#2458 - Matt McCusker

7:23Joe Rogan:Yeah, that's it. But the data are mixed, and the absolute risk for any one person is low. Talc itself is a mineral, can be mined near asbestos, so contamination is the main worry. Asbestos is a known cause of mesothelioma and other cancers. Yeah, quite a few women. I think there was a lawsuit.

7:44Matt McCusker:I remember hearing that. I remember I was dismayed because that was like, I had a weird thing when I was younger. I used to use baby powder to masturbate.

7:50Joe Rogan:Yo.

7:50Matt McCusker:Because it just makes everything feel so. So it was kind of nice. If I smell baby powder to this day, It's like a trigger for me. If I smell it, I'm like, God damn, bro. That shit away from me.

8:00Joe Rogan:Well, I used to use it a lot to play pool. Oh, yeah. Yeah, everybody would use baby powder. You use baby powder on your fingers. It makes the shaft slide through your fingers. But then they invented gloves, and so that keeps the table clean. Yeah, yeah. This is like, I guess they're, I don't know what they're made out of. It's like a nylon, like a very thin nylon. So it's not getting called up. It makes it nice and slick. Yeah. Yeah, but baby powder, no bueno. What else? They're saying LED lights now.

8:24Matt McCusker:That's what I keep hearing. LED. They're saying it kills your mitochondria.

8:28Joe Rogan:Aren't these LED? Are these LED? Fuck. Do we have to change our lights? I know. Are we dying in here?

8:35Matt McCusker:What is that?

8:35Joe Rogan:LED lights and what?

8:37Matt McCusker:I think they crush your mitochondria. Oh, jeez. I don't know if I just get scared by AI clips on Instagram. I'm scared of everything.

8:43Joe Rogan:I have to fucking stay offline. I know. I'm reading too much of the news, and it's overwhelming me. Sometimes at nighttime, I can't wind down. Yeah. It's just like there's too much news. There's too much fucking madness. We're about to go to war with Iran. I know. Everyone's eating beef jerky and pizza. Like, what are these? What the fuck is pizza? I know. You know, how far does this go? How come this never got released before? Like, what is happening? This episode is brought to you by Momentus. Creatine's strength benefits are already backed by tons of research, but what's really interesting is where the research is headed.

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11:34Matt McCusker:I mean, my thing is like, I'm not, first of all, the news for me is like, aside from all like the disastrous wars, it's just so like negative. When you read the news is mostly people being like, guess who's a giant piece of shit.

11:45Joe Rogan:Right.

11:46Matt McCusker:You read that over and over and you get like addicted to being like, yeah, that guy sucks.

11:49Joe Rogan:I'm good. Well, there was an article that I read recently about people being addicted to outrage. Yeah. It's a real thing. Oh, for sure. Being addicted to being upset about stuff and addicted to outrage. You go search for it, which is why your algorithm shows you all that shit.

12:02Matt McCusker:Yeah. I don't know if this is true, but I feel like they watch your facial expression through your phone camera and feed you stuff if you're making like interested or outraged or whatever. I wouldn't be shocked. I've heard they like track your eyeball movement and they're like, okay, this is holding his eyes. And they just keep feeding you. Really? I've heard that.

12:20Joe Rogan:You should probably put a piece of tape over that bitch.

12:22Matt McCusker:I know. I know. I wonder if you did, how much would change? That would be an interesting experience. Well, they got you mic too. So they got your audio. That's true. But yeah, the new, dude, that, yeah, all that Epstein shit is like, I can't follow it. It's too much. It's too much. There's too many names. I don't know state representative. They're like naming all these people. It's like, damn, I wish I knew who that was.

12:40Joe Rogan:And it's dark too. It's horrible. And it goes so high. There's so many levels to it. You know, Sagar and Yeti was just on flagrant and they were reading off files and talking about, and it's just like, what the fuck, man?

12:55Matt McCusker:Yeah, it's, you need to study all day to like follow it. Prince Andrew's crazy. Him getting arrested. He's the first. What other prince has gotten arrested? It must have been like not since 500 years ago. Yeah. When was the last time a prince was arrested? I have no idea. And also, if he goes to jail, if he goes to real jail, he's getting clapped. Yeah. He's a known, you know, it's very, very likely that he was a pedophile. If pedophiles go to jail.

13:17Joe Rogan:Well, what do they know that they're putting him in jail first or they're arresting him first? Like, what do they know? Because they did a bunch of things. Right. The first thing they do is they stripped him of his princehood, right? Exactly. And then they banished him to some estate somewhere on the country. And then they removed him from the estate. They kicked him out of that estate. Yeah. So it's been like levels upon levels. So what do they know?

13:40Matt McCusker:I think the royal family gets to see the real deal. So they probably saw the real deal and were like, bro, you're fried. You're going to jail. And he might be the first. He might get like clapped in jail.

13:51Joe Rogan:Jesus.

13:51Matt McCusker:Someone might get royal. Royal asshole? Yeah, he's my gay royal fucking pussy.

13:56Joe Rogan:Don't you think they have him in— Did they have protective custody in New England? He'll be in protective custody for sure.

14:01Matt McCusker:Do they have that over there? They'll probably make a jail for him. I would imagine they do. I think anything we have here, I would imagine they have protective custody. Because if you're even— If people even think you're a pedophile in jail, they're going to—

14:11Joe Rogan:Do you think that starts like a whole cascade and then a bunch of other people start getting arrested?

14:16Matt McCusker:No, I think they're going to hang him up and be like, we got him. I don't believe that all these billionaires are going to let themselves get arrested.

14:24Joe Rogan:They have billions of dollars. Paris prosecutors opened two new Epstein-linked investigations. Uh-oh. With who? I think it's the Jean-Luc guy. Who's that? He's a co-conspirator. He was also died in custody in general. God damn it, not again. So they reopened the investigation on that. And somebody else, I think, that they just found out that was high up in the... I lost it here. How did he die in jail? I don't... Officially? Yeah. There you go. He was found dead. Okay. He was found dead. Oh, he died. How old was he?

15:10At the time.

15:14Joe Rogan:Yeah. And also the... 76? Oh, that's about the time dudes like that die. Yeah. But they didn't ever, there was a probe, and I think they'd reopen the probe also. Of how he died? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's going to be a tough one to solve. Yeah. You're going to have hit some roadblocks. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody whacked him. We were just talking about the guy that Epstein was in jail with, which is crazy. Like, if Epstein is alive, some people think he's alive. Some people think they scooted him out of his cell, switched to body double, killed that guy. but if why would they put him in jail with that gigantic cop who is a contract killer that fucking guy that's one picture show me the picture of the tank top picture that's the one whoa bro look at the size of that guy and this guy was a he was a cop who was a dirty cop who was killing drug dealers yeah I

16:08Matt McCusker:mean maybe that was the plan be like all right we'll put him in here it'll sound

16:11Joe Rogan:good if this guy kills him like oh man and then 18 days before he died he complained that his cellmate tried to kill him. What?

16:20Matt McCusker:Yeah.

16:20Joe Rogan:See if we can find that. The

16:21Matt McCusker:different guy? No.

16:23Joe Rogan:Epstein did.

16:23Matt McCusker:No, I'm saying, was he complaining about the murderous cop or is this a different guy? Yes. That's crazy, dude. I do. That's crazy. I do. Also, how did he try to kill him and not kill him? That's what I was just going to say. What the fuck are you talking about?

16:35Joe Rogan:Epstein slipped away and just like sat in the corner. I mean, maybe he screamed loud enough and the guards came. Yeah, but they would separate them. The night Jeffrey Epstein claimed his cellmate tried to kill him. So he laid in a fetal position on the floor of his jail cell, unresponsive with an orange fabric noose. Oh, this is when they found him. 18 days before Epstein's death, he wasn't breathing, his eyes were opening. Oh, so this was when they found him. Oh, so they found him in the fetal position? Oh, no, this was the orange fabric noose. That's when they found him dead. Okay. 18 days before Epstein...

17:08Joe Rogan:No. Okay. So it is saying that. So it's saying that he had an orange noose tied around his neck 18 days before he died. What? What? What the fuck? What? So July 23rd, 2019, 18 days before Epstein's death. He wasn't breathing, his eyes opening and shutting occasionally, but he wouldn't or couldn't respond to officers' questions and commands, according to a confidential corrections officer's memo obtained by CBS News. They hoisted inmate 76318054 onto a stretcher. Officials have repeatedly said Epstein's eventual death by suicide was foreshadowed by this earlier alleged attempt. Former Attorney General Bill Barr reiterated that claim in an August closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee, which released the interview transcript last week.

18:00Joe Rogan:Barr, who did not reply to questions from CBS News, said in his testimony he knew about the July 23rd incident, which he viewed as an attempted suicide. Barr said he considered it indicative of Epstein's state of mind. But jail staff memos, other never-before-reported documents obtained by CBS News, as well as interviews with more than a dozen people who interacted with Epstein before and after the incident, reveal a murkier picture than the one depicted by Barr. The new documents have surfaced amid persistent speculation over Epstein's death, despite official conclusions that he died by suicide.

18:34Joe Rogan:So he's laying on the floor and his bunkie is screaming, I did nothing. I banged on my door to get him out of my cell, the source said. Corruptions officers carried Epstein to his cell on a different floor as he remained unresponsive. Was it the same cop, the contract killer cop? Yep, right? He told them he thought he'd been attacked by his cellmate an ex-cop who was awaiting trial on four murders

19:00Matt McCusker:But they're saying that was an attempted suicide

19:02Joe Rogan:Well, they tried to frame it as an attempted suicide No, I would imagine he doesn't have a way to contact the outside world and just tweet about this Yeah, right. He can't make an Instagram video. Hey guys, this guy fucking kill me He sat up on the bed again telling me that he thinks his bunkie tried to kill him a responding officer wrote in one memo A senior officer wrote in a separate incident report that Epstein initially implicated his cellmate in the incident, claiming he had previously said things that made Epstein feel threatened. So Nicholas Tartaglione, his cellmate, repeatedly disputed the initial allegation, I did nothing, and said I tried to revive him.

19:43Joe Rogan:As with Epstein's eventual death, any camera footage of the incident was either mislaid, lost, or never captured. by the facility's faulty system. Tartaglione has not responded to emailed questions from CBS News. How odd. His lawyer said Epstein's initial claim that Tartaglione tried to kill him was flatly not true.

20:08Matt McCusker:Well. Okay. So maybe he did try to, I mean, you know, there's a chance he did try to kill himself and was like, shit, I don't want to get saved.

20:14Joe Rogan:And then his guy saved him. He said he saved him. So it says it right here. Scroll back up a little bit. Tartaglione said in a recent interview the house and that Epstein also left a suicide note and it even offered Tartaglione money to kill him What? Neither of those details if true are reference in any of the bureau prison records that were reviewed by CBS News So if you scroll up higher it says he's he said he saved his life the first time So it's saying that he saved his life. He yelled when the guy what his attorney says. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's saying he tried to kill himself once. Yeah. But that's just his attorney saying that.

20:52Joe Rogan:Yeah, for sure. You know, Epstein claimed to both corrections officers and the source that he felt threatened by Tartaglione, hulking retired cop turned drug dealer who was charged and later convicted for four murders. Just how could you take the most high profile defendant ever and put him in a cage with a murderer his bunkie told him that if he beat him up because of Epstein's child sex trafficking charges the officers would not report it oh that's what he told him the wealthy allegedly the wealthy former financier told jail officers that he believed Tartaglione was trying to extort money from him and stated that if he didn't pay him that he was gonna beat him up the officer wrote he stated that this has been going on for a week then that guy saying Epstein

21:43Matt McCusker:was trying to pay me to kill him for himself. You would think they could find a middle ground, man. Well, someone's lying.

21:50Joe Rogan:Yeah, I know. That's the craziest.

21:52Matt McCusker:There's too many plot holes. There's no way. Imagine, like, who's saying, I'll pay you to kill me. Yeah. Also, it's like, wait, how are we going to do that?

22:00Joe Rogan:How are we going to work this all out? Yeah, but the guy's already, well, that, and then what's he going to do with the money? Exactly, yeah. How's he going to get the money? I guess you can give it. If you know somebody, you know, you love, you can give it to them. Right. Does he have money or does all of his money go to the victim's families? Like he killed four people. Shit, man, he might be right. Right? Yeah. So it would have to be like an offshore account that like gets slipped over to the prison so he could buy cigarettes. If anyone can do it. If anyone can do it, it's Jeffrey Epstein, man.

22:25Joe Rogan:But it would have to be worked out in advance. Like he would have to have the cigarettes in the commissary. Yeah. Okay, time to kill you.

22:32Matt McCusker:Dude, it's too, you know, I think it's just one of those things. And I don't know if people can, you know, want to wrap their heads around it. But there's just people who do things in this world on behalf of, like, you know, Uber billionaires that we're just never going to know what's going on. For sure. They do horrible, terrible secret stuff.

22:48Joe Rogan:And they always have.

22:49Matt McCusker:Yeah. This is the thing.

22:50Joe Rogan:If you go throughout history, there's always been secret societies and people that get together with creepy meetings. All that eyes wide shut shit that Qbert put in his film. That's not – he's not imagining that. No. That's always been a thing. The officer that discovered his body dead in August was originally charged with falsifying documents related to his death, but those charges were dropped. Hmm. I wonder what the falsifying of the documents was. I don't know. I don't know. Who knows? Maybe people charged it to try to open up the paperwork or whatever. Here it is. Because Epstein was on suicide watch after the July 23rd incident, Thomas was required to record a log of observations about Epstein in 15-minute increments.

23:33Joe Rogan:Those notations were released by the Bureau of Prisons in 2023, along with just one entry he made in the log. A note made at 2.15 a.m., 45 minutes after the incident. Fifteen minutes later, at 2.30, Thomas wrote, inmates sitting on bed trying to remember what happened. Huh. Yeah, man. So this is when he got attacked, the first time that he survived. Huh. Huh. They claim once he got into the separate cell, he was trying to fall forward on his head or sat on the edge of the bed and began moving forward as if he was attempting to fall over head first. Huh. He was told to stop, don't do it again, and he gave a thumbs up.

24:12Joe Rogan:That's how they confirmed he was trying to commit suicide. So he's going to try to commit suicide by falling straight on his head? That's impossible. That's literally impossible. You might be able to pull it off.

24:22Matt McCusker:That's crazy. You would block for sure. Right. There's no way you can just do a sail. I was like thinking about this the other day. I was walking off my steps I was like I even if I tried I couldn't do like a swan dive on a cement you would your body wouldn't let you do it

24:36Joe Rogan:Yeah, you would relist resist just enough to be paralyzed for the rest of your life. You would get fucked up for sure I don't know I think you would just kind of flatten out and flail Yeah, could guys die all the time in street fights when they get knocked out? Yeah, they fall and they hit their head on the concrete dude

24:50Matt McCusker:It died all the time happened before I left Philly a year or so ago there's a guy just walking his dog off leash and this guy was like put your dog on leash they got into work they you know they started arguing and a guy punched him and he hit us and died and then my brother went on an online date with the fiance of the guy who died and like learned throughout the date like oh shit you're the lady he was married of a date it was pretty fucking sad actually he like put it together he's like oh fuck he died that sucks how long after that was the date i think it was maybe a year and a half it's been it's been some time you know Not enough to stop the crying.

25:22Matt McCusker:Yeah, I mean, you got to pick it up at one point. Especially if he died like that, man. Got punched on a dog walk and died.

25:29Joe Rogan:I don't know. Dog walk with a helmet in Chile?

25:32Matt McCusker:If I was a lady, I'd be like, well, fuck, I dodged a bullet. Oh, God. Husband could have just died. Oy, oy, oy. Yeah, that's scary, though, man. Yeah, the whole thing of, like, altercations and people popping off to each other anymore is just like... I was walking down the street recently, and, like, you know, I had the right of way. I walked and I didn't even like rush in front of the car. The car pulled up and was like, get the fuck out. He's like threatening to shoot me in the face. I was just like, what the hell, man? Yeah, it was like he had pulled off far enough. He's like, I'll shoot you in your fucking face.

26:01Matt McCusker:And I was just like, please don't. Like, you know, the fuck, man.

26:04Joe Rogan:What are you doing? Bro, you never know who's unhinged. I know. You never know what's going on in that life. Divorce, fucking this, that. Just got fired. About to go to jail. Who knows? Yeah. Who knows? Dude, yeah. Best friend was fucking your wife. Could be literally anything. Yeah. Anything. I never, it's like, yeah, whatever, man. So many people are barely hanging on out there, doing something all day they hate. Yeah. Just fucking tired. Life's in a shambles. Dude, I don't, and especially like people just talk shit to strangers.

26:36Matt McCusker:Like you have no idea who that person is. My, I don't know, you know, who knows if this is like just like an old construction worker tale. My dad was telling me some guy he knows his mom or whatever, or like, you know, his friend's mom was at the grocery store. Or someone back, they were, like, both going for a parking spot. It was, like, an old lady. And the guy was, like, fucking bitch, get the hell out, blah, blah, blah. Started cursing her out. Her son came out of jail for, like, you know, like, he was, like, a biker and all this stuff. And they all, like, knew each other in the neighborhood.

27:00Matt McCusker:Apparently the guy who had, like, cursed out the mom, they were, like, nobody ever saw him again. So if that's true, it's like, gee, I always think about that. I'm like, dude, that's, you know, you just can't be, you shouldn't yell at an old lady anyway. But you just have no idea who you're dealing with.

27:12Joe Rogan:Right. Just might as well chill. That was one of the creepier things about the Epstein emails or the files, the data, was that he ordered 330 gallons of sulfuric acid after he'd been indicted. What does that do? Dissolves bodies. Oh, no. Yeah. So they were trying to speculate that maybe that was for his desalination system that he had. He had like a water system. Some sulfuric acid cleans it out. But then Jamie looked into it. He had only ordered it like once before ever, but never that much. Yeah. That's terrible.

27:52Matt McCusker:Also, he lives near the ocean. It's like, why don't you just go in the ocean? You got to get rid of bodies. You live on an island. You just go out to water. Yeah, but they could find it.

28:01Joe Rogan:Yeah, I guess so.

28:02Matt McCusker:Yeah, they might find it.

28:03Joe Rogan:Yeah.

28:03Matt McCusker:You can't have that. True. Especially if enough, they need a bunch of acid.

28:07Joe Rogan:Do they have a lot of sharks down there? I would think. Yeah. Like the Bahamas, right? It's like Bahamas area.

28:14Matt McCusker:Yeah, I would think so. There's like sharks in Florida. I was just in Florida.

28:17Joe Rogan:Florida's a lot of sharks, especially bull sharks.

28:20Matt McCusker:Yeah, exactly. I was swimming. I brought my friend with me to do shows, and he was like, I'm worried about sharks. I'm like, there's no fucking sharks out here. We got back, and the Uber driver was like, yeah, this is like shark season right now. I was like, oh, fuck my bad. Shark season? Yeah.

28:31Joe Rogan:I think it's the bull sharks. They see them all the time down there. Bull sharks are scary. They're the ones that they think are responsible for the murders in New Jersey that inspired Jaws. Really? Yeah. How big do they get? They don't get as big as, like, great whites, but the thing about them is they can swim in fresh water. Eek. So those murders that—murders. Those deaths by shark in New Jersey in, like, the early 1900s, they were in a river. What? Yeah. So these people were swimming in a river, and they got killed by sharks. Yeah, you would never expect it either. Bull sharks are, like, very aggressive, too.

29:07Joe Rogan:Are they really? Super aggressive. Dude. There's the Florida Keys. Like, guys fish off the piers down there, and it's really great fishing. But if you catch a big fish and you're struggling to get it on the line, most likely a shark's going to kill it. Really? Yeah, most likely you're going to get it bitten in half. There's, like, tons of videos of guys pulling in fish, and the shark just snaps it in half while they're pulling it in. That's terrifying. They're all over the place down there, dude.

29:32Matt McCusker:I went to Turks and Caicos. Me and my family went down there, my kids. We went snorkeling. and you know the guy takes us out and he's like hey we like you know got in the area where we're gonna jump in he's like hey there's some baby sharks out there um you know but they're not gonna bother you so i'm like what the fuck does that exactly and i have like i've had like two and a four-year-old with me so i jump in i'm like let me suss it out i'm gonna go see dude i go down and like these were like you know they weren't like 18 foot sharks but they were like five six they were like big enough but they were 40 it was like probably 40 feet deep and then they were like at the bottom but then another 50 feet away and i was like bro i'm not bringing my kids in

30:10Joe Rogan:here yeah i'm trying to find this video that my friend adam sent me of uh sharks in florida because i always give him shit he lives in australia and i always give him shit like bro you live in a place filled with monsters what the fuck are you doing it's like it's true florida florida has a lot but australia has more australia has saltwater crocodiles they have great whites but he sent me this video and it's like, this is in America, mate. And it's these guys are throwing God, I can't find it. These guys are throwing fish into the water. No, I'm not going to find it. They're throwing fish into the water right next to the shore and it's just sharks, like piranhas just smashing and they're like off a dock.

30:55Joe Rogan:They're just like throwing fish scraps in there and the sharks are apparently used to it, I guess. That's terrifying. Yeah. Dude, I... Oh, here it is. I found it. Nice. Here, hold on. I'll send it to you, Jimmy.

31:09Matt McCusker:Dude, dolphins. Did you ever see a dolphin in real life? Yes. They're scary as hell. Those things are huge. I swam with them. I did it, too. I was in Mexico, and I thought I was going to be, like, gliding on two of them. I was, like, barely wanting to touch this thing.

31:19Joe Rogan:I did it in Hawaii. You jump off the boat and you snorkel, and you get to see them swimming under. It's really wild. Check this out. So this guy throws these scraps in the water. Look at these sharks. Goddamn.

31:34Joe Rogan:How crazy is that? Look at these things fight for this. Look how many of them there are. Yeah, that's... Bro, that's crazy. Look how big they are. Yeah, more than big enough to take your legs off. Go ahead, dick wagon. Throw it in. Go ahead, dick wagon. Why? I'd be so mad if I was his neighbor. I'd be like, dude, I'm trying to paddleboard, man. Well, I think this is just what they do every day, which is why the sharks are there in the first place. I think when these guys get there, you know, when they fillet the fish, they have the bodies. They just tuck the body overboard and these sharks just destroy it.

32:07Joe Rogan:Yeah. How spooky is that? It's terrifying, dude. Yeah. That's Florida.

32:11Matt McCusker:That's crazy. Where's Marco Island?

32:14Joe Rogan:I don't know. Where is that? Where's Marco Island? It's probably the Keys. Probably. That's fucking, that's awful. Florida's filled with monsters. Like that whole thing that they're doing with ice where they've got that alligator Guantanamo. You know they got a they got there they built a Guantanamo for detainees and then they surrounded it with alligator country like a cartoon moat Yeah, that's crazy this out. Okay, so where is it? Okay, okay, so it's not it's not the keys. It's just Florida Crazy damn so they have a good classical moat with alligators around. It's not essentially a moat was an island I guess how did they do it they build an island down there?

32:54Joe Rogan:Is that what they did? Somebody got a sweet contract to put that in there. They're calling it alligator Alcatraz. Halliburton. Yeah, they call it alligator Alcatraz. What does it look like? Can you show us? Damn, dude. Alligators in Florida are everywhere. They say there's not a standing body of water that doesn't have an alligator. I know.

33:14Matt McCusker:My friends were just at Disney World, and they said they were like, is there alligators around here? Like, yeah, we flush them out all the time. One killed a kid a few years back.

33:20Joe Rogan:I heard about that. Yeah.

33:21Matt McCusker:Reached up and just snagged it.

33:22Joe Rogan:Bro, imagine your little toddler at Disneyland, just saw Cinderella, having a good time. That's got to be fast. That's fast pass for life, though, for the rest of the family. So that is all the Everglades. And the Everglades is just filled. Like, if you go walking, like, I'm out of here. Fuck that. Like, something's probably going to get you. No. The Everglades are so fucked because it's not just the alligators. It's also the pythons. There's giant pythons. AI is so ruthless. I know.

33:53Matt McCusker:That's fucking alligators with ice hats on. Dude, the pythons are another. Because they catch you while you're sleeping. So you lay down to sleep and you just wake up and you're just.

34:00Joe Rogan:Are there more pythons in the Everglades than there are anywhere in the world?

34:06Matt McCusker:No way.

34:07Joe Rogan:Because there's a half a million of them, they think.

34:09Matt McCusker:Did you ever hear about Snake Island in Brazil?

34:11Joe Rogan:No.

34:11Matt McCusker:Dude, there's an island in Brazil that I guess like whatever, you know, tectonic plates or whatever moved. It used to be connected to the mainland. It went out and all the snakes just got stuck on there with no natural predators. So what do they do? They just eat each other? Yeah, they just fight and eat each other. And, dude, there's apparently a snake. Like every meter you move, there's at least one snake. What? Dude, the images are terrifying.

34:33Joe Rogan:They're like just piled on top of each other. There are not more pythons in the Everglades than anywhere else. The Burmese pythons' native range in Southeast Asia from India to Indonesia supports far larger wild populations, though exact numbers are hard to quantify due to their vast habitat. Everglades context, Burmese pythons are invasive species. He's Florida Evergrades with estimates ranging from tens of thousands to 300 ,000 individuals across southern Florida concentrated in Evergrades National Park where their density is notably high. Population exploded from a few snakes in the 90s to enveloping much of the region by the 2020s, driven by the release from pet trade and events like Hurricane Andrew.

35:13Joe Rogan:Yeah, they had Hurricane Andrew apparently blew down a facility where they were studying pythons.

35:19Matt McCusker:No, and that's how they got out.

35:20Joe Rogan:And a bunch of them got out. And then there's also people with pets, just assholes in death metal bands. Yeah, they just dropped them. Yeah, they just dropped them.

35:26Matt McCusker:Well, that's how we, there's, what do you want to call it, parakeets here. They're like an invasive species, and they think that happened too. Someone just let their parakeets out, and now they're a problem there. That's iguanas in Florida too.

35:36Joe Rogan:Yeah. You know, they sell canned iguana meat in Florida now. Really? Yeah, a buddy of mine lives in Florida. He just sent me this. He sent me, he was at the supermarket, and they have iguana meat.

35:49Matt McCusker:Probably not that. Dude, I'm telling you, the Snake Island I was like, I thought it was fake My wife was telling me about it, I'm like, dude, you got tricked This has to be AI, I looked it up and it's like It's a real thing, let me see that iguana meat Yeah, I'm saying that It would probably be good, I've eaten gator before, gator's not bad This might be fake

36:07Joe Rogan:God damn it I'm googling it, there's a pizza restaurant that got in trouble for serving it Really? But nothing else is popping up about candy They got in trouble for serving it? Did they tell people they were serving it? You know, because people eat them They hunt them and eat them all the time. I was watching a YouTube video the other day where this guy was making stir-fried iguana meat. Well, they get massive. They get massive. Yeah. Yeah, and they apparently taste good.

36:30Matt McCusker:Probably. They're aggressive, too. If you see them in the wild, they'll charge after you. They're nasty, man.

36:35Joe Rogan:They're big.

36:36Matt McCusker:Yeah.

36:37Joe Rogan:Some of them get four or five feet long.

36:39Matt McCusker:Yeah, they're huge. Which is nuts. That was another animal I encountered in Turks and Caicos. We did the shark swimming, and I was like, all right, I let them get out of the way. and then we went to this island that was just full of iguanas, and they'll just run up on you.

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37:31Joe Rogan:This episode is brought to you by Intuit TurboTax. April 15th is coming fast. There's been so many tax law changes this year, which means you're going to need an expert who has your back. You're in luck. TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. Walk into their tech-enabled stores and meet face-to-face with a TurboTax full-service expert who will get your best outcome. Your expert works to get you every dollar you deserve while updating you as you go about your day. Head to TurboTax.com to find a store near you. Do you know in Florida when it gets really cold, they just fall out of trees?

38:11Joe Rogan:No, that's hilarious. Because sometimes Florida, it'll dip. It'll get into the 30s, and these fuckers just fall out of the trees, like stoned.

38:19Matt McCusker:They just freeze and just drop?

38:21Joe Rogan:They freeze, and then they thaw out and come back to life. What? Yeah. It's an ancient species. These are ancient creatures.

38:28Matt McCusker:Damn. I thought they need their cold-blooded, and they die. I guess they can just chill and freeze.

38:34Joe Rogan:So are alligators, and alligators freeze in lakes sometimes with their mouths above the water. They have their nose and their eyes above the water and they're frozen. There's a bunch of images of these guys frozen in lakes. I guess everything just slows down and they just chill. They don't have to eat for a year. What?

38:52Matt McCusker:Yeah, they can go without eating for a whole year. So how much do you think we really have to eat? If bears don't have to eat all winter, alligators can go one year. I always think, do we have to eat every day?

39:03Joe Rogan:Well, we definitely eat more than any people have ever had. Except like Royals.

39:08Matt McCusker:Yeah.

39:08Joe Rogan:You know, that's why people are so tiny. Like you go back to like the Civil War, the average man was like 130 pounds. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Because nobody had any food. You know, nobody had any protein. Yeah. But if you think about like how much we eat morning, noon and then evening, hunter gatherers, they got a meal a day. Yeah. You know, like if you got lucky, you had a meal and you ate as much as you could because there's no way to preserve it. and then you went out the next day and hoped you got another animal.

39:38Matt McCusker:Yeah, that's kind of wild. You must have spent like 6 ,000 calories a day just trying to get one meal.

39:43Joe Rogan:Yeah, and then other than like drying your meat out, there's no way to preserve it. So they would make jerky or, you know, like I know in Mexico, some friends of mine went down there and they have this traditional way of taking buffalo and they slice it like really, really thin and then they hang it on like a clothes hanger and dry it out. Really? That's all we need to do. Well, that's what they had to do. They had to figure out how to dry stuff. Yeah. You know, there's no—man, how fucking hard life must have been with no refrigeration. Dude, it would suck so bad. Suck so bad, man. I mean, that's like when you go back to the turn of the century, all the diseases were happening in America.

40:21Joe Rogan:Just think about it. No running water. Everybody's like shitting in holes in the ground outside the houses. There's no ventilation. There's no air conditioning. Oh, yeah. You were cooked. Especially here.

40:34Matt McCusker:How do people live in Texas? Hard people, though. I've been reading. It must have been crazy. Hard people. Yeah.

40:40Joe Rogan:Hard fucking people.

40:41Matt McCusker:I've been reading Western. I'm reading Lonesome Dove right now. It's like an old classic Western. And they just talk about how hot they are all day long. It's just dust in their face. And it's like, dude, that shit would suck.

40:52Joe Rogan:Especially if you don't live near a lake so you can cool off a little bit.

40:55Matt McCusker:Oh, no. There's like, yeah, they have like a spring house. And every time they got to get water, there's just rattlesnakes everywhere near the spring house. It's like, dude, that sucks so bad.

41:03Joe Rogan:There's a great book about Texas called Empire of the Summer Moon. Oh, I've heard of that before. It's all about the settlers encountering the Comanche. You've got to think, like, if the Comanche, if this is where they lived, and they lived here year-round, like, they had to be the hardest fucking people in the world. Yeah, dude, that would be brutal. Just had to be fucking just tough as fuck. Especially when it gets, like, freezing, too. They have, like, that two weeks where it's super cold, and yeah, that would be... Yep, you never know when it's coming back then, either. You couldn't prepare.

41:31Joe Rogan:Like, Texas, like, right now it's 80. Two weeks ago it was 30. Before that it was 20. Before that it was 70. Like, you don't know when it's coming.

41:40Matt McCusker:No. I've been here for two years, and I know we're going to get, like, a solid collective week of real winter. And the rest of it is just, like, 50, 60, 70, 80, 20, 40. It's worth it.

41:52Joe Rogan:I think it's perfect because it gives you just enough cold so you appreciate the warm. Just enough. But nothing, like, where you want to kill yourself. Yeah, I agree. Nothing like there's, you know, Montana winters and Wyoming winters where they last like seven months. You're like, I don't know if I want to do this.

42:08Matt McCusker:Even regular East Coast winter, I couldn't handle it. By the time I had left, like you don't feel the sun for like at least three months. And I remember spring, it would finally like come out. And it's like, that messes me up. Like I need, I'd rather it be super hot and sunny than be cold. Yeah. Because you can just like, you know, just figure out, jump in a lake, jump in a pool.

42:26Joe Rogan:You know, that's what flu season's all about too. What? It's not like the flu emerges in the winter. It's just everybody's immune system's low. No one has any vitamin D. A buddy of mine who was a doctor said that he would do tests on people in New York City. And he said so many people would come into his practice that had undetectable levels of vitamin D. What? Yeah, because they weren't supplementing at all. And they were wearing winter clothes. And they were never outside. And everybody's sick. And they don't know why. Well, you're vitamin D depleted. Yeah. That's why in Seattle they have a lot of people go in tanning beds and shit.

42:59Joe Rogan:They try to do something. Oh, just to get people. Because tanning beds will give you a natural dose of vitamin D. That's kind of nice. Yeah.

43:06Matt McCusker:Apparently, isn't it like a hormone more than a vitamin?

43:09Joe Rogan:Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's what I heard.

43:10Matt McCusker:It's not even just like vitamin A or B. It's like something you absolutely need big time.

43:15Joe Rogan:Yeah, a lot of people are saying you should hyperdose it too. Because the USDA recommended is like 5 ,000 milligrams. A lot of people are saying like 30 ,000 is what they take every day.

43:26Matt McCusker:Yeah, I had to do that for a while because I had low vitamin D, and they were like, you can take as much of this as you want. I'm like such a baby with medicine. I'm like super sensitive to it. It did like absolutely no side effects at all.

43:38Joe Rogan:No, it doesn't give you side effects. But for full absorption, I think you're supposed to take it with a bunch of other stuff. Like I think the recommended is I take it with K2, vitamin K2, and magnesium. I think there might be one other thing that also helps absorption. But like Dr. Rhonda Patrick was on a podcast recently and she was talking about how vitamin D, someone was taking vitamin D, but they weren't showing any improvement. She's like, where are you taking it with magnesium? So magnesium apparently helps vitamin D get absorbed in your body. Like there's a bunch of those things that like works.

44:10Joe Rogan:Like if you take them without any fat or any food, they're not good. But then like amino acids, you have to take them on an empty stomach. It's like you got to know what you're doing. That's true. Yeah, I have like a paste.

44:20Matt McCusker:It's like a goop that's like fatty and I just put it on a spoon. What is it? Just vitamin D? Yeah, it's vitamin D. It's like a liposomal thing. Oh, you put it on a spoon?

44:28Joe Rogan:Yeah, I just eyeball it. I'm like, that's probably about right. I wonder if like liposomal absorbs easier. Isn't that the whole idea about it? Yeah, it's paired to a fat and it kind of, you know. Right. I wonder if that you don't need as much, like where you don't need vitamin D or K2 rather.

44:44Matt McCusker:Well, I don't know. But I was low and then I'm not now. So I'm like, maybe it worked. Maybe it was a fact I was outside. I don't know.

44:51Joe Rogan:I'm sure it works. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like, does it work optimally? That's the thing. Yeah. It's like just taking it alone is definitely going to be better than not taking it at all. But they think that for maximum absorption. What are the things that you should take with vitamin D for – put that in perplexally. The things you take with vitamin D for maximum absorption. It's hard to remember all this stuff too. That's part of the problem. Like I'll hear it on a podcast. I'm like, yeah, yeah. I know. Go back and go, what the fuck? I know. What the fuck did Andrew Huberman say?

45:25Matt McCusker:You know, I remember I heard Huberman had this thing about cortisol, and he's like, you need to spike your cortisol early in the morning, which I, you know, if I get up and exercise in the morning, like, yeah, that seems true because I feel good. But then I was like, I can't have caffeine anymore. I had to get off completely. Really? Dude, I have, I can't have it. I'm like super sensitive to it. If I had a cup of coffee, what time is it right now? If I had a cup of coffee now at two o 'clock, I would not sleep till midnight. Is that because you don't drink much of it? I don't metabolize it. Oh, interesting.

45:54Matt McCusker:That's my mom. My dad can drink coffee and fall asleep, but if my mom has coffee, you have it, and I can feel it just in my body for hours. It's just like a nonstop. I love caffeine, the mental effects. My body just can't stand it.

46:08Joe Rogan:Have you ever tried nootropics?

46:11Matt McCusker:Like theanine? I've done it all. Theanine? Acetylcholine? Not acetylcholine, but I've taken L-theanine with it, which helped a little bit, but then I'll just drink more coffee.

46:18Joe Rogan:No, I don't mean with coffee. I mean by itself as like a little bit of a pick-me-up.

46:23Matt McCusker:Oh, yeah. No, I like, yeah, I take L-theanine before I go to sleep. I think it kind of helps me sleep.

46:28Joe Rogan:Yeah, I hear that too, which is interesting because it helps with your memory. Like how does it help with your memory and also help you go to sleep? I don't know. Here it says, vitamin D is a fat-soluble nutrient, so pairing it with dietary fat maximizes its absorption in the gut. Take vitamin D supplements with a meal containing fats for optimal uptake. Studies show you can boost serum levels by about 50%. Foods like fatty fish, avocados, olive oil, nut seeds, or full-fat yogurt provide these fats effectively. Supportive nutrients, magnesium, aids in converting vitamin D to its active form and transporting it in the body.

47:01Joe Rogan:Vitamin K2 works synergistically to direct calcium to bones, enhancing benefits for bone health. Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil also improve absorption alongside fats. All right, so that's it. So vitamin D you should take with magnesium and K2 and probably some fish oil.

47:17Matt McCusker:Nice. There you go. I was eating it after breakfast, though. There we go. I was getting my fats.

47:22Joe Rogan:Yeah.

47:22Matt McCusker:But yeah, the caffeine for me, I can't, like, you know, everyone's different, but I can't have it. I could drink two double espressos and go to sleep. That's crazy. So here's my thing, too. I stopped, was I didn't start really drinking caffeine all the time until I had kids, but I don't have dreams at night. If I drink even coffee during the day, no dreams at night. Really? I don't know what it is, man.

47:42Joe Rogan:I'm super, super sensitive to it. Well, a lot of people that stop smoking weed say that they get wild, crazy dreams. That happens, too. That kind of blocks your dreams, too. Yeah.

47:52Matt McCusker:But even that, like, I don't know. I smoked weed forever. And, like, I would still kind of have dreams. But the caffeine just, like, completely neutralizes them. And then they say that, it's, like, anecdotal. But they say that caffeine, there's anecdotal evidence that it kind of, what is it, like, discourages or, you know, whatever it does to your brain. You don't do as much divergent thinking. and it's more like convergent where like if you need to get like a task like all right i need to edit something caffeine's great if you're like i need to come up with a story idea there's like anecdotal evidence that says like people who are on caffeine report that it like messes up their ability to like just kind of like you know come up with like new or novel ideas that makes sense

48:29Joe Rogan:yeah because you're just hyper focused on the one thing that you're doing yeah like a low dose meth yeah pretty much yeah like my friends that have dated girls that have had problems with amphetamines one of the things they say is they know when they're on it because then they start cleaning the house they start cleaning everything yeah they start getting like hyper focused on like organizing and cleaning like that sounds like a good drug yeah what's what's the back it's probably a spaz though that's probably the backlash well it's probably they're doing it for 12 hours while they're listening to slayer yeah you're not even talking about adderall this is them doing like crystal meth or something i don't know he was saying amphetamines i would assume it's like

49:10Matt McCusker:meth yeah amphetamine babe would be not ideal i don't think well i've talked to people that have

49:14Joe Rogan:done meth they tell you feel like you're fucking superman but you also like want to get things done

49:19Matt McCusker:really yeah that's i've heard that similar thing about crack where you feel like a genius you smoke crack apparently you're just like dude like why would i have a refrigerator i can sell it right now and i can just order out to and like apparently you're just like the smartest person in your head in the world right and then you just like it all crashes every 30 minutes it's like

49:37Joe Rogan:Freebase cocaine is all it is.

49:40Matt McCusker:Yeah.

49:40Joe Rogan:Like what Richard Pryor was doing back in the day, that was just before crack. Yeah. It was freebasing cocaine.

49:46Matt McCusker:Yeah, and it's weird, too, because I think it just, like, coke, I think it just floods your brain. A lot of things just flood your brain with dopamine.

49:52Joe Rogan:Yeah, but the delivery method, apparently, of crack is superior. Really? There's something about smoking it where it just goes right to your head. Well, I know this from Hunter Biden. Yeah. Because Hunter Biden was, he was on that Channel 5 show when he was talking about it. It's fucking, he was so descriptive of it, it almost made you want to try crack. It was almost like, it was like a romantic tale of like a bad romance that he had to get out of. It is a very gentlemanly way to say, it's a superior delivery mechanism. Well, he's very smart, right? Yeah. So he's very articulate. He's talking about like what it was like to smoke crack.

50:27Joe Rogan:Yeah. And it's like, holy shit, man.

50:29Matt McCusker:And I wonder, I guess, I guess he's off of it. Because I guess, like, you know, if you start it again, it's probably just another.

50:35Joe Rogan:Well, there was that baggie they found at the White House. But first of all, it might have been his. But also, you think he's the only one of those people doing coke? Yeah, I was about to say, that could be anybody. Listen, there's probably a lot of those folks that need a little pick-me-up sometimes for a meeting. Yeah. Before they have to do a press thing. Oh, dude. You're working 16 hours a day, you little talk. Woo! Big time. Let's go.

50:59Matt McCusker:I used to work at a real estate company when I was in college. They would buy apartment buildings. And, dude, all the senior management were like, they used to buy Adderall off me. They would just chomp fucking Adderall. Come in and just be like, they would do sales meetings and just be like.

51:14Joe Rogan:A friend of mine who's a journalist says that all these journalists are on Adderall. Yeah, I believe it. Says it makes you productive. Yeah. They're all doing it. Some of them are super open about it. Like Dave Portnoy, when he was in here, he was telling us. What did he say he took? 30 milligrams? I don't remember, but yeah. It was enough that I was like, yo, and then I had to go to Jamie. How much is that? And Jamie was like, a lot. 30s, yeah, 30s, that would get you. But not a lot if you do it a lot, right? Yeah, you would get a, yeah. That's the thing. It's like if you're doing edibles with Joey Diaz.

51:42Joe Rogan:Like, how much should I take? Take two, cocksucker. Like, what? Take two. Like, how much do you take?

51:50Matt McCusker:Yeah, that would definitely. I mean, I feel like I can't get a tolerance to eat edibles. They just knock me out every time. Jamie can just eat them and they don't do anything to them. That's crazy. I know people like that, too. They're like, I need like 200 milligrams to feel it. I'm like, I'm psychotic. At 200 milligrams, I'm fried. It's a lot.

52:06Joe Rogan:Yeah. 200 is a lot.

52:07Matt McCusker:I used to have these lollipops that were 200 milligrams, so I would try to gauge it. Like, I don't want to eat too much of it. And it would just, I would get fucking whacked all the time.

52:14Joe Rogan:So we went over how many people are on Adderall once. Like, the number of Adderall prescriptions in a year was something bonkers. It was like 39 million Adderall prescriptions in this country. But then you have to go, like, how many people is that? Right? Because, like, you refill your prescription. So how often do you refill it? How many times a year? You know what I mean? I think it's more than 39. If that's the case, I feel like there's 39 million subscribers to Adderall. Well, there's definitely people that are getting it other ways. For sure. For sure.

52:47Matt McCusker:Yeah. You get your script and you sell it. But it's like, so there were 39. Not just that.

52:52Joe Rogan:You're getting it illegally. Yeah. You're getting illegal good and bad. You're getting cartel stuff. Like pressed and stuff. Yeah. Like they can make a Valium that looks just like a Valium. And there's fucking fentanyl in it. Yeah, true.

53:05Matt McCusker:No, that's like the pill world is they're like completely riddled with that right now.

53:10Joe Rogan:Oh, it's scary, man. Because kids are taking these like there was a kid from a local high school around here that I read a story. He took an Adderall. He thought it was an Adderall and it had fentanyl in it. Yeah. He died. Yeah. He got it from one of his friends. He was just trying to cram for studies.

53:25Matt McCusker:Yeah. Yeah, that's why I always tell people, anyone I know who does Coke, I'm always like, you've got to stop, man. They're like, no, we'll test it. It's like, no, you're not. You're going to be at a bar. You're going to be hammered. You're going to buy Coke and shove it up your nose. I'm not going to stop and be like, let me see.

53:39Joe Rogan:I've never done it, but all my friends who have done it have all said the same thing. Don't do it. It's too good.

53:45Matt McCusker:I've never done it either. I've never had any interest, but it's like every time I'm around people on it, I'm just like, dude, this sucks. Maybe they're having fun, but it's like.

53:53Joe Rogan:They want to sell you Bitcoin.

53:55Matt McCusker:They want to go into business now. Everybody does. They get like super hyped about a project. They want to bring you in. Well, that's what I think. I guess that's the way it was explained to me. You just feel like you've accomplished something major. So you just like snore coke and you're like, I am the best ever. It's like, why is that? I don't know. I just.

54:13Joe Rogan:Yeah. Joey Diaz used to say that you can't go on stage with that.

54:17Matt McCusker:Yeah, I can see that.

54:18Joe Rogan:It's the worst because you have no feeling. You don't feel for the crowd.

54:21Matt McCusker:Yeah. That's how I feel. I can't drink and go on stage because I'll just I'm way too confident if something doesn't land I'm like fucking whatever pussy like I just don't I don't care and I just do so bad yeah yeah it's it's a weird fine dance that people do with substances

54:38Joe Rogan:and performing especially if you're doing like a speed or something yeah you can get it wrong I would imagine yeah you can get your balance wrong I've heard Adderall does not mix with comedy at all that's what I've heard people like it's you're just it's like a weird

54:52Matt McCusker:part of your brain where you're just too lasered in. I've heard people like to use it for writing

54:56Joe Rogan:though, which I think is weird.

54:58Matt McCusker:I guess. Yeah, I don't know.

54:59Joe Rogan:I know they use it for writing books. I don't know if it would be the same for writing comedy. Because you know when you're talking about coming up with ideas, you'd imagine that would be the coffee thing on steroids.

55:10Matt McCusker:Yeah. For me, for writing, I like to write. I write books. I like to do other stuff. Writing stand-up is more like it has to just pop into my head. Then I go like, oh, that would be funny. If I start fleshing out, new ideas come. But I've tried to write stand-up, and it never – very rarely do I get anything that works from when I do that.

55:30Joe Rogan:Yeah, me too. But what I do is I write essays. I just write essays on a subject, and then from that I'll extract little things. That's a good idea. And then I take that little thing and I say, how do I introduce this thing? And what would be funny about this thing? And how would I lead into this? And what are the other surrounding things that would go with this?

55:48Matt McCusker:No, that's a good way to do it. I have to trick myself into being like I'm memorizing my material, so I just bullet point it, and then I get bored and my mind wanders. I'm like, that would actually be pretty funny.

55:58Joe Rogan:Right, and then you start rambling. Yeah. That's the thing about the essay, that if you just sit down and write about a subject, whatever that subject is, that you just start thinking about all the different aspects of that subject instead of thinking how to write in comedy form.

56:14Matt McCusker:Yeah. No, that's a smart idea because, yeah, if I try to write it, then, like, you try to repeat it, but you wrote it down.

56:19Joe Rogan:So, it sounds like a written thing and it's like. But even that in the essay way, it's a brutal process because then you have to take that one sentence or that one paragraph in a thousand words and then figure out a way to introduce that where it's not clunky. Yeah. And then figure out what's the funniest part about it. And it's like you have to always know that the first time you bring it out there, it's going to suck. Yeah. And you have to just slowly but surely trust it to get better and just throw it into the fire every night. Yeah. You have your bits that you know are going to kill, and you're like, I don't want to trot that one out here.

56:56Matt McCusker:I know. That kind of is the funnest part, though, to me. When I moved here, I had just put out an hour or recorded. So I had to start with new material, which sucks. You move somewhere, you have new stuff, and you're like, dude, I have only new shit. it's a bad feeling but it's like it's exciting because you're like you don't know how it's going to go every night i don't know i like i like that i think it's good i think it's like

57:20Joe Rogan:we were talking the other day uh about loss about failure like i was talking with michael malice about bombing on stage i think bombing is good because what happens if you bomb that feeling you feel terrible the next day you feel terrible that night and then you're like i gotta fucking get back on stage and really like tighten up my shit and i always have in the past made big leaps after i bombed i'm like i think it's important like failure is important it sucks you don't like it but you got to go through that like maybe you got overconfident or maybe you were in a bad mood or maybe it was like whatever yeah no it helps that's what like motivates me to write

58:01Matt McCusker:stand-up if I bomb I'm like all right now let me let me like dial it in because I have like I'm always doing a bunch of stuff and like I'm like oh I got a show and I like you know organize kind of against the gun but yeah a good a bomb really is like a clarifying it's good for you

58:14Joe Rogan:honestly yes it is well I used to say that to fighters too you lose a fight it's good as long as you get really hurt yeah it's good because you like that feeling go home with that feeling and think about all the stones that you left unturned all the times we skipped road work all the times you skip strength and conditioning all the times you're half-assing it in the gym that guy didn't do that he just beat you now you know you know you know like you have to understand that there's levels to these there's levels to dedication there's levels to competency and you know a good

58:47Matt McCusker:loss is good for you yeah it kind of like you know again if you have your tried and true and you're just going on stage yeah it's working night after night you just go home you're like whatever but yeah when you bomb it like for me it does something in my brain where i my thoughts start flying that you know whatever that is just helps me get stuff out there well when i lived in

59:04Joe Rogan:boston one of the things that was a real problem was there were these there was these local headliners that had these fucking acts man they had 45 minutes of like hammered samurai sword it was so good because they had been doing that 45 minutes for a decade and a half crazy dude it was so good their timing was so good the the pacing was so good they would crush every night But after a while, they never added anything new to it. And these guys just like a buddy of mine went to see a Boston headliner that we knew from like Fitzsimmons. Went to see a Boston headliner that we knew from the 80s. And he goes, dude, he was doing the same material.

59:45Joe Rogan:He goes, it was so sad. He goes, he was just phoning it in. It was barely getting a response from the audience. It was like dated references. Because this guy just had an act. and a fucking guy who shows up at the office, he would open up his suitcase, pull his act out.

1:00:03Matt McCusker:That was his act. Those guys are always fascinating because when you're like, I started in Philly, so the first paid gigs you get as an open miker are like you do like moose lodges and shit for like 50 bucks, and it's always one of those wacko headliners.

1:00:17Joe Rogan:Who's been around for 30 years.

1:00:19Matt McCusker:He's doing it forever. He's giving you the career talk in between the show. I would get comedy magicians all the time. Oh, yeah. And, dude, it was like, yeah, those guys would always kind of freak me out. Like, I would open for guys that would talk about, like, floppy disks in, like, the 2000s. And I'm like, bro, what are you doing, man? Like, we don't have CDs anymore. Floppy disks. This guy talked about porn on a floppy disk. On stage? Dude, it was fucking Screech. R.I.P. It was Screech. Screech. R.I.P. I opened for Screech back in the day. And I was like, fuck, yes. This is going to be awesome.

1:00:49Joe Rogan:He was killing it in the comedy clubs. He was like one of the first people to go from being on a sitcom to touring on the road. Yeah, I caught late Screech, though. Skippy. Remember Skippy from Family Matters? Was it Family Matters? No. What was it from? What was the show? He was another guy who was on a sitcom. Not Step by Step. I don't remember. But if I remember, he was the same thing. Hollywood didn't work out for him. Family Ties. Family Ties. With Michael J. Fox? Yeah. Yeah, so that guy was headlining comedy clubs all over the place.

1:01:27Matt McCusker:This was like a bar in Delaware. This was not a glamorous gig. It was bad. What year? This was I was I would I graduated college in 2009 would have been like 2012 maybe So this was like late. This was like late screech and the whole time he's on stage people go screech and he would just it's fucking made him so bad But I remember it was a funny show because I was it was supposed to be a lady it was supposed to host I was gonna feature it's gonna be screech as the headliner and the guy who owned the venue just bet like wanted to fuck this lady so bad that he was like, hey, I'm letting that lady feature.

1:02:03Matt McCusker:You're going to host. And he was like, I'll pay you the same price. And I was like, yeah, whatever. I don't give a shit. So he paid me. And I had been doing stand-up for a couple years, so I was like kind of sharp, especially for like that bar show. And this lady, she had never done stand-up before. This was her first time. This guy fucked her over. He thought he was doing something nice for her. She sat there for all the 20 minutes and read out of a giant notebook and just fucking bought like completely horrific like a first time stand-up doing 20 minutes completely bombed and screech was in the back with me and he's like how fuck is this i remember he was like bragging being like dude they gave me eight grand i don't give a fuck about this show

1:02:40Joe Rogan:i knew a few guys who their girlfriend started doing comedy and then the girlfriend started opening for them and it was just wild for her sake you can't do that no it's so it's such a bad it's so crazy and these guys were like competent headliners so the people were coming to see them They're excited. Hey, we're going to go laugh. Have a good time. Nope. No. You're going to get tortured for 20 minutes before you get to laugh.

1:03:03Matt McCusker:Also, that's not going to help him either. She's going to be furious.

1:03:06Joe Rogan:Like, I don't know why people do that. You can't. Well, they want to do it. Like, help me. Help me. That's one thing that happens a lot with comedy couples. Like, one of the couples will help the other one write. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Writing is one thing. But, like. But that's why they want to do it. It's like they want to hook up with a headliner, whether it's a guy or a girl. Yeah. You hook up with a headliner. He or she helps you with your act and then you go back and you know

1:03:30Matt McCusker:It's also impossible though because if you're dating a comic and then you book your own opener You can't be like ah next time I got you next time You have to flat out be like no I'm not you're not doing this Right and then you break up Yeah But if you really care about their comedy you'd be like bro you gotta go to the open mics and you know

1:03:48Joe Rogan:Yeah doing it in front of a sold out show when you're just starting out is a crazy idea I literally couldn't imagine. It would have messed me up. Well, that's why I killed Tony so nuts. Yeah. There are people who have gone on for their first time ever in Madison Square Garden to a sold-out arena of 16 ,000 people. And then it's filmed for, what, a couple million people? Millions.

1:04:15Matt McCusker:Millions of people.

1:04:16Joe Rogan:You're out there eating dick.

1:04:17Matt McCusker:That must feel crazy waking up the next morning. Yeah, just like if you go to sleep.

1:04:22Joe Rogan:Let's imagine that you can go to sleep. If I flub a word, I don't go to sleep.

1:04:27Matt McCusker:They can go to sleep after that? Yeah, you're essentially filming a one-minute special the first time you do it. On Netflix.

1:04:35Joe Rogan:God damn. Or on YouTube.

1:04:39Matt McCusker:Both of them are getting fucking millions of views. I know. I'd be so scared to do that. People who can do that, I'm like, that's amazing. They're crazy.

1:04:50Joe Rogan:True. True. I know. That's actually true. Some of the people, when you're interviewing them after they do the set, like, I go, is this guy been screened? Do we need to make sure he doesn't have a fucking knife on him?

1:05:03Matt McCusker:They do need that airport fucking thing, man.

1:05:05Joe Rogan:Oh, 100%.

1:05:06Matt McCusker:Some of these people are out of their fucking mind. I always wanted to hang in the bar, like the holding tank where everyone is, because that's got to be the craziest vibe in there.

1:05:14Joe Rogan:Well, you remember open mic nights. Yeah, true. Open mic night at the comedy store in particular was always so nuts. Yeah. It was just a complete lunatic asylum. For realist, dude. There was this one guy, Robert William Apervaya, and he would come there. He was a really nice guy. And all of his act was about marijuana. And he, at one point in time, was a lawyer and then, I guess, blew a fuse and then just was doing comedy. But he would walk from downtown. He lived in a flop house in downtown, and it would take him hours. He would walk from downtown to the comedy store, and when it rained out, the way he would deal with the rain is he would take plastic grocery bags and tuck them inside of all of his clothing so he'd wrap them around his body.

1:06:02Joe Rogan:So he had his clothing on the outside and these plastic bags all over his body.

1:06:08Matt McCusker:That's so fucking funny. The clothes were on the outside?

1:06:12Joe Rogan:Yeah.

1:06:12Matt McCusker:So he let his clothes get wet, but his body would be dry.

1:06:14Joe Rogan:Well, he couldn't figure out how to put it all outside of him. Okay. So his solution was just cover his skin and keep him from getting wet and cold, which I guess would work. It'd probably keep you sweaty, too. Yeah, you'd sweat.

1:06:25Matt McCusker:Yeah.

1:06:25Joe Rogan:Yeah. So he was like a staple, and he would go there every night late at night, and he would be like one of the last guys up at open mic night every week. Whoa. Yeah, and just was insane. Like you couldn't shake your hand, couldn't touch him. He was always nervous that everybody hated him, and so he'd be scared, and I became friends with him, so he was cool with me. I'd talk to him. But one time I tried to give him knuckles. I'm like, sorry, I forgot. He just wouldn't. He would mumble and look at the ground like, sorry. He was legitimately cooked, whatever was going on. Ah, fuck. Yeah, but he was a lawyer.

1:07:01And he just blew a fuse.

1:07:03Joe Rogan:Jesus Christ.

1:07:04Matt McCusker:It happens. Yeah, it does. Now, you forget, like, well, at least I did, because I, you know, doing the open mics, it's like it is like a complete freak factory. A freak factory. But you're, like, it's steeped in that so much for years. And then I remember, like, when I finally stopped going to open mics all the time, I was still in Philly, and I, like, just took a break from the open mics. I would go do shows, and I was like, let me go to the open mic. It had been, like, six months, and I was like, I'll go to one, try stuff out. I, like, got in, you know, I'm sitting behind the area. I was in, like, Philly Helium, just sitting there at the open mic, and I just got like right away guys like dude look at him he fucking saw that's and it was just like all these people like oh this was like the worst environment you can possibly be in yeah it was just everyone was like this guy's a fucking piece of shit I hate this guy and everyone's so fucking

1:07:46Joe Rogan:angry and just everyone's so charged on adrenaline all the time they're also like on the outside of this thing that they want to do this dream and they get to try it like a regular person with no training no schooling no nothing yeah you get to stand on that stage with a microphone i went down a rabbit hole the other night and i was watching open mic nights from long island oh fuck dude it was so crazy that would be fun though it's so crazy watching someone that definitely shouldn't be doing comedy that's trying comedy for the first time and yeah i was you know it was one of those dumb things where it's like midnight like well let me see and they have it's all kinds of basically you find anything yeah online and I I started watching I can only watch for so long and then I get anxiety and I have to shut it off that was like

1:08:41Matt McCusker:when you do open mics and you finally do like a showcase you invite your friends or your family to watch and they're just like what the fuck are you doing who are these people and you're like they're my friends

1:08:50Joe Rogan:I brought some of my friends for the first time I ever went on stage I didn't want to do it by myself. That was the opposite.

1:08:56Matt McCusker:I didn't want anyone to see me for a long time Yeah, and I did a show one time because I have a big family So I did a show and there's this place at Raven Lounge in Philly It was like awesome like when we started tiny little black box thing in the top of a bar It fit maybe like 25 people and I have a big family So I finally was like alright. I'm gonna invite my family out Dude, I remember I was on stage and I knew like 17 out of the 25 people and I was like dude fucking kill me right now It sucks. And they're staring at you like this? Yeah, I saw my aunt in the front and just looking at me and I was like, no.

1:09:26Matt McCusker:Watching you choke.

1:09:28Joe Rogan:Watching you bomb. For them. They were the audience. I'm like, fuck. That's the only way. I know some people that have taken comedy classes and then that has kind of got them into stand-up. Yeah. Yeah, that's, dude. It's a function of comedy classes, and that function is, like, it gets you to try it. I don't think anybody, maybe there's a few people out there that are, like, legit comics that are teaching them, but for the most part, not.

1:09:59Matt McCusker:How, so we had a comedy class at Helium. And the thing was, if you won, if you took the comedy class to let you in the comedy classes contest, then you can compete with the other people in the class. And if you won that, you got the hosting gig at Helium. and it was it was a sweet deal but it was so hard to get into helium so i had done stand-up for a while i took time off and i got back into it i was like fuck it i'm taking that comedy class i'm gonna try to fast track myself into host so i won the comedy class contest and and then i got into philly's funniest when i won philly's funniest i got you know they're like the improv theater across the street was like we'll let you host a comedy class and we'll give you like 35 bucks an hour dude i had like no health care i had nothing i was like absolutely let's do it so i i had a comedy class and they showed up and I was like alright never take a comedy class ever again I was like don't ever do this ever again this is so dumb you guys did this but we're just gonna run this as an open mic and I was like get up there and I had them all go up and just do like five you know it was just an open mic well that'll work yeah that's what I try to tell them something yeah that's what I try to tell them but I the one I was at was like real sketchy man it was very much like I'm about to blow up I'm taking you guys with me this is how it's done and you get out of it and you go this motherfucker bro I got deals into development, blah, blah, blah.

1:11:13Matt McCusker:It was fucking bullshit. There's so many of those guys. I got blacklisted from Helium because they found out I had a comedy class, which was even a fake comedy class. I just wanted the money for it. Did you try to tell them? Yeah, I told the owner. I was like, bro, what are you doing? He's like, look, man, just chill. And I was like, can I do the open mic still? He's like, you can do the open mic. And the guy found out I was on the open mic, and they booted me off that for like a month. Oh, my God. He was out for blood. And I called him like, what the fuck? Because I knew this guy. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing?

1:11:37Matt McCusker:And he's like, well, I didn't call them. I'm like, okay, man. It was a big thing.

1:11:41Joe Rogan:Well, there was talk when the same people own Cap City here now. There was talk that if you headline there, you couldn't do my club for three months. It's crazy. And I was like, come on, guys. Why? I said to him, I'm like, if one of my friends is at your club, I'm like, I'll tweet about it. I don't want this to be competition. There's plenty of comedians and there's plenty of audience members for everybody. That's silly. Also, everyone's going to be fine. Yeah, that's insane.

1:12:09Matt McCusker:That's crazy.

1:12:11Joe Rogan:Yeah, I don't like that stuff. A young guy coming up, you're banning him from the club because he's hosting a comedy class for money? Yeah, it was nonsense.

1:12:19Matt McCusker:Now, you know, now we're cool.

1:12:20Joe Rogan:That comedy class is probably going to lead more people to your club. Like, it all feeds off of itself.

1:12:25Matt McCusker:I know. And it was literally like, well, you know, maybe the word got out that I was like, never take a comedy class ever again. Why, did Philly have a class? Did Peelium have a class? That was the class I took. I took a class at Healium. Oh, that's right. because I wanted to fast track myself to the host. Otherwise, you had to do Philly's Funniest. He just said it. Yeah, so I was like, I completely gamed it, and I was like, fuck it, because these were like people who had never done it before. I'd done it for years, so I just went and did the class so I could do the contest.

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1:14:43Matt McCusker:Yeah, there's a couple people that I was like, this guy is like a celebrity. Yeah. Like, he's got it. And it's just like, I don't know what happened. They just kind of like, I guess, I don't know.

1:14:52Joe Rogan:It's weird. It is weird. There's a few people that I started out with. I'm like, damn, this dude's talented. Like there's something there.

1:14:58Matt McCusker:Oh, no. Yeah, I know. It's funny you said that. I'm like, I don't think so. Then I'm like, oh, yeah, there was definitely at least one, if not like two or three. Yeah. They would come. They would do this. But this guy was always on his own time. He would like show up late, just walk on. Like it was, I think there's some people you just can't keep into like a thing at all. But their personalities are like magnetic.

1:15:17Joe Rogan:Yeah. Yeah, there's some people that for whatever reason, they never figure out how to make a living at it.

1:15:23Matt McCusker:Yeah.

1:15:23Joe Rogan:They never like, and then they get bored with it or they get frustrated or something.

1:15:28Matt McCusker:Yeah, I couldn't imagine. Just like the, there was, I'd see people go who would like, you never want bombs when you're starting out at open mics, but there are people that bomb every time for like years and they keep doing it. And you're like, bro, how are you? How are you alive? How are you doing this?

1:15:43Joe Rogan:I would have one bad set. I'm like, I'm going to kill myself, dude. I hate this. Some people just don't see it and that's also – they don't address it and that's also where they don't get any better. They don't have any self-awareness. Yeah, that could be it. And their perception of how people see them is distorted.

1:16:00Matt McCusker:Yeah. No, that's kind of scary actually. Yeah, you want to put blinders up. It's pretty cut and dry though when like people are silent in front of you. You're like, damn, I suck right now. I should change something.

1:16:11Joe Rogan:But in the beginning, it's just – it's such a weird – You're basically like running a marathon blindfolded. Yeah. Like through trees.

1:16:21Matt McCusker:Well, I did have like finally when I did like a special, I was like, oh, this is the point of it. You have to come up with an hour of standup.

1:16:27Joe Rogan:Yeah.

1:16:28Matt McCusker:Before I was just like, I need to have a good five minutes for tonight. And I would just go up and do it and be like, great. And I would just go back home with like no plan or anything.

1:16:35Joe Rogan:Well, that's a lot of guys who live in cities where you do short sets all the time. Yeah. We were talking about that the other night in the green room. Like some guys who do a lot of like New York City clubs, they have a really good 15 minutes. Yeah. A fucking crush for 15 minutes. But when they have to do an hour, then things get weird because they can't keep the same energy for an hour. It's not – you have to pace it. It has to be hills and valleys. You have to kind of like structure it. Yeah, yeah. And then they also don't really have the material because they're basically just doing their best 15 minutes all the time.

1:17:03Joe Rogan:Yeah, true.

1:17:05Matt McCusker:I had the – I wasn't even really doing stand-up. Me and Shane were doing the podcast, and I was like, I was going to do the podcast. I don't even want to do stand-up anymore. And then he, it was pretty funny, behind my back, went to the manager at Helium, was like, dude, have Matt headline. And I was like, fucking dick. And the guy hit me up. So I started doing that. So I had been, like, not doing stand-up. For how long? For, like, months and months and months. Like, maybe a year off. Wow. And I had, like, you know, I went, you know, it was like I would go and try stuff. So then I started doing when I first started headlining I would do an hour Have off for like two months do an hour somewhere else.

1:17:39Matt McCusker:It was the most insane It like really started fucking with me. Did you have recordings to listen to? Yeah, I would record the audio and I would listen to it and then I would like jot down notes and like it Was the most insane way to get back into it.

1:17:50Joe Rogan:That was the thing that we experienced after COVID There was a moment where I hadn't done stand-up in like four or five months. Yeah, it was it felt so weird and then Houston had stand-up. They had clubs open. And they, like, spaced people out and put masks on them. I'm like, this is so ridiculous. Yeah. And we were doing shows inside. And I only did one weekend. And then I got super paranoid. I'm like, what if I give it to someone and they die? Yeah. I'm being so selfish that I don't want to do these shows. Yeah. I said, I got to stop. So I had this old lady on the podcast. And my first thought was, what if I have it and I give it to her?

1:18:28Joe Rogan:Damn, that would suck. I was so freaked out. Yeah. I didn't have, I wasn't even remotely sick. That was what was crazy. Like, it was just a, it was a boogeyman. For sure. It wasn't like, I'm coughing, maybe I shouldn't come into work. No, it was like, I feel great, but what if I have it? I don't know. I know. I'm going to give it to this lady.

1:18:46Matt McCusker:Yeah, dude, I had my first kid, right? Like, March 2020. Dude. So it just, we got out of the hospital, and like a week later, I was like, holding my face in a grocery store and being like, fuck, what the hell's going on?

1:18:58Joe Rogan:You could be with her when she gave birth then. Yeah, that was cool. That was what was crazy. Yeah, I felt bad. People were dying alone because you couldn't visit them while they were dying.

1:19:07Matt McCusker:And it was insane, dude. It was like, and luckily, when we went in for our second kid, that was like it was still kind of in the mix. We were able to go in together, but like our nurse, you know, if we didn't have like our mask on, she was like, I don't, whatever, I don't care. Because I heard people were getting like just, like two weeks after we had our kid, people were in there like, I got to stay home. My wife's in there by herself, blah, blah, blah. and it was like, it was a disaster. But even navigating that was crazy because it was like, you know, I'd tell my wife, like, well, I want to go do this.

1:19:33Matt McCusker:She's like, well, what if you bring it all to all of us? And I remember just at one point being like, then we're all going to fucking get it, dude. I don't know. Like, you know, I did the numbers. Like, I think this affects older people or, you know.

1:19:43Joe Rogan:What time was this?

1:19:44Matt McCusker:This would have been March. It was like March 2020 and then like the next six months because, you know, I would like go try to do stuff. She's like, if you go outside, we're all going to get sick.

1:19:52Joe Rogan:I was worried about it. I wasn't really confident that people weren't going to get really fucked up by it until like a few of my friends got it and got over it. Yeah. And then my family got it and I didn't get it. And I thought that was crazy because I tried to get it. Like I didn't. Yeah. I didn't. I hugged my kids. They were laughing. You're going to get COVID. I was like, I'm not going to get it. And part of my head was like, boy, I hope I don't get it. Yeah. I never got it. I worked out and I didn't feel so good. And I said, let me just go through the paces today. and then I worked out the next day, same thing.

1:20:24Joe Rogan:I'm like, I don't feel so good. I feel like weak. So just let me do like my kettlebell routine with like 35 pounds, just easy. Don't push it, just a couple sets. And so I did that two days in a row. And then the third day I went to the gym. I'm like, how do I feel? And I'm like, I feel fucking good. Like I feel great. Like nothing feels wrong at all. And I had a full workout and I felt fine. So I'm like, all right, I guess I didn't get it. And I went and got tested to see if I had antibodies, like if I'd recovered from it. Nope, never got in there. Yeah. I had talks with my wife. She was coughing and shit.

1:20:54Joe Rogan:That's awesome. That's such a fucking beast move, dude. She was like, you're going to get it.

1:20:59Matt McCusker:I'm like, let's find out. Let's find out. That is a beast move. I'm like terrible at math, but I remember looking up like how likely is it to die from this? And it was like.00001 something. I was like, I'm fine, man. .01.

1:21:14Joe Rogan:I know, but there was so much propaganda. And it was like the thing was we were in the middle of doing podcasts and we've tested everybody when they show up, make sure that nobody has it, tested all of the employees, security guys, everybody that works for me. Everybody got tested every day. Yeah. We'd show up. We'd be separated. Nurse would come with a mask on, test everybody. And then once we had the results, then we would allow the show to go on.

1:21:36Matt McCusker:Yeah.

1:21:37Joe Rogan:So I was like, I can't fuck this up because if I fuck this up, I fuck this up for everybody. Yeah. So I got to be careful. Yeah. And I just didn't want my guests. Like the guests were flying in. They were taking a chance. A lot of them were older, you know, like a lot of professors, you know, they're flying in to do this podcast. And I had to make sure. And then someone ratted us out. So the health department showed up at the studio and they wanted us to have a bag of masks, like right when you walk in. So we had to put a bag of masks right there. We had to put a hand sanitizer thing right there and then a sign that says, like, what you're supposed to do, six-foot distancing, all that shit.

1:22:17Joe Rogan:I was like, all right. But they were saying that we weren't socially distancing. We saw him hug people outside the front door. That's completely dystopian, man. That's crazy.

1:22:27Matt McCusker:I don't know why. You know what it was? Because my parents were just like – because, you know, the first time we all hung outside, both my parents were like, bro, this sucks. We're just coming inside. We're not doing this. And that was like – Oh, my parents were terrified of that. My parents didn't give a fuck. They were like, this is bullshit.

1:22:39Joe Rogan:Yeah, my parents didn't want to hang out with anybody until they got vaccinated. Really? Yeah, they were real nervous about it. They're older, you know? Yeah. It's like when you get older, you know, like that's why a lot of these people are like the Neil Youngs and Howard Stearns and all those people that really freaked out about it. They're older people. Yeah. So to them, they're looking at they might be that 1 % that dies. Yeah, true. You know what I mean? Whereas like you're young and healthy. You work out. You'll probably be fine. You'll be okay. Your wife's healthy. You'll be fine. When you're an old person and you smell death in the air already, every day you wake up, you're like, oh, fucking back hurts.

1:23:18Joe Rogan:Oh, Jesus. You can barely get out of bed. Fucking your feet are swollen.

1:23:22Matt McCusker:Like it could get you. Yeah, it's crazy. I'm surprised. My parents are like, you know, I think they're like going to be 70 soon. They were just kind of like, we don't give a fuck, man. It depends on where you grew up. I think that's what it was, man. They're just kind of like, you know, they're all just like, fuck that. You know, it's bullshit. no matter what it was. It was fucking bullshit. Yeah, if you grow up hard,

1:23:41Joe Rogan:you're not worried about a cough.

1:23:43Matt McCusker:Yeah, they weren't. I remember I finally got it. I finally got it. Dude, it kind of like rocked me. The first day, I had talked so much shit and I got it. I was like, bro, if I die, this is going to suck so bad. It's like, but we got it. Me and my wife got it two days later so then I had, you know, we had a little kid so I had to like, we just switched off. I kind of was like, recovered enough so our kid never got it.

1:24:02Joe Rogan:Well, kids can go right through it. But both of my kids got it, and they just burned through it. One of them had it more, but she's a little more sensitive. She was pretty sick for a couple days. Not scary, but she didn't feel good for a couple days. The other one barely had it. It went right through her.

1:24:21Matt McCusker:Yeah. The one didn't get it all. The one with a runny nose. I was in bed for three straight days just like super fever hurting.

1:24:29Joe Rogan:Were you taking any vitamins at the time? No.

1:24:31Matt McCusker:At the time, I wasn't living very healthily. See, that's the thing.

1:24:33Joe Rogan:Yeah. I'm all over the vitamins. I was all over the vitamins then. My wife back then, I don't think not so much. I don't think she did as much. When I was around everybody that got it, it just never got to me.

1:24:44Matt McCusker:Yeah. No, I was forgot. We had a relative newborn kind of situation going on. That's a hard one.

1:24:51Joe Rogan:Your immune system is going to be crushed anyway because you're getting zero sleep. Yeah. Everybody's ready to fall asleep at any given time.

1:24:59Matt McCusker:Watching TV. I've never recovered. I'm still ready to pass out. Like I can fall asleep. I go home and I'm fried. I take naps. That was a big thing for coffee. Now I can take naps during the day. I can't take naps when I drink coffee. Oh, I never take naps. Oh, I love them, man. A little siesta.

1:25:13Joe Rogan:The only time I ever take a nap is if I have to do something really early in the morning. So like if I do a set at night and I'm not home until like 1230 and like maybe I have to get up at six or something, I'll take a little nap. Yeah. Just because for me, there's a balance of like what is what's more important, getting things done, working out or not getting into a deficit. And for me, it's not getting into a deficit because when I like if I do a podcast and I'm sleepy, I get so mad at myself. I'm like, what are you doing? This is your one job. Be awake and talk to people. Sleepy like a toddler.

1:25:49Joe Rogan:Oh, wow. That's cool. So how long are we in Indonesia for?

1:25:53Matt McCusker:It is embarrassing. You're like, what the fuck, man?

1:25:55Joe Rogan:It's the worst. And then I'm just drinking coffee and energy drinks and taking nicotine pouches and just trying to fire the brain up.

1:26:02Matt McCusker:Yeah. When I do that, my face just gets hot and I'm just anxious. It's like, that's why, especially for shows, like I try to travel. I leave like on an early, early flight, get where I'm going and just take a big nap. Yeah. And then I wake up and go do the show.

1:26:15Joe Rogan:One thing that I started doing when I was on the road a lot was I would go in on Thursday if I had a show on Friday. Yeah. So I would get in Thursday night. sleep and then instead of flying in the day of the show because you're always a little foggy you know it's it's hard to and back then i wasn't on the nootropics as much i wasn't like taking it with me on the road you know brain vitamins and shit like alpha brain but now i don't fuck around

1:26:42Matt McCusker:i don't travel without that stuff yeah no you do need i i do the day of i can't help it i just go early nap i did a show in vegas last weekend that like it didn't start till 10 p.m vegas time So I got there. It was brutal. I got there, took a nap, woke up at like 9 p.m. Vegas time. It was just like, I felt like a bug.

1:27:01Joe Rogan:You know what my trick for that is? The moment you land, the moment you land, put your shit in your hotel room, go straight to the gym. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. You got to get a workout in. You got to sweat, like really sweat. Just really get it going. Do some push-ups, whatever the fuck you want to do. but just really sweat and it feels like it resets your system I can see that, that would wake you up and kind of calm you down yeah, it resets your system like whatever the fuck happens when you're on a plane when you get off, you're just like dude, I feel like I've been microwaved I get off the plane, well you have been

1:27:37Matt McCusker:yeah, pretty much, I feel like I smell weird it's like an x-ray, you're getting x-ray oh, fuck the other day I was like, maybe it's like good for me somehow I'm up here it's just like constricting my blood vessels and they like, whoosh, turn you into a superhero Well, I was in Denver, and I ran. Recently, I was running and working out in Denver, and I was probably altered now. I did a 30-minute workout. I'm like, I'm probably totally different now.

1:28:00Joe Rogan:Well, I lived above Boulder for a while.

1:28:02Matt McCusker:Oh, yeah.

1:28:03Joe Rogan:Yeah, and then I had a gig in Philly. So I was living up there for a couple of months. I was living at 8 ,500 feet above sea level, and I'd work out up there. Damn. And then when I'd go down to Boulder at 5 ,500, I had all this endurance. I was like, this is crazy. Oh, in Denver. Yeah, from Boulder to Denver, you're saying? No, from where I was. I was in the mountains above Boulder. And so I'd go down to Boulder. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. And Boulder's like 55, 57, whatever it is. But I was at 85. Damn. Yeah, 8 ,500 feet above sea level. Yeah, that's a lot. So then I did a gig in Philly, and I went to the gym.

1:28:35Joe Rogan:And I remember I called my friend. I'm like, dude, I feel like I could run through a fucking wall. Damn, I want that so bad. That's why a lot of athletes train. They go to Big Bear in California. They train up there.

1:28:47Matt McCusker:Damn.

1:28:47Joe Rogan:I got to do it for just once

1:28:50Matt McCusker:and I was like, dude, this is awesome.

1:28:51Joe Rogan:If you can live at altitude and train at altitude and then go down to sea level, you feel like you have super power. Fuck, that's awesome. A lot of endurance athletes, that's why they put the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. That makes sense. Training at altitude is a legit hack. Yeah.

1:29:07Matt McCusker:I didn't realize, because I've always wondered why is it so hard, and it's literally just the air thins and there's less oxygen.

1:29:12Joe Rogan:It's that simple. And then your body has to adapt so you get more red blood cells. That's why they take EPO. That's what EPO does for you.

1:29:18Matt McCusker:Oh, you don't have to go to altitude.

1:29:21Joe Rogan:Well, I think a lot of them do both. They just go as hard as possible. They push it to that. How much before I get a stroke? It's true. I'm trying to win a gold medal. I'm trying to win the Tour de France.

1:29:33Matt McCusker:Dude, I just started sprinting again. Sprinting? Sprinting. Just all out, total sprints. Just to see where I was at. I feel like if you just stop, you can feel that like you know age creep in a little bit and there's a lot i think there's a lot of mental stuff to be like uh you know man it just fucking goes but like you know if you're not like testing it you know how do you know you're just not letting yourself go anyway so i like i was like doing it i haven't been running like that in forever and dude like my fingertips would be numb i would do 100 i would do 100 meter sprints and i like can't feel my hand now i can now i can i fixed it and now i because you like grow new veins and shit I swear to God, it's true.

1:30:13Matt McCusker:Are you a doctor? I don't know. I've crocked, dude. We're all equal now. But, dude, I remember being like, let me see where I'm at. And I was like, bro, you really do. You use it or lose it, man. And I can run now. I did it this morning. I can sprint now, and, like, I don't get numb. It's pretty awesome. How do you do it? Do you go to a track? I have a track, yeah. I have a track near my house, and I just fucking bolt early, super early in the morning. You feel amazing all day. And so you just pick a certain amount of distance you're going to run? Yeah. I'll do like someday, like today I did like two 300s, two 200s, and then like we're supposed to do four 150s.

1:30:46Matt McCusker:I got two, and I was like, I'm tapped. So you're done in like 15, 20 minutes. You're done. You go there, I'm there at like 6 o 'clock, and I'm done in 20 minutes. And you feel like, it's like you were talking about, you run to a city and just get like an all-out workout.

1:30:59Joe Rogan:Yeah.

1:31:00Matt McCusker:You feel like you're walking on air for the rest of the day.

1:31:03Joe Rogan:That makes sense. There was a study recently about explosive exercise, and that's one of the things that's lacking in, like, older people. As they get older, they stop doing any kind of explosive exercise, like sprinting. Yeah. And how beneficial that is for maintaining your health and your ability to move around.

1:31:20Matt McCusker:Dude, I'm telling you, like, that was, like, such a drastic thing, but I was like, damn, my circulation is, like, going. Like, I can't fucking run without my hands feeling all, like, pins and needly. That's so weird. And it just, they came back. Now I can do it. My fingers feel fine. You're getting in shape. Yeah, it's pretty nuts. Because that was the thing. Cardio is always like, cardio is dumb. Who cares? And then you're like, I learned. I think it's just like you secrete growth hormone. And then your veins and capillaries start like, you get literally, you get like new and wider veins. It makes sense.

1:31:46Joe Rogan:It's pretty cool. It makes sense. I mean, your heart is fucking pounding out of your chest. Yeah. You're hitting 180 beats per minute. It's like fucking forcing all that shit through.

1:31:56Matt McCusker:Just clearing it out. Like, all right, let's, what are we holding on to right now?

1:31:59Joe Rogan:But see, like, you never got fat or you never got, like, really badly out of shape. When you see a guy like Jelly Roll, like, I have so much respect for that man. Yeah. I have so much respect for that man. That dude lost 300 pounds. Dude, how? He lost 300 pounds. No Ozempic. Just stopped eating sugar. Wait, that was no Ozempic? No Ozempic. He took testosterone replacement. That's it. That's fucking sick. Sick. I just assumed.

1:32:28Matt McCusker:I was like, he's got to be on the Olympic.

1:32:30Joe Rogan:He started off just walking, man. That's awesome. Just trying to walk. When he came here, last time we did a podcast, he ran, I forget, I think he ran 6.2 miles the day before. So they ran, like he was deer hunting down in South Texas. And he was with my friend Cam Haynes. And they went on a run. They did 6.2 miles. They ran. And hills and shit. Yeah. And then he came in here before the podcast. He ran 2.6 on the treadmill. So I was working out and he was over there running and talking and laughing Look how good he looks. Yeah, how crazy is that fucking nuts? It's amazing. It's amazing And we did the whole deal with the sauna afterwards was awesome.

1:33:10Joe Rogan:How long how long did he lose it at three years? Three years. Yeah, damn. That's crazy. And he did it the right way He did it the hard way just working out and eating right no sugar no bullshit eating clean food and just slowly let his body drop over and over and over again.

1:33:28Matt McCusker:He's got to feel awesome. Yeah. It's got to be amazing. Damn. How would you say that's doing career-wise? If he has a persona and he knows this, you know, I guess his fans. He's got an amazing voice. Yeah. I mean, the amazing voice is still amazing. Yeah. Well, your voice changes with fluctuation with weight a little bit. How does it change? I don't know. I've heard if you're an alto or something like that and you're at a certain weight, It can change if you kind of, because this is your diaphragms, I guess, in your stomach.

1:33:55Joe Rogan:I know some dudes who lost a lot of weight and they didn't like the way they look when they were thin because their head was too big.

1:34:00Matt McCusker:Yeah.

1:34:01Joe Rogan:Isn't that weird? Yeah. Like your head gets big when you get heavier. Yeah. Oh, it just grows. Yeah, it makes sense. It would grow with your fucking body. Significant weight loss can change a person's voice, often making it sound higher pitched, lighter, or clearer due to reduced fat accumulation around the larynx, throat, and chest. these physical changes decrease pressure on the vocal cords improving breathing resonance and reducing the effort required to produce sound so it makes you a better singer but does it though because like opera singers aren't they all fat i think so class i wonder if you have to be i don't know are there any like really thin like handsome opera singers yeah i

1:34:35Matt McCusker:don't know about all fat i think it's like i like to just generalize i think it's like a cartoon That's a cartoon. I have the same thing. I'm like, yeah, I've seen that in cartoons as well. Oh, those are the big fat jolly guys. Fat lady with a Viking helmet. Yeah, it's always. But that sounds good, though. So your voice gets clearer, higher pitched. And it's not as much effort. Yeah. Sounds like that's R &B legend status then. You can do high notes.

1:34:55Joe Rogan:Also, cat cardio. You'll have way more cardio. Your heart won't beat as fast. You'll be able to have more oxygen to sing. Yeah, dude. It's all good. Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, his voice is amazing. And it's his songwriting, too. It's not just the voice. It's like, what is he singing about? It's like, that's not going to get worse.

1:35:13Matt McCusker:Yeah, and his fans, I have a weird thing in my head where, like, for comedy, I'm like, if I get in too good of shape, people are going to be like, fuck this guy.

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1:37:31Matt McCusker:Which, that's not what's stopping me, but it's like, you always wonder about that. Like, I wonder if they'd be like, damn.

1:37:36Joe Rogan:Right. You know what I mean? Well, that is a weird thing. Like, I never go on stage with a t-shirt on.

1:37:42Matt McCusker:Yeah, if you're too jacked, yeah.

1:37:44Joe Rogan:Like, I would never go on stage with a tank top on.

1:37:47Matt McCusker:Tank might be kind of funny. Tank would be kind of funny. That's crazy. That would be crazy.

1:37:52Joe Rogan:Rich Voss used to do that all the time. He always wore a tank top on stage.

1:37:56Matt McCusker:That makes perfect sense.

1:37:58Joe Rogan:Yeah, boss. Yeah.

1:38:00Matt McCusker:Character. Like Kid Rock style. I just saw. I just saw. Did you see the workout vid? No. What do you mean? You didn't see the Kid Rock, Robert Kennedy workout vid? Shut up. You didn't see this? No. Bro.

1:38:11Joe Rogan:You said you did it off social media, so you must have really got off social media. I'm off social media. Dude. Yeah. It is. It's very funny. I'm off social media, but apparently I'm not off the fucking news, which I think I have to be off now. Yeah. Because I haven't been gone on social media, but I'll read the Apple News feed and the Google News Feed, and I'm like, fuck! That's basically scrolling, too. I tried the same thing. I was reading about B-52s headed to some Air Force Base nuclear-equipped B-52s. I'm like, what are we doing? Yeah. So let me see this workout video. It's Kid Rock and, oh, Jesus Christ.

1:38:41Joe Rogan:Oh, this must be Kid Rock's house.

1:38:44Matt McCusker:I think so, yeah.

1:38:45Joe Rogan:Rock out, work out. RFK Jr. works out in jeans. Yeah, he's, look, he always works out in jeans, which is so crazy. Yeah, this Kid Rock's house Kid Rock has a fucking insane house that looks like the White House He had like the outside of it looks like the White House, but the inside of it has two bedrooms and it's like 25 ,000 square feet. It's an enormous house with two bedrooms. Yeah, it's all just party He's got a huge like hot tub room. Look at half cake jr. He's jacked Jacked dude awesome for 70 on the airdyne. Look at him doing push-ups. These guys are doing the airdyne in the sauna. I know Wild.

1:39:26Matt McCusker:Yeah, I think they go to his, like.

1:39:27Joe Rogan:Cold plunge with jeans on? Cold plunge jeans. What are you doing? Crazy, bro. What the fuck are you doing? That is ridiculous. What's wrong with your legs? Now I need to know. Where's Kid? So this is his crazy room that looks like a mining, like, cavern. I've heard of his secret grotto. He's got, like, this. It's really cool. He's really into pickleball, too. He plays pickleball every morning. That's what he's telling me. He goes, I get up and play pickleball, 7 a.m. Everybody play pickleball. He's like, dude, I fucking love it. That's what it looks like. Look at how dope that is. His house is so dope.

1:39:59Joe Rogan:It's the fucking dopest house I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, that's awesome. And it's such a kid rock house. The outside of it looks exactly like the White House. That's just larger. I want you to be distracted from the whole milk they're drinking in the hot tub. Oh, they're drinking raw milk. That's raw, bro. Yeah. Can I bring your attention to something that's been happening on the Internet since we've been live? Yes. President Trump was asked about Obama talking about the aliens. I got a video on the screen. Perfect. I want to hear it myself. Yeah. Barack Obama said that aliens are real. Have you seen any evidence of non-human visitors to Earth?

1:40:37Matt McCusker:Well, he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that. So aliens are real? Well, I don't know if they're real or not. I can tell you he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that. He made a big mistake. You took it out of classified information. No, I don't have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it. Do you believe it, Peter? I do now. I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.

1:41:08Joe Rogan:I may get him out of trouble by declassifying. That's hilarious. What's going on on the Internet? I may get him out of trouble by declassifying. jeez i i hope he does yeah really yeah imagine you can go to you can get in trouble as a president for saying aliens are real i i don't think so man i don't think he's gonna get in trouble for that

1:41:30Matt McCusker:well what did he say then what was that they've been saying there's aliens right but what did he just say he was just he just hates obama he's going like oh he's going to jail i'm getting hillary and i'm getting obama for aliens they all hate each other and they all hang out and shake hands yeah yeah whose funeral was that when like george bush and them were handing out candy to

1:41:48Joe Rogan:each other's like George Bush well George Bush and Michelle Obama apparently friends other buddies yeah okay which everybody thought but George Bush never engaged in like this insult kind of thing that Trump does it's true a different thing yeah it's totally no that's he was always very classy

1:42:03Matt McCusker:yeah yeah and especially when you see the videos of him back in the day like now you're like man this guy's like lovable oh dude in comparison to the politicians saying yeah he was like oh when is running again class that's a complete class act and then you're like oh yeah fuck the Middle East forgot about that but it's like oh yeah well he had Satan

1:42:21Joe Rogan:on his side yeah Dick Cheney was running around fucking shooting his friends in

1:42:27Matt McCusker:the face and hunting trips that's true I don't know I mean that thing is like did it wasn't classified there's like now but then if Trump's gonna be like that he gave out classified then he's letting you know it's classified right he's

1:42:38Joe Rogan:telling you the cats out of the bags well he's saying I may declassify it I I hope he does. I hope this gets him. Because that is a weird thing to say. He's not supposed to be saying that. Well, that means it's real. He gave out classified information. That means there's real data that aliens are real. That's the only thing you could draw as a conclusion from that statement. Yeah. Right? Yeah, you would think. I would try to come up with another reasonable way he would say aliens are real. You shouldn't say that because it's classified.

1:43:10Matt McCusker:Yeah.

1:43:11Joe Rogan:That means it's real.

1:43:13Matt McCusker:Yeah, it is. But that's such a crazy, if Trump was trying to keep it classified, you'd think he'd be like, I don't know what he's talking about.

1:43:18Joe Rogan:I don't know, dude.

1:43:19Matt McCusker:Being like, well, yeah, they are, but I can't say they are, and he's in trouble now.

1:43:21Joe Rogan:I told you I've talked to Bob Lazar many times. Oh, yeah. And I had him on the podcast. I had dinner with him with Andrew Schultz. Schultz was in town in L.A. And I go, what are you doing tonight? And he goes, why, what's up? I go, you want to go have dinner with Bob Lazar? He's the guy that used to back engineer UFOs at Area 51. He goes, fuck, yes. Damn. All right. So we went to Fogo to Chow in L.A. That's awesome. And we sat down with Bob Lazar and just got to ask him all these questions. I've known him for years now. So I've known him for probably when I did the podcast with him. What year was that, Jamie?

1:43:57Joe Rogan:2019? 2019. So I've known him for six, seven years now. Okay. However it runs out time-wise. And he's always had the same story. He's a very reasonable guy. You hang out with I've had dinner with them a couple times Super normal guy doesn't seem like a big fat liar Obviously a scientist like obviously like a very brilliant guy Like I don't know what to think I keep searching for some bullshit. I keep searching for something. He never saw any aliens He never saw anything. He just was back engineering these crafts that didn't make any sense He's like he got there. He saw it the moment. So it looked like that thing.

1:44:36Joe Rogan:That's what it's based on That thing on the desk, that's the sport model. Jesus Christ. There's a guy named Designs by Perry, and the E in Perry is a three, and he makes these. You can buy them on the internet. He makes it like a desk clock or a desk lamp, rather.

1:44:53Matt McCusker:So he'd have to examine the motor or whatever, the mechanisms of that and try to fix it?

1:44:58Joe Rogan:Well, they didn't even tell him what he was doing. So this is what it was. So he worked at Los Alamos, Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico, and he was a propulsions expert. He had famously put a jet engine on the back of a Honda. Like he built a Honda with a jet engine on it just for funsies. He was just a genius. He just loved engineering and doing things. And he had contacted this guy about getting some work, some work in laboratories or whatever, and he said, I might have something for you that is more along the lines with your capabilities, I'm going to set up a meeting for you. So he sets up this meeting for him.

1:45:38Joe Rogan:He has no idea what the meeting is about. He has no idea what they're doing. They don't tell him. They just start asking him about his background, what he did at Los Alamos, what he's interested in. And he just tells his whole story of science and this and that. And so they had already heard about him. So they go, okay, show up at this place. There's airplanes that are going to fly you out to where you're going. So he's like, okay. So no one even knew about these airplanes back then. Now it's been confirmed that there's a bunch of airplanes right outside of Mandalay Bay. You could see these airplanes that they fly, the employees that work in Area 51, and they live in Las Vegas.

1:46:14Joe Rogan:They just fly them out there. But nobody knew about this in 1989 when he was talking about it, when he blew the whistle on it. Yeah, yeah. And so they fly him out there. they you know show him how everything works for a couple days in terms of like how the base works and where you have access to what you don't have access to they bring him this guy that is his co-worker that was there before and then it was kind of gonna show him the ropes and then a couple days in they bring him into a hangar and there's that thing and it has american flag sticker on it And so he goes, oh, these are ours. He's like, oh, my God, no wonder why people are seeing these things.

1:46:53Joe Rogan:This is something that we have. So then they tell him, essentially, tell us how it works. He's like, what is this, a test? Like they're very vague about everything. No one's telling him where it came from. No one's telling him anything. And then he realizes, like, the whole thing doesn't make sense because there's no welds. There's no seams. It's like it's 3D printed. and you have to crawl in it because it's designed for people that are like three feet tall. And there's no controls in it. It's like, what is this? And there's this generator in the center of it that has this triangle piece of this element that doesn't even exist on earth.

1:47:32Joe Rogan:This element 115. He's like, wait, what the fuck is going on? And they explained to him, you bombard this element with radiation. This is how this thing works. You put this dome on it, gets bombarded with radiation, and then that causes this field around this craft that allows you to move around. And so they do a demonstration for him. He goes outside. They fly this thing. When he's under it, he can't see it. He has to step away from where he is so he can see it again. He's like, what the fuck is this thing? It's not making any noise. It moves around. It gives off this, like, glowing light when whatever that, whatever this generator inside of it is operational.

1:48:16Joe Rogan:It gives off this blue glowing light. And this thing was, like, silently flying around. And occasionally it would go from one point to another very quickly. Like it could go from, like, this part of the mountain to that part of the mountain and just appear there. And it would look like it just disappeared because it would move so fast it would just appear in a new place it seemed like. What was steering the thing? I don't understand it and he didn't understand it either. They don't exactly know. He knows how supposedly this generator, there's these gravity beam projectors that are on the bottom of it.

1:48:51Joe Rogan:And the way you get it to fly fast, it would turn sideways and then it would point these gravity projectors or whatever they called it into a certain direction. It would create this void around this craft. and it would just instantaneously go to wherever it was supposed to go. Fuck, dude. That's crazy. Right. And so he's working on this for, you know, months and months, and then his wife starts having an affair on him because he doesn't tell her what he's doing. It's like super top secret. And so when you have this super top secret clearance, you can't tell anybody what you're doing. Yeah. So he's like, I got to go to work.

1:49:28Joe Rogan:She's like, it's 11 o 'clock at night. Where are you going? He's like, I have to go to work. So he would just jet off, and she was like, Well, I'm going to go fuck my flight attendant or my flight instructor. So this is all recorded because they're tapping his phones. And so they suspend him because they're wondering if he's going to be emotionally unstable. So while he's suspended, he takes his friends. He's like, I got to tell people about this. Like, I can't even work. Something's going on. I got to tell these people, like, hey, every Wednesday I have the schedule. Every Wednesday they fly these fucking things.

1:50:01Joe Rogan:And the reason why they do it on Wednesday is because that's when there's the least amount of traffic on the roads So he takes his wife and he takes a couple of friends and he takes him up to see this thing and they go once and then they go twice And then they get caught Damn, and then when they get caught then they grill him. They scare him They're poking him in the chest with a gun and they're freaking him out And then they tell him about his wife and the affair and all this shit And so then he goes public and so he gets hold of this guy, George Knapp, who's a news reporter in Las Vegas. And he tells them the story.

1:50:33Joe Rogan:And at first, initially, they black his face out so he could remain anonymous. He's like, look, the only way I can stay alive, you have to show my face. Because they're threatening him. They broke into his house. He goes outside. He goes to the gym, goes outside. His trunk is open. His hood is open. All his doors are open. The car was locked. No one broke into it. So he has no idea. They're fucking with him. And he's really worried. Someone shoots his tire out on the highway. Where is he now?

1:50:58Matt McCusker:He's just chilling. Well, he's I don't know if I'm supposed to say where he lives.

1:51:02Joe Rogan:Oh, whatever. But he's like around. Yeah. No, he's right. I mean, this is a long time ago. It was a long time ago. And, you know, he was kind of discredited. They tried to discredit him. They said he never worked at Los Alamos Labs. But then someone got a hold of the employee roster from the time that he was working there. And his name's listed there. So someone who worked there at the time said, I have the employee roster from, you know, 1985 or whatever it was. And he says, like, sure, right here. and they go through the roster and says right there Robert Lazar and there's also a newspaper article that was printed about him being a physicist at Los Alamos labs and that he had made this crazy jet engine powered Honda yeah so there's him with the Honda and he's listed in this lab that he's a physicist at this lab dude that's that shit's so weird and then what but that guy just said yeah what Trump just said he's not supposed to say that it's classified like yeah what why don't you fucking tell us well I always wonder if

1:51:55Matt McCusker:they're going to try to do like a Space Force thing where it's like WMD is the Middle East. We go to the Middle East. Now they're going like, yeah, I think there are aliens. And it's like now we get to do like Space Force shit. I think if they're aliens, you can't do shit to them. I know. But it's also like if you want to erect some weird defense thing in outer space so we can spy on China, it's like, yeah. I think there probably are aliens, by the way. It's like there's, I would imagine there's something. I would imagine there's something. Because the government, whenever they start floating out things, like I always, I assume there's like an agenda.

1:52:24Matt McCusker:I'm like, all right, what are they doing? 100%. Because they just dropped aliens on us out of nowhere, and everyone was kind of like, okay.

1:52:29Joe Rogan:Well, it really started around 2017. That's when it started to become legitimized, because that was when the New York Times printed this article about it. And they talked about these pilots and their experiences and these videos that they couldn't explain, because these crafts had no heat signature, and they were flying at ridiculous speeds over the ocean.

1:52:47Matt McCusker:Yeah. I remember them just coming out with it. And then they started doing the UAP thing and all that stuff, and they were like, yeah, there's like unidentified crafts and you know blah blah so i'm always kind of like what are they up

1:52:58Joe Rogan:to yeah it's weird the hell are these guys up to it's hard to know what's real and what's not real but when you start talking to pilots and people that have experienced certain things you know you just go wow what is this guy saying yeah and i again i don't deny it i'm always kind of like yeah you probably did see that stuff but it's like i don't know you know it's like why is it

1:53:19Matt McCusker:classified it's got to be military i would imagine it's military stuff where they're like we want to use it for we want to reverse engineer and use it for our military if this gets into another military's hands blah blah blah but then they're all spying on each other so i would imagine they

1:53:32Joe Rogan:would know too well the people that i've talked to said that russia and china both have retrieved crashes really yeah it's not just america that has them it's other countries that happen too damn supposedly this is the big story supposedly there's uh one that's so big that they can't move it so they built a building around it and that's supposed to be in korea what supposedly that's why i heard it's in korea but yeah this is the lore that this thing is so big that they couldn't move it that they had to put a building around it dude that's that's wild that'll be the the thing i

1:54:04Matt McCusker:always think about if they come out and say yeah there's definitely aliens like what do people do

1:54:09Joe Rogan:yeah this is the building supposedly a giant building in south korea is often been cited as a potential UFO storage facility. Can you imagine if they just built it the shape of a UFO? That kind of looks like it. That's so crazy.

1:54:23Matt McCusker:Dude, do a square building.

1:54:25Joe Rogan:What's in that fucking building? I don't know. Imagine if that's real. Yeah, what is this? Why are they, why do they think this? Well, I would imagine that place would have to be heavily guarded.

1:54:39Matt McCusker:Yeah.

1:54:40Joe Rogan:There's just a gate. Who's that guy? Eric Burleson insisted on the existence of aliens but admitted he has no definitive proof. I was talking in that video I showed you the other day. He said he was going to go look at these places. He was going to go look in Korea? He mentioned he was going to go look at the underground one. He didn't say where it was. Oh, this is the congressman. Congressman's claim. So scroll down there a little lower. So here it is. U.S. congressman has claimed classified facility housing a UFO is hiding in plain sight. Well, that's kind of hiding in plain sight. They literally made a little antenna on the top, just like this sport model.

1:55:13Joe Rogan:Look at this sport model. It has that antenna on the top. I don't know what to believe, man, but I know I want to believe. 270 feet in diameter. Holy shit.

1:55:23Matt McCusker:Yeah, that's fucking insane. Yeah, especially now with all the deep fake stuff that's going to come out. Like the next election, we'll be in deep fake territory. Everyone will be like, you were on the Epstein list. You were on it. No, you were. I'm like, I'm just, you know.

1:55:36Joe Rogan:You could have people saying all kinds of things that they've never said. Or being like, I didn't do that. Hang out with people that never hung out. I mean, there was all these photos that were fake of Epstein with a bunch of different people. Oh, yeah.

1:55:46Matt McCusker:No, there was a completely fake videos people were sharing.

1:55:48Joe Rogan:Yeah.

1:55:49Matt McCusker:It's like, you know, so I don't know. By that time, it's like I've been trying to just pull back completely from like the news and I'm like, you know.

1:55:56Joe Rogan:Hey, what is the official story of the Colbert show where they had to air that Tallarico interview on YouTube? Because I'm hearing two versions. I'm hearing one version is that CBS wouldn't let them air it because, like, Trump was involved and the government was involved somehow or another because they're worried about this Tallarico guy. He's this very charismatic guy in Texas that I really like. Very nice guy. I'm on the show. Brian Simpson told me about him. And then the other thing that I'm hearing is no, with FCC equal time rules, if he had Tallarico on, he would also have to have Tallarico's opponent, which is, I think, Jasmine Crockett.

1:56:38Joe Rogan:Is that true? I don't even know. Or whoever his opponent is. So I think there's rules like that for the FCC that don't exist for podcasts. You know what I'm saying?

1:56:48Matt McCusker:Yeah, yeah. They have to balance it.

1:56:49Joe Rogan:Yeah, like if you have this person on that's running for office, you also have to have someone that is opposing them. Okay. They have to have equal time.

1:56:56Matt McCusker:I didn't know they had that. Is that true? So he was on Colbert's show. Who's show was he on?

1:57:02Joe Rogan:Yeah, Stephen Colbert's show. Okay. And so they were framing it like the government was censoring this guy, and he was saying they're worried that they're going to flip Texas. That's what he was saying. I don't know if that's true, though.

1:57:21Joe Rogan:So, honestly, this sounds like it's Colbert saying one thing, CBS lawyers are saying a different thing. Okay. What are CBS lawyers saying? They're saying that it's the FCC thing. Colbert says, quote, here, they know damn well every word of my script was approved by CBS lawyers who, for the record, approve every script that goes on the air. Yeah, but it's not about the script. It's about the humans, the people that are on. If the people are, yeah, here it is. The show provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.

1:58:00Joe Rogan:So you would have to have equal time. Colbert scoffed at the statement during Tuesday's show. They know damn well every word of my script, but it doesn't have anything to do with the script. Said they don't know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS lawyers who, for the record, approved every script that goes on the air. Well, that's just diverting because that's not what the subject is. Okay. I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never, ever happened before. They told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception.

1:58:34Joe Rogan:And I use that language, Colbert said. So I don't know what this is about. He went on to say he wasn't mad at the network and does not want an adversarial relationship. Well, he's on his way out anyway. Yeah, I didn't know he still was doing a show. Yeah, he's doing it, I think, until like April or May or something. Come on, you're Paramount. No, no, no, you're more than that. You're Paramount Plus, he cracked. And for the lawyers to release this statement without even talking to me is really surprising. The host also noted there's been a long, very famous exception to the equal time rule. And that exception included talk shows, interviews with politicians.

1:59:09Joe Rogan:Oh, interesting. So that makes it interesting. We looked. We couldn't find one example of this rule being enforced for any talk show interview, not only for my entire late night career, but for anyone's late night career going back to the 1960s, he said. Colbert said that Carr has not gotten rid of that exception for talk show hosts yet. But maybe CBS was worried that this is a rule and that the government could crack down on them, although no one has ever done that in the past. So this is a different kind of government, right? Obviously, it's a very adversarial relationship, CBS, or at least the Colbert show has already with Trump.

1:59:57Matt McCusker:Yeah. What are they worried about? What party is Tallarico? He's a Democrat. Democrat. What's Crockett? She's a Democrat as well. She's a Democrat too. Oh, they're running against each other. Exactly.

2:00:08Joe Rogan:Exactly.

2:00:09Matt McCusker:Yeah. Okay. Tallarico is the white guy?

2:00:11Joe Rogan:He's a guy. His story is very interesting. He was a school teacher. Okay. And his story was that he had this kid that was very troubled in his class, but the kid was receiving counseling and he was starting to get better. Then budgets got cut. And when budgets got cut, they cut off the counseling. And this kid started fucking off and acting out and really falling apart. and he wound up getting kicked out of school. And it really hurt him because he was like, this kid had like real potential and he is a teacher, you know? Yeah. And so then he decided to run for office and to try to remedy these problems.

2:00:44Matt McCusker:So didn't he just get like jammed up with something now or like they were, someone claimed they were in his office and that he said something kind of like disparaging about like a black guy? Talarico? He's a very mild mannered looking guy, right? Yeah. There was, I don't know if I'm getting my politicians.

2:00:59Joe Rogan:See, man, when people are running against people, stories start a-flying.

2:01:04Matt McCusker:But it was about another politician. All he said was like, I didn't know I was going up against this, I don't know, I guess whatever word he used, like electrifying black. I thought I was going up against a mediocre black guy. Okay. Some lady claimed that he called Colin Allred a mediocre black man.

2:01:21Joe Rogan:Faced allegations that he referred to his opponent Colin Allred as a mediocre black man during a private conversation with an influencer. An influencer. Yeah. A comment Rep Tallarico has denied. The allegation caused significant backlash with All Red calling for supporters to vote for another candidate, Jasmine Crockett. Yeah, so it's like. Yeah, that's a way to get people to not vote for that guy.

2:01:45Matt McCusker:Yeah, kind of sucks. An influencer said it? An influencer was like, I worked in his campaign and he was like, if I'd known I was going up against this strong black woman, I wouldn't have known. I thought I was running against a mediocre black man. And then the guy responded being like, nothing about me is mediocre. You know, they kind of had it.

2:02:01Joe Rogan:I'm looking into what the penalty is for the equal time rule, and I don't really see one.

2:02:06Matt McCusker:Poor Tallarico. Tallarico's having a tough time. Especially if it sounds like he's a sweet guy who's, like, trying to help kids out.

2:02:11Joe Rogan:His name's too close to the guy that killed Epstein.

2:02:15Matt McCusker:What's his name? I keep fucking him up. Taglioni, Tallarico.

2:02:22Joe Rogan:I keep confusing them. When I say the killer's name, that cop, I keep saying I think his name is Tagliato. No, Talarico. No, shit. It's going to catch up to him. He's like, I think this guy killed Epstein, actually. The thing is, like, an influencer said, like, what does that mean?

2:02:42Matt McCusker:Yeah, I mean, look, yeah, it's pretty genius, though. If you want to do dirty politics, you can just be like.

2:02:47Joe Rogan:But what if he said, I thought I was going up against this mediocre guy, and now I'm going up against this powerful black lady?

2:02:53Matt McCusker:That's what it's not a bad if I didn't he was like, you know, I'd be like that makes it is a black man

2:02:57Joe Rogan:So if you're saying mediocre guy and it happens to be a black man and then that person says he said mediocre black man Yeah, it's not it's not even that bad of a thing to say All you'd have to do is just not say the black part and he'd be like, oh, he's just talking about a politician He's mediocre. I know happens to be black, but he's mediocre. But as soon as you describe him accurately

2:03:17Matt McCusker:Yeah, you just you're fried especially especially if you're a damn man if you're dead cannot be gone

2:03:22Joe Rogan:No. Yeah. He's a religious guy too, which is interesting, but also opposes putting the Ten Commandments in schools. Okay. That's fair. I think it's going to push people away from Christianity. He had a very well thought out point about it. Yeah. We had a really good conversation.

2:03:38Matt McCusker:Also, you don't need to be in school and be like, thou shall not commit adultery. It's like, yeah, dude, they're not going to fuck your wife. Well, it's not that.

2:03:44Joe Rogan:It's you're pushing these religious rules on people. And it's one religion. It's like, what about people that are Buddhists? What about people that are Muslims? What about people that are Mormons? What about, you can go down the list forever and ever and ever. Hindus.

2:03:57Matt McCusker:Like, come on. Yeah. And it's also, you can, you know, you can kind of summarize it up and like, just be nice. You know, I worked in high school for a while. I was a counselor.

2:04:06Joe Rogan:Oh, really?

2:04:07Matt McCusker:Yeah. I was like, I went to school for social work for a while.

2:04:10Joe Rogan:So like, what kind of counseling would you do?

2:04:12Matt McCusker:Just like therapy. I would, there was, it was a really cool, the way they did it was like, it was, you know, it was a charter school and I was there as an intern because I was getting my master's in social work. So they would have interns there as therapists for the school kids, basically, so that the kids could get free therapy at school if they're exhibiting kind of problems or whatever. So it was like I worked at it was like an inner city school in Philly. And I would just go there and chill in an office. And they were just like I'd have to get kids in class. And they would just come. We like talk a couple of times a week.

2:04:39Matt McCusker:And then you could bring their family in if they're like they have problems at home. You can be like, all right, let's call the mom and dad.

2:04:43Joe Rogan:This is what this guy was talking about. This is what Tallarico was talking about, what they cut funding for.

2:04:47Matt McCusker:Yeah, it's a shame because this school was like they kind of like ran it themselves. I guess they were getting funded by the state, but the way they got around it was just using interns. So it wasn't like, you know, you're not getting like the most experienced people in the world. But you're getting some help. You're getting something, man.

2:05:02Joe Rogan:This kid that he was talking about, he had this very detailed story about this kid who was like a good kid, just came from a fucked up house. And he wanted and these people around him were the only positive influences that he had ever had. And he was starting to get better.

2:05:16Matt McCusker:yeah and then they took it away and he starts falling apart yeah and dude it's also like you don't you forget like you know because there's like for kids when you like especially you're like in a city and kids are telling you like their lives it's like it's fucking heartbreaking like the shit like their day-to-day setup you'd be like fucking christ man yeah and then there's looking at you like what do i do and i'm like you gotta hang in there there's nothing there's literally nothing i can tell you to do you just gotta hang in there right it was sad but it was it was one of like my favorite if i didn't do stand-up i would probably do that for a job

2:05:46Joe Rogan:yeah i loved it it was fun that's well it sounds very rewarding right yeah you're actually helping

2:05:51Matt McCusker:people yeah and you have to it's just like intense you're just sitting there in a room with somebody and it's like everything they're saying there's no like guidance you have to just be like all right well like maybe this maybe that and it's like a i don't know i felt really i always liked it a lot it was pretty cool but then you would like you go back to the school and i i it's so funny i went to social work school just because i was doing stand-up i was kind of kicking around i was like yeah i was doing the podcast but it was like slow going and i remember watching jordan peterson be like the schools are crazy right now and part of me like i always i wanted to be a therapist but i remember being like kind of curious like i wonder how bad they are and i went to school i went to my master's program in social work which was like ground zero for all like the stuff he was talking about and he was dude it was it was literally like worse than he made it out to be what was it like it was insane dude it was literally like you know i went to school again to be a therapist but like social work you can be a therapist faster than if you go to school for psychology because you just like don't need any of the science really you just study kind of like the theory and you know whatever so you can be a therapist quicker it's like a shortcut kind of but it would be like it was just literally you'd be in a room with like 13 other people and they would like you know you talk about whatever it'd be like let's let's talk about like clinical approaches here and there and it would just right away turn into like race gender who's the most oppressed do this and it was just like people would tell stories like one time this guy said this to me and everyone like I can't believe that fucking guy said that.

2:07:11Matt McCusker:It was literally like nothing. You paid 60 grand. It was like, like I would be terrified if I was getting therapy. And again, it's like not everybody, but there's a lot of very unhitting. People would cry in class. So you'd be like talking and like people would just start bursting out in tears. Like, I don't feel safe. It was insane. And I'm like, dude, you're going to be talking to people who are like homeless. How are you going to help them?

2:07:34Joe Rogan:Oh, my God.

2:07:35Matt McCusker:And it was all female. It was mostly female dominated. It was like me and three or four other guys. and then like people would come in because you'd bring your case files in and be like here's something i'm dealing with let me get some you know what do you think about this i remember this guy was dealing with this like vietnam vet who like you know had like lived in philly his whole life and he was like i was just shocked the way he talked about women it's like bro you dirty mac and your client dude for these chicks i'm like come on man it was just kind of it was like did you know he's a fucking 70 year old dude he's lived in philly his whole life he probably stabbed charlie in a tunnel somewhere yeah and he was like he was just very crude about women it's like

2:08:07Joe Rogan:come on man of course this guy is yeah don't throw him under the fucking bus you're supposed

2:08:11Matt McCusker:to be helping that was my whole point it was like if you're doing therapy with people it's like you know life is just so hard and so complex and if you're going to be like this doesn't sit with my party politics i was like you guys got to drop the political shit man and just like meet these people where they're at well there's so many guys out there that just want brownie points that's what i and dude yeah he's exactly what it was i was like dude i know what you're doing right now you're dirty macking this guy so you can be like personally i was offended i'm like dude

2:08:37Joe Rogan:Dude, I was the worst.

2:08:39Matt McCusker:I could I couldn't stand it at all.

2:08:41Joe Rogan:This guy's the worst.

2:08:42Matt McCusker:Then they try to kick me out of the school. Because because when Shane got in trouble for SNL, my name popped up in the byline because I they had no clue. I had it was like a double life. I would do I would go to social work school because I just took out loans. I'm like, we'll just see what, you know, if the podcast works, I'll just pay off the loans. If it doesn't, I'll have a degree. And so I had been it had been pretty contentious because my plan was like, dude, just go keep it cool. don't say anything. And then dude, you'd be in these classrooms. And like, I remember the one time this lady and they're all like young, they'd right out of college.

2:09:14Matt McCusker:They'd come out and they'd be like, well, and I believe this was like unprompted. She was like, well, if she was like, I would never personally call the cops on a black person ever. And I'm just sitting in the back of the room and I'm like, what the, no one's going to say this is the craziest thing. And I'm like, what if he was beating a woman? And she was like, I mean like, uh, and like it was just that non fucking stop. And I, I couldn't help it. So I would start saying stuff. The room would go into chaos. So like I literally couldn't bite my tongue. And then eventually they found once they they already kind of had it out for me.

2:09:46Matt McCusker:And once that news came out about the podcast, they were like, we got them dead to rights. So then they they like the student council. Like they all them. They didn't like me at all. They all kind of did a motion to get me kicked out. And so the teacher came or like, you know, the dean or whatever, who actually was nice. I liked her a lot. I had a meeting with her, and she was like, yeah, these people feel unsafe, blah, blah, blah. So I had to do it. And it was unsafe, or they just don't like what they're doing. But I had a meeting with the board, basically. Did you ever fantasize about defending yourself in court?

2:10:18Joe Rogan:Yeah.

2:10:18Matt McCusker:I got to do that. And we got to debate about whether or not I actually violated the code of ethics. And it was kind of this gray area. So it was awesome. I recorded it on my phone.

2:10:29Joe Rogan:Wow.

2:10:29Matt McCusker:It's like an hour long. I never listened to it again. But it was like, I was like, just in case they jam me up. The lady was like, you know, like, what would you do if we kicked you out? And I was like, dude, like, I'll make the most of that for sure. Like, I wouldn't want to do it, but I would just see you guys, man. Like, you can't kick me out. I'm already like invested. You know, blah, blah, blah. And then COVID happened. So like, they were just hushed at all. I just got to finish online class. Yeah, they tried to give me the boot. And I remember the day.

2:10:55Joe Rogan:Did they have a specific thing they were upset about? Was it your association with Shane?

2:10:59Matt McCusker:It was just that clip. That Chinatown clip came out. And they just saw us like, I'm sure they like looked into other stuff, but they were like, he's making this place unsafe. We're not safe here. And I was like, shut up.

2:11:09Joe Rogan:Yeah, podcasters and academia.

2:11:11Matt McCusker:It was too. It was. Academia does not go together. Also, dude, like I thought like having a master's, I was going to be around geniuses. It's like, they're not that smart. You go to a place with master's and PhDs, half of them don't even like read anything. You talk about a book, they're like, I never heard of that. And then they'd show you like Netflix. You're like, bro, I'm paying 60 grand for this. You're hitting me with a Netflix doc? It's like I this is eight bucks a month. They were showing you Netflix stocks there. Yeah There was we watched the Netflix doc one of the classes we watched like the 13th amendment I was like I saw this already Fuck man, like it's the that that like though.

2:11:45Matt McCusker:I mean I remember thinking like damn everyone's on Peterson's ass about this He was totally right liberal liberal arts colleges were like it was I couldn't have thought of a bigger waste of money in terms of like bang for bucking like what did I actually learn?

2:11:57Joe Rogan:Well, I remember when we were talking about all the madness that was going on in schools and people like, why do you care about this? This is happening in college. I'm like, they're going to eventually graduate and they're going to have this ideology and they're going to get into corporations. They're going to get into business. They're going to carry this with them and try to enforce these crazy rules.

2:12:17Matt McCusker:Or, you know, somebody like your kids having problems and you go to a therapist and they're just like psycho. Like there was we were talking about modalities of therapy. one of them someone floated and the teacher was like oh yeah for sure was called like it was i don't know what it's called it's like activism therapy where you get people politically active in order to like motivate them and enrich their lives and i was like you can't do that you can't take it like you confuse existentially adrift person and be like this is what you need to do go politically i swear to god dude it was there was there was like really creepy stuff going on there and it was all just like complete group think you couldn't like if you said anything outside of like what was acceptable that you would just get punished the teachers would kind of even like some of them would try to like scold you or be like yeah okay dude and it's like it's it's a lot it would i could see it why it would just break people because i would like my heart would be beating i don't really like conflict like that yeah but it was also like dude some of the stuff you're like i can't not say anything this is insane dude do you ever talk about this on stage no i've never really talked about being in social work oh my god it's like there's gold in them dar hills true it was fun at that time of the podcast i would leave school i would then i come back to the podcast like bro you won't believe what the fuck these people are saying you say it

2:13:27Joe Rogan:on the podcast oh that's awesome it just seems like it's a great gold mine for stand-up yeah like because you have a very unique experience true as a window into how crazy people are in

2:13:40Matt McCusker:school yeah no it was it was terrifying man and then the weirdest part is like after years went by they were like do you want to get your phd here i was like no after covid after everything after it all they just wanted your money exactly that's what i saw that and i was like man get the hell out of here it would be nice to be calling yourself dr matt though bro don't think i didn't

2:13:59Joe Rogan:think about it come on dog come on dog i know i've been talking to you how many kooky doctors

2:14:05Matt McCusker:there are out there that really opened my eyes i thought doctors were like the smartest people in the world then i went to like higher education i'm like this is fucking insane Yeah, anyone could you could be a doctor dude anyone could mean obviously like anyone could be a fucking doctor Especially on some subjects, right? Exactly. That's a thing not like not hard sciences not hard science If you want to be a doctor you could go for like anthropology, whatever Yeah, no problem dude. Yeah, and they can't say shit Like you can make up you can like make your thesis on anything and be like, excuse me

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2:15:13Joe Rogan:This episode is brought to you by Netflix. I loved Peaky Blinders. It is one of my absolute favorite shows of all time. I binge watched the entire season, all the seasons. So when I found out that Netflix was dropping a Peaky Blinders film, I was very excited. Tommy Shelby, played by the Academy Award winning Killian Murphy, of course, must face his own demons and choose whether to confront his legacy or burn it to the ground. It's gritty. It's grimy. It's got that epic gangster edge we've been hooked on for six seasons. Trust me, you won't want to miss this. Peaky Blinders, The Immortal Man, is in select theaters March 6th and on Netflix March 20th.

2:15:56Joe Rogan:Rated R. Well, did you ever see what Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay and Ellen Pluckrose did? Do you know what they did? No. They made these fake academic papers. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw that. Like heteronormative something in dog parks. They were talking about like gay experiences with dogs. It was like a peer-reviewed paper. Fat bodybuilding was one of them. Yeah. And they were like celebrated. These papers were celebrated.

2:16:27Matt McCusker:Dude, it would go 100%. The theory, like the critical race theory and all that stuff you cover, when you get into it, you're like. Like, it was, and I remember, like, saying this. It was very, like, it reminded me, because I'd been outside of Walmart. Someone handed me, like, a pamphlet, and it was, like, white supremacy literature. When you read that stuff, you read the first two sentences, you go, okay, that sounds legit. And then it just, there's, like, huge quantum leap in reasoning. You're like, whoa, how the fuck did we get here? A lot of that's very similar, where it'll make a thing, like, you just, no one can disagree with.

2:16:55Matt McCusker:Right. And then it jumps real quick, and you're like. Just complete groupthink. Yeah. Yeah. But that was scary to be like, damn, dude, these people are going to be, like, these people are therapists working with kids older people you know this and that you know and it was just like i was like how this how is the people supposedly like you know guiding people through life or like taking people who are lost or suffering and being you know i don't know it was it was kind of rough because the animus against a person who like thought differently it was palpable and like very severe to where it was like dude and the funniest part was like Like, I was, again, I was in that high school in the inner city.

2:17:30Matt McCusker:The school was, like, 97 % black, the rest Latino. And they were like, how would your students feel about your podcast material? I'm like, they don't give a fuck. They would laugh. Like, they have bigger fish to fry than being like, what did you say on a podcast? It's like, they're like high schoolers in Philly fighting for their lives. How would your students feel? That was the big disconnect. I'm like, you guys have, like, I don't know, man. Like, they would even teach you. This would crack me up. I was like thinking about this the other day where they they would tell you if you had a client and, you know, say your client was black and, you know, I'm a white guy.

2:18:01Matt McCusker:I should lead by going like, how do you feel about the fact that I'm white and you're black? I was like, dude, you guys realize you're in a classroom studying how to talk to a black person. I'm like, that's fucking weird. I was like, just talk to like you can just talk to the man. And if that comes up, you can tackle it. but like you're uncomfortable and then you're going like so black person how do you feel that i'm white it's like dude that is and they would push back against me i'm like no no you guys can't

2:18:28Joe Rogan:do that that's crazy well you were actually applying it in the real world they were just exhibiting they were just hanging out in these circle jerks exactly and a lot of them would be

2:18:37Matt McCusker:like you know i'm social justice blah blah blah and be like all right where's your field placement that was like your you know um that was like your internship and they're like i'm out in like the main line's like a really nice area in philly it's like i'm doing like a high school in the main line And it's like, okay, dude, it's like, you know, it's like, take that act somewhere else. And it's like, those kids don't want to hear any of this shit, like at all. And I would let you talk to them. Like, if race comes up, I would talk to them. But like, that would have been so crazy to take a black eighth grader and being like, I'm white.

2:19:03Matt McCusker:How do you feel about that?

2:19:04Joe Rogan:That would be so creepy and weird. Isn't it crazy that they think you're obligated to bring that up? You have an obligation to discuss it? Also, it's like, they fucking know. They can see me.

2:19:16Matt McCusker:I'm clearly white. They know I'm white. And it's like, exactly. It's like, and if that, talk, talk, talk, talk. And then you can like bring it up because it's a thing, but it's like leading with that. I always be like. It's the least of their problems. Exactly.

2:19:29Joe Rogan:They're just probably happy someone takes an interest in them and is kind to them.

2:19:33Matt McCusker:Dude, and that was a big thing too of like, you know, because you get them out of class and a lot of them, they'd be like, I'm fucking talking to this guy. So like, whatever. And I would just chill and be like, you can just do your homework. And then you just start helping them with their homework. Like, what are you doing? You know, and then you eventually build rapport. But it was just like, you know, these are the teachers telling you this. And you're like, fuck, dude, you guys are guiding people into this. It was, dude, I walked away from that being like, God damn.

2:19:56Joe Rogan:Well, there's a lot of people that think that like a lot of psychology and a lot of therapy is just complete horseshit. And the argument about therapy being complete horseshit in terms of like the academic study of it and applying it to people is that very few people, you know, get better. I think it does help a lot of people, though. And I think it really helps a lot of people if they're in a really bad place. I think some people just want to talk to somebody. Yeah. And that can help, too. Yeah. But it's like, what can you actually do for them in terms of, like, with the tools and the techniques of therapy versus just being a human and talking to a human and seeing their side of things and trying to tell them your perspective and trying to give them a rational point of view and giving them maybe some things to work on.

2:20:50Joe Rogan:But it's like it's not a science. Not at all. And it varies so much between individuals.

2:20:57Matt McCusker:Well, yeah, there's the individuals. Then there's 40 million modalities of therapy. So it's like you can be doing like CBT, which is like that's supposedly the most scientific where it's like there's a system. It's a kind of rigorous. you can have like Jungian stuff where you're like let's draw like a mandala based on your dreams or you can just be like let me just be nice to this person who's never had anyone be nice to them and then let them kind of open up and like yeah I think they did a study one time where they took they let people who weren't trained therapists be therapists and they didn't find a giant difference in terms of like who was getting what result but then there's it is a skill though that's the other thing like it's a skill it's a hard job but I think you're totally right where it's like it all depends on the person.

2:21:37Matt McCusker:Are they in touch with what's fucked the therapist? Do they know about like what's fucked up with them? Right. Because you can like, I don't know, man. It's such a crapshoot and it's like I think it can be beneficial. I think like being stuck in it your whole life, I don't know about that because it just becomes a thing where you start performing and you're like, fuck, let me.

2:21:55Joe Rogan:Well, a lot of people feel like you have to be in therapy and everybody should be in therapy.

2:22:00Matt McCusker:Yeah. I don't know. Like I remember I didn't do it ever and then when I went to school for therapy, They're like, you got to go to therapy so that, like, you can know what it's like and blah, blah, blah. I was like, fair enough. And I genuinely walked in there being like, I'm about to blow this lady's mind. She's going to be like, I've never met a guy, so put together. And then, like, I went in there, and she kind of picked me apart. And I was like, fuck, I'm kind of fucked up.

2:22:21Joe Rogan:That's funny.

2:22:22Matt McCusker:But I for real was like, I'm going to – this lady is about to be like, bro, let me just tell you about my – I, like, for real had so much – You thought that you were going to be the therapist for her. I thought I was the chosen one.

2:22:35It was good, though, because like they the one thing they can do is like if you're in a family system and you have no other like, you know, available worldviews, you're locked in that.

2:22:45Matt McCusker:So a therapist can be somebody outside of a system you would never was ever have access to who can let you run like things through your head in a way you would never think of. That, I think, is good. But then it's like, you know, at a certain point, it's like I feel like you should get in, get out. Kind of like, all right, here's something like it was like there's like acceptance, commitment therapy. that's good it's like they teach you how to be like mindful how to like monitor your thoughts without having them like completely attacked there's like there are like skills you can learn yeah but it's like dude fucking and the money of it's crazy like that's the other thing like

2:23:17Joe Rogan:it's so expensive right and does insurance pay for it for most people how does it depends it like

2:23:22Matt McCusker:it'll cover it for some you have to be you have to get a therapist in that network and then they have to diagnose you if insurance wants if you want your insurance to cover you that therapist has to diagnose you with a mental disorder or some sort of mental thing. Do they have to prescribe something for you?

2:23:37Joe Rogan:I don't think they have to prescribe, no.

2:23:38Matt McCusker:But it's like, do they have to just give you a, like, you know, your bipolar? Adjustment disorder is the one where it's like.

2:23:44Joe Rogan:But with psychiatrists, like, I wonder how many of them are just, like, incentivized to put you on something.

2:23:51Matt McCusker:Probably a ton. They're just like doctors. Right.

2:23:53Joe Rogan:So, and then some of them just swear by it. They're like, just take this, take that, take this. Yeah, I have a friend who went to a psychiatrist, and he said that, like, immediately like first meeting this guy's trying to put him on antidepressants yeah and he's like well i don't think i need that like yeah i'm not that fucked up i'm just not happy yeah i'm sad

2:24:13Matt McCusker:it's also first meeting's crazy because it's like let's see what your life's about no he's like

2:24:17Joe Rogan:let's get you on this and it'll make you feel better yeah and we'll work from there like well

2:24:21Matt McCusker:some of those guys are like ruthless materialists where you're like yeah your brain's just fucked up dude who cares because that like uh did you ever see the sapowski guy yeah robert yeah i think he's great i loved his lectures but his last book and again this was like from him promoting it i didn't read it but his argument was like yeah we just all have different brains and if you're like you know if you're like a fucking home invader or burglar or just your genes suck and like we shouldn't ever punish anybody we should just kind of like keep people aside and just rehabilitate basically saying like you have no choice over what you do at all free will is complete illusion

2:24:52Joe Rogan:Yeah, the determinism argument. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know about that argument. I mean, obviously free will is real. But obviously you are affected by your genes, your life circumstances, your past behavior, all the experiences that you've had. There's a lot of factors. To say that will doesn't mean anything, well, then why is inspiration so important? Yeah. Why do people love inspiration? Why do people love like a good pep talk? Why do people love like a good motivational video that gets you out of the house? Like obviously there's will involved. Yeah. And will is will is the thing that turns you into a jelly roll at 500 pounds to jelly roll at 200 pounds.

2:25:30Joe Rogan:Like that's what will does.

2:25:32Matt McCusker:Yeah.

2:25:33Joe Rogan:Like that is that's a real thing, man. That's not a it's not a fake thing. This idea of free will. It's no determinism that led jelly roll to decide to start walking. It was hardcore will. Yeah.

2:25:46Matt McCusker:No, I agree. I don't that argument always because I like Sapalski. I liked a lot of his stuff. That argument just bothers me because it's like, okay, you're taking the idea of will and just switching it with, like, this nebulous, like, what? There's, like, an isotope in your brain that gets switched on and then you're able to. It's just, to me, it's such a, like, just a weird point to kind of, like, try to push across. Like, there's no free will. It's just your gene activates and then you do the thing. And it's like, I guess, man. But then you can, like, change your genes apparently by, like, acting a certain way.

2:26:14Matt McCusker:So it's like, you know, I just never liked that stuff, man.

2:26:18Joe Rogan:It's a weird argument. but there's validity to both perspectives. There's validity to the perspective that free will is a real thing, but also determinism is a giant factor in how many people live their lives the way they live them. Yeah. Especially if you're in a shit circumstance. You're in a terrible gang-ridden community. You get beaten in your house. Your mom's on crack. There's chaos everywhere. The idea that you're going to come out of this writing vegan poetry is insane. It's true. It's insane. No, that's true. That's insane. You're a product of your environment, at least to a certain extent.

2:26:54Joe Rogan:And usually someone finds something that they love that gives them an outlet and then they get out of there.

2:27:00Matt McCusker:The problem with the determinism stuff for me is like – because I do get that. It's like, you know, yeah, if you have a horrible upbringing and you do a – you know, you kill people, it is like, yeah, I get it. Like if that had been me, maybe I can do that. And like he's like, maybe we should treat everyone a lot more kindly and not punish people. And it's like I'm on board with that. For me, it all stops at pedophiles. And it's like, so what?

2:27:20Joe Rogan:We're supposed to just like poo-poo a pedophile?

2:27:23Matt McCusker:It's like part of me is like we should probably fucking fry those guys.

2:27:26Joe Rogan:Well, that's one of the craziest things about this whole what's going on, the woke shit in academia, is they're starting to call them minor attracted persons. So there's like legitimate academics who are describing pedophiles as minor attracted persons and that it doesn't mean that they're evil. It's like, what? Yeah.

2:27:45Matt McCusker:I know. And that's the problem.

2:27:47Joe Rogan:them it's like okay you have kids like i don't know anybody who has kids who has that perspective no if you did you have to be like a sick fuck like to think that it's oh it's just a minor attractive person that fucked my kid like what yeah well that and that's the whole thing too

2:28:00Matt McCusker:it's like you were all just bags you know of like jeans and we're this material goo that just does something sometimes it's like all right well let me fucking squash this pedophile then let me we're all just bags of goo let me you know crush this guy but it's like right it's okay to abort

2:28:12Joe Rogan:a child, but it's not okay to kill a pedophile. I know. Explain. Help me.

2:28:16Matt McCusker:Yeah, that's where it gets, for me, all that, like, determinism. Like, we should just be kind and have a more rational approach to criminal justice. It's like, for sure. And then it's like, ah, fuck pedophiles. It's like, yeah, you can't.

2:28:27Joe Rogan:Pedophiles, serial killers. Yeah. There's a lot of rapists. There's a lot of different people you could throw into that. One of the interesting things about Sapolsky is he did some crazy work on toxoplasmosis. That's how I really got into him. Really? Yeah. He was the guy that we first started reading about that was saying that a disproportionate amount of motorcycle victims, when he was doing his residency, the guy who he was working with, one of the surgeons, would test the motorcycle victims for toxoplasmosis. And he said a giant percentage of them have this cat parasite. Oh, yeah. I've heard about this.

2:29:05Joe Rogan:This cat parasite alters behavior. It makes you more reckless. It makes you more prone to erratic mood swings and it makes you more aggressive. It's interesting. Yeah. Disproportionate amount of successful soccer teams have high levels of toxoplasmosis. Damn. Countries with higher toxoplasmosis. There could also be countries of higher toxoplasmosis don't have any money. It's easier to get a soccer ball. People get good at soccer. It's the way out of the game. I mean, way out of bad neighborhoods. But this the motorcycle victim thing is nuts because we know it affects human behavior. And we also know that it affects animal behavior.

2:29:43Joe Rogan:It makes cats. It grows inside cats guts. It's the only way that it reproduces. So what it does is it rewires a sexual reward system of rodents and like mice and rats get turned on by the smell of cat piss. So they go to seek out campus with like a boner, like literally, and they lose all their fear of cats. so that the cats devour them. And so when the cats devour them, then that parasite is now inside the cat's gut, which is where it reproduces. So that's why they tell pregnant women you should never touch cat litter. Really? Yeah. It's toxoplasmosis.

2:30:18Matt McCusker:And they think it does the same thing in humans, where it just makes you, like, kind of amps up your drives. Yeah. Damn. You know what else is nuts, too? Because you were saying that's more in, like, certain countries that are, like, developing.

2:30:27Joe Rogan:Well, it's in rural areas, any places where people have, like, outdoor cats. Yeah. But there was one point where in France it was like 50 % of the people had Toxo. Jesus Christ. Yeah, because there was wild cats everywhere. Yeah. And you got to think cats are, they're on your countertop, their fucking shit is on their paws.

2:30:47Matt McCusker:I don't, that's the one thing, like I have dogs, cats are fine. If I see a cat I'll pet it, but like when I see people's cats on their countertop and I don't get squeamish easily, I'm just kind of like, ew dude. It is gross. It's kind of gross.

2:30:57Joe Rogan:Well they shit in a box, they paw around in that box of shit and piss, and then they hop on your couch. with shit and piss on their paws. Dogs go outside. They take a shit, they come inside, they're good. As long as your dog doesn't rub his asshole on your dinner plates, you're probably okay. But I've had cats that walk on your plates. They don't give a shit. They'll take a seat on your plate. You're like, I have to get a new plate now, you fuck. What are you doing? Get off of that.

2:31:22Matt McCusker:They're funny, but every time I see them get out of the litter box and walk across people's countertops, I'm like, dude. It's funny.

2:31:28Joe Rogan:I've always had them, though. I don't have them now because my kids are allergic, when I was younger I had them and they are fun I like them they're fun pets they're cute they come over you and purr but it is weird that you have a box of shit in your house and there's a lot of people like they're lazy and you go over to their house and they have a cat they're not cleaning that litter box enough and as soon as you walk in the fucking waft of piss and shit hits you in it like bro you're just smelling this all day?

2:31:54Matt McCusker:It's so bad I would need an outdoor I used to let stray cats come in my house after college I lived in a house by myself in Philly. It was like a small house and a lot of the houses on the street have been knocked down so there's only like there were row homes but I had a standalone row home there's a lady across the street that had a standalone row home they just knocked all the houses next to us down and like two other people and I would let the stray cat into my house but I would just you know you can come stay in here but I'd be like you can't like this thing can't get in my bed and like by like three days that thing was like curled up next to my face.

2:32:22Matt McCusker:I got a fucked up eye infection. Yeah. It was called epidemic no it was called epidemic keratoconjunctivitis. It's called shit in your eye literally was it was but the eye doctor was like high doctor goes I hadn't only see this is like in third world countries And two for six months afterwards after it got cleared up. They had to shut the thing down and clean the whole eye practice Afterwards my eye at 10 o 'clock would start to droop Whoa the white blood cells would rush to my eye So I would be out dude for six months after this thing it finally cleared up because it was viral They're like there's nothing you can do for it.

2:32:54Matt McCusker:I would go out my eye would start drooping. I'd be like I gotta go home I gotta go home it's your alarm I would feel like I this is what you said

2:33:01Joe Rogan:yes I feel like I had fucking sand in my eye highly contagious severe eye infection caused by adenovirus typically types A 8 1937 cause rapid onset of red painful watery eyes often with light sensitivity blurred vision and swollen eyelids whoa dude I would wake up in the morning

2:33:19Matt McCusker:my eyelid was it was stuck together and I have to pull it open and then I saw the movie Ray remember the beginning of Ray when his eyes get all globbed up I was like dude am I going blind This would suck. That would suck if you got blind from a cat's asshole.

2:33:30Joe Rogan:It would fucking suck, dude. Bro. Yeah. A friend of mine has shingles on his face. It's crazy. His whole face is all swollen up, and he's worried he might go blind. He has it now? Yeah, he just got it. He's an older guy, and he just got it.

2:33:44Matt McCusker:Is shingles like when you don't get chicken pox, and it comes and gets you afterwards?

2:33:48Joe Rogan:I don't think so. I think it's a form of the herpes virus that affects older people in particular. Older people are terrified of it. They get shingles vaccinations and shit. Is that what it is? I thought chickenpox was herpes too. Oh, really? I always heard that.

2:34:06Matt McCusker:If you don't get chickenpox as a kid, you might get shingles as an adult. My uncle got shingles and he said it sucked.

2:34:12Joe Rogan:Known as herpes zoster, a viral infection that causes a painful rash. It stems from the reactivation of the varicella zooster virus, the same one responsible for chickenpox, which lies dormant in nerve tissues after the initial infection. So after you get the infection, then you can get shingles. Oh, no. After chicken pox resolves, the virus remains inactive in the body's nerve cells. Factors like aging, weakened immunity, or stress can trigger reactivation, leading to shingles. Most commonly in adults over 50, yeah. Yeah, my friend is like in his 60s. That sucks, dude. Yeah, that's rough. Ugh.

2:34:49Joe Rogan:A lot of older people are scared of shingles. Yeah, my uncle got it. Is the shingles vaccine effective? Does it prevent shingles? Is that one of the legit ones? It says vaccines like Shingrix reduce risk significantly. Antiviral drugs shorten outbreaks if started early. Oh, you got to get on it right when you see the first bump. It sucked.

2:35:17Matt McCusker:Somebody knows kids got MRSA from swimming in one of those. Oh, that's scary. We got the pictures. It was just like bubble. It looked crazy.

2:35:25Joe Rogan:MRSA's terrifying. Yeah. That's all from people taking antibiotics. Or it was staph. Staph and MRSA. Yeah, it was staph. Staph is the more dangerous one. Oh, excuse me. MRSA is the more dangerous one because MRSA is medically, medical resistant. Oh, okay. Medicine resistant. So this was just staph.

2:35:41Matt McCusker:So it was like a giant bubble on their hand.

2:35:43Joe Rogan:It looked crazy. I've had staph. Did you really? I've had staph a couple times. Oh, yeah. I got it from jujitsu. A lot of people get it. Yeah. It's real common. like a lot of people get it and they don't even realize they have it until it's too late. Ari had it and he didn't even know he had it. We were playing pool once and he was limping. He was walking around. I go, why are you limping? And he goes, oh, I got a spider bite. And he was doing jujitsu. I bought him a year of jujitsu for Christmas. Yeah. I forced him to celebrate Christmas. I didn't say it's Hanukkah. I got him a Christmas present.

2:36:15Joe Rogan:But I go, let me say. And he rolls his pants up. and I see this bubble on his knee with like a pus center of it, and I go, we're going to the hospital right now. He goes, are you serious? And I unscrewed my cue. I go, you have to go to the hospital right now. I go, right now. I go, that's staph infection. And he was like, why don't they fucking tell us about it? Why aren't there signs at the gym warning you about it? I'm like, that's a good point. Like you kind of have to hear about it from somebody. I found out about it from my friend Tate. Shout out to Tate Fletcher, my homie. we were at the airport once and I had shorts on and I had just my foot sitting up like this he goes what's on your calf?

2:36:52Joe Rogan:I had little pimples on my calf I'm like I don't know, nothing and he goes dude I think that's staph I'm like what? these are little zits? you think that's staph? and he goes yeah you should go get that checked out and I went to the doctor and he said yeah that looks like staph he goes I'm going to put you on antibiotics right away and we're just going to swab it and send it in but I don't want to wait and I got on it right away and so I killed it quick but I remember the antibiotics. Dude, you feel so weird when you're on the road. You're just like so tired. I hate taking them, man. Some guys fight on them.

2:37:26Joe Rogan:I know guys that have got staph infections in the UFC, fought off the staph infection with antibiotics, and then fought on the antibiotics, which is crazy. Yeah, that's insane. I don't know how you'd have any endurance.

2:37:38Matt McCusker:No. I always feel weird. I also like they mess my stomach up so bad. Oh, yeah. My stomach's just fried.

2:37:45Joe Rogan:Well, my friend Gordon Ryan, that's his belt up there. He's the greatest jujitsu grappler of all time. He has to retire because he got staph so many times that he was taking antibiotics so often that it fucking nuked his gut bacteria. And, like, he can't hold food down. He throws up all the time. It sucks. Yeah, it's crazy. He's been dealing with it for years. And he just announced on Instagram really recently that he has to retire. Dude, I got it. He can't train. That fucking blows. And he's the greatest of all time. And he's done. And he's 30. Ugh. Yeah. That sucks. Like, unanimously regarded as the greatest grappler of all time.

2:38:22Matt McCusker:And that's it?

2:38:22Joe Rogan:Yeah. He's gone, like, 10 years undefeated, beating the best fighters in the world. Can he take, like, time off? Can he just take, like, five years off? He's trying. He's done that. He hasn't competed in a couple of years. He can't do it. He can't train. That sucks. It's like it keeps coming back.

2:38:38Matt McCusker:Dude, I had eczema one time. and it like it came up on my it was like on my legs and it was on my dick and I thought it was ringworm because it was like a perfect circle so I go to the you know I go to the whatever urgent care and I'm like yeah I got fucking ringworm and they're like that's weird usually doesn't go on there but they're like just put fucking you know Lothram or I think what I yeah like Lothramen that shit so I put Lothramen on my dick and it just dried like the whole thing it was like it was disgusting So then I had to go back to another urgent care. And it would have been like the second or third time.

2:39:14Matt McCusker:I just showed like a fucking shriveled, flaccid, like chapped red penis. I showed this one nurse who goes like, I don't know, calls in another nurse. And I'm like, fuck, all right. She comes in. I don't know what that is. They call in someone else. I'm like, oh, third nurse. Giant black guy comes in. I'm like, no. No. No. No. You know he's going to laugh as soon as he leaves. Bro, he was probably, I can't believe, yeah, it was bad. And then finally, I finally went to a dermatologist. And, dude, you can look it up. Center City Dermatology, run by just like a babe. It's on the website. Everyone knows this who has ever gone there.

2:39:53Matt McCusker:I was talking about it one time. My friend was like, bro, I know exactly what you're talking about. She comes in, checks it out, and she's like, dude, you had, you know, that wasn't even ringworm. And then she gave me this cream, and it like cleared it right up. So I had to show like my, like, chap. It was like a leprosy, bro That's Yeah, dude She saw me at my worst, dude

2:40:15Joe Rogan:Hilarious

2:40:15Matt McCusker:So I just showed it to like four people It was like a leprosy penis And then eventually she was like, oh no, dude It was like a cortosteroid Cleared it right up I know people that have had eczema that went on a carnivore diet

2:40:27Joe Rogan:And it went away

2:40:27Matt McCusker:I can't have gluten That's the thing I've been allergic to gluten for a while And if I kind of backslide on that It's like I'll get little eczema flare-ups

2:40:35Joe Rogan:A lot of people are allergic to it. And a lot of people don't think it's actually the gluten. They think it's actually how they finish the crops with glyphosate. I've heard about that. Yeah. Which kind of makes sense because, like, why are all these gluten intolerant? Nobody ever heard about those in the 70s? No. There was no one gluten intolerant?

2:40:56Matt McCusker:No. Dude, the weird thing is my mom, she's always been a health person. She got this book because she had health problems, and, like, it was might have been the 80s. My aunt was a nurse gave her this book my mom self-diagnosed gluten allergy in like the 80s And everyone's like you're out of your fucking mind like nobody has this blah blah blah And yeah, then like when I was in college, I was like dude like I feel like my every time I swallow food It feels stuck in my throat my I have like gas I'm burping my stomach's fucked up. I'm not sleeping I was having like racing thoughts and shit and she was like, oh try not eating gluten for a while Dude, it cleared it up like it was insane

2:41:32Joe Rogan:I wonder if that's the same with, like, gluten that you get in Europe where they're not using any glyphosate. No, that's what I heard.

2:41:38Matt McCusker:You can eat – apparently you can go eat it, you know, in Europe and it's fine. I remember I took a test finally and it was, like – it was, like, one of those, like, internet blood test things. And I came up, like, allergic to not even the gluten. It's, like, glitian, which is, like, another protein inside of wheat, which I don't know if it's that same thing or what. It's just, like, an allergy to it. I showed it to Shane. It was, like – it was moderate. And he goes, pfft, moderate. You're a pussy. eat have a pizza i was like fuck why did i show you he was always everyone's like it's fake it's in your head you're full of shit so i finally have proof i'm like what are you gonna do about

2:42:11Joe Rogan:it now he goes moderate pussy it's one of the worst intolerances to have because the food is so delicious like think about it spaghetti lasagna bread sandwiches i don't i and eating the gluten

2:42:26Matt McCusker:free bread is like not it's not at that point you just go like i'm not eating bread it's not really good in order to make it good you have to put so much shit in it that you're like i might as well not eat i i've been off gluten since i was like 21 wow and then anytime i would like backslide at a restaurant where they cook with it and stuff it would you know fuck me up weirdly enough though if i get enough sunlight i it like my i can tolerate a lot more stuff i guarantee that's a vitamin d thing i i think i don't know it's weird man every time i go to a doctor they're just like bro i don't know i don't know what to tell you well vitamin d is good for your immune

2:42:57Joe Rogan:system and these are autoimmune issues it makes sense that they would kind of be connected somehow

2:43:02Matt McCusker:or another yeah because i couldn't eat after the gluten it was like then i couldn't eat dairy and then every time i'd get sunlight i could eat the day it's fucking weird nuts is the sunlight thing

2:43:10Joe Rogan:like for so long people are saying stay out of the sun sun's gonna kill you it's crazy and now now they're going no no you need to get in the sun or you're gonna die i know what's the new we the new food pyramid now i know well a lot of people are so angry they're so angry at rfk jr for flipping the food pyramid but there's so much evidence that this is the accurate way to eat this is the way people are supposed to be eating it's like whole foods like actual food like vegetables meat fish like that's what you're supposed to eat like actual food that people have been eating for thousands of years that's how you're supposed to eat dude that's the one

2:43:43Matt McCusker:that's the stuff the backlash against them that i'm like i don't get it man it's like getting like the weird shit out of foods that they don't have in Europe for in like schools and stuff.

2:43:51Joe Rogan:And it's like, that was always the left wing's position.

2:43:53Matt McCusker:I do.

2:43:54Joe Rogan:It was like no preservatives, no additives, natural food. I know that. And that's the thing too.

2:43:58Matt McCusker:Like I, I love like, cause I have all these food allergies. So like, I got to go to like a hipstery kind of like rainbow flag restaurant. That's the only place I can eat from. So I'm like, I know you guys like this. Why are you pretending to not like getting rid of like red 40 and all that shit?

2:44:11Joe Rogan:Because it's connected with Trump because RFK Jr. is a part of this party or part of this administration. And so it became a political thing. People are just so silly. They'd rather commit suicide. They'd rather poison themselves than admit that he's right. It's insane. Just be like, dude, just give him one and be like, all right, that's actually a good one. But it's that resistance to recognizing maybe this person that I don't agree with because he's connected to this other person I don't agree with. Maybe he's got some good points. Maybe if a person that was like someone that I aligned with ideologically had the same points, I would be like, yes, thank you.

2:44:49Joe Rogan:Yes. These preservatives are terrible. Yes. These dyes are terrible. Yes. This is bad for you. Yes. You should have warning labels. Yes. Other countries have banned these products. Why do we have them? Yes. Dude.

2:45:00Matt McCusker:And especially like if you have kids, it's like, dude, you worry more about that than like your kids not eating a bunch of crazy bullshit. Yeah. It's like, dude, just let it go. You can be like, all right, like I don't like this, but that's fucking right. I like that. Let's let them cook on that. And it's like.

2:45:13Joe Rogan:Well, so many people that aren't religion, don't have religion in their life, they worship science. Like science, they treat it as if this is like a doctrine and a dogma. And if you don't support it, you're a heretic. Yeah. There's something wrong with you. It's like, well, do you know those people? These scientists? Like a lot of them are fucking severely compromised. They're compromised by financial incentives. They're compromised by academic incentives. they're trapped in these systems where you're you're you're you're forced to have groupthink yeah you have this top-down control the people that at the top are controlled and connected to these pharmaceutical drug companies they're pushing these ideas like this isn't all clean

2:45:52Matt McCusker:yeah they're hanging with epstein too and like i know isn't that crazy you love scientists man thank god i wasn't a scientist that's so weird that's so fucking creepy yeah it's and the science dude the science shit is like because i do know this from going to masters i know you need to understand statistics you need like a very serious understanding of statistics to actually make sense of those studies and i i never was able to do that but it's like you can read those studies and like oh look at this it's a graph everything's going up and it's like yeah but like what was like the percentage of the what this and it's like statistics is for real like magic to me where it's like it's so slippery and weird and like you can make one thing look this way and it's you can arrange the data in a different way you're like oh shit the fucking thing went up and now

2:46:34Joe Rogan:this is better it's like well that's what pharmaceutical drug companies do for sure they'll they'll run multiple studies and then throw out all the ones that show no efficacy and even hide dangerous side effects they hide them yeah i think they're allowed to do as many

2:46:48Matt McCusker:i remember reading a book on antidepressants like years and years ago and i think they were allowed to do as many studies as it needed to like show basically what they wanted to see which wasn't

2:46:58Joe Rogan:even good it was like 50 we had a um a lawyer in here that had he'd worked on cases with pharmaceutical drug companies and one of the things that he said that was really crazy was he found out that the pharmaceutical drug companies don't when they get peer-reviewed when their papers get peer-reviewed they don't have to give the data to the scientists they give their review of the data to the scientists and then it gets peer-reviewed damn yes it's like It's so rigged.

2:47:26Matt McCusker:Yeah, that's crazy. It's so rigged. Remember the study that was like, if you drink one glass of wine, you're going to be healthy? Yeah. That was complete bullshit. That was made by a body of science that was promoted by the big alcohol companies. It was completely false. I know so many people who were like, dude, it's good for me. I need alcohol every day.

2:47:44Joe Rogan:They were also saying resveratrol. That was one. Yeah, grape shit.

2:47:47Matt McCusker:And it's also just like, eat a fucking grape then.

2:47:49Joe Rogan:Well, also, take resveratrol. It's a good supplement. And the amount that you get in supplements far exceeds a glass of wine. You have to drink the whole bottle. Yeah, true. And then you're hammered. And you're drunk. Your liver's destroyed.

2:48:02Matt McCusker:Yeah, that shit always threw me off. And I remember at the time being like, there's no fucking way that's true.

2:48:08Joe Rogan:Yeah. Like, no, you hang out more and you're less lonely. I think there's something to the relaxation of alcohol that at least it makes you feel better. And I think feeling better is a part of like having a better life and having a better, a healthier mind. Because there's something about people that are just riddled with anxiety and thinking about things all the time. There's a lot of people out there that are just, they don't have the tools to navigate this fucked up world. And so they're all a little drinky poo every now and then. Maybe not bad for them. Maybe a little just fuck it juice. Like, ah.

2:48:42Joe Rogan:Yeah, true. If you drop the cortisol at night. Yeah, true. A little bit. A little relaxation. There's a lot of people that, like, one of the only things keeping them hanging on is a drink at night. You know? Just a little drink. Just nothing crazy. Yeah. You're not killing yourself.

2:48:56Matt McCusker:Yeah, I wouldn't want to take that from somebody either. Yeah, I don't want to take that from people. Yeah, that's true. I wouldn't want to take that. But it's just nuts to be like, this is actually really good for you.

2:49:04Joe Rogan:It's like, well, it's lesser of two evils for sure. It's like. Or were they trying to say that, like, Froot Loops were healthier for you than ground beef? Wasn't that one of the studies? Was it really? Yeah, like, they had comparisons. like they had a chart like where where things fit on the healthy versus not healthy that's

2:49:21Matt McCusker:fucking insane well the old food pyramid was the best it was like cereal bread and pasta that was what you're supposed to eat like base nine that's most of your food you're supposed to be charged on just fucking like elbow macaroni it was like that was for real growing up that's what it was

2:49:37Joe Rogan:i remember meanwhile people in france they're eating loaves of bread and they don't get fat I know and they're healthy I know

2:49:43Matt McCusker:it's fucking weird we're getting poisoned yeah everyone who comes here from another country is like I feel horrible I know they have a hot dog

2:49:50Joe Rogan:and they're fucking vomiting in a trash can

2:49:56Joe Rogan:alright dog let's wrap this up can I have one more thing yeah please this is going around Wexner's deposition from the oversight committee came out like the full video did today and there's this clip going around that I don't know what the context is I'll show you It's on the screen right now, Joe. Okay. I just want to play it and see. It says, I'll fucking kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, okay? I'm literally dead. Excuse me. I'm going to fucking kill you if I'm answering another question with more than five words, okay? Answer. Okay. He seems like he's joking.

2:50:32Joe Rogan:Yeah. Seems like it, but. He wants him to answer questions, very short answers. I keep seeing people saying you're not allowed to be coached in a deposition. Oh, that makes sense. I don't know if this is a good question. I'll fucking kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, okay? That's hilarious that he thought he could whisper that. That's crazy. That's so fucked up. But what is their relationship? Like, do they fuck around like that? Yeah, yeah. I can't tell. It's really hard to tell. It's hard to say what that is.

2:51:00Matt McCusker:That almost was kind of charming. I'm like, that was kind of like sweet, actually, in some weird way. Fucking kill you. His answers in this are pretty tough already, I can see.

2:51:09Joe Rogan:He's like, I had no idea. They're like, you're stealing money from me. ABC reported this five years ago. It's like, fucking crazy. That's news to me. You didn't know that Epstein was stealing money from me? That's what he's saying in some of these clips. We'll see where this goes. Yeah, true. If nothing ever happens, people are going to lose all faith in everything. Yeah. If nothing happens from all this, if Prince Andrew's the only one who goes down, what if he just gets a slap on the wrist? He's completely going to get a slap on the wrist.

2:51:35Matt McCusker:He's not going to, like, fucking maximum security. He's not going to, like, Oz. He's not going to be in there doing burpees and shit. He's going to be in protective custody. He's already out.

2:51:43Joe Rogan:He's only in jail for 11 hours. He's technically out now. Right, but he's going to be tried, right? Yeah, we'll see. Well, see, the thing is, I never thought he'd be arrested. I never thought that would happen. I thought they'd strip him of his print ship or whatever it is. That's it. Banishing him to a car. And then they kicked him out of the estate. I was like, whoa, things are getting serious. Yeah, I think they saw. I think they got to see the stuff. They must. They must. What the fuck? They must. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's wrap this up. Thank you, man. Dude, it's been a lot of fun hanging at the club.

2:52:15Joe Rogan:It's been good times, dude. It's been awesome. It's fun watching your act grow, too. It's really funny, man. Thank you, bro. It's really great. And you're where this weekend? Salt Lake. Salt Lake City in Boise, Idaho. Go get some tickets, folks. Go see them. Matt McCusker, fucking hilarious. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you. Very funny. Bye, everybody.

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