Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 89 - Mike Catherwood

Episode Date: July 31, 2018

Mike Catherwood, also known as Psycho Mike, is an actor, producer, and an American radio personality. He is primarily 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. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

I'm seven days a week. Your brother dying? Yeah, my brother is liking it, man. He's getting in good shape, too. He looks fantastic. He's doing so good. He's, uh... I mean, shit, he's lost...

He used to weigh 260. And I think at some point here, he's going to make it a goal to get down to 160. Really? How tall is he? He's five feet tall. I think he's 5'5 or something. 5'6. Yeah. 160 would be nice.

Be lean as a motherfucker. Yeah. Alright, Mikey. We're going to get to the bottom of this today. We're going to figure out what the hell's going on with you. Nice. I'd like to get to the bottom of what's going on with me. So since we last met, I was on the show with you and Dr. Drew,

and that was a lot of fun. I, for some reason, ended up putting on various hats that day. Yeah. I'm sorry to disappoint you by just wearing a plain baseball cap today. I know. I know. Yeah. You had that fancy, like, Indiana Jones-looking thing going on.

That's exactly what it was. That was a beauty. I'm a man of adventure. But since that time, you landed a pretty healthy gig where you're on TV all the time. What's going on with some of this stuff? I've been doing Access Hollywood a lot and uh it's fun i mean it's it's a great way to get paid money to be myself which is you know i want to be on there can they can they help me out can i be on there dude i can so easily make that happen isn't it isn't it hard like uh like when i

see these newscasters and stuff when i see see these guys on TV, I'm always like, man, oh man, there's dolphins out there. That's crazy. We're in Malibu and I'm just looking out at the ocean to see dolphins jumping around. It's crazy how often all along like southern, south Los Angeles County beaches, the dolphins do not want to be strangers. They love to just kind of peek up and say hello. They love to check it out.

They love to take a breath. But yeah, it seems like it would be, I mean, for you, you've been at it for a long time. And you've been on camera before. But it seems like it's kind of tough. Don't you have somebody talking in your ear? Yeah, I got the IFB, yeah. And do you need to read at the same time that you're talking? Yeah, I got the IFB, yeah.

And do you need to read at the same time that you're talking? The good thing about Access Hollywood, as opposed to, because look, I'm not going to BS you, a lot of those entertainment news shows, it's kind of the same thing. It's derivative. But the cool part about Access Hollywood, which I think is why they asked me to be a part of it,

is that it's live. And so they want to encourage discussion and stuff. I see. So you kind of cheat to the teleprompter every once in a while. a part of it is that it's live and so they want to encourage discussion and stuff but i see you so you you you kind of cheat to the teleprompter every once in a while they'll have you read and coming up you know more on justin bieber's engagement but that you gotta you know kind of wind it back into doing the the off the cuff stuff but um that to me is easier you know but i've also i have a little cheat code. I've been spending, I spent my entire adult life on radio, you know, so reading from a teleprompter is like,

that's the stuff where I have to really practice. Who's been your mentors in some of that? Kevin and Bean here in Los Angeles, for sure. They gave me a job. I mean, they hired me and they trusted me to be on the air when I had no. They shouldn't have. Yeah, I didn't have the ability. I didn't have the credentials. I didn't have the experience. And so it was a trial by fire at first.

But I have absolutely, number one, them to thank. As far as like people I watched and was a fan of that I definitely looked to as mentors was Stern, Letterman, and it sounds silly, but Oprah too, because the whole thing with me is like, I'm not an expert in anything. I'm really not. And I don't have a tremendous amount of knowledge to draw from when I say anything. But if I could figure out a way to be myself and be authentic and be as much of that as possible, um, that's my skillset. And that's what I got to write into the sunset.

So, you know, people there's media's littered with a bunch of people playing a character. Right. And a lot of people are really, really good at it. But it just, I realized very quickly, and I tried and I failed. It just, that's not for me, you know. How do you control yourself with, like, not being inappropriate?

Like, especially when you're on TV and you're live. I don't. I mean know you just you just kind of let it go here and there yeah you got i like getting back to circling back to being myself you know there's plenty of times where i'll say things where i go oops yeah but i if as long as it's not yeah i mean or have you heard about any of that it's like you know have you said something on tv yet where they're like, hey, you know, like. Only two people have been bleeped.

Bad timing. Only two people have been bleeped on Dancing with the Stars and myself and Penn Jillette. And I was just getting done dancing poorly, of course. And my upcoming dance was the jive. And Tom Bergeron is, you you know and this is a live show he's like and coming up mike catherwood and lacey schwimmer dance the jive mike what do you know about the jive are you nervous and i was like all i know is that the jive is the language that black people talked on on airplane yeah because because of the movie yeah

it was like i was like i know nothing about the jive except that's the language the black people spoke on airplane and bergeron's hiding a laugh there's kind of this evident dead silence i speak jive and they go to commercial and i was told very quickly that that wasn't appropriate. They bleeped it out of the East Coast feed. Sometimes there's just no way to explain it to people. Like, oh, it's a joke. There's a movie, Airplane. I wasn't talking about that's how black people talk on an airplane.

It's an old movie. Sorry, the joke didn't work. I was fine with it because I got zero negative feedback from actual social justice warriors or actual African-Americans. No one was truly offended by it, which is – I'll take that any day. I never want to accidentally hurt someone's feelings. You can get down a real bad road if you say something that is even mistakenly offensive. You can get in a terrible place. I got in a bad spot with that. I was on E! News.

And Adam Lambert, I don't know if you know who that is. He was on American Idol. Andica's got no uh american idol and he's just wildly talented guy i'm incredible singer but he's like flamboyantly gay he's not gay he's like he's like an evangelist for the gay movement and he assaulted a paparazzi he punched a guy and the chick i'm hosting with is like uh adam lambert faces some jail time if he's convicted and i was like well from what i know about adam adam lambert that might not be all that bad for him right just stupid it's good low-hanging fruit yeah but man there was a lot of gay rights activists that did not like i mean i i i still still every once in a while get this was 2010 and i still get

negative tweets and stuff it's hard to have that perspective sometimes because you probably have pretty thick skin is there i mean probably no depends probably when you're watching tv you're probably not too offended by stuff you see oh no no in that regard yeah I have super thick skin. I, yeah, no, I'm very, very hard to offend. It's hard to kind of put yourself sometimes in somebody else's shoes. Like, what's your ethnicity? Mexican. I'm half, half white, half Mexican. You're half and half.

Yeah. Oh my God. I didn't know he's Mexican. We got to discontinue this. I understand. Please, if you want me to mow your lawn, I can go take care of that. And we can have this podcast this podcast really went downhill it's hard to sometimes have perspective you know

into like you know i wouldn't i wouldn't uh i may not be uh sensitive to something that i may say to you kidding around but there's kind of those guys that are dickheads that that do that day in and day out and like i get it i'm mexican like can we just can we just fucking get on you know or or somebody being short or somebody being fat like they're the fat guys there's always a fat joke or they're or uh you're acting whatever like you're acting gay or whatever the thing is that they want to throw at you they do it over and over again sometimes they just do it too much and it's also really hard if you grew up in a culture where busting balls is is part of the course you know and um i've had problems with that in my professional life i've had problems with that in my personal life you know my wife and i have i mean just a really a beautiful relationship yeah but i've

had a talking to i've had a couple talking to where i'm not one of your guy friends exactly i've had that and her and her female buddies like i remember one time my wife's female friend was over and i put my balls in her hair and told her i was like you got gum in your hair oh my god what happened and she reached back it was my balls enies uh that did not go over well with my wife that did not go her friend was fine with it that's great my wife was not happy but my point being that if you grew up in an environment where that just yeah that just happens it's it's sometimes it's hard to separate yourself from that when you go out into normal person life right and i transferring

over from like party culture jock culture then morning radio culture and then trying to introduce myself into everyone else's normal social circles man i'm i i up a lot where'd you grow up la here right here like the east side pasadenaena area. And what sports did you play as a kid? Football, baseball, soccer, basketball. I was a big, but mainly baseball and football. I loved it. Those are the ones that, you know, I'm 5'10 and not necessarily that coordinated. So, no, I'm coordinated.

I'm not graceful. So basketball was never something I was too great at. But football and baseball, I loved it, man. Loved it. It must be pretty competitive here in Los Angeles. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, there's a reason why in football and baseball as well, they have like Texas and California versus the rest of the country. It's true. There's numbers and the weather just suits to really high-level athletics. Were there things in your high school career, I guess we'll call it, that were kind of telling of you later on becoming an entertainer? Like, were you involved in different – were you involved in any plays or – Yeah.

No, looking back on it – Or a class clown or whatever absolutely i was super i was literally the class clown and you know the yearbook when they do all the right the the voting i was most comical and um but looking back on it there was a lot that was telling that i would have a career or at least a potential career in the in the entertainment industry but i didn't know that nor did I ever think that was a reality. I was such a screw up and such a just a profound drug addict that I never I did like a union construction gig was absolute dream come true. If I were to hope for something that could potentially, you know, give me a semblance of a nice life. That was all I could ever think of. Something that would kind of whip you into shape.

Yeah, and I knew I couldn't be like a fireman because I was too much of a screw-up. And that sounded appealing, something like that, something physical. Military? You ever kind of think about that route? I did. I definitely did. But my dad was longtime militarytime military and and pretty well

decorated worked at the pentagon for 14 15 years um and his father uh you know pretty well decorated naval my dad my dad's dad was career military in the navy so they if me being in the military wouldn't not only was that not a problem that would be fantastic but they would want me to go in as an officer like me going in as a grunt that wasn't an option um so you'd go to school first or something like that and that's the big rub is that there's no way in hell i could get into college that was that just wasn't even on the table for for a guy like me a student like myself so i kind of fell into it you know by this set of circumstances i i fell into getting this career in the entertainment industry and a lot of it was macho bullshit too when i was 17

i probably should i would have really liked being in the school plays i would have really liked like joining a band and stuff um but i was such a meathead at my heart, you know, so macho and that I just, it didn't even apply. Yeah. At that, at that age, it's like, you're so scared to try stuff that's outside of your bubble because you, you're kind of comfortable in that. I mean, it happens as adults too, but as you get older and older, you just care less and less. You're, you're, uh, less afraid to take some chances, or at least that's how my life has gone i was scared that yeah my friends would make fun of me that was it that was it you know and well you're gonna be in a play it didn't fit the mold of what i'm falling more what i thought

i was and the reality i didn't even do i didn't i didn't give any effort into actually examining what i really wanted there was no introspection. It was just what's going to look cool. Are your parents still in the area? Yeah. Still married, still in the area, yeah. Still live in LA. What was kind of the disconnect between your parents and you getting in trouble? You got in trouble at a young age?

Yeah. The disconnect was... Or was it just you? Look, my mom grew up... The disconnect was, look, my mom grew up, when I say poor, I mean, like, really, most Americans don't understand that level of poor East LA Mexican immigrant family with six sisters just not knowing how they're going to get their next meal poor. Yeah, wow. meal poor yeah wow and so i grew up in a in a you know we weren't the trumps or anything but i grew up in a relatively opulent beautiful kind of normal secluded suburb here in los angeles so i think she just as long as i was shielded from gang life uh trappings of poverty she felt like everything was

okay and I was a student athlete I was a terrible student but I had friends and I had a seemingly nice social life and so she was content she was always just pretty happy and proud of where you were at. Right. My father, very type A, very hardworking, very ambitious. A great father, but physically was absent. Because of his job, was gone 200 some days out of the year. He was traveling like crazy. So he physically wasn't able to see that I just spent every waking moment, that I wasn't at practice or at school i was in

my in my bedroom taking bong rips and doing lines you know he had no clue because he physically wasn't there and so before anyone could kind of nip it in the bud it was already too late that's crazy how did i mean and what age are we talking about i got i mean i started drinking probably at a normal age you know breaking into mom and dad's liquor cabinet freshman year. But it was by the time I was probably between sophomore and junior year, I was getting into the hard stuff. That kind of stuff really interests me. I got two kids. I got a 14-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter.

It's so hard to think about when they were babies you know holding them you know in your arms and then thinking about them as an adult you know having an act like that where they're they're they're getting into drinking and drugs and doing things that are you know just reckless or unsafe or whatever it's crazy because you just you spend so much of your life trying to communicate with them. Like, that's not safe. That's not a good idea. Even in terms of their food. You know, you had pizza earlier today.

Let's make a better choice. You had soda earlier. You know, let's not have the ice cream and the dessert. You're just always trying to kind of steer them away from danger. Don't play in the road. You know, just keep your fingers out of the socket, you know, the electrical sockets and things like that. road, you know, just keep your fingers out of the socket, you know, the electrical sockets and things like that. And then, so, you know, when you get to like that adolescent age, it's just crazy to kind of think about like, oh man, like my son's 14 right now.

Maybe he doesn't really care that much to do those things, but maybe his friends do, or maybe he does. Like, I don't, you know, you don't really, how would I know? Cause he's certainly not going to communicate. He's not going to be like, dad, you know you don't really how would i know because he's certainly not going to communicate he's not going to be like dad you know what i was thinking about the other day that bottle of vodka that's in the freezer i was gonna hammer that you know he's not gonna it's not gonna be something he's gonna mention sure do you think there could have been anything different that was done or do you think it just kind of had to play out that way i i am like in a lab if you invent an addict i'm that guy you know both sides of my family terrible alcoholism

I'm Irish Mexican did you know that when you were young or not really I knew my mom's dad did because he never drank like at parties and stuff and my dad's my family in general is big into wine and fine liquor

they don't shelter me from that. They were always very social. And on my mom's side, on my Mexican side, I had such a huge family. There was like a small weekend get-together barbecue with 40 people. That was just common place. There was always drinking around. And I never kind of got why my grandpa didn't drink but at a very early age they were open like no grandpa stopped drinking in you know

in the 70s right um and so i knew i kind of knew that that was in my blood but i never you don't pay it any mind at 13 you're like okay yeah my grandpa's an alcoholic big deal i'm still gonna go see pantera this weekend and you better believe i'm gonna you know 40 um but i'm actually happy that it played out the way it did because by the time i was 20 i had no i hit my rock bottom when i was 20, 21. And that sounds terrible, and it was. But if I had a buffer, if I was 45 and had money and had some ability to really live a life and concurrently do drugs and drink, I would have driven myself much closer to the grave. Because I was confronted with my rock bottom very quickly. I had no money.

I was a pile of shit. I was sleeping on friends' couches. I was a squatter. And it made me very quickly realize, oh, no, there's an issue. Not only is there an issue, there's an issue that can't be avoided. And you have to make that decision right now there's a crossroads you're at um and you have to take one side there you know if like i said if if i could somehow keep keep going financially socially i there's no telling how how bad it could have gotten what was the rock bottom

i i was at it's funny i went usually there's kind of more than one, too, right? Usually there's like three or four occurrences depending on the person. I was at... But there's a bottom. A point where I had been... I moved to the East Coast when I was like 19 and I was chasing my rock star dreams.

I was in a band at the time and I was moving to the East Coast because at that time, talking like 2000, 99, 2000. That's when I got married, 2000. Nice. Look at you.

Still going strong too. Yeah. That was right when the Northeast punk scene was exploding. There was all these amazing bands and the scene was vibrant. So I just up and went. And I started very quickly. I was waking up in an ambulance or at the hospital so much that it was not even special.

Because I was always a stimulant addict. I was always into meth and coke. Always. And I loved it. I still have like this internal, this almost like visceral passion for it. Have you talked to Dr. Drew about some of these things before? Oh, yeah some of these things oh yeah yeah yeah you guys are close and stuff chit chat is there is there a a pattern you know with people that like do people kind of have this stuff in their blood because i feel like oh no the genetic component is huge it's i feel like it's in my

blood like and i but i've never really i've never messed with any recreationals but the tiny amount of experience that i have with them uh even just something like vicodin yeah you know i've taken it before and my oldest brother you know i was telling him i was like man i was like that just it it didn't make me sleepy or tired it just it wired me and i got tons of work done and i was like and i fucking loved it but the next day you know i kind of i kind of crashed off of it well just knowing the little bit of discussion that you know chris and i've had about it uh it's definitely in your blood yeah yeah and chris has been an addict as well and my brother mike he's the one who pointed out to me he's like dude he's like it'd just be easier if you just threw that bottle away right and just forgot it ever existed because

he's like to me that's telling you that the only the only way to feel that same way again is to take more of that shit that's true i was like really yeah fuck for anyone listening that it just sounds so foreign and and and ridiculous and i understand that i'm not so many addicts i meet in recovery they get indignant to the fact that like the world doesn't understand i was like of course they don't understand well this is really important to talk about because as we're talking about in the beginning we're talking about perspective right and i may say something racial i may say something that offends somebody but i don't i don't have the correct perspective on it right and when you're

coming from that one side even when you are coming from that one side you guys be careful that you're not so one-sided that it's bleeding into the beliefs and values that you have which you're seeing happen all the time in politics right now and just values that people have uh people went all crazy i had a donald trump hat on one day i took a picture i was just trying to get a funny picture of me tanning by my pool and people just can't even do it it turned me into a racist it turned me into all kinds of things there's no there's no room for nuance man i even abortions always been the best example for I'm pro-choice, but it bothers me so much that people have either the take that you're a sinner and you're murdering babies, or, no, abortion's totally fine. It's totally cool, and every woman should have the opportunity to do it without a doubt, and it's not even, she shouldn't even question it.

It's like, no, abortion's gnarly. Can both sides agree? This is a very, very serious issue. Both sides have such blind disrespect for the other that it bothers me, but it plays out in so many other ways. No one's ever been able to really make sense

of it, one way or the other. Taking these extreme stances is so celebrated now that that's the real problem. There's no um there's no support or endorsement for people having a very comprehensive nuanced view on things right you've got to go well they'll take such a hard stance against like let's say something like violence that they'll become violent right and they'll cause problems and it's like wait a second you're this is like kind of what you're in protest of and you're you're kind of causing it yeah the

people uh at a gun control rally who are beating people with batons you know a hundred percent but my my rock bottom you know i was like i said i was getting rushed to the hospital all the time i had uh crash cars, DUIs, felony arrests. You name it. I had wildly disappointed my family to the point that I'd seen my parents cry in my face. I had no more friends. Every single one of my real friends had distanced themselves from me, I think, which was a testament to how much they were my friend, you know, to kind of be an accomplice to all this would have really been kind of spineless.

But I had all these things, all these consequences right in my face, kept going and going and going. And then my real rock bottom or that moment of awakening was this innocuous time. I was in a motel, middle of the day, smoking crack, back here in Los Angeles. And I was sitting by myself. I remember Jenny Jones or something, some daytime talk show was on.

I'm sitting there smoking rocks. And there was a dresser with a mirror. And I was sitting on the edge of the bed and this mirror reflected back at me and then from here i can't i cannot remember it in my own perspective in my own like in a first person view i almost see it as like a closed circuit camera looking down on me but out of nowhere i had no impetus to this there was no nothing that provoked me. I got up and walked over to the nightstand by the bed, and I found the Yellow Pages, and I looked up a recovery center, and I called and

asked if they had beds, and they did, and that was the last time I used drugs or alcohol. I was totally nothing. Like I said, there was no major consequence that was confronting me i wasn't the judge didn't do it i wasn't going to go to jail i wasn't in the hospital i i was just enjoying another day of rock cocaine and just something inside that was 2003 that was the last time oh i'm sure that at this point you probably helped a lot of people, especially through your podcast and through your voice on the radio and stuff. In your effort to help people, has the story been similar where that person has to come to realization, that person has to make that decision? Yeah, that's absolutely vital. I mean, and I'm not saying that judges shouldn't send people to recovery. I'm not saying that parents shouldn't force their kids by any means necessary to get into,

into treatment. But what I am saying is that until that man or woman makes a decision on their own, it's utterly futile. I mean, there's just nothing matters. Zero consequences actually affect the addict until he or she makes that decision on their own. Yeah, with Chris, I was talking with him about some different people that he's tried to help, and he's just like, yeah, man, unfortunately, he's like, that guy's just not really ready. Maybe someday.

You can never give up hope. Yeah. I mean, Bob Forrest, who does Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, does the This Life podcast with Dr. Drew. A lot of people may recognize him. He's the guy who wears the silly hats. He was the worst drug addict on the planet. To the point that guys like Anthony Kiedis and Flea and Nikki Sixx, they're like, Oh, no, we can't party with you.

You're too crazy. You're too nuts. He went to treatment 24 times. Wow. And just one time, he was awash. Dr. Drew himself admits, I had completely given up on Bob Forrest. He was one of those guys that some people are never going to get treatment, they're going to die.

Because make no mistake, it's a fatal disease. But Bob Forrest, after his 24th time in treatment, something took. So you can never give up hope, but at the same time, you can't waste time trying to force it upon someone because it's not going to happen. Does the addiction need to be fed with something different? It did for a while. I mean, I've been sober 16 years, and I spent seven of them just—I wasn't drinking or using, but I was feeding the disease by steroids, exercise, impulsive shopping. I wasn't tending to the disease, even though I was clean. I wasn't doing the work. I just wasn't doing it.

And even just some of your actions, right? Sometimes they can be like, just maybe like not communicating with somebody that you're going to be late for something or that you can't show up. Some of those things kind of play into it. Isn't that some of the stuff they kind of teach you and things like that? Take more ownership.

The rigorous honesty of it. That's the thing. And look, I have a problem with that now. And I'm getting better about it. But this is a silly instance. My wife, she's like, where'd you get that gum i was like i have some in my car and she's like can i have some i was like nah you don't want it and i was gonna say like make up some bullshit oh it's it's caffeinated gum or something and i was like wait i had to i had to in my in that moment circle back

i was like well it's nicotine gum you're not gonna I was like, wait, I had to, I had to, in my, in that moment, circle back. I was like, well, it's nicotine gum. You're not going to want any, you know? And the reason, and I, there's, it's not like, she's not my mom. I don't know why I would even think to, but that was, that was the addict inside. I just immediately wanted to lie and get out of it. And, and, um, so the, the aspect of honesty is, is such a huge component because it's much more easy to be dishonest to yourself than to other people.

You know, it's pretty, unless you're a total pile, it's relatively easy to just tell the truth to other people all the time. It's really difficult to be honest with yourself. How did your parents play into your recovery, or did they? Huge, huge. I mean, having the support, and they they never did the you caused us so much pain and sorrow it was always just like whatever you need to get you clean we'll help you and i didn't

certainly didn't have the money to go into a recovery center right you know um so they they fronted the bill and i do not take that for granted i think about it all the time i live in venice beach california which is one of the most i mean just absolutely um disheartening homeless problems and probably in the u.s i mean just a terrible homeless situation in venice and um every time i walk by a guy who's asking for a couple bucks i think think to myself, the only thing that separates me from you is the zip code I grew up in. That's it. Because if I grew up in a place

where financially it just wasn't, recovery wasn't, real recovery wasn't an option, I'd be dead. Or even if your mom had to pick up a job and wasn't around, then your mom and your dad weren't around when you were a kid. Absolutely.

You could be dead or on the street or whatever. I don't in any way take it for granted. The absolute factor of luck, people try to pretend like, oh, there's no such. No. Being born, A, in America, B, in a family that is a solid nuclear family, C, with dispensable income, i hit the gold mine and and i don't take that for granted i always think it's interesting how much you'd love america when you go away from it i'm sure you've traveled traveled a lot and you come back like man i can't wait to i mean other places in the world are beautiful too absolutely there's no place like home i'm an

unashamed patriot that loves america and i and i have no problem saying that it's still to me is the greatest country on the planet yeah but i'm i hate when people who they they fall into that category and they they echo that sentiment then they're like fuck france oh yeah and i'm like no no france yeah britain ireland i could go on and on and on, are awesome. They're super awesome. I just know from traveling to other places that aren't fill-in-the-blank developed country. Being in certain places in South America, going to Saudi Arabia when I was a little kid, dude. That's my thing is that Israel does the mandatory military service. And I don't

think that we necessarily need that here in the u.s but what i do think we need is that the day you turn 18 you should be forced to spend a year in somewhere shitty because far too many young kids especially don't really understand and that's not to say that america is without flaw it's definitely a flawed place and we can all do better but it's pretty awesome if you've ever ever experienced a country even a week yeah let's let's say yeah let's let's settle on a month let's say you know nice compromise yeah grab the kid's cell phone throw in the fucking ocean and have them uh have them go learn a trade or do something different right yeah it would be uh it'd be a little wild and you have people up in arms about it,

but it could put some hair on people's chests. Yeah, and it's very easy right now to bemoan the current state of America. Everyone loves to crap on America. I try to be as objective as possible about the president, but there's a lot to be upset about. But at the same time, you really

don't know how lucky you are and what rights were afforded that is just out of this world crazy in other parts of the world most parts of the world you know how has uh fitness played into some of this for you it's it's been a great great help it's it's hurt me. Like I alluded to earlier, there was times where I wouldn't go out on a date with my former wife. Because some body image issues and stuff? Because it was leg day. And I wouldn't spend time with my family. And crippling body image issues. I mean, still to this day, I was at the beach yesterday.

I did not take my shirt off. The idea, I can't think of any reasonable purpose for me showing my body to other people. Because it makes, I feel like my skin's on fire, you know? You mentioned, you mentioned steroids. And a lot of times people like, they just kind of, you know, write them off a little bit. Yeah. As like, it's its own separate thing. But there's still a drug.

It's still something that's addicting. How could you not be addicted to, especially when you're into training, you're addicted to the results for sure. Yeah. You're addicted to the results tremendously. And they also, um,

they're, they're going to affect your brain in, in some fashion, in some way. Uh, they, they're not like mind-altering necessarily. That doesn't really work that way, but they're going to affect your makeup and your well-being over a period of time.

And I think a lot of people have a tendency to kind of brush that off to the side. How have you kind of dealt with some of that? The fallout from getting clean off of steroids was hard man because i had to make heads or tails of losing my gains and then also just a lot bigger yeah when i was in you know when i was like actively in bodybuilding i was off season like 220 and did you compete in bodybuilding did wow cool i did and um you know i the hard part was getting fatter and not having ephedrine and clenbuterol, getting smaller and not having a solid testosterone profile. And you could do all the post-cycle therapy you want.

It's just not the same. And you're never going to be the same. You're not even going to be back to normal. And that was the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around. And I'm also not anti-steroids. I always take questions from kids who are like, I'm thinking about doing my first cycle. I was like, well, think long and hard.

If you're not getting a paycheck for your body, it might not necessarily be the best thing to do. But if you're going to do it, don't just eat D-ball. Have the patience to really understand what you're doing to do it, don't, don't just eat D ball, you know, like have, have the, the, the patients to really understand what you're doing and do it right. You know, have a plan, have some sort of understanding. Yeah. People don't realize that, uh, a lot of the negative side effects too, they happen usually when you come off of them. Yeah. Did you get depressed and things like that? Totally. Totally. I mean, I, I suffer from depression as is, but man, when my hormones went in the tank,

that was, that was dark. That was really dark. I, I remember the, the honeymoon of my first marriage was like, that was my new sober rock bottom because I just felt skinny and fat at the same time. Yeah. I was so overwhelmingly depressed and I just didn't know. I was at a point in my career, too, where, you know, I was making twenty one thousand dollars a year working three jobs just trying to make ends meet right because i had this dream of making it in radio but at the time i was just editing tape and trying to make the kevin and bean show run a little better it's

not like i had some glorious uh radio career to speak of so that at that point i i just i really i it was by the grace of god that i pulled through that um even more so to me even more so than my rock bottom from actual narcotics because as i told you it wasn't as if i had this amazing epiphany i had to dig deep something took over me and that happened almost uh by happenstance with the steroids in particular where you were like hey you know what this is still part of a lie that you're living. You're telling people you're sober, you're all excited about it,

and you're helping other people, and you're really not that sober. Right. And it wasn't, I don't look at steroids in and of themselves as something that is not part of sobriety. But the way I was using them was not part of real sobriety. It was not. It was not part of sobriety but the way i was using them was not part of real sobriety it was not it was not part of recovery what about cigarettes and caffeine and things like that

hardest thing for me to quit was was smoking and chewing tobacco by far as far as like physical addiction right that was the toughest thing it's hard to clear everything out i mean even for people that aren't addicts. Yeah. You know, when you, if you were to say to somebody, Hey, you know what?

I want you to take a week off of your coffee. Yeah. They'd be like, what? Yeah. That's not happening for me. That's just not gonna, I'm not gonna do it. Yeah.

What do you mean? And, and actually it's, it's, uh, not a fun thing to try to go through. I've done it several times and it is nice that when you go back to it, you get the effect of it again,

but caffeine, uh, will almost overwhelm you when you go back to it, you get the effect of it again. But caffeine will almost overwhelm you when you haven't had it in a while. That scares me, the idea of getting – because it's really all I got left as far as my buzz. And I love caffeine. Right. The idea scares me to take a week. What about some other things that are borderline? What about – I i mean i would consider borderline if you don't consider like uh smoking a joint or kratom or some of these things smoking a joints out i mean if i if i hit if i hit a joint

and got got stoned even though i'm just gonna lead you down i'm very pro weed and i you know for people who are not addicts i i'm a big uh i'm an evangelist for legalization and and the use of marijuana you smell it all over the place here in los angeles especially in venice it's true it's like it's everywhere the other day a kid skateboarded past my house and i was blown away because he was smoking a cigarette like i my brain automatically i was like oh he's smoking a joint and then when he went by and it was a cigarette i was like what that doesn't make any sense what are you from the 80s yeah he's so old school um but no i can't yeah i can't smoke weed for sure anything truly inebriating and i kratom to me is a tough one because if it prevents people from taking

painkillers believe me me, that's amazing. But we can't pretend that it's completely harmless. Right. Because it's not. It's not. It's not a harmless drug. And I think that's what people do with steroids too. Yeah.

Is they just, oh, yeah, and some people do TRT and whatever. And it's like, it's causing some huge changes to your body. Yeah. Some of which are great and some of which are not. It's pretty simple. Anything that you can't live without, that you can't live normally without, that's something to be concerned. Yeah, because it's something you're really holding on to. So how did you transition from coming through all this and then getting into radio like were you always

obsessed with radio were you always obsessed with that format i mean i was as a fan but i never at all thought i mean i was a huge howard stern fan but i never thought of myself uh having a microphone or anything like that same here i mean i i was a daily listener and i thought it was cool those original shows man they're the best but i never thought to myself that that was something i would do um i was a aspiring rock star musician and when i moved back to la and i got clean i just started getting any job because i have no skills and i had no education so i started just get any job i could i was a uh a custodian at a prosthetics lab and i was a night watchman at a um rehearsal studio and then i saw that there was a job opening at k-rock which is the like alternative rock station here in la and but just entry level like loading boxes and stuff and i was like all right what uh what year was that 2000 end of 2002

and so i've worked for um amfm radio and she worked for a long time for westwood one yeah that was the syndicator for loveline for all the years that we did it yeah she so i'm i'm like i'll get a job there it's better i'd rather load boxes and and roll up my sleeves and do manual labor at k-rock than some other place it'll be fun i could you know fool around so i got a job there entry-level job and i started prank calling the morning show and i started like just doing antics around the station just being a jackass in general and after about eight months of doing that kevin and bean hired me just hope to have around on the show to be their antics guy and i started to do assistant production stuff just like i said editing tape um organizing all the the archive shows um Pretty much just like a utility guy,

whatever I could do. And after about another six months of doing that, they started to allow me to infrequently get on the air. And about a year or so of me having the ability to get on the air, they hired me as a part of the show as a personality. And that was 2004. What a cool progression.

Yeah. Because if somebody was like, hey, you want to intern over here? You might have been like, nah. You might not have been, but it was kind of your own choice. You're like, oh, it'd be kind of cool to poke around that place, see what it's like. And you had a pretty long duration of getting your feet wet and getting on the air and everything. It was, you know, and most people in radio have to work in small markets and really bite and claw their way to working in the Los Angeles market. For me, it was just, it happened so indirectly. It's strange.

I could have never have planned to do it the way I did it and then followed through because I never would have thought that I was up to it. I never would have, like you said, if I were to get a job interning and then maybe get a night shift and then parlay that into a broadcasting career, I never would have thought that I could be up to doing something like that. My self-image would be get in the way. So it was almost like by any, this was the only way it could have happened. How did you rebuild yourself? Because it's really easy to talk yourself out of things. Was it because everything was a kind of a slow progression? Was it because everything took time and allowed you to grow your own personal development,

was able to catch up with whatever was going on career career wise yeah exactly like it happened so by accident that i was just go banging back and forth from all these weird little positions and i'd finally found something that people told me i was good at i'd never i'd never ever experienced that like people are like hey that was really funny what you did the other i'd get tweets and something it'd be like oh those man on the street interviews you did uh at the holly you didn't get that from sports when you were a kid i did but i was never and i was i did as a little kid right it just didn't feel the same right it just and and also um i was more worried about winning i never thought because i was never like a a division one or even like a small school caliber right athlete so to me i didn't look at like hey the coach saying nice play that felt good don't get me wrong but i was just i was happy to to hang out with my buddies and and fuck up the

other team that was the only you know and now as a radio personality you're getting that individual feedback yeah of like i really liked what you said and something that was above and beyond a fleeting experience i knew that high school football although i loved it it was fleeting i was like i was going to graduate and it's like yeah well what good does this mean in the in the grand scheme of things that oh i made a nice hit okay but that's in the ethos and it's gone i now had something like a real almost a career where people were saying you know you can do this this is something you're good at and you can do it um and i was i i was overwhelmed by that and then i got laser focused because of it i got

laser focused i started practicing being on the air i i would do um air checks just at home and in the car and i would go to k rock when i wasn't working and do air checks. Just at home and in the car and stuff? Yeah, I would go to K-Rock when I wasn't working and do air checks. And when Corolla was still hosting Loveline, I would go edit, specifically go edit Kevin and Bean's stuff while Corolla and Drew were in studio and just watch Adam. And, you know, so I just became, I finally found something in my life that I got into, you know? Just studying it all the time and and learning and trying to grow and then what was the progression from there what you know what started started working on the kevin and bean show as an honor personality and in about 2006-7 adam carolla left uh loveline to do his own to do nothing everybody was like yeah what the fuck's he

gonna do he's gonna i'm gonna start a podcast people are like what is that he he had his own morning radio show right that and that went on to be at a defunct station they changed format so adam went into doing podcasting but he left love line and he was there for so long and he really was the guy obviously drew had been there since the beginning but adam's the one who made it what it is today right um and i who is the first guy to do like is it um you know you hear different things different people but i heard like tom green was one of the first podcasts remember the comedian tom green oh yeah he was like one of the first podcasts but but dr drew and some of these other personalities were i think adam certainly was a ground floor i know kevin smith was really really

early on it's like the podcast world um tom green yeah um now look at it i think rogan started pretty early on too did he really yeah he was my probably in the first wave of like guys yeah now look at it there's millions of them it's unbelievable it's unbelievable everyone has one there's so much uh information out there it's crazy to think the information of you know like going back like a hundred years the information that somebody might learn in the course of 10 years is now happening like in a week yeah yeah you know depending on how much you can consume and how much you can really retain, right? And the passing on of information. I mean, you really had to rely on like the elders in your tribe

not that long ago to kind of impart information. And who knows how that got manipulated and changed when they play that game of telephone and go from person to person. Now information is pipelined right into you from the source. Everyone has the ability. And then it's rebroadcast and tweeted about. Joe Rogan has a good bit where he talks about where we're only like three people ago.

You know, the United States was starting. Yeah. He's like, people live to be like 100. He's like, the country is like 300 years old. He's like, it doesn't date back that far it's pretty crazy it is crazy to think that three generations of your family were there for the beginning of something right because in comparison to other powerful countries you think about china or england or something it's like well no you're awash in a sea of history america really is not that old. Yeah, they've been around certainly a lot longer than we have. So you mentioned fitness being a little bit negative,

but I imagine there must have been a lot of positive to kind of keep you going and to keep you focused on your goals and stuff. It's the only thing in my life I've ever, ever, ever discovered. And I don't even mean fitness overall. I mean, specifically weight training. It's the only thing I've ever found that there's no outside factors to molest the system.

In jujitsu, there's always going to be a guy who's better than me. And he's going to be able to tap me no matter how much i've been training no matter how much better i've gotten there's always going to be people that are come around and tap me or uh i didn't have a good meal and i'm gonna i'm gonna crash and i'm gonna right you know i'm gonna get beat up and same goes for muay thai or whatever i i go into in my professional career, I may nail an audition. I may nail it.

I may be the best person for that job, but they may have some, uh, maybe somebody's brother or cousin or whatever. And they, they get the role. Some agent, you know, needs a favor to get his other client involved in a separate project.

If this person comes in, there may be some diversity clause and they want to hire someone. They want to hire a woman. They want to hire someone who's Asian who knows, you know, there's a million factors and it's not just based on how hard I work and how good I am. In weight training, that's all there is to it. If I keep coming back, I can deadlift 450 right now.

If I eat right, if I stay on a program with incremental incremental gains there's nothing preventing me zero other outside factors that prevent me from getting stronger there's nothing um and it was the most cut and dry clear-cut way to uh see self-improvement you know uh what do you attach to more are you attached more to you know kind of lifting those heavier weights does that feel the best for you or are you more attached to like what you see in the mirror? I had to stop doing it because, I mean, I still lift, but I had to stop going to try to be like you because... To stop setting world records every time you set foot in the gym.

Right, or just to try to even get to be a high-level power lifter because that's what I want to do, get to be a high-level powerlifter because that's what I want to do. But it doesn't make for a very appealing television presence. Having traps to your ears doesn't work out well when you want to sit down. You can't turn to talk to the other host. Yeah, and just overall quality of life for me, I feel like I'm a little lighter and I'm a little bit more mobile. I hit the nail on the head with quality of life when i do these heavy workouts um which i don't i don't do this

the same amount anymore so i i man i i've never felt better in my whole life i feel i feel amazing since i've dropped out the real heavy singles i'll still do a heavy single but it will be at like 85 or 90 it'll be like heavy enough and i'll be like well that's good the old me would go 105 until i like hurt myself and then the next day i can't get out of bed i can't go up and down the stairs you just tend to move you tend to move really slow and it's like man that's a shit way to move around and i and i think that in my powerlifting career i could have probably and it's it's easy to say now but i could have probably backed off a pinch on some of that and still would have been just as strong yeah but then you don't get the emotional

psychological benefit right which is what we are also just also what yeah because that to me it was night when i got my blue belt i remember like feeling so accomplished when i started to really because i'm terrified of the ocean so when i when i catch waves i feel so accomplished but nothing feels better than setting a pr there's no way i i feel i'm scared of the ocean too there's no way i was going to i mean i don't mind going in and like you know getting wet a little bit, but I'm not going to try to swim in that fucking thing. No paddling out,

paddling out and surfing to me is the, the most, when I really feel like there's personal growth there, that's where I find it. Yeah. Out of anything else in the world, because it's pretty easy. I gotta be honest.

Yeah. Not this is the, I'm not saying this to, uh, pat myself on the back, but it's pretty easy to be a good husband and father for me. Like, I really enjoy spending time with my wife. I love spending time with my daughter.

It's not that hard to to just be that guy. So that's the most important thing in my life. But it's pretty it comes pretty naturally to me. I'm terrified of getting out there. And every single time I i serve there's a lot of weird shit in the ocean every single time i surf 100 of the time i have at least one time where i go well it's been a good run i'm dead i'm drowning i'm gonna drown to death and i'm gonna die have you gotten stuck out there before yeah i've gotten well at least i got stuck in the middle what they call stuck in the middle where i'm not i'm too shallow to be uh beyond the point where the waves are crashing on you and the and the tide is pulled the rip that's pulling you out so waves are just crashing on top

of you over and over again i get stuck in there and that's it's terrifying it's the worst and you got to try to figure out how to get back yeah so i go do i get on my board and try to let them crash on top of me and push me in do i try to surf or swim out beyond them and then but you get you get stuck in there and that's the worst you uh probably know uh tito raymond right yeah oh yeah over at gold's gym he got stuck out there not too long ago and he's he's super fit he's somebody that goes in the ocean all the time it almost just doesn't matter right i mean it's it's the ocean and it's good it's going to take you wherever it wants yeah so i mean some real ocean uh real ocean men and women they i mean right they're not going to get stuck but it it truly doesn't matter how fit you are you just got to have a real relationship you know it's just like anything some people if you're raised in in

malibu or hawaii and you've just been doing it since you were a little kid. Some people, they have such a strong relationship with the ocean. It's not a factor. But for the most part, I don't care how good a swimmer you are. I don't care how buff you are. I don't care how tough you are. It's a beast that needs to be respected. Do you think that you can build a body that you're proud of? Do you think that you have the ability over the next couple months or next few years to be happy and proud of just like hey i'm gonna whip my shirt off and i feel really good with to be honest the way i'm at i'd like to say yes but i when i was

competing i would be 180 and shredded to the bone i mean absolutely veins in my abs um now granted i was you know on tons of wind stroll and yeah but i would be i mean just doesn't make you a bad person no no but i was shredded and uh i still i i remember like how much do you weigh now 175 and then what's the best shape you've been in the last five years or so has it been around this body weight overall shape probably right now good yeah best overall shape i feel like i don't gas when i train martial arts i'm i'm capable of training pretty hard and keeping up uh i i'm strong relative to my body weight i'm not certainly not impressing anybody with my numbers but and uh and i'm i look okay you know i don't look in the mirror and see a

puffy pile of shit you know what would be wrong with trying to do a bodybuilding show or set up like a photo shoot or something would that would that make you go too far back the other way like might get too obsessive might be too weird i think focusing so much on my appearance would not be healthy for you for me right now overall yeah yeah you know i i need something where and also it it is i don't want to say it's easier for me because it's a tremendous amount of hard work but it's something naturally that comes easier to me than, say, surfing or jujitsu or Muay Thai. So I see like there's an old African proverb that a sailor was never made on calm seas. And hitting the gym, putting food in Tupperware that's i don't it doesn't bother me

and i'm into it i love going to the gym and lifting weights i love it um i love getting up early in the morning and doing some cardio so for me like i i kind of have been searching out more of the things that it's a bit of a struggle for me to do um and because i think that that's where i'm going to start personal growth yeah that makes so i i understand that makes a lot of sense and you're you're kind of worried like oh if i put too much time into that uh i might be kind of disappointed with i might put in a lot of time i might be disappointed with the results almost right right and it's like uh to me it would it's like, uh, to me it will, it's like, am I getting to the root of the problem?

If I know that I have body image issues, but is getting more shredded going to solve that? Probably not because frankly, I have a physique right now that I shouldn't have a body image issue about. Right. I should be perfectly happy to take my shirt off. So the root of the problem is not my personal condition. That's something else. Right. And that's what i need to focus on and i know it's it's really just like the alcoholic

who says well i'll just stop drinking hard alcohol drink beer yeah that may solve some of the you know the external issues that you're seeing you may not piss yourself you may not uh get in bar fights as much but you're not dealing with the root of the problem and the fact that you're drinking too much, you know? So that, that's the way I look at it. Where do you feel there's a hole in your game?

Cause it sounds like you like to do a lot of different things. You surf, do Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu, you're lifting. Sounds like you're eating fairly healthy. Is there, is there a hole somewhere that's holding you back from being able to just

to, you know, be a little bit more comfortable, I guess. It's self-love, really. I'm so ashamed of things I've done that I think that that... I'm playing armchair psychologist, but it's certainly...

It's just not... I have no acceptance of who I really am, and I don't really love myself all that much. Right. Do you think that has to do with maybe you're still kind of in search of something that you're not sure what it is? Because you keep kind of poking around in a lot of different spots. Yeah. I mean, when I had my daughter, a lot changed.

But because I just love her so much. It's trite. Of course, everyone loves their kids. But I got super depressed when she was born because I loved her so much and I thought that it was going to be this panacea that changed everything. And it didn't

at all. And so it made me even more depressed. I got really, concerningly depressed when my daughter was born to the point that my wife forced me to see a different shrink and forced me to start taking antidepressants again. And so I thought that I really was hedging all my bets that once I became a parent, everything was going to be fine because I'd stop caring about my six pack. And nothing and it didn't happen yeah then then you just have a whole other stack of things to worry about on top of yeah your own your own personal and i started to use my daughter like a drug you know or it's like now i rely on her for my happiness and it's unhealthy. Right.

You know, I mentioned a lot on here that, you know, I always advise people, you know, if you're having problems, like don't ever think about it in terms of just thinking that you have, like only you have to deal with it. Right. Or don't think of it's like just you and your wife or you and your brother or you and your friend. Go see somebody. And if that person sucks, go see somebody else.

Like just try it out because you don't know what it could lead to. It could be life altering. Absolutely. It could be like saving. It could really save your life. You know, again, having that perspective, I've never really had, um, I've been like sad, right. And I've been like unmotivated, but, uh, depression is not really anything that I've ever really had to deal with. Fortunately. Right. I would say that, uh, to coming off of stuff and

having my daughter was probably the only time I ever experienced any of that. And it, and it gave me a little insight into these are like, and I was able to sort it out because it took me a minute and I was like, why am I feeling this? And I was like, okay, I'm, I've been off for six weeks, seven weeks. Hormones are changing a lot, seven weeks, hormones are changing a lot. But I was, it blew my mind. I was like, oh my God, like I'm only feeling a tiny pulse of what someone who's truly depressed feels every day. And I can't imagine like what that's like to be,

some of my friends will tell me they're crippled, they're paralyzed, can't move. Like they're stuck on the couch. They just can't, they don't even want to see anybody for that day i've not left my bed you know for free and we're getting back to uh when i first got the ability to get on the air and i found something that i loved that was the only thing that no matter how bad it got i i wouldn't miss work because i again i then i started to rely on that like oh this is going to be the thing that saves me but i i just was so laser focused that no matter

how bad it got i would always be able to pull myself out of bed and go to work but there's certainly been times where it was debilitating you could not i could not get out of bed i couldn't face the world is it hard to talk for a living? Because maybe not every day you want to talk. It's hard to talk for a living when you get home. Because imagine if you had to be

your wife and kid's personal trainer. You know what I'm saying? You're going to the gym, you're doing your thing, you're talking fitness all day, and then you have to go home and then turn that on again. When I'm talking on're going to the gym, you're doing your thing, you're talking fitness all day, and then you have to go home and then turn that on again. When I'm talking on the radio all day and then do a TV show and then talk more, you got to realize I'm not necessarily – sometimes I am, but not necessarily talking to people I want to talk to or having a conversation I want to have. I'm doing it for the sake of entertainment. So then to go home to talk more and not be a complete dick, you know, not be that husband that just comes home and cracks open a bottle and like it's like shuts himself off from his family.

I have but I have to talk. This is really valuable information you're releasing here because that is a huge as a huge importance. People talk about trying to balance. Right. And I always just tell people, hey, man, I'm sorry. There's not a lot of balance, you know? Like it's just things are gonna be unbalanced. But I do think, I think that it's okay in the dynamics of a family

to say, here is where I'm at and here is what I feel makes me happy. If I ever go too far outside of that, rein me back in. But you have to, it's not really making time. It's not just about making time because you can be over there and be over here very quickly and take you 20 minutes.

But what do you have to give? When I go to Gold's Gym, I'm trying to leave behind like positive energy from from anybody that i dealt with for today try to smile even maybe i don't feel like smiling but try to then then they were going to remember like oh yeah his motherfuckers always smiling i don't know why but he's always happy but you're trying to leave behind you know a trail of positivity right everywhere you go and you're trying to kind of lift everybody up but when you come home if you're so fatigued if you don't have the ability to do some of that

then that's where you got to figure out okay not only do I have to carve out some time with my family with my kids I need to cut out you literally need to cut out some stuff yeah so that you have the energy to put into that event. Absolutely. That's incredibly good advice, man. Because you want to give it your all. You want to go balls to the wall all the time. But if you have to come home to lifelessness, then what's it worth?

And far too many people don't don't value their home life enough guys especially they put their career ahead of everything to the point that they completely are blind to everything else yeah that's when you're on your deathbed none of that shit's gonna matter none of it's gonna matter with that you were the top of your industry and that you had 11 vintage Maseratis. So it's great. And if you can pull that off, I'm not hating by any stretch. But what I am saying is that if it comes at the compromise of your home life, it's not worth it. worth it and if you look at somebody like uh gary v who i've i've had the pleasure of meeting and podcast with and stuff like that um he's kind of said it's like a home arrangement that he has you

know with his wife that he's just not there and i'm just thinking man like now maybe he has a plan of hey you know what it's going to be this way for five years maybe this way for 10 years or whatever but still you and i both know you know i'm addicted to a bunch of things as well um you and i both know that it'll be hard for him to transition out of that and be like yep i'm done with all that business stuff now i'm moving over into this and it's um when i grow as a, I felt like I always had everything I ever needed. You know, my, a lot of, we had good resources in terms of finances. We had a pool.

We had like a little mini basketball court set up on our driveway. We had weights, like we had Olympic style weights. We had squat rack and stuff in our stuff in our basement, in our garage. My dad did really, really well, but there was a point where my dad was working so much, my mom was like, hey, you're not like, you're just not around. And I was so young that I didn't really, I didn't really understand it all until I got a little older. And I was like, oh, okay, oh, okay, now I get it. The picture is more clear. He's not around and that's why we have a lot of this luxury. But if he's still not around, he's still not around. It still sucks, right? It still hurts. It's still not

the best scenario. So we were able to kind of do that. He was able to transition into kind of do that you know he was able to transition into kind of working more for himself he was around more and everything was fine and i mean he he's you know both my parents i'll always say that uh they were perfect i mean i can't imagine them doing anything better right they always did a great job always did the best job they could with us but those are the things that people i don't think are thinking about. No, no, it's, and you can't get, you can't really think about it until you're placed in that position. I can't, there's no 19 year old that's going to be listening to this thinking like, well, what do I care about when I have a kid?

And it just doesn't apply. But once you're faced with it, you'll, you'll realize, you know, very quickly, unless you're a sociopath, you'll realize very quickly, unless you're a sociopath. You just don't care. What do you think some, you know, everybody wants to be successful. There's kind of this motivational kick that's going on. You hear all these different things on YouTube and on social media in general. What do you think some people are maybe missing to try to be successful?

What do you think people are trying or maybe missing out on and maybe their daily routine or just, um, you know, what's something that kind of like irks you when you hear some of these, uh, speeches or to me, it's like a lot of this success information that comes out. The problem is that you're listening to someone else's version of what it means to be successful. And that trying to achieve what someone else says or dictates to be successful is nonsense. You have to really work hard at figuring out what it means for you to be successful because each person varies varies greatly like you and i pointed out i mean there's plenty of guys who they're not they don't consider themselves successful unless they are number one and if that means completely compromising their home life, so be it.

And they're not going to be successful in anyone's eyes until they reach that. To me, that's nonsense, man. If I could put food on the table, and to the point that we really just don't worry about the bill collector coming by, and I have a lot of free time to spend with my child and my wife. Like that, I don't need to be Howard Stern. I really don't. Be fucking awesome.

Is that a true statement? Absolutely. You feel comfortable with that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it took a long time for me to get to that position. Right. And it took a long time of me faking it. I was like, no, no, no. I need to be, at the like no no I need to be

at the very least I need to have my own show and be number one in the LA market that was it and I kept telling myself that I would write it down and if that's real like my friend I have a friend Jason Ellis who hosts his own radio show

the Jason Ellis show on Sirius XM he's really driven to be the best radio personality out there. He wants to be Stern number two. But it's real for him. That's his version of success. And everything he does lines up with that. Yeah.

He works his ass off. And it took a long time for me to get to the awareness that that's really not who I am. To me, I've already hit a level of success that far exceeds what I could have ever dreamed of. So there's a lot of resting on my laurels in some ways. But figuring out a way, I don't need to be on the greatest tv show the highest rated tv show like the fact that people pay me to talk i'm already like at the gold mine yeah at the gold mine people pay me to talk and i work on a long day five hours a day you know it's like are you kidding me right success a lot of people don't understand that uh you know success is

something that you attract you know the more that you chase after a lot of people don't understand that success is something that you attract. The more that you chase after it, a lot of times the more that it wants to dodge you, the more it wants to move away from you. It's almost like chasing after a pretty woman. You overdo it. You come on too strong and too thick in the beginning and they run away, right? Yep. That's a great point.

I don't want it to sound like I'm talking down on ambition. That's not what I'm saying by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, recognize how short life is. People always say, oh, life is short. No, seriously, take that into consideration. And every moment that you could be doing something to help live your dream is a moment that's lost if you're not you know going to get up off your ass and go for it right but at the same time like really analyze what success means for you because i love gary v too and i love all these motivational

speakers but you're you remember you're listening to someone else's version of success. And that's not the way things go. I mean, look at your brother and you, both wildly successful guys. Right. Completely different versions of what it means to be successful. Right. And my brother, he and I have different personality traits. I think that when I was in the middle of my powerlifting career and i didn't have finances i didn't really have i didn't really have much of a job period

um i was i was very happy but my brother's idea of of being happy and he thinks the thing that will fulfill him is more money and i'm trying to you know continue to communicate with him on that like that will help and you will be happier because there's more convenience sometimes that can come from all that but my brother's just a great person yeah he's a great storyteller he's a good friend i mean you see him all the time probably over at both yeah yeah he's a lot of a lot of fun to be around and he doesn't uh you know back to what we were saying before we hopped on the podcast about that uh mr rogers documentary you don't have to do anything spectacular to be loved and i think that people always think that

they do yeah like when i make this money i'm gonna buy this car and everyone's gonna think i'm a badass motherfucker yeah and uh and no one cares yeah no one cares no and dude you already talked about doing something spectacular but it's overlooked you said i'm gonna go to the gym i'll have a smile on my face and i'm gonna try to give positivity to every single person i contact with that's something spectacular and it's free it free. It's not making millions of dollars. It's not running for office. It's not being the titan of your industry. It's something spectacular that far

too many people look at as being insignificant. But you're doing something spectacular every single day of your life when you do that. And even just the consistency. Just being that guy that, that shows up on time, being that guy that's ready to work hard.

How did this, uh, access Hollywood role come to be? What, what, who's, who's balls did you lick for this? Once I started getting on TV, once I started getting on TV,

you, you like, if you can prove to be someone that really is a joy to work with and, um, and like you said, shows up and shows up early and doesn't bitch and moan. Um, you'd be surprised how much you can dovetail off into other TV.

And that's just, it's kind of the, the, the cool and negative part about TV. I mean, I could give you the, the positive of it is like, I got this gig where I,

you know, there's nothing secure about it, but I get to fill in and do a lot of access hollywood simply because people that worked on other shows that i was on now they got shit can from their job someplace and now they're working at nbc daytime and so they got to know me blah blah blah there's the positive of people constantly moving around and the turnover in television is tremendous the negative comes from like there was a time and a place where they're going to add a male co-host to the view that was gonna be me they're flying me out to new york city uh all the time to do all these uh test runs and shows and i'm filming with all the girls of the view and everything and it's happened i mean it's happening i'm going to get

a job and it's going to be millions of dollars and i'm going to move to new york city and i'm like this is it every single person from the person that would book my plane tickets all the way up to the president of daytime at abc got fired every single person in that chain got fired and that was the end of my you're like like, I'm calling Mike Catherwood. I got a job. And they're like, no, you don't. Not anymore. No, seriously.

That's what happened. Mike who? My agent would go to make arrangements and they'd be like, we're completely unaware of what you're talking about. Yeah, he's gone. And all the thoughts of that person are gone because we fired everybody

that was in the chain of commands of even hiring him. Yeah, and they're like, oh, this new kind of administration. They're like a male co-host. Stupid. That's insane. So that's the negative of the turnover rate in television. But the positive is that I end up doing all these crazy gigs and I just had a meeting last week

about a potential new one and stuff so it's nice that you're this time maybe you'll be a little bit more relaxed and wait yeah right before you get to no stability though don't get into this industry if you want stability which sucks

my wife's an actress as well don't cash those checks until you get which sucks my wife's an actress as well don't cash those checks until you get them right yeah my wife's an actress as well so they we we have a a bit of an unnerving ability inability to let's uh pause on this for just a second i gotta pee do it if you need to do but i don't have that many carbs in me so it's constant just running through you we We're all good? Yeah. So you're saying your wife is an actress? Yeah.

So we have a bit of an unnerving and lack of stability, but when it's good, it's good. When it's good, it's great. My wife was on two network sitcoms, so when it's hitting, it's like nothing else, but it's tough because you never know when that next nothing else but you know it's a it's tough because you never know when that next gig's gonna be and and i have to watch i get a little bit less

of the frustrations actors man there's a reason why they get paid so much and it's because of all the bullshit they have to go through it's horrible it's horrible i am honestly auditioning and and and schmoozing just to have people tell you you're too old you're too ugly you're too tall i mean it's that bad it is that it's the most callous uh industry that's just devoid of any type of sentimentality some of the stuff's pretty amazing though if you nail the right gig at the right time it's crazy then it could be you'd be off to the races right my wife was on a network sitcom uh rules of engagement for seven seasons

and it was just like show up table read on monday film on tuesday just kind of press repeat do it again you get like six months off while you're not filming and look at someone like dave batista oh yeah you know he really stepped into the limelight he i mean you know there's always the he had a long bodybuilding career before he ever got into pro wrestling and obviously he had what it takes to make it pro wrestling and so that lined him up well for everything um but man like what some you know outstanding things that he lined himself up with. Well, and he's got talent.

Right. You know, you can't take that away from him. That's the crucial factor. He's got good comedic timing. That's a crucial factor. I mean, he's great. You watch those Guardians of the Galaxy movies. He's great.

So, it's a tough, you know, Carolla always talks about that. It's like, yeah, hard work and living out your dreams are great but if you don't have what it takes to have that dream someone needs to sit you down and let you know far too many people are like anything's possible man anything's possible you can do it to it the guy next to you can do it the guy next to him can do it trust me i could not be on the lakers no matter how much I wanted it, you know, and someone would need to sit me down and say like, this is just not, you don't hedge your bets on,

right. This is not going to happen. And I, you know, far too many people in the entertainment industry, I think are under the same delusion. Like they're going to, and it's like,

you're, you're not going to be Scarlett Johansson. It's not going to happen. What are some things you're doing in your, in your life to, to try to get some balance with uh your daughter with your wife with her acting career with your career you guys have a day where it's like hey you know sunday we're just doing this you guys have a time where you're like hey

let's put the cell phones away anything's like anything going on like that meditation's huge i meditate twice a day 20 minutes at a time every single day how long have you been out for um i've been dabbling in meditation for probably a decade but i've been serious about it for about a year i started working it's hard to even get a lock on it yeah because i've tried and i'm like i'm so distracted it's true and i finally just i had the discipline to just say no this is and i and i really stuck with it what does your meditation look like uh i i have a mantra you're naked okay i'm listening very i'm nude uh i i make a pube joint and i shave my own pubes and i smoke a joint pube joint um wow no i uh i have a mantra that i internally kind of go back to over and over, and I just try to focus on that.

My eyes closed in 20 minutes. Music? No, no, no, no. Nothing? I always just try to find a nice, quiet place, and just me and my mantra. I started working at Transcendental Meditation about a year ago. I actually got a focused system for meditation.

And that's where I... You read a book or something? No, I just went online and saw Transcendental Meditation. I had too many people, really people that I respected. Far too many people tell me that was what they did. Steve-O and

Seinfeld. The list goes on and on and on you know seinfeld didn't directly tell me that but um yeah i heard him talk about how important transcendental meditation is doing david lynch and the hell steve-o up to steve-o is first off in the best shape of his life jacked and tan he is jacked and tan uh he is filming a new show that i'm pretty sure i'm not allowed to like elaborate about but you know he's filming a new show and it's gonna be awesome he films another game show he's a host of a game show in the uk um life is very good for steve he's about to get married life is very very good for him that That's pretty cool. But meditation's huge for me. And then, yeah, you actually mentioned disconnecting.

Really taking, making a concerted effort for a certain amount of time. No phone, no Netflix, I can't look over, read the paper. I turn it off, put it away. You and your wife, no industry talk yeah right just nothing that's not that's just not even let's not even talk about that yeah and that's not to say that like some mindless bullshit time isn't important too we do we want to make sure we get at least at least a couple hours a week of like hey let's hold hands and watch some netflix and are you guys fans of movies and tv shows and stuff yeah yeah big into it what are uh some shows you guys watch like at the top of the list for me ozarks mindhunter ozarks i've heard nothing but good things about i have to check it out you got

to watch it dude it's so good it's so good i like goliath a lot you ever seen that i have i like that a lot i like billy bob thornton a lot he's pretty sweet yeah he's pretty sweet he's a kooky dude he seems like it he's a very kooky dude he seems like he's a very hard interview because he's that kooky but uh goliath is dope some of these guys they don't want to be interviewed right like i mean they is it do you think they like somewhat halfway want to be interviewed do you think they somewhat halfway want to be interviewed, or do you think they just totally don't want to be interviewed at all? No, they don't want to do it.

They don't want to do it, and they don't think it's part of their job, and they're just not happy to do it. I guess each person, like as you were mentioning earlier, each person has their own definition of success, and somebody like The Rock who, I mean, he may not give you an interview, but he almost doesn't need to because he's on social media so much., he may not give you an interview, but he almost doesn't need to because he's on social media so much. Oh, he will give you an interview.

Yeah. And he loves it. I think he's addicted to being liked. Right. And he's good at it, man. Yeah. He's fucking good at it. He's really good at being the perfect celebrity.

Right. There's people, yeah, The Rock clearly loves it. It's amazing how that's launched his career because he was already doing well. But I think that Instagram was a real game changer for him. Yeah. When you go and look back at it, it was clearly Instagram. I mean, obviously he's got the work behind him.

Yeah. He's got all the. He's got ability. He's got talent. He's got the looks. Yeah. But some people do not want to be a big A-list celebrity. The Rock loves it.

Right. And listen, it makes you want to root for him a lot more. Right. There's some crabby, crusty people out there in Hollywood, and it's like, fuck them. It's nice to see a good guy. Even with Skyscraper, it's not doing great in the box office. But when you ask people about, hey, what did you think of it?

They bite their tongue they have a hard time knocking it down because like you said everybody loves a rock i remember there was a a review of one of the foo fighters albums where they said it's hard not to give it at least three stars because everybody loves dave grohl and it's true like he's just such a nice guy you want to root for him. It's hard to shit on, even on the work. You can't separate it because he's such a nice guy. How do you balance out the different careers? So your wife needs to go somewhere and be on a show for a little while.

And then you got your daughter and you got your own things going on. It's tough. I mean, you got to really plan. You got to plan. And we have help. When my wife's filming, we definitely have to find a nanny or something because if I'm going to be at work and she's going to be on set, it's just unhealthy to try to bring a kid along or something like that. But on top of that too, you got to... The great thing about

having a spouse in the entertainment industry is that we both understand each other there's no there's no misunderstanding that the industry is callous and doesn't care about our feelings so we have to really care about each other's you know i saw you uh just a couple days ago over at gold's gym and that's that's your stomping grounds that's where you train yeah tell us a little bit about what that's like for you it's really nice for me i mean i like i live in venice so a lot of people make the patronage to venice gold's because it's the mecca i live i live down the street you know and it's just part of the culture is your bike over there or something you're super close my bike almost every day you know like if i'm gonna train i i never drive you know um it's it's it's very cool

for me even if you don't want to be a bodybuilder it's incredibly motivating i think to see people who are that disciplined and that hard working right next to you you know it doesn't i don't look at it as something that's intimidating i'll look at it as something of envy when i see these guys with these feet i look at it as something to me it I see these guys with these feet. I look at it as something, to me, that's motivating. There's a ton of energy in there. And when you look at the different guys and girls in there, the shape that people are in, you're just like, holy shit. It's really crazy. You don't see that in normal, everyday life.

But inside of this factory, this giant-ass gym that i don't know must be 60 000 square feet or i don't know it's big big outdoor arena and everything and posing room yeah it's enormous it's got three giant rooms of equipment has every piece of equipment you can possibly imagine every possible thing if arnold works out there that's all i needed to know yeah arnold's there all the time i know it's awesome he's actually training there, that's all I needed to know. Yeah, Arnold's there all the time. I know, it's awesome. He's actually training. That's another guy. He's like old school rock.

He loves it. He'll give you an interview. He'll sit down with you. He'll talk to you. Hey, shit, he's talked to me at the gym. Just talk to me. That's great. Those squats are great.

It looks great. I was like, what? And you can't stop thinking this is Arnoldnold yeah it's the craziest stuff ever somebody i'm a huge fan of is uh stone cold steve austin it's a good dude and i can't when i'm looking at him i'm just thinking he's gonna give me a stunner yeah he's gonna give me a stone cold stunner he's gonna kick me in the stomach and he's gonna i don't know if in his physical condition now he can pull off a stunner on a guy your size yeah it would be it would be it would be harder but you just you know sometimes when you look at these uh people when you look at

arnold you can't help but think of all the movies and all the great things he's done in bodybuilding it gets you fired up everyone loves to to talk shit like oh i wouldn't get starstruck there's certain people where it's impossible not to man ar's up there too. Arnold is like, it's impossible not to get starstruck. I remember one time I was there and I saw Arnold walk in earlier and I'm working out and he's around the gym somewhere. 15, 20 minutes later, Stallone cruises in. I'm like, it's going to happen. Dude, it's going to happen.

Nine-year-old Mike is is gonna have his dream come true and sure enough i see them lock eyes from across the gym i'm like oh here it comes they walk in they hug and everything it was so awesome neither one of them can understand what the other one's saying just zero intelligibility. As a crazy gym, has any business happened for you from that gym? Because there are so many kind of celebrities and directors and actors. No, but I definitely talk business there. Harvey Levin from TMZ works out there a lot. I saw him the other day, yeah. We'll talk shop, you know, as silly as that sounds, you know.

You see him around the gym. But I will, like, there's a really weird thing that'll happen where sometimes I'll be on TV shows and, like, it'll be on the camera or on the TV in, like, the cardio area. And I'm there working out. I'm like, oh, come on. This is so weird, you know. Or, like, I remember during Dancing with the Stars, like, Tito

and other people, the day after the show, I'd come in and they're like, wait, come here, I got to talk to you about this. That's a strange thing when you're on something so popular that people want to talk to you. What's it like kind of getting recognized on the street? Because I'd imagine when you're behind the microphone and there's not a camera, that must have been a little different as opposed to now, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's weird i mean i you i love i'm very lucky that whenever i get recognized everyone's super nice i've never had a like a bad interaction so to me it's like hey there's psycho mike he's an asshole yeah try to punch you but um i'll tell you you never get used to people recognizing you

by your voice that That is so strange. I still do. I was at 7-Eleven the other day. I was buying a Bang energy drink. Those are delicious, by the way. So delicious. I might have one after the show. I go up to the counter.

The guy's like, $10. I was like, oh, man, here you go. Whatever it was. I was like, so how's your day going, man? He's like, oh, I'm good, I'm good. He goes, you are on the radio, aren't you? And I was like, yeah, how'd you know? He's like, I recognize your voice.

Oh, that's great. And it's just so strange. Because someone recognizing you by face, you kind of understand that. I can still not wrap my head around someone recognizing my voice what's the food like for you what's the diet like i ate two maybe three times a day um i like intermittent fasting i know it's it's very trendy and stuff but i've been following like martin burkhan the 16-8 uh intermittent fast for years and it just worked well for me sustainability and and my lifestyle it fits um i will have a protein at every meal but like usually i'll have a fruit-based carb meal and then a starch-based carb meal and then my night time meal is almost always just protein and veggies two or two or

three meals and you're just eating that eight hourhour window or so. Yeah. Pretty simple. Usually eat around noon, maybe three or four, and then seven or eight, something like that. I mean, it sounds so reasonable. Yeah. Right? It cuts out a lot of the junk. And it does.

And it's like no snacking, just I know I'm going to have my meals, and I can count on that. And I think that's where a lot of people get in trouble with their leptin and everything. It's like I don't expect everyone to eat two or three meals, but the constant snacking, I think that really screws people up. Being on these sets, these TV sets and movie sets and stuff, there must be some awesome food around. It's amazing. I wish to go visit my wife at the set.

It's crazy. I mean, radio, you don't have to worry about it. No one cares about radio. You can't even get a bagel at a radio station but uh man craft services on these tv shows these movies is like oh my god it's everything you could dream of but at the same time it's everything you could dream of that's healthy too there's tons of and that's what i think people need to focus on too is is treat yourself a little bit better you know like, like don't, you know, okay, you want to have the snack or dessert,

and it's on occasion, but it's not the majority of the time, you know? Yeah, that's another thing I've gotten. I feel like a healthier grip on things. Dude, if I'm going out for pizza with my family, I'll have some pizza. Yeah. It's not frequent, but I'll have some pizza.

A couple nights ago, we went to dinner and we were riding our bikes. We stopped at the ice cream store because my daughter wanted ice cream. I had some ice cream. It's not very frequent, but it used to be that it was all or nothing. I was eating like I was in a bodybuilding show, and that was just for my life.

That's no way to live. If you're in a show, it's one thing. It's a whole different thing but what's coming up next for you i don't know it's kind of exciting i don't really know but uh it's also a little bit daunting yeah um i i've i've taken a step back from radio i only do radio once a week now so um and that's really weird because i've devoted my entire adult life to doing radio, usually numerous times a day. For most of my career, I was doing two radio shows at a time all the time. So I've really taken a step back from radio and open my my doors up to the idea. I was reluctant for so long.

The punk rock side of me was like, I'm not some polished TV guy. Screw that. Right. punk rock side of me was like i'm not some polished tv guy screw that right and now i've kind of given up on that and talking circling back to that self-awareness stuff we were talking about it's like no stop stop being macho stop trying to put on this pretentious right that you're some tough guy and it's like no i'm gonna open up the doors to you well you know the thing things we sometimes forget to is people don't know your story yeah you know what i mean like they they see you and they take you at face value of the way that you treat them and the way that you act and they they might not know the history of of the drug abuse and the

different things you overcame so people they really don't they really don't care. And I think that our perception always is so wrapped around what we think other people, what we envision that other people think we are. Right. Which is not even a true thing. It's fake. It's like you made it up. Like, I'm a drug addict. It's like, no, no one thinks of you that way.

You're not. You were. see that way. You're not, you were, you have found a way to get past it, even though there's still, you know, there's still addict mentality, right? Some people say you're kind of attached to it for life, but when you meet people, you're getting a clean slate, right? Every single time. And I think that's something that's important to remember. My dad has always said, you know, part of knowing who you are is knowing who you're not. And that has always kind of helped me help identify myself better because I don't really need to know exactly who I am, but I just need to know who I'm not. Right. It's a little easier to pick out.

Absolutely. It's great advice. Yeah. I'm not like a cyclist. I'm not a beach volleyball player. I'm not that guy. And it's fine to not be those things. Um,

but to truly try to identify on this TV personality. And then I'm going to, you know, I'll be on TV and someone's going to notice me and I'm going to be in a movie. Like, it's hard to like play those things out. Right. Right.

It's hard to make sense of that. Well, and I, and I, I had to come to the realization of recognize what i'm not you know i'm not some against the grain non-conformist tough talking badass like i am kind of a polished broadcaster and yeah people want to pay me to be on tv and host things, I should embrace that.

I think for far too long I was falling back onto the same trappings that I was getting into in high school. I don't want to be in the school play because all the tough guys will make fun of me. I'm going to be 40 years old. I should just stop with all that. Going to train biceps and triceps tomorrow at 4 a.m. You in? No. Where can people find you?

At Mike Catherwood, Instagram and Twitter. And then also the Swole Patrol podcast. Yeah. If you are in the mood for entertainment and with health and fitness. Swole Patrol. All peppered in. You know, Dr. Drew and I. You like wrote a song for me and everything.

That was amazing. Every single episode, new intro. You can count on that if if nothing else you could subscribe that was amazing that was my favorite part thank you strength is never weakness weakness never strength thank you guys thank you so much my man thank you dude that was fun