Going Deep with Chad and JT - Ep. 109 - Director/Producer Bill Benenson and Strider Join

Episode Date: December 25, 2019

What up stokers, in this fire episode we are joined by director/producer Bill Benenson to discuss his new documentary Lost City of the Monkey God. We also discuss his time working on Pumping Iron and lots of other stoke inducing stuff. Jabwow!

all right what's up stokers of stoke nation this is chad kroger coming in with the going deep with chad and jt podcast and uh i'm here with my compadre jean thomas what up what up stokers boom clap recently manscaped as well oh you just did not not long ago a couple days ago all right strider yeah the uh ripper of relationships oh dude appreciate that title dude just dropping it like that dude um yeah dude definitely always keep a nice trim dude you know just you know in the holiday season too just imagine it's like a nice holly, ivy mistletoe. Just treat it right and make it look good and plush, dude.

Yeah, leave the ugly sweater for the top. Yeah, dude. And, dude, you don't want it being too much like a jungle, dude, which is a nice little dude for the Stokers. Just drop in a little foreshadowing of what we're going to be talking about today, dude. Wow. Foreshadowing, dude. Literary device, dude. And we are here with our guest bill benenson director producer um any other

titles activists would you say um i wouldn't mind that yeah i would go as far as to describe it yeah i wouldn't mind that yeah that's why an adventurer dude adventure yeah for sure world traveler dude adventure yeah that's the title you can get started with benison adventurer. That's the best title you can get. That's what I should have started with. Ben and Sid, adventurer, dude. That's right. We've been sending some emails with one of Bill's team members, Allie. She's here. What's up, Allie? What's up, Allie?

She's posting up on the couch, dude. You can't see this out of frame right now, dude, but there's a couch over there. It's dank, dude. And Bill's like in Egypt. Dude, that's an amazing thing to say. Dude, if I i'm not emailing someone back it's because like i'm driving and honestly dude don't tell my gf but i'm probably sending an email while i'm driving dude and i shouldn't be dude i had a friend whose cousin lived in egypt or was from egypt and lived there and uh we were just hanging out at a bar one night having like a regular saturday night in newport beach and then he goes

dude my brother killed someone in the revolution. Wow. Yeah. And his brother was like a club-going guy. Like, he just wanted to like, he'd been bothering me the whole night being like, yo, let's go dancing. Let's go listen to some DJs. And I was like, alright, alright, cool. I didn't figure him to be that kind of guy. Dude, every time I'm out on the dance floor, I'm dancing and I'm like, are there any murderers out here?

You know, I'm just, I ended up on the D floor. I was like, are there any murderers? What's everyone's backstory, dude? You've traveled, Bill. I have. And out of every hundred people, how many of them are a murderer? It's hard to tell. They don't have an exact look. You know, I'm searching for that look, but I haven't found it.

It would be handy to know. And where Bill... That was a good answer. We'll get into it, but where Bill was in Honduras, and this dank book that I read, Lost City of the Monkey God, and moreuras and this dank uh book that i read lost city the monkey god and more importantly this dank doc that we just watched which bill produced and directed also entitled the lost city of the monkey god the city they were in in honduras for a little bit where they staged to then go into the freaking straight up jungle dude uh the going rate and you can

correct me if i'm wrong for a hit in like that uh village the town was where they were staging where they were like supposedly more comfortable than when they went to the jungle it was 25 bucks us so if i was like dude chat freaking jt pissed me off recently dude his fantasy team just freaking crushed mine dude i want him dead dude 25 bones done that's how much it costs well that's what it was reported in the city it's called katakamas's what it was reported. In the city, it's called Catacomas. The writer of the book, The Lost City of the Monkey God, Douglas Preston, was talking to a business guy. Yeah. And he said, what would it cost to off someone?

And he said, $25 US. Wow. Oh, my gosh. That's my electricity bill. Oh, that's your e-bill. Wow. Oh, my gosh. That's my electricity bill. Oh, that's your e-bill? Yeah. What could that change for someone in Honduras if they got that much money? What would it change?

Well, I think probably what would happen is generally there's some kind of feud. People get angry about their sister was looked at the wrong way or worse. And it's not really that you cross paths with someone and say, he stepped in front of me. I think it goes into a deeper antagonism or humility or you know something that has brought a family or personal

anger to a point where you just don't want to live with that burning inside of you I get it my sister she has a proclivity for jacked dudes she likes jacked dudes. I'd probably have to take out a hit if, you know, they did something wrong or anything like that.

Oh, so you think a lot of it is, so that's, it comes from people wronging a family and then making a right. It's a lot of, like, blood feuds and stuff like that. Well, I'll tell you a story about what happened to me in Brazil when I was in the Peace Corps. in Brazil when I was in the Peace Corps. I had my American girlfriend came down after I actually finished my Peace Corps two years and actually they fired me, but I stayed on. And my girlfriend came down and we went up one state north of where I was, the state of Bahia. We went up to

Pernambuco. And at a lunch table, I leaned over and I kissed my girlfriend on the cheek. And then the next day, we were leaving. Mary and I were leaving. And I was looking for the man whose house we'd been staying in. We'd had lunch with this man, Juan Manso, and his daughter. And I wanted to say goodbye. And I didn't see him, and I got on the bus, and we left. And then several years later, my friend, the Peace Corps volunteer who I had visited out in the interior, said to me,

You remember the time, ha, ha, ha, that Juan Manso wanted to kill you? And I said, Want wanted to kill you? And I said, wanted to kill me? No, I don't know. I didn't know he wanted to kill me. What are you talking about? He said, well, you kissed Mary at the table and you weren't married. And he got out his old gun and he was looking to shoot you when apparently you were looking to say goodbye to him wow oh my gosh this is the type of thing that can and has does exist in latin america or south america yeah my mom's colombian and uh they don't let even like my aunt est, who's in her 70s, she's not allowed to stay in the same room.

But she kind of chooses it. It's up to her. But she doesn't stay in the room of someone she's not married to. And they've been dating for 30 years, but they're just not married to her guy. And they're in their 70s. So it's like they've probably done everything. They have some pretty firm lines that they don't want crossed. Wow.

And, you know, this isn't Afghanistan. This is closer to home. Yeah. But they, you know, so I don't know why you, maybe someone screwed you in a business deal or something. But they have very strong sentiments that they sometimes like to relieve in a way that we don't generally act on. Right. But where does the $25 come from? You know, I think it's relative to what the people make there.

I think the $25 would be a lot for someone out there. Right. Exchange rate. Yeah. $25 would be a lot for someone out there. Right. Exchange rate. Yeah. So it's not like there's a price tag, you know, Walmart, $25 for a hit. I think that's just what he was told the going rate is, that some businessman said, well, you want to have a hit? Then that's what I'm told the rate is.

Wow. Wow. to have a hit then that's what i've told the rate is wow do you think maybe with these like kind of uh maybe they're not laws or anything like that but uh cultural customs of like you know if you kiss a lady in public or something like that do you think and jt is a phenomenal dancer and then there's outlets like you that's why there's like better dancing like i don't know like i'm just saying like people can move they have a better outlet on the d floor is there any is there any correlation there i wonder with dancing yeah it's like okay oh they don't have enough outlets yeah because like okay you can't even hold hands in public or smooch your girlfriend on your freaking gf on the

cheek that would be rough but then it's like i guess it's just a boundary thing it's your relationship to what's going on it's like okay but on the dance floor can you get down i wonder what happens then are you asking if they dance in honduras you know i'm asking if like yeah do they get down on the day just basically doing the math my a to z is like jt's got colombian roots you kind of have some ties with like all right you're not allowed like your mom's friend wouldn't sleep in the same house. And you can dance. And I've been at New Year's parties. I dance with your mom.

She's a great dancer too. And do you think it's just like the boundaries, cultural boundaries that we have are different in our relationships and different things? Like me, as being like, you know, kind of a corny dude, like I don't move too well. I move okay. Dude, you crash. You're a good dancer. Can you dance with my mother? Thank you, dude.

I was being humble. Dude. You dance with my mother? It was New Year's, dude. She asked me to dance. What am I good dancer. Can you dance with my mother? Thank you, I was being humble. You dance with my mother? It was New Year's, dude. She asked me to dance, what am I going to do, not dance with your mother? I'm just saying, you throw that out there very casual to a big audience about you dancing with my mother. She's a wonderful lady, I kept my distance, you know, room for the Holy Ghost right in the middle.

Holy Ghost is in the middle. You know what, I don't know why I got so reactionary, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wish our culture embraced that a little bit more. Like, let it out on the dance floor. Let it out on the D floor, dude. If you're like a kid and you're upset, you're frustrated, you know, they're like, instead of time out, they're like, why don't you go to the garage and dance?

Thank you. Dude, the amount of issues I've processed on the floor, high speed. Yeah. Most of them. Everyone's taken a different backstory to the dance floor murderers are out there dudes who can't smooch their girlfriend on the cheek are out there and just trying to get to catch a little bit of rhythm i'm out there just trying to see what's up explore you know like where's chad i heard he stole double bubble from uh 7-eleven he's moonwalking

in the garage yes for punishment yeah that's a better and more active and constructive form of punishment. At our high school, dude, when they enacted detention, this is a Catholic high school, we got a brand new principal, and he was like, you can't do homework during detention. So it just literally had to be straight-up punishment sitting there with your thoughts. Dude, it was brutal. And I'm like, dude, just because students in there were trying to do a good job and were getting homework done during that

and he canceled that just to focus on punishment. But dude, what if I would have done, because I meditate now, if I would have meditated then, it would have changed the whole perspective on the 45 minute detention. If you would have meditated

and gyrated your hips. Yeah. Oh, if I was dancing too, if they let me dance in detention, I'd be in trouble all the time. Yeah, in trouble with the ladies. Oh, sorry, I forgot to tuck in my shirt today. Yeah. Oh, if I was dancing, too. If they let me dance in detention, I'd be in trouble all the time. In trouble with the ladies. Oh, sorry. I forgot to tuck in my shirt today.

Yeah. Because I want to dance. So, Bill, we dove into your dock. Okay. I did last night. I'm not sure when you... I did a few nights ago. My GF, we went and got our Christmas tree, which was dank.

And then she went to bed early. It was, you know, we haven't decorated it yet. But then when she went to bed early, I stayed up and enjoyed the dog. Great. Yeah, and so I thought maybe we could dive into a little bit of what it's about. It's called The Lost City of the Monkey God. Right. And, yeah, you take it away. Are we allowed to say, I want to ask, because there's like a big mystery with this lost city, La Ciudad Blanca, the city of the monkey god, like it's the cursed city.

And you're searching for this city. Right. Do you want us to tell now, because this is the most popular podcast in SoCal, what up, my dogs, to do a spoiler? Do we want you, do we, do you want us to tell you? We can go for it. Okay, okay. So, yeah, I mean, like, there's this legend. I guess the main text is like Hernan Cortez's text from like the friggin' 1500s.

1526. 1526, boom. And this is what everyone's referencing, and they're like, there's this amazing city. People are, you know, haters are like, it's El Dorado. And there's a lot of haters in this story. And I want to get into, which perhaps I think in a little bit, the schmole of the trip, but also an integral guy because he was kind of the lead archaeologist. What was his name? Alex?

I forgot. Yeah, Alex, right? The lead archaeologist? Yeah, it was Chris Fisher. Chris Fisher. Right. I mean, he's a smart dude, and he respects the process. But there's a big debate in the film.

When you guys do it, and I'm just going to go ahead and say it, through a huge long process of LIDAR imaging and using these insane planes and insane technology, which to my, I want to say, at least my opinion going in, I'll get yours, the archaeological community outside just feel like a bunch of haters. Like, they just were sad that they didn't get there first, they're like oh you didn't respect the product well you didn't just go find it right where you were nobody could find it for 500 years right if you didn't use that technology dude even smart people can be petty yeah yeah and there i think it's ego getting in the way do you want to touch on that a little bit yeah sure i, we use this new scanning technology. At least it was new when we used it in 2010, and it's called LIDAR. LIDAR, yeah, LIDAR.

And what it is is a laser form of scanning from a small plane, aerial lidar and we had a scanner that put out 120 000 pulses of laser light per second amazing that's just straight up so everyone knows that's fucking lasers in the jungle dude what up well we were up above the jungle at about 1800 feet that's not that high. Well, it isn't. I mean, what you want to do is you go in a lawnmower-type pattern. You go straight across, and then you come back, and then at the end of covering like five miles in one direction, you turn and you go perpendicular to that, like across a chessboard, and you go back and forth. And in six hours, you can scan about 25 square miles, five miles on each side area.

And that's billions of laser pulses. And what happens is the beams will be able to go through the leaves in the tree when, you know, the wind is blowing. And provided there's enough gap, microscopic gap, between the leaves that the pulse can go down and hit the ground and bounce back. hit the ground and bounce back. And so what you get is a contour of the laser pulses, which are converted into digital points in the plane scanner. It's called the point cloud. And that can reveal structures under the tree canopy. It also will show you the trunks of the trees and the branches.

It's pretty amazing. Yeah. And you can make a 3D model out of this structure. And so what we found was after, as you just said, 500 years or so, people looking for this legendary lost city, because Cortes said to the king of Spain, who was also the emperor of Europe, said, this city will be much greater in riches than all of Mexico. So people have been looking for a lost city out in the Mosquitia jungle. Mosquitia Jungle. And no one had found a lost city. What we found was what I would prefer to call, also because we got such shit from the academic community, is I would have called it a temple complex. But they call it a city because you can't have a temple complex without all the people

around who are going to build it. So they say, if you have a temple complex, you got to have a city. They impugned that we said we'd found the lost city that Cortez had, you know, referenced. We had no way of knowing if that was indeed the lost city. We do know that no other major temple site or city has been found out in the Moschedia jungle other than what we found. And like all myth or legend, there's something based in some sort of form of reality. Machu Picchu was found. They still debate what the purpose of that is. They don't know if it's a religious center. They don't know. And if you find a religious center, that's a huge sign of culture culture how do we think of egypt literally to this day i have my sixth grade image i'm like oh well they're gods in the pyramids like it's a huge sign of of culture

out there and yet and it's big that you guys found that because it's a huge distinction between uh the religions of the mayas or the aztecs i mean you know there's our of course architectural customs and everything that differentiate things based on what they're building and everything. But, like, the fact that you found that was able to tell the archaeologists, this is not a Maya civilization. So, though you can't distinctly prove, oh, it is this lost city of the monkey god, which, by the way, is a way danker title than, oh, forgotten sounds sick, but, like, maybe, maybe like misplaced temple complex

like right i'm not gonna pick up that book doug preston i don't know if i'm gonna watch that doc bill but like lost city i mean look there's marketability these things too which you have to play on well but that's so that's so if a city has or if a lost civilization has a religious center it's probably a pretty big city it's big i think the main signs of like and honestly the architectural archaeological community and like um historians and stuff now don't like the term civilization it's preferred to say culture there's different things that are on this and i think you guys did a good job of respecting the honduras people too in this you are involving a honduran um map maker and everything and it was great and the president got involved because it's the identity of this country. So it's huge.

But I think it's like trade. There's advanced trade. There's internal production. There's classes. There's a wealth system. There's the haves and have-nots. Religion is huge, too. And then I think architecture and buildings and stuff are like the kind of five pillars. You probably know more than.

Well, no, I think that's, you know, as deal with us and talk to us, because we did play in their sandbox and they were angry that we were not, in the beginning, bringing in the established members of the archaeological community who we should have been paying abeyance to to come with us. And of course in the beginning when we did the flyover in May of 2012 we didn't actually need an archaeologist as we said in the film

because we weren't going on the ground. We were doing aerial archaeology using this new technology, which had never before been used in a purely speculative way, that is, to try to find something that no one knew was out there. LIDAR had been used in Cambodia, at Angkor Wat, and also in Belize at a site called Karakol. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing it correctly.

Yeah, I think that's in the doc. Yeah. So it had been used in areas that they knew had temple ruins, and then they found, for example, in Belize, that the site was probably four or five times larger than they knew. They were structures outside of the center core that they couldn't find in the jungle without the scans revealing it. And we rolled the dice with my partner, Steve Elkins, that the possibility existed, and he spent maybe 20 years trying to figure out where the site would be

and he narrowed it down in fact we demarcated the the sites we would search in the plane as target area one two three four and five we actually only scanned uh really target area one and three. But T1 was where Steve thought, this makes the most sense that if I were to build a city, I would look for a place with mountains around it, with a narrow river gap where you could defend that people couldn't get in because there'd be a very narrow river gap. You'd have a high mountain behind you. And in this target area, one, he found the confluence of those elements and said, I think I would build a city here. And that's where we found the temple complex, the city that we discovered.

Yeah, and Steve's a great adventurer. He's like kind of the main guy you focus on in the doc. And he, like you were saying, it's a 20-year sort of ordeal. He goes there in the 90s. Then there's Hurricane Mitch, which is like one of the most devastating hurricanes maybe recorded. Like it literally ruined a country. Right. So you weren't able to go back.

They had to prolong the process of going back there, you know, reestablish infrastructure and also Honduras is a political climate and everything. And, um, so it's, yeah, it's great that you did that. And also, yeah, you say you rolled the dice with this litter imaging. Sounds like this godsend too. And the archeological community is like kind of hating on that. Maybe you used it, but also like, why did they hit on using it? Because, but it was also used in the Yucatan Peninsula in the Maya ruins, which like saved these two archaeologists, I forget their names, it saved them tons of time. But I feel like they want it, and maybe this is just me speaking, but like maybe to kiss

the ring a little bit, like get us involved here. Like we're the people, but you did have Jason in there. And then it can only do like, like with their actual hands. Well, it's kind of innovative. Bill was the first one to kind of do it with this. I feel like... Well, what happened was at Caracol, a couple called the Chases somehow got a grant. Yeah.

Probably it was a university grant or some form, and they were able to do the scan. scan. That money was used in a very productive way. And yet other archaeologists like in Honduras didn't have the money to do a scan. And we went in as non-academics, as we're called filmmakers, you know we're called filmmakers and uh we did a scan that revealed something that they thought i believe they wanted to have been able to find with a spoon and a trowel or something you know the old way of looking at archaeology from the ground digging in the ground so they think you're like cheating by using a plane? Well, cheating or that we were, it was unfair that we had the money to do it. I think there was a fair amount of like, why did these guys get to do it when we reserve the right to do it our old-fashioned way?

And if we're not going to do it our old-fashioned way, someone's got to give us the money to do it the new way. And we didn't have the money so these guys cheated ah that's right but it's also a huge sorry to cut you up but like yeah they can feel that way um but it's good that you found this it's no matter what it's whatever the result is it's amazing you found it um but also kind of like doug says too and you say too it's kind of like a bittersweet thing because you've gone in there. It's kind of nice to have that mythical thing. But you guys were respectful in there. But like you weren't sure that litter imaging would work because that jungle is literally like some of the densest in the world.

Like you don't know if those lasers are even going to shoot through the canopies. Right. In there. It's like it could just you could just get you could have spent all that money and just bounce back trees and been like, that's right. Yeah. And then what do you do then? You get nothing. have spent all that money right and just bounce back trees and been like that's right yeah and then what do you do then if you get nothing well all right so i took a gamble clearly as we all did uh that the lidar scan would show something up but it was a really long shot because what we were looking for was a rumor or a myth you know it was like no one said I know there's a city out there we just haven't found it what they said is a city has been

reported out there a temple sites been reported out there but it was not El Dorado but Cortez said the streets are paved with gold and, you know, stuff like that. Well, after he said that, people tried to go in and find it. And a lot of people died and no one found anything. We would not have found anything without the LIDAR technology. Because when you're there, even the pyramid looks like a giant mound of dirt, of earth. It's a very steep angle, but it's no different than some of the other places in the mountains or the hills behind our site. Right. When you look in the dock, he's like, the pyramid's right there, and it just looks like jungle.

Yeah. in the dock, he's like, the pyramid's right there, and it just looks like jungle. The guy's kind of like, I can kind of see it, but you've got to dig deep, yeah. You would not know. So one of the ways that we determined this was a city or a temple complex is that there were rectilinear shapes in other words there were plazas that were flat in the middle with mounds around the side that were rectangles the way they had ball courts so one was a large plaza then they had two big mounds that were probably big mounds that were probably 200 feet long, and they were parallel. Two of them were across from each other with a gap of maybe 40 feet or something,

which was the way Mayan ball courts were laid out. And behind it was another plaza and then structures around it. So we were able to see these mounds, which when we saw it, we realized this is man-made. There was no question. But then we went in in 2015 in February to prove that. But it was either human mounds that were made and degraded over the years from the rains and the hurricanes, or these were the world's smartest gophers who had made extraordinary mounds. Yeah, right angles don't occur in nature. No, not that way. Yeah. That's pretty wild.

How was it, to switch gears a little bit, just being out in that jungle? How was it, to switch gears a little bit, just being out in that jungle? Because you were there, and you were there during the debate, too, when you found this cache of religious items, when you guys stumbled upon that, which was an amazing moment in the dock. Right. But just the living conditions. Did you spend the night there?

Yeah, I was out for several nights. It was terrible. Yeah, how's that? I need my creature comforts. I'm a glamperper i used to want to be a marine dude yeah then i went camping i'm like nah dude that's like camping with people trying to shoot you dude no way i can do it wish i could dude it was it was bad i can tell you but yeah that snake you you guys caught the first night yeah oh yeah what's that snake what is that fair de lance fair de lance like it spits venom at you dude caught the first night? Yeah. Oh, yeah. What's that snake? What is that? Faire de lance. Faire de lance. Like, it spits venom at you, dude.

Well, the fangs were like an inch long or even, what was that? They were longer, yeah. Like, longer. Did you guys hold on to it or what did you do with it? We kept the snake. I don't know who took it,

but we, it was skin. Someone took the skin. Oh, wow. And there was a Honduran military out there like kind of guarding them because there are drug cartels and stuff out in the jungle, too. And, was a Honduran military out there kind of guarding them, because there are drug cartels and stuff out in the jungle, too, and you don't know what's going to go on. So it's pretty gnarly.

Yeah, the big worry when you found it, too, was that if you guys left the site, it would get looted by the cartel. Like, if you sort of released this news, you know, so that was part of the huge debate. The news, in effect, was released as soon as we went out on the ground and went up to the temple site. Because as you were saying, we were guarded by the Honduran military. And they all had cell phone cameras and were taking pictures. And we took pictures.

And that's all GPS data. The GPS locator is within a foot or something of where you are. So as soon as we went out there, the site was known. And I felt very strongly that if what happened was our cameraman virtually stumbled across one of the stone ceremonial heads of what we call a were-jaguar, which is kind of an anthropomorphic head of a jaguar that looks human, or like a monkey.

It was hard to tell except that the ears were on top and not simian, I guess. Anyway, we stumbled across 52 carved stone ceremonial bowls, matates, which are for grinding, mostly for grinding corn with grinders, except it turns out this was probably not for corn. They were grinders for chocolate, for cacao. Oh, yes. Yeah, I remember that in the book. I just got fired up on remembering that fact.

And I love chocolate, dude. Holiday time. What happened was these were sticking out of the ground for, my guess is a minimum of four or five hundred years. Wow. So I don't know how they could have been sticking.

Because as you were saying, the jungle was 50 meters, 150 feet high above the ground. And the fact that these hadn't had overgrowth on them too, it was incomprehensible that those were sticking out. But those pieces are valuable. Some of them were two or three feet long and a foot and a half, two feet deep and weighed hundreds of pounds. Those are valuable objects. Those could sell for $100,000 or more. sell for $100,000 or more. I mean, particularly if it is what we believe a new culture, a Mayan offshoot, but an unknown new culture, this stuff had real value. And if we had left, which we were planning to do, and left the site unguarded, then inevitably the site would have been looted and these objects would have been lost.

But they didn't. Our chief archaeologist, Chris Fisher, said you can't move it because you will ruin the context of the site, all the objects. And if it's gone, it's gone, which I didn't agree with. But that was part of the argument or the discussion we had at night in the tent in the rain because it was raining and there was mud and there were bugs of all kinds, and it was a really nasty location. Yeah.

Yep. Speaking of the bugs, the little, what are they, sand flies, right? Yeah. I mean, can we dive into the leishmaniasis? Oh, dude, that's like larypinesis. Yeah, yeah. What does that do? It's like named after the doctor that founded it.

Yeah, yeah. This disease, which like, and because you were in such a unique region. Right. Like these sand flies only carry that strain of lice like lice exists all over the world right um you know there's different strains of it and this is a unique uh and douglas preston does a good job of describing his book it's like a unique hybrid disease where like when you just study it microscopically do the disease bones inside your body it's not like other diseases yeah so. Whoa. And there's three iterations of it.

There's like a skin one, like a… Visceral, that inside. Oh. So the possibility is you can die from perhaps any one of the brands, as it were. Like what we had, the people who contracted it, and thankfully, I'm a knock on wood here, I didn't get it. But that's called cutaneous, which is on the skin. And like the writer of the book, Douglas Preston, got it and still has it, actually, five years later. And then there's the visceral that gets inside and kills you.

And then there's a third kind, mucosal, which is worse than the one that will kill you. It's very disfiguring. Well, what happens is your face is eaten away first. So you lose your nose, your lips, and your ears, and then you die. It's everywhere. Mucosal, mucus, mammary gland, your body, your butt.

It will get you. It's bad. It's really nasty. And so half of our team, we calculated that there were like 22 of us who spent the night out in the jungle. No one who went out just during the day, and we had plenty of people coming in and out by helicopter, seemed to have contracted it. People coming in and out by helicopter seemed to have contracted it. But the people who stayed out in the jungle for two weeks or 10 days or a week or whatever, like in a time frame I was out there under a week, five days or so, it kind of blended in my mind. I haven't quite figured it out.

It was pretty horrendous out there. And we knew we were being bitten by these sand flies, but we didn't know that they were carrying any disease at all. But it's kind of like this crazy, you know, sort of metaphor of like, is the jungle inviting? We've talked about this curse, and, you know, now with modern medicine, we can diagnose it as a disease but you know years and years ago 100 years ago you know even 50 or whatever you go to that jungle then all of a sudden you're sick why i mean do you connect it to the bugs i don't know is it is it because a religious thing the years and years you go back

it's probably the gods it's all these it's pretty you can understand where the myth comes from yeah and cool there's a distinct possibility that somehow perhaps the leishmaniasis or leishmaniasis mutated at some point and it drove the natives out there you know or the other more likely possibility is that when cortez and the Spaniards brought European Western diseases in, it decimated the native populations as all over when we made contact with the native populations. I just saw a play in New York called Slave Play. And they called whites virus carriers. We're viruses because we brought these deadly diseases to the indigenous population. The only reason the Europeans – actually europeans did like in close quarters when you know columbus came back on other trips like thousands of his

crew like died right he only brought like maybe 2500 guys like so it was still huge numbers in his crew yeah and then they come over and then it rips through the native populations because they aren't living in they haven't had generational exposure to build up immunities to those diseases so when they come over, it's brand new. It just ignites and it spreads like one of the worst horror movies, like that movie Outbreak with freaking, what's his face? Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman, dude.

And speaking of other movies now, to kind of definitely switch gears, you've produced a lot of films and some dank films. A film, you produced Pain and gain i'm sorry did you produce pain and gain or did you go to treatment for pain and gain and then michael bay got a hand of it no i um i i'll tell you i don't know that reference maybe i'll have to find it yeah perhaps i did something i don't know yeah it's possible. But I was involved with Beast of No Nation. A great movie. And this year, as an executive producer, which I was also on Beast of No Nation,

it's kind of astounding. I'm involved with both Harriet and Honey Boy. Oh, yeah, Honey Boy. We saw it together. Powerful. What were you doing on Honey Boy. Oh, yeah, Honey Boy. We saw it together. Powerful. What were you doing on Honey Boy? I was an executive producer, which in this case, I mean, I've gone from being a director, producer, executive producer.

In relation to Honey Boy, I invested with a woman who was one of the three producers of it, and I've worked with her for many years. I enjoyed it. It was very powerful. I enjoyed it. Shot very very well and all the performances are amazing. Visually it was great. I still have to catch it. Therapeutic. I watched Shia LaBeouf's Hot Ones and that got me

fired up to see. Dude, Hot Ones is killer. Well he is so he's very charismatic on it and sort of endearing and I was like I gotta see What about Honey Boy? It was really powerful. I mean, and also just having the context of knowing who Shia LaBeouf is now and then

seeing what his childhood was. I mean, it was impossible not to be affected by it because we have this existing relationship with him. Right. And it's, it feels so pulled from like his diaries. Well,

it was. I mean, yeah. And he wrote the screenplay. And to me, what was astounding was he played his own insane father to the young boy who was he at the age of 12 or whatever it was. That must have felt very good for him. Well, I would hope so.

Or difficult, but also I think cathartic. Yeah. And another astounding thing about the play is the director had never directed a feature before. Yeah, she did documentaries, right? Yeah. And another astounding thing about the play is the director had never directed a feature before. Yeah, she did documentaries, right? Yeah, and music videos. But they looked. We watched a clip from one of her documentaries, one in Hawaii about a family. And visually, it was, like, stunning.

And earlier, I misspoke. I said pain and gain, which JT and I saw together, which is, to be honest, a great true story, but a pretty terrible movie. Even though I love Michael Bay, I love The Rock, I love a lot of stuff he's putting out there, Transformers with Shia. But you were involved

with another documentary that also has a lasting effect, Pumping Iron. Yeah. One of the dankest movies of all time. Yeah. I go to Gold's Gym.

I go to Gold's Gym. What up? I can see it. That's what I'm talking about. That t-shirt's almost ripping. Yeah, if this friggin' Clydesdale came through here, he'd have left a horseshoe on my arm. Yeah, I was explaining to Ali,

our link together here on the drive over, that I had a girlfriend, another girlfriend, who didn't try to get me killed. And she had a first cousin by the name of George Butler. George Butler was, at the time, in 1973 1973 approximately a still photographer, and he'd done a book called Pumping Iron with Arnold, and it was also with a writer who was Arnold's friend by the name of Charles Gaines. And George did a short documentary, and I'd done three documentaries by then

after getting back from the Peace Corps and George did a short documentary about these old grave diggers in New Hampshire and they were really old, you know, heavy duty grave diggers or, you know, people who had had a kind of limited life, but they were good at digging graves. Hey, you got to have a skill. You know? Right. And George had made this film about them,

and it was interesting, but after 20 minutes, you'd learned as much about them as you probably wanted and george said well i'd like to make a documentary about um arnold schwarzenegger um you know working out in a gym and i said um george i don't think that's interesting enough. Let me think about it. So I wrote out a story, an outline, and then I also directed the test film for it, which was based on Arnold competing in the World Mr. Universe contest that was coming up in South Africa.

Mr. Universe contest that was coming up in South Africa. So I structured it as we would follow Arnold to the world championship. Yes. And that is what Pumping Iron became. Did you know Lou Ferrigno would be the antagonist

or the protagonist? I knew that he was a friend of Arnold's and one of the top competitors. But you knew you had to add that competitive structure with that climax to make it narratively compelling. Right. Yeah. And George, shall we say, saw to it that I didn't get beyond writing the treatment and directing the test film. Oh, so he was like, oh, I love this idea.

I'm just going to run with it now. Yeah, you could say that. I did get a thing. But you cracked the code on it. I think so. And at the time, I'd never directed a feature documentary and I didn't think, well, you know, if I don't direct it, I should get story

by or something like that. I was totally naive. It's alright. You guys must have both been shocked though at the lasting impact that that film has had. When I watched it in high school, it was like a seismic event. I was like, holy shit, this is the best thing I've ever seen.

And I was quoting it for the next six months. Well, Arnold, the thing that was clear from the very beginning because I had met Arnold before I said I'm going to write this story, is that he's really charismatic and incredibly smart and charming. So I was not into bodybuilding then or now. I know you guys are. I can see it. Thank you. But it didn't matter because Arnold was so extraordinary and he stood out

in a way from all the other bodybuilders. We did this test film at a bodybuilding contest in Lowell, Massachusetts or something and it wasn't one of the most striking events i've ever seen but arnold just you know was so much smarter and funnier and and cagey and uh knew what he was doing that it just and it also the men behind gold's gym the uh joe? Yeah, the two brothers They were out of Toronto They were really smart Because they had cornered the market on Not just the bodybuilding contests

But the powders Muscle and Fitness magazine Right, their magazines and everything And they were really quite interesting So I thought it would be interesting to go Try to find out About how they profited from this world that I didn't really relate to. But it was clearly a phenomenon at the time.

Well, yeah, that's why some people think the Mr. Universe was rigged a little bit where it had to go to Arnold because the more that Arnold wins, the more it's good for the business of bodybuilding, right? I think Arnold was perceived by the Weider brothers as the ticket to take bodybuilding out of the total back room and put it out into the front. The UFC kind of experienced that with Conor McGregor, too, where it's like, okay, this person's on a different level of stardom

than anyone we've had to up until this point yeah we owe it to everyone to push this person because it'll elevate everything right and it happens with skiing and skateboarding you know that you get some people who just alter the course of uh sports or whatever you know other breakout that they uh they are involved with. Was Arnold dropping lines like, the pump feels like I'm coming, just nonstop? Or were you like, dude, you've got to save that for the doc? Bill, did you write that line in your treatment?

Just before meeting Arnold, he needs to say this line. Arnold was pretty good at his own stuff. He's amazing. Yeah, because I feel like when I work out, I feel like I'm coming. Then I come home and I'm coming. I'm coming all the time. That line is going to last through the millennia. This guy knows how to brag.

You could put Arnold in a grave-digging dock and be like, I'm digging graves, I'm coming. I'm putting it in there, I'm coming. Passion for your job is very exciting to watch. It is. You always say a quote maybe it's paraphrasing

you're like put on screen someone who's good at what they do it's an Alfred Hitchcock quote he says if you want the audience to like your protagonist

make him get at his job yeah well you know this is a bit off track but the way that Arnold became governor

of California was my dad voting for him. But your dad could have voted for him because because we're all bones. Listen, he didn't go through the primary process. Right. So they couldn't beat him up. Right. So they couldn't beat him up. Right. So he was a moderate Republican or a Republican.

And he didn't have to go through the meat grinder of the primary because it was a recall vote for Governor Gray Davis. So Arnold got in without going through the pumping that he would have had to. He didn't have to go through the beat down of being beat up by your like fellow party members. Right. Or any of his flaws well and then also like and then if you watch the enron documentary about one of the best documentaries ever i think alex gibney i mean they make arnold schwarzenegger kind of culpable and what god gray davis recalled because they said he was part of the uh energy manipulation that was

going on by like enron and different companies to create blackouts i don't know that arnold did that i mean he very would well could have been an investor in... Yeah, do you think the doc was kind of like they were trying to add some extras to it? No, I don't know. It was a really good doc. It's great. Yeah.

Soundtrack's good. Yeah, it's all great. But I think from what I remember, Gray Davis had a lot more to do with allowing that Enron deal to go through than Arnold. Whoa. But I don't really remember. How important do you think objectivity is in a documentary?

Well, if you set a documentary to be seen as objective, then it's important. When you do a documentary like we just did with The Lost City of the Monkey God, we want it to be objective, but I was in it, you know, also. And so I've always tried to get my facts right and be at least as, if not objective, at least as intelligent and accurate in storytelling as i can be you know uh objective is it's it's funny i think one of the things i did wrong in making documentaries and if i had it to do over again kind of like what i did this summer to go back down to film about making my film 50 years ago. I would have always wanted to have taken footage of myself and my girlfriends and crew at whatever film we were making.

Because I think sometimes if you make a film, you're looking down through the lens, looking out at what you're covering but sometimes the lens should be turned around and you should be looking at yourself and what you're doing even just for your own edification or just to see how you have evolved I think I would do that over again if I were starting to make films

I mean I have photographs of me making my film in 1970 out in the interior of Bahia. And so when we make our documentary about our making of the revisit now, I'll have to use old photographs of myself because I don't have any footage. So I think objectivity is related to what intention you have and the goal that you're having for whatever you want to make, if that makes sense. No, it totally makes sense. But that's interesting that you would have put yourself more in the documentary. No, I wouldn't have been in the documentaries. I would have been like behind the scenes.

Right. I didn't shoot behind the scenes. But you would have reflected more what the process of making the documentary felt like. Yeah, I think I would have. Because it would have contextualized better what your findings were, because then the audience would be reminded

that it was through someone's point of view. Well, I wouldn't have wanted to put myself in the film. I just think for reference of trying to learn more, you know, if I were to be able to see myself having shot this documentary in 1970, interacting with the people who were on the crew, I think it would be interesting just to see, I mean, like we were talking about you don't know how things are going to evolve you don't a lot is a lot of chance in things and sometimes it's what i call invisible inevitability where things happen and it would just be nice to have some reference to see yourself like you guys are recording yourself now

and you're on you know it's on the camera and it can be interesting someday to look at it and say damn i you know holy shit i i i was on the wrong track there or I was totally right or whatever. I just think it's good to keep yourself in the picture. Totally. Because you're always part of it, whether you're in front of the camera or behind it or in the microphone or whatever. I listened to our early episodes like a month ago. it is good to reflect because you're sort of able to see your errors at that time and then see where you went right as well. So I feel like to be sort of really presently aware of how much you evolve, you've got to stay on track.

Last night I watched, my wife and I, Laurie, watched the third episode of this season's The Crown. watched the third episode of this season's The Crown. And that was quite astounding because it was really about Prince Charles's mother, who he was totally embarrassed about and wanted to keep her out of the picture. And she became the most important person that the English public seemed to have related to. And so everything that he was trying to do to make the English public feel more empathy or involvement with their lives, he did wrong. They had a documentary about the queen and the family.

They're all sitting around like wooden soldiers and the public, you know. So he just had like a, he just was a tight ass? Yeah. And he wanted to have this very controlled documentary the BBC made about them. And they came across as very privileged and overpaid and the public went, you know, really against them. And then he tried... You fucked up, Charles. Well, I'm sorry.

It was... Did I say the wrong guy? No, it's Philip, not Charles. Oh, sorry, Charles. Well, you know, there's probably Charles out there that fucked up once, dude. And you know you've got to keep that in check, dude. Anyway, Prince Philip was very uptight.

And what he tried to do to get the public to understand what an incredible job they were doing for England, it didn't work until his mother, who he thought was insane, was interviewed by a newspaper reporter who said she was the greatest thing that ever happened. And it was a complete turnaround. And it was really interesting to see how these efforts to present yourself in the right way can blow up. And often do. When you're trying to look so good, like holding yourself to that high

standard of like, dude, honestly is the best policy. Audiences are very perceptive. They see everything. You can't hide it. You just got to be you, dude. I know, but it's tough, dude. It's hard because you got to be vulnerable. But you guys are so buff. Thank you.

I do think if you look good, you feel good i i freaking potassium up every single day just housing bananas and whey protein and i just feel i feel good dude you're rocking those emergencies as well yeah oh yeah i've been crushing those dudes and it's interesting all three of us have our own specific and unique workout plan yeah Yeah. Like you do sprints, you do body pump. I do Pilates. We all do a different thing. I just add steam room to the mix. Whoa. Sweat it out.

It's very detoxing. Bill, are you doing anything, you know, exercise routine or mixing things up? I mean, you know, what are you getting into these days? Well, my wife and I like to go and hike sometimes alone to hiking in the San Juan de las Montes. Nice. Beautiful. We have a trainer two or three times a week, and my wife does yoga two or three

times a week. Nice. Dude, don't underestimate yoga. It's great. I never do, bro. I usually do yoga at home with Adrian. I first time went to the studio with my GF, dude. Dang.

Did you do yoga hot? No, I didn't do hot. I couldn't handle hot. I couldn't handle hot. I couldn't handle it. Work your way up. Exactly. I honestly, like, I was thinking about the whole, dude, I was sweating instantly. Had to use the block.

But, dude, it's a nice supportive environment. And, dude, holding those poses, very difficult. Dude, it's hard, bro. Balance. Strength, flexibility, balance. What's the smile you do after you fail? Because I do a good smile after I fail. Oh, dude.

I look around and everyone will go. Yeah, I look at it. balance what's the smile you do after you fail because i do a good smile after i fit oh dude i look around everyone i go yeah i look at it mine is also involving everybody because i'm thinking of the judgment even though everyone there's doing their own film there's like that's that's good yeah that's what i do it's mental gymnastics too it is i'm like if i can hold this pose i know i can put something else i hard i had to do i know that i can call my dad after this yeah nice what's up dude you know you gotta stay in touch with the rents dude you know of course you know weekly at least should we um sometimes freeze them out i got one one question with LIDAR. Yeah. Do you think, can you apply it to the ocean?

No. Oh, man, because that's the great unknown. You could go down. That's space down there. Yeah, I know. But the problem is that LIDAR is this, it's now up to like a million laser pulses a second or more. Yeah. pulses a second or more yeah um lidar doesn't work for example if it's raining or if there's smoke or even clouds because the laser pulses will be refracted by the water molecules so it's basically just screws it up so apparently you can can use LiDAR underwater, but in a very shallow, you know, it has a

very limited range. Now, sonar, which has, is the sound waves are amplified by the water, is a kind of form of laser scanning but underwater and it is very powerful and very accurate. So it already exists. It has for a long time. But the laser forms that I know of don't work underwater. Okay. Yeah.

Subs and stuff are used in sonar bouncing things around. Right. Yeah, dude. It's cool stuff. It's tight. What do you think? underwater. Subs and stuff are used in the sonar, bouncing things around. It's cool stuff. What do you think? What do you think is the key to a long marriage? A lot of luck. So I had this theory I thought I'd

share, which is there's some problems with the theory, but, okay, I would outlaw all first marriages, okay? Now, there's some problems with that, but, you know. Aaron, what up, dude? Oh, Aaron. I don't know.

I had a first marriage. It didn't know. I had a first marriage. It didn't work. And my wife did, too. So I really don't know. I think for myself, I got very lucky. George Willis said second marriages are proof of optimism over experience or something like that. Correct. Yeah.

or something like that? Yeah, correct. Yeah. Well, you know, there are a lot of countries now, the Scandinavian ones, as I understand, where marriage is like really not terribly interesting

to anyone there. Are they not doing it? Nope. What are they doing? Living together, having kids. Are they staying F buddies forever? I don't know. I just know that,

I know when we were in Brazil this summer, uh, there seemed to be an awful lot of more or a lot of fluidity in marriage there. And there is here too. I think marriage had a lot of, uh, social relevance a while ago. social relevance a while ago. It still does if you take it seriously, and I'm very happily married, and the institution is fine with me, more than fine. But, you know,

if everyone has some economic independence and they're not being forced by their parents into doing something that they might not want to do at the time or under the circumstances. Living together is a pretty good way to see if things are going to work out or try. I find marriage to be highly mysterious. But I feel like people who have unconventional marriages are almost compelled not to talk about it because like Thomas Middleditch, this actor, came out and did a Playboy interview

and he's like, yeah, me and my wife are in an open relationship. And he's like, I had to bring it up to her for three years. I was like, babe, like, I just need more. And then he was like, she's the break. I'm the gas. Yeah. And like everyone kind of trashed him for it. I think it was because he didn't check with his wife beforehand.

So he kind of just like... We're doing this. Yeah, he came off like, he's just like, babe, we're doing this. And she's like, what? Yeah, it didn't sound like she was too enthused about it. So it read really selfishly. Yeah.

Well, my wife and I just saw a play in New York, Harold Pinter's Betrayal. Oh, he's one of the best. Yeah. Well, my wife and I just saw a play in New York, Harold Pinter's Betrayal. Oh, he's one of the best. Yeah. The master of the pregnant pause. Yeah, and he's also the master in this play. I've got to be honest, I've never read one of his plays. Okay.

But I'm fired up on what you said. What happens is it's about betrayal, which means marriage infidelity. Betrayal, which means marriage infidelity. And really, in a way, the underlying caustic element, I think, the really eroding element of, like you're saying, an open marriage, particularly if one doesn't know it's an open marriage, is the adulteration of your trust and your ability to really work together or have the same values. I suppose if people go in saying we don't want to have a magnanimous – You want to do a magnanimous no matter what.

Then maybe it would work, but it seems that it's hard to pull it off. But even if monogamy doesn't work, isn't it noble just to try? Well, to just go for it, be like, you know what, it doesn't even, it feels tough, but I like to go for tough things. I'm going to do the monogamy. I think it's fine. I mean, where it becomes problematic from what I've seen is on two basic levels. It's with children, which gets really hairy. When you've got kids.

Yeah, and you're going to split up. And the other often is financial, when there's an imbalance where the husband has more money, the wife has more money, and then people get into property wars. And it's expensive to divorce. It is. That's what the movie Marriage Story is all about. It just takes fundamentally well-intentioned people and just makes them go through this process that ruins both of you.

Yeah. Easily, you couldn't easily, I think, put aside children. But if it were not, you know, a financial, you know, drain and sieve for a lot of people, then, you know. Yeah, why do they make it so complicated? It should be easier for people to break up. there is a type of divorce that's called no fault that is pretty easy I think California is doing a better job

they have a formula for what I know some people are getting divorced and they have a formula for the man's salary I think it's 35% of his annual salary automatically goes to the ex-wife. And it's like they're getting it

pretty much to a formula. And maybe that will make it easier for some people. Yeah, if there's something that, if they can get like a, yeah, some barometer to go off of, at least help them gauge expectations and not make it so, because they're already dealing with so many emotions but you know what look i'm i

don't got any qualms with you look i got my gf she's my rock she's my coral but i'm like uh i feel like it's like derrick jeter style dude like derrick jeter's on top if he was married and messing around he just he look he would send gift bags to ladies. He was going around doing his thing. Dude, shortstop New York City. But he wasn't married doing it. You can't have your cake and eat it too a little bit. You either do the married thing, and if you don't want to, then you just got to face the music, have the tough talk,

don't go messing around. Just pick a lane. What do you say when you're driving? You go, pick a lane, dude. And why are you not telling your wife? Because there are kids and finances do complicate things. But at the end of the day, those are big excuses. But, you know, they're kind of still excuses.

You've entered into this agreement when you get married of like, we're going to have each other's backs. You've got to just look at that one agreement that you made and go, do I want this anymore? And you've got to opt out. And you've got take all the the baggage that comes with it right yeah that's what you get into when you put it on but i like the um i like that get the first marriage under the belt right but you're right like you don't have to get married you don't have to yeah just as long as open and honest communication from the beginning dude take your fears talk but if you do make the mistake how balanced should you be to a mistake that's true too of like yeah is this because i agree with you it's like people do it out of pressure they don't do it out of like really wanting to but at the

same time it's like you still made the choice yep and then you got to keep paying forever or i was just making a different point i think that i'm initially meant to make oh yeah what are you making what are you saying i was saying that you shouldn't be that punished for the mistake is what I was initially saying. Yeah, I don't think you should be continually punished. I don't know. I can tell you, this year my wife and I have traveled more than we've ever traveled in one year. And I was trying to think about why is it we've traveled so much? And I was trying to think about why is it we've traveled so much? And one of the things I realized in trying to flip it around and look at it from a different angle is I like being with her so much.

I'm with her much more when we travel. Yeah, I love that. Like at home, she's doing yoga. I'm out. I mean, we spent so much more time together traveling. And I thought, well, this might be the side addiction or the side elation that I've been missing. And it certainly has worked out very well for us or for me. Love that.

That's awesome. Sally and I have a good time traveling. Fired up on that. It is nice. You spend way more time. I have a good time traveling. Fired up on that. It is nice. You spend way more time. Yeah. I'm a little baby, though. I wake up early,

I get cranky, dude. Of course. I get cranky. That's part of the charm, baby. We were in Thailand, dude. Go ahead, go ahead. When my sleep gets impeded upon,

I get mad. Yeah. I'm like, you know, once my girlfriend was like trying to take the covers in her sleep and I was like, nope. I'm just like, rip them off. I don't know, I'm a pre you know, just one time my girlfriend was like trying to take the covers in her sleep. And I was like, nope.

I'm just like, I don't know. I'm a pretty chill dude, you know. Very chill. But when it comes to my sleep, I get testy. You got to protect your turf, dog. Well, it affects my stoke. That's what goes on. I'm like, you're affecting my stoke directly.

I love that. And I love that. It's under threat. Bill's raising my stoke over here saying, you know, you've been in a relationship a long time. You're very happy. But it is true. When you're living together, you're so in your routines and your own lives. Kind of the moments you have together at home are very brief.

And, you know, even this week. Or you're thinking about other stuff. You're thinking about work the next day. You're thinking about work. You still have to get done. You're thinking about like some friend you're supposed to go meet that night. Your head's in other places. You're not with each other.

True. You go on vacation. You're with each other. There's nowhere to be. You can relax. You just look at each other. You go on vacation. You're with each other. There's nowhere to be. You can relax. You just look at each other and be like, oh, I enjoy spending time with you. Yeah.

You share some kisses. You laugh about some stuff. You maybe make fun of some of the other people who are there. Of course. Just a little laugh. Of course. Just a little something. A little innocent.

You know, something like that, dude. Play some roulette. Oh, yeah. Oh, you're going to Vegas, dude. I have Vegas in my mind. I do like to lay some parlays. I like to. That's fun. Everyone's got to have a vice. I got a theory. Everyone's got to Vegas, dude. I have Vegas in my mind. I do like to lay some parlays. That's fun.

Everyone's got to have a vice. I got a theory. Everyone's got to have one vice. I love to lay down a little action. Three. You got to have three vices. Really? Yeah.

All right, the trifecta. Okay. I jewel. Bill, what's your take on jeweling? A lot of middle schoolers. If I smoke a jewel three days out of the week, can I get bubble lung? Well, it's popcorn. Is that what it is?

Depends what flavor you're using, dude. Yeah, I got mint in the lung. I can't tell you. Did you do Quaaludes when Quaaludes were hot? I am so viceless that you would think I'm a Republican. Nice. All right, should we answer some questions from the Stokers guys? Yeah.

Bill, this is a segment where Stokers write in. They're honest and open with us, and we just give them some nice, honest feedback. I think your voice, living such a great life that you have and having so much great experience, I think it's going to be quite impactful. Okay. But brace yourself. I'm ready. This is a long one. Boom, clap. Brothers of Stoke Nation, I bow to your excellence and. But brace yourself. I'm ready. This is a long one.

Boom, clap. Brothers of Stoke Nation, I bow to your excellence and cannot thank you enough. Can I start with this? Fuck Puzio. He's a guy I fought in high school. Anyways, I need help from the gods of Stoke and Solace. This might be long, so I sincerely apologize, but your boy needs help. I have been with the same woman for almost two years now.

We dated for a year, fell absolutely in love. She is my rock. She is my world. And I stand by her side through anything. She's the most beautiful woman in the world to me. And every time I look at her, the love I feel for her gives me goosebumps, but like the warm kind of goosebumps, the ones that feel good. Anyway, we broke up for a little bit because it was not working out. That time was my fault. I was not myself. And I was abusing substances that looking back now make me ashamed. I was the man I was with her. I was not myself, and I was abusing substances that, looking back now, make me ashamed I was the man I was with her. I turned my life around after the breakup. I was in a dark place

for a while, until I started following the lessons taught by our two great modern philosophers, Cherjon Thomas, the wise, and Sir Chadwick Gregorian, the golden. Oh, thank you. The positivity you two infused into my brain honestly rewired my brain, and now I work out, eat healthy, take cold showers, spread

stoke anywhere I can. My life is amazing, happy and so fucking stoke. I have no one to thank but you two, so truly thank you. After bettering myself through y'all's teachings, I became the man I once was and the man she loved. She waited for me and we got back together and have been in absolute love ever since. We have been so happy, however, we

do argue very often. She always likes to critique me and it feels like i cannot do anything myself without worrying she will get mad i got to all kinds of events with her where i have to meet people i do not know which i don't mind but at the same time i would love to have her come hang out with my friends who she knows very well i go to weddings with her and her family and i kill it i get the whole family laughing and they love me i took her to my cousin's wedding dude this guy wrote the odyssey of an email dude yeah i just saw this is a very long this is long email i'm gonna plow through all right what do you guys think i mean dude at least what i'm at

the halfway point i'm like look dude i've been dating my gf a while and bill can probably expound upon this more like you know did you invest in each other, dude. Your personalities rub off on each other in dank ways. And, you know, I don't know if he's doing anything embarrassing or whatever, that she's, like, judging him or not letting him have his own freedoms. But we were talking about this before a little bit. You know, you want to be in a relationship with someone who augments your great qualities and helps you improve upon those that, you know, need improvement

and maybe can help you discover them. So, I mean, maybe this isn't all a bad thing is what I'm saying. Well, yeah, I think the fact that he's taking cold showers and bettering himself warrants him the opportunity to write enough. And further down, he says that she got mad at him at a wedding, I believe, and she yelled at him in front of everyone, cried in front of everyone, and consistently stormed away. And I've been in relationships where that's the norm and it doesn't have to be.

I think you both have the ability to stay calm. And, you know, once in a while it can be good to let it rip. But it's not something that should happen. It's not something you should be afraid is going to happen. So I don't know. I would tell her that that kind of thing shouldn't happen a lot or, or it probably means we're not in a good place together and then we should probably not be together. Was that heavy? Oh yeah. You're dropping the hammer. Yeah. Bill. No, no. I don't know. You don't want to be, that stuff is, it's hard to go through and

it's hard on everybody. And it's just, I don't know if it should be. I'm not tracking it tracking it well i'm not quite sure what's going on well did you when you did you ever have a relationship where you guys like fought in public a lot um i had a relationship where we fought an awful lot but we didn't go out in public that much so you know that that wasn't our um mo but that if you in a relationship like that, it's probably best to get out, right? I don't think it sounds good. I mean, it basically, I think, shows disrespect for each other or one for the other. And it seems very dramatic, perhaps done for reasons of trying to put someone down. It sounds toxic. Yeah.

Especially a public display like that is always, seems like a lesson is trying to be taught a little bit. There's exceptions, but. Yeah, I'd say follow the stoke. If it's impeding on your stoke, you know, unless you're Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz. Word. You know, with that kind of passion, I'd say, you know, it's probably best to bail and find someone who treats you with respect in public.

Aaron, what do you think? I'm not going to lie. I'm kind of fried from earlier today, so I kind of missed that question. Dude, it was an odyssey, dude. I'm telling you. I think this guy's pretty upset and he's venting. Yeah. And you got to get it out sometimes.

Sometimes it's just a bad night. Yep. And you're pissed off and you don't know where to put it and you write into your pod and that's it. And you know what, dude? That's what we're here for, dude. And you know what? I hope you look. I think jt came down with the uh with the call i might have been too heavy i just i was i was i think once you got to the wedding stuff you're feeling something you went i've been there i've been at a wedding where my girlfriend was like crying and yelling at me and it was um it was painful yeah dude i i handled

it horribly too i was fighting with her. We couldn't stop fighting. My mom's in the other room. I go, Mom, you got to come in here and tell me who's right in this argument. My mom comes in, and she watches us fight for a minute. I go, Mom, what's going on? She goes, John Thomas, you're being a psycho. And then to my girlfriend, he goes, but you keep antagonizing him.

And then she walked out. Nice. Yeah, it was good advice. Lay down yeah i was like all right i gotta chill um all right okay you're gonna be all right dog yeah it's good you're doing good yeah codependence anonymous it's a 12-step program uh hello hunks this is not a, but rather a call to action. Airbnb has been trying to crack down on people using their service for raging. They're trying to purge the party house lifestyle. Airbnbs are great for raging.

Say you're back home for the summer and you're trying to throw down, but nobody's parents are down to let the boys get silly. Next point of action, the Airbnb. I say you guys join me and take a stand against the abomination of a rule. The only two dudes who correct this are you, and I think you know what to do. P.S. People ask you to solve their problems, but I want to know how you fellas are doing. Good, man. Nice.

Dude, first, Facebook with Encyclopedia Britannica, or whatever the fuck that is, and now Airbnb with Ragers. Oh, dude. Dude, these tech companies are impeding on liberties. I'll do Cambridge Analytica, dude. Oh, right. Oh, dude. Dude, these tech companies are impeding on liberties. I'll do Cambridge Analytica, dude. Oh, right. Yeah. Oh, dude.

I was close. Dude, yeah. Literally, dude, we A to C'd it. You dropped it, and I was like, wait, Encarta? What's going on, dude? I knew it had an Anika. It had an Anika in there. No, you drilled that Anika, dude.

Dude, I should have had no idea. Oh, dude. I didn't have a reaction. I was like, what? You laid it down, dude. I'm glad i lay it down the way i lay it down for sure yeah so mark zuckerberg what up dude bleeding into our stoke dude i mean you guys are the masters of stoke dude you guys lay it down you know how to throw the epic ragers i mean well you're this you're the sage of stoke dude thank you dude i'm just saying if i see zuckerberg at 10th planet jiu-jitsu but he might be getting put in a triangle oh dude i got no doubts in my dome you'd be putting him in the triangle dude i don't know what that i'd be freaking dangling it saying it's dinner time

more cow dinner time dude yep triangle hold bill have you ever uh raged in an airbnb or or uh i can't say that i have here's my thing dude i think they should let you rage if you return the house as good as you found it yes if you bring it back to them as good as you found if you clean everything up if you keep everybody in line and you still have a fucking good time then you should be able to rent it yeah you just be respectful do you know don't throw down in there like it's a party you? Don't throw down in there like it's a house you're never going to come back to, even though it is. Or maybe you want to come back there and revisit it, dude. My GF threw me a dank little surprise party there, dude.

We had some tasteful IPAs, dude. A nice little ice cream cake, dude. It was very dank. Then we went out bowling. I fought Andrew that night. Oh, yeah, you did fight him. Because I thought he was flirting with a girl that Joe used to date. Where did you fight him, though, dude? In the street.

Thank you, dude. Not in the Airbnb. We respected the property, dude. For sure. Alright, dudes. What up, Chad and JT? I've been an avid adherent to the podcast for several months now. I seek your noble wisdom and guidance. This is a long one again. Yeah.

Let's get some quick bangers. go yeah what's up lads got to start with the obligatory expression of gratitude for the pod recently started listening and i'm super supportive of the way you guys guide us young bucks through this dense forest that we call life to this point recently the gf of three years who i love and want to see as happy as she deserves to be has made it seem as if she is not appreciated paid enough at work i try to talk to her about potential ways to express this to her employers, but she shuts down the convo and then seems as if she does not want to talk about it at all. I'm at a total crossroads as on one hand I feel she knows how to handle herself.

However, it bums me out to see her overworked and stressed out without the proper reward. I'm wondering if I should just let it go and be as supportive as possible in this trying time or if I should try to keep encouraging her to express her concerns to her employer and potentially improving her overall stoke and financial situation sorry for the long question but thank you once again for the constant stream of positivity dude i think you just encourage her through compliments you just like babe you're so badass babe i love the way you just get after it and And then other things like that, and I think that'll just reinforce that mindset that will help her make that jump. And then if she doesn't, you just, you know.

Dude, let her know. Dude, go for it. Take a risk. You love and respect that she takes the risk. But guess what? If it doesn't work out, that's plan. That's life, dude. Let me tell you what.

When you make a plan, dude, plan on it not going is exactly how you plan because that's how life is dude you got curveballs and they're coming right at you but in my experience life's their own fastball straight heat right down the middle you gotta lean in dude you gotta freaking just get on base dude so just like you're just talking about getting hit by the pitch talking dude life everyone talks about curveballs in life dude i'm talking about heater just coming right up the middle did you just lean in get hit get on base get on base take those hits dude take i'll take a 400 obp yeah over some guys smacking 370 but never taking a walk thank you thank you manufacturer runs let's do it dude let's go let's go uh bill what's your take on this i love listening to you guys it's about a lot modest approach to success. And I got to tell you right now.

It's incremental and it takes some sacrifice. That's what's up. And you're hanging in with us. We've been doing a deep dive. We've been here for two hours. We've been going two hours. Dude, let's keep going. Let's keep going.

How are you doing? What if we did four? What if we did four hours? Sorry. Your call. I lost it. I get excited by the notion. Dude, we got guys that listen to this pod that are commuting six hours, dude.

Yeah. They're on the subway, dude. They're going from the East Village to freaking... I don't know anything about New York, dude. Dude, I don't think you're far off, though. This fucking guy's traveling through some boroughs, okay? He's taking the six. Borough to borough.

To the three. To the IRT. To the R. To the there. Call this guy a frigging otter the way he's burrowing, dude. I don't know if otters burrow, dude, but call him one, dude. A beaver. Yeah, call him a beaver, dude, the way he burrows.

Straight beaver. Call him a beagle, dude, the way he's exploring and burrowing. What was the last question about? Wait, this guy that just talked. GF. Is GF, is she going to get the promotion? How much pressure should she put? I mean, I'm just thinking, dude, you just tell her, babe, go for it.

You got to go for it. I know you can do it. They got total confidence in you at work, and you got to have confidence in yourself. You can do this job. So you're saying to question her employer. Yes, go after the employer. I think so. Go after.

I go, why haven't you bumped Sally up yet? Do you know a good thing when you see it? Because I got a feeling you don't, partner. And I'm just telling you this, and I'm not telling you hard, but make right choice bump sally up i'll put a bullet between you dude do you get mobster with them dude you're walking they call me the otter where i'm from motherfucker i think he's i found in the shallow water because they call me the otter is that the wise guy take yeah that's the wise guy take. Which I don't take. Okay.

But, dude, you got to have your GS back no matter what, dude. Take some risks, dude. Have her back, dude. She's going to go in there and get it done. Success or fail, you're in her corner, dude. That's what's up, dude. Yeah. Better pipes.

I'm with my dogs. Jagger or Robert Palmer? Ooh. Wait, Robert Palmer? Robert Palmer? In case anyone's not knowing, yeah, Robert Palmer is just like, Jesus, John, I'm driving a girl. What the fuck is this song?

What is Robert Palmer's song again? Addicted to Love. No, legs, legs. I got to listen to him. Addicted to Love. Yeah, dude, Mick Jagger, dude. But you know what, dude? I'm fired up on how stoked that question just got me right there.

That question just made me catch my second wind right now. All right, I'm going Robert Palmer, dude. I'm going Robert Palmer, dude. I'm going Robert Palmer, dude. Arnold Palmer. Dude, I just got horny. Really? From that song? I mean, yeah, dude.

Robert Palmer, I think, is a sex-driven artist. I think that's what he's all about. Any rocker, dude, from the 80s, they'll get that T-flat, and they're going to get the juices going. Cocaine. Yes. Oh, 80s music. Have you noticed cocaine has gone down? I think so

How ubiquitous Was it I got a Well I got a question Cause Chad here was like He He kind of

Shaded me Whoa What up Dude beef dude What up How did I Well maybe I'm being a bit No no no

Strong Dude take it how you feel I asked him if he knew Who David Byrne was Oh we love David Byrne Oh. I asked him if he knew who David Byrne was. Oh, we love David Byrne. Oh, talking heads. Yeah, dude. Brian, you know David Byrne?

So he was saying to me, who the fuck are you talking about? No, if you like David Byrne, I got news for you. This must be the place, because we love David Byrne. Oh, that's what I'm talking about, dude. I'm getting friggin' ousted. Oh, dude, dude. Dude, there must have been strange overtones going through your dome. I didn't know you were going to excommunicate me on the pod, dude.

Well, I'm younger. I'm the youngest one here. That is true. So you guys can all suck it. But you know what, dude? You're going to have that. Not you. Except for Bill.

I'll suck it for Bill, dude. Oh, I would totally do that. I'll do double time. Fucking for sure. I love, dude. Legends. I will Spotify David Burnham. Okay, so you'll be fired up he's got a show

in new york which laurie and i just just saw david burn called american utopia which is about as good as it gets anywhere if anyone is listening and is in new york run, run, run. Really? Okay. Yeah, he's brilliant. Dude, he provided so many of the bike racks in New York. My roommate did a tour of it one time. Really? Yeah, he's a big biker and he designed them himself and made them extra inviting to encourage more. It's extraordinary. He's a talented

guy. Sorry I outed you. You know what, though? That's what we do here. We're all about honesty and integrity out here. We keep it real. I love that. Fired us up, dude. I appreciate the burn. You zinged me good, dude. I love it.

The David burn, dude. Oh, dude. Nice pun, dude. Dude, that's what I'm saying, dude. Nothing gets me fired up more than a solid zing. Yeah, dude. Nice bruise to my ego, and then I'll repair it, and I'll come back stronger. Dude, that's what it's tomorrow for.

Tomorrow's to reflect on the burns and grow from them, dude. And more cultured. And tomorrow, I'm going to come into the office and be like this is growth david i've thought about guess what everyone's gonna be stoked on that and i've been like that person made fun of me five years ago were they right or was i right like do i need to improve or should i just write them off i always assume they're right and then i just go that's the best way to do it oh yeah work out my mind anything yeah i was just trying to get you to listen to him dude you got it you got it what's your favorite talking head song uh burning down the house burning down the house don't stop making sense yeah that's

fabulous yeah that's good stuff he he's i was explaining that he has this cadence that is extraordinary. The way he sings, it's just the phrasing or the pauses in the phrasing is just unique. Yeah. And this show, he's out there with a whole band on the stage. And the way it's choreographed is extraordinary. It was just... I told my wife I wanted to go every day, but she's like...

The first time's really intense. But I'm going to sneak back if I can. Heck yeah. I love that. New York, what a great trip. We were in New York recently. And dude, live performance. Oh, dude. Yeah, we went and saw a buddy's the other day uh jace arms yeah jace super talented guy so good dude so he did a one-man show and we were like and you know one-man shows there's like phobias

around those and stuff like oh man but dude he was so funny and so good and we're like it really just make it's a soul enriching thing dude if you're a stoker if you're like in a little bit of a rut and you're like what am i doing dude i'm in the'm in the house. I'm just gaming too much, dude. I'm talking S to 13-year-olds in Montana playing COD or something like that, dude, not being the best you, even though that gets me a little bit stoked. Go see some theater, dude. Go take in some art, bro. Go to a museum for a little bit. Are you a Jonathan Deming

guy? Do you like Spalding Gray? Yeah. Yeah, that was some good stuff. That's a good one-man show. Yeah, but I mean, this was just in such a league of its own i think i heard him in the greek many years ago oh great venue great venue i mean you don't feel like you're in la no it's so yeah you're in the woods you're in right where a lost civilization would be yeah without the snakes oh my gosh yeah and just to re-harp on this, Ferdelance?

What is it? Ferdelance. Ferdelance. Imagine- It's a pit viper. Yeah, it's a pit viper, and this is its habitat, and they are like-

Oh, are we talking about First Lives again? Oh, dude. What up, dude? Zing City over here, dude. Zing-Wantanejo. That's where Dufresne went. Dude, you've got to imagine Joe Morisi's dong, and there hasn't been enough dong talk on this podcast yet, so I'm kind of shoehorning this in right here, so I'm sorry.

And Fertilance is essentially Joe Morisi's hog slithering around the lower canopy, dude, in Honduras, dude. You know, an ancient beast capable of slinging, sorry to be too crude here venom at its you know anybody who happens to stumble upon its territory and it's a nocturnal animal and i mean god forbid i feel wholesome i love you thank you dude thank you thank you do you think sometimes he's led by his dong joe you know no question he gets pulled by it and he's like this is ancient history just coming through my hog piece right there's a lot of there's iron in the blood what's up hey mom monica what's what up mom you're live you're live on the pod it's live we got bill bennins here he's's a legend bennett's in bill bennett's in legendary

producer here monica how are you at schreider what up hey sweetie i love to hear you guys hey monica thanks mom mom we're talking to a filmmaker who found a lost city like an ancient offshoot of the mayan culture in Honduras hadn't been discovered. They just discovered it? Yeah, we're talking to them now. Oh, wow. No, so I'm not going to interrupt you. That sounds a lot more interesting than what I have to say. No, a mother's word

should be cherished and valued. I'm all for it. Alright, mom. Alright, I love you guys. Say hi to that person that is already here. That's amazing. Thank you.

Thank you very much, my love. I miss you. Bye. Bye, guys. Bye. I like that, dude. You're a good son, dude. My mom called, dude.

Sent it to silence dude I have to call her back in the morning dude she's gonna be jelly now dude sorry where is she from in Colombia Medellin last question what's up my dogs I love you guys and everything you put out I've been following the podcast

for a while now and it truly brings me happiness so thank you for all you do I was wondering how you guys and everything you put out. I've been following the podcast for a while now and it truly brings me happiness. So thank you for all you do. I was wondering how you guys tackle the deepest questions like what is existence? Where did existence come from? Is there something after death and how to combat existential crisis? The heaviness of life can be too much to bear sometimes. And if you believe in certain religions, then the afterlife could be even worse for some. So my main question is, do you guys ponder these infinitely deep questions? And if so, what answers do you come to that might relieve some of the weight and might make you feel better?

Thanks, guys. Much love. Great question, dude. I mean, Bill, do you want to lead this? Yeah, sure. I mean, throw it to me. I mean... I can say... You've got some life experience. I could say

that if that's really bothering him, I suggest Excedrin. Which one's Excedrin? It has aspirin, the Tylenol ingredient, amphetamine, and caffeine. But what you're saying, there's no fix for this. No. I love it. I love it. You just learn how to deal with it. for this. No. I love it. I love it. You just learn how to deal with it.

You just learn how to deal with it. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know, you got to get busy living. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if that's holding you back, then, you know, just try to clear it up.

Yeah. Because there's no, dude, I don't know, man. And I don't think there's anything after you die. So I think what Bill's saying is true. You got to embrace that fear and just try to let it motivate you to live as excitedly and as purposefully as possible that's what's up i i don't know what happens after you die you know i like to believe there is something to look forward to because i always get amped and looking forward to something that stokes me i want mario getting dinner with my gf that's what i'm saying i want mario mario tennis in the sky with my boys dude

and we're at a garden party dude and all of our gfs are there just hanging out dude and bells cruising in dude and we got some freaking dank you know times going on dude and we're playing some freaking david burn on the radio dude and chad's well versed in it by this point dude and that just sounds like eternal stoke for me so but yeah dude i mean it sounds like there are things in life we can't make sense of you know our human minds are only able to grasp things through the limited lens that we have. I think just go get some good life experiences. Don't get too toxic on any certain things. Do everything in moderation, except moderation, my friend. Aaron, you good?

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out that voice. My dog, I choose to believe in the most optimistic view possible. I embrace and get stoked on the unknown i think if we know that the end if we know what the end is and that's boring you know dude i'm like you know what up whatever happened like i'm just like you know what i don't know what happens but i'm gonna choose to believe that the afterlife is filled with mar Tennis, good vibes. Bagel bites. Bagel bites that don't have carbs.

Yes, and don't burn your mouth right when you bite it. Yeah. And then maybe you go, when you die, you get the choice. Like, hey, do you want to be a freaking lion and go back? Do you want to go be a new Strider? Yep. Do you want to go be a new jt a new bill you know like um i just think it's uh i think at the base of everything it's all love so so you're like at the arcade of life and you can choose to put some quarters back in the game yeah i love it you know

it better be a huge freaking arcade though dude because i'll get sick of the games after a while time crisis i'll play forever. Yeah, of course. Do they keep it operational? Yeah, they do. And they keep the guns sliding, because if it doesn't slide, I'm done, dude. Fire call, dude. I think they take the best things from this life. Time crisis.

Cod. McFlurries. Buffalo Wings. Good Waves. Buffalo Wings. Frank's Red Hot Sauce. And they're like, all all right that's the best reviewed stuff postmates for sure and then you get to watch like the town on repeat oh the town dude

athlect just doing push-ups for no reason it doesn't help his character at all in the movie dude just bumping them out dude and i'm fired up seeing that dude yeah it's tasteful though he didn't overdo it true no he did it right and honestly i saw and i was like what up dude or pumping out all those car hard jackets i? I love Carhartt, dude. I wish I was a guy that knew how to use tools so I could authentically wear Carhartt, dude. Only, okay, this is what happens. You know how to use the tools of your heart. This is what happens.

Fucking thank you, dude. This is what happens when you die. You get to watch movies that inspire you to do pull-ups. I'm talking the town. Death race. Pumping iron. Does my shoulder hurt when I do pull-ups? No.

Dude, nice. Well, then I'm banging out a lot of reps, which is good for my lats and gives me self-confidence. Shoulder's not hurting, dude. Yeah, so that's why I believe. I expect time crisis when I die. Hell yeah, dude. I'll be playing with you too, player, dude. But I think at the foundation, it's all love.

I believe that the foundation of all this creation is all love and Shakespeare. What do you think, Bill? I think we should do the best we can when we're here and really appreciate it. So I have this phrase that is actually my license plate but it's a little screwed up because i'm dyslexic so you can't give me a little break okay of course it's isama which is every second is a miracle yeah so that to me you know we're damn lucky to be here i know it's true we're so lucky i think it's so i agree be optimistic but embrace the now embrace your life now don't don't look forward to something better you know embrace take joy in what you're doing now because there's joy to be found in everything.

Right. That's a great call. Or stoke. I love that. Yeah. Bill, what a great isoma. Love it. Bill.

Yeah. Who's your beef of the week? Your beef of the week is what you're beefing with, or it can be a historical beef that you just want to bring attention to. want to bring attention to well I can't bring myself to name the beast of the nation the mmm man called dump I just start frothing I just went past his building in New York, and I think the cab driver thought he had an insane person in the car. I was screaming and carrying on. So I think it's a mortal threat to the country.

So that's my beef for sure. I love it. Love it. I still need to figure mine out, so. Oh, dude. Strider, what's your beef of the week? My beef of the week's got to be this dude that was, indeed, honestly, nothing too harsh against him, but my GF and I were scoping Christmas trees, dude, this weekend, dude.

We were having a lovely little time, dude, at the Christmas tree lot. And, dude, friggin', I go over there and I pull out this nice five to six footer, dude. Something tasteful. Nothing too big, dude. Again, it's going to fit in our one-bedroom apartment, dude. Nothing too gaudy, dude. Nothing too gauche, dude. And freaking I put it out there and I'm asking the dude that's going to come over and slice it so we can get a nice look, see how plush it is.

Some dude jacked the tree, dude. He jacked the tree. Really? Yeah, and I know that he saw me take it out, dude. Wow. Yeah. So good for him that he got a sick tree, but he's definitely my beef. And I'm not holding it against him, though, dude, but I had to share this, get it off

my chest because I don't want to harbor it. And the tree that my GF and I did end up getting is tight. Nice, dude. Yeah. Happy ending. My beef of the week is with the game Cards Against Humanity. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's whack, dude.

And it's like the weirdest card always wins like whoever gets like boners from mars like attached to michael jackson's dad it's like what like okay fine i got beat on one round where it was the pilot on the plane says everyone on the plane prepare yourself for i I put sexual tension. I thought that would be really funny if a pilot said that. The person who beat me put fuck mountain, which is funny. But if the pilot was talking about that,

he would have said, brace yourself for fuck mountain, not prepare yourself. So make your card match the question, not the question match your card. Good call. And like in Apples to to apples um a buddy of ours dan was saying this earlier today it's like apples to apples is a similar format to cards against humanity except you have to actually author you you write down the crude stuff to

make it crude and that's and that's what the game ends up devolving to always because it's funny and you know you're playing and having a good time you know for a few rounds and you know once the rents go to bed dude and uh at at least if he would have written Fuck Mountain off the top of his head in that moment, I'd be like, this is a funny dude. That's hilarious. But Fuck Mountain's right there. So yeah, just a lack of creativity in that game.

All right, I got my beef. What's your beef? My beef is with my new wireless printer. Whoa. I can't connect to it. Yeah. Have you guys, like't connect to it um yeah have you guys like like connect to it well yeah i've like i've spoken to it and i've like trying to connect and then it's like you know establish the wi-fi and i'm like i'm i don't see the printer so oh that's rough you know i just printers in general just they're just the cause of so much strife and

anxiety so like you know it's like why do you have to be wireless you know just be okay with cords mark zuckerberg exactly it's not like i'm moving around they're like a jaguar like in the car world like they just break down all the time they break down all the time you look great but can i rely on you for two straight weeks it It's like, need more ink. It's like, well, fuck you, dude. Yeah. You can't print paper now? Yeah.

It's ridiculous. Oh, that's so whack, dude. Y'all feel bad about that? Dude, the printer at the office is supposed to scan stuff to me on my email, and I will scan it four times. No email, dude. I know. Dude, I'm going to say this right now i can power bomb that

thing i don't think i've ever been able to print anything from a wireless printer in my life ever thank you ever in my life not once yeah ever not even when i'm at the fedex center dude or the freaking ups store or whatever really dude and i was trying to print up some itinerary for a dang trip my gf and i have coming up can't do it because you're an old soul and you're connecting to what's true and real and that's chords thank you yeah thank you analog analog lost analog yep i love that i love that fires me up strider you're up actually later bill sure who is your babe of the week uh nancy pelosi oh nice nice i'm sensing a theme yeah yeah there is um it's my hope that um um dump will get dumped along with Pence, and she becomes president,

and that's the end of the problem for the Democratic Party about who's going to run for president. Do you think a Republican Senate is going to do that, though? Well, I don't. It's very unlikely. But if they feel that they're—right now they're in a circular firing squad, I think. If they don't impeach him or, you know, convict, bless you. Thank you. They could be voted out because that's the way it's been going. I mean, two senators in Kentucky and Louisiana, was it?

The Democrat won with Dump going there twice for those candidates. They can be voted out for the anger of most of the country, I think, towards this man whose name we cannot mention. Why can't we say it? It's written everywhere. Because it makes me sick. Right. Okay. I mean, I could say it, but anyway.

So they can be voted out by the voters. And we're talking about Papa John's. You're the Papa John's guy, dude. Well, no, they could be voted out by the Democrats and the independents who are sick of him. But if they vote against him, then the Papa Johns are going to primary them out. Yes. So they're totally screwed. So what could happen, they could say, we're screwed.

They could get together and go to dump and say, take a walk, we'll give you a pardon, and take that second dump with you, and we'll give him a pardon. Now, this is unlikely, but it's kind of my wish for the year. It's crazy times. It is absolutely crazy. I think so.

Chad, who is your babe of the week? My babe of the week is a taco salad I prepared for lunch today. Oh, dude. I didn't get a chance to look at it. I saw it, dude. I saw it. Damn it. Bro, yeah, when you put it down immediately, I was like, what?

Dude, I triple-taked. Yeah. I was sitting right across from you. I didn't see it. Yeah, dude. I gave it a nice up-down, dude. That's the only thing I give up-downs since I got my GF, dude. Head to toe on that.

What I have for lunch. Oh, dude, thank you so much. And you know what? This is my babe. I'm sorry. Go, go, go. No, no, please, please, please. I'm getting fired up.

This is not about your lunch, all right? This is mine. I am getting fired up right now. I'm sorry. I used brand new Tupperware for that, too. Oh, nice.

I mean, dude, yeah. And don't worry because, you know, I will keep just that one and I won't throw it away. I love that. My GF gave me one of those. And you know what? Oh, good for the environment.

Yeah. And I like that it's see-through Tupperware, too, because you're not hiding that delicious-looking taco salad from us. You know what? Yeah, this is open to everyone in the office, but I'm going to eat it. Yes. I put a lot of care into it. I put a lot of thought. I thought about it the night before. I put arugula in there. That helps with blood flow. Love it. You guys know what I'm talking about eat it. Yes. I put a lot of care into it. I put a lot of thought. I thought about it the night before. I put arugula in there.

That helps with blood flow. Love it. You guys know what I'm talking about. Of course. Joe's hog. Thank you. I put some ground beef. Avocado, tomato, La Victoria, hot sauce, medium, olive oil, and red wine vinaigrette.

Whoa. Dude, it looked so dank, dude. I was really stoked on it and I was just more so proud of myself for making such a fine creation. How good does it feel when you create something dank, dude, and you're like,

hell yeah, dude, I got this coming up. Gonna freaking house this for lunch later. It makes me feel like I can drive without listening to music because I'm so fired up. You're so in the zone, dude. They say the brain is hemispheres. They say when you're driving like that, you're in your the zone dude they say you're you know the brain is in hemispheres they say when you're driving like that you're in your right dome you are being creative when you're

doing that dude you're driving guess what you're not just driving you're creating dude thinking of more salads in the future exactly dude am i gonna add more avocado or am i gonna add more oil i don't know dude i don't know i love it fired fired up on this talk about nice what's your babe oh my babe the week's got me my gf dude um i mentioned we went christmas tree shopping so i'm still definitely amped up and fired up on that dude but before we did that dude my babe uh my gf knows that i like to catch my z's dude and we went on sundays and we went christmas tree shopping dude and she showed up dude because she woke up earlier and surprised me with the coffee from one of my favorite coffee shops Phil's to start it in the Bay Area very dank

they do different like blends and they have like they don't do lattes or anything it's all just like pour over drip style dude but you know they can get creative for you and she showed up and brought me a nice hot coffee to sip on at the tree farm dude and i was going around it i was just freaking feeling warm from within and without dude i was just amped so yeah dude fired up my gf dude my gf just my baby just surprising me that's awesome dude dude surprised joe is just like i mean you get that energy boost and then you're like i'm gonna go buy a freaking tree. That's energy.

My Baby of the Week is the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin, and it's long overdue. He's been a great coach for a long time, and he's been doing a great job this whole season. This is coming off the most recent victory where they're now 8-5, and I just got to say, dude, you lose Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Le'Veon Bell, Juju Smith-Schuster, and James Conner, and you're dominating like this.

And you can even include Ryan Shazier. And you're doing this great. It's just a spectacular coaching job. My coach has been consistently great and probably consistently underrated just because we get pwned by the Patriots. And, dude, I'm happy to see you doing so well. So, Mike Tallman, you're my baby of the week. Fire call. Who's your, Bill, legend of the week?

Fire call. Great. Who's your, Bill, legend of the week? Well, I've got to say David Byrne. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was the highlight. Great call.

That and my wife being able to get us in to see it. Nice. Legend. So Lori, you know, she doesn't want to go back every day, but, you know, I'm still really happy to have gone once. That's amazing. It's nice. That's an amazing treat. And isn't it nice to get a nice little, when you're GF, a.k.a. your wife,

you're GFF, you're GF forever, hooking you up like that with a nice little gift and a shared experience? Experience gifts are great. Yeah, they are. I mean, I feel like I'm being very analog, but it was extraordinary. And also our daughter's birthday. Oh, happy birthday. Yeah.

Nice. That was good. We just got back from New York, and it's good to be home. Is she living out in New York? Were you visiting her? My daughter, yeah. Very nice. Love that. Right on.

Chad, who is your legend of the week? My legend of the week is the steam room at the new gym I go to. Nice. They have a fire steam room, and there's nothing better than detoxing with a bunch of dudes, And it just, there's nothing better than detoxing with a bunch of dudes, just naked, you know, hanging dong, just chopping it up. You know, there's not much talking that goes on. Everyone's in their zone.

Everyone's sweating. Everyone's really concentrated on letting it all out, you know, letting their pores open up and then open wide and letting it flow out. But there's an energy in there that I can't deny. And I connect. And afterwards, I stand up. I say, this is a good sweat, dudes. it flow out but um there's an energy in there that i can't deny and i connect and afterwards i stand up i say this is a good sweat dudes i'll see you tomorrow i love that put a bow on it yeah and then i take my towel off yes now we're talking when i walk out nice good yeah yeah you don't you're not afraid but you don't have to be aggressive about it. Yeah.

And he goes straight for his taco. Oh, of course. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You got that waiting in your locker. Process. I love that. I love that. Sitting there in your lovely, lovely reusable, what is it?

My Infinity is Tupperware. Infinity. Yeah, correct. Strider, who is your Legend of the Week? Dude, my Legend of the Week is this bro, Stephen, dude, who's posting up in Vermont, dude. I took a risk, dude, and gave out my address on the internet, dude. Not a smart thing to do, dude, but guess what?

Stephen's a straight-up legend, and thanks for not sharing it. And he pulled through and freaking sent me some dank IPAs from Vermont because I'm a fan of, like, micro brews and some craft stuff. And apparently somebody shared online that we broke a federal law because you're not allowed to ship, you know, booze in the mail, I guess. But this guy packed it tight, dude. He put it, like, in a space blanket. Some newspaper, some interesting articles in there. And a nice coupon even, dude. And we're just so stoked to get this.

So we were talking about it, DMing each other. And Steven, dude, I'm not giving out your last name, dude, in case the feds are listening, dude. dude and uh was just so stoked to get this so we were talking about it dming each other and uh steven dude i'm not giving your out your last name dude in case the feds are listening dude place in case this place is bugged my dude but uh thank you dude you're a straight up legend dude and i've been enjoying those and i didn't hoard them i shared some with the crew nice dude no nice dude my legend of the week is um tommy caldwell from the dawn wall i think chad had him as his legend of the week one time. Oh, always.

But I finally caught up to this documentary. And dude, I don't know if a cooler dude has ever lived than Tommy Caldwell. Like, he is the epitome of a beast. 16 years old, signs up as an amateur for a rock climbing competition that I think was to say he's the best rock climber in the country. He ends up winning the amateur competition. They let him compete against the pros. He wins that.

Becomes the best climber in the world. Gets kidnapped by a terrorist in Kyrgyzstan with his girlfriend and two buddies. Ends up throwing the terrorist off a cliff so him and his friends can survive. And is immediately conflicted about what he did. Not like takes any pleasure in it. Like it was really hard for him,

but he did what he had to do. They survive. He goes back to being the best climber in the world with his wife who's a dynamite climber then he loses a finger doing some woodwork doctor tells him he'll never climb again he makes the nub strong goes back to climbing is even better than when he started loses his wife because she can't get over the trauma that they went through he rebounds from that throws himself into climbing yosemite does that with a friend who's not as good as him, could go up and reach the top of this impossible route without his buddy, decides at the almost very tippy top not to do that because it's not worth it

without his buddy who's been with him the whole time, living on a wall for two weeks, a thousand feet in the air, like in a small little tent, goes back down, encourages his friend so he can get past the hard part, and they go to the top together. Wow.

It's an amazing story. Have you seen it? No. You've got to see it. The Dawn Wall they go to the top together wow it's an amazing have you seen it no you got to see it the dawn wall the dawn wall it's so good it's the best because you heard a free solo right yeah i saw it i might have spoiled it there that's amazing but this doc um it might be better i think it might be better because i think there's a more compelling are you sure these people are humans yeah i don't know i don't know i want to study their brains. I'm like, give us your brains after you go, because I got to know how you're made of this stuff.

He's cut from a different block. He's in Free Solo, because he's a buddy of Honnold's. Yeah. And they're obviously reverential peers towards one another. I know. They're not human. It's unbelievable. I know.

You got to watch. You got to. This is a doc. You're going to like it. As a filmmaker, I think you'll appreciate it even more. I'd love to see it. You're a great, great Legend of the Week. Yeah. Tommy C is the best.

What is your... Oh, yeah. I didn't tell you about this. This is kind of a surprise. My quote of the week. Did I tell you about a quote? I don't think I did. Yeah, this is my bad. You've already had fire quotes on here. Okay. Any quote, even from any of your movies,

or maybe the David Byrne play, if there was something fire from that, or I don't know. You're giving me a lot of latitude there. Yeah, I'm like, it can be anything. I feel bad. I feel like I feel bad because I sent an email to Bill. I'm like, just prepare these things. I forgot the quote.

It's my bad. We can go, and then if you want time to think about it. Yeah, I think I would need that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Chad, what's yours? Mine comes from Dwayne Johnson in his, I think his feature film debut, The Rundown, 2003.

Classic. He's talking to Sean William Scott. Legend. I don't make deals with people like you You don't even know me You're just like every other jackass I've taken down Oh yeah? You're gonna get down on your knees Hands and knees

And you're gonna beg me for a break Yeah Whoa I could've delivered that better No way dude No shot I don't make deals with people like you Whoa. I could have delivered that better. No way, dude. Yeah. No. No shot. I don't make deals with people like you.

Oh, that was better. You don't even know me. You're just like every other jackass I've taken down. Oh, yeah? You're going to get down on your hands and knees, and you're going to beg me for a break. Dude, that was really good. That's good delivery. I like that. Dude, that was really strong.

All right. Now we're moving in for your close-up. Let's reset. Yeah, here we go. Yeah, I just need to gain good delivery. I like that. Dude, that was really strong. All right. Now we're moving in for your close-up. Let's reset. Yeah, here we go. Yeah, I just need to gain 100 pounds. Nah, dude. You already got it, dude. I'm fired.

He's a chef in that movie, right? The Rock? Yeah, that's his soft side. Yeah. He's like, I'm a chef. And everyone's like, you should be beating people's asses. And he's like, fuck you.

The action scenes are pretty unique in that movie. The way that they design him, he can punch through pillars. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Which's like, fuck you. The action scenes are pretty unique in that movie. Like the way that they design him. Like he can punch through pillars. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Which is like, you're like, that's a strong choice. But it's the rock, so it looks like he can make some strong decisions. Well dude, the one scene that stuck with me is when they're going in water. Maybe you can relate to this going down to the jungle.

She's like, don't pee in the water. And he's like, why? She's like, a parasite will crawl inside your pintu. And you'll have to chop it off. He's like,'t pee in the water and he's like why she's like a parasite will crawl inside and inside your pintu and you'll have to chop it off he's like my pintu she's like your ding dong and that stuck with me because i surf and every time i pee in the water i'm like is something gonna crawl up my pintu right all right your pintu so well i i think mine would be along your same, now that you brought it up, Make My Day. Oh, nice. That was great.

He's a beast. And everyone misquotes that. He never says, do you punk? He just calls him punk earlier than that. Oh, really? Yeah. That's like when you watch Say Anything and he holds the boombox over his head. It's not as dramatic as you think it'd be because it's been built up so much right dirty here's a

great movie i watched that when we were in new york city i watched that in the hotel room and i was like this is great yeah don't you just that bad guy in there his laugh you just loved it that what a great actor that guy is yeah it was phenomenal i i think i just watched it also yeah parts of it. It's great. Oh, Strider, what's your quote of the week? Oh, okay, my quote of the week, because we had Bill on, I re-watched a movie recently after viewing Lost City of the Monkey God, which was very dank. I watched Lost City of Zed, Lost City of Z.

Charlie Hunnam, he plays Percy Fawcett, a real guy, British explorer, goes into Bolivia. And when he's there and this is kind of a spoiler so i'm sorry and i'm going to paraphrase a little bit you know him and his son are being held captive by some natives they never found the bodies they don't know what happened uh and uh he just looks at his son and he's like we have lived lives that most men could never even imagine we have to be so grateful for this moment and we are here together and I love you and he goes I love you dad and then they fucking give him this weird

juice and like carry them out and some like weird thing and it's in some ritual murder some weird which ritual well they kind of justified earlier the chief is it's not like mean or anything but like you know this is who knows how real this is or what based on whatever but like there's a cannibalistic tribe they visit earlier in that and this tribe isn't really labeled as cannibals but could be based on that and then they're like oh they're finding a place for their souls and that chief goes we must he goes they're not the christians who are persecuting us like uh because there's people in there like robbing things or something like that and i think maybe they're a christian or

something but uh he's like they're not them and're not us, so we need to find a place for their souls. Unfortunately, according to the customs of that tribe, means they probably died. In a ritual. My quote of the week is from someone's senior yearbook, and it's, you can bail on work, but you can never bail on your bros. Fire, dude. Fire, dude.

Chad, what's your phrase of the week for getting after it? I forgot to tell you about this, too. But you know what? Honestly, your license plate the week for getting after it um i forgot to tell you about this too but you know what honestly your license plate plays into it already so you've already no i'm gonna let you i'm gonna this one we kind of this one we kind of always do spontaneously and provide magic it's like butter canine let's bark at authority whoa let's bark at authority whoa wait did it help canine guy i was like oh that was nice connected the canine that was nice dude i could do that for you if you want i have one okay let's try to but i'm open to it let's hit the d floor it's for the dance floor dude dude my my adorable gf had a hilarious one she told me in australia they call barbecues sausage sizzles really oh let's go sizzle let's go sausage sizzle

i love it dude that's a great phrase well you gave me a an out You know, I think I'll stick with Asima. Yep. Asima. Oh, nice. It's a fire phrase. Every second is a miracle. Right. I love it.

Bill. That's it. That's it? That's it. Thank you so much. And you went the long haul. This is one of the longer ones, but you have been such an incredible guest. Thank you.

It's been fabulous. I mean, I could keep going. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I love that. We'll have to get together. I'll have to have you guys come to my house sometime yeah i would really love that that'd be great that'd be awesome no this is terrific thank you thank you so much um yeah bill bill benninson lost city the monkey god uh is there is there any like where that's going to land or anything you

want to say we're working on getting distribution now. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Aaron. Thank you, Aaron. Aaron, you're a legend, dude. Let's crack open this taco salad.

Oh, dude, fired up. I knew you'd come with some heat at the end. Dude, and honestly, dude, I don't want to, like, pat myself on the back too much, but I've kind of been facing adversity this whole podcast doing it with this dong cut that I recently got. Look at this haircut, dude. Just a... Look like a dong. Like an eraser.

Dude, but I like the dong look. For real? Are you for real with that? Yeah, I'm for real, dude. Thank you. Freaking mean that. Great. Thank'm for real dude thank you freaking mean that great thank you bill thank you thank you so much great thank you thank you guys thank you guys thank you guys for if you need advice. These guys are really nice. You want to know what to do, where to go.

When you need someone to guide you, there's a half-hearted side to quality. Quality. I'm going deep. I'm going deep. I'm going deep. I'm going deep. I'm going deep.