#2482 - Andy Stumpf

14 Apr 2026 · 2 h 40 min · 76 chapters

Ask about this episode

Ask anything about it. ChatGPT or Claude reads this page and answers with the times it was said.

Connect VO and ask about every podcast you hear, including the moments you saved. Add to ChatGPT · Add to Claude

In short

Andy Stumpf discusses how people shape each other’s lives, how he chooses guests for the Joe Rogan Experience, and then shifts into practical and controversial topics: tick-borne diseases (alpha-gal and Lyme), pain tolerance and initiation rites, cold plunges and gender differences, drowning and water safety (especially in Navy SEAL training), and military bureaucracy, training standards, and ordnance waste/expiration.

Guest background

Andy Stumpf is a frequent Joe Rogan guest and a former U.S. Navy SEAL (referenced through SEAL training and operational anecdotes). He also talks about close friendships and personal experiences (e.g., Evan Hafer, cold plunges, and outdoor life in Montana).

Key claims

  1. People’s lives are shaped by their environment; “exceptional” people tend to associate with other exceptional people, while negative thinking is “contagious.”
  2. Stumpf books JRE guests largely on instinct and self-interest, and he prepares selectively (e.g., for Brian Cox).
  3. Alpha-gal syndrome is a delayed meat allergy linked to tick bites; it was recognized in the U.S. in the late 1980s but not clearly identified until the 2000s/early 2010s.
  4. Extreme cold plunges may be more physiologically stressful for women (vasoconstriction, core temperature drops, cortisol/progesterone-cycle considerations).
  5. Navy SEALs and other water-trained units still drown; water “doesn’t care” about toughness.
  6. Lowering training standards for fairness is dangerous because real-world lethal environments won’t adjust.

Notable examples

  • Evan Hafer’s alpha-gal: tick bite leading to red-mammal meat allergy; he cycles back to eggs-only during flares.
  • A SEAL shipboarding ladder fall in the Arabian Sea (2024) where a “swim buddy” went in and both were lost.
  • A Kenyan rite-of-passage described as brutal circumcision and crawling through stinging nettles to build stoicism/pain tolerance.
  • Carl Gustav recoil/airburst training footage and discussion of how excess ordnance is expended.
  • Pentagon audit failures and a target of around 2028 for a clean audit.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

The Concept of Authorship

0:45 to 1:52

Discussion on the nature of authorship and collaboration in writing.

“They have just as much as hands as the monkey who may or may not have been sitting in front of the computer Writing out the words very slowly Isn't that the case with everything in life though?”

Influence of Social Circles

1:52 to 3:08

Exploration of how the people around us shape our lives and decisions.

“You really got me thinking, though, if that is possible.”

The Evolution of The Podcast

3:08 to 4:25

Reflection on the growth of the podcast and its impact over the years.

“I mean, I probably would have been more careful, which would have made it less fun, which would have made it less attractive.”

Experiences with Guests

4:25 to 5:59

Insights into preparing for and engaging with various podcast guests.

“I would be sitting there listening to them with like the scroll wheel.”

Health Issues: Alpha-Gal Syndrome

5:59 to 8:13

A detailed conversation about Alpha-Gal syndrome and its effects.

“I would just mock him incessantly to his face.”

Fashion and Social Dynamics

11:04 to 14:03

Discussion about fashion choices and their impact on social interactions.

“I'm pretty sure he was wearing his wife's pants at the MKC event.”

Rites of Passage and Pain Tolerance in Kenyan Tribes

14:03 to 16:42

Explore the brutal rites of passage among Kenyan tribes and their effects on pain tolerance.

“But you're wearing like some kind of animal skins.”

The Psychological Impact of Enduring Pain

16:42 to 19:51

Discuss the psychological effects of enduring extreme pain and discomfort on athletes and military personnel.

“I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, Joe.”

The Challenges of Cold Plunges

19:51 to 20:51

Delve into the emotional and physical challenges faced during cold plunges.

“I just high five my inner bitch at the cold plunge and turn around.”

Gender Differences in Cold Tolerance

21:30 to 23:35

Examine the physiological differences in cold tolerance between genders and related health implications.

“Apparently there's real data that it's harder for women.”
Show all 76 chapters

Drowning Risks and Navy SEAL Training

23:35 to 28:00

Discuss the shocking drowning incidents among Navy SEALs and the importance of water training.

“You were saying before we got started how many Navy SEALs wind up drowning and that it's actually kind of shocking.”

The Harsh Realities of Training Fatalities

28:00 to 29:16

Discussing the necessity of difficult training and its implications for real-world operations.

“They're going to in your best attempt to save them.”

Standards and Bureaucracy in the Military

29:16 to 31:00

Exploring the balance between maintaining rigorous training standards and bureaucratic challenges.

“That will have a positive impact on people surviving the actual job itself.”

The Pentagon's Financial Audit Problems

31:00 to 32:50

An overview of the Pentagon's ongoing struggles with financial accountability and audits.

“I mean, the military is a bureaucratic system, even in the special operations world, even at like the JSOC level, people would be it never never really makes the movie the amount of paperwork that you end up doing.”

Military Budgeting and Resource Management

32:50 to 35:08

Understanding how military budgeting impacts operations and resource allocation.

“The Pentagon, like how many years in a row has the Pentagon failed their audits?”

Ordnance Management and Disposal Practices

35:08 to 37:12

Discussing the disposal practices for military ordnance and the challenges involved.

“I suppose a grenade is slightly tomato shaped, but a JDAM looks nothing like a tomato.”

Carl Gustav Training and Equipment

38:58 to 42:00

Insights into the use of the Carl Gustav weapon system and related training anecdotes.

“Can you show me one of those things going off, Jamie?”

Understanding Military Ordinance Spending

42:00 to 43:19

Learn about the military budget cycle and how spending impacts future funding.

“And it's being held by all sides except for down the barrel.”

Footwear Choices in Military Operations

43:34 to 46:04

Discover the different types of footwear used in various terrains during military missions.

“So we, trust me, I've sent people back to hell.”

Legends of the Kandahar Giant

46:04 to 50:25

Explore the story of the Kandahar Giant and other myths surrounding military encounters.

“At a JSOC level, you have a little bit more room and flexibility to source from outside vendors.”

Burial Practices and Cultural Perspectives

50:25 to 52:36

Discuss different burial practices, including vertical burials and Tibetan Sky Funerals.

“But for that thing to exist today, yeah, that's what it used to look like.”

The Business of Funerals and Embalming

52:36 to 56:00

Delve into the funeral industry and the implications of embalming practices.

“First off, once you're in that coffin, nothing good's happening.”

Final Wishes and Funeral Practices

56:00 to 58:25

The discussion revolves around final wishes, funeral practices, and the need for embalming.

“Do you have that written down anywhere, though?”

Embalming Myths and Cancer Conversations

59:48 to 1:06:19

The hosts analyze myths around embalming and share personal stories of cancer experiences.

“So this embalming thing, so is that not the case?”

Controversies in Vaccines and Health

1:06:19 to 1:10:00

Discussion about vaccine controversies and the implications of medical practices.

“that people have gotten after the mRNA vaccine.”

The Myths of COVID Precautions

1:10:00 to 1:11:00

Discusses the misinformation surrounding COVID precautions and social distancing measures.

“Also a note that shows like all the precautions that you have to take place like stand six feet apart And then people were also complaining that this table is not six feet wide.”

The Truth About COVID Deaths

1:11:00 to 1:12:00

Explores the reality of COVID deaths among children and the prevalence of comorbidities.

“You know, and there's a lot of really fucking shitty human beings that were posting about this on Twitter.”

Pharmaceutical Influence on Media

1:12:00 to 1:13:20

Analyzes the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and media coverage of vaccine injuries.

“Like the media did not report at all vaccine injuries.”

Corporate Control of Healthcare

1:13:20 to 1:14:10

Discusses the profit motives of pharmaceutical companies and the impact on healthcare.

“I feel like it's so deeply entrenched in our political system as part of it as well, too.”

The State of Money in Politics

1:15:38 to 1:17:10

Debates the influence of wealth in politics and the implications on governance.

“Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa.”

Living in Montana vs. Urban Life

1:17:10 to 1:18:31

Compares life in Montana with larger urban areas, highlighting pros and cons.

“Brian Callen has a friend who's worth$3 billion, and he feels poor because his friend is worth$80 billion.”

The Practicalities of Electric Cars

1:18:31 to 1:19:50

Discusses the challenges of electric cars in extreme weather conditions.

“That's probably a subdivision in Austin.”

Vehicle Performance and Safety

1:19:50 to 1:20:50

Explores the performance of high-powered vehicles and the necessity of driver knowledge.

“If you have a fucking electric car and you get stuck on the highway and it's just bumper to bumper forever and that thing is the only thing keeping you warm, you better pray that someone lets you in their car.”

California's Crime and Policy Issues

1:20:50 to 1:23:30

Examines crime trends in California and the implications of current policies.

“But the thing about it is the speed that's just insane.”

Conspiracies Around Population Control

1:23:30 to 1:24:00

Speculates on potential motivations behind policies in California that may harm the population.

“People surround these cars and the cars drive around in circles and then someone started shooting at people.”

California's Criminal Justice System

1:24:00 to 1:25:04

Discussing the implications of California's criminal justice reforms and current safety concerns.

“They didn't show up until after, you know, the cops showed up when, you know, people start shooting.”

Flavored Nicotine Regulations

1:25:04 to 1:26:29

A humorous take on California's regulations regarding flavored nicotine products.

“By the way, I showed these to Daniel Cormier.”

Experiences at Social Gatherings

1:26:29 to 1:27:45

Andy shares his awkward moments at a social gathering featuring celebrities.

“You exist in a different orbit than I do.”

Navigating UFC Events

1:27:45 to 1:28:51

Discussing the challenges of interacting with fans at UFC events.

“It's not normal, but the way I think of it is like they just like me.”

Streaming Experiences and Internet Issues

1:28:51 to 1:31:28

Chatting about viewing experiences and internet connectivity challenges in Montana.

“And so I high-five people, but they're like, I can't, I can't, I can't.”

Hunting Mishaps and Jiu-Jitsu

1:31:28 to 1:34:20

Andy recounts his hunting experience and the physical challenges from training in jiu-jitsu.

“They don't work great for nine months out of the year, but...”

Martial Arts Journeys

1:34:20 to 1:36:35

Reflections on starting martial arts later in life and its impact.

“Everybody I know that's done jujitsu as long as I have has either artificial discs in their back and neck or has had multiple knee surgeries.”

First Impressions of UFC

1:36:35 to 1:38:00

Discussing the early days of the UFC and the evolution of martial arts.

“And I didn't start jujitsu until I was 30.”

The Evolution of Martial Arts

1:38:00 to 1:39:10

Explore the progression of martial arts and the impact of UFC.

“And then there was like the Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kumite movies where you meet and all the styles come together and you find out what's best.”

Training with Legends

1:39:10 to 1:40:50

Learn about training experiences with notable fighters at Carlson Gracie's.

“I was like, oh, I found a closer Gracie jujitsu.”

The Role of No-Gi in Grappling

1:40:50 to 1:42:30

Discuss the significance of no-gi grappling and its influence on techniques.

“You can have a nice black belt and end up in an ambulance if you can't get through a striking range.”

Mastery of Fundamentals

1:42:30 to 1:44:10

Understand the importance of mastering foundational techniques in jiu-jitsu.

“You know, when you get a deep grip on the collar and you funnel that left arm underneath and spin, oh my god, that's instant death.”

Learning from Coaches

1:44:10 to 1:46:40

Gain insights on how to effectively learn from martial arts instructors.

“That was also a beautiful thing about Eddie being Jean-Jacques student and them having a very close relationship.”

Injuries and Recovery

1:46:40 to 1:48:20

Discuss the common injuries in martial arts and strategies for recovery.

“The era that you were starting in, there weren't as many choices.”

Strength Training for Grapplers

1:48:20 to 1:51:40

Explore the importance of strength training and techniques for grapplers.

“It's just the mastery of the fundamentals is just so essential.”

Innovative Treatment for Bulging Discs

1:52:00 to 1:52:34

Learn about a unique blood-derived treatment for bulging discs and its effectiveness.

The Importance of Strength and Mobility

1:52:34 to 1:53:18

Discover the significance of strength and mobility training for longevity in jiu-jitsu.

“i firmly believe it's a lack of building tissue and strength and mobility around your lower back And I do a lot of lower back exercises too.”

Effective Exercises for Strength Training

1:53:18 to 1:54:39

Explore various exercises that enhance strength and core stability.

“Yeah, for the first couple years, it was a workout in and of itself, and I finally have started.”

Training and Hormone Health

1:54:39 to 1:56:55

Understand the impact of training volume on hormone levels and overall health.

“And I do those things where you lie on your back with your butt, with your legs up in the air, and you do those twists where you take the kettlebell and put it each side.”

Maintaining Fitness into Older Age

1:56:55 to 1:58:32

Learn strategies for staying physically fit and active as you age.

“That's also part of the problem is if you're training 10 times a week, you're probably in a constant state of overtraining.”

The Thrill of Wingsuit Flying

1:58:32 to 2:00:34

Discover the risks and experiences associated with wingsuit flying.

“Nobody knows how much time we have and how long your lap is going to be.”

Jetpack Innovations and Risks

2:00:34 to 2:03:25

Explore the latest in jetpack technology and the associated dangers.

“live in a place where i can stay because your currency in that suit comes from the skydiving world where you can jump it multiple times a day.”

The Future of Jetpack Racing

2:03:25 to 2:06:00

Discuss the advancements and potential of racing with jetpacks.

“I know exactly what you're talking about.”

Jet Pack Mechanics and Experiences

2:06:00 to 2:07:01

Learn about the mechanics and excitement surrounding jet pack technology.

“Bro, you have to have some fucking shoulder strength to do that.”

Cost and Feasibility of Jet Packs

2:07:01 to 2:10:39

Discover the surprising costs and practicality of owning a jet pack.

“I have exactly zero seconds in one of these things, so this is me talking out of my ass.”

Military Applications and Myths of Giants

2:10:39 to 2:12:36

Explore the discussion on potential military applications and the myths surrounding giants.

“And this guy, he had two knee braces on because he had blown out both of his ACLs, just landing and destroying his knees.”

UFOs and the Implications of Disclosure

2:12:36 to 2:20:00

Examine the implications of UFO existence and the reasons behind government secrecy.

“Let's just say that would be far fringe.”

The Bob Lazar Story and Reverse Engineering

2:20:00 to 2:21:14

Discussion on the credibility of Bob Lazar's claims and the implications of reverse engineering technology.

“is not the only country that has agreed not to disclose because it is to their benefit not to do so.”

Bill Thompson's Insights on Technology

2:21:14 to 2:22:28

Insights into Bill Thompson's expertise and the innovative features of Spartan Forge.

“Sometimes the videos get, I mean, I was talking with, you know Bill Thompson, you just had him on.”

Appreciation for Ethical Technology Innovators

2:22:28 to 2:24:13

A conversation about the importance of ethics in technology and the character of innovators.

“Have you seen what he's done with the app he created, Spartan Forge?”

Geopolitical Understanding and Military Operations

2:24:13 to 2:25:46

Exploring military operations and geopolitics, particularly in the context of Iran.

“He's been offered a lot of money to sell all the, you know, that's the thing that companies do.”

Combat Search and Rescue Operations

2:25:46 to 2:27:19

An in-depth look at the complexities and risks involved in combat search and rescue missions.

“There seems to be a lot of ships, a lot of crafts.”

Operational Analysis of Recent Military Events

2:27:19 to 2:29:06

Analysis of a specific military operation and the challenges faced during it.

“They're medical, just absolute badasses.”

Speculation on Advanced Military Technology

2:29:06 to 2:31:19

Speculating on the existence and implications of advanced military technologies, including Ghost Murmur.

“It has to mean something to be issued a flag on your chest, in my opinion at least.”

The Role of Media in Shaping Narratives

2:31:19 to 2:33:12

Discussing how media influences public perception of military operations and technology.

“Is more like an art form than a science.”

Future of Technology and Tactical Advantages

2:33:12 to 2:34:00

Exploring the future of technology and its potential tactical applications in military operations.

“I don't know if everything he says is accurate.”

Misunderstandings and Technology

2:34:00 to 2:35:00

Learn about the funny misconceptions two friends had and how technology can inform tactical advantages.

“and we were both calling each other idiots and we both found out that we were wrong once we looked it up on the internet.”

The Power of Quantum Computing

2:35:00 to 2:36:40

Explore the revolutionary capabilities of quantum computers and their implications.

“And a quantum computer on Earth can solve it in a matter of minutes.”

Multiverse Theories Unpacked

2:36:40 to 2:37:40

Discuss the intriguing theories around multiverses related to quantum computing.

“The claim comes from December 2024, a blog post about Google's Willow quantum chip.”

Acknowledging Influences and Relationships

2:37:40 to 2:38:50

Hear about the personal connections that shaped the hosts' lives and careers.

“Yeah, I'm appreciative that there's people like that out there.”

Audiobook Experience

2:38:50 to 2:39:20

Gain insights into the challenges and experiences of recording an audiobook.

“and I try to do the exact same thing and shout out to my boy Tate Flesher I haven't seen that guy in forever he's the best I love him alright I love you too Thank you very much.”
Hear the part that matters, and keep it.Open this episode in VO. Double tap your headphones to save a moment as you listen.
Get VO free

Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:01Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Being a pacifist is the way. Avoid violence at all costs, you know what I mean, Joe? Look at you, dog, you're a fucking author. Let's take it easy, I'm not an author until tomorrow, technically. No, you're an author once it's written. I can read it, which makes you an author. I have a book in my hand, which makes you an author. I tell you what man you had more of a you had more of a hand in that book than you would think

0:36Every you know before we started I had you sign one of the copies because I'm going to keep it for myself And the people's names who associated themselves with that who took a chance on me and supporting me They have just as much as hands as the monkey who may or may not have been sitting in front of the computer Writing out the words very slowly Isn't that the case with everything in life though? I mean, it's really who you know and like the people that you associate with and what you learn from them and their examples with everything. There's no individuals that are responsible entirely for their own life.

1:09There are individuals, though, that would tell you that they are. Those are the people that I don't hang out with. Yeah. I can't suffer being in the presence of somebody who thinks that they had every idea and every right decision was theirs. Because I look at my own life, one, I can't compete with that because my life is defined by its mistakes and idiotic things I've done. But two, I just – I don't get it. I'm a product of the people who I was raised by, the people I was around, the people still in my life. I mean – 100%. We all are. If you don't think that, you're delusional. You cannot have an exceptional person that's surrounded by dipshits.

1:47They just won't – eventually they'll give in to dipshittery. It's contagious. Yes. Negative people. You really got me thinking, though, if that is possible. I'm trying to think of an example. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said it's impossible. It could be possible, but it's very highly unlikely. And also, they didn't achieve their full potential, if that's the case. They would have been even better if they had been surrounded by exceptional people. Improbable at best. Yeah, at best. I've never seen an example of it. Again, maybe one exists that I don't know about. But as far as all the exceptional people that I know, they all associate with other exceptional people.

2:23You know quite a few exceptional people. You have an interesting job that has a Venn diagram that is incredibly unique in the people you've been able to sit down with. It's pretty fucking weird. Did you ever think? No. First off, by the way, I try to point as many people as possible to JRE number one because I think it's a masterpiece. It's a good thing to see. Oh, my God. Because it's terrible. I'm like, wait for the snowflakes. And they go, what the fuck are you talking about? I'm like, just wait. It's amazing. I mean, could you have ever thought, though, at JRE1, where I feel like that was you on a laptop video game.

2:56Yeah, it was. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. To where you are now, where you were like sitting down and talking to some of the most influential people on the face of planet Earth. No. I mean, I think if I planned it out like that, it would have never worked. You know? You would have tried too hard, maybe? I don't know what I would have done. I mean, I probably would have been more careful, which would have made it less fun, which would have made it less attractive. You know, I think the two things that I've done that are really important is not pay attention to much online talk about me and just follow my interests and my instincts.

3:31Like I book the whole thing entirely on instinct. I look at like the all the different suggestions that come in and all the different requests to be on the show. And I go, no, me, huh? What's that? Huh? Purely on self-interest? A hundred percent. I think that's the way. What do you get per day? Like ballpark people trying to get on your show. I don't even know because I have a really good guy that filters out a lot of them. I bet it's got to be in the hundreds. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. But he filters out a lot of them and it gets down to, you know, like what I, he knows me really well. And so he, you know, sends me like some physicist is working on some new thing, some quantum thing, this, that, the other thing.

4:15Like there's a new person that's doing this and there's new research on that. And then there's, you know, that kind of shit. Yeah. I think the difference between you and me is I appreciate the fact you can hold a conversation with those people. I would be sitting there listening to them with like the scroll wheel. Do you have words that are smaller that could explain that? Well, some of them I have to really prepare for. Like, you know, if I have like a Brian Cox on or something like that, I'll really prepare. You know, or, you know, there's been a few people over time where I knew they were coming on like three months out.

4:49So I've read a couple of their books. I watched a few of their lectures. I watched, you know. Yeah. But then there's other ones like I could just hang out with them. Like Evan Haver comes on. We just shoot the shit. Angry, small French painter. Fucking Green Berets. He's the best. I love that dude. I was with him at the Montana Grand Opening, Montana Knife Company Grand Opening of their new HQ. We've been on the road a bit. I think like two days ago. He's one of my favorite people. He's so wee, but he's one of my favorite people. He's an awesome human. Yeah. A very unusual human being. And, you know, he's one of the ones that's suffering from that stupid fucking alpha gal bite.

5:28He's got that tick. He got bit by that tick that makes you allergic to red meat. Is it all red meat or processed red meat? It's animal meat. It's mammal meat. That's the thing. You could eat some fish Some people can eat fish. Some people can eat chicken. He's broken it down to only eating eggs right now That's how bad it is. He's getting all this protein from eggs, which is a great source of protein. No doubt, but That's exhaustingly boring though. Just go to dinner with him. It's crazy. The guy has to eat vegetables and eggs That's all he can eat. I would just mock him incessantly to his face.

6:02I know you would. Do you guys have a larger salad? Yeah. I mean, I would mock him that way because I care for him so deeply. He is truly like one of my closest friends. He is. He's an awesome dude. Yeah. And so he's been battling this for a couple of years now. So he got clear of it and he was eating meat again and he was fine and he thought it was over. And then it came back. He came back with a vengeance. And it's a weird fucking disease because I've – let's find out – put this into perplexity. What is the most – what is – as far as like the documented cases of this alpha-gal syndrome, when did it first start occurring in the United States?

6:47Because I had never even heard about it until Evan. When he told me about it, I was like, what? You got allergic to red meat. And how can a tick bite cause that? I mean, Lyme disease is another one. Like, how does it do that? A bite from a tick just jacks up the human body. Well, apparently Lyme disease has existed. There's been forms of Lyme disease throughout history. But there's real solid evidence that Lyme disease, which is named Lyme disease because of Lyme, Connecticut, is related to Plum Island, where they were doing bioweapons research on ticks. It's a historically good idea. And it's right there.

7:23It's like literally right there. And then the prevalence of Lyme disease on the East Coast is fucking outrageous. It's outrageous how many ticks carry this fucking thing. I know so many people that have Lyme disease. And that's a lifelong one too, right? Like you're not getting off that train. You can manage the system. You can cure it. You can cure it. People have cured it. And they've particularly cured it if they get on antibiotics very quickly. So one of the weird things about Lyme disease is the bite has like a little target around it. It's weird. It almost looks like a bullseye because the infection, as it grows, there's a red circle around the bite.

8:00But that goes away within a few days. But if that's recognized, you bring it to a doctor that gets you on antibiotics, you can actually get off of it, depending on the severity of your case, obviously. So here it is. Alpha-gal syndrome has appeared to have first emerged in the U.S. in the late 1980s but was not recognized as a distinct tick-related meat allergy until the early 2000s. So in 89, clinicians in Georgia collected about 10 cases of delayed allergic reactions to mammalian meat. Mammalian? Mammalian. Mammalian meat and linked them to prior tick bites. These observations were not widely recognized at the time.

8:34Allergy was first formally identified as originating from tick bites in the U.S. by Thomas Platts Mills in the early 2000s. Reports note this discovery process beginning around 2002 and becoming clear by 2007. Huh. So the in the medical literature is first described in 2009 when published work documented patients with delayed reactions to red meat and linked them to IGE against alpha gal. Interesting. So it seems like it's in the 80s, but really started being recognized in the 2000s. Explain. I mean, he has definitely he's slandered down. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. When you talk to someone really passionate about what they do, you can tell.

9:21Their face lights up. They get more animated. It even seems like they get more confident. And in my experience, those are some of the best conversations. You probably want the same type of people for your role. But it's hard to tell if someone's truly excited about the job from their resume alone. Unless you use ZipRecruiter. See what I'm talking about for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. If you're a longtime listener, you know how quickly ZipRecruiter works to find qualified candidates for your role. Now, though, they're going the extra mile with a new feature that shows you qualified candidates who also are interested in your role.

10:02It's an even faster way to make sure that you're talking to the right people. Find candidates who really want your job on ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. Meet your match at ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building a website that actually looks legit and helps you stand out online. And I should know, my site, JoeRogan.com, is powered by Squarespace. They make it easy to lock down the right domain for your business or project, and they've got built-in privacy and security tools to keep everything protected.

10:53Head to Squarespace.com slash Rogan to try it out for free. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code ROGAN to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. Yeah, I think he lost 10 pounds. I'm pretty sure he was wearing his wife's pants at the MKC event. They were very tight, very tight, unacceptably tight. But that could be a benefit. If you're the same size as your wife and you have just one wardrobe, I'm here for it. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah, it's efficiency. Some of their shoes, though, are really hard to walk around in. I mean, you got to commit. Yeah, I would imagine.

11:25I mean, yeah, when I go places with my wife, I'm like, what are you doing? You can't walk. This is a crazy thing you're doing. It's not for walking fashion. It's for what my daughter would call the steez, which I think means style. I didn't know that. I didn't know. I'm actually not sure that I'm using it correctly. She just teaches me words and I throw them out at random times. But I learned a lot. Steez means style. I think. Yeah. Steez. Okay. Did you know about that one, Jamie? The steez? I probably have heard it. I don't know. I have never heard it until this moment. There you go. At least I don't believe so.

11:54So the steez. Feel free to use it however you want. Yeah, chicks wear stuff that they're so vulnerable in. You can only take steps that are less than 24 inches wide because you've got a dress that's like clinging to your knees, which is very odd. Like it's like tight all around here. So you've got these like short steps. And then the bottoms of your shoes are slippery. And then your heels are elevated. And then the heel has a point to it. So it gets stuck in the grass. Just waiting to snap at the most inopportune moment. It's the dumbest shit of all time. And they're fucking crazy expensive. The whole thing makes no sense.

12:30Like, what are they doing? They're trying to look good for us, Joe. But they look good already. That's what they don't understand. I think they're looking good for themselves. I think they look good without that shit. I would agree. Yeah, a hot chick in flip-flops. No one's going, God, I wish she was wearing some shoes that you couldn't walk around in. She might even be more approachable if she was in flip-flops. Because you'd be like, she's like maybe more down to earth. Maybe that's what they're going for. They're going for not approachable. Trying to keep the fucking... Doesn't that defeat the overall long end-around purpose?

13:00No. You're trying to get dudes that are willing to take a chance. On what? On a gal that's unapproachable. Like you have enough confidence in yourself that you'll step up to an unapproachable gal. Nope. Not me. Hard pass. Hard pass. Too much work. I'm willing to do some things that people think are odd but yeah, that's a hard pass Yeah, I know, but also it's like you're in line there's a lot of other dudes approaching that too So now it's like you're in an audition process Fuck all of that Boring Life is way too short for all that It's great for people who don't have anything else to do if that's all you want to do Nope I'm not interested in that either Same, there's way too much other exciting shit out there But yeah, if you and your wife wore all the same clothes, that would be an issue.

13:53A good issue or bad? I mean, if you're limited on time, we're going to go on a trip. Let's just bring a pair of pants. We'll switch. I wonder what people did in the caveman days. I don't think they were wearing much. Right. But you're wearing like some kind of animal skins. It's basically a one-size-fits-all tarp that you throw over yourself. Loin cloth to keep your dick from getting caught in thorns. And then a tarp. Yeah. Yeah. Cutting edge at the time. I was reading a story about these guys that were exceptional marathon runners in Africa. And one of the things that they did is this insane fucking rites of passage where they would circumcise them with this.

14:36I don't remember the process, but it was a particularly brutal process. They sliced the tip of their dick off. And then they would make them literally crawl through thorns. What? Yeah. The whole idea is just make you as hard as humanly possible. And these guys, they were pointing to this one tribe as developing exceptional marathon runners. Because these guys had such high pain tolerance and such willingness to go through horrific ordeals. What is it? Here it is. Initiation. Okay. So he says he had to crawl mostly naked through a tunnel of African stinging nettles. then he was beaten on the bony parts of his ankle then his knuckles were squeezed together and then the formic acid from the stinging nettle was wiped onto his genitals but that was all just a warm-up early one morning he was circumcised with a sharp stick that's what it is a stick stick during this whole process the crawling the beatings and the cuttings try to say that guy's name no kip go kip go guy kip gogi kip gogi was obliged sounds like a korean dish was uh obliged to be absolutely stoical unflinching he could not make a sound indeed in some of the versions of the ceremony mud is caked on the face and then mud is allowed to drive a crack appears in the mud your cheek may twitch your forehead may crinkle crinkle you get labeled uh kebit tet a coward You label it coward if your cheek crinkles and stigmatized by the whole community.

16:15Manners say that this is enormous social pressure placed on your ability to endure pain and is actually great training for a sport like running where pushing through pain is so fundamental to success. Circumcision, he says, teaches kids to withstand pressure and tolerate pain. Manners says he thinks his distinct advantage conferred on athletic kids who grew up in a pain-embracing society as opposed to Western pain-avoiding one. Interesting. Where is this at? In Kenya? It's a Kenyan tribe? Yeah. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, Joe. If that's what they did to your people, I would run pretty goddamn fast, too, because I would want to get the hell out of there.

16:57yeah I think it's that but I just think you know you're joking obviously but imagine if that's the norm if that's your baseline you're like accustomed to that that's the worst thing that you go through and you have to do a completely stoic at a young age at a young age you would develop some insane tolerance to discomfort which I don't know if one time is enough though I mean like what they're describing is horrendous but true tolerance and resilience and ability to work through that stuff I don't think it's a singular event. Right. Not that marathon running is an easy endeavor by any stretch.

17:31So they're continuing to do that. I mean, I get what they're doing, that rite of passage, but holy hell, I mean, that's pretty gnarly. That's a thing that you will see from ex-fighters and even ex-military guys. What they endured when they were young was so brutal that as they get older, they avoid any discomfort at all. They get fat and they just want to drink and be lazy. And you're like, how did you go from being that fucking beast to this slob. And, you know, they still, in their mind, they're still a beast. You know, because I did this and I was a world champion and like a big fucking belly.

18:06Yeah, they can't see their dick when they're naked anymore. Weird. I don't have any stats on how common that is. But it's because they stopped doing it. Correct. Right. I mean, laziness affects everybody, right? Everybody thinks that you come from the special operations world and you're defined by discipline for the rest of your life. No, you're still a human being at the end of the day behind the curtain. And, you know, gravity wants to keep guys like that on the couch just as much as everybody else. Yeah. But I think you realize the utility of not allowing that to happen. Some people do. Some people do.

18:35I mean, that's true of every occupation in life. Sure. You know. Yep. Yep. Maybe it's a little bit more uncommon for people to see those that came from that one of those occupations. But yeah, they're out there. Yeah. I think that's probably in everything in the medical world. I'm sure there's guys that like really paid attention in college and then they're kind of half-assing it as doctors yeah for sure yeah it's like the difficulty of the grind sometimes you get through it and then you just go i don't want to ever fucking do that again like i know guys who are former navy seals will not get in a fucking ice bath yeah i'm one of those hi nice to meet you why would i consensually do that no no and i also So I wish that they could make a sauna that was just room temperature but had all the health benefits.

19:21See, sauna doesn't bother me at all. I can tolerate that one way more than exceptionally cold water, which I understand the health benefit. I'm willing to pass on that particular health benefit. It's emotional for me. I just don't want to do that anymore. I get it. I get it. But when I get to the cold plunge, the bitch in me is so loud. But when I get to the sauna, there's no bitch. It's like, just get in. It's like I know it's going to suck about 20 minutes in. It'll suck for the last five minutes. It's really going to suck. But the first 10 is easy. I just high five my inner bitch at the cold plunge and turn around.

19:58Like, why don't you take a laugh in that thing? I'm done with it. I almost don't do it every day. Every day I almost don't do it. Yeah, it's harder emotionally than it is physically. And it's weird because after a minute it's not that bad. After one minute, it's like you just kind of, you develop like sort of a relaxation and you're cool. Yeah. It's fine. Especially if you do it a lot. But the first 10, 15 seconds are just like, what am I doing? You just want to get out. You just want to quit. Like get me the fuck out of this 34 degree water with ice up to my neck. Fuck this. This is so stupid.

20:35I don't have to do that. Yeah, you feel like you're having a heart attack. But then you just chill. And then when you get out, you're like, oh, you feel so good. It's so worth it. Or don't do it. Just leave it empty. Use it to store tennis balls or something other than ice cold water. This episode is brought to you by Armra. Every week there's some new wellness hack that people swear by. And after a while, you start thinking, why do we think we can just outsmart our bodies? That's why Armra colostrum caught my attention. It's something the body already recognizes and has hundreds of these specialized nutrients for gut stuff, immunity, metabolism, etc.

21:15I first noticed it working around training, especially workout recovery. Most stuff falls off, but I am still taking this. If you want to try, Armra is offering my listeners 30 % off plus two free gifts. Go to armra.com slash Rogan. Apparently there's real data that it's harder for women. It's harder for women to tolerate extreme cold weather. cold temperatures in water apparently interesting yeah they even recommend like women's cold plunges be slightly warmer than men's hmm yeah I don't know yeah I wonder where that would be I don't know something about their physiology that it might actually be detrimental to do 34 degrees that see if you can find any data on that you know who's a great what's her name Suzanne Soberg she's the one who created the Soberg principle she's one Huberman's sites all the time.

22:06But I think there's something to do. Maybe it's less muscle mass. You know, your body has a more difficult time heating itself up and, you know, creating a thermal barrier. I don't know. Huberman is an example of a guy that I deeply respect, but struggle to understand what he's saying. Here it is. Is this Suzanne's? Did you put this in perplexity? Our wonderful AI sponsor, Perplexity. Specific considerations for women. Women tend to vasoconstrict faster and have larger drops in core temperature. Especially those in, I don't know what that is, luteal phase. Yeah, their cycle. The cycle. Oh. When progesterone is higher, so extreme cold can be more stressful.

22:49Very cold plunges near ice, 35 to 45 degrees, can cause big sympathetic and cortisol spikes that may disrupt menstrual regularity and thyroid function if overused. Oh, interesting. Animal and limited human data suggests cold can influence reproductive hormones and cycles. women with heavy cramps, endometriosis, fibroids, and or on HRT contraception should be cautious and talk with a clinician first. Good luck finding a fucking clinician that understands cold plunges, though. And there's a picture of me in the lower right. It's probably what I look like when I get my toe in. I just don't like it, man.

23:33Don't do it. Hydrophobic, I think, is the correct term. You suffer enough. You suffer enough. So this book, the title is Drown Proof. You were saying before we got started how many Navy SEALs wind up drowning and that it's actually kind of shocking. It would be for a community that is supposed to have their roots in a maritime environment. I mean, the SEAL community draws its origins from the UDTs and the scouts and raiders. And honestly, up until 9-11, it was one foot in the water and one foot on land. And like every operation would start in the water and then you could go onto the land, but you'd probably go back into the water.

24:11And almost all of the training we did, 9-11, was based around water. And I think, let's see, Jamie, you could look this up. Two SEALs recently drowned on a shipboarding, real world shipboarding. One guy, it seems like in the climb, peeled off the ladder and went into the water. And somebody saw him and went in with him because of the concept of being a swim buddy, never to be seen again. oh yeah um and they know what what happened to them like how i mean it's uh yeah 2024 in the arabian sea uh oh so he fell off a ship yeah so they were approaching a vessel i mean there's a couple ways that you can get on a boat you can come from a boat and you can climb up or you can go to from a helicopter and fast rope down or they could land depending on how big the boat is so they were coming up alongside it's called an underway or a vbss visit board search and seizure Here is the technical military term for it.

25:04And on the climb up the ladder, the guy fell off the ladder. And another one went in with him as a swim buddy. If they immediately, and there was and maybe still is an ongoing investigation. From my understanding, they saw their head maybe one time up and then they were gone. Their bodies were never recovered. So that would seem to be that they were wearing negatively buoyant equipment. So they were drug down and they probably were not able to activate their life jackets in time, which is super unfortunate. But the water doesn't give a shit who you are and how much of a badass you are. I think it's one of the most gnarly environments on Earth.

25:41It really is. Every time I go in the ocean and I swim in the ocean, there's this feeling like I think I can make it to shore, but I might not be able to. Like if you jump off of a boat and you've got like a couple hundred yards to shore, as you start swimming, you start swimming like, I'm fine. I'm fine. Oh, boy. My heart is going pretty fast here. I'm breathing pretty heavy. That's a long way. I'm moving very slowly. Like what if I can't do this? These are real positive thoughts to have with swim here, Joe. Yeah. Not good. Not good. Yeah. It's only happened to me a few times, but my friend Greg actually had to save a woman.

26:22He was on vacation. He saw a woman getting caught in the tide, and she was getting pulled out. Oh, like a riptide? Uh-huh. Those things will pull people out, never to be seen again. Yeah. People don't. So I live up in northwestern Montana, and a lot of the Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi is right where I live, and Glacier National Park, tons of snowfall, and so it's glacially fed rivers that feed into Flathead National Forest. or not in Flathead National Forest, the Flathead Lake. And boating is a huge summertime activity. And people travel from all over the world to come to Montana to see GNP, Glacier National Park.

Read the full transcript

26:58And every year people are drowning in these rivers. And I don't know. It's dangerous, but it can be avoided. But it seems as if they just do not have respect for even medium moving water. They have no exposure to it. They're not used to being in that water, and they don't look at it and realize, like, that'll kill me so incredibly fast. And every year, people are going into that thing and dying. Every year. Well, it makes sense also that it's so fucking cold. That water is—you've got glacier streams. Yeah. It's like—Remy rescued a lady from that. You know Remy? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Remy actually saw a boat that had capsized and saw like gear floating by and saw a woman that was struggling.

27:44And I believe her partner died. Now, I'm sure her partner died. And he jumped in freezing cold river and rescued her. And he was like, there's a bunch of moments during there. It was like, I am not going to make it. I'm going to die trying to save this lady. Which happens when people get close to that point. They're going to in your best attempt to save them. They will try to use you as a life raft climb all over you. The next thing you know, two people are gone instead of one. Right. Yeah. The water, the water will eat your lunch, man. It's, it's wild. But you would think we spend so much time training in the water that it wouldn't happen.

28:16There's, I mean, there's diving accidents. There is, there are deaths in training. How often does that occur? Deaths in training? Oh, probably about every five years. And it sucks. And what I'm about to say, people won't understand. But I also think it's essential. I don't want it to happen. But I think it probably is essential that it does every once in a while. Because the training has to be so difficult that you get to the brink. You have to train people for the job that they're going to be asked to do. And the training standards need to be a directly downstream reflection of what the career is going to be.

28:57And I don't have the vocabulary to describe how bad I feel for the families. And I'm not trying to minimize anybody's death. But you will lose more people in the real world execution of the job if you don't make training that difficult than you will by making it that dangerous, knowing that it's going to be that dangerous and that people will die. That will have a positive impact on people surviving the actual job itself. That completely makes sense. It's just the realities of life. Yeah. Some jobs are very unique and some jobs have very unique requirements and you have to train for that. Or it's going to either come from you on the front end of that or the tail end of that.

29:35That's the balance of which one of those you're going to focus on. Which is why the lowering of standards is so fucking dangerous. And when it's talked about like the lowering of standards to make it fair for some applicants, like there's no fair in that job. I've never seen a bullet change trajectory because it noticed what you have between your legs and wanted to go be more fair and equitable to somebody else. Yeah. It doesn't matter in those moments. Nor does the ocean give a fuck. No. Period. No, I don't believe it does. No. There's no give a fuck. But it's so weird when we try to apply these workplace equity considerations to something that's – like literally – I can't think of a job that requires more of you than war.

30:23Like there is – this is literal life or death and taking life. There's no job that requires more of you. And so you would just automatically assume the standards, especially for special operations guys, have to be the most stringent possible. You have to weed out all the bitches. You can't have any bitch in you at all. There's got to be none. No quit, no nothing. And there's only one way to do that. You have to make a bunch of people quit. A lot of the times the people who are bottom lining the policy changes don't have a direct impact in the training pipeline themselves or the execution of the job.

30:59Which is crazy. Yeah. I mean, the military is a bureaucratic system, even in the special operations world, even at like the JSOC level, people would be it never never really makes the movie the amount of paperwork that you end up doing. Like you go on a trip and you have to collect your receipts and do your travel claim and all this other BS. It's all just shit blowing up. And, you know, you throw a grenade and it's a fireball the size of a 55 gallon drum of gasoline. And yeah. And then there's two days sitting in front of a computer typing out all of your administrative stuff because of all the bureaucratic restraints that are still involved in all of that.

31:29That doesn't seem smart It's just the way the military system works Now is that to Somehow or another mitigate Potential actions That should not have been done Because you have to be so Documented, everything has to be so Laid out I mean there's a lot of, even like the equipment that you wear Often times, well almost all of it is going to be Serialized, so you were issued that equipment You're responsible for it, there's paperwork That goes for being issued that if you lose it which does happen and it's not going to be career ending like if if you went out for a week in a row and you're like hey i lost my night vision goggles again i'm gonna need another set of those you might have a problem uh but shit happens and people lose gear but you know night vision weapons ordinance ammunition like a lot of that stuff is serialized and so it's just the bureaucratic way that even at that level you still have to keep track of all of that stuff you think they should hire somebody else to do that they do but oftentimes you are in small units very isolated by yourself And so you still have to maintain, like even in the middle of nowhere, you're still going to have to maintain the paperwork aspect of all the stuff that you take with you.

32:33God, that's kind of crazy. Yeah. That seems like an unnecessary distraction to an already very insanely difficult job. I mean, I'm not saying we do the paperwork well. I mean, come on, Joe. There's a reason why the DOD has never passed an audit, but I mean. Ever. I know. The Pentagon, like how many years in a row has the Pentagon failed their audits? Like 700. It really is kind of bonkers. I believe the Marine Corps is the only branch of the military that has ever actually done a legitimate audit and passed. Really? Those guys are tightened up, man. Those guys. God, I love Marines. They are the best.

33:10Shout out to the Marines. They are the best, man. Wow. They're the only guys who passed the audits. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. The rest of us are just out there like, I think I got it with me. But the problem with that is once you don't pass audits and there's a history of you not only not passing audits but not being punished for not passing audits, that opens up the door. No, the Pentagon has never passed, never passed a full, clean, department-wide financial audit as of the latest audits. Defense Department is the only one of 24 major federal agencies that has never passed a full financial audit.

33:51Hell yeah. So it's only been going on since 2018. So no big deal, guys. It's only eight years. Yeah, that's only a few trillion dollars. Whatever, whatever. It's fake money anyway. They just make it. That's pretty crazy. Well, the budget is interesting in the military. So they go off a fiscal year from October 1st. Look at this. Hold on. Look at this statistic. Where are we at? The Pentagon's own audit materials have pointed to a target of around 2028. 2028 financial year to achieve to finally achieve a clean department wide audit contingent on fixing longstanding accounting and systems problems.

34:29Imagine if like the IRS calls you up says Andy you didn't pass your audit. I think I can get it in 2028. I'm on a lower trajectory towards this target. You want to be at you want me like this. I'm like I can get there in about two years. Yeah. Okay. That's reasonable. Let's just take all your money between now and then. Oh yeah. No, we don't need to do that. Let's give you a bigger budget to work with. I wonder if that answer takes into account what's going on currently in the world, because I feel like we're running through some inventory that might have to be tabulated. Seems like there's probably a lot of ordinance that's been...

35:04Yeah. A lot of it does sit around for a while, so there is an argument to expending it. I am not in any way, shape, or form... It could go bad. It's like tomatoes. You got to eat them. Not exactly like tomatoes. I suppose a grenade is slightly tomato shaped, but a JDAM looks nothing like a tomato. What do they do? I mean, just I don't know if this has ever happened. What do they do if whether it's missiles or any weapons have been sitting around too long? And is there an expiration date? There probably is. And I mean, I've been there when we have literally burned like rifle ammunition, large stockpiles of rifle ammunition.

35:44Really? Yeah. Because if it's sitting around too long, there comes the possibility that it's no longer effective. Man, this is a while ago. I think it was more that once we got issued it, we were expected to expend it all. So we were not allowed to take it back to base with us. So we were. Oh, that's hilarious. Oh, that's even dumber. You want some funny stories? Talk to Evan sometime. I bet you he's had this experience. So there's a weapon called the Carl Gustav that if you shoot too many of these things, it's in the manual. It'll start separating the lining in your lungs from your body because it is just this massive projectile.

36:21And you'll go out and do these training evolutions and they'll say, yeah, here we are, the Carl G. Do not stand behind this bad boy when it goes off. So how many can you shoot before it separates the linings of your lungs? I believe the warning is somewhere around six. Jesus Christ. Oh, Joe, you'll go out to training evolutions and there'll be five guys and there's a pallet of ammunition and they'll say, you're not leaving here until all these are shot. Oh, my God. And you're cracking off Carl G's until you have a nosebleed. Or you'll go out – they have like law rockets or – when I first went through it, it was M60 ammo.

36:57They're like, yeah, but you guys – the training is not over until you guys shoot all this. Like, yeah, but we totally did everything we're supposed to. We understand that, but just go ahead and lay down on the line and shoot these thousands of rounds of ammunition at whatever you want to because it's been issued to you, so now you need to go expend it. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Big news. Aldi is available now on Uber Eats, and you get 20 % off your first grocery order with code NEWALDI26. So whether your fridge is empty and you're too tired to shop or you just ran out of essential ingredients in the middle of a meal prep, don't worry.

37:32Fill your fridge in just a few taps and get 20 % off your first Aldi order on Uber Eats. For orders over$60, you can save up to$20. Ends April 30th. Terms apply. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Skechers. Today, life is all about convenience. And do you know what the ultimate convenience is? Hands-free Skechers slip-ins. They're so easy. You've probably seen the ads. You just step in and they're on with no bending down. Well, they work just as advertised. You tie the laces once and you never have to tie them again. It's the perfect fit. Just step in and go. It's a life hack for putting on your footwear.

38:14And not only are Skechers slip-ins convenient, they're also very comfortable. At Skechers, comfort is a technology. They take comfort that seriously. Plus, they're stylish and they come in so many colors and sizes. You can get slip-ins and casual and dress footwear, sandals, sneakers, high-performance running footwear, and more. Plus, how about this for convenience? They're even machine washable. Pop them in the washing machine, and they come out looking like new. So if you like convenience and so much more, you've got to try Skechers slip-ins. You'll wish your shoes were this easy. Check out Skechers.com for the biggest selection in the world, plus all the hard-to-find styles.

38:58That's only at Skechers.com. Can you show me one of those things going off, Jamie? Carl G's. I want to see what it looks like. I'm trying to talk my wife into naming our next dub Carl G. I shot a.50 caliber once. Like a Barrett? Yeah. How'd that feel? Boom! Like your whole body just goes boom. Yeah, so this is a two-man evolution here. Look at the size of that bad boy. Holy shit. Close it. Lock it. He's checking the back blast. This guy's like, fuck, I'm about to lose my teeth.

39:35Here we go. Oh, did he shoot it? Yeah. Oh, I didn't see it. It's supposed to be essentially recoilless. It doesn't feel... Well, why didn't they show it? They did. Show it again? That's the back blast right there. Oh. Yeah. So he doesn't even move. Yeah. Oh, when he was pulling the trigger, that wasn't loaded. That was a fake shot of him showing how you pull the trigger. Oh. Yeah. Okay. We'll see if there's more video. I just want a better shot of it actually going off in his arms. Let me see what it looks like. Ready for fire. Here we go. Back blast area clear. Boy, he looks fucking nervous. Yeah.

40:09Look at him breathing. Firing, firing, firing. Ooh. Oh, my goodness. Oh, yeah, airburst. You can set these suckers. You can twist the warhead to set a delay on the thing. You can have it airburst, like if they're trying to play hide-and-seek with you on a wall. See, this is the argument for those little robot dogs, because you put one on one of them little robot dogs and have that thing shoot it, and that way you don't have to lose the lining of your lungs. I don't know if a robot dog could handle that thing. Really? What about one of them big robot dogs? I don't know if the answer is just make it bigger.

40:44Probably. I'm sure there's the size of robot dog that can handle that. I mean, you would imagine. But then you would need a friendly other robot dog to reload it for him. Right. But that would be possible. That would totally be possible. Or the robot dog has, like, arms in the back that can do it. Oh, that was a training round. Nice little rifle barrel. Oh, that's crazy. That's cool to see. What a great shot. Imagine standing there taking that shot, though. Fuck all that. As a dude's loading around into it. Oh, that. I reached the camera over for that one. Yeah. Good Lord. Yeah. No, next time you're sitting down with Evan, ask him, like, hey, did you ever, at the end of training evolutions, ever have extra ordnance and ammunition that you had to dispose of?

41:28That's crazy. They just make you blow it up. Yeah. His answer will be yes, and he'll just start laughing. So if you have to do it outside of shooting, how do you do it? You can blow stuff in place. You can make a large pile of stuff and layer it. Launch something at it? Or do you light it on fire? You can actually light ammunition on fire. It'll go off. And what direction? Well, outside of it being compressed in the chamber of a gun, which, you know, if you think of like an AR platform rifle, when the round is in the magazine, it gets pushed forward by the bolt. And it's being held by all sides except for down the barrel.

42:03So all of the pressure is pointed in that direction, which is what propels the bullet down the barrel. If you remove that, it kind of just explodes in place. I'm not saying it's safe to, like, stand around and, like, have a beer while you're watching. like from me to you. Right. We would be on the other side of a burn, but it sounds like popcorn going off. Oh, okay. And then for other stuff, you can layer explosive charges on top of it and probably get all of it to go higher. God, it seems insanely wasteful. It seems like you should be able to say, we achieved what we needed to achieve in our training.

42:32Here is our excess ordinance that we could use in the future. Yeah, you just haven't spent enough time around the military. Well, that's been explained to me about budgets, that if you do not meet your budget, you get in trouble because then they can't ask for the same amount of money next year. So I heard that every year when I was in. And September was a fantastic month to be in the military because the budget year is October 1 to October 1. So September, the bean counters really start taking a look at what they have left. And they'd say, I was a supply rep for a short period of time, meaning I was a little cog in the wheel of supplying stuff to the guys.

43:10they're like you need to spend a hundred thousand dollars in the next three hours on shoes

43:17which let me tell you rei is happy to take your money rei.com will run that card and you always would hear this if we don't spend it we're gonna lose it but i never actually saw that tested i don't know if you actually would get in trouble they just always assumed that you would so you ran that sucker down to bankrupt and then october 1st you're good to go wow yeah so here's a good question in terms of like shoes when your missions involve a bunch of different types of terrain a bunch of like is it do they favor a lighter weight shoe that's more of an all-purpose shoe because like i couldn't imagine you would be wearing like like a crispy mountain boot with like high leather yeah it will so it depends very you gotta have a wardrobe joe right being good at your job is second only to looking good while doing your job.

44:09So we, trust me, I've sent people back to hell. Like your top and bottom are matching. We're not doing this. Go change. Really? Yeah. You have to look the part. It's equal to your professionalism and tactical ability. Interesting. Yeah. Maybe perhaps I was a little bit picky on that, but I don't, I don't want to clash on the battlefield. You need to look good. It sounds like you can't have everybody looking awesome. And then what, like you look like shit, go change your outfit out. Yeah. You have orange boots on dude. What are you doing? Yeah. The boots, you could – I mean you take a Pelican case or a box.

44:41You have a tool for every job. So if you're going to go up in the mountains, if you're going to go like northeastern Afghanistan, you're going to wear a different type of shoe for sure. If you're in Iraq in an urban environment, you're going to wear probably the lightest weight. Like the – I forget who makes them, but like the Speed Cross shoes and those things are – I mean you might get two months out of those. So you bring a couple pair. You're going to bring some footwear that if you needed to go into the water, like not swim around in the water, but pass through water. Are those like Solomon's?

45:10Yeah, Solomon's Speed Cross. Yeah. And the soles on those things, they don't last very long. But again, when you get$100 ,000 to buy shoes for three hours, you can buy extras for people. So you kind of have a – it's just like all the rest of the gear. You have cold weather gear. You have desert gear. And the coldest I've ever been is actually in the desert because of the super high and then the super – that swing was way colder than like in mountain. its terrain. It's like the moon. Yeah. But I mean, so you, when you lay out your stuff, like before every deployment you get ready to go on, you're laying your stuff out.

45:38You probably have two tables like this with all like desert, woodland, cold weather, layering system, shoes, different load bearing equipment, different back. And then you just lay it all out, put it into a bag and then you're doing the best you can. And you're kind of just packing, you know, for what comes up in front of you. And you're just ordering stuff from REI for real? Sometimes, yeah. Wow. So not everybody. Not everywhere. The conventional teams are very limited in their ability to do that. At a JSOC level, you have a little bit more room and flexibility to source from outside vendors.

46:11So you would go for the best possible tool for the job? 100 % of the time. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of just get military issue. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I got the dumbest question for you about Afghanistan. Tell me more. This is the dumbest question. have you heard of the story of the Kandahar giant are we talking about an actual giant no how did you hear the story about a Kandahar giant there's a crazy thing called the internet I may spend less time on the internet than you guys and if you have a good algorithm and by good I mean retarded you get But so. Oh, my. This is a visual representation. Obviously not an actual picture.

46:59So there was a story that what is the guy's name that was on Jesse Michaels podcast recently? Tim. I don't remember. I'll check. So supposedly there was a giant that engaged U.S. troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and in a very remote area. And this guy was shot and killed and medevaced out of there or, you know, helicoptered out of there. And they're a 12-foot giant. Tim Alberino. And he was – was he telling this story as if he was there or he heard this? There's never a guy who was there who tells you these stories. Damn it. There's apparently one guy who has his face covered up in one of these videos that I watched.

47:45It's like one of the blurry – like, you know, like a witness to a mob scene. Yep. That's how you know they're legit. A hundred percent. Thank you. I think the same way. That's why I sent it to all my friends. But he was telling the story from people that he talked to that were there. See, and here's the thing. I want stories like that to be true. Me too. I still am just waiting. Same thing with aliens. God, I so deeply want it to be true. I just need somebody to hold up an actual piece of evidence and say, this is what I'm talking about. Instead of, I saw, I know somebody who was read into. I had a buddy who got engaged by a giant or they like okay where is it right and until then I got a real hard time believing that oh I'm with you but I also want to believe which I know clouds my vision I just think it makes you hopeful it gets me to a certain point and then the point like there's a point where my logic kicks in and I'm not willing to go any further and that's Bigfoot Yeah.

48:45With Bigfoot, I'm like, I know too many guys that are in the woods all the time. And let's not forget the game cameras they often leave behind. That's right. Like millions of game cameras at this point. At this point, like I could have bought it in the 1960s, like maybe, who knows, before drones, before satellites, before this, before that. And, you know, there's good arguments that you wouldn't find the body because like you and I have hunted in the mountains many, many times. I've never seen a mountain lion skeleton. Have you? No. No. No. I don't know anybody who has. I've seen mountain lions.

49:20I've never seen a mountain lion skeleton. I've never seen a bear skeleton. I'm sure people have found them. Yeah. But I haven't. And we know there's a shit ton of mountain lions and a shit ton of bears. So if there was a very small population of primates, it's not inconceivable that you wouldn't find their body. especially if they were in some way advanced to the point where they were burying their dead which is you know it's not outside the realm of possibility if they have a language of like who knows what these things are uh but no i just that doesn't i think it used to be real and i think there's real evidence of that i want it to be no there's real evidence there's a thing called gigantopithecus it was a uh eight foot plus tall bipedal hominid that existed in asia and it's in the orangutan family.

50:08And there's like recreations of what it looks like standing next to a human. It's huge. But that just makes sense. I mean, there used to be giant woolly mammoths. There used to be giant sloths. The idea of a giant primate is not inconceivable. It's like size is all relative anyway. Our idea of what's big compared to a fucking giraffe or this, it's all, it doesn't, you know, if you have enough resources and there's enough food for these things, they live in a lush tropical environment or a lush wilderness environment, it's not impossible to think that something would get way bigger than a gorilla.

50:40But for that thing to exist today, yeah, that's what it used to look like. So I think that is probably what all these ancient myths are based on. That's probably what used to exist. So it was bipedal, which is also interesting. And that's based on its jaw structure. Here's a question for you The species burying themselves These are intrusive thoughts that I have and can't get out of my head Why don't we bury people vertically To save space That's a good question Wouldn't you get more square footage It would be harder to make a 6 foot tall hole I feel like they make oil drills I mean I'm not saying that They do now But back in the day it would be easier If someone's laid down just roll them over into the hole I mean, but because of six foot deep hole, that's like six feet long.

51:31I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying in today's world. Yeah. I think we can evolve. Well, here's even weirder. You know, you have to embalm people before you cremate them. Why? Exactly. My friend Joey Diaz says it's a racket because he knew a guy who ran a funeral home. The big embalming market. Well, it's all a racket. The whole funeral home thing's a racket. They know, like, your family member dies. You have to bury your family member. You're in grief. And then they try to sell you on some fucking fancy coffin. They sell you on this and sell you on that. But the embalming is, it's mandatory.

52:08I did not know that. At least for some places. Because I know that some people are trying to do what they call natural burials. I don't know what the regulations are on. Like, let's find that out. There are upright, they're called upright burials. That is a thing. They do exist. In the U.S. though, or is this some Nordic country? There's a cemetery that does it already. I was trying to look up more information on it. Probably a bunch of cheapies. One thing already that I can give up space. I'm just thinking about most of them have fences, so maximum square footage utilization. Right. That makes sense.

52:38Yeah. Gravity's an issue a little bit. I don't know. Gravity's an issue. Gravity's not going to be an issue. First off, once you're in that coffin, nothing good's happening. Right. Vertically, her horse. That doesn't make sense. What kind of gravity is it? Just drop them in the hole. I think the family... It'd be like this. Like slide it down that hole. I think they're saying the family doesn't like the idea that they're going to be compressed into a small amount in the bottom of the coffin. Like a science issue, I think. Well, they're fucking dead. You know the most gnarly way they bury people or the most gnarly funeral.

53:10Well, they're still alive? No. Well, they're dead. Well, I'm saying that would be the most gnarly. Right. The most gnarly postmortem is the Tibetan Sky Funeral. Do you know how they do that? No. Vultures. they literally break the body up chop it up into chunks and the vultures know it and so they prepare so the vultures are all hanging around waiting well it is a tradition in tibet with at least certain people to get rid of their bodies that way and the idea is that look the person's dead this is a more natural way you know and they'll cycle back into the ecosystem the way it's supposed to be with all animals.

53:48We're the only animal that opts out of rejoining with all biological life. Because it's supposed to be a biological body deteriorates underground that feeds the soil, that feeds whatever animals feast on its bones, and then becomes all part of this big, beautiful cycle. And we're like, we've got some chemicals laying around we'd like to fill the veins up with to make them completely poison so that they never deteriorate or they just slowly turn into gelatinous sludge? By state, it looks like. Okay. So it says burial, burial, burial, why is that word weird to me right now? Burial is regulated by state by state, city, county zoning.

54:35There's no federal rule that specifies body position, horizontal versus vertical. What are the laws in terms of embalming? Green or natural burial. Simple shroud, no vault, minimal disturbance is legal in all 50 states, but only in locations that comply with state and local rules. Green or natural burial. Distance from water sources would be a big reason for that. Oh, interesting. So you don't want people to rot. But what about cows? Cows can rot. You know, a dead coyote just rots. But we don't want to eat people. Or drink them either. I guess. Well, it didn't. I was watching this documentary about this family where the kid, his dad was a serial killer.

55:23The dad would throw people in a well. And he had to help him when he was young. His dad would kill people and then throw them down the well. First time he did it, he said, I think it was a young boy when his dad first took him to get rid of a body and throw it down a well. Not all bonding experiences are created equal. How many people have died drinking well water that was polluted by a dead body? Hopefully not that many. What did you find, Jamie? No, I'm just as disgusting. Have you thought through your end of life? Have you told people? I would like to not be embalmed. I would like to just be buried in the ground and be absorbed naturally like everything else.

56:02Do you have that written down anywhere, though? No. Once I'm gone, figure it out. I don't give a fuck. Well, there's an argument to help figuring it out for those left behind so it makes it easier. I don't want to make things easier. When I'm gone, I want it to be complicated as fuck. I want them to be arguing over my will. Well, I only ask because we had to think through this stuff because you do like a review of your will every time. Yeah. And, you know, final requests, I guess it would be. So you had to think through that stuff. Jamie, stop scrolling. So for direct cremation, no public viewing, cremation within a few days, body kept refrigerated.

56:37Embalming is generally unnecessary and not legally required in most states. But the thing is, most of the time it's done, according to my friend Joey, whose friend, at least it was in the past, whose friend ran a funeral home. The guy was telling him what a fucking scam it all is. You're just charging people for all this stuff. Probably just like anything else. Here it is. Many funeral homes require embalming for presentation and public health reasons. if you want a public viewing or an open casket before cremation. Oh, who does that? Some jurisdictions or airlines may require embalming for long distance or international transport.

57:22Or if there's a long delay before cremation. Well, that makes sense. Because if you don't embalm it, you're going to stink up the whole fucking plane. U.S. law, I mean, I'm sure you've smelled dead bodies before, but the first time I ever smelled a dead body, I was a little kid, and someone died in our apartment building. It was crazy. You'd walk down the hallway and the fucking smell. It was me and my cousins and my sister. We were walking down the hallway. We were like, what is that? We were probably like six. It was this insane smell. And it turned out this lady who was just living by herself died.

57:56So she was just rotting in this apartment building. You think you still recognize it to this day? It's very unique. Is it? Humans are a very unique smell as opposed to a regular animal. Well, the mechanism of death can change, I guess, a little bit. Sure. But in general, yeah, a couple days later, they all kind of smell the same. I've heard, yeah, I've heard humans are uniquely gross in the way we smell. Yeah. Yeah, it's not awesome. Yeah. Not awesome to be around it. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. A lot of people hit stretches where money gets tight. And it's not just the bills.

58:32It's the constant pressure, the mental load, the second guessing of every decision. And honestly, one of the biggest difference makers isn't some perfect budget. It's having a solid support system when things feel heavy. And if that support system includes therapy, even better. Because while it can't solve your money problems, it can change your relationship with finances. It can help you manage the stress, anxiety, and maybe even any shame you feel around money. A good place to find a quality therapist is BetterHelp. Plus, they do a lot of the work for you. Literally, all you need to do is answer a few questions, and BetterHelp will match you with a fully qualified therapist online.

59:20They have an industry-leading match fulfillment rate, which is a fancy way of saying that they typically get it right the first time. But even if they don't, it's super simple to switch to another therapist. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash J-R-E. That's betterhelp.com slash J-R-E. So this embalming thing, so is that not the case? Like, is it where funeral homes request embalming before they cremate you? Also, here's another scam, according to my friend. When you think you get your family member ashes, you get a bunch of shit. You get a bunch of ashes.

1:00:11You get ashes from some fucking guy you don't even know. They don't care. They just shove a bunch of ashes into an urn. You're like, it's grandma. She's here with us forever. But it's not really. I hope that one's not true. That's gnarly. Yeah, it's true. That's like the epitome of laziness. I'm pretty sure it's true. I think that answers the question as though if the requirement was coming from funeral homes instead of law, and the court says yes. Most of the time, yes, the requirement to embalm before viewing or before cremation is coming from funeral homes or cemetery policy. Right. So they're trying to make more money.

1:00:41So this is what Joey was telling me about. Yeah. So it's not a federal requirement. FTC says embalming may be necessary if you choose certain arrangements like a public viewing. But the necessity is based on the funeral home standards. It's not a blanket legal mandate. So most people probably don't know that. So the funeral home will tell you, oh, we have to embalm them first. And you're in a pretty susceptible and malleable mind space. Exactly. At that time, yeah. And they're just really used to it. They're really used to it. They must get so accustomed to just – they don't give a fuck. There's bodies there every day.

1:01:19People are always dying. It's an opportunity to make more money, which is rough. Yeah. Yeah, you would like to think that humanity wouldn't be like that. But yet here we are. Yeah. Find out if – well, the other thing is like – you remember that Sam Kinison bit? I don't know if you ever saw it. I know who Sam Kinison is. I'm not very familiar with his bits. One of the greatest of all time. But he had this bit about homosexual necrophiliacs who were caught spending – paying a bunch of money to be alone with the freshest male corpse. What? And it was an actual true story that he read in the news.

1:01:55But his whole thing was like, imagine you're on the slab. You're like, well, I'm dead now. I'm going to be with Jesus. And hey, hey, what? And he would be like rocking back and forth on his stomach. What is this? It feels like some guy's got his dick in my ass. You mean life keeps fucking you in the ass even after you're dead? It never ends. It never ends. Oh, oh. You comedians are a unique bunch. Let's, you know. Somebody's got to do it. I'm glad there's somebody out there who can weave a story like that together and have a meaningful message at the end of it. But there have been cases of people getting hot girls that are freshly dead and fucking them and getting caught.

1:02:34Yeah, because humans are horrible. Disgusting. I try to tell myself that the vast majority of humans are trying to do the best that they can. But I never forget that there are people out there who are like that. Sure. Yeah, there's people out there that are gross. They're just evil. I was reading about this guy who was an oncologist who got arrested because he was giving people chemotherapy that didn't really have cancer. Because chemotherapy is uniquely profitable for doctors. Yeah. It's very profitable. So he was telling people that they had cancer and they did not. And he was giving them chemotherapy, which I have a friend who died recently.

1:03:12And he went through the first round of chemotherapy, went into remission. and the chemotherapy was so bad that when the cancer came back, he decided to just die. That's how my mom died. She had survived cervical cancer. It metastasized into her lungs 10 years later. Got on the chemo, which I don't know what is in that stuff, but the platinum treatment, whatever it may be, and had the realization that she was either going to die from cancer or she was going to die from the chemotherapy. and she chose hospice just because the ride on the chemotherapy was so horrible that she couldn't take it anymore.

1:03:49My friend said that the pain of brushing his teeth was so intense, like the sores in his mouth from the chemo, and that once cancer went into remission, and then it came back. And by the way, this cancer came very quickly after vaccination. It was one of those where, you know, you can get into that all day long I don't know if you want to really get into a deep conspiracy theory that's got some real facts to it, but there's something called SV40. And they found SV40 in some of the mRNA vaccines. SV40 is simian virus 40. And it's a virus that was contracted that people got because they used kidney cells from monkeys in order to cultivate these vaccines.

1:04:38This is like known about for a long time. And in certain batches, they've tested positive for SV40, which is like some just legacy material that they have that they make vaccines out of. And he was one of the lucky ones. It sucks, man. Yeah, he was a young dude. You know, he was in his 40s, early 40s. Fit, young guy. Cancer came on like a fucking tidal wave. Just a freight train, he mowed him down? How much time did he have between diagnosis and death? I got him connected with Gary Brecka, and Gary Brecka helped him quite a bit, and that's how he originally got through it, and it got over it. He was okay again, and, you know, went into remission.

1:05:25He said he's feeling pretty good, and then, man, it wasn't more than a year and a half, two years later, it came back with a vengeance. And he was dead just, you know, six months later. Does it change how you view life, your own life, when that happens close to you? It's just shocking that healthy, fit people get something like that. And it happens so quickly. You know, this is, like I said, my suspicions is it's connected to the vaccine. And I don't think that everybody who got that mRNA vaccine is going to die of cancer. I think it's a contamination issue. that some of the batches had it and some of the batches didn't.

1:06:10And then some people react very differently to whatever's in it. But with him, man, it got him. And it's not uncommon. There's a shitload of ignored cases of what they're calling turbo cancer that people have gotten after the mRNA vaccine. Like, it's barely a conspiracy theory. It's more likely an ignored, inconvenient fact that these pharmaceutical drug companies are trying to ignore. Do you think they were going upstream from that, the pharmaceutical companies or people that were pushing to try to find what perhaps they thought would be the fix to the solution? Do you think that they were doing the best that they could and just their enthusiasm outstripped their capabilities or they pushed stuff a little bit too early?

1:06:56Or was it as deep of as a conspiracy that people think and that behind the scenes they're trying to reduce overall global population? I don't go that way. I don't go to the reduce overall global population. But I do understand why people would think that. Because there are there have been a bunch of people that are supposedly philanthropists, Bill Gates, that have talked about reducing overall population being a goal. And that goal could be like Bill Gates is actually quoted saying that that goal could be achieved through vaccines. Like what the fuck does that mean? Reducing global population through vaccines?

1:07:30How? Well, one way is the what is it? DDP or DTP vaccine? Diphtheria something and percussus. So they were caught in Africa. One of the vaccines that they were using on women in Africa turned out it's tetanus, right? Diphtheria, tetanus, and percussus had HCG in it, which is an endocrine disruptor. I don't know what's the exact specific description of it. But what it was essentially doing was rendering these women infertile. And so they were supposedly vaccinating them for tetanus and these other diseases. But really what it was doing was they were making these women infertile and they were experimenting on them.

1:08:23And they were doing this in Africa. You know, they like to experiment in places where not a lot of people are watching and there's not a lot of infrastructure and not a lot of Internet connection. And they can, you know, get away with trying stuff on people. So this concept of reducing population through vaccination, there's some real world examples of people doing that. But, you know, why? I don't know. I don't think that. I think if you find out about how much money was generated during the vaccine pandemic, during the COVID pandemic, that is the most likely scenario. They were just trying to make an enormous amount of money.

1:09:03Do you remember that you and I did the first podcast after the lockdown in L.A.? Yeah. And then I drove with my wife down to San Diego, and I don't think she had been, because we got to San Diego in about 17 minutes. There's no one on the road. And I remember saying to her, if we come back, which we will, don't expect this. It was like a ghost town. But we were in L.A. the day that it locked down. I remember texting you like, are we good? You're like, yeah, YouTube says we're essential. Let's roll. We're essential. That was what was crazy. There was essential businesses that were allowed to stay open restaurants weren't one of them Fucking insanely enough, but fast food places were Um, so there was certain places that were as essential and media was essential So we were allowed to although we did get ratted out the health department came to our um, la studio And uh, they made us put a bag of masks on the wall when you go in and Also a note that shows like all the precautions that you have to take place like stand six feet apart And then people were also complaining that this table is not six feet wide.

1:10:11And so we weren't observing the proper social distancing. So I said, okay, well, why don't we just do this and you do that and we'll do a podcast. Oh, yeah, we're six feet. Now we're six feet. Now we're good. And then it turns out that that was all made up. It was all horseshit. You know, it's the Who song. We won't get fooled again. I want to believe that they were trying to do the best that they can. I don't believe that. I said I want to believe. Yeah, I don't even want to believe that. But then what do we do about it? We never listen again. What if they're right the next time? I don't think they will be.

1:10:45I don't think they're ever right with that kind of stuff, especially something that's not killing everybody as they said it was. They were just gaslighting us all over television. The people were dropping like flies. And especially egregiously disgusting is gaslighting us about children dying from it. Yeah. You know, and there's a lot of really fucking shitty human beings that were posting about this on Twitter. And I don't know if they're being paid to do it or if they're just ideologically captured. But there was a lot of people on Twitter talking about children dying from COVID. It's a fucking dirty lie.

1:11:21There was a very small amount of kids that died during the pandemic. And those kids, all of them had something wrong with them already. all of them had comorbidities, which is like also a giant percentage of all the people that died, period. It's like what is the number? It's like 75 percent of them, something like that, had four plus comorbidities. Four comorbidities is crazy. It's like you're already fucked. That means four things that are already killing you, you know? Yeah. Do you think we learned anything during that time period? Yeah. I think we learned that the pharmaceutical drug company has a lock on the media that is very disturbing.

1:12:03Like the media did not report at all vaccine injuries. They didn't report on it at all. It was never discussed. People were dropping dead. They were ignoring it and gaslighting. And then we also found out the amount of money that these pharmaceutical drug companies pay to these corporations, whether it's Fox or NBC or CBS or whoever it is. in advertising. It's a huge part of their budget is advertising money and the way Callie Means explained it to me, he goes, it's not so that people find out about the drugs. It's so that these news stations don't criticize the pharmaceutical drug companies. Well, if they control the ad inventory and then the checkbook behind that.

1:12:46Exactly. Do you ever do pharmaceutical type reads for your show? No. No, I say no to them? I only say yes to dick pills. Dick pills I'll say yes to. Like, yeah, like get hard, stay hard. Yeah. Yeah. I'm down with that. Well, see, I'm not anti-pharmaceutical drug company, but I am. And the problem with corporations is they have an obligation to their shareholders to make the most amount of money possible. And it's not the people that are making these things that the people that are making them, these doctors and engineers and scientists, all these wizards that are coming up with all these life saving medications, then you get the money people and the money people are the ones that fuck everything up because the money people say you know what we could charge a thousand dollars a pill for this stuff you know there's certain medications that literally cost one thousand dollars a pill you know and they just try to make the most amount of money possible and prescribe it to most amount of people possible and then you get monsters like this cancer doctor that i was telling you that was giving chemotherapy to people that don't fucking have cancer.

1:13:49So how do we break that system, though? Hammers. Take that guy in a room. Take that guy in a room. Just keep him alive. Slowly break him down with a hammer. Start with his toes. But I feel like it's deeply entrenched. Work your way up to his hips. I feel like it's so deeply entrenched in our political system as part of it as well, too. That the money transfers. How do you break that and detach that? This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. Have you ever looked into getting a security system? A lot of these companies can leave you feeling trapped, which is the last thing you want when it comes to your safety.

1:14:24They lock you into these absurdly long contracts, and you have to take time out of your day to wait for a technician. As a longtime supporter of this show, SimpliSafe is nothing like that. SimpliSafe gives you the flexibility to choose what type of system you want and when to set it up. with no long-term contracts or hidden fees. It ships to your door and you can easily install it. No technicians or drilling required. And I'm not just talking about a porch camera here. You can get the whole shebang, sensors, cameras, inside and out, and 24-7 professional monitoring. They earn your business by actually working.

1:15:07SimpliSafe has even been called America's best customer service by Newsweek. It's clear why over 5 million people continue to use SimpliSafe every day. Everyone deserves to have peace of mind. SimpliSafe is offering an exclusive discount to my listeners. And right now, you can get 50 % off your new system by visiting SimpliSafe.com slash Rogan. That's half off at SimpliSafe.com slash Rogan. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa. Whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk.

1:16:01Habanero? More like habanere, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. AI God. AI God has to come alive and take over the system. Now we're really getting into terrain I don't understand. I know what the word AI means. I don't know where they're going. AI God. The one that created that Jesus meme that Trump just posted, that's AI God. Joe, I told you he explained it. He was a doctor. That's what they call them. That's what AI God calls Jesus. Jesus is a doctor. The mental gymnastics involved in some of these people who are so ideologically captured. is shocking to me. It's weird. It's weird because there's no way there should be this kind of money in politics.

1:16:44There's no way it'd be good for anybody if the people with all the money are controlling most of the things that happen. It doesn't make any sense because they're all sick anyway. They just want more. If you're worth$200 billion and you're still trying to make more money, that's what you're trying to do with your time, well, you're sick. There's something wrong with you. There's like, what are you doing with that money? How is it possible that you could spend all that money? Isn't the answer for some people or the dollar figure that they're shooting for just more, though? Always. My friend, oh, you know Brian Callen.

1:17:11Brian Callen has a friend who's worth$3 billion, and he feels poor because his friend is worth$80 billion. Imagine that. Imagine feeling insecure. You have$3 ,000 million, and you feel poor. You feel poor. Yeah. Yeah. Because he's eating ramen at night. Let me just tell you. Yeah, it bothersome. Yeah, mac and cheese and ramen out of the microwave. I feel poor when I'm around Elon. Jokingly. But also everybody on Earth probably does. But it's jokingly feel poor. Like I don't really feel bad for myself or insecure about the fact that he's got a... What has he got? He's getting close to a trillion.

1:17:51He's like worth 800 billion on paper. Yeah. Until California taxes get a hold of him. They'd like to suck all that dry and give it to the homeless people. Well, they're doing good. Their program would work if we gave them a little bit more money. That's all they need. They just need that wealth tax. If they could just siphon off some money from the billionaires. That's the real problem is they don't have enough money. Are you glad you left? Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. You've been here what? Six years. Six years? Yeah, almost six years. I've been in Montana from nine. Nice. I can't think of a reason that I'm going to leave.

1:18:21Yeah. I really can't. It is amazing. Well, Montana's got so much going on for it. First of all, there's less people, which is relaxing. You feel better. 1.1 million people in the state. That's all of Austin. That's probably a subdivision in Austin. Well, Austin is a million, and then the surrounding area is another million. We just had a net decrease in population in Montana last year. Yeah, because all those fucking people that came over because of Yellowstone, they went through a couple of winters. And COVID. They're like, yeah, this sucks. We're out. Or that remote work job was like, hey, time to come back to the old office.

1:18:55Also, you try driving an electric car when it's fucking 30 below zero outside. That bitch is, oh, it says you got 200 miles. Guess what? You got 30. There is one cyber truck where I live. It's not mine. I bet it's a rich guy. He owns a Thai food restaurant. There you go. Which, I mean, I don't know what level of wealth is associated with it. Probably got some money. Yeah. But honestly, it might be money. Laundering is what he specializes in. It's hard to say. Might have a nail salon or two under his umbrella as well. They're great when it's warm out. Yeah. But the battery life significantly. Do you remember?

1:19:29I think it was Chicago or Detroit. There was a few years back there was a giant blizzard that hit and people with electric cars, their cars died on the highway. And they were really fucked. I do remember this. Yeah, really fucked. Because, look, if you have a full tank of gas and you're idling, just idling on the highway, it lasts a pretty long time, especially if it's diesel. Jeez. Oh, you'll get 24 hours out of it. 100%. Yeah. So you'll survive. If you have a fucking electric car and you get stuck on the highway and it's just bumper to bumper forever and that thing is the only thing keeping you warm, you better pray that someone lets you in their car.

1:20:07Yeah. Because you're going to die out there. You'll freeze to death in your own fucking car. I like the concept of them. I drove one today. It's a time machine. I have a Tesla Model S. Don't you have a highly modified one? Oh, yeah. I was going to say, it might say Model S on the outside. Well, the speed is the same as the standard one. The speed is exactly the same because they don't do anything to the engine because it already has 1 ,100 horsepower. Didn't they, like, widen yours somehow? Yes. The track has widened. It's got a much more robust suspension setup. It's got carbon fiber fenders.

1:20:42There's a company called Unplugged Performance, and they take it, and it just handles phenomenally, and the brakes are way better. So it does that. But the thing about it is the speed that's just insane. Like when you merge onto a highway, it's a time machine. You just hit the gas like, and it's no sound. So it's, and all of a sudden you're going 90 miles an hour like that. It's nuts. We're into different things, Joe. I'm going to stick with my F-150. I like those too. I have one of those. I have a Raptor. I have a Hennessy Raptor. I don't have that model. Yeah. I like a Raptor, but I like one with 1 ,000 horsepower.

1:21:20First off, who doesn't? I just don't like the price tag associated with the 1 ,000 horsepower one. It's a little pricey. But I was on the phone the other day because it's got the speakerphone thing. So I'm on the phone with my friend Tommy, and I'm driving. He goes, what the fuck are you driving? A dinosaur. You could hear the... And the supercharger whine. It's awesome. But I get it. It's not for everybody. But if you drive one, just the ability of those things, just the insane capability, the ability to go zero to 60 in under two seconds is just nuts for a four-door sedan. You know how to drive, though?

1:22:01Yeah. Some people probably are better off not getting into a car that can do that. Well, that's what's weird, right? So like if you want – like say if you want to get a concealed carry license, you have to go to a range and you have to demonstrate that you know how to use a gun correctly. Are you talking about here in Texas? Yeah. Because Montana is a constitutional carry state. Well, it's constitutional carry here as well, but still concealed carry. You get reciprocity. So if you have concealed carry, you get reciprocity in Florida, Nevada. So if you get a concealed carry license in Texas, you can go to places where, you know, they're only – maybe they don't even have concealed – they don't have constitutional carry, but they recognize Texas concealed carry laws.

1:22:41Because of the additional training per se? Yes, exactly. But the point is like you have to show that you know how to use it. You can go buy a Corvette and you don't have to show anything, which is crazy. Well, you have to show a likelihood that you're able to pay for it. That's it. That's it. Yeah. So you can get like a Corvette ZR1, which is also 1 ,100 horsepower and fucking bonkers, a bonkers fast, insanely engineered car. You don't have to show that you know how to drive at all. You just have a driver's license. Right into the nearest telephone pole. Sideways. I mean, there's plenty of videos of that.

1:23:20My friend Whitney sent me a video of a street takeover in Los Angeles this Saturday night where they took over some street and gunshots and people just – they cut off the entire street so no one can go anywhere. People surround these cars and the cars drive around in circles and then someone started shooting at people. Awesome. What a classic pairing. Yeah. Good times. It's good to have rules. Yeah. Yeah, they're not doing that in Montana. Exactly. Exactly. You have to have an enormous amount of people in order for things to get that chaotic with a very small percentage of humans. Were there cops there for that or they just didn't want to get in the mix?

1:24:00They didn't show up until after, you know, the cops showed up when, you know, people start shooting. Yeah, that's generally when they're going to respond. And they're getting security cameras. But the thing is, Los Angeles, they don't fucking put you in jail for anything. They let you right out. There's no cash bail. They're letting people out for all kinds of crimes. Yeah. I was listening to a podcast where a guy was a former gang member and he was saying he's leaving Los Angeles because they're letting 70 ,000 people out of prison. It's like it's going to get too dangerous. So it was too dangerous for the gang member.

1:24:32There's the answers to some tests right there. Maybe pay attention. Yeah. You got to wonder, like, what are they trying to do with California where everything seems to go in the wrong direction? Like if you look at the vaccine thing, like, do you think they're really trying to lower population? Is that what they're trying to do? like kill off a percentage. What are they trying to do with California? Are they really trying to destroy the state? Because if I was trying to destroy a state, that's how I would do it. I'd let everybody out of jail. I'd regulate the fuck out of everything so nothing could get done.

1:25:02You know, you can't buy these in California. Why? These are Alps. Yeah, because they're flavored. This is wintergreen. Shout out to Tucker Carlson. This is his brand. I like these. These are very delicious. By the way, I showed these to Daniel Cormier. He goes, where'd you get those? And I go, in Texas, you could buy them. He goes, you know you can't buy them in California? And he goes, I get them, and I bring them around. All these dads, they're like, I'm a dealer. They're like, where'd you get that? Because they won't let you have flavored nicotine pouches. It's illegal in California. It's for your safety.

1:25:36They're trying to turn you into just a little baby that needs everything from the government. Everything. Everything. We were at that launch party. Somehow I got an invitation to be there. So we go to Tennessee. Tucker stands on a chair and talks about Alpino. Stood on a chair? Yeah, because it was in Dave Ramsey's barn. And again, I'm so far not in the social circle of this. I think he should have sat on someone's shoulders. That would be even better. He's pretty big. So you would have needed somebody who has squatted once or twice in their life. So we listened to him talk, and they had a little, like on the other room, there was a huge fireplace, was just this, like a charcuterie table about this size.

1:26:15So I'm getting some cheese and then I turn around. I'm like, hello, Mel Gibson. And I just fucking went and sat in the corner. I was so uncomfortable in that environment. Because Mel was there? Mel, there was a lot of people there. I just, you know, you've sat down and talked with him. You exist in a different orbit than I do. I exist in an orbit of 1.1 million total people that I don't see every day. In the state. In the state. So like I interact with the people I want to. I was not prepared to have a cheese stick and turn around and see the dude from Lethal Weapon standing there. like hi I gotta get out of here by the way if you talk to him he is one of the most normal easy to talk to movie stars you will ever meet he has no heirs about him he's very easy to talk to I just don't do good in social situations like that where like everybody was relatively recognizable I just I could sit in the corner and I hang out with my wife and we eat charcuterie I get it I get it I don't like those things either believe it or not well I have I have been do you remember the event you did at performance archery in san diego oh yeah yeah i i didn't realize uh i watched you trying to make your way to the bathroom and it took you about 30 minutes to go 20 feet and i don't know how you deal with that i don't that's i mean one i know you well enough outside of that like you're a genuinely nice person you will give people the time like because you're appreciative right over the fact that they want to meet you like i totally get that But also sometimes you have to piss.

1:27:44I mean, I don't know how any of those people, or maybe you don't, operate in a sense in air quotes of normalcy. It's not normal, but the way I think of it is like they just like me. It's way better than if they hated me. Way better than if you go into the bathroom and everybody wants to kick your ass. I'm going to the bathroom. They just want to say hi. And for them, it's a very unique moment. So I try to reset every time I see a new person and I try to treat them as if it's like this is a complete for them. It's a unique experience. They get to meet and never believe that I am unique. You know, don't believe the hype and don't think you are special, but always appreciate the fact that someone else does.

1:28:31And so take the time to say hi. And I can't the UFCs are hard because I can't like sometimes I'm going through the crowd. and I have to, like, sometimes I leave my commentary seat and then I have to take a piss and then I have to run back. And then everybody's trying to get a picture while you're, you know, like you're literally going through a crowd of people. You're talking about in-between bounce. Yeah, yeah. And so I high-five people, but they're like, I can't, I can't, I can't. And I can't stop because if I stop, then they'll all swarm and I can't do that. I have to keep moving. So that bothers me that I have to say I can't stop.

1:29:06Even when I'm leaving the venue, they're like, I can't. I can't. I have to keep moving. I'm sorry. I appreciate you, but I can't stop. Because if I stop, I'll never get out of here. I've been to one of those. And we were at UFC 300. That was a good one. Your seat was good. You had a good seat. I watched the fight from the back of a projection onto one of the things up in one of the— Well, you didn't get tickets for me. I'm never going to ask you for tickets, by the way. Well, just fucking let me know when you want to go. Well, no. Actually, I don't want to go. because I missed listening to you guys talk.

1:29:41I didn't realize. That's a factor. So we were sitting there, and I heard Gaethje get flatlined before we saw it. And I'm like, holy cow. You want to talk about, not like the punch, but the reaction to that? Right. Oh, my God. Insane. But there were so many people, and we were there with Jocko and Origin, and there had some people that were down there a little bit. We ended up, Lee and I ended up watching from the back. So we got to see it, but we both said the same thing. It's way better on the couch. Or I want a pair of headsets like this so I can lift. Because now, let me be honest. Before I started training jiu-jitsu, I was like, you fucking stand him up right now.

1:30:17Those guys are just. Well, now, as a jiu-jitsu black belt, aren't you embarrassed about your old self? Now I'm like, you don't let that guy earn that position. You don't ever get them off the cage and you never get them off the ground. I'm with you. I've been preaching that from the beginning of the fucking sport. I would have been the dude with the redneck guzzler, Coors Light, half covered in it. Like, is that good standing up? And now I'm like, no, no, no. Never. Especially when they're sweaty. Exactly. If that guy's dominating him, you stay right there. Exactly. It's so hard to get someone to the ground.

1:30:50And it's so hard to hold them down if they're good. The experience, though, from - Not good. I am going to say this. Yeah. I would rather pay for the Paramount than listen - Or for the pay-per-view than the current Paramount experience. Sorry, Dana. But the commercials suck. Yeah, I'm not a fan of commercials. That's why I like YouTube Premium. I don't want commercials. I'll pay for the pay-per-view. They should offer Paramount Premium where you get no commercials. You should get a different experience for the UFC. There's been some streaming issues as well, too. Really? Yeah, well, it could also be...

1:31:23Montana Internet? Listen, we have electricity. We have running water. I've actually seen solar panels up in Montana. They don't work great for nine months out of the year, but... Do you get the Starlink? Yeah. That's the shit. I was actually one of the first people to get it in Montana, and it works fantastic. I have the little one that's like a book. Yeah, it's amazing. It's fucking great. I took it to Utah. We were streaming stuff while we were in the cabins. It was awesome. It's kind of life-changing. Oh, it's great. And then sometimes I need to - FaceTime with people. But then other times, I'm going to leave that in the truck, because otherwise maybe I'm just going to enjoy where I'm at.

1:31:58That's true. But, you know, the thing about elk hunting is you're so tired by the end of the day that you're not going to sit there looking at your phone anyway. But it's nice to be able to FaceTime home and say hi to people. For sure. But I do like the fact that when you're out there in the woods, it doesn't work at all. Yeah. Yeah, that is – God, I hate hunting sometimes like last year. Did you strike out last year? Oh, no. Even worse. Wounded an elk. Oh, no. I think I texted you this. Oh, yeah, it's with a rifle. Yeah, well, I tell people that I am the Navy SEAL sniper with the most confirmed misses.

1:32:33Because I can just smash that trigger back, close your eyes, hold your breath, let it gray out a little bit, and then really just jerk it. Oh, that's the worst feeling when you know you could have done it so much better if you just had taken a little bit more time. It would have been hard for me to do it worse, Joe, if I'm being honest. People are like, how could you possibly miss? Because I'm an idiot sometimes, and I'm just, God. But as I was pulling on the trigger, I was watching it just drift back towards the beginning of the guts. And instead of just stopping, just gave it a little bit more and then never saw the thing.

1:33:05Looked for it for two and a half days. Is there a worse feeling in the world than wounding an animal? No. And it's also like a miss like that, you have to wait a year to get another chance. You have a whole nother year to sit about and think about that miss before you get back to hunting again. So this year I think I might be able to go back to archery because although they call jujitsu the gentle art, I get banged up sometimes. Oh, bro. I was rifle hunting that year. I was training with a 15-year-old young man at the end of a day of training with some savage black belts. Totally, you know, how when you say when you first start, like, hey, you need to relax.

1:33:48Well, I also found that you can relax too much. I was laying on my side, letting him work on an arm bar. Got a hold of my arm. I was going to work on an escape. And as my arm was coming up over my head, I heard my shoulder cavitate. And, of course, on my drawing arm for my bow. And we were a couple months away from hunting season. Felt a go, partial tear of the pack, completely black and blue. It was the gentle art. There's nothing gentle about jiu-jitsu. Yeah. It's ridiculous to call it that. I don't know what psychopath called it the gentle art. I've been hurt more times. Everybody I know that's done jujitsu as long as I have has either artificial discs in their back and neck or has had multiple knee surgeries.

1:34:28That's me. I've had three. Or has had torn shoulders where they had to get reconstructed or blown out elbows. Yeah. Do you still train? No. I haven't in a while. I want to, though. Yeah. I did a little bit of training about a year ago with Gabe Tuttle, and I was getting back into it. But I still struggle with this one knee. I have one knee that keeps fucking up on me, man. for you it would be very hard to find the appropriate training partner yes like you're never going to a group class again and getting in there at open mat people would come for your head because they're assholes yeah but i always did that's what i always did i never i always trained i didn't just like only train with like one guy that like stuck with all the time i always went to classes yeah because i think that's the only way to really be good i don't think there's a real way to train with one person that's like taking it easy on you and really achieve a high level.

1:35:23I think you have to go in there with people that are going to tap you and you have to go in there with people that are trying to tap you, you know, and you know, if you're good and if you're strong, you could avoid a lot of shit, but you know, you get in there with some fucking 25 year old wrestler who weighs 210 pounds and is built like a superhero. It moves at a speed that your joints and ligaments can't move at I can't keep up You're on my back I can't keep up with this And if I do keep up I'm going to blow something out Since I found it at 41 I don't think we should teach it to anybody under 30 Because it deeply offends me When children come out of the children's class And they've been training like six times longer than I I'm like what Like their movement patterns were developed On the mat I'm like, we're using the same alphabet, but we are not putting together the same words.

1:36:13Well, I knew that from striking because I knew that from kicking. I was like, I started martial arts before my body had matured. And my body matured, becoming very flexible and very fast. And so as I got thicker, I maintained that speed and everything. But I was like, I don't know if you could ever get as good as I got if you didn't start when I started. I don't know if it's possible. And I didn't start jujitsu until I was 30. and when I started doing jujitsu I remember thinking god I wish I did this when I was a kid cause I see some kids where their fucking scrambles and their transitions like built into their neurons where they're just like everything is so fast and so kinetic and they're just moving and flowing like fuck I could have started in like 97 but the few people who were doing it were so enthusiastic it just nauseated like it's like veganism yeah like they turn you make you want to eat meat come roll with us i'm like i don't know what you guys are doing it's very questionably gay at best from the outside i don't like how much you like it because you like it that much i'm out and then i look back i'm like oh i started in 96 yeah not me i guess i took uh yeah it was 95 or 96 it was right after ufc 2 came out on video So UFC 2 was – 93 was the UFC.

1:37:38I found out about UFC in like – I didn't find out about it in 93. I found out about a year later. And it wasn't available. UFC 1 was not available on VHS. I had to get UFC 2. And I found out about it from somebody at the kickboxing gym that I was going to. He was like, you've got to see this. And I was like, what is this? I was like, oh, my God, they did it. Because there was always this thing when I was a martial artist when I was young. Like, what's better, judo, karate? And no one knew. And then there was like the Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kumite movies where you meet and all the styles come together and you find out what's best.

1:38:12But when I first saw UFC 2, I was like, oh, my God, they did it. And then I was like, oh, my God, I don't know that. This one guy is killing everybody. There's a lot of people that were saying that in those single-digit ones. Oh, my God. So then what number UFC did you first commentate at? UFC 12. Damn, dude. That's a pretty quick – well, they probably were doing less frequently as well. That's a pretty quick flash to bang. Seeing it on a VHS. That was 97. So by 97, I guess I was 30. Yeah. I guess I was 30, somewhere around there. So that was the first UFC. I was already training at that time.

1:38:49I was training at Carlson Gracie's with Vitor Belfort. Vitor Belfort was there. Marillo Bustamante was there. It was amazing. Just stumbled upon that place. I actually went to Hickson's first, but I was so ignorant. I thought Carlson Gracie, Hickson Gracie. I thought it was the same. And Hickson was further away and Carlson's was closer. I was like, oh, I found a closer Gracie jujitsu. I'll go here. And then it was also at the time where extreme fighting was out, which was John Peretti, who was one of the commentators for the early UFC, was now doing this. And it was really good. Like Mario Sperry was fighting, Igor Zinoviev.

1:39:29And these guys a lot of these guys were from Carlson Gracie's so I saw the Carlson Gracie the two Bulldog logos Which is fucking dope and then I found out that it was on Hawthorne Street in LA Which is like really close to the comedy store. I was like, oh, this is perfect because I was living in North Hollywood I'll just drive there was much efficiency. Yeah, it was much closer But I just I got there at literally the perfect time because it was right before Vitor was making his UFC debut which was UFC 12 which I commentated at so I was literally training at the same school as Vitor so I knew what to expect I'm like these guys don't know what the fuck this guy's doing like this is this because everybody thought he was just a jiu-jitsu guy yeah and meanwhile he had lightning hands and you know it was a slimmer Vitor he was only like 200 pounds back then just moved like a fucking panther and I got to see this sport just sort of emerging where really it was becoming something completely different.

1:40:27Like at first it was just a bunch of people that didn't know anything. And, you know, there was or they didn't know anything about mixed martial arts. They either know judo or they know karate. And then there was hoist and hoist is just tapping everybody. And everybody's like, oh, my God, jujitsu is the way. And then when I went to Carlson's, I was like, jujitsu is kind of the way. But look at this guy. Like you got to take that guy to the ground. And that guy's hands are like a fucking professional boxer's. This is crazy. Yeah. Jujitsu is awesome. It's not complete. No. You can have a nice black belt and end up in an ambulance if you can't get through a striking range.

1:41:00Well, not only that, there's a lot of guys that were really reliant upon the gi back then, unfortunately. Because this is all you've got to realize. This is all before Abu Dhabi, right? So this is before Abu Dhabi Combat Club came out, which was an amazing organization that paid real money to grapplers to compete but made them compete without a gi, which was like for a lot of guys, they didn't know what to do. They're so used to grabbing sleeves and grabbing collars and grabbing pants. And the one guy who had figured it out was my eventual instructor, Jean-Jacques Machado, because Jean-Jacques was born with essentially one hand.

1:41:37His left hand is just a thumb. He just has a thumb. He had a birth defect. And because of that, his game was all overhooks and underhooks and gable grips, which was he wasn't relying on collars and all this other stuff. So his game was very different. and he just dominated in Abu Dhabi. And that opened up the door to Eddie Bravo. So Eddie Bravo, he learned a lot of his techniques from Jean-Jacques as well. And a lot of his style was based around Jean-Jacques principles, which is don't rely on the gi because you don't always have the gi. It's a good tool to use if you have it. If you're fighting a guy who's got a winter coat on, it's awesome.

1:42:13Like the last thing you want to do is fight a judo guy if you're wearing a winter coat. So not optimal for how your head's going to feel when it hits the concrete? and you ain't gonna be able to do shit to stop that i remember i asked you early on i think we had linked up when i was actually it was right at the beginning of covid i was a white belt and i asked you how you train and manage uh grip stuff and you gave me a piece of advice that i still have i still utilize and you said whether you have a gi on or don't have a gi on just focus on taking no gi grips i was like son of a bitch yeah that's what i always did yeah the only gi technique that I really love is the clock choke.

1:42:49You know, when you get a deep grip on the collar and you funnel that left arm underneath and spin, oh my god, that's instant death. That clock choke is so nasty. I prefer the cross collar. That's great too. It's available for more areas. Oh, for sure. Just pop that head right off. Cross collar is nasty. There's a lot of great, great Gi techniques that are super effective if someone's wearing clothes. I mean, you'd be amazed at how durable t-shirts are. You know, you could really choke the fuck out of someone with a t-shirt on. So, Henner has a video where he'll get the first hand in. He's got him in clothes guard.

1:43:28He reaches over and he grabs the bottom of the shirt, pulls it all the way up, and then wraps that around. Oh, yeah. It's got to feel like a garrotte water. Yeah. Horrible. Yeah. Horrible. And especially if they're wearing, like, a strong shirt, like a flannel shirt or something like that, something you can really grab. Yeah. Yeah. But that was John Jacques' style. His style was use no-gi grips even with the gi. So for me, it made me concentrate more on defense because you couldn't pull out of things as easily. Yeah. But I never felt lost going into no-gi. So I would go back and forth all the time.

1:44:05So, you know, I got my black belt from Eddie first, but I got my black belt from Jean Jacques right after that because I was training at both places. That was also a beautiful thing about Eddie being Jean-Jacques student and them having a very close relationship. It never felt like you were a trader, that you left schools, because I never really left schools. I trained at both places. I always trained at Jean-Jacques, and I always trained at Eddie's. You weren't a crionche? Yeah. Is that what they call it? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So that was very nice that they had that amazing relationship where there was no static at all.

1:44:37It was like I would go to see Jean-Jacques. I'd go train there a couple days a week. I trained at Eddie's a couple days a week. It was awesome. Yeah, if I had a time machine and if my younger self would listen to me, which I don't think I would, I would say two things. One, buy Bitcoin, obviously. And two, maybe get into Jiu-Jitsu a little bit earlier. Yeah. But I think what you did was pretty impressive because you got through it very quickly. Like I remember you first started training and, you know, you got a black belt in like what, four years, five years? Five and a half. That's amazing. That's quick.

1:45:09Well, I think it depends on how you view the time. So I think the standard 10-year window is usually somebody who trains about an hour a day or two hours a day twice a week. I had the ability where I was living, I could train 10 times a week for as long as I want to, right? So the math is still math at the end of the day. Right, but that's still very hard on the body at 40 years old. It's very hard on the body. Vitamin I, also known as ibuprofen, comes into the training model. That shit's terrible for you. Yeah, but it makes you feel better. It's so bad for you, though. It's so bad for your gut.

1:45:42I will say this. One thing about my previous job is it teaches you how to learn. It rewards your ability to be coachable. Be coachable. And people ask me, how can you be a good student? Just in general, I'm like, listen, how about this? Do what your instructor says and nothing more. If they say, put your hand here, and you ask them, do you mean always put it there? And they say, yes, just put your hand there. Yeah. If you want to. And the internet's an amazing thing, right? and there's a bunch of ability to go out and look for techniques and stuff. But I can't think of anything more disrespectful to a coach to be told something and then you are offering them something that you saw on Instagram while they're trying to teach you.

1:46:20Like that's how that relationship is going to end up breaking. If you really want to accelerate your learning and honor your coach actually, focus on what they are trying to tell you to do. Do only that and no more until you have that mastered and then you can move on top of that. Absolutely. That's great advice. Yeah, you have to just listen. You have to listen and never question. And then if you – unless you have a bad coach, then just get a good coach. That's the solution to that. Which in this era, you have choices. The era that you were starting in, there weren't as many choices. Right. Yeah.

1:46:50Well, I realized that when I went to Jean Jacques' place that there's levels in teaching. And, you know, obviously Hickson's school was very high level and Carlson's was too. But Carlson's went under pretty quickly. They weren't around that long. But then when I went to Jean Jacques' I was like, okay, this is a completely different level. Like Jean-Jacques is so detail-oriented. I was also very lucky that I started doing Taekwondo when I was a child so that I always listened. And the traditional martial arts environment, there's no room for questioning. They don't allow any questions. And I was also very lucky that the school that I started at was one of the best schools in the world.

1:47:30I just got lucky. I found this Jae-Hoon Kim Taekwondo Institute in Boston. just happened to have multiple national champions, like really elite competitors. And so I never questioned. I always did. And I never did anything half-assed. I always did it exactly. That's how you develop the right technique. Yeah. You have to. Well, it's how you accelerate learning too. I mean, because again, people ask me about my old job. Like, well, how do you guys do all this stuff that you do? Well, you learn it a piece at a time. And honestly, it's the mastery of fundamentals. Even at that. I think what I determined the most when my coach gave me my black belt was that I don't know a goddamn thing about jiu-jitsu.

1:48:13And I can't keep up with all the flashy, sporty stuff. But the better fundamentals get, the better you can tolerate a lot of that stuff. It's just the mastery of the fundamentals is just so essential. Well, some of the elite guys of all time never did any of the flashy stuff like Hickson. Hickson was just the fundamentals honed to a razor-sharp edge. You don't see Hickson doing some stuff. You're like, oh, I've never seen that before. It's all triangles, arm bars, renegade choke, and just done to perfection. Done in a way that black belts can't stop it. No, I've heard stories of him lining black belts up, telling them what he is going to catch them with.

1:48:51Yep. And then having like 10 of them watch him catch everybody before them with the same thing and them having absolutely no ability to stop it. Yep. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Well, that's Gordon Ryan, too. Gordon Ryan, one of the things that Gordon did, I was there when he did it. One of the times he did it. He did it multiple times. He would write down on a piece of paper how he was going to submit his opponent and seal it in an envelope. And before the match started, he would walk over to the commentators and say, open this when it's over. And then, you know, you would see him catch somebody in a triangle.

1:49:23And then he would open up the envelope and it showed a triangle. And he had multiple opportunities to catch someone in different things. He's like, no, no, no. See, I could do that too, but it would be what I'm going to get caught with. Here's the most likely thing that I'm going to mess up and get caught with. Well, that's the thing about starting when you're 40 versus starting when you're 12 or whatever it is. It's like you're only going to be able to get to a certain height. Well, also, I recognize that I'm an aggressive hobbyist. I have competed twice only because my wife was coaching at tournaments.

1:49:55I was like, well, I'll go spend time with you. So here we are. I think once when I was a white belt and once when I was a purple belt Like that's it I don't care about the competition Shockingly enough I'm not looking to have a violent confrontation With anyone ever Totally have filled my cup up With that one probably has spilled over a little bit From time to time like I just do it because I really like the community I like the fact you can't master it So you can keep your brain young with your body young Or young as young as possible And yeah it's just fun It's really fun it's so addictive Which is, to me, was the problem with injuries was that I would always find, I'd go, I'll work around it.

1:50:33And I'd just go in with injuries. And then they get aggravated to the point where, you know, I remember one time my fingers were getting numb. Because my neck was so fucked up that my fingers were numb. And then I'm like, okay, I've got to do something. Was this from you head and arm choking people? It was a lot of that. Yep. I remember you telling me your affinities. You're like, you've really got to just drive your head. You've got to use your neck. And also not tapping. Yeah. Not tapping to certain neck cranks and different things that fuck your neck up. Neck cranks are very real. Yeah. I also didn't work my neck enough back then.

1:51:05I didn't have an iron neck at that machine. Do you still use that thing? Oh, yeah. I fucking love that thing. Is it forward and back and turn or all those things? Yeah. So it's a halo. You sit it on your chest. You pump it up like the Reebok pump. And then the chin strap, you tighten that bitch down. And you can adjust the tension that's required to spin it. And it has this giant bungee cord on it. And so the bungee cord is like 50 pounds of resistance, so you back up with the bungee cord until it's like fully taut. And then you go like this.

1:51:36I swear by that thing. All right. It keeps your neck strong as fuck. And I don't have any neck problems anymore, and I had a lot of fucking neck problems. So the thing that saved me, though, was Regenikine, which is like this PRP, platelet-rich plasma to the next level. that this this treatment that a lot of guys were having to go to germany to get in the early days they would go like i remember kobe bryant went to germany i think peyton manning went a bunch of guys had to go to germany to get this treatment and it's like they take your blood and through some process i forget exactly how they do it it makes this fluid that is like this radically inflammation fighting fluid and um they injected it into my neck and it cured my bulging discs and all my numbness went away and i got to start training again once i got back but again i didn't have a fucking iron neck back then if i had that machine back then i think i could have avoided a lot of the problems yeah like a lot of the problems that people have with lower backs i firmly believe it's a lack of building tissue and strength and mobility around your lower back And I do a lot of lower back exercises too.

1:52:49I do a lot of rotation exercises and a lot of like reverse hypers, like that machine. That machine's awesome. Oh, I did that today. That fucking keeps your back so strong and healthy and it decompresses at the same time that it strengthens. And, you know, so many guys just go into the class. That's their workout. Their only workout is training. And those guys are always hurt. They're always getting hurt. I think strength training and mobility training is essential if you want to have longevity in jiu-jitsu. I really think that. I would agree. Yeah. Yeah, for the first couple years, it was a workout in and of itself, and I finally have started.

1:53:24I think I'm done with barbells just because I've never seen a linear object equally loaded in real life outside of a gym. There's some things with barbells, though, like Olympic-style stuff, like cleans. I can get all those kettlebells, though, too. You can. Zurchers, though. Zurchers are only available with a barbell. I think Zurchers are very, very important. I think that's a big one. I'm willing to accept. Jefferson squats. There's a bunch of different things, but Zurchers in particular are really good for grappling. Yeah. Because you've got that barbell that you're holding inside the crook of your elbow.

1:54:01Couldn't you use a sandbag? You could. Yeah. You definitely could. Yeah. I love goblet squats. Yeah. Goblet squats are phenomenal for that. Yeah, they'll tear you up for sure. Especially on a slant board. You know, when you're holding like a 90-pound kettlebell and you're doing those deep squats where it's knees over toes on a slant board. Your whole core is just so activated. I think that's phenomenal for just strength and stability. But I agree. I think kettlebells are the best. I think it's the best also because there's so many different things you can do with them in terms of there's rotational exercise.

1:54:38sizes I do where I pick it down on this side and I swing and clean it and I press it on that side, let it swing down. And I do those things where you lie on your back with your butt, with your legs up in the air, and you do those twists where you take the kettlebell and put it each side. You can absolutely demolish yourself with a single kettlebell. Yeah. Which is kind of awesome, especially where I live to traveling with a truck. Like, okay, put one of these bad boys in there 100 % all the excuses are going I had a bowling bag that I would carry a 50 pound kettlebell with me on the road I just put in a bowling bag because it fits in a bowling ball bag all right people are gonna look at you a little awkwardly but I'm here for it but if you have a 50 pound weight limit if you check in luggage like they go whatever works for you yeah I appreciate the enthusiasm for working out on the road well back then the thing was you would never find them in a gym and now they're in most gyms it's tough not to find them now in a gym yeah hotel gyms is like why do you have a 1.5 kilo kettlebell like is this is for children like what the fuck the little micro ones like okay some people like to pretend they're working out sometimes that's me just go through the motions yeah yeah they're good for wrists too wrist curls you know you take a kettlebell and you uh like reverse it or you have it this way and you do these like put your forearms on a bench oh yeah and you hold the handle in your hands and you just let your wrist curls like because it puts you in this like weird angle it really strengthens your forearms and your wrists there's so many things you could do with those things that things that aren't sexy like turkish get-ups phenomenal for you so good for stability and core just overall body control yeah i need it now crouching towards 50 still enjoying jujitsu yeah yeah you need a little bit.

1:56:30Do you definitely need something? Are you taking any peptides or any of that stuff? I played around with peptides. Finally, two years ago, I got my endocrine system checked, my hormones checked. Oh, man. It was a nice little, it was like a little gauge that had red zone, yellow, green. Upon first looking at this chart, I assumed that my life was going to end in about 36 hours. What was your number? Oh, fuck. Two something. Oh Jesus I had never had it checked That's crazy I didn't feel awesome But I also There are people who played around With an immense amount of performance enhancing materials In my previous job Which live your life however you want to Just understand maybe the long term tale And the consequences of the choice you want to make I wanted to avoid that for as long as possible Because as you know Once you kind of go on that train It's a lifelong journey But once I finally saw that piece of paper I'm like oh boy I bet you could attribute that to the volume of your training.

1:57:32That's also part of the problem is if you're training 10 times a week, you're probably in a constant state of overtraining. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Probably for the vast majority of my life, that's been the state that I operated in, if I'm being honest. I mean, the answer was always just more. Like, if you want to get better, do more. Right. You want to be stronger, go harder. Go harder and do more. I'm like, okay. It took me about – so I started taking TRT about two years ago. I am just now finally slowly dialing it into where I feel a difference. Recovery is better. But also, I mean, I try to set realistic expectations for who I am and what I'm trying to do.

1:58:08Like I'm just I want to have the healthiest lifespan that I can. Yes. I'd rather live to 80 and be doing awesome stuff to 80 than live to 90 and spend the last 10 years eating Jell-O in a nursing home. Right. So that's what I'm going for. You could do – as long as you're smart with your training and you don't get catastrophic injuries, you could be very physically fit deep into your 60s and 70s. That's the goal. Which is nuts. This is nuts. And that's – I mean, I don't know. Nobody knows how much time we have and how long your lap is going to be. My goal is just to fill it up with awesome experiences between here and whenever that is.

1:58:43Here, here. Just stay in that fucking flying squirrel suit, will you? You know, Cam just said the same thing to me. And if enough people keep saying that, I'll put that fucking thing back on just to piss you guys off. It's kind of amazing that you're still here. You've done that so many times. I mean, you broke the world record at one point in time. I did, yes. How many miles was that that you flew? It's like 18.2, something like that. With a flying squirrel suit. To me, it was very reasonable. You know, the things that I do that I think are reasonable, oftentimes in my life, people will pull me aside and be like, hey, man, what the fuck?

1:59:16Yeah, that doesn't seem at all reasonable. Well, you're only seeing that one video. I had been skydiving for like 16 years at that point, you know? And, you know, something like when I would go over to, I remember I'd go over to Switzerland and I would do a flight in the wingsuit and get, you know, you're like, you're playing tag with your shadow on a steep cliff and I would send it to you. And one day you were like, I just had to throw my phone across the room watching this because it was giving you anxiety. So then I'm like, clearly I'm sending you more of these videos for sure. Right. Because now I got the hooky.

1:59:47I threw my foot into a couch. So I was like, fuck this. What are you doing, Andy? But that was like one of many jumps in this, like the months of training leading up to that. I'm not going to sit here and say it's safe. I do think you can do it as safely as possible. And I don't have a higher risk threshold than other people do. I spend an immense amount of time at everything that I do looking at the risk and trying to manage it, analyze it, mitigate it as much as possible. And then you look at what's left. to me that activity provided me enough enrichment in my life that it was worth it i haven't put the suit on in five or six years but i swear god if i get one more person telling me not to do it i'm gonna go back and just start sending you videos again all right well i promise i won't be that guy that tells you that no but honestly at this point again talking about risk it's not worth it i don't live in a place where i can stay because your currency in that suit comes from the skydiving world where you can jump it multiple times a day.

2:00:43In the base jumping world, there's no altimeter. You're just camera one, camera two. At about a buck 20. Face first. So yeah, if you misjudge a tree or a cliff. It's probably fun as fuck though while it's happening. I don't know how to describe what it feels like doing 120 miles an hour, face first, a few feet off the ground. Probably like the... What is it in the Olympics? The skeleton? How close do you get off the ground? what's the closest probably not intentionally the closest was probably somewhere right around the three foot range 120 miles an hour so three foot is like one two Like that.

2:01:22Yeah. Jesus, dude. Yeah. That's insane. You don't do that for very long. And if you do, like some of those jumps in Switzerland, like you would hike for hours. And there's this one jump. It's actually one of the ones I sent you from. It's insane. You're just looking out into like this picture storybook of like where the Kabul giant or whatever he was would live. Kandahar. Kandahar giant. I think it's real. I hope it is real. I deeply, it's such a deep part of me hopes that it's real, but you're looking out at that as you're zipping up your ridiculous nylon suit and checking to make sure everything is there.

2:02:00And then you just rock forward. And at some point you rock to a place where you can't go back the other direction and you send it in the first few seconds, because you have no airspeed, the suit doesn't fly. So you're just falling and then it takes off. And it's just these right hand turns and right hand turns. And there are small sections where the angle is correct and you can and kind of connect with the train and then get away from it and connect. The people who are able to survive it are not the ones that are flying three feet off the ground all the time. It's very, very short periods of time on jumps that they have practiced many, many times, and they slowly, incrementally work their way down there.

2:02:34Because, again, a mistake in that environment is you're going to impact an object headfirst at 120. I remember the video that scared me the most was a bridge where the guy was trying to fly through. You know the video. Yeah, I do. Oh yeah, there you go. Is this Andy? Oh yeah. Oh, look at this. Oh, I love this little grass field over here. I think my head turns to the right because there was two dudes up here. I was looking at them. God, that is beautiful. Oh, I'm telling you, it's insane. This is the Field of Joy. Wow. That's the shadow in the lower right, but that's probably, I don't know, that's probably 10 feet off.

2:03:05God, that is fucking pretty. Yeah. That has got to be nuts. I mean, there's not a ride at Disneyland that can fuck with this. Oh, absolutely not. Wow. Have you ever done one of those ones where you strap a jetpack? No, but I like where your head's at. Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about. You remember there was a guy that was, like, getting in trouble because they kept finding this guy flying a wingsuit. He was flying a jetpack wingsuit, and they were trying to, like, locate the guy who was doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was getting, like, they were looking for him because they kept spotting him.

2:03:44Where was that, Jamie? Do you remember? We talked about it on the show once. I feel like this is like a combination of stories. No, no, no. Secret jetpack man? Yeah, some guy had a jetpack, and he was flying around where he wasn't supposed to be. Yeah, so these guys are in Dubai. Unfortunately. Wow, that's nuts. I found the guy. This was just a video. I thought it would have been him. But that one's nuts. That's an actual wingsuit. Like a plain wing. And they got to the place where they could take this off from standing on the ground, Joe. Unfortunately, one of the innovators in that ended up dying.

2:04:14There is an altitude in airspeed where if you have an issue, you're not going to be able to deploy your parachute to save you. And he had an issue at that altitude. Jeez. But, yeah, who would have ever. That guy is up there with a plane. Show me that again, please. Oh. Yeah. That is insane. Would you ever do that? I don't want to say would I. I mean, there's a time and a place where I would do a lot of things. Because I would 100 % would do that. I bet you would. Now, does that guy have an engine on that thing? Yeah, there's little microjet engines. You can see them. How much fuel? That's a good question.

2:04:52Like I said, they had gotten to a place where they could stand. So that wing kind of conforms around their skydiving parachute. I think there's four little jet engines. They got to a place where they were standing, cracking those things off and going vertical and then transitioning to the plate. Yes. And then I think landing them too. Landing them with the engine somehow? Did they rotate? I mean, they are wearing a parachute. You know what? Maybe I might be misspeaking on that, but I know that they were taking off from a no airspeed standing there and just. That's nuts. Well, that's also, like I said, how one of the innovators died.

2:05:29It was in that phase, like a low altitude, low airspeed phase where nothing's really going to. I remember I did morning. What is this? Oh, yeah. These are the jetpack racers. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. I've seen that, too. This is real, by the way. Right. Is it? because it kind of looks fake. No, those are real, for sure. They actually have, there's a league, Jamie, of guys who race these things. How do we get them? That's a good question. Yeah, add to cart on Amazon for sure. How fast do you think these guys are going with these things? Whoa, and they could just land? Oh, that's wild. They could just fly to work.

2:06:00Bro, you have to have some fucking shoulder strength to do that. I mean, I love how they're trying to show like this has, oh, look, incredible military application. Like, let's take it easy, okay? It's got to be quiet, right? Just, oh. Super quiet. Is there some support for your shoulders in there? It's not like you're doing a constant dip. I don't. Well, I think that the jet pack, so on his backpack, I believe that's putting some thrust out too. The hands are as well. So it's the combination of the three. Because, like, how long can you hold a dip position? I don't know. Yeah, so here's the league.

2:06:34Look at these crazy. Yeah, the backpack itself. Oh, getting fancy. Oh, that's crazy. But the ground's pushing back up on you on that situation. You know? Bummer. If you're doing a dip, yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, that's true. It wouldn't be that easy. You still have to... I feel like the backpack is doing the majority of it. Like the Iron Man little hand things, I feel like that's just the stabilization. It doesn't seem that heavy. Oh, so the backpack is doing the most of it and the other things are just steering you a little... Yeah, you've got to smooth his arm around pretty easily.

2:07:02I think so. Right. I have exactly zero seconds in one of these things, so this is me talking out of my ass. If there was enough lives, if you had multiple lives, I would do a lot of different things. That looks so fun. It does. Jamie, what could you put? Look at this guy's going up the mountain. Where's the parachute? Oh, no, there is no parachute. Suck in the box, too. No, there's no parachute. That's why you want to stay five feet off the ground. Look at this. Yeah. This dude is flying to the top of this fucking cliff with that thing. Oh, that's bonkers. We're sure this is like to save people or something.

2:07:33No, it's for fun. I agree with Joe more on that one. What do you think? How much time do you get in one of those until you run out of fuel? I don't know. Time enough to fill a motivational video like this. To me, I'd be like... Gravity Industries. This is the company. I would be reverse engineering. Like, where is this in my Amazon cart? How do I possibly make enough money to have these sent to my house immediately? What do you think one of those costs? My guess would be six figures. So, professional. Shop. Entertainment. Shop. Yes, Jamie. Oh, click on that, bitch. Let's go. Suit up. Suit me up, motherfucker.

2:08:09Hold on. Let's go. Give me my credit card. Let's guess. Let's guess. 50 grand? We need men. 100 grand? I'm going to say six figures. Oh, they fooled us. You sons of bitches. Oh, clothes? You can only buy clothes? Oh, you can't buy the thing on the website. Why can't you buy the fucking thing? Let's see. Well, how much does the thing cost? Somebody must be able to buy it. 2 ,400 pounds for an experience. For half a day. So that's just to fly it. 1 ,000 horsepower, 1050 horsepower gravity jet suit. Whoa. So it's the same horsepower as a ZR1 Corvette. And it's on your back. Look at this. Yeah. First off, take that safety line off.

2:08:50Let's let people live their real life. That guy needs a safety line. Look at his neck. Let me search. Yeah, let's search the price. So you think six figures. I would probably say that's probably accurate, especially when I saw it as 1 ,000 horsepower. Here's a better question. Are you willing to spend six figures to acquire one of those? I'm going to go in the hard yes category for myself. I'm not saying I got six figures laying around. I'm saying I will start a new career. Oh, no. That's not a good face, Jamie. It is in the six figures. Six? But it's not the low. It's not the edge of six figures.

2:09:25Six hundred? Yeah, roughly. That'd get one. $600 ,000? It says$440 ,000. Whoa. Is that in U.S. dollars? Yeah, yes. Depending on configuration and stuff, too. Okay, what if you get it maxed? Well, it's not giving me options. I just kind of searched around. I think we're just going to get closer to the seven-figure number if we do that. They probably don't have to advertise how much it costs. Does it say how long you can stay in the air in that thing?

2:09:53Let's guess. I want to say 30 minutes. I was going to guess under 10. Wow. Well, I remember when I saw, I went on a radio station once, and they had a guy who, what is it? One minute. One to four minutes. One to four, that's it? So what are they doing when they're flying up to that mountain? Five to ten if you are doing it carefully. Well, how the fuck do they get all the way to the mountain? How do they get down? We only saw a five-second clip. Is there a gallon of gas up there at the top of that fucking mountain? I'm way less enthusiastic about this purchase now. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah. $450 ,000 for a minute.

2:10:27But what makes me enthusiastic is that they're going to innovate and evolve this. Oh, yeah. And then one day. It'll be nuclear-powered. Let's not get crazy. It'll be, yeah, it'll be cold fusion. It'll be an Iron Man machine. I mean I feel like we could do better things with that technology before the jet suit but I'm totally in on the jet suit get an Iron Man suit like that's Iron Man right the hands that's how you fly I mean that's kind of what they look like yeah yeah like it would come out of his feet and it would come out of his hands um I did a radio station once in Denver and they had a guy who did a jet pack thing in a parking lot it was like a morning radio back in the day and And this guy, I think it could only last for 30 seconds.

2:11:07And this guy, he had two knee braces on because he had blown out both of his ACLs, just landing and destroying his knees. But it was crazy to watch. It was crazy to watch. This guy took off and he flew around. But it was only for a few seconds. I think it's like a 30-second deal. After 30 seconds, it runs out of juice. I'm glad there are people like that out there. I appreciate their enthusiasm. There's always going to be, right? Yeah. There's always going to be someone. That's a very brief description of what it has in there. A lot of jazz. Honestly, it is like what you were talking about. So the hands, like the Iron Man position.

2:11:39So the back has a majority of the thrust. Right. Yeah. I bet it heats your ass up, something fierce. Yeah, up to 56 miles per hour. Interesting. 95 kilos. You can use jet fuel. I wonder how much faster you go with jet fuel. Well, what does it normally use? It says diesel or jet fuel. Or jet fuel. Diesel or jet fuel. That's weird. They're not that far off. Or kerosene. But isn't that weird that one engine can burn those different types of fuel? That seems unusual. That's probably the configuration part where... Oh, I see. Right, right, right. Like if you want a top-line one, you get jet fuel. Plaid version.

2:12:10Yeah. All right. Go get one. God, I want one of those. I'll take one. Let's try it. Yeah. But is there legitimate military applications for something like that? I can't really think of one. Because it showed guys in fatigues that are landing on an aircraft carrier. I could show you videos of guys in fatigues that end up banging each other. So it doesn't necessarily mean that. Right? Is there a military application for that? Let's just say that would be far fringe. I'm just saying the fatigues doesn't necessarily the qualifier of it being, you know, good utilization for the military. So we only briefly touched on this Kandahar giant story.

2:12:50But were you ever in Kandahar? Yeah. I stand in the south of Afghanistan. How remote is it? I mean, there's a large city there, town city. I don't know the difference between the two. It's relatively built up. As far as southern Afghanistan, it's going to be, you know, Kabul up north. Kandahar is a little bit down south. Kabul in the north, you're going to start looking at the exterior range of the Hindu Kush. Kandahar still has some topography, but you're looking at more of like a high desert terrain. And so there's caves and things along those lines? This is the idea that this thing lived in a cave.

2:13:24Yeah. I mean, so, yeah, there is topography that is there for sure. Possible? I don't know. Well, the reason why people entertain this idea of giants at all is all a lot of it's biblical. It's like stories from the Bible. And then also stories from ancient civilizations that talked about red-haired giants, which is the weird thing about this thing, had red hair. Like the Native Americans had tales of red-haired giants that they fought off. Like there's a lot of people that believe that all these stories from antiquity about giants are all referring to an actual different race of humans. You know, like we are one race of humans, the Homo sapiens survived.

2:14:10But then there's also races of humans that didn't survive. Like the Hobbit people from the island of Flores that they found out there was a branch of the human species that was like three feet tall, covered in hair, real tiny heads. Weird, but had tools and had weapons. I think some of that stuff's real. I think sometimes, though, the stories, they're intentionally nesting a greater message through the vehicle of that story. So whether it's like accurate or not, it's more about the story that they are telling. And I'm not saying like the Kandahar giant has some story associated with it, but some of the older, like the civilizations and the stories that they tell, I think it's just a vehicle that they can nest something in there to create deeper thought, if that makes sense.

2:14:58It's what I see you guys doing is comedians. I've talked about this recently. It is interesting to me and I never paid attention to it, but I know he's a good friend of yours, Dave Chappelle. I launched his last special. the ability for comedians to nest inside of your set pretty impactful and powerful like societal conversations and ideas and get people to laugh about it but even when they're done laughing about it they're going to be thinking about it when they're driving home it's just the vehicle to get people thinking about stuff well in terms of comedy i agree and dave is one of the best of all time if not the best at doing that but what kind of a nesting would you well you're talking about giants.

2:15:40It depends on the morals and ethos of that society. If they want to be a warrior society, you have to have something that you're constantly fighting or protecting yourself against. Whether that's real or you are nesting the morality of your society in that story, both could achieve the same end state. If there really was a giant and they really did kill this thing and then brought it back secretly, what would be the purpose of that? Why wouldn't they... That's where I go. What would be the purpose of hiding the fact that this thing existed? I don't see why the government would hide the discovery of a giant.

2:16:13Like what military reason, what national security reason would you have for hiding that this thing existed? At some level of objective skepticism and criticism or looking into these stories, you get to that point of like who's benefiting from this and why? Why would anybody actually go out of their way to put this much effort into obscure something like that? Yeah, that's how I feel about giants. But when it comes to UFOs, it makes more sense to me. Because then you have something that's insanely advanced, much more advanced than us. And so I had this guy Hal Puthoff on my show. He's a physicist, very brilliant guy.

2:16:57And he's been around forever. And during, was George W. or Herbert Walker? one of the bushes um they brought him and a team of specialists in and they said we are contemplating disclosure and that we have not just required not just acquired crashed vehicles that are of non-human origin but also we have biological remains of these creatures We want you to write down pros and cons of the impact of these things and put a numerical value. Put a numerical value in terms of impact on government, impact on religion, impact on all these different things. And universally, all of them came out with more cons than pros.

2:17:49The numbers didn't line up and they made a decision to not disclose. This is according to this Hal Putoff guy. I could see that being the case. I could see that being the case, too, if it was true. The UFO thing, there's just too many stories for me to openly dismiss all of them. Even though I've had no experiences, there's too many stories. There's too much weirdness to it. How about just given the size of the known universe and the fact it keeps expanding, what is the mathematical odds that we are completely the only thing out there? Exactly. So this is like sort of the same argument that people used to use for Bigfoot.

2:18:25Like the wilderness is so vast. The Pacific Northwest is so dense. There could be something out there that we haven't documented. Well, the problem is now we kind of have. And now we kind of know that with all these camera traps and all these different things, it's very, very, very, very unlikely. that any of these stories are true. But when you get to the universe, it's like, come on, it's way more likely that we're not alone than we are alone. If we are alone, that's kind of insane. I mean, it's kind of incredible. If this is the only place where intelligent life is formed, I think if that's the case, we're missing something.

2:19:02We're missing something about the nature of consciousness. We're missing something about what consciousness actually is. Like, what is our actual role in the universe? It might be more complex than the we initially believe. I think disclosure that we aren't alone would have a net benefit to society globally. We spend a lot of time pecking back and forth at each other and fighting each other. If you got sat down and be like, listen, we have a global issue now that everybody is impacted by this. As much of the biggest swinging dick you think you are on this planet, guess what? You're nothing in comparison to this.

2:19:44I think it would have a net calming effect. Maybe not instantaneously, but overall, I think that that would be the net effect of it. Perhaps. The real problem is, like all things, someone's going to take advantage of it. But I think that if so, let's just say it is real. I think that's already happening. Like the U.S., if that's real, the U.S. is not the only country that has agreed not to disclose because it is to their benefit not to do so. Like these things, Russia has a crash program. I'm sure China does as well too. And I'm sure that everybody, to include the U.S., is trying to reverse engineer these things for our benefit as fast as humanly possible.

2:20:21Yeah. So. I think if that, if it is true, that is the case. And that's the Bob Lazar story. There's a great documentary that's out now called S4 that's about Bob Lazar. I had him on again for the second time. I don't want to believe him. I want to think he's a bullshit artist, but I believe him. There's something about one guy who's a clearly brilliant guy who's been telling the same story since 1988. Yeah. And like you said, a volume of other stories. Some of them I think you can completely write off. But other ones, pretty tough. from pretty credible people who aren't making claims like, hey, I sat down and had a beer with this thing, but I was in an aircraft that has a certain performance envelope, and we understand the performance envelope of what humans are able to fly at this point, and yeah, this thing did things that I don't understand.

2:21:14Sometimes the videos get, I mean, I was talking with, you know Bill Thompson, you just had him on. Sure. Love that dude. He is like, he's one of my favorite people. You got to be cautious how deep of a question you ask him. Right. Because he has national defense level autism at times. DEFCON 5. You're like, Bill, what's your favorite color? He's like, oh, what is color? Like, fuck, no, that's not what I meant. But we were having this conversation and his background is fascinating. What's even more fascinating is what he's done with his background and what he built with Spartan Forge with it. Yeah.

2:21:50And his ethics. Correct. But he was talking about some of the videos. He understands technological things and he can look at stuff and be like, that's the parallax of two moving objects and how a lens works. Not many people understand those things, to include myself many times when I'm talking with Mr. Bill. But, I mean, he – God, he's a national treasure. He really is. He is. That was one of the ones where I dipped into the comments on YouTube because I just wanted to know how people were going to react to him. Yeah. What did they say? Loved him. Loved him. as universal praise for how brilliant he is.

2:22:25And I'm like, there's only one way they're going to respond. I'm like, if you don't like this guy, you're listening to the wrong show. Have you seen what he's done with the app he created, Spartan Forge? It's incredible. It's an amazing app. It's 20-plus years of targeting and intelligence gathering packaged into something that's consumer-facing that if you're into hunting, holy shit. I know, and what kind of a super genius is going to get involved in a hunting app like that? Captain America of autism. I love you, Bill, but let's be honest. He's brilliant on another level. I remember the first conversation I had with him.

2:23:01I was like, oh, okay. There's people that you talk to. Whenever someone says, oh, Joe, you're so smart, I'm like, settle down. No, no, no. I'm smart compared to you. I'm smart compared to some people. But I know real smart people. yeah there is a stark difference a giant leap a chasm yeah a fucking an ocean to cross before you reach like levels like bill and or elon or some of these people that's just like the the amount of processing power they have yeah you know i have a honda civic brain and these motherfuckers have a corvette zr1 i usually go with i have an iq that you can find on a thermostat I'm not saying it's like the winter, but maybe it's a little bit close to a hot summer day.

2:23:52Now, what he is – I wish I had the ability to build stuff like that. Like I use that app to hunt, but most of the time I use it when I'm flying my helicopter around. Because it is like the terrain analysis, the ability to look at stuff, the LIDAR, the way that you can look through foliage. Again, I'm just – I'm deeply appreciative that people like that exist. And again, with the ethics that he has, he will not sell your fucking email. He's been offered a lot of money to sell all the, you know, that's the thing that companies do. You sign up for something. You use your email. Your email goes in the list.

2:24:22I'm sure have you ever opened up one of your email accounts and looked through the filters, like all the spam and promotional shit? It's like years and years of garbage. In addition to the email stuff, I know Bill has become a very good friend. He's been offered money to do a lot of things. And his morality has stayed true throughout. Which, and again, like those things are his to talk about if he ever wants to. But as somebody who knows him and appreciates that, I wish there were more people like that. Yes. It's just very difficult to become a guy like that. Yeah. It's a long road to be that guy.

2:24:56Yeah. I think because of what's going on in Iran, it would be good to talk to you about this because you're a guy who kind of understands things in terms of like geopolitics more than the average person. Listen, I can find Iran on a map, OK? That doesn't mean I understand geopolitics. I know. I know. You're very, you're humble. But my operational experience was at a low, meaning on like, so there's strategic war, operational war. But that's air I never was in the room for. I didn't breathe that air. I'm not having, I wasn't invited rightfully so to planning meetings where they were talking about the defense policy of the United States.

2:25:32Right. Or going into a country. I was down like, hey, we found this dude. We know where he's at. Go get him. We can't figure out how to go get him. Why don't you guys go give it a little look-see? That was the level that I operated at. Yeah. Well, one of the things that was discussed was sending a bunch of operators in to go retrieve depleted uranium. Yeah. Do you think they tried that? Oh, as part of the rescue? Yeah. There seems to be a lot of ships, a lot of crafts. Well, okay. So, yes. But, okay. So, we can unpack this one a little bit. So this is back to the F-15 weapons systems officer that ejected.

2:26:14That was a CSAR or combat search and rescue operation where they surged forward a lot of stuff. And then operation or the ghost murmur. Stop it right now. You stop it right now. You don't know what that is? I know. I know. Do you believe in that? Joe, I want it to be true. Right. Me too. I want them to be able to identify somebody from a heartbeat. From 40 miles away. From 40 miles away. if that technology existed and we're not using that on to help our own populace find people that are lost in the woods we're a bunch of fucking assholes right so like let's not maybe tell people what we're doing but you could have a specialist in a search and rescue helicopter that could maybe use that and be like oh we saw them in a field when you didn't actually see right so because that doesn't happen i think the it's plausible i don't it's possible i don't know if it's plausible that's how we felt me and jamie were both going uh so but then you can go old school which is sending in monkeys with machine guns, like what I used to do with a PJ or multiple PJs, pararescue jumpers, because those are the guys.

2:27:13This is the way I describe PJs. If you want to put a hole in something, JSOC guys are great at it. If you want to plug a hole, PJs are the guys that you want on top of you just stopping hydraulic fluid. They're medical, just absolute badasses. Nothing but immense respect for them. So the two cargo aircraft came in. They pulled the Little Birds out. I believe that there was four. that you could only fit probably, man, even if they were super light on fuel, probably three guys on each pod. So six guys per helicopter, 24 guys. Some of those are going to have to be PJs. I don't know if that's enough to go into a hardened facility in the daytime also, which is not when you would do that for retrieving depleted uranium.

2:27:53Because by the way, to do that, you're going to be in full protective equipment very likely, which you're going to be moving incredibly slow. So I just – I know it was – I know that geographically it was proximal to one of the locations that they thought that that was what was going on. I think it probably was a rescue of the weapon systems officer is my guess. And then they're like, well, we can't get the aircraft because they got stuck in the sand. I'm like, OK. The Little Birds don't have the fuel storage and ability to get across where they needed to go. So they had to bring in other aircraft and you don't want to leave that stuff.

2:28:26Right. So you got to detonate it. Yeah, they bip it or blow it in place. How many aircrafts did they lose? So what has been, I think, disclosed was the four MH-6s, which are the little birds that carry the people. The two aircraft that brought those in, I think there was some version of a C-130. And I think that was it as far as that operation. There might have been a Predator or a Reaper drone that was shot down. I think some A-10s were damaged. And then, of course, the F-15 that was ejected from. Wow. It's a lot. It's a lot of stuff. It is a lot of stuff, but the military asks people to do exceptional things, and it helps you if you know that they are going to send everything that they have to come and get you if something goes wrong.

2:29:09It has to mean something to be issued a flag on your chest, in my opinion at least. And as far as those operations go, there's basically two where you are going to absorb as the people responding an immense amount of risk. One of them is going to be a hostage rescue, which I was a part of. We talked about that on a previous episode, the Jessica Lynch rescue. the number of people we thought we might encounter was a way bigger number than the number of people that we could get there in the helicopters but you go anyway because of the chance of rescuing somebody combat search and rescue kind of the same thing maybe they're not it's not a hostage situation but it could be building towards that i mean maybe you don't have time to go at night which is when you have all the tactical and technological advantage right the night vision goggles right it's like hey we got to go now in the daytime we're going to level the technological playing field and you guys are going to go full back dive and get like, that's very high risk.

2:29:57Those are about the two times that you were going to accept that level of risk. And you go when you go. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. So the official story seems to track. It is more plausible to me than any of the other stories that I have heard. I would like to think that the ghost murmur, whatever it is, but then it's like, okay, I mean, walk in the dog on that one, did this guy have to sit down and, you know, get an EKG and have his heart wave, you know, HRV on file somewhere? Because how would you not pick up somebody else's heart rate? Right. How would you not pick up other animals or mammals that like, you know what I mean?

2:30:32So I want to believe, I think we'll probably get there. I don't think we're there yet. Was that an official story? No, that's a Twitter story. Are you sure? Well, I first saw it on Twitter, so. I did too. But I, well, someone sent it to me. I didn't actually actively seek it out. Somebody said it to me and I was like, wait, what? And then me and Jamie threw it around for a while. The internet is the best worst thing ever. It was getting spread around by New York Post and then the same article was getting repeated everywhere. Interesting. New York Post. Have it on the screen. Interesting. Ghost murmur.

2:31:08I mean, I would imagine, I bet you Lockheed Martin does have a program called Ghost Murmur. Long range quantum magnetometry. But I'm looking at articles. Diamond based sensors I think Iran was saying that We tried to do The snatching of the Uranium They foiled us So it's like Who knows what side of the story to believe That is part of the problem And you know you got your Fox News narrative And your MSNBC narrative And who fucking knows Yeah Separating the Bullshit in the modern era Yeah. Is more like an art form than a science. Yeah. It's it's very confusing and it's very disconcerting to just have no.

2:31:57And then also they can't tell you certain things. Like, why would the general public know about things that could affect negatively national security? Like, why? Why would they tell you? They can't tell you, which is also part of the problem with they're allowed to lie. They're allowed to use propaganda and misinformation on the American people in the interest of national security. So that's like— It would just be better. I would appreciate it more than like, listen, this is what we can tell you and then this beyond this is a matter of national security. So as much as you want to know, we can't tell you.

2:32:29Right. I'd prefer that over a BS story that gets—it's like a really sticky idea that then gets totally out of control. And then, you know, people have a three-piece tinfoil tuxedo one walking down Main Street. But it's just super weird that there might be something like ghost murmur. There might be something called quantum magnetometry with diamond sensors. I bet that's real. I bet it works out. I mean, they're probably testing it on mice. I mean, I'm sure that the concept is valid. Well, you gotcha. President Trump told the Post the CIA's secret new ghost murmur tool was very important to rescuing a downed airman inside Iran.

2:33:08as leading physicists and engineers debate how the futuristic technology said to detect heartbeats at great business might work. So I guess the post didn't make it up. They were turned by Trump. Wow. I don't know if everything he says is accurate. Just to throw that out there. Hey, who knows? Gets a little loose and fast sometimes with the details in reality. It's just crazy that that kind of technology is even being contemplated, that there might be a future where that exists. Oh, that makes total sense to me. So they can find you based on your heart rate. Well, they now know that they can use Wi-Fi in order to see 3D objects in motion in a house.

2:33:54Yeah, they can map. Yeah. I mean, again, I think Evan and I had an argument one time about radar and sonar. and we were both calling each other idiots and we both found out that we were wrong once we looked it up on the internet. So we'll say it's some version of that. God, we were both 100 % committed that we were correct and we were both wrong, which is classic. But yeah, like in this room, the things that are emanating, there's an ability for them to map that and determine, you know, maybe not who you are, but I bet you it gets to that point and where you are. And you want to talk about a tactically beneficial piece of information from somebody like my old job?

2:34:27Thank you very much. Yeah, I'll take that all day. as long as it stays out of the hands of the enemy. Yeah, but then they'll eventually get it and then you'll evolve and your tactics will change. And that's the game, man. It's just it gets to a point with technology where it's like, what is not possible 100 years from now? That's what's weird. We are in one of the strangest times ever in human history in terms of these quantum computers that can solve mathematical... Mark Andreessen explained it to me. I'm going to paraphrase it. I'll probably fuck it up. But he said that a quantum computer can solve an equation in a matter of minutes that if you converted the entire universe, every atom in the universe into a supercomputer, the universe would die of heat death before it could solve this problem.

2:35:19And a quantum computer on Earth can solve it in a matter of minutes. I don't even understand. I mean, honestly, like I understand every word that you just used. Right. But I don't understand what that means and what it is capable of. Right. Well, they think that it might be evidence of somehow or another evidence of multiple dimensions of a multiverse and that not only is this quantum computer operating in this universe, but in an infinite number of other universes simultaneously. I like the Doctor Strange movies. I'm in. Oh, the multiverse. I mean, to me, that might as well be a scientific documentary because that's my reference for the multiverse.

2:36:04Right. I guess we shouldn't even talk about it because we don't know what we're saying. It's never stopped me before. But it's one of those things where quantum computers are real. It's an actual real thing now. Google, specifically Hermut Nevin, who leads Google Quantum AIs, recently used language that strongly suggests their new quantum chip speed could be understood as borrowing computational power from other universes. But this is an interpretive, speculative way of talking about quantum mechanics, not an experimentally established fact or a standard claim. The claim comes from December 2024, a blog post about Google's Willow quantum chip.

2:36:46Nevin wrote that the chip solved a task in minutes that would take a classical supercomputer about 10 to the 25th power years, far longer than the age of the universe. Again, I understand every word you just used, but I don't understand what that means. Stop scrolling. Grow back up. He then said this lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes and that this aligns with the idea that we live in a multiverse explicitly referencing David Deutsch's many worlds argument for quantum computing. Yeah, right. We're too dumb to have this conversation. That's why we need to get Bill on speakerphone.

2:37:25Bill? Bill, explain this. Problem is he'd be like. Yeah. And then. And then the show would be five hours long. Well, and then I would also understand the words that he was using, but not in the combination and sequence that he would use them. Exactly. Exactly. I'm just appreciative that he exists. Yeah, I'm appreciative that there's people like that out there. Your book, Drownproof, I assume this is in normal language that a normal person like you and I could read and understand. Well, considering that I wrote it, we did not use a lot of multi-syllable words. A lot of ands and thus are in there.

2:37:58Well, I'm sure it's awesome. So, look, you got Jocko, Jack Carr, and me giving blurbs on the cover. So it's got to be good. So at some point, it doesn't have to be now, but I essentially wrote in the inscription, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, my life would not look the way it does had you and I not randomly met through Tate Fletcher. Like my post-military life would look completely different. And I have no ability to like pay you back for how gracious you've been with like your time and your platform. so it's a two way street because your your presence on my show has enriched my show it's made the show better for sure well my promise is that I will do the best I can to be a positive impact on the world around me I think that's the best way that I can try to pay you back and honestly it's the reason why I wrote that in the first place so well that's all I can do it's my pleasure and I try to do the exact same thing and shout out to my boy Tate Flesher I haven't seen that guy in forever he's the best I love him alright I love you too Thank you very much.

2:38:59Thanks for being here. And Drownproof, did you read the audiobook? I did. Yes. I love it. After that experience, let me tell you, voice actors, I struggle with it enough as the person who wrote the words. I can't even fathom what it would be like going in there blind and like, well, let's just figure this out as we go. Yeah. It's a tough gig. Yeah. There's a reason why they - Yeah. Jocker wrote and read the foreword. Nice. That was amazing. Beautiful. All right. That's it. Go get it, folks. It's out now. All right. Bye, everybody.

From the publisher

Andy Stumpf is a retired Navy SEAL, entrepreneur, record-holding wingsuiter, and host of “Cleared Hot” and “Change Agents.” His new book, “Drownproof: Eight Life Lessons to Keep Your Head Above Water,” is available now.https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250379610/drownproofwww.youtube.com/@ClearedHotPodcastwww.youtube.com/@thisisironcladwww.andystumpf.com

Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan.

Get 30% off + 2 free gifts at https://ARMRA.com/rogan

This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/JRE
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More from The Joe Rogan Experience

All 656 episodes
#2482 - Andy StumpfThe Joe Rogan Experience · 2 h 40 min
Listen in VO