#2390 - Jack Carr

26:56He's got this crazy long hair. He lost a ton of weight for this thing. He's like battling the storms and his demons and then gets to Mozambique and same thing. Goes through this second episode where he's out there doing this poacher thing, using his skills out there. And we filmed in Africa. So we got these amazing, just the landscapes, beautiful. It's probably one of the most beautiful visions of Africa that I've ever seen on film. It's just incredible. And Chris is totally into it, of course. And the guy who got to play Rich Hastings, I don't know if we can say his name yet, But he's awesome.

27:24He is so good. And so he's kind of like the older guy kind of mentoring James Reese along Chris Pratt And and he's a guy's guy like he I'll say his name Arnold Vosloo and that's what's got the bad guy from Blood Diamond and And the mummy and such an awesome guy and he's a guy's he's like one of us And so you didn't need to tell him like what to do with the rifle like he knew he knew what to do with that double rifle He's not messing around. Yeah, so so it was so fun to do that But that is a risk that Amazon's taking is to do those first two episodes to invest all this money in this thing where it has something to do with the development of the character, but not really to do with the rest of the story and him then saving the world.

28:01But they went along with it. And that's that's because they saw the numbers from the first from the first season. Yeah. And they'll never share those numbers with us. But we know what they are because there have been like almost no notes in this one. Like the first one, there was notes constantly. Like they didn't want Chris to get somebody. They were very they didn't want that to happen. and then we did it anyway and they ended up being on every billboard in LA for the opening month. Of course. All that. They didn't want the Secretary of Defense to die. So there was all sorts of things that they were very nervous about but they ended up going with us.

28:29They ended up trusting us but now we didn't have to fight for it in the second season or in Dark Wolf because we have that trust. So that's pretty cool. That is nice. That's the beautiful thing about a successful series. They leave you alone. Gives you more freedom. Don't fuck it up. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Instead of like we got to make it better because it's not a hit it's don't fuck it up. Exactly. Exactly, and Taylor was here. Taylor was awesome. So what a great guy. Such a good dude. Exactly. He's so cool. So different than like that character he plays in American Prime Evil is so scary. So good.

28:59So good. So realistic. Like you really believe he's a fucking savage. Like you really believe everything about it. The way he fucks people up. Like even what he looks like. You talked about how much weight he lost for that. When he takes his clothes off and you see the scars all over his body. like whoa yeah they went through it on that one and you went through yeah Pete Berg was on was on fucking man he's awesome it's like when you see that you like you believe that guy I'm like that guy looks like someone who would be living like that back then oh yeah and and he got beat up on that he went right from that into our show where he's beat up again and we had to do this show this thing in episode 4 where I have my cameo where I get stitched up the side and get killed I got part of to be part of the stunt man killed again I get killed again yeah yeah I get killed in true believer too and it's a good one it's a Are people going to see that it's you this time?

29:47You've got to give yourself a fake nose. Yeah, yeah. It's the same. It's kind of like we're making a little thing about the show, like I always die somehow. Like Stephen King does? Something like that. I don't think he dies in them, though. I think they just kind of do a... He's been in a bunch of his movies. He doesn't die in his movies. It's not Who Killed Kenny. Exactly. So this will be a little different. Our twist on it. Our take on it. That's awesome. Yeah. So that's fun to do that stuff. But Taylor had to run through these cobblestone streets through this tunnel, and that's the one where I get stitched up and fall over, so I get a little stuntman pay out of that.

30:15It might, not quite$1 ,000, I don't think, for taking that big fall. Bro, nobody works harder than stuntmen. Seriously, those guys and girls take a friggin' beating. They take a fuckin' beating. They really do. It's horrible. Episode five, maybe, maybe six, there's a, with this guy and the big dude and one of the girls in the show getting this fight in this apartment. I don't know if you saw that episode, But the stunt person who got thrown into this refrigerator, oh, my God. And there was like a tiny little pad in the refrigerator, and she just gets thrown into this thing. And we try to keep every fight realistic, so we made a very deliberate decision at the beginning of the Terminalist not to do the John Wick style.

30:55Because you just don't want to do John Wick style but not as good. You don't want to have everything authentic and realistic and then have this choreographed fight sequence that looks visually stunning but is not really realistic for anybody who's ever been in a fight or watched UFC or anything like that. So we wanted to make sure that these things are primal, visceral, and just physical and brutal. But it's a smaller girl against this huge guy. So we didn't want to have that girl power thing. And all of a sudden people roll their eyes and say, you know, one punch from this guy and she's done.

31:26So she shoots him like three times before the fight as he's rushing in on her. So, okay, we're going to even this out. And still some people got upset about it online. They're like, how could she, you know, best this guy in a fight? He's huge. and well, because she shot him three times and then in the fourth time in the middle of the fight and she takes a beating. But the stunt lady who did this was amazing and she took a beating too, especially when she got thrown into that fridge. God, especially stunt women. Yeah, yeah. That's even harder. Yeah, yeah, that was, and it's hard to watch because you're talking to them and then they go on set and do their thing and you're like, oh, but you feel like you know them now so you feel like you just know this person that's now getting beat up and you're watching from that video village and you're like, oh, just cringing seeing this stuff.

32:05But it's good, it came out fantastic. That's why guys like Tom Cruise are so nuts. So crazy. Because he does his own stunts. So crazy. He's worth a billion dollars and he jumps off roofs. He jumps from rooftop to rooftop and breaks his fucking ankle. Did you ever see that? Oh, yeah. Mission podcast. Sure. Shatters his ankle and then keeps running. Yeah. Keeps running. From Fallout, I think. You can see the ankle shatter. You see the ankle hit the side. Yeah. And you can see him. You see it give in. You see the ankle give in. He'll go, that ankle's fucked. And then he lands on it and he just fucking hobbles off running.

32:36Yep. And save the scene. Yep. I actually watched it on the plane back. We did a, I got my flight like last second. So I was in economy between two people. And so when I do that, I can't work. And so on like a 10 hour flight, I decided to watch the movie. So I watched Fallout again just because of that. Because I wanted to see if I could tell what was filmed after and what was filmed before that sequence. And it's hard to tell. It's really hard to tell how much they filmed after he shatters his ankle and limps off. Because you see him kind of limp off. But then he's running again. Yeah. You're like, what?

33:05I don't know. So, yeah, that's amazing that he does all that stuff. He probably just got a cortisone shot, taped it up, and just dealt with the pain. Let's go. I don't get it. Yeah, that's amazing. He did that one thing where he lit a parachute on fire and then had to pull a second parachute. In the last one. And it turns out that they did that scene like four or five times. Or the jumping off the cliff with the motorcycle. Yeah, what the fuck, dude? That was all day they did that. Maybe multiple days. I don't know. Oh, my God. That's incredible. That's so insane. Yeah. What kind of insurance do they have on those movies?

33:34I think he does it probably himself. He probably insures it himself. I don't think anybody would actually insure that. I might be wrong. That's just a guess. What a nut. Yeah. Maybe Scientology works. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. I mean, what a fucking nut. No one's like that guy. No. I mean, there's no one that is that successful that takes those kind of risks. Yeah. And all the other actors say the same thing. They're like, no, that's what the stunt people do. He's one of one. Yeah. He gets in motorcycle races. He does those scenes. he does car chase scenes it's pretty cool I mean it does add a level of authenticity and you go to it for that so you can see Tom Cruise doing his own stunts you know helicopter yeah five helicopter and that one two two three of them ago but that was killer too fucking crazy yeah yeah jumping out with was a Henry Cavill and him jump out the back of the plane and fall out in there but yeah he's jumping out of those planes and it's legitimate for him yeah there goes fucking mine separated his finger joints or something in this course he Oh, man.

34:32Of course it did. Do you know how hard it is to hang? Just don't hang. I do it every day. I do a minute and 30 seconds every day. I've decided to try this to see what it does for my back because it decompresses your back. And I've heard that if you just do it every day, it's like a life changer. So I'm like, okay. So I'm like 10 days in now. Nice. 10 days of every day, minute 30, I hang. At that minute and 20, I got to check the phone. Oh, yeah. Fuck. Oh, yeah. I was doing the same. So after I was here last time, we took a picture together, and I saw it, and I'm like, oh, oh, my gosh, I look horrible.

35:06I look so out of shape. And it wasn't the height of my out of shapeness because I think we did that in June. By late August, or no, late July, that was about six years of not doing anything. We talked about saunas. We talked about all this. And I'm like, I've got to do something. Just writing. You've just been writing. I've just been writing. It's been so many projects, and I put myself at the bottom of my priority list and focus on family and writing and then the screenwriting and all the other projects that are out there. And it's amazing. I feel very fortunate for that. but I did get way out of shape and the worst shape of my life.

35:34And it showed in that photo that we took. I'm like, Oh, look at Joe. He looks in such great shape. I'm like, so August 1st or something. I'm like, all right, I'm in. And I started doing the hang of course. And then I have this outside workout area. It's like, um, it's like Rocky four style. And so it's right there in the mountains. And so I'm just start, I'm just all in getting after it. I'm doing the sauna. We rented a place in town that, uh, that had a sauna to get our kids closer to school for a year to see, cause we're kind of remote. We're kind of up there and remote. And so we wanted our son to have the experience of riding his bike to school and all that stuff.

36:01So we rented a house, but it had an amazing sauna in it. So I was doing that exactly 17 minutes and 30 seconds, whatever you're supposed to do. Whenever I heard someone on this podcast tell me I was supposed to do it, whatever you told me to do, I was doing that. And I was going outside, getting like 10 minutes of sun here, 10 minutes of sun there, doing the workouts, doing the cardio stuff, doing all of it. And I got in great. It's probably one of the best shapes of my life. Really? I was feeling so good. I felt like I could just throw people through walls. I was feeling so great. But I was doing everything.

36:27I was doing the sun. I was eating right. I was not eating the bread. So I did everything. And then I got to January 1st and I'm out there in the snow. I dug a path out to my thing in the gym and I'm working out in my outside gym doing the hangs, all that in the snow. And then I was like, oh, I think I had a deadline December 1st a month ago for this book. I'm like, I got to start writing. So I'll stop. I'll stop. And I haven't done anything since. It was only writing, only screenwriting, everything. So I'm finding that balance. I need to find that balance. I'm not quite there yet. How many hours do you write a day?

36:56Well, as I get closer to the, as I pass these deadlines, I should say, it becomes all consuming. And it's, especially for something like this, when I'm in 1968, I mean, I really felt like I had to transport myself back to that time to write this thing. And so that was all, as soon as I woke up, bam, I'm in and it is all day long. Until you go to sleep. And until I go to sleep, until super late. And then I'm up, because the kids still get up at the same time. And so I'm up, so I'm maybe an hour of sleep, two hours of sleep, whatever. And then I'm up out of a cannon and it's going. So it's not, not healthy, not healthy.

37:24So I'm going to get on a better schedule here. Our son's going to a boarding school now. Our daughter's in college. We have our middle child with his very special needs, so he's still at home with us. He'll be with us forever. And he's a sweet, sweet little guy. But that, I think, will give me a little more time to maybe find some balance with the health and the writing. Right. So I need to do that at some point. But typically, a lot of writers aren't very, especially the older ones. From back in the day, they're not the healthiest of individuals. The opposite. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about it a bunch of times in this podcast, but my favorite Stephen King books were all when he was doing coke.

37:54He doesn't even remember writing a couple of them, right? I know. If that was his friend, I'd get him a Duke O 'Kan. I tell my publisher that. I'm like, I feel like I need to do some of that just to get this done. I need to take a turn here. A lot of guys use Adderall. A lot of writers use Adderall. A lot of journalists use Adderall as well. And I think also that makes them a little more impulsive. Their work gets a little aggressive. Yeah, interesting. You kind of see, especially journalists, when they get real shitty, like, oh, he's probably on Adderall. Oh, interesting. I think it contributes to the culture of journalism in the modern era with this sort of like really shitty Yeah attack journalism that's become very prevalent.

38:34I don't think it's a small factor I think Adderall consumption has it plays a factor in that it I'm sure it does. I mean it changes something then social media of course it changes something Yeah, so nicotine does it nicotine has been very helpful for authors nicotine is great. Yeah, yeah from what I understand. Do you use cigars or do you do like pouches? What do you do? Don't do anything. Nothing? No nicotine? Nope. Coffee and coffee, water, red wine, whiskey. Red wine, whiskey, inspiration. Yeah, but not too much. You know, just a little bit every now and again. Yeah, yeah, nothing too crazy.

39:05Just to say fuck it. Yeah, just I feel like I should be doing something like that, but not too much. I mean, I built a library and one side of it was a bar and I never got to touch anything because at book signings, people bring me a lot of whiskey. And so I have it in my bags or I mail it from the road or whatever. And so I have this whole wall of whiskey and other stuff, too. But I never get to partake in it because I'm always writing. I'm always like, I could pour something, but no, this is my time. It's quiet. I'm not being interrupted. Go, go, go. And it's just all on. So I haven't used any performance-enhancing supplements.

39:34I need to do some, like, AlphaBrain or something, probably. That helps. Something like that. AlphaBrain is great. There's an AlphaBrain black label that's a new one that's a stronger version of AlphaBrain. I think we have some. I'll give you some when we leave. We also have AlphaBrain gummies. Do we have any on the table? No. Nice. I eat those things like candy. But there's a bunch of really good nootropics that you should look into. Another one is NeuroGum. We have some of that stuff. I like that because it tastes good. It's gum, and it gives you a little nootropic boost. But I understand why authors do that stuff.

40:06Creatine is another great one. And creatine is really great for people with sleep deprivation. Oh, really? Yes. I was using that, so I did some supplements when I started working out. Again, I stopped it when I stopped working out. But I think I was doing that. Is it Thorn? Is that the one? You see on the UFC mat? Sure, yeah. So I was doing that. Yeah, so I was using their creatine and just some vitamins. You want like a lot though. Like people are taking five grams a day. You really want like 20 grams a day. And particularly when people are dealing with sleep deprivation. It also, for some reason, has like pretty great benefits, more so even for women, and sleep deprivation.

40:42There's been a bunch of different studies going on. but in terms of cognitive performance after sleep deprivation and reaction time after sleep deprivation, both of those things fall off, and there's a noticeable rise and improvement with creatine. Yeah, I don't think I was taking one scoop, whatever it says on the bottle. I'll do one scoop, whatever that. I bet it's five grams. I do four of those scoops. Oh, really? Okay. Well, when I get back after this and see myself in our photo today, I will get back to, I'll use four scoops. Well, it'll definitely make your muscles a little stronger and larger, but the reason I'm doing it is not just for that.

41:16It's for the brain. It's really good for the brain. Well, I was getting sleep during that time, too, which is why I didn't have a book on time. One of the reasons. One, I was going back to 1968. It took a lot longer than I thought for this research. And then, two, I was getting in shape at the same time. Were you listening to, like, 1968 music back then? How were you doing it? I did music. I did a playlist for it, put it on Spotify. So I was doing that. I was watching the Vietnam documentaries. I was reading everything I could possibly find on Vietnam from the day. These old Army Special Forces manuals that they had before the guys would go over there that talked about the Montagnard tribes they were going to be working with.

41:50For those that are watching or listening, it's like Apocalypse Now, like the Montagnards, like tribes and all that stuff. So I was doing that. And then I was reading the more modern stuff, too. I was reading things from the 70s, 80s. I got National Geographic magazines from the 60s. I think there's one from the late 50s even. So I was doing everything I possibly could to transport myself back, listening to some history podcasts about JFK, about Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, things that were happening here, about the election, Nixon's elections, everything that was happening in 1968. I was just trying to immerse myself in that world so that when I sat down to this, I didn't have to do a huge shift.

42:24And it would be, it was already had this, I was building on this foundation, whatever foundation I already had, as then I sat down in front of the computer to write rather than watching something here, contemporary, getting all upset about something that X is feeding me to keep me enraged and then then trying to jump back to 1968 instead I just like transported myself back there for it felt like months at a time that's probably healthier anyway I think it's much healthier much I think so I think it was a much healthier way to live in general so just live in the past folks that's what I'm trying to do today's too fucking confusing it is go live in the past I mean I'd love to go back I know I can't though but but I still try to go back to my vehicles through movies through things like that.

43:04Right. I tried to get two modern vehicles. I had to turn them back in. I know. You were telling me you got a Grenadier. I did a Grenadier. Yeah. And I was so excited to get it. I think I was the first person in Utah to get one. At least they told me I was anyway. And I got this thing. I was so excited. And this is not a hit on Enos Grenadiers. This is a hit on me not being able to adapt to the current times. It's a great vehicle. It was fast. They let me borrow one for a few months. Yeah, yeah. If you're looking for an off-road vehicle that's fully outfitted from the factory, you could do no better.

43:36It was awesome. Of course, I put every possible thing you could put on there. I'm like, I don't have time. I'm like, put everything on that for me. Just do the whole thing. And so they did. And it showed up. I was so excited for it. And then it started beeping at me. And I'm like, ah. That's my complaint. It beeps when you go one mile an hour, just a few miles an hour over the speed limit. Yes. I don't like that. I don't like where the speedometer is in the data. It's in the screen. Yeah, so there's no dashboard in front of you There's no like speedometer attack. It's not in front of you. You just see numbers to the right So you have to look over the right to see how fast you're going which is why they justify the beep So it makes you look over to let you know like oh look you're going see the beep.

44:18Oh look Let me look I don't want to look to the right at a screen ever if I don't have to yeah I want to look at it only if I'm following directions and that's it I know I want my fucking speedometer right in front of me. I know it's fast though that you hammer that thing It was fast. I mean you have some faster cars than I do It's capable and it's really capable off-road like if you drive that thing and it's fucking built like a tank It is like a tank if you look at like in like the idea was that they copied a Land Rover Defender Which they definitely did but if you look at a Land Rover Defender shut the doors on those things They feel like shit.

44:50It feels like it's made of a Pepsi can. It's amazing. Is there their aluminum? Fact those are like agricultural vehicles. Those are not vehicles for like rugged travel That's a G-wagon a G-wagon is like a that was designed for military applications. It's a fucking Stamp steel, I don't know if it's stamp steel whatever there's steel heavy fucking doors When you shut those doors like a chomp and that's how the grand deer is grand is like heavy. Yeah, it's like thick It's like a very durable vehicle. I feel like a lot of Aussies love them Yeah, because you can kind of just get right from the factory and you know a lot of those guys like to go off-road and you can get your factory Setting in the back where it's got all the electrical and everything so you could set up a stove You can set up a little refrigerator back there.

45:36It's all plugged in ready to go Mm-hmm. I love I mean that I love all that stuff and it's uh It's like they say it's like a defender 110 and G wagon had a baby for the I would say that's kind of yeah That's kind of true like the sides we can put all the Jerry cans and everything. It's all set up to mount stuff Yeah, I got it all set up. I was so excited No, and then I called them. I was like hey, can I get rid of this click and they said yeah And they walk me through the thing and I whatever I this is what I don't have an iPad I there's I just want a car right don't want to drive a computer Right, and so I'm in there.

46:06I turn it off and I'm like oh, thank you so much I'm driving like oh, it's not doing the clicking anymore. I stop I get out I go in and do something I get back in the car immediately. It's back on again click click click click click click I'm like, we're getting rid of this. I told my wife, I'm like, let's get rid of this thing. But it is awesome. Well, you're an old Land Cruiser guy. The problem is those cars have a charm. Yeah. There's a charm to those old Land Cruisers, especially the one that you have, the 60 Series. You drive one of those things, man, it's like that feels like you're involved in every part of the driving.

46:37It is. I love that. You feel the steering. My time machine. Yeah, it's like. Yeah, yeah. I love it. And you have a V8 in it, too. It's just like so you got modern power LS V8. Yep LS 3 is in there. So that's nice But that's has thick doors too much thicker than the 80s. Yeah, and I do like much theater But yeah much thicker but thicker I like the 80 series. I have two 80 series now both stock 96 and I love those because they're just modern enough, but they're they need someone to do a little work on them They make some strange noises, but they they work but they like my son like pick them up in school in it And he's like dad cuz it's still making this crazy it's almost like it's going over the speed limit thing, but it's constant.

47:15Some of them are fucking hundreds of thousands of miles. Yeah, these have over 100, both of them. So I love that. I have a 78 FJ40 that I love. So I love that one. And it's all completely restored, so it's all original for the most part. That's also original? Yeah. Fun getting on the highway with that thing, isn't it? Yeah, you go about 40 miles an hour tops. Tops. I mean, you're in that slow lane. Yes, so slow. It's so slow. But it's cool for zipping around town. I love that. Did you get an icon to make you one of those? I know it's on the list. It's on the list. Get them to make one of them beasts that they make.

47:45Because they make them with the giant V8s in them. Yeah, they do some serious work. That's fun. Yeah. So I think I'm a Land Cruiser guy, and I tested out the E-NOS didn't work out for me. But that's not to say that they won't work out for someone else. They're awesome vehicles. And if you're a modern-type person, get one for sure. Yeah, if you're into that style of, like, Defender-looking car, but you don't want all the bullshit that comes with owning a Defender, either get a refurbished one, like East Coast Defenders does a great job. They'll put a big engine in it and do it all right. Yeah, there's a bunch of them now that do that.

48:12The Grenadier is a great solution. I think they're going to come out with a new one that has more horsepower, and they'll probably improve some things. But I would like them to just give me a fucking dashboard. Yeah. Is that so hard? I mean, they're doing everything else old school. You have all these buttons and everything. It's all fucking old school looking like a jet fighter pilot. Yeah. With all the locking differential. I know. Give me a fucking speedometer. Just a regular speedometer. That's it. And a tack. Put it right in front of me. Thank you. And also make the lights so that the auxiliary lights will turn on when it's not in the off-road mode.

48:41I don't know if you tried that, but they're the auxiliary lights. Except for the light bar on the top with the other ones in the front, you have to be in off-road mode for some legal reason. So you have to, I mean, sure, someone can bypass it somehow. But when I come up to our house, there's no lights, and it's a long drive up there into the mountains. And I just want to hit the switch and have just daylight in front of me. And that was not possible with that. I got my Land Cruiser set up, or if I was in a dark field, you would think a UFO landed. Nice. And yours is 100 Series, right? No, I have an 80.

49:07Here's the 80? Okay. Yeah, Icon built me that one. It was TLC at the time. But they put bars all around it. That thing's sick. And bars in the back. So you could park and light up the perimeter. That's what I want. I want daylight. It's awesome. And then you put a tent on the roof, and you're out there in nature. I love it. I love it. I did drive, and I drove a G-Wagon yesterday. So we landed, went right to Staccato. And so they had a portion of G-Wagon right there. And I was like, oh, man, I think my wife's telling me I need to get something more modern. that's going to be reliable. We're not going to just break down all the time.

49:39And so I'm like, they said, well, drive this thing. And so I got in it. It was like a 2016. So it was before some changes, I guess, were made. And I think it was nice. Yeah. So 2016 would have two live axles. I think they got independent front suspension later. Yeah. I think that was like the 2022 or something like that. They started doing that. But I still can't do it. It's too LA, too Kardashian. Yeah, it's very Kardashian. But the reality of it is it's a military vehicle. The thing about G-Wagons, though, is people do take them and then they build them out for off-road. They don't do it with the AMG turbo fucking thing.

50:15But the regular one is a V8 anyway. It's got plenty of power. I like the old ones. Yeah. You can get one of those old ones and people have done amazing builds where they put large tires on them. They raise it up a little bit and they put strong steel bumpers and rock sliders on the side. It's a beast of a truck. I'll probably need something new at some point something new or is the platform is amazing and the platform is really designed For military application. Yeah, the new the new Land Cruisers. I'm not quite quite there yet I like the old stuff, you know like the newer ones I mean, they're probably great, but the new new one is like really more modest.

50:53Yeah, yeah, it is Yeah, it's not the price on them. It's not like what they were getting to right, which is basically trying to compete with Range Rover Well, they were also fucking themselves because they have Lexus. Yeah, yeah. And Lexus is like the best version of that. Right. Is it the 550 GX? What's the new one that they have? I think the new one's a 600, I think it's called. Well, they have the smaller one, which is more like Land Cruiser size, like 80 series size. And they have the larger one. Okay. I had three of the larger ones, the 570s. I had three of those. Yeah, they're sweet. Because they never break.

51:24They were like my favorite family car to drive around in. It's awesome four-wheel drive. They're great in snow and anything else. and they fucking always work. They always work. Yeah, hard to beat that. Toyota is so good. I know. They're so reliable. I know. The guys got over to Africa to start filming this thing in February or March. Anyway, we went over there and the advance crew went over first to get everything set up and then Chris and I came over a little bit later and when everything was all set up but the guys were texting back after they were doing all the advance work for the different places we're going to go shoot and they're like, now we understand your obsession with the Land Cruiser.

51:57Yeah. They're all driving Land Cruisers in Africa. Oh, yeah. Once you get over to any rough place and you realize, like, oh, you want a car that 100 % is going to work for you. Yeah, yeah. There's a reason why they became so popular. It's not a mystery. Yeah, yeah. Is that a Seiko? Yeah. Nice. It's like they said, that's the Toyota of watches. Nice. That's the Willard. I love it. That's the one that Captain Willard wore in Apocalypse Now. Absolutely. I have an original. I do, too. I have an original. I have a 1971, I think it is. Nice, okay. 70 or 71. Okay. Yeah, I collected all the SOG Seikos because this is Mac V.

52:30SOG. So I collected all those. I think there's four of them that they've seen pictures of Mac V. SOG guys wearing going into Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, which is what the book is focused on. So not only did I try to transport myself back by listening to all these things, but I had the watch right there. Like this is 1968 Rolex. Oh, nice. So I got that thing, the Submariner. So I surrounded myself with things that are like totems from the book. So this is what Tom Reese and I had of a cool way that he wins this. How'd you get it at 68? Where'd you find that? Did you get it online? A buddy of mine who's a Rolex dealer out in PA found it for me.

53:03Wow. That's fucking cool. Yeah. So I like the older stuff now I'm finding. Crazy, it looks exactly the same. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, there's a little bit of the crystals different and stuff like that, but the aluminum's different, that sort of thing. Well, they used to be a utility watch. That used to be a tool watch, which is crazy because you think of them today as being luxury. but the reason why they were built so well was just for you to use them diving yep actually a watch that people would dive with exactly and also you wear something like this or like that then people like watch people know they'll see it and be like okay it's not like to some guy that went out and bought an expensive watch they're like okay if someone put a lot of thought into this like you were in the willard and me having those mac v songs and this one from 1968 um it's uh it tells you put a little more thought into this sort of thing than like just what's an expensive watch or something along those lines.

53:51But yeah, I mean, it tells a story. Yeah, it's pretty dope. It's pretty thin, too. Yeah, it's a little thinner than I thought when it came. And the band's a little different. It kind of makes some noise there. But I love this. And so it's these and the Tudors that guys were wearing back in Vietnam, the Seals in particular, the Tudor Submariner. So I got one of those recently. I've been wanting to get one for years because when I got to the SEAL teams, there was a rumor, so I never saw it with my own eyes. but uh so it's second hand information is that they're in supply they were destroying the tutors with hammers and i can't then because now we're getting issued saco's and so they'd issued these to the guys that actually they jumped in to get the apollo spacecraft uh seals jumped in after those things udt seals uh to get those guys out of the water and uh and uh these people in supply i think in the the 90s were destroying the tutors for some reason probably because they were told to uh so guys wouldn't get them and sell them or something like that i don't know but uh but i did I tracked one down recently through watches of espionage.

54:45Oh, wow. And so he found me a new tutor, or an old tutor. But I got that, and then we did a little documentary with some old guys from the 70s, from in the 60s that were SEALs in Vietnam, and they were pulled out of Vietnam. They were in Vietnam one day, and then the next day they were off in the Pacific on an aircraft carrier waiting to recover the Apollo astronauts. Whoa. Yeah, pretty cool. We did a documentary on it for tutor. And it was pretty cool to talk to those guys. I mean, just amazing. because now they're taking lives in Vietnam, and now they're just thrown into these helicopters to jump into the ocean to save lives.

55:16It's kind of a cool juxtaposition. Yeah, for sure. It is interesting that their equipment became luxury. Yeah. Weird. Well, you can go back. I love these old ads, Rolex ads from, it must be the 60s, I think 60s, 70s, 80s. I mean, there's some from the early 80s where they have a guy with a rhino, and it's like the editor of Guns & Ammo magazine with his dead rhino wears a Rolex. And they had at least, yeah, they had like two of those types of ads. back then i don't like to acknowledge that today i don't think the rolex people but uh but they had but that was like in the early 80s that's what they were they were still marketing towards that so yeah really still rugged well think about didn't james bond always have it there we go if you're looking for lost empires here tomorrow you'd wear a rolex there's one crazy but you gotta find the one with the rhino well there's there's so dependable yeah frederick foresight the author actually had one they used to do they used to do had a relationship with him in the 70s and 80s, and they're like, here's Frederick Forsyth who wrote Day of the Jackal wearing his jackal coat in front of this Jaguar.

56:14And it's just, you'd never see that today. But there it is. Yeah, there you go. If taming oil well fires were your job, you'd wear a Rolex. Isn't that crazy? What? Yeah. Let's see if we can find the hunting one. Maybe Rolex hunting or something. But they're just... Look at that racing here. Like, it's for anybody that's doing anything difficult. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of crazy. And now it's tennis and it's golf. Well, now it's just like, you know, looking fancy at a restaurant or whatever you're doing. There we go. There's Connery right there, the Thunderbolt action. Yeah, yeah. Love it. Yeah. Fleming had one.

56:48He doesn't say which specific model it is in the books. Of course, Omega sponsored the movie starting with Bronson, I think. But in the books, it's a Rolex. He doesn't say what specific model, but he wore it. I think Fleming wore an Explorer, I think. There it is. Oh, there you go. If you hunted big game over the world, Cape Buffalo. There's Cape Buffalo right there. Wear a Rolex. Wow. Pretty cool. Weird. Yeah. They don't do that today. Just weird that that became, it went from being like this manly, super durable thing through, like when did people really start getting into watches and collecting them?

57:21And when did it become like a fetish? Must be the 80s. Yeah? Must be the 80s, I would guess. I mean, I think it's always been a thing because you can go back and find like amazing Patek Philippe's and stuff like that and go back and find the Omegas, the old Rolexes, and it's a thing. But now it's kind of nuts. Yeah. Now it's gotten a little crazy. which is why I like the vintage stuff because it fits a little more just like the cars just like it's my time machine now when people have like those Richard Millet watches and you hear they're half a million dollars anymore what are you talking about yeah why are you buying that yeah what's going on here that I'm missing that's an amazing story that guy and it got that there and it's not like that has a huge history to it it's fairly recent for those watches do you know what the rumor is the rumor is that one of the first watches that he was supposed to sell was supposed to be fifteen thousand dollars but someone put an extra zero on it no way really This is what someone told me.

58:05Hey, let's go with it. It's a good story. It might not be true. Hey, it's a good story. And then people bought it. It's like, hey, hey, hey. Let's try 300. Sometimes that's how it works. I mean, people love the watches. It's a beautiful, if you're into that style of watch. Yeah, yeah. I like simple. Yeah. That's what I like. This is why I like the Seiko. Nobody gives a shit about it. It's not impressing anybody. Well, if you know. If you know. But it's like, it's a really well-made watch. It'll never fuck up. I think it's got a 52-hour time reserve. Yeah, yeah. I love that stuff. We're very intentional with all the gear and the TV shows.

58:35I know you are. Yeah. And your books as well. Yeah. And the books as well. So it tells a story. You know, you see somebody with that, that tells me something about you. You see something with the Richard Mill, whatever you say. We shard me. I think it is. It probably is Richard Mill, but it's like, dang, in a cell. When you add another zero, then it goes to Joe Dirtay, you know? Yeah. Exactly. So it changes things a little bit. Yeah. But it tells me a story, just like the characters in the books. But the watches in particular are important. One, because it's important to me as a watch guy my whole life.

59:05For some reason, I just have this connection with time and the value of time. And so I've always been a watch guy my whole life. And so putting these watches on characters that tell you something about that character. Like in Dark Wolf, they have to get rid of their G-Shocks and go get something that would make it look a little more European. And when they transition over from being these SEAL guys to being these CIA operatives and drop, get rid of the gators. Get rid of the gators, get some sunglasses, get some expensive watches. that sort of thing. But I still wanted something that had a connection to the SEAL team.

59:33So I picked a tutor for Taylor Kitsch's character and I got that one. I got to keep that one. So that was pretty cool. And then put a Panerai on Rafe Hastings, Tom Hopper's character, to differentiate him a bit from Ben Edwards, the Taylor Kitsch character. And also, Tom's a big dude, so you need a big watch on that guy. Right. He's huge. He is huge. I'm sure. Oh my gosh. I think all the, like my wife and her friends were so excited about Taylor being in the show because Texas forever, you know, and they were all coming up during that time frame where he's on Friday Night Lights and all that stuff.

1:00:03And then Tom Hopper gets out of the pool without a shirt on and they're like, oh, Tom Hopper, oh my God, it is. And so I told Tom that probably if we do Savage Son as a movie, he's probably not going to have his shirt on much in there. So got to expand the audience. Got to expand the audience. We got to sell streamers. Exactly, exactly. But he's such a good dude. That's awesome. Yeah, all those guys are great. It's awesome. What is it like having this thing that you sat down by yourself, this world that you created, And now you're not just selling books, but you're filming the visual representation of your work.

1:00:37It's got to be kind of surreal. It is surreal. Every time I walk onto set, I feel that way. I feel grateful for the most part. I feel so much gratitude towards everyone involved. And, of course, the people who made it happen, most specifically Chris. Because if Chris didn't want to do it, didn't want to option it, it probably wouldn't happen. It wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't be on this journey together. And he's so invested in it. And you mentioned some other shows earlier. And there's just there's a difference between an actor who gets paid to do something, does it and moves on to the next project.

1:01:01And somebody like Chris, who is so invested in this. And I think the other actors see that. And Taylor's like this by nature, like American Prime Evil, any role Taylor takes on, he is just so invested in it. It's not just a paycheck like it is. It's going to now become part of his experience. Yeah. And he really looks at it through through that kind of a lens. And so to have guys like that involved that are so personally connected to the material and also to the community, like the veteran community writ large, it means something to them. And so they put so much into it. So when I walk on set, it is surreal.

1:01:32And to know that everybody is and people come up to me all the time on set and thank me for creating this universe, allowing them to be there. But not just that they can be there working on a set. It's that we have created mostly through Chris, Antoine Fuqua, David Agilio, all these guys at the top. David Agilio is the showrunner. and to build this family. And people come up to me all the time and they say that they've been involved in hundreds of Hollywood productions and they've never felt this way on a set before. And that's because you're filming these things for seven, eight months. And that doesn't count all the work that goes into the scripts ahead of time and all the post-production.

1:02:04So just being on set. And so during that time, people are going to get married, get divorced, lose loved ones. Life is going to happen. And David DiGiglio in particular is a showrunner. He makes sure that everyone is taken care of. and we're also bringing people along with us. So if they're in a department this season, they're going to move their way up in that department next season. So they really feel taken care of, and it's all genuine. And I think that helps everybody bring their A game. And everyone is so happy to be there on these sets. It's really cool. And people tell me how different.

1:02:34They want to make sure that I know that it's not like this on every Hollywood production. That's cool. That's got to feel great. That's cool. It is. Well, it all trickles down from the top. Yeah, it comes down from the top for sure. and even at the wrap party, people, these guys hang out after. Like all the actors hang out afterward. The cast, the crew, everybody's hanging out after hours. They're not just turning into ghosts. They're hanging out, having a great time. Wrap party, like I've heard that a lot of the number one on the call sheets, maybe they'll make a quick appearance and leave or something like that.

1:03:04I mean, Chris is there. He's in it, having a great time. Everyone's thanking everybody and such a great guy. He's a very normal guy. For a movie star, he's oddly normal. Yeah, he's a normal guy. just like us. We spend time with him outside of anything professional. Well, I hung out with him in the hunting camp. Yeah, yeah. We all got together. So it was like, he just hangs out with everybody. He was like so cool. Yeah. So normal. Yeah. For a movie star. Yeah. Just be chilling. Such a great guy. Yeah. Speaking of Tom Cruise and all the stunts, so the last thing that we filmed in Morocco was underwater sequences.

1:03:36So it was not filmed in a linear style. So it's from the first episode. So it's Chris falling off the boat and being underwater. And he's in this pool underwater, not a stunt double. We had some stunt double do some falls and stuff like that. Chris Romero, who's awesome, looks like Chris, takes some crazy beatings. He's amazing. And he's a huge dude. He can just stand right here and do a backflip. It's insane. The guy's a huge dude. It's awesome. And such a nice guy, too. But Chris underwater, and you can have this underwater communication system, and they're like, all right, ready, three, two, one, action.

1:04:07And he takes the thing from a regulator, and then it goes away, and then we're filming. And he was under there for like three plus minutes holding his breath, doing this stuff. And for anyone who's tried to hold their breath for three minutes, that's serious. Holding your breath for three minutes just sitting still is hard. But underwater. That's nuts. And we're watching this thing, we're like, is he okay? And now he's just showing off. At a certain point we're like, cut, and he stays down there. We're like, what? Now he's just showing off at this point. Did he prep for that? I think he's just a bit from wrestling and from all this other stuff, breath control stuff.

1:04:36He's such an athlete that I think it was just kind of natural. I don't think he was prepping for it. I think he just did it. But it looks so good. It looks crazy, all the stuff that he gave us down there. It was amazing. And that's how we finished up the show, is to finish that. All the casting crew around at night, all the lights, the underwater stuff, Chris getting yanked out of the water. And then that was the end, and we went right to the party from there. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. We had to talk about the future of the show. We stayed up pretty late. And me and Chris and the showrunner and Jared Shaw, who you met when we were hunting that time, who gave Chris the book, former SEAL buddy of mine.

1:05:07And so we all had to talk about the future of the show. So hopefully it's Savage Son next. And that's people's favorite, I think, of the books. that and Red Sky Morning, the last one. And mine is this one. Every one has been my favorite thus far. This Vietnam book's your favorite book you've written? Yep, hands down. One, because how much I put into it. One, I want to get better with everything. Every book, I think has gotten better as I go along. And if I can say that truthfully to myself, then I feel like I'm doing my job and doing my service to the story, which in turn serves the reader. People who are trusting me with this time that they're never going to get back.

1:05:39Well, it's like every other skill, right? The more time you invest in it and the more you hone it and the more attention. It should be getting better. Yeah, it has to. It should be getting better every time. It has to. You have to get better. Yeah. Because you can tell when people start phoning it in. You can tell. You know, they're not enthusiastic anymore. Yep. And this one, I mean, like, there's a lot of pressure from publishers also to get things in on time. Because now I sell, like, maybe at the beginning it didn't matter. But at this stage, it matters because of the number of books that are being sold.

1:06:07So they need to, and it's a business. And so they need to make their numbers. and so as a creative person they are putting a lot of pressure to get it done just get it done and I have to fend it off I have to like hey whatever pressure is put on me from the outside I've got to focus on this story and it's going to be done when it's done because it has to be the best that it can possibly be but that's a lot of pressure coming in from the outside and you have to fend it off but I can see you know how if you're I can see it being very easy to just say okay I got to 100 ,000 words I got to wrap this thing up and I'll never do that my readers mean too much to me the story means too much to me this profession means too much for me to ever do something like that.

1:06:42How many, what is the percentage of audio books versus hard copy? A lot more audio. Really? A lot more audio. Like how much more? I don't know because I don't look at the numbers. I'm not a business guy. I'm more of an entrepreneurial type of mind. So just knowing that Simon & Schuster is incredibly happy across the board. So these, the hardbacks. But they tell you. They do have numbers, yeah. And they share them and I just see numbers. But I couldn't tell you exactly. But it's a lot more. Yeah, it's a lot more. Interesting. And I think that's Ray Porter. I mean, he's incredible. He's really good.

1:07:08Fantastic. Such a good human being too. We use his voice in Dark World for those listening. They'll be able to recognize his voice in there. What's an odd skill to be able to do all those different voices and accents and then not have it jarring that a man is playing a woman? Yep. You know, which is weird because he's got to play a woman's voice. That's a tough one for any guy. It's fucking weird. You know, because you have to kind of like, there's a suspension of disbelief. Yeah, yeah. You know, in the real world, you're like, hey, fuck off, that's not a chick. Right. You know, you got a phone call from a lady.

1:07:37So where are we going to meet? at the barber shop call that a clue what the fuck is going on call that a clue unless you're looking for it his girl voice is oddly believable I don't know anybody else who can do it better that's a tough position to put a person in and the accent I give him a tough one in this one too I have a guy who's actually based on a real person in the book he lives in real life he died in I think 1965 but it was a Finnish officer who got the whatever the Finnish cross is, it's in the book, I forget exactly what it is, but then fought for the Germans and got like the German Mannheim cross or something.

1:08:16And then after World War II, they tried to grab a bunch of people who had experience in essentially Eastern Europe to bring over to our military so that we would have experience if we went to a war with the Soviets. And so they brought all these guys in into the military. And so then he gets a bronze star in the United States military army, special forces. His helicopter went down, I think it was 1965 but he was part of McAfee Sog so I fictionalized his character in here so I had to give those three so I have to have so Finnish German and English kind of a morph and Ray Porter has to do that and so he has to read that and uh and come up with something like that and he he pulls it off it's incredible wow I was just texting him before I came in here actually he's uh filming a play up in in Oregon waiting for Godot I think right now so I'd love to see him on stage and see uh just see him not just doing the voice but acting yeah I've never seen him in anything I don't think he's dark side he's dark side in that Justice League so that's a bunch of you can't really you know I haven't seen that yeah so he's in he's in that season he's in almost famous a bunch of sitcoms in the 90s just just an awesome dude but but yeah audiobooks and I think it's because of podcasts I think people listen to a podcast and it is very natural way to then get whatever you're talking about on the podcast through the same medium So over to audiobook, it's just a very natural transition to listen to the audiobook and a lot of people are doing both Thank goodness, so they're getting the hardcover And then they're listening on the car on the way home and then they get inside and they're reading a little bit before bed Get up to go to work in the morning pick up again where they left off reading so a lot of people are doing both Well, you know audible the way it works with Tinder, Kindle rather There's a there's an app where it'll pick up where you are What is it exactly?

1:09:55Basically, what is it? Whisper? Whisper Sync, something like that. So it picks up exactly where you left off reading, and it'll pick up with the audio book. On a Kindle, though. And then the audio book will know that you're reading at night. Interesting. And so it'll pick up where you left off the next day. Interesting. But that's, I'd be on a Kindle. I can't do the Kindle. I feel that I do so much work on a screen that I don't want to have something I read for enjoyment to be the same thing. So I want it to be, I want a physical book to go through. I'm just that kind of guy. The dope thing about a Kindle, though, is you can get 80 books on it, or probably 80 ,000.

1:10:30Instead of my luggage. I don't even know how many you can get on them, honestly. And then also the white paper screen, where it really does look like paper. Pretty fucking incredible. Yeah. Still for me, once again, like the watches, like the cars. I have a thing. It's a theme. Oh, listen. My wife's the same way. She only reads book books. She likes to feel the books. I love that. A lot of people are like, it's a thing that you have in your hands, and you're turning the pages. It's like the tactile feeling. I've got to have that physical. You know when you're halfway into the book, like, oh my God, things are getting crazy.

1:10:57I'm halfway in here. You can see it. How's he going to wrap this up? You can't see it rather than I'm at 37%. Exactly. It doesn't mean anything. Just a different type of a deal. But I picked up Charlie Sheen's book in the airport on the way here. Oh, did you? So I'm reading about halfway through because he's coming on the podcast and I want to talk to him. I'm going to ask him about Apocalypse. I'm going to keep it to Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Navy SEALs, kind of like keep it in that kind of thing. But reading that book, oh my gosh, it's amazing. But I had to buy it. I couldn't just get it on the – I already had the PDF.

1:11:22Yeah, if they sent it to me, but I wanted to buy the book. I wanted to physically have it and make my notes in there and all that. So I'm doing that. But listening to him on your podcast was so interesting. Oh, yeah. What a white guy. This is what I told people. Like, you can't be normal if you're on the set of Apocalypse Now when you're 10 years old and then 10 years later you're in platoon. Yeah. You're the lead in platoon 10 years later. Like, how do you expect that guy to be normal? No one can handle that. It's not handleable. That level of stardom is, especially in the 80s, before phones and everything else, when they got after it.

1:12:01Oh, and the drugs. I mean, he was involved in so much drugs. From early on. Yeah, and back then you could do drugs. You didn't die. You didn't die. I was an old fentanyl. Well, actually, one of the ladies he talked about in the documentary that gave him a blowjob while he was smoking crack for the first time. I saw that. She died. He had an overdose. But you've got to try hard. It's not like today you've got to accidentally do a snort of coke and then it's fentanyl laced and you're dead. Right. And that's 100 ,000 people in America every year. It's crazy. Yeah. But what he was doing was just going hog wild.

1:12:35And he's alive. And he's alive. He looks good. Yeah, he looks great. Dude, he looks a lot better than he's looked in the past. Yeah. Like when he came in here, I'm like, dude, you look healthy. Yeah. I think he said he'd almost been sober for eight years, been sober for seven plus years. Man. it's coming on eight years. I think he said December. I forget. But it was very impressive. And he's like a really nice guy. Yeah. You know? No, it seems like it. He was a fan of the books beforehand, so he likes all this stuff. Likes Dark Wolf, likes Terminalist, all that stuff. That's cool. Yeah, so that'll be fun to talk to him.

1:13:06And also, I went to see Navy SEALs the day before it came out. There was a showing at midnight on Thursday or something like that before it came out on Friday back when I was in high school and I knew I was going to be a SEAL, so I was so excited. I'm like, they cast Charlie Sheen, the guy from Platoon in this? I'm like, ah, perfect casting. And so I went and saw it then. So it would be fun to talk to him about that stuff. And I do remember, I did meet him at a, is it Red Sox game? Is that the one that they watch? Is that his team? I think so. But him and his dad were in a box next to us. So I was still in the SEAL teams and I was with some of the guys that were on the Bin Laden raid and we were in one of the owner's boxes.

1:13:35And Charlie Sheen was next to us with his dad. And somehow they got to talking or whatever. And so we went over there. He came over to us, I can't remember, with his dad and said hi. And he was fantastic. His dad was such a gentleman. That stands out. to me. But Charlie Sheen was awesome, so personable. He was great, but his dad was so nice. And like an old school type gentleman is what stood out about Martin Sheen. And what also stands out is then we then left there at the end of the game, and there was a line of girls down the... I'll tell him this when I... I'll see if he remembers. He might not remember, but because it probably happened almost every day for him, just a line of girls down the hallway outside of the owner's box.

1:14:10Trying to meet him. Yeah. They weren't there for me. Well, what are you going to do? Yeah, yeah. But they were there for Charlie. Poor Charlie. That was pretty cool. Must be rough. Yeah, yeah. But he had a crazy life. And then you guys came back in and had to deal with the Charlie Kirk assassination. And I thought you guys handled that in such a thoughtful way, real time. That's a tough position for both you guys to be in. I hadn't seen it yet. You know, I just heard. And then I really didn't want to see it. I said I wasn't going to see it. But then someone texted it to me, and I just couldn't help myself.

1:14:42I clicked on it. I'm like, oh, I don't want to watch that. I know. So sad. I was signing those books. I was signing the books right there that day with my chief of staff. And she was passing me the books. And I'm signing them. We're checking off the names for these pub boxes. And all of a sudden, her phone goes off. And I hear she screams. And I was like, whoa, what happened? And her husband is in the security field. And she said, Charlie Kirk's been shot in Utah. So I, of course, go to X and then see it. And then I didn't get to my kids in time because my daughter and our youngest son both follow him, feel like they know him, essentially, and I didn't get to them in time before they saw it.

1:15:19So our youngest, I was most concerned about seeing that, being away from home at boarding school. And anyway, called the school, one of the guys, there's like a trusted agent, he's like a guy's guy like us, and went over and tracked him down, and he was doing fine. But it's different than seeing in the paper or on having Walter Cronkite report that JFK was killed. That's different, I think. Challenger for us in school when we were growing up. Like we saw it explode, but you're not seeing the people. You're not seeing it as viscerally from all these different angles from cell phones immediately.

1:15:49So graphic. Just so heartbreaking. So, so heartbreaking. And, but you guys, I mean, you guys had to do it like real time. And I thought you guys were very thoughtful about how you dealt with it. Thanks. It was weird. It always feels surreal when someone dies, but when someone gets assassinated like that. And then there was the weirdness of the reactions of people. Oh, my gosh. That was the most disturbing aspect of it where I was like, what is, what have we done? I know. What have we done to people's minds with social media and with political discourse that you are thrilled that someone was murdered in front of his children on the internet for the world to see?

1:16:30And you are celebrating because you didn't like his ideas. Yeah. like that is so crazy that we've gone that far yeah I mean you feel you could feel the evil and as much as I tried not to look at all these reactions just being fed to me because the algorithm and everything else so there were two in particular one guy one lady and they were like cackling like a witch's cackle like out of a some sort of a some sort of a fairy tale that's meant to scare kids that you know but in real life celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk And I mean that was a revolting but you could feel the evil through the cackles I've never felt like that before but I mean very few times I should say I think a lot of it is very performative And I think a lot of people are doing it for clicks and likes and they think that there's a lot of like-minded people that feel the way they feel and then there was a wave of people that were like Excited about losing someone who's a right-wing influencer.

1:17:25They were happy about it It was real weird. Yeah, like it and and continues to really kind of fuck with my head because I didn't think that that would be the case. I had hoped it would be very few people. I'd hoped, but it wasn't. It was a lot. It was a lot in real life, too. It wasn't just social media. I've had multiple friends that encountered people celebrating in real life. One of my friends was at a cafe writing, and this lady came in, and she was on a Zoom call. It was right after the assassination, and she gets on the Zoom call, And she's like, well, I don't know about you guys, but I am having a great day now.

1:18:04And they were like, this is a great day. I'm having a great day, too. I'm having a great day. The events of the day have made me very happy. And they were laughing and smiling and, like, clapping publicly, like, in a cafe. And it was very obvious what they were talking about. I was like, that's so gross. And feel comfortable enough to do that? Right. That's acceptable. You want that attached to you for the rest of your life. And you don't take one second to say, ah, maybe even from a practical standpoint, like maybe I should just sit this out. Even if I feel happy, maybe I should do some reevaluations.

1:18:40But even if that's not the case, like maybe I should just sit this one out type of a thing. But instead, they feel comfortable to jump on and say those things. I mean, it was ridiculous. And I mean, you felt that I mean, I could feel the evil coming through the phone, which is a strange thing to say. And I've been like in Bagram early on in the war in Afghanistan. I remember the I forget. I don't know if it was a really a black site prison, but it was like a nasty prison. They had this smell and you could feel like this kind of this overriding sense of, I don't know, you had despair, but also like this little bit of current of evil in there.

1:19:06And then same thing in Baghdad where they held Saddam like being in there. I've been in both those places and you kind of feel a little, but even more so, you feel it with Saddam's kids and they're like these little islands and palaces and you know what they did there. They could pull in girls off the street and that sort of thing. And you just feel dirty and you feel evil. I mean, you sense it in some of those places. But I felt that same kind of thing coming through the phone. and then I felt it again. It's weird to feel it so many times. My wife and I were in Paris, like I said, right before I came out here.

1:19:34So it was Morocco, finishing the show for about a month, then to Paris and it happened to be Fashion Week and we weren't there for Fashion Week. It just happened to be Fashion Week, which is still going on now, I think. But we were in this, we wanted to go to one dinner where we could see some people, kind of do some people watching and I could store some of it away for books and that's what I'm always collecting, always collecting. And so we went to the place that Kardashians, again, where they stay, called like Kotis or, anyway, went into this hotel that's where a lot of the fashion people stay.

1:19:58And it was interesting at first. We're seeing some people just treat the waitstaff horribly. And so you're getting kind of taking some notes on that. And then this guy walks in with like two minions and you don't see his face because he's got this like hood on, but there are these earrings that are attached to the outside and they're hanging down and he's this like fairly obese person. And so you never saw his face the way he was, he walked in and then sat in front of us with these two guys on either side that had their sunglasses on and they were like both dressed very similarly and both side of them, and they just were looking at him like this, and just, it was so odd, but you felt this sense of evil, and I don't really like using that word too much, but you felt something odd, so much so that we paid the bill and left.

1:20:38It was odd. It was so odd. And a similar thing that I felt coming across the phone with those people celebrating. Who was the girl? I don't know. We were going to go back to our hotel and look up, like, try to see, like, who's at Fashion Week? Who dresses this way? Because it was very strange. It was like these black robes, and it was just the weirdest thing. It was so odd. Yeah, but attached through the through the like like your hoodies on and kind of like clipped the outside or something and coming down Like from the outside of like this thin hoodie. It was very bizarre very bizarre But you felt like that person was evil Yeah, I've never I mean very rarely do you feel do I feel that anyway?

1:21:12You know, it's very strange feeling but I've learned to listen to my to those feelings Listen to the gut listen to the sixth sense that's kept us alive as a species for so long If you went to Davos when they have those World Economic Forum conferences, I bet you'd smell brimstone. Maybe. I'd be looking for it, though. That might be different if you're actually looking for it. It's kind of a difference. But I bet whenever you can get a bunch of billionaires together that are trying to decide the fate of the world, I bet you feel evil. I don't know. I'm going to have to go to one of those at some point.

1:21:42Fuck that. I did go to Bohemian Grove. I don't think you're supposed to talk about it, but I didn't feel that there. It was more like guys getting away for the weekend to drink. I've heard a lot of people say that about Bohemian Grove recently. Yeah, and and I know people that have gone like that have been invited And Kid Rock told me a couple other guys told me they went they're like I want to see what the fuck it is So they went I'm like, but did you ever watch the Alex Jones video like when Alex Jones and John Ronson snuck in right? That's back when Alex Jones and John Ronson were united who's John Ronson John Ronson is the British journalist He's the guy who wrote so you've been publicly shamed.

1:22:16I don't know look it up It's about like one of the, it's about like the first mass cancellations through social media. And like this new public shaming thing that happens. Yeah, yeah. Very interesting guy. Yeah. But there it is. There's Ronson. Okay. And so he snuck in with Alex Jones. Yeah, I saw someone. So I didn't see anything weird like that. But I know you're talking about the burning thing. I think that's, when I think about it, because I didn't see any of that stuff. But I'm thinking it must be. They probably don't do that anymore. Maybe not. I don't know, but I but I probably ruined the party maybe but I when I'm thinking about it I think about it logically you know when you like throw something into a fire like at at buds guys would burn their dungarees and dungarees are like a regular navy uniform and if you make it through buds and don't get kicked out of the teams you'll never have to wear that uniform again and it's like it was awful it was bell-bottom jeans and a denim shirt like tucked in that you had to starch you know especially in boot camp in a way that like well you hold it out flat it's this it's Awful.

1:23:14And a little Dixie Cup hat. Like, that's the uniform. Like, the worst uniform in the history of uniforms. Like, there's nothing tough about that. But people would burn them. And so, like, never going back, you know, like that sort of a thing. And then 80 % would quit. But they burn their uniform. So I think it may be something like that. You know, you want to burn something. Like, that's what I think it might be. But I don't know. 80 % will quit before they get through buds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Along the way. Most in Hell Week. But at some point along the way. typically 80 % give or take you know we'll make it but but burning that thing it's kind of like burning the boats which is not a real hell week and then they still quit some some not many not many most people will be performance dropped after that for not being comfortable in the water for pool comp when you're getting pounded off the bottom of the pool by instructors and then you're having to go through the right procedures to get your air turned back on and continue to to crawl and then they come and hit you again and rip your mask off and hit you in the gut so you expel your air turn off your air tire because it's the two hoses super old-school time in a knot and they back off to see that you're comfortable in the water and that you're going to go through the right procedures to get everything working again and continue on.

1:24:17So that's about 15 minutes of doing that. And some people just aren't comfortable in the water. And so they'll go. Is it just a panic thing? Yeah. I mean, your air is cut off and it's easy to get more air. I mean, you're only 10 feet or 15 feet, whatever it is, back to air. So it's very easy to get that air, but you have to go through the right procedures and just like you've been taught and be very comfortable. And yeah, that's what the test is all about. And they punch you in the stomach? Yeah. So you lose some air. so it just makes you even more uncomfortable. That makes a big difference. Like who's punching you?

1:24:46Yeah, instructor. Yeah, and where they're hitting you. Yeah, yeah. And it pounds you off the bottom. You kind of just go limp. Just relax, just like in jiu-jitsu or something like that. Like, okay, relax, and then, okay, now I'm going to get into this. So I love that sort of thing because that was the only time in Buds where it was like mano-a-mano against the instructor. The rest of the time you're just getting yelled at, being told you're worthless, push-ups, sit-ups, run, swim. But now it's like, okay, you and me. I love that. But same thing, it's called life-saving. So that's the other time you get to put your hands on the instructors is you have to go out and they'll act like a different type of person drowning.

1:25:18So they'll fight you or they're just dead weight or something like that, and they're different body types. And so you get to go, you swim out towards them, and then you have to get them back, and they'll take you down to the bottom, hit you off the bottom. So they're doing the work in that situation. And you just relax, hold on, just like you've got someone in a rear naked choke type thing, and then they have to go up. They're expending their energy, keeping you down there. They're going to have to go up and get the air. So just wait, go up to the top, grab a little bit of air, get closer to the side of the pool, then they take you down again type of a thing.

1:25:44And I love that because that's the only time you can put your hands on an instructor. So I thought that was good. I like that. But you have to put your hands on them like you're rescuing them. Yeah. You can't just choke them. No. Because I'd be like, this dude is fucking ruining it. I'm going to put him to sleep. No, but there's some similarities there. Just some similarities with body positions and all that sort of thing. Just being comfortable without air for some amount of time. But there's limitations on how you grab them. Yeah, they teach you how to grab them and how to get towards the side of the pool type of thing.

1:26:10Right. You can't keep them down if you've got better breath than they do. No. You can't hold on to them. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. If they start coming up, you're like, not today, bitch. Not today. Stay down, motherfucker. I mean, I guess somebody could, but that doesn't sound like it. If you're a world champion free diver, if you're one of those 10-minute dudes. You do have some people like that to come through. I bet. You do have some really incredible athletes that come through. I bet. And a lot of them don't make it because they're being treated like Ferraris or Lamborghinis most of their life if they're really an elite athlete.

1:26:36Right. they're being treated like a Chevy, you know, and just thrown through walls or whatever, and it's like, meh, not... Crazy pressure test that has to be done. I mean, there's no real job that's similar other than, you know, Rangers and other elite special forces teams where you have to get through this horrific thing to prove that you're the type of person that they want to train. Yeah. We're not sure if we want to train you even. Yeah. So we don't know if we're ever going to use you. Yeah. And so we're going to try to break you. Yeah. Going to prove that you want to be here and that you have the mental fortitude to be here and that you can work as a team.

1:27:12There's a few different things that they're looking for, but it's worked for a while. It's worked for a long time. It's a good test. But it was getting really weird during the Wookiee years where they were talking about lowering the standards. Right. There is that. And then so the standard part. So even if they say that they're not lowering the standards, this is how they get around it. And this is military in general, that they give you more chances. So before, if you only got one or two chances, maybe three, something like that, to pass in evolution, maybe the standard remains the same. But in order to get this person, said person through, now you get four chances, five chances, six chances, seven chances, eight chances.

1:27:49So they say the standards have not changed. Well, OK, not really. But you gave them a lot more chances, which you didn't give other people before who were washed out of the program because they only got one chance or two chances or three. So it's what would it be that you would get more chances doing? Like that pool comp thing. I think you got two chances on the first day and two chances on the second day. And I passed the first day just because I happened to be comfortable in the water. But some guys made it through on that fourth one, like, oh, made it, just made it. But they didn't get a fifth.

1:28:17They did not get a sixth. And now maybe, and I don't know if this is true, but this is a way around the standards. Give somebody a fifth, give them a sixth, something like that. Or you failed the old course. Okay, one time you get some sort of a warning or something like that. And then you do it again, second time, you're out or whatever it is. well, now you can just as many times as it takes. Oh, they passed it. They passed it once. Let's move them on. Were they doing that to just expand the ranks, or were they doing it to get a specific demographic? Well, I'm not saying that they did it. I'm saying that's how you would get around the standards.

1:28:49You'd be able to say that we haven't lowered the standards, sir, type of a thing when you're in front of Congress, and they don't know to ask those kind of questions. Well, did you, okay, well, did you give them more chances? Did you change anything? Yeah, something like that. So they can get away with telling the truth-ish, but not expanding on that. So that's just a way to do it. It's a bizarre sign of the times to make elite special forces units more easy to get into. Yeah, it's a thing. Strange, right? Because there was a push to lower standards. There's a push to try to get women in it too, right?

1:29:22I don't know how much of a push it is. Have any women ever gone through it? I don't know how far they've gone. I think there were a couple that tried it and haven't made it. I'm not sure because I'm so removed from it now. but I think that I don't know if there's a push for it but it's open now and the part of that it's for me it's you know I'll probably get canceled now but you know or we're past that I don't know but to me it's it's not and what they what they say now we have to say officially I think is that the standards are the same doesn't matter if you're male or female standards remain the same okay fine but when you get to an elite unit like that or any unit and this might be a failing on my part I fully admit that I mean I was raised when a woman enters the room, you stand up, you open the door for a lady type of a thing.

1:30:03Like those things you stand up for, you're chivalrous, you're a gentleman type of a thing. And now all of a sudden in a leadership position, I'm supposed to treat a female the exact same way that I treat a male going into combat. There's no way I could possibly ever do that. I'm going to be much more concerned about her than I am him. And once again, that might be a failing on my part. I fully accept that, but I'm glad I never had to deal with it in real life. But I see that being something that comes into play, especially if you're raised to protect as a protector, as a sentinel, as a guardian.

1:30:33And now all of a sudden you're supposed to treat said female who've been raised to protect, treat them exactly the same way as a guy going into combat. That would be difficult for me. There's certain physical realities I feel that we just have to address when people want to talk about equality. I understand that when you're talking about jobs that don't require shooting people and stabbing people in hand-to-hand combat. Okay? Because as soon as you do that and you are physically far weaker and far slower and you're just, you're not a man. It's a different thing. I feel the same way about women.

1:31:10If you wanted to have cross-gender combat sports, if you wanted to have biological men fighting biological women, I don't care if they're the same weight. It's not fair. Yeah, something it's not it's not smart for them to be doing that That said I feel like you should be able to do what you want to do. I know it's tough this life right and I don't want to limit anybody's choices in this life, but if You want the best people for the job. I can't see how they're going to be weaker people It doesn't really make sense And if you have a physical requirement for all the men and that physical requirement involves a lot of like heavy physical working out and labor.

1:31:50I don't know that a woman can pass that. Yeah. Like I've seen what you guys had to go through to get through buds and like, okay, you have to be strong. Like you have to, there has to be a certain amount of physical strength that you have to be able to do that. Yeah. Yeah. For me, it even comes, yeah, like I said, it comes down to that. And it's probably my failing, but maybe not. Maybe we're supposed to be, you know, supposed to be protectors. Yeah. Supposed to be protectors. All throughout human history, that's been the case. Yeah. And you're supposed to all of a sudden change because of a policy directive.

1:32:16But, yeah, I mean, we're going back to it. I mean, it's causing a lot of feathers within the military right now, changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War, which is and I'm not saying that they got this from me. I'm just saying that they I've never heard anyone talk about it until I talked about it back in 2001. And I wrote some articles after the Afghanistan withdrawal. And I called anyone on Fox a bunch of times and talked about how we need to precision and language reflects precision and thought. Department of Defense. Defense has a sort of connotation to it, a definition to it.

1:32:43and the Department of War is different than a Department of Defense, just the language of it. And I said, it's time to change the Department of Defense back to the Department of War. And I used the Afghanistan withdrawal as that example and put that in two articles. I think they both went on Town Hall, I believe. But I talked about it and I'd never heard anybody mention that before. Is that what it used to be? It used to be the Department of War? Up to the end of World War II. And then it changed and then it was official in 1947 with the reorganization of the military and our intelligence apparatus.

1:33:12So 1947 onward became the Department of Defense. Do you take any heat in your books? Because one of the things that you talk about, especially in the Terminal List, is horrific government corruption and the willingness to put soldiers' lives as expendable in order to profit. Yeah. I certainly talk about it in here. It has a great conversation. One of my favorite chapters is these two characters, Tom Reese and his buddy Quinn. So one Special Forces guy, one SEAL. And they're having this conversation on China Beach. And it was great to write those chapters and do all this research into China Beach and Da Nang and what kind of surfboards they were using, how they were shaped.

1:33:49Like all this stuff just to bring you back to that time frame. But that's what they're talking about. So this is about James Reese's dad. Yeah, 1968, his dad. And people find out where the tomahawk came from, where the watch came from, where honey and the coffee came from. So all these little things are kind of woven in there as well. But exactly what you just talked about is a conversation in this book in 1968. And it's the same conversation that we're having today. But I don't want to say I take heat over it. And I'm never going to worry in a chapter or a book about who I'm going to alienate by writing something.

1:34:19Criminals. You've got to piss off the criminals. Exactly. Or the people in power. He's being honest about what we did. Or just people in power in general or just a part of a readership maybe. I'm just going to focus on that story. I have to focus on that story. I'm not doing this. I'm not writing this for a reader. I'm writing this for the story. And that's the way I honor that reader. So it's all about that story. But the CIA has been very nice. We got to film the end of Dark Wolf at CIA headquarters. And I hadn't been back there since I was in the SEAL team. So I'm at CIA headquarters. I have a cameo in there that I live through at the end of the show on Episode 7.

1:34:53I'm the guard that takes the guy's ID as he's leaving the—and I have one line. I think I say something anyway. But it was very cool to be there in front of that memorial wall, that wall of stars, especially knowing some of those guys that are on there that are memorialized by those stars. So the CIA was very kind to let us use that lobby. They didn't ask us to change anything in the show, didn't put any restraints or restrictions on anything. They just let us use it, and that was very cool. Some guys came down that didn't need to come down that day, which was really cool. They wanted to talk to me about some stuff that I did in Iraq, and it was very, very cool to talk to them.

1:35:27Very cool to see the museum there. I got a little tour of the CIA museum, all that stuff. So they've been very helpful. The military, not so much. The military does not let us use any aircraft carriers, submarines, helicopters, anything like that, like they do for some other shows. And I think that's probably because I blew an admiral up in his office in the first episode, first series in the book. So I don't think the military is big fans. Is that really what it is, you think? I think it probably is because we were going to use, for the first show, we were going to use Camp Pendleton. And the Marines were all on board.

1:35:54And then they're a department of the Navy. So then the Navy found out about it and quashed it. So we did not get to use Camp Pendleton. Yeah. Yeah, so it's, and like in Jack Ryan and stuff, I think they use actual military helicopters and maybe an amphib ship or something like that. So they get some support from the military. They didn't blow anybody up. Exactly. They're not blowing up admirals. They don't have corrupt admirals getting blown up in their offices with S-Fests. So I don't think the military is a big fan. The rank and file are. Those guys are awesome. At my book signings, there's so many military, so much law enforcement, firefighters, first responders.

1:36:26The audience is full of those guys, and it's so fantastic. That's fiction, though. That seems so bitchy. I know. It seems like also that that would be a very good recruitment tool because these guys look like badasses. People are like, fuck, I want to be a SEAL. Yeah. Fucking badass. Yeah. And so a lot of guys would probably join because of that series. And they're like, no, you bad guy. Yeah. It's a bad guy. Exactly. It's not you. Yeah, yeah. Justice. What are you guys going to let all the bad guys off the hook? Exactly. Come on. You got a murderous bad guy that happens to be an admiral? You don't want to see them get whacked?

1:37:03Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's fiction. Yeah, and I knew that would happen at some point. I knew the people would eventually come through a line, a signing line, and say, I joined the military because of you, or I became a police officer because of something I read in your books. Because that's me. I was influenced by popular culture growing up, and that helped me on my path into the SEAL teams. So I knew it would happen. I didn't really conceptualize it any further than that. But when it happened, it was first time, which was a couple years ago, because the first book came out in 2018. So if someone reads that at 16, 17, 18, now they're a few years into this career in law enforcement or in the military.

1:37:32And guys have come up and said that now. And I'm always like, oh, man, I hope you made the right choice. I'm like, oh, I hope I was just one part of a lot of information that you took in in order to make this decision. But they do say it now. And like with David Murrell in Phoenix the other night for the launch of the book, he has been through like burn units and stuff saying hi to people as part of like USO tours and stuff. And often people like missing arms and legs are totally burned. Say, hey, I joined the military because of Rambo. And him, it's like, he's such a nice guy. He's just like, oh, I mean, it's like devastating, devastating.

1:38:05Yeah. Yeah. So, so it's, but for me, it's like, hey, it's always going to be about the story. I knew that would happen, but it was a surprise the first time. Kind of like the tattoo was the first surprise, was a surprise the first time I saw it. Like the baby the other night was the first, was surprised. So it's, yeah, it's, it does happen. You really honor the actual experiences that these people have in your books. It's very believable and realistic, and it does honor those people. Thank you. Thank you. For this one in particular, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted those guys who were not just McAfee Sog going over the borders and fighting in denied areas where they weren't supposed to be in Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, but anyone who stood up and went down there to serve.

1:38:46I wanted to make sure I honored them and gave my heart and soul to every word And I felt that responsibility as I was writing this I wanted those guys to read it and say He put in the effort to get it right and even people just lived through the 60s. It didn't go down range I wanted them to read it and say oh he tried to keep got close Even if I made a mistake here or there like he put in the effort to try to capture the essence of 1968 and And that's so that's why so much work went into this but those guys that went into the tunnels. Oh, yeah like that around That is some of those are some of the fucking craziest stories.

1:39:18Yeah, you're going into the tunnels hand to hand Yeah, the 1911 and a flashlight and looking for Viet Cong and not knowing what you're gonna find Crazy not knowing who's in there not knowing what's waiting for you. What's booby-trapped? Oh, yeah, that's gotta be some of the toughest fighting one can do in the dark in a tunnel under the ground Essentially by yourself because you can't fit anybody else in there with you. Did you watch Peaky Blinders? No, I need to watch it. It's really awesome. But one of the aspects of these characters is that the Peaky Blinders were all veterans. And they were all in World War I in trench warfare.

1:39:55And they were in the tunnels. Oh, like the trenches. Yeah. And so like they... They came back and they have flashbacks and there's a lot of like Shell shock. Yeah. Waking up in the middle of the night, stabbing people, thinking you're there again. There's some wild scenes of them in the trenches. Yeah. And it's just like, Jesus. And we're seeing some more of that trench stuff in Ukraine. Mm-hmm. I mean, whoa. But live video, though. Live video. I mean, you're seeing like 4K video of cell phones and drones. The drone stuff is scary. I'm so glad that I didn't have to deal with that during my time.

1:40:29It's fucking nuts. I was watching a guy who was in the back of a truck and they were running and the drone is coming out and he's firing at the drone and shoots it maybe three, four yards from him. I saw that one. That's crazy. Fucking nuts. Fucking nuts. And you realize like this is what they're dealing with. Yeah. Yeah. Exploding drones that are whizzing towards them. And someone on the other end somewhere in the world has got a fucking joystick and trying to get you with it. Yeah, I put that in True Believer, second book, and we put it in the show. We filmed it in the second show. I have a drone attack in there.

1:41:06But that was a few years ago. And just imagine when it gets to the next stage where it sends a mosquito in here, a fly, and it's looking at your face. And it's like, oh, worn out for your arrest. Boom, lands on you. Over you go. And that sort of thing. It's crazy. I'm going to text you with some toxic shit. Yeah. Yeah, it's a weird time. Yeah, like those videos that we just saw that look like Muhammad Ali's on the show. I mean, all that sort of stuff. We're getting to that point where it's going to identify you somehow, some sort of an identification through your eyes, through blood, through facial recognition, a combination of all three.

1:41:37And then that is going to allow you to access whatever it is, information online, credit cards, all the rest of it, of course. But what it's really doing is allowing something, whether it's the government or big tech, more control over you because eventually you're going to go in and, OK, to make sure this is you paying for, let's say, a stake. And now all of a sudden, oh, you've had your allotment of stake because of the environment, because of how many cows and whatever they're doing. You can't buy this stake or your allotment of power for your vehicle. You've used yours up for the for the mother gas in your car, all of those things.

1:42:09But it's gonna know exactly because you're gonna have to do it to access information online And we're getting closer and closer to that Well, England's just submitted to it. They just submitted to digital ID. Oh, yeah. Yeah, these Motherfuckers are pushing digital ID on these people and once they do digital ID They're gonna attach to a social credit score. They're gonna attach it to a carbon footprint score and Then they'll be able to control your movement and control you entirely and most importantly they've already arrested 12 ,000 people for social media posts. That's insane. Above and beyond every other country, way above Russia.

1:42:44Russia was like 400 last year. The UK is 12 ,000. Any criticism of immigration, any criticism of grooming gangs and people being raped, any talk about how horrible this is, they come visit you. It's like someone's trying to destroy England. It's literally like they've got a concerted effort to destroy England, and they're getting away with it. Yeah. And what happens over there? It's really crazy. It's really crazy to watch because the mass immigration is not an accident. If I was going to destroy a country, I would do it exactly the way they're doing it. I'd take away their freedom, take away their ability to protest, take away their guns, which they did in the 90s, and then you start tightening that noose tighter and tighter, add more restrictions, more this, more that.

1:43:34I mean, we're getting closer. Just the arresting people when you arrest 12 ,000 people for social media posts You don't just arrest people for social media posts you change people's ability to post about things because of fear So they self-censor so you don't even you're getting hitting them with like this one guy who complained about There's a famous video where this fucking idiot in a wig. He's one of them judges and they wear the wigs the white powdered wigs and he's Sentencing this guy for 20 months for social media posts that are normal like normal complaints about mass immigration of illegals from other countries that aren't assimilating and that are that they believe are ruining their society which there's a real argument for and that's what online discourse is supposed to be about like having conversations like i'm voicing my concern for the way society is running right now because of what's happening and no one's doing anything about it and no one's protecting anybody it's nuts man anytime in human history that would be called an invasion yeah and uh and now it's so it's not just an invasion it's like they're doing it they're letting people do it they're enabling these people doing it and they're putting them on the dole too which is even crazier and you know you're seeing that in america as well where they just uncovered a bunch of people that were illegals that had been given social security numbers and were already voting and this is nuts man it's like it's a it's a concerted effort and this was one of the main focuses that a lot of people had in the 2024 campaign there was one side that wanted to stop that and one side that wanted to pretend that it was a good thing and like that you have a open border and criminals and cartel members are just flooding through people from foreign countries of military fighting age just flooding through and you're pretending there's nothing wrong with that like you're setting us up for a real big fucking problem.

1:45:28Yeah. Have you seen the videos? I'm sure you have. It's Bill Clinton. It's Hillary Clinton. It's Schumer. It's Pelosi. Oh, yeah. It's Biden from the 90s. Oh, yeah. Like giving these speeches on the floor of Congress that today would be extremely right wing. Extremely. Normal. It's just normal. In, I think it was 2012, like whatever it was where she was running for president. and she's more MAGA than MAGA. Yeah. Like she is talking about if you're a criminal, you know, no ifs, ands, or buts, you get kicked out. And if you're here, you pay a stiff fine. Yeah. Because you cut the line. Like, yeah.

1:46:10It's wild. Yeah. Like, what happened to that? It's out there. But then most people don't know about her. They don't see it. You have to look for it or something like that. Well, it lets you realize that these people that are playing these roles of leaders, they don't have principled stances on things. They go with wherever their parties leaning and wherever the Majority of people believe now is the direction to go and they might not even implement these things But just to say it in order to get elected and get people to vote for them And and that's what they did it's insane I believe in gay marriage until 2013 How polling I guess right but it's a manipulation and it's also manipulation of the populace through through the all these All these different different platforms.

1:46:50Yeah, and and what did you think also of the I? I don't like to call them leaders. I like to call them elected representatives. That's what they're supposed to be. It's supposed to represent us. And they get there and they represent themselves. But how was the inauguration? I didn't get to ask you. Being in the room with all the lizard people that run the world is so strange. Yeah. It's so weird. It was like seeing Hillary and seeing Obama and seeing Kamala Harris and Biden and Bush and all those people there. It's very weird. It's really weird, man. It's real weird. It's real weird being in the Capitol and realize like how strange this whole process is I mean, there's this like public humiliation ritual where Trump goes on stage and talk shit and they're right behind And they have to eat it and everybody cheers and claps and is very surreal Yeah, very surreal very surreal surreal also that I'm right there too right on the stage like what?

1:47:47Yeah, five rows back from the president's like the strangest fucking thing on earth And it's also strange just that this is this weird ritual that they do this changing of the control And then you know the the beginning of the battle for the next four years Where they everybody is like slinking away to try their Strategy and figure out what to do next and who's our warrior and now they're trying to figure it out Yeah, now they're talking about Pete Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris. That's what they're gonna run I'm like, what? All right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Don't fight against that too much. Apparently, they don't have any faith in Gavin Newsom.

1:48:25Oh, yeah. Which is kind of funny because he wants to be president so bad. That's true what it looks like. You can't ruin a city and then go on to ruin a state and say, guys, that was just practice. I know. Once I get it as a president, I'm going to fix it. Fix it all. I mean, it's so crazy, but he's such a great politician. No, he's not. He's so smooth. You don't think so? No. No, I think he's terrible. How's he remained in power for so long low competition? There's no one who's good is competing against him. There's no sense I should say he's not a good I should say smooth He comes I mean he's a good bullshit artist Yeah, that's what I mean, but it's like what the things that he says when he gets confronted with the We're the high highest this and the highest that like everybody's leaving yeah, you have the highest unemployment You have the highest homelessness with Hollywood you had he's missing you killed Hollywood like Hollywood doesn't exist anymore it's literally gone that was such a mandated vaccines for kids that didn't need them you guys you did horrible shit yeah it's awful we uh i went to the one in 2017 so january 2017 so we decided not to go to this last one and uh because we felt like we experienced it last time and there was all the the limos on fire and all the chain link fences as we were getting you know going to all this stuff so so we decided not to go to this one but then uh then tulsi called and asked if i'd go to her uh her swearing in and so i was like yeah of course and uh so we went to that one and That was really cool.

1:49:41That was really cool to be in the room with her when she got sworn in. That is cool. That was amazing. Have you talked to her about her experience there? I don't want to bother her too much, but she just posted about the book, actually. I didn't expect her to do that, but she did that today, which is very kind. The reality of the work, the reality of being in the organization is very sobering, apparently. I bet. Oh, my gosh. It's got to be like nothing. Whatever you think it is from the outside before you step in, it's got to be a thousand times worse, at least, when you step into it. It's bad, and it's very compartmentalized.

1:50:09She compartmentalizes a bunch of people that run various offices, and they're all working against you. Oh, the bureaucracy is so huge. Yeah. I hope she stays in it. I mean, she's such a great person. I mean, I'd support her because we're friends. But, I mean, it's got to be hard to stay in that fight when you see it. That's got to be hard. She's got a lot of character. Yeah. That doesn't get rewarded there. Yeah. I mean, I would support her. And there's a path for her. And there is definitely a path for her to get into the White House. Yeah, it could be. She could be our first female president, especially after we've seen what they tried to do to her.

1:50:46They put her on the Quiet Skies thing. So they put her on a terrorist watch list. She was a U.S. congresswoman for eight fucking years. She served overseas in a medical unit. So she was deployed twice in a medical unit in the middle of the fucking war. And you're labeling her a terrorist. Like whoever did that like whoever signed off on that should be in fucking jail. Yeah, that's crazy I mean so much that's such an abuse. Yeah, that's such an abuse of power Yeah, and you want to talk about like going after your political enemies in it in a sick third-world country way That's a great example that you put a congresswoman for eight years and the terrorist watch for what right for what reason none no reason there's not like some crazy tweets where she's made and there's nothing like she's so something like Margaret Taylor Greene who gets hog wild sometimes she's not like aggressive yeah she's a little aggressive like Tulsi's not like that at all you put her on a terrorist watch list shame on you yeah yeah fucking shame on now she's the director of national intelligence crazy right yeah that's fantastic but yeah the next one it's uh I haven't I haven't read the book, but it's Kamala's book where she says she didn't choose Pete Buttigieg because of his sexual orientation.

1:52:12I'm not sure about this. People can correct in the comments, please. But I believe that's illegal. Like if you didn't hire someone because they had a certain sexual orientation, I believe that's illegal. Well, you're allowed to choose who you think is going to work the best. But not because of – and you say something else like, oh, they're not qualified. You cannot – I mean, I believe someone can tell us if I'm wrong. We could probably look it up, but I do not think you can do that discriminate against someone strictly because of that if they're not qualified Of course you choose someone else fine, but she goes ahead and says that's the reason that she didn't hire this guy to be her VP Wow, I believe that is illegal Wow, I never even thought of that It's insane.

1:52:50Well, she also has been saying something really crazy She's been saying that this is the closest race of the 21st century and that it wasn't a mandate. That's just not true It's not true. Gore and Bush was much closer. Yes. I think that was a half of a percent. It's, yes. I don't know why she keeps saying this. She's, it's just a lie. And then also she's, she's leaving out the fact that she lost every swing state, every single one. Yeah. So like, what are you talking about? I know. He won the popular vote and he won the electoral college vote. And that's a mandate. I think, say that it's not a mandate.

1:53:26It's like but it's almost like if you say it to the converted that they're gonna listen and repeat it Yeah, he barely won right like no he won won every swing state. He won the popular vote That's called winning you win the house and you win the Senate that he won that means he won Charlie Sheen calls that winning this is crazy talk. Yeah, it's wild. It is so probably hammered and yes Probably up there drinking wine. Fucking kick his ass next time. Fuck him. It's so brutal. And I think she took credit for the no tax on tips things in the book as well. That's hilarious because that was clearly his.

1:54:00Clearly. He said it first and they copied it. It's amazing. Did she really say that in the book? I haven't read it, but I have heard from someone who did read it that she did. So, you know, people do process this. She had a dress not coming on here in the book too, which I thought was funny. Yeah, that was interesting. Yeah, her team was not truthful About that encounter at all they never committed to doing the show ever they said that you know I said that I had a personal day, which is not true. I said I am not available the day that Trump was here I said that days on I didn't say that I was have a personal day.

1:54:34They just made that up That's crazy And then they also said that they sent someone here to go through the studio like sent someone to do a walkthrough Not true. No, not true How can they? I mean, it's just you repeat it and you say it and your side believes it. But why would they do that when I can just say that's not true? It's bizarre. But who are they going to believe? They're going to believe me or a person who literally says whatever the audience wants them to say, which is what they did. Lies for a living. Yeah. I'm not. Why would I lie? I have no reason to lie. It would have been interesting to hear that.

1:55:05If I fucked her over, I would tell the truth. Yeah. If I was like, we lied. We told her I was taking a personal day but realized I wanted to get Trump in. Not true. I tried to do both of them in the same day. That was my idea. My idea was to do Trump during the day and then her to come she had a thing she was doing in Houston After the thing with Houston I go I'll fucking do it at midnight. I don't care We'll do it whenever you want to do it. Yeah while you're in Texas But I just can't do during the day because Trump's gonna be here. Yeah, but they had to have known I mean the Secret Service was there's 200 guys here They had fucking in Texas know in this fucking studio No, there's 200 people here for Trump.

1:55:42Yeah, I'm not exaggerating. It was packed. Wow. It was packed. That's crazy, bro They didn't fuck around. Okay, they did not fuck around. They surrounded the building. It was it was nuts that yeah, they they made sure that everything was safe and secure Wow So like someone had to know something that he was here It's not a mystery, but I said dogs through but I wasn't trying to be deceptive. I said I'll do it later I just can't do it during this time. That's the excuse. They don't want to do it. That's like, okay They took that excuse never wanted to do the whole thing never they wanted to meet do like a 45 minute thing In a different place They didn't say scripted but they they did say that there's some things that she didn't want to talk about Then they denied that yeah, that's what I meant by scripted.

1:56:27Yeah, I said I don't care. I'll talk to you about cooking I don't give a fuck. I just want to know who are you? I'll figure you out Yeah, I'll figure you out a few hours. Yeah in three hours. You can't fake your way through no conversation No, I'll find you. Yeah, I'll find you. Yeah, I'll ask you controversial things It's all I have to do is ask you why is the border open? We can talk about that for three hours Oh my gosh, what are you trying to do? Right you could close that border Trump closed that border in a day amazing in a day Is my you could say I hate what's going on with ice and I don't like it either I don't like this thing of like taking people and here's the thing.

1:57:02Well, they should have done it the right way Yeah. Okay. But if you're poor and you live in a third world country, that's not an available option. Okay. What is an available option is this one administration over four years is encouraging people to go through. Not only are they encouraging you to go through, there's Red Cross stops along the way. They give you maps. They tell you how to do it. People are being, they're funding people getting in. They're paying for air flights. They're flying people in. They're moving people into swing states. They're getting them on Medicare. They're getting them on Social Security.

1:57:37We talked about this one lady who did an interview. We're saying she was being told to try to get people on permanent disability. So she was told to ask them, do you have back problems? And they're like, yes. Okay, great. Personal disability. Now she said, I was told to view them as a client now. And so you're trying essentially to bribe people to now, once you get them in, to move to a swing state. Then they count on the census. Once they count on the census, it adds congressional seats. So it's like you're rigging elections by bringing in immigrants. And then you're giving them money. And all these people that live in these poor communities, they're like, hey, where was all this money for us?

1:58:18Where was all this money for the people in Chicago? Where was all this money for the people in Baltimore? No, no. They're doing it because they're trying to manipulate the election. It didn't work. It didn't work. Like I had an argument with someone about it, but yeah, it didn't work though. I go. Yeah, but they tried to do it It didn't work, but they did move people to swing states. They did leave the border open for four years They did let in millions of people. They don't even know how many they don't know how many people got through That's crazy once they got him here. They did give him EBT cards.

1:58:50They did give him cell phones They did they moved him into the fucking hotel that Roosevelt Hotel in New York City The luxury hotel filled with migrants they paid for their food. They did do this they encourage people They did have sanctuary cities where they weren't gonna arrest them. They let them come in still do Portland right now It's crazy, but what do you think you could have that conversation? Let's say 15 years ago That kind of a conversation with Kamala if she was around back then Let's let's fat back up 15 years or is talking to all these amazing people that you've talked to over the time the time this podcast has been in existence has given you this incredible foundation from which to be able to ask such incredible questions of people and get this stuff out of them.

1:59:32Fifteen years ago, I would have never thought that it would have mattered at all if I had an opinion on anything. It would be like most comics that are doing podcasts today where they're just shooting the shit to their friends and no one cares. No one cares. You know, I want to vote for this guy because I think we need to try libertarianism and this is why I think it. like oh who cares and then interesting conversation moves on not that like so many people care what my fucking opinion is like that to me is a sign of the times like if you're coming to a cage fighting commentator and a dirty comedian like this is this is the guy that you need an opinion for that means the media's failed you like what i am i'm a symptom of a broken system like if i'm a source of information like we've got a like a bit of a supply chain problem i don't know i think it's being a little humble on that as well because where else could someone get these three hours where they can really listen to maybe two sides of right but my point is why didn't somebody else do that already why didn't why didn't mainstream media figure that out why did you need someone to figure it out in on a laptop in a fucking spare bedroom of their house like how is that possibly the number one media show in the world that's birthed out of a laptop in a Spare bedroom it doesn't make any sense well, it means you fit no no no it means they failed Yeah, because there's a lot smarter people than me a lot better people at dissecting What's actually going on in the world than me, but for whatever reason they can't do it So how come how you know unlike they've like there's a bunch of people in the New York Times that try the truck But they're all bullshit.

2:01:08They're never free to give their real opinion. They're never free to say you know what actually this person that I disagree with fundamentally has a really good point about this right you know they have instead of being ideologically captured which is like most of them most of them on the right and most of on the left instead of just being able to look at things and go that this is the actual reality that we're living in that's a failure that's a failure of media it's a failure of journalism it's a failure yeah and they say oh you know he's not a journalist you're right So how come people are listening?

2:01:42Like what is that about you tell me why no one else can have these kind of conversations with people and and break it down this way Well, it's because you're limited by your whole your whole system if you're involved in mainstream media You're limited by the format the format sucks. You have to break for commercials You're sponsored by brought to you by Pfizer so you there's certain things you can't talk about you've got handcuffs on and If you're on the internet and you're ideologically aligned with either the left or the right Well now you're captured by this box of predetermined opinions that you're supposed to subscribe to yeah But you recognize an opportunity and History but I didn't well well you did something I just kept this I'm telling you man This is not a plan.

2:02:27I know I know we've done that But yes kept doing it and then all of a sudden it became what it is But you recognize you could plug in a laptop and you could have a video you could have a conversation But it was all just for fun. See, that's why it worked. It worked because there was no plan. It was just like, let's do this and it'll be fun. And then people tune in because it's fun. And then I start getting like Graham Hancock on and Anthony Bourdain on. I'm getting some guests and it's kind of fun and it's kind of cool. And then it becomes a cool thing that if you know, you know. Like, oh, you listen to podcasts?

2:02:57Check this one out. Yeah, Joe Rogan's got good guests. He asks good questions. And then it became what it is now. But it's all just because I enjoy doing it. It was never because I recognized like, oh, there's an opening. No, no, I didn't mean it like that. I meant like it's very natural. That's also a part of it. Like, it's not like you're like, what can I do? Like, no, that's not that. Or some people do do that. Like, hey, what can be my thing? Oh, OK, X, Y and Z. OK, I'll give speaking about events on this certain thing. And OK, that's my thing now because I realized there's a gap. OK, I'm going to do that.

2:03:26That's different. That's not moving the needle probably for anybody in that audience, maybe for one person or something like that. And you're not looking at it like that. You're doing it because it was this very natural thing for you to do. And it happened to grow into what it is today, which is amazing, which makes it even more powerful that it was natural. And you weren't this artificial guy over here saying, what's the opportunity? Oh, I can make X dollars by speaking about this topic to this audience. OK, I'm going to do that and be happy or whatever. Instead, it was the opposite of that. It was very natural.

2:03:52And so it's a very different thing as far as opportunity goes. Well, that's the weirdness about today, right, is because you could just start a YouTube channel. Anybody who's a doctor or a historian could just start a YouTube channel and just start talking. Just think about all the stuff that you learned about Vietnam from writing this book. You could just break down moments like Dan Carlin style about Vietnam and just sit there and talk about it. And people would be like, that's fascinating. Jack Carr in Vietnam. You seen this video? And then it would get passed around. Next thing you know, it's got a half a million views.

2:04:26Next thing you know, it's got a million. And then everybody's sharing it in social media. That's the most fascinating thing about today Like if you say something cool and it becomes a part of a clip and somebody likes it it gets Blasted all over the whole world, right? It's on tick-tock. It's on X. It's on Instagram And then it's on YouTube and like a hundred different channels Yeah, there's all these channels that pop up and they take advantage of the algorithm I can't do that. I can never do something for clicks or for anything like that. I don't either But other people will. You don't have to do it.

2:05:01That's what's interesting. The vast majority of our clips online have nothing to do with us. I didn't put them up there. I don't know who the fucking person is that's editing them and clipping them together. Some of those cuts even put their own watermark on it. Whoever you are, cut the shit. That's not, you know? Like, oh, I edited it. Don't get fucking mindofawinner.com. Oh, boy. They do that stuff. They put their own little fucking website on it. But it's just, it's a weird time. It's a weird time for the distribution of information. And mainstream media, they dropped the ball. They missed these openings.

2:05:38And they're not capable of being free. There's too many cooks in the, like, all the notes that you were getting on season one, right? You don't get them anymore because it's successful. Like, that's kind of every show on television has got to deal with all these goddamn cooks. Yeah. All these chefs. Yeah. Oh, add a little of this and add a little of that. Well, you can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. No, it's like we were talking about earlier. Now people are trying to get that clip. So their life and their income is reliant on trying to get that clip. But I think what they don't realize is that that's a blip.

2:06:09You know, like that's a one thing, and then it's back down here. It's not a boom and then going from there. You have to continually add value to people's lives, I think, long term if you're going to build something of substance. And that's what you have done, obviously. and it's incredible to watch and to be a part of from the audience side and then to, you know, be a friend and all that stuff. Fucking weird shit. I know. It's weird. But then we see that stuff like with Charlie Kirk and people trying to take advantage of that to get a click. I know. And it's so, it's brutal and I don't know what it is going forward.

2:06:38Like when you think about communication in general and a long time ago the telephone used to connect us with our grandparents, let's say, states away. It used to connect us and now the telephone it disconnects us from that person who's sitting right here next to us on the couch. our spouse or our kids or anything else so it used communication used to connect us now a communication device which does obviously a lot more than that is a tracking device surveillance device all these other things but it's it disconnects us from those that we're in the same room with and that's a that's a different deal and that's why when I look at long term when we're talking about you always remain so hopeful about the future and I love it and I try to remain hopeful as well but when you think about it in those types of terms like this thing's not going away and what's next metaglasses okay we got the medaglasses they gave me some at UFC actually me too today have you fucked with them no cuz I left them under my seat and as soon as they gave it to me I knew I was gonna leave them under that seat they handed it to me when I came in I'm like I'm 100 % leaving this behind put it under the seat I told the Monica I'm like Monica remind me to bring these things with me and then we just had such a great time we totally forgot the Chicago one yeah they gave them to me as I was leaving so I would have made more sense I'm like thank you very much and I have them have you done it have you put them I put them on when they were here.

2:07:45I haven't done the new ones, but I've done several versions. I've tried them. They're pretty fucking incredible. It's pretty incredible. I'm not wearing them. Yeah. But we've had to stop people from wearing them at the comedy club. They try to film things with metaglasses on. Oh, no way. It's kind of funny. It's interesting. All glasses have to go in the pouch, just like the phones last night. No, it's just everybody who works there knows what a metaglass is. Right, right. But now they do. But then what happens five years from now when you can put them in anything? Well, it's going to be contact lenses, and then it's going to be over.

2:08:14And then it's going to be in the brain, some sort of implant. Yeah, there'll be some sort of a hard drive that you go by. Nope, not for me. No, not for me either, but we're the last of the regular people. Because it's going to be normal now going forward. Yeah, it's going to be a cyborg nation. I like how you're hopeful. You were hopeful earlier. No, I am still hopeful. I mean, I hope it works out well, but change is inevitable, and our change is technologically driven and it's an integration. The integration between this incredible technology that's available now to everybody through these AI platforms and then your phone and then your biology.

2:08:54Many people are wearing them Apple Watches and they're getting text messages and emails and making phone calls on their watch. I know, it's awful. I judge someone immediately when I see an Apple Watch, unless it's for health reasons. But I see someone with an Apple Watch, I immediately judge. But that's the same thing, using the watch to tell a story about the person or gear, whatever it might be, 1911, 1945, the new staccato, that tells me something about that person, what kind of hat they wear, belt they wear, leather setup, kydex setup, all those things, Solomon's shoes versus whatever, Oakley's versus gators, all those things tell me something about a person.

2:09:24But I immediately judge. I make judgments based on very little information, and that watch tells me something. And then they get into the Tesla, and I'm like, oh, okay, Apple Watch, Tesla, you know. Some of those things that seem like they just have no soul. You know what I mean? There's like the Apple watch thing is weird because it's like do you really need it all on your wrist buzzing all the time And it you have to charge it every day and then like I have a Garmin Then it's a digital watch. It's got maps on and stuff like that But I use it when I go hunting and I can put that fucker on full charge It'll go like a month and a half and it'll charge partially because of solar I can do less than again I got nothing else to charge.

2:10:03Did they give me something else to charge again? But the thing about those Garnt, what I like about them is, like, you could sync it up to your rangefinder. There's a bunch of different things you could do. You could have maps on it. And if you had to get out of somewhere and you're fucked and you're in the woods, you could pull up the GPS on your watch and you could figure out where the trailhead is. And you can get out. You could figure out where the road systems are and you can get out. And you can just say, okay, I just have to go due north for six miles and I'm going to hit a road. Like, that could save your life.

2:10:32Like if you're in the middle of the woods you don't know what the fuck is going on and something happens And you're like okay. We have to get out of here. We can't go back the way we came How do I how do I get this some form of civilization? I'm a mapping compass guy. I'm a mapping compass guy. That's great Map compass the the Waltham compass I put that in the it's in the book right here The Vietnam guys had them on there on their say goes Yeah, yeah, those are awesome. So I had one of those near me as I was writing the book as well And we put one into the show dark wolf the guys around the fire in the first episode Jared's there as boozer and Pratt's there and Taylor's there and Tom hoppers there on this fire and that scene I think it's one of the best ones and Tom gets a gift from from Reese from from Chris Brad and he opens it And it's that that wrist compass from Vietnam.

2:11:13That's really cool Now that scene was really cool to see see Jared in particular Buddy from the SEAL teams who gives Chris the book now. He's an actor He's a executive producer a writer right wrote an episode and technical advising for things on that show That's awesome got to act a lot more in this one. It's so so cool I hope nobody poaches him away from us. He's so good at all of those things. So I've got to keep close hold on Jared. He's so fantastic in it. But that scene in particular, I think a lot of people who are in Iraq and Afghanistan that spent time around the fire, or any warriors who spent time around the fire, or hunters that spent time around the fire, will identify with that scene, the sharing of stories between hunters and warriors.

2:11:50And that was a powerful scene to fill them. And we did that early on. That was the first week of filming. It was pretty cool. That's awesome. Most people don't know how to use a compass at all. See me I'd do well with the compass in the map but not so good with the Garmin I'd be like where's my have you ever figured out a way to use your watch as a compass? I know there's a thing that we're waiting but I don't know because they have like dials that like like yeah So it looks like a diver dial, but it's north south east west I think you have to wait on the shadow or something and do that with a stick in the ground also the whole right There's a whole process to figuring out excuse me where east northwest east and then somehow or another you use your watch yeah no there's something like that but yeah map compass the sun across the sky where it is time of day that's obvious stuff right yeah well hope rises in the east that's in the west but when you're basics when you're looking at your watch there's some sort of way to figure out where everything is I don't get it yeah I think there was on what was the wild what was the Bear Grylls show I think he talked about it in one of those those whole shows yeah I went I watched a whole YouTube video on it I'm like I don't get it I still don't Oh, man.

2:12:54But there's, you know, everybody has a compass on their phone now, too. I know. And then that thing dies. I don't know. That's a problem. I can't plug anything in. But did you get a hunt this year? What's that? Did you get hunting this year? Yeah. Did you get to Utah? Utah. Nice. I think I remember when you were there. I was in Morocco, I think. The last couple months, I've just been totally on the road. I was there the week of the 15th. I know. Okay. Right after. Okay. It was great. We caught it right in the rut. Nice. I was in Morocco. Yeah. But it was a good time? Yeah, we had a good time. Yeah, it was awesome.

2:13:22It was beautiful. I haven't been out in a while. Been to Lanai, done that just because it's an easy flight out there. Day of the Four Seasons, the family loves it. Did you bow hunt out there? No, right, I went with the kids. So for me, when I go out now, it's all about the kids and getting them out there on the rifle. Well, rifle hunting in Lanai is infinitely more effective than bow hunting. Agreed. Bow hunting in Lanai is really hard. And it seems crazy because there's so many animals, but the success rate is really low. Yeah, especially those winds and swirling and everything like that. But if you're on the timeline and you need to get back to Nobu in time for dinner, then you use that rifle.

2:13:59Yeah. Also, it's the best way to get the meat, and that's the best meat. Right up there with elk, almost. Yeah, yeah. It's just slightly less desirable to me than elk. Is it? Yeah, yeah. Axis deer. Axis deer is really good. So good. It's delicious. And that's one of the cool things about if you stay on Lanai, which is there's two Four Seasons there, and the Four Seasons that's on the water is incredible. But they have these Axis Burger sliders. Oh, yeah. Axis deer sliders are so good. Oh. And the Carpaccio. Have you had the Carpaccio there? I've had everything there. It's freaking great. Yeah, it's great.

2:14:33But what a weird place where you can hunt deer during the day and then stay at the Four Seasons. Not bad. The other one's a Sensei Spa now up top, so they switched it up. Sensei? Yeah, it's this crazy high-end spa. in the old Four Seasons, the one that used to look like a hunting lodge type of a thing. Right. So that's a Sunset Spa now. But, yeah, it's a good time. So that's the only hunting I've been doing the last couple years now. Well, you're part of the Pineapple Brothers, right? Yeah, yeah. Like you're one of the organizations that runs the outfitting out there. Yeah, me and John Dubin. Alec out there.

2:14:58Do they have a lot of people come out there every year? Yeah, pretty booked. Yeah, pretty booked all year because the family gets to go. It's very unique in that respect. Sure. You get the family. Yeah. It's also like such a – first of all, you have to hunt them. Yeah, yeah. There's 30 ,000 deer on an island with 3 ,000 people. That is so crazy. And if you see them at night in particular, when you shine a headlight out to the field, you're like, there's no way this is sustainable. And it's not. So they literally have to hunt them. And hunting is such a big part of the Hawaiian culture, too. People don't realize that.

2:15:29They think of the beaches and everything else. Don't realize how big a part of the culture that really is. Oh, yeah. But that's where the luau is all about, right? It's wild pig hunting. That's it. They're not using farm-raised pigs. Yeah. Maybe now they might be. Some places. I don't know. Yeah, I'm sure some resorts are using that. But for the traditional way, it was like you're hunting pigs. Yeah. And those pigs were brought over by sailors. That's how they got on that island in the first place. Well, the Axis came over from India, so it's all coming over from someplace. But it's nice there's no snakes, too.

2:15:56That's true. That is nice. And there's nothing that's an animal that can kill you on land. That's pretty good. Different than Australia. But in the water. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Hence why you don't surf. It gets a little squirrely. Yeah. It gets a little squirrely out there with the tiger sharks. Yeah, 100 % chance of not getting eaten by a shark if you don't go in the water. Yeah, fuck all that, dude. Same thing with skydiving. Like, I'm done with the skydiving. Good. No more of that. Thank you. Please. Yeah, that seems unnecessary at this point. Stop, Tom Cruise. Exactly. Hey, Tom Cruise, we need to - Cut this shit.

2:16:25You did it already. We want more movies. Yeah, yeah. We can do it on the green screen now. Come on. Enough, buddy. Enough. Yeah. So, no, yeah, no more of that sort of thing. As fun as it was. The flying around was always fun, but the jumping, eh. The flying around, great. And then when you have to go to pull through that sequence, it's like that's when that's the moment of truth You know this doesn't work then there are procedures you need to go through in order to get this secondary Yeah, get the backup shoot go nightmare. Yeah. No, no good. No, no, I'm good But I'll go in the water though. I'll still go in the water with the sharks, but not Plains, but yeah, we're done in Nicaragua last A few months ago though the kids were surfing and all that stuff, but I'm thinking about sharks the whole time You know Adam green tree.

2:17:04Yeah, I don't know personally about I know. Adam told me that, I'm sorry if I told this story yesterday, folks, but Adam spearfishes. He said that the sharks have learned the sound of the spear gun going off. And so somebody gave him flippers that had scales on them because they thought it was cool to give him flippers. And these bull sharks showed up after he shot a fish and they bit his fucking flippers off. Stop. Yes. Because the flippers had scales on them. Well, don't use those anymore. Yeah, fuck all that. I'm like, why did you? He goes, I was thinking about it, Mike. This isn't good. I'm like yeah, it's not good.

2:17:37It's not good. He goes then they bit him off me feet. Yeah Have you seen the lady that swims with the sharks have those popped up on your yeah? Yeah, I mean it's like I mean I say it but like the grizzly guy what happened to the grizzly guy? Well, I think she knows what she's doing and I think it's a little different cuz sharks don't target people Most of the times when they're killing people it's an accident cuz they think the people's a seal Yeah, maybe Right, I don't know exactly Exactly. I mean, there's that, like, the SeaWorld, one member of the SeaWorld thing. That's different. Like, took that lady down.

2:18:09Yeah, but that's different. They don't ever do that in the wild. Orcas in the wild don't kill people. They only kill people when people fuck with them. That's all it is. One of the things that's been happening lately is they've been sinking boats. I saw those videos. That's crazy. Yeah, they decide, fuck you, and they start sinking boats. That's amazing, and that's something that we haven't seen before, right? No, it's very new. It's crazy. It's like within this decade. Yeah. It's a very recent thing, and it's one particular part of the world where it seems to be a occurring over and over again.

2:18:35And I don't know what happened. Like, maybe somebody fucked with a killer whale. Like, maybe somebody did something terrible. Maybe. And then that sonar, whatever they talk, goes out. Where is it where they're attacking killer whales? Because, like, you're talking about evil and wealthy people, and we're getting into that thing. You know what I mean? And they're attacking yachts. You know what I'm saying? Like, how many cunts are on a yacht? They're like, let's shoot the killer whale. And they're firing rifles at killer whales. Maybe. And they're like, oh, yeah? Yeah. How about some of this action?

2:19:05I bet there's some shitheads out there. They're boat roaming orcas. Oh, there's a new theory about why orcas are targeting sailboats in the Iberian Peninsula. They're using them to practice hunting their favorite food. I don't like your theory. I think your theory sucks. I'm not buying it. I bet somebody was an asshole. I bet someone killed one of those orcas. Would you go down in the shark cage off of Cape Town? No! Fucking way. No. Have you seen the one where the guy gets in? I did do one thing with my family once a long time ago. But we did, we, not scuba dive, but snorkeled. Yeah. We snorkeled with dolphins.

2:19:38Okay. That was pretty badass. Yeah. So you find a pot of dolphins. Okay. And then you jump overboard. Nice. And you can get, you know, within like 50, 60 yards of them. And they're swimming around. It's kind of cool. Yeah. You see them swimming underwater and shit. It's pretty badass. Yeah. That was cool. But they're not interested in you. They're like, get out of here. Yeah. But if you're on a boat, they are interested in you. It's interesting. Like when, maybe it was just the circumstance that we had. Maybe sometimes they come and play with you, but I've been on boats before where they come right up next to the boat And they jump and they're they're put on a show for you Yeah, like as the boat is moving its way through the water there They're flipping and they're looking at you.

2:20:14They're like looking at you and they come out of the water Yeah, it's really clear that they're kind of playful right and they're interacting with people right different than the sharks that come into the shark Cage and yeah crunch it you see one of the guy I would have done that a long time ago I do it now The one guy with the shark comes in yeah, I mean come on An article from yeah Jaws came out again. It was like a 50th anniversary or something So I saw it in the theater with my son and it was pretty cool to see in the theater Okay, here it is the while some initial reports suggested that the Iberian orcas could be carrying out revenge against the ships This has been dismissed by many orca experts why?

2:20:52The encounters often involve young orcas going straight for the rudders Scientists have suggested the orcas are likely just bored teenagers with more free time since Atlantic bluefin tuna Populations their favorite prey prey in the region Recovered meaning they need to spend less time hunting. What does it say click on dismissed by many orca? Click on that link. I want to find out why they think it's dismissed like what's their rationalization? Oh wow open letter to regarding Iberian orcas and their interactions with boats. Undersigned are experts in biology and behavior of cetaceans with several specializing in orcas, also known as killer whales.

2:21:33There's been intense public interest in interactions between orcas as the Iberian orcas and marine vessels along the coast of the Iberian Peninsula and in neighboring waters. We are concerned that factual errors regarding these interactions are being repeated in the media along with a narrative lacking a basis in science or reality that the animals are aggressively attacking vessels or seeking revenge against mariners. Well, first of all, stop right there. They are aggressively attacking vessels. I watched it. Yeah. There's a video. You can watch it. Sure looks like it. These people are on the boat and it starts sliding in the boat and it sinks the boat.

2:22:07Like what is that? Guys, people are freaking out on that boat too. Of course they would. I think it's probably people who are, oh, the whales have shown a wide range of behaviors during the interactions, many of them consistent with playful social behavior. Yeah, because they're having a good time sinking these boats. I don't know. People and their fucking narratives. All I'm saying is the grizzly guy gets eaten by the grizzly, the rattlesnake guy gets bit by the rattlesnake, the shark person, I mean, I just, I worry. It could certainly happen. Right. It certainly could happen. The grizzly guy, though, I think that was suicide by bear.

2:22:36Oh, yeah. Did you watch that documentary? No, I just heard about it so many times I feel like I've seen it. It's a fun documentary. Yeah. It's Werner Herzog. Right. He's brilliant, and he turns it into a comedy. It is kind of a comedy. It's like an unintentional comedy about a guy who's really fucking stupid and hangs out with bears way too long and eventually gets eaten. Man, I went up there in Alaska going up the rivers bear hunting, and, I mean, you're walking right by him. It is insane just looking for the right one and an old one. And it's crazy how close you get and how comfortable the guides are working their way up these river systems off a boat.

2:23:10Staying on a boat, you go in, and then you work your way up through the day and come back. But it was wild to be so close. I'm like, I'm very nervous because you always hear about don't get between the mom and the cubs type thing. And you're walking right by them. You're like, okay, you know, here we go. And they're so big. Yeah. Yeah. The 375 for, uh, for that one. It's the iron sight, 375. Iron sights? Yeah. Yeah. How come? Uh, just cause it's going to be close. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Fog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to worry about like the, the condensation on the, on the, you're right down there.

2:23:42How close was the shot? It's very wet out there. I didn't take one, but we had one. Yeah, very wet. Yeah, everything's just soaking wet. And it's just fog, mist, the whole thing. So the only one we had, we had a charge. And I think I might have told you that. I can't remember. Had a charge, and the guy came in. He was a little young. She was like, my guide said, it was a female guy. She's amazing. She said, he's legal. And I'm like, eh, that's not what you want to hear. You know, you want something that's really old. And you want to be contributing to this conservation. He's young. I didn't want to do that.

2:24:08Yeah, legal's not a word you want to hear when you're hunting. No, no. But it was curious also. So it was young. So it was curious. So it kept coming in, kept coming in, and she's yelling at it, and I'm just right there, just on the trigger, ready to go. And it's coming, it's coming, and then it gets close, and it stops, and it starts doing that going back and forth type thing. And it's pretty close. I had most of it on video, and then I didn't want to be the guy that has the phone out and gets eaten. And so I put it down. So it gets close, and then I put it down so you can still hear it because it's still running.

2:24:37So I still have the video you can hear. and he goes like this and he starts to charge and he veers the other way though he veers off and she goes she's yelling at him and she says shoot and I start to press the trigger and she goes no no no like in the same sentence like there's no because he veered off because he veered off he looked like he was going to come and it was so close I was like oh okay that's alright yeah so then we made our way back out and didn't get one on that trip but it was beautiful up there it was beautiful I love it up there it's the last frontier for real I'd go up there I'd go live up there would you?

2:25:08Yeah, yeah. My wife wouldn't, so I think we'll stay in Park City. But I'd go up there for sure. It's a crazy place. It's Park City on steroids. It's, well, without - I mean, not Park City, but like the Utah mountains. Yeah. I mean, it is so vast. I love it. I love it up there. When you're up there, the feeling of insignificance, when you realize like, oh, there's just us. There's no people anywhere near us for a long time, for like a few hours in a plane. Yeah, that's what we did when the wrangle mountains my last year if I think it was my last trip up there and You guys see wolves. Yeah got a wolf kind of bear got a moose all in one trip was wow Yeah, big ones of everything too.

2:25:48It was crazy. I was loose is awesome because you could eat that sucker for a whole year Yeah, we got a time we gave but much of it to the guides and their families and all that stuff There's so much to you know to take that oh, yeah, but yeah, that was John Dubin and and And Frank LeCrone, who were also in Pineapple Brothers, we went up there just to assist us and a guide, two guides that know what they're doing up there. Did you guys fly in like a push plane? Yeah, push plane and into camp one night and then get on the horses and then going up into the mountains with the horses and then make camp there and then push out from that every day.

2:26:17Wow. It was fantastic. Yeah, it was beautiful. That was beautiful. It was 2022, I think. Oh, sure. I mean, everything's so vast. And I love Alaska. My plan was to go to Alaska and Africa, like, back to every other year, and then that didn't happen. Well, it's the only place in this country at this point where you can hunt grizzlies. And they really need to do something about that. Some of these other states where they're talking about opening it up because they are not scared of people anymore. And the interactions are getting more and more frequent. And they're not doing anything to curb the populations.

2:26:47And that's the thing we're talking about with Lanai. And people that are not involved in hunting and don't understand the conservation aspect of it, you can't just have an unchecked population of animals. including predators. And all these fucking people are voting with their heart instead of letting wildlife biologists say, no, this is actually bad for the animals, for the overall population of them. And it's also going to be bad for people. Yeah, I mean, animals and people collide. Mountain lions in California, of course. Preposterous. Preposterous. Utah's changed their laws. Utah, they're like coyotes now.

2:27:27Oh, is that right? I didn't even know that yeah, well, there's too many interactions. Yeah, I got a big one a couple years one came on our Adjusted our neighbors game cam huge one came through which is good because well fed Right, and that's the one that gets skinny and you know get a little dicey Huge one came through right around Thanksgiving when all the families in town and we're up in the mountains right there pretty remote And and everybody's there the kids are there some kind of like oh, man And I'm sure they've seen me a ton of times and I've never seen never seen that probably watching Get my game cams up gotta get those game cams up I have a bunch of them.

2:27:57I just need to figure out how to link them all up. I need someone to help me link them all up and the Wi-Fi and the whole thing. Well, they can set up with cell phones now. Yeah, exactly. That's what's cool. So you get text messages every time something walks through your camera. Yeah, I need to do that. I put about 25 different 3D targets up. The Archery Challenge guys came up, so I have a course that I can walk that I don't usually do. That's great, though. That's great to just have in the backyard. Yeah, that's awesome. That's pretty sweet. That's awesome. But I want to get some game cams on them to see what the interaction is because the moose come through, the elk come through, the mule deer come through.

2:28:24and I want to see those interactions. We have about 200 turkeys, it seems, probably more like 150, but a lot come through every day. So I do love it up there. And you know if someone's up there that you know if they shouldn't be there. Right. And it was crazy. So we're after Charlie Kirk. Remember, the only thing we had was that this guy was in black, right? Right. So I'm on edge. I'm devastated by this thing. I'm really feeling it. I met him once. I didn't know him, but we have mutual friends who were very close to him. so so anyway I was just devastated by this thing and the kids saw it so I'm devastated by that it's just you know it's awful all the way around and there's a knock at our door and I'm like this is like this is like the next day and I'm like no one's supposed to be here our gate was busted so we're getting a whole new security system but the gate was busted then and and it's being fixed now so I'm like is this and I look I can look out from a price where no one can see me and it's this guy in all black oh I knew it wasn't in my mind I knew this isn't the person but you're hearing that's the only description this guy is head to toe black up in the mountains where i've never seen him before like you have to work to get up to us and but his car was semi-nice parked outside i'm like what is this i feel like an audi or something i'm like this is weird and uh he was overweight he didn't clearly didn't fit the description but all black so i'm like on edge already and uh so i grabbed the pistol and uh go down to the door and his back's to the door so you can't see his face so i'm like what so i had the pistol behind my back a little 226 behind my back and because i can do some work with that thing and uh i'm like yeah and he's like oh we're doing some work around the corner with uh some some cement do you need any work with cement around here i'm like no like you should have pretty nice to people but i was i was like and he's okay walks by you can't just walk up people around here like that without an appointment clearly the gate is meant to keep people out right and you come up all dressed in black the day after this thing happens and you randomly knock on a door turn your back to the and you have your back to the door that's so weird bizarre do you know who the guy is no i was just like i mean he's doing some work on one of the other places you want to know if you need cement needed some cement isn't that odd but in my mind i'm like well i was just casing for something maybe he was like a stalker fan that found where you are and that was his excuse i didn't think about that I was more thinking about just the description of the Charlie Kirk person immediately it'd be like oh you have cement yeah like yeah why do you have extra cement dude bizarre you're knocking on people's doors asking if they need cement I think it was really somebody hustling like trying to do some work I can't man type stuff whatever but that was that was crazy one other person came to the house when they shouldn't have and that was like it was very strange and anyway you're in the mountains and someone visits you especially the middle of the night like I was during the day but this other one was in the middle of the night the middle of the night like how late like midnight oh yeah yeah and so that one I put the AR by the door had the had the pistol and uh and went over there looking it ends up they were looking for another house up there but it was very bizarre yeah it's late late in a storm oh coming down yeah coming down so you're like was this one of those things where you open the door and the other guys rush in type of thing because it was a lady stumbling down through the snow with what I thought was a headlamp ended up being her I saw a video like that online where this lady knocked on the door and a bunch of dudes came exactly yeah exactly so uh anyway yeah so working on the new security system yeah get some uh uh but it's it's if you come knocking on the door it's uh you shouldn't be there people need to have a little more common sense yeah you're gonna get you know it terrible though that you have to think like that like someone could just have a car broken down and i know just need help i know you have to be on edge right completely Yeah.

2:32:09And if that was the case, of course, I'd go out, but then you're still thinking like, oh, they're just going to get me out of the house. Exactly. Yeah. Maybe someone's waiting to get you out of the house. Exactly. And then other people run in. Yeah. So it's got to be smart. Maybe call, hey, why don't you call some authorities up here and we'll just wait, you know, let's sit right here until they get here and they can help you with your car or whatever it was. But yeah. So trying to get a little better with the security type things. Yeah. There's something about the woods and the mountains alone when you're by yourself that you worry about people coming to visit you anyway.

2:32:38You worry about people just showing up. Right. It's not normal. No. And if you're a person that just shows up, you have to recognize that. That's a very vulnerable position. Right. By yourself in a house in the woods or with your family in a house in the woods and you just show up while it's snowing. Yeah. This is the beginning of a movie. Right. It's a horrible movie. Exactly. Yeah. And when we lived in town, people did come by and kind of expect it. You live in town. There's no real security, whatever. It's kind of more expected. That's a little more normal. When you're way up there, especially on the guy dressed in black was weird.

2:33:10Like when it gets darker, like when you're rather in the woods and it gets darker and then people show up, those people immediately seem like danger. Or suspect. Yeah. Especially in the woods. Yeah. I mean, that's the old instinct that kept us alive for so long. Like, I need to be on edge here. Exactly. And tell who's his friend or foe. Yeah. Until you know. Some invading tribe member. Exactly. In the middle of the night. Until you absolutely know you're going to err on the side of caution and protecting your life and the lives of your loved ones. Well, listen, brother. Yeah, man. I'm very excited about this book.

2:33:39Thank you. I'm going to get into it. Is the audio available right now? Audio available with Ray Porter. It's out right now. And, yeah, audio, e-book, hardcover. I like how you went back to James Reese's dad, too. Ah, there it is. Yeah, yeah. Look at that. Yeah. And we're pitching this to Amazon here, I think, in the next month or so as a series. So you never know if it's going to happen or not. But that'd be a cool one. I think people are ready for another Vietnam-style TV show or movie. It's been a while. It's been a while since we've had a good one. At the very least, book. I'm excited. Yeah.

2:34:11And this one was essentially an espionage thriller set in Saigon, but set in Southeast Asia more specifically. And no one's really done that since Quiet American, Graham Greene, Tears of Autumn. And Graham Greene was 1955. And Tears of Autumn was 1974. and Jean Le Corre was the Honorable Schoolboy in 1977. So it's been a while. Yeah, Cry Havoc available right now. Congratulations on everything, brother. Thank you. I'm very, very happy for you. So great to see you. This is awesome to see you killing them out there. Thanks, brother. Appreciate everything. My pleasure. Bye, everybody. Take care. Bye,

2:34:54everybody. Thank you.