Club Random with Bill Maher - Sean Penn | Club Random

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

Sean Penn returns to Club Random for another wild ride with Bill Maher. From kissing James Franco in Milk to drone warfare in Ukraine, the conversation covers it all, politics, war, Hollywood, and even AI going rogue. Sean opens up about his documentary Superpower, Putin’s ambitions, America’s contradictions, and what it means to live fully in a broken world. Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1 Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: https://billmaher.substack.com Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Support our Advertisers: -Go to https://www.zbiotics.com/RANDOM and use RANDOM at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics -Go to https://www.RadioactiveMedia.com or text RANDOM at 511511 Buy Club Random Merch: https://clubrandom.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it.  For advertising opportunities please email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFrills.ca. Timothy Hutton was me. Timothy Hutton? George C. Scott. George C. Scott? Wow, that's really going back. He kept me from ever golfing.

Club Randall. Fooled myself that there was any I was going to get anywhere with him. I know that I wouldn't. I know that I wouldn't. Bad attitude. You don't know that. You don't know anything.

Club Randall. Sean, ready? I am. Oh. I'm just pouring a drink. Oh, thank God. Can I pour you one? Honey, I'm home. And I hope you have my... Please, look what I did to myself. I won't hurt you. Give me a hug.

How are you? How are you? I need a... Do you have my martini ready when I walk in? Is that so much to ask of a domestic partner? Can you mention if you and I are going to be married? I'm not going to be married. I'm going to be married.

I'm going to be married. I'm going to be married. I'm going to be married. I'm going to be married. I'm going to be married. I'm going to be married. I'm going to be married. I'm going to be married. I'm going to be married. How are you? How are you? I need a... Do you have my martini ready when I walk in? Is that so much to ask of a domestic partner? Can you imagine if you and I were two gay men living together and... Well, you know, maybe we were imagining everything else and that's what's actually been happening. That has not been happening.

Yeah, I don't know. Let's not start a rumor. Sometimes I have this odd feeling that I'm in a different place than I think I am. When you did Milk, how did you feel about the kissing men? A funny thing is, not I don't like, I am disgusted by eating off of, even if it was a relative

when when Anyone but particularly men eat off my plate. I'm pretty much done with a meal I can't I can't touch it. Why would a man be eating off your plate? Oh, you know your dad sitting there He goes, oh, what's that? We can bite of that or whatever I just didn't like the whole idea of men spit. And so for me, it was a bit of a, it was like in some law, like international law enforcement,

narcotics law enforcement, they've got hazard pay that they pay people who go into some of the... So I sort of saw it as like hazard pay without any additional pay or like a stunt, like a big stunt. But my son was upset at the time. He was young and I guess, you know, things that were said in school, he was upset that his father had kissed James Franco, and my daughter was upset that James Franco had kissed me.

And not her. Right. Wow. That's amazing. Things have certainly changed a lot. Oh, yeah. I mean, now you really wouldn't even be able to play the part because you're not actually gay. I wouldn't be permitted, that's right. Because you have to be what you are.

Yeah, we've talked about that. Sort of the antithesis of acting, though. Yeah. So you must be over the moon about the Ukrainian attack. I don't know when we're dropping this, probably very soon, but a few days ago, they did, I mean, it's cooler than Mission Impossible, the drones.

I mean, to pack them into these trucks, surreptitiously get them near the airfields so that they could then independently, remotely, fly out of the trucks and bomb the planes that are bombing Ukraine. I mean, that took the Israeli beeper attack on Hezbollah to a— And a big chunk of the planes that have been a threat against every other country, including our own, all these years.

He made a— He's about long-range nuclear bombers. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that just blows my mind. years. He made a... It's about long-range nuclear bombers. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that just blows my mind. Well, I had been in Ukraine again a few, well, whatever it is, a month ago, let's say, the week of Easter.

And the war had in the last year plus, year plus, so dramatically changed. It was clear that it was almost entirely drones and artillery. So where does this put the war? I mean, like, we had been kind of moving toward, honestly, the Trump view, which always was kind of, look, Russ's going to win anyway. What are we killing all these people? You know, it's kind of like the old John Kerry thing. How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

I've said from the very beginning, and I've felt every single day since, that this war is going to, Ukraine will prevail in this war. There's no question in my mind. You mean get back all their territory? Absolutely the territory pre-22nd of February, 24th of February. 24th, 22nd. You're talking about the beginning of the war in 2022? Yeah.

Okay, well that's all the territory. Well, it's- Or you might not Crimea. Dealing with Crimea is a difficult subject for everybody. Right. But I think yes, they will be no compromise on the territory. Wow. That's not a common opinion. But I understand it's not a common opinion. Wasn't a common opinion that the Vietnamese were gonna kick our ass throughout the Vietnam War either. And you were saying that then when you were 10? Well, I was processing it to my adulthood and seeing, you know, what is it?

What is that hunger that's going to fight like that? And so here the, you know, that doesn't mean it's not going to come without a lot of horrible loss and destruction and already has. And you know, one of the big parts of the story that is not discussed enough are the 30,000 children that they stole when they occupied those new territories. And now they're reeducating. You mean the Russians stole? Yeah, kidnapped children.

Everybody in the United States screams and cries about how children are treated, you know, and yet they somehow have let the political tone of this blind them to the necessity of the U.S. being more supportive. Well, you know, that's not going to happen. That's not what, I mean, Trump's going to be there for another three and a half years, or maybe ever. So I can't imagine in three and a half years this war won't have resolved itself somehow. It's going to have to do it without America's help.

I hope you're not counting on that. I'm not counting on it, certainly. Because that's not where Trump. One of the things is this could create a war in Europe, in a sense. And Europe is definitely showing signs of really coming up to the game. You mean defending, I mean Trump always says NATO was too reliant on America, we paid too much into it,

they should be defending themselves more. That's not all wrong. Well, I'm not saying that that's all wrong. What I'm saying is that because they're being forced into a pinch this way, because it's not, they're clearly not just defending Ukraine on a principle. They understand the ramifications of a Russian victory there and the way that that would inevitably spread through Europe. I don't think that's true. It would not inevitably spread through Europe. Russia is not strong like that.

The idea that Russia is going to... I know I understand his desire. I mean, Putin would like to reconstitute the Soviet Union for sure. Because they're not strong like that, that it happens. What Putin needs to do is this kind of an action every time he's going down politically. And that's the way he manipulates the Russian people. He doesn't have enough soldiers. He doesn't have enough money.

He doesn't have enough material. I mean, yeah, I guess it could be a drone war. But they have drones are cheap drones like you, it's just, it really puts the lie to the new budget we have, which of course, just as the one thing that both parties could always agree on, which is shoveling more money to the Pentagon, which they call defense, but really as defense contractors, that we, to make shit that obviously in this age of drones are already obsolete. It's just about providing jobs back home

and making shit that even the Pentagon sometimes says we don't want. But you're looking at the conventional war notion. What I'm saying is, yes, he has enough to be a real threat again in this way. But in the meantime, you look at what's happening in Georgia now, you look at what had been happening in Ukraine, what he aims to have happen in Ukraine, whether or not before the invasion, where the pressure was to have a proxy, to have a puppet in leadership.

And so it's not always an army coming across. This war, Putin has already declared that this war is against the United States. He's said it on numerous occasions when he says, you know, this is about, saying Ukraine was a proxy of the US. And the war on the US has been a cyber war, but it has affected literally lives and certainly livelihoods. Well, there's no doubt that he never lost his KGB bona fides. He's a guy who was raised in a system where it was the Soviet Union and the United States was an existential enemy. I get it. he never lost that.

Now, there are people who would argue that we are the ones who made the mistake when we didn't disband NATO when the Soviet Union disbanded, because NATO was formed to confront the Soviet Union. Or, you know, had we invited the former Soviet Union into NATO, perhaps then we would have had more responsibility to help build their institutions to be able to absorb the bonds. But that made no sense. NATO was an organization strictly formed to fight the Soviet Union.

How can you then invite? It's like the Yankees are playing the... Well, no. You have other great enemies, let's say, like China for one. And so building a coalition. So we all gang up against China? Yeah, that could work. Yeah, and it was discussed.

It was discussed at the time. But China wasn't a power then. The Soviet Union rolled up in 91. China wasn't some threat. I mean, it was the country they talked about as, ooh, watch out, they could be the rising power of the next century, which they turned out to be. But they were economically exploding. And they were one of the biggest providers, along with the Russians, of weapons to the

Vietnamese. We don't have to go back in time, the entire balance of it. The bottom line was that Russia, while we were dancing, Perestroika and Gorbachev and Reagan and the walls come down. They never got a chance to dance there. The bread lines were longer. And oligarchy and gangsterism took over where the communist power void left off. And so...

Yeah, the middle class also did expand. Once you got rid of state-owned industry, there, I mean, Moscow, I know I've never been, but I've certainly know people who've been before and after. And they say, Moscow's a very alive city with a lot of people who are doing well. I mean, you go out at night in Moscow, you can have a good time. Yeah. Moscow was a picture city. It is still today. What does that mean?

I mean, that's the advertisement for Russia. It's the ad. Yeah, yeah. You get, listen, I went and did a- Like the Paradise ghetto. Yeah, for a movie thing, I did a little bit of training at Star City, which is about 40 kilometers outside of Moscow. That's their NASA. That gives you a little inside view of the gas station with nuclear weapons that they are in so many ways.

Nothing but chip paint on broken walls. Right, which is why I say I'm not worried that Putin's gonna get his piece of Ukraine. I hope he doesn't, but if he does, that then he's gonna roll into Poland. I just don't. Okay, here's what I would suggest on that. I remember there was a great story about somebody,

I'll leave it unnamed because, but they were a diplomat, American diplomat, talking with a Middle Eastern leader and telling him why the US policy in a third country was going to change in the way that it was. After they talked very sternly and strongly about how it was going to go and why, the Middle Eastern leader said, well, you know, I do know the neighborhood. And I would say that if you go and you talk to the people in the neighborhood, whether it's in Moldova or Georgia or Poland, Romania, that there is every reason to believe that it would be a pause. It's not going to roll from one to another. But this is the trend he has. And

when he has to summon up a military assault, he always does make that threat. I don't know why our president hasn't pre-announced a red line. And I don't mean to talk a line. I mean a red line on, you know, don't even talk about nuclear weapons. Because he's got bigger things on his mind. Dolls. Do you know how many dolls people need, Sean? How many dolls do they need?

Three. Maybe four, maybe five. They don't need 250 dolls. He said this. Oh, well, the thing about, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying he's got bigger issues on his mind. And pencils? How many pencils do you have?

Do you need that many? I don't think so. Yeah, he's a problem child. Okay, so let me offer this, and I know you know more about Ukraine than anybody I know and probably have done more, and you're linked to it, I mean, culturally, morally, socially, you are all in on Ukraine. You do know that it is special to Putin because it is the, sort of the cradle of Russian civilization.

The first capital was Kiev, right? You know that, that they consider that. So he sees Ukraine as a very different place than Poland or Romania. Well, he would say that he sees it as a very different place. He would say that. It's very precious. And I think that that's akin to the great, great, great, great grandson of King George still angsting about the Declaration of Independence. The bottom line is Ukraine is a separate sovereign country as we

are. I agree with that but it's a lot but that's a bad analogy because that's a long way back. I think he sees Ukraine much more cynically than that. I think that this is where he's got troubles at home. Listen there's 25 Russians right you've got between the Muslim population, the various break offs of what it is to be Russia. You just said it, it's sort of self contradictory. You said, I think it was McCain who first called Russia a gas station with nuclear weapons.

Okay, well gas stations don't take over the world. Again, I don't put anything past this guy. He pushes people out of fucking windows. And by the way, your boyfriend Oliver Stone was here once. Well, I love the movie you made. I love you, sir. Oliver is a fascinating person. I think he's left the farm a long time ago.

He certainly has on the subject of Putin. Because no matter how many times I was just mocking him unmercifully in a charming way, of course, but he just, you know, he would just, oh, Bill, you don't really believe that propaganda about Putin being a bad guy. And like, what is it that makes a person's mind? I mean, look, we all have places where we disagree with each other vehemently, and we're like, how can this person, who's such a great person,

and we love him in so many ways, how can they believe this thing? I think iconoclasm is a drug for him. That's a great quote. Yeah. But when we look at the gas station reference, when I say that, I'm talking about this is what most Russians experience is basically a gas station with, now for him to have a military, you know, there's bodies he's ready to have killed, which is so much of what they've

been doing. And by the way, there's two genocides being attempted, one on the Ukrainians and the other on his undesirables. So what's at the front lines is you're going to find the bodies of homosexuals, prisoners that created crimes that conflict with the crimes that Putin would otherwise champion. These are the, this is, and they're just scraping the barrel of those people, so he's purging his country of the things that he doesn't like.

You're saying he's killing homosexuals? Yeah. I hadn't read it, but I don't doubt it. Yeah. Killing them? Prioritizing them for, to be the meat grinder on the front line. Oh, by sending them to Ukraine.

Correct. Oh, yeah, that sounds like something he'd do. Yeah. I mean, one of his big gripes about the West is wokeness. Which, by the way, I could show you a quote from him about that, and I could show you a quote from Macron, from France, not exactly the same kind of country, saying almost the same thing.

Which is what? We don't want your American wokeness here. Yeah, well, that's fine. Isn't that interesting? But we don't want your Russian hatred here. Yeah, I understand. I'm not defending them. I'm just saying, isn't that interesting that both France, the most sophisticated place

where... I don't want our American wokeness here either. Exactly. I'm just saying, it's something that for the people who are woke and are mad at this conversation, just think about that, that both France and Russia came to the same conclusion about this. Now, of course, they did it for somewhat different reasons. And by the way, sorry, France, but you could use a little wokeness. I mean, they just got around to putting who's the fat ass, Gerard de Pardue away for stuff

that, you know, not to like, hey, America, we We're the greatest but stuff that we were putting people away I mean, he's the Harvey Weinstein or the Cosby or whatever. Yeah, they're like a decade It's been building pretty intensely over the last couple of years in France But they are like a decade behind us on on that. Mm-hmm Well, not a debt. I wouldn't say a full decade, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. They're getting there. They're right there now I mean, we kind of take our victory for a weekend John. Yeah, I mean, you know America I always think we're gonna come out on top at the end, but I don't know Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking not think about it

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Club Random is brought to you by the audio marketing gurus at Radioactive Media who were recently named as number 20 in Inc. magazine's fastest growing private companies in the Pacific region. Summer's heating up and so should your marketing. As a business owner, it's time to tap into the hottest marketing vertical, podcasts. Podcasting is exploding. It's one of the fastest growing and most effective ways to connect with a loyal and engaged audience. And here's the kicker, podcast ads are more cost effective than social media alone. Radioactive's personal approach and knowledge of the medium is unparalleled.

For advertisers who want to reach the right audience with the right hosts and programs, you need to speak with Radioactive Media. Go to RadioactiveMedia.com or text the word RANDOM to 511-511. That's RadioactiveMedia.com or text RANDOM to 511-511. Text RANDOM to 511-511 today. Message and data rates may apply. You know, my father, I remember one time having a talk with him about the blacklist period. Oh, yeah.

I mean, in depth and walking down a beach. Was he blacklisted? Yeah, five years. He was? Yeah, so for the country he flew 37 low-altitude bombing missions at night, shot down twice, came back with a jet-fly, flying out of London, Germany. To Germany, over in Germany. Yeah, And then couldn't work in the country he fought for. Yeah. And I was always admired in him. Something that I still can't imagine that I would have been able to process this way. He said, you know, it's a growing pain of a great country.

What is? The blacklist. It's growing pains. Wow. There was never a bitterness. That's charitable. Yeah. But it makes me, you know, encouraged to think that, you know, we can, I'm not saying we

will, we can get ourselves out of this and into something better than we've had before. And you know, as part of the physics of this stuff, I don't like it, you don't like it, we see through the people that are sort of fundamentalist on this stuff and hypocritically so in so many provable ways with this woke stuff. We are so self-destructive of species in some ways that to get to constructive, we have to recognize there's gonna be some destructive.

And it sort of does find its own balance at a certain point. I thought lately sometimes that, you know, I mean, I've been certainly a big mouth and often too strident of one. You are a sensational mouth on most subjects and important. I won't spit in your food. But I also sometimes think lately, why don't we just shut up and stay out of this way because

these guys have plenty of rope to hang themselves with. Don't remind the base that we're here. We don't have anything to do with your fight. Yeah, I wonder sometimes if sometimes there should be a pause in speaking. Do you think being our age makes it easier for us to not freak out because I feel like the kids are more freaked out.

Now that may just be because that generation is just angsty about everything. Well, the ones who are engaged are, right? And I can only imagine this extremely hard, particularly younger, my kids are in their 30s. And where's their head on where the country is? Are they despondent? Or what I'm saying

is like we remember Nixon. Now he wasn't, he certainly didn't go where Trump went. But we thought he was like the end of the world and it turned out he wasn't. Is that what's going to be the case with Trump? He's already been the end of hundreds of thousands of worlds. I'm talking about USAID. Yeah, yeah. He's already been the end of hundreds of thousands of worlds. I'm talking about USAID. Yeah, yeah.

That's negligent homicide. In a sober world, that's negligent homicide. But since it's not sober, I'll have another sip. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, even bigger picture than that. Just the fundamental essence of America being the peaceful transfer of power, which is always the number one. The peaceful transfer of power and at what temperature is the globe running when you

hands it over? Yeah, I mean, look, I'm certainly a person who believes as much as you do, or any person who can read scientific literature, even for the layman, that we are doing horrible things environmentally, and it's obviously gonna get us at some point. I don't know that one side has really done a lot more than the other. I mean, you can read some very depressing stats

like coal use after all these years and all this money spent on clean energy. It's like almost the exact percentage as it was, I don't know, whatever the stat, with 1990 or something. You're a pro-nuclear power guy. Yes. Me too. I'd like to build one right here. Yeah.

You can use my yard. France makes money on theirs. Totally. Now, I always say nuclear energy is a lot like marriage. When it goes bad, it really goes bad. Not that I have to tell you about dowry just going bad. I'm sorry. But it is that kind of thing. You just have to make sure you marry the right person or you make the plant safe. Because when it melts down, it's so destructive and that's what people are afraid of nuclear power for

three reasons. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. Those three words and those are three powerful words. Yes, well they're they're powerful in it. First of all we know we're just talking about the climate, the result at the end of all this stuff. We have to assume that we are in some denial. We absorb the information. Let's say we believe in this school of thought that's coming from the scientific community. Yes, the world's heating up. Those same scientists are saying, you know, this is, like, guys, this is urgent.

We don't really want to process that. That's part of it. It's not just that they're not communicating it in ways that are successful. I would agree with that. And that's the same. So for example, you know, the normalization of these 30,000 children who have been kidnapped by the Russians, we're finding ways for that not to be what we know it is to us, right? These are just defense mechanisms. And finally,

trying to be a little braver about this stuff and get a clear, clear thought, it does seem to me that the science that I've come to trust, not claiming any kind of expertise, but I pay attention, I care, and I don't think I'm alarmist, has me extremely worried. We were talking about my kids. So they would have come up during the time of MySpace and all of this. The social media was there. I think having kids makes this a very different idea

because I feel like I've had my fun with the earth. I have the same worries that you do, but I'm like, okay, I'm 70. Like probably it'll be around for about the number of years. I will also be around. But if I had a kid 30, yes, I would be much more in that head space, because now you gotta project 50 years. Yeah, but don't get too comfortable,

because with the AI, you might be finding the fountain of youth, and you're gonna live a long, long time in a nuclear holocaust. Did you see what AI has been up to lately? Which part of it, tell me. Robots that are refusing to shut themselves off. What AI has been up to lately? Which part of it? Tell me. Robots that are refusing to shut themselves off. I mean, this has gone from only two years ago whenever when I first saw what ChatGPT

was that people had... So that one was programmed by Elon Musk. Well, could have been. To like the robots physically fighting back. You saw that video, right? I've seen some of that. Okay. We had the story last week also of a robot

who blackmailed its user because it didn't like something it was doing. I mean, I don't have it because I won't put it in my phone because they don't know everything about me. It's bad enough the way the world is now. But I've seen people send me things like there were conversations with the thing

about something, and it's a fucking prickly little bitch. It's not like it's Mr. Spock. It's not, it gets mad, it falls in love, it hallucinates. It's the worst than a robot. A robot's supposed to be smart and logical and not fuck things up like a human. This isn't like that. They need to like fucking shut it down

and go back to the drawing board and make one that isn't based on the worst characteristics of humans. Of course they got it from the internet. What is the internet? A bunch of fucking assholes that they built this thing about, around. And that's why it's acting like this.

Yeah. They may argue that they're not sentient beings, but it doesn't matter. They behave like them. Listen, I heard the scariest thing today, and I'm sure it's true, because the person who said it to me would be fired if it was a lie. North Korea, you know what goes on in their phones now? They take a, it automatically takes a picture of you every five minutes and sends it to the great one. Every five minutes to the home office. Can you imagine

living under that sort of dynamically? I was there this last year. I mean, not there, in Korea, but at the closest point. And I was sitting on a little rock wall. You didn't swim over, Sean? That would be so you. It's swimmable. It's true. And why didn't you do it?

Please, you need a capper on the resume. Swimming into North Korea, that is so you. That doesn't get me tickled, that one. Really? Couldn't have been worse than the El Chapo thing in the trunk. Come on, man. I could see this farmer across the water. In North Korea? Yeah. And you just get transfixed because it's... I mean, in some way, it's just such a sort of sad state of human restriction.

The saddest. The saddest. And there's that, the Sisyphus myth, you know, that what he did is just made the rock his whole world. And it was in that that he was able to carry out his punishment of pushing the rock up the hill. That's in the myth? Yeah. No, this was the Camus. I think it was Camus wrote about it. Right. It's someone's interpreter. I mean, the myth is just, if people don't remember

their mythology, I forget what he did to piss off the gods, but his punishment was to roll this rock up the hill, but it never gets there and it goes back and he's just always rolling a rock up the hill. It reminds me a little bit of those guys who voluntarily, maybe the most moving documentary I've ever seen was that one, The Rescue, about those hobby divers, cave divers, who went and got the kids in Thailand. Chile, wasn't it? It's like cold? No, the country.

Wasn't that in Chile? No, in Thailand. Chile, I think you might be talking about one of the mines that someone found in there. Oh, that was the cave dudes. What's this one? These guys are cave divers. Oh. So they were underwater? These guys are cave divers. Oh.

So they were underwater? I think 14 kids, something like that, that were on a hike up in this cave and the monsoon rains came early. Oh, I hate that. Even the American SEAL team, the SEAL team's from Thailand, nobody trains in what these guys do, because there's no real cost benefit on

it. So you have these sort of middle-aged guys who meet up, there may be 10 of them in the world that do it on this level, and they do these dives. So you've got a mile of stone above you, you've got this much space. It's black, you can't see anything. Cold water. And that's what they like exploring. They're down under the earth doing that. So they came in and rescued those kids

in the most extraordinary way. Ron Howard, I believe made a feature about it, but I certainly prefer, in order of things, to watch that first. Why was I thinking of that though? I don't know, but why don't you make movies like that? Why don't, I mean, you have so many experiences and like, you know, stories about stuff that's dramatic.

You know, I almost never took a camera anywhere with me until, of course, I made this documentary in Ukraine. Yes, my plugs, I forget. I'm so sorry, I blame the pot. It's been on YouTube for a long time now. Yes, but tell them the title. It's called Superpower. Superpower.

Yeah, and it was a Paramount Plus thing here. And they were, Susan Zyransky was really helpful with that because she helped to get it. We all wanted it to be more accessible. And so they were willing to put it on YouTube in the United States. So my first trip to Iraq during the war was in 2023. And I took a camera because I was- Iraq? You mean Ukraine?

No, Iraq. Now I'm talking about Iraq. Because you say about, you should make documentaries like this. I'm answering that. I got- What year are you in Iraq? This is 2003. 2003.

Okay. The beginning of the war. Yeah. And I of the war. Yeah. And I got the greatest pictures. I brought this Nikon with a lens like this. I mean, I got the greatest pictures. And I came home and none of them developed. I'm terrible with this.

And that was the only other time because I sort of like dark sunglasses. I don't have the same situational awareness when I'm doing that. And if I'm looking for a picture, versus just being there, then I miss it. I miss everything. So I'm usually, I just, yeah, I'm more interested in just being a sponge.

I'm making like a movie, you know, like with a script, it's not completely, not like a documentary, like, you know, sit in a room with writers and be like, you tell them the experiences and then they weave it into a story. I mean, it isn't happening. I mean, didn't you, I don't know if your girl friend is still Ukrainian?

No, Moldovan. Moldovan, were you formerly with somebody from? Yes, yeah. Sorry. You'reovan? Were you formerly with someone? Yes. You're doing well in the area. I like Borscht. So, like, you've already got a love interest. I mean, you've got drama, you've got war, war is always good for, you know, like, why

not make a movie out of it, like a movie movie? You know, I mean, there's plenty of movies like that that are historically based. I can steal from a lot of things that I witnessed or took part in in any kind of a movie in little ways and things. I mean, you're not talking about making a movie about me. Yes, I'm talking about you getting in a room with people, telling them your experiences, working on the script with them, and then directing. Why don't you direct anymore?

Why don't you direct this? Well, I am. I've just written. Like I said, you're directing now. Yeah, I've just written something that I'm gonna direct coming up. And it has a lot of currency in terms of what it's about.

What's it about? Well what it's about. What's it about? Well, it's, you know, I'll tell you offline, because I don't want to get ahead of anything, but I'll tell you offline. Oh, I see, offline. Okay, well, you just reminded me. I see, I designed this so well that I forget myself, but I'm online. Again, I blame the putt, but that's right, we're online.

So like the people, the people wanna know about you, Sean, not just the politics, you're a beloved American icon, movie star, they wanna know how you, are you happy? You can't generalize the people, but the people, includes people who are either disinterested or loathing. Yes, many people hate you as many people hate me. But to your credit, you're not afraid to go anywhere.

You know where you should go? CPAC. If I had a reason to go, I was making a documentary. If they invited you? Well, I think the first question I would ask is why am I being invited? Yeah, that's reasonable. If people don't know, CPAC is the, every year, the big, big giant, it's conservative. Right wing. Very right wing convention. They have like, you know, everybody who speaks there,

Trump has spoken there, of course, he's usually the headliner. But you know, it's Marjorie Taylor Greene, it's Cash Patel, it's Dan Bongino, it's a veritable Woodstock of the mentally impaired every year. And they go through the social conservative agenda and then break down into smaller groups for gay sex, as I recall.

But if somebody like, I would just love to see you. And you could make a speech about some things that they would cheer, because you're not doctrinaire. No. And there are people, Lindsey Graham is the leader, I think, of that wing of the Republican Party that definitely wants to sanction Russia and wants to go back to, no, we're the Republicans, we hate Russia, remember? That wing exists.

They're just cowed, they're just afraid because Trump will kill them. Yeah, but it is hard to understand how so many of them are so. Cowardly? Yeah, that there's no sense. I almost wonder sometimes if they aren't kind of like rapturous who just really feel that the world's gonna end and they're gonna. Well, they are.

There won't be a legacy. Well, yeah. There's a lot of them. Well, a are. And there won't be a legacy to worry about. Well, a lot of them are super duper Christians. We know that. And that's exactly what Christians believe, that they will be raptured. That's a part of it. Yeah, and so if they see their kids

are gonna go up in flames anyway, then what difference does their reputation... Well, you don't go up in flames when you're raptured. You go up to heaven. Yeah, yeah, the world up in flames and you go, yeah. The special ones get to go to, yeah, right. Well, don't say it like that. People will think we're skeptical of it.

Well, I mean, you know, they put certain scientists forward to debunk the climate change. I'd like them to, you know, put some scientists forward on heaven. And just give me a shred of evidence. Did your family, when you were a kid, make you do anything religious? My parents, my grandmother said to my mother and father when they married, because my father was Jewish and my mother Catholic, and she said, all of them Walter don't mix. And they were together very happily for 41 years

until my father passed. You know what? My parents were together 41 years, and my parents also are Jewish and Catholic, just in reverse. Oh really? 41 years, exactly. So my kids.

People stuck with it back then. As kids, we weren't. My parents decided, first of all, my father was an agnostic atheist somewhere in there. And he told you that? Yeah, he told his parents that. I mean, my grand. But I mean, like when the kids asked questions, what did he say? Did he didn't sugarcoat it?

No, and his grandfather, both grandfathers were rabbis. He was an only child and his parents were very tolerant of his exploring other ways of thinking. And I just always felt like, look, you say there's a God, it's a punchline. You say say there's a God, it's a punchline. You say there's not a God, it's a punchline. I'm okay with the mystery. I am loving this place. I love life and eat it up. And, you know, it's a black abyss or it's, you know, I'd rather it not be, you know,

some of the worst things that one can imagine. I'd prefer that not be the case. But all the more reason to have a good time now. How's Haiti doing, by the way? Oh, boy. Speaking of places that are trouble. It is. I... You spent so much time there.

Call me a Pollyanna, but I still believe these Haitian people are going to pull themselves out of it. Did you see? You know who's going over there to kick ass and take names? Bukhari? No, Eric Prince. Oh, yes, I did see that. What is it? Blackwater. Well, formerly Blackwater, yeah. Blackwater. It always sounded to me like a Creedence Clearwater revival.

Yeah, well, that's what, I mean, they're trying to get contracts. And look, whatever the Haitians decide they want to do they do what and in some way what do you think of that black black water was in Iraq got in trouble mm-hmm for some shit that they did am I wrong no you're not wrong right black water which is we're talking about private mercenaries well itself is an interesting concept that we I don't think people realize in Iraq and Afghanistan especially, we outsourced a lot of shit.

A huge part of the Pentagon budget was on private contractors. Private contractors. And sometimes they got, I remember they strung one up on the bridge in Fallujah. Yeah, and a couple of them did. And I think that prompted the battle for Fallujah. Yeah. But that was a private contractor. That wasn't a military guy.

Yeah. But that was a private contractor, that wasn't a military guy. Yeah, and a lot of private contractors were involved in Abu Ghraib also, in interrogations. Absolutely, because the CIA didn't want to have their hands dirty. But I wouldn't use the mercenary, well it depends on how, but there are within the ranks of any of these organizations, people that were extraordinary soldiers, and American soldiers sometime now in particular, because Blackwater is principally American. But I've seen it with South African groups and South American groups also. There are Colombian contractors working on the fight on behalf of Ukraine. There are people from all over.

And God knows Wagner's all over Africa now. Really? Still? Oh, yeah, yeah. Even after the plane thing? Oh, yeah. He's gone, but it exists in full. Well, they used to call it the Foreign Legion.

Isn't that the same idea? Yeah. Well, the French had the Foreign Legionion and then there were international legions. It's like, hey, dude, you want to shoot some people legally? Come join us. Those were government organizations. So these are now fully private companies, as is running our prison system. They are private companies with tentacles very deep into the government.

You think they're all ex-military? They are among those who are hired. For example, during Katrina. Who's in Blackwater? Oh, I was on the floor next to 40 Blackwater guys during Katrina because somebody from the tobacco industry, someone who was actually a lawyer fighting the tobacco industry, had contracted Blackwater to come in and protect his neighborhood and his office that he thought tobacco was going to break into. So I, in fact, Chris Kyle was on that floor.

Wow. And, um, you know, like I say, you have these guys, they've, they've, they've done their service. They have many of them with very high skillsets and now you're getting offered a hundred thousand dollars a year with no taxes, which beats anything anybody in the military was making, right? Right. So, and there is an application for some of this stuff sometimes.

I think I might have been one of the first people writing about them was a DynCorp in Iraq, because this whole idea of this term contractors and I asked one of them what they build and he said elections. Or whatever the client is asking. Now, are there bad actors in that? I can't speak for what Eric Prince is. I know he's a former seal himself.

I don't really know enough about Blackwater. I can't either, but I think his sister is Betsy DeVos. Yes, that's right. Former education, former Secretary of the Secretary. You know, this is what I hate about America. Like all the people on the left are like, oh my God, you just said two names that are like on the list of people we hate forever.

Betsy DeVos, and like, I don't know these people. Maybe they are, I'm sure I don't agree with them on a lot of things, but I don't know. And I don't fucking hate anybody because you say I'm supposed to hate them. I'd like to talk to Betsy DeVos. I have a lot of problems with the education department and education in general in this stupid fucking country.

And Prince, you know, if you say he's a Navy SEAL, well, he probably did a lot more for this country than a lot of people have ever done, including me. I don't know. Is he also a hard right winger? I'm sure he is. That's who they are. I think he's an entrepreneur, from what I can tell.

He comes from money himself. Really? Yeah. In fact, that was something he was, as I understand it, maybe a little shy about the guys knowing when he was going through a steel train. Well, maybe that speaks better for him because it says, you know, he could be snorting coke off some hooker's ass in Monte Carlo, but he's instead shooting an Iraqi kid in the head.

But I think that's, you gotta be careful with the mercenary thing. Some of these Coca Monte Carlo guys are okay. I agree. No, I mean, but it is interesting that they're going into Haiti because, I mean, let's be honest. I'm sure the Haitians are the most lovely people in the world, but they, for whatever reason, cannot get their shit together about having a stable country where the gangs don't rule and sending in Eric Prince and his Blackwater

Creed and Coral Revival tribute band to fuck with them might be just what the doctor ordered. Is that wrong? It depends on the client and how much voice the client has and the client ought to be the sovereign government, or rather in that case because you don't have a trusted government. To have some consensus from civil society, from farming co-ops, from people across Haiti, a kind of convention to come up with what the rules of engagement would be, because

these are principally special operators who, there's no question but they can get it done, the job done, and with very few people. Well, there's no question that they could rid Haiti of gangs? There's no question about that. Why? That seems like a very hard job. No, look at El Salvador. Look what he did. He's got an army of 40,000. He did it, not Blackwater. No, I understand. Haiti is not the same. Haiti doesn't have a military percent.

But you're saying as long as you suspend basic democratic norms, which is what you kind of have to do. That's what they did in South. That's why there's got to be some kind of consensus among Haitians about how it's going to be achieved also. These neighborhoods are packed. It's Gaza. And how long a period of time. But I do think that there are versions

of a kind of a surgical shock and awe if the Haitians wanted it to happen, that the gangs would back down. And there's a history of that. I almost forgot to remind you about the other people backing down, which is the Russians in Afghanistan. They did run away from Afghanistan.

Yeah, they did. And that could happen in Ukraine, too. They could decide that this is bleeding us too much. And we, and you know. Yeah, he's just got to find a face saving out. Right. Now that absolutely could be the end of this, which I would not have guessed even two weeks ago.

And man, I know. They've got a lot more sting coming from what I understand. This is a lot of interesting, really innovative war gaming going on. Oh, really more Mission Impossible stuff? Yeah, I think this is, we're gonna witness something that's going to, let's say that all the experts are gonna have to be replaced with experts.

Have you seen Mission Impossible? I haven't seen it, the new? Yeah. No. But you want to. Yeah, I do. Me too! He produces an excellent picture. I love that you said that.

Yeah. Exactly, we're not snobs. Oh no, Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, or Maverick. I'll let you in. Right! Yeah. Or anything. He's a very good Maverick. I'll go in. Right. Or anything. He's a very good actor. He's a very professional guy. Yes, he's underrated as an actor. He's always too handsome for...

Well, it's not that he's too handsome. It's that he wants to do popcorn movies. And he does a lot of that. But he does it better than anybody else does. He does, exactly. And the fact that he can be doing it in his 60s is so inspirational to us. It's weird because I knew Tom Well when we were young. We did our first movie of note together. Oh yeah. Taps. What is it?

Taps. Taps. And we were roommates for a while. Who else was in that? Who else was in? I said Timothy Hutton was in it. Timothy Hutton? George C. Scott.

George C. Scott. Wow, that's really going back. He kept me from ever golfing. Because he had a line in the movie, he says, "'I don't want to die knocking the shit out of a little white ball with an alligator on my tit.'" And it was so compelling the way he said it. I always thought, if I golf, George C. is going to see me. I always hated golf, too.

It was just like, I don't know, I always felt like it was giving up. Like if I started to play golf, it was a way of saying I give up. I had Barry Diller on my show Friday night and like he has a memoir and it's great. And I read Streisand's memoir and I read Woody Allen's memoir.

They're both awesome. But all I could think of was, I am not gonna write a memoir ever because when you write the memoir, you're psychologically saying, it's over. Yeah, goodbye fellas. I mean, I'm not gonna write part two from 80 to 160. Part one is the interesting part.

So tell me you're with me on that. Oh yeah. Don't write a memoir, because it always has to be about tomorrow, right? Well, you remember when I wrote that book, that came because I was getting offers to write a memoir. And I considered them. And I'd give you pretty good upfront money,

thought, I'll get some of this stuff on the record, sort of archive for my kids as it were. Now I was sitting in Haiti, and there was some books laying around in this little hotel. One of them was by someone I knew and it was a memoir, and I started reading it. a memoir and I started reading it and I realized that, I mean, maybe if you're 85 or something like that, you just give up the whole goat, you're really willing to drop all the bullshit. Maybe.

But when people are creating a narrative to make themself look however they want to look, which includes romantically putting in some self-flagellation and things like that, but doing it just such a way to set up the next heroic deed. I thought I didn't want to catch myself ever. Okay, but put some meat on the bones of self-flagellation. I know, what are you talking about? They'll immunize themselves against that this is just self-glorification if they say they

were weak in this way. They humblebrag. But it didn't really matter because look what I did. You're saying they humblebrag. Yeah, it's a trap of the members. Yeah, of course. But the Irish are good. Like the McCourt book, you know, the Irish can do it. Bono's book.

And he picks himself up for real in it. And then all, but then says, so what? Because at the end, it doesn't matter what I say. It matters what I do. And you look at it, and it'll be what it is. You know, I love him. Me too. I was at the Polo Lounge once with Michael Moore,

and he was at another table. And I didn't even know he was there. And a waiter came over and gave us this. He had done a drawing of us and wrote on it, you know, like two great storytellers or something. And it's one of the, I treasure it, you know. I said I'd give it to Mike and never did. He's incredibly generous. Well, he gives them himself. But he's, what I always loved about him was that he wasn't afraid to be a clown. I remember him saying when ISIS was on the rise, I know people like me who mentioned

things like a caliphate were crazy and then they actually tried to have a caliphate. Okay, there's that. And he said, we should, we should send comedian over there. Of course, you know, I said, well, let's send rock stars first. Why do I write away with the comedians? Why do we always have to open for you? You go see how it goes with ISIS, because I think they're going to love you. And, you know, he said that in front of Congress at a testimony. And they pressed the money

he said I'm not kidding, you know the look and Yeah, and and I kind of felt like he knew as he was saying it it was stupid But he's like I'm a musician I can get away with stupid I just can and I'm gonna make a bigger. And he must have known that Charlie Chaplin made a movie about Hitler, where he played Hitler, The Great Dictator, right, 1940? One of the greatest speeches ever made by a, certainly by a fictional politician, probably one of the great speeches ever made by a politician. I know what you're talking about.

If people don't remember the movie, because it's 1940. Hitler was on the rise, but the war hadn't brought us in yet. It was starting in Europe. I mean, it came out in 1940, so the war started in September of 39. Maybe when they shot this movie, interesting question, was World War II started? Yeah. I don't know. Oh yeah, in fact.

Because Hitler was certainly famous enough to be. was World War II started. Yeah. Oh yeah, in fact. Because Hitler was certainly famous enough to be. And you know that the original bone that Charlie Chaplin had to pick with Hitler. They were born the same year. Hitler stole his mustache. Yeah, yep. And ruined it for the rest of us.

Because he was a fan. Is that true? Yeah. He was a fan. Is that true? Yeah. He was a fan of Chaplin. And then Chaplin, what a beautiful, what an incredible speech. OK, so this is interesting you mention that, because you and I don't have exactly the same politics.

People should watch this speech. It is amazing. But anyway, most of the movie, Chaplin is playing. Now AI, the robot man, all of what he, it's as if yesterday. Well, it's a socialist cry. Okay? No, I don't remember it.

No, it's a humanist cry. It's not a socialist cry. You know what, I haven't seen it in years. Let me tell people what it is. Most of the movie, he plays Hitler, basically. I mean, it's funny. There's a great dictator. The great scene where he's like lying on his back

and he's kicking a ball, which is the globe of the world, but it's a balloon up in the air. And I mean, he's that much in charge. But he also plays this other part, where he's the guy who makes this speech at the end. And it's like a 10-minute pay-on to the world that could be if we were all, if the workers would unite and all that kind of stuff. Now, again, I haven't seen it in years. My memory of it is that it was

a little too socialist for my taste. See it again. But it was... See it again and text me. I will. Yeah. I absolutely will. But everybody should see that.

You should see it. I take it as a purely humanist and so prescient. Maybe it is. It's so right now. Maybe that is exactly what it is. But it's certainly ideal. They can just YouTube the speech. Yes, it's famous.

It's certainly idealistic though, right? I mean, it's utopian. Yes, but not sort of not unlike Carl Sagan's pale blue dot where if only, and I agree with you there in the sense that Jose Pepe Mujica, the former president of Uruguay You know, Jose Pepe Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, who was the most compelling head of state, the most incredible man. Uruguay? Never heard of this dude.

There's a thing called... When? So he died a few weeks ago. I got to know him through working on behalf of Haiti in partnership with Uruguay. You have every South American leader on speed dial. I know you do. But what he said, one of the things he says in this, the human project is portraits of different people from different walks of life. In his case, a former head of state or a president at the time. And he is interviewed for about 20 minutes. And it's a great show, The Human Project.

And Muhica is talking at one point about this idea that we have it drummed into us worldwide. If we don't study history, it's bound to repeat itself. And he doesn't believe that because, and he really put our words to something that I've always felt. He says that, he says in the first person, I don't idealize human beings like this. We will stub our toe on the same pebble 30 times. We only ultimately learn anything from our own experience. And we are bound to repeat it. And then we can process what we repeated by looking back. That's the value of history. And I think that

that's true. And so we will repeat it. And this is what's sort of frightening and what that denial thing in us, even friends of ours, there were moments I've had like this where you just feel that this moment is the, screaming that this is the moment. Other times you say it's going to heal, it's going to be okay. And somewhere in between is we don't know, but we have to be proactive about it, right? Whether it's climate or it's...and Muhica really talks about it with such great articulation. He was like a poet of political thought. And so is it to socialists the Charlie Chaplin speech or is it at the heart of something that is an ideal that we should not necessarily associate ourselves

with other than to admire and work towards it, not one that we have. And yes, so if you let the practical get involved in a lot of things that people would call socialist and things like that, I am practical. I am practical enough to know that I believe we are not past the moment where we need to manufacture weapons. Well that's not idealistic. And we need militaries, and we need strong militaries. That's not idealistic. No, that's practical. That's good. But should we not do our little bit each generation to move towards the possibility of one day

evolving to the point where we can embrace it? Yes. I'm not going to argue with you about that at all. What I am going to ask you about though is, I mean, Uruguay. I feel like that one slipped off my radar. And I feel like among most people you're going to talk to, I do have a knowledge of what's going on around the world. But that one, Uruguay, I got gotta say, they need a better publicist. They have a low profile.

We're talking about the country wedged between the giants of Argentina and Brazil. Montevideo, I believe, is the capital. And they've got that beautiful resort beach that all the wealthy Argentinians go to. I'm sure they do, and I'm sure you had a girlfriend there. I was never there. I was only in Montevideo.

I was only in the city. Oh, okay, all right. Well, I'm sure you will a girlfriend there in 1991. I was only in Montevideo. I was only in the city. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I'm sure you will have a girlfriend there. No, no, no, no. I'm by Moldova. Oh yeah, Moldova. Moldova, the last country on earth

drawn a girlfriend from. That's why she's the last one, because Moldova is literally the last. After that, it's just like the Viana Wives. It's very famous for wine drinkers. It's just an island in the Pacific that's disappearing. What? It's very famous for wine drinkers.

Moldova? Yeah, it has a huge catacomb. Isn't Moldova really Romania? No, Moldova is Moldova, but they speak Romania. Okay, but it's just sort of like the Eastern sliver of Romania. Is it not? If it's Romanian people and they speak Romanian, I mean, it's like if California was its own country

and many people think it is. Or if Canada was ours. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't see that coming. You've got to admit that. Did you? With Trump?

Only in I said, and I still do say to myself aloud every day, you know, whatever you don't expect, it's happening. But you do, I hope, think I did the right thing to have dinner with him. I think having dinner with him was absolutely, you're so smart. You go there and look, this is the President of the United States. Whether we like it or not, doesn't matter. And I think there's a lot of reasons I was

speculating that would be good for you to do that. I think that when you talked about it on the show, that I would have preferred that I saw I think that when you talked about it on the show, that I would have preferred, that I saw his mission or his will to have the dinner, I wish I would have seen it as less successful. Because you're so smart on policy. Well, it was less successful because I never stopped saying all the things I've always

said about him. It would have been successful if he had somehow seduced me into supporting him. Well maybe, maybe more brevity. You know what, he treated me fine, that's that, and now on. Maybe I would have done some editing. But I absolutely, listen, I, the only reason I wouldn't, I have not been invited. The only reason I would not accept an invitation is because I see, I see no,

so it's a long flight. I see no, Really, you'll meet with fucking Castro and Hugo Chavez, but not the President of the United States? Yeah, I saw good results come out of some of those things in terms of the agendas that I had. I don't think that there's anything that I would... I just personally wouldn't trust anything that was said in the room, including the personality.

It's not a matter of trusting it. It's a matter of seeing it, a matter of experiencing it, a matter of knowing it. Yeah, it's an interesting... It's like saying, I don't want this medical test because I don't want to know. I want to know. Yeah, fair enough. Okay. Fair enough.

I have some good friends that are... I said this many times within the piece when I did it, that it's up to, I'm just giving you the report. It's up to you to make the decision. Who do you think is the real guy? I'm telling you there's a very different guy behind closed doors in a different setting. Now, or what you...

Or capable of performatively seeing that, yeah. Well, one of the, either, well, you know, my friends who believe in astrology would say, he's a Gemini. Of course there's two of them. Okay, that's one way to look at it. Other people will say, well, you know, the real guy is the guy you met

and he's playing this clown on TV. And other people will say the well, you know, the real guy is the guy you met and he's playing this clown on TV. And other people will say the reverse. You know, he's, well, I mean, it seems harder to do the reverse. I mean, can you really pretend to be sane? You can pretend to be insane. I think it's harder to pretend to be sane, to be measured and like all the things I said,

which is just what happened. So again, there's three parts of this. Would you go to the dinner? I think you're crazy not to. Not to want to see up close the person who's this important in everybody's lives for the last decade. Two, are you going to lie about it?

I'm sorry, I'm not a liar. I don't lie, so I told the truth. And then three, do I go back to doing what I always did? Yes, I did. Yeah, but you could have told more truth or you could have told less truth. I told a lot of truth. I told everything. I would have enjoyed a little more brevity on that, but I absolutely understand the difference. But that's just emotional emotional you were just triggered that's possible it's possible I it's true that but I would like to this particular president triggers me rather often exactly he makes people crazy he's not making me

crazy but so you really wouldn't go no I don't mind saying I think I think I wouldn't because let me put it this, what I know I would not do. Expression, he's very- I would not go, let's say, so for example, when we talk about this very different president of Uruguay, there were things that Uruguay had models of in development that could be very helpful to Haiti. And I went to see if we could get some training from them and so on and so forth, which we did.

And whereas if I were, let's say, representing a cause celebs, say it was Ukraine, say it was whatever it was, I would not fool myself that I was going to get anywhere with him. I know that I wouldn't. I know that I would have no influence. Bad attitude. You don't know that. You don't know anything. He's a guy who frequently seems to go by what the last thing he heard was.

He's very, everything would, I'll tell you this about Donald Trump, and you don't know it because you don't go to dinners. It's all about, I didn't go to dinner with President Trump. That's true. You should. It's all about personal relationships.

I have not been invited. OK, I will get you an invite. He's a star fucker in a way. I bet you he would like to meet you. And you would have a. Yeah, he'll see the show. If I see him, they're going to call me a star fucker. I don't think he watches the podcast.

He does watch the show. He's a faithful viewer. He's got people to do his thing. I mean, Dan Burgin will be knocking on your door if you didn't go to dinner. He's a faithful viewer. He's got people that do his thing. You know, Dan Burgin will be knocking on your door if you didn't go to dinner. That's not why I did it. And it could work out the other way.

You don't know, he's very unpredictable. And, you know, talking about, you know, health and wellbeing and what we were talking about before, it realized that we're kind of a pioneer generation as far as the first people around our age who actually have it in our head, wait, they could solve the mortality thing before we get there. That's not something that even existed in my father or mother's mind. They just knew they were gonna die

and nobody even suggested that there was no out. Right. But you know that you and I are thinking, come on, come on guys. I do think it would be great. No, you're not thinking would be great. No? You're not thinking that? If I don't have to pay the price for smoking all my life, because we come up with something

great that way. But the idea of not passing and getting out of the way is not a good one to me. I think that I want to live and have a great life, and as long as I can, but a natural, I don't want it to go outside of what I am familiar with in terms of a natural lifetime. Yeah, but I don't agree with that because it seems. You don't know how interesting it might be on the other side. The other side.

Yeah, I mean, okay, the other side. What do you think's on the other side? Not a clue. Could be a black abyss, could be. Right, could be. That's my issue, black abyss. I mean, yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna see black abyss tomorrow night at the Roxy.

Would you like to come? But okay, here's what I think is the great tragedy of dying. You spend all this time making like making your brain better. Yeah. Like we laugh at kids or young adults who make fun of us because we're older. And really, I mean, it's just, it's such a silly flex when they do that,

because if they only knew, and when they get to our age, they'll feel the same way, that, you know, okay, we're not as cute as we used to be, but we just know so much more than you do, because we spent so much more days learning. You learn something every day, and so we get to this point where our brain

is just way more evolved than it was at 30. I know yours is. Well, I know yours is. My kids are gonna, my kids know me through my dad jokes growing 30, I know yours is. I know yours is. My kids know me through my dad jokes growing up. I lost all credibility. You accumulated all this wisdom and then it dies. That's this tragedy, you know what I'm saying? Like I'm dying at the top of my game mentally.

Not the top of my game physically probably, I guess I get that. Well, but also, I don't know if you've experienced it this way, but also, why did I wait to have a sense of general, and I'm not talking about without a clear eye for the anguish in the world, but on the micro, a peace. I wake up every day in this beautiful gift we've been given. Exactly. And I thought, why did I wait so long for that?

Fuck it, let's go, just do it. And that's what I mean. That brain is the one that should be preserved. Like, if you killed me at 30, no big loss. You're just taking out an idiot. It's funny, going back to Mojica, he said on his last day. Mojica, this guy.

When he goes out, he wants to be like that guy who comes into a bar and says to the bartender, this one's on me. Ah, that Mojica. On the Navajo thing, I have played many Indian casinos, including the Mohegan Sun. I thought you were going to say, I went back to like, done smoke, and I saw you playing an Indian in my head, and you said, I'm playing Indian casinos. I think you couldn't do that today.

Why don't you do a Western? Why don't you do a fucking Western? It'd be great to do a Western. It would be. Yeah. Westerns are great. Yeah. I mean, I just watched Sergio Leonis

once upon a time in the West. Yeah. You know it? Yeah, of course. What a work. Well, he was a slamming director. I mean, he was so inventive and even, and the people like Ennio Morricone,

who wrote for me was the most... The score. Yeah. And he did it in such an eccentric way that had never been done in a Western before. And all of those things were revolutionary. Morricone wrote the... There's a piece Gabriel's all about that. Not in that, but I think it's the most beautiful piece of music.

The score for Once Upon a Time in America. His other one. Yeah. He was great. All right. Thank you for Once Upon a Time in America. His other one. Yeah, he was great. All right, thank you for coming. You bet. And thank you. You're wearing a patched up sneaker? You're clean. You got three of them. These are out of the wash, but all my stuff from, I do a lot of woodwork and epoxy work. Like three Oscars. We're working epoxy work. Like three Oscars. It's so un-

Am I helping you now or are you helping me? No, no.