#2508 - Joe Eszterhas

30:15Yeah, the last Hemp of the Christ, I don't remember. I remember there was some controversy around it, but I don't. I was too young to really be paying attention to, like, how— It was the very fact that Jesus had a relationship that was clearly indicated as being sexual with Mary Magdalene, who was depicted as a prostitute. Now, the truth, historical truth, is that Mary Magdalene was a few years older than Jesus and a woman of means who had advised Roman builders in a city called Seraphim. And then was one of the people who financed Jesus as he swept through Galilee and the rest of Judea. But there's another scene in the Bible where an unnamed woman goes to Jesus and washes his feet and then washes his feet with his hair.

31:16This unnamed woman by a pope in the 6th century, Gregory the Great, was picked up in Mary Magdalene. connection to Mary Magdalene. There's nothing that says that Mary Magdalene was a hooker of any kind. There's no proof for that in any way. So the fact that The Last Temptation of Christ did that and brought the two of them together in a sort of semi-love story without, of course, any real sexuality to it on film is why it was so criticized. But Scorsese's house was picketed. And I think the studio at that point was run by Lou Wasserman, whom I knew from Cleveland because he was a, he ran a racing wire in Cleveland before he went.

32:09But he was a legendary man. His house was picketed as well. At Plies.com, it's not just about window treatments. It's about you, your style, your space, your way. Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right. From free expert design help to our 100 % satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows. Shop up to 40 % off with minimum purchase and a free professional measure right now at Blinds.com. Plus, pay at your own pace starting at 0 % APR with Affirm. Terms apply. So was it just Catholic people and Christian people that were upset about this?

32:49Mostly, yeah. But it was very unusual for a Martin Scorsese film to be a religious film, too. Absolutely. Like a depiction of Jesus. People were much more averse back then. I feel like sometimes religion goes in peaks and waves. And I think there was a wave of atheism back then, and Hollywood was very non-Christian, to put it mildly. Yes. The Christian themes in films were never promoted. Yeah, it was absolutely right. It's not as bad now in that sense as it was in those days. And I think that part of it, what frustrates me is that there would be an openness to that and to Christian films if they were real, if they weren't full of incense and piety.

33:42Right. What we've done to Jesus over the years is make him a kind of Fred Rogers figure. He wasn't that. I'm not even sure that Jesus really said, do not resist violence. Jesus also said, if you have a cloak but not a sword, sell the cloak and buy a sword. He also said, I come not to make peace. I come not to make peace but with a sword. So there's been a lot of church stuff, and especially I think Catholics are more guilty of this, to romanticize and sort of cosmeticize the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. Well, there's always a problem when human beings add their own interpretation to an ancient story.

34:34Absolutely. And do it to fit their own narrative. Absolutely, it's a great problem, but in this case, there is historical evidence on the other side, and they simply ignore that and pretend it doesn't happen. The Gnostic Gospels are full of so-called revolutionary things. And the truth is that the Gnostic Gospels were written 40 years, 30, 40 years after the death of Jesus, whereas the Gnostic Gospels, the ones that the churches have accepted, were written 80, 90 years after the death of Jesus. So they had to have been taken secondhand from people who said they saw things. where with the previous there's a shot that people directly saw them.

35:22The people in the church gospels who are named like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not the people who are in the gospels as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Nobody knows who writes them. They took those names, but they were not those people. Really? Yeah. I had no idea. Absolutely. No doubt. Even the churches admit that at this point. Two thousand years is such a hard time for us to conceptualize, to put into our head as to how much time has passed. Yes. Such a, you know, to try to get an accurate understanding of what was going on back then is insanely difficult. I have become a, since my sort of conversion to Christianity, and I would style myself a devout Christian but not a devout Catholic even though I go to Mass.

36:17And I love the Mass and believe in it. But since 2001, when this process really began, I've become a real student of the historical Jesus.

36:31And I learn more and more, and I'm more and more astounded at what's been done to cosmeticize this man who was Jesus of Nazareth. Well, it's also he had some of the most profound and insanely resonating teachings, like even today. The words that he spoke 2 ,000 years ago, there's still today people, I mean, they resonate with people. And if you live your life by the teachings of Jesus Christ, you will be a better person. Yes, you will. It is a great framework to live your life. Yes. Which is incredible when you think about a person that lived so long ago. He is a much better person to pick as your imagined companion than Mark Twain.

37:26Your imagined companion. Let me ask you this because I had a long conversation with Mel Gibson about this. What do you think about the Shroud of Turin? Well, there was a study done, a major study that was done by the Catholic Church led by John Paul II, whom I really admired and read a lot about through the years. This is a scientific study that discovered that the Shroud of Turin came from 1313 or 1320. now there's a huge controversy about it and there are those people who feel that that absolutely is Christ and I must say that when I look at it when I look at that figure and I've done that a lot and in my house we have several blow-ups of Turin's Christ it's very, very moving but the evidence, what there is seems to indicate that it comes from the 1300s.

38:35Yeah, I've seen that as well, but then I've also seen people that say that that evidence, there's some controversy about that evidence. Yeah, there is. And that some of the cloth, they believe, dates to far earlier, and it's the type of cloth and the way it's made seems to indicate that it's far older. I don't know how much of the cloth they've carbon tested. You know, that is also an issue. And whether or not it had been repaired or whether or not there had been additional pieces. I don't either. But you know what? Ultimately, when I look at that, when I look at that Jesus, and I've done that quite a bit, that face really moves me.

39:17So in a sense, I don't give a shit. At the very least, it's an insanely compelling piece of artwork. Absolutely. At the very least. Absolutely. But there's also a lot of very strange mysteries as to how that was created in the first place. Because it's not a dye, and they're not exactly sure what caused that image to appear. Or how, if that is a piece of art, they don't know how that art was created. And the fact that they really only could see the accurate representation of it once they saw it as a negative is also very interesting. Because who's going to make a piece of art where you can only really appreciate what it looks like when you see it as a negative?

39:57Especially when you're talking about something that you're doing. You're making something in the 1300s. Right. Hundreds of years before photography is ever created. So what are you making? And why is it so compelling when you look at it in the negative? And if you're talking about something that was created by an insane burst of energy, which is what the proponents of the Shroud of Turin being legitimate think. They think it was created by this insane burst of energy on Jesus's resurrection. You know, I'm agnostic on it. I have no idea whether it's real or not real. But I find it fascinating that they have no real explanation as to how it was created.

40:38I'm pretty much of a complete ignoramus on anything that has to do with science. you know I've learned algebra and geometry and even biology although I caught up with biology from personal experience but but I just don't know it doesn't matter to me ultimately because I'm moved when I look at that when I pray before that image and I look at it I moved so as far as I'm concerned for me it's real it may not be for other people well and like I said it's at the very least it's an insanely compelling piece of absolutely but the thing that I don't want to dismiss the possibility that it's real because I'm fascinated by just the mystery of how it's can you pull up an image of the the the negative version of it I was trying to look up a bunch of stuff you guys are talking about though and there's no answers for you there's no answers in terms of why I was like I was looking for an accurate recreation someone's made you know in the last 200 years and doesn't seem to be one?

41:41No, no one has.

41:45Yeah, when you look at the image and you realize that this is an actual negative of the original shroud, you just, you stop and think like, well, what was someone doing? If this is the negative, like how would you create that as a positive? Because can you show me also the positive image of it? What it actually looks like? Okay, so here's this is one image. So this is what it actually looks like. This is the actual shroud. And when you look at that, you go, okay, I see like shadows and it's very interesting. And then switch over to the negative and it all comes to life. And there's marks from the lashes, from the whip marks.

42:30There's bloodstains from where the rods went through his wrists. It's very fascinating. Yeah, it sure is. And again, this is not dye. It's not ink. And they don't really know how it was made. And again, no one has been able to recreate this.

42:51The cloth was made most likely from a loom that wasn't invented until like the 1300s. Okay. That doesn't necessarily mean that's where it for sure came from, though but right right but um here's about the image it's just like how how is the image transfer the cloth i asked just you know does anybody have any idea i've seen a video where someone gave some sort of scientific explanation but i don't know if i can remember how to find it right now says it behaves like a photographic negative negative and shows some 3d information which is unusual for normal artwork uh the chemical theories that body heat sweat or vapors reacting with the cloth.

43:31Example, ammonia or lactic acid from sweat may have been proposed, but don't reproduce the shroud's sharp, non-blurry details. Simple heat or scorch theories likewise fail to match the very shallow, non-burn discoloration of the fibers. Human or man-made image, human-made image theories. Painting or rubbing from bas-relief has been tested, but studies have not found pigments in the amounts or patterns that would explain the image, and there's no clear brushstrokes. Primitive photography. Some suggest that a medieval camera using light-sensitive silver salts and lenses could have projected a body or statue onto the cloth, and experimental replicas show that it's at least physically possible, though historically speculative.

44:17And now here's the weird one. Radiation bursts of energy theories. Some researchers argue that a brief intense burst of ultraviolet or similar radiation from the body could have discovered discolored only the top fibrils producing a non-contact image even where cloth and body didn't touch. Proponents sometimes link this to Jesus's resurrection, but the needed radiation, billions of watts without burning the cloth is far beyond anything observed in nature. And this remains a speculative face-based idea rather than an established physical mechanism. In short, there's no consensus mechanism. The image transfer process is still unexplained.

44:59And every proposed method has serious problems when tested against the cloth's measured properties. Wild. I mean there's no other piece of artwork that's that fascinating because every other art Michelangelo's work you know and all this incredible art it's art you see what they did there's brush strokes there's chisel marks they made you know they made incredible sculptures but it's clearly man-made art right this is a different thing it's a very strange thing if you can't recreate it today. If they could recreate it today, people would be doing it. They'd be making their versions of the Shroud of Turin.

45:38Absolutely. I don't know if that's been done historically, but whether some nutbag has decided to do business over recreating the Shroud of Turin. Did they carbon test it? And what are the arguments that it's older? Because I do know that there have been some very recent arguments that the testing was incorrect and that it's older. See if you can find out what that is Whether or not AI whether perplexity our sponsor has some sort of a bias like The thing is it's like pulling from all these when when you get an AI response to something It's pulling from all these articles in the web and most of the articles seem to indicate that people think it's at least Either a hoax or an elaborate carbon dating seems like it happened in 1988 So I don't know that they've done it again.

47:01methods, X-ray or crystallographic aging of linen fibers has produced dates compatible with the first century. Though these methods are newer and not widely accepted as definitive, pollen and dust. Analysis reports pollen grains and mineral dust consistent with the first century Middle East rather than only medieval Europe, which proponents say supports a much older origin. Image property. Some argue that the image's microscopic features and burst of energy type characteristics require technology or phenomena unlikely in the Middle Ages, implying an earlier extraordinary event. Well, why don't they do a retesting?

47:47They probably don't want to know that it actually is from the 1300s. John Paul II really believed in it. Yeah. He went to see it in Turin several times. He said he was moved by it, and that's when they launched this big Vatican investigation. And he never said in any way that he agreed with the investigation. He just seemed to drop the whole issue. And from what I know, he never went any further. But he visited it twice, went out of his way. Where is it? It's in Turin still. It's in Turin. That's why I was looking up that too. It's currently in the chapel of the Holy Shroud. but still here's interesting was who found it and when and why or whatever the earliest undisputed record appears in the 19 the 1350s rather in Leary a village in France where the knight Geoffrey de Charnay displayed a cloth claimed to be Jesus's burial shroud how he obtained it and where it was between the first century the 14th century are unknown later theories trace it speculatively through Edessa and Constantinople.

48:56I can't never say that. Constantinople. But these links are debated. Interesting. What does it look like? How is it displayed? That's how it's displayed? Constantinople was named after Constantine, who was the first Roman Emperor who made Roman Catholicism the national religion. Right. Wow. So you can go check it out. And how big is it? Boy, they got that sucker walled off, huh? From my impression, Joe, this was over the length of Jesus' body. Right. So it's longer than certainly I expected. Well, you can see it's both sides. So it apparently folded over. Right. I wonder what all those markings are, those small triangle markings.

49:47Like what is all that like these things? Yeah One other Picture was pointing those out. It might be the burn marks that it was saying that there's burn marks on it Huh again, it's It's 2 ,000 years old in theory Just imagine if it's real. That's the thing It's like I never want to dismiss the possibility that it's real because imagine if it is real that is I absolutely agree with you and I and in my mind it's real and I pray to it And, you know, I try not to worry about whether it's real or not. I know that I'm moved. And that's, you know, that's good enough for me. What led to your conversion to Christianity?

50:25I mean, from a guy making these wild, insane movies? Jamie, can I ask you for some water? There's water right here. Oh, great. Thank you.

50:39This episode is brought to you by Chime. Chime is bringing something fresh to banking. J.D. Power just ranked them the number one choice for new bank accounts in America. And that's not a small thing. That means real people, millions of them, are choosing this over traditional banks. That's because banking at Chime is fee-free. No monthly fees, no overdraft fees, and thousands of free ATMs. But here's the real kicker. If you get their Chime card, it gives you 5 % cash back on a category that you actually pick yourself. Your savings rate, nine times the national average. That's crazy high. Go to chime.com slash Rogan.

51:22Takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for more details. How long ago did you convert to Christianity? Well, I grew up Catholic. I was an altar boy when I was a kid. I knew one really great priest in my life who helped me with my life. I became a lapsed Catholic. And then when, at the tail end of living in L.A., in Malibu actually, I was usually successful as a screenwriter, of course, and I was being interviewed all over the place and people were stealing mail from my mailbox and all that shit.

52:24And I should have been overwhelmingly happy with that, but something was missing, I felt. And I couldn't really put my finger on what that was, but something was missing in my life. And then I got throat cancer. and stage four throat cancer.

52:43Shortly after we moved back to Cleveland, you know, from Malibu, and the Cleveland Clinic and a surgeon named Marshall Strom did a surgery that they had never done in this country, that they had done in Switzerland, where they took a muscle from the left side of your neck and attached it to your larynx. stage four was very dicey and he was very honest with me about how dicey it would be and he did it spectacularly and here I am at 81 but in the course of all of that when I was terrified

53:25and really frightened from one day to the other I ran across Jesus reading and partly Naomi's influence because Naomi also grew up Catholic and she had a very strong faith. And then I went to church a couple of times and I loved the Mass, the Mass itself. And in the course of recovery, And it was about a three-year recovery. For some time I couldn't speak. And then I spoke like Brando, and then I squeaked. In the course of my recovery, I did everything I could physically to help. I jogged and walked and did all of those things, and I recovered. And I felt afterwards that the reason I was able to beat a stage 4 cancer had to do with my prayer life.

54:28And then I started reading voraciously about Jesus of Nazareth, the apostles, all of that, ancient Jewish history, Catholic history. And some of that really moved me as well.

54:46So I started going regularly to church with Naomi and then as the boys were born with the boys as well. And as time went by, I also started having issues with the Catholic Church. I continued going to the Mass because that was a very special thing to me. But I had issues with the history of anti-Semitism in the Church. The issue was with sexism in terms of not allowing women to be priests.

55:28The issue was with the Pope making so-called infallible decisions. And I just shut most of that off. Although in the process of it, my Christianity didn't suffer at all. But sometimes I felt like I was becoming a kind of an agnostic Catholic.

55:50and my faith in Christ. And even as all of that happened is unflagged. I still pray to Jesus, very specifically to Jesus. And he continues to be a major important figure in my life. So your issues were with the organization, the Catholic Church. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I respected Martin Luther's revolution because he revolted against those same kind of issues. But the, as I said, the mass continued to hold me. Worship is terrific, and I really believe in it. I actually, the kind of worship that really moves me is black spiritual worship, full-scale emotional. I give myself to you Jesus kind of worship.

56:46And I felt I didn't want to really switch religions because I had my basic Christianity. And that continues to be important to me. So you felt moved by like Baptist, black Baptist teachers? Yeah, like Baptist. The old emotional, throw up your arms and say, okay, here I am. Take me, Lord. Well, it definitely seems a lot more fun. It's fun. They look like they're having way more fun. It's fun. I also have been very fortunate through the course of my life to have black friends and to share the black culture. I was involved in the civil rights movement. I had a shotgun stuck in my belly by a deputy who'd been indicted for killings and told to get the fuck out of Neshoba County.

57:31I had the good fortune to have lunch with the Reverend Martin Luther King. Oh, wow. I knew Stokely Carmichael. What was that like? Well, the most amazing thing, he was in town because of the debt of a minister in a protest. And it was an unheralded appearance, and I think it was partly before he became the towering international figure. And he was heading back to the airport, and he couldn't find his ride. and I happened to be right there and I said I can drive your Reverend King and he said okay so again on the way to the airport he said are you hungry? I'm hungry. Can we stop someplace? I said sure so we did and the what amazed me about the man is that he was more interested almost in hearing about my refugee camp experiences and what that was like and how that worked and all of that.

58:35He said he didn't know much about it. Then he was talking about the Civil Rights Movement. He was very, very moving and a powerful figure. Then I just drove him to the airport. But there was something about the man that was absolutely magnetic that I felt. Clearly. Yeah. But then when I was in college, I had a relationship with a young black woman, and that brought me much closer to black culture. I mean, I was an ethnic fucking kid, you know, a refugee, and I certainly needed lessons in that whole cultural area, and I got them. And then I sought them out. And when I was at Rolling Stone, Huey Newton was over in Oakland, and he would come over sometimes.

59:30I think, partly, I'd partly suspect, because at Rolling Stone we had some of the most beautiful women of the world working there. We didn't have air conditioning, but when it got real hot, they didn't wear a top at all. So what about that spread? They were topless? They were topless when it got real hot. What year was this? It was in the 60s? I was at Rolling Stone from 71 to 76. Wild times. I was right in there. In the years where the Cultural Revolution was exploding, the Women's Revolution was exploding. And to be at Rolling Stone at that time was like being in the vortex of all of that. You know, and it was just a crazed time.

1:00:21You know, the sexual revolution was at its absolute height. And I've always, as I said to you, I've always really loved smart, sassy, sexy women. And the whole office was filled with them. I'm sure. What year was the birth control pill invented? I have no idea. Well, I guess, 65. All right. 64. Let me guess. I'm just taking a wild swing. I have no idea. Approved by the FDA and introduced the mark in 1960. 68? 60, 60-year-old. 1960. Interesting. Yeah, well, that had a big factor, right? Yes, absolutely. Because before, you know, women were in a situation where every time they had sex, they could get pregnant.

1:01:09Absolutely. And then all of a sudden, but then you've got this pill that's fucking with their hormones that we found out now that women that have been on it for a long period of time, they make poor choices in terms of mates and it does a lot of weird stuff I mean we're learning a lot of weird stuff yeah and also it's very dangerous for them a friend of mine his daughter died she was 17 years old she was on the birth control pill and she was smoking cigarettes and she I guess smoking cigarettes and birth control pills for some people can cause blood clots I don't understand why or what but that is an issue right you're not supposed to smoke if you're on birth control.

1:01:48See if that's still the recommend date. Well, obviously they tell you not to smoke, period. But I think there's some potential complication. Smoking while taking oral contraceptive that contain estrogen significantly increases the risk of severe cardiovascular events like heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots. The risk is particularly high for women over 35. Quitting smoking or using alternative birth control is highly recommended. yeah Joe I had more fun at Rolling Stone than any other time in my life I bet you did I had Jan Wenner in here once yeah I saw him it was an interesting conversation he kept looking at us watching well he was you know he was Jan Wenner of 2024 or 2025 not Jan Wenner of 1975 yes absolutely you know not the Jan Wenner that was the editor when Hunter Thompson was writing crazy stories you know it's different times people change You are a big Hunter fan.

1:02:44Huge. And I know, and so am I, and I wanted to talk about him because I really haven't had a chance to talk about him specifically. Hunter really was the cause of my whole huge success, even as a screenwriter, let me tell you how. I was a reporter at the Plain Dealer, and I had read Hunter, of course, when he was the National Observer, those kinds of pieces from Latin America, before he discovered Gonzo. And I covered at the Plain Dealer, I covered at a Hells Angels shootout of a bar called Bartos Cafe in Cleveland. And I wrote a story about it that the Associated Press picked up and put on their national wire.

1:03:37and I get a note shortly afterwards from Hunter Thompson who had read this story on the AP wire and wrote me a note that said I'm barely paraphrasing big fucker now there are two of us who know how to write about Hell's Angels that really pisses me off all the best Hunter Thompson well That must have been a fun thing to get. Oh, man, I was as excited about that as my two sons were to meet Joe Rogan. They really, it was really, really something. So, okay, time goes by. And I get a call from Rolling Stone. I know when I heard it first, I do a couple of freelance pieces for Rolling Stone. One on Kent State one year afterwards.

1:04:31and the other, I forgot what the other one was, but then I get a call from the managing editor, Paul Scanlon, who incidentally was the backbone of the editorial content. He'd come from the Wall Street Journal, and he wanted to take on the New York Times for Rolling Stone. So they wanted me to do a freelance piece on narcotics agents, corrupt narcotics agents so I go out there and I discover that that Hunter had been after them to hire me because of that piece and he kept saying he's a good guy and all of that then when I'm at Rolling Stone I write a book called Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse that Hunter loves by now we know each other and we're friends and we enjoy each other the company and I write this book and Hunter gets me as agent who was the top literary agent in the country and then gets me as publisher which is Random House to publish it and then to boot blurbs it when the book comes out and somebody a United Artists sees it oh and then the book becomes a finalist for the National Book Award one of four finalists okay so somebody a United an artist, reads the book, reads because she reads all the finalists, reads the book, calls me out of the blue and says, you know, you've got really cinematic talent.

1:06:08I thought about writing a script and I said, no, I haven't and I go to meet them and they hire me and I write fist. All of that. Which led to my success in screenplays and in the cinema. What's next to Hunter? The friendship we had was I never, our friendship was in San Francisco. He lived in Woody Creek, and he would come to town. Our friendship was in town. But we ran a lot together. We enjoyed each other. We drank together. We both liked drinking. On occasion, we would, good story, we would go down. San Francisco was famed for its stripper part area, I think around O 'Farrell Street and stuff, and he and I went down there together.

1:06:58It was a famous stripper show in one of those clubs. And one of the times we'd get down there, he, of course, would take acid before every trip down there. I wouldn't do acid, but I did acid once and I wound up holding me for an hour. But I was the guy from Cleveland, right? Which he always, you know. We'd say, oh, you're from fucking Cleveland. Anyway, I would snort some lines and we'd go down there. and we were waiting for about an hour and you know the place is filled but the girls haven't come out and Hunter suddenly gets up hurls his arms up in the air and says where's the pussy we want pussy

1:07:44great memories of my life of course I settle him down and all of that and then when they finally start coming very loudly finally Finally, finally, he was a, you know, larger than life, no doubt, colorful figure, but also what he was. And then I discovered this, and he didn't really share this with that many people. He was very, very well read. He had a whole other side that was a very sensitive and unhippee-like side. I saw it most clearly once. I was married at the time to a former reporter at the Plain Dealer who was very, very straight and really rejected the whole hippie thing and worked in California for a small suburban paper.

1:08:42And Hunter had never met her but had heard her. He said, I'd really like to meet her. So we asked him to dinner. And Hunter came to dinner at our small, tiny apartment in Novato. And my wife at the time cooked a Hungarian chicken paprikash dinner. Okay? It's Hungary's most famous meal. And he sat there with us. And what I discovered was that the boy from Kentucky was there underneath all of that firepower. and all of that larger-than-life behavior. He was sensitive and quiet, and they got along like gangbusters. And actually, interestingly, when I drove him after dinner, I drove him back to town.

1:09:38For the ride back, he berated me because I was having an affair with what he called this hippie chick. He says, you have this wonderful wife here, and you're fucking around with this hippie chick. I mean, true beration and anger and all of that. He had that side as well. Yes, he did. If we had breakfast, it was at 4 in the afternoon. And what he ordered were four margaritas, six beers, and maybe, maybe toast with scrambled eggs. and in that sense he had more tolerance than anyone that I'd ever seen and my tolerance in those days for Boots especially was also very high but I'd never seen anybody quite like him.

1:10:26He had a great sense of humor.

1:10:34Many, many years later, he wanted me to write the screenplay for Rum Diary and I hadn't seen him in a long time and I had just met Naomi to whom I've now been married 32 years and he wanted me to go to Aspen so that we could talk about it and I called he on and I said listen I'm in over heels in love with this woman and Hunter wants me to go out there tell me the truth, what kind of shape is he in? And so he pauses and he says, well, he's good and then he's in another pause and he says, but you know the Stones were in Denver and Mick and Keith decided to come visit him between gigs, so they hire a driver and they drive up here and they have a terrific time but they're there about three or four hours and they've got a gig that night.

1:11:41So they say, we've got to go, we've got a gig, blah, blah. And Hunter gets all upset and says, well, you just got here. And they say, Hunter, we've been here three or four hours and stuff. Well, he continues to be upset and he leaves the house and they're sitting there and suddenly they hear gunshots. He had gone out and shot the tires out on the Stones car.

1:12:08So I never took Naomi there. I was too frightened to do it. What year was this? Well, let's see. It was in 90-something, 4 maybe. Maybe he said somewhere around 5, 4, 5. Yeah. 3, 4, 5, somewhere in there. He was going hard for 30 years by that point. Yes, he had. Or at least 20. And also, the end for him, I've read and heard, it was very sad. Because the sadness wasn't caused by the drugs, it was caused by Booth. And he was, in Leon's opinion, and he saw him often in Woody Creek. And in his former wife's opinion, Sandy's opinion, it was the Booth that did it. And, you know, his body began being old, and he needed a wheelchair.

1:12:58He could hardly walk. She drove him in the wheelchair at one time, I think in New Orleans, when they were visiting Sean Penn on a film. He actually fell out of the wheelchair in the middle of traffic, and she couldn't, Anita couldn't really pick him up, and so they had to get help, and cars are going by and all that shit. And then he also broke a leg when they were visiting Hawaii at the Kahala. So as he said in his suicide note, which I thought was the most gut-wrenching, but also terrific suicide note, it was no fun anymore. The fun was gone. Nothing was fun. No football, no this, no that, no fun.

1:13:44Well, when the body goes, it's hard to have fun. Yeah. And that's the problem with booze. Yeah, exactly. Well, the problem with many drugs, but particularly the problem with booze. You know, you're breaking down your body over and over and over again. And with a guy like Hunter, he was doing it every day. Yeah. There's a famous piece that this reporter wrote when he went to visit Hunter, and he documented Hunter's drug and alcohol use throughout the day. You know, like 6 in the morning in the hot tub with champagne. Like that's the end of the day. and then him sleeping and then him waking up and doing all the drugs and then getting ready to write.

1:14:25And what was the guy's name? Who wrote the – there's a guy who took me and my friend Greg Fitzsimmons reading it out and turned it into an EDM song. Really? Yeah. Eugene Carroll, I think? No, no, no. It says a memoir of Hunter Thompson. I heard of – this is where it says it's from. Right, but the singer, the song. Oh, you said who he wrote. Yes, the guy, I'm sorry, the guy who wrote the... The song? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like an electronic dance music song. We played it before, many times. God, I can't believe it's like... Beardy Man. Beardy Man, thank you. This guy, Beardy Man, put it to music, and it's hilarious.

1:15:13I've got to check it out. It's amazing. I mean, it's a tragic story in a lot of ways. But in his prime, the writing that he did was, in many ways, it was the narration of an era. Yes, it was. And it was genius. You know, there was this thing called the New Journalism, and I practiced that. And so did people like A. Delise and David Elverson and Larry L. King. But then Dunder took that and created an entire new genre, the Gonzo journalism thing. was his, and it was a kind of humor that just knocked you down. And it was totally revolutionary. And the

1:15:57Tom Wolfe said, who of course was one of the people, the founders of the New Journalism, said that he was today's version of Mark Twain in terms of what he was able to accomplish. Two books especially, I thought, Fear and Loathing in Vegas, of course, and the campaign campaign book, the 72 campaign book, which in my mind is the best political commentary, including all of Teddy White's books. No, it's fantastic. Yeah. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. Yeah, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. And he also had this freedom that was very different from all his other reporters because he was a one-time guy.

1:16:29He was going to go in there and follow the campaign for the entire time and then wrote this book about it. But Joe, these were all stayed, the shoe-tie-wearing reporters. And you turn this big creature loose on them on the campaign trail. And, of course, they all fell in love with him, and they did because he was such a free spirit compared to what their lives were going to be like. Well, imagine you're doing this boring thing, which is following a bunch of fakers as they're telling you how they're going to change the country, which you know they're not really going to do because you've been doing this for 20 years.

1:17:05Absolutely. And then along comes a guy who's like, let's do acid. Come on, pussies. All of a sudden, you've got this fucking maniac who's drinking and saying wild shit and writing wild shit. And he doesn't have to be held to the same standards as everyone else because he knows it doesn't matter. If they never have him back again, it's fine. I'm so sorry that Hunter wasn't here with Trump's time. Oh, my God. Because that could have been fucking wild and hilarious. But there's also a part of me that says he would have liked Trump. I know this is heresy to liberals who think that he would absolutely hate him and all of that.

1:17:49But I'm not certain of that. And I think that certainly in terms of his style, he would have liked things about him. Well, I think he would have liked the fact that he's this wild character. Absolutely. A completely wild character that has never existed in all of presidential politics before. There's never been anything like him. No. For good or for bad. There's never been a guy like him. What he did today, I mean, he had a shit fit with Netanyahu. Yeah. And he said, you know, you're fucking crazy. Yeah. You would have been in jail except for me. Mm-hmm. I saved your ass. Yeah. What other president, for God's sakes, has ever spoken like that, not only publicly, but to us?

1:18:31And in that sense, you know, I'm proud of being a deplorable. I'm from Cleveland. You know, I grew up among poor people and blue-collar people, and he's the first president. That didn't talk down, but talked directly to us. Yeah. For good or for bad. For good or for bad. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, he is who he is, which is very odd. You know, it's a very odd person to be running a country. I have a lot of questions in certain areas, you know, the ice area. It bothers me the whole shit with the ballroom and all of that stuff. Well, the ballroom doesn't bother me that much. That's, to me, trivial construction, like whatever.

1:19:19The ice stuff, what bothers me is we're opening the door for militarized police on our city streets. As many people say, like, look, we've got to get these immigrants out of here that are illegal. There's a lot of criminals in this country. There's a lot of people that are committing crimes. I understand that. I understand that perspective. My perspective is not that you need to get the criminals out. It's that it is a very slippery slope when you give people and they're trained for seven weeks. They're not trained for very long. They're trained for much less time than police officers, much less time than military.

1:19:52And then you have this militarized police force that has no identification in there on the streets. That's a precedent that you might like it when it's for a cause that you support. But that could easily be for a cause that you do not support. That militarized police force could be going door to door and confiscating guns. that militarized police force, that you could find other ways where a different ruler could use this precedent in a very damaging way for our free society. That's my perspective on it. I agree with that. When they start calling people like the woman who was killed in Minnesota and the guy, domestic terrorist, it's an abomination.

1:20:45Which woman is that? That woman who was shot by ICE in Minneapolis. Oh, yeah. And then the guy afterwards, the week afterwards, was also shot by ICE. Yeah. And they call them domestic terrorist. But to give credit to Trump, he got rid of Cristino. And he got rid of that guy who was there that Tom Holman replaced. Well, Tom Holman was already in charge. That guy was in a different position. But they did get rid of that guy. Also, that guy had a very odd way of dressing. That was very – like he wore outfits that were like reminiscent of like Nazi Germany. Like he had this very weird coat that he would wear all the time.

1:21:24And a lot of people were saying this is a very odd choice for someone to be wearing who's being accused of fascism See if you find some photos of that dude The the coats that he was wearing were a lot of people like I had to make sure that this was an AI I was like this is real coat that he's wearing This is very straight. I mean not accusing him anything. It's just a fucking coat But it was a lot of people online were pointing out like this is a very odd wardrobe choice for someone who's in charge of in many ways othering human beings the other thing that's a problem with this whole ice thing is and it's not the fault of the ice people or even this administration is that many of these people were encouraged to come here that's what's so fucked imagine if you're living in guatemala and you're encouraged to come to america you live in a terrible third world situation you have a wherever you're living it's like deep poverty you're told that they'll help you get across the border.

1:22:21They'll literally transport you into America. They'll put you in these cities and you can get on public assistance. If you have a bad back, they'll put you on social security. There's all these different programs that are incentivizing people to come to America. The Red Cross is giving you maps. People are showing you how to do it. They're letting you across the border. They're letting you into the country. And then two years later, you're being chased down two years later you've got masked ice workers that are pulling me it's like it's very inconsistent obviously this is a completely different administration but i feel for those poor fucking people that were told that they can come here and that there was going to be a pathway to citizenship so they upend their life they come to america in the only way they know how and when people say oh they should do it legitimately sure a lot of people do it legitimately and I understand their perspective that it's a very difficult path and no one should be able to cut that line and they went through it the right way.

1:23:20However, these people, that's not an option for them. If you don't have any money and you're living in a third world country and people encourage you to come to America, I most certainly would have come to America just like they did. Joe, I did. My parents did. You know, I personify the American dream in terms of what happened to me. You know, what they said in the camps was, the streets of America are paved with gold. When we lived on Lorraine Avenue in Cleveland, there was a Hungarian poet, a mad poet, his name was Achimre, who would go up and down Lorraine Avenue screaming in Hungarian, old one, old one, which means where is it?

1:24:02Where is the gold? Right, right, right. But look, I came in here as a kid. I couldn't speak the language. We knew no one. I got into serious juvenile trouble. I got out of that. I studied. I was a total autodidact. I wasn't a good student, but I did reading. I went to college.

1:24:29I wanted to be a disc jockey for a while. I was named Joe Anthony. It was a song to sue the sad supprimed secretary, right, and this kind of shit. I went to college. I did well in college. I won a big award as a senior.

1:24:49I kept working. And I also, through the years, got a terrific amount of help from Americans. Couldn't have done it without them. beginning with a bus driver named Henry Jackson, a black man who had been adopted by Hungarian parents and spoke Hungarian. But, you know, moving on to people in college who helped, who I found a great deal of help. I couldn't have done what I achieved without the help of other people, other Americans. and then to top everything off, you know, the Hollywood and 18 films and all of that. Yes, I think that is the personification of the American dream. And many of the immigrants who come here are looking for the same dream.

1:25:45And many of them are saying what Matt Achimera said on Lorraine Avenue, Old One, Old One, where is it? Right, yeah. Part of the reason that the stuff in Minneapolis breaks my heart is that.

1:26:04These Latino people are my cousins and brothers in terms of not the killers and not the gang members, the people who are gardeners and who work in stores and trying to make a buck and have kids that they're trying to survive. Well, it's also part of the ICE story, too. Absolutely. Part of the ICE story is that a lot of these officers are Latino, including the two guys that shot Alex Preddy. Those two guys were Latino. And they took these jobs because these jobs give you, first of all, you get a$50 ,000 signing bonus to join ICE. I mean, that's a significant amount of money for someone who's in debt or who's struggling.

1:26:45So this is how this guy dressed. Look how this guy dressed. That's kind of crazy. See that image? That's a gold. Yeah, look at that coat. Yeah. I mean, come on. That's kind of a crazy World War II military coat. That's amazing. A little odd when everybody else is, you know. The other thing is the masks. I understand. I understand the need for them, that they get doxed, their families get doxed, and it's very organized. This is not organic. These protests are not organic. I understand all these arguments. Yeah, I'm bothered by the masks, too. It's too Gestapo-like to me. That's it's also it sets a very bad precedent.

1:27:24Yeah, this is the problem with it all. You know, the real thing is you shouldn't be able to have organized paid for protests where you're paying people to protest and you're paying people to cause violence. And then you're also using people as political pawns and moving them into the country so that you could change. Like when when you have congressional seats, it's all based on the census. The more people that are in the town, regardless of whether or not they're legal or illegal, you get more congressional seats. So they use them for political. Yes, they do. Absolutely. Same old political game.

1:27:56Yes. Same old game. And that game should be illegal. That shouldn't be legal. The idea of the America dream is a beautiful dream. And they've corrupted it. And they've they've taken this and used it for their own gain. And, you know, and they've weaponized empathy. And it's a real problem. It's a real problem for those poor people that came over here looking for a better life. Listen, I have an idea. Run for president or write your speeches. Listen. No, that attitude is really terrific. I think you're right to be concerned. You see it. Yeah. Listen, I'm 81 years old, but I really see it too. You know, and there's great dangers there that I hope my sons don't have.

1:28:38Militarized police on the streets for that reason is a very it's a very dangerous precedent. But then there's the other question is like, how do you get all the criminals out? I don't know. I'm not the guy. You know, I'm not the one. But I'm I am very concerned with this this dangerous precedent. That's my feeling. Yeah. So I just worry that people accept it because they want this result now. And they don't realize that this could set up this being a common occurrence. I mean, we saw some of it during COVID. There was some militarized police on the streets keeping people in lockdown in certain cities.

1:29:13They utilized the National Guard and they did things like that. That scares the shit out of me. It scares the shit out of me when you have a justification for militarized police with masks on that are just grabbing people. And some of these people are American citizens. It turned out a lot of them were American citizens. Hundreds of them were. You know, we had the same syndrome. I covered the Kent State massacre. I covered that. And one of the things that I saw is the rhetoric that was coming from James Rhodes, the governor at the time, and from Sylvester Del Corso, who was the head of the National Guard, was absolutely the main thing that created that atmosphere that caused that shooting.

1:29:54Yeah, absolutely. And today, sadly, we see many examples of that. And they're great dangers. Yeah, you would think that we would learn, but we go through cycles where we learn, we get better, and then we repeat the same things again. You see that with racial tensions. You see that with political unrest. You see that with a lot of different things in this country. It's like we learn for a little while, and then we forget. Mark Twain's wisdom once again comes through. Mark Twain said, politicians are like diapers, and they should be changed often and for the same reason. Yeah. He also said, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

1:30:36Yeah. He also said, a little bit off the subject, but I love it, and he said, when the mind and the pecker argue, the pecker always wins.

1:30:51Yeah. I mean, he was essentially the original stand-up comedian. Oh, you're absolutely right. You're so right. I've actually been thinking about doing some piece on him. And stop me if you know the history. But in the beginning, he was a stand-up with his so-called lectures that he did all over the West. And then he wrote some books, the books that he's famous for. But he went bankrupt nearly at the end of his life because of bad investments. And then he did a round-the-world tour of stand-up all over again. And usually they said he was a poet of the profane because these are usually for male audiences.

1:31:33He published a little book called On Masturbation, which is about the glories of masturbation. The only thing I've heard that's close is a stand-up by one Joe Rogan, which there's a great line that says, if you're married and have kids, the only place to find peace, Twain would say, with the pecker, is if you rent a motel room and lock the door. But he had the same kind of verve and love in terms of being a stand-up, being outrageous, pushing the envelope. And that whole side of Twain has been sort of hidden under the notion that he is the great of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and all of that. Nobody talks of it.

1:32:28He wrote a book called Letters from the Earth from the Voice of the Devil. He wrote another one called The Mysterious Stranger, which is about Jesus coming back in a very dark way. And then he wrote one that was published in the 30s that hasn't been republished called Dwayne Erupts. you know so yes you're so right when you say he was stand up he was a very straight stand up he was the originator because he was essentially a very witty author who wrote very provocative things very hilarious things and then would read them publicly and when he was doing these speeches where he would go and you know whatever you call it poetry or whatever it was there was no stand up comedy back then there was no name for it but he was just riotously funny people loved him and they would go to see them because they were funny.

1:33:18And the initial audiences were mostly male audiences. Right.

1:33:25I think he's a great, it's never been really done. To do a piece, a fictional piece about Twain as a stand-up with pushing the envelope with all these things, I think would be a lot of fun. It would be a lot of fun. The only problem would be like the cultural context are so different back then. It's almost like did you see Lenny, the Dustin Hoffman film? Yeah, of course. Great film. I mean, I think Dustin Hoffman fucking nailed it. It was as close to Lenny Bruce as you're ever going to see someone portray Lenny Bruce. The problem is the world has changed so much since 1960 that a lot of the outrageousness is gone.

1:34:08And it seems very pedestrian. Like the things that he is saying, because he was such a groundbreaker and society was so locked down and so conservative. And so, you know, just there was just the way people communicated was much different back then. The understanding of culture and of race relations and sexual relations was very different back then. And so the outrageousness of what he was saying back then, it just doesn't really translate. because in many ways I think stand-up comedy in particular is a window in time. It's a window into the way people behave. Films are that way as well, especially if you go and watch a lot of old films.

1:34:49It's a window into how people perceived reality back then.

1:34:56There's some stuff that's rarely been published from Twain that hasn't really been seen very much that was left in places like the University of California archives that go a step past what we know from Twain. And I think there's so much of it. There's something called Twain's Notebooks that hasn't been published in their full form, certainly, that may still be shocking. I'm still playing with it because I'm reading and reading and all of that, But even if I never do, it's so much fun reading about him and his life because he was such an interesting character. I hope you do write something about it because it would be great for people to see and to get an understanding of him.

1:35:45Because I think a lot of young people, particularly today, just think of him as an author. Just think of him as the guy who wrote Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer. He's been pushed into being almost a kid's writer. Right. Speaking of stand-up, I want you to know, and I don't think you know, Did you know that Sam Kinison dedicated a CD to me? Did he really? Sam Kinison, one of his last CDs, was called Leader of the Band, B-A-N-N-E-D. Right. And at the flip side of the CD, he thanks a bunch of people, Ring Azov and record people and all of that, and also Sly and Sean Penn. And then after all of that, in larger letters than the others, He says, and very special thanks to Joe Escherhazer writing his letter to Michael Ovitz.

1:36:36That's amazing. Amazing. What letter did you write to Michael Ovitz? Michael Ovitz was the top dog agent in town running CAA. and I was leaving CAA because my best friend and rabbi in the business was an agent named Guy McIlwain who had been running Columbia, became an agent again. So I was leaving CAA simply because of my love for Guy. And I went in to see Ovitz and said, I'm leaving the agency. And Ovitz said, if you leave the agency, then my foot soldiers who go up and down Wilshire Boulevard will put you under the ground. Oh, Jesus. What the fuck? You know, so I thought about it for a couple weeks.

1:37:25Jesus. And I wrote him a letter, which essentially said, fuck you, you know, I'm leaving. I'm going back to the person who started me in the business and the person I love. And it turned into a major controversy with headlines all over the place. Put you under the ground, a strong word. Oh, man. There was a producer named Bernie Brillstein. I know Bernie. He did, too. He wrote a memoir years later. He said those exact words had been used to him as well. Wow. Yeah. And you know what? As time went on, it became obvious that the whole controversy with Ovis really hurt him because other people had been threatened that way, and he had a reputation for that.

1:38:09and he actually was out of the business, not much past that. But the notion of Kinison, I love Kinison's work, the notion of Kinison, when I saw that thing, I was overwhelmed. He was one of the greats. He was one of the greats, absolutely. One of the greats, and I still maintain that for like a period of two years, two or three years, he was the most profound and revolutionary stand-up comic ever. I agree, I agree. He came out of nowhere. He was so different than anybody else. You know, I was introduced to Kinnison by a girl that I work with. I was working at a gym called the Boston Athletic Club in South Boston.

1:38:52And it was a girl that worked at the front counter who was hilarious. She was a volleyball player, really hilarious girl. And she told me about Kinnison and reenacted one of his bits in the parking lot of the club, told me what she saw on TV about. He had that bit about homosexual necrophiliacs paying money. She's on her stomach laying on the – she was so funny. She was on her stomach in the parking lot going, oh, oh, life keeps fucking in the ass even after you're dead. It never ends. It never ends. And I was laughing so hard that I couldn't wait to go out and get that videotape. And I got that videotape, and I was only 19 at the time.

1:39:32I had never even thought about doing stand-up yet. but that was like one of the first times that I was like oh this is stand-up like I didn't know that this was stand-up I thought stand-up was like did you ever notice like that kind of stuff like you'd see on the tonight show with Johnny Carson I had no thought ever that this wild shit was stand-up and you know credit to HBO because before then you would never be able to see that kind of comedy the only way you'd be able to see it is in the movie theater it'd have to be like Richard Pryor, Live on the Sunset Strip, which predated that by a few years.

1:40:04And no one had any understanding that there was this kind of stand-up comedy out there, that this wild motherfucker who used to be a priest, he used to be a preacher, and he comes to L.A. and is this wild, coaxed Norton fucking demon comedian who's just different than anybody else before him and just changed comedy. There's a few people, there's a few characters along the way that have just completely changed comedy, and I think Kennison is one of the big ones. He was absolutely amazing. I adored him. I thought he was a groundbreaker, and when I saw the CD, I went, holy shit. I have two of his albums.

1:40:50Two different people have gifted me his first album. God, what is it called? it's not is it called louder than hell I think it's called louder than hell and they're signed both albums are signed both signatures are totally different so I don't know which one's real or either one of them are real and that's a problem like people buy stuff off eBay they want to give you a nice gift they buy an autographed album and it might not even be real he was a preacher and that last conversation when he died with Jesus when he's conversing it's mind mind-boggling yeah he's having literally having a conversation with someone yes he is as he's dying yeah it's obviously jesus is the jesus figure i mean it's a is it my time i mean all right right um amazing because especially amazing considering where he came from what what he went through what he did with comedy and then then that ending yeah there was a movie made wasn't there but it wasn't very good about kinnison yeah i don't know i think yeah it was a while for a while i was thinking about that too i don't know i have a problem with reenactments of a guy who is that profound oh yeah someone's playing them yeah it's like it's i agree i try not to watch because it's just the the actual work of the guy like going back and watching his hbo special and watching his stand-up appearances on letterman and listening to his first album the first album i listened to it was like jesus christ this guy's incredible it was just so different so crazy and you know and he was the first guy that was like open about doing cocaine like open about partying you know I mean he was he was a wild boy it reminds me I'm sorry Hunter in terms of being wild about coke my first story when I was at Rolling Stone was it was a piece about narcotics corrupt narcotics agents and And as a result of the stories, the guy who was the head of the narcotics agency in the state of California had to resign.

1:42:55And as a result of that, I started getting plastic baggies full of coke at Rolling Stone from the various dealers who appreciated my work. Now, whenever Hunter was there, I would present him with the bag. And he would go, holy fucking Christ, you're getting these from people. It's one of the things that solidified our friendship. That's hilarious. I would have handed over. And that was back when cocaine was actually cocaine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It wasn't stepped on. You didn't get fentanyl. You didn't have to worry about dying of an overdose. It was the only drug besides smoking dope that I really, really enjoyed.

1:43:35I said I tried acid once and not a rat to hold on to me because I was so freaked out. I can only imagine. When I watched Showgirls, I was like, whoever wrote this was doing coke. That was literally one of the first things I've said. I've always said that's like one of the heightens of cocaine movies. Not anymore, but certainly the memory of it was there was a show. Influenced. Absolutely. Influenced by cocaine.

1:44:04Tarantino also really loved showgirls. Well, it was a wild movie. And I remember because it was that girl, what was her name? Elizabeth? Berkeley. Elizabeth Berkley, who was from Saved by the Bell. So she was like this America sweetheart from this really nice sitcom. And then all of a sudden, you know, she's half naked and she's a showgirl. And it's like, whoa. And she's having an affair with Paul Verhoeven. Right. He's moved out with his wife and is living with Elizabeth Berkley, right? Crazy. No, crazy. Yeah. Geez Louise. Wild times, right? Absolutely fun. Really fun. um jimmy hendrick's story because he's the jimmy hendrick experience and i wondered whether he had any kind of a godfather impact on on the joe rogan experience oh 100 i stole the name from jimmy hendrick jimmy hendrick story 100 i mean when we first started doing the podcast that was i would always listen to voodoo child on the way to the comedy store i'd list coming over laurel canyon that was one of my favorite that and whole lot of love those are my two favorite songs to listen to on the way to the comedy store.

1:45:12I have like a soundtrack that I listen to to get myself psyched up for shows. You'll love this story then. Okay, I'm a reporter at the Plain Dealer and all of our editors barely know about rock and roll. And as I said, I've loved it all my life and when Hendricks came around I loved his work. And he's in Cleveland for an appearance and the fucking Cleveland cops have gone crazy and they're saying that this caused a riot and it's obscene and all of that stuff. And I ask him up to my city editor and tell him I'd like to interview Hendrix and cover his concert. So I do cover his concert and it's jammed in the Cleveland arena and people are loving it.

1:45:53And I've set up a date to interview him the next morning at the Cleveland Hotel. Okay, so I show up the next morning and I'm the Plain Dealer reporter. I've got a tie-on and a sport coat, you know, and they go in, I think it's 9.30. And he's up, but he's barely up, and he's wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and his hair is, you remember his hair, but on this occasion there were a lot of beads and things in his hair as well. And he's totally scruffed up. And we talk about rock and roll mostly and his background and the fact that he had been, I think, as a backup as a kind of guitarist in the Ricky Nelson band that had been in Cleveland a couple of years before then.

1:46:39He'd done this priest stuff before he went out on his own. And we'd get along. And we'd begin smoking dope, of course, at 9.30, and by fucking 11.30, we both got the munchies. And he said, man, I'm hungry, you know, you want to go to any place? I've got a car waiting for me downstairs. So I said, sure. and we go down and then Mitch Mitchell and Chaz Chandler join us, the other members of the experience, who are equally looking like CD characters, you know, but it's that time of morning, it's after concert, all of that. So we pile into this limbo and I direct them to go to, Buckeye Road is the center of the Hungarian community in Cleveland and the center of the Hungarian community on Buckeye Road is a restaurant called the Balaton.

1:47:31and I direct them to go to the Bolaton. Now, they know me at the Bolaton because I used to live on Buckeye Road and the big stretch limo pulls up, play glass window front, filled with old ladies with babushkas and guys very formally dressed. We get out in front of this place and these Martians, three Martians, get out of the car and I lead them in. And now I'm getting in there looking, I'm like, what the fuck, what is this? you know, they made me the, they're just following me at the end, and I see Jimmy looking around and shit. So they seat us. The major D knows me, so he calls me aside, and he says, who are these people?

1:48:12Who are these people? I say, Jimmy Hendrix, big rock and roll star, you know, he's in town, and he said, oh, Hendrix, yeah, Jimmy Hendrix. So we sit down, and Jimmy says, you order for me. Great. So I order a chicken paprikash for him, which is a big Hungarian meal. And Chaz and Mitchell order something else, but very Hungarian stuff on my advice. And interestingly, as we're sitting there, the maitre d' has obviously spoken to people because old ladies are coming around asking him for an autograph. Mr. Hendrik, sir, will you autograph, please? Wow. Wow. And he's gracious. He says, sure. But he loves his paprikash and wants to order another.

1:49:03At this point, we've knocked out two bottles of wine, I think, and we're still rolling from all the dope. So they bring that up. At the end of this, he had three orders of chicken paprikash. He signed. We had like four bottles of wine. We staggered out of there. he signed I would guess 10 autographs for people who come around bowing and as we walk out of the restaurant he sticks his fist high up in there and says hungry, hungry that's my Jimmy Hendrix story that's awesome Ron White was telling us a story the other night in the Mothership Green Room the Comedy Club Green Room and he was saying that when he was I think he said he was 13 years old he went to see the Monkees and jimmy hendrix opened for the monkeys he said it was the worst booking of all time you've got opened oh my god exactly so this is when jimmy hendrix was emerging he really hadn't become jimmy hendrix yet and so he's the opening act for the monkeys and so you have a bunch of kids that are there to see this really cute band that was you know pieced together by corporate executives essentially you know the monkeys fun band but you know they had a tv show and it was very clean sweet tv show hey you know and then you've got this guy opening up for them this just jamming on the guitar wow and they were freaked out they're like what is this like what is going on and he said nobody liked it they were it was terrifying to people like who is this guy with his guitar like what the hell is he doing great story the the many years later i thought about writing a Hendrix movie.

1:50:49And I was working with a producer friend named Ben Myron, and Ben rounded up his brother. And we actually brought him to Malibu. And unfortunately, we discovered that the rights were so screwed up in between relatives that there's never been a Jimi Hendrix movie, because people couldn't agree on the deal of any kind. But it still would be a terrific movie, I think. Oh, it would be a phenomenal movie. I believe there was at least one Jimi Hendrix docudrama. Wasn't there, Jimmy? I believe. Do you remember it? Yeah, it was Andre 3000 from OutKast. That's right. But they couldn't really use all the music and stuff, I think.

1:51:33Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't hear Jimmy. He said it was Andre 3000 from OutKast. I see. And that they couldn't use all the music. I see. I think. It came out even like 10 years ago. That was an issue back then, too. I remember that. Yeah. There's a picture of him as... That's right. Jimmy. That's right. Wow. Also, the day after you're talking about in Cleveland, there's a recording of the concert. Oh, wow. Oh, shit. That's my Facebook. Is that right? The Cleveland concert? Yeah. Wow. I've got a few different links. They kept taking me to Facebook, but there's a bunch of pictures. Whoa. March 26, 1968.

1:52:12Wow. And then there's a recording of the concert. to. So you can listen to the recording from the concert? Yeah, I was trying to get in here. There's an article from his legendary trip to Cleveland. Wow. But this was like paid Walt. I couldn't get all the stuff behind it. Wow, man. He was the nicest guy. I can imagine. Yeah, very nice guy. Just laid back. Wow, he was just an insane one of a not even one of a generation. One of one talent. I mean, to this day, if you ask most guitarists, who's the greatest guitarist of all time? It's Jimi Hendrix. That's crazy that one guy who died at 27 years old, and what did he die in 1969 or 1970?

1:52:58Yeah, somewhere there. That that guy, to this day, is universally regarded as the greatest guitarist of all time. You know, I interviewed, I was known as the Grim Reaper at the Plain Dealer because I interviewed Hendrix. Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Otis and they all died they all died I did a feature on Jose Feliciano and people would come up to me and say what do you have against Jose why do you want him to die that's crazy it's just unfortunate and they all died at 27 years old was that right? Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison So all died at 27. Wow. And who else? Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse. At 27?

1:53:49Yeah, it's all 27. 27 is the magic number for insanely talented people to die young. Yeah, very weird. You've had an incredible life, man. You know, I've been blessed. I've been really blessed. First of all, the fact that I'm still here at 81, considering some of my excesses in the past, is miraculous. It truly is. I started smoking when I was 13. Whoa. I stopped when I was 60. Whoa. Right? And I had stage 4 cancer, and Marshall Storm surgery saved me. The, you know, I drank too hard most of my life until I was 70, and I finally stopped then. only because I have a hard-headed Italian-Polish wife who said, enough, you're falling down.

1:54:44You're taking 12 pills and you're falling down. No fucking more. Now, shortly after we were married, literally after we exchanged the vows, she turned to me and she says, she whispers, she says, if you cheat on me, I'm going to fucking hunt you down and kill you I listened to her I listened to her I listened to this woman Sounds like a fun lady She is I'm very proud of her because at 67 the mother of four and truly the true head of our family she's writing her first she's written her first novel which is called Dark Church and it's set in Dracula's Transylvania and it's a kind of gothic thriller and I bring it up because I promised her that I would make this plug and I fear that if I don't I'm going to be in a lot of trouble thank you very much I love that when someone does something like that when they're in their 60s just say fuck it something I've always wanted to do let's do it I think it's fantastic thank you I just love when people do like fuck your age who cares just put it out I write it I agree yeah but I have lived an amazing life and I and I I'm very thankful um the uh um I've seen a lot um the and I've come I've seen a lot of darkness too, but when it's all over, Graham Greene, who's a writer that I admire, died I think in his late 70s, and he said, we get to a point where we see the fence.

1:56:48The fence is there, but we can't see over the fence. But the closer we get to the fence, the more curious we are about what's on the other side of the fence. And there are some people who decide that they're too curious, people like Hunter, and jump over the fence, right? I'm not doing that, but I'm approaching the fence. But I've lived a terrific life, and only, once again, only in America. Yeah, only in America. Well, I'm glad you're not jumping over the fence. No. I'm glad we got a chance to talk to you. No, I really did admire his note, the no more fun note. It should be classic. Yeah, well, I mean, that's how he lived.

1:57:28And at the end of his life, obviously, it was not fun. No, no. But Twain, I keep going back to Twain. This is a good one, I think. He said, the orgasm is God's own payback for all the suffering that he overlooks in the world.

1:57:48That's funny. Well, it's like writers in particular are, they're so important to culture. because they can put down thoughts in a way that reshapes the way people view things. We talked about Hunter in the 60s and the 70s. He was the voice of that generation. He was the guy that was this intelligent guy that wasn't a part of the elite establishment, that wasn't a part of the rich fat cats, but was also famous and well-known, but stuck true to his thoughts and his beliefs. It was able to articulate things in a way that gave you this understanding of what was going on with the people back then. To this day, if you read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail or if you read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or any of his work, the Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved.

1:58:42It's just a phenomenal encapsulation of that time. It goes alone, though. Even something else. It goes alone. Yeah. It's so important. and we don't have a lot of that today unfortunately you know you got a lot of podcasters and a lot of you know people making YouTube videos and TikToks and just not a lot of like great writing that encapsulates things where there's like one figure that we turn to to read their stuff on things and Hunter was that guy. Yes he was as Hemingway was for a previous generation you know and Hunter and I talked a lot about Hemingway because of our backgrounds and earning a living and all of that.

1:59:24And I think that the fact that Hunter ended it as he did was sort of thought out many, many years before in probably through Hemingway's example. Inspired by Hemingway, yeah. Unfortunately, that's how he did it too. Yeah. And they both shared in common that they drank to excess. Absolutely. But, you know, when I was a boy, wanting to be a, and I wanted to be a novelist and not a screenwriter, Boy, the Holy Trinity were Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. They all died of alcoholism. Hemingway shot himself. Fitzgerald had a heart attack at a very young age while working as a Hollywood screenwriter, incidentally.

2:00:06And Faulkner fell off a horse, I think, in his early 70s, ripped, ripped, totally drunk. And these were the idols of young people coming up then. What do you think it is about alcohol in writing? The go hand in glove. The, um... And I, for a while, I drank all day black coffee and cognac. And then later on in life, I didn't have my first drink until noon. And what did I make away? It was 11 o 'clock. And I measured it until at night. And then it was gin. Before it was white wine. and part of it is that if you're lost in this imaginary world that's in your head all day, you can't get rid of it.

2:01:03You can't make it stop. And the booze makes it stop so that you can continue your normal familial daily obligations and schedules without having this stuff in your head all the time trying to crowd it out. The fact that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and take notes of something that a character says or something indicates that I can't get rid of it. With the booze, when I was drinking, if I drank enough, I could get rid of it and begin it again the next day. It's partly freeing yourself. It's an interesting point. It's partly freeing yourself from something that you've created yourself.

2:01:47so in that sense you create something that can hurt you even if you created it my greatest enjoyment was writing a screenplay I mean it gives me a terrific amount of pleasure knowing that it's going to take when people see this it's going to make their own lives more pleasant for at least two hours they will enjoy it they may laugh at it but it will take them out of their own existences in a pleasant way That ain't bad to be able to do that with people. Oh, it's huge. And that's very important to me. People think of it as trivial, that entertainment is trivial. I don't think it is at all. No, it's not at all.

2:02:27It shapes our perceptions of the world. Exactly. You do the exact same thing. You make people's lives better by enjoying what they're watching. And that is not as important or as dramatic as my daughter-in-law, for example, who just got her medical degree, who literally saves people's lives. Incidentally, the classic Hollywood story, I think Alyssa, Alyssa Esther Oz works in Texas in a hospital, and she just got her medical degree. But to show the influence that Hollywood has on our culture, the other day she walks into a room and there's a gigantic big guy there who's yelling and screaming. You know, this is the sweetest person in the world and has this wonderful smile and really is great with people.

2:03:21And she's trying to calm him down and she says, what's wrong, what's wrong? And she describes him as a really big man and is screaming and he says, what's wrong, what's wrong? And he yells, I want Brad Pitt. He's fucking in Texas, you know, at some hospital. And he says, you want Brad Pitt? He says, I want fucking Brad Pitt. He says, but why? Why do you want Brad Pitt? He goes, because I want to fuck him.

2:03:54Now this sweet woman. That's hilarious. Doctor confronted him with this mad man who wants to fuck Brad Pitt. One more example. Do you need a powerful effect of the culture? So when I write something, I don't want some guy to see it and say, this is all I want, Brad Pitt. Nor do I want Vladimir Zalewski to start a fucking war. Right. But I do want people to enjoy it. Right. That's hilarious. When you say that the alcohol silences the voices, I always thought of it as the other. I thought of it as like alcohol releases people from their inhibitions and allows them to tap into this voice sometimes I think that happens with some writers, but that's never been my problem There's something about going into a little room wherever you are, and you don't have to be in Hollywood You can be anywhere As long as there's a little room in the house you can escape to And sit there quietly and make shit up That you think people will enjoy Anyway, as long as that's there, that's all I really need.

2:05:06Now, occasionally, I will play music without stop on certain scripts. It was the same way with Leonard Cohen. I listened to him a lot. And Dylan, of course. I did a movie with Dylan, which was also a funny experience. But sometimes it's music. It's not Coke anymore. It's not cognac anymore with coffee. I drank so much coffee that finally one day we had to call an ambulance because I thought I was having a heart attack and become allergic to it it was just caffeine? ambulance caffeine ambulance is driving me down to Marine General and there's a traffic jam, there's construction right? and they think I'm having a heart attack and I jump out of the ambulance and I run up to the guy with the heart hat and I'll never forget it says Brinkhoff and I'm yelling at him I'm having a heart attack, you motherfucker.

2:06:01Get these guys out of the way. I'm dying. Of course, oh, my God. It's worse than the guy who wants to fuck Brad Pitt. It gets out of the way. Well, the crazy thing is just coffee after all the coke and all the other craziness. Yeah, well, even that guy. So I had to stop. I stopped the coffee as well. The years after I stopped it, I was in New York, and I ordered a decaf espresso. So there wasn't decaf, and I was up for two and a half days without being asleep. So obviously my system got totally screwed up. It got reset. Yeah, you lost your tolerance for it. But I never felt it inspired me. Now, with basic instinct, writing it in the sun, in the Hawaiian sun, and of course through all of this, it was nonstop smoking.

2:06:57You know, I mean, two-pack a day smoking, beginning with Lucky's and Marlborough's and moving out to Galois and occasionally cigars and pipe and all this shit. So I did do that. But I never felt that the Coke was inspirational. It was enjoyable, and it was fucking dynamite sexually. You know, so that also comes in handy. But it wasn't what fueled your writing. No, I never felt that it did. It was just recreational. Yeah, it was recreational. But nicotine did. Yeah, absolutely. You know, that's also, Stephen King said that, that when he stopped smoking, it was one of the most difficult things that he ever quit.

2:07:37Like quitting the booze and quitting Coke and all that stuff was one thing, but quitting cigarettes, he said he really noticed the difference in his riding. Well, yeah, I went through that. I was warned after my cancer surgery by this army surgeon that I liked so much that if you smoke or drink, you're dead. You're dead. Understand that. So I took it seriously. Drinking, my idea of not drinking at that point, was switching from Tanqueray to white wine. And of course that got out of hand after a while too. Until Naomi jumped into the whole pray, you know. And now you're completely clean. Totally.

2:08:22I've been completely clean. Did this all line up with your conversion to Christianity? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I needed Jesus of Nazareth's help seriously to be able to do all that. And I did a lot of praying. But I still believe in prayer and I believe in worship. with a group of people is a special kind of inspirational thing that I feel. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I think there's something about all those people collected together. It's just like when you go to a concert and you feel the music with all the people that are enjoying the music. There's a similar thing that happens at a church. Very similar.

2:09:02We're meant to be together. We are tribal people and we're meant to be together. And there's something about groups of people together, especially in a positive way that unite us and connect us in a way that it's very profound. It's different than anything else. It's different than watching it on a screen. There's something about being in the presence of other people that are doing the same thing. Yeah, you can feel a vibe. Yeah. And the vibe goes deep, and it's really inspirational. And when it's really working, I feel almost transported. I'm on a different level. I feel myself being on that level, and it's wonderful.

2:09:41Yeah, and you can see all these other people experiencing the same thing. It's very transformational. Yeah. And, you know, I always talk about the parking lot of church is like the best place on earth because everybody lets you go. Everybody lets everybody go in front of them. Everyone's kind. You know, it works. That's what's crazy. Like the teachings of Jesus do work. Yes, they do. If you follow them, you will be a better person. Yes, you will. But people are very cynical, and rightly so. They're very afraid of people manipulating them. They're very afraid of cults. There you go. You got your cross right on you.

2:10:18That's a nice one, too. I like that. Thank you. People are very afraid of people telling them that they know things, that they have the answers. Yeah.

2:10:32I'm not afraid of that sometimes. I'm skeptical of it. But it depends on where it's coming from. and sometimes, I don't know who you are, but sometimes I can feel something very special with someone who is talking about those kinds of things. You can feel the difference, and the difference between that and someone who's not genuine is very apparent. You feel that as well. It bothers you. You're like, I don't want to hear this guy talk about this. But you know what? If you have a shit detector, and you do, and so do I, if you have a shit detector, you can really feel that and pick it up. to block it out.

2:11:09I think your shit detector works with virtually everything. I think the audience gets it too. I agree. In terms of if my shit detector advises me to do something, I must always do it. Yeah. Well, listen, Joe, it's been an honor having you in here. You're a real legend. It's been such a pleasure. You are truly, what you do is you have redefined the interview. And you made it into a very special conversation chat between two guys who think they'll like each other. And they talk for hours. And they're inspired. And they come out liking each other. And you do that to people. And I think that's a great gift.

2:12:02Thank you. I thank you for the Joe Rogan experience. thank you for being here it's an honor it's an honor to meet you and an honor to have you on here and i really enjoyed the conversation it was awesome thank you i did too all right bye everybody