The Iced Coffee Hour - Steve-O on Leaving California, Getting Rich, and Going Broke

Starting point is 00:00:00 I just could not make it through a day without perpetrating some ghastly behavior. I didn't see how I was going to be able to navigate the world. My one thing that I really loved was attention-seeking and video editing. And that was where I derived this crazy plan to become a famous stuntman with my home video camera. All my wildest dreams came true. Like, I'm famous. What made you want to change? The way that we behave is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. What are you most afraid of?

Starting point is 00:00:35 The whole art of jackass is a young man's thing. And to be Steve-O-old, it's scary. If you could impart any wisdom onto our viewers right now, what would that be? It doesn't matter what you want to do. It doesn't matter what you want to accomplish. What matters is... All righty, Steveo, thank you so much for coming on, the ice coffee hour. It is an honor to have you. Well, thank you, man. It's been an honor to be here. This is so cool. I think for both of us, too,

Starting point is 00:01:11 we've been fans since, like, it's growing up with you and Jackass. And I remember, like, all of us as kids would watch it and then try to, like, I don't want to say we would recreate it, but we'd find, like, different skateboarding stuff and, like, just try to imitate it. We loved it. How long have you guys known each other? Five years. Plus years. Five years. Just about. Yeah, wow. And you were a skateboarder. Yeah. What was your level of proficiency?

Starting point is 00:01:38 What was your best trick? I could kickflip. Wow. You could kickflip? Yeah, I could not. No, you could. And I could drop in on a half pipe that was like the five foot one. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:01:47 But I had a very hard time getting up on the lip and then turning back down. Right, right. You're hoping. Yeah, that's it. But yeah, the kick flip. That's good, man. Yeah. Kick flip while rolling?

Starting point is 00:01:58 Yes. Yeah, no, while rolling. Yeah. My favorite board was zero for what I just. Always at zero. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of Jamie Thomas. Yes, I played him in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

Starting point is 00:02:09 Yeah. He rode for toy machine before starting zero. I love him. That's so cool. I got to be honest, when we were doing our research, we realized it is incredibly difficult to introduce you because there's just so much that you've done. So I don't even know necessarily how to introduce you, but if you were to describe who is, Steve-o, how would you do it? I would say that I'm an entertainer. entertainer. Yeah, an entertainer. Or in more simple terms, I suppose, an attention whore.

Starting point is 00:02:40 An attention whore. I think I've always leaned into calling myself an attention whore because on some level it's inherently self-deprecating. It's a way of not taking myself too seriously. But at the same time, I do believe that attention could be argued to be the most valuable commodity known demand. If you look at how much of the world is driven by advertising revenue, it follows that attention really is a commodity and a very precious one at that. Well, we want to talk about the revenue and the monetizing and all of that stuff because we actually started out as kind of like a finance podcast. Of course.

Starting point is 00:03:33 Yeah. And during our research, we also learned you had a stint in there where you were like, what, doing backflips for 50 cents to go buy a sausage. Hot dogs. Hot dogs. And then stealing the buns and then heating them in microwaves at gas stations. Buying the buck. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:03:51 Which is surprising because I think it's, it's. better known that I had a very privileged upbringing. I was the son of a corporate executive. I grew up in five different countries because my corporate executive father worked for all these multinational corporations. So the fact that I was legitimately homeless for three years after dropping out of university and doing backflips for 50 cents or a dollar or whatever and stealing hot dogs while I paid 50 cents for a loaf of bread and that was, I attribute that to having been raised with enough pride

Starting point is 00:04:40 that I wasn't willing to ask for my father or my parents to bankroll my activities when they amounted to nothing that they approved of. How did you feel about your financial situation? Because I know nowadays a lot of people that are around that age are just like, you've got to grind, you got to go monk mode, work super hard, and make a bunch of money. But you, it seemed so far in what I learned that you were kind of okay with that. I had a pretty pessimistic view of my own future. I didn't expect that I was going to live for very long.

Starting point is 00:05:19 I think that I at my core believed that I lacked the basic skills needed to survive in our society. I could not keep a job. I got fired from every single job that I ever had. I just couldn't do it. And I couldn't get through college. I couldn't keep a job. I just couldn't, I didn't see how I was going to be able to navigate the world. My one thing that I, that I really loved was attention seeking and video editing.

Starting point is 00:05:56 And that was where I derived this crazy plan to become a famous stuntman with my home video camera. And again, I didn't think I was going to live very long. So all of my exploits with videotaping crazy stunts felt like an exercise in packing my message into a bottle for it to be discovered after I had passed a tragic and young failed life. How much did you make from Jackass, the first season? Less than 1,500 bucks for the entire first season. Why? Why so low?

Starting point is 00:06:36 Is it because they weren't sure it was going to be a hit? it was certainly a shoestring budget um i i was uh like with jack as i never so much as countered you know and and offered like i was just it was always just me being informed what i was going to be compensated um and uh i looking back on it i just view it as um i had to pay my dues sure Like, I felt that I was really not compensated financially for the early days of Jackass, but I was compensated in attention. They kind of made me a monster where I was paid an opportunity.

Starting point is 00:07:27 What did you spend the money on? Do you remember? At that time, it was illicit substances at that time. And when did the money really start rolling in? after that came out. The first season of Jackass, I made less than 1,500 bucks. After the third episode aired,

Starting point is 00:07:52 I got a call that the show really was a major hit and that MTV was going to purchase seasons two and three at once in their reorder. The first season was eight episodes, and now they're going to buy 16 more, representing seasons two and three. They said, because it's a hit, we know we have to pay you, and that's why we're going to give you $2,000 per episode. And I remember thinking, wow, $2,000 times $16,000 is $32,000. Like, wow, you know, I never had anywhere near that money, that amount of money to myself.

Starting point is 00:08:37 So I was very, very comfortable with that. They paid half of that amount of money largely up front. And after taxes, which they took out, half of $32,000 after taxes was $10,000. So I got a check early in the filming process for seasons two and three. I got a check for $10,000. bucks. And I remember thinking, wow, this is more money than I've ever had. This is great. I'm going to deposit this $10,000 check into the bank. And before it even clears into my account, I will have

Starting point is 00:09:21 packed up my car and driven from Florida to go move to Los Angeles to take advantage of this opportunity. And I told that to Jeff Tremaine, who is the, you know, the boss, the, the, the director guy. And he said, you're not, you're not driving anywhere until you give me a list of ideas to film in every state between Florida and California. And he said, if I had ideas, my ideas were there that he would fly out a camera crew to follow me across country and film in every state. So that's what happened.

Starting point is 00:10:04 And it was March of 2001. And I got a good leg up on all that filming because I had my own, you know. Wow. But obviously that's not where like the money started really rolling in. A bigger piece of, I suppose, financial security. It came about in January of 2001 when I got a call from a, a rave promoter in Cleveland, Ohio. She said he was throwing a party.

Starting point is 00:10:40 He wanted to fly me to Cleveland for this. I remember it was January 25th of 2001. He said, I'll fly you in the night of the party. I'll fly you out the next morning. You won't even be gone 24 hours, and I want to pay you $700 to attend this party. Just got to go to this. Be in attendance.

Starting point is 00:11:04 And my response to this guy was, don't just give me $700. I will light myself on fire. You know, I will chew and swallow glass. That's kind of where I was at with all that. And sure enough, I went out there. I attended the party. It was broken up by cops for a venue being like a much overcrowded. I did all kinds of illicit substances all night.

Starting point is 00:11:38 Then the next day and the next morning he found me under his kitchen table. And he said that your flight departs in an hour. Do you even want to try it? And I was like, ah. So I ended up staying in Cleveland for about a week. Wow. I remember he said, you know, when do you need to be back? and I told him, oh, there's this girl I'm kind of into,

Starting point is 00:12:03 I'd like to be back by Valentine's Day. Aren't you worried about, you know, like, I was like, oh, no, I got like, you know, at the time I had like $1,500 bucks in my bank account because I'd been working for some dot-com company videotaping things. It's like, ah, totally cool. And this guy, I really just saw kind of dollar signs in my willingness to do stuff.

Starting point is 00:12:29 and he booked more personal appearance things. The next personal appearance that this guide arranged for me was in spring break. And it was just show up at a nightclub and just be there. But when I shut up at this nightclub, I saw there was this stage that wasn't being utilized. And I was like, oh, I'm going to get on this stage and perform crazy stunts, chewing and swallowing glass,

Starting point is 00:12:56 lighting myself on fire. And what ended up happening was that I corralled, I don't know, maybe close to a thousand people. You know, this whole nightclub just kind of went over to the stage to watch me do my silly, dumb things. And that turned it into a tour. It was a don't try this at home tour. And this shady rave promoter guy ended up booking a full-scale world tour. And granted, given that it was all on my name and, you know, I probably could have done a lot better with it. But from where I had been financially to where that got me, that's where I can say I've never been broke since then.

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Starting point is 00:15:23 JustWorks for sponsoring this episode and back to the show. This might sound stupid. How do you eat glass? You chew it into sand. How do you ever cut up your tongue or your gums or? No, you know what? When you're, it's a light bulb. You know, you'll break a light bulb. Okay.

Starting point is 00:15:42 And you can chew pieces of glass from a broken light bulb. And you effectively chew it into sand. It doesn't cut. How does it not cut? Is there a special way? What it does do is it's very bad for your teeth. Your teeth are effectively sanded down. So not a good habit to pick up on a daily basis.

Starting point is 00:16:12 But yeah, that was an interesting era in my life. And I had a bunch of footage that was not suitable for MTV. It was not allowed on MTV and so it was this same guy and this other business partner that he had who arranged a video, a distribution deal for me to make too hot for TV videos. Those were big at the time too. Yeah, I had my, I mean, to their credit, they set up my own late night television commercial campaign for the direct

Starting point is 00:16:45 to response, direct to consumer. Yeah. I think those are the days when the girls gone wild, DVDs were like coming up in the heyday. I'd rock Comedy Central. And after 11 p.m., sure enough, that song would come on. You know instantly that song. I had exactly the same format of late night TV commercial. And yeah, I never got paid, I don't think, by those guys for those videos. But it did raise my profile.

Starting point is 00:17:14 Interesting. How far along the jackass journey did it take for you to get recognized for the first time? Oh my God. It was right away. Right away. The very first episode of Jackass, I had like a very insignificant... Roll.

Starting point is 00:17:31 Bit, like of it, very forgettable. But it was the second episode of Jackass, which aired, that featured me swallowing the goldfish and regurgitating it into a fish bowl. And that one changed my life overnight. Like, the next... day after that show. I just got to understand that this was in the year 2000. There was internet, but there was no such thing as high-speed internet.

Starting point is 00:18:01 There was certainly no real way to watch videos. I mean, you could kind of, it was a big undertaking to watch any kind of video clip on the internet at that time. And the media just simply wasn't fragmented. the way that it is today. So, you know, to be like the level of a hit show on MTV at that time, it meant substantial viewership. Like we had a...

Starting point is 00:18:33 It was just so different at the time. The media was considerably less fragmented. And like a hit, like Jackass had that time commanded, a fairly substantial portion of, the attentional span of the general. When do you think you saw the biggest swing of your net worth? 2020. Really?

Starting point is 00:18:59 Big time. What happened in 2020? Was it a positive swing? Oh, yeah. What happened? We had a jackass forever come out. And I had built my own revenue streams that they were set up in a play. for all of the media machine

Starting point is 00:19:22 supporting Jackass Forever to really just energize all of these revenue streams that I had with the merch, with my tour. I made it from performing in comedy clubs to booking theaters. And so like one night in a theater, I would be making the amount of money

Starting point is 00:19:41 that I would make per week in a comedy club. So it was just an exponential an exponentially aberrationaly strong year. The one thing I found surprising is that you were doing a video with Weeman and mentioned that Wild Boys paid less than the residuals of bad grandpa. Oh, yeah. How does that work? Because Wild Boys, in my opinion, it was such a huge show.

Starting point is 00:20:11 But then again, I guess the movie was also fairly large. The TV deals with MTV were not... Very lucrative. And with the, uh, with the, the movies, um,

Starting point is 00:20:28 we did, we got our, our profit participation, albeit our profit participation was, you know, I'm not going to say negligible, but a very tiny percentage. Although it was a tiny percentage,

Starting point is 00:20:43 it was, uh, by the same definition as, Spike Jones, John. Yeah, sure. So we got that definition, which made that percentage, albeit small, like, like a legitimate percentage. What would you say was the biggest net worth swing negatively for you? 2008 financial crisis. Really? As far as a percentage of my net worth, yeah. What happened there? I mean, I didn't pay a lot of attention to, like what? my investment tour. If I got a financial statement, I would just go straight to the bottom line. Like, oh, that's what I'm worth cool. In reality, I had a stockbroker guy who was in charge of

Starting point is 00:21:30 half of my savings, and I had my father who was in charge of the other half of my savings, at least what was to be deployed for investment purposes. And it was kind of a fun competition. You know, as a gentleman's bet, who's going to get, who's going to make my money earn more for me. And I believe that they were both just very end of the stock market. And so being heavily invested in the stock market in September of 2008 meant that, what was it, 50% of mine, you know. Did you hold or did you end up selling? I can't even remember. Okay. I can't even remember. And at the time, I was living in a halfway house, you know, having recently gotten out of rehab, I got, you know, but I went into rehab in March of 2008.

Starting point is 00:22:29 And my life was a bit of a disaster at that point. I had burned a lot of bridges and I had just kind of spiraled out of control. And up to that point, I just didn't think that I was, I expected that I go, I'm going to, you know, be dead. I'm not, you know, I just didn't ever like envision living to be middle aged or, you know, to have a full life. But I just pictured it that it was all going to crash and burn and I was going to be dead imminently. And I really, uh, dedicated. myself to the recovery process. And in doing so, it occurred to me that I wasn't necessarily going to die imminently. You know, that actually I might, not now that I've stopped effectively killing myself with drugs and alcohol, now that, you know, I'm actually taking care of myself, now I actually

Starting point is 00:23:39 might be less than halfway through my life. I might be looking at, at many more decades of life in front of me. And here I am, you know, I've burned, like, burned every bridge that I had in my career at that point. What I was being told about being a man in recovery was that to be in recovery, I had to adopt spiritual principles. I had to deflate my ego. You know, I had, like, everything about being in recovery

Starting point is 00:24:15 seemed totally antithetical to being Steve O from Jackass. So I didn't know that I could continue to have a career in entertainment. My future, my financial future felt very uncertain. And then, in come September, half of my savings was obliterated. So, yeah, that was a scary time. I'm interested in the rehab. Why do you think you were able to successfully complete that,

Starting point is 00:24:52 whereas so many other people fail? What did you have that they don't? I'm as baffled as anybody. And the only thing I would respond to that is that it's not something that you complete. You know, I think there's no complete. It's almost like saying like if somebody were to get into good, fitness, you know, good physical shape. It's not something that you complete.

Starting point is 00:25:20 It's like, oh, so you're in good shape. You've become fit, like, that you can become unfit at any time. So I really equate, you know, everything about being in recovery for chemical dependency issues. Like, it's all an analogy for fitness, you know, like, people. say like, oh, does the rehab work? Well, you know, the rehab is like the gym. I get that. You kind of get out of it, what you put into it. What do you think is the most difficult part of sobriety? I think that the most challenging part of sobriety would be to completely disengage from

Starting point is 00:26:11 the environment that you struggled in. You know, like, when you go into rehab, if you think that you're going to spend 30 days in rehab and then go back into the environment where you had all your problems, it's never going to work, you know, you have to completely change your environment. And I was fortunate because when I went into rehab, I had been evicted from, from, my apartment. I'd been in this relationship. The relationship fell apart. And having burned all the bridges in my career was actually kind of, I had zero distractions. I had no home to return to, no relationship to return to, no jobs to distract me. So across the board, I had an absolutely

Starting point is 00:27:13 like clean and fresh start. And I was told that if I wanted to really give myself a strong chance of success in long-term sobriety, that what I should do is be in a rehab facility, an inpatient rehab for 30 days. And then from there, go into what's called a sober living, environment, like live in a halfway house where, where there's structure, where, you know, I've got to follow the, like, rules where I've got to submit drug tests and breathalizers and, you know, where there's real guardrails in place to protect my sobriety for any moments of weakness. And that, like, to commit to that is probably the hardest, you know. What made you want to change? I just could not make it through a day without purpose.

Starting point is 00:28:13 perpetrating some ghastly behavior that brought about shame and humiliation on just a horrifying level. Where did you hear the shame and humiliation? Was that other people telling you this, or was this you looking back and saying, I wish I didn't do that? I think I could sum it up by saying that the way that we treat others, the way that we behave, is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. I think that there's some kind of a spiritual law in that. And over the course of my addiction, my self-esteem, my self-worth,

Starting point is 00:28:54 it was just degraded to a point where my behavior and my actions towards others was degraded as well. And I would be on these crazy benders where I just, you know, I wouldn't, I was just so irrational, so impulsive that, you know, I would just find myself lashing out at people. I would particularly be ashamed by actions I would take to try to hurt people's feelings. You know, I became capable of being very nasty, very mean-spirited.

Starting point is 00:29:44 I would try to hurt people's feelings, harm their reputations, just despicable things that I would realize that I did later, you know, like, oh, my, like, and that would bring about shame. I was broadcasting my downward spiral in virtual real time, if not literally real time, with the advent of YouTube. I mean, this is like YouTube count in 2005. I was an early adopter. You know, I was like videotaping myself in horribly humiliating states, just distributing links, you know. It's like, so that was just the problem is that, you know, at the peak of my acute intoxication on all these various substances, I would think that what I was doing was just the coolest thing

Starting point is 00:30:42 ever. And I'd be committing it to video and then distributing the video links and then later coming to realize, oh, that wasn't super cool. Do you ever look back at those videos? Do you ever, like, watch them? Or what's that like for you to see yourself in that state today? I have, I can look back on it now and see, like, having evolved the way that I have evolved, now I can, you know, look back with gratitude at what once was. So it doesn't necessarily bother me.

Starting point is 00:31:20 If anything, I'm profoundly grateful for the change, the, you know, that I've made since then. So, like the juxtaposition of who I am now to that kind of makes it palatable and okay to be entertained by how bad it was. And that's why I've had no issue pilfering the archives of this humiliating footage and making it into, you know, retrospective storytelling YouTube videos and monetizing. it, you know, I don't have any issue with that because that's not me anymore. But yeah, that's some pretty outrageously humiliating and shameful stuff. Why do you think people are drawn to self-destructive behavior?

Starting point is 00:32:11 Because it's not just alcohol and drugs. It could also be food. It could also be, you know, doing something that people know is not good for them, but they continue. Why do you think that's super bad? Well, I think the definition of addiction is continued behavior. despite consequences. When a behavior is causing harm to you,

Starting point is 00:32:34 and not only do you continue the behavior despite that harm, but in fact you cannot stop the behavior. And I mean, that's, the only explanation for that is that it's literally insanity. It's a disease that's centered in our mind. I'm curious. Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? I mean, you get a little bit dangerously close to ruling out free will as a possibility. You know, like, I certainly don't believe in predestination.

Starting point is 00:33:17 You know, I think that the laws of the universe require that we have free will. will. With that said, I think that on some kind of a spiritual level, that we have a blueprint for challenges that we choose to take on in our lifetime. So it gets a little bit murky where if there's free will and nothing's predetermined, then how do you have a blueprint for your life? And then I also believe very strong. that there are forces at play that do play a role. I mean, I don't know. It's all super confusing.

Starting point is 00:34:11 Things happening for a reason. Yes. What moment for you do you feel like there was something that was just, this isn't chance, that this was meant to happen? I had this terrible thing happen. while I was filming a project. It was just the idea, but I was filming like kind of a proof of concept,

Starting point is 00:34:37 maybe a sizzle reel, kind of a thing. I had this idea for a project which would serve to reunite the wild boys. It was me and Chris Pontius. And we didn't want to like, you know, do wild boys again because with all the animals and stuff. I'm much more sensitive to to animal rights

Starting point is 00:35:01 and doing the right thing. But in March of 2018, there was a request that came out, which was largely a response to this video I had made where I found a dog in the streets of Peru. My dog went. Yeah. This video got hundreds of millions of views.

Starting point is 00:35:21 The most viewed piece of content I ever put on the internet. And, you know, one of the results of this video about the dog, Wendy, got a request from Puerto Rico. They had just had Hurricane Maria. It devastated Puerto Rico. And there were dogs displaced. And there was a real crisis situation. They said that they were having this event to mass.

Starting point is 00:35:57 spay and neuter dogs and then you know did i want to come and participate in it i said hell yeah this is something i absolutely believe in and um i knew that i wanted to get uh get a besectomy as a stunt uh for for this project i was working on but i thought oh you know like i'll go to support this spay and neuter you know in puerto rico and i'll get a vasectomy there you know tied into it and then i thought you know what's we're going to i'm going to go to porto rico anyway and they need help help and we could really be spearheading this campaign to promote tourism in Puerto Rico to help them, you know, and it felt very organic. It was, like, it didn't feel like creating positive, like, I hate artificial positivity in general, you know, but this felt like organic. And I thought,

Starting point is 00:36:52 wow, what if we made a bigger thing out of this trip? You know, we got the dogs. thing. We've got the promote tourism. Maybe we'll do like a kind of a format of like the wild boys. And we get into all this crazy wild stuff. We're actually going to places that need help and we'll be ambassadors of goodwill. So we're there. And it's like our second day of filming. And we've got this, this thing. We're going to mess around with jet skis to show us having fun and promoting tourism. And, you know, we're going to, I said, I said, let's tie ourselves together with a rope, and we'll just punch jet skis in opposite directions,

Starting point is 00:37:36 boom, you know, and get yanked off. And this producer guy who I hired, he said, oh, man, that could really, you know, cause a spinal injury. He said, do it with the bungee cord. Okay, well, that makes sense. Sure, do it with bungee court. So it's called it the bungee tug of war. It was just the craziest thing because,

Starting point is 00:37:57 we had a massive crew. Like there were, I went there with a crew of 10 people. And then on top of that, there were, all the other people there, the, you know, were on the set. It didn't occur to anybody that, in us, like, doing a tug of war with a bungee cord. Like, what if the bungee cord breaks? And that's what happened. No.

Starting point is 00:38:22 The bungee cord broke. And this guy who, this guy who was in the water, it struck him. Like, I struck him in the head. And it was turned into a really crazy lawsuit, which only just recently ended under totally undisclared, like confidential terms, you know. It's a long lawsuit. Yeah, six years. Yeah. six years and um god the just a very very unfortunate like for that many people to have been

Starting point is 00:39:04 in that situation like that that there was some kind of the universe manipulating the situation for that to even be possible because nobody it didn't i just can't believe that that many people were involved and nobody thought that that was a possibility. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your chichings from every channel, right in one spot, and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities.

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Starting point is 00:41:27 Thank you so much, Ciona, and now back to the episode. And there was another one where I was filming these pyrotechnic stunts, one after another, and each one, like more reckless than the one before. and I kept getting away with, you know, and I thought, well, I got to get kind of hurt, you know. So it ended up in me laying down in a bed of rocket engine fuel and my buddy's lighting it. And I was wearing nothing but a T-shirt. And I ended up with third-degree burns that were so heinous. I had skin graft surgery on 15% of my body.

Starting point is 00:42:14 looking back on that one how i thought that i was going to you know get away with that and um that was just a particularly uh a particularly weird episode where um i felt that there was some kind of uh other forces that play yeah do you think that maybe like someone someone or something is like watching over you to make sure that like i i i i I do believe that I do believe that I've got some kind of a network of angels. What are you most afraid of? I think I have very similar fears to the average person. I think typically fears are derived from losing everything that you have

Starting point is 00:43:09 and or not getting the things that you want. Yeah. I mean, I think that losing everything, like being broke, that's probably my biggest fear. Being broke. Yeah, like, I think that it's particularly easy to lose a lot of money. All you got to do is save a lot of money. I think that it's pretty incredible how it's possible to lose. there's everything. Well, I think even in that lawsuit example, that could get insanely expensive with relatively uncapped potential liability on something like that. For sure. Is he okay?

Starting point is 00:43:57 Yeah, yeah. Definitely is okay. What is your biggest insecurity? You know, like, I've got this trademark voice, very recognizable. If I call to order a pizza, there's a strong chance that the person on the other end of the line is going to say, no way, dude, is this, Steve-o? You know, And that's something that, that's, like, it's trademark. It is. I know that my fiance, she loves it. But I, at times, find myself very insecure and self-conscious of what a piece of shit voice I have.

Starting point is 00:44:36 That was not what I was expecting. Yeah, that's not what I was expecting at all. At all. Yeah. For me, for me, it's very much of a trademark. Like, I wouldn't even think. of anything other than attributing that voice to you. Right, right.

Starting point is 00:44:48 I mean, it's far more recognizable than my actual appearance. Do you know, like, what it is about your voice that makes you bothered by it specifically? My concern, my, my fear, my insecurity is that it's unpleasant to listen to. Wow. It makes you feel any better. I mean, it never, never bothered me at all. few days I've listened effectively to your voice nonstop. Oh wow.

Starting point is 00:45:19 You probably listen to your voice. 10 hours of your voice. Well, that means the world to me. Thank you. You know what? I also think, too, that if you ask most people, I suspect, most people, when asked what they're insecure about, would not be inclined to give an honest answer. And that in declining to give an honest answer, what they're effectively doing.

Starting point is 00:45:45 doing is packaging. Yeah. Like bottling it up so that it can fester and have more power over them. And I do subscribe to being transparent to just saying, you know what? Like I found myself very self-conscious about my voice. And having said that openly and honestly took a little bit of power out of it. And your guy's response was, uh, was appreciate. by me.

Starting point is 00:46:16 That is just such an unexpected answer. It really is. Yeah. Now what about, because we were talking on your podcast, yeah. About the process of aging. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:46:25 And how you felt like you are known as stevo. Yeah. But your body might not always be able to keep up with that. And what is, in what way, if you could explain it? What I was saying is that my, my identity.

Starting point is 00:46:39 Yeah. Is very tied to adolescent, behavior, you know, like recklessness, immaturity. Like the whole art of jackass is a young man's thing. And to be Steve-O-old, it's scary. You know, like I've felt that somehow it's not okay for Steve-O-to-be-old. And as I was saying, that Kevin Smith, he pushed back on that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:47:12 You know, he pushed back on that strenuous. saying that he can see a future for an edgy old stevo to be very cool and and active. What age do you feel mentally? Man, I don't know that I feel mentally a different age than I am. And it's crazy to say that I'm 50, you know, 50 years old. Like, it's hard for me to compute that I'm 50 years old. But at the same time, the amount of experience that I have packed into this lifetime is mind-boggling. You know, I really, I was last week, I went skydiving 25 times in four days, getting certified to do a particularly ridiculous stunt for this multimedia tour.

Starting point is 00:48:15 that I am embarking on. We broke for lunch one day, and these two skydiver guys were talking in a casual conversation, one guy was saying, you know, time is the most valuable thing. You never get it back. You know, time, like,

Starting point is 00:48:33 and I wasn't even part of the conversation because I was over at the counter, like we're trying to get my food. And I was just, I had a moment to myself contemplating, like what the, I just heard, time is the most valuable thing. You never get it back. And I just had this, this moment of reflection thinking that, yeah, time it really is valuable.

Starting point is 00:49:01 And I feel that, God, I've been proactive about making all my time count. Yeah. You know, like, I think 50 years is a long fucking time. and I can't imagine how any other 50-year-old could have had as much life experiences as I've had even anywhere near close to it. Having so many experiences and having gone through so many things, is there a specific decision or moment in time where if you could go back in time, you would change it?

Starting point is 00:49:35 Or what is your biggest regret? I say it a lot that my biggest regret is not being diligent about, flossing my teeth, like flossing and brushing in general. And, you know, because I've said so much, I won't spend too much time on it, but some people can get away without flossing, some people cannot. And when I say that some people cannot, I was one of those people who had a bacteria that accumulated in my mouth because of not flossing. And this is a bacteria that brushing will not eliminate. So like, you know, there were just so many years in my life where I would brush my teeth and like immediately after brushing my teeth, someone would tell me,

Starting point is 00:50:25 dude, your breath is gnarly. Like, what are you talking about me? I just brush my teeth. And I didn't understand it. It's a, you know, I need, so the thing is that in our society, when somebody has like an odor emanating from their mouth, like it's not, uh it's not like societally okay to tell the earth and in the case of people who have this bacteria in their mouth they themselves can't detect it so no one will tell you you've got it and you don't know you have it

Starting point is 00:51:02 yourself so you just go through life like just being bowel and offensive to anybody who's within speaking distance from you and uh yeah it's tough man One thing I really admire about you is even shown when prompted what your biggest insecurity is, which is like this sense of like lack of embarrassment or shame. What would you say is the most embarrassing moment when you think of? I'm not going to say that I'm like impervious to embarrassment or shame on any level. Was there ever a stunt that you were, that was like too embarrassing to do? I was terribly embarrassed super recently over the way that I backed out of doing this big stunt that I said told everybody I was going to go and get breast implants for my new tour.

Starting point is 00:52:02 Like, oh, me, it's going to be crazy. I was so absolutely convinced that if I went and just as a gag went and went in and got. D-sized breast implants. This would be such big news, that it would be such headlines that every person in the world was going to know that Stivo got boobs for his new tour.

Starting point is 00:52:32 And whether or not anybody agreed with it or like whatever, I believed in the sheer numbers, as a numbers game. Yes, because you have to go and see them. Incredible market. Like that Instagram photo, that first one, I imagine getting 10 million. Does it get deleted? Does it get taken down? That was one of the question. Is a heterosexual man who identifies as a man allowed to be topless and who's got booboom? And then it, but then there are men who have boobs naturally when they gain weight or should those be censored versus the ones that you get artificially? I think it. And,

Starting point is 00:53:12 Incredibly interesting. And I believe firmly that the list of creative ideas for pranks and stunts that I would film during the two months that I had the boobs, because I only ever intended to keep the boobs for two months. And then I was going to get them taken out. I just knew it was a nuclear attention getting thing. And I was just committed to it. Committed to it to the point where it was fully paid for. I had a hyperbaric chamber set up in the living room, which was apparently going to speed up my recovery process to twice as fast.

Starting point is 00:53:53 So I was going to heal twice as fast by sitting in this hyperbaric chamber. I'd like really, really gotten like shockingly good at acrobatic pole dancing to film hidden camera pranks and strip clubs. Like, I had like the, like, the level of commitment that I had was, was like, utterly undeniable. And I got to the point of being within 10 hours of the surgery. It was to happen at 8 a.m. on July 11th, 10 p.m. the night before, 10 hours before surgery. I got to call that the anesthesiologist backed out. They found out it's Steve O'Duna.

Starting point is 00:54:41 And of course they found out because I told. everybody I like posted about it I made it so no and I'm gonna do this like an idiot I'd blurted it out to the world and the anesthesiologist backed out then the doctor was uh didn't want to be associated with it anymore the surgery center they were trying to get it get it rescheduled and this will turn out to be a story that I'd tell like ad nauseum so I should you know shouldn't dwell on this too much but in any case the next day, they're trying to reschedule it, the next day, the day that I was supposed to already have had the surgery, I'm in the supermarket buying groceries and the person

Starting point is 00:55:26 ringing up my groceries is evidently transgender. And in my view, I had never needed permission to go through with this. Like, I was so perfectly clear on what my intentions were, which were to get to get attention, to get laughs, to be crazy, wild jackass stunt. Like, that's the next logical step for, like, what I do. But I felt that here's another example, like, this was meant to be, you know? Like, here, like, you know, this, like, I just couldn't deny the possibility that here, like, I'm having this encounter with this evidently transgender person for a reason. And I thought, man, you know, like this sequence of events seems like to be pointed.

Starting point is 00:56:17 And I just said to this person, hey, can I run something by you? Can I have a conversation? That's interesting. Yeah. What do they say? I mean, I explained my whole thing. And even like down to like what the, you know, the specific pranks and stunts were. to the extent that I described the whole exercise as being the ultimate statement of body autonomy.

Starting point is 00:56:43 I said, you know what? Like, I think this is just, you know, this isn't to be hurtful or offensive to anybody. This is just my body, my choice. I'm going to be wild and here we go. This person said that my body, my choice thing is great. We're all about that. But when you're in disguising yourself, I had a plan for a motorcycle helmet to completely cover my face and head. And to be with airbrushing, cover all my tattoos, waxing, no hair, bikini top, Daisy Dukes with my motorcycle helmet on, riding a pink Vespah around at the Sturgis motorcycle rally.

Starting point is 00:57:28 You know, with hidden cameras filming like gangs of helmet. Angels, bikers, like checking me out, parking in the Vespa and walking up to him and then pulling up my helmet and saying, yeah, dude, what's up? You know, like, um, and it would have been like, I believe that would have been amazing. Yes. But, but I also believe that it would have been more compelling, more entertaining if the reaction from the Hells Angels guys was, was one of, contention or disgust of like what is that

Starting point is 00:58:06 even if like you know it's fairly reasonable to expect that perhaps they would assault me and in my view that's what would have

Starting point is 00:58:15 made the footage the craziest and this person who I spoke to saw real issues with that and that going like

Starting point is 00:58:25 the the disguising myself to trick people is like something very sensitive and particularly to to make the reveal which which invites or insights like a hateful response that basically the the creative plan there was one to celebrate like hatred i get that it's it's one of those topics where i feel like it's it's become such a big hot issue that didn't quite exist to the same extent 20 years ago. And I feel like back then,

Starting point is 00:59:07 like in 2005, you do this and it's the hit. Now I think it just comes at it from a different angle where all of a sudden it turns into this issue and now you have much bigger groups take a meaning to it that you never intended. Right. And in the lead up to this whole thing, I knew that there were going to be people who were like very hot under the collar about it. I knew that it was going to be a super polarizing thing. And I thought it's a numbers game, you know, like let's go. Like, it's going to. So people being sensitive about that, it was just the conversation that I had with this person.

Starting point is 00:59:49 And particularly when they described a level of oppression that was genuinely heartbreaking. You know, like, wow. And, I mean, I don't even know that any one thing was it. I just felt that like the key middle of effect of the whole chain of events, like, genuinely led me to believe that the universe had intervened to prevent me from going through with that idea. That makes sense. I could see that. At the wrist. And looking back on it, now, I'm so glad I didn't do it.

Starting point is 01:00:34 You know, I'm just so glad I didn't do it. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm still humiliated by the way that I said I was going to do it and then I didn't do it. And like, you know, even the notion that I planned to do it and hadn't yet got traction. with the media. Yeah. To the point where when I'm going about my day doing random things in public, random people say, so when are you getting the boobs? I said, oh.

Starting point is 01:01:12 And then I have this, this embarrassment, like, wash over me. And I explain, oh, well, see what happened, you know? I've just never been the kind of guy to say I'm going to do something and then not do it. and I'm not necessarily embarrassed that I backed out. I'm just more embarrassed that I blurted it out to begin with. And perhaps in equal measure, I'm proud to be the kind of guy who can admit that he's wrong. That's fair. That's very fair.

Starting point is 01:01:47 At the risk of sounding very ignorant, I think that that would have been so funny to see. When you're telling me those ideas, the fact that you got good at stripping and like you were going to go on a vespah and try to garner attention from like biker game like that's hilarious like envisioning that in my head is one of the funniest things like the marketing on that alone not trying to you know convince you into doing everything yeah i'm just saying we we could separate it from everything else though yeah i just see it as i don't see it as like stevo like mocking anybody i just see it as stevo with boobs which is just funny i you know what I get it.

Starting point is 01:02:24 And I also genuinely appreciate the kind words. I do consider myself to be a creative guy with a neck for coming up with entertaining plans. Yeah, that is strongly evidenced in the show that I was going to do this for. You know, like I put together wildly entertaining shows. And I feel really strongly that everybody who comes out, to see me on this tour is the stevo super dummy tour that they're going to be wildly entertained so speaking of comedy this aside do you feel like comedy's gotten too soft lately because we've we've spoken with a few comedians who we've had on the podcast and they've definitely noticed a change from

Starting point is 01:03:11 you know 2000 or even the 90s through today in terms of what could be said and you know what's what's socially acceptable i don't know that i feel qualified to answer that because um I've never really been like an insult guy, you know, like for the most part, I've always been like the target, you know. Self-deprecating. Yeah, I've only, like, I've only ever sought to harm or put down myself. And when it comes to the ways in which, you know, audience. and comedy's been policed and, you know, the woke, like, what has become unacceptable in this woke era? Like, it's been deemed not okay to be offensive, to be hateful.

Starting point is 01:04:16 Like, I mean, I don't know, like, call me woke, but, but, uh, If there's less bigotry and hatefulness, like, I'm not mad at that. You know, if you got to, like, be hateful to be funny, like, you know, maybe. But then again, I'm not the comedy police either, so I don't fucking care. You know, I think that if people are laughing at a joke, it's probably because it's funny. Yeah. Now, I'm curious because you put yourself through a lot of physical pain. How does it differ from mental pain?

Starting point is 01:04:57 Oh, man. It's a great question. For the most part, when I've experienced physical pain, there's been a tangible reward in the form of video footage, which was, you know, valuable. So I feel like I've been handsomely rewarded for the physical pain that I've endured for the most part. Mental pain, it's more insidious and less rewarding. I'm a big fan of a prescription I do. take called Zoloft, which I believe protects me from like a morass of dark thinking. And, you know,

Starting point is 01:06:12 even at times like ideation of self-harm, I take the, I take this Zoloft and I'm free of that for the most part. But I look back on times when I wasn't taking it and scary. How would you describe depression for someone who's never experienced that level of depression? I would describe depression as, like in a word, helplessness, in equal measure hopelessness. yeah like a deep sadness that you feel devoid of hope and you know devoid of help it's dark man it's scary and i think that the antidote for um feelings like this

Starting point is 01:07:15 is to articulate it you know i think that um again like with the voice your insecurities, you know, by like, it takes power out of it. If you can tell just another person, if you can speak up about what, what you're feeling, what you're going through, that I think that is the strongest medicine to get you through it. And I think that in cases when people, you know, they find a permanent solution to a temporary problem, it's because they didn't speak up. They weren't vocal about what was bothering them. In terms of the physical pain,

Starting point is 01:08:02 did you have a certain experience or something where you realized that you kind of had a higher tolerance for it? Do you not think that you have a higher tolerance for it? No. You realize that's insane to hear. I get a paper. And I have, oh, he bleaks out. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:08:20 I had a popcorn kernel stuck in the back of my throat, and it ruined the night. Yeah. It was, it was all I could think about for hours, and it was a popcorn. I mean, as a way to illustrate my belief that I don't have a high tolerance for pain, um, if I did, then I wouldn't be reacting. in these situations where I'm experiencing pain. I think that the fact that I don't have a special tolerance for pain is evident in the fact that I react to pain when I'm in it.

Starting point is 01:09:01 And it's that reaction that people find compelling and entertaining. The secret to how I'm able to force myself into painful situations is that that, that my desire for attention outweighs my desire for comfort. That's really interesting. Where do you think the desire for attention comes from? Ah, man. I don't believe that you have to be Sigmund Freud to look at my childhood and having the corporate executive father

Starting point is 01:09:45 who's, you know, shit was popping off, man. Like, I was raised by servants and spoke my first words in Portuguese because I was raised by servants because my dad was the president of Pepsi Cola and all of Brazil. And so, like, you know, like my parents had it going on. Like, their life was popping. And I think that, um, I didn't get the attention that a baby should get

Starting point is 01:10:22 from their parents. And I think that that created a vacuum on some level that please love me. Like, you know, like maybe, I think that when parents, you know, when parents don't pay attention to their baby, that that creates like a vacuum. And then that's not necessarily an indictment.

Starting point is 01:10:45 indictment of my parents. Sure. They did the best they could. They didn't know. Yeah. You know, I'm certainly not mad at them for it. But I think that it just checks out, you know, especially because, you know, with my dad, you know, traveling and being so immersed in his career.

Starting point is 01:11:06 And my mom was very active in alcoholism. So that, I think that it all created a bit of, a void where like I didn't feel that I was getting the love. And so it's like, I need to be loved. Like I looked everywhere for love. And that's, I think, what attention seeking is. Are you comfortable being so open about everything? Was there a point where you've learned how to be just so brutally honest? Because it's, for us, it's very rare that people speak so candidly or are so open about these situations? It's a good question, man.

Starting point is 01:11:47 I think that there was some, I think that that's kind of built into me to begin with. And I think that the process of sort of living in recovery, like there's, you know, with the whole like 12-step approach to life like taking accountability and and being rigorously honest is really at the forefront. So I'm kind of, and I'm super grateful to be so conditioned to own up to my mistakes, to admit what I'm wrong, to tell it like it is and just to, you know, be transparent. I attribute some of that perhaps to my DNA and some a lot to.

Starting point is 01:12:43 to living in recovery. Where does religion fit into your life? It doesn't. I mean, spirituality. Yeah. I think that you look at all the major religions, and there's so much that have in common. Very like,

Starting point is 01:13:13 and I almost think that, that you could zero in on the differences between all of the major religions and chalk up those differences to human error. You know, like there's been enough centuries that with the, you know, the exchange of information, word of mouth, and translating You know, all of these scriptures there were written in languages that they've all been translated.

Starting point is 01:13:53 A lot was, I think a lot was lost in translation. I think a lot was, you know, like the game of telephone. Yeah. The word of mouth distorted a lot. I think that, and that would probably draw the ire of many, many religious folks. But I just think that it's all very clear,

Starting point is 01:14:15 close and that the differences I would attribute to human error. But I remember when I was still in rehab, they brought us on a field trip to this church of all religions. It's called the Self-Realization Fellowship. That's the one of the Palisades, right? Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:14:44 That's actually the original one is in the Palisades. It was started by a yogi named Paro Mahantza Yogananda. And we went to this service. And at the beginning of the service, they have a special prayer, which is unique to this place, this self-realization fellowship. It starts out, I think that it goes, Heavenly Father, Divine Mother, saints of all religions, we bow to you all.

Starting point is 01:15:26 And it just grabbed me as like everything that turns me off about religion is how it can exclude. And this, just by the very nature of how they started the whole proceeding, sought to include every saints of all religions we bow to you all like I have that that's what I'm into

Starting point is 01:15:56 do you think there's a chance we're living in a simulation sure and I think that that space and time I can subscribe to the notion

Starting point is 01:16:23 that these are illusions I did I do agree Right. And particularly space, because there's really, I can, when you say are we living in a simulation, like, that conjures up the notion of an artificial reality, which is like the matrix, pre-programmed. Yes. Whereas. Or something that you control. Yeah. Whereas I think what my view on it would be is that there's nothing artificial about it.

Starting point is 01:17:12 It's very real the experience that we're having, but it's just not that there's no such thing as space and time, if that makes any sense. It does. That there's like, like you can travel. through a video game to the farthest reaches, you know, like expansive distances you can cover, when in fact there is no distance. There is, like, it lives, all of that space and time, like lives, uh, within like a speck of time.

Starting point is 01:17:52 Yeah. You know, it's, it's, so, I think that without considering it a simulation, that our reality, much like the whole video game reality, actually doesn't take up any space or time is an illusion in that regard, that our reality is just kind of a video game that we don't know. Now, with all that said, does that change anything about a reality? No. So it's fun to think about in a hypothetical sense.

Starting point is 01:18:26 but to the extent that you contemplate that you've completely wasted all that time. So what's interesting is I, this happened actually recently. I went, I was on Twitter, and I read this really interesting theory that Elon Musk was even talking about. There's a non-zero trance that we're living in a simulation.

Starting point is 01:18:42 I started doing research on this, finding it really interesting because everything we perceive is really just like, you have no idea your eyes are actually seeing what you're seeing. It's just signals in your brain. And that would mean theoretically,

Starting point is 01:18:52 if you could recreate those signals, you could recreate reality in your head. and just experienced that. So I started digging into this. It's not just sight. I mean, any sense. Right, anything. So I was starting digging it.

Starting point is 01:19:03 I found it really interesting. Senses can absolutely be manipulated. I believe that. Later that night, something happened, that the chances of this happening were so slow. I mean, everything had to line up for this encounter, this thing. And afterwards,

Starting point is 01:19:18 a buddy was like, dude, I think this confirms. We're living in a simulation. I thought, that's so weird. You just said that. I pulled up my phone.

Starting point is 01:19:25 And after doing all this, research on Twitter, the video I had watched, right before that was on YouTube, are we living in a simulation? I thought, okay, that's just kind of weird, the timing of that. But then I got in the car, and it connected to a Bluetooth really quickly. And I forgot, like, five years ago, I set my Bluetooth to, you are living in a simulation. And I just completely forgot about it. But for fun, what do you say, your Bluetooth? The name. The name of his device. The name of this phone is just, So when you connect to it, it says connect to it. Oh, wow.

Starting point is 01:19:56 Yeah. And I just did that for fun because if people are trying to air drop me things, it'll come up like, you're a living in a submit. I just thought it was like a funny little thing. But all of that happening with the same like little bit. And so many occurrences too in my life where it's like when we talk about are things happening for a reason or things meant to be, it's so much that at least has happened for me that I think the chances of that just are impossible and stacked like one on top of

Starting point is 01:20:20 another on top of another that I think there's no way this is just random. chance. I agree. There's a book that I talk about a lot. It's called Conversations with God. Does a good job of conveying this notion of the universe being just one thing, which in its absolute sense is only one thing. And one thing can't experience anything. thing because there's nothing for it to relate to. Like one thing cannot have a sense of up or down because there's nothing to compare it to. So the universe, in order to have experience, divides itself into like a multitude. And that's what we all are is this one thing infinitely divided.

Starting point is 01:21:26 into separate things, which is described as the realm of the relative, and that it's all an illusion, that really it's only one thing, but the universe has divided itself into different parts so that it can experience itself. I like that a lot. Yeah, this is,

Starting point is 01:21:52 the book Conversations with God does a much better job of... Sure. conveying this idea. But by that measure, if you look at all of creation as being an exercise in the universe experiencing itself, then it follows that we are all equally divine. We're all equally valuable, equally. And to take that view of the universe, it would just it would have to just eradicate any

Starting point is 01:22:32 hatred like how could you hate something yeah how could you be hateful or bigoted towards something that you see as divinity right you know like and I love that I really I really love that and there's also something

Starting point is 01:22:51 that I go on about a lot which is the idea of life review. Everybody's heard about when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Yeah. But there are thousands and thousands of people who have had the experience of dying.

Starting point is 01:23:10 It's called a near-death experience. And they somehow are, they died, had the experience of being on the other side of death but then coming back into their body and being able to describe what happened. And these accounts that people share, having had what's called an NDE in your death experience, are so similar.

Starting point is 01:23:45 Like they're so consistent. And they describe that for however many minutes that they were dead, that on the other side of death, that there's no such thing as time. Like they're all very consistent about that. They describe what's called life review where without the limitations of time,

Starting point is 01:24:13 they're presented. They typically describe having a spirit guide, you know, guide them through, you know, different chambers and such, like on the other side. And they'll be in some kind of a room, some kind of a chamber, and they'll be presented what looks like

Starting point is 01:24:33 holographic displays of moments of their life. And in reviewing these holographic displays of moments, without the constraint of time, with a level of detail that our finite human mind cannot even fathom, that they re-experience these moments in their life, but not as they experienced them. They experience these moments from the perspective as the individuals who are affected by them.

Starting point is 01:25:17 So it's like this concept of the, universe only being one thing and in this life review you're now experiencing your own life from the vantage point experiencing the experience that others i love that and it's it's terrifying to me to think of like everybody who i was angry at who i made feel bad everybody you know like i'm gonna i'm gonna experience as them And then I find myself because this is so impactful to me that as much as I can to keep it at the forefront of my mind so that every encounter that I have, that I can be deliberate about having a positive, you know, really going into every little chance encounter, oh, you want a photo? Like, absolutely. like, you know, to try to bring love and joy to every exchange, you know, so that I can,

Starting point is 01:26:25 so that I can kind of stack, you know, my life review for the, because there's enough bad shit that I got to go through, you know, that, uh, I'm trying to stack good shit on there. I find that so interesting. I've always found the near-death experiences, reading up on those experiences and trying to understand them. So fascinating. And what you said about everything being connected, we've spoken with quite a few people who have done some sort of like a psychedelic. And a lot of the time, their big revelation was that they never understood how everything is connected. And like every little thing has an energy to it. And it's all from the same thing. Yeah. There's one guy I met. I was still in rehab. And, um, and, and, um, and, and,

Starting point is 01:27:16 he just put it one way that really resonated with me. He said, we're all eyes in the same head, dude. You know, like, it's pretty epic. Have you ever had a near-death experience? Not anything like I just described people sharing accounts of. I mean, I've had like close calls. if I were to say like the closest call that I had probably would have been a scuba diving incident where I was just ignorant of what I was doing and I had descended like too far too fast.

Starting point is 01:28:05 Somebody grabbed my fin and when we got up they said they were just exasperated. they said, you almost just died, and I almost died trying to save you. And I was just like, oh, sorry, dude. Like, they told me the sharks were on the bottom. I was just going to the bottom. Did you not feel anything at that moment? I didn't, I didn't know. You didn't know how serious it was.

Starting point is 01:28:27 Yeah, I didn't. Yeah, I was ignorant of, like, I had not effectively retained what I learned in my scuba diving instruction. Yeah. So it's kind of a boring, uh, close. call. I mean, I don't know. Oh, man. There was a, not even that I was on my phone or anything, but my first time visiting, I mean, visiting,

Starting point is 01:28:59 my first time going to my home in Tennessee after purchasing this house, which I now live in in Tennessee, it's driving a rental car. and I mean who knows I was probably I might have been going to like that bicycle store I wanted to get a mountain bike to ride through the woods I don't know where I was going but I was driving a rental car in my town

Starting point is 01:29:24 and there's like I blew through a stop sign right into a lane of the highway there's like literally a highway and there's a stop sign I don't know how I did it I had no idea how I did it but it was just by chance that a car going like 60 some 70 miles an hour like didn't I just came out I mean that's the yeah I could absolutely have hilarious answer as Steve I could absolutely have just been killed in

Starting point is 01:29:57 that moment because I don't I don't even know see I look at moments like that because things happened to me where it's like I lost my phone it's somewhere in the house I got to find it I'm five minutes late and I think to myself if I were five minutes early you're would that have led to something like that where you just lied at that exact moment? Yeah. And is that one light that you hit stopping you from reaching another point

Starting point is 01:30:19 like 20 years from now because you misplaced your wallet, something like that. Yeah. I mean, it would have been terribly pathetic if that's how I died. That would have been crazy. Yeah, like, and it just, it really affects me.

Starting point is 01:30:39 I go ahead like on a, almost daily basis. Ah, no, not an almost. Very regularly. I go, I stop at that, stop saying every time it, it, uh, I just, whoof,

Starting point is 01:30:52 the worst like moment of thoughtlessness. This is kind of a crazy question. It's a little offbeat, but I'm just so wildly curious. You mentioned on another podcast that you went on that you've done like nearly every drug, like in the book,

Starting point is 01:31:08 was never smoked, never did was there a reason why you drew the line there yeah my mom made me go to rehab in 1995 just to age myself even more I was 20 years old

Starting point is 01:31:25 in 1995 it was her condition for bailing me out of jail I was the called her collect from jail where I was locked up for drunk driving she said I'm not bailing you out unless you go straight to rehab. And I didn't want to be in jail, so I agreed to go to rehab.

Starting point is 01:31:48 And, I mean, again, I was 20 years old. Like, I wasn't even legally allowed to have a drink. Like, it wasn't in the cards for me to be really serious about sobriety at that time. But what really, I took away from the experience of being in that, that rehab was that I noticed or I perceived that in the rehab there was like a hierarchy of respect based on like how messed up you were. You know, like it was like, oh, like it's almost a badge of honor. like, you know, we would always be in like a big circle, you know, kind of sharing our feelings.

Starting point is 01:32:42 Like, you know, it was going. And on a daily basis, like one person would like sort of graduate, like they would leave the rehab and, you know, another person would come in. And, you know, the new person would come in and introduce themselves to the group and state what their drug of choice was, you know, like why they were in the rehab. And I remember, uh, there was just like, I just got the sense. Like there's one guy walked in and it was like offensive to the group that this guy said his drug of choice was marijuana. You know, like people seem to be offended by that. Like, oh, do you get out of here. And, um, you know, like if, if the person's drug of choice was hair like it in some cases it seemed like they would be like carried in you know like they were like

Starting point is 01:33:46 like oh the the person just came in like we'll see them in a couple days you know they're going to be like you know like i got a a real sense of being like whoa like gnarly you know like don't mess with that and the other thing was like if people walked in and said their drug of choice was crap it was just like oh i just got the sense that person's a right off wow like people would describe people would describe like having you know addiction issues for decades and then they took a hit like then they took their first hit a crack and lost everything like so fast you know like and again it was 1995 like was still came out I guess in the late 1980s so you know 1995 at that time like was at it's like peak destruction that's still interesting though that

Starting point is 01:34:49 you drew the line there because you also mentioned you'd go on these like three-day benders where you just be a nitrous oxide like 24-7 to the point where you'd inhale like a full thing I would do my best to not inhale anything but nitrous oxide. Exhale, and the next one was another whole thing. So just depriving yourself of oxygen. Yeah. You said your lips would turn blue and you'd even go into things of psychosis. But even in that state of psychosis, you would draw the line.

Starting point is 01:35:14 Pretty much. Yeah. That's just fascinating. Like, there's no hold in which it would have happened. Yeah, like, I was just not. So you had a boundary. Yeah. One is something, because I read stories on,

Starting point is 01:35:28 Reddit, there was a user who wanted to try, not a drug user at all, but just wanted to try it just for the sake of being able to say that they've experienced what that was like. And they wrote this whole expose about, here's my plan, how I'm not going to get addicted, I live a clean life, I just want to be able to try it. And they ended up trying it, liking it enough to feel like, hey, it's actually not as bad as people say. I had a great experience with it. Let me keep doing it. kept doing it became insanely addicted to it and it completely ruined his life from one time trying it and it's it's it's mind-blowing that there are substances that there's so powerful that just change the way your brain chemistry is is worked the scariest thing that i heard about hair was not even

Starting point is 01:36:15 like the destruction that it does to you while you're on it and while you're addicted but while you're in the recovery process and you're no longer taking the fact that you exist on a plane of kind of just black and white like nothing is as exciting or or as joyful or as happiness-inducing as when you were high on it. That sounds more like a crystal situation. Like with... When you're withdrawing from it, like, you're actually sick. There's not like, it's not simply a lack of joy.

Starting point is 01:36:47 I was talking about like for the rest of life. Like, until the day you die, like it's kind of just like... People are like describing it as though it's like they've, they've, they've, never had an experience it's even 10% of what their experience was like on that. Yeah, I don't know, man. I would push back on that. Okay. The idea that the rest of your life is going to pale in comparison to the experience that you had. And to qualify that position, um, I believe that it's the addicts and alcoholics who achieve long-term sobriety, who are the luckiest people, period.

Starting point is 01:37:30 And granted, it's a very small percentage of alcoholics and addicts who do achieve long-term sobriety. I think that in the big picture of the entire population, I think it's about 5% of alcoholics and addicts who actually are long-term sobriety. but those 5% man very lucky because any other disease that you can fall sick with the best you can hope for is to get back to as healthy as you were before you got sick but for us when we treat our disease we actually become better versions of ourselves

Starting point is 01:38:22 than we ever were before. Like I believe that strongly. And I believe, not only do I believe that strongly, I believe that I am evidence of that because there, in my view, there is no younger version of myself who is a better version of myself

Starting point is 01:38:50 than I am today. and I attribute that to having, you know, the accountability, the honesty, like the, you know, the, like having that kind of like conditioned into me with this, you know, this, this adopting of a spiritual approach to life, you know, like, it's a big-ass deal, man. It's a big-ass deal. And like, so many people are worried, like, oh, but, you know, I know I got a problem with drugs and alcohol, but if I get sober, life's going to be boring. I cannot assure you that my life is not boring. How do you want to be remembered? I used to be so worried about it, you know, about how I was remembered. Like, I described the, you know, the early days, before I could even call it a career,

Starting point is 01:39:40 like in the early days of me capturing stunts on video, like, I was packing my message into a bottle thinking that I might be discovered after I died. It was so important to me. Like I literally looked at the video camera at what I was doing, capturing things on video, as my way of becoming immortal. You know, I was like, we're all going to be dead. You know, we're all going to be dead.

Starting point is 01:40:13 But if people are watching videos of me after, I die, then I'm not technically dead. Like, I will live on. So I placed so much important in the permanence of video, documenting things on video. And I cared so much about being remembered beyond my, you know, my lifetime. I remember too, like, like way before,

Starting point is 01:40:48 for Jackass. I was in Clown College, 1997. And, you know, we had this apartment building that all 33 clowns lived in. And it was the whole apartment building was occupied by us, 33 clowns, except for there were five marine biology students. And each Saturday, we would put on a show. Like, we would kind of write our gang. bags, you know, like, and they would open up to the public so that we'd have an audience to perform for every Saturday night. We'd put on a show. And then after the show, like, we'd party. And Sunday would be the one day that we had off. So one night, we'd just done a show. I'm party. I'm getting all drunk on Saturday night. And I'm in this Marine Biology student's apartment. It was a girl.

Starting point is 01:41:46 and I'm drinking. We're drinking together, and I'm explaining to this marine biology student how we're all going to be dead. But because I've got all this rad video footage, I'm actually going to live forever, you know? Because if people are watching my rad videos after I die, I'm still alive.

Starting point is 01:42:13 And this marine biology student, I'll never forget it. just she it was like she shook her head and disgust she looking at me like she was like maybe she said you're pathetic you know she said you think it's all about you know she said how about if i do my job and you know and after i die some marine animal some fish goes and and feeds on a coral reef that I preserved, then I live forever. That's my life. You know, like I'm a marine biology.

Starting point is 01:43:05 I'm a marine biologist. If I preserve a coral reef and it feeds a fish, then I live forever. It's not all about you, she says. You know, like I just thought, even then I thought, wow, touche. That's a wise thing to say. Really good. I never would have thought that. Profound.

Starting point is 01:43:24 Yeah. Right. So I think that taking into account how impactful that. Impactful that notion is, that we should all strive to have a legacy of leaving the world somehow better than when we found it. That should be the highest goal for this marine biology girl. Preserve the coral reef. That should be her legacy. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to do that.

Starting point is 01:44:04 I mean, like I said, that was in 1997. I would kind of, you know, twist the dials a little bit. And, you know, I would go on to describe my calling, my purpose in life. I would say that, you know, most people don't enjoy their job. You know, some people are not happy in their marriage. You know, some people have health issues. You know, there's all kinds of different ways that people are stressed out, that people are unhappy, that people need.

Starting point is 01:44:50 some kind of an escape. And I submit, this would be my whole pitch, that I submit that when people are, are exposed to my art, that, that the art I create is, is compelling enough,

Starting point is 01:45:10 is engaging enough, is entertaining enough, that when people are exposed to my art, they are not thinking about their story. dress, their health, their job, that I, I don't, I don't claim to fix any problems, but albeit temporarily, I absolutely make problems go away. And by that measure, I deemed myself to be a professional distraction therapist. I love that. Distraction therapist is a noble, you know, I, I believed then. I still believed to some

Starting point is 01:45:50 extent that it's a, it's a noble cause, you know, to make people's problems go away. I mean, that's a pretty major gift. It was just one little step removed from absolute self-importance and self-indulgent, but still in that whole realm, you know. I think now, where I'm at today, and we bought this big property in Tennessee, to have an animal sanctuary. Like, you know, I, I love the feeling that I get from rescuing animals. I love that. I love the bigger implications of sharing my journey with animals, you know,

Starting point is 01:46:38 inspiring other people to, you know, like, the idea that perhaps at some point will forfeit our beloved privacy and actually, I mean, we're resistant to that, but to forfeit our privacy so that we can invite people to where we live to have their own experience with our animals. You know, I think that there's a moment when, when you look into the eyes of an animal, that it kind of think, wow, like, why would I participate in, the factory farming of this creature, you know, like without beating people over the head with righteous, like, uh, shaming and, and, you know, like, I used to do all that with the vegan, you know, holier than now, like, don't be, you know, and now I'd love to, to, to inspire and

Starting point is 01:47:41 cultivate um a respect for animals and and uh and animal rights which is which is just by encouraging positive experiences and not shaming anybody or anything that but like just yeah that these could be good things that that um you know contribute to leaving the world better than than it was before and and thank god too that that these These aspirations are just a little bit less dushy and self-important. You know, like the marine biologist said, like, you know, to open my mind to the idea that it's not all about me. I got two quick things.

Starting point is 01:48:26 Yeah. First thing is, if you could impart any wisdom onto our viewers right now, what would that be? A lot of people have asked me, like, yeah, I want to be a stunt man. Like, how do I do it? You know, like, how do I, what's your advice? And maybe they want to, you know, if it's not that. And I always say the same thing that it doesn't matter what you want to do. It doesn't matter what you want to accomplish.

Starting point is 01:48:58 What matters is how passionate you are about your goal. That's the most important thing in life. is not what you want to accomplish, but how badly you want to accomplish it. And like when I say how passionate you are, really enthusiasm is the engine which drives accomplishment. And it's fascinating to me

Starting point is 01:49:27 that the word enthusiasm, broken down to its roots in other languages, it's Entheos, I think there's other, like ways of breaking down there. It means with God. Like when we're enthusiastic, like we are like, like,

Starting point is 01:49:49 uh, like doing God's work, you know? Like, it reminds you the flow state. Yeah. When you're not, you tap into something that's greater than just yourself. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:49:58 And that's when, um, yeah, when we're on fire for something, man. like so, I just think, um, following your enthusiasm is the way to,

Starting point is 01:50:10 accomplish just about any goal that you want to accomplish you know and and with caveats of course one caveat about like being realistic you know maybe like somebody wants to be a big time Hollywood movie director it's okay I'm not going to say that that's not not worthy to pursue but let's start off with a more by side, you know, like, that's your end goal. That's what you want. Let's find something that we can realistically, practically attain that puts us in, like, as close to that, as close to being on a track to that as we can.

Starting point is 01:51:00 Let's say, let's seek out a job as a production assistant, you know? Very reasonable to expect that you can get a job as a production assistant. which puts you in on a set where there is somebody who's got this position that you covet. And the closer you can get to that, the more you can glean. And whatever it is that you want to accomplish, having the enthusiasm to accomplish it, do not wait for anything. Start now. Like if you wait for the right time to present itself,

Starting point is 01:51:39 fuck that if you wait to be picked and handed an opportunity fuck that start now with the one caveat that you want to find somebody who is closer to that goal than you are somebody with more experience who can guide you because if you're just got if you've got something that you want to get good at and you just start on your own there's a chance if not a likelihood that you

Starting point is 01:52:09 you're going to be learning bad habits, which you ultimately have to unlearn. Don't go in the wrong direction where you're going to turn around and double back and to even get to the beginning. Find somebody who can guide you enough so that you know you're learning the right way. But fucking A, don't wait for anything.

Starting point is 01:52:27 Get started. It's a great piece of it. I agree with that wholly. I think enthusiasm is a good feeling to look out for. Yeah. For sure. Lastly, just because I'm so curious about this, you have like one of the most recognizable voices faces you're just a very recognizable person how

Starting point is 01:52:45 difficult is it to just get things done i imagine honestly anybody between the ages of like 20 and 40 especially if you're a guy they know who you are at the risk of sounding dushy i would even say that it's it's queues younger and older yeah no no i i got 80 i want the brutal honesty because I feel like Matthew McConaughey, like I get, I get older, they just stay in this. I mean, I don't know. Like, it's, it just depends on the situation. I mean, like, if I, if I'm going around and, like, crowded places, yeah, there's, there's going to be, um. Like, everybody.

Starting point is 01:53:29 Like, it's, it can be challenging for me to be in crowds. Yeah. And, like, like, like, going through airport, then we, whatever. But then again, with the, um, the, uh, the whole, like concept of life review, like, every, every encounter is an opportunity to, like, you know, make their day. Yeah, to have a good experience, which ultimately, like, I genuinely believe I will have. Like, because we are the same thing. Like, I'm, you know. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that. I met Chris Pontius, 2010 at, uh, Mel's Diner at like two o'clock in the morning in L.A.

Starting point is 01:54:07 And I was so nervous to go out to him and just say hi. And as we were leaving, I mustered up the courage to go and say hi to him. The nicest guy. And he was like, no, come take a picture with us. There's with some friends. We all take a photo of him and he pulls out his knife. And he goes like this. Like he's about to stab one of us.

Starting point is 01:54:25 But he left us with such a great feeling after. I still have it. We could put it on the screen here. But I still remember that. And Facebook tells you like what happened a year ago. And I always checked that. And it comes up once a year and I remember that moment. Yeah. And I remembered it ever since. And it meant so much to me that he did that.

Starting point is 01:54:41 I believe that it meant a lot to him. Like, he's like that, man. But, yeah, I, um, there are certain situations where it's too, uh, it's unmanageable. If they know, like, if I go to, um, like a UFC event, which, like, I'll be at on, on Saturday. Like, um, you know, like, I'll be in my seat. Then they'll say, like, oh, come over here. Like, let me get a I'll go over there and then I'm just stuck, you know? And, and then I, it can become unmanageable, but like, I'll throw myself into it every time.

The Iced Coffee Hour - Steve-O on Leaving California, Getting Rich, and Going Broke

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