Danny Jones Podcast - #325 - 5 Performance Drugs Big Pharma Doesn't Want You Using | Chris Bell

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Watch every episode ad-free & uncensored on Patreon: https://patreon.com/dannyjones Chris Bell is a writer, director, and filmmaker known for the documentaries "Bigger, Stronger, Faster", "Prescripti...on Thugs", "Trophy Kids", "Prescription Thugs" & "A Leaf of Faith". SPONSORS https://shopify.com/dannyjones - Start your $1 per month trial TODAY! https://whiterabbitenergy.com/?ref=DJP - Use code DJP for 20% off EPISODE LINKS https://www.instagram.com/bigstrongfast FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/dannyjones https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - How Chris discovered John Cena 09:11 - The magic of WWE 21:16 - The steroids crisis 28:24 - The top buyer of testosterone in US 32:04 - Did Bruce Jenner use steroids? 40:04 - Stem cell & peptides 47:27 - How Joe Rogan helped keep kratom legal 53:19 - Is ibogaine a miracle drug? 01:06:19 - Metallica in 2025 01:14:41 - Most dangerous concerts in history 01:19:59 - The one source of all addictions 01:30:08 - Are drugs good or bad? 01:43:12 - The Ozempic epidemic 01:48:34 - Why the MAHA movement is failing 01:54:14 - The carnivore diet 02:09:18 - The liver king 02:15:45 - The enhanced games 02:26:58 - Testosterone in women 02:35:22 - Bryan Johnson 02:46:54 - Trophy kids Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:01 Were you a ringsider? I was a ring cider. It's amazing. Yeah, I have a good buddy of mine, my friend Mark, who is a huge wrestling fan. He actually used to be a wrestler when he was younger and was trying out for the WWE. And he brought me to WrestleMania in New Orleans a few years ago. And then whenever he gets dope ringside tickets to anything in Tampa, sometimes he'll invite me. And that's where I got that chair.
Starting point is 00:00:31 He's down here in Tampa? Yeah, he's in actually St. Pete. What was he? Did he have a gimmick or anything? Oh my God. What the f***? Yeah, he did. He had a, he had his whole name and he had like a whole gimmick.
Starting point is 00:00:45 I forget the name of his wrestler now. He was from, he's actually, he was from Ohio, I think. So he was based up there. And then he came down here. And then he actually started a company called Hostomania, which was a web hosting company. And they got Hulk to be the face of it. And then they asked me to make like a marketing campaign for Hostomania. So me and my buddy were trying to come up with an idea for this commercial to sell this web hosting company that was Hulk Hogan themed.
Starting point is 00:01:17 Yeah. So we came up with the idea to put – this was right when Miley Cyrus came out with her wrecking ball video. She's like, I came in like a wrecked. She's riding that thing. So we're like we're going to have Hulk coming in like a wrecking ball and smashing John Claude Van Dam. because he was the face of, I think, GoDaddy at the time. Okay. So, and Hulk's like, yeah, brother, that's cool, but I think I got to do it in my birthday suit.
Starting point is 00:01:42 I'm like, really? I'm like, okay. So he ended up doing it in just his, in this little speedo right there. And we put him on a wrecking ball. We built a wrecking ball. Went into a production studio. And we put it on top of a crane. And we had him, like, swing across the stage on a wrecking ball and smash this dude.
Starting point is 00:01:59 And it went on, I think like TMZ picked it up. And it got like millions of views overnight. It was wild. Yeah. We have a long history with wrestling, my brothers and I, so I don't know if you know, but, you know, my older brother, Mad Dog, in bigger, stronger, faster. He was a wrestler. And I don't know if you talked about it with Mark, but he was a wrestler also.
Starting point is 00:02:16 It was really interesting. Mark was a wrestler? No, he didn't mention that. Yeah. And his nemesis was John Cena. So what happened was Mark wanted to be, Mark moved out to California. He sort of followed me. I went to USC film school.
Starting point is 00:02:31 I was trying to make it as a, you know, filmmaker. and but we always loved wrestling so mark wanted to get into wrestling and i said hey you know we know all these people from gold's gym and stuff and i said i know this guy he was actually uh latimer in the program the movie the program it was the big jack guy that was like putting his head through the through the car remember he's through the girl around he's like the program but it's not ringing the bell it was the big giant jack guy putting 315 up over his head and that shit was all legit he really was putting that weight over his head so his name's andrew bernarski and he invited us to go down to this wrestling school and check it out. So we go down, we check it out. It's awesome.
Starting point is 00:03:07 You know, Mark's like, hey, I want to sign up. I want to do this. So Mark starts wrestling. And then a couple months later, we were working at this company where we moved fitness equipment. And it's just the oddest coincidence. We had a friend that worked there, a girl that worked in the office. Her name was Casey. And she said, hey, you know, you guys got to meet my friend John. He's like really buff and he's awesome. He's just like you guys. You'd get along great. we're like whatever because we always hear oh these guy's jacked like you and then the guy comes in he's not jacked at all or something you know
Starting point is 00:03:35 that's what you think we are usually right but this guy comes in and his arms are just gigantic he's like looks like a cartoon character and it's john sina before he was john sina he's 22 years old and mark and i were like what the hell is this guy all about you know we start talking to him we become really good friends with them
Starting point is 00:03:54 and we're like hey well mark's in this wrestling school and you would be awesome at it Like you're just your personality, like the way you look. Like you'd be awesome at wrestling. And he's like, yeah, I'd love to try it, but I just, I don't really know how to get into it. I'm like, no, that's what I'm telling you. We know how to get you into it. And so we brought John into his first ever wrestling class.
Starting point is 00:04:16 He basically, my older brother, Mad Dog, was like one of his first trainers along with this other guy, Tom Howard. Mark was like his nemesis. And I would write all the storylines, you know, for the wrestlers, for this. company called UPW. Yeah, so there's, I think, probably you could probably find matches online and Mark Wrestling Cina and stuff like that. And it was just kind of fun. Like, we pointed him in the right direction and then he just took the ball and ran with it
Starting point is 00:04:41 because he was, within four months, he was signed to the WBE. You know, like, they came in, they saw him. They're like, we want that guy. I mean, like, you know, you could just tell. He's like one of those people. There's certain people in your life where you meet and you could just tell. Yeah. And then a couple years later, John actually brought me into WWE.
Starting point is 00:04:58 I didn't last very long. I was a writer. And at the time, they were going through writers like crazy and I was just one of them. So I got to see how it all works backstage and got to hang out with everybody. But the cool thing was that I got fired. I didn't get fired. It's just like they give you like a six-month contract and then it ends and they're like, hey, you know what? Didn't really work out, whatever. The reason it really didn't work out was more just the fact that they had kind of headwriters and they just listened to the headwriters and they wouldn't listen to you at all if you weren't a head writer. So it's like you just didn't stand a chance, you know. So that's the way I look at. I didn't take it, you know, hard, harsh or anything that I got fired
Starting point is 00:05:41 or whatever my contract ended. But what was really cool is that I went off and I made bigger, stronger, faster. And after I made bigger, stronger faster, I got invited to WrestleMania. I got invited to be backstage at WrestleMania, like in Houston. I think The Undertaker wrestled Sean Michaels on that card. It's just cool. It's like afterwards everybody was like, hey, man, you made it. And then the real kicker was that I was in the bar the night before WrestleMania. And the guy who was the executive producer, Kevin Dunn, he came up to me and said,
Starting point is 00:06:15 hey, I guess they fired the wrong guy, huh? And that was just like really cool to hear it. And also Vince McMahon had called me on the phone. Like after I made the movie, Vince McMahon called me, The Rock called me. Really? Yeah, so it was really cool because I was like, these are guys that I idolize. I look up to. So Vince called me and said, you know what?
Starting point is 00:06:33 I actually, I honestly thought that he was calling me to tell me he was going to file a lawsuit because we used a bunch of footage in the movie. But instead, what he told me is you said everything I've always wanted to say about steroids. And you said it so wonderfully and such a unique and fun way. and I just wanted to tell you, you just did a, you made a great movie. And I thought that was, you know, great. And then, you know, the Rock also called me and said, hey, brother, I know you told me you were going to make this movie,
Starting point is 00:07:02 but I had no idea it was going to turn out like this. And, you know, he did a great job. And then also, Sina, he had told me, because we were buddies, he told me like, hey, man, if you ever make a movie, I'll be there the first night it comes out. And he was there the first night it came out in Los. Yeah, in Los Angeles. flew to Los Angeles on purpose just to come see the movie, which was cool.
Starting point is 00:07:24 That's fucking incredible, bro. That was a really good movie, too. Oh, thank you. I mean, like everything about it, it's like my favorite style of documentary. It almost reminded me of like a one of the early like vice style documentaries because it's kind of like you're walking around, kind of like trolling people a little bit, like the way it was edited. Like there was some fucking hilarious moments in there.
Starting point is 00:07:45 I think you were making fun of your brother. You were saying something like, you know, he started out wrestling in front. in front of 200,000 people. Now tonight, he's wrestling in front of 50 people. Yeah. Behind a fucking gas station. He was wrestling a midget. Right.
Starting point is 00:07:58 Yeah. He was throwing the midget in the crowd. I don't know. Are we allowed to say that anymore? Yeah. We're allowed to say it. So he was, you know, a midget wrestler and he picked him up and threw him, you know, and the crowd.
Starting point is 00:08:09 Yeah. You know, and you get paid like 50 bucks. And that's the truth of wrestling is like, there are very few John Cinas. Even my brother, Mark, who looks fantastic, he's jacked and shredded. and he was in pretty good shape back then as well. Yeah. Even when he was thicker. He was like, he was like puffy.
Starting point is 00:08:26 And even when he was, before he got on the juice, when he was natural, he looked really good too. And the thing is that at the time, a guy that was like barely six feet tall, you know, 210 pounds wasn't what they were looking for.
Starting point is 00:08:39 They were looking for, they wanted to see John Sina. They wanted to see like, you know, somebody who's like super jacked. And Mark just didn't have that, that look, I guess. And he was really,
Starting point is 00:08:49 really good at wrestling, really good at cutting the promos and doing all that stuff. But he gave it up for powerlifting, which as soon as he gave it up for powerlifting, I'm like, what are you doing, man? There's no money in powerlifting. You'll never make it in powerlifting. And he's made, you know, probably more money in powerlifting than he would have ever made if he'd gone into wrestling, you know? Right.
Starting point is 00:09:09 Because he turned it into a business. Yeah, it's really crazy the lifestyle that some of these pro wrestlers had in the 80s and like the early 90s, you know, it was such a different one. world. And wrestling was like on a completely different level like WWWF than it is now, you know? Like and like just from the stories I've heard from some of these guys because I've spent a lot of time around Hulk. Um, not like a lot of time around Hulk and Jimmy Hart and like this there's this another dude Bushwhacker Luke who lives down the street. Yeah. I know the Bushwackers. He had a gym right down the street in Clearwater. I used to go to that gym every single day. Our uncles used to call us the Bushwackers. So we would come to, uh, you know, we come to Thanksgiving and like, you know, my uncle would be like, oh, the Bushwackers.
Starting point is 00:09:49 are here and we're like, the bushwhackers are, we're like the worst. Yeah, why are we the bushwalkers? Whoa, matey. Yeah. Yeah, those guys are hilarious. And I've spent, you know, I kind of like spent a lot of time working with those guys and like, spent, you know, filming like commercials and little ads and stuff with them and like around all Hulk's little companies that he was doing over the last, you know, probably like 15, recently. Probably like, probably 15 years, 10 years ago, maybe six years ago. And he also had like a little restaurant bar down the street.
Starting point is 00:10:18 but like I was never a fan of it I just like heard the stories I spent a lot of time around these guys and all this stuff until my friend Marco was telling you about brought me to WrestleMania in New Orleans and that experience made me a wrestling fan like it was like the opposite for me
Starting point is 00:10:33 yeah you know what I mean who was the main event at that one oh god it was I want to say it was John Sina and somebody else it was definitely John Sina and somebody else but I remember like I remember walking down the steps of the stadium
Starting point is 00:10:49 to like the floor where we were sitting because I went to the bathroom and I was coming down and then all of a sudden all the lights cut out in the whole arena I'm like what the fuck happened and all of a sudden it was like gong Oh the Undertaker came out of it was like whoa dude that was insane dude It just like fucking rattles every fiber
Starting point is 00:11:05 of your being and everyone in there like all the energy is and it's like it's palpable the energy in there and like it's such an incredible show with the pyro and everything They say that wrestling's fake you know and um i don't know like i've seen like dana white talk about it in interviews i love dana white i think he's incredible and mark and i have had the chance to like sit down with him and
Starting point is 00:11:28 he's he's just a great guy but um he's not for the theatrics of like the guys coming out and stuff and i always said like man one of these days they sort of should go that way because it's so it's so interesting it makes it so much more fun when these guys have these big entrances and you know it's it just it feels gigantic and they used to do it um back in pride. So I always hope, like, maybe one day they'll start sneaking that stuff in there now that they're sort of all one company, you know, like WW. Because WWE, even right now, I don't think necessarily the product is better than it's been. But the way it looks is incredible right now.
Starting point is 00:12:04 Like the things that they're doing, you know, visually are really cool. It's unbelievable. I was just watching a clip on Instagram yesterday of the Undertaker coming out on a fucking Harley with A-Pen. with limp biscuit playing in the middle of the stage and like pyro going off everywhere. Like that's just like that's such a high level of production and entertainment and money they put into that. Yeah. And then the, um, the entrances, like the other day on wrestling, they did a promo where it was like
Starting point is 00:12:35 Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins and, um, uh, it was, uh, whoever the, all the top guys are right now was, Sina was involved, right? And everybody got their own entrance. And so like, this promo was like 20. many minutes because it's like oh now cody roads has to come out like his music comes on he does the pyro gets up on the ropes and then i think it was randy orton he comes out he does his whole thing so the whole promo took forever just because everybody got their own right you know full entrance but it's kind of i mean i think that's what the fans come to see yeah it is and they all they all know they all know
Starting point is 00:13:09 it's not real they're there for the internet it's theater to them you know what i mean yeah it's super fun. Those people are there for the thrill of it, the entertainment, the camaraderie of everyone getting together, picking their team, picking their wrestler. It's like going to go into that event in New Orleans was. Yeah, we had a completely different experience. So we grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. And Poughkeepsie, New York was the sort of satellite. Like, it was the home base of the W.W.E. for television. So every month, they would tape four hours of wrestling in the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, and those four hours would be split up
Starting point is 00:13:49 for the next four weeks every Saturday morning. The Saturday morning, you know, wrestling used to be on Saturday morning at like 10 o'clock in the morning. Right. And, you know, every show, like, we saw it get taped. Like, we were there. So, like, when Hillbilly Jim came out of the crowd to save the holster, like, we were little kids and we were there.
Starting point is 00:14:07 You know, and Mark's, like, four years younger than me, so he was like a little rascal. and my older brother and I are like a year and a half apart. And it was just so much fun for us to sort of grow up kind of as a part of the WW even, you know? Yeah. If you've ever shopped online, chances are you've been to a website powered by Shopify.
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Starting point is 00:15:42 And, you know, the amount of stuff those guys were taken in the 80s was probably like on a whole other level. Yeah, yeah. You know, not just the performance enhancing drugs, but like the drugs you got to take to fucking get rid of that dislocated hip or your knee or all the crazy injuries those guys would have. Speaking to that, I worked at WWB as a writer in like 2003, 2004. And I'm not going to mention any names, but. I was backstage several times watching people chew up handfuls of Vicodin. It was like, it was no big deal. It was like.
Starting point is 00:16:17 What were the other ones? What was the one in Wolf of Wall Street that he was eating? It's like Vicodins, Perkissettes. No, what were they called? Quailudes. Quayludes. They didn't have quailudes then. I think quailudes have been illegal for a certain amount of time since like the 80s or something.
Starting point is 00:16:31 But yeah, everybody always talks about, man, do you ever, you, everybody says you missed out if you haven't tried ludes. Right. Yeah, I heard a lot of stories. I have no idea what that would. feel like. But yeah, I mean, I just used to see it all the time. You know, our older brother Mad Dog who passed away, unfortunately, he would be a, he was a WWE like jobber where he'd come in his enhancement talent. He'd come in and get beat up on TV and whatever. And he used to tell me like, well, the main reason they hire me all the time is like, A, I usually make people look really good
Starting point is 00:17:02 and B, I always have pills. And I'm like, what's that mean? He's like, I just bring the pills, you know, backstage. And back then it was a first. free for all. They don't play any of those games now. You know, that's all sort of like gone, but it used to be crazy. It used to just be a free for all. And not like it was encouraged, but it just wasn't, it wasn't stopped. And it was some of the top guys, you know, that were involved in it. Yeah, it's kind of crazy even today. There's such a stigma around it, you know, like look at Logan Paul since he joined the WW. Oh, yeah. The transformation with that guy is unbelievable. You know, Logan Paul, I think a lot of people will come down on him. I don't care about
Starting point is 00:17:41 his crypto scams or anything like that. He is the best wrestler in the history of wrestling. Really? He's the, oh, like real wrestling. The best, like, you go back and watch his first match against, like, Ray Mysterio, I think it was. It's incredible. Like, it's incredible. Like, I have, I've worked with a lot of wrestlers because we used to run a wrestling school. And I've seen people come and go and seeing people come in and see people do some amazing things. What Logan Paul can do in the ring athletically is it's insane. It's like there's nobody like him. So people can talk shit about him all they want,
Starting point is 00:18:17 but he's going to end up being the face of the WWE in the future, I think. Really? See, I haven't watched any of his matches. I saw the flying flips and stuff that he's doing like the, I saw a video him practicing, like jumping off of something and like practicing doing these flips onto a mat. Yeah, I think you'll see Logan Paul, you know, basically shoot through the roof as far as WWU.
Starting point is 00:18:35 egos. Interesting. As long as he keeps everything else clean. I know he's got a lot of other scandals and things going on all the time. Yeah, he seems like he can't escape all the scandals, man. Yeah. The crypto stuff and all the all the other things that he's doing. I think when you get that big, it's probably hard to.
Starting point is 00:18:52 It's hard to say no to people. Yeah. You've probably got too many bad people around them. Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem. You get too many leeches and too many, you know, motivated people, people that are motivated just to make money and they don't give a fuck about the longevity of your career or your legacy.
Starting point is 00:19:07 But I mean, that's like, that's kind of like one of like the first things you got to figure out if you had that level of fame, right? Because that's the one thing that could kneecap your career. There's not a whole lot of people that figure it out. You know, most of the people end up, like most stories end tragically. You know, it's. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:22 Well, that's the thing like, you know, people get greedy. It's like you achieve, you can get somewhere, you know, achieve a goal or get to like a certain level where you're like, you're comfortable, you're happy. You don't have to worry about how much money you have to pay to go off. If you're going out to dinner with much people, you could pay the bill and not have to worry about how much it costs. And then like, you know, people think about, oh, now, now I got to start 16 businesses so I can monetize this from every possible angle, you know,
Starting point is 00:19:48 and me, because eventually it's not going to be here anymore. So I got to make sure I, you know, create a good retirement and all this stuff. And then that's when you start letting in people who are just in it for themselves or just in it for the short term gain, which it never ends up well. Yeah. And it's crazy now because, you know, because, you. you can get famous off of almost anything. You know, if you look at, back when Mark and I were growing up, we didn't have social media. I never filmed, I must have worked out 10,000 times
Starting point is 00:20:16 without ever filming one thing, you know? And so we used to go into the gym, put heavy weights on, work really hard, outwork everybody around us. And it wasn't for the gram. It was like for us. It was like for me. Like I want to do this.
Starting point is 00:20:29 You guys weren't in there with a tripod, like filming yourselves? Yeah, even now it's kind of surprising because Mark does do a lot of social media. media stuff. Yeah. But for the most part, he's not filming all the time. You know, he's, uh, he's got a guy that will come and, and film with him now.
Starting point is 00:20:43 Um, but even during the times when he was getting all his stuff like online, it wasn't like he was constantly filming, you know, or, you know, and he also, he, he always had his own gym. So it was never in the way of anybody or anything. Mm-hmm. Um, but I just think now that people go to the gym literally just for the workout, you know, for the, for the, to get the workout. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:05 on tape so that they can do a, you know, a social media post. And that's not going to help you get jacked and tan. You know, you got to put in the work to do that, you know, and that's the thing is like steroids are at an all-time high, in my opinion. You go on the internet and just everybody's juiced up, you know, from 20 years old on up, you know, 18 years old on up. And it's just sad to see that it's gone that way and that people aren't really putting in that kind of work anymore.
Starting point is 00:21:34 Yeah, well, not only that, but it's sad to see when kids that young are doing it and they're trying to, they're trying to do it the cheap way and they're trying to do it, you know, because when you're 20 years old, no one's going to prescribe you steroids. So they're buying it behind the gym from some guy who works out at the gym, right? They're buying it probably for somebody who just cooked it up in a bathtub or something. They don't know what it is. They've never gotten their blood work done. They don't know anything about their metabolism or their, you know, any of their levels, their hormone levels or their lipid levels or any of this stuff. they're just haphazardly doing this. And then, you know, eventually it's like for some reason they may have to stop or they run out or they move.
Starting point is 00:22:09 And then your body's doing all kinds of crazy shit trying to like rebounds itself and, you know, who knows what could happen. Yeah, they have no idea what's going on. And, you know, that's the thing is I encourage everybody who's over the age of 18 men or women, you know, I think everybody should go get their blood work done. I think that there's a lot of people out there that are struggling with low testosterone. We drink out of a lot of like plastic bottles, you know, like I'm guilty of it too. It's like I think we all are. There's so many things that will lower our testosterone and both men and women are walking around with low testosterone with all these symptoms of depression.
Starting point is 00:22:47 One of the best ways to beat depression is have a good testosterone level, you know? So I always argue that like I always say the world needs a shot of testosterone. You know, it seems like we've gotten a little weak and wimpy and a lot of the things we do and I think that relates back to our testosterone levels have dropped 50% in the last 50 years. So I think people, they don't need it. If they go and get checked and they don't need it, that's great. But I also say like, if you're, even if your levels are like 600, 700, why not have it be like a thousand, which is optimal?
Starting point is 00:23:24 You know, why not have it be in that 900 to a thousand, which is optimal? And so there's, you know, there's a debate to where, like, I just think it can help so many people. I've seen it personally help hundreds of thousands of people, like, and, you know, just through what I do, you know. And when, you know, when I made my film, I had no idea the impact it would have on the world. I think you don't know, you know, what impact you'll ever have on the world. But I've talked to so many people that are, you know, pretty, like, high up in what they do. for example like I work now I work with a compounding pharmacy now in Houston called Empower pharmacy my boss saw bigger stronger faster and said like I need to like I need to work with you
Starting point is 00:24:07 like we need to do stuff together because like you like your film changed my life the reason I have this compounding pharmacy is because I watched your movie and and when I watched your movie I was like that's what I need and this guy's message is right like steroids aren't the bad guy The bad guy is like using these things, you know, without any sort of indication that you need them, you know? Right. And I think that's like sort of my message is like, don't make testosterone the bad guy. Use it if you need it. If you don't use it.
Starting point is 00:24:39 If you don't need it, then don't use it. What's the problem with any drug? The biggest thing is education. You got to have the education around it. People need to be able to understand it. And you can't just blackball it. So people are forced to buy it on the black or gray market. Yeah, it's a huge problem when people are buying it behind the gym.
Starting point is 00:24:54 Like I said, yeah, I have a guy that came to me and said, uh, he said to me, he's like, if you're not home brewing, you're doing it wrong. And I'm like, what do you mean? So I was like, what do you mean home brewing? And this guy, like, no offense, but he looked like he came straight out of like a trailer park. And I said, what do you mean like home brewing? He's like, oh, I just make my own. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:16 I'm like, you make your own. And he starts telling me like how he makes his own testosterone, like, you know, in his sink. And it's like, that's not the way to do it, dude. Right. You know, but I guess it is a lot cheaper. And then I told my brother about it. My brother's like, oh, that's great. I used to get stuff like that all the time.
Starting point is 00:25:31 When I was powerlifting, I had a bunch of guys that would make their own. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know about that, you know. Yeah, I got some friends who buy their shit from guys at the gym. And they, you know, they never got their blood work done. And they seem to be doing fine. I mean, they're huge. Yeah, steroids work. You know, that thing is they work.
Starting point is 00:25:51 But at some point, you're going to hit a, you're going to, to hit a limit, you know, and then like, how big do you want to get? You know, I think I used to think it was really cool, even the name of the movie's bigger, stronger, faster. I said, I think it was like really cool to be really big. Now I'm like, how do I get smaller? How do I get leaner? I want to get skinnier. Right, right? You know, be functional, right? Be able to do shit. Like, I, I'm, like, I've worked out my whole life. I've been going to the gym, at least since I've been in high school, I've been, I've gone to the gym. Like, I've never been one to want to get really bulky or jacked, but, like, I grew up skateboarding and surfing and doing stuff like that. So I
Starting point is 00:26:24 always wanted to be like be able to swim fast and be agile i never wanted to be so freaking jacked that i couldn't move yeah so um i think genetics has a huge hand to play in that as well you know yeah definitely um but like i think it's uh you know it's changed like the culture has changed like i think the you guys talked about this in the bigger stronger faster documentary but you were talking to somebody i think it was like a lawyer or a doctor or something and like that. And he was showing you the GI Joe's. Oh, yeah. Here's the original GI Joe.
Starting point is 00:26:58 Then look at the next one. He's got serratus muscles. He's got a six pack. And here's the new GI Joe. And it just talks about how like Arnold was big in the 90s or whatever. And that and then there were Stallone and that kind of like the evolution of culture and movies in Hollywood kind of like played a role and pushing that mainstream. And, you know, now it's kind of like we're on the backside of that now. We're on more of a dip, I feel like.
Starting point is 00:27:24 It's not a super popular thing to be jacked out of your gills anymore. You know what I mean? I think people realize it's not attractive. Yeah. Like the other guy, the documentary with the freaking biceps like this. He's like, you think any girls walk up to me saying, damn, that guy's hot? Yeah. No, their freaking boyfriends are face palming them and coming up to me and saying, bro, how did you do that?
Starting point is 00:27:44 Exactly. It's like, dude. You attract dudes. You attract guys. You know, and that's the thing. It's like, even with the movie, after I made bigger, stronger, faster, that's all that would come up to me. I don't think I've ever, I maybe had like one girl come up and say like, hey, good job on that movie. It's all dudes that it's like they come up and they're like, hey man.
Starting point is 00:28:02 And they're like, you know, you'll be out somewhere and they'll just corner you forever and want to talk to you about your, you know, your movie. And you're like, eh, I don't know. I don't really care that much like get away, you know. But it's just, it's just funny how it is like such a guy thing, you know. Hey guys. If you're not already subscribed, please hammer the subscribe button below and hit the like button on the video. Back to the show. And also like, testosterone is such a weird thing.
Starting point is 00:28:30 It's such like a weird hormone. Well, you know, you know, like it's like... The biggest provider of testosterone and the entire, the biggest customer for testosterone, the entire United States is Planned Parenthood and it's for gender transformations. Is it really? Absolutely. Yeah. That's the number one.
Starting point is 00:28:50 They're the number one like user of testosterone. Really? Yeah. It shows you how out of control crazy. And it goes to planned parenthood? Yeah, it's planned parenthood. I don't know why. I guess that's where I guess they give it out or they dispense it in some way.
Starting point is 00:29:05 But I remember like one of the really interesting things is Joe Biden was a guy who said, there's something simply on American about this. And he pounded his fist on the table. But back before that even in 1990, he's the one that was a senator that pushed so hard against the advice of the DEA and the Center for Human Health, what is it, Health and Human Services. HHS, yeah. He went against their recommendations
Starting point is 00:29:32 and the American Medical Association. All three of those recommended that they don't make steroids a Schedule 3 drug. They don't make them illegal. They don't put testosterone in this, you know, class where nobody can get it. And he came out and said, no, you know, we're going to go against that. And then he...
Starting point is 00:29:50 Biden wanted it to be scheduled to me. Biden got it scheduled. Yeah, and he got it scheduled. And that sort of like was his claim to fame. But then just recently, you know, before he went out of office, his administration was pushing hard to now legalize testosterone for these gender affirming care patients. Oh my God. So guys playing baseball can't use it. But kids, minors who want to change their sex. Yeah. And I'm not sure like the ages or anything like that. You know, you hear a lot of crazy things like, oh, 15 year olds are I don't know if that's true or not, but I've heard the stories and like, who knows what's true. I'm sure it gets blown out of proportion, you know, on in the media, like the mainstream media.
Starting point is 00:30:33 People like to use that as like a rallying cry to their team, you know, like, oh, we got to fix all the trans, all the trans. But, you know, sometimes the truth is in the middle. You never really know where what's the real numbers are. And to be honest, if that's making people happy, I don't care what it's being used for. I just don't want it to be illegal for me. I don't want to be hard for media. It shouldn't be fucking legal for kids, though. For people, not for children.
Starting point is 00:30:55 There's definitely, yeah, that's definitely, you definitely need a age limit and a parental consent and probably like some sort of psychological evaluation, I think, as well, you know. I think a lot of people get into that and they don't know what they're getting into. And yeah, so yeah, definitely not for kids. A lot of people, a lot of smart people think that like when these people are going through this, these psychological issues where they think they're a different gender or they're like a man in woman's body, woman in a man's body. people have said that they're just mentally ill gays or just like gay people who are you know going through depression or going through any kind of thing and they're just confused they're young
Starting point is 00:31:29 I mean that's being being like that when you're young is normal right you just need the proper guidance yeah I think a lot of times time would be the the key factor you need time you know like you feel like that are you going to feel like that in five years from now probably not you know right
Starting point is 00:31:45 right just the same thing with getting you know your face tattoo Like you're not going to let fucking five-year-old Johnny get a Spider-Man tattoo on his face, just because he thinks Spider-Man's cool. We're going to regret that when he's 12. Kids would ask for that, you know, if they could. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:32:02 But so also, Bruce Jenner is an interesting one because Bruce was taking steroids, right, when he was in the Olympics. So I heard, I have a friend. His name's Tom File. He's amazing. He's hilarious. He's this jacked powerlifter. And he's like 60 years. years old now he's still squatting like 600 pounds he's just one of the most maniacal people ever met
Starting point is 00:32:25 he used to work the front desk at gold's gym and he used to train bruce when it was bruce really yeah and um i think that bruce was on the juice um that rhymes that sounds cool uh he used to train bruce nobody else would train bruce um he has not confirmed to me whether or not he was on uh steroids but basically like when you hang out at gold's gym in venice you're on stage I don't care who you are. I worked out at Gold's Gym Venice for probably about 22 years straight. And I've met everybody that's come through those doors. And most of the people that come through those doors are going to end up taking something, no matter who they are.
Starting point is 00:33:05 You know, it's just that's the environment that that place gives off. You know, really kind of in a weird way, when I shot bigger, stronger, faster, they let me shoot in there. And then I was so excited that I made the movie and it got in the Sundance Film Festival. and like, hey, this is going to be, you know, a bit, you know, on Netflix and all this things. And so I got all excited and I went in with a poster and I was like, can we put this poster up in there? Because I have all these posters of like all the famous people
Starting point is 00:33:30 that have been through Gold's. And I'm like, I'm finally going to get my poster on the wall, Gold's Gym. And they were like, hell no. You said in your movie that, you know, people come to Gold's Gym and take steroids. I'm like, where did I say that in the movie? I've never actually, like I never said it.
Starting point is 00:33:45 I never even equated it. I just said, you know, like the movie was about, steroids and gold's gym is in it because i work out at gold's gym but right i never said anything derogatory about gold's gym and people going there using steroids but now i will because people go there and use steroids um but you know it's it's no it's just interesting that like they wouldn't hang my poster on the wall so they have the posters on the wall of all the guys that have used steroids worked out at gold's gym and their posters on the wall what's so funny but my poster's not supposed to be there yeah that's so that's so that's so
Starting point is 00:34:19 silly. I can't believe they would do something like that. But as far as like Bruce, so do you, what do you make of, is there any connection between people who would, allegedly if Bruce was using steroids or doing something to him like all of a sudden going trans? Is there any sort of
Starting point is 00:34:35 pattern there with people? I don't think so. I don't know. I know I've heard people say like, oh, he shot up so much steroids that it turned to estrogen and it turned him into a woman. I just think he would have to be doing a ton though. Yeah, I mean, I don't think he would be taking that much testosterone. especially for like what you know what he was doing it but if you look at his comeback story there's a
Starting point is 00:34:54 great documentary about um Bruce Jenner on Netflix um and it's amazing to see like what he did like where he came from he was like uh and so I don't think somebody can come from like I think he was 10th you know maybe 10th place the year before and then he just shot up to like first place so I don't think you do that naturally you know I don't know I mean maybe you do maybe you don't you know I know that like certain people, like when I grew up, I was a huge Yankees fan. And Reggie Jackson, we would go see Reggie Jackson play. And he'd always be cranking home runs. And he owned a Gold's gym.
Starting point is 00:35:30 And I'm always like, whether there's smoke, there's fire. Like, we don't know that he used steroids. But you've got to think, like, well, Reggie Jackson owned a Gold's gym. You know, Rick Flair owned a bunch of Gold's gyms. And you're like... Did he really? Yeah. Who are these guys that, you know, they're...
Starting point is 00:35:44 I just think that, like, whether there's smoke, there's fire. There's no reason to think. that they wouldn't, you know, wouldn't do it. You look at a lot of people, like, for example, I've done an interview with Lance Armstrong. He was awesome to talk to. But Lance Armstrong is not a very big guy. Right. You know, like he doesn't look like.
Starting point is 00:36:03 And I've done an interview with Floyd Landis, who was, you know, the subsequent winner of the Tour de France after Armstrong. And he doesn't look, you know, he's 145 pounds. So it's like not always like the person that looks like they take steroids. Right, it's not yet. The goal is not always just to get super jacked. Yeah. Like, like NBA players, right? Like, I'm sure LeBron James is on a whole bunch of shit.
Starting point is 00:36:27 Well, he has to be. But he's not super jack. I mean, he's muscular. Yeah, he's muscular. He's muscular. But more than anything, he needs in Dart. He needs to be able to fucking play full court basketball for two and a half hours. I would say that anybody at that level, if they're not on it, they're kind of stupid because
Starting point is 00:36:42 the NBA actually has, like, a therapeutic use exemption where you can use testosterone grown up to a certain amount. I think your levels can't be. Do they really? Yeah, I think it's like a low-key thing. I know they don't really test for it. I thought EPO was the big thing with basketball players. I don't know if they're using EPO, but why wouldn't they?
Starting point is 00:37:02 Right. If they're not testing for it, you know, who cares? I mean, I don't think anyone's looking at the NBA's drug testing close enough to monitor. I could be wrong. But I know people that have played in the NFL. You know, I know people that went to Belko when Balco was in session. and they never got tested, you know, so they've told me, you know, oh, yeah, like, I used to go to Belko, and I'm like, well, how many times you get tested there in a year? Like, none, you know,
Starting point is 00:37:27 like, never got tested. And so I, I've just heard so many stories. I don't think, I also went to USC. And when I went to USC, we had a great football team. And these, a lot of these guys that are like offensive linemen, defensive linemen, they're just huge guys. And I would talk to them about steroids and they'd have no clue. I'd talk to the second stringers, third stringers, they'd know everything about steroids. So I think it's like there's these in the NFL, NBA, wherever, you're going to have like all these freaks, right, that aren't taking anything, which is surprising and shocking. And then you're going to have some people that take stuff that it makes them better. It makes them good enough to be on that starting team, you know? And so, I don't know,
Starting point is 00:38:12 It's just so hard to tell because I used to be one of those people where I used to think everybody was on something. But I've met so many people that when I talk to them, I get a sense that they don't know enough about it. Like, I mean, if they're taking it, they're taking it maybe through some sort of coach. Because they just don't know anything about it. And maybe they're playing stupid. Right. But I don't think. A lot of people don't care.
Starting point is 00:38:34 I know how people do it all the time. I don't know shit about it. Like, I don't know. If they fucking send it to me and I jamming in my ass. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it could be, you know. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:38:41 But I also just think there's. I think there is a good amount of natural people out there, but it's dwindling. You know, I think it's getting smaller and smaller as we, you know, as we move through time. But it's like, you know, my brother had a gym in Sacramento and we'd have all sorts of people come through there and train with us. And I couldn't tell you how many guys would say they're natural. And it's like, what are you going to do? Confront them to their face and be like, no, you're not. Show me your blood work, you know.
Starting point is 00:39:07 Yeah. And it's just, it's not even, at a point, it's like not even worth it. Right. to worry about it's like i always tell people just worry about yourself yeah you know totally and there's um you know for things like the NFL i don't like i don't know what the optimal steroids or um human growth hormone with the optimal like stack would be for an NFL player or an NBA player but i would imagine at least for NFL players dudes who are getting the shit beat out of them every single week that they would at least need testosterone and like some sort of growth hormone just to be able
Starting point is 00:39:47 to just to be able to heal their body every week right maybe some peptides to turn around in seven days is a lot to ask when you're really crushing your body like that there's some peptides that can help like bpc 157 oh yes is that considered a steroid or is that just a peptide they're peptides okay um i have tried honestly like i have a really bad shoulder um i tore my rotator cup and I tore my tricep and it just never healed right. And so I've tried gallons of BPC 157 in my shoulder. I've tried literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of stem cells. Luckily I make documentaries and I've gotten them comps from some different people.
Starting point is 00:40:26 And so I've made it. I've had probably $100,000 worth of stem cells in my shoulder with no, not one positive effect. Really? I have a good friend who also paid tons of money for stem cells and he said he in his back and he said he never felt any sort of effect. Yeah, I felt zero benefit. I felt zero benefit from BPC 157. Maybe the injury is too intense. But I have other people that say they've injected it in their knee or something and all the pain went away.
Starting point is 00:40:57 Yeah, I've injected a BPC in my hand before when I like fucked up a tendon in my thumb and it helped a lot. Yeah. But that's the only place I don't I don't doubt it. It's just like, it's not something that worked for me. Yeah. Well, there's a different. The stem cells, though, the interesting thing about the stem cells is there's, like, the general, like, general population stem cells. And then there's the ones that you can get that are actually, like, you can get from, like, your own wife's placenta.
Starting point is 00:41:22 Yeah. That are like, or I guess that would, would that work for the dude, though? If it was from, oh, no, no, I'm sorry. It's the cord blood from, if you have a baby, you can get the bank the cord blood, really umbilical cord. and if you use those stem cells, those match your DNA, and those apparently are like 100% effective. But like the general mill stem cells, like the general population of stem cells aren't necessarily.
Starting point is 00:41:46 I used two different kinds. One time I went to Mexico and went to a place called Eterna Health. And like I said, they had all these other treatments that I got. It was great, but the stem cells did not work in my knee and in my shoulder. Then I went to another place in Austin where they're not allowed to use the same,
Starting point is 00:42:05 kind of stem cells they use in Mexico. But I was told that the ones that in Austin are actually from, like I think, like he said, like a placenta or something, whereas like the ones in Mexico were like they drew them from me and then they spun them up and they injected them back into me. Yes. And then the one in Austin, they just went, you know, boom right into me. And the ones that they went right into me in Austin, those seemed to work for my knee, but they didn't do anything from my shoulder.
Starting point is 00:42:33 So it's weird, right? Because, like, I feel like they helped, but I don't feel like they helped. They don't help enough for me to, I couldn't recommend it to you. Right. It's probably a little bit of placebo effect. Yeah, I wouldn't tell you like, oh, man, go get stem cells. It's going to be great. You'd probably kill me if you spent the money and went down there.
Starting point is 00:42:50 Right, right. Yeah, there's got to be some level of placebo effect to it. But that's interesting. You worked on your knee and not your shoulder. Maybe your shoulder's just completely wrecked, you know? That could be it, you know? Yeah. I had a dude in here.
Starting point is 00:43:02 I was telling your brother about this. But I had a dude in here who was a coach for, I think it was University of Florida, the Gators. It was not like the head coach, but he's like one of the coaches. You know, they have a whole team of coaches. And he was telling me all of the like the receivers and the running backs are jacked on Adderall. Oh, yeah. And I was like blown away. I'm like, what?
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Starting point is 00:43:50 Every shift matters, and the personalities keep things lively. Watch the Stanley Cup playoffs on TNT, TBS, True TV, and HBO Max. Adderall is a huge drug everywhere I mean I think that's You know It's everywhere Yeah and like if you watch the videos Like some of the slow-mo videos
Starting point is 00:44:10 Even the guys in the NFL running like Like Antonio Brown or who's the other guy Derek Henry You see the videos through his helmet Their freaking eyes are like saucers When I said in bigger stronger faster We show like Okay well
Starting point is 00:44:23 If this is cheating why isn't this cheating And we show all these other industries Where they use beta blockers in like For musicians Well you're in an audition that's a competition you know like um what is a beta blocker a beta blocker calms you down so people will use them in like even in like golf i think they're banned because they calm you down so much that you're you don't like have like jitters you know yeah and so um people use beta blockers for stuff like that but
Starting point is 00:44:48 they'll use it for like to like if they have an audition for the cello you know they'll go in and they'll use beta blockers so they're not all shaky just to quell the anxiety yeah yeah and so it's like a performance enhancing drug you know we showed that that all the fighter pilots have to have Adderall with them. They have to have it with them. What's it called? There's one specific we learned about recently called ProVigil or something like it's Modafinil, pro-vigil, same thing.
Starting point is 00:45:13 Madafinal is a pretty safe drug from what I know. I know Dave Asprey recommends it highly. He talks about it a lot and he says it's fairly safe compared to all the other ones. I don't know. I'm not promoting it in any way. I'm just saying I know that he uses it and he's a high functioning guy. It's basically a watered down Adderall. Is it?
Starting point is 00:45:32 Yeah. Yeah. I've had, I've taken Adderall. Adderall's crazy. Like, I've gotten. I hate Adderall. I can't stand it. Yeah, I got pretty spun up on it for a while.
Starting point is 00:45:43 Like, I don't know. You know, I used to live in L.A. And I went through this whole period of time where I had a double hip replacement surgery. And for a while, I was just searching for anything that could help me feel better. And so I would go to these doctors that would prescribe you anything. And I would get anything. they'd be like, oh, how about this?
Starting point is 00:46:04 Okay, great. How about this? How about this? And so I was taking like Xanax and Adderall. And it's like, you take one pill to go up, one pill to go down. And it gave me a great education on drugs and what they can do and how they can help people. But I am so far from that guy, you know, because I was a mess when I was doing that. You know, and I think that people that mess with stuff like Adderall, I sort of feel bad because it'll suck you in pretty.
Starting point is 00:46:32 quick. Yep. You gotta be careful. And I think people really need to be careful with that one especially. I keep a couple, I got some from a friend and I keep a couple like with me because every once in a while I need one. Like the other day I needed one because I didn't sleep at all because we went out to, I went out to my Catalica concert and we were up all freaking night and then it's my favorite band. Is it really? Oh yeah. It's awesome. Oh my God. I just had the craziest weekend hanging out and you got to hang out with them. I was hanging out with Kirk all weekend. It's amazing. Yeah. And anyways, I so I didn't sleep that night. And. And, And then my kid woke up at like, freaking five o'clock in the morning.
Starting point is 00:47:06 And the next day I had to work. So I was like, fuck it. I took a quarter of a 20 milligram matter off, five milligrams. And it's just like, I mean, I'd take it in the past. When I was younger, I used to take it a couple times a week just to get work done. And it just, it sucks the soul out of me. It just turns me into a robotic machine that can just complete tasks. But it helped you get through the day.
Starting point is 00:47:26 It helps you get through the day. Yeah. But then the next day, I feel like shit again. Because you're robbing from, you're robbing the dopamine from tomorrow for today. I think there, there's no drug on the planet that doesn't like, it gives and it sucks. You know what I mean? Like, gives a little and then it like sucks a little. And that's what I look a little bit differently towards like something like testosterone because testosterone is a hormone.
Starting point is 00:47:49 And it's a hormone that we need. And it's hormone that helps us like, you know, perform better. And I don't see that many drawbacks to it. Whereas like with a lot of these other pharmaceuticals, I see like they have a great. upside but they also have a great downside even things like we were talking about cratum before yeah um i think i was kind of the catalyst for why cratum exploded in this country when i made the movie a leaf of faith i was on joe rogan's podcast uh talking about cratum yeah you were on rogan's podcast what like three times think four four times and i was a huge proponent of cratum i told i was by the way uh
Starting point is 00:48:23 quick side note i was telling your brother i was laughing my ass off when he was talking about his kale salads you're like what the fuck yeah yeah yeah That's a team bone, pussy. Yeah, yeah. He's like, what, I feel great with my kale shakes? Yeah, yeah. So, um... It's funny, the evolution.
Starting point is 00:48:37 Yeah, and so Rogan was instrumental in actually keeping Kratum legal. This is pretty insane, but... Really? Yeah, so when I was making the movie, I, I had become friendly with Joe from the UFC, from being on his podcast. And then he invited us to go to, like, a UFC. And so I, like, went to this UFC and I saw him there and, like, chatted with him. and whatever.
Starting point is 00:49:01 And I told him like, hey, man, they're going to like ban cratum. Like literally in a couple days, can you mention this on your podcast? And he's like, oh, yeah, sure. Why don't you come in? Like, come in. Like, come in. You want me to be on your podcast again? He goes, yeah, just, he's like, we'll just do like an emergency podcast and we'll talk about
Starting point is 00:49:18 the cratum problem. If I can help, that's great. And so I went in there and I talked about it. And I basically told everything I know. I mean, this is a natural plant. And this is before they've made. all these cratum extracts and all these really high potency cratum products. This was just like simple like leaf cratum, you know, a ground up leaf.
Starting point is 00:49:39 If anybody doesn't know what cratum is, it's basically a plant from Southeast Asia that's in the same family as the coffee family. And it is a mild opioid that will make you feel really good. But if you take a lot of it over a long period of time, it will become addictive, just like anything else, habit forming. it's hard to get off of if you're taking a lot of it. But we've always saw that like, hey, if you keep it under like 10 grams a day, you'll never have a problem.
Starting point is 00:50:09 Like it's not going to be, I mean, I shouldn't say never. But for the most part, if you keep it under a certain amount of day, you're not going to have a problem. And what the problem is, people start making, you know, all these concoctions where they're taking 50 milligrams of cratom, 100 milligrams of cratom, becomes very addictive, right? but back to what I was saying with with Joe is I went on the podcast and I said listen the DEA is going to schedule this as a drug unless we can get like 25,000 I think it was 10,000
Starting point is 00:50:42 if we can get 10,000 signatures, you know, not even signatures like you had to like write like a short email to the to the DEA. If you write a short email of the DEA saying they should keep Kratom legal, you know, say something like, hey, Kratom. my brother's back problem. Cratum helped me, you know, get through school. Cratum help me with it. Tell them why, in an honest way, it helped you.
Starting point is 00:51:06 Yeah. Or even tell them why you don't think it should be legal. I don't care what you tell them. Just tell them something because if they get more than 10,000 comments, they have to read them all. And if they have to read them all, most likely they'll just back down because they're not going to want to read them all. And so the next day, we went and checked the website and there was like 28,000.
Starting point is 00:51:26 thousand people that sent emails. No way. Yeah, into the, into the DEA to say, hey, we, you know, we should keep cratim legal. We should keep looking at it. The problem with cratum is the same problem we have with weed in this country is like, you know, cratum used to be this wholesome plant that was, you know, did so much good for so many people. But then they start making extracts.
Starting point is 00:51:51 They start making concentrates. They are now making, taking alkaloids of cratom. and separating them out and making really super concentrated forms of cratum, which I'm not against. What I'm against is that they sell them in smoke shops and they don't tell people how addictive they can be. They're not educating people on them.
Starting point is 00:52:12 There might be a reason for me to do another documentary that would follow up a leaf of faith, which is my documentary on cratum, to sort of really just educate people about it so that we don't get ourselves into another opioid epidemic. Because I do believe that, that this new product, it's called 70H or seven hydroxymatrogenine. It's an alkaloid of cratum.
Starting point is 00:52:32 I believe seven hydroxy matragenine. Yes. You can buy any smoke shop. You walk into a smoke shop or even gas stations now. You'll see tons of it everywhere. And the problem is people are spending, you know, it's expensive. It's like for, on average, for five tablets, it's like 35 bucks. So it's like seven bucks a tablet.
Starting point is 00:52:53 People are taking five tablets at once. You know, they're taking it all at once and they're... What's the effect? It'll get you high like an oxy cotton. Okay. But if you take it in like a lower dose, just a normal dose, it'll kill pain like crazy. So that's where I'm coming in saying like, we're not supposed to take the whole damn package. Right.
Starting point is 00:53:13 But like I can't control that. And so in order to control... And the companies that are coming out, they're coming out and they're called opia or they're called pressed or they're called, you know, blues. They have these names that sound. like drugs. And when I have names that sound like drugs, it can turn people off. You know, it's sort of telling you like, hey, man, you're buying a drug. And if we want to make this a potent painkiller that can really help people, there needs to be some sort of process or some sort of, you know, way to do that. So I'm actually talking to some people about possibly doing
Starting point is 00:53:49 another documentary about Kratum because I do think it can really help a lot of people, but it needs to be there needs to be education on it. The same thing also, like on the flip side of Kratum is ibogaine. Yeah. And I'm also talking to some people about doing a documentary about ibogane because if people don't know what ibogaine is, it'll flip an opioid addiction in like 48 hours. It's one of the most insane drugs I've ever dealt with. It will reset all your neurotransmitters in your body.
Starting point is 00:54:21 It'll kill pain in your body. for me, I did a iBogane trip. You can actually watch it on YouTube. It's called Ibo-G-G-A-I-N-Z. I love it. And it's just a little short film I put together about my experience. It's gotten ripped off of YouTube like several times. So it's been on there and off there and it's back on there anyway.
Starting point is 00:54:44 So I just made this short film about my experience with Ibogain. And the reason I did Ibogain was simply because I have such bad chronic pain. And like I said, I was going through a period of time where I was doing whatever I could to try to get out of chronic pain. After I did ibo game, the day after, this is stupid, right? I went from not being able to walk, like barely able to walk every day. I'd wake up. And I'd literally be in tears walking around. And I'd be just walking around doing my daily stuff.
Starting point is 00:55:13 And this is going to sound like a pussy. But I'd be crying going like, I need help. Like I need fucking help. I can't do this anymore. You know, like I'm done. And if this doesn't help, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like, I'm done, you know? And I was like, don't want to even say it, but I was like suicidal, you know, to a point
Starting point is 00:55:32 where I was like, this pain is so bad, there's nothing I can do to heal this or fix this. So I called a friend. He lives in Boston. His name is Jim. And Jim is like, he's amazing. He's got this thick Boston accent. He's like an old school bodybuilder from Boston. and Ibo Gain saved his life.
Starting point is 00:55:53 So he came out to visit me. It was the day before the world shut down for the pandemic. So it was March 16th of 2020. He flew out like last minute, administered Ibo Gain to me. I went on a trip that lasted, I want to say like three or four days where I was like in the clouds.
Starting point is 00:56:12 Like I don't know where I went. It lasted that long. Yeah. My soul like left my body. How do you take it? It's just a pill. Just a pill? And it lasts that long.
Starting point is 00:56:22 Yeah. It was a series of pills. So what it was, I took like 250 milligrams, I think every, like every hour maybe for five or six hours. So what happened was I dosed it at a really, really high level because my pain was so bad. And I kept like asking for more. I don't know why because I was in the middle of the trip. and I ended up taking about two grams of it, which is a lot. Like if you go to a clinic in Mexico, they'll probably give you one gram.
Starting point is 00:56:55 But I think because I got two grams, I blasted off to the moon. It was, so in the beginning of it, it was the most horrific, like horrible. You see every tragedy in your life, every bad thing that's happened in your life. And you just keep turning the page and then something worse comes up. And then something worse comes up. And it's like you're reliving all these past memories. But then all the sudden, like I got through all these like bad memories of like being picked on in school. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:57:26 You know, like you remember the most unique, like weird things. And then all of a sudden, like I saw like a flash bulb go off. And I'm like, oh, there goes all my depression. And another flash bulb goes off and goes there goes all the anxiety. And another flash bulb goes off and goes there goes all the pain. Hey, you're free. You're free to go. And then I saw my older brother who passed away.
Starting point is 00:57:46 and I was telling your producer, Steve, before, it's not like I felt like I saw and talked to my brother. I talked to my brother. Like, it was real. It was so real. I can't describe how, it's hard to describe how close it was to, like, a real interaction. Like, I feel it was real.
Starting point is 00:58:07 You know, like I feel like my brother came to me and said, hey, I know I fucked up and I did a lot of drugs and I did a lot of crazy things in my life, but I'm here where I am because this is where I'm supposed to be. And none of this is your fault. And that was so profound and crazy. It was like literally the most profound thing
Starting point is 00:58:28 that ever happened to me. It was like, wait, what just happened? Like all this stuff that I was holding onto for years just left my body. You know? And then the day after I did eyeball gain, I walked into the gym and I put four, like, you know,
Starting point is 00:58:47 I was always a power lifter. So I put 405 on the bar and go, let me just, like, I just started working out. I was like, okay, let me do one plate. Okay, two plates, three plates, four plates. I go up to four plates the day after I did Ibogaine and I do, you know, a set of 10 with 405. Going from like, I can't walk to like,
Starting point is 00:59:06 let me lift 405 for 10 reps. To me, it was just like the most insane thing that I've ever, like, ever happened to me. And I'm like, this drug needs to be explored. This needs to be looked at. This needs to be something that people can have access to. Because I don't know what the fuck happened. You know, like, I still don't know.
Starting point is 00:59:27 That's so wild, bro. You know, Mark always says, be careful. Because like for six months afterwards, I was telling everybody. I was like, Ible-gain preacher. Like, everybody needs this, you know? And then you're sort of mature. you learn like, hey, just chill because like, what is it going to be like in six months? And that's where my brother comes in. He's really wise with all that stuff. And he said,
Starting point is 00:59:50 give it some time before you tell everybody. Right. And so I just started like, you know, I calmed down a little bit, like telling people about it. And then of course, the pain came back. You know, it came back again. How long did it take? About six months. Wow. But if we could find something, there's something in there. If you could find, something that can kill pain for six months and he only had to do it once, why can't you figure out a way to make that molecule into something where you don't have to have that, you don't have to maybe go through that trip again. Like maybe there's something, there's something there's something there, put it that way. And big pharma is not looking into it. You know, nobody's looking into it.
Starting point is 01:00:31 They're looking into it. They're looking how to subvert it. Yeah, how to shut it down. How to keep it shut down. And there's a guy I'm helping, I've been helping and working with a little bit. His name's Brian Hubbard. He's amazing. He's like, he was on Rogan before. Okay. I think he might be the longest speaker on Joe Rogan with Rogan not talking. Really? Oh yeah, you talk for like 25 minutes straight about iBogaine and how amazing it is. Oh yeah, I remember that one. Yeah, that guy is gonna I both so right now in Texas where I live um ibogain is up to be legalized for uh, you know, clinical trials. So we might get some clinical trials soon.
Starting point is 01:01:11 If we get clinical trials, it'll be, you know, available for people to use. But I think we need to expand it. Right now, it's like they're really focusing on veterans with PTSD and they're focusing on addicts. More on veterans. Yeah. I think people, with addicts, unfortunately, I think people throw them away. Mm-hmm. You know, who cares about the addicts?
Starting point is 01:01:32 Like, let's help the veterans, you know? There's this dude, Dana Beale. I think that's his name, Dana Beal, who, is this he's this hardcore psychedelic guy from the psychedelic renaissance old school guy who is allegedly piloting he's flying
Starting point is 01:01:48 Ibogaine from Africa to the Ukraine to give Ibegain to the Ukraine soldiers wow to help them like to treat their not only like battle fatigue and the PTSD to like help them process that and like get back out in the battlefield which is wild so he's given them
Starting point is 01:02:06 Ibogaine and then I think the Russian soldiers are getting some form of like meth. Wow. Yeah, it's insane. But like that's super helpful. And I know the government is definitely spending a lot of money studying this shit, especially there is this lab, chemistry lab, I think it is, up in North Carolina that DARPA gave a $20 million grant to to figure out how to take the trip out of a, uh,
Starting point is 01:02:38 psychedelics, certain psychedelics. So they could basically give soldiers this, the psychedelics and have the benefit of the psychedelic for, for, you know, PTSD recovery, things like this, but without having the, like, hallucination. Yeah, you know, they actually did it. And it's really interesting. So I talk to this guy, I want to say his name's Dr. Olson. David, I think his name's Dr. David Olson.
Starting point is 01:03:03 He's in, yeah. Nichols, David Nichols? I think it's Olson. Okay. And he's in, so there's Nolan Williams. He's at Stanford. He's doing a lot of the iBogine studies. But this other guy at UC Davis, because I used to live in Davis.
Starting point is 01:03:19 That's kind of where Mark lives in that area. And so when I was there, I talked to this guy who basically was able to synthesize ibogene. It's called like Tabernatholog. And Tabernatholog is available on, um, You know, like the research chemical sites where you can buy, you know, all the peptides. Yeah. You can get this stuff called tabernatholog. And it's like-tabernatholog.
Starting point is 01:03:45 It's like $700 a gram. But it's ibogaine without the high. They've basically said that they can take what happens with an ibogane trip and put it into a pill. But you can buy it as a research chemical. It's just that like- Not for human consumption. Yeah. Well, here's the thing.
Starting point is 01:04:07 Like, my girlfriend doesn't like me doing any of this stuff and experimenting and messing around. So I try to stay, you know, true to that. I would love to order it and try it. But if I order it and try it, I'm going to get in trouble. So I need somebody else to try it for me to see, like, hey, man, what happens? You know, because I understand. I understand, like, not, you know, hey, don't try this, don't try that.
Starting point is 01:04:29 Because in the past, to be honest, I had been very reckless with, you know, different substances and I think that being reckless though has brought me back around to like now being a lot more responsible with stuff sure you know because I'm like whoa man that was wild you know like I've when I experimented with psilocybin mushrooms I really experimented I've gone up to I've talked to my friend Kyle Kingsbury he told me like oh yeah I've taken up to like 20 grams of mushrooms so my stupid ass is like I'm gonna try that you know for the first time no not the first time but for like maybe the fifth time. It wasn't,
Starting point is 01:05:06 I wasn't that far in enough to do it. And I didn't have anybody like trip sitting me, you know, and like, you know, it's just, this dumb. Right.
Starting point is 01:05:15 But I had one of the most amazing experiences ever. I felt like we, I thought, I thought we were being invaded. First of all, I thought we were in a simulation. I would like look at the wall and I'd see a crack in the wall and go,
Starting point is 01:05:27 and I, and for some reason I thought I had to like go talk to like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk about it. Like, they must know. They know about that. I got to get to them. They have to, you know, and then I, like, everything around me would just crack and fall. And, like, it was wild.
Starting point is 01:05:42 And then I eventually went, I got my blanket and my pillow. And I walked outside to my car and I started packing things in my car because I thought that the Russians were dropping a bomb on us. I don't know why. It was, like, cloudy out that day. And it was dark out. And I thought, like, you know, and Joe Rogan said, oh, before you even know it, before the sky even becomes dark, you're going to be dead. and I'm like, oh shit, like they're, you know, and this is all on a mushroom trip.
Starting point is 01:06:08 You know, this is just like, that's what happens when you're a little bit reckless. Yeah. It was fun, but like, you know, what did I get out of it? Probably nothing. Yeah, that's why it's good to, you know, have somebody, if you're going to go that hard,
Starting point is 01:06:21 like to, you know, be in a safe environment and have somebody like who knows what they're fucking doing because, I mean, like, no one's ever died for psychedelics. The only thing that kills people when they're doing these kinds of drugs is like being around a large body of water and not knowing how to swim when you're fucking, zonked on. Yeah, and like I said, like I went and got stuff and walked out.
Starting point is 01:06:38 It's like, you don't know. Like, you know, you're not paying attention. So it's like, you should be paying attention. You know, I, yeah. So I definitely don't recommend that, but I've, I've walked that path. And I think it's good to be honest about that, you know. Yeah, totally. I can take a leak real quick.
Starting point is 01:06:51 Go ahead. I made the mistake of breaking the seal before he started and I'm fucked. We'll be right back. Metallica is your favorite band. Oh, dude, I love Metallica. I can't believe you got to hang out with them. You know, I worked. So we, we've had just.
Starting point is 01:07:03 a fucking crazy story life. Uh-huh. And I worked at Woodstock. Uh-huh. I think it was like Woodstock, like they redid it in like 94. I think they did it again in 99. Uh-huh. And so we worked as like security guards for Woodstock.
Starting point is 01:07:18 Really? And Metallica played at Woodstock. And like my brother's mad dog, his claim to fame was like, he was like, he fell asleep because he was like, we were doing security. He fell asleep. And he got blasted with like super soakers. And, And he fucking woke up.
Starting point is 01:07:35 I was like, who the fuck did that? He was all, you know, Mad Dog was huge. He was all pissed. And he's, like, looking around. And he looks, and it's the tour bus. And it's Metallica out the windows of their, of their bus shooting my brother with fucking super super super. Oh, my God. Like, oh, hey.
Starting point is 01:07:46 Woodstock, 1999? 194, I think. Oh, 1994. Yeah. And they were like, look, this guy fell asleep, but fucking blasting him. Holy, bro. So that was a closest we've ever got to Metallica. Find a video of Woodstock 94.
Starting point is 01:08:00 I believe it was Woodstock. I was watching a video of the 1999 one in the air. and it was totally insane the amount of people that were there. I always used to work security for all these concerts. So you see where like the people are sliding in the mud? Steve, find a photo like the crowd, like a big wide.
Starting point is 01:08:16 See that guy in the mud? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The funny thing about the mud that people didn't know is a lot of the mud came from people knocking over outhouses. No. Yeah. So people were like sliding down the hill in the mud
Starting point is 01:08:30 and it was like poop, but they didn't know it. That's fucked, bro. Oh, my God. Is that Limp Biscuit on the top left? Is that Fred Durst? I think I might even still have my shirt from it. Like, I had a shirt and said Peace Patrol on the back. Look at that, bro.
Starting point is 01:08:48 Yeah, so we grew up in like Poughkeepsie, New York, and this was in upstate New York. Woodstock's not very far. That's it. How many people are there? 99 or 94? 99. Yeah, you had the wrong photo. Pick up Woodstock, 94 Metallica.
Starting point is 01:09:02 I think it was, I think, I want to say it was like, uh, Nine-inch nails, Metallica and Aerosmith, like all in a row. It was pretty dope. Yeah, I got to, I met Kirk not too long ago because I guess he's bizarrely a fan of this podcast, which is, I don't find that to be bizarre at all. It blows my fucking mind that that guy of all people. I find, I think he would be a huge fan of this. He's really into, you know, a lot of like the esoteric stuff and a lot of so, like, you know,
Starting point is 01:09:28 some of like the, you know, more of the fringe podcast that I've done. And he was like, dude, he is, uh. I think he's the best guitarist in the world. I think he's. fucking beyond so many other people. I think he never gets like the credit really. I'll tell you what, dude, I've never met anybody who is that emotionally connected to their craft, especially after doing it at the highest level possible for over 40 years.
Starting point is 01:09:52 And he's so like low key. Yeah. Like he's never causing a problem. Right. He's never, you know, the asshole. Right. No, not at all. It's like there's that one scene in the movie where they, it's amazing.
Starting point is 01:10:03 There's a scene in, I want to say it's in the. of the black album. Yeah, it's in the making of the black album, but I forget what the documentary is called, but maybe a day in the life of Metallica or something, day and a half in the life of Metallica. So anyway, he gets all flustered and he gets all pissed.
Starting point is 01:10:20 And he's like, I can't do this, man. It's not like coming through and they're like trying to record the Unforgiven. They're trying to record his soul. He does it a couple more times and he like throws his guitar down. And he's like, I'm coming back tomorrow. And then he comes back in the,
Starting point is 01:10:35 next day and he just goes, I'm fucking, I'm so ready. Let's just go. And he just jams that like first take of that like solo for the unforgiven. He just jams it in one take. And then sort of goes, okay, cool, we're good. And he couldn't get it like the day before he just couldn't crack it. I never thought they made music that way. I thought like they had it maybe written out. I don't know what I thought. But just seeing that process was really cool. Yeah. What really shocked me the most about him was just like after all these years like touring and creating all these out
Starting point is 01:11:07 for ever touring across the country being in front of you know stadiums full of you know hundreds of thousands of people millions of people the fact that even today like I think he's in his 60s now yeah he still has that insane creative spark where he's like connected to the muse or whatever it is
Starting point is 01:11:25 where he's like super motivated to create new shit come up with new new music put he still trying to push the envelope as far as he possibly can he's trying to he's thinking about you know doing all these other kinds of projects and he's so interested in all kinds of stuff when typically people at that level you know who have reached that insane level of success they they kind of lose that spark you know what I mean they get comfortable and they just kind of like settle into success and the comfort I think Metallica I think a lot of people have like written them off too if you like listen to their last
Starting point is 01:11:57 album it's amazing oh my god it's incredible it really is I think that People have gotten, people have written them off and like, ah, I listen to the old stuff. I'm like, no, the new stuff is really good. Yeah. And this, that concert I was telling you about, like, the way, there was two shows they did. They did a show on Friday and a show on Saturday. And I've never been to a Metallica show before that. Oh, really?
Starting point is 01:12:17 No, never. Yeah. I mean, I remember getting the black album when it first came out. It was like one of my, the first CDs I ever, it was like one of the first three CDs I ever owned. And, like, going to that concert at Raymond James Stadium, there was 90,000 people there. And it was kind of like how I was explaining to. to the the W.W. Uh,
Starting point is 01:12:34 WrestleMania. It was similar, but it was just like on another level because there was 90,000 people all shoulder to shoulder. And the music is fucking like the, the heavy metal is blasting. The pyrotechnics is going off. There's the, there's the light show that's happening at the same time.
Starting point is 01:12:50 And everybody, it's like, it's like every atom of every human being in that entire stadium is resonating at this frequency. And you can fucking feel it. And like, bro. If I was from 2000 years ago And I took a time machine to that concert That Metallica concert
Starting point is 01:13:08 Those dudes are gods Yeah Those dudes are fucking gods Yeah it's wild right How they just command And James Hetfield's so cool Like we went to I went to the
Starting point is 01:13:19 The most recent San Francisco Orchestra thing that they did In San Francisco And when they played with the orchestra And it was just so well done You ever seen that? I haven't seen that
Starting point is 01:13:31 Oh, you got to see it. No. Pull it. Pull it up. They play with the orchestra. And it's just so, it's just so well constructed. The way that they flow with this, you know, they're playing with. How long ago was this?
Starting point is 01:13:42 A whole nerdy San Francisco orchestra. This is a couple years ago, like maybe five years ago. A friend of mine, like, just got tickets to it. It's also amazing. They've been to stay together. They've stayed, you know, as a, like a solid crew for so long. Yeah, like if you look at a no leaf clover. That's what, like, see that San Francisco.
Starting point is 01:14:01 Symphony, S&M 2, full concert. That's, he says when it comes to being, the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way. That's so deep. You know, like you think you're going, hey, go to the light. Go to the light. It's just a freight train coming to run you over. So like you feel like I'm going towards the light and then. Wow.
Starting point is 01:14:20 So that's like one of my favorite lines, you know. Yeah, man. Yeah, Metallica is dope. Yeah, Metallica is the fucking shit. You know, I've been a fan of Metallica since I was a kid. And so I remember going to the And Justice for All concert where they had like the giant lady justice and it like blows up on this, you know, it's a giant statue like lady justice and it like falls apart and like the whole stage starts coming apart. And you think it's real. Oh really? The stage blows up like the, um.
Starting point is 01:14:48 What year are we talking that you're going to these shows? 1990. 90. Yeah. Like I want to say even maybe. Yeah, that was like late 80s. I thought Justice for all. And justice for all might have been 88.
Starting point is 01:14:57 Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I was a kid, you know. going to that shit. Also, my brother went to all that stuff. So he was like the one that led us into all that stuff. You want to talk about like wrestling being a different thing in the 80s.
Starting point is 01:15:10 This Metallica and like metal in concerts was like a whole different fucking beast in the 80s, I bet. Yeah. And like I said, we worked all the concerts. So like we were my brothers and I were always like, you know, we were always big dudes like compared to most other people. And so I'm short, but I was jacked, you know. Yeah. And I was strong. So we always got hired to work concerts.
Starting point is 01:15:32 And so we'd work all these concerts. And they'd be like Iron Maiden concerts, Beastie Boys. You know, I've worked, like, name it, lip biscuit, like, kid rock, like, work all these concerts. And usually we were put in the spot where you're in between the audience and they band. Right. So, like, there's usually like a little gap there. So, you know, in case, you know, people get crushed up against the wall and you've got to pull them over the wall. Other times people are fighting.
Starting point is 01:15:57 You've got to pull them over the wall. Other times people are trying to get on stage. You got to, you know, get off stage. But you know what's crazy? The craziest concert I ever worked by far was in Vermont, and it was a Grateful Dead concert. And, yeah, and it was supposed to be like 25,000 people outside, peaceful, you know, little grateful dead concert. 250,000 people showed up and just rushed the gates. And we just basically took our jackets off and went in and hung out.
Starting point is 01:16:25 Like, I don't, I didn't. There was nothing you could have done. No, I mean, what are you going to do? You're making like, you know, 10 bucks an hour. So you're like, I'm not fighting this whole crowd. That's insane. At first, we were running and grabbing these guys off the, you know, they're trying to climb a fence.
Starting point is 01:16:40 Yeah. And so you run and you're like, okay, cool, I got one. And then cool, I got one. Yeah. And then one of my friends climbed the fence after a guy, went to grab them and ripped his, like, arms up, like, like just blood. And we're, that's when they're like, hey, man, it's not worth it. Right.
Starting point is 01:16:55 And what am I going to do? These people want to get in, let them in. Yeah. I don't care. Yeah. Jesus, man. So it's like when crowd control becomes impossible, you know? Right.
Starting point is 01:17:05 Yeah. I mean, imagine the, the, have you seen the, um, the video of the crowd that was in Moscow when they played in Moscow? No. Metallica. Type in Metallica, Moscow. It is the most out of control, like insane crowd. I've ever seen at a rock show. Look at that.
Starting point is 01:17:28 Some of those photos, bro. Look at that one of the bottom right. Battalica's biggest concert in 1991, Moscow. Look at that. Yeah, it's a weirdest thing, too, because, like, I think it's a very American thing. Like, we don't really listen to other people's music. You know, there's nobody that comes over here.
Starting point is 01:17:44 There's a lot of, um, there's a lot of European death metal bands and heavy metal bands. Yeah, what I'm saying, though, is like, we don't really listen to it like they do. Like, that, that's, you know. That is another level. I don't think I've ever seen anything. I've never seen a crowd like that. I wonder how many people that is, did they say? Yeah, is there an estimate
Starting point is 01:18:04 on how many people were there in Moscow? You can ask Trump, it'll be two million. The Moscow Metallica show didn't even... Metallica, Moscow, paled in comparison to the inauguration. One point six million people, the Monsters of Rock Festival. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:18:26 I remember they did a... Monsters of Rock in, I think it was a monster. Oh, yeah. Wait, wait, no, no, no. What year? No, no, no. What year? 91.
Starting point is 01:18:35 That was after the fall of the Soviet Union, right? Well, they also did a concert with guns and roses where there was a riot. Remember that? Uh-uh. Yeah, there was a Monsters of Rock. It was in New Jersey, I believe. Oh, really? And Axel Rose came out and the microphones didn't sound right or something.
Starting point is 01:18:53 And he... Oh, yeah, I remember this. Yeah, he was just like, he just left. and when he left it caused like a riot and then Metallica I guess like made up for it kind of but yeah they hated Guns and Roses after that there was a big uh big battle of the bands you know and those were like my two favorite bands you know guns and Roses oh yeah back in the day yeah yeah yeah yeah it's uh it's crazy man it's crazy how um how those dudes have managed to keep it going for so long and
Starting point is 01:19:26 still put on these crazy shows selling out arenas all across the freaking world. Yeah, everybody else falls apart. Yeah, they do. And it is, you know, like the amount of fucking like discipline it takes to keep your core group of guys
Starting point is 01:19:43 together and like manage those relationships for so long for decades. You know? I mean, rock stars aren't like the most stable people in history. You know what To be able to do that and manage that is pretty insane.
Starting point is 01:19:59 Yeah, it's interesting to see that, like I said, the growth, like how, you know, how far they've come. They've been through, like, addiction. You know, when I went to that concert in San Francisco, it was the last day before James Hetfield went to rehab. And I felt so bad, man. I was like, man, I didn't know he, like, he played his heart out. I'm like, I didn't know he was struggling like that. Like, there's something about addiction with me that, like, if somebody's an addict, It's like I have such an empathy for that because I've been through it.
Starting point is 01:20:28 You know, I've been to, and I've been through like every way of getting over it too. You know, I've been to, I've been to one of the, when I, so I'll tell you my quick story of like when I was addicted, I was an alcoholic and I was a drug addict because I had a double hip replacement surgery. It got botched where they messed up one side and it never really took. But they didn't know why I was in pain for two years. They didn't know that. For two years, they didn't know that they messed up. For two years, they just kept feeding me pills, the doctors. And so I was addicted to opioids.
Starting point is 01:21:04 But along with the opioids, I was also drinking, you know? And that causes, like, big problems, you know, where you just wake up and you don't even know where you are and, you know, just all sorts of huge problems like that. So I had to go to rehab. I went to rehab in Malibu. So I made a documentary about how, to get sober from pills and booze.
Starting point is 01:21:26 And I relapsed on pills and booze. And I ended up, you know, it was in the middle of making a movie. Wow. You know, so I had like people invested money into this movie. I was making it. Everybody was happy with the progress. And then I relapsed. And when I relapsed, I was so scared to tell the producers what happened.
Starting point is 01:21:45 And like, hey, man, like, listen, I kind of messed up. And if you go back and watch my movie prescription thugs, it's all in there. I basically just said, let's just put it in the movie. because it shows how hard addiction is. It shows how like even though I know I'm doing wrong, like I can't stop it. Like it's a monster. And, you know, I was able to basically get better.
Starting point is 01:22:09 But the way that I got better was really interesting because I went to a rehab in Malibu because I was making a movie, I had interviewed this guy Richard Tate. And Richard Tate's still to this day, one of my good buddies. he owned Cliffside Malibu. It's like one of these hoity-toity, like high-end, you know,
Starting point is 01:22:28 celebrity places where all these celebrities go, Lindsay Lohan and stuff like that. Like a celebrity rehab place? Yeah, kind of like that, right? And so it's really expensive usually, but he let me go for free because I was making a movie and he knew I was still filming it. And he's like, let's see what happens.
Starting point is 01:22:45 You come to my rehab. I'll fix you up. So I go to his rehab and I'm there for 11 days. And after 11 days, he's like, hey we have a problem we need more space and since you're not paying i need to move you somewhere else and i freaked out because my brother had died in a sober living facility and they wanted to move me to a sober living facility so he said well instead of moving you to a sober living facility i'm going to move you into a different place that is like a what do you call it sober living right so it's like a
Starting point is 01:23:15 sober living where you um no not a sober living it's a sorry i i didn't want to move into the sober living so i ended up moving into a rehab that was like state run like a state run rehab where people like go to jail you know what i mean like if if it's either go to rehab or go to jail it's like one of those rehabs right and so i went to that rehab for 22 days and when i was in that rehab it was like being in like some sort of boot camp you had to like make your bed every morning you had to you know all these The Malibu one was fluff. And so for 11 days, I had like a fluff rehab. And then I had 22 days that felt like hell because I was just, you know.
Starting point is 01:23:56 It's probably better. Yeah. No, it was amazing. It kind of like all worked out for the best because like I saw the best rehab in the country, the worst rehab in the country. I wouldn't say the worst because they did a good job of setting me straight. You know, I didn't want any drugs after that. I didn't want any alcohol after that.
Starting point is 01:24:12 I just wanted to go home. And then the last thing. 30 days I spent in a sober living facility that's owned by cliffside Malibu that was like right on the beach in Malibu and it's beautiful and it was like you know you couldn't really get any any better than that and so when I when I walked out of rehab like I just knew I wasn't going to go back to that again like I knew that that wasn't you know wasn't for me but I got to see all the ways in which it worked and I also got to see all sorts of different addicts and like what their addiction is from and every single one of those addictions
Starting point is 01:24:46 they spring from some sort of pain you know somebody's in pain whether it's mental pain physical pain it doesn't matter they're in some sort of pain and it launches this addiction and all they're looking for is to get love you know to get compassion
Starting point is 01:25:00 to get empathy and for some reason they're not getting that in their life and they have these bad habits and so it's like I don't know I've just always been so empathetic towards those people and always felt like I, you know, I can help.
Starting point is 01:25:16 I can help those people and I want to help those people. Right. And I've had so many people hit me up after my films and say like, hey, man, you, you know, you saved my life or they'll hit me up on Instagram and say, like, how do I get sober? And I'll tell people, like, there's a lot of different ways to get sober. But the one thing I think people need to remember is like, don't discount the fact that AA is out there. A.A. is been around forever and A.A. is free. So if you're at the depths of depression and addiction,
Starting point is 01:25:48 you can walk into an AA room and they will accept you. They will help you. It's not the best way. You know, it's definitely like it's, there's a lot of stuff that you got to believe in to. Yeah, isn't there some crazy story behind AA? Well, the AA started with LSD. Oh, really?
Starting point is 01:26:05 They start, yeah, it started with like a group of people getting together and using a little bit of LSD. and LSD seems to really be a way out for addiction, but since it's so demonized. How long ago? In the 60s, I want to say. Okay, that's what AA started. I think it started in like 1934.
Starting point is 01:26:25 Oh, okay. But if you go back and read the, I just tell people this, the best place it started is pick up the AA big blue, it's called the big book of AA. It's just this big blue book. And you read through that book, and it was written in the 30s. And when you read through that book,
Starting point is 01:26:41 it'll tell you everything about why you're an addict. And you're going, how do they know? This is like 1934. It's literally like prophesizing things. Yeah. Because addicts have not changed since then. And that's the one thing that remains constant is like, the addict is always the same.
Starting point is 01:26:57 The behavior is always the same. Yeah. You can tell the behavior. People become very manipulative. People will get their own way. People learn how to lie for what they need to get. and when you're helping those people you got to like learn how to shut those things down you know and sometimes you got to be a little bit a little bit mean you know um but i'm telling you like
Starting point is 01:27:21 it's it's so rewarding to help people you know and that's why i make the documentaries i make and do what i do and i'm working on uh some future projects that i want to really do and i really think that i have a lot more in the tank to tell you know yeah it also makes a lot of sense the way you're explaining your ibegain experience you know how it kind of like it exposes all of the deepest darkest shit in your life right it like pulls the band-aids off all the scabs and it like exposes it's like a mirror where you have to really confront your deepest issues from a different perspective right from like outside your typical perspective it gets you off like the normal vibration of just your daily humdrum life that you get used to and you know
Starting point is 01:28:08 that is a super beneficial way. I can see why that would be a super beneficial way to kicking some addictions. You know what I mean? Like, I know there's lots of different types of therapies. There's like I began. I know MDMA is one of them, but you're just from my personal experience
Starting point is 01:28:23 with just like edible marijuana. I eat a fucking marijuana gummy and I get blasted. I start, I end up in like the fetal position in the corner seeing all like the worst parts of my life. And I see like the worst case scenario in every part of my life and I can find the direct path to the worst case scenario. I'm like, oh my God, this is crazy. Like everything's caving in on me.
Starting point is 01:28:48 And, you know, at the end of it, I always come out with like some sort of revelatory aha moment or I've taken something useful out of that experience that can like help me in my everyday life. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, you know, I can see why something like that would be. a super effective tool for kicking things like some of these infections and opioid addictions and marijuana. Yeah, marijuana gummies are interesting because it's kind of the same thing with like Cratum, like I said, they, in Texas where I live, it's illegal.
Starting point is 01:29:22 Like, THC is illegal for whatever reason it's illegal. So I bought these like Delta 9, you know, gummies. They just seem like any normal everyday gummy. Yeah. And I ate one and I was like out of it for three days. straight. I mean, I mean, and then I looked at it and it has like, I want to, I don't know how to compare Delta 9 to like whatever, but I think Delta 9 is so cheap that it says it has like 20,000 milligrams of Delta 9 in it. And I'm like, this is insane. How is this legal? How do they, you,
Starting point is 01:29:53 you can't sell THC, but you can sell this. And it's so powerful. So like, I can't even take them anymore because I'm like, that's just way, you know, way too potent. And yeah, I mean, they, they don't give you the greatest feeling. They give you, like, you know, they'll make you happy for a little bit, but then you kind of, same thing, you see your darkest. Yeah, but I think that, I think that shit's beneficial. I think, you know, I don't think it's designed to just make you feel good and happy. It's a, it's not supposed to be an escape.
Starting point is 01:30:24 Like, I think I get, I get the most out of, like, the darkest trip. So the darkest experiences, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like one of the recent ones was just, I was, I fucking took one and it was like, showing me, it was telling me that I need to spend more times with my kids and less time on bullshit. Yeah. And it's like, wow, that's great. That's not the devil. Yeah. That's something that's good.
Starting point is 01:30:45 No, I think so, yeah. Like, I think, um, well, I think that like there's, with all drugs and all things, like, uh, there's good and bad to them. You know, the bad for me of that gummy is more like, it just made me a zombie for three days and I don't, I, you know, it's like, and so then I've, I've taken like half of it and it's made me a zombie for a day. And I'm like, maybe I need to take like an eighth of it.
Starting point is 01:31:06 You know what I mean? But it's crazy because you get this whole big bag of like 20 gummies. It's like, I'm going to take an eighth of it. Yeah. I love that there's this company called Vaya. That's actually sponsored the show before, but they send you,
Starting point is 01:31:17 they send me this giant kit of all these different types of gummies that are beneficial for everything. There's like, and there's THC or CBD ones. They have ones for sleep. They have ones for like creativity. They have ones for like, called the love.
Starting point is 01:31:33 gummies that like get you get you all horned up they get you a little bit high and horny at the same time fucking phenomenal they all highly recommend them oh my god they fucking work they're amazing and they're not they're not overly potent to where you're going to like blast off to the moon you know so um i really like those ones but like yeah you can get some of these gummies like the fucking death star or like some of these crazy gummies you can find from you know underground people that will just be like jesus christ you'll be fucked i used to be into like you know like i said I used to be into that kind of stuff for a while. And then I got to a point where, you know, like, I've been sober from alcohol and pills, like prescription painkillers for like 11 years.
Starting point is 01:32:17 So since that movie, that movie last time. Yeah. For pain. Yeah. And but I've done every psychedelics since then. So I, but I don't. Well, the psychedelics are different. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:32:26 I look at it as different as well. You know, it's like I definitely look at it as as being a different thing there. are non-addictive and they're not, you know. And I've taken cratom. Some people will say, actually, even when I was in rehab, after I got out of rehab, I was supposed to go speak at an AA meeting. And they didn't want me to speak because at the time I was taking cratim. And I had been talking about it.
Starting point is 01:32:48 I had talked about it on Joe Rogan. And they're like, oh, you know, we don't, I'm like, you don't think I'm sober. I'm like, I take cratim for pain. Yeah. And I think people have such a hard time deciphering the fact that, like, you're in physical pain. and they don't care though they just they just go crate them bad you know right and i think we need to stop putting substances in these bad good or bad categories it's crazy because they just are you know cratim is no more dangerous than caffeine like when's the last i don't know if you're a coffee drinker
Starting point is 01:33:17 but i don't remember the last time i went a day without drinking a cup of coffee yeah i just been it's been maybe two days in the last five years i haven't drank a cup of coffee it's as like i had hamilton morrison here recently he was like a chemist yeah i love him yeah he was explaining that to me He was like, I don't think cratum is any different than caffeine. He's like, if you enjoy cratim and you want to have a couple cups of cratum or pills of cratim every day, it's like there's no, you know, there's no studies or scientific papers that show it's any more dangerous than caffeine. It doesn't kill anymore. It doesn't kill people. It's just like, you know, if it's useful to you, then take it.
Starting point is 01:33:47 The difference is the stigma that's attached to it or, you know, the different types of pharmaceutical companies that have been known to demonize certain drugs because it's not good for business. Yeah. I would say the only thing with cratim that I do. just warn people about because I've been through it is uh it can be addictive and getting off of it. So can caffeine. Yeah. And getting off of it just like is not fun. So I had to, you know, when I was told you, I was taking, uh, at one point I got to taking these extracts and I would take several extracts a day. And when I was coming off of them, I was just using capsules to come off. And so I would take like, one day I would take five capsules twice a day. Then I'd take three capsules twice a day. You know,
Starting point is 01:34:28 And I would taper down. And my girlfriend helped me taper down off of it. And I told her like, hey, this is what's going on. I'm trying to get off of this. Because I just wanted to reset my body and be off everything. And I must have went through a good five or six days that were really, really rough days. And so I just want to tell people like, you might go through some tough days, get yourself some magnesium, get yourself a bunch of vitamin C. Okay.
Starting point is 01:34:54 You know, and then the bigger problem with coming off of daily cratom use, I think if you're not using it daily, I don't think you're going to develop a problem. I drink these every day. I don't think you're going to develop a problem with those being such a low dose. And this is an extract. Yeah, I know White Rabbit. They're great. Yeah, they're fucking delicious too. Yeah, they taste really good.
Starting point is 01:35:15 Mitrogena speciosa extract. Yeah, I've actually talked to that company a couple times. I should probably do something. I drink one of those. every day except for the weekends. Did Mark send you some of those new brews? Those are good too. He did.
Starting point is 01:35:29 He sent me the mind bullet gummies too. The gummies are a little bit weird at first. They're like, at first I was like, oh, I don't like this. And then after a while, I just got, I really like the taste of them and I like what they do. You know, they feel good. I notice, I know you can drink like more than one of these white rabbits and it's supposed to be like it even says on here. It says, drink one of them.
Starting point is 01:35:47 And it's like a lightning bolt of energy. Drink two of them. You're on the couch. Yeah. I never drink two in a day. I only drink one because it's like a mild stimulant. but it's also like calming, right? So it's not like I'm like super jittery,
Starting point is 01:35:58 like if I drink a Red Bull. But I notice sometimes I notice myself, like if it's a Saturday and I haven't drank one in a day, I'll be like, man, I could go for a white rabbit right now. Then I'm like, just because I knew that popped into my head, I should go maybe two extra days without drinking one. And that's what I'm saying is like if you do that, you're going to be fine.
Starting point is 01:36:17 The problem is when people, they'll take Kratum capsules, they'll drink two of those. Yeah. You know, and then it's like piling up. And then it's like, I just want to be sure that we're not telling people to take something that can hurt them because like if you're not taking cratim right now, don't get in. If you don't need it, don't get into it. But if you're in pain or you need like, even if you just want a little bit of bounce of energy, it is great.
Starting point is 01:36:43 Take it once in a while. Use it once in a while. But use it like responsibly. People tend to take that and say, well, you said I could use it every day. Right. And we didn't. you know yeah what did um what did the mayo clinic say about cradum to say something about them being dangerous are you aware of that no like recently yeah i don't know i heard the mayo clinic was saying
Starting point is 01:37:03 the cradum was dangerous there's all sorts of uh things saying it's dangerous like there's all sorts of people trying to ban it you know it happens all the time but i think the reason that they are trying to ban it is because what is this steva yeah unsafe and ineffective who's this from oh this is a mayo clinic website yeah yeah you just can't believe that when you say when it's says it's ineffective. Users swear by Cratum for lifting mood and boosting energy, but there are many safety issues to question about
Starting point is 01:37:30 whether Crotum works. See, we're at the top is unsafe and ineffective. Right. It's the same thing they did with steroids. They would say, oh, they don't work. Right. Oh, look, my what does that say? Cradam is an herbal extract that comes from the leaves, an evergreen tree called the, okay, Mitragyna-Speciosa. That's what it says on the can. So that's just
Starting point is 01:37:46 like the scientific name for Crotum. So why are they saying it's unsciliated? safe. Weight loss. Cradum is known for side effects, including weight loss, dry mouth, nausea, and vomiting, constipation, liver damage,
Starting point is 01:37:59 muscle pain, high blood pressure. Okay, so one-tenth of the pharmaceutical products they advertise on every single football game on TV. Yeah, basically. Yeah, if you look at this, LIS. Occasional pregnancy. See at the bottom,
Starting point is 01:38:14 it says, Cratom products have been linked to a small number of deaths. Well, when I did my movie, I went and I scoped out every single death. There was like 44 at the time. there was one guy. 44 cratum deaths?
Starting point is 01:38:26 Oh no, steroid deaths. No, this is the cratim movie. Oh, okay. So my movie, A Leaf of Faith,
Starting point is 01:38:30 which is about Kratum. Got it. Which is actually available on YouTube. If anybody wants to see it, I think you can probably find it easiest on YouTube. But in a leaf of faith, I went through and I looked, and I actually had a medical researcher that I was working with.
Starting point is 01:38:44 We went through all the deaths, and we sort of vetted them all and said, like, okay, let's see. This guy had 10 drugs in a system. This guy, you know, them all and there was one guy who was a 28 year old police officer from New York State who died
Starting point is 01:39:00 officially from ingesting cratum but you know why he was dry scooping it and he choked on it and died that's what he died from and so it's like when you look at that and you go well okay that that's a cratum death it counts but that's like somebody falling down the stairs and dying and saying that your house killed right yeah holy shit I had one guy on this podcast cast once. Remember? I forget the dude's name. He was dry scooping cratum right before we started the show. He was not only that. He had, I think he had capsules. He had a cratim drink, like his own custom crateum drink that he mixed together himself. And right before we hit record, he's like, hold on, dry scoop, two giant scoops of crat. I'm like, holy shit. We don't, we don't need to
Starting point is 01:39:43 cut that out. We don't need to. We don't want to sell him out. But let's, uh, he was, uh, he was, it right before we started. Oh, okay. Um, but, um, we don't, but. We don't want to sell them out of before we started. Oh, okay. But yeah, like, that's a lot, bro. I would be, I don't know what would happen to me
Starting point is 01:39:58 if I took that much. God, because the cratom is what they call hydrophobic. So, you know, you can't mix it in water. It's like cinnamon. When you try to mix cinnamon into your Starbucks,
Starting point is 01:40:07 you ever notice like it won't mix. Things are either fat soluble or their water soluble. Maybe it was tea he was drinking or something, but he had some sort of crateum drink. You can mix it up enough to make it kind of mix in, but it's always sludgy. It's always,
Starting point is 01:40:19 it's always gross. Right. There are a couple companies, like I have a friend that has a company called Happy Hippo. I know Happy Hippo is like, I don't know how well it works, but they've made some micronized cratom that you can dissolve. They also make cratom, what do you call it, like pouches? Yeah, they make cratom pouches that are pretty good, but I think they, if they were a little stronger, they'd be better.
Starting point is 01:40:41 But it's just another cool idea, you know, it's like put a little cratum in a pouch and, you know. But yeah, I think that the deliver. methods definitely for Kratom need to be improved because Kratom itself is just like it's hard to take that's why you know people take it in capsules because it's it doesn't mix in water. Right.
Starting point is 01:41:01 Yeah I just love the fucking energy drinks man just tastes delicious. Yeah you got to do a lot to get to that you know to get to that point to make it taste delicious Yeah they did a really good job though They did a fucking phenomenal job dude because before I had a white rabbit I had never had Kratom Yeah. Like that was my first Kratom ever
Starting point is 01:41:17 was that thing and I was just like I remember I was doing it. I literally had it right before a podcast. And I was like, what is happening to me? Why, why do I feel so fucking, like, calm, but like focused right now? This is crazy. So I made an energy drink, actually. I made a crate of energy drink that I was selling for like a little while. And it just kind of kind of, it's a lot to that business. It's really difficult. Right. I bet. Get in that business and then, you know, scale it up. So we made a drink called full bore. That's a great, it's a great drink. They actually sell it here in Florida. still I think. But my friend of mine owns a company and he saw, you know, I was basically like just a small part of it. But yeah, there's a lot to make that happen. It's, there's a lot that goes into it. Really?
Starting point is 01:42:02 Yeah. Yeah. There's so many different Kratum products, man. It's crazy. Especially when you're getting into like all like the different types of pills and stuff. They sell at the gas stations. It's like, you know, it's a, it's a minefield. If you want to navigate it and like, you know, figure it out.
Starting point is 01:42:16 Yeah. And that's the one thing. Like when I made the film. a leaf of faith, I said like, hey, I'm not going to sell cratum. I don't care about it, you know. And looking back at it, I probably should have because it could have made a fortune off of doing it. But I think things work out for a reason. I think like the, I don't, I don't think it's good to be a proponent or advocate of something and be so heavily involved in it. I agree. You know, so it's like, I totally agree. And I'm also trying to like be honest is like when I made that movie, we didn't have any
Starting point is 01:42:48 research on addiction for cratim. Like I went on Reddit and I would look up all these people that say they were addicted to Kratum and I'd contact each one of them. And I couldn't get one person to talk to me about addiction. Now I think it's a different story. So I think it warrants like doing some sort of update because like nowadays there's so many people saying that they're addictive. There's got to be people that'll talk.
Starting point is 01:43:10 And I want to get their stories. I want to know like what, you know, what the deal is, what's going on. Is it addictive? Is it not addictive? Is it good? Is it bad? like let's let's talk it out you know yeah well i mean it's like i think this was stated on your on the bigger stronger faster documentary but like drugs aren't good or bad right they just are there's a
Starting point is 01:43:30 there's a risk and a reward all drugs are is a risk reward measurement some have more risk others other others have a high reward with less risk it's just it's all about you know what's best for you in your body and like what helps you get through the day better without risking too much or falling down the fucking the slippery slope when you look at it like in our country it's uh you know praise to be skinny so like ozempic is this gigantic drug manjarro god that's so crazy is a monster drug and isn't it funny how you can fucking tell who's on ozepic oh yeah you can just like see them you're like oh that's ozepic the trade off is because they look like a melted candle they look like a melted candle yeah the tradeoff is that you don't enjoy
Starting point is 01:44:13 anything anymore, you know? So while like, so micro, so I actually think the GLP1 drugs are great, but I think they're great and so does Mark too. We've talked about this a lot. We think they're great in micro doses. I think the doses that people use to go from being fat to being skinny, it's just, it's like it's too much and it's too much of a change. And there's not enough of a, there's not enough of yourself in it. But if you use it in smaller doses, like one milligram a week, say, and you and you and you instead of 2.4 right you use like half the dose even less even like a quarter of the dose uh when you use it in smaller doses i feel like you have to put in some work also and i feel like it's just a you don't get any of the side effects you know what i mean there's there's there's i think there's i think when as we learn more about these glp1 drugs we'll see people
Starting point is 01:45:06 uh microdosing them more often than using them in the full sense and they're way cheaper that way too yeah it's just crazy to see drugs like this like come on the scene and just explode and change everything and if you look at it they you know big pharma charges like 1600 a month to for you know something like ozempic or manjaro is that really what it costs it's it's anywhere between like 900 and 1600 dollars a month and the compounding pharmacy like in power pharmacy for example you can get that for like 100 bucks a month so it's like you got to go to a doctor and tell your doctor like instead of ask your doctor if this drug right for you, ask your doctor if they can use a compounding pharmacy.
Starting point is 01:45:47 Because almost any drug that's approved by the FDA can be compounded. Like, they can make anything. So if you want your drugs cheaper and you're more knowledgeable, I, like, I used to be so against pharmaceuticals, like I made a movie called prescription thugs. Yeah. But as I understand pharmaceuticals more and understand, like, how they can be used for good when they're used moderately and for the right things, like, I don't think anybody, like, when I just came here in the Uber,
Starting point is 01:46:13 I had a guy told me his mother was on 37 medications before she died. I don't think that's cool. I don't think that's the way to use medicine. But when you use medicine in the right way, like if somebody microdosed a GLP1 drug to lose 50 or 60 pounds, and that's going to really improve their health, I think it's worth it. So like you said, what's the risk and the reward? Yeah. You know, I also learned that recently that UV light kills cholesterol or lowers your cholesterol.
Starting point is 01:46:44 Really? Yeah, like the more exposure your skin has to UV light, like during the day, like UVB light, I think specifically. It actually legitimately lowers cholesterol. Did you learn that from Jack Cruz? Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah, he's incredible, huh? Yeah, he's something.
Starting point is 01:47:00 Yeah. He's definitely a super, super sharp dude. He's a little abrasive, seems. A little bit. Well, he's from New York. Yeah. So I think it comes to the territory. And I think also there's something to do with being a,
Starting point is 01:47:11 I think something comes with people who are high level surgeons that are like doing crazy brain surgery or heart surgery on people where your whole entire career, you are at, you are like the boss in the operating room and all these people are answering to you, taking orders from you and this is life or death situation. I think there's a psychological thing that happens to people where it's just like you have to be abrasive. And there's like no room for bullshit or like trying to be nice, you know. Yeah, when he was pushing Cali Means on like the vaccine stuff. Yeah. It was just like hard to watch. It was like, oh man, he's like. It was hard to watch.
Starting point is 01:47:49 He wasn't like, you know. You were here. Yeah, I was here. It was rough. It was rough. You know, I think. And I think also like. You know what though?
Starting point is 01:47:57 You changed my mind a lot on what it means to be in charge of something that big for this country. And when I thought about it, like I think Callie means how I think he means well. No pun. I think his sister has a lot of great I think they both have a lot of great things to say but when you think about like they're the highest like now his sister is like the highest person in the land yeah what is she at the head up now she's never treated a patient really right I mean I guess she has in her like in the residency but like she never even made it through that and it's like maybe we should have somebody that's a little bit more yeah invested yeah politics is a fucking
Starting point is 01:48:35 dirty game man that's the problem with it and you know i understand jack's perspective but then do you want jack cruz in charge of that i understand like i understand he doesn't want to be a part of it and i'm saying that's why i move el salvador yeah i mean that's that's that's the like the dichotomy there is you have like i understand jack's perspective is he cares about patience right like his number one priority is his patience and people but like that's not how that's not how fucking hollywood same thing that's not how fucking Washington works, right? Politics, like, you kind of, to get shit done, you got to play the politics game, unfortunately. That's how it is, you know, and I think...
Starting point is 01:49:12 Well, all these people going crazy about seed oils, I'll tell you right now, seed oils are not the problem with America. Right. They're not even a problem. Right. Like, to make it a problem is stupid. And so all these people like, seed oils, ah, seed oils. It's like, that's not what's killing America. Right. Food dies. Okay, let's get rid of all the seed oils. People are still going to be fat. I just saw this fucking thing on Instagram there today, how, like, RFK met with the CEO of Starbucks to, like, get rid of dies in the drinks and get rid of, like, the high fructo stuff. And it's like, come on, man. Is Starbucks really the fucking bane of all the health problems in the United States? Yeah, I think there are ways to make things healthier and there are ways to make things better.
Starting point is 01:49:51 And, like, again, it goes to, like, education, you know, educating people on certain things. Like, educating people that red meat isn't so bad for you. and educating people on, you know, different diets and different ways of eating. You know, it's just, I think that we need more education in those areas rather than, you know, just trying to ban things. Like banning things doesn't make anything better usually. Right. And then like, then there's like, what's the right way to educate somebody on this stuff, you know? Like there was a Stanford surgeon. I forget what kind of surgeon.
Starting point is 01:50:23 I think he was maybe a heart surgeon. And this came from, this guy's like really good friends with Andrew Hewere. And I think this was on the podcast with Andrew Huberman or no, I'm sorry, this was on a podcast with Jack, R.FK Jr. and Rick Rubin, where he was saying this dude said that this high level heart surgeon from Stanford, I believe, I might be getting that wrong. You might not be from Stanford. But anyways, he said that out of all of the medical literature and medical textbooks that are available today in all the universities, he said, he said that, said that more than 50% of it is wrong or outdated from new research that's come out and prove that it's like it's not correct. I've heard John Ionitis who is from Stanford. He's a professor from Stanford. And he basically says if it was up to me, I would take all of the nutritional research that
Starting point is 01:51:24 has been done in this country and I would throw it in the garbage. Yeah. because he's like that's how much value it has you know i think that might be a little bit overboard i think we we do know certain things um but like at the same time like even if you look at what my brother mark is doing he's telling people like hey man maybe it's okay to eat sugar oh the sugar diet in the form of fruit did you guys discuss that we didn't yeah i don't think we talked about that when he was in here but i just saw that uh i saw my friend nick norwitz yeah i know nick's great yeah Yeah, he's awesome. He made a video about it. And he was like, it's not as bad as people think it is.
Starting point is 01:52:02 Well, I recently, I, like, recently I just went through some, you know, just some health issues with pain again. And because I was going through all this pain, I wasn't lifting. I wasn't really eating great. I wasn't eating bad. I was doing like a still doing like a carnivore diet, but I would just eat way too many calories. And so my weight got up to about 234 pounds. And normally I weigh about 190. Today I think I weighed 204, 203, something like that. But the way I lost all that weight was fruit and fruit smoothies every day. Like just, yeah, just with sugar. And so what is the idea behind that? I went out on a podcast and talked about it and everybody hates you for it. Like, you're like, listen, don't hate me.
Starting point is 01:52:44 I'm just delivering a message. Eventually I'm going to start losing muscle. But I'm also on testosterone. I'm also lifting. You know, so it's like I just wanted to drop a bunch of weight fast. So I basically did that every day. And then three or four times a week at night, I would have a meal of maybe like rice and chicken.
Starting point is 01:53:04 And that was it. And so it was like, and I would actually drink three or four fruit smoothies in a day. I'd make them myself at home. I just buy a bunch of different juices and a bunch of frozen fruit. And I blend them up, cool, drink a smoothie down, go about my day. I don't know enough about it like Mark does. Mark's like the sort of expert on it.
Starting point is 01:53:25 The idea behind the sugar diet is it's supposed to be, to be dropping weight when you're doing it, right? So you're doing, you're basically like fasting, but you're getting glucose in, so you're not really fasting. And I don't know. I don't even really could tell you like exactly, like how and why it works.
Starting point is 01:53:47 But what you're doing is like your body can't store, your body, it's really hard for your body to store carbohydrates is fat. So although, and Mark and I have been guilty, of this. We even launched a war on carbs a long time ago. We would always tell people, don't eat carbs, you know, you don't need carbs. And I still don't think that you need them, but this way works also is what I'm saying. Yeah. You know, so the way, basically, I think the way that it works is you're still just lowering your calories. Like if you're just eating fruit and fruit smoothies,
Starting point is 01:54:22 it doesn't have that many, doesn't have that much calories in it. Right. I'm not dumping sugar in there or anything else. Yeah, I mean, I just started last week. I just decided that I'm going to go back to like hardcore low carb diet, like almost keto. And it is just, the thing about it is it's so hard. It's so difficult, especially when you have three fucking kids and your wife doesn't give a shit about any diet you're doing.
Starting point is 01:54:44 She's just like, there's stuff everywhere. There's pasta here. There's chips over here. There's like, I did peanut butter and jellies laying around my house. And it's like, you know, I helped like, I helped like Sean Baker sort of spirit. had the carnivore movement in the beginning. You know, like I, what happened was like,
Starting point is 01:55:00 um, so I saw Sean Baker on Joe Rogan's podcast. And I had also done these diets where you just eat meat like back in 1992. I did it like when I, when I was at USC film school, I was also power lifting and competing in powerlifting. And I met some other power lifters that told me I was too fat and I needed to lose weight. And I said, well, I don't know how.
Starting point is 01:55:24 And the guy just said, eat red meat, drink, water okay for how long he's like till you're not fat so i did it and i you know i went from maybe two forty two down to like one ninety eight and i would lift at one ninety eight so i'd lost like 40 something pounds doing this so i knew that it was effective but i didn't really know it had any health benefits until i saw dr sean baker on joe rogan's podcast i said like this guy's really on something i used to do that a long time ago but i stopped doing it blah blah blah so i did the carnivore diet for the past like seven years and I've gone off of it here and there I'd go like off and on and try different things but I think a carnivore diet is a great base but what I've what I learned
Starting point is 01:56:07 shortly after being on the carnivore diet for I think it was on the carnivore diet for two or three months and Mark and I went on Joe Rogan's podcast and we talked about eating a diet of meat and fruit and I don't know if it went over everybody's head or whatever but like basically uh you know we've had people like Dr. Paul Saladino come to our gym, and he was having some problems with his hormones. And so Mark and I told him to eat fruit, like, hey, try to eat fruit. He was totally against it.
Starting point is 01:56:37 But now he's all for it because he's went and researched it. And I think that kind of is the best diet, a diet of like meat, fruit, and vegetables. You really can't go wrong. I don't think you need to cut out all your carbohydrates, but you need to find better carbohydrates. Better carbohydrates. Get them from your fruits and vegetables.
Starting point is 01:56:53 I think they're in your fruits and vegetables. Yeah. I mean, that's the problem. You might have to cut some starches. Starches tend to hold weight on people. Is Paul Saladino, is he the dude who made the video about how he goes on when he travels, he brings a backpack full of coconuts with him? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's made all sorts of crazy, you know. Like, how are you cracking the coconut on the plane?
Starting point is 01:57:14 Do you have a knife? Are you allowed to bring a fucking giant machete with you on the plane and chop those coconuts and have? Like, what are you doing? Yeah, I'm not really sure. Seems a little unreasonable. Paul's a good dude. He, like, he's a guy that was. you know, sort of at the head of the carnivore movement. He even wrote a book called The Carnivore Code and then completely changed his mind
Starting point is 01:57:33 and added a bunch of fruit to the diet. But see, I understand that. I think that's the way people should evolve. Yeah. But I also really credit Dr. Sean Baker for sticking to his guns. Yeah. So like the carnivore diet is, it's fucking awesome.
Starting point is 01:57:45 It works. It's effective. You can tell the difference. The way you feel, your energy, your mental clarity. Yeah, that's the thing. It requires. so much fucking discipline.
Starting point is 01:57:56 It's crazy. If you have a family, like I live in my girlfriend and like, she doesn't want to eat meat every year. And she doesn't have to. She's in great shape. Yeah. Like, what am I going to tell her to eat me?
Starting point is 01:58:07 Like, hey, it takes a lot, man. She doesn't need to get in better shape. So it's like, what am I going to tell her? So it's like, I don't know. I think if it works for you and you're single and you can just do it, I think it's great. But I also don't think you need to do it. Even Dom Degistino when he was in here.
Starting point is 01:58:24 He was like, yeah, he's like, me and my wife will be driving and she'll go to McDonald's for lunch and she'll eat McDonald's and I'll just, you know, I'll bring my can of sardines and I'll throw my sardines on some lettuce on a salad and I'll just have my sardines while she eats her Big Mac. Yeah, well, Dom's insane. Oh, my God. That's what you realize in this world is there's a couple people that are just insane and they'll do whatever it takes. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:58:43 You know? He's a, he's a beast, man. He's awesome. He's a great, great human being. Yeah, he is. The research that, and again, like, dude, I've gone into like deep ketosis where I've been in ketosis for like three months straight. And I felt phenomenal doing that.
Starting point is 01:58:58 But it's just hard. It's hard to stay there, you know. Yeah. Did you measure it with like the, with the thing you blow into? Yeah, I used to do the prick my finger on them. So Dom Degistino was when I,
Starting point is 01:59:09 okay, so in 2016, I was pretty fat and out of shape. Basically through, like, because of coming out of rehab and all the addiction and everything. And I was coming out of,
Starting point is 01:59:22 I basically, it was the day that Trump got elected the first time, 2016. I was actually walking to go vote. And when I was walking to go vote, I had to stop and like I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was like maybe having a heart attack or something. I'm like, man, I'm really out of shape. Like something's wrong here.
Starting point is 01:59:40 And so I don't know what happened. I basically sat down for 10 minutes. I got up. I felt fine, you know, after that. And I went home and I'm like, I really need to make a change. And the first thing I could think of is like, I need to go back to like keto, like back when I used to do this meat diet, you know,
Starting point is 01:59:57 and I need to go back to keto. So I went back and I started reading some keto information. I found Dom Dagestino's information and I called them because like, you know, I make film. So it's like kind of easy to pick up the phone. Yeah. Call somebody and he's like, of course I've seen your movie. I love it.
Starting point is 02:00:12 You know, like let's talk, you know, whatever. So me and Dom started talking. And I was like, can you be in ketosis for more than a week? And he like laughs at me and says, I've been in ketosis for seven years. You know, and he basically tells me that. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting. So then I took off on like, you know, the keto thing. So people think that I jump from thing to thing to thing.
Starting point is 02:00:32 But I kind of do because I'm kind of learning each time. Right. You know, so like I don't know, people in the comments, but this guy jumps to this, this, this. It's like, well, you're trying to like learn how to utilize things. And I think to be honest, even going back to like the sugar diet, what the sugar diet has taught me is like, hey, you don't need so much fat.
Starting point is 02:00:54 Like I've been eating literally zero fat every day. Zero. And I'm plowing through it and I feel fine. So when I go back to a regular diet, which will probably be in another couple weeks, my diet will be much lower fat, which will allow me to burn more fat, like basically use more body fat instead of burning the fat that I eat. You know, so I don't know, I think like each stop you make along the way, you learn something.
Starting point is 02:01:23 Like I learned something with keto. When I did keto, I did that to a point where like I did it to the max. I was testing my blood every day. Yep. And I got skinny fat. So I did keto. And then I went carnivore. And when I went carnivore, I started like lifting a little bit harder.
Starting point is 02:01:40 I felt a little bit better. And then I started getting like really muscular and jacked. And like the best shape I was ever in my life was probably 2018 to 2020 doing, you know, just eating red meat. Right. My problem with the keto was the last time I went super keto. I got my blood work done after and my cholesterol was like through the, it was off the charts. It was like in like, it was like 250 or something crazy.
Starting point is 02:02:07 And my primary care doctor was like, you need to stop what you're doing. You need to go on statins. You need to freaking get your, the x-ray on your coronary arteries, make sure you don't have any plaque and all this stuff. And I'm like, I called Dom. My text, Dom, I sent down my. blood work. I'm like, dude, am I going to die? He's like, no, my cholesterol is the same. And that's the thing is like, I have read, because I always just try to find the truth. I try to drill down into the truth. And I have tried everything to find, like, what is it with
Starting point is 02:02:37 cholesterol? Do we need to worry about it or do we not need to worry about it? And I still can't figure out whether or not we need to worry about it. You know, I look at guys like Lane Norton's a good friend of mine. He lives right here in Tampa. And I, he, do you know him? I know who he is. Yeah, Lane, a lot of people hate, Lane Norton because he's kind of a dick to people, but I like that. Because he's so blunt and he's so honest. But Mark and I have known Lane for years and he's been a great source of information to me. He'll tell you, hey, man, your cholesterol matters.
Starting point is 02:03:06 There's a linear line between like people dying and their cholesterol being high. And then you'll talk to other people to say, don't worry about it. It doesn't matter. You're a carnivore. You're a what they call lean mass hyperrespondent. That's what I am. That's you'll hear like Nick Norwitz talk about, right? But I also never heard Nick Norwood say, don't worry at all about your cholesterol.
Starting point is 02:03:26 Right. You know what I mean? So I'm like, there's somewhere in between. It's always, the truth's always in the middle. Yeah, it's in the middle somewhere. You should kind of worry about it. The problem is that especially the problem with the internet is that you'll just find people that like to cling on to certain ideas and they treat it as like it's their religion. And it's easy to say, go over here, eat just fruit and fruit juice and do that or go eat just meat, do that.
Starting point is 02:03:51 the nuance is hard and the nuance doesn't sell. The fact of the matter is the sugar diet's not the best. The carnivore diet's not the best. The keto diet's not the best. To utilize each one of these things as tools in your toolbox. And when you can understand each diet and how to utilize it, I think that's what's really important. And if you, I mean, look, you could do sugar fasting one day,
Starting point is 02:04:12 which they call it sugar fasting. If you just, you could do that one day just to get your calories down for the week. You know, where instead of like, look at it this way. You're doing a fast, but instead of a fast, you're drinking three smoothies a day. I can do that. That's easy. But what's fasting? Fasting sucks.
Starting point is 02:04:29 But sugar fasting doesn't suck. So let's do something that doesn't suck and can get, you know, pretty much the same result. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's good to experiment with shit too. Like even just like straight up water fasts. Yeah. Have you done like a long-term fast with no food?
Starting point is 02:04:46 I've done those. And then in talking to Mark, he's like, I don't think I'll ever do those again. It doesn't seem to make sense. He's like, I think you get the same, you know, you might not get the same health benefits. You know, people always want to talk about autophagy. Well, you get autophagy when you lift weights. You know, you get autophagy when you exercise. What is autophagy mean?
Starting point is 02:05:04 It means that your old cells dies. Oh, yeah. Your old cells die and your new cells. Yeah, and so that's all it really means. And, like, that happens when you lift. It happens when you exercise, you know, do cardio. So why worry so much about this autophagy that's, you know, comes about through not eating because like not eating sucks.
Starting point is 02:05:23 So, but I do believe also in, if you want to lose weight, you got to be hungry a little bit. You can't be, you can't have a full belly all the time and still lose weight or get ripped. Right. It's not going to happen.
Starting point is 02:05:36 Yeah. You got to live to eat. You got to eat to live. I did a seven day fast once. And I think it was, I forget what I was, I was drinking this like water concoction that was like,
Starting point is 02:05:49 It was like lemonade mixed with syrup in there. Oh, yeah, yeah. And cayenne pepper. And cayenne pepper. Yeah, I guess it's like the Beyonce. I don't know what it was. It wasn't labeled the Beyonce thing, but I guess Beyonce has like a diet where she does that. Same thing.
Starting point is 02:06:01 I forget what that's called, but it's some sort of fast. Yeah, I learned it. I learned about it from Kelly Slater on Rogan's podcast. Kelly Slater was telling him all about how he did this and it like got rid of this stuff called mucoid plaque that builds up in your intestines. And he's like after seven days, you'll start shitting out this like black stuff. Well, I guess after. And you're like, I really want to do that.
Starting point is 02:06:19 Yeah, I was like, yeah, because the way he was explaining it was that like over your lifespan, when you eat, you know, you're constantly eating shit all the time or whatever it is, whatever you're eating, your intestines build up this layer or this liner of like plaque to where now you can't absorb all the nutrients from all of your food as much anymore. Yeah. So he's like, when you do this, this seven day fast with this lemonade syrup stuff, eventually that plaque will like strip its way out of your intestine. It's like resetting your digestive system. And that's the reason I did it. That's the why reason I tried it. And on day five, I remember I stopped. I started the fast on Monday.
Starting point is 02:06:55 And on Friday, I was able to go to the gym and do like three times as many pull-ups as I can normally do with like no fucking fatigue. I was, I did like 50 pull-ups and I felt great. And I also was able to play full court basketball, a full game of full-color basketball with like no cramps, no, I mean, typically, you know, I'll start like getting the side cramp when I'm doing that and I'll start to get really fatigued to have to like stop. and take a breather. None of that was happening to me.
Starting point is 02:07:20 I felt like superhuman on day five of that fast. I felt like phenomenal. Yeah, I've had experiences like that on carnivore where like the strongest I've ever been in my entire life was like recently in my 50s on a carnivore diet, which is insane. And like people like, well, how do you deadlift? You know, I was doing, I was doing like trap bar deadlifts. Like I'm just good at them for whatever reason. I'm not good at regular deadlifts.
Starting point is 02:07:45 The hex bar? Yeah, I go up to, I go. I'm going up to like 700 pounds. I like the heckstar the best. And I would, I go up to like 700 pounds on that. Jesus Christ. But here's the thing is,
Starting point is 02:07:56 I would do it with no carbs. And people would be like, how are you doing that with no carbs? I'm like, I just don't think it takes carbs to do like a one rep, you know, max or I do like sets of three
Starting point is 02:08:06 or something like that. And, and so that it's like, you know, I don't know. It's, it's, I think Mark and I,
Starting point is 02:08:12 I think genetics. I was talking about that before. Genetics plays the biggest role in anything. I watched my younger brother, Mark, bench press, 315 pounds in ninth grade. You know, he wasn't on steroids. Like, he's 14, 15 years old when he's doing this. You know, so when I tell people like, hey, man, you have to have genetics. I wouldn't be good at squat.
Starting point is 02:08:37 I have two fake hips. And when I, with two fake hips, I, you know, I don't do it anymore just because, like, the pain got so bad. and it's probably not a great idea to be putting 500, 600 pounds on my back but I would be squatting with like working out with like 500 pounds with fake hips, right? So like that's fucking insane.
Starting point is 02:08:58 That shouldn't happen. But that's genetics. That's something genetic in my code where I'm short and squatty and I can get under the bar and I can do that. And other people will never do that but I'll never ride a surfboard.
Starting point is 02:09:10 You know, like I'm seriously. Like I'm not built for that. And I think that that's another I think people need to realize in like building their physique or doing whatever they want to do. It's like go to your strength. Go to like what you're what you're good at and utilize that. Like nobody cares how much you deadlift or squat really. Again, it's only only a dude will care.
Starting point is 02:09:32 Yeah. No girl ever care. So it's like don't worry about that stuff. Worry about like what are your strengths and play to your strengths. Yeah, totally. And, you know, being able to be, have that movement too. Like the most jacked dudes, they walk around like. You know, like that kangaroo.
Starting point is 02:09:49 Have you seen the jacked kangaroo videos? Yeah. Like you look like the fucking kangaroo where you have like no movement. You see the dudes that can't turn their neck. Yeah. My brother and I went to visit Liver King. And we went down to his ranch and hung out with him. He's great.
Starting point is 02:10:04 He's cool. I don't agree with what he did, but basically like. What lying about not doing steroids? Yeah. Yeah. We thought it was stupid even at the time. For some reason, I think Joe Rogan thought we believed him, but we were just kind of like,
Starting point is 02:10:17 I wasn't even involved in the interview. We were just kind of going, you know, it's like when somebody tells you like, yeah, I don't take steroids, what are you going to do? Tell them, like, yeah, you do.
Starting point is 02:10:25 Right, I'll improve it. Right. Mark asked them all the questions. You never took SARMs. You never took, you know, HGH. Was this before he came out to do it? Yeah.
Starting point is 02:10:36 Yeah, and he was, Mark was one of the first people to interview him. I think Logan Paul might interview him first. And then like Mark and I did. The point of it was, when we went to see the liver king um mark realized right away like this guy didn't have good movement like he's all like he looks great but he can't he can't move you know yeah and um i don't know i think like that's important to look at you know like liver king looks amazing he's all jacked it's like
Starting point is 02:11:03 but if you can't move what's the purpose of it you know and he was on a whole laundry list of stuff like wind stroll hg he was i think he was spending like 25 000 a month on all the shit he was taking? Well, a lot of it was stupid because I think HGH human growth hormone I don't think is very effective for muscle building at all. You know, I don't think it's really effective for maybe it's going to help your joints and things like that. But it seems like to me, I'll give you an example. Like I work at this compounding pharmacy and I talked to some of the higher-ups there and they basically just say like, yeah, it's kind of a waste of money. You know, like, and they have plenty of money to be able to do it. But they don't, they're not doing it because
Starting point is 02:11:44 it's like, ah, it's not really worth it. And when you see people that have access to it can get it real cheap, you know, still not using it. Yeah. You're like, it's probably not worth it. So that's where it falls on me. Don't know a lot of like NFL players and NBA players use HGH or growth, or growth, hormone. Like my brother, I don't know where he got it from, but he gave me a ton of growth hormone. And like, I haven't used it either.
Starting point is 02:12:08 And I have it. It's free. But I haven't used it because I don't think it's going to do anything. Have you ever used it? I've tried it. Yeah, I've did it for like a couple weeks. And I think it can mess up your insulin resistance, like your insulin sensitivity. So I don't, I don't know.
Starting point is 02:12:25 Maybe in a giant stack with insulin and everything else, it would be worth it. Maybe you might talk to a bodybuilding coach or something, but like a bodybuilding coach, you got to remember, is not a health coach. Right. So I'm trying to be healthy. I'm not trying to be like as jacked as I can. Right. Yeah. You want to live long, right?
Starting point is 02:12:41 You got to balance, like, living optimally and feeling your best and performing your best, but, like, also you don't want to die early. That's never good. No, and, like, people need to realize, like, so if you look at my brother Mark, he's probably about 5% body fat right now. He's in crazy shape. That looks great, you know. It's great to be ripped on Instagram. But a healthy human being is about 12% body fat. And I think that's what men need to realize is, like, 12% is the goal. It's not 5%. It's 12%. And if you can get to 12%, most people are going to be above that. But if you can get to 12%,
Starting point is 02:13:19 you're, that's right where you want to be. And that's the preferred, if you're a single guy out there, that's what women prefer. They prefer 12%. Right. Over any other body fat, they say, you know. What specifically does EPO do?
Starting point is 02:13:36 It basically gives your blood more oxygen. So you can go. So, like, if you can go. So it's endurance. Yeah. There's a SARM out there. It's not necessarily a SARM, but it's in the group of SARMs. It's a GW-501, something like that.
Starting point is 02:13:54 It's called Carterine. If you look up Carterine, C-A-R-D-A-R-I-N-E, Carterine is a, I don't want to call it a SARM because it's not officially a SARM, but it's sort of in that group. It's something you could take that will really, really enhance your output on cardio. So like if you're having a hard time with your cardio, you were doing jujitsu or you were surfing or whatever, you have a hard time with cardio, cartering can really, really help. The problem, I guess, is if you look at videos from like Derek from more plates, more dates, he sort of shows how
Starting point is 02:14:29 in these studies where it caused cancer in rats. But then you look at the studies and the studies are like, well, they did feed a lot of this to the rat. It's like no human would ever take that amount. Right. That kind of thing. So it's something that's like, like, again, I'm not recommending anything. I'm just saying like, that shit works. It works really, really well.
Starting point is 02:14:54 I would imagine it's banned from competition because it is very effective, you know. The one thing I think maybe Mark talked about this on your podcast as well is like, it's hard for me to believe that cratum is not banned from the olympics it's not banned from any major sports entity at all it is so performance enhancing like really cratom is oh my god yeah yeah i take like i would load up on cratum before i go work out and my lifts would be through the roof because it just gives me energy it gave me um it took away all the pain so like when you're you know if you're playing football and every play you've got to get down
Starting point is 02:15:37 in the three point stance and it hurts to get in a three point stance we'll imagine if I take that pain away it's going to be easy you're going to feel so it might have consequences later you might lift too heavy you know you might whatever but like to me it's it is the performance
Starting point is 02:15:53 enhancing drug that is just so underrated and underutilized yeah it's crazy it is it is insane how like we want to come up these rules to ban these performance enhancing drugs for things like these entertaining sports, like for a guy to hit a ball with a stick or, you know, to play football. Like what, like, what are you doing? Like, why are you trying to do that?
Starting point is 02:16:13 If it's going to make these people healthy and it's going to make your fucking, it's going to make this sport and this business that at the end of the day, all that matters to them is their advertising dollars. Like, what are you trying to do here? Well, pretty soon we'll have the enhanced games. Oh, I heard about this. Yeah, it's interesting. So I've actually been helping the enhanced games.
Starting point is 02:16:32 Because I always have the inside scoop on, you know, different performance enhancing drugs and, like, who knows what and who does what. And so I got a couple phone calls from people that work for the enhanced game saying, hey, we'd like, you know, can we pick your brain? Who's this guy in your movie? Who's that guy in your movie? So I told them all that, but I'm like, you know what? You want an expert. You need to talk to Vigorous Steve. If people online or anybody watching this wants to know about steroids, you have to look up Vigorous Steve.
Starting point is 02:17:00 He knows. Figuorous Steve. Oh, yeah, he'd be great on your podcast, too. He knows so much about performance enhancement. It's incredible. And he's from Canada. He's a very fast talker. Yeah, he's jacked.
Starting point is 02:17:15 He's just awesome. He just knows everything. So, like, how old is he? He's probably 40. Oh, wow. You know, so I basically, you know, said to the enhanced games, like, you don't want to talk to me. You want to talk to him. Right.
Starting point is 02:17:30 And then there's a couple of other. other people I've sent over to them, too, like Patrick Arnold is a friend of mine. Oh, really? Patrick Arnold's the guy that designed, I'm like, he designed drugs. Arnold's son? No, no, Patrick Arnold. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yes, yes. Arnold's son is Patrick.
Starting point is 02:17:45 Arnold's son is Patrick Schwarzenegger. Yeah, sorry, my brain. So Patrick Arnold is the guy who created the cream in the clear for Balco. I remember I talked him on the phone once. Yeah, he made the drugs. Dom, he helped Dom, I think. Oh, yeah, you helped Dom with the ketones. Yes, yes.
Starting point is 02:18:00 Yeah, Patrick Arnold's great. So it's like, I sent him, I'm like, hey, enhance games. Like, if you really want to do this right, you need to talk to these top people in the performance enhancing drug field. There's another guy named Alex Kikel, K-I-K-E-L. He's just a bodybuilding coach. He knows everything about every peptide. Like any substance you could possibly put in your body, he knows what it does and why people would use it. And so when you get into these enhanced games, my, my gripe.
Starting point is 02:18:30 with the enhanced games is like oh you can take anything a doctor can give you and i'm like well it needs to be different than that because like what about trend balone you know what about what about these drugs that people are going to use to enhance their performance that aren't you know aren't doctor certified you know like um i don't know in my opinion if you're going to have if you're going to do the enhanced games and you're going to half ass it by having everybody be safe then it's like it's not is it really the enhanced games, you know? Like, we want to see like the all-drug Olympics in Saturday Night Live where the guy rips his arms off.
Starting point is 02:19:06 That's in bigger shorter faster. I mean, we don't want to see that necessarily. But if you're going to have the enhanced games, it should be, we should know like, hey, man, these guys were pretty much allowed to do whatever they want as long as they maybe got a physical beforehand and came in healthy. You know?
Starting point is 02:19:26 Because why can't a guy, like, look, if you can snort a line and run fast, right and your vitals are in check why not maybe your vitals won't be in check when you do that
Starting point is 02:19:38 I don't know where are you going to draw the line yeah I mean there's got to be a line somewhere obviously and obviously like advertisers are not going to go for and this guy just snowed at a line
Starting point is 02:19:48 before he came up to the line to run but they're like like I said I'm probably being like a little exaggerating but like that's funny though there's something too like if you're going to have the enhanced games
Starting point is 02:19:59 make it enhanced. Yeah. It doesn't just enhance athletics. You know, I think they also enhance creativity. Oh, yeah. Like some of the best music is done on people with, you know, people on drugs. They make the best music. You know, there's a lot of bands and there's a lot of musicians who, once they get sober, they're not creating the same kind of art.
Starting point is 02:20:19 Yeah. Even testosterone, though, has such a tie in to the brain and depression that people that take testosterone usually are less depressed. You know, have a better, better outlook on life, are more motivated, are actually nicer. So people think, like, people take testosterone and turn into assholes. It's kind of the opposite. They usually turn, they usually become nicer and more generous. And there's a lot of things that are, you know, that testosterone can do that can really help society, you know, where people aren't such bad guys, you know. And when your testosterone is low, that's, that's the people that are.
Starting point is 02:20:59 that are, you know, it's not that if your testosterone is low, you're going to be a troublemaker or an asshole, but your chances of being depressed are a lot higher. Right. And if you're depressed, you're not going to be very nice all the time, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I've always been interested in trying it again. I tried it once. Testosterone?
Starting point is 02:21:18 Yeah. How old are you? I'm 37. 37, yeah. So you're right about the age where, like, you should go get it checked. And if it's not? I get it checked all the time. I get my blood work done at least twice a year.
Starting point is 02:21:28 And what's your testosterone? It bounces between the highest it's ever been is like 850 And the lowest it's ever been is like 600 I think Yeah So yours is pretty good and I'm like I'm saying like I'm not a doctor I'm not gonna tell you to go on it or not Well I did it for three months My recommendation is I think it's great
Starting point is 02:21:47 Yeah I mean right and I feel great when I'm on it So it's like that's just my recommendation it's like You're gonna you're gonna have to pull that card at some point Yeah So I think so Why not just pull it now? Totally. That's my thought, but I'm not telling you to do it. No, I did it for three months and I tried it.
Starting point is 02:22:05 And I was like, you know, I want to see. I hear all these people talking about it. And I'm like, you know, I think what really got me interested in was listening to Derek, more plates, more dates. And I was like, God, I got to fucking try this. It sounds amazing. At the same time, it's not the panacea of like all of a sudden the whole world opens up to you and things are great. That's what I thought it was going to be.
Starting point is 02:22:22 Things just are a little bit easier. Yeah, I didn't feel that. I didn't feel any difference. If anything, I felt, I felt more tired. Yeah. I felt more tired. But that's the beauty of it, right? Because it's your choice and just come off of it again.
Starting point is 02:22:35 Yeah. And I just can't. I just stopped it. And I never noticed any kind of difference. You know, I felt probably better once I got off. There's some new drugs that are going to be a little bit better because even though, you know, I still hate needles, no matter how much, you know, whatever. So like, there's some new oral testosterone coming down the pipeline.
Starting point is 02:22:55 That's supposed to be pretty good. Really? Yeah. So like, I just think it'll help compliance, you know, because it's hard to, testosterone's like, it's a pain in ass. You got to keep injecting it. But that's the safest way to do it, though, right? Yeah. The injecting, because you're injecting the exact same thing because people mess around with like the sarms and stuff and like antagonizing the...
Starting point is 02:23:13 You know what's crazy? When I was in the best shape of my life, I was on a bunch of sarms that I got from my friend Dr. Tony Hughes, who's not a doctor. I know who that guy is. Yeah. So Dr. Tony Huge gave me like, here, here's a box of sarms. And I'm like, what are I doing him? He's like, ah, take one of these, take one of these, take one of these. And I did it.
Starting point is 02:23:31 And like, I was fucking jacked and shredded. And I don't know, man. Like everybody's like, ah, SARMs are garbage. And given my, I wasn't doing my blood work. I don't, it might have been in the gutter. I'm not really sure. Because then after that, I had done SARMs. I did a SAR-140 and it plummeted my testosterone down to 51.
Starting point is 02:23:56 Wow. And then I got back on TRT and I've stayed on TRT since and not messed with SARMs. But I have to say the best shape I ever was in was on SARMs and not on anabolic steroids. Interesting. And that's just my own anecdotal. I have a really good friend who I was trying to educate him about testosterone. And I was like, because he was like, he went through this like a couple year phase where he just was like not interested in going out, not interested in doing any kind of like. activities with anyone. He didn't, wasn't interested in chicks anymore. It didn't seem like he hadn't
Starting point is 02:24:30 had a girlfriend in a couple years. And I'm like, bro, you should, uh, you should get your blood work done, like, what your testosterone level is. He's also, he's fucking huge stoner. He smokes weed all day every day. And he got his blood work done and his testosterone was 50. Yeah. He's my age. Yeah, that can happen. And he got a testosterone. Now he's like back to normal. And I was like, got a girlfriend. He's like motivated again. And his life changed. Like when I, when I, when my testosterone was that low, I felt just terrible. Like it could. even do anything. Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 02:24:57 Couldn't function, you know? Yeah, I can't imagine what that must feel like for some people. But, like, you know, I mean, and it's prescribed in Europe, I think, for ADHD or ADD. It's prescribed for, like, like, normal things. Yeah. You know, what's interesting, too, is that they make it, they make it kind of like you have to jump through hoops to get testosterone. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:25:16 So, like, I go to a telehealth clinic because it's easy. Yeah. So I have to go to a doctor at, like, for some reason. And I've been on testosterone forever. Because I just moved to Texas, I have to go to a doctor and get a physical and send that physical to my telehealth person so that it can prescribe me testosterone, which I've been on forever. Right. It's like, why are you making it hard? You know?
Starting point is 02:25:41 I think that's one of the problems with the healthcare industry is they make it hard to do anything. Yeah. Everything's impossible. You know, and it's like if I want to get on a GLP one drug to drop a ton of weight, I don't have to get any blood work done. But for testosterone, I need blood work. I don't know why. You want to be safe, but it's like they make it so difficult to do it the proper way, which sucks. They make it difficult because there is too much of a barrier to entry to most people because they just give up and they go, well, I don't, I don't, you know.
Starting point is 02:26:11 Yeah. Yeah. And one of like the biggest fears with it is like, you know, is there any, is there any truth to some of these facts that, like, it can increase your arterial plaque or it can increase heart disease or it can shorten your. lifespan. There's really no evidence that at the levels of TRT. Right. That'll do anything negative. Well, look at fucking, how old is Arnold? He was doing like, 80? How much testosterone was he fucking doing in his teens in his early 20s? He was probably doing an insane amount. He's probably doing grams. Yeah. The drugs were different back then. They would take D-Ball. Yeah. They would take a little bit. Again, though, go back to genetics. Arnold would still look awesome if he never took anything.
Starting point is 02:26:55 Yeah. Like he'd still look, I mean, he is a genetic freak. Do you think he still takes it though now? I'm sure he's taking testosterone now still, yeah. Even at this age? Yeah. In his 80s, you think he still takes it? Yeah, just probably a lower amount just to like.
Starting point is 02:27:11 I think he takes it. I know Stallone takes it. Really? Yeah. I mean, I don't know for a fact, but I mean. That's, you know, the fact that those guys have made it to their 80s. Yeah, I don't know for a fact that Stallone takes it, but I know he has been on it. And so they're like, again, what reason is there to go off if you're, you know, at that age?
Starting point is 02:27:30 I know Vince McMahon, he's got to be still on it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's just, you know, it's a funny chemical, man. It's such a funny thing that like what the fuck happen? Like, like, why do human beings, why do we have this fucking weird chemical in our body that just makes us horny? Yeah.
Starting point is 02:27:51 And the other, it's sort of the male. purpose of it. Like, why? Yeah, the male hormone. Why do we have that? Like, why, what part of nature is it just because, is it, is it, is it an evolutionary process that just helps, like, makes us want to reproduce and propagate our species? Like, it seems like that's the benefit of it.
Starting point is 02:28:07 It's like a sliding scale, right? Because, like, men and women both have testosterone and estrogen. And so our. And the higher is the testosterone and the woman, the more horny she is. Yeah. Our testosterone is high. And, you know, it's funny because, like, we actually make products for that. Like, when you're talking about, like,
Starting point is 02:28:24 how horny a woman is. Stenazanol, which is winstrel. They actually make a formula of stonazanol that is a like a rub, like a cream that a woman will rub on their clit, basically. Really? And it makes them really horny.
Starting point is 02:28:40 And it's supposed to like, it's supposed to like heal relationships from what I hear. Wow. Because like it'll just make the woman like really like aggressively horny. And you can get that at a compounding pharmacy.
Starting point is 02:28:52 You know? Wow. But yeah, it's like there's levels of like, you know, a woman will have high estrogen, low testosterone, and a man is the opposite. Yeah. But if you give a woman just a little pinch of testosterone, a lot of times that gives them a lot of energy, makes them feel a lot better. So it's like the problem with women usually, and this is another reason for compounding pharmacies, the other reason is dosing. So if you go to a, if you ask your doctor, can you use a compounding pharmacy and you're a, woman and they give you testosterone they can give you a more precise dose because they can make it for you so they can like instead of you trying to draw out like one tiny little milliliter
Starting point is 02:29:33 out of a bottle and taking too much and starting to grow hair places you don't want to you they make it they make it more watered down basically yeah oiled down yeah so that you can take a bigger chunk of it and inject it so it's more so it's more so it's more normal yeah you know so it's more like the same way a man would take it. It's just that it's watered down so that you can, you can measure it. You know, like sometimes things are just immeasurable, you know? Right. You know, like, did that even work? Did I even put it in myself? I don't even know. Yeah. And the compounding pharmacies, I don't think they can get it as accurate as like pharmaceutical grade, right? There's a difference between. Like, so, uh, the place where I work in
Starting point is 02:30:12 power pharmacy, it's the, it's probably the largest compounding pharmacy in, in the world. I know at least probably in the country. But everything we make is to GMP standards. So GMP is general manufacturing practices. We can't make anything FDA. It's not FDA approved. The ingredients are FDA approved. But the actual final product that we make is not FDA approved
Starting point is 02:30:38 because the FDA would have to come and check it and they don't check on compounding pharmacies. So like it's a weird thing. It's like... Yeah, but it's made... So the stuff that you buy from a compounding pharmacy versus it is of the highest quality you can possibly get in my opinion.
Starting point is 02:30:53 So it's produced the same way as the stuff you buy from like Walgreens or CVS? Yes. Okay. Yeah, produced the same way. And they make it from how do they make it? Isn't it yams or something? It used to be.
Starting point is 02:31:04 It's really weird because I've had this question for years, right? And no one can ever like really answer it because they're like, well, it's synthetic. I'm like, but what's it from? Like, it's got to come from something. And it comes from chemicals. I'm like, I don't know. So it used to be, it used to come from,
Starting point is 02:31:19 they used to take extracts of Mexican yams and use those molecules to make synthetic testosterone which they turn in like, you know, a keg of powder, you know, 55-gallon drum of powder and ship it across the country or, you know, from China or wherever they make it. So I don't know exactly, it's still a mystery to me because everybody I talked to,
Starting point is 02:31:43 that's a good thing for me to investigate now because everybody I talked to is like, oh, it's just from a factory. It's a synthetic. And I'm like, what is that mean? It's a weird thing to wrap your mind around that, though. Like, do I want to inject my body with shit that was made in a fucking lab? And like, what am I doing to my body?
Starting point is 02:32:02 Am I turning myself into like some sort of a genetic cyborg by doing this? Yeah. But like the crazy thing is, though, when you measure it, it's literally bioidentical. That's what I'm saying. It's bioidentical. So it's like they've basically found a way to trick the body. Yeah. into well it's the same thing like yeah it's it's it's it's amazing that we're that they can do that
Starting point is 02:32:24 and you know so the other thing is that uh at empower we have these testosterone versions that are so great because you can take an insulin pin which is like really tiny a little tiny insulin pin yeah you know prick the bottle draw a little bit out and inject it with no problem because it's so ours is so thin it's made to inject it's it's made to be easy it's made so it doesn't We have a different kind of carrier oil or something? Yeah. It's made with specific, we have a specific formula that only we have that makes it easier to draw out so you can use a smaller needle. Right.
Starting point is 02:33:00 I wonder how far away we are from just being able to create our own genetically modified babies, you know, that are just like those jacked cows. Oh, that's coming. Yeah. With like CRISPR and all this stuff. The Belgian blue cows. And the melaton blue cows with the myostatin. It's a myostatin inhibitor. Yeah, right.
Starting point is 02:33:22 So myostatin limits how big something can get, how muscular, something you get. And if you inhibit that, it'll just keep growing and getting bigger. And the myostatin blockers and things that are on the market right now are all garbage. None of them really work. I remember, like, Rich Piana was a friend of mine. I love Rich Piana. He was a giant, jacked, you know, huge bodybuilder. You should maybe pull him up because he looks amazing.
Starting point is 02:33:46 but Rich Piana, before he passed away, he was messing with this stuff called Falostatin because he thought Falostatin. I've heard of that. It could be like the next big thing for, you know, really growing, you know. Yeah, unfortunately. Oh, I remember this guy.
Starting point is 02:34:00 Fortunately, he passed away. What did he die of? So I don't know exactly what he died of. I think it was an opioid overdose, to be honest, from everything I've deduced from the case. He basically took something, started foaming at the mouth. and fell on the table.
Starting point is 02:34:18 And he was with his girlfriend. She was cutting his hair. And then he went into a coma. Or maybe they did an induced coma with him. And then like 10 days later, he passed away. He was just a really cool guy. But he had told me in Gold's gym that he was messing around with this fallostatin stuff, which... Follostatin?
Starting point is 02:34:35 It's F-O-L-L-I-S like statin. Folly-Statin, maybe. Anyway, pholostatin is basically a, it's going to inhibit myostatin. But here's the deal. I went to Mexico, when I went to Mexico to get those stem cells, I also did a pholostatin shot that has a technology called mini circles. And what many circles do is replicate the drug inside your body. This is like another technology that's nuts.
Starting point is 02:35:07 But basically like, so instead of the phallostatin shot having only a 90, usually has a 90 minute half-life, which means like it's active in your body for 90 minutes and then it goes away. So instead of being like this active, instead of only being active for 90 minutes and you have to shoot it again, these mini circles keep replicating the substance in your body
Starting point is 02:35:29 for like a year and a half. So it's like you take a phallistatin shot and it keeps replicating for a year and a half. Now that shot is $25,000 to get one shot and it's supposed to last a year and a half. I have not seen or felt any benefit from it. You know, like I didn't get super jacked. So I don't think it did anything.
Starting point is 02:35:50 So I don't know the jury's still out on Falostatin of whether or not it works in humans or, you know, I'm just saying like I'm just one case study. Brian Johnson, the guy who is trying to live to be 200 years old or whatever. He's also done it. I don't think it did anything for him either yet. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I've not seen a follow-up video from him about it.
Starting point is 02:36:14 What do you think about that guy? I think it's great what he's doing. I watched a documentary on him, and I think he's just like a lot of people. Isn't he taking his kid's blood and injecting? He's a very, like a very emotionally hurt person who is made a lot of money and is like taking that and turning it into something
Starting point is 02:36:38 that he can believe in and something that, you know, makes them happy. And, like, I'm all for it. I'm like, you know what? Go for it. But, like, you could tell he's broken. He's like a broken person who didn't get a lot of love from his dad. Like, I don't know if you saw the documentary they did on it.
Starting point is 02:36:56 It was really good because it sort of showed, you know, both sides of it. He didn't get a lot of love from his dad. He was never the cool kid. And now he gets, you know, he's got hundreds of millions of dollars and he gets to play the cool kid, you know? and people want to know what he's up to and what he's doing. I think it makes him feel good. Will he live to be any longer than anybody else?
Starting point is 02:37:17 I don't think so. I think he's making a big mistake by being on just a vegan diet. You know, I think there's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of... And he doesn't do any testosterone or anything like that. He does testosterone. Oh, does he really? Yeah, but I think there's a lot of big advantage to eating animal protein, even if it's just minimal, you know?
Starting point is 02:37:36 Yeah. And he also, he always defers you ever watch the watch the video of him and Derek for more plates more dants i watch part of that Derek destroys him so many times and i'm not out to destroy anybody i think i think what he's doing is great i think it's great to
Starting point is 02:37:53 experiment and learn different things but Derek just ask him like well who's your team he goes well you know my team they have it you know and it's like okay this is another charlatan con artist trying to make money off of people right and so you go is it that or is he just another hurt guy who's trying to get some attention? I don't know. It's one of the two. Well, is he selling a bunch of shit? Yeah, he's selling a bunch of shit.
Starting point is 02:38:15 Okay. But like I'm not going to follow, you know, it's like I'm not going to be gullible and buy the shit that he's selling because I know that doesn't work, you know? Right. I don't know. A lot of these people don't bother me as much as they bother other people because, like, I'm never going to buy the thing that they're selling ever in a million years. Yeah. So it doesn't bother me that they're making money off people, you know.
Starting point is 02:38:37 I've, you know, there's a lot of people who just like come onto the scene out of nowhere. Well, that they come up and they, and they happen to be bringing a amazing online store with tons of shit you can buy from them. And one of the things that, uh,
Starting point is 02:38:51 is just mind blowing to me is that there's people out there that are carnivore coaches. And it's like, what do you do if you're a carnivore coach? Like, eat more meat. Right. You know, oh,
Starting point is 02:39:01 you're not eating enough meat. Eat more meat. You know, and it's like, I get it. Like people need support on their diet or, whatever but I just think it's there's just so many grifters yeah that the last thing you need to do is have somebody tell you you're eating meat and water wrong you know like that's not like it's not a thing
Starting point is 02:39:20 it's like it's all you can have that's it that's all you need to know you know and you might have you might need a little coaching through well yeah I mean the beginning of it and the and the transition yeah but there's enough there's a million videos online too so the fact that people are making money off of it always just makes me shake my head and you know I guess if you have the money to pay somebody to like, you know, walk you step by step into like how to like meal prep and like how to buy the right kind of food and how to like what time of day to eat it. Yeah. Because there's so much more that goes into it other than what you're eating, right? Like there's like, again, something else I learned from Jack and this girl Alexis who Alexis Cowan who came in here, which they were, she was explained to me how like you're supposed to eat during the time when the sun comes up before the year.
Starting point is 02:40:07 UVA light kicks in. So like there's this short window of time, typically like an hour and a half, depending on what part of the world you're in, where the UV and infrared light is coming out of, you know, coming from the sun. And when that sun is low in the sky, apparently is when your metabolism is working at the highest possible speed. So that's when you're supposed to eat when your metabolism is really kicking in. And then once the UVA light kicks in, like around here, I think it's like 10 o'clock. that's when you're supposed to eat less or not eat as much because that's when you're like high noon is basically the slowest point of your metabolism during the day so that's the point of time if you're optimizing for energy that's not when you want to eat so like a lot of people like to skip breakfast and you know eat lunch and like when I learned that I started eating a huge breakfast you know after I wake up and then skipping lunch and personally for me I felt a hundred times it seems like it works way more fucking energy you know Rob wolf eats like that Rob Wolf's really smart. He's one of the top guys.
Starting point is 02:41:10 You know, he was on the first person. I followed when I did like paleo and stuff like that. And then we became friends with him. And Rob Wolf told me something that stuck with me forever. First of all, he said just what you said. Maybe you're better off like eating breakfast and eating dinner. Yeah. And like sort of intermittent fasting in between, you know, where you don't eat anything.
Starting point is 02:41:29 Right. And they also said, I think if our country just simply ate from like from when the sun comes up until the sun comes down and not a minute before, not a minute after, we would solve like 80% of our health problems. And I'm like, that's a pretty bold statement. And he goes, yeah, but I think it's true. He's like, I think the fact is, most people eat, you know, when they're not supposed to eat. They eat too late at night. Like, you got to, when the sun goes down, shut it down. Right. And that's like our circadian rhythm. Right. Totally. I don't know if he said 80%. I don't want to misquote him, but he said a majority of our health problems. Totally. The other thing is that I think people need to understand, because
Starting point is 02:42:07 we've talked about all these different diets and different plans. And like I said, I think they're all great tools. But the thing that I think people really need to understand is that like literally losing weight is the number one way to cure your health problems. So like if you have any kind of health problem, no matter what it seems to be, it seems that like losing weight will almost always help it. You know, and that comes from our friend Stan Efforting, who's a gigantic bodybuilder. but he's just very intelligent. That's like another thing that's always stuck with me is like, if your body's failing, you lose weight because it resolves so many problems.
Starting point is 02:42:46 Like for most people, it's because they're overweight. Right. You know, some things are not going to be because you're overweight. Like you may have a gut issue. Right. Things like that. But like a lot of our health problems resolve when we simply lose weight. Some people get some sort of issue and they go, I don't know how to fix it.
Starting point is 02:43:00 It's kind of like, well, just lose weight. Right. Well, it's saying just lose weight, though, like how? Like what's the best way to lose weight? Like what part of your lifestyle do you have to change to lose weight? That's another thing. Like just taking OZempic is not only going to be the right answer. Like you got to there's got to be like a decent balance of lifestyle changes that you incorporate to losing weight.
Starting point is 02:43:18 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, fixing your circadian rhythm, being outside more eating the right times of the day, not eating processed junk food, not eating out every single day. And then, you know, as well, another thing that I learned is like eating native shit, like eating native meats. like eating like around here the fish that is caught around here and not salmon that's imported from the other side of the
Starting point is 02:43:41 you know from a fish farm in fucking Michigan or something like that that's you know another huge thing that I learned about. Well it's like where did your food come from right? Right. That's like that's a huge thing for me is like I really only eat food you know food from like I said I eat like meat, fruit and vegetables so it's all pretty much
Starting point is 02:43:59 right you know things that are fresh things that are local things that you know With the fruits, I'd say that's probably not local because that's coming from like all over the place. Yeah. But you really can't help it in today's day and age. I mean, like, what do you do? You can't really go. The way the world's built.
Starting point is 02:44:16 It's hard. It's like you go to the store and you're like, well, I'm only going to buy strawberries because that's what grows around here. Yeah. And it's like you're going to limit all the rest of the stuff that doesn't grow, you know. That's why I like living near the ocean. There's so much good seafood right here. So much good shit. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:44:33 You know, that's one thing I miss about California. And California, I'm right by the ocean. So all the seafood was good. I don't eat a lot of seafood. But now that I live in Houston, it's like there's no, that's like landlocked kind of. Yeah. You know, it's like not. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:44:45 I don't trust it. This is the actually right down the street here is the biggest grouper port in the world. There's more grouper caught out in the Gulf of Mexico right here than anywhere in the world. Do you eat a lot of fish? Yeah, I eat a ton of fish. That's right. A ton of grouper and snappers mostly. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:44:58 Because that's from around here. And then, you know, like the tuna is good, but like this, all the salmon. all the salmon's dog shit around here there's very i mean there's some of it that's imported from alaska that's like you know king salmon but most you know 99% of the salmon that you go to any sushi restaurant all of that comes from these salmon farms and that's so hard right because salmon is so good for you yeah but also so bad if you're like if you're getting the salmon from salmon farms it's not eating what it's supposed to eat so what happens is in the stomach of that fish it's monogastric it has one you know one intestine like a cow
Starting point is 02:45:32 can take almost any food you give. You can give a cow corn. You can give a cow old skittles or old M&Ms, and it's going to turn it into high-quality beef, no matter what you do. That's interesting. It's got four stomachs. And so...
Starting point is 02:45:48 A cow has four stomachs? Yeah. How did I not know that? I don't know. That's crazy. But what it does is it can take anything, anything it eats, and turn it in a high-quality protein for humans.
Starting point is 02:45:58 Whereas a pig can't do that and a, you know, a pig can't do it and a, you know, a sheep can do it, but you're not going to, people don't really feed sheep, crappy stuff. But a lot of times, like, you see cows, like, on these, you know, in these feed lots, and the feed they give them sometimes is crap. You know, like they give them, like I said, like old skittles, old, like broken M&Ms, and they throw it in a bunch of feed and they'll throw it in for the cows to eat. And, like, to be honest, it doesn't really make a difference in the health outcomes that we,
Starting point is 02:46:30 we've seen, you know? I don't know if they've ever done a study specifically on that, but it doesn't seem to matter when you stack up the benefits of grass finished beef to, you know, it might, there might be some differences in it. Like, okay, you get healthier fat from the grass finished beef. But first of all, they just did a study that found out like 80% of the grass finished beef in America, like isn't really grass finished beef anyway. So first of all, you're dealing with that.
Starting point is 02:46:57 And then second of all, you're dealing with like, well, how much of a difference does it make? because it's like $2 a pound more for the grass finish stuff. So you got to like weigh out those issues. And like with the salmon, since it doesn't have anywhere to go, it will digest the corn that they're feeding it and it'll turn into the wrong kinds of fat that you don't need. And so now you're having like salmon that instead of being high in omega three fat, which is good for you, is high in omega-6 fat or omega-9 fat,
Starting point is 02:47:27 which we already have too much of. Right. So it kind of messes up everything. Yeah. So I think we covered everything. I covered a bunch of your documentaries, but I don't think we covered the trophy kids documentary. Oh yeah. Trophy Kids was fun.
Starting point is 02:47:40 At what point did you do the Trophy Kids documentary? Yeah. So what happened was I did Trophy Kids actually second. That was the second. That was after Bigger, Stronger, Faster. Yeah. So what happened was I made Bigger, Stronger, Faster. And it went to Sundance.
Starting point is 02:47:55 It did, you know, it did great. Yeah. And basically, like, I was trying to figure out, like, what to do next and couldn't really figure it out, didn't really get anything going. Like, I was represented by William Morris. I was actually trying to, they were trying to sign me on to, like, direct some big, pretty big movies. But it seemed like one after the other, they just kept, like, falling apart. So in the meantime, I was hanging out with my best friend who was a six-foot-eight, you know, basketball player from Michigan. big dude and he was coaching
Starting point is 02:48:29 kids basketball and I go to go like hang out with them maybe coaching like AAU practice and I watched the parents arguing yelling at him telling him like hey what are you doing my kid's really good he needs to play all this stuff like dude we should film this this is crazy because like it's nuts
Starting point is 02:48:45 you know and one mom coming to him saying you know I don't know if I should hold them back this year because I need to put some weight on them and you know like they're basically like fattening their kids up for the slaughter you know and I just thought it was an insane world and so I just started bringing a camera
Starting point is 02:49:02 and started filming it and then because I worked out at Gold's Gym I would see Pete Berg all the time and I go hey Pete I got something for you to see and he's like okay email it to me so I emailed him like a little trailer because I just like took some of it and cut it together I said you think this would be a good movie
Starting point is 02:49:19 and he's like oh this would be a fucking great movie like we got to do this like and so he basically just said go ahead, go out and just like shoot a bunch of stuff and then bring it back to me and we'll see where you're at and whatever. And so I went out and shot a bunch of stuff basically for free, you know, like went out and shot it with like the hopes of like, hey, hopefully this, you know, gets picked up or something. Yeah. And then what ended up happening is he saw it, he saw like a longer trailer, like a three minute trailer once I had everything cut together and he just loved it.
Starting point is 02:49:51 So he basically brought it into his company and turned it in. into like a it was it was a twofold thing it was a it's a documentary called trophy kids and then people can still see it right now on hbo max it's part of a program that peter did called state of play you can look up trophy kids on hboh max and i'm sure you'll find it and that's a shorter version of it um unfortunately the this happens a lot with documentaries and movies the the company we were working with on trophy kids basically imploded and no longer exists. So I don't even know.
Starting point is 02:50:29 Yeah, the production company. And it was on Netflix for a little while. It did pretty well on Netflix, but then, you know, Netflix has terms. I think it was on there for two years. And it got pulled off. To me, it was an amazing movie because the following these kids and their parents was crazy. And then the HBO version is only like a 40-minute version of it. So it was like an hour and 15-minute, hour, hour.
Starting point is 02:50:53 hour and like 45 minute movie cut down to like 40 minutes. Yeah. Which is just kind of the highlights of the parents yelling at the kids, which is still a lot of fun. Yeah. But that's the version, I think, that lives on HBO. And like the full version, I don't even know whatever happened to it, but that was just a crazy project to make because it was, you know, to me it was cool because it got on to HBO. Yeah. And like, you know, I, but, you know, the problem is I never got any credit.
Starting point is 02:51:21 Zero credit. Oh, really? So like when you go on HBO and watch it, my name's not even on it. Oh, wow. Because I got, so here's what happened. So to be honest with it, here's what happened. When we finished that movie was when I was, when we finished trophy kids, that's when I needed to go to rehab.
Starting point is 02:51:38 And so actually, in a weird way, I think Pete Berg helped like save my life, to be honest. So like he was the one that, he was the one that told me, hey, man, you're pretty fucked up. Like, you need to fix yourself. And he's somebody who like, I. I was so excited that Pete Berg wanted to work on my mood. Like he wanted to help me with this movie. I was so pumped about it. And then he tells me like, hey, man, you're pretty fucked up.
Starting point is 02:52:03 Like, you smell like booze a lot. You look pretty disheveled. Like, what's going on with you? And like, I was just like, man, like I just got kind of yelled out by Peter Berg. You know, like he's a big time director. Like, you know, and I just like took it to heart. And like two weeks after that I was in rehab. So the reason, there's a reason why my name.
Starting point is 02:52:22 name wasn't on that part of the movie. But I still think it's fucked up and my name should still be on it. Yeah. I directed the entire thing. I shot the entire movie. Like I shot, physically shot it with, you know, with my own camera. So I think my name should be on it. Yeah, I would say so.
Starting point is 02:52:38 So the full version it is, but not that, not on that version. So what, what was it about these parents that made them such psychos? They just, uh, they think that they love their kids. They think that they love their kids. Yeah. They don't know how to love their kids. And so they think like, well, if my kid's good at basketball and I can get them a scholarship, you know, it was like instead of putting them on, like it was kind of funny because it was a follow up to bigger, stronger, faster where I said, well, if you can't put them on steroids, just start them younger. And it was like, I was just watching all these kids starting younger and younger and younger in different sports.
Starting point is 02:53:13 And, you know, it got to a point where it's like ridiculous. You have like five and six year olds who can't even throw a ball and their parents are like yelling at them to do better, you know. And I watched it from all different angles. Like we have a parent in the movie who's a tennis mom. And she's like a born-again Christian. And she's got all these wacky thoughts about like, my will for my boys is that they're going to be number one in the world in tennis. And I've asked God about this.
Starting point is 02:53:38 And I've prayed to God and said, they're going to be number one in tennis. And it's like, lady, what are you thinking? You don't pray to God for your, you pray for your kids to be happy and healthy. You don't pray to God for your kid to be good at tennis. And then, you know, to be honest, your kids kind of suck at tennis. They're not that good. They'll never, they'll never, like, we knew that these kids would never make it in the big time.
Starting point is 02:54:01 Like, you know it. Like, you know when you play sports when you're a kid. Yeah. You know when you have that kid on your team, like, that kid's going to go somewhere. Oh, yeah. You know, and like when we were, it's kind of funny because, like, when we were younger, we saw it with my older brother. My older brother played football, and he was really good.
Starting point is 02:54:20 And we're like, Mad Dog, like, he's going to probably go somewhere and do something. But then we had this kid that came in from another school who was like six foot two. This jacked black kid named Dwayne Gordon comes in. He's six foot two, 240 pounds in high school. And we're like, that guy's going to, like, he's going to go to the pros. And we knew, you just, you knew, you know, like, those are the guys, those two guys on that team were going to go somewhere. And so my older brother ended up going to the University of Cincinnati.
Starting point is 02:54:53 He's the first person in the history of our high school to ever go play Division I football. But he dropped out in a year because he hurt his knee and he wanted to come home because he missed his girlfriend. And then he went and wrestled for WWE. Dwayne Gordon, on the other hand, went to New Hampshire, which is Division I, AA, played linebacker there. He was awesome. And then he went on and played for the Jets for a couple years. But you just knew. Like when Dwayne Gordon stepped on the field, you knew like that guy's going to be a pro, man.
Starting point is 02:55:20 there's no doubt about it. Yeah. And I think like even when I went to USC, I knew the kids that were in my classes are like, okay, that guy's going to be a pro. There's no doubt. Like he just holds himself in that way. Yeah, there was a kid I went to school with in like fourth,
Starting point is 02:55:35 fifth and sixth grade. And he was clearly, did not belong in that class with us. Like he towered above all of us. He was just like super athletic, super freak fast. And even the teacher was like, this guy's going to be.
Starting point is 02:55:50 in the fucking NFL. Like, even we were playing, like, uh, like flag football. Yeah. And it was just like,
Starting point is 02:55:55 completely unbelievable how this kid, he wasn't even in the same universe as us, athletically. And he ended up going to the NFL. He played for the Gators and then played for, uh, an NFL team. And the thing is,
Starting point is 02:56:05 you see it with their, with their parents are usually cool. Like they're not. Well, this kid's parents, they're not usually nutty. This kid's parents were both athletes. Like the dad,
Starting point is 02:56:15 I think he was like super tall, athletic dude. And the mom was like a former WMB player, I think. Really? So it's almost like, you know, these two super athletes got together to create a super athlete child. Well, there's going to be a lot of more, a lot more of that coming up.
Starting point is 02:56:29 I mean, that's going to be like the next thing is like, you're going to be able to design whatever kind of kid you want. So there's an old HBO real sports thing that when I was making, so when I was making trophy kids, I originally was going to make it more like bigger, stronger, faster. So I had all these clips that I found. And I found this clip of a sperm bank in, it's a, ESPN clip of, whatever, HBO Real Sports maybe or one of those. And it's basically a story about a sperm bank where you can go and you can say,
Starting point is 02:57:02 I want my kid to have big calves. I want them to have, literally, I want them to have blue eyes, blonde hair, B63 with big calves. And they'll like, what they do is they match up donors, different, like women and men donors. And they try to give you the best shot at what you want. and it's like Oh my God And that's, that was like maybe That clip's like 10 years old
Starting point is 02:57:25 So like I'm sure that that's going on already And does it work? Well, it's not gonna guarantee That the kids good at anything You know? Like we had a bunch of kids in our school That were like really big And they should have played football
Starting point is 02:57:38 Or should it you know They never just never did Because they were lazy Right That's crazy So you can't predict that You can't predict if somebody's gonna be lazy or not Yeah right
Starting point is 02:57:47 Yeah you definitely can't pick that But, like, I mean, when we get to the point where people can just go to a clinic and just, like, choose from a menu all the traits that they want their kids to be. It's going to be, like, order in a smoothie. Like, do you want bananas, strawberries? You know, what do you want in it? It's like, yeah, I'll get, I'll take the big calves, you know. I'm like. The big calves.
Starting point is 02:58:06 Why would you want big calves? It's the benefit of that. I don't know that because I have big calves and they don't do anything. Right. The most athletic people have small calves. No one ever, no one's ever stopped me and, like, wanted to take a picture of my big calves. You know, no one's ever, yeah, there's never really been any advantage to it. Right, right.
Starting point is 02:58:24 It is there. And it's just genetic. Like, I've never done a calf race. I shouldn't say I've never done a calf raise in my life, but I haven't done calf raises in like 20 years. Well, like the most super athletic athletes, right, in America at least, the most jacked superathets like LeBron James for a... The best example is Bones Jones. They have no calves. Yeah, nothing.
Starting point is 02:58:45 Right. But you're not going to tell them. Go tell them you have no calves. get kicked right in the head. Exactly. You know what I mean? Or like Usain Bolt, you know? Like these guys, like interesting.
Starting point is 02:58:54 What would be the benefit of having big calves? I wonder. They don't really, it doesn't really make them stronger, I don't think. I don't think I can like out-cave anybody. You know what I mean? Oh my God. That's so funny, bro. Well, Chris, dude, thanks for doing this, man.
Starting point is 02:59:10 This is awesome. Fucking amazing conversation. I appreciate you coming and doing this. It's a fun podcast, man. I really appreciate being on here and the opportunity. you talk to you. Hell yeah, man. Your documentaries are fucking fantastic and everything else you're doing.
Starting point is 02:59:24 Is there a way people can get in contact with you or watching your stuff? Yeah, I'm on Instagram at Big Strong Fast. That's pretty much the only place I am at right now. I am going to be making a couple more movies. I'm just trying to decide on what to make and what to do, you know, like in the meantime here. So I'm definitely looking into that. You know, I've been wanting to make a sequel to bigger, stronger, faster for quite some time because I think there's such a divide between steroids then, like when I made the movie and where it's at now.
Starting point is 03:00:01 Yeah. And what, you know, and what can be done through modern medicine, like with all the stuff I'm talking about, like, what's the difference between replacing your testosterone and showing people what that story is and, like, people juicing. Like, no, I don't want people. to juice. I want people to use testosterone and sort of telling that story, you know, and, you know, I want to do something about ibogaine. I want to do maybe something again in this, you know, cratom space. So it's just like figuring out what to do next is sort of what I'm trying to, that's where I'm out right now. Should do a podcast. Yeah. I'm working on it, man. That would be fucking phenomenal. Yeah,
Starting point is 03:00:40 I might need your help. We could hear everything, you know, everything you're doing every fucking day of the week. We don't have to wait, you know, a year for a documentary. I might need your help. I used to make documentaries and that's how I created this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Well, help me out. Yeah, dude. Say the word. Let me know. I'm down. Yeah, thank you, buddy. Thanks again, brother. I love it. All right. Good night, everybody.

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