Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #107 Mike Catherwood

Episode Date: September 9, 2019

Mike Catherwood, also known as Psycho Mike, is an American radio personality. He is known for his work at KROQ-FM on Kevin and Bean and as the co-host of Loveline from 2010 to 2016, and the Neon Black podcast. Catherwood also hosts High and Dry, a podcast with Jason Ellis where they discuss their daily lives among various other topics. In this episode we get into Mike's backstory growing up, his history in body building, and the entertainment business.   Connect with Mike Catherwood: Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/mikecatherwood/?hl=en Twitter | https://twitter.com/MikeCatherwood Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/MichaelDwightCatherwood/   Listen to the High and Dry Podcast | https://apple.co/2WH3854   Show Notes: World Famous KROQ | https://kroq.radio.com/ Dancing with the Stars | https://bit.ly/2KN15u4 Sirius XM | https://www.siriusxm.com/jasonellis Buck Angel | https://buckangel.com/ Rude Jude | https://www.onemorejude.com/ The Wrestler | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61-GFxjTyV0 John Meadows | https://www.instagram.com/mountaindog1/?hl=en Dorian Yates on Rogan | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu-7WSjaVyU Ronnie Coleman Documentary | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcYmqZphJ5A   Show Sponsors: MindBullet https://mindbullet.com/kingsbu (Use code word KINGSBU at Checkout for 20% Off)    Waayb CBD www.waayb.com (Get 10% off using code word Kyle at checkout)   Onnit Foods & Supplements Get 10% off all foods and supplements at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/kyle/   Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on: Twitter | https://bit.ly/2DrhtKn Instagram | https://bit.ly/2DxeDrk Get 10% off at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/podcast/ Subscribe to Kyle Kingsbury Podcast iTunes | https://apple.co/2P0GEJu Stitcher | https://bit.ly/2DzUSyp Spotify | https://spoti.fi/2ybfVTY  

Hey, y'all. I realize I've been saying, hey, y'all, quite a bit on this podcast. And you might be thinking, isn't this fucker from California and not from Texas? But I just want to tell you, y'all is a great word. It is a great word, just like the word hella is a great word. And I still use hella. I might be the only guy who says hella and y'all. But I do think Aubrey's gotten me to say y'all and I've gotten him to say hella. So there's a little bit of, I don't know if that's like cultural appropriation. Is that what that is? I don't know.

Cultural appropriation. I don't know if that's what it is. Amalgamation, I would say. But yeah, I do remember the first time I heard that on Food Network, Paula Deen would say, hey, y'all, I'm just going to knead this stick of butter into a hamburger patty and fry it up because burgers need more butter. And I fell in love with her, even though I couldn't stand when she'd say, hey, y'all, to open it up. So hopefully you're not triggered by me saying, hey, y'all, when you realize that I'm not

country and I'm not from the South. But guess what? I fucking love it here in Texas. And we've got a dope ass episode that I recorded out in L.A. with a dope dude from SoCal. Mike Catherwood has been a guy, longtime radio presence in LA. He was a bodybuilder. We talk about all of his history with that and his history now coming into health and wellness. He is the co-host of the High and Dry podcast with my boy, Jason Ellis, who fought me at the last Ellis Mania out in Vegas. I love

these guys. They're great human beings. Mike is a guy who is genuine as fuck. I truly came to understand why Jason Ellis loves him as much as he does and why he'd be a great guy to be a co-host with on a podcast. You know, he's got a lot to say. He's articulate, well-spoken, and just a phenomenal guest. I know you guys are going to enjoy this one the way that I did. There's a few ways you can support this show. Click subscribe so you never miss an episode.

As I stated last weekend, as I stated last Friday, we are running two episodes a week until the end of the year. So don't miss a beat. Click subscribe now. You can leave us a fat five-star rating and a lovely comment to go along with it. And that will help other people see the wisdom and knowledge that is dropped on this show. Or just that you fucking like the show, and you tell your mom, you tell your girlfriend, you tell somebody else to listen to it.

Word of mouth is good too, but five-star ratings will get us to climb the polls, and we'll get other people to see it, and that really helps us. And finally, one of the most important ways is to support our awesome sponsors who pay money to have advertising space on this show. They're all hand-selected by myself.

They're all products that I use personally and they're products that I don't just like. They're products I fucking love. One of those products is a product called MindBullet and it is a specialty from Southeast Asia, Mitrianga Speciosa, that has the ability to give you energy. It's been used for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It gives you energy in the morning to kickstart your day like a cup of coffee. It's

on a separate pathway in the brain, so it works synergistically with your cup of joe. You don't have to give up your caffeine habit to use MindBullet. But I'll tell you right now, from an energetic standpoint and from a mood lifting standpoint, there's nothing like it. I feel better when I take it. I take it in the morning when I wake up with a tall glass of water. And I also have another one pre-workout and it's fire. If you go to mindbullet.com slash Kingsboo, that's K-I-N-G-S-B-U, my Instagram or Twitter handle, you'll get 20% off. Fucking big deal, 20% off. So check that out. Hit me up on the gram. Let me know what you think of it. It's phenomenal. Also, the very best CBD on planet Earth is a sponsor of this show, Wave. Wave is an all-organic company that has a

huge fucking farm out in Colorado. They make incredible products, 100% organic, 100% solvent free. They use a CO2 extraction to get all their raw materials in there. It's a full spectrum CBD. That means you get every cannabinoid in there at a very high level. And it's phenomenal. It lowers inflammation, helps me with sleep and helps me get rid of some of those old aches and pains. I think it's incredible. It tastes phenomenal. I mean, my son loves it and he's a kid. He's going to tell me that he doesn't like the flavor. We take medicine at night and he's got to have cold medicine. He doesn't like it. But if he takes the CBD, that's his favorite. He loves the cinnamon flavor. I know you guys will too. Go to wabe.com. That's W-A-A-Y-B.com slash Kyle for 10% off.

And as always, onit.com slash Kyle for 10% off all supplements and food products. Food products would include all of our fabulous fat butters. They're the best in the fucking business. You can add them to shakes, add it to your coffee. Snickerdoodle is my favorite, but there's a lot of really good ones. So check out those food products.

Check out our supplements. 10% off on it.com slash Kyle. Check this episode out. Let me know what you think. Hit me up on the gram at Kingsboo and I will kindly respond to all of your questions. Thanks for tuning in. Mike catherwood in the house hey hey what's up brother nothing man i mean life is very good life is very good i think we met uh at ellis mania was it ellis

ellis mania 15 yeah the most recent one in vegas okay that's right because there's been one or two there's been one well kind of cheating there was two but they were in the same day at the same time okay jason just decided like like let's let's start starting 19 now or something um but yeah that was uh that was a quite an event yeah that was a good one we had uh i think i think you were poolside for podcasts and and the live stuff going oh yes and uh it was the only it was the only way and i've ever seen where both men were in in speedos and i believe one was on psychedelic drugs no i saved the psychedelics for the actual for the actual fight oh yeah yeah and it was a microdose to be clear it wasn't okay i wasn't going deep no that is that's a good choice because i've

actually been punched in the face while on like a dose like a large dose of mushrooms it's terrible it's terrible you gotta tell us the story now i i just was at a like house party in Santa Barbara and went up to party with my friends who were in college at UCSB. And it was a really rowdy environment, especially in the late 90s. Santa Barbara was just crazy. And I was on mushrooms. I ate a bunch of mushrooms and standing there minding my own business at like a house party and this giant fight breaks out and i'm kind of watching you know just observing on mushrooms everything's like and uh this guy just got his tracks me in the side of the face going in the background yeah i know there's some nice like grateful dead just like oozing through my brain and i got his cracks me on the side of the face and i was and it was strange because i was incredibly um from from like a pain threshold i was incredibly tolerant to it but at the same time like it ruined my whole life like my whole mind it was like what are you doing

man that's terrible why would you even do that you know and everybody's just but you just ruined your life in the moment yeah like 20 yeah, yeah. Like 20 minutes later. 20 minutes later, everything was fine. That's funny. Yeah, I've been out to Santa Barbara before and we got in a scrap. Yeah. And I was in college too. I was at Arizona State. But I was like, damn, they fucking get down here.

All right. It's a really strange thing. Like, you know, Chuck Liddell's from Santa Barbara. I mean, it's a really rough kind of wild place but at the same time it's a bunch of like passive surf beach town retirees and there's like a weird combination of it's like if carmel got a little salty yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i could see that so did you grow up here in la yeah on the east side pasadena area okay what uh how was how was growing up um i actually my life was pretty awesome i mean um i i was actually writing a letter my parents the other day and i was um

i was commenting about how much i appreciate them and like the lifestyle they provided for me. And this is, I, I believe me, if you're listening, I don't, I'm not trying to sound woke or try to pander to like the politically correct world that we live in. But I, I was just, I feel so fortunate that I was not burdened by discrimination in any way because my parents, everything was normal to me. You know, uh, we had gay family friends as far back as I remember. I'm of mixed, uh, you know, ethnicities and we had every single kind of color of the rainbow was part of my family and my friend network and my high school you know my school growing up if you were like a blonde white guy you were by far the minority you know and there was and my

neighborhood had 20 languages on billboards and and businesses and edifices in front and stuff and you know not to wax poetic about it but my point being is that everything in the world was completely normal to me so i just grew up um organically without like any sense of of stuff being awkward or weird and uh i don't i don't take that for granted you know because yeah i i feel like different walks of life it's like um it's like stinky cheese or exotic foods like if you grew up with it it's it's not exotic or different you know it's just part of the deal but if you if the first time you have some type of really like offensive abrasive cheese is you know when you're 20 you're like what the fuck is this i'm Velveeta. You know, it doesn't make any sense, you know? So did you, I mean, it must've been, I grew up in the Bay area and obviously a huge, huge

Asian, uh, culture there. And that includes India. India is a part of Asia. Um, my school is like 70% Asian, including India. Yeah. Mine too. And, um, yeah, so we have literally 30%, uh, white people there. I think we had like three or four black kids

in the entire school. And I played with a bunch in football, but that was different because we had those from different schools, different areas. So I did have a good mix of different friends, but yeah, it's funny because like I, my, my brother-in-law is Thai. He's first generation American. His parents are from Thailand and they have three boys, all similar to my son's age. Their oldest is turning four this month. And then they have two twins that are two. And when they travel, cause they're from the Bay also. So it's like this, it's not, it's not a, what am I looking for? It's not homogenized. You know, it isn't, it isn't like the mixing bowl.

It's the salad bowl. You know, everybody keeps their cultures. But when they leave that environment, even like just outside of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest is great. I'm not trying to shit on any states here. But they get outside of Seattle and then they got all these looks from people. And like my brother-in-law could feel it.

And he's never felt that in the Bay. And I was like, why? And he's like, cause I'm fucking with a white girl. And I was like, oh it's and the mixed babies like where have you felt like culture shock leaving that environment growing up well i'm i'm very ethnically vague so i don't i mean i'm not you know no one would look at me and automatically guess mexican i mean some people do but the i'm and i have a white last name so i um it's really

weird because i get like almost an observer's view of things i remember i was getting a haircut in in the central coast up by san luis obispo area um and for those of you who are not familiar it's it's that's rural california it's agriculture town you know it was i was in a farm town and um i was getting my hair cut in this little little place called templeton california and um this lady who was cutting my hair she's like 10 minutes in and she's like so where are you from where you're visiting from i said los angeles she's like yeah you know i visit la every once in a while it's really kind of nice but fucking mexicans they're just they're like rats they're just infesting the place and i'm like uh-huh yeah you're right i get it was very strange

you know like i i so i get like a a bird's eye view of people and their discrimination about it but like um you just kept your eyes closed. Yeah. You wouldn't see the Brown. So I never, I never really went places where I felt, um, or I felt like out of place or I felt people's eyeballs on me because like I

said, I mean, people could easily think I'm Italian or Greek or something, you know? Um, and, but I, I do recall it sticks in my mind.

Like it was yesterday. I was probably like six or seven years old. And we went to my dad's from from Oregon originally, kind of a woodsy part of Oregon. And we went to a fast food restaurant, a drive through. And where was it? It was all my family's from the Pacific Northwest from Oregon. So it might have been what a burger or burgerville burgerville yeah usa yeah and we went to a drive-thru and um the guy gets on the the microphone

and to take our order he goes welcome to burgerville can i have your order please and i was like in the back seat like what what the fuck because i didn't know that you could have fast food restaurants that go that weren't welcome to mcdonald's can i take your order welcome to jack in the box can i that that literally i i literally did not know that it existed without a hispanic accent you know and as a little boy's brain i was like wait a wait a second. What do you mean? There's a white person taking my order. So that was, that was the first time, like I realized, uh, Oh, things are different in different places. You know, I had this really, really eyeopening experience, uh, about five years ago, um, when I was hosting Loveline with Dr. Drew, it was a nationally syndicated show. So it was awesome to be able to take calls from everywhere.

And this guy calls up and he was from about an hour outside of Cleveland. I remember exactly the whole conversation. He's from Ohio. And he says, hey, Dr. Drew, Mike, I got a problem. I had an Asian girlfriend and she went back to her country of origin and I really loved her. And I really, you know, found her super attractive and I just don't know what to do. I go, you got to give me some more here. Cause I don't, what are you even asking? He's like, where am I going to find another Asian girl? I go, are you, are you serious? Like, he's like, yeah, I don't, what am I going to do that? She was like a unicorn. What am I going to, I'm never good. I go, are you serious? He's like, yeah, what am I going to do? She was like a unicorn.

What am I going to, I'm never going to. I go, dude, get a Southwest ticket to Los Angeles. Go like nine miles on the 10 East. Your head will blow off your fucking neck. You know what I mean? Or just flying to San Francisco, just get out and walk around. You will be amazed you know so i it was uh it was like a very clear um situation for me to to get you know you just it hammers home the fact that life is way different in america in different

spots you know and it's something that i think we we fight against which is actually wrong i mean we should embrace the fact that there's like 20 countries in this country, you know, and like really fucking cool. Yeah. And the lifestyle is so wildly different. I know you live in, in, in Texas and I, I have a love affair with the American South, in particular, the state of Texas. And I, and I love how out of all states texas is the biggest um they they embrace their unique um characteristics the most and almost give a f you to the rest of the country it's like no we're texas we're the republic of texas and you can fuck off if you don't like it you know and i love that you know that i think more and more especially in this day and age where everyone fights against lifestyle,

like everything's so divisive. I'm a relatively conservative guy outside of like social issues. You know, I'm a conservative guy when it comes to economic issues and the military and things like that. But I embrace like embrace like wacky hippie California. Like this is okay. This is where the mostly it's a blue state and people are super duper hippie and they, they have these kind of flighty ideas about things and that's the state. And we should,

we should totally embrace that and not shy away from it and get in arguments with everybody because their lifestyle is different, you know? Yeah. Plus there, there is a place for everyone, you know, like I, I a place for everyone you know like i went to uh kentucky and that was my first time in the south and we were we were in the cuts i

think we're in paducah and i was with um some green berets and different different special ops guys and they were gonna put me through like uh combatives i was putting them through combatives training as much as i could obviously they already had a grip of it and they were going to do some uh some arms trainings with me and it was really cool but i got the warning like some of them were california too and they're like look man it ain't the same like certain groups don't speak to one another and i was like fucking spell it out for me all right it's not like california black guys don't talk to white guys white guys don't talk to black guys and i was like oh shit and uh i think i remember like it was in georgia sports center run that thing in 2013 where it was like the first uh high school prom where they actually wanted to dance together and i was like 2013 what

the fuck like it blew my mind right so we went to a gas station i might have told this before we went to a gas station and we're all fucking with each other and there were three big ass black dudes sitting out front smoking cigarettes and uh you know we walked by and i kind of gave him a head nod and we went in and we got what and there's confederate flags everywhere you know we go and we grab whatever waters energy drinks we come out and um and one of the guys was like hey man y'all ain't from around here i was like no we're from cali he's like oh shit you from cali and then all of them fucking opened up and started chatting with us because they realized we were from a spot that didn't contain right every part of that culture right and that was cool to see that kind of that that that gap bridged you know because like i my

whole life i've been surrounded by black coaches black friends you know black teammates right and like it's just a different it it is, it is completely different. And I do think the internet, everyone likes to bemoan how the internet is deteriorating society. And there's a lot of negative that comes with the internet and social media. But I do think that that's going to be one of the biggest keys to helping kind of make that go away because you get access to all lifestyles now, you know, you're not beholden to three newspapers and three networks and this is the programming

you get. No, you go online and it's like, this is everyone. And you just kind of get exposed to it. So I think, you know, as years go on and we all lifestyles become a little bit more homogenized, I think that's going to that's gonna be a good thing, you know? Yeah. Talk about getting into radio and, and really like what that meant for you growing up because there are, I mean, LA and New York are probably the biggest markets still to this day. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and I don't want to, I got a shit ton of questions that go with that. So I'll leave it there for you. Getting into radio was more than just a career for me. It was life-saving because I grew up, I was a loser.

I was not a good, I was a good athlete for like my high school, but I never had any, it wasn't like I was going to go to play college and, or even sniff the idea of being, making a career out of athletics. You know, I was a three sport athlete. I liked it. I loved it. I was passionate about it. And like I said, I was good. I was good at football. I was good at baseball, but I was never, I was never like the guy, um, on, on any team. And I was a D student. I was, I was a loser. I was, you know, I was, um, uh, uh, kind of a washout. And, um, I, it wasn't just that I was that kind of student and I was that kind of athlete. Uh, it was that I had a mentality like that's the, I told myself that story. You're just one of those,

there's kids that are going to go to college and there's kids that are going to get great jobs. You're the kid that sits in the back of the class and just keeps his mouth shut enough to get a C or a D and not get in anybody's way. And for me at age 17, if I envision getting a union construction gig or something that was over the top dream come true type thing because i just figured i was going to be living you know like my friend's couches and stuff and just kind of a drifter i was a i was a bad bad bad alcoholic drug addict and i recognized it early um and so i kind of just drifted through life until I had these visions of being a rock star. And the worst possible thing happened is that I got into a band with some level of success. So it gave me a ground to stand on and, you know, kind of. So you're in a band.

What did you play? I played bass and vocals. Okay. And I thought, you know, and I was good at it. I could write songs and things and I had, um, ability to, to, to be on stage and I embraced it and I liked it and things. So I, I kind of, you know, in my young, immature, undeveloped mind, I was like telling myself this story. I'm no, this is it. You could do drugs in this job and it's great. And I'm going to be Dave Grohl and life is great. But I adopted the lifestyle much more than I did the music and the, the living on the East coast when I was 1920. And that's when things got really, really dark. And so I, I came back to

Los Angeles kind of hat in hand to my parents and, and, um, got into a recovery facility, uh, a rehab center, got clean. And as I just got a bunch of different straight jobs, you know, like I was a janitor at, um, uh, uh, prosthetics lab. Um, I was an overnight kind of watchman at a rehearsal studio. And then about six months in to living with my parents and getting kind of just doing, really devoted myself to sobriety, I got a job at this rock radio station here in Los Angeles, very kind of famous place called K-Rock, world famous K-Rock. And I got an entry-level job. I was moving boxes and driving the jocks around to different appearances and stuff like that. And I started prank calling the morning show and

making parody songs and just giving them to the morning show. And I remember twice I even stole a mic flag and went out with a microphone and did like on the street interviews and stuff like totally out of totally inappropriate things that you would do at my at my level. But by a set of really strange circumstances, the morning show hired me after about working there for about eight months. And it was the first time in my life where I had something that I was good at and people were telling me I was good at it. It was the first time anyone had ever given me some type of support and acceptance in

something. And it wasn't like being in a death metal band where I was good at something, but my parents were kind of like in denial. You know, this was something that my dad could go to his country club buddies and be like, oh, my son's on radio and you can listen to him in the morning. And it was the very first time that mainstream society had accepted me for something. And it felt amazing. And I just, from that point on, was hyper-focused and super driven. And so I worked for The Morning Show and had a lot of really great personal and professional success in doing that.

And about five, six years into doing that, Adam Carolla had left Loveline and they were looking for a host. And they were auditioning and trying out all these like really talented showbiz successful people, Joel McHale and Olivia Munn and all these people. And I went to the program director and I threw my hat in the ring. I was like, look, I'm in recovery. I have had terrible, lots of terrible experiences in romantic relationships that I can draw from. I really feel like I'm good for this job. And so after about like six months of, of kind of filling in and trying it out, they, they hired me to host Loveline and, and that's when kind of life started unfolding for me. And that's where I really started to get the sense of like, oh, that's your professional

broadcaster and you're 29, 28 years old. And this is something you can do forever. You know, I'd finally found myself. And it was circling back to what I talked about earlier. It was life-saving. It was above and beyond just my career. It was something I could grasp onto and really say like, this is me and it's something positive. It was something that I could grasp onto that wasn't drug addict, that wasn't loser. That was, it was like, no, no, no. This is a positive thing that you can tell yourself you are, you know? Hell yeah. How long did you do Loveline? Six years. Okay. When did you get into podcasting and, you know, like that? I want to, I want to get into the difference here because, you know,

Rogan often talks about how podcasting has changed. It's one of the many things that you look at how our media has changed. And often when we're born, we're born into it. It's like, oh yeah, we fucking iPhones and iPads. It's just the way that it is. But I'm sure you remember like corded phones and shit like that absolutely when cell phones are first in there so i like looking at through that lens at kind of the differences in in how media has changed um the you're totally right i remember in the beginning of podcasting 2008 2009 where where it was like kevin smith and tom green you know like it was just like three dudes you know and kevin pollack i remember it but as a radio guy i was like let's that's

silly yeah that's something you do in your mom's basement it's not a real gig it's not real um Um, and I, I'd been fortunate enough, um, uh, probably two years into hosting Loveline. I started to get a lot more TV jobs. I started filling for Regis, um, with, with some frequency back, back when Regis still hosted live with Regis and Kelly, you know, he was like 80. Um, so he would have to take like weeks off pretty frequently. And what they would do is like stunt casting. They would do the men of Major League Baseball, the men of New York City Fire, the men of fill in the blank job. And one of the weeks they did was the men of radio. And they had a contest where the listeners of radio shows around the country would nominate um prospective co-hosts and like so out of nowhere people nominated me to do it and and i

you're in a massive market and you're good right well and but i'm in a massive market and i was good at it but i was also like morning radio kind of silly shock jockey world. You know, like I made fart jokes for a living. And so like the idea that they would want me to come in and fill in for Regis was completely foreign. I thought like Kimmel and Kevin and Bean were pranking me. You know, I didn't think it was. But so I won this contest and I went in and I filled in for Regis. And television jobs just unfolded from that.

So I started to really get business and do well in television too and had a lot of like really mainstream jobs. I would do Access Hollywood. I would do E! News. And then like Live with Regis and Kelly. I would feel I would do access Hollywood. I would do e-news and then, and then like live with Regis and Kelly and these really commercial mainstream gigs. And I saw that in glaring contrast to radio, that was very structured.

And there was a very narrow kind of margin of things you could say and could not say. Yeah. You got to get a hair and makeup done before there's a whole production. You have 11 producers. You're in a box with the shit you can talk about. And you are not free to be yourself. You are kind of guided into what you can say.

The questions you can ask guests. It's very structured and very limited in a lot of ways. And so I didn't like that. Go fast forward to, say, 2012, 2013. And I started to recognize that radio was becoming that way. It started to get so limited and you were very controlled in the things you could do, which was so different than the radio I grew up in even just five years prior to that, where it was like the wild west. So I started to open my eyes to things like podcasts. Now, by this point, like I said, 2012, 2013 2013 people are making a real living at podcasting

and it's not something that traditional broadcasters pointed their finger at and laughed at it would it had become the place where people were doing really really groundbreaking effective broadcasting things like like like rogan obviously mark maron the list goes on and on even like the big productions like npr and some of these other you know like they're they were great you know the fresh air yeah and yeah and um and there was radio theater productions you know like these these murder mysteries and the inner um excuse me podcast productions like that and and so this world kind of looking at radio as something that I didn't recognize anymore and wanted to kind of maybe open my eyes to other things, podcasting really became this reality. And so did Sirius XM. Sirius XM started to. And at that time, that's when I had already become

friendly personally with Jason Ellis. But that's when the notion of like, maybe even professionally pursuing that and, you know, doing something in Sirius XM and then the world of podcasting, that's when it became a reality. And so I started pursuing that. Yeah. It seems like, like when Sirius XM came out and they were separate first and joined right that that was like almost like the hbo to cable right you could have like an hbo you could see titties and and there's no commercials and uh you know rated r programming and above is fully acceptable and then that's kind of what that brought to to audio you know i remember that that gathered a lot of people i remember like you know he ran a car it's already got it installed that kind of shit and um and then podcasting was another layer to

that right not as high production you know but but not for a lot of people at least but i remember going uh when i went on jason's show i was like holy shit like this this i've never been in a i guess i've been on on a couple radio shows when I was fighting, but I wasn't paying attention to it as much. It was just like, oh yeah, whatever. They have all these gadgets and gizmos here. But once I was in podcasting and I went on Jason's, I was like, good God, this is a fucking big-ass production. They have tables as big as this table

that are just covered in ways to affect the audio. It was pretty cool to see that. But it's very cool to see that. And I appreciate the big, polished, over-the-top production of really good radio shows and podcasts. But something else I really appreciate is the punk rock kind of DIY ethic of the fact that you don't need all that

to make a great podcast. You got a laptop and some microphones. Dude, you can do your own show. That's crazy. And I love that aspect of it. A lot of people, traditional broadcasters, they look down on that and they're like, fuck that. I had to work so hard to get to the point

where I can make my own show. I don't like that kids can just do it like that. I disagree. I think it's amazing. And I love the fact that people, if you have a dream, you can have access to it. You want to communicate to the world, do it like that. I disagree. I think it's amazing. And I love the fact that people, if you have a dream, you can have access to it. You want to communicate to the world, do it. Yeah. I like that because it does give like an equal opportunity to everyone. I mean, I remember the first microphone I bought when I got into it, it was like $150 Yeti

that plugged right into the computer and I could do Skype interviews and shit like that. And it did, wasn't a perfect microphone, but it wasn't bad. yeah you know it wouldn't have shitty audio it was good i i don't know if kids who grow up in this world can truly understand they almost by their own fault not by their own fault take it for granted but in the 90s man when my friends wanted to make a skate video they had to rent equipment and understand light learn about lighting and figure out different camera angles and really kind of invest their studying you know it didn't have to be too polished but they had to start understanding cinematography and there was it was a production and then you had to make it into a vhs and get distribution and stuff like that nowadays it's like get your phone out watch your friend do a skate park that's the skate part and put it up on youtube the end you know it's really crazy and uh

uh i like i said i don't know if kids can eat it's not it's not even their own fault they just kind of take that for granted to just know what it was like in the good old days you know yeah i was a young guy yeah it's nice because everyone would throw their their hat in but also at the same time you're like it's it's i think it's daunting for some people like oh i'm starting a youtube channel like if you said that today you'd be like bro youtube is loaded yeah you know and then you hear that with podcasting and like oh what's it about we were just talking about this in my podcast producer ryan um there it does it's not to say if you're starting a podcast now it can't be done i'm not trying to discourage people at all i think it's great and just like rogan like fuck yeah do it because the cream rises to the top and if you have a good product you don't have to worry about shit like

it's going to get there eventually but at the same time a lot of people are like well you know rogan can do it anyone can or you know what's it about well i'm just going to have conversations with people and it's like oh you kind of got a little have a little direction here you know something that differentiates you from other people, unless you're great at speaking and you have some, some level of expertise. You can do the, you can do the very broad cast. Uh, if you're Rogan and you have, uh, 20 years of experience in show business and are an excellent, uh, standup comedian, excellent standup comedian has a wealth of knowledge in a shit ton of areas. And you have access to great guests and all of that but if you're not if you're just a regular

joe you better narrow cast you better really fine-tune what you want to talk about and and hit a niche market because uh not everybody has has the ability to just throw you know like i'm just going to talk about what's interesting to me and people are going to listen. Yeah. I hear that a lot. So you, you were a regular on Ellis's show and then now you guys have your own podcast. High and dry. Okay. And that started fairly recently. Yeah, I did like maybe three months ago, you know, um, we had just, uh, we'd always toyed with the idea of doing something together, just us two. But we were, we were lifting weights at Gold Gym in Venice Beach. And Jason's like, hey, let's, let's do it.

Let's do a show. And I was like, yeah, man, we really should. And not, I really like doing it because I like doing it. But I also like high and dry because it exposes the side of Jason that we know that the rest of the world doesn't. It's like he is a man who's covered head to toe in tattoos and does all these wild stunts and transferred from being a world-class vert skater into mma so he's this super macho incredibly daring kind of wild animal but anyone who knows him for any level

of time on a personal level you know like jason's a really sensitive guy yeah like a super sensitive guy that um he has a has a very real, very likable soft side. And I wanted to push that with this podcast. It wasn't just going to be an extension of the Jason Ellis show with stunts and craziness. I wanted to really like talk about mental health and struggles and dealing with abuse and trauma and show that like a guy like Jason is super alpha male. Oh, yeah. You know, he does cry and he does, he does worry about himself. And, um, I, I like to look at it like the difference between the Jason Ellis show is hip hop. It's all about talking about his

omnipotence and how awesome he is and about how he's better than any other mc on the microphone and high and dry is like country music it's all about exposing your vulnerability and talking about how like you're after your breakup you got a bottle of whiskey in your pickup and you're crying about it you know yeah that's the way i like to kind of make the analogy about the difference you know i like that what what would you say are some of the guests that you have on? We've had a really great episode recently with Buck Angel, who's a, I don't know how to, he was born a woman. Okay. So I don't know, but he's now a man, but has a vagina, but he's a man. He's like a manly man, but he's an adult star.

And talking to Buck about- He said he's an adult star. And talking to Buck about... He said he's an adult star, isn't it? Yeah. So he's out there living his life in front of the camera as this trans male. And talking to him about identity, about embracing who you really are in a world that kind of pushes you to be something else was really, really eye-opening for me. And I think really special for Jason, who has just recently been open about his bisexuality. And I always tell Jason, I was like,

man, it's really important for you to be open about it because nothing against these guys it's very brave for adam lambert or lance bass to talk about being open about being gay but we look at we're like we always kind of knew you were gay let's not and and you and you fit the stereotype of what a gay male is in america the kind of the effeminate thing you're into musical theater or whatever it may be jason so does not fit the idea of what homosexuality is in this country and i was like dude for the kid who is into moto and into mma but is also gay and is listening, you mean so much to them compared to, um, you know, filling, you know, uh, who's the, the figure skater. We're Johnny Weir,

you know what I'm saying? Like that, that guy can't relate to Johnny Weir because Johnny Weir has probably been the gay kid since he was in kindergarten. You are someone who's a breath of fresh air to so many people. And it's really, um, it's so great to see Jason start to really embrace that. And so Buck was a, was a great, was a great guest. Um, we had a rude Jude for also from, uh, Sirius XM, um, the all out show. Um, and. And we talk to these people who are, by their own design, living on the fringes of society. And it's been really interesting for me and like a gift to do that.

And I think as the show starts to gain traction, we'll start to get more mainstream commercial people to come on the show. And the goal would be to get them to open up about their insecurities and their struggles with, you know, with dealing with just being human, all the stuff that we kind of deal with. Yeah. I love that. And, you know, you've been talking about Jason and his hyper-masculinity from the looks, from the outside. That's something that resonates with me because I know a lot of guys in MMA, like even Chuck Liddell, who we were talking about, like he's, he's a fucking teddy bear. He's an absolute sweetheart.

And I see that with his kids, but even with his homies, you know, when I was training with him out in slow, it was just like, you're one of the most fucking genuine people I've ever met. Right. You know, and no chip on your shoulder, you got nothing to prove. You're just the genuine dude. And that always resonated with me. Um, but I'm sitting across from you, you got a hoodie on, I've watched you on the gram pull 500 pounds, which, you know, as you mentioned, by power lifting standards is a munch. It's still a fucking lot. So it's a heap.

And you got into bodybuilding. I want you to talk about how your fitness has changed because you definitely walk the walk and look the part of somebody that takes care of themselves. Oh, thank you, man. You know, and I think that that also, as you've been painting Jason in that light for you to come across as you are with your podcast, I think it's incredibly valuable to people as well. Thank you, dude. I appreciate it. Um, fitness has always been an integral part in kind of how I get by, uh, it's therapeutic as much as it is, um, you know, for my own physical benefit, but

it's really changed, um, for me since, you know, my early, I started, it, it only makes sense, but I started really adopting, um, fitness as a, as a main part of my lifestyle when I got sober. Um, when I was drinking and using every day, it wasn't exactly like I was going to be hitting the gym or worrying about what I was eating. When I got sober, I really put all my chips into training. And we were talking about it before we got on the air. I think I made a huge mistake into diving into bodybuilding, into sobriety as a way of getting healthy because it was not healthy. It was super not healthy. The dieting, the obsession aspect of it. And I'm not, I'm not

on bodybuilding. I, I still hold tremendous admiration for people who are able to do it well because the level of discipline and self- control it takes to be good at bodybuilding is second to none second honestly it's like we all know professional nfl players mma fighters and stuff who are just they work really hard but they were born fucking awesome athletes and they eat uh you know daniel cormier still talks about he's like i had ice cream sandwiches on the way to AKA, and then I'm going to go fuck people up. Um, what you have to sacrifice to do, to, to be at high level bodybuilding is, is, is second to none, but it's an unhealthy world. It's an unhealthy, I got way into steroids. I got way into dieting. I got way into, um, micromanaging every aspect of my life to fit

bodybuilding as opposed to just enjoying myself. And now I've really gone away from, it still matters to me. I want to look good when I take my shirt off at the beach. Don't get me wrong. I want my wife to be attracted to me, but that is way down the list of why I, I train and eat, eat healthy. I really want, I use, I use physical fitness as a way to kind of make myself a more complete person. Um, I look at, you know, the physical as just as important part to my health, overall health as my emotional, my psychological and my intellectual. And I feel like if one prong of that four pronged kind of deal isn't healthy, it kind of it's like Christmas lights. It screws up the whole bit. So I now look at it as just a piece of who I am and stuff. And if, if I'm with my daughter and she wants to have hamburgers, I'll have hamburgers.

You know, it doesn't, I don't register it the same way that I used to where it was like, no, I can't, you know, you can have a hamburger, but I'm going to go take my Tupperware of broccoli and chicken. And that's what I'm going to have, you know, plain chicken patty. Yeah. Nothing on it. Yeah. And again, like I said, if that's your life and that's what you love, go for it. And I, and I,

my hat's off to you. It's just not where I'm at anymore. Yeah. I have a lot of respect for bodybuilders. I kind of liken them to pro wrestlers in a way. And that's not because they have any similarities with, with, with the,

the gimmick or, or what they're into in terms of how they display themselves publicly. Right. But if you watch The Wrestler with Darren Aronofsky, it's such a good movie. Yeah. And even if you just know wrestling, it takes its toll on the body.

So they're sacrificing themselves in a way, their physical bodies, to be a master of their trade. And I think in bodybuilding, there's a lot of similarities there. There's a degree of mastery that takes place at the highest level, but they are sacrificing their health to be the best at that thing. And it's cool to see that. It is cool. Oh, no. Die hard commitment to something is awesome yeah in any in any world but with bodybuilding die hard commitment comes at a huge price i like to play this game at gold i work out at gold gym venice the mecca of bodybuilding and there's pictures all over the wall of the champion bodybuilders for 50 years that have been training there and i like to play

the game of who's still alive and And you just go around, you point those pictures like dead kidney failure, dead, you know, cancer of the colon. And it's just like, he was 35 and he's dead, you know? And so I think they have a whole like death polls kind of like in the movie Deadpool, you know, like who's going to die first of like the guy at the top dudes in bodybuilding. And that's not to make light of it, but I certainly think it's getting healthier now, you know, but for a while there, you know, with the copious amounts of things taken and maybe not understanding the bigger picture of health

or even just looking at now, like there is a lot in self-quantification and even in Western medicine, where if you know what to look for, you can see things coming ahead of time. So I think guys are doing a better job of kind of monitoring their own personal health as they go through that. And a lot of people deserve credit for being the vanguard of the health movement in body, you know, John Meadows and the Mountain Dog, Dorian Yates and his retirement. There's a lot of

people who have started to really push the idea that, no, you can aspire to be healthy and be a champion bodybuilder too. Yeah, I love that. Dorian really showed a ton of balance. I'll link to his podcast with Rogan after this in the show notes, but that just blew my mind. I was like, damn, this guy was one of the greatest

of all time and got into yoga and ayahuasca and DMT and cannabis,'s he's still coaching people still very much involved with bodybuilding i think his wife or his partner is a really good female bodybuilder yeah yeah and like that's it's cool to see that that he could still have one foot in it and then have one foot more like a holistic approach to his health right and and the two can exist can coexist they really can um i know a lot of people don't, don't believe that, you know, but the two can coexist. And, um, I, you know, big, another big turning point for me, cause I still always had the insecurity about like, well, if my muscles go away, I'm somehow inadequate. I feel inadequate about it, you know, but then

I watched the Ronnie Colemanman documentary which is awesome it's on netflix and if anybody even if you're not into bodybuilding i i highly recommend you check it out ronnie coleman another guy who without question one of the greatest that's ever ever lived in in the world of bodybuilding cannot walk anymore he literally has crutches and wheelchairs to get around and the man's in his early 50s he was a cop in arlington i remember watching the old video of him i think it was a workout video so it had to be prior to this documentary being made but it's the one where he's he's got like 200 pound dumbbells in each hand and he's going lightweight yeah lightweight maybe yeah everybody want to be a

bodybuilder but nobody wanted no heavy weights i have a uh crazy ronnie coleman story i was at gold's gym in pasadena and i was um i was chest pressing a dumbbell chest pressing and i had uh 110s which is you know like you know it's respectable but it's like no one not a bodybuilder right right no guys at uh west side barbell are laughing at you know but i you know i had 110s and i was working out with those and getting sets in and ronnie coleman walks up and uh he's he's like um can i get those and i was like absolutely and and to his credit he was super kind he's like take your time i'll wait and i was like okay i only got two more sets um and he's like okay no problem and i'm i finished my set and he's standing there with his like weight caddy you know just waiting for me and ronnie coleman

without really warming up or doing anything picks them up and starts curling them i'm like oh holy shit he's like i'm gonna do some dumbbell kickbacks real quick just totally fucking ruined me man i couldn't sniff like i think i could hammer curl 50s at one point right i'm pretty long and lean but yeah it's it's funny to see like the differences in that you're just like good god right especially among like coleman was a really strong body he was the strongest that was kind of the knock i think back in the day was like you don't have to be super strong to be a bodybuilder if you're always just training hypertrophy but you look at

guys like stan the rhino efforting and stan's got a great uh approach to diet i think he does the vertical diet and when i get mark bell back on the show, I'll have him unpack that a bit and maybe I'll get with the Rhino at some point. But yeah, he always finishes a workout. He's in Las Vegas Athletic Club and of course he's homies with them. So a lot of these globo gyms, you can't deadlift and clang the weights and he's allowed to do whatever the fuck he wants. So he'll take a hex bar and do farmer's walks with it to finish like for like a hundred yards with 600 pounds in his hand. And it's like, that's the fucking end of his workout. Right.

That's the burnout. Yeah. It's like, let's just, let's just cap this off real quick. It was like, fuck, look at all those blades. But there's also, there's somebody said about specialization, like you said said becoming a master of that but to me it when i see like strong men or like high level crossfit competitors that blows my mind even more because they'll be dead lifting 650 and then run a six minute mile and you're like wow okay now we're talking about something really impressive because i know i'm working out at Venice gold. I know tons of dudes that are jacked,

but they walk like Quasimodo and their body doesn't exactly move that well. When I see guys who are, uh, you know, they bench three plates for reps and then can go and pull off a yoga class. I'm like, wow. Now, now we're talking about some really impressive stuff, you know? Yeah. They're finding balance there. Well, what do you guys, what you were talking a bit about where you see the podcast going and kind of really taking these other high level people and opening them up. What else do you have going on in your life now? Are you still doing anything with TV or? Yeah, yeah.

No, I just, I just did a access Hollywood earlier this week. And so I'm still holding on to this kind of mainstream commercial television. And as much as I like to bemoan how it's very restrictive and stuff, it is. But it's also amazing. I get a paycheck to be silly in the morning with, you know, with Alyssa Milano or, you know, like I get to go do an interview with, with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper and people pay me for it. And I just, I ask them a couple of questions and things, you know, so I'm not, I'm, I'm not in any way complaining or thinking like, that's not, that's something I have to, to shy away from. And, and in the same way that we were talking about like the CrossFit competitor or the guy or gal who can really find balance in fitness,

I've started to really embrace and feel good about the fact that like, oh, I can go on Ellis on a Friday and play get the cock off my chest or put an RC car tied up to my balls and then in the same day go and do a family-friendly interview with Candace Cameron Bure or something, like talk about her new Hallmark Channel show.

I like the idea of being able to kind of be a jack of all trades when it comes to broadcasting like that. Yeah, I think that's an important piece, too, for people is that like if you don't have to give up the thing that pays well or gets your name out or any of these things, like if you have the thing that you love to going in tandem. And oftentimes the thing that you love in tandem may not be something you get paid from, you know, but if you have, as long as you have both those things, it's very freeing for your creative expression and how you feel. And you don't necessarily then feel like you're a cog in the wheel or that you have this muzzle on your mouth, you know. I remember so clearly, like 2011-ish, an interview with George Clooney, and he was talking about how he does the Oceans movies so that he can make

good night and good luck. Yeah. He gets, he has the major motion picture, super studio movie and gets paid insane money. And he does that so that he's has the, the ground to stand on to do his passion projects. And I would,

I mean, not to even compare myself or put myself in. And, uh, I w I mean, not to even compare myself or put myself in the same sport as, as George Clooney, but that always rung true to me and, and made a lot of sense. And I, and I'm developing TV shows. I have a animated show that, um, got bought by comedy central and stuff that, uh, I been working on with Ed Helms and amazing, you know, Fred Armisen and Danny Trejo and stuff like that. And it's like, it blows my mind. It still seems so surreal that I get a chance to work with guys like that, but none of that happens unless I have a day job that I can fall back on and feel comfortable about.

Yeah. I have a good friend of mine that I went to school with in college. He was, or actually he didn't attend ASU, but he became a firefighter for Phoenix when he was a or actually he didn't attend asu but he became a firefighter for phoenix when he was 19 he's a captain now and uh firefighter paramedic and captain and really just an awesome guy and he his passion is fishing he's like for his bachelor party we went up and fished in the kenai river getting salmon and and he's got his boat up there and he you know he ran out airbnbs eventually wants to have his own cabin but he's gonna and he loves firefighting too but it's a very hard very hard job absolutely and not just physically hard like very challenging to the mental emotional you know like in the the sleep patterns and just yeah but you know one example he used and this isn't to say this isn't to go super dark but um just to paint a picture of what they go through you You know, everybody understands cops see kind of

some of the perils of society and what's going on, but firefighters definitely do. And he used the example of, you know, the first time, because it's multiple times, but the first time you walk up to a kid floating in a pool and you have to communicate with the parents about that, like that imprints you in a way that nothing else can, right? So that job comes with extreme challenges

and he'll still go until he can retire. But then his main passion will be to fish and to host people out there and do fishing tours. And that's really cool to see that he can, he can have those both at the same time and have that, that sort of balance, you know, and that's a, that's a great part about the world we live in, especially, especially for dudes and not to get chauvinistic and everything, but they're not too long ago, pretty recently you, you, you went into the military or you got a job, you went, you went to college or you didn't go to college and you, but you got your career or you went into the military and you did that and then you retire and then you sit on the couch and that's what you do. That was the template for being a man in America. Yeah. And now it's like, no, you can, you can write poetry. You can

start your own website. You can have a blog. You can, the, the idea of what it means to be a complete person is like really broad nowadays and that's that's a beautiful thing you know hell yeah brother well it's been fucking great having you on where can people find you online and uh at mike catherwood on both twitter and instagram and then uh the high and dry podcast you know i i really highly recommend it fuck yeah brother it's been great having you it's been great to be here man thank you thank you thank you guys so much for listening i hope you enjoyed this one with mike catherwood he's an awesome dude i'll be hanging out with him in austin here at the next ellis mania coming up in november he's a great guy and uh as always check us out at on it.com slash kyle for 10 off all supplements and food products thanks for tuning in y'all see you on

friday