of like, you just don't really know much of anything anyway.

1:27:23But yeah, like with that, with the Michael Jackson thing too, his doctor said that he was chemically castrated when he was young to maintain his voice. And I believe him, because that totally makes sense. You look at his frame, his really thin frame, where it doesn't really have any testosterone. Look at all his brothers. His brothers are like thick, like manly. What does chemically castrated mean exactly? Well, do I even know? The crazy thing, it's hormone blockers. It's exactly what they're doing to trans kids now. Yeah. It's the same thing. Okay. And that's why Michael Jackson had that voice.

1:27:58It's very similar to a castrada's voice. Do you know what a castrada was? So these kids in opera was castrated when they were young. And there's only one available recording, I think. It's like one guy, right? Have you ever heard it? You should hear this. A long time ago, yeah. I'd like to hear it. Let's listen to some of it, because it's fucking creepy. I've just heard stories about that being the thing that they would keep their voice. Children. So that they never had testosterone. So that their body never really developed. And then they would have them maintain that young voice, that high pitch that's only possible.

1:28:35If you don't develop the deepness that comes with... That's why when trans men, when women start taking testosterone, their voice starts getting deeper. Things start getting weird. They started getting very dween Johnson. You know, it's like that's testosterone. That's the effect that it has on your voice. And these poor fox. Alessandro Morezky.

1:29:05I don't want to... I'm not going to... Don't make fun of them. It's a beautiful woman.

1:29:23Yeah. This is a grown man, right? This is a grown man.

1:29:39That'll be like sampled in the next Kanye song or something. Yeah, we can leave it there. We don't have to play anymore, but it's so haunting. It's so haunting. First of all, what fucking psycho? Figured out that if you cut off little boys' balls, you could make them sing like that forever. Like, what fucking psycho was the first person to do that? Yeah. Because these are little kids they're doing it to. They're doing like six -year -olds. Was this like a church thing or a... I do not know. It was an opera thing. But I know the opera thing. Castrating men, you know, Unix was a common thing. When people were working in the homes of royals, they'd castrate them.

1:30:15One of the most horrific stories was Nero. Nero beat his wife to death. And then took a slave boy who looked like his wife and castrated him and changed his name to his wife and presented him as his wife. Yeah. People in power have always been horrible. People when they get unchecked power have always been horrible. That's why directionally, like this whole No Kings protest that's supposed to go down on Saturday, directionally, it's correct. Like, you don't want kings. You don't want oligarchs, but who's funding it? Which turns out it's funded by an oligarch. Could serve money by a lady worth $20 billion who is the heirs to Walmart, who Walmart a company that employs cheap labor and sells a lot of stuff from China that would be affected by tariffs.

1:31:07It's like that with all of them, though. It's like that with everything, man. Everything is like it presents as being this moral situation. Like you're really looking out for you. They're really looking out for people. They're never really looking out for people. There's always some primary profit motive that's causing any organized thing. It's never for the human race. Unless the people are all on mushrooms. It's never for the human race. And until mushrooms get legalized, it's probably never going to happen. And that's the real battle. The real battle is what gets legal first? AI or mushrooms.

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1:34:21But I've went back and listened to the maps and meaning on Audible. It's one of Jordan's earlier works and he's talking about society and how it's structured. He basically talks about the motivations and the origins of why people always resort to evil. We talk so much about the Holocaust but not at all about all the other horrible tragedies that happen there at the same time. But even like talking about with Russia, just think about the Soviet Union and what happened there and how easily people were turned again. This little moment in time we're in is just so we should just be so thankful for it.

1:34:54Even though it is mass chaos right now, the fact that people are allowed to speak freely and do things and have the influence and power they do is just nuts when you think about, you're right. The same crazy people that we're arguing about today have always existed in different forms and with different names and faces. But we're better off today than anybody else in human history. And this is a struggle and it is a battle. But I think we can come out of this on the other side. We all realize that we're being played against each other. And that's where it's important. When you're paying people to protest, you're leaving pallets of bricks around.

1:35:27And you're organizing the whole thing and you're shipping people in on buses and you're making sure that all the people show up at a certain amount of time and they're all compensated and you get them water and snacks. We've got to realize what's going on here. This is not for you. When you light your city on fire and you burn cop cars, it's never good. It's not good for you. It's not good for the cause. They're not going to change the laws. One thing that I heard from Trump today that I thought was very promising is that he wants to make an executive order where people that are here for a long time that have been working on farms that are undocumented, that they won't be targeted and that they'll be exempt from all this stuff.

1:36:04This is my feeling. If you got here and you've integrated into our society, yeah, maybe you shouldn't have snuck in. But you did it and you're not breaking any laws, you're a hardworking person. Those people need a path to citizenship, man. Because if you don't, then they're just preyed upon by people that will take advantage of the fact that they're undocumented and not pay them what they're legally supposed to pay them and not give them benefits if they're legally supposed to have benefits and they can't say anything because they're worried that immigration's going to get called on them. So these people are in this constant state of anxiety and then they hear about the ice raids at Home Depot.

1:36:39What the fuck? There was a big ice raid at the Facebook data center job not far from my place where I used that to go. Facebook data center ice raid? Yeah, the Facebook project. It's not far from me in Virginia. I think it's technically would be in South Boston. I think it's technically in South Boston. Facebook didn't bribe ice. There's a big job that a big job site that I used to have to go on some that's in the southern part of Virginia, like not far from North Carolina. Somebody was sending me pictures there from the other day but they had a big ice raid and there was dudes running through that people were just escaping the job, like running away from the job and stuff is nuts.

1:37:21Why? Why? Like gang members, yes. Criminals, yes. This, why? Why? Like I think it's crazy as it sounds. The only way to do this and look like you have a heart is evaluate people on a case -by -case basis. Like there's good people. There's good people. It's also so complicated because it goes back for so long. The thing now is that there's two very polarizing opinions of what America even is. It represents her what job it's supposed to serve to the world. So like, you know, and some, yeah, sure. Like for any country to exist, it has to have... There has to be something there that identifies what it is as a country and you have...

1:37:59Like, yeah. Like it just seems like without citizenship or without some definitive thing of who's a citizen or not. It's like, then it's not even a country. It's like... And most every country has some... The idea of there being no immigration laws for a country means that it's no longer a country. But I also think it's like... The opposite side of that too is like, America's always... In theory, even though it's always been ran by these... There's always been these corrupt people involved in it. In theory, America was started as sort of this thing that was like... That can maybe be like... Like a sanctuary that doesn't allow monarchies and dictators and horrible things.

1:38:40You know, like... As bad as America maybe has been in certain cases, like... The fact that when... When Japan lost, they didn't just go and take it over and call it another part of America. Like they went and tried to rebuild. Like... In theory, America is supposed to be this vein that exists of... You know, it's... It's... It's originated... It's originated is from people who wanted to get away from monarchies and dictators. And of course, like, it's so easy to pick on the founding fathers and all their faults and the crazy things they did. But it was centuries ago in a different culture. And they probably were all maniacs.

1:39:12You'd have to be a maniac to go up against the world's biggest empire and take it on. You know, like... With a fucking... Yeah, like... You'd have to... You have to be crazy. And of course, they had personality flaws. But the reality is that... Here's the thing that sucks is like... And it goes both ways. There's a lot of things about people on the left that people on the right don't realize if they have in common. And it's the same way with this. Like... It breaks my heart when people just totally trash the founding fathers. Not because they were these morally. They took horrendous shits, too.

1:39:40I'm sure. Probably not as bad as Beyonce, but pretty close. And, you know, the fact like... Of course, they were bad people. They were all bad. We're humans. We're flawed inherently. Even the best of us. Even the ones who act like... We're the best and the most... Like, we're all screwed up. We all have our problems and our faults and stuff. But the fact that they were willing to go somewhere to another land with all this crazy stuff and then take on the world's biggest empire at that time. Just so they could be able to do what they... You know, religious freedom. It's like they didn't want religious freedom because they were...

1:40:10Not even necessarily because they wanted to go to church. I always thought it was like it's so weird that they were fighting for religion. But it wasn't they were fighting for religion. They were fighting for the mandate of religion. They were tired of the church. And like... I know it's not considered the church anymore. But there is still a church that dominates us and tries to control us now. And now, unfortunately, now the church is just sort of this weird thing. But it's the... It's the zebra mentality, you know, among politicians. It's like it goes back to that. I think it's Jordan Peterson that talks about the zebras and how...

1:40:39They'll do a study on zebras and they'll... It's in the maps of the meaning book, I believe, and they'll mark one red to study it. And then the predators take that zebra down. Because the zebras stripes aren't camouflage to their surroundings. They're camouflage to each other so they're not easily identifiable. And so four or five lions can't take one zebra down if they all look the same. And in politics, I believe that's what's happened. Especially on the left, you know. I had people in Nashville quit working with me. Because I talked about this when I was at the Rhymen. But we had this dance and this chick that plays the fiddle.

1:41:12And she does, like, flat dancing and stuff, named Hillary Klug. Who lives in Nashville. And we had her come to the Rhymen to do this show with us. And it was on the last minute thing. And I'm about to introduce her and I tell the crowd, I'm like, hey, you know. I said, I got Hillary about to come out. And I was like, but it's not, don't worry. It's not that Hillary. And just made it, just made a joke about it. Well, I just, somebody said something in the crowd that was, and I don't know. I just interact and I just say what comes in mind. I don't care. You know, I don't worry about all that stuff and what people might think.

1:41:41I just try to say what I feel. But I was like, you know, isn't it crazy that somebody like Hillary, who not that long ago, I can remember vividly as a child or in a teenage years, like being completely against the idea of even having two people of the same gender be married. Like she was as against gay marriage is like any, any person on the far right is now. You know, and that was, that was in my childhood or early teen. And I said, and now the fact that now that it's okay for kids to become transgender and go through like what Michael did, that's to me is just, it just shows that it's all theatrics and that none of those people really have any real like opinions about any of this stuff.

1:42:15It's all about what will sell, you know, like again, I said this at the Ryman. I said this at the Ryman. And so I had my, I had my management company that I was using and then dropped me and a bunch of other people without even telling me they just emailed my attorney and said they couldn't work with me anymore. They were that mad about that, which tells you how far off the deep end. But anyway, it's just, well everything you're saying is just fine. But you're exactly, you're exactly right with all that. It's just, it's difficult to convey that to people because there's so many emotions involved.

1:42:45But at the end of the day, it's like, I don't see a whole lot of difference in people on the left and the right anymore. I think we're all just like, like you said, we all are trying to just effectively accomplish the same thing just in different ways. And it's really easy to get angry at somebody that's on the same level as you than somebody that you don't even know exists, which is like with these private equity companies and these people in the background that do all that. So what's happened is going back to the zebra thing, what I think has happened is like especially in politics, the reason why Hillary Clinton can be against gay marriage and then for transgender kids in a very short period of my lifetime.

1:43:22And a whole bunch of other politicians, whether is that they're all just constantly rearranging their stripes. So all the zebras look just alike because as soon as one of them looks a little bit different. You know, like a like Tulsi Gabbard or whatever. I don't know name. There's plenty. There's plenty of people besides. That's just the first one that comes to mind. That's like, you know, trying to be a Democrat and and upholding most of what the Democratic Party would have wanted her to uphold up until very recently, but because she didn't rearrange her stripes. It's like, you're dead. But there's a whole bunch of more like her to that aren't even in politics anymore.

1:43:55But that's that's the way I see it now is it's like all these people. And so like even with big Donnie, you know, I wonder like, yeah, I see I just wonder even I just don't trust. It's kind of my Alex Jones syndrome. But it's like no matter how cool somebody seems like that. I think like, man, it's. Does him and Hillary really still shit like they're probably smoking a fat joint right now. This laugh. I don't know like you just don't really know. You don't really know. You're just you have to see what you see and you have to take it in and just hope that you have that somehow you have the discernment to know what's true or not.

1:44:27But you really just don't. I mean, even with me, man, so much crazy stuff that gets said and done and I just don't even when things come out about me, the not true. I just don't even reply or acknowledge him anymore. I just let him exist in their own little space and be part of it. And I've just decided that again, we're just all we're just in this crazy thing where all this stuff happens. And it's just. I don't know you can't the problem is so many people that don't do that. There's they're not aware of how much influence is being peddled on to them. How much how much their mind and their opinion is being affected by this nonsense on social media by bots and by all these different things.

1:45:02Well, you said about the zebras and stripes. So fucking perfect. One of my favorite clips is Hillary Clinton when she was running. I think it was 2012. It might have been when did she for he first become president 2008, right? Obama, it might have been 2008, but she was running and she was more mega than mega. She was talking about the border and about people coming over here. If you want to stay, you get a stiff fine. And if you've done anything illegal, you get exported. No questions asked and listen to this. Give me this full volume from the beginning. Wait to hear this. This is wild. So I think we got to have tough conditions.

1:45:47Tell people to come out of the shadows. If they've committed a crime, deport them. No questions asked. They're gone. If they. If they've been working and are law abiding, we should say here are the conditions for you staying. You have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally. You have to pay back taxes and you have to try to learn English and you have to wait in line. You have to wait in line. That's so mega. I mean, that proves the point that none of that really means they're sitting in the green room in the back before that speech. And there's like some stuff for it now. And they're just like, oh, I got to try to remember all this crap.

1:46:27Like none of that meant anything. You know, like none of that. I don't think she even believed when she said it back then. In other words, it's all what the country wanted to hear. That's all it is. It's all focus groups. It's all what the country wants to hear and what the party agrees upon. What the zebras all agree on. When you just said that, that's it perfectly. And as it morphs as it gets into trans kids, you got to support trans people in the military, whatever it is, they just all fucking hop in line. What flag am I putting in my Twitter? And to go back to go back to what you said at the beginning about those kids that are riding with the and they don't really even know what they're riding.

1:47:00They got the mask on, but they're doing this. And it's like, I guess what I mean is is there's a bunch of human beings on earth, especially now, like in our. In this sort of like American culture and all the other sub series of it like in Europe and everywhere is so Americanized now, but there's all these people who are really angry. It's kind of like what it's the reason why. You know, there's so many of these videos where they interview like the antifa dudes and they don't really even know why they're not able to talk. They're not really able to articulate why they're there what they believe they're just there because they want to they're just there to riot.

1:47:32You know, right. There's this like general anger that I think has that dwells in a lot of us towards the system that we realize is inefficient and ineffective and rigged. But it's just too complex at least individually and through the means of the internet for us to identify who our enemies really are. And so instead it's like let's just go do like let's just go. Let's go catch some shit on fire because at least it feels like we're doing something even though, but I think like I think there's a lot more in common between. The patriotic cosplaying type people who who want to who talk all the time about like, you know that and the people who are like antifa.

1:48:10I actually think that they're two of the same cloth. They just both they both just don't really realize it. But I think I think like that there is this really amazing sort of rebellious spirit of the left that just needs to be reintegrated in a society with the right. And then it's like then it becomes unstoppable and it no longer becomes a left in the right thing. But I just don't think like I'll give you another great example like. Like when I was younger I'd go to these some of these protest in DC and stuff and I would always stay at George Washington University with these kids. And we were all in our early 20s probably and we're all very like at that point there wasn't any like real political identity to it.

1:48:52I don't think those people would have called themselves a left back then. But you better believe most of them ended up going to all the black block and the antifa and the black lives matter and every other protest there was just because they wanted to go protest. They just are like you know like it's like it's like it's like it's a thing of of like rebelling against the system. It doesn't really it doesn't really matter what part of the system it is or if it really even makes any sense you just know that that's. Yeah it's like I think I think and that's what I mean is through the means of the internet.

1:49:23I don't think we'll ever be able to organize all those people together in a way that's productive. But I do think in real life we can I do think I do think through I think music is I think that's why I want to focus mostly on music and like trying to influence in a way to where the rich don't control it. And the rich don't choose what songs we listen to and what songs making on the charts like we do I think that's the first step. I think I actually think music is something like I guarantee there if you look if there was some way to I'm sure there's some report to be ran where you could see how people voted versus what kind of music people listen to and I guarantee you a lot of people who voted differently listen to the same exact lyrics and resonate with them like what is that like they're.

1:49:59That's all I mean is this we're just been we've just been mass distracted and miss in misled is all like well also when you get these kind of organized protests they're all organized with this one thought in mind like there. There's there's unlawful you know changes in policies that's shipping our community back to Mexico and we got to stop this these are all you know oligarchs are involved and this is a dictatorship and. They feel like they're fighting against something bad and if they're uninformed and who the fuck who's 21 is informed you know most people who are young especially if you're going to college.

1:50:35You're around a bunch of other like minded people in an echo chamber and you're all trying to like get social credit by being the most woke and the most activity and you're the person who's the most involved and you're helping organized and you feel like get a sense of purpose. And then there's also the thing of being on the ground with a bunch of other people that are moving in a certain direction that to me it I think it ignites a thing in I think there's things inside of us that get ignited one of them is like here's a the best way to describe is like fishing you know when you go fishing I've seen people catch their first fish when that fish gets on the line the whole you get excited everybody gets excited because it's this ancient thing inside of you that lets you know you're now successful your family's going to eat you caught a fish and it just like sparks it inside of you does it with bow hunting but very few people are going to go bow hunting but the other thing that does it with his war and protests are like war.

1:51:33You're marching you're all together who's opposing us fuck them and everyone's all aggressive and they're all chanting and you think you're doing the right thing you think you're doing the right thing. You know and then you see shit like cops shooting rubber bullets at reporters and you're like what the fuck these people are garbage like how are you shooting a reporter. Yeah, that's not only you're supposed to shoot the blood. Yeah, but I think the problem now is that it's so there's it's too complicated to be able to dissect it and correct it that like like with these ice protests though. In other words, there's been such a heavily disputed and mismanaged protocol of our immigration my entire life.

1:52:14So now it's like you can't now just go in and just try to like that's what's going to happen. People are going to protest though and you just all of a sudden go in and try to just like clean house all at once. It's like we've never even really established as a country what it what it is because like because most of the people we've listened to the last 20 years will say stuff like that and whatever year that was 2008. And now say gosh, can you imagine if somebody said that now that they would be like a they would be a racist and taken off the internet for saying what Hillary said on there about having to speak English and stuff.

1:52:45So it's for sure, but there's a big difference between protests and organized protests where you're paying people and then you're leaving bricks around. It's like it's a bastardization. They've taken over the thing this the virtue of this thing like this part of the first amendment you're right to express yourself. The right for the people to get together and say hey, this is not cool and they've distorted it with money like everything else. Yeah, and they've used it as a political tool. I would think maybe that that's happened a lot though, even in in the past with like civil rights and everything else.

1:53:18A lot of that was much more organized than it was made. Like I didn't know until just a couple years ago, like I've learned the story all through school and heard it a million times about Rosa Parks. But I didn't realize until a couple years ago that she was part of some I don't know. I don't even know what she was part of, but she was part of some organization and it was like a planned thing. I was always taught it like she just spontaneously did it. But I think there's every like thing in history has this whole backstory to it that we don't really know much about. Most things have been manipulated if they can be manipulated.

1:53:52Once they realized they can manipulate people, they started and they probably started that a long time ago. I mean, we've talked about it a million times, so that's why Smeadly Butler wrote, wrote, what war is a racket in 1933. You know, Major General Smeadly Butler, who was, they tried to get him to overthrow the fucking government with a coup and he wouldn't do it. And then he writes his book about how every single operation he was involved with. He thought they were doing this, but really they were just making it safe for bankers. They're really just overthrowing a government and installing a friendly one.

1:54:23It's like, it's been going on since they could. And back then it was way easier to pull off because there was no internet. We could pull up a Hillary Clinton video from more than a decade ago and go, look at her. She's a pretty MAGA. You could put a fucking red hat on that lady and she'd be standing on that stage right next to RFK Jr. You know? Yeah, and it's just because there's such an information overload, stuff like that will always be forgotten about too soon to afford to make a difference. She could have been Trump's vice president back then. Yeah. Like no bullshit. She would have been, right, she would have been like Queen mom of Trump land.

1:55:00There would be people with Hillary Clinton flags flying behind their pickup trucks with her with like two fists in the air with a MAGA hat on. I don't know, not bullshit. But I remember even back then, like, well, you know, the one, that's what made me fall in love with comedy was Norm McDonald and like his whole bit about the Clintons and stuff and getting on the view and riling all them up and stuff. But even back then, I remember they were trying to like, I guess he got kicked off a Saturday night live because of that, right? And all was it because of the Clintons specific or it might have been because of his pride because he's too funny.

1:55:31There was something else.

1:55:35Yeah, but there's I don't know. There was one of the funniest people of all time and his weekend update, that thing that he would do was fucking fantastic. He was the best ever at it. He was so good. And the jokes were so he would go so out there. Back when you could, you know, and if that's what got him kicked off a Saturday night live, great. Makes him even more of a legend. I think more. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's what's important about. I don't, I'm not a fan of all the real crazy vulgar humor sometimes and stuff. Like I, I'm more of a norm type of comedy guy. Like I like the more goofy stuff that's not like constantly talking about penises and stuff.

1:56:12But like, you know, or whatever, like whatever it is, sex and everything else. But it's really important that all that stuff does exist just because of the idea. I think it's important that there's this place that exists here in Austin that freedom of speech will always be in. Even if, you know, it's like it's such a critical thing, especially now more than ever. It's critical for everybody, even if you don't agree with it. And that's so hard for people to recognize. When people don't have a voice and someone has a voice and that voice is different than their opinion, they want to shut it down.

1:56:41They want to silence it. And they want to elevate their voice. Nature. Just pure natural, it's natural instincts that human beings have. And you got to, you got to resist that because you got to realize you don't want that used on you, right? Well, then don't use it on other people. Yeah. Well, everyone's guilty. Like I went, when I was at the ARC where I get where we spoke at that thing in London. There was a talk we went to. I think the next night that was about freedom of speech. And I can't remember the, I can't remember who always speaking there. It was some people that I should probably remember.

1:57:11But yeah, but they, they were talking about, it was, it was, it was a group that was defending people in Europe that were like being arrested and stuff for things they reposted online. And all, which is really important, you know, like they're, they're arresting people for political things that they put online in Europe. And like not even giving them very obscure reasoning as to why whatever, in some cases they won't even tell them what they're arresting them for. And so like the cause of what these people are doing is very important. But the whole time they're just, they're referring to it as the woke mind virus.

1:57:43Which is, yeah, sure funny, put it in a bit or whatever. But God, like, no, what it is is it's like the government using this one specific thing out of a list of things that they could as part of this moral high ground to arrest people for speaking out against. Not because it has nothing to do with anything on the left or the right. It's the fact that the state would love for people to not be allowed to criticize anything because then that means they can't criticize them. But by them saying woke mind virus every five minutes while they're talking about it, it just immediately polarizes half the people who they need to get on board in order to stop it, which is the left.

1:58:15It's like, I don't know, there's just, I don't know, I think I might try to, one of these days I might just try to give the old thing a run and see. But I really think I could, it would be, it would probably, it would probably end in like a nuclear war. But I think we could do, I think it'd be pretty interesting, I think. You gonna run for office? If you will. Fuck that. No, I've no, I'm not on the same page. No, I don't think I would. I might do like a governor run somewhere or something. Maybe I'll start with mayor. Maybe that's a good one. It seems like a terrible job, dude. Don't do it. I would say don't do it.

1:58:55But if you have to do it, do it. I mean, someone should do it that's like you. I just remember my whole life, like since I was a kid, people were like, man, what would happen if just we got some regular dude in there in life? Like all this, it's just like, I don't know. You'd probably get immediately disillusioned. You'd realize the entanglements that exist and I think it's impossible to navigate. I think once you get in there, you're like, holy shit. And when I talk to people that are in this administration now that weren't before, that realize like all the paperwork and red tape and bureaucracy and all the different departments, all the people that are controlling these departments and all the fucking resistance you have to any change and all the people that don't want to give you the information that you're asking for.

1:59:36And it gets wild and exhausting. And you're dealing with a machine that's been operating pretty much unchecked for decades. Let's check them out. Yeah. Let's give them the old check. Look what they did to Elon. He tried to check them out. They turned them into a Nazi. Yeah. I mean, it's like, well, do you think was there? I'm not well read on any of this. This is like, this is actually something I wanted to ask you about at one point or another anyway. It was your take on like the Elon Trump situation. You know, I, um, apparently they're making up. You think things are cool now? It's supposedly not a long conversation on the phone.

2:00:09The argument, but the argument behind it was that they felt like Trump wasn't letting Elon. See, I don't, I don't know what to think of. I really don't know what to think of any of that situation or Elon in general. And I just say, I just, it really fascinated me that it seemed like they were both using doge for different reasons maybe or they had different motivations behind it. But what if it was like a genuine, what if there was genuine audits done on everything? And like, what if all that stuff did get uncovered? And what if somebody wasn't scared to just release all that stuff and the consequences of it?

2:00:41Like people do deserve the truth. Well, they've released some of it, right? So we know a lot about USAID now. We know what that was. We know what crazy programs are in place. We know through Mike Benz's work, where the way he describes USAID as doing things that are too dirty for the CIA. He describes it being used for regime change. But under the name AID, it seems like it's just AID. Oh, we're helping people. It puts agency for international development. That's what it really stands for. So there's that. That's been dismantled. The thing is they're not spending less money. They're spending more money.

2:01:14They're spending like a trillion dollars on the Pentagon. The whole thing is kind of nuts. Because nobody wants to stop spending money. Nobody wants to lose their job. And they're all in a position where they have influence. And there's thousands of different points of influence. And if you're the president or the vice president or any of these fucking people, it's a very difficult road. One of the things that I felt was the most important was Bobby Kennedy. Because Bobby Kennedy getting in there, he was determined to find out what is the root cause of America's massive health crisis that we're all facing.

2:01:50Like, why are we having this? Why do we have different toxins that are in our foods that are banned in Europe? Why are we allowing the use of these different things that we know are terrible for the body? You know, why is there not greater scrutiny on these pharmaceutical drug corporations? Why are they not, you know, why are they able to lie and get away with it and prescribe things for people that don't need them and not be responsible for the health consequence of these things? And that this needs to be cleaned up. And so that's what he's doing right now. I'm very happy. And I hope that he can really make meaningful changes.

2:02:22Because it seems like he is. He fired the 17 people that were the head of the vaccine schedule. And he's hired a bunch of new people. They're all very qualified. And one of them being Robert Malone. Robert Malone, the guy that everybody said was a cook that I got in trouble for initially for having on my podcast when they were trying to, you know, when fucking Neil Young was trying to get me removed from Spotify. This is over Robert Malone. Robert Malone, who owns nine patents on the creation of mRNA vaccine technology, certifiable genius, like unquestionably. They were calling him a cook. This guy's a cook.

2:02:58A guy who took the vaccine and had a horrible reaction. They were calling him a cook. So that guy being a part of this administration, being a part of the, you know, make America healthy again movement, very important. All that stuff is very important for everybody, not Republicans, not Democrats. If there's any area where we should be bipartisan on, it's that. And realizing that corporations have taken advantage of loopholes and of a bunch of different creepy laws that allowed them to poison you. And you're getting poisoned and you're addicted to this poison. And there's a way out of this. Well, he's kind of where I got the inspiration for the call idea from, you know, he.

2:03:39No, well, he, he and I actually met. He came out to my, he came out to the property where we filmed Richmond and all and I met him. This is before he got linked up with Trump. He was still running, this is during all that. And he was, he was still running for himself. But we had a long conversation about this concept for a healing center, which is like this thing that he's been kind of like as a part of all this, which is like, which is kind of the idea of people going out in the nature and like learning how to grow food and learning how to like, because in this, in this never ending abyss of chaos or everything's changing so fast and nothing, you know, nature is, nature has been affected by that through like some, you know, through chemicals and technology and other things.

2:04:19But for the most part, it's all the systems and nature, all the organization there and the, all that stuff is sort of like the last thing that's untouched by man. And you know, when you go out on two or three hundred acres and you just sit there and you're watching the water go by, it's like, you just sort of, you take everything that we've talked about like all this. These are all very complex, like just crazy, century, thousands a year long, things that man kind of done. But meanwhile, nature just sort of exists and does its thing and it's like, it's, it's sort of a way to compartmentalize all of this monstrosity into one little thing and realize that there is other, there is a reality outside of the reality that like modern society has constructed us to exist in 24 -7.

2:05:02That's 100%. 100%. Like gosh, dude, that's the only thing that saves me is like, especially being a little bit, probably a little bit too introverted for this job position. You know, going out on tour even for a weekend or two or like, dude, by the time Sunday comes and we get through this and these two mother ship shows, we have a, we got West Virginia next weekend but I'll spend this whole week, I probably won't talk to anybody except for like immediate family, you know. I'll just go sit out in the woods with the dogs and just watch the birds chirp and all that. That sounds amazing. There's something really important about that that I want to, I want to understand like, you take, if you can take two or three hundred acres, like what can you plant on it that brings in the types of nature that benefit human beings the most.

2:05:45Like, I want to conduct studies on like everything from birds to plants to wildlife to different types. Like, how do you put a human being who is so screwed up in the most optimal condition to heal and to fix? Like, as it's obviously not the case, like, you're not going to go to a mental institution or, and I'm not even suggesting for people who should be in a mental institution. I just mean like, you know, people who, like, a guy I know who, you mentioned mushrooms and stuff, but there's a guy I know, like, that's in the Marines who's dealing with PTSD. Like, how do you get him into a spot where he can just go out and roll?

2:06:14You know, like, you can't, it's hard to get, it's hard to fix that part of your brain living in a city or living in a suburb and not having that. Like, so that's, you know, so yeah, it's just like this crazy dream I have where, like, it's sort of a, it's a way to rebel against all of this without rebelling. It's just creating a better way to do it. But imagine if you like, this is like the pilot program for this thing, where it's this sort of outdoor amphitheater. And it's like very immersive and in nature and you can, and you can like re, re unlock these parts of your brain. You talked about that are sort of very primitive and to us and then, and then just emulated over a period of time.

2:06:47Like, so I'm doing these shows where they're, they're, they're nonprofit and the idea is just to go into an area that hasn't had music that's in an A or B ticketing market. Do a show there, build them a blueprint, whether it's on a main street or in a farm field or whatever, but just somewhere where live nation and ticket master can't touch it. Build them a blueprint with like ingress, egress, promotions, how to sell the show, where to put the stage, how to set everything up. Here's all the vendors to use and then give them this blueprint where they can do it over and over and over again and just build like these sort of sanctuaries that exist all over the country that can't be like molested and preyed upon by all those big companies and all their crap.

2:07:20And I think inherently by doing that through like music and public speaking and other things, those spaces will almost serve as like the way that communities thrive again and the way people reconnect. And I joke and say that like everyone, every human being likes music and food and socializing, at least a little bit. And if you don't, you're probably a robot and we don't, I don't want you there anyway, kind of thing, you know, but like. So that's, that's in a nutshell, but that always inspired by Bobby's sort of idea for this healing center that he talked about. I think it's a place ever in Italy that he used as a reference of he had a relative go to and like they were able to work with like leather and do all the stuff on a vineyard.

2:07:57I think in it like it had a lot, there's a lot of, you know, we know very little about the human mind. That's why psychedelics are still illegal. And so and there's so much misunderstanding and misconception and just confusion even there because think about, I mean like our brains are just so infinitely complex even, you know. Yeah, so. Nature's definitely a part of your health without nature. I don't think you really get totally healthy. We're a part of nature, you know, like we're a, we're a natural thing existing in a world that we've created that isn't natural. And so like this is all, you know, like this is all everything that we've talked about is just sort of man -made constructed bullshit that is now, that is now reality to us, but they're, but it's just part of a bigger thing too.

2:08:36We sort of get isolated inside of, especially when we're on our phone all the time. It's like. Yeah, especially I played off social media and it's amazing. It's like it lifts this weight off your brain. How do you, how do you manage social, this is one thing I really have a hard time with and it makes, I feel bad because I end up upsetting people or whatever, but like. How do you, a lot of people want your time and they want to send you text messages and they want to bother you with stuff and they want to, and it's not even they want to bother you. They really, but like, how do you manage that?

2:09:07Do you just have a small social circle or are you just really social or like, how do you find, there's people where I just won't text them back for like months and then they, then they think I hate them and it's not that I hate them. It's just like I can't just sit in text. I just can't send hundreds of text every day to it. Like I have to, like how do you balance all that or how do you keep changing your phone number? But you also got to get comfortable with not texting people back because you can't text everybody back. Yeah, look at my phone once he something. I'll show you this. Look at see how many unread text messages I have.

2:09:40Up or left hand corner. Was it say? 623. Yeah, good luck. Yeah. How? How am I going to read those? I know. Well, I've got possible. I think it goes back to my, when I was at work before and I had to keep up with the phone for work and I had, you know, it's like. It's just instilled in me that like it just drives. So I don't know. That's why yeah, I've, I've bought that flip phone that I carry and there's just times to get move. You get your brain back. It's also tough though because there's people I do want to stay in contact with like, you know, like, yeah, but you can always reach out to them.

2:10:15Yeah. It's like, you know, we have this idea of immediate interaction with people that it's necessary. It's important. And sometimes it is important. Like maybe there's something going on. Maybe your wife is pregnant. Like who knows, right? You need immediate contact, but most of the time you don't. The vast majority of the time you don't. We live the long time without it. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to not be there for somebody who needs you in an emergency, but other than that, yeah, it's good to be free. You just, it's better for your brain. I don't, like I was saying, I don't think we're supposed to be getting the bad news from 8 billion people.

2:10:48It's just two nuts. It's a little, we're just, I don't think we're even supposed to socialize with that many. I mean, we, we thrive in smaller. I mean, that's why all these, yeah, we, we definitely thrive in smaller. Yeah. Keep a tight tribe. Yeah. Yeah, keep a tight tribe. Keep a tight tribe of people that are cool and make it so it's beneficial to everybody. So there's no resentment. You know, that's one of the things that happens in when a guy gets really famous like you're getting is that some of you can have the wrong people around you. You know, maybe you like look past some of the resentful behavior that they showed when you weren't successful.

2:11:25And then it manifests itself when you're successful. They look, you could tell like someone around you actually wants you to fuck up. And that's a tear. I've seen that happen with friends. It's a terrible place to be. There just has to be some kind of way that I don't have to be famous though. There's a way where this is, yeah, but there's a way where this is like I'm just like I don't know. It's gotten a lot better. But you just can have to deal with it. Like I said, this is the path that you've been given in this world. I just mean that I just mean that like I should like I just don't want fan.

2:11:55I just don't want people to perceive like I'm just some dude that's written a song and work. But this is like a collect like I said, this is a collective thing like the fact just if you look at the if you look at the rate of people who buy my songs on iTunes versus most label artists. It's like comically disproportionate like people people buy my songs out of support and stuff. And so what I'm saying is that this is like a thing like this isn't just I'm sitting up here and y 'all are all down there. Like this is in my mind. This is just a thing where we're all equal and it just happens to be this is the music.

2:12:26This is the music catalog that we're giving people a middle finger with. But I don't I wouldn't for a second want to ever think that like that I'm above somebody else on some social hierarchy because of it or something I guess. I don't want to feel like I this is just something we're like I just I'm just so excited to see where this can go in the sense of like like I said It's just exciting that like like some just full blown idiot like me with a couple of his buddies can figure out how to do this and and rally enough support up behind it. I'm just like what could really happen if we like what could really happen if things were like.

2:12:58If I actually knew what I was doing or if like enough of us got together like we could really just flip. We could just flip everything upside down pretty quick. But you don't have to become a different thing just because you're famous. That's a myth. You know, you don't have to become better than people. You don't have to think you're better than people just because you're famous. You can maintain who you are. It's totally doable. Yeah, I do it. I'm just me. I'm the same person. You are. Yeah. I've been doing it the same and that's one of the reasons why I do the podcast the exact same way I do it the same way.

2:13:28I don't think this is going to be a big one. Everybody asks that's the first thing a lot of people ask is how was Joe Rogan and I was like he's Joe Rogan like there is no so much easier that way. Just be you all day. Yeah, like if you've watched him on the podcast you've seen him in real life. He's you know it's like. You see me at my worst and you see me at my best. That's it. But you know, I'm a human being just like anybody else. This is why I encourage everybody who wants to do something like this to go do it. Anybody can do this. Exactly. You might not do it this well immediately because you're going to learn how to do it.

2:14:01But it's like everything you can learn how to do it. Like you can learn how to sing. You can learn how to do stand up. You can learn how to play guitar. You can learn how to draw. You can learn. Oh, I can never do that. Yeah, can. Some people can do it better than you. Some people are naturally talented in different areas. You know, especially when it comes to athletics. But you can do it. You can do it. You can get better and getting better at something and doing something is beneficial to the whole of your life. Because if you can apply those same principles to everything, you can get better at everything.

2:14:33And you get better at being a person. And inspire other people. Yeah, like the more good that you can do and the more you can put out, the more it inspires others to do too. Yeah, the more work you put out too. The more songs you put out, like Scornful Woman, the more stuff that really resonates with people. It affects people, man. It's like you, it's that wings of the butterfly, man. You know, you're like, you're really like spreading it out. And, you know, it'll inspire more people to write songs. It'll inspire more people to do things. It'll inspire people to write books. It's just, that's what we do.

2:15:04We inspire people. People inspire people. And people by doing something that we know is difficult and they get through it and they create something like, wow. And you go to see, you know, fucking you too with the sphere like, wow. You know, that's what it's all about, man. You know, that's, that's the beautiful thing that is this kind of artistic connection that you have with the community, with the people that enjoy your work. As long as you respect that and as long as you understand what it is, you'll be great. You're just going to have to deal with being famous, bitch. You know, I have to, I have to, you know, like I do, I do think you're actually right.

2:15:43I probably was a little misspoke and now that you say what you said about AI being able to replace music and stuff. I do agree that like, there is a part of it that AI will never, they'll never understand the human experience enough to be able to write music about it. That's, that captivates people in a way that music can, that's been written by people. I do agree with that. Yes, you're so awesome. They can make it sound better and cooler and catchier, but I do think like, I do think the people that are really writing it are the ones that, and the ones that really write, I mean, like just to talk about the songwriting process was scornful, you know, we were, I had been, we had just gotten done with the touring over the summer for the most part in 2024.

2:16:26And well, obviously things are what they are, but there's just been, there was just a like multiple different negative things happening at once. And I kind of got into, I got into a spot where I, I did my thing where I sort of spiraled and just was isolating myself. And so I spent a month and a half or two months in that house pretty much, I didn't do, I didn't do Thanksgiving or Christmas last year. I just, just really didn't hardly talk to anybody or anything. And so I was like, at a, you know, I was in, I was in a position, it was in a position where it was like probably time to write a song like that.

2:16:57And there's a few things I do want to clarify too, talking about this. But so anyway, so me, Draven from Radio WV and Joey are all sitting in the kitchen of this house who we recorded the song. And it's probably in the fall sometime. And Joey is three in the morning, right? And like we were all just like wired. And I can think about Joey talking about really wanting to write a song. And so him and Draven were asking me about my songwriting process and what I do. And so like, I just went and got the guitar. And I said we were sitting there around the table. And I can remember it was me and Joey sitting here and Draven leaning up against the counter.

2:17:30And we were just talking about it. And I said, well, I said, if you're going to write a song, I was like the first thing you got to do is figure out what you're going to write about. And it's got to be something that you feel, not something that you can just articulate about. It's got to be something that's like in there that needs to come out, you know. And so we sat there for like 10 seconds. And Scornful Woman was the word that was used, you know. And it was like, it was, it was specific relationships. But also it was a collection of all, like the experiences that we had all had, like I think in horrible.

2:17:57We'd all had horrible relationships too. And of course we all have, you know, like every dude on Earth has been, has been through what that song talks about in one way or another. Can we play it? Let's, let's cue it up. Yeah. Let's cue it up. Jamie cue it up. But within two or three minutes, the whole song was written. It was just like it just, it just came out, you know. That's, and AI is not going to do that. There's something, there's, there's, there's things that resonate in that song that AI is never going to be able to understand. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing, that's the thing that's going to separate people from the machine and live performance.

2:18:29That, this kind of stuff, this kind of stuff right here. Mercer County, West Virginia.

2:18:43Well,

2:18:49she got aside to her, I want to run from, she'll turn a worm afternoon into a cold cold horn. Well, he grabbed the apple and I don't took a bite. And now all these years are later. And the mice still ain't right with the scorn for men.

2:19:20Scorn for men.

2:19:26I used to sleep so good didn't have a knife. I was busy dreaming, believing he's always going to be right there. And now the middle of the day is like the middle of the night. And the court says 55th. But the mice don't save right with the scorn for men.

2:19:58Scorn for men.

2:20:26But she can have all the money and they can keep all the fame. I go back to being broke as a joke if I could just get a break from the pain.

2:21:30It's in the description of the video but there's the biggest shout out of all this is to the, there's a firefighter that we we let us use this footage to I think it's out of Brazil. But the name of the firefighters in the description before the GoPro footage. It was really cool he let us use that. Oh, that's a real fire. Yeah, that's a real firefighting. Wow. GoPro video that we found and we reached out to the guy and asked him if we could use it. That's cool. But I just wanted to give him a shout out on here. There you go. Joseph, volunteer firefighter, third company, bomb, low -screen dose in Chile.

2:22:02Yeah, sorry. That's awesome. I've been in my mind spending kind of a blur lately. So I should have remembered that, right? That's all right. We got it. That's awesome. Yeah. Fucking song, dude. Woo. That song. That song is a firecracker. I can't wait for you to hear some of the like, let me turn. I'll turn this on. I'll play like just like I'll leak like 20 seconds and one of the other one. When is it going to come out? I don't know when the next ones will. I don't even want to say a day because I don't know. I'm such a percress. I want to say like within a month or so. What are you doing with it?

2:22:36You're changing anything on it? I'm just not releasing it yet. Just not really. I've just got. I just need to get my life together a little bit. What's this release of right now? Put it on the show. Put it on the show. Send it to Jamie. I'll play like 30 seconds. I don't even have like a full file of anything on here. I've just got stuff that I've recorded off my phone. But just to give you an idea of like some of the other stuff I'm working on. Like this one. Let me see which one of these. They're all just say like new recording for 32. So I got to remember which like probably this one's probably one.

2:23:13I don't know if this will be right or not, but this will give you an idea of something.

2:23:50I just got a bunch of little clips like that of where we were practicing the guitar parts. But anyway, I got a few more that are like pretty heavy. I don't know what they are. I don't know. People figure it out. There's something. I don't even. I don't like to even try to describe many of that stuff because I don't know what it is. So you're going to release it all as a full album or you're going to just do it like song at a time. Probably just song at a time right now just because it's simpler that way. Yeah. And then I'll just. I don't know what I'm going to. I don't know what the long term plan is.

2:24:20I want to get I'll get to the end of this tour this year in October and you don't need a long term plan. Yeah. Just keep doing what you like doing. Yeah, I will. Yeah, this all long term plan shit. That's people with vision boards. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, no, you're right. I haven't take I've just tried to take it. I do have to think long term though because I want to make the most of this just for. I don't know man. The only thing I want like I just want to look back when I'm old and just think like. Just think like fuck yeah, we did it. Well, if you just keep doing what you're doing, you will do that.

2:24:52100%. Yeah, but I mean bigger. I just want to see like I just want to see the. I just want to. I don't know. I just want to watch the machine crumble. You know, like I just I have this like thing inside of the probably crumble on its own. It'll still exist in some form. But you know, as long as you can. Thrive without it. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. And more people realize that there's a way to do it that's authentic. There's always going to be people that are drawn to that. And it'll be more and more people as things get more and more disconnected and feel less and less human.

2:25:27Yeah, there's just more and more. There's been so many big people go up against it and not be able to quite figure it out. Like even Pearl Jam back in the 90s, you know, trying to go up against. I think a live nation it was or take a master in. I don't know man. I just want to see that's like that. That would be my biggest act. That would be the biggest thing that I would feel. Some sense of accomplishment about long time is like this. How do you get all these people together who have been disenfranchised by the music industry and just rally them together in a way that like. It's not to take anyone down or to do anything bad at all towards anybody.

2:25:58But it's just to like imagine what society would be with real music again. Without a bunch of label propped up shit and every stuck in everybody's head. Like what if people really listen to what they loved and like it was real. It was like the organic side of things is what drove music through the roof. Like imagine what that would imagine what could think about what music can do to you. Like not even in the moment, but just what it means to you over time. Like going back and I go back all the time. Like and I listen to like a 1999 live. Like like a live stained session or something from back then.

2:26:32Or like old Hank Williams, the third songs or like I don't know. The stuff I listen to a lot as a kid and like man, it was unlock all these memories. You think about like all of a sudden you're like back in a place that you never even remembered you ever were. It's just it's such a powerful thing on us, you know. So I'm sorry I had a sneeze. Yeah, but that's. Yeah, it is powerful, man. It's powerful to do what you're doing. What you're doing is that. You're doing that. Yeah, you're not doing nothing. You're in that group. Shut the fuck up. You are. You are. You're in that group. You know, just keep doing what you're doing.

2:27:03It's awesome. And it's inspiring and more people are going to do it. And I love that you want to help more people do it. That's great. Because I'm guarantee you there are these Charlie Crockets out there. There's these guys out there that people haven't heard of before. And then you see him playing on street corner one day. You're like, where are you from? Like how are you doing this? This is crazy. Yeah. You know, there's people like that out there in the world. I remember we went, what was that place that we went to? We saw Ellis Bullard. The white, what is it called? White horse. Yeah. Yeah.

2:27:30And we're like, who is this fucking guy? He's here in town, right? Yeah, nobody there. We went there last time we were here. We were playing on going back. We was actually thinking about trying to swing by there this evening and say it was a spot. That was so much fun last night. Great little spot. So there's people like that out there. You know, they just have to get an audience. Yeah. You know, someone has to, you know, give them a little boost. Reach back. Grab their hand. Help them up. Yeah. That's one of the best things about the comedy community right now. So we all do that for each other.

2:27:56So it's like there's a real pathway. So there's a lot of people that are moving to Austin from all across the country. You know, they're like, hey, I think if I get there, that's a place where you can really launch from. What's powerful about your platforms here, like you and just, and all the other people, like you said, that are in that network, is that you, this is all stuff that you've built, that you have control over. Like these are, that's what's cool about it. It's like the sort of new, it's a whole new business that you've kind of got here. Like in the comedy world, it's not, it's not owned by anybody or anything.

2:28:27It's like it's wild and furry and chaotic and it could go anywhere. And that's what's exciting to me. It's like, dude, like I said, I just don't know. I just don't know who knows what will even come of what you got going on here and Austin. But this has shaped a lot. Like in a world where everything is so, it's so predicted. Like there's less and less people able to sit around in a board room and a skyscraper somewhere and decide what the next big thing is going to be. It's like it's more, I don't know, it's just exciting to be a part of that. Despite all the, there's so many ways that you can, you can look negatively about everything going on.

2:29:04But there is this sort of transfer of power that I just hope can happen. And we only have a very short window of time for it to happen. And though, you know, pretty soon, pretty soon we'll all have a neural link and we'll be, we'll be talking each other in people, you know, but we've got a little bit of time maybe before that. Yeah, maybe. I think we're the last real people. We're the last people that knows what it was like before to understand what like, what real life really is. And it's so hard to even say what that, what that even means. But I just mean that like, even already there's people on YouTube that comment on a video that's AI, everyone in its AI, the whole narrative is, and it'll have like a million, and like probably half the people commenting on it are bots too.

2:29:47But I just mean that it's not even like we're going to be deceived that way. I think at some point it'll almost somehow, somehow it'll come to a point where we won't really understand what is real life or what is digitally artificially created. And it won't even, it's not that we won't even be able to tell the difference, but we won't even care to tell the difference. The fake world will feel more real than the real world in a short period of time. Somehow it'll, it'll influence our sensory, like it'll influence that more than real life will, like it'll become just like everything will just feel.

2:30:21I mean, it already feels that way. That's what we're so drawn, but as it all becomes more realistic and more creative and more tailored to draw us in, it will be just mass deception. It might have already happened. This is what's really terrifying is the simulation theory. The idea that, oh, I would be able to know if it was a simulation. Would you? I don't know. Elon thinks it's a simulation. He thinks the chances of it not being a simulation are in the billions. He thinks that this whole thing is probably our consciousness interacting with a program, which is very bizarre to think. But if you keep going with what we're doing right now, that is inevitable.

2:31:05If you look at the way technology is recreating things with AI and making things look completely realistic, and then you extrapolate. You look into the future 20, 30, 40, 50 years. They're going to be able to give you an experience that you're not going to know. How do you know if that's already happened? Maybe that's how the world actually works. Maybe this idea of the material world is an illusion. Everything is your consciousness interacting. We're only able to perceive reality through limited means. Sight, sound, smell, etc. There could be components of reality here that we're not able to see.

2:31:44That's where I definitely lean into recognizing that there is this whole experience. I do believe there is this whole spiritual element at play too. It's hard to... There's no way to tell. It's funny, though, because the same mentality that you could use to think about the world being a simulation, you could also think about it being... It's so organized and so perfect that, yeah, I agree that it's operating on some program. I just think that that program is being mandated and created by what is represented in my mind as God or Jesus Christ. Other people may just be considered like a software or a program, but it is all the same thing.

2:32:19Obviously, life is a thing that we don't quite understand that finds itself in the midst of so many different parts of reality. Life, just in the soil, there's so many different millions of bacteria that just make it possible for stuff to even be able to grow. And all those things are arguably intelligent and have these organized systems. And then you see the way birds fly in the sky and just the way that... Like the way that even we have these sort of inherent parts programmed. And it's just... There's really no way to tell, but what's so funny is that in just a short period of time, we'll all be forgotten about anyway and we'll never really know.

2:32:54And maybe even this technology that has existed has existed before and we'll go away again. It's just no way to really tell. I think at the end of the day, like to your point, I think humanity and the truth within it is all that really exists and everything else just sort of swirls about. And we're always wanting to expand upon what already exists. We're not creatures that like repetition or we like to just always figure out what the next big thing is even if it is our demise. It's weird, we're sort of... We're sort of chasing to build our replacement somehow, I don't know. Oh, that's a fact. Yeah, we're definitely doing that.

2:33:29No question at all. We've already replaced our memory with your contact list. I mean, how many numbers... I know like three people's phone numbers. I used to know everyone's phone number. I used to be able to rattle off all my friend's phone numbers. I used to be able to call them from a pay phone. That was how I got a whole lot of people back in the day. Now, I don't remember anything. I remember my high school phone number that I had when I was a kid. I don't remember my best friend's phone number. I can remember my best friend's phone number from high school. He still has it and I'll still text him now and then.

2:33:58That's great, but it's crazy that your contact list has replaced your memory. It has, yeah. Yeah, and then, you know, anytime you have a question, you just press that button on your phone. Hey, you know, what year was this? You know, what year was Gettysburg? What year, you know, and you can find anything instantaneously. And that's good, but it's also weird because now you're dependent upon that thing and you're connected to that thing. That thing is just going to get more and more part of your life. Whereas you said before, you can't even leave your house without your phone or you feel weird.

2:34:28Yeah, but all those resources right now are used because there is no real protocol or way for us to be necessarily productive with it. Like in a broader spectrum that a lot of people just use all those tools and resources as just endless entertainment and mind numbing distraction, but really all that stuff makes us super powerful if we're able to harness it correctly. Like I said, just imagine the information and the data and the resources that we have access to that people, like kings and dictators and emperors and the most powerful people in the world could have never dreamed. Like we have it just right here for free on our phone, like.

2:35:04Well, I think we don't realize how informed we are in comparison to people in the past. People in the past work extremely naive about the way things work. Just that has just been something that we have just accepted as being normal in the last 20 years. But it's not normal. It's not normal to know this much about congressional insider trading. You know, like how do we all know about that now? And how do we all know that it's been going on forever? Nobody did anything about it. You know, there's a lot of things that we know now that make the people, the powers that be very creeped out. You know, including things like podcasts.

2:35:38They don't like it at all. That there's no one that no corporate entity pulling strings behind the scenes. It's just people. And that some person, like a Theo Vaughn or whoever can have whoever they want on. Anytime they want. And say whatever they want. And that person might say some wild shit that has the internet scrambling. Is this true? And then they have to Google it. They don't like that at all. They don't like that this affects elections. That people realize like, hey, you're being lied to. Hey, the FBI contacted Facebook. It was telling them to remove factual information because it might affect the election.

2:36:13Like, oh, this is crazy. Like the stuff that we know now that a lot of people know now was the stuff of conspiracy fantasy. When I was 20 years old. But what does it really, what does it mean to us though? Because yeah, we know all that about Facebook, but we also use Facebook. Like, like it's, um, I think that now our ability to communicate has become so contingent upon these platforms that we know they're no good for us. We know they harvest our data and they all the terrible things that are associated with them. But we still was like, where else, where else but Facebook marketplace? Can you find all these sweet, you know?

2:36:53I mean, that's like, you don't have to get totally influenced by it though. The more you're aware, they're influencing the less affected has on you. You know, the more you're aware of the magic trick, you're like, oh, that rabbits up his sleeve. There's just a connectivity that we can't find elsewhere. So there's this void that we have to, like we have to use it to fill the void. I guess is what I mean. You don't have to. Maybe through, like, that's why I really want to try doing. I've had two or three people really pushing me heavy to try to do Jiu Jitsu. But that's something where like, it's the, it's like the community and the relationships you get out of it.

2:37:22That's just important. Maybe then the practice of it itself. Like the, I don't know. That's the way it's been just like maybe in those sort of circles you do get that. But you just don't get it in a broad, you know, there's not a lot of broad ways to get it now. But Jiu Jitsu is definitely a way to do it. It's also a way where you get out all of your aggression in a very healthy way, in a cooperative way. You're doing it with other people that are your friends. And the beautiful thing about Jiu Jitsu sparring as opposed to like, when I was kickboxing, like, you kind of resented your sparring partner.

2:37:49They're fucking you up. You know, they're rocking you. Whereas in Jiu Jitsu, even if someone taps you a lot, you're still their friend. You know, you realize like, oh, you got, and they'll tell you you can't, you can't do that with the right arm. The right arm has to stay tied to your chest because otherwise, once it's exposed, what I'm trying to do is get you to do that. So I can go to the other side and like, oh, okay, let's try it again. I'll show it. I'll show a guy. And when you do that with people, you're helping your friend beat you next time. But that's the way to get better. Like, you know, Eddie Bravo taught me that a long time ago.

2:38:20He goes, the more you teach people to catch you and the stuff that you do, the more people you'll be able to get it in people that even know it's coming. You'll be able, it'll sharpen that technique up even more. If you can get people that know what you're doing and you tell them what you're doing, you can still do it. Like, Hicks and Grace used to tell people, I'm going to get you in an arm bar and you're right arm. You're like, the fuck you are and you would still get it. But he was so much better than everybody that he would do that on purpose. And there's a beautiful thing about learning something that's very difficult that prepares you for life.

2:38:53Also, the other beautiful thing about Jiu -Jitsu in terms of your mental health is that it's so difficult to do that it makes regular life easy. And regular conflict seems to be silly. Like, sometimes people get super nervous if two people are just yelling at each other and you think a fight might break up. If you're so used to strangling people, that's totally normal. Like, oh, you guys are going to fight. You see that in some of the videos that go around where somebody will get broken into. And it's like the security footage. Like, I'm trying to think there was one that went around recently.

2:39:23Like, some guy was trying to break into a UFC fighter's truck and he went out there and just kicked his ass in the guy. I think that was a... He tried to card Jack, just engaging. He beat the fuck out of him. Yeah, the guy did that with John Jones. John Jones ran out with a shotgun and a fucking Belgian Malinois. Like, that's the wrong dude to break into his house. He's ready. And Sean Strickland, that was another one. That's who I was thinking of with the pistol. Yeah. I was thinking of that one. Yeah, there's a lot of... You could fuck with the wrong dude. And that happens. There's a lot of those wrong dudes out there now.

2:39:54There's so many people that are training in martial arts now. You never know. Like, if you're picking a fight with someone on a fight, you are rolling the dice. My dudes are a lot scarier in real life than on TV, too. Oh, hell yeah. I finally got to meet... I've met Brock Lesnar a couple times now. I've just ran into him randomly. And just like the size of his hands, you're just like, God. Like, what? Like, where did this guy come? He's just like a machine. He's a Viking. Yeah. That's 100 % Viking DNA. 100%. But I don't know the ex... There's no exercise I'm aware of that. Like, it makes your fist twice the size of a normal man.

2:40:24It's just like... Yeah, he's just like... You see his daughter? Yeah. His daughter is a shot grip champion. Like, she's Louise. She's a tank. Yeah. Yeah, that's just pure Viking genetics, man. Those are the people at the front of the boat with the big battle ax. When you saw that both pull up to your village, you need to better start running to those mountains. But, God, I can't... I just can't imagine having to get in the ring with a guy like that. And like, no, you gotta... You're just like, God, like, good luck. I know. You know. Imagine the guys beat him, too. Yeah. That's just so crazy. Guys beat his ass.

2:40:53You know? Alster over and beat his ass. Kane Velasquez beat his ass. There's guys better than him. There's always a bigger fish, yeah. Yeah, and Kane wasn't even bigger. Kane was a bad motherfucker. He was like 240. He was like 25 pounds lighter than Brock. And he still beat his ass. Who in fighting right now is exciting you, like, coming up into it. Oh, my God. There's so many guys. There's so many, man. Did you watch Marob's last fight last weekend? I did. Marob's really in Sean O'Malley. Decai is insane. He's insane. His cardio is like something that everyone who has been involved in the sport for as long as I have is blown away by it.

2:41:34The guys are freak. Daniel Cormier went to visit him after he won the title. He won the title Saturday night in the sphere in Vegas. Beach on O'Malley. Dominant five round decision. They just steamrolled him. The next day, Daniel Cormier goes to visit him. He's out running. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. Just this guy from Georgia, from this, you know, war -torn country who is just embraces that fucking grind at a level that nobody else can compete with. And when he gets in the ring, like, no one can match his cardio. No one can match his pace. He melts the greatest of the greats.

2:42:12You see guys like Umar Nermagomedov, who's elite. He's world class. Like, in any other time, he'd be a world champion. And Mirab just overwhelming him. He seemed just getting overwhelmed by the pace. And Mirab doesn't even get tired. He's a freak. So he's trained, he's probably trained in Georgia most of his life then. Do you think that gives him an advantage? Like, he's been, he's trained in like sort, maybe his fighting style. Or is it just like, is he doing the same type of fighting? But just better, you think. Or is it just that they can't be? Well, you get seen, the evolution of his technique.

2:42:42So a lot of it is in America. So it's just his mindset and his drive. And I think some of it, you know, for us, the hobby did a whole video about him saying he needs to be studied in a lab. For us, the hobby who runs TriStar in Montreal, it's like one of the greatest gyms of all time. And he's one of the best minds ever in the history of MMA. And he's blown away by this guy. He's like, there's guys that are on EPO, which is like, you know, that's the cyclist take that makes you have more blood cells. And it makes you have more cardio, but it's, you can have a fucking stroke. It's like super dangerous to take.

2:43:14But that's like a lot of the, like, tour to France guys get busted for that kind of shit. Some fighters get busted. He's like, guys that I know that have been on EPO don't have that kind of cardio. This is crazy cardio. This is like something freakish. And he's like, he thinks some of it's genetic, but Marab says it's not. No, Marab says, no, he was to get tired. I was to get tired. But he's just, I mean, he's a freak. He's a freak. And he just keeps getting better with his technique. He gets better with everything. His, that drive is not just for his cardio, that drive is for his whole skill set.

2:43:42So he's a fucking monster. And then Ilya Taporia, who's fighting Charles Olivera at the end of the month, like, that guy is insane. That guy's knocked out two of the greatest feather weights of all time. Volkanovsky and Max Holloway. Nobody knocked those guys out in featherweight before. And he did it. And he did it and he made it look easy. You know, he made it look like they, like he's just on another level from everybody. You know, and then now he's moving up to 155 pounds. He's like, decided he cleared out that division. He's moving up. Like he's insane. Yeah. There's guys like that that are just so, they're just, their level is above everybody else's level.

2:44:16And with Ilya, it's everything. It's his submissions, his kicks, his punches, everything. He can do anything. I mean, he does everything perfect. All his technique is perfect. And he's fucking driven and ultra confident. You know, this is an amazing time for the sport, man. It's a crazy time because these guys that are coming in with like one fight in the UFC, they look like world -class contenders, like right away. Yeah. What's cool because it seems like it's like a really, it's a really good way to get like obscure people into the spotlight. Like it doesn't seem, it seems like if you can just go in there and fight good that you, it's like you can really work your way up to the top pretty quick, I guess.

2:44:54Like I guess it does take some fights. But like if you're, even if you're like, the guys that are in the top at the UFC now, how many fights do you think it takes them before they wreck it? Like how many big wins is it really just a winner too? I guess if they're big enough and they're like, it really depends entirely on their skill set and who they're fighting and how good they are when they get into the organization. Like the best example of a quick rise to the top is Alex Pereira. But Alex Pereira is one of the greatest kickboxers of all time. And Alex Pereira went, he entered into the UFC, like a lot of people were completely unaware of him.

2:45:26And me as a giant kickboxing fan, he was the guy that I was like, when this motherfucker comes over here, bodies are gonna drop, man. I'm telling you, you ain't never seen nothing like. And I remember Daniel Kormier saying to me like, really? I'm like, dude, I'm telling you. I was pointing to him on his debut. I go, that's the motherfucker. That's the boogie man of boogie man. I go, he knocks people into orbit. And I was showing him some videos of kickbox and fights and he was like, holy shit. I go, dude, everybody he touches. He's got the touch of death. And then we start steam rolling people in the UFC and he knocked out Strickland in one round.

2:46:01And the opening fight that he had when he hit that dude with a flying knee and just sent him into orbit. And I was like, whoa, oh my God, dude, this guy is scary. So that guy was within three years was a two division world champion, which is just nuts, like nobody's done that before. And you know, defended the light heavyweight title multiple times in just a few years. And he's only really been fighting MMA for like five or six years. That's the excitement I think of MMA over other athletics, maybe it's just the unpredictability of it that like anybody can just come in and catch everybody off guard.

2:46:37And you just don't ever know, it's just. Well, it's specialists. So the thing about specialists is, if you're a specialist kickboxer, which you really need is someone to teach you how to fight on the ground. Like, and he had Glover to share, who is also a former UFC light heavyweight champion, one of the greatest and an amazing technician. And Glover helped him along with all those other training partners, avoid the takedowns, learn how to fight off, learn how to fight on the ground, learn how to get back up to your feet. When you got a guy who's the best of the best kickboxers, every fight starts standing up.

2:47:08So while you're standing there with him, it's just you gotta get that guy to the ground. You gotta get that guy to the ground. This is terrifying. And he'll fight with broken toes. He fought, he's fought so fucked up before. He fought when he fought Yuri Prohaska the first time. He had a completely blown out knee. Like his knee wouldn't support him. He knocked Yuri Prohaska out with a left hook. And then he got his knee fixed, came back, fought him again and iced him in the second round. And he's just different man. He fought his last fight with a broken hand and he had a neurovirus. And still lost a close decision in the fifth round.

2:47:45Maybe it almost, yeah, it almost helped, like almost helps him like that. Nah, it doesn't. It definitely does. You could tell his energy was lower in that last fight that it has been in the past. Like the Khalil round tree fight was a fucking master class. And Khalil was like one of the best strikers in the light heavyweight division. Alex just pieced him apart. I think about what happens to, what happens after their careers are finished. Like what do they, where do they direct all of that energy to? Or does it, is it difficult when you're, does it, is difficult when you're a high level fighter and then you get out of it like?

2:48:16Oh, it's so difficult. Your whole identity is wrapped up in it, you know? I just message Sean Strickland the other day because I saw that he was talking about his investments and that he's got, he's got four million in investments and he's doing really well. And then, you know, he's got a plan. Like Sean is very intelligent. He's wild and crazy. He says crazy shit, but very intelligent. And I was very happy. And I imagine that makes me feel so good that you've like, you're really thinking about like having money in the bank, retirement, investments, so you're good. You're good forever. And he'll always be able to do seminars and things along those lines.

2:48:50People, it's very valuable to be like a former champion. You can visit gyms and people will line up and pay 50 bucks and you can teach them things that'll genuinely help their careers. So a lot of guys have a thing, like me should take, she was just in Austin recently and she went to Ways to Well to get some work on our knee and she was out here doing seminars. So she's traveling their family around the country and they'll go and she'll teach a seminar to gym and then they'll go, you know, on an RV trip. You know, nice family time. Have a good time in between, but they can make a lucrative living doing that, which is really nice, you know?

2:49:25It's hard for them to, the identity things very hard. Well, I just wanted to, like the, it seems like some of those people are, well, you know, this is totally different than MMA fighters, but I look at like a great example is like that David Goggan's type of thing where they're like just at it. Like you said, dude, man, like you fight in the next day you're able to go run. It's just like what happens when all that slows down? Do you redirect that somewhere? Do you think it's difficult? Like if you don't have somewhere to just, you know, you found this really effective way to displace all of this because obviously those people have got something in them that like drives their spirit to be able to do that.

2:49:56Well, I think George St. Pierre has the healthiest model because George still trains almost every day. And George still comes to Austin to train with the Donners and Gordon Ryan, all these elite Jiu -Jitsu guys. And he'll still go to Thailand and train Muay Thai. He's a genuine martial artist. And maybe he stopped before he destroyed himself too much. He definitely did. He definitely did. He's in good. He definitely did. Do you think those guys will ever come back? Like like a, I know there was rumors about, do you think they would ever, do you think for them that it would be beneficial for them to come back and fight once they've been out of it for so long?

2:50:31Like the Tyson fight and stuff, was that, that seemed like, and I don't even know, that's a whole another can of worms. And I'm not articulate enough in this space to like give my opinions on things. But I just, I would have liked to see Mike Tyson just, I don't know, just seemed like that just wasn't, it didn't seem like he enjoyed that coming back. I bet he enjoyed the 20 million bucks. He did, I bet. I think that's why he did it. He did it for money. And I'm happy that he could do it for money. I'm happy that he could make a large amount of money doing something like that. That's all say about that.

2:50:58But you're not supposed to be getting hit really hard in the head when you're 57 or 58 years old. It's probably not the best thing for your health. And at a certain point in time, I kind of stopped kickboxing for the most part when I was like 30. I was like, this is just not good for you. You know, I was still sparring and I was, I was acting at the time. So I was doing news radio and I was still going to the gym and kickboxing. And you know, sometimes I'd have like a little black eye that I'd have to get touched up with makeup and shit before I go out to the set like. And I kept doing jujitsu, but jujitsu, I would get black eyes and jujitsu sometimes too.

2:51:34But jujitsu didn't, I didn't get my head rattled the same way. Like you still accidentally catch a knee sometimes and or your head bite each other sometimes. Something elbow, stuff happens. But it's not like the constant jabs to the face and kicks to the body. And you just get, you're beating your brain up. You know, and it's just not good for you. And at a certain point in time, like if you're an athlete and you're competing professionally, you manage it, you do your best to recover and take care of your health, but there's a price you pay. And I don't think you should pay that price if you don't have to.

2:52:09You know, and that's what that's the thing about sparring that's like, especially if you're sparring with someone who's like a hard hitter and they're not that good at pulling punches. And then it gets competitive. And next thing, you know, you're basically fighting. Full -on fighting. Happens all the time. Happens all the time. Happens in a lot of gyms, it happens more often than not. You're actually fighting rather than sparring. You're just lucky. You're not knocking each other unconscious every day. You know, because it's like your skill. But there's something to be said for that of your fighting because like you got to be aware that there's real consequences to these shots.

2:52:39And if someone's pity -padding you, inspiring, maybe you'll develop a false sense of security and someone crack you. You got to be on the edge all the time. Like for us, the hobby who I was talking about earlier would pay sparring partners to try to knock George St. Pierre out. He would pay them. I want you to try to knock him out, like for real. Because he wanted George to be like really prepared. You know, you're going in there and you know, you're going to fight some fucking killer. You know, you can't be kind of half, you know. You're fighting Carlos Conner. He's going to try to take your head off.

2:53:07You got to be training with guys that are trying to take your head off, you know. When they're in the middle of those fights, is it a lot of muscle memory or are they consciously thinking? Like I feel like a lot of it, they've trained so much that it's more automatic, right? When they get in that fight, like like the way you see these slow motion replays of fights and they're able to almost predict their opponents move and like react in real time with it and like just use it to their advantage. That's all sort of almost, it's not involuntary, but they've like trained their muscle memory to react that way.

2:53:38I guess more so than them. Yeah, more so than them having to like think, like, oh, here it comes, I'm going to, you know. It's just so incredible to watch it like the way it's, sometimes those fights are so good, they almost, like, it's almost like choreographed. It's so good the way they're able to like use their opponents movements and to their own advantage and stuff. That's what's so, so crazy to me watching the, just watching how like a human being can get to that level to where it's so good, you know. When someone's at the elite level, like the highest of high levels, it's an amazing thing to watch.

2:54:10Like there's a guy who's defending his flyweight title at the end of June. Alejandra Pantosa. He's one of the best fighters of all time. I mean, he's so fucking good, but he's 125 pounds. So people, you know, they don't appreciate him as much. If that guy was 170, he'd be a fucking superstar. He's so good. He's so good everywhere. Elite black belt on the ground, nasty striking, hyper aggressive, just dominant. Just comes in, he has his look in his eyes like, I am here to fuck you up. And it's awesome to watch. I mean, he's like, when a guy reaches the pinnacle of his career, like when he's at the height of his powers, when he's at the peak of his performance and career, and as a elite MMA fighter, it's something to behold, man.

2:54:56It really is. When you watch a guy, just piece a guy up and take him apart, like, God damn. You know, I'd never get bored with it. Never, never get bored calling the fights, never get bored. Like when I know it's a UFC night, I'm like, oh baby. Here we go. It still gets you excited, just like it did at the beginning. And Daniel Kormier, who is a two division world champion, who sit next to me, he gets fired up. I mean, he's like, grab him, my shoulder's whole man, we go, here we go. We get so fired up. And it's, you know, as far as excitement generated, I think it's the most exciting thing in the world.

2:55:28I don't think there's anything like two people trying to figure each other out. Yeah. I mean, and then when someone's in that flow state, it's amazing thing to watch. It's beautiful. When they really hit that flow state, and they just, everything is just perfect. Oh man, that's so hard to get there. It's like an art form that you really can only, truly appreciate if you understand the amount of effort that it took to get to that point. If you can do a little bit of it, you can do it somewhat. You know, you have to be able to do some martial arts to really appreciate what they're doing. You know, you can see someone kick something in the head and you're like, wow, that's crazy.

2:56:02But to really know how hard it is to pull off what he did, it's just like, it's easy to watch. It's like a bunch of world star hip hop where they're just like sucker punch in each other. But to watch a guy exhibit that kind of skill on somebody else knowing that like, and not even knowing, like I said, just meeting like the few UFC fighters that I've met and stuff, just looking at him and being like, I should do like, these these are just animals, you know, like a star. And then to watch somebody else be able to exhibit that kind of, just to kind of like unleash that kind of skill on him is just, you're right.

2:56:32It's such a raw, it unlocks such a, it unlocks that sort of monkey part of our brain. It's just like, yeah, you know, it's so, it's hard to, yeah, it's such a, such a human thing, I guess. Yeah, like when people are really into cricket and someone scores in cricket, they get excited. I don't give a fuck. But if somebody kicks somebody in the head, everybody knows what happened. Well, that's the, that's the, I think that, that's the same psychology behind chicken fighting, which is surprisingly prevalent. Like where we recorded this song and all that still, but like with the, it's kind of the same like that.

2:57:05That's just, that's what they do up there. They don't hit each other. They just get chickens and do it. And they gamble. That's the big things gambling on chicken fights. It's a big, it's a big deal roosters. Oh, yeah, it's a big deal up there, yeah. I was just telling a story of the day about this guy that was my landscaper that took me to this Mexican neighborhood that he lived in and his buddy had all these chickens, like in cages, like all over the place. He had these roosters and they had a big pit where they would roast goats and they would just get the chickens out, put them in the box and gamble.

2:57:32And it was like, I was explaining like, you want to talk about like integrated societies. This was a completely Mexican neighborhood in LA. Like none of the signs are in English. Everything is in Spanish. Everybody spoke Spanish. Wow. You go down the street here. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. This fucking roosters everywhere, man. But it's like that, that's part of their culture. It's cruel and awful, but so is chicken farming, you know? Yeah, they make soup out of the chickens after they have them fight each other. It's kind of fucked up. But it's just, it's that same sort of like, it's the same, it goes back to like the Coliseum.

2:58:06It's that same kind of thing. Like it's that part of our brain that like, everybody's got some chase to get there. But yeah, I've always wondered that with the fighters. The worst is dog fighting. Yeah, that's the one I, you know, that one makes my stomach turn. Right. That one bothers me because they like fighting. They really do, pit bulls love it. They're fighting, they're fighting each other in the face and wagging their tails. They really enjoy it. But it's like, God, don't do that. Don't do that. You just like, we don't want that. Yeah, you know? Yeah, maybe it's when it's something you eat, you don't feel so bad about it, but when it's a dog, it's like, I just love dogs to weigh too much.

2:58:40Man, that, that, to me, you know, and I know the dog wants to do it, which is even more fucked up, you know, they want to fight, but they're bred for it. That's what's so crazy. People are so psycho, they bred a dog that wants to fight all the time and will fight anything. They'll fight bulls. They used to use them to grab bulls. Yeah. Yeah. There are no dogs, right? Well, you know, where I was at in Virginia, we had, I, yeah, I was, I don't know if I'd say we were officially dating or not. I kind of was hoping we were, but I was, there was this girl I used to talk to a lot in middle school and they, you know, they weren't, they didn't live too far away from Michael Vicks place when all that went down.

2:59:15So she actually had some puppies that were originally, they never fought. They were still puppies when he got busted, but they were some of Vicks dogs that she had. I remember as a kid and that was like, yeah, I remember when all that went down, I didn't live, you know, we weren't relatively that far away from where all that happened, but. That was a real eye -opening experience for a lot of people. They're like, wait, what? That guy's doing that? That's crazy. But I'm the same way. I have, dogs and humans are like at the same level of importance to me almost, you know? Like, I finally, I didn't, it's not in any way to say replace, but just like, for me, I've always, I'm used to having three or four dogs around because once you train, if you train a couple dogs, real good and you get a couple more, nine times out of 10, they'll just learn everything from you kind of get this pack mentality and so I've had four forever and then I'd gotten down the two when I lost hoots, the white shepherd.

3:00:06So I finally just got this black German shepherd off this lady who was real, really nice lady and it wasn't, she didn't necessarily neglect the dog, but the dog was just a breeders dog. So all she did was just have puppies with it. And so like, here I am, I'm taking this five -year -old black German shepherd down like to go swimming in the creek with us and stuff. And like, it was like her first time stepping on a stick, you know, she stepped on a stick and like jumped completely in there. Like she didn't know what it, you know, now within two weeks now she's like swimming in the creek with them and running all around and she acts like she's a farm dog, but like this dog had just kind of been in this lady's front yard for years, I guess, and just didn't, hadn't even gotten to, but to me it's like here I am, I'm like right, it's like, you know, they're like, they're my children, you know, they just, I can't separate a dog in a human and level of them.

3:00:48You know, it's like that, like you're just, like it's like that theoretical scenario where the train's coming and you gotta figure out which way to switch the tracks and it's like elderly people or dogs and you're like, I don't know, but I'm with you. I love, yeah, I just love dogs. I like people more than dogs, but I love dogs. But yeah, people are more important to me. But it's close, it's close. There's some people that I would kill for my dog. Hey, well, I'm here. I'm gonna go pick up poppy or whatever it's, I gotta, I wish I would have, I wish I would have saved him on there. I think his name was poppy or buddy or something, but that little chihuahua at the, he made society I gotta go pick him in.

3:01:25I'm like, I don't know, he's really goofy. Why not, man? He's like 12 years old or something. So he just needs somewhere to go, you know? Well, you'll give him the last few years of his life. He's awesome. Oh, and then he'll be telling all the other people. Oh, for him, he came and got me. Hey, they're rich men from rich men guy. What a sweetheart. Hey, he likes me more than people. Yeah, yeah, this is exciting. I, the mothership in just being able to go in there and do music and stuff is gonna be nuts. So I've got a few, like I brought, I got a friend of mine named Craig, who's like one of my buddies growing up who does just like amateur state, but he's really funny guys.

3:01:59I got him doing a little bit and I've got hit cock 45 son, John, who he does comedy in Chicago right now. He's gonna do a little stand up thing there and just, it'll just be fun. I'm just, it'll be real cool. I got the guys that opened for me, the Davidson brothers, they're gonna do a couple songs. They're really good and just, I don't know, I've been, this has been like, through all the stress and chaos of the last time for many months of things going on and stuff being rearranged and all. This has been like my beacon that I've held on to of like, we just gotta get to the mothership, then everything will work out, you know.

3:02:31Well, we've been really looking forward to having you. Everyone and the staff, all the comics are real pumped, everybody's excited. I just couldn't believe the reception I got, like even when I came with Tom, that first time just how everybody sort of took me in, like, I don't know, I'm just sort of the, well, also, a lot of people don't even know who I am because all they've seen of me is like, just the internet stuff and all the political stuff. So it was really surprising the first time even when we went to that mothership. How, I don't know, just everybody there just was like, very respectful and like, and it just kind of like, welcome with open arms.

3:03:03I kind of, I thought I was going in there like really like kind of an outsider and it was way more receptive than I've ever been in Nashville, you know, like with music people. Yeah, they just, I don't know like William Montgomery and all those guys are just so, so nice. And so just like, you know, you know, they're funny and they can make you laugh up on stage. But even in person, they're all just like, really good people, like, they're all just really genuinely good people, you know. Yeah, we've got a great tribe. Yeah. It's a great tribe. And the whole mentality of the club is like that. Like everybody that's there is cool.

3:03:36You know, we've really, I think in comedy, comedy still, there's a lot of struggle in comedy for people to make it. I think even more so than in music, like that some of those people were telling me stories about like how tough it is to go out. You know, trying to make a, make trying to make a career out of comedy. Like I guess unless you get a big Netflix special or you get a big break, like it's paycheck to paycheck for a long time, maybe for some of those guys. Like until they get, or until they get to where they're like a regular at a big club like that, you're just, you're just off, you know, you're out, you're out putting yourself into a very vulnerable position a lot where people can just say, oh screw that guy.

3:04:09You know, it's just like. But you have to do that to get good at it. But I think, I think they have some appreciation for it that maybe other people don't. Like they're like it, like I think that's, I pick up on that, like they get this, they get that everybody in there is struggling trying to make it and have put a lot of their heart and effort into it and it just seems like it's, there's a lot of respect in there for everybody and stuff. Yeah, 100%. Everybody realizes that there's only one way to do it. You got to work hard for a long time. That's the only way. It's one of the few things in life that there's no shortcut to.

3:04:38To developing material and getting good at standup it's a 10 year process. It's a 10 year degree. You want to actually become a real standup. It's probably about 10 years. 10 years of grinding. And for a lot of people like, oh, that's too long. It is too long. Yeah, that's why most people don't do it. But if you could do it, the people that are doing it and have been doing it for like 10 plus years, like all those people hanging out in the green room, they're all so cool. It's a lot like Jiu Jitsu in that regard. It's like people that appreciate the difficulty of something and are really obsessed with getting better at it.

3:05:09And now obsessed with helping other people get better at it too. Because also like Jiu Jitsu, the more people that you have around you that are really funny, the funnier you'll get, everybody has to be sharp, because the whole show, like sometimes I'll do these Joe Rogan and Friends show. And it's fucking a sauna mod, Brian Simpson, Tony Hinchcliffe, Shane Gillis, Mark Norman. And then I go up. It's like the show's an hour and a half old before I even get on stage. So it's like you have to stay sharp, you have to, and if you're not, you got to pick up the slack, you got to figure it out, get back to the laptop.

3:05:38Let's go, you got to rewrite, do this, do that. But that's what we're all doing. You know, we're all, it's a vibrant place that there's a mindset attached to that place. It's very positive. Yeah. That makes me real happy. And I'm real happy that you're going to be there as we can. Yeah, I think there's some other ship things got a long future ahead of it in that sense of like, just reshaping, I don't know. I just, it's like a, it is kind of a beacon right now. And like, I don't know, it's like, there's a big light shining up in the sky. And that's kind of where everybody's looking. It seems like in that, you know, it's a, and even with Kill Tony, it's just cool that they, that's the coolest part about that.

3:06:14Is it like, you can just go right in there, anybody can go right in there and give it their all, you know, for better, for worse. Like, you might make it. Look, you might be William Montgomery, you know, you might be Cam Patterson. You might be Hans Kimmer. And these people that have like legitimate careers now because of that show, it's, it's pretty awesome. Oliver Anthony, this weekend, sorry everybody. It's all sold out. You're not going to be able to get in, but I'm fucking pumped. I can't wait. Yes, let me say. Thank you for being here, man. And thanks for the podcast. It was a lot of fun.

3:06:43I really enjoyed it very much. And it's great to see you find your place, man. You're getting it. You got it, you know, like you're, you're here now. You're established in the beginning, like what the fuck is happening? But now you're like, you got a plan and you're moving. It was so many pitfalls and so many things. But it's a, it's a, it's a contribution of, I'd say, you know, like at the very beginning, you, Jamie Johnson, David Kushner and just a couple people who were like, had been in it for a while and were able to, well with David, you know, he was fairly recent, but we were both, but just those people just being able to guide me along at the first six months was when I could have really slipped up hard and like could have just, I just was so thankful that I got through all that without being married to anybody or any kind of like, at least everything's still.

3:07:25No, you did it the right way. Yeah, you did it the right way. So I appreciate the confidence there because it's a terrifying thing. The man you been going to, you've been going to work every day for some guy that you hate and some job you hate for so long for like 50 grand a year. And then some dude is like showing you like, you know, like and they have a really convincing way of doing it. Just like think about how easy you can get preyed into buying some shit, use car on a lot. These people are like that, but like they're like, they're like the professional UFC fighters of psychological warfare.

3:07:55Like they're gonna make you feel like you're so stupid and like you've just tricked everybody for five minutes and you better, you better do it while it lasts, but. And if you don't come with us, it's never gonna make it. You're never gonna make it, but you were right. They were wrong. And I don't care if nothing, like I said, if nothing else ever comes of this, this has been just such a blessing to be able to just meet all the people I have and experience it. And like, it's just cool, man, I don't care. I don't care where else where it goes from here. I'm just totally, I'm just enamored by it all.

3:08:21It's just been just another dimension I'm living in, dude. I don't know, it's like not real life, but it's beautiful. Yeah. All right, thanks for being here. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right, maybe in a couple more years. Fuck yeah, a couple months. Fuck it. All right, bye everybody.

3:08:48Are you ready?

From the publisher

Oliver Anthony is a singer-songwriter of country and folk music. His debut album, “Hymnal of a Troubled Man’s Mind,” is available everywhere music is sold.https://www.oliveranthonymusic.com

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#2337 - Oliver Anthony

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