Digital Social Hour - Digital Warfare: The Hidden Dangers of TikTok Data Collection | Dave Rubin DSH #954

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

🚨 Digital warfare is real, and TikTok might be the battleground! 📱 Join Sean Kelly and Dave Rubin as they dive deep into the hidden dangers of data collection. 🕵️‍♂️ Discover why Dave won't put TikTok on his phone and hear his take on the app's potential security risks. But that's just the beginning! This episode is packed with insider insights on: • The future of social media platforms 🌐 • Elon Musk's impact on Twitter/X 🚀 • The evolution of gaming and its addictive nature 🎮 • Dave's journey from left to right in politics 🗳️ Plus, Dave shares some epic basketball stories and his thoughts on LeBron vs. Jordan! 🏀 Don't miss out on this eye-opening conversation. Watch now and subscribe for more Digital Social Hour content that'll keep you informed and entertained! 🔔 #DigitalSocialHour #DataPrivacy #TikTokSecurity #DaveRubin #SocialMedia #Gaming #Basketball #news #trump #foxbusiness #donaldtrump #foxnews CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 01:36 - Post-election happiness 06:35 - Dave Rubin's Political Shift 10:18 - Future Guests on Dave Rubin's Show 12:57 - Debate Frequency with Dave Rubin 13:32 - Dave Rubin's Locals Tech Platform 16:16 - Twitch Revenue Decline 18:07 - Alex Jones and Infowars Update 20:12 - Trump’s Social Media Platform Viability 22:38 - Dave Rubin's TikTok Perspective 25:15 - 23andMe and BlackRock Insights 26:40 - Government Competence Discussion 27:50 - Elon Musk's Influence 29:10 - Neuralink Considerations 31:50 - Basketball Insights 34:45 - Sports Discussion 42:25 - Video Games Overview 43:38 - Contra Analysis 47:58 - Original Wii Discussion 49:41 - Childhood Video Games 52:16 - Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) Mention 52:19 - Veteran Insights 53:38 - Where to Find Dave Rubin APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Dave Rubin https://www.instagram.com/rubinreport www.youtube.com/@RubinReport SPONSORS: BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/DSH LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook Born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit betmgm.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call You can't prevent early mornings. But you can help prevent certain HPV-related cancers with Gardasil 9.

Approximately 75% of sexually active Canadians will get HPV in their lifetime. Gardasil 9 helps protect against certain cancers and diseases caused by certain HPV types. It does not treat HPV infections, cancers, and diseases, and may not protect everyone who gets vaccinated. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur. If you're aged 18 to 45, talk to your healthcare professional or visit getg9.ca today. That's partly why I evolved politically,

because I was talking to all these scary right-wingers and all the people that I was told were evil and they happen to be the nicest people that I'm meeting. And then unfortunately what happens usually on the other side is the more you talk to the people on the right, the more that the left hates you. And actually it's not a two-way street there. When you're on the right and you start talking to people on the other side is the more you talk to the people on the right, the more that the left hates you. And actually it's not a two-way street there. When you're on the right and you start talking to people on the left,

people are usually like, oh, that's interesting. They're not that bright or they don't really understand what they're talking about. All right, guys, Dave Rubin here from Miami. Hasn't been to Vegas in a while. I have not been to Vegas since 2016. Damn. I have only been to Vegas once 2016. Damn. I have only been to Vegas once in my life for one night. It was the Democrat National Convention.

Bernie vs. Hillary. I was going to cover it. I was working for Oratv. They had no budget so I had to pay to take my team out and because I didn't have much money I was making maybe 50, 60 grand a year. We stayed at Circus Circus. Wow. $20 a night. I still have the disease I caught that night. The bed bugs? Yeah, it was that place, I mean the whole place smelled like a disinfectant factory. Yeah.

Something is not right over there. We're leveling up this time, we're over at the Fountain Blue. There we go. No wonder you haven't been back since. So that was your experience in Vegas. It freaked me out, but I love, the funny thing is, actually I'm not a gambler, but I love casinos. I love the energy of it, I love the overstimulation,

I love the scent, I love the, just, there's something about a casino, everyone is just who they are when you're in a casino. You know what I mean? You see people in tuxedos, and you see like the biggest trash of all time, and everything in between, and they're all interacting, and I just, I love that.

It's something about the like, the gestalt of life or something. I'm sure you've been a lot happier since the election's finally over. Oh my God, this is, I mean, we're about to have the Renaissance of America. How old are you? 27.

You do not remember my friend, the 80s, and they're about to be back and it was the best decade in American history. Certainly, you know, from any modern times at least, like there is gonna be such a burst of culture and comedy and humor and movies and Music like all of the stuff that has been just so rotted and calcified and sucked for so long now It's all coming back and the economy is gonna boom and the world is gonna get reordered politically It's it's there's a lot of goodness coming not to say they don't have two months to really fuck up a lot of shit

Well, they're trying to put Kamala and they're telling him to resign. They're trying to put her in, they're trying to start World War III. I mean there's a lot of stuff that we're gonna have to deal with till then, but I'm so bullish on the future of America right now and had it gone the other way, no, no, no, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, they might actually really start that war. It's looking really concerning, right? Yeah, I mean it's sick. Like these people want to hold onto power in a way that they're literally, now knowing they're I mean, it's sick. Like these people wanna hold onto power in a way that they're literally, now knowing they're losing power, they're shooting. We are now basically giving Ukraine rockets to shoot further into Russia than ever before.

At some point, if you're Russia, you might say we're not gonna take this anymore. That's not making the case for Russia or arguing for Russia or anything else, but they're a sovereign nation too. Ukraine's a sovereign nation, they're a sovereign nation. If somebody was paying for Cuba to shoot rockets into Miami, I might be for destroying that place.

Yeah, they're gonna make it hard on Trump to negotiate. The more they attack him, I mean, the harder the negotiations are gonna be. Right, I mean, that's the thing. It feels like they're thrown in the kitchen sink now. It's like, oh, Trump's gonna come in and fix this real quick. Let's see how dirty we can make it, you know, before he gets in there. It's like they're thrown in the kitchen sink now. It's like, oh, Trump's gonna come in and fix this real quick. Let's see how dirty we can make it, you know? Yeah.

Before he gets in there. It's like they're sore losers, right? Yeah, not like it. They are sore losers. And then they blame the J6 incident that we're sore losers to, so. The fact that they even, that that is even a thing anymore, that anyone buys any of that, I'm so over all of that.

That's why I'm so pleased, not just because of the election, but just the upheaval now with mainstream media and that no one's buying this nonsense anymore. And that even today, Elon's like, maybe I'll buy MSNBC. Did you see that? I saw that. And it's like, we don't need a cable channel really, because the internet has clearly eclipsed all that,

but just the wholesale change that has occurred. We've known it, we've all known it for a while. You're online, you're doing a show, like you get what's going on out there. But we needed the culture to have like a real sort of mindset shift where it was like, oh, the online thing doesn't mean we're all perfect at all of this or there's all kinds of fault lines there too.

But that the mainstream corporate press is dead and it needs to be buried and we need to keep burying it. There's an inclination like, oh, they kind of, they're losing numbers and everything else. Like now just stop talking about them, stop paying attention. But's an inclination like, oh, they're losing numbers and everything else, like now just stop talking about them, stop paying attention. But it's like Freddy Krueger, you gotta bury their bones a couple times first.

Absolutely. Alternative media, I think, decided the outcome of this election. Oh, I completely agree. I think this was the election over reality. It wasn't really, people think it was Trump versus the Dems or Biden, Kamala, whatever it was, but it was reality. And I think they finally learned that enough of us had woken up to the

bullshit. We had woken up to the bullshit around very fine people on both sides and all of the COVID stuff and the Russia hoax. And just enough of us were like, you know what? Enough of this, enough of this BS. And the amount of people that I know in my personal life, I'm not even talking about my audience in my own personal life who had absolute Trump derangement syndrome for the last eight years.

Kick off an exciting football season with Bet MGM, an official sports book partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sports book Born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your

football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit betmgm.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance call the Connex Ontario Helpline at 1-866-531-2600.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This episode of Digital Social Hour is brought to you by BetterHelp. How do you keep cozy during the holiday season? My favorite way is wrapping up in a blanket and watching Christmas movies with my family and two dogs, Milo and Otis.

The holidays can be tough on people and seasonal depression is no joke. Therapy is a great way to bring yourself some comfort that lasts even when the seasons change. It's also a great way to learn more about yourself and understand any big feelings you may experience. You deserve to be the happiest version of yourself and BetterHelp is here to assist you.

BetterHelp's also conveniently all online and ready to work with your schedule. Just complete a brief questionnaire to match you with a licensed therapist today and enjoy the freedom to switch therapists anytime you'd like in case you don't like the therapist assigned to you for no additional charge. Find peace and comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash dsh today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash DSH. Who are now the biggest Trump supporters? It's crazy.

I know at least a dozen people in my own personal life. Wow. And that tells you, you take a guy like Bobby Kennedy, should not be voting for a Republican. Tulsi should not announce that she's a Republican and be on stage with Trump. Elon should not be a Republican. I should not be a Republican. Tulsi should not announce that she's a Republican and be on stage with Trump. Elon should not be a Republican. I should not be a Republican if things were set

in some kind of sane way. But here we are. And again, I think this is now the greatest political movement that I've ever seen in my lifetime. This is, it's, because it's not a conservative movement. It's a, it's an America movement. And we're going to fix the health system. The economy is going to start chugging.

We got some good stuff. I'm excited What was that final straw? Maybe I'm just hopped up on that crazy air. They pump in the in the hotels Yeah, you know they pump that air. Yeah, it starts feeling a little crazy I think I might have a little that gives you that edge to get on the tables Absolutely, what was that final straw for you to switch because you were a little sooner than some of the people you named Yeah, you know there were a couple things along the way The one that most people sort of know as my famous moment was I was on with Larry Elder when I was still a lefty. I had just left the Young Turks Network.

Larry Elder, who happens to be black, he's a conservative, he's a libertarian really. And we started talking about systemic racism and I was interviewing him, but he just flipped the interview on me, just completely twisted it on me, started asking me all these questions. I did not have proper answers.

And I don't know how many people get to say this, maybe you'll get to say it one day, but in my career, I think my best and worst moment was at the exact same time because it was my worst moment because I came to a gunfight not ready for the debate. I was not prepared and he was. So that was why it was my worst moment. And it was my best moment because when that show ended,

we weren't live streaming, it was gonna be aired the next day and I was at Aura TV at the time. So we had a bunch of producers and stuff, I go into the control room after and all the producers were like, don't worry Dave, we'll cut that part out, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. And you know sometimes in life, you just say something, you don't even think about it, you just say something

and it's the right thing and there's a reason it's right because it's true. I was just like, no, we gotta leave that in. If I'm an interviewer, I can't cut probably the most important part of the interview, then what am I doing this for? And we left it in and the next day, you know, a million, it gets cut a zillion ways across YouTube

and you know, it's black conservative destroys white libtard and all that. And it gets, you know, millions of views in many different iterations iterations across all platforms. And for a day I was like, man, this really sucks. And then I started looking at the comments and there were all these people like, hey, Rubin was listening and he said

that they'd continue the conversation and everything else. And then you flash forward five years and I'm on stage with Larry Elder when he's campaigning to be governor during the Gavin Newsom recall. Because we became, and he's a dear friend of mine now. And it's like, that's what a proper evolution is about. If you go towards the truth, good things will happen.

Full circle moment. Yeah, yeah. 60 minutes did not, or they did cut stuff out. You did not. I just wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. You know, I've done thousands of interviews at this point. We've edited only one for content ever.

And it was because somebody who name need not be mentioned, but who's a fairly big star, everyone watching this knows the person, was so drunk and stoned that I actually felt it could like completely wreck their career in a really terrible way. So we added that one. And then beyond that, we've edited, you know,

if somebody has like a coughing fit or like, so, you know, has to get up to go to the bathroom. But otherwise we just let it be and let the chips fall where they may. 100%. I'm the same way. I've only edited if they asked, if they asked to cut something out, but other than that.

Have you had people ask because they want to cut out, like they said something wrong or they realized they stepped in some shit? Yeah, more like a PR thing, like they announced something too early or like whatever. So that type of thing, I wouldn't have an ethical problem with that. If it was like literally like, oh, I shouldn't,

we're launching a product and I, something like that, I wouldn't have an ethical problem with that if it was like literally like oh I shouldn't we're launching A product and I you know something like that. I wouldn't have a problem if it was content If it was specific content, I I think I would have some sort of ethical Dilemma or at least a discussion with them about it I don't do as many live as I used to I used to I used to do a ton of my interviews live stream now We do my daily show live stream and we do the interviews usually pre-taped. How come? More because of scheduling than anything else. You know what I mean?

Like you just start doing this and just like you, you just finished up some stuff and then it just gets more complex to be doing it that way. So for me, it's like, we know we're doing my live show every day, 11 a.m. Eastern, that's what we're doing. And then the interviews, we just kind of set them as the days going by.

And also I'm busier now than I was back then. So with hits or travel. So it's just, it's purely like a mapping thing. Yeah. When it comes to picking guests, do you have a line that you draw with certain people that you'll have on? I try to make it as wide as possible,

but as you probably know, like it starts, the bigger you get, it starts becoming a little bit more complex because especially if you do anything roughly political or cultural, generally speaking, people on the right you get, it starts becoming a little bit more complex because especially if you do anything roughly political or cultural, generally speaking, people on the right or whatever we just described as this new Trump thing, they're willing to talk to anybody and have those conversations all the time and laugh about it and then break bread with you after.

And that's partly why I evolved politically because I was talking to all these scary right wingers years ago and I was like, wait a minute, Larry Elder's a nice guy, Ben Shapiro's kinda cool, having dinner with Dennis Prager and Glenn Beck and all the people that I was told were evil and they happen to be the nicest people that I'm meeting. And then unfortunately what happens usually on the other side is the more you talk to the people on the right, the more that the left hates you.

And actually it's not a two-way street there. When you're on the right and you start talking to people on the left, people are usually like, oh, that's interesting, they're not that bright or they don't really understand what they're talking about. It's sort of what Bill Maher is going through right now where he can very easily talk to all of these people on the right on his show, even on his podcast,

he's just getting stoned with largely conservatives and he doesn't really disagree with them anymore, but it's getting harder for him to find lefties that make sense because the progressives have gone so fast. Yeah, it seems like he has shifted, Bill Maher. He says he's in the exact same spot. I would argue, and I've made this argument to him on air end off, that he should shift

because you get it, Bill, you're right on free speech, you're right on identity politics, you're right on all the stuff, what the Democrats have done across the board, just vote the, so then don't vote with them. Like, come on, man, last step, last step. He may never get to the last step, but the fact that he's willing to hold the position,

I think, is honorable, which is why I play a lot of clips on my show of him. I credit him a lot and I give him a lot of shit. It's like a total 50-50 parody on that. Yeah, no, that's a good point, what you said earlier, though, because I've had Pac-Man on, I've had Harry Sisson on. I don't know if they'd have me on their show to be honest. I just did this thing with Pac-Man on Piers Morgan,

you get 18 boxes and everyone's yelling at each other and it's just like, there's just nothing there. There's nothing there. And the fact that Sisson, who it's not even worth finishing the sentence on, but it's like, you're basically getting like a 15 year old, like this is what the left has been left with. There's so few people to make coherent good arguments

on the left that when Piers Morgan, who has a huge show is trying to get people left, he's left with getting this kid because there really are very, very few people on the left willing to make good arguments. Very few, I can only think of a handful, maybe Destiny, Pac-Man, and I really don't know after that. Yeah, I don't even know that those guys are making

particularly good arguments, but I'll at least grant you that they're, I don't even know that those guys are making particularly good arguments, but I'll at least grant you that they're willing to go on those things and talk to people. Do you do debates often? Not as much as I used to. I used to do a lot more. You know, I was kind of early in on the internet when that was happening all the time,

and then I have the scars of that and the successes of it and everything else. I'm much more interested in building things right now. I'm much more interested in people that are just like doing cool things and building businesses and doing things that are less political. I built a tech company in the middle of this.

I'm interested, you know, everyone's kind of interested in like the food and health and fitness stuff right now. So I'm more interested in like, let's do all the things to fix America rather than debating whether socialism is good. I'm past it, man, I'm past it. I feel that. What's your tech company about?

So we started locals.com about five years ago, basically to fight big tech. Patreon, do you remember Patreon? Or do you use Patreon by chance? No, I remember it though. I hope not, okay. Patreon was basically the subscription model for all the creators, and they were kicking people off

and just banning them overnight without any recourse. And I was touring with Jordan Peterson at the time and we were looking at that like, well, this isn't right. And I was making about 80% of my company's Rev on Patreon. I was like, well, I can't survive like this because I might say something that they're gonna kick me off tomorrow. I can't run a business like that.

So spoke to my brother-in-law who's a tech guy. We started locals.com, which was basically to build subscription models for creators where you own everything, you own the data, you control your community, live chat, video, blah, blah, blah, we built it, we eventually merged with Rumble, Rumble went public. And I think we did a really nice,

let's say it's a nice little feather in my cap of fighting for free speech, fighting for the things that I talk about all the time, I put it into action. Instead of just talking about it. Well done, yeah. Not bad. I remember Patreon was everywhere and they kind of like all the time. I put it into action. That's huge, man. Instead of just talking about it. Well done. Yeah, not bad.

I remember Patreon was everywhere and they kind of like fell off, right? Deservingly so. So Locals has taken a lot of the market from them. And then, you know, there's some others as well. But we just did, I saw a problem and I was like, somebody's got to solve it. And then like Homer Simpson, I was like,

well, I'm somebody and then it did. And that's how Rumble started too. They saw a problem with YouTube. You know, censoring videos. And I'm somebody. And then that's how Rumble started too. They saw a problem with YouTube, censoring videos. And I'm sure you dealt with that as someone that was on YouTube. We used to get demonetized. We had a bigger problem with demonetized than deleted.

Which I always thought was interesting because sometimes they would delete channels or they delete Alex Jones or someone that might be say more controversial than me. But what they would do with me all the time was they would just demonetize us, which you might think, okay, well, that's not censorship

because your videos get there. But there were two things that they were really doing. One is once you're demonetized on YouTube, then you're not fed into the algorithm as much. So it's like a secret way of censoring you. That's one part. But the other part is, you know, at some point you gotta make money.

And if you start realizing, boy, I'm doing all these great videos on all these awesome topics, but I can't make a dime if you start realizing boy, I'm doing all these great videos on all these awesome topics But I can't make a dime you might start changing topics So they were that was their like creepier way of censoring people I think I do have to give YouTube credit though, even though obviously I Have my rumble guy and locals and everything else But my show is crushing it on YouTube right now and I will give YouTube credit

They seem to have moved past that and you may have seen the article a couple days before the election where they did, New York Times did this big piece about all the crazy right-wingers on YouTube. And then they asked YouTube for a statement at the end and YouTube said, we're not deleting the videos and we're not demonetizing them. But that also shows you that the culture has shifted.

YouTube is less afraid of the cancel machine now. So they're kind of doing what's right because capitalism is a beautiful thing. Well, they have to play that balance with their sponsors. Like right now Twitch is hurting. Have you seen this? I'm not on Twitch. I should be on Twitch.

I used to, I don't want to brag, but I used to be a system manager at Electronics Boutique. You know it as GameStop. A long time ago I was a pretty good gamer, but I know that there's been some wacky stuff going on over at Twitch right now. Yeah, I've heard revenue is down 60% on streamers this month. Wow. The sponsors are just not wanting to fund Twitch. Yeah, I've heard revenue is down 60% on streamers this month. Wow.

The sponsors are just not wanting to fund Twitch. Because people are saying mean things and doing weird things. I haven't looked into it fully, but there was this one streamer talking about the Israel-Palestine war. He said the wrong thing, and a bunch of sponsors didn't like that,

and they banned the guy, and now it's kind of, I don't know. It's one of the reasons that no matter what you do, or putting aside what your political opinions are on Middle East or anything else, if you're running a business and you're a creator, you have to diversify. You should have a subscription model and you should have ads and you should have pre-roll

and you should do merch and do as much as you can so that if three of your five things are taken out, which would be an awful lot, you still exist to some extent and then build new things. That really is the answer. Yeah, because a lot of creators put all their eggs in one platform and then they get banned or demonetized. Then what's next?

I mean, you're just at the mercy of people who can just shut you off like that. You mentioned the January 6th thing. I mean, Parler had 23 million unique users, which was a ton at that point. There was as much crazy January 6th incitement happening on Facebook there was on Parler. The reason Parler got taken down

was Big Tech saw it as the threat. They were like, oh shit, there's a new guy on the block and they seem to like Trump. So, you know, January 6th happens and then they were on Amazon AWS and that's how they blew them up. I don't know if they click a button or it's a swipe or whatever it is,

but they just blew up their servers and that was it. So you have to do some things to protect yourself. Absolutely. Took them down from the app store, took down their site and everything, right? Yeah, I mean, AWS, virtually everything on the internet is run by AWS. Rumble does have a cloud service now, which is B2B,

and there are some others, obviously, Rackstream or a couple others. But you gotta do whatever you can to protect yourself when you're doing this. Absolutely, do you want Alex Jones to regain control of Infowars? Yeah, it's his, it's his. I mean, I'm not even fully aware of exactly

what the insanity of the lawsuit is fully about. I mean, I know it has to do with the Sandy Hook incident and all that, but like the onion was gonna buy it and then at last second didn't, it's no, it's his property. He created it, whether you like the guy, whether you don't like the guy. I was very happy that I defended him from the beginning. Probably should have done it even louder,

but everybody was afraid we were all gonna get taken out. But I did pretty early on defend him, and I'm glad he's back on. And again, there are plenty of people, Pac-Man and some of these other guys, like I don't agree with them. Some of them say shitty stuff about me. All right, say your shitty stuff,

be online, it is what it is. Yeah, well some people just do it for views, I feel like. Oh. You know? Yeah, yeah. Like let's be honest. Well you know, the weird thing about the game as it relates to that is like,

if you could go on my channel, and I talk about CNN hosts all the time, and I talk about mainstream hosts all the time, but I never talk, virtually never talk about like the lefty versions of me, or my God, this guy on YouTube said this. Like to me, that's such child stuff. Like let them have their corner of the internet.

It's not great. Most people mature out of it actually. Or you know, you had Pac-Man on and it's like, I think if you sit down with most of these people, their ideas are pretty thin and people wake up pretty quickly. So I'm not interested in like just doing that. But I know that for a lot of these guys,

if they talk about me, it makes the money. It's just as simple as that. It's not much more complex though. You're one of those names. I don't think they think I'm as evil as they would purport to, as the channel might imply. You're one of those names, you're like Logan Paul where if someone makes a bad video about you,

100K views guaranteed. It's just, which is so funny because to me, I'm not, I guess I'm controversial in that we live in a strange world, but if someone was to take the totality of my opinions and the way I live my life and my career, you might say this guy would have been, I would have been fairly mainstream kind of whatever, milk toast, if this was 1986 or something. Yeah, pretty crazy.

I don't think you're that controversial. I don't think I am, but you know, whatever, let them, let them have their corner of the internet. I really mean that. What do you think of all these people leaving X? It's not's not gonna work. I mean the blue sky thing is not gonna work They've tried other versions of this even on the right they tried versions of this during the old regime You know they had parlor and they had what was the other one? Jason Miller created. What was that called the Jason Miller?

Twitter alternative Not parlor was it Twitter alternative, not Parler. What the hell was it? Well then Trump had Truth Social, but then there was the one, Getter, Getter was the other one. You know, there have been versions of this that they've tried on the right

and it never really worked. Truth Social has parts of it working because Trump is there. He's back on Twitter now too. The problem is they can't really create things because at least as the left stands now, they don't really believe in free speech. So I'm seeing the same screenshots

that I'm sure you're seeing, these people getting banned and kicked off for this and that. And it's all gonna be the worst sorts of people fighting. And the truth is, as I just said, the culture has so shifted. X is where the action is right now. If you wanna be in the game, X is the place. And the irony is all Elon did was make it even.

He didn't make it more right. His politics, maybe you might think, are now more right because of the Trump thing. But all he did was say, hey, we're gonna not shadow ban as much. We're gonna make the playing field more equal. You know how many times a day I could open up my Twitter feed

and see people posting Nazi memes at me and horrible things that they say about me and everything else? So you either block them or you mute them or you ignore them or don't open the freaking mentions. But I would much rather be in a place where the action is and be a part of that than just go to my own little nothing

and argue with not the brightest people in the world. Yeah, yeah, I don't even argue on Twitter. It's not worth it. Yeah, no, it's not. It used to be fun to do that sort of thing. And every now and again, I'll get into one, but it's pretty rare. More often than not, I'm about to do it,

and then I'm like, ah, what's, like literally what is the point? What is the point? But years ago, and all these social media things, they all kind of like, they have these waves where at one time, you know, at one time Twitter, when Twitter first started and hashtags were big, they used to have these hashtag games

and it would be like hashtag political sitcom and you had to combine like a word from an old school sitcom with like a current day politician or just like some silly little game and that's what Twitter was. And then it more, now it's become hyper political obviously and right in the middle of the culture wars. But I would just rather be where the action is,

where people are fighting it out and duking it out and where free speech is respected than anywhere else. Yeah, Twitter's hot right now, they're unbeatable. What's your stance on TikTok? I have mixed one on this, I'd love to hear your opinion. So my show is on TikTok, but I said to my social media guy, he wanted to do it. I did not wanna do it because of what's going on

with China and everything else, and I was like, I'm not putting it on my phone and I'm certainly not asking an employee of mine to put it on his phone. He said he wanted to do it. We're doing quite well on there and I'm just kind of letting it be on that. But I don't even have it.

I've literally never even scrolled once on TikTok. So I can't totally speak to everything that's going on there. Yeah, I think a lot of apps just spying you and not just TikTok, you know what I mean? Oh no, everything does. I mean, literally I bought a freaking outdoor swivel chair that I bought just by going on my computer to a website. And then my Instagram feed was blown up on my phone,

which I don't even think is somehow connected to my computer. I don't connect them. Are you logged on Instagram on your computer? No, no. Wow. Yeah, so I don't even know what that happened, but then I suddenly started getting all these ads

for outdoor swivel chairs. So it's like, I know there's some way with some email or some logged in some, like there's some connection but the point is that none of us really know what all these touch points are and we're just deep in that thing and we just are. We just are. Yeah, we are.

But I saw Charlie Kirk on a Patrick B. David show talk about TikTok and how he got hundreds of millions of views there. And it really impacted like people's perception. Oh, I think that that's absolutely true. You know, the other thing is it's a little hard to tell how much of millions of views there. And it really impacted like people's perception. Oh, I think that that's absolutely true. You know, the other thing is it's a little hard to tell how much of the traffic is real.

It's hard to tell how much of the traffic is real in general, but much less when it's coming out of China and if they wanna push things a certain way and everything else. So it's like, you just gotta decide how far down that rabbit hole of thought you wanna go and how much you wanna invest in all of those things. And if you're Charlie, of course it's great.

I like Charlie odd. It's great to those things. And if you're Charlie, of course it's great. I like Charlie a lot. It's great to be getting those views if they're legit. But also if that means you're opening up your phone to spyware and you're Charlie, well you may not want all those conversations public. So you know. Yeah, I mean they were spying on Tucker, right? Signal.

I mean all of these things. At this point I think you have to basically assume that whatever you're doing or sharing to some extent, maybe not your name is associated with anything, but it's the data more than anything else. I'm not super concerned about them spying on specific people. There was the Tucker thing, so it's not that it doesn't exist.

And Tulsi was on a watch list. And Tulsi was on a watch list. And I've had strange things happen. So I'm not saying that none of that exists, but it's more to me, the bigger, the meta issue is that they're gathering data on everybody. And then they know us more than we know ourselves. You know, we can all say we have certain behaviors

and we like this or that, except they know what we're actually clicking. They know what we're actually looking at. And if you sat down in a focus group, you might say something very different and think you're telling the truth rather than what your actual behavior is on these things. And speaking of data, you saw what happened with 23andMe.

Well, it's happened, did it happen again just in the last couple of days or? No, just in the past. Oh, just in general, yeah. Have the whole board resigned and everything? There's a whole slew of problems there because like what kind of data did they just get? And they've now connected people over generations

and like who knows what the right freaking bad actor could do with all of that as it relates to bank accounts and medical records and just yeah. Black Rock's involved. Yeah there's a lot of weird stuff. I don't have much faith in them. You don't have much faith in Black Rock?

No. That's a little, you know, Starmor the new, well he's not so new, but a couple months in UK Prime Minister, he's big, he just tweeted like how much he loves BlackRock. Oh, really? He was getting owned on Twitter. Really? Yeah.

For not supporting BlackRock? No, for supporting BlackRock. Oh, for supporting. He was like, we need to integrate BlackRock more into our whatever. People are waking up. And the people were not happy with that. Well, some of these companies are so powerful.

It's like one of the side effects of capitalism, but like the pharma companies are just, they have so much control now, right? I would say it's a unintended consequence or something like that of capitalism. I would always err on the side of more freedom. So to me, it's like if these companies are doing nefarious things,

if they're buying too much land, or if the pharma companies are obviously doing terrible things related to COVID, I would want just whatever you can do to free the market, to lower taxes and lower regulations so that more competition can get in there to deal with it rather than having the government come in and try to deal with it

because the government's not really good at anything. Interesting, so you don't want the government to intervene on the pharma stuff? No, well, I would like the government agencies to be reformed, which we are gonna do. So he's going in not so, RFK for sure is gonna go in and he's not going in to make the government bigger for more control over the industries.

He's gonna try to hack away at the ridiculous protections they have and things like that. So in some sense, he's using the government to deregulate and de-tangle us from the pharma companies. There are basic things that the government should do. Like for example, I actually am firmly for this, even though I don't like governmental solutions

to most things. During COVID, you'd be watching Meet the Press, and they'd be talking about the efficacy of mRNA vaccines and how great they are, and then it would literally be like, and now a word from our sponsor, here's Pfizer. And it's like, whoa, wait, what? You mean the thing you were just talking about for half hours also paying for it?

So like that type of thing, there's ways I think that the government could make that sort of thing illegal. Maybe some other stuff with prescription drugs which it's illegal to promote on commercials in most of Europe but it's not here. But all of that comes down to do we have a competent government. We really haven't for quite some time.

We might be on the horizon. Absolutely, so you're a fan of the Doge movement? Oh yeah, they're gonna go in and blow this thing apart and I can't imagine two better people to do it I mean Elon's literally trying to get life to go interstellar and then also He's buying Twitter to free our speech and he's gonna crush 300 government agencies and save two trillion dollars and then a whole bunch of us are gonna be like boy I can speak freely We're gonna go to Mars and oh the lefties who all think that the earth is gonna end in 12 years

It's like dude stop fighting with the guy who's trying to get us to other planets if you I don't think the earth is gonna end In 12 years, I know it's not gonna But if you guys even believe it you might not be arguing with the guy who's trying to send us to Mars And he's number one in Diablo just hit number one yesterday. Someone just told me that an hour ago this dude He's literally what does that mean? He's the number one He beat the game in the quickest time ever recorded, an hour and 52 minutes. That is absolutely insane.

How does he balance all this? I have no, you know, I've met him a couple of times and the guy, he's everywhere at once. Like the thing about him that I couldn't get over more than anything else was like, he was so hyper present when we met a few times. He's just there, he's just there. But then he's also like looking at a meme and laughing

and talking business and talking about space and talking about homeless people over there when we were in San Francisco, like a thousand things at once. I don't know, did he lodge Neuralink in there? He might have the Neuralink in there, right? No, it could be like the beginning of Green Goblin. Would you ever get a Neuralink?

You know, I'm a big sci-fi guy. My whole worldview has probably been shaped by dystopian movies, whether it's Minority Reporter, Total Recall, or Scanner Darkly, or I could go to Matrix, the laundry list of things. I love the idea of the future and the horizon that we're going into and all of that stuff. I'm going to be, let's say, a little hesitant

to directly connect myself. You know, we're basically there already. And you know, there are now trans humans that are putting things in their bodies and all this. Oh yeah, there are people that are putting chips in their bodies so that you literally can walk up to your garage door and it'll open, the lights are turning on in your, oh yeah,

this stuff exists. Wow. For sure. Yeah. I know dogs get chips, so yeah. No, there are humans that are doing it. There's a guy, you should talk to him. His name is Zoltan Istvan. Okay. There's a name for a transhumanist him. His name is Zoltan Istvan. There's a name for a transhumanist.

And yeah, he's put some chips in. And we'll just have, you know we're gonna have more and more of that. I mean, you saw the video, I'm sure, with the Neuralink and the Powerplegic playing chess. I mean, there's just unbelievable things on the horizon. Well, I did see Bill Gates want some microchip, a lot of people, right?

Oh, he's gonna microchip the hell out of us and buy all the farmland. He is an evil. I mean, you know, it's so interesting because Elon is portrayed as evil and he's gonna micromanage the hell out of us and buy all the farmland. He is an evil. I mean, you know, it's so interesting because Elon is portrayed as evil and he's good. And Bill Gates is portrayed as good and he's evil. It's like, man, everything is upside down. I know, I remember as a kid

really looking up to him to be honest. I saw him in the Guinness Book of World Records books, like from Microsoft, being the richest man. And I was like, I wanna be him one day. All he did was create an operating system that brought viruses to us. And now he's trying to supposedly stop viruses. It really makes you wonder, I mean, think about that.

Why did Apple and Mac take off after, you know, IBM and then PCs in general, once it became ubiquitous, they were running the show for the 80s when personal computers became powerful into the 90s, into the 2000s. MacBook took off because it was basically the virus-less solution. They had streamlined some other things and it looked pretty and Steve Jobs knew how to package it. in the 2000s, MacBook took off because it was basically the virus-less solution.

They had streamlined some other things and it looked pretty and Steve Jobs knew how to package it. But every time you opened up Windows, this is before you, right? Like did you have a little bit of this? No, I caught the tail end of this. I got some viruses. But you'd open up Windows, you'd go to freaking paint

and a thousand viruses would show up and then they'd sell you the anti-virus software and then that would get connected with viruses. So, and this is the guy who's trying to stop the viruses now. Something's rotten in Stink Town. A such a good point, because I've had an iPhone for a while and a MacBook. No viruses at all. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. It's like impossible. I've never had one. Yeah. And PC, yeah, you're right. Those pop-ups were never ending. Never ending. Even with the Norton antivirus, I would still get virus.

Yeah, and then you'd get a virus on Norton antivirus. And then you'd have to get Simitech antivirus. Who is the guy, the guy that went- McAfee. McAfee, yeah. They killed him off, right? He knew a lot. He went to the jungle and that was that. Gotta be careful with these conspiracies, right?

Go off the deep end pretty easily with those. Should we talk basketball for a little bit? Let's talk groups. I don't wanna jump on your topics. No, let's talk groups. I know you're in Miami, so are you a Heat fan? I'm in Miami, so I grew up in New York and then lived in LA for eight years, and now I'm in Miami.

When I was in New York, I was in Long Island where technically you'd think I'd be a Knicks fan, but MSG channel, you had to pay extra on cable, so we didn't have that, but we would get the Metal Lands channel for free, the New Jersey Nets at the time, New Jersey Nets. So I grew up sort of as a Nets fan, but my favorite player of all time was Clyde the Glide, Drexler up in Portland.

So I was a huge Blazers fan, even though I lived in New York and then of course he ended up winning the championship with Elijah Juan and the Rockets. And for my birthday a couple years ago, one of my agents, I look at my phone and he sent me Clyde the Glide's contact. And now we text every now and again. No way.

That's like, that's as good as it gets, man. Full circle moment. And my friend Phoenix here can attest, I've got a pretty sweet finger roll. 48, I can't do all the things I used to do, but I still can finger roll. Who wins one on one, me or you? You're 6'6, I haven't seen you play. I can still, I have a torn ACL on my left knee, but I do PRP, you know

No PRP they take your blood and they spin it in a central and then they inject your own plasma back I've heard of this. Yeah, so it can't it can't replace something that's not there, but it can like really strengthen everything around it So I play with three braces like a rat damn Play with the rap the sleeve and then I have like the metal thing, you know, because ACL, you can't go like this basically. Jeez, dude. But I'm in good shape. I can really shoot still and I can run and I can play

and I got good stamina, but I'm not 6'6", so I'd have to, you know, what's your game like? I'm a power forward, layups, little mid-range. Okay. I was more of a two guard. Oh yeah? Yeah. It'd be an interesting matchup. Yeah, all right, well, get out to Miami. I got a couple of great games. I play three times a two guard. Oh yeah? It'd be an interesting matchup. All right, well, heading out to Miami,

I got a couple of great games. I play three times a week for three hours. I got a good crew of guys that are basically couple guys in their young twenties, but mostly mid thirties into early sixties. And I gotta tell you, playing with guys in their sixties, it's fun because these guys, they can't do what they used to do, obviously, right?

But they're on the court for the love of the game. Love it. So the joy on the court for the love of the game. Love it. So the joy on the court is just off the charts. And then you also see when you can't, it's like watching a player age out, like Jordan in his later years was probably the best jump shooter in the league, even though he was known as a slasher before that.

So when you see people that can't do things over the, they lose the physical ability over the years, but then you can just start doing different things and Start doing little trick shots a little bit differently, or you see these guys, they've been playing together for 40 years and they're running like a triangle offense and you know all the young kids are just trying to run through everybody or freaking do the James Harden, I'm gonna dribble, dribble, dribble, chuck a 50-footer. So it's an absolute joy playing with people in various age. I love that that and I'm still young enough to be able to I can't really guard the 22 year old who's super fast But like I'm good enough that I can be on a court with with any of these guys and get hold of your own

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's cool. We'll get you out to Miami. Yeah, we'll play for sure. We'll film that Who's your who's your team now? Is it still the Nats? Or you know, I don't I don't watch professional sports anymore Wow I basically got burned out during the BLM thing. I could not, I was already, you know, because my life is so political and what I do is so political, that already even before BLM,

Sports Center was doing politics every night or it was like, who did this player murder or who beat that woman? Or, and it was just every night. And I grew up, I wanted to be a Sports Center anchor. I grew up in the heyday of Sports Center. When I was in college, it was with Keith Olbermann, who's now a leftist fucking maniac, and Craig Kilburn.

Do you remember Craig Kilburn? No. Craig Kilburn, he ended up having the late show after Letterman. Okay. The guy was funny as hell. He was the one that really, to me, made SportsCenter funny. When it really started becoming almost like a comedy show

instead of just straight dry sports. He was the guy you should you should check some old clips in him and that's really what I wanted to do more than anything else but then as time went on it just started becoming a political show. I was just like I'm sick of hearing about racism when I'm trying to watch basketball. So that kind of just turned me off. I watch old games. I literally if you go to my YouTube search history and you'd see what I'm doing there in cardio, I watch 80s and 90s NBA. Those are classics.

Even though they're blurry, those are classics. And they weren't blurry back then. People think, people your age think that they were blurry. You understand that they were not blurry for us. Wait, so how is it blurry now? I don't know, I don't know. Mandela effect. I was playing, one of my guys, my social media guy, Brock,

he busted out on PlayStation 5, he busted out NBA 2K, whatever the newest one is, right? So I wanted to play with my old school Blazers 91 team. So we go back and then now you know that they skin it so it looks like you're watching it on TV in that age. You know what I'm talking about? Oh really? Yeah, so they make it blurry when you're playing

and I'm like, it was not blurry. We watched things that looked like, you know, we didn't have HD plasma giant screens, but it was not blurry. We watched things that looked like, you know, we didn't have HD plasma giant screens, but it was not blurry. I think your brain back then couldn't comprehend what today looks like, you know what I mean? Well, that might be true that it's gotten so much better, but it was not blurry.

The way they've somehow blurred everything, it just was not that way, I promise you. I feel that though, that BLM stuff was nuts. All the players were wearing it. I was like, damn. I just couldn't take it. I was just like, you know what? I'm not interested in BLM stuff was nuts. All the players were wearing it. I was like, damn. I just couldn't take it. I was just like, you know what? I'm not interested in giving these guys my money.

I'm not interested in watching anymore. I love the, you know, I'm such a fan that like, I've watched the 92 finals where, you know, that was Jordan, the famous shrug. Yup. And he beats, he beats Clyde, which was sad for me, but I've watched, I could give you basically every shot of that six game series.

I've watched it so many times and I just love it. You know, it's just like something, I don't know, it connects me to a certain time in my life or something. And basketball was very different than it is now. I also just, professional basketball, I just think has become so bizarrely one-on-one and all the dribbling and like. Deep three-pointers, they take 63s a game now.

Well, Steph, who revolutionized the game, in some sense he did a little damage there too, because then everybody was, wait, how many did you say? The Celtics on opening night took 61 three pointers. God, out of how many shots? Probably, that's probably more than half the shots. Way more than half. It was almost all their shots.

Like that's just not, and this is, you get older and then you start like, my day, everything was better. But like, you'll see it too. Like one day you'll be there cause they'll add a four pointer and you'll be like, we had three pointers. No, when I played, because I played growing up as a center, you didn't have to have a jump shot

as a center growing up. You just had to make layups and make rebounds. Yeah. That's it. I remember when I was growing up playing and my uncle, who was a pretty good player, he went to Duke, he didn't make the team, but was always practicing with the Duke guys and we used to play all the time.

And he grew up in a time before the three point line. So I grew up in shooting threes and he could never understand it. He just, he couldn't, like it couldn't work in his brain. Why would you ever shoot a three? Why are you shooting out there? It just doesn't matter. Learn how to shoot a jumper.

And then of course the mid range jumper did get decimated. I mean, who shoots a mid range jumper? It's gone now. Maybe like Kyrie Irving. There's not many players these days. Yeah, it's just, but you know, things, it doesn't mean it's always changing for the worse. So I don't watch enough to know and I know there's some super skilled guys and my guys, you know

I see what's his name on the spurs? Oh when be like I'm watching some of these highlights or Giannis like obviously there are guys doing awesome awesome things. I just I just don't have the interest in that way Yeah I'll say this about Braun because I I like him as a player, but off the court it is so hard to like him, man. Like, oh my gosh. The book that he's never read. Dude, when he made that post back in Kamala, I was like, this might be the final straw for me,

to be honest. I'll tell you something funny about, a couple of weeks ago, I was with my sister-in-law, and she was looking at a house maybe to buy in Miami, and we're parked in front of the house, and it was a narrow street, and there's a blue Lamborghini behind us, honking, honking, honking. We didn't realize it was there, honking, honking, honking. And then we kind of move out of the house and it was a narrow street and there's a blue Lamborghini behind us, honking, honking, honking.

We didn't realize it was there, honking, honking, honking. And then we kind of move out of the way and it rolls up and it's LeBron James and he gives us the evil eye. No way. He gave me the evil eye. I got the stink eye from LeBron James. What a story. Yeah, dude, I wanted him to pass Jordan

but just off the court, man. Wait, for points? Just in terms of goat status. I don't know that anyone can ever pass Jordan. Six for six in finals. I just don't know how you beat that. Everything else. And if you think about what Jordan did,

takes out Magic in 91, takes out Clyde in 92, takes out Barkley in 93 who won MVP that year. Then he has the two, well, he has the off year in 94, and then he does lose to the Magic in 95. Then he takes out Kemp and Payton in 96 and then takes out Stockton and Malone those last two years. It's like he took out everybody and he took out Ewing

who had a pretty great Knicks teams in the Eastern Conference Finals. He took out Reggie. He assassinated everybody. So to me, even if LeBron's numbers, which will probably overall be better, right? I mean, certainly. He's already got more points.

Oh, he has more points too. He's a number one scorer all time right now. He just became that last year, I believe. Wow, I didn't even know that. So, you know, look, stats are stats. So you can't argue with stats, but I think if you pure, how many, what's LeBron's finals record?

It's like what, like three and six? He's got, does he have three or four? Or maybe. I think he has four, so four and six. That's pretty damn impressive, whatever it is, but the fact that Jordan was six for six, to me that is the thing, and he just assassinated the guys. I mean that shrug game, that game one of the 92 finals,

again I'm a Clyde fan, so I literally was crying. I was 16 years old and I was watching him shred my favorite player, and he could not be stopped. old, and I was watching him shred my favorite player. And he could not be stopped. Yeah, and he retired at his peak. Imagine if he kept playing. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of conspiracies around why that happened, and the gambling thing,

and his dad, and there was a lot of stuff there. But he, well, first off, not only could he have continued those two years, but even when he came back to the Wizards, had he gone to a good team? That was his one mistake, I think, in his playing days, is that he could have gone to, like, the Sacramento Kings or something. They were awesome at the time.

That was when they were playing the Lakers and Clifton Shack and everything. They had Bibby. And had he gone there and been like, I'll be a sixth man? Or he could have been a starter there, too. They had a solid team. But had he just been like, I'll just be on a great team, but I don't have to take 30 shots a game.

He could have played at least another five years and he probably would have won a couple other championships. Instead he's like, I'm gonna go to a shitty Wizards team that had nobody, Juan Howard maybe. I don't even remember who was there. And I'll score 40 a couple of times, but so I think that was his one mistake.

That is a big mistake. People wish he never came back at all because of those years, right? The wizard years, there was a whole documentary about it. Yeah, I remember watching it and it was kinda like, it was just sorta like, what's the point? Because he was so associated with winning. It was just win, win, win, crush everybody.

And now it was like, all you were tuning in for was could Jordan score 45 again? And he did do it every now and again, but then he had games where he didn't and you were just like, oh, you lost by 20 and you scored 16, what was the point? Yeah, yeah. is could Jordan score 45 again? And he did do it every now and again, but then he had games where he didn't and you were just like, oh, you lost by 20 and you scored 16, what was the point? Yeah, yeah.

But it's hard, but look, we should only be so lucky that we will be the pinnacle of success and then wanna keep going with it. Absolutely. You said you were a big gamer earlier. Back in the day I was, I grew up on Nintendo, 8-bit Nintendo NES and then my prime years were Sega Genesis and then PS1.

And that was my college years, just stoned every night playing. You were a stoner. Oh my God, college. I smoked more weed from 1994 to 1998 than probably freaking. Snoop Dogg. That's who I was going for.

I was gonna say Martha Stewart, but probably Snoop Dogg. And then when I got out of college, I was doing standup and I needed a day gig and I was assistant manager at Electronics Boutique, which is GameStop now and Broadway Mall, Hicksville, Long Island, moved a lot of red Pokemon in 98. Wow, humble beginnings.

Nobody moved more Pokemon than me. Yeah? Yeah. Like the Game Boy game or which one? It was Game Boy, it was Game Boy Color, I think, it was when Game Boy Color. when game with the battery, right? yeah, the one with the battery and they came out with a red I think was a gold one and a red one and You know The thing is once you go into the business of something you love it turn it turns it on you pretty quickly

You know ruin the feel of game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah now I play You know my my guys that work for me a lot of them are younger you became that that I'm into I just don't have time. I have two two-year-olds I'm busy at work, so I don't have time But if I have a few minutes the game that I'm digging now on PS 5 they rebooted contra You remember the old-school contra contra not in Pilar contra was awesome. Just 2d scroller. I'm not really good at 3d Oh god, I like going one way. I'll go that way left and right up and down I'm really good at 3D games. I like going one way, I'll go that way. Left and right, up and down.

Left, right, up, down, that's my thing. And Contra was a sick game that for any of your fans that remember it, there was an amazing cheat code. It was the cheat code of all time. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, select. That's where it's from? I've seen that meme.

Oh, yeah, that's the meme. It was to get 30 guys on Contra. And then they added that to a couple other games by Konami, I think Life Force and a few others. But they updated it now and they have a new it's a ps5 version of it where they Basically just kind of reskin the game. So the music's updated. The skin is updated It's you know some new bosses and stuff and it's just enough. I can play it for 10 minutes Put it down, but I tried playing 2k with my guys and they're just mall. I get wrecked into I can't shoot I can't shoot can't do it

That games hard man. There's a learning curve on that one I like games where you could just get in there and dominate you remember NBA Jam Yeah, so I was a little too young, but I saw it. I have the arcade version of that. Oh my house That's that's your game. Yeah. Yeah, just three buttons in the joystick three buttons joystick And I can still beat my 20 year old social media guys. So that's good., that's basically my main marker in life. Nice and I still beat my young employees See your competitive. I love it to two. What do you play? I play for tonight in chess. I was a big FPS first-person shooter gamer Growing up. So I was really good at those games. So I got really good hand-eye coordination What was what was like the first first person?

Was that well like a Doom I guess was probably like the precursor to all of that, right? I played combat arms. A lot of people played Call of Duty. Golden Eyes Before You, right? Golden Eyes Before Me, yeah. I think most people think that was like the first one.

That was like the standard of excellence that then probably spawned off all this stuff. Yeah, then Call of Duty just took off and Grant That Dotto. I just, I remember one time I tried, so my my buddy and I who I grew up with his kid I guess had ps2 or ps3 we hadn't played video games in years you know we're like mid 30s now we're like all right we're

gonna get a Star Wars game we love Star Wars before they wrecked Star Wars and we got one of the battlefronts or something you know where you're in the whole world and you're running 3d and we we open up the game, and it's the two of us, and we could not get out of the room. Whatever room we were in to literally start the game, and we were laughing hysterically. Like it was one of the, it was 10 minutes of just, first it was frustration, then it was like kind of anger,

and it ended in 10 minutes of buckled on the floor, hysterical laughing that we spent so much of our childhood playing with these games, these buttons, masters of everything. This guy beat Super Mario Brothers in nine minutes. Then we could not get out of the room. Games are hard these days. I remember back then, if you got stuck somewhere,

you couldn't just look it up on how to beat it. You didn't know what- You had to figure it out. Not only that, but you also couldn't save back then. Right. So no matter how far you would get in a game, if you just kept dying at that same boss, you had to redo it out. Not only that, but you also couldn't save back then. Right. So no matter how far you would get in a game, if you just kept dying at that same boss, you had to redo it again and again and again. Actually, someone could find this maybe.

Probably my best video game moment is that Adventure of Link, which was Zelda II. So there was the original Legend of Zelda, and then there was Adventure of Link, which most people say is the hardest of all of the Zelda games, including all the new ones, on Wii and everything else. Somehow, oh, you're from Jersey.

I was in Jersey with my grandma, lived in Jersey, and there was a store called Caldor, and it was like just a, it wasn't a video game store, it was just like a department store kind of thing. And me and my brother went into Caldor, my grandma took us there, and there was a box that we saw Because a venture of Link was not supposed to come out for a couple more weeks. Somehow it was at this Cal door. We got it, it was not supposed to come out for a couple weeks, and we beat it before it came out,

and I sent a picture to Nintendo for a couple weeks. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and look at it. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and look at it. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and look at it. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and look at it. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and look at it. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and look at it. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and look at it. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and look at it. somehow it was at this Cal door. We got it, it was not supposed to come out for a couple weeks and we beat it before it came out

and I sent a picture to Nintendo Power Magazine of me and my brother beating it and we were in, I think, the second issue of Nintendo Power Magazine. And I think I might have been the first commercial user to beat that game ever because we got it before it was out. That's a flex right there.

You should put that in your Twitter bio or something. That should be in my Twitter bio. What am I doing with my life? I never played that game, but a lot of people played Zelda. Well, I know everybody loved Breath of the Wild or Call of the Breath or Bad Breath. Was that the first one? That was the Wii one.

Oh, the Wii one, okay. The Wii one. What'd you think of the Wii? I thought it was ahead of its time. You mean the original Wii with the tennis. Yeah, the one with the sticks and the sensor. You know, my nephews and nieces have it and like, it's just fun.

I liked it because it was like, I can't really get into the deep games anymore. Like I'm not doing Call of Duty, but like I can strap on that thing and play tennis and do that kind of stuff. Yeah, Wii Tennis was fun. Yeah, it's funny because my nephew now is about seven and he's really into video games suddenly.

And he had this, my sister I guess got him some knockoff kind of portable thing that has all the old games on it. You know, one of these things that has like a thousand games on it. I've seen that. You know, they've got like Nintendo and Genesis. Yeah, I get TikTok ads for that. Yeah, it's that thing. But I was watching him play on it and it's like like, you know, they're not all configured, right,

because the buttons were different on all the systems, and I was like, the screen's not right. So a fan had bought me a Wii, not a Wii, Switch, couple years ago, and I just, as I said, I just don't have time, but we've got the PS5 in my studio. So I said to my nephew this like a month ago, I was like, Ilan, would you hold onto this thing for me? I'm just, I can't hold it right now, could you hang on? This, the joy that I saw in this kid's face.

Like, you've never seen happiness like that ever. And now he's been to my house a few times since. And he's like, Uncle David, Uncle David, can I hold onto it? And I'm like, yeah, you gotta hold onto it for a little bit. And it'll just be like our running thing forever. I love it. The one mistake that I made was I was still logged in with my credit card, and the kid did buy about 20 games

on that till I realized, but what are you gonna do? Oh, man, that was me with iPhone game clash plans and stuff with my mom's Yeah, I'm glad the narrative on video games has changed cuz I have a lot of good memories from video games and there was A lot of shame too, but now shame like like oh you're spending too much time on this. You're not getting out Yeah, but now it's more accepted because you can make a living off of it. You could stream it, you know Yeah The interesting thing for me is growing up in those games, you can stream it, you know. Yeah, the interesting thing for me is growing up in those games, which as I said,

you couldn't really save them, you would just play, like I'd play an NBA game a couple times with my friends and then we'd still go outside. Like there was one game, you're not gonna remember this game, there was a game on Sega Genesis called Herzog Zui. It was a split screen strategy game. So you had to build bases and increase your sphere of power so you make more money

so you can buy more weapons, blah, blah. We would play that literally all night long. Like sometimes, you know, we'd start at nine and wake up at, you know, nine a.m. And just all night long doing that. But beyond that, you could, you would play for like an hour and then we would just jump on our bikes and go outside. So something has shifted with the addictive nature,

I think, of the games and everything else that that, again, as a father of two-year-olds, I'm gonna have to be very aware of that sort of thing. The things that you grew up with, the tech that was in place and the trickery that was in place to just keep you there all the time instead of playing ball or whatever else, it's real. Well, these games probably have done so many studies

on the brain and how to like keep you trapped there, like the social media platforms. Oh, I mean the pleasure centers and just like the endless clicking, and then we have endless scrolling with this thing. Like we just have no idea what all of this has done. Plus the online component of like your voice chatting now with people.

Yeah, that's gotta be a whole other, like I had none of that. So that's gotta be a whole other element. I had never even seen that till a different nephew of mine during COVID. And I went into the basement when I was at my brother's house and he, oh, they were playing Fortnite.

And he's got the headset on and they're all screaming and going crazy. And like, you really realize, wow, in my day, these kids at least would have been in the same room. And now they're not even, that was also a COVID thing, but like at least in the same room, you're gonna break it up every now and again. You're gonna go upstairs to get your prime and talkies

or whatever, where now it's just like, it's so, it feels social to some extent, but it's really isolating actually. That's true. Yeah, I've gone through my phase where I played a lot, but yeah, you gotta touch the grass too. How much do you play now? Only weekends and a few hours a day.

I got it under control, but yeah, with the podcast I'm so busy. Trust me, this is better. This is better. You're building something and creating something. And then one day you will have some time and you'll have some kids and you'll love introducing them to it.

But at some point it's like, how old are you? 27. 27. Getting married next year. One kid's around 30. Yeah, oh, so you want kids around 30. You're on your way. You're on your way. Not that. Oh, so you're you want kids around there? Yeah, you're on your way. Yeah on your way. Well, I I want to give you your flowers you set the way for guys like me to come up in the space

You've been at this for a while. So it's weird to become the veteran. You're the veteran It is funny something happened in the last couple years where now people say that to me or they bring me on shows And they're like he needs no introduction. I'm like, what? Like, what? Like, there's something. But I guess, I guess, you know, Bill Maher said to me once because I asked him about the longevity of his career because the guy has been, you know, he started standup in the late seventies and he's as popular now as he's ever been.

And he said to me that one of the things that he's most proud of is just that he's still here. Because there are a lot of guys that do a lot of different things that are amazingly talented. You know, there's sports versions of it, you know a basketball player J.R. Ryder should have been the next Michael Jordan became nothing or Harold Miner. There's a million of those guys Who would be a current one of them? Give me a current guy. I guess Derek Rose if you get injured Yeah, Derek Rose, but that was more injury related

but but even that that's part of it like there are people that are supposed to do awesome things that never get to and then you find that in whether whether it's doing standup or this or video games or whatever, there are guys that are good, that have long careers. Sometimes there are guys that are awesome, that have long careers. And there's like every version of it. So when Bill said that to me,

and now people say what you said to me, which I really do appreciate, it's like, I've been around and I think I'm at the top of my game right now so it's like let's see how long we can run this thing I love it well Dave where can people keep up with you man you want to meet me in the in the universe where we're gonna play Contra is that a video game that will be a video game one day porta pot you're gonna strap on the fucking box yeah oh yeah have you seen that they box in the cars a telephone boost, porta pot. You're gonna strap on the fucking, what the hell is that? The quest, yeah, oh man. Yeah, have you seen that?

They box in the cars, the telephone booths, the porta potties. I got a quest and then we just got it just to test it and I did beat Sabre a little bit, which was actually kind of fun, and then I was just like, I gotta be in the real world. I'm on this thing enough, I gotta be in the real world. But I thoroughly enjoyed this.

And we gotta get you to Miami. And we'll have a three point contest because it sounds like you're more. You might win that. No, that's why I'm offering. I'm not stupid. I'm not gonna have a post up contest. All right, well it's been fun man.

We'll link your stuff below. All right, awesome, thanks. Thanks guys, peace. Peace.